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Closing the Chasm

9/30/2019

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 Amos 6:1a, 4-7; Luke 16:19-31

        What is in a minute?  A short span of time for sure, we won’t count it out now but suffice it to say that in the minute that will pass, at the rate of minimum wage of $15 an hour, a worker will 25cents a minute.   During that very same minute multi-billionaire Warren Buffet will earn $25,694 dollars.  Just in one minute.   That is a chasm for us to ponder.

        Other chasms to consider.  There are currently 128,000 ultra-high net worth individuals (that’s what they’re called now) in the world – which has spawned the proliferation of exclusive stores to shop- by invitation only-- to a boon in crocodile farms (for their skins not as exotic pets).    However, 1.3 billion people on our planet live in extreme poverty existing on $2 a day. 805 million don’t get enough to eat a day.  750 million lack access to clean water.   Just the tip of some profound chasms in our world.


        We could count many chasms around us – based on income, education, access to technology, healthcare, safety from violence, and profound moral, religious and ethical perspectives.  How do we close these chasms?


        Our gospel lesson could not depict our world’s moral crisis more perfectly.  A rich, unnamed man is dressed in purple, a modern day Kiton 5-50 suit; coordinated with his salvadore ferrangamo shoes.   At the front of his house are towering marble columns to announce his wealth to his guests.  Every day he eats the finest food his chefs can offer: foie gras, brown-tipped abalone, Iranian Beluga fish caviar, lobster frittata, beef imported fresh from Argentina, bagels with white truffles.  Isn’t your mouth watering just thinking of it?  He spares no expense to indulge himself.  He cleans his plates with left-over bread and throw it on the floor as was the custom, to be gobbled up by the dogs.


        All during these sumptuous feasts there is a poor, ill man name Lazarus, whose name means “Whom God Helps” -  lays at the rich man’s gates. It is noteworthy that Jesus names the poor man.  Gives him an identity. Such a detail wouldn’t be given a second thought by a prominent person.  A poor person was just a blip on the screen. Yet Jesus makes his needs and suffering real, just as vividly as he describes the posh lifestyle of the rich man, who ironically is not named. His wealth gives us more information than his name could.  He is just known as “the rich man” whose wealth keeps him at a distance from Lazarus.


The poor man sits not on beautiful cushions but on the ground at the gates of the rich man home.  He is not covered in fancy suits but sores.   He is ravishingly hungry, longing for even the throw-aways from the table that the dogs get.  The rich man knows of Lazarus’ plight, yet he did nothing for Lazarus. He could’ve helped but didn’t.   His focus is solely on himself and his own comforts. The only one who intervenes on behalf of Lazarus are the dogs, who lick his sores.


Then in a minute - everything changes.  Lazarus dies and is carried away by angels to Father Abraham where he finally receives comfort that has longed evaded him. It is a figurative phrase that appears to have been drawn from a popular belief that the righteous would rest by Abraham's side in the world to come, an opinion described in Jewish literature at the time of Jesus. Figuratively, as in this case, it refers to a place of honor reserved for a special guest, a place that Lazarus now enjoys.


 Then the rich man dies and he ends up in Hades where he is tormented by eternal flames which are a startling new experience.  In the first part of the parable there is no dialogue.  The Rich man is self-sufficient but now the rich man, in need, cries out over and over again to Abraham.  He’s rich, he’s used to getting his way.   He is in great torment.  He wants Lazarus, who he ignored in life, to come now and dip his figure in water and cool his tongue. Can’t be done, says Father Abraham.  Then the rich man wants Lazarus sent to his father’s house to warn his brothers of Hades and to amend their ways.  Abraham again says no, they have Moses and the Prophets - that is enough.   Throughout the entire story Lazarus is silent, but his place at Abraham’s side makes him righteous.  The first part of the parable describes Lazarus’ torment – the second half tells the torment of the rich man. In both scenes there is a chasm. A chasm created not because the Rich Man had wealth but because he didn’t use his resources to help and share with those in need. Instead he ignored and built a chasm between the haves and have nots, resulting in a chasm between heaven and hell.


