We Think They're Not Listening

Following up on Sunday's sermon on "now and forever" based on Jesus' parable of "Lazarus and the rich man" in Luke 16:19-31, this short piece appears as a "First Matters" column in this week's issue of the First Baptist Greenville News.

We think they’re not listening. They are. Those children doodling away with pencil or crayons during the sermon? Don’t be fooled by adult perceptions of what “paying attention” looks like.

After worship on Sunday, one of our fourth graders presented me with a piece of paper from his worship bag. He had drawn a line down the middle to create two columns. At the top of the left-hand column was the word “Needs.” The right-hand column was titled “Wants.”

Had I looked at him during the sermon on the parable of “Lazarus and the rich man,” I might have concluded he was not paying attention while he concentrated on the paper in front of him.

“Needs: Food, Clothes, House, Family, Warmth, Life, God, Jesus, Joy, Laughter, Happiness, Love, Grateful.”(This is a wonderfully perceptive list of physical, emotional and spiritual needs.)

“Wants: Phone, TV, Nintendo, Gameboy, Fish, Dog, Cat, Toys, Computer, Boat.” (Note the electronics and pets!)

Hmmm. A fourth grade boy used the materials in the children’s worship bags to apply the sermon to his own life. We think they’re not listening. They are.

Photo by Marjon Kruik, Creative Commons

This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.

The Mission of the Church: Now and Forever


Luke 16:19-31
The Eighteenth Sunday in Pentecost
(5th in a series of 5)



Photo by Paul Sapiano, Creative Commons

Is the mission of the church about eternity, or is the mission of the church about here-and-now? Is the mission of the church to save souls for heaven forever, or is the mission of the church to save people from suffering now?

There are churches that seem to be obsessed with forever. The question ask over and over again in one way or another is this one: “If you were to die tonight, where would you spend eternity?” It’s all about eternity. It’s all about forever. I confess that I can’t remember a time in my life that I was anxious about my eternal destination. I guess maybe I’m just the trusting sort. All my life I’ve heard that Jesus said, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3). For some reason, threats of flames and tortures in hell were never as compelling to me as the promises of Jesus. Maybe I’m just the trusting sort.

There are other churches that seem to be obsessed with here and now. Their mission isn’t framed in terms of saving souls for eternity; their mission is to save the world right now. The most recent legislation, the latest social or political hot-button issue, the big new local or global crisis is what’s most important to them. These churches don’t ask questions; they take stands: “the Christian response to this” and “the Christian response to that” is what they are all about. There are here-and-now conservative churches, and there are here-and-now liberal churches; and both of them strike me as the religious equivalent of ambulance chasers. Maybe I’m just the cynical sort. All that “Christian responsing” seems to me to reduce the church to just one more special interest group jockeying for influence, lobbying legislators and the public, using the pulpit to bully. The gospels don’t portray Jesus as framing his ministry in relation to the social and political winds blowing in Rome or Jerusalem either one. Jesus didn’t seem to have the crisis of the day or the week or the month or the year on his mind. Maybe I’m just the cynical sort.

Then there are the churches that seem to be oblivious to both now and forever. They are unresponsive to the world around them, and they are equally unconcerned about the prospect of a world to come. They are not moved by anything, and they are not moved to anything except the preservation of their own existence. This third category of churches sounds very much like the rich man in the parable that Jesus tells in this morning’s gospel lesson from the sixteenth chapter of Luke’s gospel. They are dressed in their Sunday best, purple and fine linen, and all their needs are met and sumptuously so. They can’t see far enough beyond their own creature comforts to notice the hungry, homeless man, woman or child right outside the door, much less see far enough to notice that the insulated life they are living will not last forever. It never does. They are oblivious to both now and forever.

The most fascinating thing to me about this parable is that Jesus doesn’t seem to buy that either/or dichotomy between “now” and “forever.” In the teachings of Jesus, now and forever, our time—the present—and God’s time—eternity—are inseparably linked. And if we do not see that inseparable linkage, we risk reducing the mission of the church to forever, to now, or to neither. Let’s look at the parable.

It is a curiosity long noted by commentators on this passage that the rich man in the story is anonymous, while the poor man lying outside the rich man’s gate is named: Lazarus. You might have heard this parable referred to over the years as the parable of “Lazarus and Dives,” but the name “Dives” is nothing more than the Latin word for “rich man.” The story could have been called, “the poor man and the rich man,” except that the poor man is given the respect and dignity of a name, “Lazarus and the rich man,” while the rich man is a nameless cipher. He could be anyone. He could be us. Richard Vinson, in his commentary on Luke, says, “In real life, things mostly happen in the opposite way; the street people are faceless and those who starve daily are nameless, but the wealthy have their faces all over the media and their names on buildings” (Luke [Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2008], p. 531).

It’s not a pretty picture, this one: Lazarus hungry, covered with sores and licked by the dogs in the street. I grew up in a family that never experienced hunger, hunger as in going without food because there was none to be had. Whenever we were tempted not to clean our plates, my grandmother would remind us of the “starving Armenians” who would be grateful to have the food that we were about to throw away. I confess that even when I was young I never understood how my eating that food would help the starving Armenians one bit. But what I did grow up understanding is that there are people in this world who are starving while I am wasting food, and the moral cloud of that reality hangs over the head of every one of us who is not hungry on a daily basis. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled” (6:21). And then he goes on to say, “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry” (6:25). This morning’s parable is an illustration of that very reversal of roles that comes with the kingdom of God, and it reminds of the inseparable linkage between now and forever. Since the early centuries of Christian preaching and teaching on this passage, commentators have pointed out that even the dogs in the street show more compassion for Lazarus, licking his sores, than the well-fed fellow human in the house. The dogs are the set-up for the judgment on the rich man in the story.


