Sermon for Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, "The Life that Really is Life," 1 Timothy 6:6-19

*I'm quite(!) delayed in posting this sermon, but I'm finally getting to it.

Sermon 9/25/22

1 Timothy 6:6-19

The Life That Really Is Life

Our text for today ends with a phrase I find so compelling, so thought-provoking. We’ll come back to what leads into it, but for now, we’re beginning with the ending. The author, a mentor writing to encourage a younger, emerging ministry leader, finishes this section with these words, this aimed-for conclusion:  “so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.” “Take hold of the life that really is life.” This is the goal. Now we have to figure out how our mentor tells us we disciples should get there. The phrase “life that really is life” implies that there is life that isn’t really life, and that we can, without realizing it, settle for this other life, this non-real-life life. Timothy’s mentor suggests that he knows how to tell the difference between non-real-life, and life that is really life, and how, then, to claim the life that really is life. 

So, do you have hold of the life that really is life? A couple of things pop into my mind. First, I think of great movie from the 1990s, The Truman Show. How many of you have seen that? One of Jim Carrey’s better films, the premise is that this man, Truman, unbeknownst to him, has been the star of a TV show his whole life. Everything in his life is a fake, so people could enjoy watching his life unfold for entertainment. Eventually, Truman realizes that his life isn’t really real life. And although the TV studio creator tries to convince him that this “fake” world Truman lives in is better, safe, less hurtful than life in the “real world,” Truman would rather take his changes. He doesn’t want a glossy masquerade of life, even if it is easier. He wants real life. 

Another piece of media: One episode of the TV show Scrubs featured a beautiful song by Colin Hay called “Waiting for my Real Life to Begin.” In the song, the narrator imagines themselves in different scenes - just about to leave on a ship and sail away, just about to slay a dragon and prove the hero. He’s just waiting, waiting for the “just about” to happen, waiting for real life to begin. But in the meantime, the person to whom he’s singing keeps urging the singer to live in the now. The lyrics go: “And you say, be still my love / Open up your heart / Let the light shine in / But don't you understand / I already have a plan / I'm waiting for my real life to begin. And you say, just be here now / Forget about the past, your mask is wearing thin / Just let me throw one more dice / I know that I can win / I'm waiting for my real life to begin. In this case, the sense we get as listeners is that while the narrator is waiting for his “real life” to begin, his actual real life, including an actual real person who loves him, is just passing him by. In both these examples, there is, as there is in our scripture text, a sense that there’s real life to be had, but that there are also many ways we settle for lives made up of illusions. How can we take hold of the life that really is life? 

Timothy’s mentor has some ideas for him about taking hold of this life that really is life. A key, I think, is in the verse first of our reading. We experience great gain in life when we pursue godliness - which means a life marked by devotion, piety, attention to God; and we experience great gain when we cultivate contentment in our life. Godliness and contentment.  Godliness isn’t a very common word for us to use anymore to describe ourselves, or others, and I think the strangeness of the world can make it feel like something we can’t pursue or achieve. Something meant only for holy and pious people - not us, not regular, ordinary people. But I see godliness as immersing ourselves in our relationship with God, tending to our relationship with God, tending to our spiritual lives. Of course, being part of a faith community is a way we can tend to our spiritual lives. The author wraps up godliness with words like faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. I think it is a way we connect with God and with one another. How are we tending to our souls on a regular basis so that we are forming our characters, practicing love until it is a habit? Godliness is just that, I think: a habit. We’re always making habits of actions and behaviors. But what actions, what behaviors are we making into habits? Godliness is a habit of waiting on God, listening for God’s voice, seeking after God, through prayer, through worship, through being part of a community of faith, through loving like Jesus loves. And godliness, our author says, is part of the path to the life that really is life. 

The other part - and that part where our author really spends his time, is contentment. To experience great gain, to really live, we must be content. I think we hear the word content and we think “happy,” but contentment is something a little deeper than we usually mean - or achieve - by chasing happiness. Contentment is deep satisfaction. It is a feeling that you already have everything you need to be satisfied with your life. Contentment means you aren’t ruled by what you want, what you think you need. It means your focus isn’t on getting more, and more, and more. Instead, contentment is a deep feeling of enough. Not just barely enough. But enough that your life feels quite full, complete. Content.

