The Rigged Game and the Real Love

Luke 16:1-13

"The parable of the dishonest manager." 

First of all, it’s hilarious to me that this guy is called the "dishonest" manager.   He seems brutally honest to me. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m too ashamed to beg. That is some self-honesty there. 

But let’s just stop for a minute and acknowledge before we dive in any further that this is one of Jesus’ most difficult parables, because it kind of sounds like the Son of God is saying God’s people should be more manipulative and unethical.  At least he does say we could learn a thing or two about shrewdness from folks like the dude who cheats and steals and lies, whose apparently commendable act is to use someone else’s money to buy off people, so that when he needs something they’ll help him out.

Commentators and preachers go to great lengths to pretty it up – they say he eliminated his commission or his own salary, so he was being generous and didn’t cut into his boss’s profits.  They suggest he forgave illegal interest, or was a mistreated worker bringing vigilante justice to an unfair system.  Anything to rescue Jesus from this disaster of a parable.  

 Luke seems so uncomfortable with this parable that he tacks on a bunch of additional takeaways for us, like he’s just giving up, What does it mean? You decide!
Here are some of Luke’s suggested applications, paraphrased:

•       Liars gonna lie. When people show you who they are, believe them. 

•       Respect is earned and trust is gained.

•       If you can’t be relied upon look after the neighbor’s dog well, what makes you think your parents would ever get you your own? 

•       No one can play on two teams.  You’ll be loyal and give one your best effort, and and neglect and resent the other.  You can’t serve God and wealth.

All of these are fine take-aways, so we could stop right now and each pick whichever one tugs at us the most, and call it good enough.  

But I think this is a great opportunity to circle back to something that has been so foundational to us as a congregation that it has changed how many of us live our daily lives, and certainly how we are church together.  Session just reiterated last week about how important this perspective is to us, and we haven’t explicitly spelled out in a while.  Bonus, maybe if we remind ourselves of this perspective again, we’ll get some insights into this perplexing parable as well.  

So here it is: The way of fear vs. The way of God.

There are two competing narratives all the time, everywhere, in life, in scripture, in media, in the structures we occupy, in the air we breathe.

 Our instinctive go-to is based on the earliest lie, which says we are in this alone and God can’t be trusted. We’re convinced that the goal of life is security and self-sufficiency at all costs. The Way of Fear builds on that lie to say that the powerful matter and the weak don’t, that having more makes you better, and that all human worth is earned. So those around you are competition for your resources, threat to your security, or obstacle to your goals. There is us and there is them, enemies and allies, and if you’re not with us, you’re against us.   

Scarcity is the rule – there simply is not enough so take what you can and guard yours well. And that’s not just money, that’s also things like respect, dignity, opportunity, voice and worth, limited commodities all, so only some people can have it at any given time.  Safety and well-being is hard to get and easy to lose, so never slow down, never give up, never let go, never lose your place. You must be vigilant about self-protection and avoiding weakness, or even the appearance of weakness.  Life is an uphill battle, a never-ending to-do list, a criticism factory churning out judgment, comparison and shame, packaged in urgency and anxiety, and coated with desperation to avoid death that smells like younger, fitter, better, more. 

This week in the news, the way of fear was on display. It’s a system that uses human beings in need as pawns in political stunts, and then turns around to use them again as trophies of political self-righteousness.  A system where the movement of goods matters more than the lives of the people transporting them.  A system where people have to choose between food and rent while big companies rake in record-breaking profits and refuse to lower their prices. A system where the quality of the healthcare you can expect to receive can be predicted by the color of your skin.  This is what the way of fear looks like. 

In contrast, the Way of God is the real reality under it all.  The truth is that life begins in abundance and gift, and the earth and everything in it belongs to God, who made us for connection with God and each other. This belonging is foundational and permanent. Even when we forget or deny it, it remains.  There is nowhere God’s love does not reach, and nothing God’s love does not bear.  Each person is loved just as you are, and you are not meant to be “perfect,” just meant to be you, the only one of you God will ever make on this planet.  Together in all our glorious difference, we live alongside all these unique others who are in it together, with and for each other in this life as siblings and friends, companions who bear each other’s pain and joys.