Jesus does not suggest in this parable that rich’s man’s crime was being rich. Augustine rightly said, “Christ did not object to the riches of the rich man” (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, III.262). Jerome detailed the picture: he “is not accused of being greedy or of carrying off the property of another, or of committing adultery, or, in fact, of any wrongdoing” (ACCS, III.260). The rich man’s sin was his unresponsiveness to the suffering and needs of another human being. His failure was his lack compassion. Augustine says, the rich man in the parable received no mercy in the life to come “because he did not show mercy in his life” (ACCS, III.260). Now and forever, anyone? “The rich man in the parable does what most people . . . do: we turn our eyes away from the world’s needs and spend our attention, and most of our resources on ourselves” (Vinson, Luke, pp. 531-32). Richard Vinson puts it pointedly: “We live in a time and place that teaches us that self-indulgence is good, that we have a perfect right to spend all our money on ourselves if we want, and that we’re being good citizens—helping the economy—when we do. We are bombarded by psychologically sophisticated advertisements designed by clever people, ads that try to convince us that we need what they have to sell. Every year the definition of what we actually need expands. How many computers does your family own? How many cars? How many televisions? How many cell phones?” (Luke, p. 533). “Ouch!” We live as though we are oblivious to now and to forever.

There is one final touch of obliviousness in the parable. The rich man in his torment sees poor Lazarus comforted at last, not by the dogs but by “Father Abraham,” the parable says. And when the rich man sees that, he calls out, “Father Abraham, send Lazarus down here to relieve my suffering!” Do you see the irony? The man who ignored the suffering of Lazarus now wants Lazarus to alleviate his suffering. Instead of responding, “Forgive me, Father Abraham, for I have sinned! Forgive my selfishness and have mercy on me,” he says instead, “Hey send that guy to serve me!” Now and forever, this guy thinks the world exists to meet his needs and provide for his wants. The “great chasm” in v 26 that “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” is nothing more than the chasm of pride and arrogance and self-absorption that keeps us from loving our neighbor—especially our poor and hungry and homeless neighbor—as ourself.

Even when the rich man sort of “gets” it at the end, he’s still trying to send Lazarus on an errand, an errand that is still focused on himself and his own: Send Lazarus, he says, “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” (vv 27-28). Do you see that he still chooses not to see the torment of the living in hunger and poverty and neglect? It’s still all about himself and his own. We should not be surprised, then, when at the very end of the parable, Father Abraham speaks chilling words about our inability to change. The brothers, he says, “have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” “No, father Abraham,” replies the man who was formerly insulated in his comfort, “but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” To which father Abraham replied, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (vv 29-30). On this side of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are all “without excuse,” as Paul puts it (Romans 1:20). We have seen the now and the forever revealed in the life and ministry and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and yet, fulfilling the prophecy of father of Abraham, we do not repent.

This morning’s gospel lesson offers us a now-and-forever message about the mission of the church. It’s very simple, really.

See what you can respond to. The rich man had evidently stepped over Lazarus lying outside his gate so many times that he did not even see him any more. Tell me you and I have never had that experience, either literally or figuratively. See what you can respond to.

Respond to what you can see. You don’t have to travel to an exotic place a long way from home to find poverty, hunger, homelessness, suffering and need. The rich man’s sin was his unresponsiveness to the suffering and need that was right in front of him the whole time. Respond to what you can see.

Seek to serve, not to be served. Jesus said of his own mission, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). If that’s the mission of Jesus, then it’s also the mission of the church. In Luke’s gospel, in chapters 9-19, Jesus is preparing his followers to carry on his mission after his earthly ministry is over. So the church’s mission is Jesus’ mission.

God’s redemptive mission in the world is both now and forever. In Jesus life and ministry and death and resurrection, forever has already begun in the here and now. When we respond in faith to the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ here and now, forever takes care of itself. That’s a promise from none other than Jesus himself. In the meantime,

see what you can respond to;

respond to what you can see;

and seek to serve, not to be served.

This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.

Real Community. Shared Values. High Calling Blogs

For years I heard about "online communities." I also read about how more and more people are finding spiritual sustenance and conversation partners on their faith journey on the Internet. What I heard and read meant no more to me (and no less) than reports about the Greek isles and Machu Picchu and the Sundance Film Festival: really interesting places where I've never been and I'm not likely ever to go.

Then I stumbled across a sports blog site where I began to interact with people from all over the U.S., from South America and from Europe. What I discovered was that through posts we published and from comments we made on each other's blogs, we "got to know" each other. We learned from each other, we argued with each other, we commiserated with each other, and we celebrated with each other. Before I knew it, I was in an online community and loving it.

Then I got to thinking: I'll bet there are places where people every bit this interesting interact with each other about life and work and faith. Why not go where that's happening? I found HighCallingBlogs.com through wonders never cease, a blog published by one of my favorite writers and my friend of 20 years, Becky Ramsey. So, call it my Greek isles, my Machu Picchu, my Sundance Film Festival. No, it's none of those. But it's a virtual place where real people meet and learn from each other, discuss, commiserate, and celebrate together. And along the way, we are nourished and cultivated in God in whom "we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

The vision for HighCallingBlogs is "to use new media tools to create opportunities for people to encounter God for the transformation of daily life, work, and the world."

Check it out. Browse about. You just might stumble into a wonderful community!

Loss of confidence or return to sanity?

