Sermon, Year C, Reformation Sunday (Proper 25), "Humility for the Common Good and Adolescent Boy Energy"

 

C 25 30 Reformation Col Paul 2026

Luke 18:9-14

October 26, 2025

           I had one of those glorious experiences last Sunday evening where I got to hear Dr. Nichole Keway Biber speak.  She is a tribal citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and a part of the Turtle Clan.  I have become aware of just how important turtle is to Native story, Anishinaabe story, in places like Michigan because this land we sit on originated when muskrat plunged to the bottom of the water, sacrificing his own life, to come up with the mud that was then spread over turtle’s back as a safe place for humankind to place its feet.  That is why this land is referred to as turtle island.  Muskrat sacrifices for us.  Turtle is the safe place for our feet to rest.

Dr. Biber is the Mid-Michigan Campaign Organizer for Clean Water Action after having received her Ph.D. in English from Michigan State University.  Do you ever have the experience of saying to yourself, “Yeah, this person, they are going to be one of the real wisdom-givers in my life.  I can just feel that.”  That’s how it felt when I met Dr. Biber at the Michigan Climate Action Summit this summer. 

           Molly Mechtenberg, leader of the faith-based Hope for Creation, based in Kalamazoo, asked if I would come to their event focused on water.  My high theological reason for deciding I would come was, “Well, the Bears were on a bye week so sure.”  And lo and behold, Dr. Biber was one of the featured speakers.  I counted myself blessed. 

           Dr. Biber sings and speaks with what Cornel West, quoting Socrates has said is, parrhesia (παρρησία).  Parrhesia is “clear speech, frank speech, fearless speech, unintimidated speech, speech that flows from your soul not to show that you’re clever and smart, but to show that you’re courageous and wise.”[1]  Parrhesia implies a willingness to speak for the common good, even at great risk.[2]  Parrhesia is speaking with a relational wisdom.  With clarity and dexterity, Dr. Biber said that the measure of our relationship with water is not in what it can produce in GDP but asking,  “Is the water cleaner than it was yesterday?” 

           She spoke of the need for humility, recognizing that when we walk into creation as humankind, we walk in lower than others.  In the great Anishinaabe creation story, that water was first home for others before it became a home for us.

Then she spoke a great wisdom story of her people.  When the Anishinaabe were facing great hunger and famine, one clan said, in full humility, we will sacrifice ourselves to become the whitefish that will feed all other clans.  So they did.  And so they have.

And in their humility, Dr. Biber said, they told us, “As things go for us now, so they shall go for you.”   And is that not where we are?  Is the threat against the whitefish population in Lake Michigan a sign of where we are?  How do we now speak with parrhesia—clearly, frankly, fearlessly, relationally, for the common good?

In our gospel text for today, both pray-ers stand off at a distance from others.  The tax collector stands far off because of his despised role in the community.  The Pharisee stands by himself so as not to be in contact with anyone who might thought to be impure.  Both of them are representatives of the same oppressive system, a tax system based on extraction from a population that is below subsistence level or barely hanging on.  

The Pharisee profits from the system, an elite official directing religious obligation to pay tithe and tax to enforce the Temple cult.  The tax collector is working class collecting tolls, duties, and tariffs at the behest of others.  The Pharisee is honored for his direction of the oppressive system.  The tax collector is shunned for the way he cheats the public on behalf of others.

The Pharisee’s prayer is grandiose, self-congratulatory, and denounces “extortioners, swindlers, and adulterers,” presumably a swipe at somebody like the tax collector.  He shows himself to be religiously pious while also insulting the tax collector.  His prayer refuses to be relational.  Gratitude is to be one of the first movements of prayer, a gratitude which understands that earth, water, and goodness existed long before us.  And his form of God is to deny his relationship with the tax collector, “I thank you, O God, that I am not like him.” 

John Chrysostom, early Church Father and Archbishop of Constantinople said, “We do not give thanks by speaking ill of others.”[3]

“I have much to be thankful for, therefore it must be that God has rewarded me, therefore I must be righteous, therefore I am not a sinner.”[4]  Hmm, hmmm, hmmm (humming, looking at nails, brushing them off).  And especially: I am not a sinner like . . . well, you know . . . them!  He has gone from praying to peaking, directing his attention away from God to comparing his life with that of the tax collector. All relationality is not tied up humility but in arrogance without any understanding that he and the tax collector are bound up in the same system of harm.

Consider Mrs. Turpin from the short story "Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor.  She was a good, decent, upright, and proud woman who did everything right, except that she was a self-righteous racist. She was a person, writes O'Connor, who, when she entered heaven, needed "even her virtues burned away."[5]  Mrs. Turpin may be good and righteous in a vacuum but she is unwilling to be humble enough to speak and live with relationality, how she operates within a system that harms and destroys.

