Sermon on Luke 20:27-38

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

What happens after death is one of the big questions humanity has wrestled with since the beginning of time.

Some see religion as the byproduct of humanity needing reassurance that death isn’t as scary as it seems.

There’s the saying that “there are no atheists in foxholes,” which is certainly not true, but it speaks to the way humans sometimes put off the anxiety of what happens after death until we can’t put it off anymore.

Our society tries really hard to ignore death. We hide death in hospitals and funeral homes and try to get back to normal as quickly as possible after funerals, which we try to cheer up by calling them “celebrations of life.” We pretend that we get closure at funerals instead of recognizing that they’re just the beginning of grief.

Our society reveres youth and tries to prevent any signs of aging, and in the process, loses out on the gifts of wisdom, experience, and discernment that come with each additional trip around the sun.

The Bible is frustratingly unclear about the specifics of what happens after death. There are metaphors, parables, and cryptic statements. Tradition has pieced together those bits and art and popular culture to form an idea of what might happen: pearly gates, haloes, harps, clouds, etc.

But when it comes down to it, we know very little for sure, and that can be uncomfortable and anxiety inducing.

I’ve talked with people before who are deeply troubled by our Gospel reading today. People who are grieving their spouse of fifty years understandably don’t want to hear that they won’t be married to their spouse in heaven.

For a Gospel reading, it doesn’t necessarily seem like good news.

But let’s remember why Jesus said these things.

Jesus didn’t decide this was an important thing for his disciples to know and sat them down one day to tell them this.

He was responding to a “gotcha” question from a group of religious leaders.

This was only days after Palm Sunday and the cleansing of the Temple. Jesus had made some really public, in your face, theatrical statements that he was against the unjust, oppressive systems of the people in power—the occupying Roman Empire and the religious leaders who were trying to keep the status quo to stay on the right side of the Romans.

Jesus had gotten people’s attention—not just the poor, the suffering, and the marginalized. He was in Jerusalem, the religious and political center, stirring up trouble.

So,some of the religious leaders of different groups were trying to trap him into saying something they could use to discredit him or arrest him.

In our story today, it was the Sadducees who came up to Jesus and took to the extreme the laws about levirate marriage, meant to maintain bloodlines and secure legacies when men died prematurely.

They weren’t coming in good faith, wondering about their deceased loved ones or beloved spouses. They were ridiculing the idea of an afterlife and wanted to trap Jesus into saying something incriminating.

And in Jesus’ typical manner, he was able to outwit them and sidestep their trap.

By invoking the story of Moses calling God“the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” he was using scriptures important to the Sadducees to show them that there is life after death in a way that wouldn’t seem absurd like their hypothetical story of a woman with seven husbands.

The concept of death is at least as important as the concept of marriage in this story, because the two were related.

Marriage was differentthen. Marrying for romantic love is a fairly new concept.

Marriage then was a business contract between two men: the groom and the father-in-law. The bride was often in her early teens and was an asset to be bargained over.

The law about levirate marriage was to protect the lineage of a man who had died.

If there is no death, there’s no need for protecting lineage.

If God is the God of the living, if there is no death, then we are each beloved children of God, whole unto ourselves, not anyone’s property.

That is what it means to neither marry nor be given in marriage. It means our relationships will be as complete individuals without social systems that benefit some and oppress others.

We will be equals in the love of God.

I don’t know the specifics of what our relationships with each other will look like in the next life, and neither does anyone else, not for sure.

But we can trust that our God of the living will continue to be the God of love and peace and justice and mercy that we know now.

And we can trust that in the next life, not clouded by the ways we hurt each other, the cruelty and selfishness and violence that distort our world, we will experience complete union with God, and that will satisfy our needs for connection, community, and love in ways we can’t begin to imagine now.

This isn’t a situation where I’m telling you not to ask questions, just believe the right things, or just trust me. No, please, ask questions, wonder about God and this world and the next. Be curious. Think deeply. Question everything. That’s an important part of a life of faith.