There is enough for everyone because what we have is for sharing.  It’s all meant to work together in harmony.  And no matter what it looks like at any given moment, it’s all heading toward complete connection and wholeness, because God is the one who decides the end, and in Christ, it’s already been decided.  We can live in freedom and rest, we can join in redemption and hope, we can take in wonder and joy, and we can face our losses knowing death is not the end of the story, that life and love are eternal.   

In the news this week the way of God was on display in a high school football team coming together to rebuild a bridge destroyed in a storm, a billionaire giving away his entire company to support climate action, and a close-knit island community dropping everything to provide food, clothing, housing and a warm welcome to unexpected weary travelers, sitting together for hours and listening to their harrowing stories, witnessing the bond of mutual care they’d forged with their fellow travelers navigating horror and hardship.  Drawing on their own sense of community and resilience through hurricanes and covid, these people relished the chance to minister to strangers, opening their hearts to true encounter that not only helped those whose lives are currently in upheaval, but also enriched the lives of those surprised in an ordinary week by the gift of their arrival, reminding them all that we all really do belong to each other.  That’s the way of God peeking through.

 So back to this parable, which is all the lodged in the way of fear. The so-called “dishonest” manager oversees corrupt wealth for an unethical rich guy in a broken system. And perceptions matter. If someone thinks his manager is stealing, the owner is firing him whether he did it or not, because the reputation of the business must not be tarnished. 

 The game is rigged. It’s all pretend. The manager’s actions expose as much when, after he uses his last act to slash the debts of his boss’s debtors, instead of exploding in rage, a slow smile creeps over his boss’s face, and he claps the manager on the back and bellows, “Touché!” 

 And it took the man losing his job to wake him up to how messed up it all is.  
What really matters? What is really real? 
Our belonging to God and each other.  
 
So much of life functions in transactional relationships. What can we get from the other person? And that way of functioning is still at play for our manager. It’s maybe all he knows. So he thinks, I don’t have the skills to make it out there on my own! But I do know transactional relationships. If I reduce their debt, they will be obligated to welcome me in.  
 
But what interests me here is that Jesus rephrases the man’s thought and reiterates his point, when he closes out the parable with, “So I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” He added the word eternal. 

Eternity in scripture isn’t so much about time. It’s about substance – quality of being. Eternity is love, underlying, overlaying, everlasting, permanent love, love holding it all.  
What would it be like to be at home in love? 
To move in the world connected in love? 
To know you are welcome in each other’s love and to have love to welcome others into?  
 
I think our deeply honest manager, who knows his own limitations, who knows the jig is up, who is being ejected from his secure and comfortable seat in the way of fear, wonders about this, doesn’t yet know how to get there, but he knows he wants it.
 
As the clock is ticking down, and security is about to escort him and his cardboard box from the building, he uses the tools of the way of fear—the cunning, manipulation, and transactional relationships, the familiar resources at his disposal, along with the last bit of leverage he has while he still has access to the account passwords—to lower debts, buy good will, and reach out for connection, in an effort to propel himself into this something else, this deeper thing, the intangible, authentic and eternal.
 
Maybe he wonders if his life could be for something more, if he could maybe experience the belonging of being at home in love, of moving through the world connected to others in love, instead of existing as a cog in the wheel of commerce, comparison and corruption.
 
Luke says we can’t serve two masters, God and wealth. In other words, we can’t let our lives be for both the way of fear and the way of God. We will either pursue personal security at the expense of trusting God and upholding one another, or we’ll embrace connection and reject rivalry and scarcity.

Serving the one master got this manager nowhere. So, while he’s not sure yet how to serve the other, he’s going to take a stab at finding out.  Kudos, good sir.  More power to you.
 
I think generations of Christians are scandalized by this parable because we sort of believe our religion is meant to make us good citizens that prop up the dominant system with sound investments, ethical behavior and upward mobility.  It’s offensive to hear Jesus tell a story of someone blowing it apart and then praise him for it. 
 
But it’s all pretend. None of it will last.  
All that matters is what’s eternal -  love.  
 
We can choose to surrender to the love that already holds us all, the belonging that already connects us, and practice living in that eternal reality until that becomes the most familiar and natural way to be. 
 
Or we can live in the way of fear, scarcity and anxiety, dutifully striving away for what doesn’t last.  And when something punctures that and we have to face our own weakness and isolation, we can take comfort in knowing that, however mysterious and ungraspable it is, the way of God is here to meet us, even if our way of reaching for it is flawed and corrupt.  

