Luke 7:36 - 8:3

("Some would suggest that guilt is a negative thing, and that those who raise its awareness within us should be avoided at all cost. They couldn't be more wrong...when the cause is just, the only way for a human being to move beyond what is wrong, to move on to something so much the better, is the awareness that we call guilt. Guilt may not feel good, but lots of things necessary to human life don't...")

always good insights!

(includes numerous quotes)

(always excellent exegesis with numerous quotes)

(Includes lots of Greek exegesis!!)

Then a friend shared an article with a somewhat provocative headline caught my attention "Me Before You: Dear Hollywood, why do you want me dead?" The author, a 11 year old named Ella Frech calls out Hollywood in an amazingly eloquent, thoughtful and challenging piece as she begins: Dear Hollywood, Why do you want me dead? Please don’t deny it. The movies you make tell me the truth about what you really think about me. Me Before You comes out tomorrow. . . It’s the story of a guy who gets in an accident, and has a spinal cord injury, and has to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. A guy you think should want to die because he has to live a life that looks like mine...

One among them stood out for as he spoke he did so without notes. Clearly, he had been profoundly shaped by the turning around he had experienced in his faith in these last years. He spoke of not going to church much when he was 'young,' but at the invitation of a friend he connected with a faith community. He shared about he had been brought to his knees on a mission trip with his newly adopted church youth group --- how he had been overwhelmed by gratitude and reduced to tears at what Jesus had done for him. After this young man took his place once more in the front row with the other graduates, we were invited to stand and sing, "Great is Thy Faithfulness." And there he stood with his outstretched arms waving in the air --- a physical gesture of his openness and his gratitude. A physical gesture, I might add, which is not often, if ever, witnessed in the front pew at First Lutheran Church. Or any other pew in our place for that matter.

A friend who does research in Calcutta tells me about an Indian custom she has witnessed frequently on her visits. When certain people enter another person’s home, they are greeted by the host—who bows before the guest and places their forehead on the guest’s feet in a gesture of love. I can only imagine the dirt and grime on bare feet, feet that walk the streets of a city where there is regular flooding.

In his spiritual autobiography, Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton pondered the most prosaic of childhood memories. Looking back, with insight, he sees what he didn’t spot then: his brother’s “natural humility and love” and his own “hard-heatedness.” It moves him to compunction.

Women made me who I am today. Yes, always, thanks Mom. I forever love and miss you. But this isn’t about my mother. Or my two sisters, one older, one younger, and both have given me trust I value and memories I cherish. The women I’m talking about also don’t include my wife, who has shared love and friendship and encouragement beyond explaining. I am who I am because of women in the Bible.

Right after college, I went to a very conservative seminary in the Reformed tradition, to get a degree in Christian education. A good thing that I didn’t want to be a pastor at that point, because that school didn’t even allow women to enroll in the Master of Divinity program. There were about a dozen women in a school of 250 or so students. When a female friend and I decided to take a summer Greek intensive course, some of our male colleagues protested to the administration. “Why should women be allowed to study Greek? What are they going to do with it, since they can’t preach?” I’m not sure what discussions went on in meetings, but we were allowed to take the class. The professor was very kind and treated us the same as he did the guys. The following semester, she and I enrolled in a Greek exegesis class, studying texts and their meaning in the original language. Same prof, many of the same students...

When I was in seminary, I had the joy of serving as the intern at St. Mark United Methodist Church on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. St. Mark sits in the center of Midtown, which in the 1980s and 1990s became home to a large segment of Atlanta’s gay male population. St. Mark at the time was a tiny and dying church. Every year, the Pride parade marched by the church. The Baptist church across the street, feeling threatened by such shows of “indecency,” hired guards to stand in front of their church. St. Mark, however, decided to offer hospitality instead. During one parade, in the heat of June in Atlanta, the elderly ladies of St. Mark offered cups of cold water to the thirsty marchers with a simple message: “You are welcome here.” One by one, the young gay men who had moved into Midtown came to check it out—to see if this welcome was real. They found that it was.

