If I Pray for Jelly Beans

Luke 18: 1-8
October 20, 2013

Is this parable of Jesus saying is that anything I pray for,
if I pray long enough and hard enough, I’ll get it?
So if I pray to win the lottery
If I pray to find a free parking spot in the Short North,
Or if I pray with Janis Joplin
for the Lord to buy me a Mercedes Benz,
It will happen if I just ask often enough.
Some people think that’s what it’s saying.

But that just doesn’t sound right does it?
That makes God sound like a vending machine.
If we put the right amount a prayers in, God gives out our request.
That does not sound like something that Jesus would say.
And it just doesn’t sound like the truth.
So maybe Jesus means something different.
And Jesus actually tells us what that is: Justice.
Jesus says when we cry out for justice
we can be assured that God will give it.
We know that whenever we pray, God listens to us.
But when we ask for justice, we can live in confidence that
one day, we will see it.
Justice.
We throw the word around a lot,
but what does the word mean?
There are actually several definitions,
But when the bible mentions it,
Justice is a concept of moral rightness or fairness.
The right of all people  to be treated fairly under the law
in this world, without discrimination or preference.

Basically, justice means reforming the world in God’s image
where there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Greek nor Jew
is making the world more like the kingdom of God
It means giving that widow what she requests,
not because she’s a widow, but because it’s the right thing to do.

Sometimes having the law or government or other systems 
do the right thing for all people seems like a pipe dream now.
But in Jesus time, justice must have seemed absolutely impossible.
It was out of reach for so many of the people that Jesus was talking to.
Most of the world was filled with the poor and starving,
the struggling and the disenfranchised lower class
And a small number of rich and powerful
who controlled things, usually to their own benefit.

Our country at times seems unfair and unbalanced.
our world seems to favor the rich and punish the poor.
But our world is far more fair than it was then.
There was no idealistic system of representation to rely on,
no premise of personal freedom
or individual rights or equality to appeal to.
It all depended on who was in power at the time
and what their whim was and what they decided.
That a regular person would see justice:
that they would be treated fairly without discrimination seemed utterly hopeless.
But still Jesus tells his people not to lose heart.
Not to give up hope.
To keep praying.
And that is what this parable is about,
as Luke so kindly tells us right at the beginning:
Keep praying.
 

The Unjust Judge, Hasse 2007

Imagine being that woman.
She comes to a judge she knows is unjust.
But yet she comes to him repeatedly
asking for the right thing to be done.
Asking for justice.
Knowing that the decks are stacked against her
to begin with, as a woman in that time,
and as a widow without a husband to represent her,
and then to have her case in the hands of an unjust judge.
It would actually be easier to give up.
Easier to just walk away from what is rightfully hers and move on.
But she does not live a life of resignation.
She lives a life of hope and expectation
a belief that the right thing will happen,
that God’s will will be done.
Her whole life is hopeful, ready for God to act.
That is what Jesus is asking of us.
To always be ready for God’s will.
When we pray for God’s will every day, when we pray for justice
for food for the hungry and for oppressed to be set free,
for people to be treated fairly and rightly,
we are readying ourselves and our lives for God to act.

So many of us pray for justice, but we don’t believe it will come.
We ask for it, we want the right thing to be done.
But then we give up on it.
We say, “the world is just a bad place and there’s no hope”
some of us even say,
“well I might as well get whatever I can for me and my family
and not worry about any one else.”
But what if we actually lived the prayers we prayed?
What if we expected it so much that we formed our lives as if it would happen?

Think of it like this, it’s a silly illustration but still.
If I prayed for jelly beans to come from the sky
And I really believed that prayer would be answered.
How would I stand?  Would I stand in my living room,
With my arms folded and my head down? No.
If I really believed that my prayer would be answered,
I would be out in my yard, with my hands out and my eyes looking up.
I might get a box or a paper bag.

If I really believed that my prayer would be answered,
my stance and my life would be different.
So when we pray for justice, when we pray for God’s will to be done
we should actually believe it.
And we should live our lives as if:
as if wrongs will be righted. As if the kingdom were going to happen now.
With our arms open and our faces looking with hope toward what we’ve prayed for.
Jesus wants our lives to be a prayer.

