Abandon Ship! Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost September 8, 2013 Luke 14.25-33

            In the fall of 1914 British explorer Ernest Shackleton set sail with a crew of twenty-seven on a quest to traverse Antarctica by way of the South Pole. By January ice had encased his ship, the Endurance, and eventually crushed it. Shakleton took in the situation and said calmly to his men, "Ship gone; stores gone; now we will go home."

            He allowed each man two pounds of personal possessions. To set an example, he flung his gold watch and a hand-full of gold coins into the snow, followed by the heavy commemorative Bible Queen Alexandra had given him. Interestingly enough, he allowed the one musician on board to keep his banjo, calling music "a vital mental tonic."

            The ship cracked to splinters in the freeze, then sank in the thaw. Shackleton returned to civilization and did not lose a single man.

            "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple."

            Ernest Shackleton did not hate his watch or his Bible or his money - he just loved life more. Jesus doesn't urge us to actively hate our families and physical lives - he just challenges us to love real life more.

            Our Lord explains his saying with a couple of cryptic and coded cultural references. "Which one of you wants to build a tower?" Everyone standing there would immediately think of Herod's temple in Jerusalem, the biggest building project of the day and one dear to the hearts of devout Jews. "What king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle" - and the whole audience invisions a Jewish insurgence against the occupying Romans. "Well," Jesus hints, "that's a ship caught in the ice and it's going down. Toss your timetables and your money and your beloved interpretations of the Torah onto the pile and follow me."

            The Endurance couldn't endure. Neither, Jesus warns, can the various ships in which we seek to sail to safety - the religious institutions we erect and the military machines we assemble, the relationships we trust and even the lives we hold so precious. Our great Commander stands and stares at us as we hear the very timbers of our world shiver and crack, and the gush of inrushing destruction gurgle in through the gaps. And he says to us, "Ship gone; stores gone; but that's all right, because now we can go home."

            So follow Jesus, who has never lost a soul. But bring your banjo along; we'll all need some music to keep us going.

Hatefully,

Doug

Seventh Day's the Charm Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost September 1, 2013 Luke 14.1, 7-14

            "Of course your church isn't prejudiced," my Hispanic pastor-friend reassured me. "You welcome anyone to sit at the table in the Kingdom of Heaven. . .as long as they eat with a spoon. But we Hispanics want to eat with a tortilla."

            Jesus isn't just doing a stint as Miss Manners, giving advice on not embarrassing your host. And he isn't talking about "leadership" and the importance of self-deprecation or giving everyone in the organization a voice. And he isn't giving you a pass on having the in-laws over next Thanksgiving. ("This," quips Dallas Willard, "may immediately become your favorite verse in the Bible, depending on your relatives!")

            Our Lord is talking about the Kingdom as a place that upends every standard his Jewish listeners (and Luke's largely Jewish church) held. Don't just invite the token poor person (or the occasional Gentile) to conform to your way of being church. Give up control of the table manners by making yourself a minority in your own house!

            The same goes for the church in America as we read Jesus' parable in our own context. Don't just clear an occasional slot for the red-and-yellow-black-and-white (as the old song has it). Taken together this pair of parables tells us: Don't just give the outsiders "a" place; give them the whole place!

            In his novel Love Feast Frederick Buechner imagines Leo Bebb, huckster-evangelist extraordinaire, planning a Thanksgiving banquet designed to reach the clean-cut college kids of Princeton University. Only the frat boys shun the feast, leading Bebb to invoke this parable and send his pitiful handful of followers into the streets to live it out. "As for me," confesses the narrator, Bebb's son-in-law Antonio Parr, "I ended up by the Palmer Square tiger full of claret and half convinced that either I was dreaming the whole thing or was having a nervous breakdown. How did you invite people to a parable?"

            How indeed? And yet Jesus "parable" (v.7) involves no less than five imperatives! Jesus actually expects us to do this. Don't just "include" those who are unlike you; actually invest leadership in them. Don't just make room for the minority; make them the majority. Don't just take them in; let them take over. Otherwise, we may find ourselves with full plates at an empty banquet.

Come 'N' Get It!

Doug

           

Touchy Compassion Eighth Sunday After Pentecost July 14, 2013 Luke 10.25-37

            You like stuff you touch. And once you touch stuff, it hurts to let it go.

            James R. Wolf of Ohio State University, along with some colleagues, allowed participants in their study to handle coffee mugs for varying lengths of time before bidding on them in an auction. In what they dubbed the "length-of-ownership effect," the researchers discovered that the simple act of touching an item created "pre-ownership attachment." In other words, folks shelled out sixty percent more money for a mug once they'd had their mitts on it.

            Not only that, but a study done at Yale revealed that letting go of a possession fires up the anterior cingulate cortex and insula, the same part of the brain that sparks with the pain of a paper cut or a slug of too-hot coffee. It literally, physically hurts to turn loose of our stuff.

            For both of these reasons, Apple sets up its stores in a way that invites you to paw over the merchandise. Prod and paw those screens and keyboards and you begin to feel a sense of possession, so that you'll pay more to keep the item and avoid the pang of walking away.

            In some ways, the parable of the Good Samaritan is about touching and not touching, about hanging on and letting go. The first two passersby famously stay out of reach of the victim. Their arm's-length avoidance bypasses the pain of giving up their ritual purity and short-circuits any sense of ownership in the wounded man's problem. The Samaritan, on the other hand, puts his fingerprints all over the mangled body of the traveller. Perhaps this explains how he finds the courage for a painful parting with precious objects: wine, oil, and gold. He has handled, not a mug but a mugging victim, and thus finds himself willing to up the bidding in order to remain in relationship.

            "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Mt 6.21) Our hearts track our treasure, and our treasure tracks our touch. Maybe the answer to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" begins as much with a handshake as a handout.

Ouch! That Hurts!

Doug