Yeah...I Got Nuthin'

Good Morning!  Before we go into our gospel lesson for today, I feel the need to ask for your assistance.   What I propose is very simple - I’m going to read to you gelled down versions of all the gospel texts we’ve had since the beginning of August followed by who preached on them.  I want you tell me if you notice a pattern.  To begin:

August 7^th : “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” – Pastor Don

Aug 14^th I have not come to bring you peace but the sword – Pastor Keven

 Aug 21^st The old woman healed on the Sabbath – Pastor Don

Aug 28^th Humble yourself so you may be exalted – Pastor Craig

Sep 4^th Hate your Father and Mother – Pastor Keven

 Sept 11^th Welcoming Sinners – Pastor Craig

…and now this week I get “How to make friends by stealing from your boss.” 

The question I have to ask here … is it just me?  I mean, I don’t want to name any names, Don and Craig, but if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were pranking the new guy.  Now, I know that would never happen in Chuck Prokosh’s church, and with such pillars of seriousness as Jeremy Webber and Raymond Staffa, I know that can’t possibly be the case.  But, guys, I’m seriously in danger of developing a reputation here!  “Oh, whose preaching today at Eastside?  Uh, oh.  Looks like old “hate thy mother and thy father” Glassel’s preaching from the pulpit again.”  A little variety, please!  I mean the holidays are coming up, I don’t want to preach on Herod’s slaughtering of the innocents over Christmas!

                Now, I’ll be the first to admit our text for this week is extremely difficult, it is by far one of the most confusing things Jesus has ever been recorded as saying.  Would you like to know how difficult this text is?  In preparation for this week, after pouring over the history and the language, after double checking the Greek and looking over Luke as a literary whole, after spending hours and hours letting it all gel …yeah, I got nothing.  This text was really frustrating, it’s oddly placed and the content is just strange.  Even the other gospels avoid this story!  Matthew, Mark, and John are all looking at Luke and saying, “THAT’s the story you put in?” I even looked in the commentaries, both modern and classic, and you know what I found out?  They don’t have a clue either.  I did find a translation that worked well.

                “Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’ “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’ “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors…  “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

                The translation is nice, much more preachable, but there’s just one problem.  It doesn’t actually say that!  I mean other than the fact you are deliberately misconstruing Scripture, I guess it’s ok.  So, here we have a gospel text that stumps the lawyer/preacher, confuses the commentators, and is so strange that even translators are embarassed by it to the point where they feel the need to cover it up.  That’s how tough this text is.  So, Don, you were busy this week, that’s why you wanted to switch?

                So the question is, what are we supposed to learn from this?  What’s the point of putting this story in the lectionary?  Why preach on it at all?  Well, as it turns out, I think it’s actually here for a very good reason.  Quite a few reasons, to be honest.  And perhaps I am exaggerating things a bit to say, “I’ve got nothing,” but the reality is this text is rather inscrutable.  I do have an interpretation to give but that interpretation is only my best guess.  It’s not going to be any better than yours or anybody else’s and I have no right to pretend otherwise.  I think, though, that is the first lesson our text provides: that when you come to Scripture, be prepared to be humbled.

                Luther himself said that if there be any disagreement between men, that the only godly recourse is to have them both come to the Scriptures as beggars looking for bread.  I find I cannot disagree with that sentiment, for beggars we are.  No matter what job we have, no matter how many protections we have built up, how many insurance policies we pay for, it can all fall apart in a matter of moments.  Though we have had many technological breakthroughs, though we cure diseases that once scourged the ancients, though we fulfilled that ancient human wish of flying with the birds and searching out the mysteries of the deep, we all still exist by God’s grace alone.  It is not by our intellect, not by our power, that knowledge gets revealed to us, and the meaning of every verse in our Scriptures will only become apparent when God wishes it so.  Not before.  So when we come across texts like this, when we read in Exodus that Moses’ wife Zipporah saved her husband from God’s wrath by circumcising him and touching his flesh with the skin, when we read in the book of Kings that God wanted an excuse to be mad at the Israelites so he made King David screw up so he could punish them, we know that the first lesson these texts teach is humility.  The reality is we don’t know their meaning.  Our Scriptures, ladies and gentlemen, are comprised of documents that are at least 2000 years old, all from long dead cultures, penned in three long dead languages, and all authored by very long dead people.  And when I think of that, when I really dwell there, I realize the miracle of the scriptures is that any of these texts should speak to us at all.  That after years of study that this pastor can only think of three difficult portions within a whopping 66 of these ancient books is an amazing testament to God’s providence.