Even in the afterlife the rich man is only concerned to alleviate his torment.   He doesn’t ask how he got there. He shows no curiosity how he contributed to his situation. He doesn’t apologize to Lazarus for not helping him. There is a chasm in his awareness and actions that results in his eternal punishment.  He seems totally unaware of his sins and only focused on his comfort and the comfort of his family. Therefore, a chasm remains in the rich man’s heart, enveloped now by the pain of Hades. So, as a result there is a great chasm that exists in the parable in the space between Heaven and Hades.  The focus of the parable is that the chasm in our world is real and God wants us to fix it.  God is not going to send Lazarus to us to lead us to repentance.  God wants us to follow the Scriptures, the teachings of Jesus which teaches us to close the chasm in our hearts, in our lives, in the world we live in.


        The truth is, we all experience different sorts of chasms in our life.


        Once there was an article in the New York Times Magazine about Dale Earnhardt, Jr. a popular Nascar driver. He is the son of the legendary Dale Earnhardt, Sr., the great car racer, who died in 2001 after crashing at the Daytona 500. In this article he shared about the chasm he experienced in his relationship with his father: “My daddy… never really did anything with me. He never told me things. We were raised by six or seven nannies. I always thought he felt I wasn’t much like him.” This chasm in the relationship with his father still impacts him. At 35 he said, “I don’t want to get married and divorced like my dad.” In fact, “He lives alone… (and) plays video games by himself eight hours at a clip. He’s a multimillionaire, yet he lived alone for months in a 20-by-20 garage loft.” (New York Times Magazine, August 8, 2010). 



What a chasm caused by fame and achievement, where relationships take a back seat. Many of us experience these painful chasms within our relationships. Misunderstandings, disagreements, different beliefs and morals, lack of expressing help, ignoring other’s needs, that can keep us apart, creating chasms we fail to close.  How will we close the chasms around us? Any ideas?

        Everyone has to find out what works for them to close the chasm.   It might be volunteering at a nursing home or assisting someone who is ill. Giving an extra tithe or offering, especially with the peace and global witness season upon us?    How about inviting someone new out for coffee or tea?   Advocating for issues that matter to our world?    We need to take that minute. Open our eyes, hear the call, and close a chasm.  That’s what we’re called to do.


The good news is that Jesus Christ closed the greatest chasm of all.  Jesus took on flesh, reached out to all kinds of sinners, self-absorbed indifferent rich men like the rich man in the parable and helpless crippled beggars like Lazarus. Jesus was clothed with a purple robe, just like the one the rich man in the parable wore. And later that same day Jesus, like Lazarus who had been thrown out at the gate of the rich man, was literally thrown down outside a gate of Jerusalem and nailed to a cross. Jesus died on the cross to reconcile us to God, to bridge the great chasm, and to give us the hope that the great chasm that divides us from others will close or be eliminated.  Jesus rose from the dead to be that sign:  the chasm can be closed, just follow him.


 So today, whether we are like the rich man, self-absorbed and indifferent to the needs of others, or like Lazarus, feeling alone and helpless in our suffering, the good news is that God in Jesus has bridged the chasm. The chasm between us and God is no more. And we can be chasm-closers too.


So, let’s take a minute, do the things to close the chasm.  Give the money. Feed the poor.  Be reconciled. Be involved.  Put the needs of others first. Turn to Jesus. Then one day not only will we find the chasm between us and the ones we love bridged, we will also find ourselves in the bosom of our Heavenly Father.  It’ll take just a minute.  Amen 


http://www.christchurchcville.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Sermon-9-26-10.pdf

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"True Riches"

9/24/2019

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Amos 8:4-7; Luke 16:1-13

        “You’re fired!”   Remember those famous words pronounced by Donald Trump in the TV show called “the Apprentice”?  Mr. Trump now has bigger fish to fry.   But for the person who’s fired, the opportunities are stopped, the plug on the dream is pulled, and the rug is yanked out beneath you.