In her book, An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor tells a related story about visiting a beautiful old church in Alabama. Having arrived for the service too early, she stood for a while in front of the altar, admiring a mural of Jesus emerging from his tomb. Though the painting was impressive, Taylor felt that something was off; Jesus looked too ethereal. After gazing at the mural for several seconds, she realized what was missing: Jesus had no body hair.

("My Mennonite friends recently introduced me to one of the greatest heroes and martyrs in their tradition--Dirk Willems who died in 1569. Dirk, like other Anabaptists, rejected infant baptism, and for this he was arrested. You might know that the three foundational beliefs of the Mennonites are the belief in adult baptism, in the separation of church and state, and in the practice of non-violence in all circumstances...")

"My preaching professor at Duke, who was a Baptist, liked to tell the story about a young Baptist man from "up north somewhere," who came to Louisville to study at the Baptist Seminary. It wasn't long before he secured a regular job preaching at a little church over near Lexington. On his first Sunday he lit into tobacco pretty hard..."

("The Lausiac History by Palladius is written to commemorate women far advanced in years and illustrious God-inspired mothers who have performed feats of virtuous asceticism in strong and perfect intention...")

("When I was growing up, my mother used to tell me a story about my brother, Dan, who was five years old when I was born. When my mother was expecting me, there were four boys and no girls (yet) in my family, and Dan was not happy about the possibility of a baby girl entering this little kingdom of males...")

("There is an old legend about Judas that after his death Judas found himself at the bottom of a deep and slimy pit. For thousands of years he wept his repentance, and when the tears were finally spent, he looked up and saw way, way up a tiny glimmer of light. After he had contemplated it for another thousand years or so, he began to try to climb up towards the light...")

I’d like to end by stretching us a bit further in terms of religious boundaries, with a story from Brian McLaren‘s latest book, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World, which we studied this past year during the Sunday learning hour. In it, he tells this hospitality Gospel-style story of crossing the boundaries set up by religion to make new friends: One of the most dramatic of those friendships began in the aftermath of 9/11/01. Like a lot of churches, our little congregation held a prayer service. While praying, I felt a voice speaking, as it were, in my chest: Your Muslim neighbors are in danger of reprisals. You must try to protect them. The next morning, I wrote and made copies of a letter extending, belatedly, friendship toward Muslim communities in my area, and offering solidarity and help if simmering anti-Muslim sentiments should be translated into action...

("I am sure lots of you have seen the movie Sister Act. Whoopi Goldberg, playing the part of Vegas lounge singer Deloris Van Cartier, witnesses a brutal mob murder. To keep her safe, the police hide her in a convent and she becomes Sister Mary Clarence..." and another illustration)

("When I was eighteen, while playing soccer at the seminary, I injured one of my knees rather seriously. The injury required a week-long stay in a local hospital. While there, I shared a ward with three other patients, one of them a fifty-sometime truck-driver who was suffering from an abdominal disorder. Whatever the specifics of his illness, it caused him a great deal of pain...")

"A reporter for Seven Days, a weekly newspaper in Vermont has been recording his experience with prostitution in Chittenden County. He entered about five places that labeled themselves as Spas and reported on what transpired. He raised the troubling issue of human trafficking: How mostly Asian women, largely Korean, find their way into the States and into this dark underworld of abuse..."

("A young boy borrowed the family car without permission, knowing he could have it home and safely in the garage before his father found out. He hadn't reckoned on getting rear-ended at the second intersection he came to. There was no way to conceal the damage so he parked the car and closed the garage door. Then he spent an evening agonizing over how to deal with his father when he arrived home. When his dad walked in, the young man flashed a look of terror. He told his father everything, complete with profuse apology..." and other illustrations)

("Recently the Templeton Foundation, which has campaigned for an increase in what it calls 'forgiveness research', funded a major nationwide study on people's attitudes toward forgiveness. Co-sponsored by the University of Michigan and the National Institute for Mental Health, the study found that 75% of Americans are 'very confident' that they have been forgiven by God for their past offenses...")