                The second lesson I think this text teaches is the need to be uncomfortably honest with one another.  This is not something we Americans are good at.  Indeed, in our culture it’s assumed that we hide things, that we deliberately misinform people and we’ll get mad at you if you don’t play this particular game.  The answer to “how are you doing” is not about eliciting an honest response anymore than “how does this outfit make me look!”  And let me tell you, that it is assumed we hide important things from each other gets built even into seminarian education.  It was rammed home to me time and time again how I need to meet perceptions as a pastor, that I must always have an answer, that I must always seem like the expert.  And I thought to myself, “Oh, there’s a resume zinger if I ever heard one.”  “Keven Johnson-Glassel, appears knowledgeable and is really good at seeming like an expert.”  I don’t want to appear knowledgeable.  I don’t want to deceive people into thinking I’m an expert.  My position here behind this pulpit is not pretend to be an expert but to actually be an expert.  And as an expert I am here to tell you there are still lots of stuff in these books we’re trying to figure out.  So when reading your Bibles, it’s okay to be confused.  We get that way, too. 

                And I think that’s the third lesson this text teaches.  That it’s ok to fail.  We don’t need to get awe inspiring wisdom out of scripture every time.  We don’t need to get mystical fulfillment out of scripture every time.  We don’t even need to get a meaning out of scripture every time.  What we need to do is to show God we tried - that we are willing to struggle and wrestle with the words even though we might fail.  Valuing Him enough to put our egos aside and be confronted with our ancestor’s experiences of Him I think means more than any Bible commentary and is far more spiritually fulfilling than any sermon.

                And that’s what we try to model for you up here.  That it’s okay to struggle with this.  Often times, if you just keep at it, it is very rare that you’ll get nothing out of a particular verse or text.  Something profound almost always comes.  So, yes, this text was difficult for me, and it outwitted every single one of my resources: from language, history, culture, and scholarship.  But I asked God for help, the same option you all have, and while I wasn’t given anything like a definitive answer, I was given something helpful that I had never considered before. 

                Now, it’s pretty clear that Jesus doesn’t want you to steal so you can make friends, so you can just calm down right now, but given that there are two things that jump out at me.  First and foremost, the fate of the unrighteous manager is not stated.  While the rich man praises his shrewdness he does not say he can still be manager.  The second thing that jumps out at me, however, is, yes, this man is dishonest.  Yes, this manager is a thief, and when he helps people it is only in the most lazy, self-serving way possible.  So yes, the accusation laid at the manager in this parable is that he is a lazy, dishonest, self-serving sinner who helps people, but the reality is the accusation laid against me might very well be I am a lazy, dishonest, self-serving sinner who doesn’t.  In the upside-down world of the gospel, salvation is an active sought-after thing.  God wants us to be saved, he wants us to give him at least some excuse to come to our rescue.  Now I don’t mean this in a works-righteousness kind of way, we in no way earn God’s grace.  I will not insult the Father by trying to buy what God offers for free.  Rather I believe our actions evidence our intent, and if we want to be saved it means we have to act like it.  Have no illusions, ladies and gentlemen. When the time comes for us to meet our Maker don’t think for a minute that all we didn’t do will be some kind of defense.  I think to a great extent, the unrighteous manager is us.  That’s how God sees us.  We are all lying, thieving, self-serving and lazy.  We can’t help it.  Even when we do good, there is still a part of us that does it for evil reasons.  It’s what we are.  As St. Augustine himself said, I cannot not sin.  The question is not whether I will refrain from sin; that is out the question, but whether I will help others despite my own sinfulness, to give God even a pathetic excuse to come spare my sorry hide.  That, I think, is the point of this text.