Following up on Sunday's sermon on "material formation" based on Jesus' parable of the dishonest steward in Luke 16:1-13, this short piece appears as a "First Matters" column in this week's issue of the First Baptist Greenville News.

In Sunday’s children’s sermon, Susan Matthews told the children about the instructions about money that her father gave her when she was young. Out of every dollar, he told her,
• give 10% to the church;
• save 20% for large purchases and unexpected expenses; and
• spend 70% wisely.

Economists say that the American economy is recovering so slowly from “the Great Recession” because Americans have experienced a “loss of confidence” and are not spending enough to stimulate growth. Instead, we are saving more (about 6% of income according to a recent report, up from 2% in 2007). Sustained low spending and increased saving could keep the economy sluggish for years, they say.

This shift toward saving is hurting many of us whose livelihoods depend on retail sales, home sales, commercial development, and so on.

But in the long run, the homespun wisdom of the generation reared with the Great Depression of the 1930s in the rear-view mirror of their lives just might represent a return to sanity rather than a loss of confidence.

What are you teaching your children and grandchildren about giving, saving, spending?

This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.

Seeing Clearly Now (Reprised): Frances Wesley Bonner

Becky Ramsey’s delightful post, “I Can See Clearly Now,” at wonders never cease reminded me of my own encounter with Johnny Nash’s 1972 hit single two years ago in the memorial service for a most remarkable teacher and university administrator, Dr. Frank Bonner, of Furman University. Thanks, Becky! (And thanks, Dr. Bonner!) 

A Remembrance and Celebration
Job 38:1-38; John 1:1-18; John 3:1-14; Revelation 22:1-5
March 19, 2008

Who among us would have thought that the one piece of music that Dr. Francis Wesley Bonner told his family he wanted sung at his funeral was the 1972 smash hit, “I Can See Clearly Now”? Nilaouise and Frank and Beth can tell you that it took me a while to take it in when they told me. It just seemed incongruous to me. Landor, Browning, Chaucer, and Nash? And besides, we just don’t do people’s favorite top-40 songs in funerals at First Baptist Greenville. Johann Sebastian Bach, John Bacchus Dykes, Ralph Vaughn Williams, and Johnny Nash? It took me a while to take it in. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take it in. But this much I knew. Frank Bonner was an incisive and inveterate interpreter of Scripture. Frank Bonner was more thoroughgoing a theologian than most preachers are. It was as though through a glass darkly I could see the gentle smirk of the old English professor who had left his pastor a final pop quiz in interpretation.

Here’s why I think so. Nearly twenty years ago, I was teaching a Wednesday evening session downstairs in the parlor on the varieties of creation imagery in the Bible. I was surprised—and maybe almost intimidated—when Dr. and Mrs. Bonner walked in and took their seats. I hadn’t been teaching at Furman long, and I didn’t have tenure yet. John Crabtree was my dean, but Frank Bonner was, well, he was Dr. Bonner. I hadn’t been teaching at First Baptist long, and there is no such thing as tenure around here. He was a legendary teacher in his beloved Fellowship Sunday School Class. It was the most important thing to him that he did, according to Nilaouise. Whenever he traveled, he would do everything he could to arrange his schedule to be back in Greenville to teach the Fellowship Class on Sunday morning. He was a former chair of deacons, a senior deacon; and did I mention that there’s no such thing as tenure around here? Not so gladly did I teach that evening. And wouldn’t you know it, when I came at the end of the session to the time for “questions and answers,” Dr. Bonner’s was the first hand to go up. “Yes, sir, Dr. Bonner,” I said, trying to hide the tremolo in my voice. “Dr. Rogers, if the sun and the stars were not created until the fourth day, according to Genesis 1, then can you tell us what, exactly, was the light that appeared on the first day?” “Thank you, Dr. Bonner. That is one of the great questions in the history of the interpretation of Genesis 1.” (That’s called stalling.) “And I happen to know that you have been reading and interpreting this passage a lot longer than I have. What would you say the light of the first day was?” (That’s called cowardice.) But in his grace extended to a young teacher, and in his knowledge as well, I suspect, that at least in that statement I had said something correct, he generously accepted the bait of the oldest pedagogical trick in the book, and he answered his own question: “I have always thought of it,” he said, “as the light of the glory of God. It was the light of the glory of God.” “Thank you, Dr. Bonner. A better answer has never been given in the history of the interpretation of Genesis 1.”

“Let there be light, and there was light” (1:3). That’s the light of the glory of God shining in creation. “And the glory of the Lord shone round about them” (Luke 2:9). “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). That’s the light of the glory of God shining in incarnation. “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” That’s from the book of Revelation, six verses before the passage that Frank instructed us to read and to hear today. That’s the light of the glory of God shining in consummation. These are the passages Frank selected to be read and heard today: Job 38: the proclamation of creation. John 1 and 3: the proclamation of incarnation. Revelation 22: the proclamation of consummation. I tell you, Frank Bonner, the son of a preacher, had more theology in his little finger than most preachers have in their whole body. “There shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light” (Revelation 22:5). “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright, bright Sun-Shiny day.”

For Frank Bonner, “I Can See Clearly Now” was a whole lot more than just a #1 popular song in 1972. It was an expression of an underlying and overarching Ultimate Reality in which he trusted, in which he lived, against which he measured wisdom and truth, and in which he was well prepared to die. He wrote in his own “Requiem,”

More frequently I wonder now
what lies beyond the grave.
Will He be there to show me how
To leave the life He gave?

As into night my soul is thrust
And ended is life’s day,
will there be one whom I can trust
To guide me on my way?

Or when at last my sun goes down
And darkness dims my eyes,
Will I in depths of darkness drown—
Or other suns rise?