In contrast, the tax collector’s prayer is short, recognizing the part he plays in the system, “God, be merciful to me a sinner,” accompanied by extreme gestures of remorse and humility.  He knew who he was in the system, how it harmed and did damage. “This kind of humility, when accompanied by change of behavior is, according to Jesus, the gateway to healing.”[6] 

What is needed, Dr. Biber said, is restoration.  We need to choose a healing from the violence that has originally been done and restoration so that what we will have tomorrow is a material place that is better for children and grandchildren.  Can we begin to work on that, as a joint project, as a people together, humbled by the way we have participated but with full wisdom that God will join hands with us?  Or is it too hard to admit where we have been and where we are . . . to chart another path?

My good friend Josiah Hugs, a leader in the Wellbriety Movement, a path of recovery from addiction, would regularly point out to me people who were blaming to others, swinging wildly to avoid holding themselves accountable for the harm caused by their struggles.  Josiah would say that though they had stopped drinking they were still living out their addiction, not recognizing their complicity in the system.  In effect, never growing up, always the adolescent, never taking ownership of the humility necessary to recognize that the water was first home to others before we arrived on the scene.  Restoration never is accomplished.

I see that behavior as a sickness in our country.  Must America always be the adolescent?  Must it always be the country that never matures?  Sometimes we sound so much like the adolescent boy who enjoys the cruelty, speaks ill of those who are unable to defend themselves, free from boundaries and accountability.  Never are we accountable for systems and structures that harm?

How even in the Christian Church we regularly fail to speak humbly, clearly, frankly, fearlessly, relationally, for the common good?  Humility as a nation and as a faith seem no longer available to us as precious values.  We want to keep faith out of politics because, at best, we are afraid of someone else’s faith carrying the day politically without a thought to a faith that engages in humility to say, “But I could be wrong.  I might be complicit.  The water was here for others before I arrived on the scene.  God have mercy on me, a sinner, a participant in systems that harm.  May it be, O God, that this is the day I make sure that the water is cleaner than it was yesterday, that I move to recover and restore on this day.”

I hope that you all get a chance to hear Dr. Biber speak or present.  She is one of those people who speaks with a wisdom that calls us to a deeper place, a strongly material place, a relational place that, in humility, seeks healing and restoration.  Amen.

---

[1] Peter Cunningham quoting Cornel West, “In keynote address, Cornel West urges integrity, action, and ‘soulcraft’,” YaleNews, February 5, 2018, https://news.yale.edu/2018/02/05/keynote-address-cornel-west-urges-integrity-action-and-soulcraft.

[2] “Parrhesia,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrhesia.

[3] Grant Gallup, Homily Grits, http://andraomeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/homilygrits/msg00015.html

[4] David Ewart, “Luke 18:9-14,” Holy Textures, https://www.holytextures.com/2023/04/luke-18-9-14-year-c-pentecost-october-23-october-29-proper-25-ordinary-time-30-sermon.html

[5] Dan Clendenin, “The Pharisee and the Tax Collector,” Journey with Jesus, October 16, 2016, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/1148-the-pharisee-and-the-tax-collector

[6] Ched Myers, “Leveling Social Terrain (Lk 18:9-14),” Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, October 22, 2025, https://bcmonline.org/2025/10/22/leveling-social-terrain-lk-189-14/.

 

Sermon, Year C, Proper 24, "The Tenacious Persistence of a Widow"

 

C Proper 24 29 Ord Col Paul 2025

Luke 18:1-8

October 19, 2025

          In the stories Jesus would tell, he would use Jewish archetypes, word symbols, that had a history, to share his meaning and message.  For example, one of the archetypes he uses is the term historically translated as the “Son of Man.”  Jesus often uses the term with vague references to himself or to some figure in the future who will come to judge the righteous and the unrighteous.  The literal meaning of the term goes all the way back to the first creation story when humankind is created out of the “fertile soil” or the earth.  The prophet Daniel then picks up on this term to talk about the mythological figure who shall oppose the cruel and the violent empires of the world, pictured as grotesque beasts or monsters.  Daniel says that this figure is literally the Human One or the Earth Child who comes to judge these monstrous, violent, and cruel imperial powers.

           Our Scripture verse ends today with Jesus asking, “When that Human One or Earth Child comes, will they find faith on earth?”  In other words, there is God’s way and the way of the imperial, violent, and cruel world, will the Human One find anyone loyal to God’s way when they come to judge the righteous and the unrighteous? 

           Jesus . . . he could get so judgmental!  Would Jesus really belong to a UCC Church with that judgmental stuff?

           That summation was the typical way a Jewish prophet would say that there is a story deeper, a way in the world more everlasting than the way of the pharaohs, kings, queens, Caesars, and city officials.  Their monstrous ways do not have the last word. 

           The other archetype Jesus uses in our Scripture passage for today is the widow.  Throughout Scripture, the widow is part of the holy trinity for whom God’s Heart is especially devoted.  The widow, the orphan, and the immigrant are seen throughout Hebrew Scripture as without resource and advocate, people who are extremely vulnerable—so God is a stand-in as a way to say, “You mess with them, you mess with me.” 

In Hebrew, the word for widow connotes one who is silent or unable to speak, without a male for status in society.[1]  Throughout the Gospel of Luke, widows figure prominently, brought up in five different stories in the gospel, as those who seek a different kind of economics and politics, those who seek liberation and justice.  As people dear to the Heart of God, widows are the megaphone to express the deepest desires of God. 