                But once again, that is only one interpretation among many that are possible.  So, I invite you as your pastor, read this for yourself!  Go to God and ask him to reveal what you need out of the text, do not let these pages go unturned.  The books of our Bible have frustrated many.  Luther himself is said to have thrown a copy of Revelations into the river.  The words in our Scriptures can be inscrutable, but there is wisdom and purpose there, thousands of years worth of experiences, successes and failures.  You will not find such treasure in any other book on earth.  So go home this afternoon and open these pages anew.  The worst that will ever happen is that you’ll be forced to preach about it, but even then you will still find riches meant only for you.  Amen and Amen.  

Mysticism and the Cost of Discipleship

Good morning!  You know, I have been preaching up here for awhile now, and I’ve realized in my preaching that in order to help bring the gospel home to people I’ve had to reveal many different facets of myself.  Sometimes Keven the Teacher has had to appear behind this pulpit, taking you deep within the history and the language of the Scriptures to help you see their insights.  Sometimes there is Keven the News Reporter, telling you of current events and local concerns.  Still other times there is Keven the family man, wryly telling bad jokes and recounting wild stories as the situation warrants.  Today, however, I must bring out someone different.  In my honest estimation, our gospel text for today is by far the toughest lesson a Christian must learn.  It is not tough in the sense our lesson is difficult to understand, the language and context are clear enough.  It is also not tough because it is hard to relate to, indeed it strikes to the innermost core of the Christian life, moreso than any news report or statistic ever could.  It is tough because it makes a very clear demand of us; it imposes a dire reality so incredible and so fearsome that the sinful human mind often has but one recourse: to find any excuse to minimize that demand or simply ignore it entirely.  It is for that reason I bring out a Keven you may not have seen much before.  Today I am not the History Teacher or the Campfire Storyteller.  Today, I am Keven the Mystic.

                Keven the Mystic doesn’t really hide himself.  He’s really always been there.  Keven the Mystic is a gentleman you see, he doesn’t like to impose or cause a stir.  Indeed, in our own very secular world Keven the Mystic tends to upset people.  God has always been close to me, akin to an ever-present watchfulness, and my service to Him has led me on many an unexpected and uncomfortable adventure.  As many before me in the mystical tradition, I admit I have had premonitions of the future, dreams that would tell me of events and experiences days before they would happen.  I also see the responses to my prayers in the mundane workings of the world around me, and believe it or not, I have also performed an exorcism or two.  These things don’t make me special or an authority in and of themselves; they are merely a part of who I am and how I see the world.  It would be many years ago now, I was in the middle of my seminary career and working as a nighttime security guard for a medical device plant in nearby Plymouth.  It was a boring job, but the people were nice enough.  The other security guard on shift was a Muslim, and his family was from Somalia.  We would talk about the Koran a lot because that’s obviously what interested him, and I of course took the opportunity not only to learn about his faith but also share mine.  Every day, however, he would try to convert me away from Christianity and what was funny about it was that he used the exact same arguments and evangelistic techniques the Baptists used to try to convert me away from Lutheranism at Bethel.  I can’t tell you how hard it was for me not to smile.