"There's a tale by H.G. Wells about an elegant, white-maned old bishop who could always be counted on for a pious platitude. When faced with an angry or troubled person, he'd assume his most pious pose and speak in his best stained-glass voice, 'Have you prayed about it, my child?' If spoken in just the right way, this all-purpose question silenced the visitor, and the bishop was home free!..."

("Are women human? That's the question the British writer Dorothy Sayers posed in two short essays written in 1938. She had more than an academic interest in the question. When she finished Somerville College, Oxford, with first class honors in modern languages in 1915, they didn't yet grant degrees to women...")

("Once upon a time a certain well known priest was seen coming out of a disorderly house in his parish. A photographer got a picture of him. A newspaper printed it. A group of Catholic laity put together a petition to the bishop to remove him as pastor. No priest should be seen emerging from such a place...")

"Sarah Miles was raised as an atheist and lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and writer. She opens her book, Take this Bread, with this account: 'One early, cloudy morning when I was forty-six, I walked into a church, ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine. A routine Sunday activity for tens of millions of Americans..."

A member of our congregation might have thought we needed something better on our sign, so he sent me some pictures of Church Signs. Here are some samples. 'There are some questions that can’t be answered by Google.'..."

("There is an old legend about Judas that Madeleine L'Engle tells. The legend is that after his death Judas found himself at the bottom of a deep and slimy pit. For thousands of years he wept his repentance, and when the tears were finally spent, he looked up and saw way, way up a tiny glimmer of light....")

("Let me introduce you to a can, it is dented can. I think that once, not long ago, these kinds of tins would have been sold off, cheap. I can remember going into supermarkets and there would be large bins with these tins in for people to buy. And there would be sign on the bin that read, 'Damaged Goods'...")

"My dad’s relationship with God crystallized in a special way when he was in his forties. While God had certainly walked with him from the time he was born and my father cherished that relationship, there came one of those mountaintop moments many years later when my dad and Jesus really became friends..."

("A man arrived at heaven and was shown into God's office for judgment. One office wall was a huge window looking down on earth. The earth was beautiful with its blue waters, green forests, and white clouds. On the table in front of the window, there was a pair of glasses. They must be God's glasses...")

("Ruth Bell Graham, the daughter of Presbyterian medical missionaries to China , says that she can never remember not knowing that Christ was her Savior: Although she is the wife of the world's foremost practitioner of instantaneous conversion...")

("One day, in order to get a class discussion going, sociology professor Tony Campolo asked his students what some of the world's great religious leaders might have said about prostitution. The discussion was lively and intense. He was setting up the class to evangelize, and when he felt that the time was ripe, he asked what seemed to be the crucial question...")

"About ten years ago Philip Hyde wrote an interesting book, called The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. In it, he teases the idea of 'gift' out of the clutches of the 'economy'. True gifts, he argues, can not be repaid. If a gift can be repaid, it’s an investment. That’s not bad, just different..."

("It was an invitation that I couldn’t refuse. Oh, I had received lots of invitations in my lifetime; invitations to weddings, invitations to parties, invitations to fund raising gatherings for religious organizations and political parties. But never an invitation quite like this one...")

"HOW DO YOU PROVE that your uncle killed your father on his way to seizing both a crown and a sister-in-law for himself? Hamlet decides that a bit of drama called 'The Mouse-trap' might be the way to 'catch the conscience of the king.'..."

("I had a friend once who had struggled for years with feelings of inadequacy. He had tried so hard to earn a sense of worth by out-achieving and out-competing other people. But every time, he told me, it turned out to be just like cotton candy...")

"Howard Thurman writes these words about love in his autobiography: 'What have I learned about love? One of the central things is the experience of being understood by another, this is of primary importance. Somewhere deep within is a place beyond any faults and virtues that has to be confirmed before I can run the risk of opening my life to another..."

("Today's gospel reminds one of the story of the cookie thief. A woman at the airport waiting to catch her flight bought herself a bag of cookies, settled in a chair in the airport lounge and began to read her book. Suddenly she noticed the man beside her helping himself with cookies from the cookie bag between them...")

"C.S. Lewis, one of the great lay theologians of the past century wrote this about our applying the word of God to the lives of other people: 'Unfortunately, we enjoy thinking about other people's faults: and in the proper sense of the word "morbid", that is the most morbid pleasure in the world..."

