Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
October 22, 2017
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

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Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Jesus says, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and give to God the things that are God’s.” Many think that with these words, Jesus is pointing to a separation between the political/financial realm and the spiritual realm, that he’s advising us to give to the powers of the world the worldly things like money and give God our hearts.

The problem with that interpretation is that Jesus, and the rest of scripture, is really clear that everything belongs to God, that God cares a great deal about our political, financial and “worldly” lives.

Jesus isn’t offering a simple answer that allows us to separate our faith from our finances and the rest of our lives. Instead, Jesus is challenging the religious leaders, and all of us, to reflect on the things and the images that shape us.

Before we look at the scene with Jesus and the leaders, picture a contemporary encounter that invited reflection. My aunt was shopping at an independent bookstore. She was chatting with the owner about how glad she was to support local bookstores and then she handed the owner her credit card. The look on the owner’s face made my aunt cringe as she realized she’d accidentally handed over her Amazon.com credit card.

Oops.

The religious leaders who approach Jesus in the temple have a much more malicious intent, but they have a similarly cringe-worthy encounter with Jesus. They think they can trap him with a question about whether to pay taxes. He says, “Show me the coin used to pay this tax”. They hand it over and likely realize, too late, that Jesus has actually trapped them. Jewish law forbids them from bringing a Roman coin into God’s temple because it has the image of an emperor who claims to be a deity. The religious leaders know well that the title of deity belongs only to God who is so beyond our images and imaging. Whose image is this, Jesus asks, and whose title?

Oops.

Well, but it is just a coin, what’s the big deal?

It’s a big deal because, in Jesus’ day and now, we are influenced by things, by images, and by the ways we use money.

If you buy a Prius you’ll be shaped by that; buying a Hummer will shape you in a very different way. The smartphones so many of us carry profoundly affect how we see ourselves, how we approach the world.

The logos of teams, companies, political parties and causes don’t just express our loyalties, they also influence them. Companies know this and work to secure our loyalty to their brand. They reward us with miles, points, and free pizzas after we’ve bought 10. The public radio tote bag is not just a thoughtful thank you gift.

Marketers know what Jesus knew – our things and our financial choices profoundly influence who we are and how we live. That’s why Jesus challenges the religious leaders, and all of us, to reflect on the things we carry and the ways we use our money.

Do our financial choices help us know that all things belong to God and are a gift from God? Do we look for joy, freedom, and security from God or from other things?

As we think about these questions, we need to consider that word “image” again. The most important image we carry is not a brand or a logo but the image of God. We were made in the image of God, we bear that image within our very beings.

This is not an image we earn by racking up reward points. It isn’t something we acquire. It is given. We are created, redeemed and renewed in the image of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Yet, it is so easy to forget who we truly are when so many other things lay claim to us.

What will help us to remember and live out our true identity?

What will help us be defined more by God then by marketing and consumption?

I struggle with this regularly. But, honestly, giving a percentage of my income back to God has really helped. I’m not just saying this because this month is our stewardship appeal; it has really made a difference. My husband and I want our lives to be shaped more by God’s abundance than by the consumer culture. We want to be part of God’s work of helping everyone know abundance rather than scarcity – God’s work of healing the world. So, we give a percentage of our income each month. This has helped us to make choices that shape us – we don’t buy as much, we don’t eat out as much. We’re still working on this. Consumerism is constantly pulling but we are finding more joy and freedom in God; we are learning to trust God more.

This practice doesn’t earn us reward points and I share it not to try to make us look good. I share it to invite us all to reflect together about how things, images and finances shape us, and how we can be more open to God’s shaping of us.

In November, you will get a letter inviting you to consider giving a certain amount or more in the next year. This truly is an invitation to a practice that helps us to remember who we are. We are made in God’s image. God helps us to know this and to reflect this.

Amen.

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
October 15, 2007
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

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Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

So, this parable raises a few questions for me. Anyone else a little troubled by it? We’re not alone. Many scholars wonder what Jesus means when he says the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who acts this way. Is Jesus saying God is a vengeful king who sends troops to destroy those who won’t come to a banquet? That God burns a whole city because some won’t come? That God orders someone to be tortured for not wearing the right attire? I’m not sure I want to be at that banquet.

I long to be at the banquet described in our Isaiah reading, the feast God will make for all peoples in God’s promised future. An abundance of joy, nourishment and life for all peoples, all nations, all the earth – that’s a feast I want to attend. But a banquet with an angry king at which others die before I can get in?