                As time went on, however, the building we guarded began to have…well, certain things happen.   At first the cleaners would come out of areas with a very haunted expressions, and eventually they would demand to be transferred or they would just quit.  Then the murmurings and rumors would begin to circulate until at last one of the workers at the factory asked me in a very hushed tone, “Keven…is this building…I mean…have you seen…”  “Is the building haunted?” I replied, finishing the question they were too afraid to even ask.  I dismissed it, telling them that quite honestly while we had gotten strange reports, neither I nor my partner had experienced anything out of the ordinary.  They smiled that awkward, unsure little smile you get when you want to be assured that what the person is saying is true, but somewhere down deep you still aren’t convinced.  Well, then my partner and I did have an experience.  He quit that very night in fact and I never saw him again.  Now, for those of us who have had mystic experiences, one of the first things you have to contend with is that there is never going to be enough proof to make people believe you.  Rampant fear, distortion of the senses, predisposition toward belief, all these things you can throw at the situation and walk away thinking the people having those experiences are just crazy.  But the fact is I graduated college just two courses shy of double-majoring in psychology and Legal Studies.  I am aware of what clinical hallucinations look like, and none of us in that building fit the bill.  I graduated law school with my Juris Doctorate, I know what it takes to be declared legally insane and I know that people who have bought supposed haunted houses have sued the previous owner for damages and have won.  I also have graduated seminary, and am very much a believer when our ancestors tell us through our Scriptures that the Physical and Spiritual are not as separated as we like to think they are.

                Now, I am not here to regale you with ghost stories nor am I here to convince you of bogeymen.  As a theologian and a minister it is clear that such things are at best lesser matters over which the faithful can and should disagree.  I told you that story, that experience, to prime you for another one.  And if that story made your chest tighten, if you found yourself holding your breath and your heart racing just a tiny bit, believe me when I say to you “You haven’t seen anything, yet.”

                While that story that I just told was certainly one mystical experience of mine, it certainly was not the first.  My first mystical experience was in my first year of law school, of all places.  I’d done a lot to get there.  I got good grades in college.  My family was successful, the family business was successful.  My father and his brothers took a small dirt-moving company in rural Texas to a business that built roads and bridges, that laid foundations for great buildings in several of the southern states.  My father worked hard, my family was happy, and we wanted for nothing.  Indeed, my graduation present had been a brand new 1997 Ford F-150 extended cab.  Everything was looking fabulous and I was on track to be one of the youngest attorneys on record. 

                It was a crisp fall evening, and I had just gotten out of one of our Intervarsity club meetings at Hamline.  I was a good little Lutheran, probably a little too close to becoming a 5 point Calvinist at the time, but that is neither here nor there.  The autumn leaves were falling off the trees, caught by a quick breeze and carried off to who knows where.  The street was strangely dark that night, the lamps only illuminating so much despite the moon being full.  My mind was afire there on that sidewalk, and I excitedly explored new ideas and thoughts brought on by that Intervarsity experience.  I don’t really remember what I was thinking that night, but I do remember when God interrupted it.  For whatever reason, whatever my train of thought was, it shifted, and this idea suddenly came into my head.  “If you could live a bad life so another could have a good one, would you?”  I shook my head as a man suddenly coming out of dream.  It was an odd idea, and I tried to dismiss it as I kept walking on that lonely street.  The idea wouldn’t leave, though.  “You have had a good life up to now.  You have money, family, and a bright career ahead of you.  If it were possible, would you trade all that so someone else could have a good life instead of you.”  And then I stopped.  And when I stopped I had actual words enter my mind, not loud but definitely not from me.  They said, “Keven, would you really?”  I thought about it deeply for a minute or two, and then, in my heart of hearts, I answered, “Yes.  Yes, I would.”

                To say that the rest of that year was…horrible, would be an understatement.  Indeed, what happened would continue on for the next several.  Almost immediately after that moment my parent’s marriage fell apart.  My Father found a mistress, the business failed and was sued into bankruptcy.  We lost the house and I lost my mother to pain pills.  My brother…moved away.  All we knew living up here was that Kent had dropped out of flight mechanics school and someone else was suddenly living in his home.  Under no circumstances would he tell us where my brother was, and neither was he very forthcoming about who he was or really even why he was there.  The police were sent more than once, but with absolutely no success.  We really thought he was dead.  Law School, of course, was nothing less than an absolute hell.  The teachers there lie to you about how to get good grades, and with all the family issues going on, I ended up graduating late.  Even after graduation it would take me two years to be able to even take the bar exam.  I passed it but the Minnesota Bar had grave concerns about my family’s debts.  I got my rejection letter from the Bar a week after I had been fired from my security job – over Christmas.