We belong to God and each other, and every time we remember that--no matter how we turn back to that--we will be welcomed into the eternal home of love. 

Amen. 
 
 
 

Missing the Party

Matthew 22:1-16

(PARABLES - WEEK 3! Go here for Week 1 , Week 2, and Week 4)

Oh, you guys! We’ve got a doozie in front of us today! 

(If you are reading this and not listening in person - go read up above the scripture first. You kind of have to see it to believe it).

There is a gentle, G-rated version of this story, and it’s told in Luke. It doesn’t have any weeping, gnashing of teeth, bloodshed or vengeance.  Instead it’s got Luke’s signature focus on the marginalized; Look! They got to go to the party!

Not so for Matthew.  Matthew goes for the rage, the garish violence, the action movie effects. You can almost hear the dissonant sound track. Pastor Lisa called Matthew’s parable the ‘Quinten Tarrantino” version.

But then, Matthew was written just after Jerusalem was burned to the ground and the temple was destroyed. The people would have listened to this story. It might have felt familiar. 

And maybe it feels a little familiar to us too.  Institutions are crumbling, the old way of doing things doesn’t seem to work any more. And for the first time in human history, it’s possible to live without God.  We don’t have any sense of needing God, any obligation to acknowledge God, or any built-in mechanisms for experiencing God.  (See Charles Taylor, or James K.A. Smith on Taylor, for more on this!)

We’re a demystified people, in a scientific, material world without the possibility for transcendence, where the authority of all is our own selves, our own experience.  Life today consists primarily of meeting our own needs and wants, figuring out who we are, and pursuing our goals.  Personal advancement, upward mobility, and the ever constant fight against death, which, if its measured by delaying death we are winning, but if its measured by avoiding death, we’re just as ineffectual as ever. 

Finding meaning today means pouring ourselves into our work, our families, perfecting our bodies or our portfolios or our home décor, and while there may be a hunger deep underneath for more, we don’t generally know how to talk about it or what to do with it. 

But we long for something real.

So whatever this parable meant to the people who first heard it, or to those who wrote it down two generations later, or to any other people at various points throughout time, the beauty (and frustration, if we’re honest) of parables, is that it they don’t have a set meaning. They are exaggerated stories meant to provoke and evoke.  Parables always want us to ask, Who am I in this story right now? Who are we? And then see what it reveals of us--no no matter how uncomfortable it might make us--and accept what it might be asking of us to let go of, and what it might be inviting us to step into.

So given who we are right now in human history, here is one possible way we might read this parable.

It goes like this:

The king is throwing a party.  A stop what you’re doing, drop everything and come to the party kind of party.  The king’s son is getting married. It’s a big deal. This party is more food than you’ve ever seen at one time, the best meal you’ve ever eaten, and someone else is preparing it for you and serving you.  Dancing and music and conversation and merriment, and all you have to do is show up. 

Only, you can’t because you’re an ordinary Joe and this party is happening at the king’s house, so, naturally, only the rich and the famous are invited to attend. (There are standards, after all).

But something happens – they don’t go.  They have other, more pressing things, apparently, than celebrating at a lavish party with the king.  Some say they have to work on their farm, or on their business- they’d rather be working than celebrating, rather be trying to earn their way up the ladder than skip up to the top and dine with the king.  They’ve received the invitation – but tossed it right away; it just wasn’t going to be possible to attend.  I’ve too much to do, they say. My business needs me. My farm needs me.  I wish I could, but… and they turn away, unable, unwilling, to simply stop and enjoy the feast. 

Many have quite simply forgotten the king, their world has constricted to their own domain, losing their connection to everything and everyone that lay beyond.  

The invitation to party with the king is just irrelevant fantasy, a child’s tale, a silly side story that doesn’t matter in real life.

Because life is production and consumption, a relentless uphill battle, stopping to feast makes no sense; no matter who it is that has invited them.

Who’s got time for that? How far behind would I get if I did that? 

In fact, some get so enraged to be treated as though they could just leave things and come to a party.  How dare these messengers insinuate their work is so worthless they could just drop it? How dare they stand there parading an alternative as though it was a real option – so enticing and taunting?  Flaunting this freedom, this silliness, in the face of their essential work?  They are so furious, in fact, that they torture and kill the messengers.

Rage is all the rage.  

Who do they think they are? 

That family who refuses to sign their kids up for everything, saying that time at home is more important?  

