GCI Equipper

Ordinary Time

What is it, and what does it have to do with me?

When Greg Williams asked me to start focusing on the Christian worship calendar in Equipper, I thought, “Sure, that will be good for a couple articles. What else?” I had no idea of the depth of meaning and purpose we find in the worship calendar. I knew Christmas and Easter were important; I liked the candles and focus on Jesus’ coming for Advent, and I enjoyed celebrating the birth of the New Testament church on Pentecost, but the other days didn’t seem to have as much meaning. Man, was I mistaken. Focusing on just bits and pieces of the worship calendar is missing the truth that everything revolves around Jesus and reminds us he is the center of the center. Further, it keeps us focused on who he is, who we are in him, and who others are in him.

The season of Advent focuses on the three “comings” of Jesus: his birth, his return, and his entrance into our lives through the Holy Spirit. We focus on the hope, peace, joy, and love of Jesus.

The Christmas season celebrates Emmanuel – God with us. “The Word became flesh and dwelled among us” (John 1:14). The incarnation was not a one-day event. Jesus is still human; he is still with us; he still dwells among us.

The Epiphany season focuses on enlightenment. We focus on Jesus being the light of the world, light that destroys darkness. Jesus told his disciples (and us) to come and see. See what he is doing. By focusing on Jesus’ mission and ministry, we see more and more of his glory.

The season of Lent reminds us to walk with Jesus, to surrender ourselves to his will and his way. (We prefer to call it Easter Preparation because it helps us stay focused on Jesus and not on ourselves.) We do this because we come to know—and know that we know—that Jesus is the answer to our deepest longings. He is the only answer to the pain and suffering we go through in this world. We walk to Jerusalem with him, shouting Hosanna with the others just prior to his descent into Jerusalem.

Holy Week is a time to hear Jesus’ message to us in John 13-17, to love one another and to live in the love of the Father, Son and Spirit. We grieve his death on Good Friday, never forgetting that it is because of his death that we can live free in him. On Holy Saturday we reflect on what life would be without Jesus and realize we would have nothing. We can feel the loss the disciples felt, while understanding they didn’t know Sunday was coming.

The Easter season is more than Resurrection Sunday. We start by celebrating Jesus’ triumph over the grave, which gives hope to all of humanity. We celebrate that the old has gone, the new has come. The 50 days of Easter give us much to celebrate and many reasons to praise God. We focus on words like atonement, adoption, redemption, reconciliation, forgiveness, justification, sanctification, ransom, mediation, acceptance, and love. During this season we celebrate Jesus’ ascension, when he returned to the Father and took us with him – ushering us into a kingdom that is here, but not yet fully appreciated and experienced.

Then we come to Ordinary Time, which begins with Pentecost. This issue of Equipper has a focus on Ordinary Time, which we understand is anything but ordinary. If you want a biblical example of Ordinary Time, I’d suggest reading Acts – the Acts of the Apostles. Ordinary Time begins with the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the beginning of the New Testament church, and a transformation of hearts. After hearing Peter’s sermon, the response was, “What do we do?” This is the cry of Ordinary Time – a time we focus on our participation with Jesus in all he is doing. Ordinary Time brings attention to the call of discipleship – what we are called to do, who we are called to be.

Called to discipleship

We are called to be the body of Christ. And we don’t do this on our own. One of the great promises Jesus gave his disciples was that he would send the Holy Spirit. We want to respond the same way they did on that day of Pentecost: What do we do? Jesus calls each of us to “lose our life for his sake.” He tells us to be his ambassadors, to live in our new creation, to be reconcilers. Each one of us is called to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are called to reveal his light to others, to live in his image, to embody his love.

Ordinary Time helps us develop healthy rhythms of discipleship – worshipping together, serving the neighborhood with neighborhood camps and other events, being present in our church communities, representing Jesus at work, at home, and among our neighbors.

Note what Luke said about the New Testament church:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47)

Bobby Gross, author of Living the Christian Year, said that the heart of Ordinary Time is participating in the mission of God. That mission is to participate in the rescue of every person from their entrapment in sin and to share God’s love and life with them. In Ordinary Time we are reminded we belong to God, and the Jesus who inspired and motivated the early church leaders is the same Jesus who lives and works in us. “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:4-6).

Let me be clear: you don’t have to disciple others in order to be a recipient of God’s love and grace. He loves and blesses you simply because you were created in his image. That’s who he is. But he also created you to be in relationship with him, to participate with him in the things that bring him joy, and he invites you to participate in the joy of being a disciple. Throughout this issue of Equipper, you have articles that will give you ideas on how to be a disciple and how to make the most out of Ordinary Time.

Let’s join Jesus in his mission and make Ordinary Time an extraordinary time for you and your congregation.

Rick Shallenberger
Editor

Pentecost and What Happened Next

What happened after Pentecost gives us direction for mission and development.

By Cara Garrity, Development Coordinator

Last month we celebrated Pentecost, the account of which can be found in Acts 2:1-47. On the day of Pentecost, we see a work of the Holy Spirit that demonstrates the inclusive expansion of Jesus’ kingdom. Luke tells us that 3,000 were added to their number that day. Pentecost teaches us about the nature of Jesus’ mission and our participation in it. I believe that what happened next can teach us something perhaps as important about the development of Christ followers.

We see in Acts 2:42-47 that the inclusion of new believers was transformational – personally and collectively. The way of life changed for Christ-followers. Believers actively participated in a new way of life in community with one another as they followed Christ. And as we continue to read in Acts, we see that believers were not only transformed but mobilized. The first clear example we see is in Acts 6:1-7, where seven Greek followers were appointed to oversee the distribution of food to the Hellenistic widows. These believers were empowered to lead this function of early church community. In Acts 8:4, we see that the scattered believers preached the word wherever they went. They actively participated in the mission of Jesus.

For the early church, joining the community of believers was more than becoming a “butt in a seat” or another face in the crowd. Joining the community of believers meant entering the life of the church and to a discipleship that led to transformation, participation, and mission.

What does this mean for us today? We can learn from the early church that mission leads not only to inclusion and physical growth, but to transformation, active participation, and multiplication of mission. As we engage in Jesus’ mission through the Love Avenue, our goal must not be simple physical growth – or butts in seats. The church is not merely a social club. The goal is healing, restoration, transformation.

It’s easy to read about that first New Testament Pentecost and stop at the statement of growth – “three thousand were added to their number that day.” But that would be a mistake because what happened next matters, too. How would the story of the early church have developed differently if 3,000 were added to their number that day and then the apostles refused to appoint the seven to oversee the distribution of food to the Hellenistic widows? Or if there were not seven, or any, willing to step up and lead in that way?

What if 3,000 were added to their number that day and then showed up only once a week to hear the apostles speak? And when they were scattered, they found they didn’t know how to preach the word, or even had no desire to, because that was the apostles’ job, not theirs? What happened after the 3,000 were added matters. These are the matters of disciple-making and building the church that we reflect on during Ordinary Time.

Practically speaking, when new members and new believers connect into the life of our local church through the Love Avenue – what’s next? How can they meaningfully participate in the life of the church? How can they be discipled and developed in ministry participation according to their gifting and calling? What would it look like for us to engage, equip, and empower new members and new believers to join Jesus in ministry?

The early church shows us that participation in Jesus’ mission is integral to the life of a Christ follower. It is not something reserved for the major leagues, the professionals, or those who have been “in the game” for a certain amount of time. How can the rhythms and practices of our local church reflect this reality? Another way to ask the question is how do we engage in the Love Avenue with a lens of development? How can the integration of the Avenues help us in this endeavor?

Some were added to our number today. Hallelujah! What happens next?

Place-sharing in Ordinary Time

Among Christ followers, ordinary is special, it is holy, it is missional.

By Elizabeth Mullins, Publications Assistant

The liturgical calendar plays out God’s story. Where are we situated in it? Let’s look at a couple passages to illuminate this time in God’s overarching story where we find ourselves—that is, after Jesus’ incarnation and resurrection but before the full culmination of his kingdom, before Christ’s second coming.

In John 3, Jesus is explaining to Nicodemus that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. They must be born again. Then Jesus says,

No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (John 3:13-15 )

Now let’s look at the story Jesus refers to in the book of Numbers.

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. (Numbers 21:4-9)

Whew. This is a fantastically crazy story with more to unpack than space allows here. [If you’d like to dig deeper, start by asking why was the “cure” in the shape of that which brought the violence and death? It could be a reference to 2 Corinthians 5:21. Did the Father truly give deadly snakes when his children ask for bread, as the author recorded? Matthew 7:9-11 sure feels like a nod and wink to Numbers 21. As if Jesus is saying, “You’ve heard it said, but I say to you…”]

Why weren’t the snakes just eliminated? And what does any of this have to do with Ordinary Time? In Christ, we experience healing and have resurrection life. We’re partakers of eternal life now, and we’re citizens of God’s kingdom now. But there are still snakes in the camp, aren’t there? We still experience danger, pain, violence, loss, and disease.

Place-sharing in Ordinary Time looks like reminding each other: Fix your eyes on Jesus; he’s been lifted up and is drawing all to himself. It looks like binding up one another’s wounds and bites, sharing assurance and hope: Take heart! I know this bite is very painful, but it won’t end you; your life is hidden in Christ.

Place-sharing, as missional people during Ordinary Time can look like the following practices:

  • Tell the truth: Life is difficult, and we don’t win any points with our neighbors by pretending otherwise. Tell your story and make room for others’ stories. Be a community that speaks the truth aloud. When you go first, it’s like passing out permission slips to be authentic. Truth-telling is an entry-point to place-sharing.
  • Embrace limitations: Sanctification is the process of being conformed to the Son of Man (Romans 8:29). You possess a perfectly human-sized life; you’re becoming fully human, not super human. Stop resisting what even Jesus accepted. You are not self-sufficient. Your existence is precarious, fragile, finite. When you’re exhausted or ill, stop working. When you need help, ask for it. (That’s telling the truth. See previous point.) We’re interdependent by design; welcome others’ limitations. It’s vital to place-sharing.
  • Pursue balance: Do an inventory of resources—corporately and personally. Does the Hope Avenue suck all the resources of your church? Is there an area of your personal life that is sucking up a disproportionate amount of resources? None of us has a limitless supply of energy, time, money. (See previous point.) It isn’t valorous to siphon resources from another area of your life that needs it, like rest or relationships. That isn’t dedication; it’s unbalanced. Balance is critical to place-sharing; it requires time and enough margin to pay attention to our place and neighbors.
  • Try new things: Normalize trial and error. There’s no innovation without risk. Perhaps we can demystify the “error” in trial and error if we accept our limitations. Admit you’re fallible, confess when you mess up, and try again. (See previous points. It all fits together, right?) Loving our neighbors will always require risk. Let’s face it—place-sharing involves the unknown. We’re getting to know people who were previously strangers. When we reward triumph over trying, we create spiritual hierarchies. Let’s honor our sacred work—however different it looks—without comparison and leave the outcome to the Holy Spirit.

The Oxford dictionary defines ordinary as having no special or distinctive features. Common usage of the word is misleading, implying that ordinary is uninteresting, unimportant. Our lives are situated in the triune life; therefore, our ordinary lives are special. Ordinary is holy. Ordinary is beautifully missional.

Place-sharing with our Neighbors

Jesus set the example of place-sharing and invites us to participate with him.

By Jillian Morrison, Associate Pastor, Glendora, CA

Who is my neighbor? This question was posed to Jesus more than two millennia ago and it is still asked today. Jesus answers the question with a story demonstrating that anyone can be our neighbor, emphasizing the importance of showing mercy to the hopeless and marginalized (Luke 10:25-37). While anyone in the world can be considered our neighbor, those who live geographically near us are also in that category, and those we have the most contact with, and the best opportunity to place share. This means that our neighbor is at home, our immediate neighborhood, at work, the one square mile around where the church meets, and beyond.

What does it mean to place-share with my neighbor? Theologian and Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to Jesus’ mission and presence in the world as his ongoing “place-sharing” ministry. Our Lord stands and shares in the place of every person and acts fully on their behalf, with their best interests at heart. For Bonhoeffer, place-sharing is asymmetrical and unconditional, for it may end up being a one-way street: It does not wait or even expect the other person to reciprocate.[1]

This radical way of life reflects Jesus’ command to love even our enemies by doing good to them and expecting nothing in return (Luke 6:35). Professor Andrew Root describes place-sharing as taking shape when we “place ourself fully in the reality of the other, refusing to turn away even from its darkest horror. Just as Jesus incarnate, crucified and resurrected was fully our, so we too, as Jesus’ disciples, must ourselves become place-sharers, suffering with and for young people.”[2] This is ultimately what place-sharing with our neighbor is all about: Suffering with and for another, for the sake of the other.

Empathy and Compassion

Some of the most transformative moments of my life have been times when others shared in my suffering, and vice versa. They expressed empathy and compassion for me by simply being for me and with me in my pain, and I with them. Empathy is being with and feeling with another person. When we place share with another, we practice empathy and compassion.

The thought of sharing in the suffering of others may seem unnerving but suffering binds us together. Every human on the planet has suffered or will suffer at some point in their life. This is why we can practice compassion for ourselves and others, because of our shared experience of mutual brokenness. In addition to empathy, compassion extends mercy and acceptance to the other. May we learn to be compassionate to ourselves and our neighbor as God has been merciful and accepting of each of us exactly as we are.

Prayer and Perspective

Prayer may seem like a no-brainer, but we must be mindful not to underestimate the power of prayer and what God can do in and through surrendered hearts. The action of place-sharing is radical and difficult, so we cannot be selfless and place share with others in our own power.[3]

Pray for the power and victory of Christ to be your perspective, your confidence, and your strength. Pray for your neighbors and/or prayer walk regularly in your neighborhood if you are able. Ask God for the patience, empathy and compassion to genuinely (and generously) care for your neighbors, to see them as he sees them. Ask God to give you the courage to get out of your comfort zone and introduce yourself to others. Pray for the capacity to listen and the heart to understand as you get to know them. Remember that we love because God loved us first, and God loved your neighbors first, too.

Suggestions to begin place-sharing in your neighborhood

  • Remember God is your first love: We can love and grow in love for our neighbors only when we place God first. Loving God and receiving his love daily is the fuel behind our ability to love our neighbor.
  • Know yourself: Ask God for the courage and gentleness to uncover some of your own biases that may lead to judging your neighbor automatically without your awareness. Pray for healing and freedom from any prejudices and anxiety that would inhibit place-sharing with your neighbors.
  • Start small: Try not to be too ambitious in the beginning – start with baby steps. Choose one neighbor next door or across the street to meet. Ask God for a few good questions to ask them. Pray about any and all natural interactions that may occur as you check the mailbox, water your plants, or go on a walk.
  • Invite: Ask your neighbor to come over to an outdoor dinner next week, attend a Zoom game night, enjoy a walk or coffee outside together, see a movie at a community park, or attend an outdoor concert hosted by your city. During the holidays, ask your neighbor if they will be alone during the holidays and include them in your family gathering(s).
  • Listen and learn: Practice the art of active listening by staying present as much as possible. Learn the names of your neighbors and what they’re passionate about. If they start to share their struggles with you, remember to breathe. Offer to pray over them in person. Ask God for wisdom to discern when a situation may be unsafe for you and/or your neighbor.
  • Practice compassion: Consider who the outsiders and disenfranchised are in your community. Choose one of these groups and find out something about them. What do they need? What do they have to give? Where is God calling you to walk in his compassion?[4]

God bless you, church, as you participate in the mission of Christ in healing our world!

[1] Andrew Root, Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 126.

[2] Ibid., 83.

[3] Ibid., 128-129.

[4] Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 185.

Church Hack: The Art of Neighboring

Jesus invites us to participate with our triune God in drawing humanity close. Loving our neighbor is allowing the love of God to flow into us and then out of us— it cannot remain blocked and still in us. When we allow ourselves to be a channel of God’s love, we experience the love of God more fully and holistically, which then enables us to know God more intimately. In the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, we often don’t have the space to develop relationships with our neighbors. How can we love what/who we do not know? This month’s Church Hack outlines some tips to build relationships with your neighbors. #GCIchurchhacks

To view and download this month’s church hack visit:

https://resources.gci.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2022-CH6-The-Art-of-Being-a-Neighbor.pdf?fbclid=IwAR14Xp88dQmLzaDyVvKF8-9WZ4m0-sht2HVM6akpP4ZYc4yTJ4UpyA8JecQ

New Curriculum: On Being In and With the Word

On Being is a four-part interactive connect group curriculum, designed for biblically-based, dynamic discussions around being a disciple. We are excited to release, part four of the series Being In and With the Word

Fear

Trigger warning: this article discusses the 9/11 tragedy. Please do not read further if it could exacerbate any pre-existing trauma.

On September 11, 2001, I was working for Boston Public Schools (BPS), and our central office was at the heart of the downtown area. My job was to coordinate the district’s afterschool programs, among other tasks. When the four planes crashed, taking the Twin Towers and part of the Pentagon with them, a new kind of fear gripped my heart. It felt like reality was unraveling, because the unthinkable was happening.

My wife is from New York, and we had close family who worked in the area — family we could not reach. Also, there were rumors that another plane was headed to Boston with a mission to hit a downtown target. I wanted to rush out of there, but there were nearly 60,000 children who needed to get home to frightened parents. Most BPS staff were sent home. However, I was asked to stay and figure out how to communicate to hundreds of afterschool providers and partners that the schools would be shutting down until the end of the crisis — something that had never been done before. As I worked, I remember wondering if life as I knew it was coming to an end. Can you relate to this feeling?

Thankfully, I found out later that my wife’s family was physically fine (it took longer to heal emotionally), and the BPS shutdown went as smoothly as possible. However, that experience changed me and the rest of the country. Many of us felt a new kind of fear — the fear of our world falling apart.

Although many of them were not alive in 2001, with climate change, school shootings, insurrections, and war, our children and youth understand that same fear. Many of them feel like their world is falling apart, and it seems like every week something happens to reinforce that fear. Research is showing that fear and uncertainty play a major role in how iGens (Gen Z) make decisions, and they may be the most traumatized generation alive. In our work with young people, we not only need to understand their fear, but how to minister to them in the midst of a world that is falling apart.

When the apostle John wrote the book of Revelation, his audience likely felt like their world was falling apart. They lived in the period right before or after the sacking of the Holy City, the razing of Herod’s Temple, and the scattering of the Jerusalem congregation. Institutions and buildings that seemed like they would be around forever, were seemingly gone in a heartbeat. It is into this context that John writes:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:1-5)

Through John, God reassured his people by reminding them that he was still in control. God wanted them to know that he saw their fear and insecurity, and he already had a plan to make things right. Even though their world was falling apart, they served a God who could and would put everything back together better than new.

We need to send the same messages to iGens. We should create spaces for them to express their fears and do our best to listen, rather than trying to rush past the fear with pithy theological soundbites that never work (e.g. “You don’t have to be afraid because perfect love casts out fear!”). Instead, try to relate to their fear. Share with them times that you felt your world was falling apart and speak to them about your faith in a God who is making everything new. If necessary, help them find a professional counselor to help them process their fear and anxiety.

I wish I could say that there is no reason for our young people to be afraid, but there is. Bad things can happen, and no one has a guarantee of safety. The good news is that Jesus has overcome the world, including all the terrible and horrible things.  He holds our future, and nothing can alter the good plans he has for us. Therefore, even when it feels like our world is falling apart, we can trust in him to make everything new.

By Dishon Mills, US Generations Ministry Coordinator

Online Engagement w/ Juanka Barrero, Yenny Buitrago, & Diego Gonzalez

Video unavailable (video not checked).

In this episode, Cara Garrity, interviews Diego Gonzalez, Yenny Buitrago, & Juanka Barrero. Diego & Yenny are the Love Avenue champions and Juanka and his wife, Bibi, are the Hope Avenue champions of Communion de Gracia Internacional Bogota, Columbia.

“We thank God for the technology because it is just another way to have a conversation about Christ and about his plan. This makes the church more flexible, and more relationships can be developed with the technology. The main purpose of the church online or virtually is the same purpose of the church face to face. So, it’s something very positive.”

— Juanka Barrero, Hope Avenue Champion
Communion de Gracia Internacional Bogota, Columbia

 

Main Points:

  • What role does online engagement play in the witness of the Love Avenue? 4:52
  • What online platforms do you use to engage? 11:43
  • What best practices have you found? Or things you’ve tried that haven’t worked so well? 19:26
  • What does collaboration between the Avenues look like with online engagement? 26:00
  • In practice, how do you distinguish between online presence as simple social media and online presence as mission and ministry? 31:32

 

Resources:

  • Church Communication Plan – Church Hack with four fundamental systems for your church’s communication plan.
  • Hybrid Avenues – Church Hack outlining digital engagement practices for each of the Avenues.
  • GCI Microsite – Your church’s website is your virtual front door. Having an up-to-date website is a great way to make a good first impression and communicate who you are and what you believe. The GCI Microsite is a resource we provide to help you have a professional, easy-to-customize website.

Program Transcript


Online Engagement w/ Juanka Barrero, Yenny Buitrago, & Diego Gonzalez

Welcome to the GC Podcast, a podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience. Here are your hosts, Cara Garrity and Jamie Garcia.