                I was unemployed for six months.  To make sure my father wasn’t homeless, my wife and I took him in, but I had no idea how manipulative that man was, and he damned near almost cost me my marriage.  One night, I tried to sleep but couldn’t.  Alone with my thoughts like that fall evening so many years ago, my mind poured over every horror I’d been through, every trauma.  Unemployed, my own Father trying to ruin my family, and my son Brendan … we couldn’t even afford diapers for him.  All these became a waking nightmare there in the dead of that night, and finally, remembering that conversation I had with God on that lonely little sidewalk near Hamline, I cried up to heaven, “Please God, no more!”  and then I threw my arms up, like an abused step-child expecting to be hit.  I’m ashamed of it now, but that’s what I did.

                And I wasn’t hit.  Indeed, just the opposite.  A few days later, one of my resumes finally came through.  I got a well paying job on the spot.  It wasn’t going to last forever, but it got us on our feet.  We paid debts, kicked my father out, and moved someplace far more conducive to raising a family.  There was still years and years of hard work ahead of us, but we got there, and the nightmare was over.  It was finally over.

                When I began this sermon, I told you this text was by far the most difficult lesson for a Christian to learn, so difficult I see even other preachers try to avoid talking about it.  I see pastors with 6 figure incomes, new cars, and nice houses; Christian attorneys, people who by now who are partners in law firms, and they both say them say thing.  “Jesus didn’t really mean all your possessions” “He’s not that serious about this discipleship stuff.”  and when they do I have to try to hold back a smile.  I wish God had just taken my money.  Believe me now when I tell you, Jesus is very serious about this discipleship stuff.   When Jesus is telling his audience that they must hate their families, that they must abandon all that they possess and take up their own personal cross, he is not saying Christianity is a one hour a week commitment.  He makes no bones about the cost of following him and he is quite clear about the pricetag: it will cost you everything.  In your service to him you will be broken and remade, you will have what you hold dearest ripped away from you and you will give it up gladly.  You know you are owed nothing.   

                And as a Christian, you will give it up.  You will learn to be ever more mindful about what you value more than God and you will take steps to remove it.  You will wake up every day, painfully aware of everything that will go wrong and that you will remain powerless to affect any of it.  It is not because God is angry with us or that God hates us, or that God wants this life for us as his children.  Rather we come to the mature knowledge that in a world where sex trafficking and slavery have officially reached all time highs, where children are homeless and starving in rich industrialized countries, and where murder, corruption and rape run rampant, we come to solemn and sober realization that God has higher priorities than making sure I have an enjoyable day, an enjoyable week, or even an enjoyable life.  And because this is the world we find ourselves in, a world so completely devoid of even the most passing resemblance of compassion and justice, as a disciple of Jesus you become all too aware that if God takes something from you it is not for no reason.  You will not only give up what you claim, you will do so gladly, for after living in such a world of pain how can you not give the Maker what He needs to fix it? 

                The reality is we as Christians do give everything to God knowing full well God gives most of it back, and though the day will be far beyond our ability to handle, God will sustain us, and somehow we will make it through to see tomorrow.  But make no mistake, Jesus is not asking for our family or our things, he is asking for our Gethsemane.  He is asking in what circumstances will we be shaken, in what circumstances will we be abandoned and betrayed, so overcome with fear that we too will be found sweating blood.  And in that moment, Jesus asks us do we love God enough to trust Him, no matter the outcome?

                And so, in conclusion, as your pastor, I must ask, “How serious are you about this Christianity thing?”  Because the Church does not fail because of lack of churchgoers, it fails fail due to lack of Christians.  Amen and Amen.