The person who turns off their email and phone on the weekends! How nice for him! 

The one who takes her full vacation time, or leaves the board meeting for their kid’s volleyball game – aren’t they the lucky ones?

I could never do that –

 my life is too busy,

my work is too pressing,

the pressure is too great.

 The kids would get behind. 

My boss would think I’m not committed.

I would lose my place.

I would lose money.

I would harm my reputation.

If it were not for me, everything would fall apart.

And yet, these people, right in your face they are breaking the rules.

Don’t they know we are supposed to be too busy, too committed, running too fast to keep up, eating not quite like we should, not sleeping enough, mildly – or terribly – unhappy, wishing we could have more but knowing it’s impossible?  And here they stand, acting like it’s possible!

How dare they!?

There’s a famous little folk tale that goes something like this:

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.

As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.

The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”

The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”

“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.

“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.

The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”

The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.

“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”

The fisherman continues, “And after that?”

The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”

The fisherman asks, “And after that?”

The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”

The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”

And the businessman kills the fisherman. 

No, that’s not really there. But Matthew would have put it there, with the grisly camera angles to spice it up. Because what does the businessman have left, once the fisherman took away everything the businessman had ever been about, in one fell swoop?

So after they kill the messengers, the king retaliates and wipes out all the murderers and burns down their businesses and the whole thing they had going is gone in an instant -  as though hit by a hurricane, flood, fire, stock market collapse or stage 4 cancer. It doesn’t last, nothing lasts, after all, but we pour ourselves into it all as though it does.  The grass withers and the flower fades and all day long we toil under the sun…and insert all those other biblical images for how temporary things are here. 

Now with the farms gone and the businesses gone and the wealthy business owners gone with all barriers torn down, and false power and ranking and rat race and security gone, and everything exposed for what it was – fleeting –the invitation goes out again. 

The king doesn’t cancel the wedding to rebuild the city, doesn’t redirect reception funds to reestablish the destroyed economy. He goes ahead with the party.

And this time, the king invites everyone –far and wide, this party needs people and this feast is for all.  And there is no more way to earn your way up. The city is in ashes, so everyone, everywhere, come to the party and find abundant food and rich company and sit in the presence of the king.  

And there is nowhere else to aspire to than that – there never has been, really.  Some of them never thought they’d set foot on the royal grounds let alone inside the banquet hall, others may have been working up to being established, or wealthy, or respected, enough to one day be worthy of an invitation, but today all that is over. They are all already invited.

There is no more distinction between rich and poor, connected and marginalized, wealthy and impoverished – the city is in ashes and they are all invited to the party.  Those who have already self-selected out are missing it.  But everybody else – good and bad! the story says, is welcome in the palace ballroom.

So the people come, from far and wide, they set down their labor and put aside their theories about who should and shouldn’t be allowed at such a thing and which category they belong to, and they show up. 

Scrubbed and dressed up with flowers in their hair and fiddles in their hands, they stream into the celebration to dine with the king like there is nowhere else on earth they’d rather be.  Bring your swimsuit, and a jacket for the bonfire! This is going to go on for a while!  And the party commences. 

Except among them is someone who is not dressed for the occasion. Among them is one who came in his uniform, in his scrubs, in his three-piece suit, in his work clothes – standing in the banquet hall with one foot out the door,

I can only stay a minute,

 I’m not really here; don’t mind me!

I just need to slip out in a few,

 I just need to take a quick call,

Let me just shoot off this last email, I wont be but a second!,

Too risky to go home and change into my swimsuit-  what if the pager goes off and I have to run?

I really should get back…to the office, the shop, the rat race.

 I’m juggling so much. You understand.

One colleague said this week, “My ego is pernicious and sneaky, and will totally try to slip in unnoticed.” (Phil GebbenGreen - props).

But the king notices. 

And he asks the man, Why are you here without a robe?

And the man is speechless.

He has no response for the king. He’s not actually there to hang out with the king or celebrate with the rest of them, so he has nothing to say for himself.

So the guest is dismissed, forcibly removed, really, with all the drama and cartoonish gore of the rest of the tale.  He’s not dropped off by shuttle at his office lobby doors to resume his duties; he is bound hand and foot and tossed into the outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth.  

He’s given over to his worst fears - the thing he works so hard to avoid.  The lurking void that drives him on and on, harder and harder, catches up to him; the nothingness he’s spent his life fleeing and guarding against, now swallows him whole.  No work or distractions to save him here, only endless emptiness, staring at him from without and within.