("In her memoir of a truly dysfunctional family, The Liar’s Club, Mary Karr tells of a Texas uncle who remained married to his wife but did not speak to her for forty years after a fight over how much money she spent on sugar. One day he took out a lumber saw and sawed their house exactly in half...")

("In a scene from the movie Ironweed the characters played by Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep stumble across an old Eskimo woman lying in the snow, probably drunk. Not too sober themselves, the two debate what they should do about her. 'Is she drunk or a bum?' asks Nicholson. 'Just a bum. Been one all her life.' 'And before that?' 'She was a whore in Alaska.'..." and other illustrations)

"Once upon a time there were three little pigs. As they set out to make their ways in the world, their pastor warned them about the dangers of associating with the Big Bad Wolf. Some of the older pigs wondered if the First Little Pig had ears to hear, because he spent his time eating, drinking, and telling stories with any stranger he happened to meet..."

("I want you to meet Tabitha. Tabitha grew up thinking she was in charge of her life. She could do what she wanted to do as long as she didn’t hurt anybody. Tabitha wanted money, she wanted love and she wanted acceptance. I don’t know if she was blessed or cursed with good looks but the older she got, the more attractive she became...")

("Vicki Collins, an English professor, shared an experience of a teacher who changed her life during high school. She says the classroom in which her teacher was teaching was located on the side of the building where a main thoroughfare of the city ran. Traffic was constant, including the sound of emergency vehicles, throughout each day....")

("The movie and book about Seabiscuit that was popular over a year ago tell the story about a horse and a trinity of his broken-down friends who all give and receive grace...")

"The movie and book about Seabiscuit that was popular over a year ago tell the story about a horse and a trinity of his broken-down friends who all give and receive grace..."

A member of our congregation might have thought we needed something better on our sign, so he sent me some pictures of Church Signs. Here are some samples. 'There are some questions that can’t be answered by Google.'..."

("Tony Campolo describes checking into his hotel in Hawaii once and trying to get some sleep. Unfortunately, his internal clock wakes him at 3:00 AM. The night is dark, the streets are silent, the world is asleep, but Tony is wide awake and his stomach is growling. He gets up and prowls the streets looking for a place to get some bacon and eggs for an early breakfast....")

"A few years ago I introduced a new element into the weddings at which I officiate. Several weeks before the ceremony I ask the couple to write each other love letters. Write privately, I tell them. Don’t show the letter to anyone, not even to each other. Just seal it in an envelope and give it to me. And then I ask them if I can select excerpts from their letters to read as a part of the wedding sermon..."

("Harvey Cox’s first call was to Seoul, Korea. He was going to have a very specialized ministry in that he was going to minister to the street prostitutes of Seoul. After seven years, it finally happened, and God got through to the heart of…Harvey Cox. You see, Harvey had been working with the prostitutes but he felt that he was one, two, or three cuts above them..." and another illustration about Les Miserables)

My personal favorite of this type of shows was the Survivor series. I hardly ever watched the show. One didn't need to. The morning radio DJ's covered the entire night the next morning on the air. The basic premise of this show was to be the last one on the island. To be the last person left, one had to make alliances, break alliances, prove themselves worthy in the eyes of others, and vote just right at the end of each week to continue to survive. One might think this set-up would bring out the best in people. It did not. It tended to bring out the worst. The reason it brought out the worst is because each person was in it for themselves. Each person wanted that big prize at the end. They also wanted the prestige. They wanted to be noticed by people. They wanted people to stop and say, "Do you know who that was that just walked by?" This question may sound similar to what Jesus asks the disciples, but it is not...

("Let me introduce you to a can, it is dented can. I think that once, not long ago, these kinds of tins would have been sold off, cheap. I can remember going into supermarkets and there would be large bins with these tins in for people to buy. And there would be sign on the bin that read, 'Damaged Goods'...")

"Cori’s mom grew up during the Depression. Her family was poor, like much of the rest of the country, but they had a vegetable garden that kept them from starving. Strangers passing through town in search of work were welcome at their table. They never turned anyone away hungry. One day, her father brought home a man named Henry..."

