9-29-19 Readings & Sermon

A reading from Jeremiah.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.

At that time the army of the king of Babylon was sieging, besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him.

Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me.

Hanumel, son of your uncle Shalem, is going to come to you and say, Buy my field that is at Anathod, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.

Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours.

Buy it for yourself.

Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord, and I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver.

I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales.

Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy.

And I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch, son of Nariah, son of Messiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard.

In their presence I charged Baruch, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, take these deeds, both the sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought into this land.

The word of the Lord.

But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.

But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich, some have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many pains.

But as for you, man of God, shun all this, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.

Fight the good fight of the faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses, in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession.

I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time.

He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings, and Lord of Lords.

It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal dominion.

Amen.

As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

The word of the Lord.

Jesus said, There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, and who feasted sumptuously every day.

And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table.

Even the dogs would come and lick his sores.

The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.

The rich man also died and was buried.

In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.

He called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.

But Abraham said, Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things.

But now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.

Besides all this, between you and us this a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.

He said, Then, Father, I beg you to send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.

Abraham replied, Well, they have Moses and the prophets, they should listen to them.

He said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.

He said to him, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead.

The Gospel of the Lord.

This is an interesting story Jesus tells.

Unlike many other stories, there's a reversal in names.

I don't know if you notice this.

The poor man has a name.

He's called Lazarus.

The rich man has no name.

In fact, in Greek, he's called Deebes, which means money bags.

Oddly enough, the wealthy person, the position of power, is the one who's flat.

The poor person is the one who has an identity.

And don't miss that this person is not just money bags.

He is clothed in purple, which means he's a member of the equestrian class.

At the time of Jesus, you could only wear purple if you were, to use military speak, an officer.

It didn't matter if you were a wealthy merchant.

If you were not a member of the equestrian class and you wore purple, you were impersonating an officer, and that was not a good consequence you were inviting on yourself.

It's not just money.

He's an aristocrat with power.

And curiously enough, I think if we follow this story out, it becomes really, really interesting to kind of read it backwards.

And maybe let me put what I think is Jesus is inviting us to consider this week up front.

Often we say when we're young, seeing is believing.

But I would suggest to you, this parable invites us to reconsider that.

Believing is seeing.

Believing is seeing.

So consider money bags full of power.

When he dies, he looks up and sees Father Abraham.

Curious, he calls him Father Abraham, so he acknowledges the family connection.

Somehow he knows the name of the poor man.

Did you notice that?

He doesn't say send that beggar.

He says, send Lazarus.

And oddly enough, even after he's died, he believes that Lazarus exists to serve him.

And because that's what he believes, that's all he can see.

Send Lazarus to cool my tongue.

Nope, can't do that.

Well, send Lazarus to go to my brothers.

No, because that wouldn't work anyway.

There's Moses and the prophets.

Yeah, but if they were a miracle, then they would believe.

And Abraham says, no, no, the Moses and the prophets are enough.

I want to tell you, I think Abraham says, seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing.

Now, I have a math degree.

I've got to tell you, I'm not really a mathematician, but I have a degree.

And one of the things we understand mathematically is that in order to prove a law, does anybody know how many times it has to play out to prove a law?

Infinite.

Are you ever done proving a law?

How many times does it have to go awry to disprove a law?

One time.

And I want to suggest to you that basic mathematical principle is actually a faith principle.

If God has to show up for me to trust God, God can never show up enough.

I think that's what Abraham is saying.

If you come back from the dead, that might hold your brothers for today.

And then what will they need tomorrow?

And I think the problem with Deeves, with money bags, is actually an invitation for us to consider what we actually believe because it influences what we see.

So two thoughts on this.

Number one, in our day school here, we do a virtue every month.

And the virtue of the month here in September is kindness.

Now we all know what that means, but you know it's interesting to think about in this story.

The root of the word kindness is, of course, the word kin.

Kindness is the way you treat your kin.

Now, I've got to tell you, I got some kin, and we're not always so nice to each other, but we know that's not how it's meant to be.