Somehow I know I can believe
That when this life is done,
My Saviour will my soul receive
As my last battle’s won.

So do not grieve when I am dead,
But think of me with love.
What lies beyond I do not dread
I’ll wait for you above.

“Think of me with love,” he wrote. Nilaouise, we would all do well a take a lesson from you and Frank in your unfailing devotion and tenderness toward each other for 67 years—“Do you think it’ll last?” We would all do well to take a lesson from Frank in his latter days that no matter the pain his caretakers caused him and no matter how mightily he fought it and them, he would always say to them when they were done, “Thank you, dear.”

We all know “FBI Bonner,” as John Plyler called him, whose investigation uncovered the perpetrators of a multitude of collegiate pranks. We all know of the model teacher, academic leader and university administrator. The testimonies are innumerable of the Furman alumni who say that they would not have made it at Furman if it had not been for Dr. Bonner. The truth be told, there are other students and faculty alike with other stories, stories of how they think they would have made it at Furman if it had not been for Dr. Bonner. The common denominator in every one of those stories is the Frank Bonner we all know who said, “I will do what I believe is right. I don’t care what people think of me.” In truth, he cared, all right; but he cared more about doing what he believed was right than about what people thought of him. Whether it was integrating Furman University in spite of his own S.C. Baptist Convention’s insistence to the contrary, or ensuring that the sciences were funded in spite of his own S.C. Baptist Convention’s resistance, or defending academic freedom in the face of the ranting and railing of Baptist preachers, if it was right, you did it. If it was fair, you did it. He was willing to forfeit popularity to do what he believed was right. We all know that Frank Bonner and have our own stories to tell.

But we don’t all know the Frank Bonner who wrote beautiful letters to his children on their graduation or their departure for graduate school. We don’t know of his children’s sense that as loving and tender as their mother was, their father was more tender still. We don’t all know the father who encouraged his daughter to pursue her passion when she expressed reservations about what she really wanted to do in life because she did not want to become like the others she saw in the field. He said, “Then why don’t you be the one to make the change. You don’t have to be like them.” We don’t all know the father who took his son on a memorable tour of England in search of a hallowed beverage he called “corney ale,”—that the English never seemed to have heard of, but he sampled their fare all around England just in case what they had was what he was searching for. And then he surreptitiously suggested to his son as they deplaned at the Greenville airport, “Don’t tell your mother about the corney ale.”

We don’t all know the jokester. A favorite line in an elevator when a tall man stepped on board, was to say, “Bet they don’t call you shorty.” It served his and his family’s humor well until not too long ago a rather sizeable woman stepped into an elevator with Frank and Nilaouise, and he welcomed her aboard with a cheerful, “Bet they don’t call you skinny.” His sense of humor was undiminished even when the humor of it bounced back on him. Frank and Nilaouise vacationed sometimes with the Tom and Edna Hartness. One day at Okracoke, they went out on the Hartness’s boat. Edna had fixed the four of them box lunches including hardboiled eggs. When lunchtime came, she distributed a box to each, and they began to eat. Francis, the funny guy, reached in his box, took out his egg, and as was his custom, cracked it on his forehead, only to discover that he had met his match in Edna Hartness who had put a raw egg in his box.

As we remember and celebrate the life of Francis Wesley Bonner, churchman, academician, husband, parent, grandparent, great-grandparent extraordinaire, we recognize that some will remember him with admiration and awe, some with gratitude and respect, some with resentment and fear, some with laughter and friendship, and those who knew him best will remember him exactly as he said: “Think of me with love.”

“I think I can make it now, the pain is gone. All of the bad feelings have disappeared. Here is the rainbow I’ve been praying for. It’s gonna be a bright, bright Sun-Shiny day.” Ad majorem Dei gloriam. Amen.



This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.

The Mission of the Church: Material Formation

Luke 16:1-13
The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
(4th in a series of 5)

This morning’s sermon is the fourth in a series of five sermons on the mission of church based on the gospel passages in the Revised Common Lectionary. As I said at the beginning of the series, these passages aren’t your typical “mission-of-the-church” texts. But because they come from a section of the gospel of Luke that portrays Jesus as preparing his followers to carry on his mission of preaching and teaching and healing and ministering after his earthly ministry is over, there is a lot we can learn about the mission of the church by listening in on the conversations, the instructions, and the parables of Jesus in these passages.

Now, before you become uncomfortable with this morning’s sermon without knowing quite why, let me go ahead and make it clear what the problem is so that you know up front why you are uncomfortable. The problem is that Jesus is talking about money. And if there is one thing that people in church don’t like to hear talked about, it’s money.

Over the decades of my experience in the church both in the pew and in the pulpit, a frequent refrain that I have heard one person or another sing goes something like, “Money, money, money. That’s all the preacher talks about down there.” Some people in church sing “In the Garden”; some sing “Amazing Grace”; and some sing, “Money, money, money. That’s all the preacher talks about down there.”

I don’t know a preacher who likes to talk about money. But one of the perennial problems that preachers face is that Jesus talks about money a lot—or at least about attitudes and allocations of material resources of one sort or another. It’s a good thing that people who don’t like to hear talk about money in church don’t read the Bible, because they really wouldn’t like the Bible. Think about the three passages we’ve seen so far in this series of sermons.

In Luke 14:7-14, we read that Jesus attended a dinner at the home of a leader of the Pharisees where Jesus “said to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

I preached that morning about the open table and the open church, open to persons who are usually excluded or ignored or abandoned by good religious people like the Pharisees and like us. But did you notice that Jesus was not just talking about the dinner host’s attitude toward persons? Jesus was talking also about the host’s allocation of material resources, about how the host spent money. Don’t just spend money on people who can pay you back, Jesus said. Spend your money to feed and support people from whom you will never see anything in return. “Money, money, money. That’s all the preacher talks about down there.”

