Trust in the midst of darkness

 ‘…we have done only what we ought to have done!...’ (Luke 17:10)

        

Luke 17:5-10 (Year C: Trinity+19)

A lingering hope

Faith is a form of trust. Not any type of trust.

Faith is a lingering hope when all seems hopeless.

Faith is a stubborn conviction when the evidence seems thin. 

Faith is received more than it is given.

Faith is lived more than it is scripted.

Faith is grace – amazing grace – when we feel utterly lost.

Faith is the bar on which we manage to hang on.

Faith is more about a living and loving relationship of trust than intellectual assent to some doctrines (important as these may sometimes be).

And even if we should lose all faith for a while we find ourselves strangely enveloped in a kind and loving trust. Life has many twists and turns. It can happen that those things we never wanted, or expected or planned arrive and turn our little worlds upside down. One day we are healthy, full of life and dreaming dreams for the future. The next day a few of us meet an accident that leaves us with a disability for life. Disability, sickness, death is always for others – so we think. It would never happen to me. But, everyday billions of people face a new day not knowing what lies ahead. Whether it is health or sickness, trouble or joy, sadness or liberation we live by faith. Those of us who have found peace in the faith of Jesus Christ can only boast of one thing, viz, faith met us in our darkest hour when no light seemed possible or visible. (It is no accident that the gospels are full of images of darkness and light).

But faith is a choice never a compulsion or imposition. At some point we are open to faith in that quiet spot somewhere beyond the horizon of our imaginings and not infrequently in a time of darkness. Many are those who receive faith and stay with it throughout their lives in simplicity of heart. They are blessed. Still others meet faith after many years of bitterness and struggle at a time and place least expected.

A living faith

Faith is not something static or fixed.  The mere fact that the friends of Jesus asked him: ‘increase our faith’ (v. 5) shows that faith is something living, growing and changing. Compared to a tiny mustard seed (v.6) we picture an image of growth from something tiny, fragile, precarious to something large, solid and welcoming. To look for an increase in something means that what is there now is less than complete or satisfactory. We, too, can and should ask in simplicity of heart ‘increase our faith’. Not, in the first place, by means of vast reading and intellectual discourse. The intellect has its place and we are urged to love God with ‘all our mind’. However, the ‘heart’ is where faith is born and nurtured. It can also be a place where it is lost for a while through care, worry, pain or the result of abuse.

Opening the doors of trust

In our 21^st century ‘first world’ millions seek peace, meaning, belonging. There is a thirst and a void. And many seek peace outside the traditional places of worship or ritual. They turn to the East. Or, they turn to the depths of their own hearts where peace can be experienced in the gentle streams …. Today, empty churches and ageing or dying congregations need to open their doors – literally – to allow others to come in, stay awhile and speak while some of us exercise a ministry of deep listening without questioning, without judging and without presuming to know what is best. We are merely caretakers of trust springing up in surprising places. We have merely ‘done only what we ought to have done!’ (v. 10).

And amazing things can happen when people are given space to listen. Trust is established not on our terms but on God’s terms in ways we never imagined. With trust the size of a mustard seed (or a micro-chip, to use a 21^st image) we can say see miracles around us – lives saved, misery transformed and people empowered to live in a new way never imagined possible. It all starts at the darkest hour just before the dawn. At such a time a spontaneous prayer springs up inspired by the petition for our ‘daily bread’ in the prayer of Our Father:

Give us the strength to live our daily calling; to face darkness, uncertainty and pain with courage and love. 

The Comforter of the Afflicted and the Afflicter of the Comfortable

 ‘…but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony...’ (Luke 16:25)

Pic:     Homeless man sculpture outside Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin.     