Cara: Welcome friends to today’s episode of GC Podcast. It is my absolute pleasure to introduce you to this quarter’s co-host, Jamie Garcia. Jamie is from GC Crossway in Pasig City, Philippines. As an extrovert and a connector in the 5 Voices [System from GIANT Worldwide], she loves being with people of all ages and connecting with them. She grew up in GCI for her whole life, participating in, serving in different ministries that allow her to love her church community and the bigger GCI body, all the more.

And at this time, she is a GCS student—a Grace Communion Seminary student, and she’s on her third semester and doing her best to balance work, ministry, and seminary, which she’s having a lot of fun at. So, Jamie welcome and thank you so much for being a co-host on the GC Podcast this quarter.

Jamie: Thank you, Cara. Hey everybody, Jamie here. Hello to the person listening to this podcast right now. I’m actually very excited to be here and to learn from today’s GC Podcast episode.

Cara: Yes. And speaking of that, Jamie, in this episode today, we’re going to be talking about online engagement and especially in the Love Avenue. So, I’m wondering what is one way that you have already been impacted by online or virtual ministry?

Jamie: Just one? Okay. I can actually share a lot, but basically in these two years of the pandemic I believe that as an extrovert, I couldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for my local church engaging with me online.

For the past two years, I can really say that I feel more connected with our seniors and also young people than ever before. Thanks to our virtual ministry.

Cara: Ah, amen. Thank you for sharing that. And I love that it comes back to connection. And I’m wondering, as a young adult yourself, what thoughts would you share with our listeners who are hoping to connect with young adults in their neighborhood through online ministry?

Jamie: There are many ways actually, but two things I have right now. So, the first one is look at online presence as an extension of whatever is developed offline or in real life. So, it has to start in the real world first and then be supplemented by engagement efforts in the online world. And so basically that’s the first thing.

And then the second thing is to realize that most of the time people are online to express themselves either with a meme, a rant, a joke, whatever. Therefore, one way is to engage them by loving them when we listen to them, and it always works. So basically, that’s my second tip to love by listening. People want to be heard and understood both in the real world and in the online world.

Cara: Jamie, that is so good. Thank you for sharing that with our listeners. I think that’s a really good place to start.

In GCI, we love that we are an international denomination. And so, for this interview, we are going to be having a conversation in both English and Spanish—our first ever bilingual episode of the GC Podcast. We’re going to be having real time translations during this episode.

So, we are very excited, and we hope that you are too. And so why don’t we go ahead and hear what Yenny, Diego, and Juanka have to say about their experiences with online engagement in Bogota, Columbia.


Cara: Hello friends, and welcome to today’s episode of GC Podcast. This podcast is all about exploring best ministry practices in the context of Grace Communion International church. I’m your host, Cara Garrity.

And today I am blessed to interview Diego Gonzalez, Yenny Buitrago, and Juanka Barrero. Diego and Yenny are the Love Avenue champions and Juanka and his wife, Bibi, are the Hope Avenue champions of Comunión De Gracia Internacional Bogota, Columbia. Thank you all so much for joining us today. I’m looking forward to discussing online engagement in the Love Avenue with you. So, thank you so so much. There’s so much to explore in this topic. So why don’t we just dive right in.

In one of his recent articles, the church researcher, Carey Nieuwhof, poses the question: What if the main purpose of church online is not to bring people to you, but to bring the gospel to people where they’re at?

So, to you, what role does online engagement play in the witness of the Love Avenue?

Yenny: [Spanish]

Diego: Yes, as Yenny says, in such case we will be obeying and truly responding to the call to love our God makes to the church and of which he speaks to us in Matthew 28:19-20. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, every day until end of the world. Amen.

Fulfilling the great commission since the mission of the church is to bring the gospel to every place, to every person where they are, in their locality, between localities, or even outside of countries of region. Sharing the gospel is not a burden, but a joy that we call members missionary work, which is an attitude to love and participation to help those around us.

Cara: Amen. Juanka, do you have anything that you would add to that?

Juanka: Yeah. Yeah. So, Matthew 20:28, very powerful, right? It doesn’t matter if we have a very incredible time face to face, you can also have an incredible time virtually. And it says that the main purpose is just to go and make disciples. And this is as the first prayer.

We thank God for the technology because it is another way just to have a conversation about Christ and about his plan. And so, this makes the church more flexible and more of relationships can be developed with the technology. So virtually—the main purpose of the church online virtually is the same purpose of the church face to face. So, it’s something very positive.

Cara: Amen. And I love how you all, connect that to the group commission that this is online engagement is for the purpose of mission for building relationships, for connecting with the people that are in our neighborhoods.

And so that, brings me to our next question. In the Love Avenue, we talk a lot about our neighborhoods and engaging in our neighborhoods, neighborhood churches. [But] the internet has no physical or geographical boundaries. So, what does it look like to maintain a neighborhood focus on your online engagement?

Yenny: [Spanish]

Diego: Yeah, Cara, in this case, Yenny says that also the internet has no limits. The use of information and communication technologies is very personal. So, to maintain a neighborhood approach, personal contact is essential, we make sure we can find a handshake, a kiss, a hug. And where I feel our fraternity arises among all, it is their work with joined forces is sometimes very important. We truly commit ourselves to work together towards the fulfillment of the stated objective.

Juanka: I would like to say that in this case, it is like a difficult question. Because we know that the internet has no limits, but to maintain a neighborhood focus on our online engagement is very difficult.

It is very difficult because nowadays we all know that a lot of our children and a lot of people are being educated or are spending a lot of time on the social media. And it has become a competition and a very difficult mission to make your content relevant—especially having a conversation about the church and about Christ.

And yes, the internet has no limits, but as Diego and Yenny were saying, it is very difficult not to have a very personal approach. And now, how do you connect with people online? How do you engage with those that are, for example, in a hospital bed, in a hospital room, or they just cannot go on a Sunday?

And it’s just to prepare the topics, to pray to God, and to just send invitations on the social media and hope to build community—an online community that is going to be, maybe not that close, maybe not having that personal contact that we are used to, face to face, but God can use whatever way, different ways to talk and to reach a heart.

And so, we believe that it is important that we continue with the internet mission, although never risking and never jeopardizing our presential meetings.

Cara: And I like what you all say that—what it sounds like to me is almost that, how you show up in the online presence is important because even with no limits, it’s: are you showing up personally? Are you showing up relationally? Are you showing up in a Christlike manner and creating that kind of Christlike community in that space? Yeah, I think that’s an important thing to think about.

And like you said, Juanka, it’s a hard question to think about because the internet is different. It does have no limits. And so, I think it’s something that we wrestle with. But like you said, we pursue it without jeopardizing, but we don’t neglect it either.

And so, on a practical level, I’m wondering, can you share what online platforms do you use to engage?

Diego: Thank you. In the church, we have an online platform at Zoom, Facebook, website, TikTok, Instagram. In these channels, we invite our [members] to participate in the love of God.

Cara: Yes. Church TikTok. Okay. I love it.

Juanka: Yes. So, Zoom basically is used for every meeting, right? So, regarding the middle of the week, Wednesdays Bible studies, Zoom is one is 100% virtual. Regarding the ministry meetings—couples, men, women, youth, and servers, even sometimes the worship team, is also Zoom 100% on Saturdays. We use Zoom also (you know about this possibly) on Sundays for our Sunday services. We have one at 8:30 and the other one is at 10:30. And both of them are very important because 50+ % of the attendance are on Zoom.

And okay, that’s everything regarding Zoom. So, for example, all the ministry, the praying ministry and people that gather to pray on Saturday mornings is also on Zoom. It’s 100% virtual and this changed due to the pandemic situation.

And then we have Facebook. Facebook is our platform in which we share all the invitation to our meetings and whatever’s going to happen during the week or during the month. And so, Facebook is that platform. It is very similar to Instagram, both of those platforms. We use them for, just making a little bit of noise of whatever is going to happen and to invite people.

We also have the website. The website is very important because we have the Equipper and some translations that we have been working on. And many leaders can get the information, the translated information from our pastors in Grace Communion International. So that’s very important.

Another platform that we use a lot is YouTube. We have noticed that a group of 70 plus people every Sunday is very aware of our sermons and our content. So, there’s like an online church that doesn’t go, that doesn’t attend or connect on Zoom on Sundays. Yeah. But during the week or during different times, they watch the YouTube videos, especially the sermons. So, we know that there are some people that maybe possibly they’re working on Sundays, or they have a different schedule.

And yes, finally, TikTok. One year ago, we opened an account. We started uploading Bible verses. And it’s talking about Jesus more than any other thing. But I think that we have to develop a plan, because TikTok is a difficult platform. By this, I mean that there are a lot of people creating a lot of content and so how are you going to compete with that? But we’re kind of doing that. And yes.

Cara: Yeah. I love the diversity of the platforms that you’re using and that each has a particular purpose, like you said, these are the ways this platform is used.

This is the way this platform’s used and even, oh, we’re using TikTok, but we want to think about how do we be more thoughtful? How do we be more strategic because of how this particular platform works or is built or how other people use it? I think that’s an incredible example to think about.

I think our churches all around the world can wrestle through, What does that look like for us? What platforms are a meaningful platform for us to engage with in our context and why? How will we use it? What will its purpose be? And not just to do things to do things, but what specifically? Why will we use this? What will its purpose be?

And I think what I love about the diversity of the platforms that you use too, is it comes back for me to that question from the beginning of our conversation: what if the main purpose of church online is not to bring people to you, but for you to bring the gospel to where people are at.

You’ve said this, people are online in all these different places and like you said, there’ll be people who don’t come to the Sunday worship service but can still connect through the YouTube channel. And that can be part of mission and connection that maybe grows into something different. Or TikTok, right? Yeah. People are on TikTok. Yeah. And so, when we think about mission, don’t we go where the people go? Yeah. That’s beautiful.

Juanka: Maybe the dangers of, specifically talking about TikTok, is that you can get swayed by a lot of information that is irrelevant or is just not good, and so I’ve learned to educate TikTok to what I want to actually see. So, there’s like an option that you kind of get an option of “not interested, not interested, not interested”, and just letting the algorithm work. Because you can get a little bit (how do you say this?) obsessed over many things and Reddit stories and oh my God, it’s crazy. But yeah, if you educate TikTok—I call it that, educating TikTok. You can get the content that you want. If you only want content relating, for example, to Christian content, you can do that. You can do that, and the algorithm works.

So, it’s just a matter of choice of your decision.

Cara: Yeah. And that brings up a really important question that’s a little beyond what we’re talking about today, but I think it’s really important for our churches to wrestle with, Juanka. There’s this question in a Love Avenue, how do we engage online platforms?

But then also, how do these online platforms form us as the church and as followers? And so, I thank you for mentioning that, because these different platforms can be formational to us, and if we’re intentional about that, that can be a good thing. Exactly. So, I like that idea of educating TikTok and being intentional.

Juanka: Yes. I say this because I have a lot of friends that they’re Christian and they don’t want anything to do with Instagram or Facebook or TikTok because of the type of content. I understand that is sometimes difficult. The content—you feel that it is like an attack, but as I mentioned before, you can decide. You have to do it, by the way, otherwise the system is going to throw at you whatever. And it is something that you have to do intentionally.

Cara: Yeah. I think about that too. When we think about mission, in general, but then online mission specifically, that’s preparation that we need to think about that’s maybe different. Yeah, that’s a really good word, Juanka.

Thank you for mentioning that; it’s something to think about. How do we prepare ourselves to engage missionally online? And maybe that’s part of our intentionality that we think about educating our algorithms. And so that really connects well to this next question that I have for you all.

What best practices have you found with online engagement? Or things that you’ve tried that haven’t worked out so well?

Yenny: [Spanish]

Diego: Yes, Cara, Yenny says that how best practice have been found opening again in spaces to meet personally and to which we invited new people to share the love of God: sermon invitations by Facebook and Instagram, Wednesday Bible started by some and youth meeting on Saturday. However, it’s over.

Juanka: So, let me explain. The sermons as I was saying before we always invite people on Facebook and Instagram, and that has been very, very successful. Once or twice a month, some brothers and sisters in Latin America, from Peru, from El Salvador, Honduras and also Barranquilla. They connect to our services online.

And so, we have a lot of people connected on Zoom, more than the people that are attending the church physically. And so that’s one of the best practices or on Sundays.

And also on Wednesdays, I think it’s a very strong habit of our members to meet on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. for a Bible study on Zoom. And those two have been the strongest.

And regarding the youth meetings and the couple meetings, all of those meetings that are regarding the ministries, we have been developing a plan to just make them face to face again. In the case of the young people, the youth they gotten bored and there was a point of what are we doing gathering on Saturday? Let’s go out and do something. Let’s play ping pong at the church or something different. And so that’s why it was over. And so, we’re working on different plans to just gather the youth.

And I know that, for example, in the Love Avenue, Diego and Yenny had been working in something that we call the Chocolatada just to drink chocolate with bread. And that has been very successful and we’re doing this once a month. And so, it has been very successful because we gather, we talk about the gospel. We talk about the mission, especially the Love Avenue mission, and that has been very successful. So, we are making a lot of plans with that. And yeah, so that’s one of the things that didn’t work, the youth meetings and some ministries that really need to gather face to face. Well, I don’t know—that has been our experience.

Cara: Yes. And I think that discernment and response and flexibility is so important that you displayed locally to say, this online engagement is not working long term for the young people. Maybe it only works for reminders about what’s happening, but for gatherings, they really want to be in-person.

I think in every church context that the discernment will be important, because how God is working in each context will need to be discerned. And that includes how God might be working through online engagement and these different platforms and in terms of those best practices.

Yeah. I love the making of the invitations has been really successful for you guys. If we’re spending all our time on the internet so frequently, that’s a helpful way in format to be reminding about what is happening in the life of the church or to be connecting with people, inviting people in to participate in that.

And monthly chocolate? Yeah! Amen.

Any other best practices or things that you’ve tried that haven’t worked out so well that you want to share?

Juanka: We noticed that some TikTok posts were over 500 views, and it was because TikTok has this highlighted song.

But we tend to look for something Christian. If you have a TikTok and you want to develop an audience, like a Christian audience or someone that wants to have a TikTok and wants to do a mission, you can use TikTok as very powerful.

Like today, TikTok is the best, the most powerful platform to reach out to young people and everybody. You can just study the guidelines. Then put a very good song that is relevant and is highlighted by TikTok and write a Bible verse or a short message about the Bible, or about a story about the Bible or about Jesus’ life. And it will be really relevant, and you don’t need to be famous or anything. It’s just the algorithm again.

Cara: Yeah. And I want to touch on what you say about using one of the songs that is highlighted instead of maybe just a very niche Christian song or something like that, because I think that’s an important part of mission.

And if we think of online engagement and use of social media platforms as part of our witness in the Love Avenue, part of that is speaking the language of the community, of the people, of connecting with people where they are.

And so, to use one of the songs that is trending on TikTok, to connect with people where they are, to let the TikTok trend more than if it was a song that nobody knows. Yeah. I think let’s be thoughtful about how we reach out to people, how we’re missional. Yes. That’s a really good point.

And so, I’m wondering what does—because it sounds like you’ve mentioned a lot of different ways that you’re using these online platforms and they actually connect with all three of the Avenues Faith, Hope, and Love—what does collaboration between the Avenues look like with your online engagement in Bogota?

Diego: There is collaboration between the champions and commitment. However, the use of technology is very personal since there are circumstances in which people, despite being connected online, are easily distracted by what is happening around them or executing other activities while listening to the internet, losing concentration, which does not allow readily and effect interpretation.

Fifty percent of the people who are attending services are connected by Zoom in each service. As Juanka mentioned it, sometimes [people] from Latin America, El Salvador, Honduras, Barranquilla, Peru are connected. So, it is important to continue giving the option of virtual connection since many find foot hold in the meetings.

Juanka: Yes, although I agree that can be very impersonal, right? Because this is a debate—a very huge debate because the families nowadays, they want to go to the park, for example, on Sundays; some of them, they work on Sundays. Church is still important for them, but because of this option, they just want to go and test it out maybe, or just do something else while listening to the sermon.

And this reminds me of a book by Gary Chapman by The Five Love Languages. And one quote that I remember is that when you are paying attention to someone, really 100%, you’re not playing with your cell phone. You’re not playing with your cat. You’re not doing anything else but paying attention to what the person is saying.

And this is one of the, I don’t know, possibly the downsides of the internet that you can be in a meeting, but you can also be reading a book or just watching a video on your cell phone while being a meeting or just cooking breakfast. Yeah. I’m not saying it is bad. I’m just saying that our brains do not multitask, and I’ve read a lot of articles about this. Our brain does only one task efficiently. And so, the dangers of always connected on Zoom is that possibly you’re not going to be 100% connected.

So, we do think that is better to be interacting face to face, however, with all this conversation about the media and about the internet, we do our effort and our stats regarding the sermons. The time of the sermon has decreased a little bit. With longer sermons, people seem to be turned off somehow. But maybe with a shorter message, more cut to the chase. Or you have to be like an incredible theologian, or something like that, for people to be like really connected with you.

It is a collaboration between the three Avenues that, as you said, because it requires, the Love Avenue, the Faith Avenue, and the Hope Avenue to be together in all the parts of the church and all the activities. But yeah, it is always a challenge.

And I think that is something that is going to be the new church. The new church has to be online and also face to face. It’s just a fact now.

Cara: And with that collaboration, I think what I’m hearing is happening in Bogota, is online you have the presence of that Faith, Hope, and Love Avenue elements of the ministry of a healthy church. And so, people are able to engage in a really holistic experience of the church, at least in some way, as they engage online.

And it’s not just because, like you said, it’s a hot topic right now in the church. Should we do online services? Should we do this? How much should we engage online? But I think with this collaboration what I find hopeful in what you’re sharing with having the hybrid worship services and the connect groups and the element of mission, is that it’s not just a consumerism with your online engagement.

It’s not just putting out material for people to just take and watch but you’re engaging online in a way where people can more participate and actually build that community. And being thoughtful about what are ways that even though maybe it can be tempting to be a little bit more impersonal online. How do we make it as personal as possible? How do we bring that intentionality to community like Yenny was saying earlier? It’s to intentionally bring together that sense of community.

And so, I think that collaboration can be really important. Because like you said, I think this is just where we are. The church is moving forward—it just might be in person and online. And so how do we be the church online and really the church as God would be leading us to be.

And so that connects with one of these last questions that I have for you all. How do you distinguish in practice between online presence just as simply a social media and online presence as really mission and ministry? The difference just between, oh, we just have a Facebook page or online presence as no, we’re being the church together.

Diego: Okay. The online presence as a means of social communications, allow us to establish in that quick and digital communication with [unintelligible] but impersonal. The online presence as a mission, is a ministry allows to us to train ourselves to later plan and organize what we intend to carry out.

However, the need for people to have face-to-face interaction when executing what is a plan that is of service, some people have asked for prayer and counseling online where it can sometimes be a very private moment where typical and complex issues are discusses, but technology gives to this option and we believe that it’s important to continue giving the virtual option always.

Juanka: Yes. So, we have been in contact with some people that are not actually members of our church, but they want prayers for their sons or they’re in a difficult situation. And they ask for advice for counseling. And yeah, although most of the times it is not like a very personal and very private conversation, it can actually develop into that. If the person is looking for advice or counseling or just to have a conversation.

And so, our greatest source of those conversations—that can be very private, and God send people for us to pray for them and to counsel—is the website in which a lot of people write to us asking for help and for prayers.

And also on Zoom, we have some very personal time, especially with praying ministry, which is always praying for all the things that hurt, all the people that are sick. And so, I will say that it’s never like in face to face but you can reach a level of privacy and just to reach out to those that are hurting and just try to help in the best possible way using the technology.

This is the online presence we are talking about. An online presence. People know that you’re there; people know that you usually respond and that’s the mission right now, also of the church. Because all those people, they’re not going to look (sometimes) for face-to-face interaction. They’re just want to reach out to someone, to hear a voice that is not a robot that understands, that hears their hurt. And so that’s also the mission of the church nowadays.

Cara: Yeah. And that idea of just being present and responsive. And I think that the idea too, is the internet is just a tool. And so, as the church, how do we use it? Are we using it just to be trendy, and just say, oh, look at us; we have social media, we can be flashy and have all the new and improved things?

Are we using it to participate in the ministry of Jesus to be the church, like you said, to show up in a Christlike presence or kind of way? How are we using this tool that is available to us in our day and age?

Juanka: And Cara, I just want to mention something. On TikTok, I saw once a pastor, she was praying for people, and then this group of pranksters, man, they came into the conversation, and they started asking prayers for Goku, for Peter Parker, for a bunch of people that are just the movie characters.

Yes. And she didn’t know, oh no, my God. And so, she started praying for Peter Parker for all of these characters of the Marvel universe and stuff. And so, people made a funny joke about all of this.

And so also to say that you have to be very careful because, maybe you can gather up in a face-to-face conversation at church. And that’s going to be like a private space, but whatever you do on the internet is going to be always open to the public. And we have to be wise. This is just that. You have to be wise. We have to be prepared for people sometimes to be bullies or something like that.