I’m not so sure.

Jesus tells this parable when responding to the Jewish religious leaders who have challenged his authority. The traditional interpretation is that Jesus is telling those leaders that they are the ones who refuse to attend the banquet; they are like the man who refused to wear a wedding robe – who refused to be clothed in God’s righteousness. And further, that Jesus is saying anyone who doesn’t respond to God’s invitation, who refuses to be clothed in righteousness, is condemned to hell.

As Christians separated from their Jewish roots they started thinking that all Jews, not just the leaders but all Jews, were the invited guests who refused; whereas Christians were the ones who got to go into heaven. Good news for us, not for anyone else. According to this interpretation, the moral of the story is: “When God calls, go! Put on God’s righteousness and you’ll go to heaven. If not, watch out, you’ll go to hell.”

Yet, parables are not little morality tales in which there is a neat and tidy lesson. And we should always be suspect of interpretations that tell us we’re OK and everyone else is not. Parables are meant to disrupt our easy answers and challenge our certainties. As New Testament scholar Amy Jill Levine points out, “If we hear the parable of the wedding banquet and are not disturbed, there is something seriously amiss with our moral compass … It would be better if we perhaps started by seeing the parable not as about heaven or hell or final judgment, but about kings, politics, violence, and the absence of justice. If we do, we might be getting closer to Jesus.”

After all, Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who…”. In most of his parables about God’s kingdom, Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like …”. So maybe Jesus is comparing and contrasting the kingdom of heaven with how the world works. One clarification – when Matthew says “the kingdom of heaven” he isn’t talking about a place we go when we die. He is talking about how things will be on earth when God reigns, when God’s justice and mercy prevail. Throughout scripture, God’s coming kingdom looks a lot more like the Isaiah feast than this wedding banquet, so maybe Jesus is comparing the way things are now to God’s coming kingdom. Maybe he’s challenging the religious leaders who are good at exclusion and judgement, who are going along with the violence of the Roman Empire, who expect God to be about judgement and wrath. Maybe he is pointing them to something new.

I honestly don’t know. I don’t know why Jesus told this parable and what it means for us. I do know it has been used to justify violence against Jews. If they are the guests who refused, then maybe they can be destroyed, their cities burned. I wonder if the traditional interpretation prevents us from glimpsing and living into God’s coming kingdom of mercy and justice?

Yet, I also know that we all so often oppose and resist God’s justice and God’s invitations to full abundant life. I do want God’s justice to prevail and I know justice involves some type of judgement. How does God respond when we resist and oppose God? How does God bring justice in our violent world?

We aren’t given answers to these questions. We are given, instead, the faithful and sure witness of Jesus – the ultimate expression of God’s kingdom at work in our world.

In Jesus, we see the one who chose the way of nonviolence. We see someone who looks a lot like the man at the end of the parable. Jesus was willingly stripped of his place of honor at the divine banquet; Jesus remained silent when questioned. And, in his suffering and death, he was cast into all the darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth in our world.

Jesus entered this violence and suffering and in the face of it all, he continued God’s feast. Jesus feasted with the outcasts and the privileged. He fed the hungry and called all to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

As Jesus invited everyone to the feast, he exposed all the ways we exclude ourselves and others from God’s mercy and abundance. He exposed all the brokenness and violence within as well as around us.

But even our sinfulness and violence, even death itself could not stop Jesus from calling us to the feast again and again. The risen Christ is now at work in the feast of his very body and blood to draw all people into God’s promised future.

At this feast, we’re shown that we all stand in need of God’s mercy and grace. At this feast, we receive it abundantly. We are given the nourishment we need to join the work of bringing in God’s kingdom.

At this feast all are welcome, all have a place – especially the outcasts and the sinners. From this feast, all are sent out to serve those in need. We are sent out to go where Jesus goes, to follow him to the places of suffering, to invite others into God’s abundance. The meal we share today is the ultimate foretaste of the feast to come, the foretaste of God’s promised future.

Thanks be to God.

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
October 8, 2017
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

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Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

“When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they realized that he was speaking about them.” So at least they got something right. The Pharisees get a bad rap in the New Testament and in the Christian tradition. A Sunday School song called “I Just Wanna Be a Sheep” captures this anti-Pharisee sentiment with a verse that goes, “I don’t wanna be a Pharisee, a Pharisee? I don’t wanna be a Pharisee, ‘cause they’re not fair you see. I just wanna be a sheep, bah, bah, bah.”