Throughout Hebrew Scripture are those warnings from God, admonitions to demand that the people of God act with the Heart of God.  To name just a few Scripture passages, in Exodus, in the Psalms, in Isaiah, and twice in the Deuteronomy, “The Living God is not partial and takes no bribe. . . . Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.”[2] You mess with them, you mess with me.

And here she is, this widow in Jesus’s story seeking justice before a judge who fears God nor public opinion.  The story suggests that the only way this judge would rule for anyone is by a bribe.  This judge has “abandoned all pretense of impartiality and has become openly what he has been covertly, a judge of injustice.[3]   As a result, this widow is trapped in a city, a world, where justice goes only to the highest bidder.  And . . . well . . . she is a widow, probably trying to get the maintenance owed to her by her husband’s estate, the inheritance that might help her survive.  What she might have as a bribe is tied up in court.  And . . . and she is a widow. 

What is she to do?  Jesus uses this story as a way of saying to those who follow him, people who might identify with the widow and her vulnerability, what they are to do when their basic economic and political needs are threatened by a system skewed toward the wealthy and powerful, unable to deliver justice because the system does not seek justice. 

What this widow does is she throws convention out the window.  Women, widows in particular, are to be private and silent?  Pffffft.  She breaks the rules and approaches the judge publicly and directly.  She does not prevail upon the judge by denouncing him but by telling him to do his DARN job!  Do your job![4]  

This widow is persistent and tenacious in her pursuit of justice.  She “forces the judge to reevaluate the cost-benefit ration of her case . . . cut his losses and move on”[5] such that injustice is not inevitable.

She makes the judge’s life impossible.  And he delivers justice to her not because he has become righteous or makes a righteous choice but because, “she will keep bothering me,” literally, “makes trouble,” or “makes my life difficult.”  In some translations, the Greek is translated that she will come in and give him a black eye, a shiner, shame him in her tenacious persistence. 

The judge is moved because this widow will not believe what the wider culture tells her—that her poor position means that she does not deserve justice.  She believes she deserves justice. 

In wider cultural understandings, we often approach Scriptural stories and ask ourselves, “Who is the most powerful person, the one who orders this or that that we might say, ‘Ah, this must be the person who is the metaphor for God!”  We equate earthly power with the Divine. 

But Jesus makes it clear with the amoral references to this judge that God is not found at the judge’s seat but in the widow’s seeking.  God activity is the widow seeking justice. 

In this passage and throughout the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is trying to persuade his followers, “Rich people and their official agents are actually afraid of you exercising your power!”  So step up.  Jesus effectively says in our Scripture passage for today, in Luke 18, verse 6, “Pay attention to the unarticulated anxieties and fears of the powerful—you can outlast them.”[6]  You can outlast them. 

There is a deeper, a wider story which reminds us of those vulnerable women who knew they deserved justice:  Mary of Nazareth, Sarah, Miriam, Rahab, Esther, and even Hagar. 

In more recent history, widows or vulnerable women have shown us the face of God, seeking justice. 

In 1976, a military group took over the rule of Argentina by force.  Soon men in unmarked cars began arriving in the night at homes, restaurants, and workplaces to take away people in the struggle for Argentinian peace.  Before long there were thousands of people among the ranks of the “disappeared,”—sons and daughters, friends and relatives. 

Lines began to form in front of government offices.  Mothers of the missing came day after day, begging for information about their loved ones.  When they were turned away, they got together and drew up a petition, listing the names of their disappeared children and demanding that they be returned.  When the government refused their petition, they began a silent, illegal protest.

Every Thursday they marched in a circle in front of the government offices that ring Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo.  Each mother wore a white handkerchief embroidered with the names of her missing children.  Many carried pictures.  As the number of disappearances grew, so did the group of silent, walking women.  Despite beatings and arrests, the mothers persisted.  Their vigil went on for years, challenging the dictatorship, drawing international attention to the cruelty and injustice, recovering some of the stolen children, 400 to date, demanding justice that resulted in the prosecution and conviction of many military officials, and, finally, developing a legacy of activism in Argentina. 

In 1952 in South Africa, with apartheid still firmly in place, 20,000 women converged on the prime minister’s office in Pretoria, demanding justice.   In the following decades, mothers marched, compiled affidavits of torture and murder, and helped children into safe exile.  They did this all under the rallying cry, “You have struck the women, you have struck the rock.”  That rock was one more immovable object in the work to bring down apartheid. 

In El Salvador, mothers and widows fasted at the tomb of the late Archbishop Oscar Romero and occupied the cathedral in San Salvador, demanding an end to repression.  Their actions kept the number one superpower from committing to all-out war in El Salvador and to the eventual sainthood of Archbishop Romero. 

All these women displayed the tenacity, the persistence of the widow in today’s gospel parable.  They reflected the Heart of God.  They confronted the “unjust judges” of their time—whether they come in the guise of prime ministers, police, mayors, or military officers.  These women demanded to be heard, believed they deserved justice.  And today, through our holy Scriptures, they now invite us to join them in taking a stand for justice—not just for a day, a week, or a year, but to persist in knowing that the most vulnerable are dear to God’s Heart. 