And so, this pastor had a good intention in doing that, but it actually created a lot of memes and a lot of, she’s a joke and stuff like that. So, we also have to be very careful with internet and also YouTube. There’s a lot of people that—I don’t know if they have a lot of free time, but they just navigate internet looking “oh, I can damage this or I can do some damage to this meeting; let’s do it.” I don’t know why but be wise.

Cara: Yeah, that’s a really important word that you shared, Juanka, to be wise in our online presence and engagement because it is a new kind of tool, and a new kind of space for the church to engage. And so, we have to become familiar with it and to understand it and to understand maybe some of the ways that it’s different than the in-person spaces that we gather.

And like you said, two great examples right there: Security measures are different online than in person. And so, what does that mean for us to be thoughtful about that? As thoughtful about that as we are with maybe our in-person gatherings. And then also: mistakes that we make online live forever, but mistakes that happen in person they’re just done when they’re done. And yeah, this is a new thing.

And so how do we understand it as we operate through wisdom and discernment is a really good word because we don’t want to be reckless with the tools that are available to us. And along those lines, what final words do you have to share with our listeners maybe as they think about how they may be engaging online in their local church context?

Diego: Okay, Cara. So, in the Avenue of Love, we are directly witness of what the Lord our God has done in our lives and of what we have experienced living in Christ, which makes us feel that desire to share about Jesus with others, with our people, driven by the love of Christ.

Several people have asked for help through the network. And we have discussed private things with them since virtuality gives a sense of security and easily excuse any kind of issues.

We are more a virtual church than a face-to-face church in this time. And God has allowed the use of network for this work; this is why we have developed the website; we have the Facebook and Instagram for the news and invitations. We have the TikTok to reach young people today.

The church is reaching more by virtuality than by face to face. That was the results of the pandemic. The [unintelligible] that is a great helper to the pastor, this help to the pastor is always sent by email and can be found on the [web] page of the church. And that is basically a where virtual or face to face will be continued together, hand in hand with our Father, reaching people and talking about the gospel.

Juanka: And I would like to compliment all of these words with the idea of your identity in Christ, who are you and what are you doing on the internet? Because you can be one person like superficially with others and you can have your job and normal life.

But you are also the person that goes into the internet and whatever you do, God is there. And he’s the only one that knows your heart. And so, thing is that the internet has this idea or this kind of like image that you can do whatever you want, because nobody’s watching you.

But it’s the opposite. A lot of people can actually know or, all the registering, the IP addresses that you visit. And so, the final question is who are you? And what do you want to do with all this information that you have available?

And obviously just now going to the Avenues, regarding the church is: what is our mission in Christ’s plan? Using the technology and the internet for just spreading the gospel and counseling others, and just speaking the truth and not maybe with an aggressive tone, but maybe with a conciliatory one with humbleness and just not creating fights but maybe just make people ponder about the ways and the beliefs.

So, it is very hard. It is a very important mission. And not everybody, I think is prepared to do that, but nobody’s perfect. But God, is on our side, he’s going to help us. The Holy Spirit is going to guide us. And hopefully, we’ll do a good job in our social media.

Cara: Yeah. And Diego, Juanka, in what you both said, what I heard is let God be glorified in this technology. Let him be glorified in the way that it’s used in the way we move through the world with it. Diego said, that’s why we have it! Let him be glorified.

Thank you so much for sharing that with us and my prayer is that we would wrestle through these challenging questions, the way that you have been together, locally in Bogota, as we figure out how do we glorify God through our use of technology and online presence and social media and all of these things that are part of what it means to be the church in this time, in this age.

And so, I thank you all so much for sharing with us today. A little bit about what God is doing in your midst. It’s been a great encouragement. So, before you go, I have a little bit of fun for you. I just got a few fun questions that any, or all of you can answer. And I’d love to see just, the first thought that comes to mind.

So, the first question, if y’all are ready, is what is your favorite movie genre to watch?

Yenny: [Spanish]

Juanka: Yenny likes Lifetime movies.

Diego: [Spanish]

Juanka: Okay. So, Diego likes more historical movies. He thinks that one of the best movies, historically speaking, is Schindler’s List.

Cara: Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Juanka: And myself. Yes. I love all of those movies Star Wars and all of that genre of movies. That is like crazy.

Cara: I agree. I agree. All right. Next question. When you are alone in the car, what volume is your music at?

Yenny: [Spanish]

Juanka: So that depends when we are traveling, we have a high volume, music out loud and having a fun time. But during the time in the city, working and stuff like that is, is moderate.

And I couldn’t respond, answer that question because I don’t have a car.

Cara: Fair enough. Fair enough. But when you’re just listening to music, are you bumping it loud or is it nice and calm?

Juanka: No, to be honest I am the opposite of a neighbor that we have. The neighbor likes to put like a really out loud music. And I don’t like that. I don’t like that. Whenever I play some music, it is really, not that noisy. It’s just to appreciate. Okay.

Cara: Okay. so not like a club, just all for yourself. Fair enough. Fair enough. And then last question. What is the best piece of advice that you’ve ever been given?

Diego: [Spanish]

Juanka: Okay. So, Diego’s perspective. Oh, Diego’s best advice is that it was a result of the pandemic situation and is to wait on God, just wait.

Yenny: [Spanish]

Juanka: To wait with patience and to trust God, which is, basically to wait on God, because she was explaining that they tried everything in vitro virtualization and didn’t work medically. It was not possible for them to have a child. And so, they were reaching out to several things, possibilities, but nothing worked.

And they pray to God, and they were in the adoption process, and everything was good and one month or two months before that suddenly, God answered their prayers, and they were pregnant and it was an incredible miracle. She first thought that she was sick.

And so, she was so sick that she went to the doctor to see what was up and turns out that she was pregnant. And there was a lot of crying, but some of thankful. It’s just, they’re just saying this: Wait on God.

Cara: Yeah. Amen. Thank you.

Diego and Yenny for sharing that’s a good piece of advice. And Juanka, what about you? The best piece of advice you’ve ever been given.

Juanka: Oh my God. I don’t know. That really depends on the context and because there are many things in life and so there are many good advice, right?  Currently I will say that the best advice that I read on the internet is “happy wife, happy life.” Yeah, but you know what that is? That is not as important as Yenny and Diego’s quote, which is wait on God. I think that’s the killer today.

Cara: Yes. Absolutely. yeah. I am so thankful for all three of you for taking the time to join us today on the podcast and for sharing your words of wisdom and advice, and that outgoing piece of advice: wait on God.

So, thank you for sharing your insights with us today. It is our practice with GC Podcast to end the show with prayer. And Yenny, would you be willing to pray for us to close out this episode of GC Podcast?

Yenny: [Spanish]

[English translation] You are a missionary God, and you have called us so that we can go and make disciples in all nations. You are the God of love that changed and transformed our lives because of your love. You encourage us to share the gospel with others; let our hearts be full with a desire to bring disciples to you. Allow us to share with others what we have lived and experienced with you.

You are a faithful God; your promise is that you will always be with us and that you will never forsake us. And that’s our consolation and our strength, because if we hold your hand, we will be safe. We thank you, Holy father. And we ask you to give us strength so that in our mission regarding the Love Avenue, we are able to carry out your missionary purpose of taking your word to others and serving others. Amen.


Cara: I really appreciated Juanka’s comment that the purpose of online engagement is the same as that of in person church. And it actually makes me think about what you said. It has to be an extension of what’s happening in real life, too. What’s happening in the online world or in the physical world.

And so, I think that is part of how we can continue to discern and distinguish between online presence, just as fun social media or something like that. And then online presence as mission and ministry. And so, keeping in mind how our online engagement lives out the purpose of the church and expresses healthy church really stood out to me in what they had to share.

What stood out to you, Jamie?

Jamie: To me actually, Juanka’s comment also resonated with me, Cara, same with yours. But apart from that, I love his explanation about the platform roles. He explained about Zoom, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. I wasn’t expecting to hear him talk about TikTok. I’m amazed learning their intentions to engage the young people through whatever platform that will resonate with them. So, I loved that part.

Cara: Yes, absolutely. I liked that too. Church TikTok’s for the win. Yes. Oh, thank you so much for joining us today, Jamie, and sharing your reflections with us.

Before you go, could you tell us a little bit more about the GCI curriculum “On Being In and With the Word”?

Jamie: Sure. “On Being In and With the Word” is a seven-week series that focuses on the Bible and a method of studying scripture. It is the last curriculum to be released for the On Being series. All the curricula in the series can be found here on our website at resources.gci.org/on-being

Cara: Thank you so much, Jamie. Folks, we really appreciate you listening to the GC Podcast.

And if you like what you heard, go on ahead and give us a rating wherever you listen to this podcast. It helps us get out the word and for others to join in on the conversation. And until next time, keep on living and share in the gospel.

We want to thank you for listening to this episode of the GC Podcast.  We hope you have found value in it to become a healthier leader. We would love to hear from you. If you have a suggestion on a topic, or if there is someone who you think we should interview, email us at info@gci.org. Remember, healthy churches start with healthy leaders; invest in yourself and your leaders.

 

Gospel Reverb – Humble Hospitality w/ Chris Breslin

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Listen in as host, Anthony Mullins talks to Reverend Chris Breslin about this month’s lectionary passages. Chris is the Pastor of Oak Church in Durham, North Carolina, US. He’s also involved in field education and precepting with Duke Divinity, he sits on the Board for Housing for New Hope and has an upcoming podcast project in partnership with Christianity Today featuring Bob Crawford & Liz Vice. He also coaches little league baseball.

August 7 – Proper 14
Luke 12:32-40 “Fear Not, Little Flock”
11:39

August 14 – Proper 15
Luke 12:39-56 “Be Ready”
23:26

August 21 – Proper 16
Luke 13:10-17 “Missing the Point”
37:57

August 28 – Proper 17
Luke 14:1, 7-14 “Humble Hospitality”
55:56

Resources:

 

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Program Transcript


Welcome to the Gospel Reverb podcast. Gospel Reverb is an audio gathering for preachers, teachers, and Bible thrill seekers. Each month, our host, Anthony Mullins, will interview a new guest to gain insights and preaching nuggets mined from select passages of scripture, and that month’s Revised Common Lectionary.

The podcast’s passion is to proclaim and boast in Jesus Christ, the one who reveals the heart of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And now onto the episode.


Anthony: Hello, friends and welcome to the latest episode of Gospel Reverb. Gospel Reverb is a podcast devoted to bringing you insights from Scripture found in the Revised Common Lectionary and sharing commentary from a Christ-centered and Trinitarian view.

I’m your host Anthony Mullins, and it’s my joy and delight to welcome this month’s guest, Pastor Chris Breslin. Chris is the pastor of Oak Church in Durham, North Carolina, which is just a few blocks from my house. And we were introduced to each other through mutual friends, Jeff and Susan McSwain.

Chris is somebody who’s very involved in the neighborhood. He’s involved in field education and precepting for Duke Divinity. He sits on the Board of Housing for New Hope and has an upcoming podcast project in partnership with Christianity Today, which features Bob Crawford and Liz vice. He’s also a little league baseball coach and they have a big game tonight for first place. And on top of that, this brings up the question of Chris’s discernment. He’s a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan, but there’s grace for that too.

Chris, welcome to the podcast. And for those in our listening audience, who may not know you, your family, your work, we’d love to know your story. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Chris: Oh, it’s so good to be with you and to be part of this ministry and to be connected initially through the McSwains and now through Oak Church. So, thanks for having me.

Let’s see. I don’t think you can really know me apart from my people. I am married to Rachel, and I am the dad of four awesome kids: Noah, Titus, Emmitt, and Simeon.

And so that is what a lot of my time and attention is taken up with. And also ministering among neighbors here in the Lakewood neighborhood of Durham, North Carolina. By the time this podcast gets out, I think I’ll be a couple months deep in a sabbatical that I’m right now, just a couple days away from.

If my brain is a little scattered, it’s because I’m doing all of the you know, setting the thermostat and passing off the duties to be away for a little while. But I’m really excited about that time.

Anthony: We’re excited for you. I had a chance to listen to Rachel talk about the gift of sabbatical from the church to your family and how beautiful that is. I, for one, am in prayer for you, that it would be a time of rich renewal for you and your family.

Before we dive into the four Bible passages for this month, I want to ask you a stacked question. This is my way of trying to shoehorn a lot into one question. Chris, what music are you enjoying these days?

What book are you reading or maybe what book has had the greatest impact on you recently? And then, what drew you into planting a new church? Oak church was a church plant. I think it’s been in existence for about seven years now. What prompted that?

Chris: Oh, that is a stacked question. And I love every part of that question independently, and I love it all together.

Oh man, music. Currently I’m listening a lot to a new album by Arcade Fire. It’s really great. They have an album called “We”, and I’ve been a fan of that band for a long time. And if you don’t know them, Google and search for their recent SNL performance, and they did their song, “Unconditional.” They have those crazy — at car dealerships, the guys that kind of blow all over the place and are jellyfish as part of their SNL show. It’s the coolest lo-fi stage setup I’ve ever seen. So, I’m really enjoying that.

I’m really enjoying a record by the Branchettes, which is this gospel group out of Long Branch, North Carolina in Johnson County. And some Durham friends actually went out and were their house band and recorded an album called “Stay Prayed Up” and made a documentary that is just premiering this month. And it’s like old school, North Carolina gospel music, “Stay Prayed Up” by the Branchettes. That’s where I’m at right now. It’s awesome.

I could go on and on. A friend from Charlottesville, Paul Zach, came out with an album called “Sorrow’s Got a Hold on Me.” I think he self-describes it as sad church songs, which is a great genre of music. So that’s what I’m listening to.

And then I just finished a couple days ago, just a whole of 2022 deep-dive into this series of books by Andy Root. I don’t know if you know Andy. He is a professor in St. Paul, Minnesota. I think he’s at Luther Seminary and has done a lot with youth ministry and Bonhoeffer. But in this year, I’ve read through all four of his Ministry in a Secular Age books, just consecutively back-to-back. And he’s dealing a lot with Charles Taylor and his secular age thesis and what it means for ministry, for faith formation and pastors and congregations.

And the most recent one was Churches in the Crisis of Decline. And he does a lot of stuff with Barth’s biography and his work. And it’s wonderful and inspiring, and I’m not sure I’ve—especially the last book, the orange book—I’m not sure I’ve really read someone doing theology in a narrative way that he’s doing it. It’s really exciting and dense and challenging.

Anthony: Andy was interviewed by Grace Communion International for “You’re Included” video podcast, insights on theology. And he dives into Bonhoeffer and Barth quite a bit. And I took a master levels course called Trinitarian Youth Ministry and revisiting relational youth ministry was a sweet spot for him. I haven’t read his latest work, which you’re referring to, but I cannot wait. He’s a fabulous theologian.

Chris: Yeah, I’ve been talking about it nonstop to anyone that’ll listen and some that won’t.

So about seven and a half years ago, we started a church and that was a vocation that I hadn’t really anticipated. I grew up Roman Catholic, so starting churches isn’t really something you do. But I think the rootedness and the located-ness of the Catholic parish has really played a big part in my imagination for how to do church in this place, over a long period of time with a wide array of people.

And that was part of the imagination and part of the calling. And we’ve really been motivated by scripture from Isaiah 61. That’s where we get our name Oak Church—oaks of righteousness for the display of God’s beauty. And we were doing some of the things that you do when you start an institution, try to hammer out mission and vision statements and all that.

And those things felt too small. If you’ve seen Jaws, it’s like as they say, “we’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Like that. That’s how it felt. And so, we stumbled across that scripture, and it really gave us a vision. And of course, it was also Jesus’ inaugural sermon vision of good news to the poor and binding up the brokenhearted, et cetera.

And that has been such a lively imagination for us to embrace in this place. Lakewood is really diverse neighborhood of Durham. Really, Durham is in general, but by starting in one neighborhood in one place, I think it’s given us an imagination for what ministry could be like.

And it’s really helped us focus on learning how to become neighbors and doing that, over a period of time where you’re encountering things like massive change and new people coming to our area and gentrification and violence. Especially all of the things of the last five years with politics and COVID and all of these things, we have plenty of work to do just in the little corner of Durham that we’re tucked into, so we don’t need to spread out too much. And we’ve also been given exactly what we need for this work, by God in this place. And that’s people resources, that’s financial resources, that’s emotional and spiritual resources.

So that’s the work that we’ve been doing that we hope to be doing for a long time.

Anthony: I’m grateful for what the Spirit has led you to. And as you talk about place, Chris, I hear echoes of Eugene Peterson and Wendell Berry, just the sacredness of the place where God has called you, that dirt matters. And the people that occupy that space matter. So good on you, man!

It’s time. Let’s get onto the four passages we’re going to unpack together:

Luke 12:32-40        “Fear Not, Little Flock”                  Proper 14 (August 7)

Luke 12:39-56         “Be Ready”                                       Proper 15 (August 14)

Luke 13:10-17         “Missing the Point”                        Proper 16 (August 21)

Luke 14:1, 7-14       “Humble Hospitality”                     Proper 17 (August 28)

Let me read the first pericope, chapter 12:32 – 40. This month, we’re going to focus on the New Living Translation. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 14, August 7.

“So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom. 33 “Sell your possessions and give to those in need. This will store up treasure for you in heaven! And the purses of heaven never get old or develop holes. Your treasure will be safe; no thief can steal it and no moth can destroy it. 34 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. 35 “Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast. Then you will be ready to open the door and let him in the moment he arrives and knocks. 37 The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded. I tell you the truth, he himself will seat them, put on an apron, and serve them as they sit and eat! 38 He may come in the middle of the night or just before dawn. But whenever he comes, he will reward the servants who are ready. “Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would not permit his house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.”

Verse 32, Chris, says it gives your Father great happiness to give us the kingdom. So how are you, how can we experience this inaugurated kingdom, which is so joy provoking for the Father to give to us.

Chris: I think first and foremost, that is the origin and destination. That is the baseline of reality, is God’s delight. That God fundamentally desires to give us the kingdom and that it gives God great happiness or delight. I think we forget that all too often, that is the most real thing there is. And that is where our joy can come from, that we don’t need to muster it or that we don’t have to have the right techniques to mine it.

It’s just right there. That’s who, and that’s how God is. It really makes a difference. And we alluded to it earlier. My ministry is in the neighborhood. And starting with that baseline, I think makes you a different sort of neighbor makes you a different sort of minister.

For one, this is a long game that we’re engaged in. And so if I’m not starting and ending with God’s joy, if I’m starting with some sort of displeasure or an idea that things can be better or must be better rather than just the delight in (you mentioned Eugene Peterson) in the “is-ness” of the place and of the people, that I think that’s where burnout comes and that’s where, kinds of ministry that wind up being violent or being depersonalized happen.

And so, I think starting and ending with joy that originates in God is important. Like again, I’ve been immersed in Barth for the last couple weeks in that book. And like Barth is a joy theologian. He says, actually a theologian that labors, without joy, isn’t even a theologian at all.

Yeah. I think just recognizing and reorienting to God’s joy makes all the difference. Yeah.

Anthony: I don’t know if it was Bart, but I remember somebody writing joy is the serious business of heaven. Yeah, that’s right. And it’s the serious business of earth, is it not? The thing is, it’s like you said, this is who God is out of the overflow of Father, Son, and Spirit. Joy is not something we create. It’s his idea, and it’s good.

Chris: And it’s not even like the byproduct, it is the raw ingredient. It’s on both sides of the equation. I think if we only make it into the byproduct, we start to feel really uneasy or upset when things don’t seem joyful, or we feel pressure to make it that way.

Anthony: Yeah. Let me ask you a personal question, Chris, have you sold all your possessions? Are you taking the Bible literally? I just want to give you a chance to riff on this. It’s easy just to go ahead and say, “Jesus didn’t mean that, so there’s nothing really to say,” but that’s not true.

So, give us a Christological, gospel-shaped orthodoxy as it comes to this passage.

Chris: Yeah. My congregation gives me a hard time because I often use the Common English Bible translation and that shares my initials. And they’re like, is this is what he’s saying or is this the serious work of Bible translators?

But the CEB talks about wallets that don’t wear out. And I kind of like that turn of phrase. I don’t know. I think it’s interesting that the kind of hoarding impulse and fearfulness and attachment are connected to joy, that sit in contrast to God’s joy. That generosity and open-handedness are connected to joy. It’s almost as if closing down or holding tight has become our natural state.

And really, I think this is trying to say that is an unnatural state for us to be in.

Anthony: Yeah, that’s well said. Generosity begets generosity. And it’s originally, God’s generous generosity toward us. He’s the generous one. And so, it only makes sense as human beings that this is what life should look like.

And I love what you said that it actually is the work of joy. We know it’s better to give than to receive, but in God’s good economy, we get both. We have received so much. Yeah. Why wouldn’t we share?

Chris: Yeah. There’s great irony that among Western Christians, we’ve fallen into the trap of making Christmas the main time that we give and receive gifts and so it’s really fun. (And we participate in that, and we do some version of Santa and St. Nick and all this stuff.)

But that should be so normal for us, that world of giving and receiving that Christmas is just like one of many days of that feeling and that joy of giving something to someone and the thoughtfulness that went into that and the resources that went into that.