Ironically, the more stuff we have, the more money we have, the richer in things we are, the more difficult it is to experience contentment. That’s what our mentor warns about repeatedly in our text. “We brought nothing into the world, and we take nothing out.” “Those who want to be rich are tempted and trapped by senseless and harmful desires that lead to destruction. “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” “In their eagerness to be rich, many wander away from faith.” “The rich shouldn’t be haughty.” “Don’t depend on riches.” “Only what God gives us makes us rich.” “Be rich in good works. Be generous. Be ready to share. Store up eternal treasure.” I count nearly 8 different sentences in this passage warning us that collecting things and money are more likely to lead us away from contentment than toward it. New Testament scholar A.K.M. Adam says that “the insatiable appetite for wealth narrows [our] field of vision; when [we gaze] fixedly at wealth, [we] cannot look around at [our] neighbors who demonstrate that riches are not necessary for abundant life.” (1) Instead of increasing our options, the pursuit of wealth limits our abilities when it comes to our ability to draw closer to God and one another, our ability to serve God and neighbor with our whole hearts. Whatever energy we spend seeking after accumulating more stuff, more wealth, more status, is heart and soul that we can’t spend seeking after God and God’s ways. Whether we consider ourselves wealthy or not, most of us are sure we’d be happier if we could at least get a little more. But the relentless pursuit of a little more and a little more means that we’re never content. It’s never enough. And if we’re never content? Then have we ever taken hold of the life that is really life?

We can read the mentor’s words to Timothy as I think they are meant to be - words a loving, wise, older friend or relative or guide wants to impart to a young person, one getting started, perhaps, in the next phase of life, so anxious to help them understand what’s really important in life, so wishing to help them thrive, to find joy. (2) The mentor wants Timothy to experience the life that really is life. What wisdom would you share with a young person just starting out about what really matters in life? What would you tell them is the most important thing to spend your time, your heart, your life pursuing? What would you tell them has brought you the deepest, most lasting joy? What would you tell them has brought you closest to God? And then, friends, are we spending our days following our own advice? Let us, too, set our hope, set our hearts, on God, who richly provides us with all we need to be content, and with that strong foundation, let us take hold of the life that really is life. Amen. 

1. A.K.M. Adam, “Commentary on 1 Timothy 6:6-19,” The Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-26-3/commentary-on-1-timothy-66-19

2. H/T to Sunggu Yang for this line of thinking, “Commentary on 1 Timothy 6:6-19,” The Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-26-3/commentary-on-1-timothy-66-19-5 

Sermon for Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, "Unfinished Business," Luke 14:25-33 (Proper 18, Ordinary 23)

Sermon 9/4/16

Luke 14:25-33

Unfinished Business

Some years back, United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon was serving as the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. He got a call from a very upset parent of one of his students. "I hold you personally responsible for this," he said.

"Me?" Will asked.

The father was hot, upset because his graduate school bound daughter had just informed him that she was going to chuck it all ("throw it all away" was the way the father described it) and go do mission work with the Presbyterians in Haiti. "Isn't that absurd!" shouted the father. "A BS degree in mechanical engineering from Duke and she's going to dig ditches in Haiti."

"Well, I doubt that she's received much training in the Engineering Department here for that kind of work, but she's probably a fast learner and will probably get the hang of ditch-digging in a few months," Will said.

"Look," said the father, "this is no laughing matter. You are completely irresponsible to have encouraged her to do this. I hold you personally responsible," he said.

As the conversation went on, Dr. Willimon pointed out that the well-meaning but obviously unprepared parents were the ones who had started this ball rolling. THEY were the ones who had her baptized, read Bible stories to her, took her to Sunday School, let her go with the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship to ski in Vail. Will said, "You're the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me."

"But all we ever wanted her to be was a Presbyterian," said the father, meekly. (1)
Have you been introduced to Jesus? Let’s take a look at the Jesus we meet in the gospels today. Our lesson today picks up just after Jesus had finished his dinner at the home of one of the Pharisees. In addition to the parables we talked about last week, where Jesus encouraged people not to choose places of honor for themselves, and to make sure to invite those that usually never received invitations. He continues, after last week’s passage, with more parables, all around the theme of the wedding banquet, a metaphor for God’s kingdom, God’s reign. In his next parable, Jesus speaks of a banquet where people are invited, but are too busy to come, and all make their excuses. They would come, but they have to do these other tasks first, they explain. Angry, the host instead invites the poor, the sick, the broken-hearted, just as Jesus urged the Pharisees to do. And the host promises that none of those who were too busy to show up will ever get a taste of the wedding banquet.

