Sermon on Luke 15:1-10

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Our readings from Exodus and from Luke show us what seem like two unsettlingly different sides of God.

In Exodus, God was angry—ready to smite the newly-freed Hebrews and start over, creating a new nation from Moses. That doesn’t sound like the God of mercy and love that I know.

Then in Luke, Jesus told some parables that illustrate different behavior from God. In them,a shepherd and a woman rejoiced over what had been lost. The familiar parable of the prodigal son follows these, which also shows a father rejoicing over a son who had been lost.

The religious leaders had grumbledbecause Jesus ate with “tax collectors and sinners,” so Jesus told them these parables, which show that God rejoices over finding what had been lost.

Those who had been lost—like maybe the lost Hebrews who had made an idol to put their trust in, because they were too anxious that Moses might not come back down the mountain after being gone for forty days? They seem like they were pretty lost.

So, does God rejoice over the lost or become overwhelmed with anger? These readings seem to contradict each other when it comes to God’s character. What is God actually like?

We can find a clue in our reading from Deuteronomy from last week.

God framed the giving of the Law after the Exodus as a choice between life and death. God wanted the Hebrews to choose what was life-giving: a covenant, a trusting relationship with God.

God was angry that the Hebrews so quickly created a substitute lower-case god, a golden calf with no life or power. They had just been freed from hundreds of years of enslavement. God had worked wonders on their behalf, even tearing the Red Sea in two so they would have safe passage to freedom as God’s people. And now, mere weeks later, they lost their trust in God.

Anger is an understandable reaction to that, though it’s distressing to think that God was inclined to wipe them out.

But God returned to Godself when Moses gave a reminder of God’s character. God “brought [the Hebrews] out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand.” God swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by God’s own self that their descendants would multiply “like the stars of heaven” and that they would inherit the land God promised them.

God had done great things for these people and had made promises to their ancestors. Moses reminded God that God had been faithful to them and had promised to continue to be faithful.

Faithfulness is God’s character. Inviting people into what is life-giving is God’s character. Love is God’s character.

We see that character in our Luke reading. Jesus illustrated beautifully and repeatedly that God rejoices when people choose life in God. These “tax collectors and sinners” were choosing life by choosing to spend time with Jesus and live into the Beloved Community that Jesus was fostering.

They could choose life because God’s grace had found them. God loved them and sought them out. They didn’t have to pass a test or quit their jobs or change their behavior before sitting with Jesus. They didn’t earn their place at Jesus’ table—none of us do. Jesus rejoiced at their very existence.

The final parable ends with the older brother refusing to join the party for his prodigal younger brother and his father reminding him of how much he values him too, not just the younger brother.

Itends without telling whether the older brother went in to celebrate.

The religious leaders who were complaining about Jesus’ company were like the older brother who was unwilling to celebrate the “wrong” kind of person. It was up to them to write the ending of the parable. Were they willing to associate with the “wrong” kind of people for Jesus’ sake?

Not only were tax collectors known for skimming off the top for themselves, but they were also collaborators with the Romans.They were hated for being greedy and crooked and for contributing to the occupation of their land by the Roman Empire.

Jewish people in the first century understood the word “sinners” differently from us. We recognize that we’re all simultaneously saints and sinners. We mess up all the time, hurting ourselves and others, and we completely depend on God’s grace and forgiveness.

But in the first century, according to New Testament professor Greg Carey, the word “sinners” meant people who “so habitually transgress the ways of God that they are sinners in need of repentance.” They were so consistently removed from the life-giving way of life that it would take a serious change of behavior to realign with it.

Still, it required an element of human judgment from the religious leaders to decide who was a “sinner” and who wasn’t. We humans excel at judging one another. “Tax collector” was an objective identity, but even then, the religious leaders complained that Jesus hung out with them, which condemns their very presence as unseemly.

But Jesus himself didn’t require those “tax collectors and sinners” to change their ways before spending time with them. He rejoiced that they wanted to be near him.

The religious leaders, on the other hand, missed out on time with Jesus because they wouldn’t mingle with those socially unfit people.

Jesus, instead of calling them out on their judgmental behavior, started to tell stories, stories about things that were lost and then found. And then about an older brother who wouldn’t join the party because he was so upset about his habitually transgressing brother getting celebrated.

Just as the father invited his elder son into the party, Jesus was inviting the religious leaders to reevaluate their understanding of who was on the outside—who was irredeemably lost and immoral—and just join the party already.