And what would it look like? And I think this parable is challenging us. What would our lives look like if we reorganize them to be pass-through lives, lives where things pass through from God to the world?

Anthony: Speaking of that, what (and this may feel like a loaded question because it can take so much shape,) but what does it look like to be ready for the Son of Man’s appearance? Does all of this work together, based on what we’ve already said, or is there something more to it, Chris?

Chris: When you say, the Son of Man’s appearance, it has such baggage for so many people. So, it takes a lot of imaginative juice to reform a question like that, to do some positive work.

We get a lot of folks at the church that come from evangelical or fundamentalist backgrounds that have heard that question that you just asked, (what does it look like to be ready for the Son of Man to appear?) that gets mobilized towards the decision? It gets weaponized.

And so yeah, to try to re-ask that question in a way that is expectant and prepared and open to God showing up. The Message paraphrase says, “Keep your shirts on and keep the lights on.”

Anthony: We’re like Motel 6. We’ll keep the light on for you when you show up, Jesus.

Chris: Yeah, that’s right. The passage has two images: a wedding and a thief. It’s so fascinating to use a really (maybe) stressful, but generally positive thing, like a wedding, and learning to prepare well, to do all of the inviting and the gathering for a celebratory event, but also to prepare well to be secure to greet God’s arrival as a thief in the night.

And I don’t know, in there’s some difference between alert and alarm. I think we can only survive in a state of alarm for so long. That this passage, and Jesus in it, are calling us to just a state of being alert, a state of being ready and open and expectant both for the good and the bad of what it might mean for God to arrive in our lives, for the ways that we have them currently arranged.

Anthony: Yeah, I appreciate the way you said it, the expectancy or anticipation of his appearance. It’s like when a dear friend or loved one comes to your home. You’re excited. And you prepare for them. You want to care well.

And I think part of your good work in ministry, Chris, I think what we’re trying to accomplish denominationally through a Trinitarian perspective is to invert the way we’ve thought about these passages. [Not] “we’ve got to be afraid,” when we can just rest in his assurance and be about his business as we go. And all will be well, and all will be well, and all manners of things will be well.

Let’s move on to our next passage, which is Luke 12:39 – 56. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 15 in Ordinary Time, which is August the 14th.

Chris, would you read that for us, please?

Chris: Sure.

“But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 40 You too, be ready; because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not think He will.” 41 Peter said, “Lord, are You telling this parable to us, or to everyone else as well?” 42 And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. 44 Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45 But if that slave says in his heart, ‘My master will take a long time to come,’ and he begins to beat the other slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; 46 then the master of that slave will come on a day that he does not expect, and at an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in two, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. 47 And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accordance with his will, will receive many blows, 48 but the one who did not know it, and committed acts deserving of a beating, will receive only a few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more. 49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! 51 Do you think that I came to provide peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; 52 for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, Father against Son and Son against Father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” 54 And He was also saying to the crowds, “Whenever you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. 55 And whenever you feel a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way56 You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but how is it that you do not know how to analyze this present time?

Anthony: Wow, that’s a mouthful. A big pericope, and what is going on, Chris? Jesus just told us not to be afraid. And yet we’re reading about unfaithful servants being cut into pieces, banished, and punished severely. Whereas faithful servants will be rewarded. It’s easy in our fallen imaginations to go to this place of, “Oh man, am I out? Am I getting beaten or not?”

What’s really going on here?

Chris: First, I love Peter’s question. And I think it’s notable that he says he calls Jesus Lord because every time in Luke’s Gospel, Lord is an identity for Jesus that kind of shifts and changes in terms of their understanding of what that actually entails.

But Peter asked Jesus is this parable for us or for everyone. And Jesus is like a method actor here and stays in character. I always think of Daniel Day Lewis, when I think about method actor and answers him like, (and I’ll spare y’all the “there will be blood” voice), but he says that you must be wise, faithful, and that you must serve food, which is, really fascinating. Robert Farrar Capon, who is one of my favorite commentators, especially for the parables, because he makes sense of these really kooky parables and sometimes violent and disturbing ones. He applies those three things to the preacher saying that in addition to becoming faithful people, like people cultivating faith and fidelity, and in addition to also not just acquiring info, but wisdom, he says Jesus expects preachers in their congregations to be nothing more than faithful household cooks. He says, not gourmet chefs, not banquet managers, not caterers to thousands, just he says, gospel pot rattlers, who can turn out a decent nourishing meal once a week, not even a whole meal, perhaps only the right food at the right time.

So, if you come on this passage, you’ve been working through Luke and you can’t skip to the other lectionary passage, just be a gospel pot rattler, and turn out a decent nourishing meal.

Anthon: Capon’s the best.

Chris: Yeah. Oh, he is the best. Yeah, to answer your question though, man, I think when whenever I feel disturbed or stuck, I try not to move through that too fast because that might actually be part of the point.

I think parables are meant for play. And I think that also means that they should be interpreted with more than one person present. So, what do you think, Anthony?

No, I’m just kidding. No, but so especially passages like this and in these parables if you’re just sitting in your study just churning over and over, it’s like bouncing a ball off of a wall instead of like the kind of sparks that happen when you’re interpreting with others and coming at it from a different angle or even experiencing different triggers and problems or seeing different images as operative.

And I think that’s a helpful hermeneutic tool is reading with others. We do this a lot. We have midweek morning prayer on the front steps, and we chew over these passages and it’s amazing the sort of group insight you get to a passage like this.

I think here though, I think Jesus is channeling Flannery, O’Connor telling serious and grotesque stories to wake us up and remind us of the weight of things. It takes different things to wake different people up. I have four kids and my eight-year-old is awake at 5:50 asking to watch baseball highlights. And my six-year-old needs me to turn on the lights and rip her sheet off and maybe even pour cold water on her to get up.

So, it takes different things. So that’s not to say Jesus doesn’t mean it or that we can just dismiss it as hot rhetoric, but Jesus is saying serious stuff in a serious way and in doing so I think he’s probably channeling the prophets. the prophets aren’t just like purely future fortune tellers; they’re not like crystal ball-type people telling determined features, but they are like truth telling go-betweens. They are calling people back to God and making plain consequences for actions that may happen. And so, like in a prophetic imagination there’s almost always time to change. The best prophets really hope they’re wrong.

And so, I wonder too, if that’s maybe a little bit of what’s going on here, that Jesus is putting it in stark terms. So, they have time to recalibrate and repent and return, like his goal is not necessarily to scare them but to bother them. So, I think you can be bothered inside of “be not afraid.” Yeah.

Anthony: I appreciated what you said about the community coming together around scripture to read it and how enriching that is, because that’s how it was done. It was read in community. And so, there’s that safeguard. And also, I think Jesus himself on the road to Emmaus said to the brothers, that what you’re talking about, that’s about me.

When we come to a passage like this, at least I have found it helpful, when I don’t always understand is, “Okay Spirit, remind me who God is, who is the Father? Who is the Son?” And we’re included, humanity is included in that Father-Son relationship in the Spirit.

And so, he’s not opposed to us, but just like a good parent, like you would do with your own kids, you’ll warn them if they’re about to do something that’s going to cause harm to themselves or others. You’re going to shout out. And then that may feel pretty rough when it comes. But we know his heart because it’s been revealed in Jesus Christ.

And so, this will feel like a silly question after just stating that, but my question is this is: is Jesus the great divider? He’s the Prince of Peace, full embodiment of peace, but daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. What’s going on here?

Chris: Again, I think this is Jesus with this prophetic voice and office. And I think of the prophet Jeremiah saying, decrying the people that cry, “Peace, peace, where there is no peace” so maybe Jesus’ identity in this instance is the Prince of, not the Prince of Peace, where there is no peace.

I don’t have a great answer here, but I know my own impulses. I’m a 9 in the Enneagram, which I guess is like a very sympathetic person. And so, I have these impulses towards peacemaking and non-confrontation, and even those things can get weaponized. And yeah, I think trust Jesus when he is dividing or setting people on different sides of the room to look at this from different directions.

I also, again I think it’s really important to hear echoes from other parts of scripture. I think he’s definitely using language—I’m pretty convinced he’s using language from Micah 7: that says, “The day that God visits you has come. The day your watchman sounds the alarm, now is the time of your confusion.” And then further down in that chapter, he says, “A son dishonors his Father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.”

And so, he’s talking to and about a divided group in his midst, and I’m not even necessarily sure he’s the one doing the dividing. He’s just revealing the divisions that are already there.

Anthony: Nobody wants to be called a fool, especially by Mr. T or Jesus, in this case.

Chris: And yeah, I think again, it’s always important that Jesus is our rubric here for someone who—even though in this passage, he is dividing—in his very body he’s putting the world back together.

He’s making it whole. And in doing so, he’s repelled. Not a few people—he disappoints a lot of people. He meets opposition. Ultimately, they kill Jesus. This is a reminder that every time we gather around the table and share in communion—which is a whole-making meal that remembers us, that puts us back together and draws us into God’s shalom—it has come through the taking, blessing, breaking, and gift of Jesus’ body that was broken apart and puts us back together, every time where we’re gathered around him.

So, we should, in some ways, have a level of understanding and comfort whenever there is this breaking apart because Jesus has shown us how a breaking apart is involved in a putting back together in a rending for a mending.

Anthony: A rending for a mending; that’s well said. And I love the way that you said the communion table, the Lord’s table, it’s a re-membering of all of us together. And I’ve heard it said a recognition, a re-cognition, a reminding of who he is and who we are in him. It’s a, oh, what a beautiful thing.

Let’s move on to our next passage, which is Luke 13:10 – 17. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 16 in Ordinary Time, which is August 21.

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And there was a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a Spirit; and she was bent over double, and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your sickness.” 13 And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she stood up straight again, and began glorifying God. 14 But the synagogue leader, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, “There are six days during which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” 15 But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites, does each of you on the Sabbath not untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it away to water it16 And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this restraint on the Sabbath day?” 17 And as He said this, all His opponents were being humiliated; and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Him.

In his effort to be right, lawfully, it seems—it doesn’t just seem—the synagogue leader is getting it all wrong, Chris.

So, my question for you is this, is there something for us to think about? Any parallels to maybe how believers are acting today? How might we, in an effort to be right, be getting it wrong?

Chris: This is only an hour-long podcast.

Anthony: Loaded question, sir.

Chris: Reading this, I thought about a poem by a Jewish poet. Yehuda Amichai wrote a poem called, “The Place Where We Are Right.” He says, “From the place where we are right, flowers will never grow in the spring. The place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard. But doubts and loves dig up the world like a mole, a plow. And a whisper will be heard in the place where the ruined house once stood.”

And so, I just love that poem, and I love that poem how it sparks off of this passage, because in your question you ask how they are trying to be right.

And in some ways, that’s really commendable to try to be right. I think Pharisees, synagogue leaders, the people who often directly encounter and serve as foils to Jesus, I think most church people have way more in common with them than Jesus in our impulses and practices.

So first off, maybe that’s one thing we should get used to being in that role of the story and being encountered by Jesus in a way that reminds us that we’re not just not always right, but often not right.

But I love that poem because it reminds us that where we are right, where we circle the wagons, where we just stay in one place, we trample the ground so much that nothing can ever grow—no flowers in the spring. That is hard and trampled like a yard instead of churned up and verdant like a garden.

I think that this is our camel / needle for American Christians—to be that sort of people, that it’s really hard for us to be, not just right, but righteous, to be just, to be true.

Whenever I read to be right, I think of the etymology of righteousness in the Bible, dikaiosunē in the Greek. I think to get a fuller picture, or a more rounded version of what that means, it’s not just like some sort of static rightness, but it is this really dynamic deliverance.

When God is righteous, it is fundamentally liberative. This is Paul’s, “You are now free to be free.” Like, you are free for freedom. You are righteous for the sake of something. And so, in this passage, they have good concerns about being righteous and being right about the Sabbath. Sabbath is so important. Ceasing to be with God is really important. It’s one of the things that constitutes a whole people.

But in their ceasing, they’ve lost an imagination for how that they can still take up and embrace. They can cease and embrace all in the same space and at the same time. Their righteousness and our righteousness have to be more concerned and bound up with God’s liberative work than our rightness. We need to find freedom in that.

Anthony: Yeah, I’ve heard you use the word imagination three or four times. And in thinking about this pericope and sacred prophetic imagination, I think one of the things that stunts our imagination is dualism, where it’s just either/or. It’s this or that. And you see it all over American society right now.

You’re either on this side or that side, and it doesn’t give us the space to humbly learn and to move more rightly into liberation by the Spirit. I just think in asking that question, how we may we be right, but all wrong—boy, you’re right! We could spend days talking through that, don’t you think?

Chris: Yeah. And to go back to the poem and he says, “But doubts and loves, dig up the world, like a mole, a plow.” The doubts and loves.

So, something that finds us that we don’t necessarily welcome, like doubt, and something so basic to us, like our loves or desires, the way that we are oriented to the world, dig up the world, like a mole, or like a plow, like a pest, or like something that we set our hands to and intend.

And the way out of this sort of hardness of heart, (I think of like Pharaoh or name your local politician, right?) that an antidote to that is, doubts and loves that dig up the world, like a mole, a plow.

Anthony: So, this woman that has been identified had been living with an infliction for 18 years, and Jesus spoke words of life.

He was the embodiment of life. He touched her with a healing embrace that ultimately would change her life. I’m curious, in what ways can we actively participate in that healing ministry of Jesus by the Spirit?

Chris: I mentioned how, when we started the church, how we embraced and were named by the Isaiah’s 61 text, and to put some handles and watch words around that, we came up with [and] we extracted: hope, healing, and hospitality in Christ. And those seemed to sum up some of the prophetic vision of Isaiah and in the words of Jesus.

And I think the middle one—healing—was the most kind of uncanny thing for us to try to get our heads around, because what do you mean you are a healing church? Not that kind of church, right? But over the years (and this hasn’t happened automatically and sometimes it happens in spite of us), but we live in a really transient area that a lot of people come here for a little time for grad school and then leave.

And you’ll touch base with people, or they’ll send you an email, or around church homecomings and anniversaries, you make contact with people you hadn’t heard from in a while or who have some distance from you. And we’re getting a lot of people saying, being at Oak Church was really healing for me, and people using that language.

And it’s been interesting that has happened and is happening. And we’re trying to figure out how God is doing that. And so, I think part of that is making space and being responsive, and trying to cultivate a church culture where things can be different.

Like this lady comes to Jesus, probably not with a whole lot of an imagination, maybe just a little spark of an imagination for how an 18-year-old sickness can be changed. She had enough of an imagination to come to Jesus, but I’m not even sure she knew how her life could be different. If something has been happening in your life for 18 years, that is like deeply woven into who you are.

And so having a little bit of an imagination, even if it’s a really open-ended imagination for how God is going to work and then having a patience and an urgency to bring about that newness.

In the passage, I think it’s significant that Jesus spoke freedom to her, and then he touched her. There was a word and a deed happening there, and it brought about her worship and her health.

You have word and flesh; there’s a declaration and there’s a follow-through. And it happens in a mode of direct presence and intimacy. I think our encounters with Jesus still happen this way, through an encounter with the word and through really regular hands and feet—that we recognize sometimes they’re even our own hands and feet for others.

Anthony: Yeah. Proximity begets compassion. Doesn’t it? There’s something about seeing the need and being present to witness it that is so powerful. And I really appreciated your insight about her imagination and probably it not being vivid to what could happen.

And isn’t that the way it is? It’s like music. I have heard somebody say, it’s the one thing that can get to your heart without your permission. It just does.

Chris: We don’t have ear lids; we have eyelids, but we don’t have ear lids.

Anthony: Yeah. And I think healing can show up in surprising ways like that. And we know he is Jehovah-Rapha; he’s the healer. Yet we don’t dehumanize ourselves to think that we can’t participate in some very tangible way.

I think it was Bart talked about how theology should always lead to doxology. In other words, if we’re doing the good work of theology and we don’t end up praising God, we’re doing something wrong.

I’m struck by the church people of the day missing the miracle if they’re not praising God in their desire to be right. Maybe I’m reworking the same question, but is there anything else you want to touch on and what this can teach us?

Chris: Yeah, I think awareness of God’s work comes via testimony, and I think that’s a hard thing for sophisticated modern people like us to learn how to do—to talk about unwieldy and mysterious things of God with passion and gratefulness without sounding like lunatics, and sometimes you can’t help it.

But I’ve learned a lot about this with my kids in the last decade—swimming against this disenchanting tide in order to re-enchant the world. Not that we’re doing anything, but rather we’re learning to notice and expect and narrate what God is already doing. I want them to have a vivid imagination for how God is working without leaning on tired religious speech that’s empty. I’ve been trying to really discipline myself with a certain way of talking, with a certain expectation. So, when they come to me with a paper cut, we talk about how God will heal them; we ask God to heal them.

Less we forget in our forgetfulness that that healing is somehow natural or that it’s not a gift from God, no matter how minute or how normal it seems. How can we expect God to arrive, to act, to intervene in big ways (God forbid, if we want someone to be healed of cancer or after a car accident), if God hasn’t been the healer all along of rug burns and paper cuts and scrapes and bruises from learning how to ride our bikes and from self-imposed, damage we’ve done to ourselves? That’s one thing is re-enchanting our normal speech to create an expectation.

In terms of the passages, that “humiliated opponents,” I don’t know, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It feels bad, in the midst of it when you are being brought down, humbled, subverted, surprised, but what if that is actually a gift? I think about the rich young ruler who came to Jesus, and it says that he went away sad because he had so much, but it leaves it really open-ended. He still might have embraced that as a gift and a calling and just did an accurate accounting of his life.

What if instead of when we find out we’re wrong or when we find out we actually missed out on what God has been doing all along, what if instead of doubling down or powering up or circling wagons or defending, what if there was an expectation that God was also working in us being wrong? And then there’s time and space to change our minds. There’s not a whole lot of value in that. It’ll be interesting if Elon Musk gives Twitter an edit button because we’re so used to our whole lives becoming un-editable hot takes that we can’t take back. So, we just double down and trench.

I don’t know. What if that is also a gift from God, proving us wrong and not in a vicious way, but in a gracious way? It’s not like divine gas lighting, but a way that can make us people able to ask forgiveness because we realize that we are often wrong.

Anthony: Well, it seems to me it ties back into being ready, right? As the Spirit woos us into greater maturity into the head, Jesus, it looks like that. And humiliation is painful, but it’s like our mutual friend, Jeff McSwain—I’ve heard him say often, “Life is just ongoing repentance.” Every day, it’s oh, I got that wrong! But we have one who knows what it looks like to condescend. And thanks be to God for that.

We have one more passage, which is Luke 14: 1, 7 – 14. It’s a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 17 in Ordinary Time, which is August 28. Chris, read that one for us, please.

Chris: Sure.

It happened that when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching Him closely. Now He began telling a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them, “Whenever you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and the one who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then in disgrace you will proceed to occupy the last place. 10 But whenever you are invited, go and take the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are dining at the table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” 12 Now He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “Whenever you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor wealthy neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you to a meal in return, and that will be your repayment. 13 But whenever you give a banquet, invite people who are poor, who have disabilities, who are limping, and people who are blind; 14 and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Anthony: The upside-down kingdom. Not the way we anticipate it. This passage tells us that our Lord is sharing a meal with the leader of the Pharisees, and I just think it’s one of the most profound aspects of Jesus’ ministry. And that is his meal-sharing ministry, the intimacy of it to be face to face with another.

What are your thoughts, Chris? And what does a church have to learn?

Chris: The church that we came from that sent us to plant [Oak Church] had over the years done a lot of meal sharing together. In the early days, we had weekly potluck and then that shifted to biweekly and then monthly, and then periodically.

So, when we started Oak Church, the intent was to do weekly potluck meals and to create a culture around that. And that has been such a journey of learning. And again, predicated on: Jesus does this, so let’s figure out how to do it. But it’s been really interesting because eating that much together and we’ve tried to do it without a safety net.

At the other church, one of the reasons why it became less frequent is because people get tired, and you wouldn’t bring that much. And then, there was always like the potluck brigade that would like, oh no, we don’t have enough food. Let’s call on some Dominos or go get some stuff from Costco. And there is a lot of hospitality around that impulse, but we’ve not done that at all.

And we’ve found that it’s really self-regulating the potluck meal, because if you have a bad week, you are reminded, oh shoot, I need to participate. If you don’t bring it, we don’t eat. We always say that we are less without you, and that is mathematically true, but it is no more obvious than at the table. You learn how to accent, and you learn how to account for others’ gifts.

You learn that person always brings mac and cheese, so I probably don’t need to do that. It’s a really beautiful, dynamic life that happens around the table. I think I would love to know more detail about Jesus’ meals, not just who he ate with but what he ate and how those meals went and who provided the food.

I think for the local church, a life around the table as an extension of the communion table is a really beautiful like culture-maker. And so, you get the chance (we do each week) to come forward to the communion table with empty, open hands, ready to receive from God’s grace. You don’t bring anything to that table. And then 10 minutes later or so, you arrive with plenty of stuff in hand. You arrive with a full instant pot to add to an armada of instant pots to try to feed friends and neighbors and show off your new recipe or figure that stuff out.