This week we finally had a prayer answered in our congregation.
An injustice was corrected.
Our member and friend, Imma was released
from immigration detention and brought back to his family and life here.
And since we’ve been dealing with that,
I’ve been thinking about all the other people who are still locked up
with no crime other than to want to be in their homes with their families.
How many people just don’t have the money or the
congregation who can help return them home?
And I’ve been thinking how impossible the situation is for so many people.
 
Now, if I say, “what can I do by myself? to right this wrong”,
it does seem impossible
if I say what can we do together,
it seems a little better,  but still not all that hopeful.

But if I ask, what can God do with this situation?
How can God change hearts and inspire people
And how can I live in absolute expectation and hope
that God will find a way,
and how can people of hope like us
change and form our lives around God’s will.
How can we live our lives as a prayer, ready for God’s will.
That doesn’t seem as impossible. I can start praying for that today.

I think that the most hopeful character in this parable is that unjust judge.
He has no love of people, no interest in helping the widow
He has no interest in doing God’s will.
He’s not a man of faith or integrity,
and yet, still, he becomes part of God’s plan.
At the end of the day, even he ends up working for God’s justice too.

God’s vision will be done. Nothing will stop it.
It may take a while. It may take longer than our lifetime.
But we are asked to live our lives
in hope and prayer waiting for that day.
readying our lives for the time when we will see
God’s kingdom fully revealed.
We are asked to make our lives a living prayer of hope

Being Weird and Being Weird

Luke 7: 11-19
October 13, 2013

           Ten Lepers Healed, Brian Kershisnik, 2010

Have you ever felt weird, out of place?
I think all of us have had this experience at one time or another.
The feeling of being different than the rest of the world.
Like an outcast.

Now I think there are two ways of being weird.
There is the kind of weird that is imposed from the outside,
We get this a lot when we’re young.
We don’t fit in with the crowd because
someone doesn’t think we’re good enough,
or attractive enough, or rich enough,
or we’re the wrong color, or the wrong weight,
or just not right in some way.

This kind of weird leaves us feeling bad
like we’re wrong somehow.
It can cause shame: That painful feeling about ourselves,
not just for what we’ve done,
but like we’re bad as a person.

Then there’s the weird that comes about
by making different choices than others.
This kind of weird, I think, leaves us feeling good instead of bad.
It makes us feel unique and special,
maybe even proud that we didn’t go along with the crowd.
That we didn’t do it the way that everyone else did.

Being weird / and being weird.

Now when you’re very sick,
especially when people can see that you’re sick,
there is a feeling that you are weird in the first way
the way that causes shame.

Even though there is no shame in being ill.
It’s difficult to divide yourself from your own body
It’s not something that we did really,
its something that we are, or that we have at least become.
People who are ill feel separated from others,
they feel weird , and not in the good way.
Like those lepers in the gospel story.
They were weird.

Their own body separated them from others,
from what they once were or what they could have been.
They looked strange, they felt strange.
By law they were commanded to stay at least 40 paces from everyone
People feared them because they didn’t want to catch the disease.
People shunned them because they were seen as
having done something wrong to deserve it.

Now, not many of us know
or have first hand experience with leprosy.
But many of us have experience with cancer.
We either have been someone, or know someone
who has suffered the devastating diagnosis,
and then suffered with the cure.

The surgeries, the radiation, the chemotherapy,
the overwhelming exhaustion,
the other strange ways the body reacts to the medication,
cankersores, hair loss, nausea and digestive problems, pain.
All those things separate the ill person from others.
Even though we think we’re much more
sophistcated than those people back in biblical times,
and we know that it’s not contagious
and we know it’s not the patient’s fault or shortcoming,
When someone has cancer, they still often
end up divided from their community.
Even without the laws back in Jesus time
which demanded that they be separated from others.

When we see someone who is obviously suffering with cancer,
many of us will still turn the other way.
Even if we’re sympathetic and not hostile, many of us
are hesitant come into contact,
worried about doing the right thing or saying the right thing.
Some of us don’t want it to ruin our thoughts or our day.
Imagine suffering alone like this with no hope of an end to it or a cure.

Imagine then the 10 lepers,
A group of people who came together
because they were exiled from the rest of their community.
A group of people told that they should have shame over
how their bodies were different.
A group with no hope of a cure separated from loved one.
Imagine them, after calling out to Jesus like they had done
to so many other people who represented God,
the only cure they knew of.
Suddenly being cured.