It is right after this that our text for today begins, and the theme certainly carries through. Luke tells us that large crowds of people are traveling with Jesus. Just imagine that – everywhere he goes, a crowd goes with him. And he turns to them and 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. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Wow. Jesus’ words today make his words about turning family members against each that we studied a few weeks ago seem pretty tame in comparison. The word here for hate doesn’t have quite the “emotional connotation” that we give it today – a passionate rejection of a person based on negative feelings. Instead, it means “to turn away from, to detach oneself from,” to set aside. It “denotes action, not emotion. Jesus’ point is not how you feel about your family, rather, it is about who you will choose if and when it comes to choosing between family and the kingdom.” (2) Even still, it doesn’t make Jesus’ words particularly comforting for the crowds or for us, and he doesn’t mean them to be. When push comes to shove, when you have to choose, do you choose God? Do you turn way from, detach yourself from, set aside your family to choose God? Would that we never had to choose! But if we did… Jesus is saying that coming with Jesus means choosing him above all other things. 
And he doesn’t let up. He says, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” For his first hearers, the cross doesn’t yet get tied to Jesus – they don’t yet know that Jesus himself will be crucified. But they were familiar with crucifixions. It was the preferred method of death of the Roman government that was occupying their homeland of Israel. People who crossed the Roman government, who crossed the Empire, would be executed in a brutal, public fashion, in order to create a climate of fear, to allow the oppressive government to continue to keep people in their places. For Jesus to say that discipleship involves carrying the cross, he seems to be saying that being his disciple could get you in as much trouble with the authorities as he always was. Because the message of Jesus, where the exalted are humbled and the first become last, was a message that flew in the face of the powers and principalities. The Roman government and the religious elite didn’t like to hear that in God’s world, the whole social order was flipped upside down, and the poor and humble would be first in line. To be a disciple, Jesus says, means to take a stand against people with power over your very life. Following Jesus means choosing Jesus above even yourself.

Jesus says that if we commit to being a disciple without realizing in advance what that really means, it’s like we’ve started to build a tower, without ever making blueprints and drawing up a list of supplies and figuring out if we have enough budget for it. It’s like declaring war on another country only to realize after that fact that you’re outnumbered 2 to 1. By the time we near the end of the text and Jesus tells us that being a disciple also means giving up our possessions, it barely registers. What Jesus asks is already so high, so much – letting go of things seems pretty easy after choosing discipleship and the cross over all other paths. 

I think somewhere along the way, many churches have gotten a little confused about their message, their purpose. I read so many articles about “church growth,” and what churches should be doing to help their churches grow. Some of them have thoughtful ideas, but so many of them seem to focus on getting people to “like” what you offer so that they’ll choose you. Don’t get me wrong – I do want people to find us to be welcoming, to offer hospitality in the name of Christ. I do want people to find that we’re loving and encouraging and that we build each other up. But frankly, sometimes Jesus’ message isn’t exactly likable. It’s compelling. Life-changing. Life-giving. But easy? Likable? Hardly.

Bishop Willimon, in a sermon on this text, started out talking about The United Methodist’s Church advertising campaign, and asked, how hard is it to sell the difficult message Jesus has to share with us?  He writes, “Jesus clearly, at least in this text, has no interest in meeting our needs. Rather, he appears intent upon giving us needs we would not have had, had we not met him. He speaks of severance from some of our most cherished values – after all, who could be against [parent]hood, family, and self-fulfillment? Jesus, that’s who . . . What Jesus says just happens to be true because he is the way, the truth, and the life.” Willimon continues, “I didn’t say that he was the way that nine out of ten thinking Americans want to walk. Didn’t say that he was the truth that we think we want or his discipleship was the life we seek. We can’t have a good Jesus advertising campaign because his way is decidedly against the crowd. The only reason why we’re here is not out of our seeking, our wanting. We’re here because, in some surprising way, he has sought us, wanted us, called us to walk a way not of our own devising. And all reason or reservation to the contrary, we believe, despite its patent absurdity, his is the way, though narrow, that leads to life eternal. Forgive me, forgive the church, for sometimes implying that Jesus will make life easier for you, will fix everything that’s wrong with you, will put a little lilt in your voice, a little sunshine in our life. Chances are, he won’t. He can do even better than that. He can make you a disciple. Forgive the church for sometimes being guilty of false advertising.” (3)Our mission statement in the United Methodist Church is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” It isn’t to make United Methodists. It isn’t to make church members or church attenders or church contributors. Those things might happen as a result of our work, and God’s work in us, of making disciples, and I hope they do! But if we had a congregation full of members, attenders, and contributors, and we didn’t have disciples – that’s when we’re in trouble. Disciples are what Jesus is after: people who are ready to turn away from any path but God’s path – or people who are ready to commit to trying each day to do that. People who are ready to risk it all to confront oppression and injustice and anything else that prevents God’s reign on earth from flourishing – or people who are ready to commit to trying each day to do that.