Jesus concludes the parable with, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” Everyone was invited. All were called. 

Some saw it as something they could earn or reject, they were dismissive, or even angry at being invited.  They chose death over life – false over real.

But some, who didn’t think they’d ever be at such a party, knew it was not by what they could earn. If you asked them how they got there, they would have told you, enthusiastically and without pause, “I was chosen!”

God is alive and active.  Right under our noses the party is underway.  Transcendence is lurking; redemption is afoot, at every single moment.  There is a deeper story, a joyous celebration, and we are invited into it right now.

And it isn’t found by fleeing death, but by facing it. It’s not in outrunning fear but by embracing it, not by relentlessly moving, but by standing still from time to time and meeting God, meeting ourselves, meeting each other, right here.

All of us are called. Every day.  And when we accept the invitation we recognize it as gift.  It is all gift; and we are lucky to be alive, honored to be chosen to be part of it.

God is not fair

Matthew 20:1-16

Parables Series - Week 2! (Here's Week 1,  Week 3 and Week 4)

Peter is so reliable at asking the things everyone else just thinks but is afraid to say outloud. He’s like an adorable, feisty kindergartner who predictably shoots up his hand and waves it frantically around, brow furrowed, biting his lip, at nearly every new thing the teacher says. You want to be annoyed with him, but he’s so darn sincere and trying so hard to get it right, that you can’t help but smile. Just like last time, today's parable is an answer to a question by Peter. 

Yes, Peter? What is it?

What could Peter have asked to get Jesus to tell this story?  

What burning question compelled him?  

Just before this Jesus has just been approached by a very wealthy man, who asked him, What good deeds must I do to have eternal life?  And Jesus answered, “Why do you ask me about what is good. There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” The man asked which ones, and Jesus listed them off.  I keep them all, he answered.  What do I still lack?  And Jesus responded, if you wish to be perfect, sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor and follow me. And in the space between paragraphs, the man disappears, never to be heard from again. 

Now Peter gets anxious, again, and the questions bubble up.  

If the key to winning God’s favor is not by how well you do, then it must be by how much you give up.  So he waves his hand and says “Oh, oh, oh, Jesus! Jesus, look, we have left everything and followed you.  What do we get?” 

And Jesus answers him with comforting words of future glory – Don’t worry Peter, you will be absolutely taken care of in the end.  But then Jesus throws in the zinger, again, the last will be first and the first will be last.  And he follows it up with this parable, which boils down to:

The people who get picked up to work at the end of the day get paid the same as those who worked all day long. 

I can feel myself get riled at the fairness factor here. It’s not fair. Not remotely.  If you work longer, you get paid more. Period. Everyone gets how these rules work; we base whole societies on these things.  How come this landowner can’t seem to stick with the program?  And I feel utterly justified feeling that way, too, until I get to the line, “You have made them equal to us.”

And isn’t that the heart of it?

Are you envious because I am generous? The landowner asks the first workers, when they complain about being paid exactly what they were promised, but were upset because those who worked shorter than they did, didn’t make enough less money than them to make it fair. 

Am I not allowed to do what I choose to with what is mine? Or are you envious because I am generous? Neither of these options are one I would want to fess up to in the moment.  Obviously it’s his money, he can spend it how he wants. I’m not about to disagree with that.  And yes, he did pay me just what he said he would – he’s not cheating me in any way.  So then, do I admit I am envious?

What if I just want things to be fair?

If I am the first worker, is there any conceivable scenario where I would switch places with the last? In other words, given the choice, would I have preferred to have secure employment from the beginning of the day, with a clear sense of what I was earning, and get paid just what I expected, or, would I like to spend the day standing around listless, anxiously watching the hours tick by not working but wishing I was?  Which would you want?  Would we have wanted to wonder and worry all day long and then feel grateful to get at least an hour of work in? Even with the amazing surprise in the paycheck, would we have chosen that roller coaster over getting the same amount without a day filled with fear and apprehension?

Let me take a stab at these fictional parable people and say, with some confidence, they don’t want to switch places. They are not jealous. They are envious. Envy is not wanting what someone else has, it is not wanting them to have it.  They are fine with what they have. They don’t want someone else to have it.  “You have made them equal to us.” they said. 

This landowner broke the rules.  

