How much sinning can I do and still go to heaven?

That was the bumper sticker a co-worker posted on his bulletin board in his church office years ago. Its creator may have been echoing the lawyer who came to test Jesus, as told in the story in Luke (above). The lawyer was trying to trap Jesus. He begins by asking what he must do to inherit eternal life, a question I suspect we all entertain at some point: “What is asked of me? What am I supposed to do?”

Jesus gets the lawyer to answer the question for himself, to cite the command to love God wholly and to love neighbor as self. Simple, but not easy. One thing, but really two. The lawyer, who wants the last word, gets a follow up question: “And who is my neighbor?”

I could be wrong, but as I hear that question, the lawyer is really asking: “How far do I have to carry this love of neighbor thing?” The lawyer operates out of scarcity thinking: “I have limited capacity for neighborliness.” I confess I’ve felt that way. Have you?

Jesus envisions another way, best captured in a story. That’s usually how we learn about grace. The story is known as the Good Samaritan. (If you’re joining our journey reading the Gospel of Luke this season, you’ll read the story on Friday.) I suspect that even folks deeply unfamiliar with the Christian tradition would have an idea of what a Good Samaritan is.

Did you catch the trick Jesus pulls? The lawyer asks: “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus tells the story and then turns the table by asking: “Who behaved like a neighbor?” The question about identifying neighbor morphs into a question about what it means to be a neighbor. It’s not about roping off those folks that don’t qualify. It’s about widening the circle.

I’ve heard a lot of sermons on this passage. The most impactful came from a young and inspiring Muslim teacher, Eboo Patel, one of my heroes who came to my church to lead us in interfaith conversation, at a time when Muslims were being particularly demonized in our culture. It was holy work he did with us thick-headed Episcopalians. He chose to explore the topic by reflecting on this parable, imagining that the hero of the story was an unlikely hero for a Christian text. In his modern day version of the parable, the one who modeled neighborliness was the outsider, a Muslim.

There is lots to learn from this story. The point I hear this Monday morning is that everyone is capable of neighborliness. Everyone is called to practice neighborliness, to demonstrate mercy. Jesus is not particularly interested in some definition of who is our neighbor. If that was his interest, I’m betting that over time we would each draw the circle of neighbors smaller and smaller. Just you and me, and I’m not so sure about you.

Jesus calls us as disciples to imitate the expansive spirit he modeled. He calls us to mimic the kind of generosity that led him to live among us, to pitch a tent among us, as the Gospel of John puts it, to offer himself for us. He calls us to think less about placing limits on demonstrations of mercy, to think more about the wideness of God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.

So here’s another bumper sticker that helps us take a step in the right direction. At a recent discussion about the divisions in our society, one parishioner mentioned a bumper sticker she had seen. It read: Be kinder than necessary. She followed that up with a Japanese proverb: One kind word can warm three winter months. It’s the wisdom discovered by Aldous Huxley, who at the end of his life, was asked to describe his deepest learning. He whispered: Be a little kinder. It’s the wisdom of the Dalai Lama who said: My religion is kindness.

All of this moves way beyond simply being nice. It means accepting the spiritual challenge involved in showing mercy, which is not always easy. It means thinking less narrowly about who qualifies as neighbor. It means focusing on the opportunity to be a neighbor, to show mercy broadly.

I’m guessing that the Holy Spirit will give you that opportunity before we get much further into this February Monday. If it helps, carry this blessing with you today: Life is short, and we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us. So be swift to love. Make haste to be kind. And the blessing of God be with you.

-Jay Sidebotham

Good Book Club readings this week:

• Monday, February 26:  Luke 8:26-56
• Tuesday, February 27:  Luke 9:1-27
• Wednesday, February 28:  Luke 9:28-62
• Thursday, March 1:  Luke 10:1-20
• Friday, March 2:  Luke 10:21-42
• Saturday, March 3:  Luke 11:1-13
• Sunday, March 4:  Luke 11:14-54

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

If you’d like to join in this donor-based ministry, donate here.