The Pharisees get a bad rap, but here they at least have the wisdom to know that Jesus is addressing their sin, challenging them, convicting them.

This is wisdom that we could use as a nation; it is wisdom we each need in our own lives. We are so quick to point fingers at everyone else, to identify others as the problem. In the wake of another mass shooting, Americans have spent a lot of time blaming others as we’re prone to do whenever these horrific events occur. We blame “evildoers” and terrorists, the NRA, Congress, the president, video games, social media and poor parenting. It is important to address these things and the role they play in our society. We need to reflect on the larger forces shaping our life together and engage in the political process.

At the same time, we also need to look at the seeds of violence and evil within each of us. We need to consider the fruit of our own lives. Are we producing the fine grapes of justice and righteousness or the wild grapes of evil and violence?

When we take an honest look at ourselves, we see that there are all sorts of wild grapes growing. There is violence in the vineyards of our lives. Violence has a hold not only within those who commit murder like the shooter in Las Vegas or the tenants in this parable. It also lives within each of us.

Violence rarely starts as something explosive, rather it works to find tiny openings – just enough space to start to grow.

Often it begins through indifference to the needs of others, as well as indifference to our own needs. When we work beyond our weariness and deplete our reserves, when we rely too much on ourselves, then we’re more prone to anger, explosiveness and reactivity. From indifference, violence spreads into impatience – impatience with our family members, other drivers on the road, and all the incompetent people we meet everywhere, especially when we’re looking for them. We get easily offended and quickly move to outrage.

Violence also shows up as resentments and an unwillingness to let go of hurts and slights. We make assumptions and give ground to prejudice. We consume more and more of the earth’s resources, harm- ing the planet and others around us.

This can seem like small stuff in the face of mass shootings, but these are the ways violence takes hold and grows. As author Jan Richardson writes, “Violence doesn’t spring forth fully formed, it gestates in small acts and individual hearts, and when we don’t attend to what’s going on inside us, the destructiveness within us accumulates and spills over into the world around us.”

This parable of Jesus speaks not only to the Pharisees and chief priests but to each of us – there is violence in our vineyards.

So, what should the owner of these vineyards do in the face of the violence? What should God do about the evil within each of us? That is the question that Jesus asks the Pharisees and chief priests. They answer that the vineyard owner should put the tenants to a miserable death. They answer with the assumption of revenge and retributive justice.

They have good reasons for answering this way – this is how the world works. It is how God chose to respond to injustice and violence in the time of Isaiah when Israel’s vineyard was destroyed and God’s people were sent into exile. Also, the Old Testament permits taking an eye for an eye, a hand for a hand.

This was intended to encourage proportional responses to violence. If you lost an eye, you could only respond by taking another’s eye, you couldn’t take their life. But it quickly became vindication for seeking revenge. So, the Pharisees and chief priests have good reason to think the landowner will destroy the tenants who have been so violent.

Yet, Jesus points them to a different answer. He says that God is doing a new thing. God is creating a whole new way of being in the world – a way built upon Jesus, the cornerstone.

This is the way of restorative justice rather than retribution. It is the way of mercy and peace rather than revenge. In Jesus, the old ways are being crushed and broken apart and God’s new kingdom is being born.

Jesus is a son who was sent into a violent vineyard, who was beaten and killed. Yet, his death did not bring down divine retribution. God did not put us all to a miserable death as punishment for killing Jesus.

Instead, God responded to Jesus’ death with new life, raising him from the dead. God chose to bring life rather than retribution; God chose to forgive rather than punish.

Violence and death do not have the last word. God’s new life prevails. Now the risen Christ is present with us in the vineyards of our lives, our communities. Christ is present in the word, in his body and blood, to cultivate our vineyards. He asks us to examine the fruit of our lives – he challenges us, convicts us of our sin. He also brings the assurance of God’s mercy, the assurance that nothing can stop God from working new life for each of us and our vineyards. God is present in Christ continuing to choose new life rather than retribution, continuing to forgive rather than punish.

With the life-giving presence of Christ, we too can get to work in our own vineyards. We can practice letting go of the things that lead to violence – letting go of indifference, impatience, resentments and easy outrage. We can practice the things that lead to peace within and without – tending to our own and others’ needs, practicing patience, listening to others, forgiving. We can cultivate peace within so that we are more able to work for restorative justice and peace in our world.