I have many hopes and dreams for us, and I know you do to. I think God is doing great things here. But if I’m choosing, I want you to be disciples, not church members. I’d love if you could be both – but I can tell you that my hope for how we shape this church together, my vision for what we will be is centered on us following Jesus wherever he goes. Sometimes his path is pretty lonely. Sometimes it seems impossibly difficult. He asks us to take a cross with us. Failure seems certain! But we serve a God who picks us up when we fall. We serve a God who walks the road with us. And we serve a God who, again and again, brings life even out of death. Amen.  

(1)   As quoted by Rev. Dr. David E. Leininger, William Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Sept 10, 1995, http://www.lectionary.org/Sermons/NT/03-Luke/Luke-14.25-33-Danger-Leininger.htm

(2)   https://modernmetanoia.org/2016/08/22/proper-18c-yada-yada-yada-a-cautionary-tale/#_ftn2

(3)   Willimon, William, Pulpit Resource, lesson for September 5^th, 2004, pg. 43

Sermon for Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, "One of One Hundred"

Sermon 9/12/10

Luke 15:1-10

Parables of Jesus: One of One Hundred

            Have you ever been lost? I’ve told you before that my mother has a horrible sense of direction. This has resulted in many stories over the years of her being totally and utterly lost. For example, there was the time when she was driving home from visiting me in New Jersey, and she accidentally ended up in Massachusetts. Or, how whenever she was trying to go someplace in the greater Utica area, she would always end up at Hapanowicz’s meat market. When she used to come visit me at college, I would simply have her meet me at the campus center, because it had a bright green roof that you could see from anywhere in town. I knew she couldn’t get lost, but that she would never make it to my dorm if I tried to steer her there directly.

            Have you ever lost something or someone? When I was a child, I had an experience where I didn’t think I was lost, but my mother thought she had lost me! I had gone to deliver my newspapers – I had a small share in my older brother’s paper route, and then I had gone to ride my bike in the cemetery next door to my house – it was a popular bike-riding location in the little town of Westernville. I’d told my mom of my plans, but she’d thought I would stop home in between, and then she saw a little girl in a van that drove by the house that looked like me. She thought I’d been kidnapped. She, of course, freaked out, making calls, and generally panicking. Meanwhile, my big brother rode his bike into the cemetery, looking for me. To this day, I can exactly picture the expression of urgency and alarm on his face as he approached me. We raced back to the house, and all was well, when my mother realized I was safe.

Our gospel lesson today is about losing things too. Jesus shares two parables with the scribes and the Pharisees, one about losing a sheep, one about losing a coin – two parables that are probably fairly familiar to you. Jesus describes a shepherd who has a hundred sheep, and discovers that one has gone astray. He searches for and finds the lost sheep, rejoices, and lays it on his shoulders to carry home. Arriving home, the shepherd calls friends and neighbors together so that they too can rejoice in his good news – “I have found my sheep that was lost.” In the second parable, a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. She lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until she finds the lost coin. She, like the shepherd, Jesus says, would rejoice at her find, calling together friends and neighbors to rejoice that she has found the coin that was lost. In both of these instances, Jesus says the parables – the rejoicing that takes place by all involved in each story – are like what happens when one sinner repents and is found by God who is searching and seeking.

Have you ever been lost? Do you remember what it felt like to be lost – really lost? Jesus, in his teaching of these parables, is not only trying to get us to see how much our loving God will seek us out, but he’s also trying to show us how painful and scary and alone it can feel to feel like you are lost from God’s sight, wandering on your own path, turned away from where God wants to lead you. How many times in your faith journey have you wandered away from God? How often do you feel like you are just going through the motions of life, living each day without a particular purpose or direction? These parables are for us, to comfort us, to remind us that God never stops looking for us, and to remind us that we can, should, always seek our way home again.