We too can get distracted from simply rejoicing in God’s presence.

We can be like the Hebrews and forget God’s past faithfulness, instead putting our trust in idols that aren’t life-giving for us.

We can become overly concerned with fitting in, changing ourselves to who we think others want us to be, instead of seeking the sense of belonging that comes when we’re seen and valued as the beloved children of God we are.

We can seek the security of wealth and status, putting our trust in retirement accounts, security systems, insurance, and knowing the “right” people, instead of trusting God to provide and keep us secure.

We can create an idol out of a political party, a golden donkey or elephant, and forget that the Reign of God doesn’t fit into any one box but brings communion, abundance, and belovedness that the world cannot understand and human beings can’t create on our own.

And also, we can be like the religious leaders in our story: concerned with the image our social circle projects, unwilling to associate with those we deem on the outside. We put others in boxes or label them as the wrong type of person instead of seeing everyone through God’s eyes.

Our God, whose character is faithful, life-giving, and loving, saved us all by grace without us doing a single thing to be worthy of it and instead doing many things that make us unworthy of it. God recognized our lostness and didn’t rest until we were found safe in God’s hands.

God set a place for us that we’ll never earn. It’s out of gratitude for that inclusion and belonging that we can set down our judgment, our categories, and our labels that keep us from recognizing the face of God in everyone we meet.It’s only because of God’s grace that we can choose what is life-giving for us and the world we live in.

God rejoices that you are found by God’s love. This table is set for you. You belong here, and so does everyone else. Thank God!

Sermon on Luke 14:25-33

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

When Jesus talks in Luke about hating family members, carrying crosses, and giving up all possessions, one could be forgiven for thinking twice about following him.

Jesus seems to have turned the sharp wit he used in last week’s reading about the dramatic dinner party to the “large crowds” that were now traveling with him.Jesus didn’t stop at turning the social ladder upside down—he warned his followers that difficulties would come, so they should be prepared.

After all, Jesus knew he was provoking the powers that be to the point where we know it ended: execution by the state. We also know what happened after, but Jesus’ followers still needed to know what was at stake: their reputations, their comfort, and even their lives.

Jesus was setting before the crowds a choice that was life or death, similar to what God presented in our reading from Deuteronomy: “I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.”

Jesus’ words seem harsh because he was deadly serious about his mission and wanted his followers to commit to living the Beloved Community.

It’s meant to be tough to hear these words. Surely Jesus didn’t literally mean that we all have to intentionally hate our families—that would be at odds with the greatest commandments to love God and neighbor.

But Jesus needed his followers to know that following him—this unpredictable rabbi who was challenging the Roman Empire—might cause family members to disown them. If they couldn’t handle that possibility, it would be better if they turned back now.

And as I already mentioned, Jesus’ teachings and works of power would get him executed, and his followers needed to be ready to accept that fate too, because the Romans weren’t known for their mercy.

As for Jesus’ insistence that people can’t follow him without giving up all their possessions, he had a precedent of sending his disciples out pretty much empty-handed, dependent on others’ hospitality. It created the mutuality of the Beloved Community. If his followers weren’t willing to be dependent on the generosity of others, maybe they weren’t cut out for what he would ask them to do.

As the crowds around him grew, he needed them to realize that this wasn’t just a matter of following him around watching him do miracles.

Jesus knew that hardships and suffering were coming for him and his followers, but also that their participation in creating Beloved Community would lead to more freedom, abundance, and love for them and the world.

He offered them a life or death choice, just like God’s Law in Deuteronomy, and he wanted them to choose life in him.

We as Lutherans might find this idea of the Law being life-giving a little uncomfortable. We focus so much on God’s grace that we have a hard time knowing what to do when we read parts of the Law that God gave God’s people after the Exodus. We worry that we might be getting too much into the “shoulds” or maybe the “shalt nots” and losing sight of God’s grace.

But our reading from Deuteronomy tells us that the Law wasn’t about restriction or mindless obedience—it was meant to be life-giving to the newly freed Israelites.

It was about deepening their trust in God and helping them live in ways that honored God, their neighbors, the earth, and their own selves.

Luther named three uses of the Law:

1.    First, that it gives us a way to live together as large groups of human beings in ways that guide us toward not hurting each other.

2.    Second, it shows us a standard that we can’t fully attain, and so it convicts us of our sinful, imperfect nature and evokes gratitude for God’s grace.