Then there was Luke 14:25-33. Back out on the road from Galilee to Jerusalem, Jesus talked about a man who intended to build a tower but failed to sit down first and “estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it. . . . when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’” I chose to talk about the difference between the crowds who were merely “traveling with Jesus” and the disciples who were genuinely “following Jesus,” but Jesus was talking about money. And at the end of that passage Jesus delivered the least preached and most seldom lived-by line in the entire gospel tradition: “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” “Money, money, money. That’s all the preacher talks about down there.”

And then last Sunday, I chose to talk about “spiritual escapism” and “spiritual domination” and the creation of a community with the spiritual fortitude to see God’s redemptive mission in the world through to the bitter end when the last one comes in. But did you notice that Jesus just had to use an illustration with money in it: a woman had ten coins, and when she discovered that one was missing, she turned the house upside down until she had found it. “Money, money, money. That’s all that preacher talks about down there.”

The truth is, Jesus talks about money—and the allocation of material resources more broadly—a whole lot more than this preacher does. (I say that as a confession of sin and an acknowledgement of a shortcoming in my proclamation of the gospel.) I talk a lot about “spiritual formation.” But it Jesus talks a whole about “material formation.” “Material formation.” Jesus points to the fact that the material shape of our lives provides the clearest indication of our spiritual condition. Four chapters ago in Luke’s gospel, Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34). Jesus says that your spiritual condition follows the material shape of your life, not the other way around.

What Jesus understands about human nature is that we believe in what we live more than we live what we say we believe. Do you hear that? You believe in what you live more than you live what you say you believe. Your spiritual condition follows the material shape of your life, not the other way around. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

That’s why Jesus tells one of his least-liked parables in this morning’s gospel lesson. The story goes like this. A manager is about to be fired from his job handling the business affairs of a wealthy man. When the manager hears that he is being let go, he decides that the best thing he can do is to ingratiate himself with his boss’s debtors in the hope that one of them will take him in when his boss has thrown him out. He goes to the oil man and discounts his debt 50%. “You owe a hundred?” he says. “Sign for 50.” Then he goes to the wheat man and discounts his debt 20%. “You owe a hundred?” he says. “Sign for 80.” He’s obviously making friends for the future, isn’t he?

What isn’t so obvious—what you and I couldn’t possibly see coming—is that Jesus turns this story about an unscrupulous manager into a lesson about eternal life. Speaking in the story as the manager’s boss, Jesus says, look how savvy this guy is, “a child of this age” he calls him, in preparing for the future by the way he handles “dishonest wealth.” “The children of light,” Jesus says, should be as shrewd as this guy. Here’s the punch line: “If you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches”? There it is again: your spiritual condition—“the true riches”—follows the material shape of your life, not the other way around. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Let’s think about this idea of the manager’s discount in relation to “true riches.” 50% discount? 20% discount? What about a 90% discount? Let’s talk about cars. I’m not going to advertize any particular make or model; but that BMW 6-series convertible coup looks like one sweet driving machine. Imagine, let’s say, that you’re at a new-car dealership, and the salesman tells you that you can have the car of your dreams for ten percent of the sticker price. Would you take it for that? You’d probably pay cash on the spot and drive it away in the hope that the sales manager didn’t find out about the deal before you were way down the road. A 90% discount! Who wouldn’t take it? You bet you would.

Let’s talk clothing. Women’s clothing. You walk into Talbot’s, or your favorite women’s clothier, and the saleswoman walks up to you and says, “You can have anything in the store you want for 10% of the price on the tag. Not 20% off. Not 40% off. Not 60% off. 90% off. Would you take it? You bet you would. I’d buy as much as I could carry out of the store. I wouldn’t wear it, mind you, but I’d buy it. (I’m not man enough to cross dress.)

Remember what Jesus said back in Luke 14:33? “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” That’s 100%, folks.

I grew up in the church. I’ve been in church all my life. And all my life I’ve heard people groan and grumble whenever a preacher talks about tithing. Tithing is the biblical standard of giving ten percent of one’s income to God through the church. All my life, I’ve heard the groans and the grumbles. I’ve even groaned and grumbled myself sometimes. But here’s what this morning’s gospel lesson suggests to me about tithing.

The preacher who talks about tithing is offering you a 90% discount! Now, that's good news! That's GREAT news! For 10% of the price on the tag, for one tenth of the sticker price, which Jesus says is “all your possessions,” you can have “the true riches.” But instead of taking that deal on the spot, as we would for cars or clothes or houses or furniture or jewelry, you and I groan and grumble whenever the preacher talks about a tithe.

That’s why Jesus shakes his head and says in this morning’s gospel lesson, “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” The children of light don’t seem to have a clue what a bargain they are getting, what an opportunity they have to prepare for the future at a 90% discount.

You see, in the teachings of Jesus, there is no “double standard.” Jesus does not teach us to look at the life of faith as though it were some sort of mere “spiritualism” while the rest of our life is about stuff, “materialism,” apart from the Spirit. For those of you who are church history buffs, that was the root of the problem with the Docetic heresy of the early centuries of the Christian faith, that said Jesus only appeared to be human; he was really God but not really human, because God would and could not deign to live in the material stuff of this world. The Gnostics put it this way: the stuff of this world is essentially evil, and only when the inner spark of our divine nature is set free from our material selves can we truly be with God and God with us. That double standard—thinking of the material world one way while thinking of the spiritual world another way—is a heresy. And it’s a heresy you and I live every day, because we believe in what we live more than we live by what we say we believe.

