Monday, September 23, 2019

It is Already Happening

20C, 2019
Readings can be found here

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I had some fun this week, imagining Jesus smacking himself in the forehead for the past millennia. “Ugh, that’s not what I meant at all!”

A bit of righteous indignation on the part of our beloved savior as we try our best to hear what the spirit is saying in a passage that has confused and confounded Christians through the ages.

I can empathize…

Words are an imperfect form, and these are words that have been translated, paraphrased, copied, transcribed, through the lens of the reader and of the listener. And, like the game of telephone, it’s sometimes hard to figure out what the good news was when the words first came to form.

So, we try our best to go to the source. We meditate with our hearts, praying that in all the words that are said, some word of God will be heard.

Some word of God. A word of God that makes sense of a passage that seems to let a schemer off the hook. A word of God in a passage that seems to extol cheating the rich. A word of God in a passage that we encounter through the lens of our own shame about money and how we use it.

The word of God...

And, here we are, set to hear it and to heed it—in the midst of our own struggle and confusion.

Our own struggle and confusion in trying to figure out who is “good” in the story and who is “bad” in the story. About who is “right” and who is “wrong”. About who God is, about who Jesus is, and about who we are in the story.

The rich man, the manager, the debtors, the disciples.

The manager’s job is to make more money for the rich man. To manage the income and expenses of his employer in such a way that they are increased and the rich man becomes richer.

The manager, however, has mismanaged the accounts. One reading of this text implies that the manager has a history of writing off the debts of debtors—only collecting a part of what the rich man is owed. And, in this sense, he is a TERRIBLE manager.  

He is a TERRIBLE manager because he was trusted with wealth and has given it away. Given it away to the poor. To the desperate. To those who have little when the rich man has much.

He has cheated the rich man!  And, he is bad! Or is he?

 This is where the confusion slips in. The rich man ends up commending the manager for his wits.

Huh?

By any reading of the text and our knowledge of economics—the manager has mismanaged funds and ought to be punished. But, Jesus, once again has upset our expectations of how we think the world works. Arguably, Jesus has identified a systemic injustice, accrual of wealth for self without care for others and for God, and in pointing out this injustice, Jesus is asking the disciples to reconsider what they thought they knew about God’s economic justice.

If the dishonest manager is able to right economic inequality and in doing so perform a good, how much more good can the disciples do when they give without any expectation for return.

Try to be as good as the bad guy seems to be the takeaway here…it’s a pretty low bar!

And, we laugh, because it’s unexpected. We find humor in this because it seems so outlandish.

But, is it outlandish to think that what God would have us do is forgive debts? Is it outlandish to think that what God would have us do is give to the poor? Is it outlandish to think that God cares about what we do with all that we have?

Many of us have been raised to be “polite” about money. Conversations about money, have or have not, tend to make us uncomfortable. The author of the Gospel of Luke clearly does not share our compunction and economic justice and restoration are very much at the heart of Jesus’ ministry as the Lukan author understands it.

In chapter 4 of Luke, Jesus’ very first reported public teaching references the prophetic ideal of a year of Jubilee.

Jesus stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
        to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
        to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In chapter 25 of the Book of Isaiah, which Jesus is quoting in this passage, the prophet declares a year of Jubilee in which land is redistributed, debts are cancelled, slaves are freed, and prisoners are released. It is a year in which the people participate in a full scale reset of all cultural and economic inequalities. Jubilee is a full-scale enactment of God’s mercy in the form of economic reparation and the liberation of all people from enslavement and captivity. What if the parable equivalent of Jesus is the dishonest manager? What if? The one who writes off the debts and intercedes on the behalf of debtors?

Hard to imagine, no?

It seems impossible, no?

From what we know, this year of Jubilee was never fully lived out by the Israelites or our Christian forbears. But, this does not weaken the impact of the message, because it’s held up as the ideal to strive for. God’s will for us and God’s intent is that all shall be free, that the land shall flourish, that wrongs will be righted AND that we will be actors in this reversal of fortune. That WE are part of the in-breaking of justice in this world. And, in Jesus’ reference to this passage, we are being told that what seems impossible is fulfilled through the personhood and divinity of Jesus.

A personhood and divinity we share as members of the Body of Christ.

As members of the Body—a Body that transcends time and sees and names injustices not as an acceptable status quo but as a repairable breach of God’s intention at creation.

And, so Jesus teaches the disciples, teaches them that they they are not passive observers, they are empowered to act. That they can use the gifts they have been given with an eye towards the righting of wrongs and the care of others. That if the dishonest can do good, how much greater good can they do as they strive to enact God’s radical mercy.

And, so as the disciples learn so too do we. We learn that we can repair. We can renew. We can live in and with and through God’s mercy.

We can do it—and as I reminded you all a couple of weeks ago, it is not too hard nor is it too far off.

And, it is already happening.

Earlier this month, Virginia Theological Seminary, a seminary of the Episcopal Church made the news when the seminary’s leadership announced that VTS would be setting aside 1.7 million dollars as seed money towards reparation efforts in recognition of the fact that the seminary had been built with slave labor and that many of its early founders and donors had been enriched through the enslavement of Americans of African descent. https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2019/09/06/1-7-million-for-slavery-reparations-fund-puts-virginia-theological-seminary-at-forefront-of-debate/

It is already happening.

Over the past 9 years, members of St. Clement’s have sent roughly 270,000 dollars for reforestation and economic vitalization efforts in Haiti.* Haiti, which was initially deforested by European explorers for the planting and exportation of sugar cane, has continued to suffer as the impoverishment of its people, political turmoil, and natural disaster have led to further environmental degradation.

It is already happening.

Next week, we will pack non-perishable meals for distribution to hungry children and families in our community (https://www.harvestpack.org). We will use our resources to purchase the food, and we will use our privilege to continue to advocate for hungry people in our communities—joining with organization like the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition to address social justice issues that directly impact the people of Minnesota.

It is already happening.

On Friday, children around the world led a climate strike to advocate for their future and the future of this earth. The children could not be ignored, no more than we can ignore that we have the power to advocate for change. https://www.fridaysforfuture.org

It is already happening.

And, so in my reading of Luke 16 today, I am not centering the dishonest manager, rather I am centering the empowered followers. Those who will engage the work of forgiveness, grace, and reconciliation in the world. Those who will strive to be akin to Christ in their ministry. 

Wow.

Now, that is quite the game of telephone through the ages!

And I trust that I will be forgiven if I too have mistranslated, misread, or misheard the Good News. I trust that Jesus will shrug and say, “that’s not what I meant at all…” and I will try again and again to get it right. But for now, for today, this is what I have. This is what I have as I try to make sense of God’s profligate love and the means by which we might make this love known in the world.

For all the world. For all God’s beloved children. For all of creation.

It is already happening and we are taking part.

Amen.

*a congregant brought it to my attention that the conflation of reparation and our ministry in Haiti was never the intent or purpose of our ministry with our ministry partners in the region. I want to be clear that reparation, or any form of expiation, has NEVER, to my knowledge, been part of the conversation the congregation has had about our ministry in the region. I also want to be clear, that the root of reparation is quite simply, repair. We are participating, with partners, in repairing what was initially broken, in part, by the French when they cut down forests in order to propagate sugar cane in Haiti for export. For more about our ministry partners, head to https://plantwithpurpose.org

Additionally, due to this conversation, I did add a couple of clarifying sentences to the section on Haiti (nothing was deleted) and a clarifying sentence on centering the empowered followers. 







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