Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Creating a Home for the Poor

            From Psalm 68 we get the refrain “God, in your goodness, you have made a home for the poor”.  In this simple verse we have the profound truth of a connection between divine goodness, home and poverty converging; what is the relationship?

            In the reading from Sirach, a wisdom book, we get the admonition to conduct our affairs with humility “and you will find favor with God”.  Humility is the essential disposition of the seeker in the spiritual life, yet it can become more elusive as we regard our progress in this journey with greater satisfaction.  It is ironic that the consciousness of development is inimical to advances in the life of the spirit.  The great verse from Philippians (2:6-11)

 though he was in the form of God,

He [Jesus]did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;

and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself,

becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

            Humility is realized through emptying, the kenosis of Philippians (κένωσις), that implies leaving room for God to act, of being in a relationship of profound trust with God.  We empty ourselves of our delusions on claims to grandeur, on entitlement to be other than who we are: creations in the likeness of God.  We become more “God-like” the more we accept ourselves as imaging God rather than imagining ourselves to be God.  Jesus’ enjoining would-be banquet guests to prefer the lowest and least seat at the table leaves open the possibility of being invited, “so that when the host comes up to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’” Only the lowly may be exalted; the exalted have no place to go. Our right relationship with God is with those for whom being at the table is pure gift, and who eat and drink in a profound state of gratitude rather than a state of entitlement. But what has this to do with the poor?

            Poverty in Jesus’ time was equivalent to divine condemnation, a sign that one had fallen out of favor with God.  You could be poor in many ways. Women were poor simply for not being born male. The sick and infirm were poor because they were perpetually unclean and cast aside in many instances.  Widows who could no longer be affirmed by being associated with a male were often discarded if a male relative could not, or would not, take them in. Poverty expressed itself in so many ways in addition to the simple poverty of not having enough.  For Jesus, the poor embodied those longing for what the Kingdom represents: acceptance, love, and dignity. 

            The reason it was so difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom had nothing to do with riches directly; it was, and is true today, that the rich live outside the milieu of vulnerability. The rich, and this designation would better be rendered “well-insulated”, find hope in maintaining independence and privilege. Jesus didn’t bash someone because they were wealthy but challenged them to become poor and relinquish living “well-insulated” lives to become more fully interdependent among the human community and God.

             Today’s gospel is a mandate for kenosis among God’s people.  Instead of being known by what we have, we can become known by what we trust God to provide, and live this hope joyfully in sharing the poverty of our failures, of our humanity.

             Though we may not live in gated communities physically, how often do we refuse entrance to our hearts by someone whom we deem unworthy of our love and trust?  We may not live in great castles with deep moats, but how often do others who come to us, or seem threatening to our stability and peace, encounter the moats we have spent years digging around the place in our hearts when they should be encountering a “Welcome” sign? Very few attain this level of freedom without moats or guardhouses, but by God’s grace, we can make our moats a bit easier to cross, or leave a sleepy guard on duty to our gated communities.   
            The poor for whom we make a home first is for ourselves, for our humanity that God created, affirmed as being "very good" and redeemed by becoming poor---God entering our humanity.  Before we can truly welcome the poor, we have to see our poverty as human, and learn to live in profound gratitude and trust, so the welcome sign truly announces the Good News.

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

 

"Strive to enter though the narrow door"

            The image of the narrow way, or gate,  is treated in both Matthew and Luke; however, Luke’s account, the one we are reading today, provides a fuller context than Matthew’s gospel, but Matthew’s gospel is important to consider as well when trying to understand what Jesus is saying.

            Matthew’s gospel develops Jesus’ saying about the gate a bit more than Luke’s.  In Matthew, Jesus adds: “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. ¹⁴ But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”  In this gospel, it seems the restriction isn’t so much the size of the opening, but its difficulty to find.  They both have an image of struggle associated with salvation. The context in Luke is Jesus answering the question “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” Such a question was part of a current theological concern of Jesus’ time among the Jews as to who among the Jewish people were the “chosen ones”, the remnant to be saved.

