Out of Your "Mine," Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost, October 6, 2013, Luke 17.5-10

            Well might the disciples ask for more faith.  Jesus has just told them that the worst thing they can do is sin against a brother (v.1-2), then added that it is even more important to keep their guard up against the temptation not to forgive a brother who sins against them, even if that sin reaches a pitch of seven-fold perfection (v.3-4).

            Jesus assures them that faith isn't the problem: A tiny speck of the stuff (which the Greek grammar here assures us that we all possess) will render both absurdity and impossibility irrelevant (v.6). The real trouble, Jesus insists, is the unexamined attitude of ownership.

            Screwtape, C. S. Lewis' virtuoso tempter, instructs the hapless rookie Wormwood to encourage in the human heart a sense of possession, particularly of time. "You have here a delicate task," Screwtape admits. "The assumption you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defense. The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift."

            Then this Top Gun Tempter introduces a slavery metaphor: "He is also, in theory, committed to a total service of the Enemy; and if the Enemy appeared to him in bodily form and demanded that total service for even one day, he would not refuse. He would be greatly relieved if that one day involved nothing harder than listening to the conversation of a foolish woman." Or forgiving a bumbling fellow-believer.

            Clearly Lewis' devil has read his Bible. Jesus uses the image of a slave to point out that exact absurdity: Nothing we have belongs to us, so nothing we do puts God in our debt. "And all the time," chuckles Screwtape, "the joke is that the word 'Mine' in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In the long run either (Satan) or (God) will say 'Mine' of each things that exists, and specially of each man."

            So, says our Teacher, we must indeed keep careful accounts, tote up the balance sheet at the close of each day. But the credits and debits we enter must track, not what belongs to us, but to whom we have chosen to belong.

Very Good, Sir!

Doug

How (Not) to Make a Killing in Real Estate, Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost, September 29, 2013, Jeremiah 32.1-15

            Jeremiah was one shrewd investor. Real estate tends to hold its value, and he seems to have bought up this loan cheap: David gave fifty shekels for the temple mount (2 Sam 24.24) and Ephron the son of Zohar clipped Abraham for four hundred when the patriarch needed a burial ground. (Gn 23.15) Jeremiah seals the deal for a fast seventeen.

            Of course, there was a downside.

            The prophet makes his killer deal in a land besieged by a foreign force who - as Jeremiah himself had long insisted - would eventually conquer. A new administration would distribute spoils to its own clients and anyway the deportation of the majority of the populace would stifle the local economy. Then, too, a new government does not generally honor the legalities of the old.

            Buying land near Jerusalem at this juncture is like contracting with the Republic of Texas for real estate in San Antonio halfway through the siege of the Alamo, or purchasing Confederate war bonds in Atlanta just before Sherman's troops roar in. Sure, you could get a great deal on a foreclosure in the Sun Belt a few years back, but that wasn't much good once the housing bubble had burst.

            Jeremiah obeys God's command, even goes the length of making sure all parties sign on the dotted line, notarizing the contract and stashing the documents in a safe deposit box. But in private the prophet takes the opportunity to inform the Almighty of the present state of the market. (v.16-25) Of course, he was also trading on insider information: God tells Jeremiah that disaster is certain, but not final. Hope survives on the other side of captivity.

            The message of Scripture to besieged souls is not that the worst will not happen; it very well may. Instead, the Lord assures us that the worst is, at the best, a temporary condition, and the best is, at the worst, delayed but never derailed.

            Jesus gave his life to ransom our sin-besieged souls when any appraiser worth her license would have declared us a dead loss, and Easter Sunday's recovery wiped out Good Friday's deficits. Cling to faith in Christ despite the fluctuations of fate: Seal up the promise and hang on.

Sold!

Doug

Jesus Gets Theatrical: Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost, September 22, 2013, Luke 16.1-13

            When Adriana Baer took over as artistic director of Portland's Profile Theater, she wasted no time: She boosted the troop's income so as to create a margin instead of barely covering expenses; she produced a critically-acclaimed run of Athol Fugard's "Road to Mecca;" she even had the chutzpah to ask the company's founding director, whom she replaced, not to sit on the board so that she could have a free hand.