Luke 16:19-31 (Year C: Trinity+18)

A discomforting story

If, like me, you find the story of the rich man and Lazarus just slightly discomforting it may be that we are really listening while reading and hearing – no matter how many dozens of times we have heard that same story read.  In the gospel of Luke we find mercy – mercy for the excluded, mercy for those gone astray, mercy for those in need.  However, the gospels are not all comfort for the afflicted. There is the possibly embarrassing and awkward fact of discomfort – for the comfortable. Earlier in Luke (6:24-25) in the Sermon on the Mount we hear:

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.  Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

The point, here, as well as elsewhere throughout the scriptures is not that wealth or material goods are bad in themselves. Rather, it is how we use these goods since these belong to God who is the ultimate source and creator of all creation and since, in the heart of God, there is a special (some would say ‘preferential’) place for the poor. And ‘poor’ means poor and not just some vague reference to people in need.

Who are the comfortable in today’s world and who is poor?  It all depends on what comparison is being made. If someone can get up in the morning without having a lost a night’s sleep worrying about how to feed the children until next Thursday they are blessed. If someone can be sure of getting essential treatment in a hospital without giving up all their savings they are blessed. If someone can read, write and participate in society they are blessed. If someone can be reasonably assured about an adequate income after retiring from a job – in so far as anyone can be regarding the future – they are blessed. I say ‘blessed’ rather than ‘lucky’ even though economic and social arrangements are often a matter of luck (with the saying ‘choose your parents wisely’ being relevant here).

Does the story of the rich man and Lazarus provide grounds for neurosis? “Should I give away 10% or 60% of all my belongings to avoid the fate of Lazarus?”. “Am I doomed anyway so why not just live it up by having 5 cruise holidays a year?” “Should I walk down O’Connell Street in Dublin with a wallet dispensing liberally to the dozens of homeless people who sleep nearby every night and beg during the day?” No matter how some of us might try we are merely offering scraps from our abundant tables. Yet, not only is ever scrap important but each person who experiences compassion by giving or receiving is important. In his commentary on the Gospel of Luke the popular writer, William Barclay wrote:

Food was eaten with the hands and, in very wealthy houses, the hands were cleansed by wiping them on hunks of bread, which were then thrown away. That was what Lazarus was waiting for.

Poverty today

A huge amount of food and other produce is wasted each day. We live in a throw-away society where we pay for plastic bags only to have many products wrapped in plastic and other material which lasts centuries. Many people are crying out for the essentials of food, clothing, heating and some means to participate with dignity in the community. According to the latest Central Statistics Office data just over one in ten children in one of the wealthiest places on earth – the Republic of Ireland – live in ‘consistent poverty’ while one in three experience some form of enforced material deprivation.

If the story of Lazarus gives cause to be slightly troubled and self-questioning even for a few seconds then it has achieved its purpose! However, we need to guard against a religion of neurosis. A religion of neurosis – especially in times past – was a powerful destroyer of spiritual life leaving many vulnerable to discouragement and obsessive behaviour.  God was portrayed as a remote, obsessive and severe tyrant who had to be pleased by acts of penance by us poor, miserable sinners. There is, however, a religion of complacency which is the twin of a religion of neurosis. A religion of complacency reduces the gospel to a set of pious moral platitudes and guidelines – a kind of comfort blanket when times are difficult and a fall-back ‘just in case’. In this case, God is reduced to a benign and absent parent who couldn’t care less as long as we didn’t bother him too much. But, God cares too much to allow himself to be manipulated by human design and distortion. The very name, Lazarus, or Eleazar in the Hebrew means God has helped.  Through Lazarus God can help the rich person to find true riches. Day after day Jesus – in the poor – stands at our door waiting to be heard, to be welcomed and to be joined in a struggle to rid the world of the unjust roots of violence and poverty.  There is joy in giving and this is the theme of Zacchaeus in the 19^th chapter Luke when the rich taxpayer willingly and happily gave half of his wealth to the poor (at least Zacchaeus said that he would do though Luke did not report the outcome!).