How interesting in this story, Deeves recognizes he's kin to Lazarus and still feels very comfortable having Father Abraham tell him what to do.

So he's got some interesting beliefs about what kinship means.

And I want to suggest to you that's one opportunity for us.

It's very easy for us to say, yes, we're all God's children.

The question is, how do we relate to the rest of God's children?

We're tired, hungry, and disagree.

I think there's another thought here for us about believing and seeing.

And you know, I I uh am especially grateful uh for having been able to celebrate Howard Hawthorne yesterday.

Um we had a funeral and um his three children gave, they wrote eulogies and they eulogized their father, which is always, I've got to tell you, as a parent and as a son, when parents get up and talk about, when children get up and talk about what their parents gave them, it's powerful.

Really powerful.

And one of them in particular, um, the reason being is if you know anything about the human brain's evolution, uh, our brain, similar to reptilian brains, starts off with a brain stem, and then we get this little teeny tiny lizard brain right here.

This becomes the base of our limbic system.

And you know, the messages later our brain grows over like this, the mammalian brain sort of looks like your two fifths, right?

You can tell people are thinking like lizards when they lose their mind.

You can be around young children because what they do is they they they think with this little tiny thing.

It turns out no matter how old you are, messages from the little tiny part of your brain travel like 50,000 times faster than the mammalian part of your brain.

The messages this part sends are the five F's fight, flight, freeze, food, and reproduction.

Those are the five Fs and they come in a small part of your brain.

And what's very, very interesting, right, is that actually our brain has evolved that way.

Now, lizards, you know, are born and they don't learn anything.

A baby lizard doesn't know any less than its mother or father.

But mammals, we care for our young, and it takes us at least something like 10 or 12 years before a kid can kind of be self-sufficient.

Now more like 24 years.

But anyway, this is part of what we do as mammals is we care for our young, we raise them because they can't take care of themselves.

Um, oddly enough, though, and this is uh borne out in a lot of studies, when we're confronted with things like criticism, our brain registers a comment against us the same way it registers a lion in front of us.

You may say that cannot be true, but this is accurate.

Your brain releases the chemicals, adrenaline and cortisol, which is those four Fs.

You're either going to fight flee or you're going to freeze, right?

And oddly enough, we can find ourselves doing things that relate to regret because our brain functions so quickly that way.

And part of our evolution is not just these five F's.

Our brain is hardwired to look for threats and to look for negativity.

This is part of our evolution.

We look for negative things.

And I would tell you that believing is seeing.

And if we believe that the world is out to get us, that people are untrustworthy, that we are bad, I guarantee you we will see it play out in front of us all of the time.

And so this is stewardship season.

And you know, the thing that happened yesterday at this funeral, the last child who got up talked for five minutes about his father, and what he said that I've never heard in probably a hundred funerals that I've celebrated is about 40 sentences, and each one started with, I'm grateful that my father did this because I continue to see him and feel him and see that value.

He's been dead a month, and I continue to see this thing.

I'm grateful my father always made time at the table because even though he's not here, we make time at the table, and it makes my life bigger.

I'm grateful, I'm grateful, I'm grateful.

We are not hardwired to do that.

We're not.

It turns out, in order to do that, what we have to do is believe it and practice it, and then we'll see it.

Now I like to think I'm a pretty fair-minded guy.

And I like to think, in general, I can go through the day and I will judge every event independently, and things can be good and things can be bad, and I'm an objective observer.

But I think this is not the case, and I'll just give you an example of it because I've run a red light before.

And I will tell you, when I ran the red light and didn't get a ticket, my thought was, oh, thank God.

Have you ever had this response?

And I say it out loud, thank you, God, I did not need a ticket.

I've run more than one red light in my life.

I want you to know.

And there's a difference, I think, between being relieved that I didn't earn the natural consequences of my actions and being grateful.

And I think it comes down to what I really believe.

Now, this may not be a challenge for you, gratitude, but because it's something I'm trying to grow into, I want to tell you I don't think it comes on its own.

I think it's something that we cultivate and we invest, or frankly, we don't.

I know what the fruit of gratitude is.

We live grateful lives.

And being grateful, I think, is really related to being joyful.