The unwritten ones that we all live by in the accounting system, the way of fear.  

How can we know how well we are doing unless we can look back on those we’ve passed up?  How can we be assured of our own security, or our progress, if others are given a place at the table right next to us and they didn’t have to work nearly as hard as we did to get there?  

The rich man walks away because Jesus took away his measuring stick. 

You know all the commandments and follow them perfectly. If it was about earning your way, you’ve clearly earned your way here and everyone can see that. Now, give it all away. Have nothing left to show for your success, or your faithfulness. Just follow me, without getting any credit for it, without even knowing how to credit yourself. 

And that was too much for him. 

And Peter, Peter, Peter! What will we get, then, Jesus? If we have already given up everything to follow you?  We must surely get more than others, right? Because we’ve sacrificed more? Followed longer? Been ready to do what that rich guy wasn’t?  We should be super assured of our superior place, right Jesus? That’s only fair!

 

Peter keeps forgetting that the Kingdom of God is not fair. 

That’s a goal of the accounting system, not the Kingdom of God.  

Jesus doesn’t care one tiny bit about fairness.  If you want fair, you’re looking in absolutely the wrong place.  And Thank God for that, actually. 

Because as noble a goal as it seems, it’s a farce. “ Fair” is an unachievable illusion. And the idea that we can somehow earn our security permanently – whether here or in eternity – is an utter lie as well.

Putting our trust in the rules is a dangerous mind game.  

Like the rich man trusting his wealth, and Peter trusting his sacrifice – it’s thinking that something we do can make or keep ourselves secure, or worthy, or good, or safe, or somehow other than vulnerable human in it alongside everyone else. 

We may not be wondering today where our food will come from, but we may be wondering how long our health will hold out.  We may not be stuck waiting to be hired for work, but we may be stuck waiting for test results, or word that our child is out of harm's way.  

Sometimes we invest our money wisely, and financial markets crash.  

Sometimes we work for 30 years for the same company and get pink slipped without warning.  Sometimes we follow all the advice and steps for a good marriage and end up divorced. 

We like to feel in control of our own destinies.  But we’re not in control of our own destinies.  We like to think we are the first workers, and always will be, the ones with choice, the ones who “deserve it.”  Longer work equals higher reward. Simple. We can sign on to that and then work hard, right? That’s fair.

But the kingdom of God, shows that illusion for what it is.  No matter how fair we may try to make things, they are never really fair.  It’s easier to do well and go far, for example, if you’re raised with enough resources, with tons of people who believe in you, in a culture where you speak the dominant language and look like the majority.  It doesn’t hurt at all to have an extra dose of math skill in your genes, or the good looks and athleticism that opens doors, or to know someone who knows someone.  On top of that, it’s handy to avoid any genetic conditions, serious illnesses, unforeseen accidents or devastating natural disasters in your lifetime, not to mention personal mistakes or failures on your part.  And, if you can at all help it, try to never, ever, get old or die.

And for those times we happen to be in the first shift, for the times when we are lucky and the system is working well for us, it is easier to delude ourselves that we are somehow earning our worth or securing our lives.  But the truth is, that while life is a lot of things, fair is not actually one of them.  Not even when that’s what we are aiming for as the goal. 

Life is precious, and scary, and holy, and messy, and precarious, and no matter how we feel about the matter, according to this parable, God actually doesn’t care at all about being – or even appearing to be – fair. 

Instead, “God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”  (Psalm 145:8) God is a dangerous affront to our idea of fairness.  

And Jesus’ parables are designed to peel back the surface and step into something deeper, something troubling, something that is risky and life-giving, but at first it is going to feel like dying. 

He says following him is going to feel like losing your life instead of saving it. It is going to be like letting go of all your security and measuring tools.  It will feel like being last instead of being assured you are first.  The kingdom of heaven is like this, Jesus says. 

It always confronts the kingdom of earth.  It always dismantles the accounting system.  It always strips away illusions and false security. 

God’s kingdom welcomes us only when we are our most basic, human selves, quite apart from any earnings or deservings we may or may not have.  The Kingdom of God is much easier for the last to recognize than it is for those who’ve gotten used to being first.

The day is coming when Peter wont be so confident, in fact, he will be crushed completely. He will let himself down in the worst way he can imagine: he will fail Jesus. It doesn’t matter how much he’s given up, or how much he’s done, or how well he follows, he will lose forever any shot he had at earning his way or proving his worth as a disciple when, despite being warned--three times!--he denies even knowing Jesus to save his own skin. Three times he will betray the one he said he was more committed to than anyone else was. 