            Then word came down: Profile had lost the lease on its venue after fourteen years and would soon have no place to perform. A thirty year-old woman in a racket where donors and peers tend to be elderly males, an East Coast arriviste with no ties to the local cliques, Baer found herself in need of a miracle - or a friend.

            She found the latter (and perhaps the former) quickly enough. Baer had already initiated weekly coffee klatches with Damaso Rodriguez, who ran the cross-town outfit, Artists Repertory Theater. He rented her company space in his building at the same price she'd been paying before. Rodriguez knew the riff: His former troupe, Furious Theater, had once found themselves bounced from their own Los Angeles digs in a similar scenario. The two producers agreed that in a day when corporate cutbacks and a sinking economy make a pig's breakfast of charitable giving, those who work in the arts cannot afford rivals, only allies.

            That's a little bit like what Jesus is getting at in the Parable of the Crooked Bookkeeper.

            The probable situation here is that the boss had developed a work-around for Torah prohibitions against charging interest. Instead, he lent in commodities rather than cash, then Shylocked his debtors on the payback. The steward figures he can slash the notes down to the principal. After all, if you cheat Bernie Madoff, he's not going to rat you out to the SEC.

            Setting ethical niceties aside, Jesus warns the local holiness brokers that God has just about had it with them. They've jacked up the demands of the law with nosebleed interest charges that nobody can meet and Moses never dreamed of. Their best bet would be to hold a fire sale - slash the soaring inflation rates on righteousness and concentrate instead on relationships. Judgment day draws near and none of us has the cash reserves to pay off our sins. We can't afford the luxury of competition. We must embrace the wisdom of collaboration.

            Read this way, the parable reaches its logical conclusion in verse nine: Adriana Baer found shelter with Damaso Rodriguez because she befriended him before they eight-sixed her company out of its home. "In my Father's house," Jesus says, "are many mansions," (Jo 14.2) but it may turn out that every room is a guest room and you can only stay if someone else invites you. Thus showing grace to others is not an act of superhero holiness but simply the wisest way of doing business.

All the World's a Stage,

Doug

One Story, Two Titles Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost September 15, 2013 Luke 15.1-10

            "You in the west tell the parable of the lost sheep. We in the east tell the parable of the incomplete flock."

            I once heard an Anglican priest relate that snippet of dialogue from his conversation with an Orthodox counterpart. The distinction bears examination. We American Christians often hear these famous parables as good news for the lost objects: the feckless fleece is found, the accounting error corrected. In a spasm of humility, we may even admit that we could wind up as part of the one percent, equally in need of finding in our turn.

            All of that is true, but misses the main thrust of the stories.

            "This man receiveth sinners." The Greek verb comes from the code of hospitality and implies not mere acceptance but active embrace. By the custom of the day, a guest brought honor to the home she entered. Now back up a verse: The rowdies "were coming near to Him." This is not a case of Jesus attending the after-party for Matthew's conversion; here, Jesus himself sets the table of kingdom teaching. He acts, not as the honored guest, but as the humble host. Thus Jesus informs the Pharisees, not that the outsiders get a good deal (far too good a deal, those righteous ones thought), but that they bring blessing to those already on the inside.

            Whatever else the Kingdom of Heaven is, it's not a numbers game.

            Most preachers would rejoice if ninety-nine percent of the church membership showed up on a given Sunday. And if the offering met ninety percent of the weekly budget requirement as depicted in the second story, we'd go into raptures. But Jesus seems to cling to the wild notion that everyone has something to contribute and that anyone's absence lessens everyone's experience.

            I won't aggressively pursue the missing one percent until I understand that this lost lamb offers me the presence of the Lamb that was slain. I might grudgingly accept the loss of a tenth of my funds but not a tenth of my fingers. Heaven rejoices at the finding of the lost because it restores fullness to the fold.

            The parable of the lost sheep congratulates the lost one who was found. The parable of the incomplete flock congratulates the restoration of relationships. I think it matters which parable we tell ourselves.

Part of the One Percent,

Doug