“You’re fired!” has anyone heard or known someone who’s been told those stinging words?  You want to fight back.  What do you mean I’m fired? 

 I gave the best years of my life to this company!  Fantasies of revenge start to creep in.  Emptying out the supply closet.  Leaving condemning comments on Facebook. Slashing the bosses’ tires.   However, most of us would rein in our impulses and behave ourselves and, in fact, try to be on our best behavior for one thing only: a good reference.

Today’s gospel lesson is one of Jesus’s most unusual parables.   People have tried to make heads and tails of it for centuries.   It appears Jesus is applauding the actions of a crooked man who cheats his employer.  How can this be?

The story is clear.  A rich man, with lot of properties, has an incompetent manager who apparently is squandering his employer’s business.  He’s not being a good steward in other terms.  He’s mismanaging the business and losing money and resources. 
 
The rich man learns of this, so he calls the manager in on the carpet and reads him the riot act:  he calls for an audit and by the way, he says, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. The manager sees the writing on the wall.  The boss is going to find out the extent of his sub par work and how he has been slacking on the job all this time. 

The manager faces a dilemma: “I got a bad back so I can’t dig ditches, and I’m too proud to beg.  I need to keep these business contacts so I can be welcomed, fed and clothed, and can still live comfortably.  

So, the manager comes up with an ingenious plan.  One by one he goes to each of his employer’s debtors and gives them generous discounts.  He reduces their debt by 20 percent, 50 percent.  The olive oil guy, the wheat guy, the carpet guy, the grape juice guy, the fig man. All the vendors.   He earns their gratitude for the discount so know he can bank on their support in the unforeseen future.

Did the rich man get angry when he found out that his manager had not only been a poor steward but now swindled him out of all this money? 

The astute, rich man begrudgingly praises, even commends, his crafty manager for his shrewd, proactive ways, even though it was sinful.  Too bad he hadn’t been so industrious like this all along -- he might not have lost his job.

Jesus says something important here: the children of this age are shrewder in dealing with their own generation than are the children of the light. 

Does this mean that we are to become like Bernie Madoff, the great fraudster, and rip people off?  No, we are to learn to understand the world we live in and see that everything works for the kingdom of God.  And we are to get involved in the gospel’s future.

Jesus wants us to see ourselves as managers of God’s wealth – which includes everything – our very bodies, nature, the goods of the earth, our talents, our wealth and money. It all belongs to God.  

Will we be good, shrewd managers, or poor managers?  To use another parable of Jesus, the poor manager is like the slave who buries the talent in the ground out of fear.    The good managers are the slaves who invest their talents in the world and double their return.  

God wants us to be good managers.  To work hard to get a return on our investment.  Managers who are honest, generous, hard workers, even shrewd, clever for the kingdom, willing to invest and keep the kingdom running well. To heal the world; to make it prosper by gospel standards. 

So, we take risks and invest in the world – not just here in our church or where it’s safe, but out in the world—in the community – in the homeless shelters, in out neighborhoods in how we advocate for righteousness, mercy, justice and peace.
We reach out to those who are unchurched because God wants us to invest in this way.  We take risks with our resources; we don’t hoard on to them. That person on the subway? Help him.   That woman with the grocery cart of bottles?  Stop and buy her lunch.  That hurting, acting out teen? Get involved.

Because the world’s view of riches are self-centered and corrupt.

In 1928 a group of the world's most successful financiers met at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. Collectively, these tycoons controlled more wealth than there was in the U.S. Treasury, and for years newspapers and magazines had been printing their success stories and urging the youth of the nation to follow their examples.

Twenty-five years later, this is what had happened to these men:  They ended up broke, in prison or several committed suicide. All these men had learned how to make money, but not one of them had learned how to live.

