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Pentecost Sermon Archives, Part Four

A Sermon for The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost "Count the Cost"
A Sermon for The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost "I can do it myself!"
A Sermon for The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost "Spiritual Dieting"

A Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1-20
Luke 14:25-33

Count the Cost

The check in the mail is made out to me. It is for $25,000. Just sign it and all that money is mine. I can pay off some debts. I can get new tires for the pink jeep. I can send some to a favorite charity or even to the church.

I look at what else is in the envelope. I read the small print. The check, of course, is not a gift. It's a mortgage loan. And the terms are not particularly good.

Count the cost. The loan companies don't want us to do that. They hope we don't notice the small print. The wonderful 3.9 percent introductory rate on the envelope that soon becomes 22.9 percent in the small print on the inside. Count the cost. We don't want to do that either sometimes. It's easy to forget that Our choices have consequences. In today's gospel reading Jesus is up-front about that. Count the cost before you sign the check or build the tower or go out to battle.

"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."

The choice to give up the $25,000 check was easier than this one. Jesus has gotta be crazy. Doesn't he remember what we just heard from Deuteronomy about choosing life? A choice to hate my family doesn't look to me like a choice for life and blessing "so that [I] and [my] descendants may live." What if I'd made that choice when my children were small? It could then have been choosing death. Doesn't Jesus understand what Deuteronomy is saying about choosing life and love? So I look again at our reading. I try to win the argument with Jesus with his own scriptures.

I read again all that talk about "love" that I heard. But again I missed some of the small print. There's nothing here about loving your family (at least not directly). All the love is directed toward God. Choosing life means loving God first. And there's more: "But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them ..." Well, then you're in big trouble -- no life, no blessing.

So what is it that might turn us away from God, away from choosing life? A check in the mail? An addiction or obsession? An overwhelming busyness? Even our family? Jesus is talking about the same stuff Deuteronomy is -- about idolatry: that is, anything that comes before God, that turns us away from God and from choosing life. Love of family can become idolatry when it keeps us from choosing life. A toddler who doesn't ever let go of her parent's hand may not learn to walk.

Sometimes even our love of our family can keep us prisoner. It's the small print that says "you are not free." Even a good thing if it keeps us from God can become a sin to be hated. You've probably heard it said: "If you love someone, set them free; if they return to you, they are really yours, if not, they never were yours at all." I like C. S. Lewis' words even better: "Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be yours." (Mere Christianity)

Anything that we hold onto too tightly, we are likely to lose or to be imprisoned and enslaved by it. In that case that choice -- even a choice for our family -- is a choice for death and curses. It's signing away freedom and life.

Onesimus apparently signed that big loan check that came in the mail. And became a prisoner to his debt. In first-century Palestine, those who couldn't pay their debt often became slaves. In this story about Onesimus Paul too is talking about choosing life. He suggests to Philemon that Onesimus be freed from debt and slavery: "Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever." Paul asks Philemon to give up a slave so that he might receive back a brother.

Onesimus the useful slave (that's what his name means - ‘useful') becomes the beloved child, the brother in Christ, who is loved because he is a child of God rather than because he's useful. And Paul offers Philemon and Onesimus this choice for freedom because he himself is "a prisoner of Christ Jesus."

Prisoners of Christ free others.

When Christ enters the picture there's an irony to counting the cost. If prisoners of Christ give freedom, it should be no surprise when we count the cost of following Jesus, that the choice between life and death becomes complicated.

The cost of discipleship is everything: your family, your friends, all your possessions, even your life. Jesus puts that part up front in bold letters: "Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." And everyone knows what a horrible death the cross means.

In choosing to follow Jesus, the bold advertising tells us that we are choosing death. It looks like a choice between following Christ and having life. In that case, a choice for life would be to tell Jesus to get lost. To this day that's pretty common advertising. But then there's the small print. About losing your life to find it. About letting go of your family to love them. It's that little cross at the bottom that says "resurrection and life."

The choice is then not between Christ and life, but between Christ and death. Count the cost. Be sure to read all the fine print. The cross is expensive. But when we let go of everything else to grab hold of the cross and follow Jesus, then Christ pays all our debts and sets us free -- free to live and to love and to set others free.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it when writing about The Cost of Discipleship "When Christ calls a [person], he bids [that person] come or die."

"See, today I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life."
Choose to follow Christ.