And then the risen Jesus will find Peter in the depths of his despair, in his own personal death, and welcome him close, and say to him, If you love me, feed my sheep. 

The kingdom of God is not an accounting system.  

God doesn’t keep track like we do.  

God is not interested in fairness; God is interested in life. 

When you are beyond hope, God is there.  When you have wandered so far that you can’t find your way back, God will rescue you and nurse you back to strength.   When you have squandered all that God has given you and you limp home ashamed and miserable, God will run to you with open arms and embrace you as his beloved child.  When all that your luck, or bad choices, or poor planning, or the hand you’ve been dealt, allows for is one measly hour of work at the tail end of a long day, you are not paid by what you have earned, but by the generosity of our God, who makes the last first, and the first last, and every last one of us: beloved.  

Amen.

The Storyteller

November 1, 2009
Ruth 1:1-18  - the beginning of the story (though the whole of it is what we used in worship!)

"The storyteller" image by Tereza - of Cooper City, FL, www.tsartgallery.com

Once upon a time there was a most remarkable storyteller.  Singular, unequaled in creativity and prose, master of subtlety and surprise.  This storyteller was unparalleled at the craft, weaving such intricate and complex symphonies of plot and drama, centering on the lives of characters so full and profound that even the most skilled tellers of tales in the land could only strive to emulate this storyteller. 

In fact, so inspired were the stories, that every other author who wrote, or poet who spoke out in verse, every composer who wove a myth in music or artist who sought with any medium at all to in some way bring a fresh story into the world, inevitably plagiarized; so deep, original, and imaginative were the works from this one prolific storyteller.

But this storyteller was mysterious.  In fact, the storyteller’s identity was shrouded in vagueness, and few and far between were those who had ever claimed to see a face up close, or hear a voice with their own ears.  People knew people who knew people who had talked to people who had caught a glimpse of this author leaving a grocery store, or thought they had driven past the writer’s house, though no one was quite sure exactly where it was, or even generally where it might be, if the truth be told.  So for the most part, the only glimpse of who this magnificent, unsurpassable weaver of tales was as a person was what people could glean from the stories themselves.

The stories were analyzed and studied, both for their power as narratives, but also for any clues of the storyteller’s identity, glimpses into the soul of this great crafter of lives and plots.

The most notable thing about these stories, those who scrutinized them would point out, were the common threads throughout all the stories.  Every story included pain and tragedy, every story bled real, messy life, but every story was saturated with redemption.  Hope shone out in intricate and always surprising ways. 

And every story brought about its salvation through the most unlikely of characters.  The heroes were never the strong, brave and handsome, the winsome and wonderful.  They were always the overlooked, underrated, flawed and forgotten.  They were the weak and the strange, the inadequate and illogical. 

In fact, it was a favorite tactic of this storyteller to tell stories within stories, to surprise the characters themselves by their role in the stories, not knowing what was unfolding in and around them until they looked back - or not ever knowing in their own lifetime, and their children or grandchildren looking back - and discovering that the hero was right there next to them the whole time.  That redemption had unfolded right under their noses, in their own hands, in fact, without their being aware they were playing such a pivotal role. 

The protagonists often hadn’t a clue that the story was their own, and then once they realized it was, discovered almost immediately afterwards that it wasn’t at all their story – that it was much larger than them and may have unfolded entirely without them, except that it hinged completely on their very selves, and nobody else, occupying that particular role.  This was one of the storyteller’s trademarks.

Over time, the more astute students of this writer’s work began to discover that the stories – while in and of themselves each beyond measure - fit together like a puzzle, that one story shed light into another, opened it up - made it more complete, actually, and most extraordinary of all, that every story belonged beside the other stories because they were actually just tiny chapters in a single much larger Story -with a capital S-  that this writer was creating. 

And one day when the whole corpus of this writer’s work would be complete, the story would be epic – comedy, tragedy, adventure and romance, fanciful and heart wrenchingly beautiful – and nothing would remain unresolved.  It was building to the most satisfying and complete conclusion never before conceived of. 