3.    Third, specifically for Jesus followers, it helps us love God and our neighbor better.

Luther himself found life-giving help in the Law, and so can we, as long as we always remember that we’re not saved by our actions but by God’s grace.

The particulars of the Law can be perplexing and even troubling to a modern reader, but it was given to people in a different time and place. We have refrigeration, which allows us to eat shellfish that was dangerous to the Israelites. Most of us wear clothes made of mixed fabrics. Our norms, around marriage for instance, are very different from what we read in the Law.

The particulars of what is life-giving can vary over the course of thousands of years, and we need to think deeply and pray deeply about how we interact with the Law as people of faith in our time, but it is meant to be life-giving. It’s meant to show people how to love God and their neighbor better and how to participate in the Reign of God, just like Jesus was encouraging his followers to.

Our world could certainly use more love of God and neighbor.

There’s so much pain in the world.

I’ve been barely able to wrap my mind around yet another school shooting last week. The pictures of starving people in Gaza haunt me, and my stomach churns when I think of people being held hostage.I hold my breath when I check the news, waiting to see what new devastation is being wreaked around the globe.

Faced with all that’s wrong with the world, it's so easy turn to things that bring us enjoyment in the moment to numb ourselves from the pain: scrolling, buying things, binging tv, food, alcohol, etc.

But numbing doesn’t satisfy. It can even exacerbate the deterioration of our mental health. And it can lead us to consume even more in a world that’s falling apart under the weight of our overconsumption.

When God implores God’s people to choose life in Deuteronomy, it sounds so pertinent for us today. We may not observe the Law the way the ancient Israelites did, but God still has a way of life for us that is life-giving.

Are we willing to renounce the ways we numb ourselves to the pain of others as we work to make the world a more just and peaceful place?

And when Jesus charges his followers to count the cost of following him, that has resonance today, too.Jesus called his disciples to “hate” or give up whatever had a hold on them that would keep them from God’s mission.

Are we willing to give up our reliance on things that make our lives more convenient to the detriment of the future of our planet?

Even our reading from Philemon has implications for us. The interpretation of this letter over the course of history, especially in this country, is fraught. But though it deals with the topic of enslavement without directly calling for its termination, Paul makes it clear that Philemon is to consider Onesimus his brother in Christ and treat him as he would treat Paul. We are one in Christ. The image of God is in each of us, and we should treat every person accordingly.

Are we willing to divest ourselves the best we can from, for instance, supply chains that exploit others?

These are big questions, and we can’t make any significant changes alone. But also, nothing will change unless individuals like us step up.

Choosing life is complicated.

But we can rest in the knowledge that we aren’t and in fact can’t be perfect, and God knows that and loves us anyway. God saves us by grace alone, not by anything we do or don’t do.

We can forgive ourselves as God forgives us when we fall short of our ideals of renouncing numbing, giving up overconsumption, and divesting from exploitative systems.And that frees us to love God and our neighbor the best we can.

We can’t measure up to the cost of discipleship. It’s only because of Jesus’ journey to the cross that we can even try to follow in his footsteps.

But now that we are freed in Christ, we can foster the Beloved Community as best we can—together. It’s a community, after all. We can’t make a huge difference on our own, but together, we can change the world with God’s love.

Whenever you can, however you can, choose life—together.

Sermon on Luke 14:1, 7-14

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Focus: Just as Jesus pointed the guests and host of that Sabbath dinner to the liberation of the upside-down Beloved Community, the Holy Spirit connects us with others into the Body of Christ where all are valued and nourished.

Function:This sermon will encourage hearers to connect with others.

Last week, we talked about Jesus breaking the letter of the Sabbath laws in order to uphold the spirit of Sabbath by liberating a woman from her ailment.

This week, our Gospel gives us the story of a different Sabbath. Jesus was at a Shabbat dinner hosted by a leader of the Pharisees. Before we boo the Pharisees, remember thatthey weren’t the bad guys. They were highly respected religious leaders, and Jesus may have even been one of them.

Still, it seems that Jesus was getting their attention and not in a good way. After last week’s story, perhaps they were watching him to see if he would get involved in another disagreement about observing Sabbath.

If that’s what they were hoping for, they sure got it. Our reading today skips over a few verses where Jesus cured a man with edema, or swelling. Jesus then turned to the dinner guests and asked them if it was lawful to cure people on the Sabbath.

