God's Realm is our Ultimate Allegiance 9/8/19 (Pentecost 12C)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser       

God’s Realm is our Ultimate Allegiance

 Sept 8, 2019     Pentecost 12C   Luke 14: 25-33

  

Are there distinctive things about being a Christian?

A friend who’s a professor at VA Wesleyan College, Rev Craig Wansink, tells a story about being in Palestine studying, and taking a taxi to tour around.  His taxi driver was pointing out all the important Muslim sites, and eventually Craig asked, “What about a Christian site?” The taxi driver thought a moment, and then, to Craig’s surprise, the taxi driver took him to a bar.  Craig was confused - why was a bar a Christian site?  Because good Muslims couldn’t drink alcohol. So there were only Christians at the bar.

That’s not the kind of distinctively Christian thing we might want….

  Are Christians just the rest of the people who don’t identify as Jewish, Muslim, Ba’hai, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindu, Neo-Pagan or Wiccan? Or spiritual but not religious?  Or those who check the box “none of the above”? Does just giving gifts at Christmas and eating chocolate eggs at Easter make us Christians? Has being a Christian has gotten tangled up with being a nice person and a good American in our day? 

What is it that makes a Christian a Christian?  Isn’t there something that shows our commitment to follow Christ in our actions and life decisions?

The passage we are considering this morning starts off with Jesus saying one of his out-of-the-box and rather shocking things, as he seems to do.  Its a technique called hyperbolic language, that is, he uses hyperbole, over-the-top or extreme words to make a point. We do it all the time - “If my mom finds out I did that, she will just KILL me!”  That’s hyperbole.  Mom will not really, literally kill her child, although she may well be really angry.   “He’s as skinny as a rail!”  That’s hyperbole - no human gets that skinny.  “Woah, your purse weighs a TON!” That’s hyperbole - although purses can get pretty heavy, its nowhere near a ton. “You live on your phone 24/7 !  Well, that might be too close for comfort….

One time says Jesus says that rich people getting to heaven is harder than a camel going through the little teeny eye of a sewing needle. Yeah - we get it, that is hard to picture!  But then he says, “With God all things are possible.”  Another time, Jesus asks people, “If your child asked for some bread, would you give him a rock? How about a scorpion?”  Duh, no, Jesus!  We love our children.  Jesus says, “Well, God loves you, too!”  Another time Jesus tells people that if their eyes cause them to sin, like envying or lusting, it’s better to pluck that eye out and go to heaven with just one eye… and the same with your hand, he says - cut it off so it doesn’t keep you out of heaven.  This is not a literal command; he’s emphasizing what we may need to let go of in order to walk in the realm of God, that living in the realm of God is vital. 

This morning’s passage says: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”  Is this Jesus telling us to hate our parents and siblings?  A new preacher in a facebook group was asking how we other preacher’s took this verse, especially how to use it in a children’s sermon.  Once again, Jesus is using hyperbole, extreme words, comparing our love of God to our love of even our loved ones.  We have to admit that it grabs our attention this way - he could have just said, “I must be your ultimate allegiance,” like my sermon title. 

Jesus is comparing our devotion to God with our devotion to anything else - anything else - possessions, family, time, money, career, fame, whatever….   Our dedication to God, our devotion to God, our loyalty to God will surpass everything else. God wants to be #1 in the life of believers.  Take up this cross, he says, and follow me.  Count the cost of following me.

It seems to me that making God #1 is pretty close to impossible - except as we grow closer to God and grow in faith, it perhaps becomes more possible.  The demands of career, or family, or making a living - these are important to our lives.  Jesus isn’t saying they aren’t important, nor that these obligations and necessities won’t take time and attention.  Jesus IS saying that when they come in conflict with our faith, we’re going to have a tough decision to make.  So count the cost, Jesus says.  Faith means that God is the most vital to the source of Life.  

We understand the way some things are more of a priority than others.  We understand having to prioritize in what gets done in our work day. Lives are busy, and we simply can’t do everything.  We ask ourselves that question everyday: What’s more important -  that pastry or my blood sugar?  What’s more important - my weekend or my kid’s travel soccer game?  What’s more important - extra $$ in retirement savings for my old age, or a gym membership for my health now?

There’s going to be some decisions as a Christ-follower that come out differently from what others decide.  Our faith is going to ask us to be honest in our finances, to think of the others in business, and to give time in our already packed schedules to prayer and worship. The compassion God has shown us and which grows in our hearts might get us in a sticky situation when the folks around us are mocking somebody, or using racist language. Speaking out against what the group is doing is hard.  The Holy Spirit is going to make us look at poor people with caring, which might not be the dominant view of those around us.  Sometimes we’re going to want to lie ourselves out of a mess, but faith tells us to admit the truth.  I turned down a drink one time at a party and was teased and called Miss Goody 2 Shoes, because people getting wasted want everyone else to get wasted with them, and don’t like it if you are different.  I heard my kids telling their friends one time, “Mom doesn’t let people use ‘gay’ as a bad word in her car.”  No one wants to be seen as different in their teens, so blame it on Mom - that’s fine. 