Is my call a wrong number?

Truth be told, I’ve asked myself that question from time to time, for various reasons. Apparently I’m not alone. Again and again, in the Bible, people are called by God and those same people conclude that God has made a big old mistake. Maybe they were channeling the spirit of Groucho Marx who said that he wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that would have him as a member. People say things like “I’m too young” or “I’m too old” or “I’m not a good public speaker” or “I am a person of unclean lips.”

This week’s readings in the gospel of Luke begin with Jesus’ call to disciples. It happens seaside, as Jesus comes across soon-to-be disciples who had been fishing all night. They had caught nothing. The fish were safe. (Notice that these professional fishermen, never catch a fish without Jesus’ help. What’s that about? But I digress.)

Jesus shows up and gives instruction about where to fish. The nets burst with the catch. Peter, overwhelmed with the miracle he’s witnessed, kneels before Jesus and says “Depart from me. I’m too sinful to be of use to you.” Jesus issues this call: “From now on you will be fishing for people.” In other words, from now on, Jesus says: “I will take the work you do and transform it for the sake of the kingdom of God.”

Each one of us has a call. The Prayer Book tells us we are all ministers. So as Lent begins, ask these questions: What are you called to do in the world? How do we discover what that call might be? It’s different for each of us, but for years I have been helped by the definition of vocation from Frederick Buechner:

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-Interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either. Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

Chances are we may well feel incapable of living into God’s call. We may find it hard to believe we have any call at all. If that’s the case, perhaps we’re over- functioning, worrying about how we live into the call. That’s God’s work. And if we feel we are not up to the call, maybe that’s the best kind of opportunity for God to go to work in us and through us and in spite of us.

Years ago, I had the privilege of officiating at a monthly eucharist at a nursing home. Some worshippers walked in under their own steam. Some helped by canes and walkers. Some in wheelchairs. Some wheeled in on a gurney. The service concluded with this prayer, which indicated that everyone, including variously abled folks, had a call. Here’s the prayer. Pray it this Monday:

This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

If you’d like to join in this donor-based ministry, donate here.

When have you been in the wilderness?

As a young adult, I drove across country, something everyone should do once but need not do twice, in my humble opinion. I remember driving some back road in the middle of Nevada, in a less than reliable vehicle, seeing a sign for a next gas station, like 256 miles away. The lunar landscape scared me in that pre-cell phone, pre-GPS world, any comfort station far from view. I felt small and a bit lost.

I remember standing still in the middle of Grand Central Station, just a few years after graduating from college. I was looking for a job, not sure what I wanted to do or where to go or which way to go, surrounded by purposeful people headed somewhere in a hurry. Though in a crowd, I look back on it as one of the loneliest moments in my life.

In my work, as I meet with Episcopalians in different places, I learn from asking questions about their own spiritual growth. First, when were times of spiritual growth? What was that about? Second, when were times of spiritual challenge or inertia? What was that about?

In both cases (and this is anecdotal data), the most common answer to what caused growth and what got in the way is the same. It was something akin to a wilderness experience, a time of crisis or challenge, when those things which numb us to the pain of life are stripped away and we are called to look with clarity at our own life and think about how in hell we can move forward.

So as we begin a season of Lent, compared in many ways to a wilderness, and as we read the first chapters of the Gospel of Luke as part of the Good Book Club, and as this coming Sunday we travel with Jesus to the wilderness (Mark 1:9-15), it seems to me that this Monday morning we’re asked to think about what we do with the wilderness that is part of everyone’s experience.

The wilderness is a persistent image in scripture. Moses spent 40 years in that place, prince of Egypt demoted to shepherd until a burning bush spoke to him and clarified mission. He then led the children of Israel, without Garmin, for forty years in the wilderness. It was a time of challenge, but it was also a time of formation. When Elijah fled to the wilderness because Jezebel, the queen of mean, wanted to kill him, a still small voice in the wilderness transformed his fears into vocation. And at the start of his ministry, Jesus goes into the wilderness for forty days, where in hunger and isolation he was tempted with the things that would make his life easy, and make him think that he was in charge.

