Jesus came for this small man Luke 19:1-10

About 10 years ago, when I was fresh from seminary, a group of 4 7th and 8th graders joined me reading the Gospel of Mark.  As we read we got some very clear ideas in our imaginations about what different people in the gospels were like.  
One of the most interesting groups of people to imagine were the tax collectors.  Every kid in that group could sing a little ditty about a tax collector, "Zacchaeus as a we little man..."  But somehow that song didn't capture the full revulsion that people felt towards men like Zacchaeus.  
As we visited about tax collectors I encouraged the group to imagine a tough violent man as Zacchaeus.  We imagined a small gangster similar in size and attitude to Joe Pesci's character in Goodfellas.  He might have been small but his size wasn't an obstacle to his violent attempts to control others.  The same probably could be said for Zacchaeus.
How far can God's love go?Zaccheus was not a beloved member of the community.  Hearing the good news of Jesus' reaching out towards a man like him ought to still shake us when we're sitting in the seat of the Pharisee's.  Jesus was reaching for a man who had been written-off but who was not too far gone for God's reach.  May all who search for God hear the Good News that God's reaching waiting to enter into their lives.

Pax, John.

What's in your heart Luke 18:9-14

Jesus told a story of two men who came to the temple to pray, a pharisee and a tax collector. In life men like these 2 are viewed ifferently and likely even see themselves differently. Jesus knows each of us. He knows very well that we each have our own views of ourselves and our own reasons why we might think that we out to come to God in prayer.

Jesus even let's us in on the reasons "why" each man came to pray. The Pharisee came to praise God for making him so great. He concluded with a speech about why he was so great. The tax collector had a reason why he needed to pray in the temple: he was a sinner to came to beg God for mercy.

Why questions are slippery and we look for ways to slide arround them. We look for ways to deflect and hide our sinful motives. But God is fully away of reasons why we need to come to Him that we don't understand and won't even face on our own. In the book Couples in Conflict Ronald Richardson says,

In the garden of Eden God did not ask Adam and Eve “why” they ate the fruit of the tree. God simply asked about the fact of eating. Did they do it? But they responded with “why” answers. They would have loved to debate the “whys” with God...(page 12)

There's a danger in presuming that we truly know what we need from God when we pray. Listen closely to story. Maybe we think we know the reason why each man wanted to come to God and the reason why God might have wanted each man to come to him. In at least one case in the story God's reason is different than those of a human being who came to him.

Keep Praying Luke 18:1-8

There's a real picture of a human faith and prayer that Jesus paints as he tells the story of the widow and the unjust judge. It's a vivid picture that both haunts and inspires. We want to meet God and see him and reach him easily; truth is we want all of our encounters with God to be easy.

Jesus knows what we want from God; and he spoke boldly about the real character of God that isn't always what humans want it to be. We want our prayers to be heard and answered fast. Prayers offered to an entity who will answer in our timeframe aren't prayers to the real God.

Jesus said when you pray remember the woman who came to a judge who refused to listen. Remember her persistence when you come to God time after time. Jesus words are meant both to encourage and inspire us. But I also hear words of warning: there will be struggles among people of faith who pray to the God. There will be struggles even for those who have no place else to turn and are completely depending on God for help. Even more frightening to consider is that there might not be any answers from God that we would want to hear.

We might be the one who comes to God like this woman. We might be like the woman who wasn't been heard and who asked for a long time be heard. Martin Luther wrote of God's will both to be known and to be hidden. A good explanation of God's hiding in Luther's theology has been offered by Steven Paulson. It's an uneasy reality to face.

Jesus' story of the widow and the unjust judge is especially uncomfortable when you dwell in the middle space waiting to be heard having no place else to turn except for God. Frieghtening questions pop up inside those in the waiting middle space waiting for God, "Where are you God? Do you care?" There's no way through this middle space between us and God except faith; their are no anchors to hold to except faith in the God you can't see and hear and taste and touch and smell.

May God grant us perseverence and long suffering faith that his great and glorious will will be done among us. AMEN.

What happens when God changes your life? Luke 17:11-19

Look around today and you can see God at work in the lives of many who don't stop to give their thanks and praise in return for all that's been done for them. This situation is nothing new.

Luke tells the story of 10 people who lived with leprosy, a terrible disease that forced them into isolation for fear that their sickness would spread. They were unclean and had to live apart to prevent others from becoming unclean like them.
In faith and hope they called to Jesus. The 10 were asking him to change their lives and make them whole. The miracle they hoped for happened and all 10 were made whole.

1 of the 10 turned back to Jesus to give thanks. Jesus asked out loud about the other 9. He knew that all of them were whole. He knew that grace had been shown to them even while some didn't recognize the gracious free gift that they had been given.

Speaking with a mother and grandmother today about this story it becomes clear that gratitude isn't an instant part of our lives. God's work in our world often goes unnoticed. But thankfully God's love isn't limited by our works and our gratitude. Thankfully God's grace is limited only by his willingness to die for those he would come to redeem.