Pay attention!  The unarticulated anxieties and fears of the powerful are fully on display in our age.  And God is on the move to say that there is a story wider and more everlasting.  Wear . . . them . . .out.  So that the orphans, the immigrants, and the widows, the people who are dear to God’s Heart might find an ally in you, in us.

Did you think, as people of faith, you were not supposed to be involved with the injustice of our day, private and silent?  Pfffft.  Today our scripture calls us to the deep and everlasting story.  Praise be to God!  Amen.

---

[1] Ched Myers, Healing Affluenza and Resisting Plutocracy (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2025), p. 173.

[2] Deuteronomy 10:17; 27:19.

[3] Myers, Healing Affluenza, p. 173, p. 175, quoting William A. Herzog II, Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed (Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), p. 225.

 

[4] Myers, Healing Affluenza, p. 175. 

[5] Ibid, quoting Herzog, Subversive, p.  230. 

[6] Myers, Healing Affluence, p. 175.

Sermon, Proper 23, "Plant your garden . . . even when you are not in charge"

 C Proper 23 28 Ord ColPaul 2025

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

October 12, 2025

           If you haven’t heard from me before, you will learn that I think the prophet Jeremiah is one of the most important figures in the Bible.  He came from the exiled priestly village in Anathoth.  It was said that it was common for Jeremiah to go a Sabbath’s day walk to Jerusalem, going there in the morning and returning back home in the afternoon. In total, a walking journey of about three hours. 

           The story is told of how when Israel was the number one superpower in the world, David, on his deathbed, counseled his successor to the throne, his son Solomon, to kill all his rivals before he took the throne.  Solomon does so but for one key figure, the priest Abiathar, who he considers too morally powerful to assassinate.  Instead, he exiles Abiathar to Anathoth where Abiathar and the priests of Anathoth watch as the nearby Jerusalem, over the course of 300 years, descends into violence, graft, corruption, a love of power, militarism, ostentatious display, and destruction of the poor.  So much so that rebellion takes place and Israel separates into two separate nations, Israel to the north and Judah to the south, with Jerusalem located in the southern kingdom of Judah.

           The book of Jeremiah begins with, “The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, ² to whom the word of the Ruler of the Universe came in the days of King Josiah.”  It is the Bible’s way of saying, “Remember these guys of moral uprightness from the days of Abiathar?  The chickens have come home to roost.  And they are headed back to Jerusalem.”

           The graft, moral corruption, and violence against the poor continues under King Josiah, and (as I detailed in a former sermon) the prophet Jeremiah takes his Sabbath walk to rail against the royal aristocracy, priesthood, and prophets.  Jeremiah believes once you undercut God’s pillars of justice, your kingdom will necessarily fail. 

For bringing this bad news, Jeremiah is called unpatriotic, thrown down a well, and then deposited in jail.  Unfortunately for the nation of Judah, Jeremiah’s truth-telling turns out to be correct and Judah and Jerusalem fall to the Babylonian Empire—the leaders, the representatives of God, are executed or taken off into Exile; the land, the symbol of God’s promise, salted and ravaged; the Temple, the special place of God’s abiding, razed to the ground.  The Jews ask in Exile, “How shall we sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land?”      

Several years ago, Tracy and I served a church in rural Illinois that had been historic as a place for freedom seekers to remain hidden on the Underground Railroad.  That church had two safehouses in their small community.  One of their church leaders actively broke federal law to hide out these freedom seekers needing a place of refuge and sanctuary. 

In that historic church was a congregational member I knew it would never be a good idea to cross or to be on the opposite side of . . . in an argument.  Betsy remains a force of nature in that small community.  She has been a CASA volunteer (a court appointed special advocate), a school board member, and part of the town’s revitalization project.  Betsy didn’t suffer fools lightly.  And so, if she disagreed with you, you were in for a no-holds barred, Texas Cage Match.  And Betsy did not intend to lose.

           Her husband, Doug, is also an attorney in town.  And that granted him some status as he also served on the school board.  But Betsy, when she had her sights set on you, could make you feel itty-bitty.  She did all this, was willing to be strongly confrontational, to honor her family, her community, and her nation. 

           One of her dearly loved sons is part of the LGBTQ+ community and, when I was there, she loved that our church was actively making strides to become Open and Affirming and that the nation seemed to be opening up more and more to the LGBTQ+ community.  She knew that that meant a better life for her son. 

           So when she heard the strong rhetoric coming from Christian churches who supported the then candidate Donald Trump she consoled herself with the thought that he couldn’t win, could he?  And couldn’t possibly win with rhetoric that made her quake in her boots for her son?  The country couldn’t possibly backtrack on these issues, right?  Her own hometown church in rural Illinois had gone from heated argument that had split the church over the inclusion of the LGBTQ community to a church that voted unanimously to become open and affirming.   So a way was being made, a path was being cleared, as her son went on to a great career, began running in marathons, was carving out a path for himself. 