Life around the table also makes you, in Paul language, think of others more than yourself. Especially if you have friends that have to navigate food allergies. Or we’ve had to navigate, as a very potluck-centric church that is so core to our culture, two plus years of that not being a safe thing to do—sitting across from each other in a fellowship hall. We’ve done that with outdoor meals, with prepackaged things and all these different arrangements, but it’s always a negotiation and an improvisation, trying to figure out how to be together.

I really love a friend here in Durham, Kendall Vanderslice, who’s a Dukey also, has a ministry called Edible Theology. And she’s a trained baker, also has a degree in food studies and theological studies. And so, she’s really putting these things together, specifically about bread and dinner church, and talks really beautifully about how these things interact.

Anthony: it’s a good resource. We’ll put it in the show notes, and it makes me think of somebody you’ve already referenced, Robert Capon, who loved food and loved Jesus and loved the combination. And I think he shared a cookbook

Chris: Yeah, that’s right, The Supper of the Lamb.

I will say that again an early ministry experience was that the table also became a site of discipleship. Again, being in a place with a bunch of grad students and people passing through, and also being in the South, we would have people come to the church and they would be so game and so equipped and so expectant, to sit in a folding chair (at the time) and drink deeply of a 40-minute sermon and take detailed notes. And then you’d ask them, or expect, invite them, “Hey, you guys are staying for potluck, right?”

And they would demur [show reluctance] because it was so awkward for them to sit across from someone they didn’t know or to eat something they weren’t sure that they liked. It was a place of deep discipleship to become the sort of people that could do that, and that could be at a table possibly with someone that you have nothing else in common, other than Jesus and the Spirit that is connecting you. I don’t discount that power of the table either. And I think that’s also why some of Jesus’ tables are so controversial because he is putting people at a table that don’t have any reason to be together apart from him.

Anthony: The potluck brigade. I have a feeling we need to design a t-shirt and I’ve got a few people in mind to share that with.

Chris: Yeah, we’re trying to get sponsored by instant pot. That’s key.

Anthony: Jesus instructs the listeners to sit at the lowly place during a feast. And of course, later in scripture, we see in John 13, Jesus doing this very thing, embodying it when he gets up quietly from dinner and washes the disciples’ feet in the upper room.

Why do you think it matters that we have a God, revealed in Jesus, who practices this? Who practices what he preaches?

Chris: I don’t think it’s just that Jesus somehow needs to be like logical and coherent or even like non-hypocritical. I think in these stories of Jesus being with people in normal places, that Jesus is saving us in these stories.

This is before the cross, this is after the incarnation, but Jesus is saving all humanity, all creation when he feasts and when he washes feet and when he brushes by the shoulders of someone in the crowd or is touched, when Jesus is walking around Galilee or when Jesus is a boy growing up in Nazareth.

I’m looking over my shoulder here at my desk at this icon called “Hidden life in Nazareth” by this Ukrainian icon writer [Artist, iconographer Ivanka Demchuk]. And it’s Mary and Joseph, and Jesus is taking his first steps as a boy. And there’s a clothesline in the background. I think when Jesus is filling up diapers in Mary’s home, and all of these hidden moments, that Jesus is saving us because he is bolting divinity and humanity together and creating a new humanity.

So, I don’t think it’s just that Jesus is practicing what he’s preaching, but he’s becoming familiar to us. He’s coming close enough to people that they know what he smells like and what his hands feel like and what his voice sounds like. That’s how close God is to us in Jesus.

That’s how sensible God is, that it is not any longer a mystery of what God is like. God is like Mary’s boy. For the disciples, God is like their fishing buddy. God is like a journeying storyteller who loves a good party. God is like a guy who isn’t afraid to stick his nose in an unfair fight.

God is like someone who’s been put through the ringer or is the victim of state violence or who has been lynched. God has become one of us. And I think that means we stand a chance to become like God, that we’re forever bolted in Christ to God. So, when we read these stories, we just can’t forget what God looks like and smells like and acts like and sounds like.

Anthony: There’s a great documentary. It’s just a short film (maybe 18 minutes) called Godspeed. [Godspeed: the Pace of Being Known]

Chris: I love it.

Anthony: Yeah. Is it Brian Canlis? Is that his name?

Chris: Yeah, that’s right. Brian and Julie in Vancouver.

Anthony: And one of the things I was struck by, they were interviewing one of the folks in Scotland. And he was talking about God’s speed being the speed of three miles an hour, the speed of walking.

And he was saying, that’s when he became a believer, when he realized Jesus couldn’t hide, the people knew him, the villagers knew him. That’s Joe and Mary’s boy. And that’s powerful for us, that we can’t just parachute into people’s lives, but it’s meant to be lived face to face because we were made in the image of a God who is in face-to-face unity, the Father and the Son.

And I think meal-sharing and all the things you’re discussing here, as far as taking the lowly place, that just lives into what reality is, this is reality. This is what it looks like. It looks like Jesus.

Chris: Yeah. I live in walking distance to where we minister at the church and that I’m learning that in my ministry.

My across the street neighbor, Jim, is not super church interested, but he thinks it’s hilarious that he knows a pastor and probably hears me yell at my kids. And he thinks it’s hilarious that I’ll drink a beer with him. So, I’ll get these little offerings from Jim: a magazine that his daughter who’s way too old for them now still subscribes to and he leaves for our girls and a Belgian beer, because that’s what he likes.

I think it’s just that presence that has connected to Jim. And again, I’m not trying to stand in for Jesus here, but it helps me imagine that both the incredibility and the credibility of Jesus’ life in Nazareth, because he was known because, he was there.

Anthony: Yeah. Amen. Chris, this has been fun. And I’m so grateful. I’m so grateful you’re willing to do it, especially as the countdown is on toward your sabbatical. So, thank you for your time.

And it’s our tradition here on Gospel Reverb that our guests share prayer for our listening audience, for those who are out there ministering in the neighborhood, as you just described. Would you be willing to do that for us, please?

Chris: I’d love to.

Lord Jesus, help us be awake and attentive to your presence in our midst. Help us be receptive and generous to all the gifts that you give us. Help us be invitational and expectant as you show up in the midst of the least, the last, the lost, the littlest, and the closest to death. And help us feast with you and look forward to feasting with you for eternity. We pray all this to the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.


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Sermon for August 7, 2022 – Proper 14

Speaking of Life 4037 | Invisible Reality

Program Transcript


Speaking of Life 4037 | Invisible Reality
Heber Ticas

If you never saw a tree, you would have a hard time understanding what a tree was—even if someone described it to you. Trees are so big, beautiful, and majestic that without evidence, you could doubt if trees really existed.

Now, imagine if someone showed you a picture of a tree’s shadow. For the first time, you would be able to guess how a tree looked. You would not know the color of the leaves, the texture of the bark, or the smell of the blossoms, but you would be able to visualize a tree and start to develop a vocabulary to talk about it. You would also have firm evidence that trees were real, even if you did not understand everything about them.

In this illustration, God is the tree and Jesus is the one who showed humanity his shadow. Jesus, who is fully God, revealed the Father, Son, and Spirit in ways we can understand. There is much that we do not have the capacity to know about God, but Jesus showed us enough so we can begin to grasp how big, beautiful, and majestic he is.

At the same time, we must humbly acknowledge that, at best, we only see the shadow of things. This is why faith is necessary. To follow Christ, we have to be willing to believe in things we cannot logically understand or perceive with our senses. The author of Hebrews talked about faith, saying:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Hebrews 11:1-3

Here we are challenged to shift our understanding of reality. Rather than defining reality by what we can perceive, we are encouraged to see God as the basis of all reality. Jesus, who was in the image of God, invites us to live by the word of God, which makes our lives more real in some ways and more invisible in others. We cannot see or touch things like unconditional love, mercy, grace, and joy, yet these things have eternal value. Even though the things of God are invisible, they are more real because they will not fade away like the physical things we can get in this world.

When we seek after the invisible riches of God, we become less influenced by the things we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell, and more influenced by the Holy Spirit, who we cannot see. By following Christ, we live in his faith and we become who we are truly supposed to be. No amount of earthy riches can do that.

He gave us a shadow of what it means to live as God intends us to live. He is the true son of Man – showing us what life in communion with Father, Son and Spirit is all about. When we keep our eyes on him, we can be confident that what God has in store for us is greater than we can possibly imagine.

Mi nombre es Heber Ticas, Hablando de Vida.

Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23 • Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 • Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 • Luke 12:32-40

The theme for this week is seeing the invisible God by faith. In Psalm 50, the psalmist sees God in the beauty of creation. Isaiah warns us that God “hides himself” from those who practice empty religion. This means that those who put religion over God will have a difficult time building a relationship with him. To see God, his followers must care for others, especially those in need, and be obedient to him. The author of Hebrews, in defining faith, cites Abraham’s belief in God’s promises as a model of faith. In Luke, Jesus exhorts believers to seek heavenly treasures (invisible) over earthly possessions (visible). We are also encouraged to follow Christ as if his return were imminent. Christians should be alert and prepared because his comings and goings sometimes appear to be hidden from us.

The Blessings of an “Invisible” God

Luke 12:32-40

Not long ago, there was an internet trend where parents tempted their young children with candy. The mom or dad sat their child down and placed the kid’s favorite candy in front of him or her. They would make up an excuse to leave the room for five minutes and tell their child not to eat the treat. Of course, a camera would be secretly recording the child’s moral crisis. In most videos, the child is fine for the first minute or so, then you see their willpower slowly crumble. In most cases, the parent returns to see that some or all of the candy has mysteriously disappeared. While the parent was in the room, the child was able to be strong. Once the parent left the room, the child’s ability to stay the course evaporated.

Now, I am not saying anything negative about those children because adults do the same thing. Have you ever gone out to a restaurant with a group of friends, and everyone gets served except one person? Now, etiquette suggests that if the party is less than seven, you are supposed to wait for everyone to be served before you eat. However, humans get hungry and hot food gets cold! In many cases, there is this awkward moment where everyone’s self-control is tested. People start glancing between their delicious, untouched plate and the one who is still waiting. Deep down, everyone secretly wants someone to start eating, but no one wants to be that person because they are somewhat convinced it may be rude. Things stay awkward until the unserved friend says, “Listen, you guys go ahead and eat. I insist.” Of course, the others are obliged to say, “Are you sure?” However, everyone knows that it is just theater. In the end, the diners are thankful that the one without food is a true friend and made a sacrifice for the sake of the many.

These stories are amusing, but they illustrate a more serious point: humans typically have a hard time following the rules when there is no one in sight to enforce them. Whether it is driving over the speed limit, sneaking food into the movies, or having too many items in the express lane at the supermarket, we have all struggled to follow the rules when we could easily get away with doing our own thing. Now, I am not saying this to condemn anyone, but to point out a human tendency we all share. We are often tempted to test our boundaries. Even when we successfully resist, the temptation is there.

This human tendency can complicate our relationship with a God we cannot perceive with our earthly senses. The Bible has numerous stories of people hearing the voice of God or seeing a physical manifestation of his presence; however, these occurrences are rare. Most of us will not hear God’s voice or physically interact with him in this life, yet, as Christians, we are supposed to follow Jesus and obey God’s commands. Unfortunately, an invisible God can make it easy to ignore a lot of what Jesus taught. Of course, there are laws that help us avoid some of the more damaging sins. However, if we resist participation in missional work in our neighborhood, we do not get zapped. As far as we can tell, we are not immediately punished for not being good neighbors. We cannot be arrested for self-righteousness or conceit. God does not manifest himself to enforce these commands, so we can easily ignore them like a child forbidden to eat candy by an absent parent.

God understands this about us, which is why Jesus did a lot of teaching about preparedness. He knew we would struggle in our relationships with an invisible God, so Jesus addressed our natural tendencies. In our text for the day, we read these words from Jesus:

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Luke 12:32-40)

In the passage, Jesus addressed two temptations of followers of unseen leaders: the temptation to follow another leader and the temptation to ignore the leader’s commands. In verses 32-34, Jesus warns against making monetary gain our god. Money is easy to worship because it can seemingly do incredible things. With enough money, you can build a spaceship and orbit the earth. With enough money, you could buy a pharmaceutical company that makes life-saving drugs. With enough money, you can purchase your own island and rule over it as you see fit. It seems that money can accomplish god-like feats. Compared to an invisible God, money’s tangible and immediate power can be alluring.

Jesus exposed the truth about money: its power is fading and temporary. The things money gives can be lost or taken, and the things it builds will one day be destroyed. Worst of all, money does not always accomplish what it sets out to do. Despite all the money that has gone into things like cancer research, climate change prevention, and homelessness services, these and other problems are still with us. We have all likely encountered problems money could not fix, so this god, at some point, will let us down. Jesus warns us not to exchange true riches for fool’s gold. He wants us to understand that it pleases the Father to give us the best of what he has to give. He is the great King, and his desire is to share his kingdom with us. In that way, we are already rich. Those who follow Christ are already provisioned in ways we cannot fully comprehend. Jesus wants believers to be givers instead of accumulators. We should look at money as a ministry tool instead of a source of security.

The riches we have in God do not fade and are eternal. A new pair of sneakers is not as good as everlasting joy. A diamond ring is nothing compared to freedom from guilt and shame. A 60-inch television cannot hold a candle to unconditional love. It pleases the Father to lavish us with these priceless and eternal gifts. If we see ourselves as already blessed and focus on cultivating the riches of God, we will never be lacking. We will be content in all situations and see the reality of our blessedness in all conditions. However, if our god is money, we will never be filled. We will always want more and never be satisfied. If you think about it, the invisible things of God are truly more real than the visible things money can give us. The things of God are consistent, constant, and unending. They are forever good and forever true, while the things money can buy will pass away. Jesus wants us to see the limits of our senses. We equate the tangible with the real. However, the intangible things of God are the truly real things.

In verses 35-40, Jesus teaches us to avoid another mistake made by followers of unseen leaders: ignoring their duties. If you went to school in the U.S., you know that few things cause more pandemonium in a classroom than a substitute teacher. It is as if when the substitute enters the room, the class forgets how to be students. I salute all substitute teachers for your dedication to educating our children despite all the spitballs, disrespect, note passing, and incessant talking.  We even have sayings to describe this phenomenon, like, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play!” There’s an edgier saying that conveys the same sentiment: “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!” So, there seems to be something about us that is comfortable doing what we know is wrong if we can get away with it, or if no one will find out.

Therefore, Jesus used the metaphor of a prepared servant to show how his followers should live. We should live as though Christ’s second coming is imminent. That is not to say, Christ’s second coming is imminent, however, we should live as if it is. The common reaction for many who read this passage is fear and trepidation. If God is so good and loving, why are so many Christians a little afraid of Christ’s return? I think part of the answer is that we have a fallen image of God, and we associate him with cold, stern judgment. We think that somehow when Christ returns he will no longer be loving, patient, and full of grace. I think the other issue may be that we carry the guilt of knowing that we are consciously ignoring some of God’s commands. This can be tricky. Some of us carry guilt because of lack of initiative when it comes to the things of God. Some of us carry guilt because we have a harsh view of God that separates him from his grace. This causes us to think that nothing is good enough for God. In both cases the remedy is the same: spend time with God. For those who lack initiative, spending time with God gives us an opportunity to see who he is. He is so wonderful that knowledge of his goodness triggers the desire to respond. We have to do something in the face of such overwhelming grace. For those who are falsely motivated by an imagined, ungracious God, spending time with God will show you the depths of his love, mercy, and humility. Our “doing” with God should flow from our “being” with God. Following the will of the Spirit will bless us to feel accepted even when we do not do things perfectly.

We should not be afraid of Christ or his return. Christ’s return should evoke joy in the hearts of those who love him. If we take a closer look at the passage, it tells us that we should be afraid of wasted time and missed opportunities. When Christ returns, there will be no more chances to follow him in this life. We, therefore, should be afraid to miss opportunities to serve our Lord and Savior not because we fear his punishment (although there are unpleasant consequences to continually ignoring the Spirit), but because there is a blessing in store for us when we open the door to his knocking. Jesus gives an astounding image of a master serving his servants because they were ready when the master knocked. In the story, Christ is the master, and we are the servants. This type of humility by a human master would be unheard of in Jesus’ time, and to speak of God this way would be blasphemy to some. Yet, Jesus says that God will bless us for participating in the work of Jesus Christ, and we should be afraid to miss out on something so wonderful.

We miss the point of Jesus’ teaching if we think he is only talking about his second coming. Every time the Spirit prompts us to help a friend, say a kind word to a neighbor, or serve in ministry, it is as if Jesus is knocking at our door. Being prepared, in this case, is doing the spiritual practices that will make us ready to respond when God speaks. We have to practice opening that door, because our natural tendency is to ignore it. What intimacy with God are we missing by not responding to that knocking? What treasures do we forgo when we ignore the commands of our invisible Lord? When the Spirit prompts us to serve him, he is also promising deeper communion with himself. This is why we can never deplete ourselves when we follow the Spirit. We can become depleted in doing things in our own strength; however, the Spirit’s leadership will cause us to be filled by Christ, and he fills us to overflowing.

We do not know when we will be called upon to be a blessing to someone else, so we have to practice the spiritual disciplines to stay in a state of readiness. Praying, listening to Christian podcasts, enjoying praise and worship music, fasting, journaling, engaging in missional work, reading Christian books, practicing silence and solitude, participating in table fellowship, and other spiritual practices are ways in which we prepare for Jesus knocking on our door. As we engage in these life-giving activities, God becomes less invisible. We begin to see evidence of him everywhere. We see him moving in our lives. We see him moving in our families. We see him moving in our churches. We see him moving in our neighborhoods. We see him in every place we look. We will not be the mouse who plays when the cat is away because God is so very present.

Jesus is the Creator of all things. Everything was created by him and for him — both the things we see and the things we cannot see. He holds everything together. He may be invisible to our earthly senses, but he is reality itself. I pray that we would prepare ourselves to receive the blessings of living in that reality.

Humble Hospitality w/ Chris Breslin W1

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August 7 – Proper 14
Luke 12:32-40 “Fear Not, Little Flock”

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Program Transcript


Anthony: Let me read the first pericope, chapter 12:32 – 40. This month, we’re going to focus on the New Living Translation. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 14, August 7.

“So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom. 33 “Sell your possessions and give to those in need. This will store up treasure for you in heaven! And the purses of heaven never get old or develop holes. Your treasure will be safe; no thief can steal it and no moth can destroy it. 34 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. 35 “Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast. Then you will be ready to open the door and let him in the moment he arrives and knocks. 37 The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded. I tell you the truth, he himself will seat them, put on an apron, and serve them as they sit and eat! 38 He may come in the middle of the night or just before dawn. But whenever he comes, he will reward the servants who are ready. “Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would not permit his house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.”

Verse 32, Chris, says it gives your Father great happiness to give us the kingdom. So how are you, how can we experience this inaugurated kingdom, which is so joy provoking for the Father to give to us.

Chris: I think first and foremost, that is the origin and destination. That is the baseline of reality, is God’s delight. That God fundamentally desires to give us the kingdom and that it gives God great happiness or delight. I think we forget that all too often, that is the most real thing there is. And that is where our joy can come from, that we don’t need to muster it or that we don’t have to have the right techniques to mine it.

It’s just right there. That’s who, and that’s how God is. It really makes a difference. And we alluded to it earlier. My ministry is in the neighborhood. And starting with that baseline, I think makes you a different sort of neighbor makes you a different sort of minister.

For one, this is a long game that we’re engaged in. And so if I’m not starting and ending with God’s joy, if I’m starting with some sort of displeasure or an idea that things can be better or must be better rather than just the delight in (you mentioned Eugene Peterson) in the “is-ness” of the place and of the people, that I think that’s where burnout comes and that’s where, kinds of ministry that wind up being violent or being depersonalized happen.

And so, I think starting and ending with joy that originates in God is important. Like again, I’ve been immersed in Barth for the last couple weeks in that book. And like Barth is a joy theologian. He says, actually a theologian that labors, without joy, isn’t even a theologian at all.

Yeah. I think just recognizing and reorienting to God’s joy makes all the difference. Yeah.

Anthony: I don’t know if it was Bart, but I remember somebody writing joy is the serious business of heaven. Yeah, that’s right. And it’s the serious business of earth, is it not? The thing is, it’s like you said, this is who God is out of the overflow of Father, Son, and Spirit. Joy is not something we create. It’s his idea, and it’s good.

Chris: And it’s not even like the byproduct, it is the raw ingredient. It’s on both sides of the equation. I think if we only make it into the byproduct, we start to feel really uneasy or upset when things don’t seem joyful, or we feel pressure to make it that way.

Anthony: Yeah. Let me ask you a personal question, Chris, have you sold all your possessions? Are you taking the Bible literally? I just want to give you a chance to riff on this. It’s easy just to go ahead and say, “Jesus didn’t mean that, so there’s nothing really to say,” but that’s not true.

So, give us a Christological gospel-shaped orthodoxy as it comes to this passage.

Chris: Yeah. My congregation gives me a hard time because I often use the Common English Bible translation and that shares my initials. And they’re like, is this is what he’s saying or is this the serious work of Bible translators?