Practicing the values that Jesus taught, the attitudes that Jesus taught - it can make us face difficult choices.   “So count the cost,” Jesus says, of being my disciples. This is a CHALLENGING  set of verses, a DEMANDING view or being Jesus’ disciple.  Jesus is asking us, just how important am I in your life? 

Many church folks assume that accepting a version of being a nice person and a good American is also being a Christian.  People in the Klan think they’re Christian because they are white, no matter how they hate.  Some folks in our country think it doesn’t matter what you do otherwise, just so long as you want prayer in school and are against abortion - litmus tests for being a Christian, in their point of view.  Some of my clergywomen colleagues have been told that they’re headed for hell for claiming God called them preach. When I was a teenager, a good Christian didn’t listen to rock ‘n roll or, if male, have long hair.  And this was the Woodstock era!

What do those things have to do with being a disciple of Christ?  Another of Jesus’ good and pithy sayings was about people who strain out gnats but swallow camels.  Hey, guys, work on living the bigger issues of faith instead of arguing over the minutiae. 

So what makes our life a Christ-centered one?   In many ways, it’s up to us to read scripture, wrestle with Scripture, ask the Spirit of God to let the Scriptures read our hearts and show us the truth of our lives.  Christianity doesn’t have a simplified list of behaviors that say Christian, not Christian. There’s a lot in the Bible, and most of that has to be pondered, because some of what we read is due to the 1st century setting of those first believers, and things going on in their culture.  So the Bible takes some understanding.  It’s difficult to make lists of universal rules because Christianity is first of all a relationship with God, through Jesus the Christ.  Christianity is personal, its relational, and its something we continue to grow into more and more.  Its a revelation, a growing revelation of who God is and what God desires.  Jesus’ way of wording things is meant to draw us in, make us wrestle, make us talk to God about it - not just give a dry list. See how that works? 

This morning, hear the invited from Jesus to ponder what is distinctive about being a disciple of Christ, a follower of Christ - and ask ourselves if we are living into it more day by day.  May these wrestlings be fruitful in growing our relationships with God.  AMEN.

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

      Table Manners  (God’s)          

9/1/19     Pentecost    Luke 14:7-14

            I like it that Jesus did a lot of teaching around meals and tables, and drew many illustrations about the realm of God about meals and tables.  I like it because, of course, I like to be around tables and meals myself.  I like to gather around tables for meals with people - church people, neighborhood people, people at conferences and any other people - because that’s where I get to know them.  I find out whether they’re uptight and really don’t want to be there, unable to relax; or I find out that they are gracious and comfortable; or they may show up as rude and opinionated; or pleasant and fun.  Mostly we begin to know one another better; and what I like the most, we start to share stories. 

            My favorite cartoon strip is Calvin and Hobbes, which we have now only on the internet and if we bought books.  That cartoonist, Bill Waterson, always hit the nail on the head, didn’t he?  I googled “Calvin & Hobbes at the dinner table” and it brought up hundreds to strips of Calvin throwing wild fits over what looked like green slop on a plate, or sculpting it into something, or pretending to be a dinosaur, or grossing out Susie at school lunches.  My favorite is the one where his dad tells him that the alien food will turn him into a mutant, and he digs in. 

            My own kids picked up the idea of alien food, and I heard no end of that while they were younger.  If I got angry about it, the table was tense.  I learned to just say something like, “Well, we were out of good stuff so I used cat food.”  That usually quieted things down. 

           

            Today’s text from Luke is another table and meal story about and from Jesus.  It starts out sounding like 1st Century Ann Landers, with Jesus giving sage advice about a culture where honor and place were important ways of respecting those with honor, or perhaps money....  Important people sat at the head tables - we do that too, the honoree of a meal being up front, the bride and groom having a special table maybe with the wedding party.  It was more a daily thing in Jesus’ era - assuming you were special enough to be at the head table, it would be devastating to be asked to move for someone else.  Much better to be found by the host and “promoted,” demonstrating your higher honor.  Okay, that’s pretty obvious. 

            Jesus uses this commentary about honor, or pride, or perhaps hubris, to go more deeply into the concept of humility.  Not a false humility that is always saying, “Who, poor little me? No, I don’t play well enough to get the solo part,” when everyone knows you’re the best violinist in the school and you always get 1’s at the contests.  And Jesus isn’t talking about performance anyway - he’s talking basic human worth.  And in God’s eyes, each of us is equally worthy and equally unworthy at the same time. 