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A Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Ecclesiasticus 10:7-18
Psalm 112
Hebrews 13:1-8
Luke 14:1,7-14

"I can do it myself!"

"I can do it myself!" She's three years old and it's a big apple tree, but her two older brothers back off and she climbs it herself. When she's fourteen and the history class doesn't divide evenly into groups of three for the project, she volunteers, "I can do it myself." And she does and gets the highest grade. Before her thirtieth birthday, she has her own law firm. She is a success. She will sit at the head table, if she doesn't seat herself there, she'll be invited ... at least until she hits burnout.

"For all who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

Humility. The root of the word means "ground" or "soil." A humble person is not "above it all" but lowly, connected to the earth -- grounded. Today's lessons are about connectedness. It seems that we so easily deny our connection with the earth and even with one another. We so easily imagine that we are self sufficient. I can do it myself!

I can do it myself .... if I just had enough money I could keep this church alive. If I would just win the lottery I could make this church grow.

"Keep your lives free from the love of money,"

Oh, I don't care about money, but if I just had the right computer, I could save the world.

"and be content with what you have..."

Or even: If I just had more time, I could do all those things and wouldn't keep needing to ask for help.

"For God has said, ‘I will never leave or forsake you.'"

We are not alone. We are not made to be self-sufficient. Again and again Scripture reminds us of our need for one another. Think of the organic, connected images: Jesus talks about the vine and the branches, Paul talks about the body of Christ. And over and over again we hear about the importance of hospitality. Abraham and Sarah welcome some traveling strangers and are blessed; But Sodom and Gomorrah fail to welcome them and are destroyed. So it's no surprise that the first example of ‘mutual love' offered in today's Epistle, the Letter to the Hebrews, is hospitality.

"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,
for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it."

The Greek word used here for ‘mutual love' is a familiar one - "philadelphia" -- we usually translate it literally brotherly love. The word translated "hospitality" is "philoxenias" literally love of foreigners. Offering hospitality is not loving those we know well or who are just like us, but loving real strangers -- people who look weird, act weird, and don't even speak our language.

We are being told to love those who are strangers, those who are different from us -- they are the ones we need. We need those who are different from us because we all have different gifts: different abilities and understandings that need to come together for the ‘whole picture.'

A team made of identical members limits its ability to learn, to grow, and to act. Who wants a college faculty that is all chemistry professors? or a football team that is all quarterbacks? So why would we want a church or a family that all looks and thinks and acts the same? Sure we need some shared values and goals, but it is our differences that stimulate growth; our differences that keep us alive.

That's the exciting part about our commitment to total or mutual ministry. The fertile creativity of all our differences can be a life-giving blessing for this church. Because it doesn't matter how capable I may be, or how much professional training I've had, or even how hard I pray, I can't do it myself and neither can any one of you.

We're building a team -- for ministry. And each need to build teams in our own lives. We need each other. We need our differences. We need our grounding in our tradition and in the earthiness of our lives. And we need the strange and foreign angels to bring us messages from God. Because when we think "I can do it myself" we separate from others, from the earth, and from God. It is then that we have lost our humility and fallen into pride and sin.

We need to stay connected with those who are strangers, those who are different from us, they are the ones we need. Let's entertain some strange angels. They've got what we need. Be humble enough to stay connected and "Let mutual love continue."

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A Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 28:14-22
Psalm 46
Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-29
Luke 13:22-30

Spiritual Dieting

Today Jesus is putting us on a diet. Like dieting, these readings are not fun and games: There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when people can't get through that narrow door. Are we just too fat to fit through? We're too big for Isaiah's bed and "the covering is too narrow to wrap oneself in it." Sounds like we're in trouble. Better get skinny quick. It's time for a spiritual diet.

So what are you eating these days? How do you feed your spiritual hunger?

It seems that we have been created with a great empty space inside. And we spend our lives trying to fill it up. It's scary to be empty inside. And when we're starving, we'll try anything. We might try to fill the void with alcohol. Or with food or with drugs or with busyness. Or with money and possessions or even with someone we love. For a while the hunger may stop. But the hunger doesn't go away -- the more we feed it the hungrier we feel. We may become addicted. We may even grow fat -- too fat for that narrow door.

Our hunger is for God. The empty place is uniquely God-shaped. It's no good trying to fill it up with other stuff. Think about your spiritual hunger. What are you looking for? Love? Healing? Protection? All good things. The person in today's gospel was seeking something good: salvation. "Lord, will only a few be saved?"