            Typical of Jesus’ style of turning questions in an unexpected direction, he responds with an answer directed towards the questioner as a person rather than to the question with an abstract answer.  Jesus uses the image of one knocking on a door, and the master of the house not opening the door because he does not recognize the petitioner’s voice. What began with a question of abstraction has become personal.   Despite the protests of the petitioner who identifies himself as part of a crowd who “ate and drank” with Jesus, and who witnessed Jesus in the streets, this casual association was not enough.  It is rather difficult to make it through a narrow door when you are part of a crowd.  Again, Jesus reinforces the personal dimension of salvation; crowds aren’t saved, individuals are saved.

            The protection of membership in a particular group, the Essenes, the Pharisees or Sadducees or whatever isn’t enough.  Salvation is recognition, personal recognition by Christ. If the master of the house did not open the door because he didn’t recognize the voice of the petitioner, so too we keep our hearts closed to the voice of God who is trying to enter our hearts.  How many times has Christ stood patiently at the door of our hearts knocking and we have kept him out?  Is it any wonder then he cannot recognize our voice as part of a crowd? The narrow door isn’t narrow because God wants to keep people out; it is narrow because salvation is realized one person at a time; it is relationship, not theological abstraction that is the way to salvation.

            Finally, Jesus adds the paradox that many who consider themselves first will be last, and the ones who are least will be first.  The pride that results from considering one's salvation guaranteed through association seems to Christ, at best, suspect. All of us who enter the narrow door do it one at a time, clinging on the hem of Christ’s robe who recognizes us because we recognized him when he knocked and we opened the door of our hearts.  Ultimately, though the door may be narrow, as the hymn reassures us, "There's a wideness in God's mercy". We approach the narrow door alone, but walk through it with Christ.

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

 The Divine Arsonist
"I have come to set the wold on fire"--Jesus

         Today’s readings strike us as particularly harsh, especially the passage from Luke’s gospel (paralleled in Matthew) of family division and strife as a consequence of following Christ; how can this be good news? The old phrase, “No cross, no crown” comes to mind.

        Paul’s famous teaching about the kerygma, or preaching, of the cross proclaims “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. . . . For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Geeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. . . . God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong . . .” (1 Corinthians 1:18, 21-25, 27).

      The separation of families, the most fundamental element of a stable society, and Jesus’ kerygma of an earth set on fire was a common ancient understanding of the “end times”, of preparation for divine judgment and, subsequently, deliverance and salvation.

Paul’s observes that “those who are perishing” see the cross as foolishness.  What a powerful observation!  A sign of “perishing” is dismissing the cross of Christ as foolish.  This superficial understanding can only be penetrated by faith because “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.”  Men see the destructiveness of fire, God sees what survives the fire, and redeems the ashes.

      The “cloud of witness” of which Paul writes in Hebrews, includes the great Fathers of our church who witness to this “baptism of fire”.  St. Cyril of Alexandria refers to the “fire of baptism” as the Holy Spirit.  St. Ambrose relates the image of Pentecost, with the Holy Spirit appearing like flames above the apostles.  Fire and water, two of the most basic elements, combined in our baptism to signify both the physical purity and spiritual purity of our initiation. Fire is also the sacrifice of martyrdom which is the ultimate test of our love; are we willing to die for the gospel of Christ?  Are we willing to lay down our life in our service to Christ?

      The wildfires that seem so destructive, and indeed destroy many homes, also have a natural function of renewal.  When fires clear the dead underbrush, they can cleanse a forest and actually help it to thrive.  When the fires are artificially delayed by well-intentioned firefighting, the undergrowth accumulates such that when there is a fire, say every fifty years, it burns so hot that it has lost its benefit and destroys the forest rather than helps it to thrive.  So it is in the spiritual life.  When one’s focus is to avoid suffering, to insulate one’s life from the “fire”,  when great suffering comes, we are ill-equipped to face it because we have not endured the suffering of lesser trials and temptations.  Our faith must be nurtured in our daily lives of more endurable sufferings and difficulties for the sake of our journey as ambassadors of God’s love to the world. We must learn early to find our refuge in God’s love among the community of the faithful, so that we can grow to find our refuge in God alone. Among all of this suffering, we are being directed into the embrace of God’s love in the crucified Christ, which delivers us to the resurrected life, the life of forest renewed after fire, of hope rather than despair, of a fire-born faith that can sustain the heat of loving our enemies and keeping the flame of faith alive in our hearts.