Just recognize that there are a lot of answers we don’t have access to yet. It doesn’t mean the questions aren’t worth asking. But when the limits of our understanding run up against the infiniteness of God, that’s when we have to trust our relationship with God, that God is good and faithful and loving and won’t let us down.

So, while we ask those good questions and trust that God will abundantly satisfy every need and desire of ours in the next life, let’s spend this life living out love as best we can.

We can show the character of God in the world around us.

God’s love is for everyone, and we don’t have to worry about who’s “in” and who’s “out.” Just like this Table, the eternal banquet is for everyone, and we can trust that our loving God will work out the details. Too many Christians get caught up in the details of the next life and show the world their own judgment instead of God’s love.

Let’s make ourselves known for something different.

Let’s make ourselves known for caring for our neighbor in this life.

Let’s make ourselves known for who we include and embrace and empower.

Let’s make ourselves known for showing the world the love of our living God.

Let’s trust the future to God and make God’s love known in the present.

Sermon on Luke 18:9-14

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Today’s parable challenges our human categories.

The term “Pharisee” has come to be a derogatory term, largely due to the portrayal of Pharisees in the Gospels, but that’s not fair.

Our society has understandably become rather suspicious of authority figures, but when Jesus’ audience heard “Pharisee,” they would have thought of a well-respected religious leader, because that’s who Pharisees were. Think of maybe a mayor or a school principal or a well-regarded professor—someone trusted and up-standing.

And as for the tax collector, while no one today is excited to see an IRS agent, tax collectors in the first century were outright hated. They were known for skimming off the top for themselves, plus they were working for the Roman Empire—they were collaborators with the occupying enemy.

So, when Jesus started telling a story about a Pharisee and a tax collector, his audience would have understood the characters in this way: a Pharisee (yay!) and a tax collector (boo!).

But as ever, Jesus turned our human categories inside out.The Pharisee’s prayer conveys his inner self-righteousness and contempt for the tax collector, and the tax collector’s prayer conveys his remorse and desire for God’s mercy. Not everything is as it seems on the outside.

We humans tend towant to know the rules for getting ahead or doing the “right” thing. We also tend to judge other people for not doing those things.

Today is Reformation Sunday. It’s a celebratory day: we might wear red, we might belt out “A Might Fortress is our God,” this congregation hosts a really fun Oktoberfest event.

And it’s also a bittersweet day. Martin Luther didn’t want to start a new denomination. He wanted to reform problematic practices in the Church, not split it. There was a lot of violence in the wake of the Reformation.

So, today’s a day when we can celebrate what’s helpful in Luther’s work and that of those who have come afterwards. And we can grieve the animosity between followers of Jesus from different traditions that still persists today.

We can rejoice that we’re saved by God’s grace, not by anything we do. And also, we need to be careful not to pat ourselves on the back for having the “right” theology and find ourselves judging other denominations and even other faiths for believing the “wrong” things.

Not that we shouldn’t call out beliefs that harm people—we should. That’s part of loving our neighbor, especially neighbors who are marginalized and often hurt by people of faith.

But we also have to remember that no one has a complete and 100% correct understanding of God and the universe. God is way too big for that—thank goodness!

And we don’t have to have a perfect understanding—again, thank goodness!—because we’re saved by God’s grace.

We humans tend to judge others in areas that we’re self-conscious about. If we put our trust in God’s grace and love, we can let our judgment go.

But, the parable today sets a trap for Jesus’ audience and for us: the moment we start judging the Pharisee for judging the tax collector, we’re becoming judgmental just like the Pharisee! Funny how judgment becomes a vicious circle!

Our reading opens by naming that Jesus was telling this parable to people who “trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”

John and Julie Gottman, incredible relationship researchers and psychologists, talk about Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for relationships. These are behaviors that can predict the end of a relationship. They are: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stone-walling.