But then Donald Trump did win that presidential election and there was nothing she could do about it.  And the language grew even stronger as that Trump Administration sought to appease its Christian evangelical base with critique of pronouns, talk of litter boxes in bathrooms, and people reeling in fear that Trans people might be reading to children in libraries.  Finally, the removal of protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identification were on the national chopping block.  What would she do about it in the rural Illinois hinterlands? 

She couldn’t possibly make a dent in federal policy.  There was no way she could turn the tide, nationally, against conservative Christian pundits showing up every day to talk about her son in ways that were mean-spirited and even scary.  I remember seeing Betsy, on social media, asking everyone what she was to do now. 

I knew it would not be long.  Betsy got to work. 

She knew she could not do much about the national dialog.  She and people who agreed with her were not the ones in power.  So what she decided to do was to strengthen the local systems and structures which would support people like her son.   She formed the local group, “Moms for LGBTQ Equality,” and describes the founding of the group this way, “As the mom of an out gay man, I started this work to focus on the concerns of raising LGBTQ youth under a Trump/Pence Administration.”   In her small, rural Illinois town of 3700 people, the Facebook page of the group has over 2500 followers.  I recognized many of the early followers as members of Betsy’s own church.   Betsy also then radiated outwards forming partnerships with the PFLAG (functionally, the parents, family, and friends of the LGBTQ+ community)--the PFLAG chapter of the nearest city--and several other solidarity groups on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community.  All of this brought gravitas to her little organization but also reminded everyone participating that they were not alone.  As a result, they were able to share wisdom for their concurrent struggle and share resources. 

Betsy, force of nature, amplified her work to protect a vulnerable group, a group out of power, a group near and dear to her heart, to become a protected force of nature their own selves in doing necessary work of love and justice in their small community.   Though she may have been originally disappointed at her lack of power to change things at a larger level, she planned and organized a future that has now become a wider and wider circle of protection and love.  With yesterday being National Coming Out Day it seemed like a good time to remind us of how powerful we can be even when we are not the ones in power.

When the Jews were no longer the people in power, the ones in charge to chart their own destiny, the prophet Jeremiah’s work was not done.  And, in our Scripture verse today, the prophet Jeremiah reminded the people that even though they now lived in Babylon, they were to plan for the future.  Plant gardens.  Have children.  Imagine what a faithful life might look like in Babylon.  Like so many Jews before you, when you are no longer in charge of the nation, you must build these smaller cocoons of goodness, protect your ability to love and flourish as you can.  That is then what it means to be faithful. 

I have seen that same plan of action taking place in the national climate action group, the Sunrise Movement.  They were the originators of the Green New Deal to move our whole nation to a more just and wholistic economics and ecology.  Realizing that under the present administration they will no longer be able to advance national initiatives, the Sunrise Movement has pivoted to trying to advance the Green New Deal in schools and local communities. 

It’s time for us to take over, classroom by classroom, school by school, city by city.    If we build our own mass movement, if we demand power in our hometowns, we can take over the country we only know in our dreams.   If we can remake our schools to take on the greatest crisis we’ve ever seen, we will pave the way for the rest of society to follow.  If we organize everyday people to bring the Green New Deal to cities and towns across the country, we can win local Green New Deal policy that proves to our neighbors and our leaders that this is the solution we need.  Day-by-day, door-to-door, hand-in-hand with our neighbors, we’ll sow the seeds of a Green New Deal from the bottom up.[1]

A statement cited on the NPR webpage just broke this week, “For the first time, renewable energy has overtaken coal as the primary source of electricity around the world, a new report says, indicating a shift in the global reliance on environmentally harmful fossil fuels.”[2]

And so the work of the Sunrise Movement, these incredible young organizers who fasted outside our nation’s capital , some of them almost at the loss of their own lives, to push President Biden toward the Inflation Reduction Act, have become the prophets of our time.  They are now inviting us to plant our own gardens, to teach our children well, that we might feed them on our dreams, to follow where God is leading.  But to know that our children might also teach their parents well. 

The prophet Jeremiah reminds us that we do not have to be the ones who are running the nation to lead the way of God, to provide and protect our communities, and to plant our gardens.  May we live out the lessons of Jeremiah in this time.  Amen. 

---

[1] https://www.sunrisemovement.org/theory-of-change/our-strategy/

[2] Alana Wise, “Renewable energy outpaces coal for electricity generation in historic first, report says,” NPR, October 9, 2025.  https://www.npr.org/2025/10/09/nx-s1-5564746/renewable-energy-coal-electricity-first. 

Sermon, Year C, Proper 22, "Start small against those mulberry trees"

 

C Proper 22 27 Ord Paul/Col 2025

Luke 17:5-10

October 5, 2025

 

Let us pray.  May the imperfect words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our rock and our redeemer. 