Also, they began to discern, the Story was highly autobiographical.  Hidden within every element of every story that made up every part of this larger story were revelations of its creator: the fingerprints, and breath and body and warmth, the glances and expressions and intonations and nuances, the tones and shades of the storyteller were next to each character, behind each situation, underneath every word. 

The stories, the Story, was utterly about the storyteller.

But the final shock of all, the greatest revelation came to the truly attentive readers, the unsuspecting ones who sat down with the story and opened their souls to it, who met the story face to face, heart to heart, who let it tell itself to them and wept and laughed along with the antiheros.  Those readers who saw as they met each character what the characters themselves could not see, or could only see after time – that they were in this greater Story.  That their choices and words, their tragedies and triumphs were not only their own stories but became the very substance from which the larger Story took form, without which the larger story could not be. 

These particular readers would celebrate the characters, and marvel at the genius of the author, and be moved beyond measure at the power of the story itself.  Then they would close the book and put it down, intending to stand and stretch and move onto other business, but instead would be suddenly glued to their seats, heart skipping a beat, unable to move for the astonishing realization that washed over and engulfed them, the bewildering insight that

actually, their very own lives were part of the Story. And the Story was real.

*****

Ruth’s life had come to a sudden halt.  The road branched out before her. On the one hand was the right way, the safe way, the way that everyone would affirm, the logical way.  Go back to your own home; go back to your people. Go back to your gods.  You’ve had a setback. But you’re young.  Start over.

And no one, not even God, would fault her for taking that way. 

That way would have made her more secure; that way would have made her less afraid. That way was the way most of us take most of the time, and probably Ruth too. 

And if she had taken that way, there would have been nothing wrong with that, and also you and I would probably never know of her story.  It would have been a fine story, but it would have faded into history with every other story of tragedy and survival, every other human story of life and love and loss, that only in the very end reveals its role in the larger story, its part of the mosaic of human history. 

But instead, the story of this woman, this foreigner with nothing to give and no future in front of her, became the story of the people of Israel, the story of King David, the story of Jesus Christ.  Ruth is part of this much greater Story, with no idea that she would play a role in anything beyond her own seemingly insignificant life, which she basically set aside for the seemingly insignificant life of someone she loved.

What could she do for Naomi, really? She had nothing to give, she was not a man, she had no standing or property or means of support – nothing.  She could do absolutely nothing for Naomi but be with her, share her position, her journey, her currently miserable lot in life.

“Where you go I will go, your people shall be my people, your God shall be my God, and when you die they will bury me beside you. I will give up my own security and future to accompany you, come what may.”

Ruth has a choice and she chooses the unknown. She takes the risk, with no foreseeable way it will work out, and stands by the person she loves.  At the threshold of security or chance, self-preservation or sacrificing the possibility of being saved, she stands by Naomi, she chooses to go into the unknown, into the fearful place, alongside her friend and mother-in-law. 

Once upon a time, and on the one hand, there were three women, who suffered a great tragedy, and lost all of the men in their lives.  They were left unprotected and vulnerable, with no discernable future before them.  One went back to her people and started her story over.  One was the right people in the wrong place, at the wrong time-  in a foreign land and much too old to start fresh.  The last one was the wrong people altogether.  She shouldn’t even factor into the story at all.

And on the other hand, in the bigger Story, there was the lifeline of humanity unfurling, the salvation of a people, or rather, of all people; the lineage of the Messiah to unfold.

So let me ask you this: From whose bloodline would the Storyteller enter the Story itself?

Well if you know anything about this storyteller, I mean, if you have read any of the works, you would recognize immediately it has all the classic marks – you would see right away the kind of story this is – and where this particular tale might lead.

Ruth’s story is ugly and beautiful, frustrating and hope-filled, terribly tragic and marvelously redemptive. Her story is both remarkable and also not at all unlike the stories sitting next to and around you right now, the living comedies, tragedies, fear and hope, suffering and redemption: in all their glorious and unimportant flesh and blood. 

Ruth’s story is both completely unique, and at the same time not so different from the stories unfolding in the lives of those ordinary and extraordinary individuals that happen to be gathered together in this room at this moment. 

I wonder what stories are playing out as we speak?

 I wonder what parts we are each occupying in the Story?

Aaah…but of course I would wonder that. 

That, after all, is the genius of the Storyteller,
who has a real knack for just this sort of tale.

---

[1] We read the story of Ruth, by Michael Williams from The Storyteller’s Companion the Bible, Volume 4.