I’m not going to go into each of them—you can find a lot of great information about them online—but I want to share what their website says about contempt:

“When we communicate in this state, we are truly mean—we treat others with disrespect, mock them with sarcasm, ridicule, call them names, and mimic or use body language such as eye-rolling or scoffing. The target of contempt is made to feel despised and worthless.

Contempt goes far beyond criticism. While criticism attacks your partner’s character, contempt assumes a position of moral superiority over them.”[1]

Their description is in the context of a romantic relationship, but it shows how deadly contempt can be for any relationship between people.

This parable to reminds us how easy it is to fall into self-satisfaction and self-righteousness and then judgment and contempt for others. Jesus teaches us how to love our neighbor and how dangerous contempt is for our relationships with fellow beloved children of God.

So, we must be careful not to fall into contempt, even for the Pharisee in the parable. None of us have earned our way into God’s family. None of us are A+ students living a perfect moral life—because it’s not about that. It’s about God’s grace and love, which God gives freely and abundantly.

The Pharisee and the tax collector are caricatures that remind us that we don’t know what’s going on inside a person. Humans are complex. Rarely are our motives and behaviors entirely pure or selfish.

Luther described that with the paradox that we are simultaneously saints and sinners.Humans have the potential to do unspeakably mean and cruel things to each other and at the same time have the potential to act with selflessness, kindness, and compassion.

Even Luther, who wrote beautifully about God’s grace, translated the Bible into German so ordinary people could read it for themselves, and had a deep love for his family, also wrote really terrible things about Jewish people and incited violence against the poor during the Peasants’ Revolt.

We’re all a mixed bag. We’re all simultaneously saints and sinners.

Again, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hold people accountable for harmful behaviors, but we also have to be willing to recognize our own flaws and failings and rest in God’s mercy.

On this Reformation Sunday, we can rejoice in what’s life-giving about Luther’s legacy and Lutherans’ contributions to the Christian faith and the world.

And, we can grieve broken relationships between Christians and with other people of faith.

Remembering that we are all simultaneously saints and sinners, we can recognize that none of us has all the answers or a corner on right practice.

When we let go of judgment and contempt, God’s grace and mercy allow us to learn and respect how other people experience God, whether we agree or not.

We can lean on God’s grace to protect and save us.

One might even say: a mighty fortress is our God.

[1]https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/

Sermon on Luke 18:1-8

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

If you haven’t noticed already, you probably will soon: I find most of Jesus’ parables perplexing.

I might think I know a parable well and then I find a detail that changes the meaning for me. Or, like today’s—it seems pretty straightforward (if even an unjust judge will cave under the widow’s persistence, how much more will God answer our prayers?), but then the implications unsettle me.

This parable seems to promise that God will answer our prayers and quickly. But so often, our prayers seem to go into a void.

If God will “grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night,” then one might start asking, “Am I not one of God’s chosen ones?”

And if God “will quickly grant justice to them,” then why is there so much injustice in the world?

Early Jesus followers were sometimes martyred for their faith—was that just?I don’t imagine the ultimate collapse of the Roman Empire felt like God was answering their prayers for justice quickly. Justice, if it comes at all, never seems to come quickly.

This parable has troubling implications.

It often seems like God doesn’t answer our prayers: whether someone praying for their loved one to be cured of cancer or suffering people praying for an end to war.

Faithful people whisper their deepest vulnerabilities to God every moment.

And many are disappointed. I would be surprised if any of us in this room or listening online haven’t experienced that disappointment.

I don’t know why some people receive miracles and others don’t.

I don’t know why some prayers seem to get dramatic answers and others don’t.

I don’t know why God sometimes seems silent.

I do know that if that’s ever happened to you, you’re not alone.

St. Teresa of Calcutta, or Mother Teresa, spent decades feeling God’s absence.[1]

Her namesake, St. Thérèse de Lisieux wrote that “God hides, is wrapped in darkness.”

Martin Luther struggled with a sense of spiritual despair throughout his life.[2]

St. John of the Crosswrote about a “dark night of the soul”—a period of feeling that God is absent. It wasn’t just any sense of spiritual dryness, but a specific type that would lead to a deeper relationship with God, distinct from other feelings of God’s absence.