But the CEB talks about wallets that don’t wear out. And I kind of like that turn of phrase. I don’t know. I think it’s interesting that the kind of hoarding impulse and fearfulness and attachment are connected to joy, that sit in contrast to God’s joy. That generosity and open-handedness are connected to joy. It’s almost as if closing down or holding tight has become our natural state.

And really, I think this is trying to say that is an unnatural state for us to be in.

Anthony: Yeah, that’s well said. Generosity begets generosity. And it’s originally, God’s generous generosity toward us. He’s the generous one. And so, it only makes sense as human beings that this is what life should look like.

And I love what you said that it actually is the work of joy. We know it’s better to give than to receive, but in God’s good economy, we get both. We have received so much. Yeah. Why wouldn’t we share?

Chris: Yeah. There’s great irony that among Western Christians, we’ve fallen into the trap of making Christmas the main time that we give and receive gifts and so it’s really fun. (And we participate in that, and we do some version of Santa and St. Nick and all this stuff.)

But that should be so normal for us, that world of giving and receiving that Christmas is just like one of many days of that feeling and that joy of giving something to someone and the thoughtfulness that went into that and the resources that went into that.

And what would it look like? And I think this parable is challenging us. What would our lives look like if we reorganize them to be pass-through lives, lives where things pass through from God to the world?

Anthony: Speaking of that, what (and this may feel like a loaded question because it can take so much shape,) but what does it look like to be ready for the Son of Man’s appearance? Does all of this work together, based on what we’ve already said, or is there something more to it, Chris?

Chris: When you say, the Son of Man’s appearance, it has such baggage for so many people. So, it takes a lot of imaginative juice to reform a question like that, to do some positive work.

We get a lot of folks at the church that come from evangelical or fundamentalist backgrounds that have heard that question that you just asked, (what does it look like to be ready for the Son of Man to appear?) that gets mobilized towards the decision? It gets weaponized.

And so yeah, to try to re-ask that question in a way that is expectant and prepared and open to God showing up. The Message paraphrase says, “Keep your shirts on and keep the lights on.”

Anthony: We’re like Motel 6. We’ll keep the light on for you when you show up, Jesus.

Chris: Yeah, that’s right. The passage has two images: a wedding and a thief. It’s so fascinating to use a really (maybe) stressful, but generally positive thing, like a wedding, and learning to prepare well, to do all of the inviting and the gathering for a celebratory event, but also to prepare well to be secure to greet God’s arrival as a thief in the night.

And I don’t know, in there’s some difference between alert and alarm. I think we can only survive in a state of alarm for so long. That this passage, and Jesus in it, are calling us to just a state of being alert, a state of being ready and open and expectant both for the good and the bad of what it might mean for God to arrive in our lives, for the ways that we have them currently arranged.

Anthony: Yeah, I appreciate the way you said it, the expectancy or anticipation of his appearance. It’s like when a dear friend or loved one comes to your home. You’re excited. And you prepare for them. You want to care well.

And I think part of your good work in ministry, Chris, I think what we’re trying to accomplish denominationally through a Trinitarian perspective is to invert the way we’ve thought about these passages. [Not] “we’ve got to be afraid,” when we can just rest in his assurance and be about his business as we go. And all will be well, and all will be well, and all manners of things will be well.


Small Group Discussion Questions

From Speaking of Life
  • Do you find it challenging to believe in things you cannot perceive with your senses?
  • What are some ways we can better live in God’s invisible reality?
From the sermon
  • Can you think of a time you were tempted to get away with something because no one was looking?
  • Do you think it is common for people to see money as a god? Why or why not?
  • In what ways do you think spiritual disciplines prepare us to open the door when Jesus knocks?

Sermon for August 14, 2022 – Proper 15

Speaking of Life Script 4038 | Wrong-Way Drivers

Program Transcript


Speaking of Life Script 4038 | Wrong-Way Drivers
Greg Williams

Here is a funny story you may be familiar with:

There was a lady who called her husband while he was driving home from work. She worriedly told him, “I just saw on the news there’s an idiot driving the wrong way on the same interstate you’re on. Please be careful!” Her husband corrected her, “It’s not just one driving the wrong way. There are hundreds of them!”

It’s an old joke that still makes me laugh. But I want to add a new twist to the story. What if it wasn’t a joke. What if the man was correct and he was the one driving in the right direction on an interstate full of hundreds going the wrong way. In that case, it wouldn’t be a laughing matter.

I don’t think that has ever happened (outside of a Jason Bourne movie), but in another way, it happens every day for those who follow Jesus. The interstate that travels through this present evil age actively opposes Christ and his followers by treating them like “idiots” traveling in the wrong direction. Christians can identify with phrases like, “Swimming upstream,” or “Sailing against the wind.” It sounds obvious when said out loud, but following Christ comes with obstacles, adversity, and conflict.

Thankfully, for the believer, we are not on this journey alone. First, we have our Lord and Savior who has completed the journey ahead of us and is presently preparing us for glory by the Spirit, even in the face of opposition. Second, we have brothers and sisters who have either completed the journey or are traveling with us in the same direction. This community of believers—known as the Church—not only encourages and equips one another to keep our eyes on Jesus to stay the course, but they also become a witness to others who have been driving in the opposite direction. True to who Jesus is, even then he continues to draw all of humanity to himself. He includes us in his ministry, as others experience Christ in us, inspiring them to take a u-turn towards him.

The author of Hebrews used the metaphor of a race instead of driving on an interstate. Listen to this description of Jesus and his followers facing opposition:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:1-2

No doubt there are challenges and struggles in the Christian journey. It can feel like an obstacle course as we move towards Christ. But please be encouraged that we are not driving alone. The great cloud of witnesses have gone before us. Jesus is before us, around us, and always with us. It is our joy to journey together with fellow believers and to invite others to come along for the ride.

I’m Greg Williams, Speaking of Life.

Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19 • Isaiah 5:1-7 • Hebrews 11:29-12:2 • Luke 12:49-56

This week’s theme is healing judgement. The call to worship Psalm is a call for Israel’s restoration who is likened to a ravished vine that was once flourishing. The Old Testament reading from Isaiah tells a parable of a vineyard with a message of judgement. The Gospel reading from Luke presents some sharp sayings of Jesus concerning judgement. The epistolary text comes from Hebrews listing examples of faith from Israel’s history as forerunners to Jesus’ faithful obedience.

Peace & Division

Luke 12:49-56 (NRSV)

Read or have someone read Luke 12:49-56.

As you heard or read today’s text, I suspect there was part of you that raised an eyebrow. You may have thought, “That’s odd, is Jesus promoting division?” On the face of it, that certainly seems to be the case. These are the words of our Lord and Savior. What do we make of what he is saying in a world that is currently being divided across a myriad of lines. It would seem a text where Jesus calls for division to be a poor choice to speak on. But, blame the lectionary if it helps. Because today, we are called to hear and wrestle with these seemingly enigmatic words that seem so out of place in a society in desperate need of unity, not more division.

To start, let’s get a feel for what Luke is trying to accomplish by including this section in his Gospel account. These words are recorded in chapter 12 which is a section of discourse that serves as both an urgent warning, and encouragement for the crowds and disciples alike. Jesus is helping the disciples and the crowds to discern how to live in their present time in light of Jesus’ soon coming kingdom. That gives us a little hint as to what Jesus may mean when talking about division. There is already a dividing line between the kingdoms of this world and his glorious kingdom that will be inaugurated with his death, resurrection, and ascension. And as we will see, there is a clear nod by Jesus to his baptism, which is a reference to his death and resurrection.

Speaking of division, our passage for today can be divided in two parts. Verses 49-53 comprise the first part and is aimed to correct misconceptions of Jesus’ ministry that are held by his disciples. The second part is the last three verses of 54-56 where Jesus pointedly condemns the hypocrisy of those who fail to “interpret the present time?” Both sections are a challenge to correctly read the signs of the times. The first is for the disciples by clarifying what following Jesus will entail; the second is to the crowds who only see what they want to see.

Let’s start with the first part of our reading:

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter   and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law   and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Luke 12:49-53 NRSV)

These verses indicate that Jesus’ followers had interpreted Jesus’ ministry as bringing a certain kind of “peace to the earth” that is in contradiction to what Jesus was sent to do. This can be seen in Jesus’ direct challenge, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” The disciples had something wrong in their “thinking” regarding the “peace” Jesus was to bring. To talk about “peace” for the disciples would fall under the backdrop of Roman occupation. Peace for them would be to escape the tyranny of Roman control so they could return to being the nation of their past. Peace under these constraints could only be imagined as coming by an uprising that would overthrow the current power structures. So, these verses comprise essentially three warnings Jesus gives as a response to correct this mindset.

First, he states his mission is to “bring fire to the earth.” This is an image of judgment where a sifting and sorting out takes place. And Jesus lets us know he is ready to see this judgement take place with the words, “I wish it were already kindled!” So, from Jesus’ perspective, this judgement by fire is a good thing for the “earth.”

We often think of judgment as a negative that should be avoided. But righteous judgement brings peace by sorting out what is right and what is not. The two cannot live together in peace, they must be divided and set in their proper place. So, judgement in this understanding is not a peaceful process, but it does ultimately result in peace. This is part of what Jesus needed to teach his disciples. We may also confuse the process with the result in our world today. Many of the divisions we see in our world are not so much a case of people not being able to see eye-to-eye and get along. We may think that with just a little more education or a little more communication, we can usher in peace and stop the divisions. But this misses the root of the many divisive events of our day. Divisions on the earth run much deeper than that. In fact, it’s far too deep for human intervention to solve.

There is something fundamental to our divisions that must be dealt with if any unity is to ever take place. The root issue is sin. It is our determined resistance to the Father and his grace. We want things our way and we believe peace will come when everyone agrees with me. We could say, peace will come when I’m god. That is how the Roman emperors saw it after all. They saw themselves as divine peacemakers. The only catch is, if you did not agree with them, they would kill you or put you in slavery. So much for bringing peace to the earth. If the disciples wanted Jesus to be the next “emperor” – only this time on their side – you can see why Jesus would need to correct their thinking. That would be a continuation of the same problem, only tyrants and victims would have traded places. There would still not be peace on earth.

Second, Jesus gives a warning by hinting at the cost of his own suffering that the process of bringing peace will entail. Jesus’ reference to “a baptism with which to be baptized” is a nod to his soon coming death and resurrection. He tells them that he is under stress “until it is completed!” This has implications for the disciples they will need to wrestle with. Jesus seems to want them to understand that following him will not amount to a straight-line path to victory without any suffering. We often need this same warning in our times as well.

Following Christ doesn’t mean that now we can expect all our dreams to be fulfilled. This warning speaks directly to ministries that invoke a prosperity gospel. But it also speaks to our surprise of having to suffer for the sake of Christ. We may be tempted to think Jesus wouldn’t call us to suffer. After all, didn’t he come to bring us peace. And there it is, confusing the process with the result. It’s a way of avoiding the cross. Jesus is clear that he will not avoid the cross, and he doesn’t minimize his suffering as if it’s not really that bad. As his followers, if we are discerning the times from a perspective that doesn’t include suffering, we may miss what God is doing in and through the suffering we see in our world, as well as the suffering we experience in our own lives.

We often go through life trying to avoid suffering at every turn instead of discerning our present sufferings in light of Christ sufferings. In our sufferings, we can trust that Jesus is purifying and bringing us into his peace, a peace that surpasses all understanding (Phil 4:7). He has assumed all our sufferings, and he is now working his redemptive work through them. When we encounter suffering, we can discern them as a participation in the sufferings of Christ.

The third aspect of warning follows up more pointedly on challenging the disciples understanding of “division.” He tells them in no uncertain terms that he brings division. This may be disturbing to us as it undoubtedly would have been for the early disciples. Remember, Jesus is trying to deal with how people are discerning the signs of the times. How do we understand and respond to all the divisions we see playing out around us in our times? The disciples apparently were thinking peace was just around the corner. That’s how they understood all the signs of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus was performing miracles that indicated the Messiah had arrived. That was true, but they misunderstood what this Messiah was going to do to establish peace. He broke into our sinful and hostile hearts with the proclamation of his reign of peace. That proclamation would be a word that would divide. Jesus came as the Word of the Father. He came to proclaim the soon coming kingdom that he would establish. It is naïve to think that this proclamation would go without challenge. There are other kings and authorities that will resist such a proclamation. Our own self-crowned hearts will also have to be divided by this word. Hebrews 4:12 tells us as much.

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 NRSV)

This doesn’t sound like the peace of which Jesus’ earliest disciples were thinking. Jesus goes on to make it personal by speaking of divisions in one’s own household as a result of following Jesus. Jesus begins this by saying, “From now on…” This tells us that we should not expect to see all our relationships magically dissolve of all divisions. On a larger scale, it also tells us that we should not expect some worldwide movement of unity in our times. Division will continue from now on until Christ returns. When there are movements to establish world peace by human authorities, by Jesus’ word, we know it’s an idealized pursuit at best or a sinister lie at worse like we see with the Roman emperors. Divisions will continue because the word of Jesus goes forth. And this word will not be taken away but will return to fully establish the reign of Christ. In this way, we can take some comfort when we see all the divisions springing up in our world. Division can be understood as a direct result of God’s kingdom breaking into the world. The evil in the world is resisting, and it gets manifested in many divisions among people and people groups. The division reminds us that God is at work purifying and sorting out. Like a rock thrown into an undisturbed pond, when Jesus breaks into the world, he creates waves.

This doesn’t mean we cheer on divisions or don’t take measures to alleviate division when called to do so. But we are to rightly discern these divisions in light of the gospel. Otherwise, we may think divisions should be avoided at all costs. As if they represent a failure of God’s word in the world. When we think like this, we may avoid times of division by compromising the gospel. Maybe we think we should not take a stand on Jesus’ claims of authority, or the ethical implications those claims present. We don’t want to offend, we may reason, or that would only create division. But, as Jesus is saying here, there is a type of division that is a necessary part of the process that leads to the true peace he is bringing with his kingdom. In that way, we are not being divisive, but the gospel certainly is. Jesus didn’t come to pat everyone on the back and say “I’m ok with you not knowing me and not wanting anything to do with me. Now, let’s go have a drink together and hang out.” Jesus will purify and burn away all the hostility that exists in order for there to be peace in our relationship with him, and by extension, with each other. And thank God, we see in this passage that he is committed to that end.

Luke reserves the last three verses to record Jesus’ address to the crowds.

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” (Luke 12:54-56 NRSV)

In these verses, Jesus is chastising the crowd for being experts at determining weather patterns while at the same time ignoring what is taking place in their time. Jesus, the Creator and author of life, is standing right there speaking to them, and many can’t discern what’s going on. By calling them “hypocrites” he is obviously not chiding them for being wise on small matters but dull on important ones. It is more of an accusation of ungodliness. These people are clearly intelligent and capable enough to discern what Jesus is saying. But they are not interested in that as much as they are interested in determining their day-to-day practicalities, like what to wear tomorrow. The analogy Jesus gives involves discerning the signs of an approaching storm, either a rainstorm or heat wave. But when it comes to discerning signs of God’s soon coming kingdom, they would rather continue in a lifestyle that avoids suffering and seeks peace by any means necessary. Such avoidance is to be completely unprepared for a much larger storm that is coming. Jesus’ reign will be on the wise and the foolish. There will be no option to remain divided on the issue.

For us today, we are once again faced with the decision to follow Christ. Every day, we are called to follow him. Following him will involve suffering and it will involve division. But it ultimately leads to Jesus’ complete healing and lasting peace. We can trust Jesus to bring about his purpose and his will – in our lives, in our relationships, in our culture, in our world – even in the midst of division and suffering. That’s what Jesus is doing in our time today. May we grow in trusting him and in discerning what he is doing in our own hearts and in the world around us.

Humble Hospitality w/ Chris Breslin W2

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August 14 – Proper 15
Luke 12:39-56 “Be Ready”

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Program Transcript


Anthony: Let’s move on to our next passage, which is Luke 12:39 – 56. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 15 in Ordinary Time, which is August the 14th.

Chris, would you read that for us please?

Chris: Sure.

“But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 40 You too, be ready; because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not think He will.” 41 Peter said, “Lord, are You telling this parable to us, or to everyone else as well?” 42 And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. 44 Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45 But if that slave says in his heart, ‘My master will take a long time to come,’ and he begins to beat the other slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; 46 then the master of that slave will come on a day that he does not expect, and at an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in two, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. 47 And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accordance with his will, will receive many blows, 48 but the one who did not know it, and committed acts deserving of a beating, will receive only a few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more. 49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! 51 Do you think that I came to provide peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; 52 for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, Father against Son and Son against Father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” 54 And He was also saying to the crowds, “Whenever you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. 55 And whenever you feel a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way56 You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but how is it that you do not know how to analyze this present time?

Anthony: Wow, that’s a mouthful. A big pericope, and what is going on, Chris? Jesus just told us not to be afraid. And yet we’re reading about unfaithful servants being cut into pieces, banished, and punished severely. Whereas faithful servants will be rewarded. It’s easy in our fallen imaginations to go to this place of, “Oh man, am I out? Am I getting beaten or not?”

What’s really going on here?

Chris: First, I love Peter’s question. And I think it’s notable that he says he calls Jesus Lord because every time in Luke’s Gospel, Lord is an identity for Jesus that kind of shifts and changes in terms of their understanding of what that actually entails.

But Peter asked Jesus is this parable for us or for everyone. And Jesus is like a method actor here and stays in character. I always think of Daniel Day Lewis, when I think about method actor and answers him like, (and I’ll spare y’all that there will be blood voice), but he says that you must be wise, faithful, and that you must serve food, which is, really fascinating. Robert Farrar Capon, who is one of my favorite commentators, especially for the parables, because he makes sense of these really kooky parables and sometimes violent and disturbing ones. He applies those three things to the preacher saying that in addition to becoming faithful people, like people cultivating faith and fidelity, and in addition to also not just acquiring info, but wisdom, he says Jesus expects preachers in their congregations to be nothing more than faithful household cooks. He says, not gourmet chefs, not banquet managers, not caterers to thousands, just he says, gospel po rattlers, who can turn out a decent nourishing meal once a week, not even a whole meal, perhaps only the right food at the right time.

So, if you come on this passage, you’ve been working through Luke and you can’t skip to the other lectionary passage, just be a gospel pot rattler, and turn out a decent nourishing meal.

Anthon: Capon’s the best.

Chris: Yeah. Oh, he is the best. Yeah, to answer your question though, man, I think when whenever I feel disturbed or stuck, I try not to move through that too fast because that might actually be part of the point.

I think parables are meant for play. And I think that also means that they should be interpreted with more than one person present. So, what do you think, Anthony?

No, I’m just kidding. No, but so especially passages like this and in these parables if you’re just sitting in your study just churning over and over, it’s like bouncing a ball off of a wall instead of like the kind of sparks that happen when you’re interpreting with others and coming at it from a different angle or even experiencing different triggers and problems or seeing different images as operative.

And I think that’s a helpful hermeneutic tool is reading with others. We do this a lot. We have midweek morning prayer on the front steps, and we chew over these passages and it’s amazing the sort of group insight you get to a passage like this.

I think here though, I think Jesus is channeling Flannery, O’Connor telling serious and grotesque stories to wake us up and remind us of the weight of things. It takes different things to wake different people up. I have four kids and my eight-year-old is awake at 5:50 asking to watch baseball highlights. And my six-year-old needs me to turn on the lights and rip her sheet off and maybe even pour cold water on her to get up.

So, it takes different things. So that’s not to say Jesus doesn’t mean it or that we can just dismiss it as hot rhetoric, but Jesus is saying serious stuff in a serious way and in doing so I think he’s probably channeling the prophets. the prophets aren’t just like purely future fortune tellers; they’re not like crystal ball-type people telling determined features, but they are like truth telling go-betweens. They are calling people back to God and making plain consequences for actions that may happen. And so, like in a prophetic imagination there’s almost always time to change. The best prophets really hope they’re wrong.

And so, I wonder too, if that’s maybe a little bit of what’s going on here, that Jesus is putting it in stark terms. So, they have time to recalibrate and repent and return, like his goal is not necessarily to scare them but to bother them. So, I think you can be bothered inside of “be not afraid.” Yeah.

Anthony: I appreciated what you said about the community coming together around scripture to read it and how enriching that is, because that’s how it was done. It was read in community. And so, there’s that safeguard. And also, I think Jesus himself on the road to Emmaus said to the brothers, that what you’re talking about, that’s about me.

When we come to a passage like this, at least I have found it helpful, when I don’t always understand is, “Okay Spirit, remind me who God is, who is the Father? Who is the Son?” And we’re included, humanity is included in that Father-Son relationship in the Spirit.

And so, he’s not opposed to us, but just like a good parent, like you would do with your own kids, you’ll warn them if they’re about to do something that’s going to cause harm to themselves or others. You’re going to shout out. And then that may feel pretty rough when it comes. But we know his heart because it’s been revealed in Jesus Christ.

And so, this will feel like a silly question after just stating that, but my question is this is: is Jesus the great divider? He’s the Prince of Peace, full embodiment of peace, but daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. What’s going on here?

Chris: Again, I think this is Jesus with this prophetic voice and office. And I think of the prophet Jeremiah saying, decrying the people that cry, “Peace, peace, where there is no peace” so maybe Jesus’ identity in this instance is the Prince of, not the Prince of Peace, where there is no peace.