Ok, let’s clear some things up.  Before we go forward in besmirching the honorable name of Mulberry in talking about our gospel text for this morning, I thought I should let you know that the Illinois Everbearing Mulberry originated in White County, Illinois, in 1958.  The fruit’s flavor is, and I quote, “good to very good, very sweet, considered best by many.”  The tree is “vigorous, extremely hardy, and productive.”[1] 

When I shared this in a former congregation, I received a note from one of the prolific landscapers that the word “hardy” is code language for a shallow root system that is invasive and that that root system destroys everything around it. Mulberry roots are known to be expansive, aggressive, and cause damage to structures.  The wide-ranging root system makes it impossible to get out of the ground.  Thanks, I think?  I promised to share this information with future congregations.  And here we are. 

Teaching in rural Galilee, to people who are or were formerly peasant farmers, I think Jesus assumes his disciples know the realities of all things “mulberry.”  His hope that we might uproot the mulberry tree to be thrown into the sea gives us a clue what Jesus considers to be shallow but invasive, aggressive, and destructive to the everyday life of a rural Jew.  For the author of Luke collects sayings as a way of clueing us in.  Later on in Luke, it is those people who are the powerful exploiters that harm children who might have a millstone tied around their neck and thrown into the sea.  It is the oppressive and violent Roman military who act as the Gerasene demon, possess a man and have him violently cutting himself, that Jesus casts into pigs and then they run into the sea.  It is again the Roman Empire in the visions of Revelation which the angel takes as a millstone and throws into the sea. 

To remember that all through Jewish mythology “the sea” is the place of primordial chaos, the place beyond the reach of God’s goodness, a place reserved for those who do not wish to be a part of God’s creative rhythm, cannot accept God’s diverse, life-bearing order—an order fashioned with pillars of justice.

For Jews living in occupation, oppression, hunger, and violent repression, Rome seems as all-powerful.  The people must ask, “How can we possibly have faith that God is at work, that things can be different, that we might do anything to create change when the violent destroyers, their root system shallow but pervasive and ruining everything,  run the world?  Do we need to have some great trust that God is just when injustice seems to hold sway?  Do we need to have some great trust that love moves the dial, Jesus, when all around us it feels like the world is unraveling?  How do we unseat the mulberry tree that is shallow but is so pervasive and destructive, not allowing life or thriving for anything else?

Jesus responds that, even if you see yourself as small, something the world might see as a weed itself, just get started.  And the way a mustard seed works is it moves from underneath and becomes constant, regular, and pervasive.  But start small. 

The story is told of the Dunnes Stores Strikers in Ireland.  David Nihill, Irish author and comedian tells it best.  He refers to the women who started small as the grapefruit ladies. 

In Ireland, 41 years ago, ten white ladies working in grocery stores said, “We refuse to sell grapefruits imported from South Africa any more in this grocery store and by doing that we’re going to end apartheid.  And then said, ‘Who’s with us?’”

And the whole of Ireland said, “We really don’t like grapefruits, to be honest, it’s more of a luxury product.  And I don’t know if you’ve looked outside but we really don’t have any black people either, so best of luck with that strategy.”

To be honest not a whole lot of people supported them.  Maybe one or two politicians, but for the most part the police were against them, the trade unions were against them, and Dunne stores, the grocery store they worked in, was against them. 

And just a lot of the country

And they were delighted one day when this Black fella called Nimrod showed up and they were like, “Ooooh, must be workin’, I’ve never seen a black guy before and there’s one out there right now so we’re having an impact.”  These ladies had never met a black person before despite protesting on behalf of their rights.

And this guy Nimrod said to them, “Ladies, what you’re doing is so potentially impactful that I can’t even really properly vocalize it so I’m just going to stand with you every single day in solidarity until people pay attention.”

And he stood with them every single day for six months walking three miles each way to get there with the ladies and nobody paid much attention at all, to be honest.

Until it made its way to a rather interesting man Archishop Desmond Tutu.  On his way to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize he was like, “I’ve got to meet the grapefruit ladies.”  And he did.  He flew over to meet with them in London. 

And because of that a rather interesting man in America got wind of it.  And he said, “I’ve never heard of a bunch of white people protesting over something that affects with them so little.  This is fantastic.  I have to march with these grapefruit ladies.”  That was Rev. Jesse Jackson.  And he did march with the grapefruit ladies.

That was enough to get the attention of a guy on his Long Walk to Freedom on Robben Island, South Africa.  And he said, “Once in a while, you hear other people fighting on behalf of you, and it just really inspires you to keep going.  I have to meet with the grapefruit ladies.”  That was Nelson Mandela.  And in 1990 he flew to Ireland to meet with the grapefruit ladies.  By that stage the Irish government had given in, the trade unions had given in, the grocery store, Dunne Stores had given in, and Ireland became the first country in the Western world to ban the import and sale of all goods from South Africa thereby helping ending apartheid with a fruit that Ireland doesn’t really like. 

It's a lovely bit of history that all too often gets forgotten.  But Nelson Mandela never forgot.  When Nelson Mandela passed away, he made sure the ladies were welcome guests of honor should they want to attend.  And they did attend in a free South Africa they helped create. 

It was only then that Nimrod, the one black guy who showed up at the protests in Dublin, got around to telling him who he actually was. He had been Nelson Mandela’s cellmate on Robben Island, he knew exactly what he was doing. 