And Jesus tells us that there's a narrow door for many who ask that question. And a closed door with weeping and gnashing of teeth for those who ask it with their first concern being their own salvation. Selfish folks get fat fast. Even those who eat and drink with Jesus if their first concern is getting something for themselves are liable to face a locked door. They are seeking something other than God.

Last week I went seeking seekers. I went to the Chautauqua Institution -- behind the gates there is a venerable self-consciously Christian and self-consciously cultured community. People who have spent lifetimes building up the church. There was superb music, first-rate art, a series of excellent lectures. Everyone was well dressed. They drove or were driven in expensive automobiles. Their ‘summer cottages' were beautifully maintained Victorian places with elegant rooms and splendid porches. The sermon was about diversity. It was excellent. But I wondered (forgive me) if that meant whether one drove a new Lincoln or was driven in an old stretch limo. Chautauqua. Good people, intentionally living as Christians. They're probably first in line for the kingdom.

Then I went to Lily Dale. Behind these gates was another faith community --a ‘little Chautauqua.' Somewhat smaller cottages. A few in disrepair. An assortment of vehicles and some decidedly weird looking people. There was a healing rather than a sermon going on in their amphitheater. These are mostly not Christians. Lily Dale is a spiritualist community. You have your choice of dozens of licensed mediums. Their lecture series includes a variety of speakers that many Christians would find laughable or frightening. I wear my clerical collar, buy an agate, and leave a larger offering than I did at Chautauqua. The donation goes to the local humane society and I am given a poem about the afterlife of pets. It makes me cry; but so did the sermon at Chautauqua. Good people, on a spiritual journey. Most of them seeking healing, love, and life. Most would say these folks are last in line for the kingdom.

"Strange is God's deed. Alien is God's work." Isaiah reminds us that God does weird and surprising stuff.

"People seeking God will come from east and west, from north and south, [maybe even from Lily Dale?] to eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last." How then are we to know who will be eating at God's table and who will be weeping and gnashing their teeth outside? Who will be first and who last? If we want to strive to get through that narrow door to salvation and eternal life, what are we supposed to do?

Go on a diet? That means letting go of a lot of stuff. Some diet items are more obviously unhealthy -- various addictions. But even obsessions with good stuff can fatten us up and keep us from real nourishment: good deeds and regular church attendance -- "we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets" -- if it comes before seeking God it can make us spiritually sick. We begin to think we can get ourselves through that door on our own. Most of us are pretty good at making modern "covenants with death" -- trying find shelter and security, or nourishment and love everywhere but from God.

Letting go of all those things we cling to is terribly difficult. Just ask anyone who's gone through a twelve step program. Dieting hurts. Letting go of addictions isn't easy. It is indeed a divine "overwhelming scourge" when it happens; it is a scourging of selfishness. When God comes into our lives this way, it hurts to have our other hungers stripped away. The striving to enter the narrow door can be painful. That's part of the message of the cross.

So how are we to live with the hurt? A proper diet is necessary to live. What makes a good diet? A slice of Chautauqua? A garnish of Lily Dale? A Buddhist dessert?

A good Chautauqua Christian, doing good works and seeking salvation. A good Lily Dale medium, seeking contact with a lost loved one. One may be as easily stuck as the other in that narrow door Both are seeking something for themselves -- something fattening.

Remember what we sang just before the gospel reading? "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you." Not that all the other stuff is necessarily bad; salvation & healing, good works & loved ones, are important. It's just that God needs to come first. Seek God first and your other hungers will be filled. When our starting place is to put God first, perhaps then those other things -- east or west, north or south, Lily Dale or Chautauqua, churchy or weird, can serve as appetizers in our search for God.

So just how, then, do we put God first? Jesus tells us that he is "the way, the truth, and the life" and that we are to love one another as Jesus loved us. Seeking God. Looking for life and truth. The way to do that is to love as Jesus loved. That's the way all will love when God's reign is complete.

Forget the junk food. The way to spiritual nourishment is to love one another as Jesus loved us. God feeds us when we, like Jesus, put ourselves aside and feed others. Then we are thin enough for the narrow door and hungry enough for God.

Come eat. Today, here at this table. This is the banquet of the reign of God.
If you hunger for God the door is wide open.

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