How do we do it?

You know, there's a lot of different ways, I think, that we're invited to do it.

You may have a way that works for you.

A lot of people keep something called a gratitude journal, and they make it a point at the end of the day, in the middle of the day, to just stop and say, in the middle of all the tasks I've got to do, I'm grateful for what's happened already.

I'm grateful.

Some people, and I have found this to be very helpful myself, at the end of the day when I'm thinking about before I go to sleep, what I'm gonna do tomorrow and what didn't go well today, or what I wish I'd done today, is to actually say, okay, I'm gonna think of ten things that I'm grateful for today.

Ten things that I'm grateful for so that I fall asleep in gratitude.

Um, Marcus Borg, he's a Christian theologian that died about five years ago, he had this practice that I've recommended in Lent before, and it's been very helpful for me.

He puts two bowls in a place that he spends most of the day.

So if you have a home office or you have an office office, either one, one of them is full with marbles and the other one's empty.

And the goal is to move marble by marble, all from one to the empty one, and each time you do it, to say thank you for something.

Out loud, inside.

There's this really neat thing that we practice with our day school, and uh this is part of our Jewish brothers and sisters' faith, that every Friday night they sit down for this Shabbat dinner.

So over dinner uh there's a blessing for these candles, and then there's this cup of wine called the Kiddish.

Interestingly enough, it's the silver cup like we use.

And after the wine's blessed, a practice is that it goes around the table, and each person can drink from the wine or not, but they each share something from their week that they're grateful for.

And the goal is just as they're nourished by their food, don't you see, they're nourished by the gratitude that each one of them shares.

Once a week is not enough, though, friends, for us to rewire our brains.

It takes work.

And of course, the reason it's worth investing in the work is so that we can live more joyful lives.

And I think the reason we get to hear about this deal in Jeremiah is that sometimes we can think that the work is daunting.

In Jeremiah, the city of Jerusalem is being surrounded by Babylon.

So just kind of make that in a military equivalent.

It would be like the entire U.S.

army surrounding high Texas, population 17.

It's not going to go well for the residents of high Texas.

And you know, when that's clear, real estate goes at rock bottom prices.

Jeremiah believes, as a result, he's able to see it, that there will be a return, that God is going to create this restoration.

So essentially what he does is pays not current market value, but previous market value to his cousin for some land he'll never be even alive to see, but that he knows is going to be part of the future.

Maybe it's better to say this would be like paying pre-Chernobyl prices for real estate next to the nuclear reactor instead of post-Chernoby prices.

Because Jeremiah believes it, he's able to see that it's not a silly investment.

It's living into where he thinks God is guiding him to go.

And I wonder if gratitude isn't in fact that option for us.

I wonder if a kinship with humanity isn't in fact that option for us.

To meditate not on what we see, but on what we believe.

What we believe.

I mentioned him already, so Marcus Borg does a really good job saying when we read our Bible, we come across the word believe.

And usually we think about that in an objection, in an objective way.

Do you believe George Washington was first president of the United States?

Sort of fact-checking.

But that really reduces the word belief, comes actually from four biblical words.

Belief is really about where it is we choose to put our heart.

I don't mean our emotions, but where we put our will.

So it comes from words like stewardship and fidelity and vision.

And I wonder if we aren't being invited once again by Jesus to think about what ultimately are we faithful to?

Where do we put our stewardship?

And what are we willing to imagine seeing?

Are we willing to imagine seeing the world as God does?

Are we willing to imagine seeing our neighbor, especially when they're hungry and we're hungry and we're both cranky, and somebody brought up politics at the Thanksgiving table and we knew not to do that?

Are we willing to still honor kinship?

You know, we always tell this thing to kids, it's not too late.

It just gets harder.

It's not too late, it just gets harder.

I think that's true.

It might be harder for us to cultivate gratitude in ourselves than it would have when we were five, but it is worthwhile work, and if we will do it together, I think we'll live into what Jesus is asking us to do here, which is not just some sort of reversal of fortune.

It's living into God's imagination about kinship, about gratitude, and how we can live in love bigger than we uh settle for.