How do we encounter true riches as we kick off a new season in our church life?  How are we to live well, as good managers in the kingdom?

Remember the comments we wrote about goals and visions for the church on Rally Day/Welcome Home Sunday:  Please turn to the back of the bulletin/insert to see our collective list.  Which ones pop out at you?  (Please don’t select the one you wrote!)

What stands out to you?  What’s still missing? Don’t be afraid to name it out loud. Our task is to prioritize and embrace the actions that will develop the true riches of the church in this new church year.

We want to be the source of new life, the purveyors of hope, we want to bring forth the wealth of God’s kingdom to God’s people – especially those new to Christ, unknown to Christ, who know nothing of the church. 

These are the true riches that all of us, as managers in the kingdom, need to sign up for.   It’s either one or the other, Jesus says. 

We can’t serve two masters. One will be loved, the other, despised.   We cannot serve God and wealth.   We must choose the world or the kingdom.  Let us choose True Riches.

This is this message underneath it all that Jesus wants to lead us to.   The worldly cleverness of the dishonest manager may be admired in the world, but he doesn’t cut it by kingdom standards. 

So, God says:  You’re hired!   To be my servants in the world!

God says: You’re hired!  To preach the gospel of Jesus Christ – in your words and deeds.

God says:  You’re hired! So be the true riches that proclaim God’s love and the salvation of Jesus Christ in the world. Amen.
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file:///C:/Users/Gracie/Documents/The%20Parable%20of%20the%20Dishonest%20Manager%20%E2%80%93%20Pastor%20Mark%20Driscoll.html

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"Lost and Found"

9/17/2019

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Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28, Luke 15:1-109
 
When my daughter Hannah was a toddler, she had a treasured and well-loved blue elephant that she took everywhere.  It sat with her in her highchair and stroller; it was tucked in nearby for naps and nighttime. She would walk around the room with the trunk of the elephant hanging from her mouth.  Its fur was matted – to be honest, it was stinky -- but she refused to be parted from it.  

One day our worst fears come true.  We were doing errands in the neighborhood and we got home to discover that Mr. Elephant was missing.  Propelled by Hannah’s cries, we retraced our steps, asking every shop owner if they had seen a scruffy blue, stuffed elephant.  When we reached the grocery store – the culprit confessed.  A stocker found the elephant and instead of putting it aside, he threw it away with the rest of the store’s garbage. Instead of seeing it as an object of love and affection, he just saw it as a discarded, worn out toy that needed to be disposed.  Hannah for inconsolable for several days.  

      Loss raises its painful head in all our lives.  Some of us are more losing prone than others.  Have you ever parked your car and discovered you couldn’t find where you parked after shopping (or partying?)?  How many of us have lost car keys? House keys? A credit card?  Important documents?   Have you ever taken a wrong turn in an unfamiliar area that not even the GPS could fix?  How many of us have lost our children – or other family members or friends – to death, conflict, addiction, illness, changing values, to the lures of the world?  I don’t know about you, but I can say yes to about every item. Last week, my family lost our beloved scraggly 181/2 year old cat – and I still find myself tearing up.  Loss, even the small stuff, can leave us disoriented, upset, frustrated.  Along comes that sinking feeling that we’re not on top of things; our game is slipping.  There have been times, I admit, while searching for something that my Catholic roots slip out, and a prayer to St. Anthony -- patron saint of lost items-- escapes my lips: “"Tony, Tony, turn around. Something's lost that must be found."

         Our lessons today talk also about loss.  Especially loss from God’s perspective.  In Jeremiah, the prophet relays God’s judgment on a leadership and nation gone astray, a nation filled with evil schemes, a people skilled at doing evil, which will now result in an invasion by foreign powers, war and defeat.  God suffers as his people are captured, killed and no doubt tortured and injured – God suffers as his people fall apart due an unwillingness to act righteously and follow the laws God has set forth for their life as community.  