Enforced poverty is not a virtue

The story challenges us to think about our world and about our lives and relationships to others. We are, all of us, blessed in some way. Indeed, a surfeit of material goods and claims on wealth might be a curse in disguise. The more we have the more we stand to lose if circumstances change. However, there is no denying that those benefitting from education, health, income and wealth including a place you can call home are blessed.  The line that poverty is good for people and that a bit of belt-tightening is salutary is all very well for comfortable people to pronounce on. Even those who courageously give their lives to the Lord by vows of chastity, poverty and obedience are not untypically ‘unpoor’ by virtue of access to community services, health and a stop gap should anyone fall sick, old or incapacitated. Religious communities can be like mini societies ordered on socialist and egalitarian principles except that in many though not all cases you don’t get to vote out or vote in the leaders!  The point, here, is that poverty is relative and it is as much to do with security as one’s place in a pecking order of measurable wealth and income.

Finding real security

But, where we do find real security?  The rich man in this story of Luke was looking for material security in this life as well as security of another type in the life after. Like modern-day Christians, Jews of the 1^st century were keen to ‘make it to the other side’. The rule is very simple – love God with all your heart and your neighbour as yourself while we still have the light of day and the means to do so. A time will come when the very possibility of reaching to others in love will be taken from us.

Getting our priorities right

 ‘…You cannot serve God and wealth...’ (Luke 16:13)

        Pic: Sea Point Methodist Church. ZA    

Luke 16:1-13 (Year C: Trinity+17)

Happier and wealthier?

Recently, in the Republic of Ireland, the value of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by an estimated 26% in one year.  The calculation was correct according to a new set of international statistical rules.  However, nobody believes that we were all suddenly happier, richer and healthier by as much as 26% in the space of a 12 month period.  Likewise, as many earn more, grow a business or a career or move up the ranks in an organisation they are not necessarily happier or healthier as a result.  Improving economic wealth and distributing it more fairly is a noble calling directed to each of us.  Money – a store of ‘market value’ and unit of account is necessary and important. Nobody has figured out, yet, how to abolish it!  There is, however, a truth that all our working, striving, giving and receiving does not have meaning in the quantitative measure society, economists, statisticians or others put on such activity.  Turning thing around we need to see the value of our work and our command of financial resources as a good we help create around us and the way in which we help sustain this precious planet for ourselves and for the generations to come (and please God there will be).

Love people; use money

Money is something that we should use to provide life, joy and meaning. People are to be loved while money is to be used responsibly. In practice economies, businesses and politics are run the other way round: people are used and money along with power is loved. The experience of a sharp economic downturn in 2008-2009 took many of us by complete surprise. We had grown up in a relatively stable world where economic downturns were short-lived interludes between bursts of fast economic growth. Many of us had been lulled into a false sense of security that the depressions of the past could never happen again. That the global recession of 2008-2009 was not as traumatic and devastating as the great depression of 1929-1930 was more due to deliberative monetary and fiscal policy responses in 2009. However, the experience of losing jobs, enduring pay cuts or pay freezes and seeing an erosion in various public goods and services was shocking. Along with that, here in Ireland, we saw a resumption of emigration among the young robbing town and country of young blood.

Like the steward in today’s passage from Luke we had to juggle finances, debts and various relationships including business and personal.  Luke’s steward was, essentially, a first century debt collector in a suit acting on behalf of an oil snake vulture fund seeking to make more money out of other people’s money.  But, this is not the main point of Luke’s story. The steward’s business shrewdness was an example of how the ‘children of light’ should use tact and kindness in advancing the kingdom of God in complete contradistinction to the kingdom of darkness where grubby deals happen and money is a god and people don’t matter. About such realities W.B. Yeats wrote in his poem September 1913:

What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone….

Let’s say there was a cut for the steward, another slice for the master and then a slice for Rome. Sounds familiar?  The steward in Luke’s story wrote off some of the debts owed by others not for love of his debtors but in order to win friends in key places as he was in debt and under financial pressure from his creditors.  The steward was a shrewd and clever bondholder who burned himself to a significant extent in order to curry favour with those who might give him a dig-out if the steward’s bondholders burnt the steward.