He knew that Irish people like speaking up for other oppressed groups and the Irish like the hip-hop, so they were a little bit black, and I tell you that story because the leader of those 10 people was called “Karen” so there you go.

I tell you that story so we might remember who we are.  And that our faith does not really expect that much of us.  Just that we do not have to put up with mulberry trees that try to take over our garden in invasive, violent, and aggressive ways.  We can be the weeds who work in small, constant, and pervasive ways to be the catalyst, or a small part, to overthrow the violence with communal resistance, to join hands with God to prepare the path of justice.

           It is the great Mexican-American writer and psychoanalyst, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, born just down a way in good ole Gary, Indiana, who reminded us that we were born for this.  She wrote:

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. [...]

In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.[2]

We live in desperate times.  In the time and place of Jesus, it felt like the whole world was coming to an end, unraveling.  And Jesus shared how the people might create mutual aid networks to share food, attend to mutual healing, and piece together a community that might offer resistance and transformation to the violence. 

           We might not feel like a great ship ready to sail.  But collectively, maybe we can see ourselves at least as a weed, small and non-threatening, but willing to begin with grapefruit to be a soul on deck.  Be a soul on deck.  Amen. 

---

[1] http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/mulberry.html

[2] Clarissa Pinkola Estés, “You were made for this,” AWAKIN.ORG, https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=548.

Sermon, Year C, Proper 21, "Chasm Architects"

 

C Proper 21 26 Ord Paul 2025

Luke 16:19-31

September 28, 2025

           Once upon a time there was a man named, Lazarus, a name that means “God helps.”  He was a poor man—not a rich man or a middle-class man—a poor man.  And unlike many people think and assume, his poor estate was not due to anything he had done wrong, not due to his lack of ambition.  Every day that Lazarus lived on this earth presented an opportunity every day for someone to draw closer to God and cross the great divide between here and there.  But it did not happen. 

           The most unfortunate thing about Lazarus’s poor estate was that—the worse things got for him, the more and more he lost his gateway to humankind.  His family disowned him.  So the family hospitality most of us have when tough times hit—his safety net for food and shelter and grace was gone as he tried to get back up on his feet. 

           Those former friends and acquaintances who did recognize Lazarus along the streets would stay as far from him as they could.  For they worried that “poor” might be a communicable disease with no vaccine available.  Those who were not former friends or acquaintances could not say that they knew a poor person.  But they also did not question when their government, their schools, and their churches equated wealth with virtue. 

           So that everyone felt safe, secure, and justified in finding no way from here to there--the respectable people in the community, those who shall go unnamed in the story but are regularly celebrated, spent a great deal of time digging a huge gulf between Lazarus and the community.  Middle-class folk never ceased in complaining how they were the ones ripped off by the government as they brought their new big screen TVs, home security systems, and vacation homes—necessities for life, ways to differentiate themselves from people like Lazarus.

           While the middle-class people employed people like Lazarus to dig the gulf, they acted unaware that they paid to construct it, grateful that they did not have to soil themselves to increase its breadth and width.  They could often be heard saying, “People like Lazaraus get free hand-outs and the rich get better taxes.” Almost all of them knew nothing of Lazarus’s life as he went without health care, injured by his work on the gulf, sacrificed by his mining of the gulf.  They knew nothing of Lazarus.  And the gulf between Lazarus grew and grew.

           Lazarus rummaged through his shirt pocket to find his yearly application for the drug assistance he would need for his medical cocktail.  “Where is it?”  Lazarus screamed.  “I need that medicine.”  And as he grew desperate, the wind picked up the misplaced application that had found temporary lodging on his pant leg.  And the wind blew the application toward the street.  The wind does blow where it will irrespective of poverty or position. 

           An elderly man, beginning to cross the street, picked up the application, crumpled it in his hand, and put in his coat pocket.  “My application!” Lazarus gasped, wide-eyed.  The man, hearing Lazarus, turned, recognizing that the paper belonged to Lazarus.  “Even beggars shouldn’t litter,” he admonished, wagging his finger at Lazarus as he crossed the street.  “Save the environment, you know!”

           And the gateway or gulf became a huge chasm.  Lazarus felt himself falling into it.  “No, my application,” Lazarus began heaving, sobbing as he fell to his knees, “my application.”  And the old man looked back just long enough to wag his finger again.

           The Medical Assistance program would certainly not pay for his medicine now.  His counselor was not paid to hear his excuses.  He punched in and out of a thankless job.  He had to have that application.  The sickness contributed with everything else to weaken his already ravaged body, his PTSD growing more severe every year since his army deployment, his body ragged and sacrificed from the cancer he inherited while mining. His mind withered. Lazarus was beginning to lose hope.  “I will die alone—utterly alone.

           In the midst of Lazarus’s despair, he picked himself and headed to find hospitality at the home of Gretchen Democrat.  Lazarus knew that if he knocked upon Ms. Democrat’s door, he could get some bread for the night.  Although it was something, the bread never filled him.  On the contrary, the bread still left him begging at the gateway that had become a gulf that the respectable people were making sure was a chasm. 