("My mother shared with me an email she received with this 'Affirmation for Today', by an unknown author. In part it reads: 'Today I will find the grace to let go of resentments of others and self-condemnation over past mistakes. Today I will not try to change, or improve, anybody but me...")

("Do you remember the musical The Music Man? Professor Harold Hill came to a small town in the Midwest to sell musical instruments. He gets the town's attention by pointing out the trouble a pool hall could cause, 'Ya got trouble in River City, Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with P that stands for pool.'...")

("Robinson Crusoe, as you remember, was shipwrecked on an Island and befriended the one other living person on the Island, a person whom he named Friday. They got along fine helping one another and Friday even learned to speak English. However one night around the fire, Robinson Crusoe wanted to teach Friday about God..." and other illustrations)

("Paul Tillich when commenting on this passage aks some pertinent questions: 'Why do children turn from their righteous parents and husbands from their righteous wives, and visa versa? Why do Christians turn away from their righteous pastors? Why do people turn way from righteous neighborhoods?...")

("One way we talk about it is in psychological terms with words like persona and shadow. Our word for person comes from the Greek word persona. Persona means mask and the word comes from the mask worn by actors in ancient Greek and Roman drama...")

("A young boy and his dad were returning home from a shopping mall, and the boy had acted badly, running off, being uncooperative, wanting this and that, etc. He could tell his father was in a bad mood, and he tried to broach the subject of his behavior. 'When we ask God to forgive us when we are bad,' he asked, 'He does, doesn’t he?'...")

("Stephen Glenn tells the story about his experience with one of his teachers. Her name was Miss Hardy. She was his teacher in the fifth grade. Glenn was a 'learning-disabled child'. He suffered from Dyslexia. Each of his elementary teachers passed him on to the next grade, including their observations of him as a 'learning-disabled' child...")

("Jo Claire Hartsig tells the story about nine-year-old Bess Sannino who had her home broken into. When her Virginia Beach home was vandalized, some of her favorite personal items were stolen. The home was also pelted with raw eggs and graffiti was sprayed on the garage door. The family was in shock and their first reaction was to get revenge...")

("There was once a candymaker who made candy in the shapes of animals and birds of different colors and sizes. When he sold his candy to children, they would begin to quarrel with words such as these: 'My rabbit is better than your elephant, but it is tastier.'..." and another short illustration)

("Our son, Rolf, is named after a Jewish man who had a major impact on us at an early point in our married life, When my wife and I first met him, we were the products of a sheltered, Anglo-Saxon environment which had exposed us to few prejudices. For that matter, racial diversity was a concept unknown to us...")

("A man in retirement decided to visit as many cemeteries as possible to see the uniqueness of the tombstones. After his travel, he put together a slide show of the many unique tombstones he found. At each show, someone would ask what was the most impressive one. He always saved the answer to last..." and another illustration)

(Puppet Script by Louise Ferry)

("The story is told of a father and his teenage son who had a relationship that had become strained to the point of breaking. Finally the son ran away from home. His father, however, began a journey in search of his rebellious son. Finally, in Madrid, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in the newspaper...")

("On Nov. 19, 1863, Pres. Abraham Lincoln stood on the battlefield at Gettysburg to dedicate a portion of that land as a national cemetery. The featured speaker of the day was Edward Everett, acclaimed as possibly the greatest classical orator of his time. A former United States senator, Governor of Massachusetts and President of Harvard University, he spoke for more than two hours to an audience of over 25,000 people...")

("There was a man who lived alone and wanted company so he went into a pet store looking for a pet bird. The owner of the pet store showed him several canaries. Then he showed him a talking bird. The talking bird was $600, a lot more than the man wanted to pay, but the owner talked him into buying the bird for company...")

("Alan Calhoun, Bristol, Connecticut told of a garage sale he and wife had a year or so ago. They had decided to put out a mirror they’d received as a wedding gift. The reason they were selling it was that it had a gaudy aqua-colored metal frame and they just couldn’t find a room in their house where it looked good...")