Christian Humility Luke 17:5-10

Just a note,
many in our town have had some water in their basement after significant rains in excess of 6 inches last week. Folks in other towns near by have faced even greater flooding and even greater challenges in the aftermath. Truman Minnesota just to our north had over a foot of rain last week. Please keep those who have lost some property so quickly to this surprising fall flooding in your prayers.
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Jesus' friends asked for help to grow in faith. But looking at the reading I don't think they knew what they were asking for when they said, "...to the Lord, "Increase our faith.""
Jesus wasn't inviting his friends to grow in faith for their own sake. He was inviting them to grow in faith for the sake of the Kingdom of God. The same thing goes for us. We are called to be God's servants. Jesus drove the point home asking

“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? 8 Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’ ” Luke 17:7-10 NRSV.

There's no hiding our humble position compared to God's. Still the same Jesus who asks humility of his friends bowed down before them to wash their feet the night before he died.
Read Luke 17:8 in contrast to the great invitation we receive from God to His table. We come unworthy and ill-prepared. We come as sinners undeserving who meet God in flesh at the table. We come warts and all. And the maker of the universe who could sternly keep us away welcomes us. We could be pushed aside because the blood of the lamb is on our hands; but the lamb who was slain welcomes us with scared hands to eat and drink with him.
Thanks be to God that Jesus calls us to his table. AMEN.

God knew his name Luke 16:19-31

Today we listen to Jesus and join him considering the lives of two men who lived and died in very close proximity to one another. One of the two men is very poor. This man with no home has a name, Lazarus. The other man has no name but is described as rich.

Jesus is telling this story in no small part to emphasize the great difference between human society and the world as God would have it be. In our world having a name matters and we know all the big names. Just this past week there was a list of the billionaires in our nation published. We celebrate celebrities. There are whole tv channels and websites dedicated to gossip about the celebrated. But in this story Jesus invites us to consider the life of a man who celebrated while a man who lived just outside his door suffered.

Luke writes,

[he] longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.g The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. Luke 16:21-23

Lazarus the man with a name had no permanent address that he could call his own. He laid in front of of the unnamed man's gate. Lazarus had sores on his body that the dogs would like when the came near. The thing is Jesus tells us the story in the reverse of the way that our culture tells such stories.Lazarus watched the unnamed man live sumptuously just beyond inside the gate of his home. Human culture celebrates wealth. We have no trouble naming the billionaires. But God knows every name of every person.

Who you serve Luke 16:1-15

Jesus, in Luke 16:1-15, tells a story that many people can relate too. A man was about to lose his job as a business manager. He was accused of wrong doing and his boss demanded that he make an accounting for what he'd done and what he had left undone.

The manager didn't like his chances. He,

...thought to himself, ‘Now what? I’m through here, and I don’t have the strength to go out and dig ditches, and I’m too proud to beg. I know just the thing! And then I’ll have plenty of friends to take care of me when I leave!’ New Living Translation Luke 16:3-4.

The manager told his soon to be former customers to tear up their bills. A debt of 800 gallons became 400 and a debt of 1000 bushels became 800. Jesus story surprises me; but it shouldn't. He spoke bluntly as someone who sees the world in action for good and for ill. He explained that,

The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Luke 16:8-9 NIV.

Jesus saw the God fearing fall prey to the world. Even as we try to be shrewd in our dealings in the world we have an enemy who seeks to consume and destroy us by getting us to consume and destroy others. Jesus words have been sound advice for 2000 years but they have also pointed to our limits. We fall prey to the schemes of the evil one who seeks our loyalty. Jesus wasn't speaking idly when he said,

No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Luke 16:13 NIV.

Jesus' words have the clarity of an alarm bell. The question is will people sleep through the alarm and sleepwalk in service to a master other than God.

Who do you serve?
More than a decade ago my old college roommates liked the band Nine in Nails. The words of the dark hard driving song "Head Like a Hole" on the album Pretty Hate Machine speak, in the chorus especially, of the power surrendered to whatever or who ever we serve. The chorus strikes hard, "Bow down before the one you serve, you're going to get what you deserve." These haunting words in response to the singer asking "...god money tell me what you want."

In my generation it's clear we serve all sorts of idols who will eagerly replace God. The ugly truth is these idols will demand even greater service at greater cost. The debate was not over trivial matters of day to day earthly choice but over the limits of human choice in matters of God's control. A few years later I entered seminary and encountered Luther's debate with Erasmus in The Bondage of the Will. Luther wrote naming the power God has and the limits of human choice as compared to God's power. Luther argued that because God is soveriegn our wills and powers have will always have limits. To some this sounds like a great loss; but to Luther he saw this as the source of greatest gain,

But surely it is preferable to lose the world rather than God the creator of the world, who is able to create innumerable worlds again, and who is better than infinite worlds! For what comparison is there between things temporal and things eternal? This leprosy of temporal evils ought therefore to be endured rather than that all souls should be slaughtered and eternally damned while the world is kept in peace and preserved from these tumults by their blood and perdition, seeing that the whole world cannot pay the price of redemption for a single soul. Martin Luther, Luther's Works, Vol. 33 : Career of the Reformer III, ( ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan et al.;, Luther's Works Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1972), Page 53.

Luther spoke of God's supreme power in debate with those who claimed humans have free choice even over salvation. Luther spoke of God's power as a word of gospel naming God's authority to rescue the most ungodly through the Word. Today give thanks for God's power to break any bonds and age to set captives free.