         In our gospel lesson, Jesus tells a few parables about loss --  loss from the perspective of God-- images that his audience could relate to – a lost sheep and a lost coin.  The owner of the 100 sheep loses one sheep is clearly not engaged in an “act of frugality” by seeking the one lost sheep.  The 99 are left in the wilderness, not in safety. The owner doesn’t even leave the sheep with a shepherd.  It sounds as if they are left on their own – the owner just trusts they will stick together. There is a sense of recklessness in the owner’s actions since he could, for the sake of finding one sheep, potentially losing the other 99.  Not wise human business practices.  In the eyes of God, we, respectable church members, can be left in the wilderness while the one sheep, the least sheep, the lost, foolish sheep is rescued. In a rich irony for our age, Jesus turns our modern metaphors on its head in this story by showing our God as the God of the one percent! Not the one percent wealthy, but the one percent lost –that one percent that God does not forget – and is willing to risk the 99 percent for.

Jesus next tells a parable about a woman, a poor peasant, who lost one of her ten silver coins – which corresponds to ten days’ wages.  The coins-- called a drachma-- worn often as an ornament and was vital for her and her family’s welfare.  This poor woman lost 1/10 of her income. For a poor family this was especially significant.    

The woman’s home is typical of the time. It was small room, had a dirt floor, and no window.  The woman does three things; lights a lamp (which wouldn’t normally be done in daylight), sweeps the floor, and searches diligently – with effort and with great care.  Imagine if ten percent of your savings were lost.  In a poor household, a woman on a tight budget would mean the family would have to choose – which meal do we skip? Which child doesn’t get shoes – which child doesn’t get their school fees paid?  No wonder that woman tore the place apart looking for the coin. 

Jesus tells us that this is how God initiates action. God is a seeker.  A searcher for the lost. God risks on behalf of the lost. Jesus teaches – we too, who know what it is like to be lost, must find those who are now lost.  Once found, we must celebrate.

We begin our Church season confronted by loss. Today is great, but numbers are down.  Offerings are down.  Our commitment to church is down.  Why is this?  We are like that lost sheep; it’s lost its way. It’s lost it’s home in the flock. We need to be found.
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Jesus wants us to know, that God of the one percent will leave the other sheep behind, and search until he’s found us.  As we begin a new season, we are given the mandate to seek the loss, to find what’s missing in our lives. To sweep every inch of the house, use up the precious fuel, until what is lost is found. God will find us in every mistake, in every wrong turn, in every lost place we find ourselves in. Once we are found, no matter what we have done, there is no recrimination. No punishment.  No judgment. There is rejoicing --- with friends, neighbors and the angels of heaven.

Let the lost be found – let faith be found, let our commitment to God be found, let our commitment to church be found -- because God has shown us that nothing that is truly loved is truly lost – but will be found on the loving shoulders of our forever seeking, searching God, to the rejoicing of the angels in heaven and to all God’s people on earth. amen.

 
Interpretation: Luke [Louisville: John Knox, 1990], 185.). 

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'Cultivating Discipleship"

9/10/2019

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  Deuteronomy 30:15-20;  Luke 14:31-33 
Shopping in the store recently I saw a bottle of juice with the following description on its label:  "Blueberry Pomegranate, 100 percent juice, all natural." The label featured a picture of a ripe pomegranate and mounds of fat, perfect blueberries.

Then I read the ingredients list: 'Filtered water, pear juice concentrate, apple juice concentrate, grape juice concentrate." Where were the blueberries? Where was the pomegranate? Finally I found them, fifth and seventh on a list of nine ingredients, after mysteriously unspecified 'natural flavors.'

By law, food ingredients are listed in descending order of weight. That means a product contains the greatest proportion of the first ingredient on the list and successively less of those farther down. So according to this list, the jug in my hand held mostly water and other juices, with just enough blueberry and pomegranate for flavor and color.  The enticing pictures and clever labeling were decoys to sell a diluted, blueberry-pomegranate flavored product, convincingly disguised to look like something it wasn't. I put the juice back on the shelf.