For a person in the throws of cancer,
that would mean no more radiation, no more chemo therapy,
no more fatigue, no more pain,
no more cankersores, no more nausea, no more fatigue,
no more separation from their family, no more feeling horrible.

The only thing they had to do, in order to get back to their new life
was to go to the priest and have the priest declare them clean
which was what Jesus told them to do.
The only step that they had to take
to be returned to their families, lives, communities.
They could be normal again,
not having this disease cloud their every thought.
Not having to live with a body that was turning against them.
They would no longer be weird.

I can’t blame them for wanting to go on their way
 and get on with their new life.
I can’t blame them for not thinking of taking a second
 to go and thank the one that did this for them.
I can’t blame them for wanting to celebrate
 this new and miraculous chapter in their lives right away.
I can’t blame them for doing exactly what Jesus told them to do.

 
But this one person is different,
he does come back to give thanks to the one who saved him.
The one who gave him this new life and this great opportunity.
Now, on the surface,
this man gets nothing special from his returning to Jesus.
The rest got healed just like he did.
The rest got to go back to their families just like he did.
But he didn’t do what the rest of his friends did.
He decided to turn back.
He is now seperated from the other nine.
He is weird again, but weird because of something he chose to do.
Weird in the second way. Weird in a good way.

And because of that weird choice,
he lives knowing the source from which he received this gift.
He is grounded knowing that he thanked the one
who is responsible for his new life.
This one who came back is not just healed,he is made well.
He is connected to the source of life, he is whole again.

Now we used to live in a world
where most everyone that we knew or worked with
or went to school with would be in church on Sunday.
Giving praise to God.
It was the normal thing that everyone did.
But that choice is not quite as common today.
Many people don’t come back to give thanks to
the one who gave them life.

Now I believe that God’s blessings fall on everyone equally.
The church-going and the non-church going alike.
I believe that we are all loved by God the same.
I believe that each one of us gets the benefits of God’s grace and love.
But some of us make that weird choice to turn back.
To give thanks to God.
And to be part of a community that has made that choice too.
You have made that unique choice today and decided to be here .
Whether you come every week or you go somewhere else,
or you just came for the first time today.

What I want to tell you is that you are weird.
but in that good way of course.
And in that weird choice, we have what this other weird man received:
We know the source from which we receive these gifts we get.
We are grounded knowing that we have thanked the one
who is responsible for our new life.
We aren’t just blessed with miracles,
we aren’t just healed, we are made well.
We are connected to our source of life, we are whole again.

So please keep being weird.
And know that you have thanked the one
who has given us everything.
Connect with that source.
Don’t just receive God’s blessings,
be made whole again.

The Man Who Quit Money

Luke 12:22-31
October 6, 2013
St. Francis of Assisi - Blessing of the Beasts

Most of us know a little bit about St. Francis
He’s the stone statue in the back yard with the birds all over with him.
We know him as the one who had an affinity with animals.
that’s why we celebrate his birthday with
the blessing of the animals like a lot of other churches do.
Some people just think that Francis’ message
is just to love animals and be kind to kittens and puppies.
But there’s more to his life than animals.
Francis was born to wealthy parents and could have
lived a financially comfortable life
but when he became a monk,
he gave it all up for a life of absolute poverty.

Most monks had vows of poverty, but Francis found
that although they gave up their personal possessions,
the monks in monestaries lived without want for anything,
everything was provided for them.
But in Francis order, they gave up everything
They kept no pocket money, no possessions, no home,
they didn’t even keep a collection of food to go back to.
For all their needs they relied on nature, on others
and on the mercy and grace of God.

And Francis lived this way for others
He gave everything away and lived on the streets
so that beggars and lepors, wouldn’t feel ashamed
or feel more lowly when they approached him.
This extended to the animals he loved,
they had nothing too and they found a kindred spirit in him.
Living on God’s mercy.

Francis choice can teach us something
So can these animals that we live with every day.
They have nothing. They rely on us for everything.
What they need right now is enough, their daily bread.
And God provides that through the kindness of others.

Francis took to heart what Jesus meant when he said,
Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or
what you will wear.  Don’t worry.
It’s a short sentence, but that “don’t worry” is really difficult to do.