I don’t have a great answer here, but I know my own impulses. I’m a 9 in the Enneagram, which I guess is like a very sympathetic person. And so, I have these impulses towards peacemaking and non-confrontation, and even those things can get weaponized. And yeah, I think trust Jesus when he is dividing or setting people on different sides of the room to look at this from different directions.

I also, again I think it’s really important to hear echoes from other parts of scripture. I think he’s definitely using language—I’m pretty convinced he’s using language from Micah 7: that says, “The day that God visits you has come. The day your watchman sounds the alarm, now is the time of your confusion.” And then further down in that chapter, he says, “A son dishonors his Father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.”

And so, he’s talking to and about a divided group in his midst, and I’m not even necessarily sure he’s the one doing the dividing. He’s just revealing the divisions that are already there.

Anthony: Nobody wants to be called a fool, especially by Mr. T or Jesus, in this case.

Chris: And yeah, I think again, it’s always important that Jesus is our rubric here for someone who—even though in this passage, he is dividing—in his very body he’s putting the world back together.

He’s making it whole. And in doing so, he’s repelled. Not a few people—he disappoints a lot of people. He meets opposition. Ultimately, they kill Jesus. This is a reminder that every time we gather around the table and share in communion—which is a whole-making meal that remembers us, that puts us back together and draws us into God’s shalom—it has come through the taking, blessing, breaking, and gift of Jesus’ body that was broken apart and puts us back together, every time where we’re gathered around him.

So, we should, in some ways, have a level of understanding and comfort whenever there is this breaking apart because Jesus has shown us how a breaking apart is involved in a putting back together in a rending for a mending.

Anthony: A rending for a mending; that’s well said. And I love the way that you said the communion table, the Lord’s table, it’s a re-membering of all of us together. And I’ve heard it said a recognition, a re-cognition, a reminding of who he is and who we are in him. It’s a, oh, what a beautiful thing.


Small Group Discussion Questions

From Speaking of Life
  • Does following Christ sometimes feel like being the man driving the “wrong way” in the funny story?
  • What are some examples of opposition that Christians face today?
  • Did you have any reflections on the Church from watching the video? Anything stand out or seem new to you?
From the sermon
  • Did the initial reading of the text strike you as strange that Jesus said he was bringing division?
  • When we think of peace, what do we picture that looking like? Are there ways we may be thinking of peace that Jesus needs to correct?
  • How is Jesus’ judgement of “fire” a good thing for the earth and for us personally?
  • Can you think of ways we may avoid suffering that amounts to avoiding what Christ is doing in our lives and the world around us?
  • How do we understand Jesus' words that he brings division?
  • What are ways we may compromise the gospel in an effort to avoid creating division?
  • What did Jesus’ words to the crowds say to you? Why do you think he called them “hypocrites”?

Sermon for August 21, 2022 – Proper 16

Speaking of Life 4039 | Remembering God’s Goodness

Program Transcript


Speaking of Life 4039 | Remembering God’s Goodness
Cara Garrity

Have you ever left home without your wallet or cell phone? Or any item that you almost always have with you? I think most of us can relate to the wave of panic that ensues when we have forgotten something that was vitally important to us.

In the popular movie, “Home Alone”, Macaulay Calkin’s character, Kevin, accidentally gets left at home after his large family frantically leaves for the airport for their holiday vacation. A power outage the night before their trip turns off all their alarm clocks. Chaos ensues as the overslept family rushes out of the house as quickly as possible to meet their morning flight.

The family gets whisked off to the airport in two full-sized vans to accommodate all the brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles. As they arrive at the airport, they make a mad dash to reach their flight. The family arrives at the gate just in time. The doors to the plane are shut as they find their seats.

Once on board, and in the skies, Kevin’s parents breathe a sigh of relief and start to relax. After a few minutes of destressing, Kevin’s mother gets a sneaking suspicion that something is missing. As she starts to recount her steps, she frighteningly realizes what it is and screams, “KEVIN!!!”

In the busyness of life, it sometimes happens that we can forget to factor in God’s goodness towards us and fail to notice all the many blessings that he has bestowed upon our lives. So many things vie for our attention that it’s easy to get distracted as we rush through our days doing important things.

One such figure in the Bible who had a problem getting distracted and forgetting what was most important was King David. He truly needed to remind himself of all the ways that God had been faithful to him. You can imagine that David was no stranger to busyness. As king, he had an entire kingdom to run, and the pressure was at times overwhelming.

It seems like David made a discovery that something was missing – that something in his life had been forgotten. With that in mind, David says the following:

Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Psalm 103:1-5

Losing our perspective and forgetting about God’s good nature can leave us in a bad place. A place that King David was familiar with. He was no stranger to life’s trials and tribulations. Perhaps David wrote this when he recognized his vulnerability and realized his soul needed to think differently. David had to remind himself of God’s good nature and hold onto this belief despite his circumstances.

We too get tempted to look at the negative things in this life and wonder where God is in all of this. If you watch the news daily, you can’t help but notice how the vast majority of the stories are negative. Even if there is something positive, the news will find a way to bring out the bad.

But here is the deeper truth that cannot be touched by our circumstances or our busyness or forgetfulness. The truth about who God is and how he cares for us never changes. Even when we sometimes lose sight of it, because we get lost in our rush to live and work and recreate.

If you feel overwhelmed, stressed, and burdened beyond your limits.

Stop and take a moment to reflect on who God is and what he has done for you and for all of humanity. Think about the things David mentions – forgiveness, redemption, love, compassion. Give your soul the refreshment it needs by basking in the goodness of God, the life you have in Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, who is our comforter.

While we may at times temporarily forget God’s faithfulness to us, we can be assured that he will remain faithful. In his kingdom, we will never get left home alone.

I’m Cara Garrity, Speaking of Life.

Psalm 71:1-6 • Jeremiah 1:4-10 • Hebrews 12:18-29 • Luke 13:10-17

This week’s theme is God’s abilities. In the call to worship Psalm, the psalmist makes his appeal to God’s ability to save him from the wicked. The prophet Jeremiah is being told not to fear as God assures him of his ability to rescue him. The author of Hebrews tells us that God has the ability to sustain us. And in Luke, we see God’s ability through Christ to heal and restore a broken woman.

Straightened Up in Christ

Luke 13:10-17

Read or have someone read Luke 13:10-17

Let’s consider, for a moment, the kind of life this woman must have led before encountering Jesus. It’s safe to say that she probably needed a lot of assistance. She couldn’t do what other Palestinian women were doing. We can only imagine her limitations. Because of being bent over she could only look down. Her view likely comprised only the lower portion of her body, her feet, and the feet of others. Oh, and whatever was on the street. Dirt, rock, sand, and animal filth. She hadn’t been able to look someone in the eyes for eighteen long years.

In this story, Luke is attributing her infirmity to Satan. It was a common belief amongst the ancient Jewish people that a person’s infirmity was brought on by sin. If they weren’t saying it directly to her, you can be sure that they were murmuring about her character behind her bent and stooped back.

Wearing her shame like a wet cloak, she more than likely positioned herself away from the others in the synagogue. Perhaps far into the back in a lonely corner so she could at least hear what this captivating rabbi everyone was talking about, had to say. Little did she know that she would become the main attraction and that her world was about to be turned upside down. Or rather, her world was going to be straightened up.

Make no mistake, the way that Jesus goes about this healing shows that he intended a confrontation. He knew all about how many interpreted observing the Sabbath, and in particular, healing on the Sabbath. He surely could have waited for the next day until he was out of sight of the religious leaders. But he doesn’t because he has a bigger purpose in mind.

There are numerous accounts in the Gospels where people sought out Jesus to either be healed themselves or ask for healing for someone else. Some even initiated the encounter by touching Jesus directly. But not this time. This time, Jesus initiates the encounter. He sees her, he calls her forward, he proclaims her healing, and then he touches her.

Jesus knows that what he is doing is considered taboo on the Sabbath to some in the crowd. But he also knows what the Sabbath was intended for. It was intended to help people focus on God. In addition, it was intended to provide rest for the people of God. It was a time for people to be refreshed and restored and renewed – a healing time from their labors. Jesus argues that contrary to this act violating the Sabbath, healing fits the very spirit of the day. What better way is there to celebrate the Sabbath rest?

Theologian Charles Spurgeon commented on this story, saying, “…our Savior, by giving rest to that poor burdened woman, was in truth, making Sabbath in her body and in her soul.” What better place and time for a healing to occur than on the Sabbath? And that is the point that Jesus makes to the synagogue ruler.

Love not only often moves us beyond the law, it also points to who God is. The law of love nullifies and replaces any other law that conflicts with it, including when an interpretation of the Sabbath contradicts the law of love.

Jesus even goes so far as to point out their hypocrisy since they violate the Sabbath by untying their animals so that they can drink. Jesus makes the point that this woman was bound up worse than their animals. While they had compassion for their own animals, they did not show compassion to this woman who is a daughter of Abraham. They did not ascribe to her the value that she had before God.

There is no more common religious mistake than to identify righteousness with certain so-called religious acts. Whether it be church-going, bible-reading, financial giving, and a disciplined prayer life, none of these things make you right in the sight of God. The fundamental question is: where is your heart towards God and your fellow brother or sister?

Jesus pointedly gets to the very heart of the issue with the synagogue ruler and those that agreed with him. That they are far more bent than this woman ever was. She received her healing, but they still desperately needed to be straightened up.

Augustine coined the term, “Cor Curvum in see,” meaning, “curved in on ourselves.” While it started with Augustine, others like Martin Luther and Dietrich Bonhoeffer would also pick up on this theme. The idea is that humanity is bent inward, seeking its own good apart from God.

C.S. Lewis, in his space trilogy, refers to earth as “The Silent Planet.” The inhabitants of other planets call earthlings “the bent ones.” When we spend our lives with this inward bent, we start to believe that truth begins and ends with us. We become little gods.

When we are curved in on ourselves, the world also reflects back to us what we see in ourselves. For those who are angry, the world is an angry place. For those who cannot trust, the world is an untrustworthy place. For those with despair, they see a world without hope. But for those whom God has straightened up, we see a world of faith, hope, and love.

Chances are that your local bookstore has quite a variety of self-help books. And I’m sure you can find any number of books to help you improve every area of your life. Everything from finances, diet, exercise, etc… Even in your local church there is probably someone that can help you improve in all these areas. Especially if you plan on gaining weight, what church doesn’t consist of a few elderly ladies who can bake you into a few extra pounds this week.

While all these things mentioned can help you in your areas of interest, there is one thing that none of them can do, and that is solve you. That work is reserved solely for Christ and his wonder-working power. There is no self-help to getting straightened up.

Sometimes we want so badly to see the change in our lives. If we aren’t careful, we can adopt the belief that says, when I have conquered my sin, or my bad habits are behind me, when all is right in my life, THEN I will be right, and all will be well.”

That kind of thinking is falling away from grace. And that’s just not how it works in the kingdom of God. His grace is for us now. Not for some future date when we arrive at a healthy place in our lives. His grace is sufficient for us because his power is made perfect in our weakness. So, while we stumble, while we fail, and while we fall, he is able to help us stand.

Just as a person can curve in on themselves, a congregation can be just as vulnerable. We are embracing the idea of our churches being Team Based — Pastor Lead. Gone are the days in which we look upon the pastor to come up with all the ideas and solutions. The body of Christ is comprised of members. Not members and specialists. This is about the priesthood of all believers standing tall together. This is what it means for a church to be relevant. Standing in our communities and serving consistently with the love of God through Christ.

We also participate in this story that we read about today. Humanity was the crippled woman. We stood at the back in our shame and broken condition. Christ called us forward and took the initiative to straighten us up. He took away our condition that kept us bound to sin and death. The works of the enemy in our lives has been done away with.

In calling us forward, Jesus makes it personal. Knowing Jesus, he would have gotten down low enough for the woman to make eye contact with him. In the same way, in his Incarnation, he meets us in our humanity. He takes a lowly form of an infant and starts from there. He makes face-to-face contact with humanity and embraces us and takes us into his trinitarian family.

Jesus reminds this woman, and all within earshot, that she is not the person everyone else tried to label her as. She is a daughter of Abraham. She has a place of honor amongst God’s people. So too, because of all that God has accomplished through Christ, the Holy Spirit is there to remind us of who we truly are. Because of Christ, we no longer must wear the old, heavy, worn-out cloak of shame that would cause us to stoop inward.  We now stand and stand tall in Christ. And as we do, our gaze is no longer directed toward all the lower things of this life, but we gaze straight forward with our eyes fixed firmly on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

Humble Hospitality w/ Chris Breslin W3

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August 21 – Proper 16
Luke 13:10-17 “Missing the Point”

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Resource:  “The Place Where We Are Right” by Jewish poet, Yehuda Amichai

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Program Transcript


Anthony: Let’s move on to our next passage, which is Luke 13:10 – 17. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 16 in Ordinary Time, which is August 21.

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And there was a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a Spirit; and she was bent over double, and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your sickness.” 13 And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she stood up straight again, and began glorifying God. 14 But the synagogue leader, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, “There are six days during which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” 15 But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites, does each of you on the Sabbath not untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it away to water it16 And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this restraint on the Sabbath day?” 17 And as He said this, all His opponents were being humiliated; and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Him.

In his effort to be right, lawfully, it seems—it doesn’t just seem—the synagogue leader is getting it all wrong, Chris.

So, my question for you is this, is there something for us to think about? Any parallels to maybe how believers are acting today? How might we, in an effort to be right, be getting it wrong?

Chris: This is only an hour-long podcast.

Anthony: Loaded question, sir.

Chris: Reading this, I thought about a poem by a Jewish poet. Yehuda Amichai wrote a poem called, “The Place Where We Are Right.” He says, “From the place where we are right, flowers will never grow in the spring. The place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard. But doubts and loves dig up the world like a mole, a plow. And a whisper will be heard in the place where the ruined house once stood.”

And so, I just love that poem, and I love that poem how it sparks off of this passage, because in your question you ask how they are trying to be right.

And in some ways, that’s really commendable to try to be right. I think Pharisees, synagogue leaders, the people who often directly encounter and serve as foils to Jesus, I think most church people have way more in common with them than Jesus in our impulses and practices.

So first off, maybe that’s one thing we should get used to being in that role of the story and being encountered by Jesus in a way that reminds us that we’re not just not always right, but often not right.

But I love that poem because it reminds us that where we are right, where we circle the wagons, where we just stay in one place, we trample the ground so much that nothing can ever grow—no flowers in the spring. That is hard and trampled like a yard instead of churned up and verdant like a garden.

I think that this is our camel / needle for American Christians—to be that sort of people, that it’s really hard for us to be, not just right, but righteous, to be just, to be true.

Whenever I read to be right, I think of the etymology of righteousness in the Bible, dikaiosunē in the Greek. I think to get a fuller picture, or a more rounded version of what that means, it’s not just like some sort of static rightness, but it is this really dynamic deliverance.

When God is righteous, it is fundamentally liberative. This is Paul’s, “You are now free to be free.” Like, you are free for freedom. You are righteous for the sake of something. And so, in this passage, they have good concerns about being righteous and being right about the Sabbath. Sabbath is so important. Ceasing to be with God is really important. It’s one of the things that constitutes a whole people.

But in their ceasing, they’ve lost an imagination for how that they can still take up and embrace. They can cease and embrace all in the same space and at the same time. Their righteousness and our righteousness have to be more concerned and bound up with God’s liberative work than our rightness. We need to find freedom in that.

Anthony: Yeah, I’ve heard you use the word imagination three or four times. And in thinking about this pericope and sacred prophetic imagination, I think one of the things that stunts our imagination is dualism, where it’s just either/or. It’s this or that. And you see it all over American society right now.

You’re either on this side or that side, and it doesn’t give us the space to humbly learn and to move more rightly into liberation by the Spirit. I just think in asking that question, how we may we be right, but all wrong—boy, you’re right! We could spend days talking through that, don’t you think?

Chris: Yeah. And to go back to the poem and he says, “But doubts and loves, dig up the world, like a mole, a plow.” The doubts and loves.

So, something that finds us that we don’t necessarily welcome, like doubt, and something so basic to us, like our loves or desires, the way that we are oriented to the world, dig up the world, like a mole, or like a plow, like a pest, or like something that we set our hands to and intend.

And the way out of this sort of hardness of heart, (I think of like Pharaoh or name your local politician, right?) that an antidote to that is, doubts and loves that dig up the world, like a mole, a plow.

Anthony: So, this woman that has been identified had been living with an infliction for 18 years, and Jesus spoke words of life.

He was the embodiment of life. He touched her with a healing embrace that ultimately would change her life. I’m curious, in what ways can we actively participate in that healing ministry of Jesus by the Spirit?

Chris: I mentioned how, when we started the church, how we embraced and were named by the Isaiah’s 61 text, and to put some handles and watch words around that, we came up with [and] we extracted: hope, healing, and hospitality in Christ. And those seemed to sum up some of the prophetic vision of Isaiah and in the words of Jesus.

And I think the middle one—healing—was the most kind of uncanny thing for us to try to get our heads around, because what do you mean you are a healing church? Not that kind of church, right? But over the years (and this hasn’t happened automatically and sometimes it happens in spite of us), but we live in a really transient area that a lot of people come here for a little time for grad school and then leave.

And you’ll touch base with people, or they’ll send you an email, or around church homecomings and anniversaries, you make contact with people you hadn’t heard from in a while or who have some distance from you. And we’re getting a lot of people saying, being at Oak Church was really healing for me, and people using that language.

And it’s been interesting that has happened and is happening. And we’re trying to figure out how God is doing that. And so, I think part of that is making space and being responsive, and trying to cultivate a church culture where things can be different.

Like this lady comes to Jesus, probably not with a whole lot of an imagination, maybe just a little spark of an imagination for how an 18-year-old sickness can be changed. She had enough of an imagination to come to Jesus, but I’m not even sure she knew how her life could be different. If something has been happening in your life for 18 years, that is like deeply woven into who you are.

And so having a little bit of an imagination, even if it’s a really open-ended imagination for how God is going to work and then having a patience and an urgency to bring about that newness.

In the passage, I think it’s significant that Jesus spoke freedom to her, and then he touched her. There was a word and a deed happening there, and it brought about her worship and her health.

You have word and flesh; there’s a declaration and there’s a follow-through. And it happens in a mode of direct presence and intimacy. I think our encounters with Jesus still happen this way, through an encounter with the word and through really regular hands and feet—that we recognize sometimes they’re even our own hands and feet for others.

Anthony: Yeah. Proximity begets compassion. Doesn’t it? There’s something about seeing the need and being present to witness it that is so powerful. And I really appreciated your insight about her imagination and probably it not being vivid to what could happen.

And isn’t that the way it is? It’s like music. I have heard somebody say, it’s the one thing that can get to your heart without your permission. It just does.

Chris: We don’t have ear lids; we have eyelids, but we don’t have ear lids.

Anthony: Yeah. And I think healing can show up in surprising ways like that. And we know he is Jehovah-Rapha; he’s the healer. Yet we don’t dehumanize ourselves to think that we can’t participate in some very tangible way.

I think it was Bart talked about how theology should always lead to doxology. In other words, if we’re doing the good work of theology and we don’t end up praising God, we’re doing something wrong.

I’m struck by the church people of the day missing the miracle if they’re not praising God in their desire to be right. Maybe I’m reworking the same question, but is there anything else you want to touch on and what this can teach us?

Chris: Yeah, I think awareness of God’s work comes via testimony, and I think that’s a hard thing for sophisticated modern people like us to learn how to do—to talk about unwieldy and mysterious things of God with passion and gratefulness without sounding like lunatics, and sometimes you can’t help it.

But I’ve learned a lot about this with my kids in the last decade—swimming against this disenchanting tide in order to re-enchant the world. Not that we’re doing anything, but rather we’re learning to notice and expect and narrate what God is already doing. I want them to have a vivid imagination for how God is working without leaning on tired religious speech that’s empty. I’ve been trying to really discipline myself with a certain way of talking, with a certain expectation. So, when they come to me with a paper cut, we talk about how God will heal them; we ask God to heal them.

Less we forget in our forgetfulness that that healing is somehow natural or that it’s not a gift from God, no matter how minute or how normal it seems. How can we expect God to arrive, to act, to intervene in big ways (God forbid, if we want someone to be healed of cancer or after a car accident), if God hasn’t been the healer all along of rug burns and paper cuts and scrapes and bruises from learning how to ride our bikes and from self-imposed, damage we’ve done to ourselves? That’s one thing is re-enchanting our normal speech to create an expectation.

In terms of the passages, that “humiliated opponents,” I don’t know, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It feels bad, in the midst of it when you are being brought down, humbled, subverted, surprised, but what if that is actually a gift? I think about the rich young ruler who came to Jesus, and it says that he went away sad because he had so much, but it leaves it really open-ended. He still might have embraced that as a gift and a calling and just did an accurate accounting of his life.

What if instead of when we find out we’re wrong or when we find out we actually missed out on what God has been doing all along, what if instead of doubling down or powering up or circling wagons or defending, what if there was an expectation that God was also working in us being wrong? And then there’s time and space to change our minds. There’s not a whole lot of value in that. It’ll be interesting if Elon Musk gives Twitter an edit button because we’re so used to our whole lives becoming un-editable hot takes that we can’t take back. So, we just double down and trench.