Recent economic history

Financial markets and transactions have changed a lot in the course of 2,000 years since the gospel of Luke was written but not that much in so far as a lot of wheeling and dealing is done on the basis of mutual reciprocity, trust and networks. Some theorists call it ‘social capital’. In the days leading up to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 as well as the Night of the Long Bailout in Ireland later that month there was much positioning, frantic calls, threats and assurances. It was surely a case of ‘the children of this age’ being more ‘shrewd in dealing with their own generation than … the children of light.’ (Luke 16:8). The subsequent and continuing devastation in terms of business closures and loss of income was widespread throughout the advanced economies. Though the seeds of the crisis were sown, in part, through a lack of effective and just regulation it was also in the presence of disordered appetites and reckless behaviour that played havoc with the lives of millions. Have lessons been learned and changes made so that ‘next time it will be different’?  Time will tell.

We still have a little time

In this life we have been given a precious but limited window of opportunity to work with others in this precious natural and human-made environment for the common good and the glory of God. In past times, most Christians along with other thought of the Earth as a place in which we subdue nature.  It was as if we had a divine freedom to thrash the earth and lash the animals – so to speak.  We understood ourselves as stewards of Grace but the duty of stewardship of the natural environment got little or no attention. Rather, it was there to be exploited. A growing awareness of environmental degradation and the role of human behaviour in this regard has propelled Christians to work with others to effect fundamental change in the way we live, consume, travel, work and farm.  There is still time, perhaps, to ‘save the planet’. This work of saving involves individual as well as collective action.  However, the first step to recovery is acknowledgment of the truth.  Today’s Gospel reading challenges us to put God first instead of ‘Mammon’. For ‘Mammon’ read GDP, my own income, possessions, material security and comfort. The point is that we have been gifted with many of these things and more besides but for a purpose. At the end of our busy and hectic lives we will be called to account – like the steward delegated with stewardship of his manager’s property.

God has only one name and it is mercy

‘…there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance ..’ (Luke 15:7)

                    Pic: Rembrandt: The return of the prodigal son      

Luke 15:1-32 (Year C: Trinity+16)

My favourite story

I have a confession to make. The story of the Prodigal Son is my favourite story from the Bible. Each of us owns our own little personal story and just as we might have our favourite tune, poem or spot on the globe.  And why not have, each of us, our little favourite story from the Bible. The favourite story is true in a special and personal way to each one as it speaks to us in a way that is deeply meaningful, relevant and moving. I say ‘moving’ because that’s what stories are for – to move the hearer as well as the teller.  Statistics, theorems and blogs don’t have quite the same impact as a story about someone, somewhere and what happened and who said what and how people responded and felt and expressed this.  Good communicators in the world of media or entertainment understand this point well. And that is why a ‘parable’ may be more ‘true’ and meaningful than any dry recitation of facts and events in which personal communication, thought, feeling and action are missing. It also explains why ‘soaps’ are so popular in the 21^st century. They mirror back to us in some very distorted and imperfect way what we are wondering, feeling, thinking, hoping, fearing, suffering and enjoying.  Many TV soaps are bad parables but parables nonetheless. They tell or hint at something about the person who imagined the soap and the people who watch it night after night on box-set.

So, the Prodigal Son is my favourite story. And I am not going to say why! That would only lead to another ‘story’ which would not belong here! And guess what? The Prodigal Son Story is unique to Luke, among the four Gospels.  Luke just loves mercy stories and stories about the wayward, the marginalised, the poor, the outcasts, women, gentiles and all sorts and classes of persons that do not fit the high echelons of society at the time he wrote up the stories about and from Jesus.

Line by line

Let’s hear the story again for the thousandth time. I follow the line-by-line commentary from the Fourth Sunday of Lent blog here:

‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them.  A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.’ (v. 11-13)

How would any parent feel about a child doing a ‘runner’ with their precious savings?  We can assume that the Father was at least surprised, annoyed, resentful when this happened. But he ought to have known before hand given his youngest son’s character. While you can’t predict someone’s actual behaviour in advance you can guess a range of possible scenarios.  We are talking here of an ordinary human being in a story about human beings which sets the scene for a story about a heavenly father.  Note the absence of women in this story from start to finish (except by reference to women of ill-repute when the prodigal son was abroad). This is a classical scene from a patriarchal society where women do not feature when it comes to money, power and division of assets. 