We can do this work trusting that it doesn’t all depend on us. The risen Christ is present and at work in our vineyards, in the vineyard of our world. And nothing, not even death, can stop God from working new life for us and for our world. As the body of Christ in the world, we get to be a part of that work- beginning in our own vineyards.

Let’s take a moment of silent prayer.

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
October 1, 2017
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

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Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Jesus is asked, “By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority?” The people asking Jesus those questions sound a lot like we do today. We live in a time when authority is often questioned. Public figures are asked, “What makes you think you have that kind of power? What gives you the right to do that?”

We debate what’s most authoritative for our life together as citizens and the importance of the constitution, the first amendment, the flag, the office of president and other branches of government. We wrestle with the role of scripture, creeds and church teachings in our own congregations and faith lives. Authority is not simply granted to institutions, to people who hold public office, to the church. These days authority must be earned.

There is much that is life-giving about these trends. Those who simply expect others to acquiesce to their authority are rightly challenged to think about how they use power. Leaders who are like the second son in this parable, who say they’re going to do something and yet don’t ever do it, are rightly called to task.

We expect integrity between words and actions, we look for authenticity.

When it comes to our own lives, we aren’t dependent on leaders and institutions to authorize us – to give us permission to act. We think for ourselves, make up our own minds. We take responsibility for authoring our lives, determining how we’ll make sense of them. We are rightly suspicious of those who seek to manipulate us and play mind games.

And yet, if we are the sole authority in our own lives, often our sinfulness prevails. We get curved in on ourselves. We end up guided only by our own interests and not by the needs of others and the common good. We become overly judgmental and critical of those who are willing to take on responsibility and leadership. Often, we are like the second son and say we’ll go work but then don’t follow through. Other times we’re like the first son who says he won’t work. Except, we don’t end up changing our minds, we just don’t act.

We do need something greater to help us get beyond ourselves, to move us to care for others, to get us to work for the common good. Our minds need to be changed, our lives need to be transformed. We need to be freed from the sin that binds us. We need some greater authority – one worthy of our trust, one that will shape us in life-giving ways and not harm us.

In his letter to the Philippians that we heard earlier today, the Apostle Paul addresses the concerns we have about change, leadership and authority. He wrote almost 2000 years also, yet his words speak into our current reality so powerfully. Paul tells his readers, then and now, that to avoid selfish ambition and conceit we need to have our minds changed and influenced by the mind of Jesus.

And Paul assures us that we can trust Jesus to lead us and not harm us because he is not manipulative or controlling, not a top down, heavy handed authority. As Paul points out, Jesus did not regard power and authority as something to be exploited, but rather emptied himself of control and humbled himself. He did not dominate from on high or demand our submission. Instead, he submitted himself to everything that brings us down: the human condition, sin, frailty and even death itself. Jesus was with us in all of it in a truly authentic way.

Yet Jesus did not stay dead. God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, showing that God has authority over sin and death. God cannot be stopped from working life. There is deep integrity between God’s word and God’s actions. The One who speaks about new life also works life. In the resurrection, God’s life- giving, transformative authority is shown.

And now God has placed Jesus in a place of honor. In this way, God has authorized and affirmed everything Jesus did on earth. God has said “yes” to Jesus’ stance of humility and to Jesus’ whole ministry of healing, feeding, blessing, setting people free, challenging unjust authorities, and eating with tax collectors and prostitutes. By raising Jesus from the dead and giving him a place of honor, God has shown that Jesus’ way of working, Jesus’ way of using power, is central to who God is.

The God we see revealed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is a very trustworthy authority for us. This authority can change us in life-giving ways. This is the kind of authority that, as Paul says, we can honor by bending our knee and showing reverence. In fact, Paul says one day every knee shall bend in honor of Jesus. One day, everyone will experience the freedom, humility, and new life that God is working for all creation.

Sometimes the promise that every knee shall bend in honor of Jesus has been interpreted to mean that Christians should get other people to submit to our way of thinking, that we should browbeat others into believing as we do. But that is not the way of Jesus. That kind of approach to faith and to church does not have integrity between words and actions. We cannot talk about a humble, self-emptying Jesus while acting with arrogance and superiority.