I don’t know. What if that is also a gift from God, proving us wrong and not in a vicious way, but in a gracious way? It’s not like divine gas lighting, but a way that can make us people able to ask forgiveness because we realize that we are often wrong.

Anthony: Well, it seems to me it ties back into being ready, right? As the Spirit woos us into greater maturity into the head, Jesus, it looks like that. And humiliation is painful, but it’s like our mutual friend, Jeff McSwain—I’ve heard him say often, “Life is just ongoing repentance.” Every day, it’s oh, I got that wrong! But we have one who knows what it looks like to condescend. And thanks be to God for that.


Small Group Discussion Questions

From Speaking of Life
  • Why do we sometimes forget what God has done for us?
  • Are there ways that we can intentionally remember God’s goodness to us?
  • Are there triggers we can spot in our lives when we are starting to get to a bad place emotionally?
  • How can we assist others when we recognize that others are overly negative or depressed?
From the sermon
  • According to the sermon, what does it mean to be “straightened up in Christ”?
  • How is the life of Christ different from one that is curved inward? Name some things that would typify each life.
  • Why do you think that Jesus didn’t wait until after the Sabbath to heal the woman?
  • Why do people sometimes place rule-keeping over relationship and the needs of others?
  • How can our congregation be less inward-focused and more outward-focused? Where do you think your congregation is in this regard?

Sermon for August 28, 2022 – Proper 17

Speaking of Life Script 4040 | Living Your Best Life

Program Transcript


Speaking of Life Script 4040 | Living Your Best Life
Greg Williams

You’ve heard the phrase, “Don’t settle for less!” It’s a well-meaning attempt to motivate you to not give up on the best life you have envisioned for yourself. You’ve likely heard the challenge in regard to relationships, your career, financial dreams, or even your personal growth goals.” It can be any number of things where you are challenged to not settle for less. Add to this the number of motivational gurus who “know” the secret to not settling. They will gladly share their discoveries with you in their latest book or video, for a small price of course (since they are not settling for less).

But how do we know if we have settled?

If we were ever asked if we are living our best life, I think most of us would say “No, of course not.” We are creatures who are always longing for more. How could we ever honestly say we have arrived at our best life?

This is where a Biblical and Christian perspective is helpful. The believer already knows it is not up to him or her to envision or bring about their best life. That has been settled in Jesus. He is our life and to choose anything less is what the Bible calls idolatry. The Bible is full of dire warnings against idolatry because God loves us, and he knows that choosing anything over Jesus for our life is to truly settle for less on a catastrophic level.

King Solomon’s story recorded in Ecclesiastes speaks vividly to how more gold, more women, bigger palaces, and faster horses simply do not bring the lasting fulfillment — a fulfillment that can only be found in a relationship with the true God of the Bible.

Here is another such warning painting the same picture of settling for less.

Has any nation ever traded its gods for new ones, even though they are not gods at all? Yet my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols! The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay,” says the Lord. “For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me—the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!”
Jeremiah 2:11-13 (NLT)

Jesus is the fountain of living water, and our loving Father has given us our best life in Jesus Christ. We can never achieve for ourselves more than God gives us by his grace. And he has given us his Son, in whom we can live our best life by the Spirit. We have all spiritual blessings in Jesus now, so let’s not become distracted by shiny things and get caught up in the striving for what we already possess in Jesus! Know this: you can trust the Father – after all, he never settles for less when it comes to you and me.

I’m Greg Williams, Speaking of Life.

Psalm 81:1, 10-16 • Jeremiah 2:4-13 • Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 • Luke 14:1, 7-14

This week’s theme is faithful following. The call to worship Psalm presents the stubborn resistance of Israel. The Old Testament reading from Jeremiah also takes Israel to task for its unfaithfulness. The epistolary text in Hebrews presents various exhortations that give a picture of a faithful disciple. The Gospel reading from Luke challenges fearful hearts reluctant to follow Christ.

Our Seating Doesn’t Determine Our Standing

Luke 14:1-14 (NRSV)

Our text today presents us with yet another story of Jesus around a meal table. Why do so many stories of Jesus involve eating and tables? The stories abound. One of the first attacks on Jesus had to do with him eating with sinners and tax collectors. Jesus ate with many different people and even got the label “glutton and drunkard” for his trouble. Jesus restores Peter at a breakfast fish fry and opens the eyes of two travelers on the road to Emmaus at an evening bread breaking. And who can forget his miracles involving wine, fish, and bread. And we haven’t even mentioned the last supper and his institution of communion by which all his followers would remember him . Jesus seems to love teaching around the table. There is even that odd little story of Jesus turning over some tables that created a major disturbance in the temple. Perhaps we should pay close attention to this metaphorical use of tables, eating and banquets. Luke 14 will give us just that opportunity as we see Jesus at yet another banquet, teaching some dinning etiquette, and once again turning the tables, only this time not so literally.

There are essentially two scenes in this story and our lectionary has us focus primarily on the second scene. But it also throws in the first verse for some important context.

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. (Luke 14:1 NRSV)

If you have been reading through Luke and are familiar with the Gospel stories, this one verse prepares you to anticipate confrontation. Let’s see, we have Jesus with a religious elite, around food, and on the Sabbath to boot. Yeah, here we go again. This will not end well. And if you missed Luke’s clues to conflict, he gives us one final detail that gives it away: “…they were watching him closely.” Have you ever been under the watchful eye of someone you know is against you? You know what’s up right? They are intently watching Jesus in hopes they would see him do something they can use against him. This invitation by a leader of the Pharisees is a trap.

The lectionary doesn’t include the scene that comes next, but we will look at it quickly to set up scene two. Besides, what Jesus does next is too good to miss. He springs the trap.

Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?” But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. Then he said to them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?” And they could not reply to this. (Luke 14:2-6 NRSV)

How interesting that the man who had dropsy just appeared in front of Jesus seemingly out of nowhere. Typically, a man with this ailment, which we would call edema today, a condition of swelling due to excessive fluid, would be considered impure by Levitical standards, and therefore wouldn’t be allowed in this setting. This Pharisee seems to have taken steps to position this suffering soul in front of Jesus hoping to trap him in some way. The man with dropsy is the bait. And we have already been shown the trap—this takes place “on the Sabbath.” All this unfolding under the hostile eyes of the “lawyers and Pharisees.”

It’s possible these religious elites are acting out of fear of Jesus because he often challenged the status quo of the cultural fixation on status and standing. Remember, Jesus is the one running around eating with sinners and tax collectors. But we can relate, right? When we measure our worth according to our position or prominence, we will fear losing this standing and be tempted to use others to protect it if necessary. But Jesus is not fooled. He knows our fears and he knows the healing we need.

Jesus anticipates the Pharisees’ trap and asks them, “Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath or not?” Perhaps Jesus is not referring only to the individual man with dropsy who needs healing. He used the plural “people” in his question instead of “this person!” It is also the people, you and I included, who have calloused hearts swelled with fear that need healing. They had no answer to his question that wouldn’t jeopardize their plan. So, they remained silent.

Jesus then heals the man and sends him away. He is not going to let him be used any further by these calculating authorities. He follows this healing up with another question about pulling a child or an ox out of a well on the Sabbath, an allowance made by the supplemental body of Jewish law. This question exposes the hypocrisy of their hearts. The Pharisees again refuse to answer. With this double silencing of his opponents, Jesus has ensnared the Pharisees in their own trap.

Now we can move to the second scene, which is the focus of our Lectionary passage. It begins with verse 7.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. (Luke 14:7 NRSV)

Before we look at the parable did you notice a change in the story? Who is doing the watching now? That’s right, Jesus now becomes the one who is doing the watching as “he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor.” He is watching the guests instead of being watched by the host. Now that Jesus has silenced his opponents, he is presented in the story as the host of the banquet. And that is how Jesus “turns the tables.”

And we will be glad he has done just that, not only in this story, but in our stories as well. When Jesus is the host, the banquet will be enjoyed by those who live by the table manners of grace and not soured by fearful attempts of self-promotion. Jesus knew Proverbs 17 well:

Dry crumbs in peace are better than a full meal with strife. (Proverbs 17:1-2 ISV)

Now to the parable Jesus has for his “guests.”

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 14:8-11 NRSV)

And why we may ask is Jesus telling this parable? On the surface, this may look like straightforward wisdom talk common to the ancient world. Is Jesus just reminding them of Proverbs 25?

Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble. (Proverbs 25:6-7 NRSV)

On the contrary, he is not just giving them advice on how to avoid embarrassment at a social gathering. Jesus is not concerned about the appropriate way to rise to the top. He is addressing the heart that seeks self-exaltation by any means. This parable is aimed at the fearful hearts of the Pharisees (and you and I when the shoe fits). The last line of the parable makes this clear. “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Notice the passive “will be humbled” and “will be exalted.” The seating arrangement is determined by the host, not the guest.

It’s the heart of the host that ushers in the wedding banquet of all banquets. And if you will bear with me for one theological excursion, we will take a quick look at that heart. It is the heart of God, the triune God, who invites us to be his guests.

You can use a diagram below, which consists of a triangle to illustrate some foundational truths about the Trinity. Notice each line of the triangle has its own label. One line is labeled “One God,” another is labeled “Three Persons,” and the final line of the triangle is labeled “Equal.” Also note the label on each corner – modalism, tritheism, and subordinationism.

This triangle illustration is used to show how each foundational truth about the Trinity guards against a corresponding heresy. Each of the three sides of the triangle is a foundational truth. When any of these truths is denied, the other two sides make an arrow that points to the resulting error. Don’t get distracted by all the “isms” and big words. We just want to look at one foundational line of the Trinity triangle. The one labeled “Equal.” This is meant to convey the orthodox understanding that the three Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, Spirit, are all equally and fully God. This truth guards against a heresy known as “Subordinationism.”

Essentially what this means in its simplest expression is that there is no hierarchy in the being of God. It is this foundational understanding that God is not hierarchical that sheds the most light on our passage in Luke 14. If we are created in the image of God, and God is not a God of hierarchy, then we must take seriously the implication for our lives. With Jesus as host of the banquet, why would we attempt to position ourselves hierarchically. This banquet does not operate by stepping on people in order to climb one rung higher on some arbitrary ladder of success. We don’t need to clamor for a seat at the VIP table. Jesus has invited us to enjoy the meal. And more importantly, to enjoy him, and his relationship with his Father by the Spirit.

Jesus’ parable is aimed at correcting the mindset that our standing is dependent on our position that we obtain for ourselves. In his parable it is the host who determines our standing. As we see Jesus as the host who has invited us to the banquet, we need not be concerned about seating arrangements. We have been seated at the right hand of the Father in Jesus Christ. Our standing with the host has been settled through his own humbling and exalting through his death and resurrection.

After Jesus addresses everyone in the room with his parable, he then gets more personal by adding a word to “the one who had invited him.” If you are still listening to the words of this scripture, you are the one who has invited Jesus. May we listen to his final words personally spoken to us today:

He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke 14:12-14 NRSV)

Jesus wants to personally give us some instructions on extending invitations. Instead of inviting only those who can help our standing, Jesus wants us to participate in his life that has no need of hierarchy. Imagine the burden lifted to live free of such pressure and constraint! As we come to know our standing in Jesus – that we are loved, embraced, adored, cherished, and adopted into the life of Father, Son, and Spirit, called sons and daughters of the King – then we can lay down all our attempts of bettering our position by using others or by posturing and maneuvering. Instead, we can “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” and receive the blessing of sharing in Jesus’ life as we play host in our world. These guests represent an invitation that is free of any desire for self-promotion. There is nothing they can give us in return. With Jesus as host, there is no fear of others threatening our identity. Besides, for all our clamoring for better seats, for all our positioning of ourselves for greater power or prestige, for all our manipulating and using of others to our own end, wouldn’t you agree that we are none the happier?

The blessed and happy life is the one found in Jesus who knows nothing of hierarchy but only of self-giving love. May we embrace this life that has so embraced us in Jesus Christ. Amen!

Humble Hospitality w/ Chris Breslin W4

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August 28 – Proper 17
Luke 14:1, 7-14 “Humble Hospitality”

CLICK HERE to listen to the whole podcast.

Resources:

Kendall Vanderslice’s ministry, Edible Theology

Painting / Iconography “Hidden life in Nazareth” by Ivanka Demchuk, a Ukrainian icon writer

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Program Transcript


Anthony: We have one more passage, which is Luke 14: 1, 7 – 14. It’s a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 17 in Ordinary Time, which is August 28. Chris, read that one for us, please.

Chris: Sure.

It happened that when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching Him closely. Now He began telling a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them, “Whenever you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and the one who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then in disgrace you will proceed to occupy the last place. 10 But whenever you are invited, go and take the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are dining at the table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” 12 Now He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “Whenever you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor wealthy neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you to a meal in return, and that will be your repayment. 13 But whenever you give a banquet, invite people who are poor, who have disabilities, who are limping, and people who are blind; 14 and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Anthony: The upside-down kingdom. Not the way we anticipate it. This passage tells us that our Lord is sharing a meal with the leader of the Pharisees, and I just think it’s one of the most profound aspects of Jesus’ ministry. And that is his meal-sharing ministry, the intimacy of it to be face to face with another.

What are your thoughts, Chris? And what does a church have to learn?

Chris: The church that we came from that sent us to plant [Oak Church] had over the years done a lot of meal sharing together. In the early days, we had weekly potluck and then that shifted to biweekly and then monthly, and then periodically.

So, when we started Oak Church, the intent was to do weekly potluck meals and to create a culture around that. And that has been such a journey of learning. And again, predicated on: Jesus does this, so let’s figure out how to do it. But it’s been really interesting because eating that much together and we’ve tried to do it without a safety net.

At the other church, one of the reasons why it became less frequent is because people get tired, and you wouldn’t bring that much. And then, there was always like the potluck brigade that would like, oh no, we don’t have enough food. Let’s call on some Dominos or go get some stuff from Costco. And there is a lot of hospitality around that impulse, but we’ve not done that at all.

And we’ve found that it’s really self-regulating the potluck meal, because if you have a bad week, you are reminded, oh shoot, I need to participate. If you don’t bring it, we don’t eat. We always say that we are less without you, and that is mathematically true, but it is no more obvious than at the table. You learn how to accent, and you learn how to account for others’ gifts.

You learn that person always brings mac and cheese, so I probably don’t need to do that. It’s a really beautiful, dynamic life that happens around the table. I think I would love to know more detail about Jesus’ meals, not just who he ate with but what he ate and how those meals went and who provided the food.

I think for the local church, a life around the table as an extension of the communion table is a really beautiful like culture-maker. And so, you get the chance (we do each week) to come forward to the communion table with empty, open hands, ready to receive from God’s grace. You don’t bring anything to that table. And then 10 minutes later or so, you arrive with plenty of stuff in hand. You arrive with a full instant pot to add to an armada of instant pots to try to feed friends and neighbors and show off your new recipe or figure that stuff out.

Life around the table also makes you, in Paul language, think of others more than yourself. Especially if you have friends that have to navigate food allergies. Or we’ve had to navigate, as a very potluck-centric church that is so core to our culture, two plus years of that not being a safe thing to do—sitting across from each other in a fellowship hall. We’ve done that with outdoor meals, with prepackaged things and all these different arrangements, but it’s always a negotiation and an improvisation, trying to figure out how to be together.

I really love a friend here in Durham, Kendall Vanderslice, who’s a Dukey also, has a ministry called Edible Theology. And she’s a trained baker, also has a degree in food studies and theological studies. And so, she’s really putting these things together, specifically about bread and dinner church, and talks really beautifully about how these things interact.

Anthony: it’s a good resource. We’ll put it in the show notes, and it makes me think of somebody you’ve already referenced, Robert Capon, who loved food and loved Jesus and loved the combination. And I think he shared a cookbook

Chris: Yeah, that’s right, The Supper of the Lamb.

I will say that again an early ministry experience was that the table also became a site of discipleship. Again, being in a place with a bunch of grad students and people passing through, and also being in the South, we would have people come to the church and they would be so game and so equipped and so expectant, to sit in a folding chair (at the time) and drink deeply of a 40-minute sermon and take detailed notes. And then you’d ask them, or expect, invite them, “Hey, you guys are staying for potluck, right?”

And they would demur [show reluctance] because it was so awkward for them to sit across from someone they didn’t know or to eat something they weren’t sure that they liked. It was a place of deep discipleship to become the sort of people that could do that, and that could be at a table possibly with someone that you have nothing else in common, other than Jesus and the Spirit that is connecting you. I don’t discount that power of the table either. And I think that’s also why some of Jesus’ tables are so controversial because he is putting people at a table that don’t have any reason to be together apart from him.

Anthony: The potluck brigade. I have a feeling we need to design a t-shirt and I’ve got a few people in mind to share that with.

Chris: Yeah, we’re trying to get sponsored by instant pot. That’s key.

Anthony: Jesus instructs the listeners to sit at the lowly place during a feast. And of course, later in scripture, we see in John 13, Jesus doing this very thing, embodying it when he gets up quietly from dinner and washes the disciples’ feet in the upper room.

Why do you think it matters that we have a God, revealed in Jesus, who practices this? Who practices what he preaches?

Chris: I don’t think it’s just that Jesus somehow needs to be like logical and coherent or even like non-hypocritical. I think in these stories of Jesus being with people in normal places, that Jesus is saving us in these stories.

This is before the cross, this is after the incarnation, but Jesus is saving all humanity, all creation when he feasts and when he washes feet and when he brushes by the shoulders of someone in the crowd or is touched, when Jesus is walking around Galilee or when Jesus is a boy growing up in Nazareth.

I’m looking over my shoulder here at my desk at this icon called “Hidden life in Nazareth” by this Ukrainian icon writer [Artist, iconographer Ivanka Demchuk]. And it’s Mary and Joseph, and Jesus is taking his first steps as a boy. And there’s a clothesline in the background. I think when Jesus is filling up diapers in Mary’s home, and all of these hidden moments, that Jesus is saving us because he is bolting divinity and humanity together and creating a new humanity.

So, I don’t think it’s just that Jesus is practicing what he’s preaching, but he’s becoming familiar to us. He’s coming close enough to people that they know what he smells like and what his hands feel like and what his voice sounds like. That’s how close God is to us in Jesus.

That’s how sensible God is, that it is not any longer a mystery of what God is like. God is like Mary’s boy. For the disciples, God is like their fishing buddy. God is like a journeying storyteller who loves a good party. God is like a guy who isn’t afraid to stick his nose in an unfair fight.

God is like someone who’s been put through the ringer or is the victim of state violence or who has been lynched. God has become one of us. And I think that means we stand a chance to become like God, that we’re forever bolted in Christ to God. So, when we read these stories, we just can’t forget what God looks like and smells like and acts like and sounds like.

Anthony: There’s a great documentary. It’s just a short film (maybe 18 minutes) called Godspeed. [Godspeed: the Pace of Being Known]

Chris: I love it.

Anthony: Yeah. Is it Brian Canlis? Is that his name?

Chris: Yeah, that’s right. Brian and Julie in Vancouver.

Anthony: And one of the things I was struck by, they were interviewing one of the folks in Scotland. And he was talking about God’s speed being the speed of three miles an hour, the speed of walking.

And he was saying, that’s when he became a believer, when he realized Jesus couldn’t hide, the people knew him, the villagers knew him. That’s Joe and Mary’s boy. And that’s powerful for us, that we can’t just parachute into people’s lives, but it’s meant to be lived face to face because we were made in the image of a God who is in face-to-face unity, the Father and the Son.

And I think meal-sharing and all the things you’re discussing here, as far as taking the lowly place, that just lives into what reality is, this is reality. This is what it looks like. It looks like Jesus.

Chris: Yeah. I live in walking distance to where we minister at the church and that I’m learning that in my ministry.

My across the street neighbor, Jim, is not super church interested, but he thinks it’s hilarious that he knows a pastor and probably hears me yell at my kids. And he thinks it’s hilarious that I’ll drink a beer with him. So, I’ll get these little offerings from Jim: a magazine that his daughter who’s way too old for them now still subscribes to and he leaves for our girls and a Belgian beer, because that’s what he likes.

I think it’s just that presence that has connected to Jim. And again, I’m not trying to stand in for Jesus here, but it helps me imagine that both the incredibility and the credibility of Jesus’ life in Nazareth, because he was known because, he was there.

Anthony: Yeah. Amen. Chris, this has been fun. And I’m so grateful. I’m so grateful you’re willing to do it, especially as the countdown is on toward your sabbatical. So, thank you for your time.

And it’s our tradition here on Gospel Reverb that our guests share prayer for our listening audience, for those who are out there ministering in the neighborhood, as you just described. Would you be willing to do that for us, please?

Chris: I’d love to.

Lord Jesus, help us be awake and attentive to your presence in our midst. Help us be receptive and generous to all the gifts that you give us. Help us be invitational and expectant as you show up in the midst of the least, the last, the lost, the littlest, and the closest to death. And help us feast with you and look forward to feasting with you for eternity. We pray all this to the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.