When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. (v. 14-16)

The winds of personal recession…

The younger son fell on hard times. It happens. We all make mistakes. If we have not made mistakes when we were younger how would we learn? But, hold on wait for what is coming next….

But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!  I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’”  So he set off and went to his father. (v.17-20a)

The traditional reading of the Prodigal Son is based on the idea that the prodigal son realised his mistakes, repented and returned to the Father.  But, there is another way of reading this story even if it is much less the assumed one – the son was cunning and clever enough to realise that when the money runs out the money runs out and the options are dire.  This son knew that his father was a bit of a push-over?  Did he gamble on pulling a fast one and putting on a repentance and self-humiliation scene? What was there to lose by giving it a try?  There are enough hints in the story to not exclude this possibility.  But, either way, the son returned and he was met by a compassionate father who took the initiative to meet him more than half ways. Read on…

But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.  Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate. (v.20b-24)

A show of mercy

Well that was some scene in front of everyone!.  Just imagine this disgraceful and disgraced son who turns up out of the blue and publicly abases himself in remorse.  The neighbours, cousins, friends and local persons of note must have been dumbfounded. ‘Well, who would have thought?’. Perhaps we could imagine some wondering if this was just a show (it is a parable after all). The father is, indeed, a soft-hearted old man. He saw his son far off and ‘was filled with compassion’.  He must have been thinking of him night and day and wondering was his son alive, well and in one piece. A first century parable didn’t allow for skype, email, mobile phones and facebook messenger. But, here in this moment of strong emotion and bonding the father immediately accepts his son without question, without interrogation, without conditions, without reserve, without hesitation. This was man-to-man stuff and Father-to-son work. The father ‘put his arms around him and kissed him’ not afraid to show his emotions. To Northern Europeans this seems sloppily southern European or eastern European!  Except on the sports field, showing emotions like that especially among men and among male family members is difficult for some of us in colder climates! But, back to the story…

‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.  He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.  He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.”  Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.  But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” (v.25-30)

Trouble brews over wounded pride and family jealousy

Oh Oh. Enter the other son.  Many a family feud has started over questions of honour, pride, inheritance and favours. The eldest son was furious: why should he who had been the loyal, respectable and obedient son be treated the same as or even not as well as the younger irresponsible brother? It was a fair question but one that missed the point of the story – the one who was lost and found deserves a double celebration. This can be a hard one to swallow especially if there is a hint of manipulation on the part of the prodigal son who weighed up his options and decided that offering himself as a hired servant was a least worst option.  We may note that the elder son refers to his younger brother not as a brother but ‘this son of yours’ (v.30).  How often do we use language to put a distance between ourselves and particular others especially when relationships are frayed or sundered?

But, in responding to the very understandable anger and astonishment of the older son we are confronted with a very different and disruptive logic. The logic and metrics of God-love are very different to ours. Notions of merit, proportional reward and punishment for past wrong doing (even when someone has repented) are very different in the kingdom of God. This is why the kingdom of God is an alien and distant place for many in society and even, sometimes, in our very own churches.

Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”’

The Father’s response is firm but gentle and affirming to the second son. There is a place for everyone at God’s table including those who believe themselves to have been faithful all their lives. But, there is a special place for those who feel awkward, excluded, judged and unsure. This is not about ‘opening the floodgate’ to everyone and anything. It is about the practice of a compassionate reaching out to those who come to us in search of meaning, understanding, acceptance, inclusion and encouragement in their journey. Are we up to this challenge? If we are honest with ourselves we will admit that we are the prodigal daughters and sons who need acceptance, understanding and encouragement. We receive these gifts when we are ready to given them to other prodigals. There is no shame in forgiving or in being forgiven. Rather, shame is a sign of hurt that is not healed. 

I have no other God but Mercy

Has anyone of us had the experience of hearing or sensing a gesture of profound kindness and mercy in another human being? If so, then whether we know it or not we have been touched, in that very moment and place, in a utterly powerful and life-shaping way by God-who-is-mercy. The compassionate heart of God was revealed to us in the few gestures, looks, words and silences. Enough!  God is mercy. I have no other God.