Everyone was silent, so Jesus echoed what he had told the religious leader in last week’s reading: if any of their children or animals fell in a well on the Sabbath, they would pull them out.No one disagreed, resulting in the most awkward of silences.

So, maybe Jesus was an obligatory dinner guest or even that person you might invite just so they can stir the pot and keep the conversation interesting. But either way, Jesus was getting their attention, and we can only imagine how tense that dinner was.

But Jesus was also paying attention to them. He watched as they claimed the spots of honor they felt they deserved.

The parable he told them draws from the Proverb we read in the first reading. It sounds like Jesus was reminding them of some advice for how to climb the social ladder.

But by giving them that advice, he was indirectly calling them out on the status-jockeying they were trying to get away with. So, really, he set up a lose-lose situation: either you pompously sit at the high place or show false modesty by sitting at the low place. Either way, you don’t get the result you’re looking for.

And then, he told the host a different piece of advice that definitely wouldn’t raise his social standing. “Don’t invite anyone who could return the favor. Invite those who have been ignored and excluded.”

Essentially, instead of teaching them how to climb the social ladder, Jesus turned the ladder upside down.

If the host followed Jesus’ instructions, probably none of that night’s guests would be invited. And ifsomehow they were, if they followed Jesus’ advice, they would sit at the lowest spot, deferring to those who were normally marginalized.

This is the upside-down Reign of God, where the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The least in society will sit in the places of honor, and those who normally vie for the best seats will sit at the lowest, if theydeign to be there at all.

As we discussed last week, Sabbath is about liberation. And on this particular Sabbath, Jesus illustrated the way God would turn the world upside down, freeing us from our human hierarchies and injustices.

What’s good news to the impoverished and marginalized can sound like bad news to those who already hold the power in society, but full human flourishing manifests when all human beings are valued as the images of God they are.

The point of Jesus’ parables wasn’t about pride or humility at all—it was about inclusion, liberation, and love.

These are the things worth pursuing—then and now.

But so often, our world is focused on status, wealth, views, likes, and going viral.We network instead of connecting. We post instead of catching up in person. We strive for attention when what we really want is to be loved, valued, and included.

It may sound dramatic to say that loneliness is an epidemic, but that’s what experts are saying about our society today. We’re disconnected and don’t know what to do about it. Loneliness is a vicious cycle, where the more isolated we become, the harder it is to reach out.

As we spend more time online without really talking to anyone, as we increasingly work from home without connecting with people around the water cooler, and as third spaces like community centers and, yes, faith communities become less common, we’re falling deeper and deeper into loneliness.

We all want to be loved, valued, and included, but that can feel elusive.

But that’s exactly what we foster when we live into the Beloved Community Jesus calls us to.

When we set aside our concern for social standing and who to network with to get ahead, we start paying more attention to those around us, really seeing others instead of just how being in relationship with them makes us look.

We can view sitting at the lower spot as humility, but if we’re only doing it in order to be invited to a higher place, we’re still making it about us.

I’ve heard it said that humility isn’t about thinking less of yourself, but about thinking of others more. If we’re beating ourselves up for being proud, we’re still centering ourselves.

Humility is about “right-sizing”: those who are esteemed in society might need to quiet themselves and listen to others, and those who are marginalized might need to step into their authority and inherent worthiness.

We can embrace that we are deeply valued by God and at the same time be awed by that fact. And most of all, we can treat those around us as the miraculous images of God they are. Turning outward can help us do that humble “right-sizing.”

In our vicious cycles of loneliness, it’s hard to reach out, but that’s how we break out of loneliness and break into the Beloved Community.

Who’s on the periphery of your social sphere? Who do you pass by? Whose day might you brighten by making contact? Who might you reconnect with or deepen your connection with?

Maybe there’s someone in this room you could connect with, or someone down the street, or even someone in a different country—thanks, modern technology for making that possible!

Whoever it is, please reach out. It’s scary to make the first move, but usually people are happy to be reached out to. Remind someone that you see their worth, and so does God.

And when we show hospitality to strangers, whether or not we entertain angels without knowing it, we can start seeing the divine in every guest.

We’re at the midpoint in Ordinary Time, the long green season of the church year that stretches from Pentecost to Advent. Let’s use this time to reflect on how we spend our ordinary days. Let connecting with people be part of your everyday life, and may our lives be as open and inclusive as this Table. That’s how Beloved Community spreads.