The coming of God in Jesus Christ, truly God and truly human, the Word made flesh, Emmanuel, “God with us,” shows that there is no double standard: the material world and the spiritual world are one world in which your spiritual condition follows the material shape of your life, Jesus says. Like it or not, the mission of the church is every bit as much about the material formation of “a community of believers, each member a minister,” as it is about the spiritual formation of that community and its members.

Now, you might think, “The preacher’s just trying to raise the budget this morning,” but I’m not. I’m trying to form a community consistent with the teaching and preaching and healing and ministering of Jesus Christ. If we can do that, the budget will take care of itself. The material formation of a community is why we say in our Church Covenant, “I will give systematically a sacrificial percentage of my income and possessions to support financially our church’s ministries in gratitude for the grace of God and the ministry of this fellowship.” Because we understand the wisdom of what Jesus says: that our material formation determines our spiritual formation, not the other way around. The way we live in relation to the things of this world lays bare our relationship to eternal things. There is no double standard. If you were offered a 90% discount on “the true riches,” would you take it?

The photo of money is by Tracy Olson and is used here under Creative Common licensing.
The discount icon is from DryIcons.

This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.

The Mission of the Church: Until the Last One Comes In

Luke 15:1-10
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
(3rd in a series of 5)

In a sermon this summer at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Charlotte, Bill Leonard, who has preached here on a number of occasions and who recently retired from his post as Dean of the Divinity School at Wake Forest University, told a story about preaching one morning at First Baptist Church Asheville not too long ago. He departed from his prepared text to take a shot at the best-selling end-time fantasy books in the “Left Behind” series. He said, “If the rapture comes, I’m not leaving. I’m going to grab hold of a tree and hang on tight until it’s over. Jesus said, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age,’ and I’m staying here with Jesus until the very end, until the last one comes in.”

He returned to his prepared text and didn’t think another thing about it. After worship, as people were speaking to him on the way out of church, he noticed a tall, lanky, rather awkward teen-aged boy hanging back and watching while he shook hands and spoke to people. After everyone else had left, the teenager walked up and shook his hand. “Can I stay with you?” he asked. “Excuse me?” Bill said. “Can I stay with you, you know, until the last one comes in? I want to be there for the last one.” “I want to be there for the last one.”

You and I live in an era of the American church that is dominated in some circles by a thirst for spiritual escapism. Millions of American Christians have lifted “Beam me up, Scotty!” right out of Star Trek and dropped it into their Christian belief system as though it were in the Bible. It’s not. But faced with a world filled with uncertainty because our loss of trust and confidence in institutions that we once relied on for stability and order in the world—government, the church, marriage, family, the educational establishment, the medical establishment, the legal establishment, among others—American Christians have flocked to a spiritual escapism that makes them wish for a rapture to carry them away. They want to leave it all behind before it gets any worse. In spiritual escapism, the mission of the church is to produce pious, holy, and orthodox believers who will be worthy of rapture, worthy of escaping the trials and tribulations of this world for the greener pastures and gilded streets of heaven.

In the narrative frame of this morning’s gospel lesson, Jesus and his followers are not on a journey to greener pastures and gilded streets. Jesus is on the way to the Via Dolorosa and his death on a cross. And he has told the crowds around him that unless they are willing to carry the cross and follow him, they cannot be his disciple (Luke 14:27). In the meantime, good religious people, “the Pharisees and the scribes,” Luke’s gospel calls them, complain that Jesus “welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). That’s a far cry from “he beams up his pious, holy, and orthodox followers into heaven.”

The mission of the church, insofar as it reflects God’s redemptive mission in the world, has nothing to do with spiritual escapism. In this morning’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells a pair of lost-and-found parables that illustrate God’s effort—the lengths to which God will go—in searching out even a single treasured soul. God is like the shepherd who when even a single sheep is missing searches it out and carries it home on God’s broad shoulders. God is like the woman who when she discovers that a single coin is missing turns the house upside down to find it. Search and recovery is God’s mission and the mission of the church.

This morning for the first time, one of our mini-buses is rolling through Greenville to provide transportation to Triune Mercy Center for homeless persons who couldn’t otherwise get there for worship and fellowship. It’s a partnership among Triune, United Ministries, Buncombe Street United Methodist, Valley Brook Missionary Baptist, Westminster Presbyterian and First Baptist Greenville. Triune Mercy Center does recovery as well as anyone in Greenville; and this morning, whether you were aware of it or not, you are contributing to God’s mission of search and recovery. Our mission is not to escape this world; our mission is to search and recover with God in this world. Our mission is not to get ourselves out while the gettin’ is good; our mission is to create a community that will stay here until the last one comes in.

You and I live in an era of the American church that is characterized in some circles by a will for spiritual domination. Millions of American Christians have lifted the chorus, “We are the champions of the world!”—“No time for losers: we are the champions of the world!” right out of the 70s rock anthem and dropped it into their Christian belief system as though it were in the Bible. It’s not. But faced with a world filled with loss and fear, terror and disaster and illness and disease, millions of American Christians have flocked to spiritual domination in attempt to bring order and stability to the world. They believe that by controlling religious and political and social and legal processes they can enforce the kingdom of God in this world, in spite of the fact that Jesus insisted that God’s kingdom is not of this world.

