Bonhoeffer at the Gallows

This Sunday’s lectionary text, John 11:32-44 is about one of the two certainties of which Ben Franklin spoke: death (The other being...taxes of course).

It fits well with the liturgical order of the day, which is All Saints’ Day – a day that is also related to a much celebrated observance in Latin America called El Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead, or All Souls day).

Although that festival has never been part of our family’s tradition, I know something about it from my Latino/a friends. It is a day, similar in some ways to our Halloween, when folk honor the dead, while at the same time engaging Death itself. Bending it. Making light of it. Poking fun at it, and the seriousness with which we take it.

Picture then, maybe, Lazarus in his mummy costume, sipping margaritas with Martha and Mary as they join the skeleton parade.

El Dia de los Muertes is a cultural means to affirm something about life: that there is a thin, fuzzy line that separates what we call this life with breath, from what happens after we shuffle off this mortal coil. A day to say (and this sounds really crazy): let’s not take death quite so dang seriously.

What I’ve found fascinating about this odd story from John – odd because Jesus intentionally lets his friend Lazarus die, to prove a point – is the way Jesus behaves in the midst of grieving people. He is “troubled” by it. The word in Greek doesn’t imply that he’s in sync with their grief – it implies that he is upset with it. It is related to the word for “snorting anger” and “scolding.” (I was so surprised to discover).

And yet, Jesus also rejects easy, pat answers - those bromides we're so tempted to offer in the awkward silence when in the presence of a grieving person.

But , is it possible Jesus weeps with the folks, while at the same time he’s angry that they don’t “get” what death is all about? How the enfleshed God in their midst came to completely transform their understanding of life and death – in giving them access to “resurrection life”? His response to grieving people is both to lament death's sting - but remind people of its true nature...remind people of their ultimate hope.

Here's an invitation, if anyone wants to weigh in and help the preacher this week: if and when you have experienced grief--what has been your experience of others' comfort...what has been helpful? Hurtful?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer will also make an appearance in the sermon on Sunday – a courageous saint of the church who stood up to Hitler, and was hanged by him. The same Bonhoeffer who wrote, “When Jesus calls us, he bids us come and die.”

At the gallows, his last words to his fellow prisoners were these: “This is the end. For me, the beginning of life.” What would it take to live a life like that?

Love to hear your thoughts. And see you Sunday. I see I’ve gotten quite a break from the pulpit!

Jeff

The Ungenerous Life?

This is a very very quick entry - appropriate, inasmuch as I am not the one preaching on Sunday. My colleague Dana Fearon is taking the pulpit - and I am left anticipating - looking very much forward to - what he has to say. (What a treat, by the way, when one has a "bye" for the week. I have two in a row, in fact).

Perhaps his text (and the title of this entry) will spell well enough the direction he is headed: the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31.

As I know I've mentioned in a sermon or two: how I envy my good friend Dante, inasmuch as he lived in an age of consequence...an age when personal faith hinged around the belief that one's actions in this life had eternal consequences for the next. Not to say that we have abandoned such a framework, but it is an interesting question to pose here: do you consider your actions now in light of what might be called "eternal consequences", whatever one might mean by that phrase?

And, whatever one's belief about what happens to us after this life in the flesh, we could also ask the questions: what does it do to us, here and now, when we fail to be generous? When we fail to live up to the high calling toward self-donation to which we are called by the one whose cross reveals the very limit of divine generosity (the offering of divine life itself for our benefit)?

While I'm riffing on this...should we as Christians call one another to account for our lack of generosity? And if so, how should we in our particular context? Should we really challenge ourselves to see the consequences involved with our addiction to getting and having?

Lazarus in this light is Jose from Honduras, working in a sweat shop making our Polo shirts. Lazarus is Joel from Manila, growing our sugarcane and growing cancer tumors from the insecticide that's legal there, but not here; or Gabriel from Argentina, working for subsistence wages to raise beef for our Quarter Pounders. Will there be hell to pay someday for our blindness to such injustice? (And if the Bible is true, we can't say it's not happening - just read the passage).

Should we challenge each other to be generous - to pay attention to the consequences of our ungenerosity?

Good stuff to ponder as we await Dr. Fearon's words on Sunday.

I know there are posts that people have made, and I confess - I've been guilty of the sin of busy-ness myself this week (Physician, heal thyself). I look forward to reading and commenting.

Peace,

Jeff

Your Money or Your Life

This week's scripture texts really represent a tee-shot for stewardship season, the text from Mark especially - the story of the Rich Young Ruler, who is asked by Jesus to give it all away.

Most out there will of course know that we usually equate stewardship with that time of year when we talk about money, the church budget, YOUR gift. And of course, good church leaders are quick to point out that stewardship is about so much more: it's really a lifestyle, an attitude, a spiritual practice. We don't just want your money (the community does indeed need it); but rather, we want (0r more aptly, Jesus wants) your life.

Stewardship is not fundamentally about money. It's about life. And what else is life, if not time - that requisite commodity we convert to money, with which to provide for our life, our family; to spread our influence, to supplement our enjoyment of life. All our wealth really originates - whether it's been earned or inherited - from time.

This Sunday's sermon - knowing the two after that will focus on money (Dr. Dana Fearon and Dr. Dennis Olson will preach October 18 and 25) - is about time. Perhaps the most precious commodity in our modern era.

Here's the question that is rattling around in my mind - much of which is the result of an extensive conversation at our last Staff Meeting: what is spiritual life worth? What is it worth in light of soccer, and baseball, and ballet, and the drama club and scouts?

Is church just another activity we do for enrichment and benefit, another commodity that aims to please the customer? In that light, it's so tempting to see it as just one more competing activity to fit in, one that can further drain the juice out of individuals and families, one that caves into the tempter's voice cooing in the modern ear, the more you do, the better you'll be....

When does all the activity end, and we say to ourselves: what's the point of it all?

Can our use of time be about acquisition too, in the same way we use our money? Acquisition of skills, bullet points on a college app, keeping up with the Joneses?

When I was a kid - we had no activities after school. The main activity seemed to be marauding around the neighborhood, hanging out, creating real friendships that came naturally. Church was a cornerstone to that culture - a part of our lives that enabled us to make sense of the rest of it. Not that all was great with that culture - but there was...space. And there was an attempt to hold it all together via symbols that imparted value and meaning to the rest of it. I'm not saying this is not the case now (I sure hope not!) But I feel the subtle corrosion of those values. Church can seem no longer the foundation; it's an add-on.

So - the question for Sunday that I'm curious about: what does Jesus words from Mark teach us about that? What if we substituted "time" in place of money in this story? ("And he went away sad, for he had many activities.")? For this rich young ruler, his money is getting in the way of his spiritual life. For us, could it also be our use of time?

Are there folks out there yearning for a simpler life? One more connected to the fundamental purposes for which we've been created? One more connected to community life, self-giving and self-sustaining activities? How do we approach that? And perhaps there are some out there who are already there. How did you do it?

For more study options, see the following study materials on Hebrews (another text I may bring in) or on Mark.

Love to hear your thoughts. And see you Sunday.