Instead, our work is to follow Jesus in lives marked by humility, service, and love. Our call is to be part of his ministry of healing, feeding, blessing, challenging unjust authorities and setting people free. We are to continue to extend Jesus’ unconditional welcome to all. In this way, others can experience God at work with them as well.

On our own, we can’t do this work. Yet, thanks be to God, as Paul says – God is at work in us, enabling us both to will and to work for good. This is true authority – the kind we need, the kind our world needs.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer and reflection.

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 24, 2017
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

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Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a vineyard owner who hires workers in the morning and agrees with them on the usual daily wage. Then all day long, the vineyard owner keeps going out to find workers; he hires some that worked just one hour. At the end of the day, he pays them all the same and the workers hired first are furious.

The workers hired first probably would have been very satisfied if they hadn’t compared their pay to the that of the workers hired later. They had a full day’s work and the usual daily wage. They didn’t have to worry all day about whether they’d find work and have enough to eat that night. They probably would’ve been very content, except that they compared. The comparisons made gratitude and contentment impossible.

This is so often our problem – we compare ourselves to others. And comparison is a thief of gratitude, a thief of joy. We enjoy our family until we see one that really seems to be having fun together. Our vacations and weekend plans rarely live up to the exciting things happening for everyone else – at least according to their social media accounts. The surest way to feel incompetent as a parent is to compare yourself to someone else’s parenting, your child to someone else’s. We feel good about what we’re doing with our lives until we go to the class reunion and learn what everyone else is accomplishing.

Sometimes we do comparisons in the other direction, trying to build ourselves up by tearing people down. We look at their mistakes and think, “good thing I’m smarter than that.” We see someone who is unhappy and decide it must be through some fault of their own.

No joy comes from comparisons, only resentment and bitterness or, sometimes, a superficial pride because we’ve chosen to make ourselves feel better by looking down on someone else.

When we compare ourselves to others we end up like the workers at the end of this parable – grumbling, envious, and unable to be grateful for what God has given us.

Of course, there’s no question this parable is jarring. It seems so unfair, so unjust. Except, justice doesn’t seem to be the central concern here. Instead, Jesus seems to want to show us God’s scandalous generosity and mercy. He seems to want us to see central things about God’s kingdom – the kingdom God is bringing from heaven into all the earth.

In God’s kingdom, no one will be excluded, left standing idle in the marketplace without a role. Just as the landowner keeps going out to find more people to bring into the vineyard, God continues to go out into the world to draw people into this kingdom. God keeps on giving people a role in the kingdom’s work of healing and restoring the world.

Also, in God’s kingdom everyone will have enough. The landowner chooses to give each worker the usual daily wage – enough to feed their family that night. Everyone gets what they need. This is God’s desire for the world – that everyone has enough and no one goes hungry. God is working to ensure that all people have what they need as the kingdom of heaven comes on earth.

God gives you a place and a role in God’s work of healing the world. You have all that you need. The generosity of God’s coming kingdom is good news for you, good news for all of us.

Yet, we remain stuck comparing, grumbling, envying.

Rather than rejoicing that there are more people to share in God’s work of healing the world, we wonder, “Where were they earlier? Why don’t they work as hard as I do? Why don’t they do this part of the work that I think is so important?” Rather than giving thanks that there is enough, we grasp and hoard to make sure that we have more than enough.

God knows this about us. God could choose to kick us out of the kingdom saying, “Get with the program or get out.” God could say, “You know, tomorrow I’m just going to leave you on your own, standing idle in the marketplace, and good luck with that.”

Instead, God continues to seek us out and draw us in.

God draws us into community where we practice praising and giving thanks rather than grumbling, where we practice vulnerability rather than competing. We rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. We join our voices praying for daily bread. As we do, we don’t say, “Give me my daily bread,” but “Give us our daily bread.” We pray for the hunger and the hurt of the whole world. We ask that God would loosen our grip on what we grasp so that there is more for others. We ask to be shaped by the scandalous generosity of God’s coming kingdom rather than the ways of the world.

As we practice, praise, give thanks, and pray together, we get a taste of the kingdom God is bringing in our midst. We experience the mercy and the nourishment of God. We take our places and learn our roles in the kingdom’s work. Our sinfulness is revealed, but God’s mercy is shown to be even stronger.

You have a place, a role in God’s kingdom.
You have all that you need.
May you know joy and gratitude in this assurance today.
May you help others to rejoice as well.

Amen.