These ancestors in faith and many more have felt that God was silent and absent. They have felt that pain. It’s not a sign of being a “bad Christian.” It’s a common experience for even the most faithful people.

I don’t know why people have to go through it, but sometimes it seems that enduring a season like that can lead to a closer union with God.

Sometimes enduring a season like that is more like Jacob wrestling with God than Jesus’ explanation that God will quickly grant justice.

Jacob was a trickster.

He was named Jacob because when he was born, he was grasping onto the heel of his twin brother Esau, like he was trying to hold him back and get born first. Jacob means “he takes by the heel or he supplants.”

When Jacob and Esau were older, Jacob got Esau to sell him his birthright over a bowl of stew.

When their father Isaac was dying, their mother, Rachel, helped Jacob trick Isaac into blessing Jacob instead of Esau, his firstborn.

Jacob fled his brother’s wrath and stayed with his uncle Laban. He and Laban got into a cycle of tricking and cheating each other, until Jacob left and sought reconciliation with his brother.

He understandably thought Esau might decide to kill him, so he sent a bunch of gifts to appease him. Still, he wasn’t sure this was enough, so he sent his family and his belongings across a stream. If Esau and his men found him, his family would be safe.

So, as our reading begins, Jacob was alone in the dark with his fears. Maybe he prayed. Maybe he prayed for God to grant him justice. Maybe trickster Jacob prayed that he wouldn’t receive justice, but instead mercy.

One way or another, God met him—not with a comforting hug or a word of peace—but instead wrestled with him. Like the widow in our parable, Jacob was persistent. He wouldn’t let go until the stranger blessed him. They wrestled for hours, and the stranger even dislocated Jacob’s hip, but he still wouldn’t let go.

As dawn broke, the stranger gave Jacob a new name: Israel, meaning “the one who strives with God.” And Jacob limped his way into the future and became one of the great ancestors of God’s people.

Sometimes, prayer is less like God quickly granting us justice and more like wrestling, hanging on for dear life, not knowing what the result will be, but trusting that there will eventually be a blessing, even if it means being painfully changed through the process.

Rosemary Wahtola Trommer wrote a poem that describes prayer similarly:

“Sometimes a Prayer”

Sometimes a prayer

arrives like a stock phrase—

like well-worn beads of syllables

others have strung into smooth

and beautiful strands.

But the prayers that have saved me

are the ones that arrive like burrs.

They hurt a little, hook into my skin,

such stubborn, dogged prayers.

They make me a living agent

of spreading their seeds.

And with every move I make,

they don’t let me forget

they are here.

Maybe our parable today is less about changing God’s actions through prayer and more about changing our own.

Maybe it doesn’t seem like God is quickly granting justice, but as we persist in our prayers for it, we live in more just and merciful ways. Maybe we are changed in the process of persistent prayer; maybe we will limp away with a new name.

Justice doesn’t seem to come quickly, but like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” No matter what comes our way or how dim the good in our world seems to be, we can cling to the belief that God wins in the end and that God’s justice and mercy will be made complete.

As we wait for that day, maybe our stubbornness will bend the arc a little more toward justice.

And if you find yourself in a dry spell or a dark night of the soul, if God feels absent, know that you are in good company. You’re not alone—turn to your friends in Christ here, turn to wise, spiritual people in your life, and of course, I invite you to talk to me. You may not find answers, but you can find someone to lean on. That’s why we have each other. Being a follower of Jesus isn’t a solo journey.

So, as you go about your week, whether you feel God quickly answering your prayers, whether God feels absent, whether your prayers feel ineffective, or whether the world seems hopelessly unjust:

Be like the persistent widow: insist on justice.

And be like Jacob: don’t let go without God’s blessing.

[1]https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/mother-teresa-a-saint-who-conquered-darkness/

[2]https://ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/scaeranfechtung.pdf