According to the gospel of John, when Jesus was on trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus asserted no claim over the reins of earthly power, even when Pilate gave him the opportunity to do so. Instead, Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over. . . . But as it is, my kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). In the lust for spiritual domination by conservative and liberal Christian activists alike, the mission of the church becomes to produce fighters for the cause who will influence or control congregations and denominations, local, state and national governments. But this morning’s gospel lesson suggests that God’s mission is more focused on the wellbeing of single loser than on the production of 99 champions. The mission of the church, insofar as it reflects God’s redemptive mission in the world, has nothing to do with spiritual domination.

The lost-and-found parables in this morning’s gospel lesson model a ministry of personal presence to the lost and for the losers. God’s time is always time for those whom the world calls “losers” but whom God calls God’s children, the sheep of God’s pasture, the precious coins of God’s treasure. One Sunday a month, members of this congregation from various Sunday School classes and extended families elect to spend their morning at Project Host, “the soup kitchen,” instead of here in this place. It is no less worship there preparing and serving a meal to homeless persons than it is worship here in the comfort and beauty of this room, in the comfort and well coiffed company of this congregation. It’s personal presence with those who have wandered for whatever reason outside the safety of the flock, personal presence with those who have rolled by their volition or not outside the security of the purse.

Last month, we had a fascinating conversation in a pastoral team workday in which we spent some time talking about the term “outreach,” among other things. In the course of our conversation we discovered that while many churches think of “outreach” as being what they do to get others to come to them, we think of “outreach” as going where others are in need, whether they ever come here or not.

In his recent book Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church, Reggie McNeal suggests that the American church has had it the wrong way round for a long time because it counts how many people are in attendance on Sunday morning as a measure of a church’s strength and mission instead of counting how many people “are released to mission” on Sunday and every day. The first parable in this morning’s gospel lesson implies that we not celebrate over the 99 who are present and accounted for, but we should celebrate over the result of going where someone is in need. The second parable implies that we not celebrate the pile of coins safely in the purse or the money box, but we should celebrate the outcome of the search and recovery of the one that was missing.

God is like the shepherd who when a single sheep has been found, calls for a celebration by neighbors and friends. God is like the woman who when a single coin is reclaimed invites her friends and neighbors to share in her joy. God has no need to be “champion of the world.” It is enough for God to “so love the world” sacrificially and redemptively and joyfully. And if that’s enough for God, then that’s enough for the church.

The Mission Statement of First Baptist Greenville ends with the sentence, “We express our love for all in gratitude for the love God has shown to us.” Neither escapism nor domination are expressions of love or gratitude either one. So the next time you are tempted to be beamed up or to join in a chorus of “We are the champions,” grab hold of a tree and hang on tight until the temptation passes. Because the mission of the church is to stay here with Jesus seeking and finding and recovering and celebrating until the last one comes in.

Can I stay with you? I want to be there for the last one.

This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.

The Mission of the Church: Beyond the Ties That Bind

Luke 14:25-33
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost 2010
(2nd in a series of 5)

“God’s mission has a church. It’s [God’s] mission, not ours. The work of the church comes out of God’s redemptive mission in the world.” That’s what Reggie McNeal, the author of a recent book titled Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church, says. “God’s mission has a church. It’s [God’s] mission, not ours. The work of the church comes out of God’s redemptive mission in the world.” Last Sunday, in the first sermon in a series of five from the “travel narrative” in Luke’s gospel, I suggested that as we listen in on the teaching and preaching of Jesus as he travels from Galilee in the north to Jerusalem in the south it is as though we are overhearing directives from the home office on what kind of franchise we are at First Baptist Greenville.

Last week, in Luke 14:7-14, we overheard Jesus speak of God’s redemptive mission in the world as an open table at which are welcome persons whom we and others would otherwise exclude, ignore or abandon. And we heard Jesus speak of humility as the essential orientation in living out God’s redemptive mission in the world. This week we overhear even more challenging and difficult words of Jesus. This morning’s words are among his most offensive to our sensibilities of any in the four gospels. I was amused to see that in The Christian Century, the grand old flagship publication of mainline, ecumenical American Christianity, the preacher who contributed the meditation for this week chose to ignore the gospel lesson to reflect instead on the wonderful psalm for today that we read together as our opening sentences (Psalm 139). The funny thing is, back during the summer when I planned this series of sermons, I did the very same thing. I decided to preach on the psalm instead Jesus’ words because Jesus’ words are just too hard: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

I’ve known some people like that, but I’ve never thought of them as model Christians. I’ve known some teenagers who were so unhappy with their family on any given day that they would qualify as examples of Jesus’ words. But I’ve never thought of their attitude as modeling a gospel orientation. One day in a rather heated exchange of text messages with one of my sons, I received a text from him that read, simply, “I hate you.” I assure you that when I saw that, I did not think of Luke 14:26. I did not say to myself, “O good, he’s a disciple of Jesus.” I thought he might soon meet Jesus, but I did not think he was a disciple of Jesus because he said he hated his father.

What sense does it make for Jesus to say such a thing? What sense does it make that the same Jesus who said just four chapters earlier, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27), would say, “Hate the members of your own family”? What sense does it make that eight chapters earlier Jesus said not once but twice, “Love your enemies,” “Love your enemies” (Luke 6:27,35), and now he says “hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters”? Surely, the redemptive mission of God in the world is not about hating your family, is it?

Just as we did with last Sunday’s passage, let’s begin by looking at the narrative context, the place in the story that these words occur, before we try to unpack the words themselves. First, I want you to see that in verse 26 the scene changes abruptly from a Sabbath dinner at the home of a leader of the Pharisees to the journey to Jerusalem. Jesus is “on the road again.” After resting on the Sabbath, Jesus is back on his way to the showdown in Jerusalem. The second and more important thing that I want you to see in verse 26 is that Jesus’ words are directed to the “large crowds” who “were traveling with him.”