We’re equally worthy because the image of God is built into each of our creation; because God deemed it suitable to redeem each of us through sending Christ Jesus. God desires that each person in the world know God as best they can, and live in the realm of God even now on earth.  Not just Americans, not just light-skinned people, not just middle class people, not just one political party or another, not just educated people, not just articulate and well-spoken people, not just people who bathe daily and have straight teeth - God means everybody.  The children picking through garbage in sprawling cities, darker-skinned women wearing head covers, people in government housing,  homeless people under bridges, wealthy people, people who are illiterate and who smell bad, immigrants and refugees, criminals as well as victims.  God is totally indiscriminate in who God wants to find capital-L-Life and restoration.

We are equally unworthy because no one could ever earn God’s care based on our own deeds, or what illustrious family name we bear, or what position we hold in our country.  There’s nothing really for us to judge ourselves better than another as far as God’s concerned. We are unique individuals, born by chance into the situation we are in, each of us are gifted in certain ways, and each of us need, NEED, to recognize God, be restored and renewed by the Holy Spirit, and begin the journey of  the disciple. “Take on my yoke,” Jesus said, “and learn of me.” Let me lead you, school you, guide you, teach you.  And actually you will find that my yoke is easy and my burden light.  For I am meek and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 

So there’s no reason to think of ourselves as better or more important than any other.  Or to see any other person as less worthy of welcome than another person.  At one church I served, we gained several members of a family who were, say, not middle class, and not able to give large amounts even if they tithed.  They loved God and worked diligently for our church, although some of the more wealthy folks didn’t know how to talk to them.  At a meeting one night, I was urged to find us some new members who could help more with the budget!  I got angry - and also sad - at the obvious discrimination going on, and called them on it.  God’s church is not a country club, nor a homogeneous group of self-selected people who are alike.  God’s church is the company of believers, all worthy as well as unworthy, all seeking to know and serve God, all on the journey to show God’s realm to the world and carry God’s message of love and care, and the promise of salvation of the world.  Poorer people are not less valuable than richer people.  People NOT like “us” are no less valuable than people LIKE “us.”  In the church, Jesus says, there is no us and them - we are all “US.”

Since this is a communion Sunday and we are gathered around THIS table, Jesus’ words are especially meaningful. As we partake in this taste of the fruits and grains of the earth, we acknowledge the abundance of food and nourishment here in God’s world, and give thanks.  Eating of the world’s store is a sacred gift, without which our species would die.  At the same time, we acknowledge that God sustains us in spiritual ways as well, nourishing our souls on what Jesus calls the Living Bread of heaven.  Communion recognizes the special and complex creations that we are, both made of the dust of the earth while also quickened by the breath of God; and that we are set in a community of others, social and communal creatures, who are as vitally important as ourselves.   This is God’s design.

As we share the bread and cup here, we are aware that we are sharing with each other, all the same.  Usually the servers and the pastor go last, to show that we’re not any more special than  anyone else.  In one church I served, the servers and the Pastor went first, which felt weird to me until they explained that in their training, the pastor and leaders led into sacrifice and service for the world. Both ways were showing the great egalitarian table of God.

And also as we share this cup and bread, we recognize that we are sharing with Christ-followers in other churches in our community - people in other denominations. We are sharing with believers all over Syracuse, and all over New York.  We are sharing with Christ’s disciples in other states, and actually in other countries.  Our sisters and brothers in this family of God may be in countries where they are being persecuted, or have to meet secretly.  Some of them are in places where wars are going on.  Some of them are soldiers in various armies.  Some of them are perhaps imprisoned. Some are starving.  Some have no roof over their church.  Some of them have fled abusive families.  Some of them are trying to enter our country’s borders, and perhaps some are working to keep them out.  Some want to be included and some are uncomfortable with including them.

Yet we are announcing our oneness, our unity, by the very partaking in this same sacrament.  I admit that we haven’t worked out our oneness and unity very well on the larger scale.  We understand unity better when folks are more like us; however, we are actually one with all persons despite our differences.  We are all God’s, because this is God’s table.  God is the host and God is the inviter - we are simply among those invited. There’s no place for pride here. There’s only place for love, and welcome, and support, and sharing. 

God’s vision for people is all-encompassing.  It challenges our more limited vision to expand and grow.  That may feel uncomfortable, even as we come to this table to partake.  Yet we partake with all anyway, know it or not, like it or not, comfortable or uncomfortable. 

May God’s vision inspire us to rethink, to ponder, to reconsider the implications of coming to this table; and may God’s Spirit lead us in showing our oneness and love to the world.  AMEN.