Now the 13th Century when Francis lived, is a very long time ago.
We can romanticize things that people did in such a distant past.
We can say that maybe times were simpler,
choosing to give up everything then was easier.
Try doing it now, in America.

But there are a few people who have chosen to do that.
One person who has is named Daniel Suelo.
He lives in a cave in Utah and he “quit money” as he calls it.

Daniel was a regular guy, he graduated from college
he worked in the medical field as a lab technician
he had a bank account and savings.
 
He decided to join the Peace Corps in the 90’s
he was sent to serve a tribe in Ecuador
Daniel’s job was to help with medical issues
and monitor their health on a chart.

Shortly before he got there,
the tribe went from farming for subsistence to farming for profit.
Some missionaries had helped them do it.
And they had been becoming more well off for the last decade.
And as they got more cash for their crops,
Daniel noticed that they started to live a more modern life.
Their houses got bigger, they bought more stuff for their houses,
they ate more sugar, they bought MSG so their food would taste better, they got TV’s and stayed inside mroe and as this happened,
he said, he could see the richer they got, their health declined,
he could see it on his health chart. 

And more importantly, he could see their relationships changed,
their community life changed,
there were more disagreements, police, lawyers.
Daniel said he watched as “money was impoverishing them”

Daniel Suelo, the man who quit money.

He went back home and this experience had effected him.
He decided to change his life. He worked at a homeless shelter
but that wasn’t enough, he decided to change everything in his life.
For the last thirteen years now, Daniel has been
money-free. He lives in a cave in a forest.
He doesn’t use food stamps or government assistance
although he says he doesn’t begrudge anyone who does.
He just lives off what’s available.
He gathers plants, bugs, road kill, whatever other people throw away
and he lives on the kindness of others, friends and strangers.
Sometimes he works on a small farm or at the homeless shelter
for the community with others and for meals.
He’s not a hermit, he loves talking to other people,
he just “quit money”.
If he ever gets it, he gives it away to others.

His decision to do this was a religious decision,
a Christian calling. He calls it living a “grace based life”.
Knowing God’s grace every day.
He consciously lives a life of getting from God and giving away again.
He writes a blog on the internet which he uses at the library.
He writes things that he learns from his experiences.
"When I lived with money, I was always lacking, and wanting more."
"Money represents lack. Money represents things in the past (debt)
and things in the future (credit),
but money never represents what is present."

Daniel says he sees money as an addiction.
Like drugs or alcohol. It’s something that we depend on, can’t do without we use it every day and when we don’t have it it’s all we can think about. Maybe he’s right. 
Maybe we are addicted to money. Depending on it instead of on God.
When a reporter came a second time to his cave to interview him,
Daniel was not there, he looked into his cave and there was
a water bottle, a pot, some blankets, a couple of apples and a note:
CHRIS, FEEL FREE TO USE ANYTHING, EAT ANYTHING (NOTHING HERE IS MINE).

Maybe we don’t want to live like Daniel.
Maybe we don’t want to live without a home and indoor plumbing
or a car, maybe we don’t want to eat plants and bugs.
Maybe we actually shouldn’t be doing that –
maybe our baptism calls us to live out here in the complicated world with everyone else.
But maybe when you hear about Daniel you’re a little envious like
I was. Envious of what he’s learned and where
this opportunity has gotten him the insight he’s gained.
Maybe we can see the freedom he has
freedom from the fear of losing money,
freedom from desire of gaining more.
Maybe his experience can help us to think a little about money-
our addiction to it, our dependence on it.
The way it makes us afraid, the way we chase after it.

St. Francis knew that as Christians,
we are called to be aware of our relationship
with money and possessions.
Not so we can save and have more,
because it changes our relationships with others and with God.

Do not worry, about your life.
Consider the ravens, consider all the animals
they neither sew nor reap, they have neither storehouse or barn
and yet they are fed every day.
Do not worry.

We can learn from people like Daniel, like Francis.
We can learn from these animals who depend on us for everything.

In 1546, Martin Luther when he was dying,
he put his last written words on a slip of paper ,
he wrote “We are all beggars: This is true.”

This is true. In the end, God’s grace is all we have.
Like Daniel says, “nothing here is ours”.