While we are considering the mission of the church, we would do well to pay attention to a fascinating difference between the attitude of Jesus toward large crowds and the American church’s attitude toward large crowds. In the American church, we associate large crowds with the success of the gospel and the church. “The bigger the better,” we say. But Jesus does not seem to share our equation of quantity and quality. Back in chapter 9:11, right before the beginning of the journey to Jerusalem, Jesus “welcomed” the crowds “and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.” But there is a subtle and important turning point in Jesus’ relationship with “the crowds” just seven verses later. We read beginning in verse 18, “Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’ They answered, ‘John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered, ‘The Messiah of God.’ [Jesus] sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, ‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’ Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?’” (Luke 9:18-25). From this point on in Luke’s gospel, there is a clear distinction between “the crowds” who travel with Jesus and the “disciples” who follow Jesus.

On the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, it becomes quite clear that Jesus is not interested in drawing crowds. Along the way, Jesus is preparing his followers to carry on his mission after his earthly ministry is over. Surprisingly, by our way of thinking, Jesus doesn’t seem to be the least bit interested in an enlargement campaign. In fact, in this morning’s gospel lesson he seems to be interested in ensmallment. In chapter 11, “the crowds were amazed” and “the crowds were increasing” (verses 14,29), and now in chapter 14 “large crowds were traveling with him” (verse 1). But instead of capitalizing on the success of his preaching and teaching and healing and ministering in drawing large crowds, he turned and delivered the hardest and most offensive sermon in Luke’s gospel. Contrary to the dominant attitude in the American church, Jesus knows that where there are large crowds there are few disciples. There are always many travelers, but there are very few followers.

The words of Jesus in front of us this morning are usually treated under the rubric “the cost of discipleship.” Actually following Jesus rather than just traveling with him will cost you. In between the costs, Jesus uses the example of a builder who fails to ensure that he has the resources available to complete a project before he begins and the king who must calculate his capacity to win a battle before entering the fight. “Count the cost,” Jesus says to the crowds. It doesn’t cost much to be a traveler, but being a follower will take everything you’ve got and then some, Jesus says. If this morning’s gospel passage has anything to say about the God’s mission for the church, it must be that being a church is not about drawing crowds but about creating followers. That’s why we do not say of First Baptist Greenville, “a community of believers, the bigger the better.” We say, “a community of believers, each member a minister.” That’s an ensmallment motto, folks. It does say, “each member just happy to be here.” It doesn’t say, “each member glad to see you.” It doesn’t say, “each member in it for what we can get out of it.” We understand our mission to be creating and being followers who will minister in Jesus’ name. Everybody’s welcome to travel, but don’t confuse travelling with following. When we merely travel, it’s all about us and what we can get out of it. When we follow, it’s about God’s redemptive mission in the world and what we can put into that.

Jesus says that following calls into question our preoccupation with family, our obsession with status, and our addiction to possessions. Those are hard words. But they are also redemptive words. They are redemptive words, and here’s why. Underlying Jesus’ hard words that call us to untie the ties that bind us to our preoccupations and obsessions and addictions, there is an offer of freedom and release, an offer to ground our lives not in things that do not last but in the everlasting God whose love for us and for the world is revealed in the life and teachings and ministry and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Let’s look at “counting the cost” in a little different way. Count the cost of putting all your eggs in the basket of your family. If your family becomes the be-all and the end-all of your existence, what happens when your children ultimately disappoint you or you lose them, literally or figuratively? If your marriage is the most important thing in the world to you, what happens when it falls apart or is willfully destroyed or your spouse dies? If your parents are your strength and stability, the glue that holds you and your family together, what happens when they are no longer around tend to you? Jesus’ hard words remind us that in spite of our culture’s preoccupation with family, family is ultimately an unstable platform on which to construct our lives and identity. Make no mistake about it, our experience in our family is vitally important to our healthy formation as human beings and our spiritual growth as followers of Jesus. But if nothing else does, our experience with grief over the loss of a loved one teaches us that family cannot be the ultimate ground of our existence. The only stable platform on which to construct our life and identity (and our family also, for that matter) is a prior relationship with God that carries us through, sustains us and preserves us in the face of whatever happens in or to our family.

The same is true of our possessions. If your happiness and your fulfillment, your sense of security and self-worth, depends on what and how much you have, then you are constructing your life on a temporary and passing platform. Reversals of fortune are inevitable. Bubble burst. Markets collapse. Incomes decline. Companies fold. Jobs disappear. Pensions evaporate. The truth is, we are so addicted to our stuff that we don’t see that our stuff controls us instead of our controlling our stuff; and Jesus says, unless you can get that addiction turned around, you can’t really follow me. Because the only stable platform on which to construct our life and identity, our happiness and fulfillment and security and self-worth is a prior relationship with God that carries us through, sustains us and preserves us in the face of whatever happens with or to our possessions.

God’s redemptive mission in the world lies beyond the ties that bind us in this world and to this world. There is no better interpretation of Jesus’ words in Luke 14:25-33 than the closing line of Martin Luther's great reformation hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”: “Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still, [God’s] kingdom is forever.” The hard words of Jesus in this morning’s gospel lesson amount to a standing invitation to all who would no longer be merely travelers to become followers. The hard words of Jesus in Luke 14:25-33 amount to a standing invitation to ground your life in the only stable platform there is in all of creation, a relationship to the God who comes to us in Jesus Christ. Those invitations to God's redemptive mission in the world are open now as we stand and sing together our invitation hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.