As I left the store, I couldn’t help thinking: What if we had an ingredients list printed on us? Would Jesus be the main ingredient? If not, how far down the list would he be? Would our 'label' accurately represent our contents? Or would we falsely project a misleading outward appearance that cleverly masked diluted ingredients? Our packaging may be convincing. We may look and sound like the real thing. But what if someone came to me looking something beneath our "Christian" label and found something else? Something Jesus-flavored, but not Jesus-filled?

        According to Luke, Jesus discovers large crowds were following him. There were many reasons to follow Jesus.  He performed miracles; he healed people.  He told good stories.  He knew how to jab it to the Pharisees, and other show-off leaders.  Maybe village life was too boring and following the latest itinerant preacher would provide some spice and variety to life.   Maybe for some, Jesus’ words hit hard, hit true, and they wanted to hear more of what he had to say.  Jesus sees this crowd.  Do really know what they are getting themselves in for?  Because high on the ingredient list of discipleship is commitment, forbearance, self-sacrifice.  Jesus doesn’t mince words.  We can’t follow Jesus and follow our possessions, those ingredients we fill our lives with. 
 
        Many people would prefer the label of Jesus-Lite. Discipleship watered down, with nice-sounding things like going to church on Sunday, reading the bible now and then, contributing some money to good causes.  But discipleship is more – Jesus says we have to give up our possessions; earlier in this passage, which we read last week, Jesus said we have to hate our family.  While Jesus no doubt spoke with hyperbole common in the Semitic culture – the point is clear.  Possessions possess us and can hinder our spiritual life, and be at the top of our list – not the bottom.


In our lesson from Deuteronomy, Moses is preparing the people to enter the Promised Land. The people have traveled 40 years. They have endured getting lost in the dessert, thirst famine, snakes and other nasty dessert creatures. 40 years. The span of an entire generation.  As the people stand on the banks of the Jordan, listening to Moses, waiting to enter the land of Canaan, they are warned: before them is life and prosperity, death and adversity. Will they be good disciples and chose life?  As they enjoy the milk and honey --will they have the strength to choose a life of blessing?

        Moses’ last words to his people was clear:  the past forty years have been discipleship training.  Now they were about to enter the real thing.  So what did choosing life mean?   They were once slaves and wanderers, they were to remember and be kind to slavers and wanderers.  They were to remember how to worship and live as a community of God, following the laws laid down by God on Mt. Sinai.  This is what discipleship is about.  Choosing a way of life that puts God first, God’s laws first.

        What is discipleship today?  If being a disciple is in essence, being an apprentice to Jesus, learning to apply his teaching to how we live – we are asked:  what are our priorities?  Is Jesus the number one ingredient?

 Today, on the Welcome Back Sunday, each of us is asked to take the index card in your bulletin and choose up to three words or phrases to create a vision for Merrick Church -- which we will put in the offering plate and bless.  What ingredients will we put in the mix?  What will come first?   What priority will we give to discipleship? We will share these thoughts in weeks to come.

As we choose, let us remember the words of Moses: choose life. Be a disciple.  Let us strive to be the real deal. May our label show that we are disciples –by loving God, obeying God and holding fast to God’s ways – so may we live, transform relationships, and so bring abundant life here in our church, as we fellowship with one another and our community, and where ever God places us. Amen.



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"Count the Cost"

9/3/2019

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 Deuteronomy 30: 15-20; Luke 14: 25-33

 
        This is Labor Day Weekend.  In some ways it’s one of the most peculiar holidays on the book.  We celebrate the social and economic achievements of the labor movement- which are by no means insignificant – 8-hour work days – a 5 day work week – stricter labor laws—and most of us will get to acknowledge these victories not working but with a day off work.