           He knew very well that the food given to him was only the garbage of Gretchen Democrat.  And that this confirmed his status as a dog barking at the gate.  Less than a dog actually, for Lazarus was given scraps the dogs would not eat.  Lazarus slept at the door of Gretchen Democrat that night but was told to move along the next day.  It would not look good to associate one’s status with the status of a man like Lazarus, a dog like Lazarus, not even a dog like Lazarus.  It was important that Gretchen Democrat not know Lazarus as anything less than a dog.  And the respectable people kept digging the chasm wider and wider.

           The next evening Lazarus was so tired that he feel upon the doorstep of Donald Republican.  With the little energy Lazarus had left, he knocked on the door of Donald Republican.  But the butler of Mr. Republican told Lazarus that Donald did not give scraps to poor people such as Lazarus, for it only encouraged their dependence.  “But I’m dying.”

           The butler shook his head.  “The poor,” the butler politely told Lazarus, “are addicts to the welfare system.  They must pick themselves up by their own bootstraps.  God helps them who help themselves.”

           Lazarus began to cough miserably.  “Excuse me,” Lazarus apologized, “excuse me, but I am dying.” 

           “That is quite alright,” the butler replied, “What was your name?”

           “Lazarus.”

           “Oh, should  I tell Mr. Republican you call called or would it be better just to say that nobody came calling today.”

           “Either way, Lazarus or nobody,” Lazarus coughed again, “what is the difference?”

           “You are quite right,” the butler responded.  “I know Mr. Republican knows your name but he does not personally know you nor any other poor person.  You would be nobody to him.”  He began to turn on his heel and then quickly turned around. “Oh, and please, if you need somewhere to sleep, please do it on the other side of the gate, beyond the gulf, further out past city walls and way past the chasm the respectable people have been digging.  We will let you pass in the morning if we need any goods or services.[1]

           And Lazarus slept outside the city wall that night—utterly alone.  The chasm created by the respectable people became his shroud, covering him and enveloping him in morning mist.  For the world we create here moves and shapes the eternal in equal and dynamic ways.  Lazaraus went from something lower than dogs to a nobody, to utterly alone, to welcomed and given hospitality in the home of Sarah and Abraham.

Rock a my soul in the bosom of Abraham,

Rock a my soul in the bosom of Abraham,

Rock a my soul in the bosom of Abraham,

Oh, rock a my soul.

 

So high, you can’t get over it,

So low, you can’t get under it,

So wide, you can’t get around it,

You gotta go through the door.

 

In the eternal, the chasm made it impossible for Gretchen Democrat and Donald Republican to receive the welcome and hospitality of God. 

           Knowing that Lazarus had been welcomed, the respectable people called upon Lazarus, as they had always done in our world, asking him to once again do their bidding.  But the chasm that segregates the desperately poor outcast, Lazarus, and the wealthy mansion owners is uncrossable because it has been designed that way by its architects.[2]  They did not call Lazarus kin or friend or brother, but asked Abraham to send him as servant and pet to relieve their pain, warn their relatives, to leave the hospitality of God to once again serve them. 

           They begged Father Abraham to have Lazarus do their bidding.  When he refused, they begged Abraham to send Lazarus to their families.  Certainly their families would listen to someone come back from the other side.

But Abraham reminded them of Moses and the prophets and the lessons learned in the wilderness.  Moses and the prophets had made it clear.  Life is a gift that begins with rain and ends with bread, that life is full and abundant.  In this rich and full and abundant life, we are to gather only what we need as the Children of Israel were instructed with the manna in the wilderness.  Had they done that?  Would their families turn from their ways to do that? 

           Moses and the prophets had taught that this goodness and abundance was not to be stored up must be circulated and redistributed so all, especially someone like Lazarus, that they might know the abundance and goodness of God.

           Finally, Abraham reminded the respectable people, children he called them, they were not to see others as merely a means of production but as people of delight--worthy of rest, play, and celebration.[3]  “But even now, as children, that is impossible for you as you see not only me but Lazarus as those people who should labor on your behalf and do your bidding.”  Moses and the prophets were available to you.  Moses and the prophets will be available to your family members. 

       So high you can’t get over it,

       So low you can’t get under it,

       So wide you can’t get around it

       You gotta go through the door.

 

But the respectable people will never go to the door to find Lazarus waiting there, walk to their gate to see the dogs lick his sores there, knock down the city walls to find Lazarus waiting outside the city of Sodom.  And there is Lazarus waiting for their hospitality as counseled by Moses and the prophets. 

           Never did the people repent.  Never was the chasm crossed, hoping their charitable donations might suffice.  But they did not.[4]  Moses and the prophets forever outside earshot of those who are the architects of the chasm.  When will we stop digging?

      

---

[1] During the day, the poorer people in the community were let in through the walls to provide the goods and services the elites wanted; at night, they were locked out.  See, Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minnesota, Augsburg Fortress, 2003). 

[2] Ched Myers, Healing Affluenza and Resisting Plutocracy:  Luke’s Jesus and Sabbath Economics (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2025), p. 163.

[3] Ibid, pp. 38-39.

[4] John Doinic Crossan has called charity as the last defense against injustice.