            But beyond knowing that God always seeks for us, beyond knowing that we can be found by God even when we feel completely lost, Jesus actually tells this parable primarily for another reason. This isn’t a parable about being lost as much as it is a parable about losing things. We have to go back to the text and remember why Jesus is telling these parables in the first place. What made him tell these stories? When he sets the scene to tell these parables, Jesus is responding to the grumbling of the Pharisee and scribes. They’re upset with Jesus, because everywhere Jesus goes tax collectors and sinners seem to surround Jesus. And not only do these sorts follow Jesus, but Jesus even sits and eats with them – he welcomes them, makes them feel important. In Jesus’ day, the act of sharing a meal with someone was a personal, intimate event. You wouldn’t eat with just anyone, and the scribes and Pharisees, religious leaders in the community, certainly wouldn’t want to be seen eating with tax collectors and other known sinners. And let’s face it: even today, we’re not so different. How many meals do you share with those who are not part of your family, your workplace, or your place of worship?  

When we read the gospels, I think we should always remember that Jesus is talking to us. But in this case, I think we can get confused. Jesus isn’t leading us to see ourselves as the ones who are lost. Instead, Jesus is asking us to move ourselves as the one who has lost something. So Jesus uses one of his favorite tactics in the teaching of this lesson. When he describes the woman and her lost coin, the shepherd and the lost sheep, he begins with a tone that says, “who would not do it this way? Who would not react like this?” “Which one of you would not,” he begins. He sets us up to feel that if we don’t react like he has indicated, that we’re not acting as a normal person would respond. In this situation, Jesus says: who wouldn’t go out and have a search party for a lost sheep? Who would let the poor sheep wander lost and alone? Who wouldn’t rejoice at this sheep being found, and call up friends and family to let them in on the good news? Well, the answer is: we wouldn’t, his audience wouldn’t have, shepherds probably wouldn’t have! What shepherd would have left the 99 sheep open to attack just to seek out one stray? He says, “who wouldn’t call together friends and neighbors to rejoice over a coin that was lost but is now found?” The answer is: we wouldn’t! We wouldn’t be so excited; we wouldn’t bother our neighbors with this kind of news. But Jesus challenges us to set a new norm. The old norm is to reject people when they stray or when they behave differently than the rest of the fold. The new norm is to seek out those who are lost and alone, and to welcome them back with open arms, with celebration. We tend to see ourselves as the lost victim at the center of all these stories – it always us that God is seeking after. But Jesus wants us to be filled with the sense of loss at not having those who are thought of as less-than as part of our lives. Jesus is implying that when we don’t widen our circles to include everyone, we are missing out. We’ve lost something essential, worth seeking with all our energy.

Jesus, by directing his story at the Pharisees and scribes, he is talking to people who already consider themselves faithful, who already see themselves at the center of the fold. If he was telling the parable today, he’d be talking to us – the church regulars, the people who have already been ‘found’ or who never strayed from the fold to begin with. He’s not talking to the lost sheep – it is the very people the scribes and Pharisees look down on that are the lost ones Jesus seeks after. Our presence here today, for most of us, signifies that we are more like part of the 99 sheep than like the lost one.

The real question Jesus wants to push on in these parables is not a question of why or how we stray from God, but of how we respond when others find themselves outside of the sheepfold. How does Jesus respond? In the gospels, he simply goes where the lost sheep are, and settles in. Notice that Jesus isn’t trying to convert the lost sheep or tell them how sinful they are. In fact, Jesus’ teaching and preaching: he directs most of that at those who already claim that they’re in the know. Jesus has to spend most of his time preaching and teaching to the religious folk who are already supposed to know how to treat one another. Jesus doesn’t spend so much time preaching to those who have found themselves outside the acceptable places. Instead, he heals, forgives, love, and simply builds relationships with those no one else even wants to see. Jesus says that there are sheep lost from the fold that should create a void so deep in our lives that we cannot rest until we’ve found them. We’re not the lost. We’re the ones who are losing out, every time we exclude someone, overlook someone, or judge someone.

“And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’”

Amen.