        Labor Day has become alongside Memorial Day the holiday that book-marks summer.  Instead of marches and strikes, it is now most known for picnics, BBQs, and beach outings.   Yet for all the leisure and relaxation, Labor Day reminds us of something very important.  Whether we like it or not, work is a very important part of our lives.   Most of us will spend the majority of our years at some employment or other.  Add to that - the work we do around our houses or apartments, lawns - the volunteer hours at charities - the hours we invest in care for ourselves or loved ones - a significant majority of our time is invested in work of some sort or another.  Labor Day asks us not only to remember those brave souls that fought for justice and safe workplaces, but it asks us to look at ourselves as workers and claim our identity as workers dedicated to building a better world, following the example of Jesus.

Our identity as workers is rooted in our Christian tradition – in the very nature of God. Created in the image of God, we are created in an image of a worker God – whose first acts in Genesis were to create a world, indeed, to create us – and then resting from all that was done.  Jesus worked:  he learned the trade of the trade of the carpenter before he preached, and invited working men of various trades to be his disciples:  from what we know mainly fishermen and a tax – collector.  We are called to see the intertwining of life and work.  Work supports life, and life gives us hope, direction and purpose to our work.

So, our scriptures today call us to make important choices.  Since work is such an important part of our lives it is important we work well.  We must choose between life or death. Jesus takes us further:  our primary work is our discipleship.  Hebrews talks about our love we must express for one another in all we do. Who knows?  We are entertaining angels in our very midst in our loving-kindness.  This caring-kindness must inform how we file our taxes.   It must guide how we treat our employees and employers, stockholders and the decisions that will affect their lives.  It must guide how we use our work time as well as our leisure time.   Our work life is not separate from our spiritual life- if anything, it is the key place where we live out our lives of discipleship.  Think of it a minute.  The average person spends two hours at church a week, but 35-40 hours on the job.  Where would Jesus want discipleship carried out?  
Of course, discipleship should be carried out wherever we go – to church or to our office – but discipleship is a total life-encompassing experience.  It doesn’t exclude any part of our lives – especially our work.


We see this in Jesus’ stunning words: some of the strongest hyperbole he has ever used: “whoever comes to me and does not hate father or mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” He says to be his disciples we must give up all our possessions. Jesus is using such strong language to make a point: That we are not to love those near to us, or to necessarily throw everything away.Jesus is saying that yes, discipleship must be our priority. 

Jesus already had large crowds following him, and he suspected they might not know what they were getting themselves into.  Jesus was traveling from town to town, so if you wanted to follow him, you really did have to leave your family behind.  The disciples did it.  They also risked their lives by following Jesus into Jerusalem, where he told them plainly, he would be crucified.  So, Jesus warned the crowds against following him.  There would be a cost.  And he said, if you don’t carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.

What does it mean when Jesus says to carry your own cross?  When some people talk about bearing their cross, they often mean putting up with an illness, a handicap, or a bad situation that won’t go away.  But that’s not what Jesus meant.  Jesus was not talking about the suffering that is just part of life, that we don’t choose.  He was talking about the things we take on voluntarily, because we love God and are following Christ. 

        So being a disciple is our life’s calling and work – more than being a musician, teacher, engineer, a minister – whatever vocation we have chosen.  We choose to act like Jesus, meaning we must choose to love and care for others. We learn to sacrificially love those who need our help.  We must be willing be perform caring tasks day in and day out, over and over again.  When we fail, we must get up.   We must envision everything we do as contributing to discipleship

         So, we count the cost, Jesus says.  We are disciples, workers in the vineyard of the Lord.  Our work has value and gives glory to God.  God, who works ceaselessly spread the Good News invites us to embrace this task.    We are workers and may the complete dedication of our work, whatever we are called to do, so inspire others as to bring glory to God. Amen.

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    Moirajo is a minister, social worker, wife, mother, writer and animal lover. That's just for starters. Join the story, there's so much we can share together! 

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