If you’re not in the wilderness this morning, how might you express gratitude for that? If you find yourself in the wilderness this morning, what resources can you draw on in that experience? (Note that when Jesus was in the wilderness, the resources on which he relied were his scriptures.) If you have been in the wilderness in the past, what did you learn from that time and place? If you see wilderness on the horizon (I believe it comes to each one of us. A mentor has said: Suffering is the only promise life keeps), what will help you see that as a time with the potential for formation as well as challenge?

I’m looking forward to the next weeks, the seasons of Lent and Easter, as we read our way through Luke’s writings. For me, as I reflect on my own passages through wilderness, the stories of the Bible have often carried me through. I hope you will find that true as well.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

If you’d like to join in this donor-based ministry, donate here.

The Good Book Club

Ever since I served in a church named St. Luke’s, I’ve had a special interest in what St. Luke had to say. He is credited with authorship of the third gospel, as well as the book which describes the start of the early church, the Acts of the Apostles. As author of those two books, he is responsible for ¼ of the New Testament. Just by virtue of word count, he merits our attention.

Luke was a Gentile, an outsider as far as the early Christian community was concerned. Tradition holds that he was a physician, which may explain his connection with healing ministries. He had a heart for the poor, those pushed to the margins. A remarkable story teller, he includes the parable of the Prodigal Son and the parable of the Good Samaritan in his gospel. Our tradition would be diminished without those stories of grace and forgiveness.

One of my favorite stories, told only by Luke, describes disciples on the road to Emmaus, days after Jesus had died. These disciples are joined on the journey by the resurrected Jesus, though they don’t recognize him. The disciples walk for a while with Jesus and when they reach their destination, Jesus acts like he’s going to continue walking. They convince him to stay for dinner. He enters as a guest. He ends up as host. (See the hymn text for “Come Risen Lord” below). As Jesus breaks bread, the disciples recognize him, and realize that their dashed hopes are renewed, resurrected. They see that Jesus is alive. I love that turn of events. We imagine we are inviting God into our lives. Big of us. It turns out he’s been the host all along. Nice.

Stories of resurrection told by Luke lead into the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the narrative of how the early church grew. That book tells us about the power of the Holy Spirit, in evidence on Pentecost. It reminds us that the church expanded because outsiders looked at the church members and said: See how those people love one another. Is that what folks would say about the church today? The Acts of the Apostles tells about Peter and Paul’s efforts to widen the doors of the church, so that in Christ there is neither Gentile or Jew. Again, important stuff. Where would we be without it?

If you haven’t read Luke in a while, I want to invite you to take part in this specific spiritual practice during Lent (and beyond), beginning this coming Sunday, February 11. Be part of the Good Book Club, which is a spiritual experiment/adventure sponsored by Forward Movement, RenewalWorks and the office of our Presiding Bishop. This book club will read the Gospel of Luke in the season of Lent, which starts soon. Then we will read the Acts of the Apostles in the season of Easter, ending late in May. Each day, a short portion of Luke’s writing will be assigned.

The work I do is based on research that shows that reading scripture has a transformative effect on the people who do it regularly. We are wondering what kind of power could be unleashed if a whole denomination read the same biblical material. There is one way to find out. Just do it. If you’re intrigued, tempted to give it a try, go to www.goodbookclub.org which provides all kinds of resources to assist you in this project. You can order a poster, a calendar for each of the two seasons. There are study guides. Forward Day By Day will use readings from Luke’s books as guide for meditation.

And for the next couple months, these Monday messages will reflect something from the passages we’ve read over the week. I hope you’ll join in this journey.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

If you’d like to join in this donor-based ministry, donate here.