The Neighbor Whose Food Fell on the Floor

Luke 16:19-31
Worship Through Service
September 25, 2022
Rev. William Carter

Jesus said, “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, Father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

 

Before we rush off to assume we know the meaning of the story, let me remind us of the obvious: the stories of Jesus are slippery. Often when we hear a parable, we think we know what it’s going to say. And then an electrical switch is thrown, or a trapdoor opens, or we find ourselves confused about something that once seemed so clear.

For instance, an expert in the law of Moses once asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” So the Lord spins a story about a man from Samaria who cared for a wounded traveler. Now we name hospitals after him, “The Good Samaritan Hospital.” But then, the trap door opens. We discover that the Jews of Jesus’ day wanted nothing to do with the Samaritan. When he tells that story, Jesus forces his fellow Jew to name the hypothetical Samaritan as his neighbor – and he cannot do it. And the whole story gets published in the Bible.

We are fortunate that we have Luke, the Gospel writer, as our guide. As he collects the stories that Jesus told, he frequently offers guidance in how to hear them. When we get to chapter eighteen next month, Luke will introduce one story by saying, “He told this parable about the need to pray always and not lose heart.” Now we know what he wants us to hear. And then there’s another, “He told this story to those who are arrogant and treat others with contempt.” We get the punchline before the joke. And that’s Luke speaking, not Jesus.

He does this, I believe, because a good story can have multiple meanings. It can spin off in different directions, each of them valid. There’s enough internal electricity to shock you in five or six ways.

But then there’s the story for today. It has no frame around the picture. It comes without context. We don’t know the situation that prompts it. Jesus simply ignites it like a stink bomb and lets it do its work.

Goes like this: a rich man ate like a king, died, and went to hell. A hungry man died and went to eternal life, resting on the bosom of Abraham. That’s all we know about them: one ate, the other one didn’t eat. And when their lives here were over, their situations were reversed.

Jesus doesn’t tell us why. We are left to ponder the reason. And it’s a story, too, not a description of facts. Not yet at least. Could it happen? That is God’s decision, not ours. But it gives us something to chew on.

If we know anything about the Gospel of Luke, we could hear this one coming. We heard it right after the angel told Mary that she was pregnant. The Spirit of God fills her lungs, and she bursts into song – remember that? And listen to the revolutionary lyrics that she sings: God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty (1:52-53). In other words, God is the great equalizer, if not now then later.

And when her son Jesus finds his voice, remember what he declares:

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. (6:21)

Woe to you whose bellies are full now, for you will be hungry. (6:25)

These are tough words to those who have full plates and a lot of pleasant things. And Jesus does not explain any of this. He doesn’t tell us why. He leaves it for us to chew on.

Some will remember how he speaks of a great reversal in the dominion of God. “Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last” (13:30). This sounds like God is going to mess with about our priorities, our preferences, and our privileges. It’s a reminder that God makes the rules. And God corrects all the wrongs.

And sometimes, to hear Jesus speak, he declares that we could join God in making things right. Like the day he was eating with some rich people, and he announced, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (14:11). No doubt some were stunned by his words. And others said, “Pass me another slice of chocolate cake.”

Are you hearing the context of the story that we heard today? We should not be surprised that Jesus should drop this stink bomb about the man who ate and the man who didn’t eat. And we shouldn’t be the least bit surprised when his story tells about what happened to each of them.

Yet there are two surprises in the story, hidden in the details.

First, the rich man has so much food that some of it falls on the floor. That’s a delicious little detail in verse 21. The poor man was so hungry that he would eat whatever fell from the table. We can presume he was starving to death. The neighborhood dogs took pity on him, but the rich man did not. Perhaps the rich man was so busy eating that he paid no attention to what was going on just outside his gate. Either that, or he didn’t care. It’s a haunting detail.

The second detail is worse, and it is simply this: he knew the poor man’s name, Lazarus. They were neighbors. We do not know anything more about their relationship. The rich man had a house. Lazarus slept on the street. The rich man’s peas and carrots rolled onto the floor; Lazarus starved in isolation. We don’t know how one of them prospered and the other didn’t, and that’s irrelevant to the story. The rich man knew Lazarus’s name – and he still didn’t share what he had. According to the story, they were close enough to see one another – and one of them wasn’t looking.

And when he’s burning in the flames of hell, the rich man calls out, “Father Abraham, send Lazarus to cool me off with water.” He knows him, presumes Lazarus will serve him. “Nope,” says Abraham, “it’s too late for that.”

Then the rich man calls out again, “Father Abraham, send Lazarus to warn all my brothers, so they don’t end up like me.” Again, he thinks he can direct both heaven and his poor neighbor to do as he wishes. Abraham says, “No dice. They have a Bible to warn them; let them listen to that.”

And that’s where the story ends. It doesn’t tell us what to think or what to do. We are free to dismiss it as a story. We could say, “Jesus, you set off another stinker,” and then say, “What are we going to hear next week?” But if we’ve heard the story, really heard it, it’s like a piece of Scotch tape that we cannot get off our fingers.

So trust me when I tell you that I’m not going to tell you what to do with the story. If the Word of Christ has gotten close to you this morning, you have some ideas of what to do. And you already know there is no quick fix to make everything right. There’s no simple, one-time banquet that the rich can put on for the poor, even to assuage a guilty conscience. Food justice takes continuous effort. You can feed the hungry today and they will be hungry tomorrow. And who among us is prepared to fix the deeper causes of poverty?

But here’s the thing. We are neighbors. All of us. And we must stay at it. We help as we are able because it might keep the needy alive for another day. And we help because it’s equally good for those of us who have so much. There is nothing like feeding and serving our neighbors to puncture the illusion that we are fortunate, or lucky, or blessed when others are not. That’s all an illusion. The truth is we share the same neighborhood.

Remember how Mother Mary was filled with the Holy Spirit? She sang the truth, “God has brought down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” This is how the Gospel works among us. This is how the words of Moses and the prophets come alive. We give ourselves as servants to one another. We listen to God speak on our cushioned pews – but then we do something about what we have heard.

In her study of the parables of Jesus, Amy Jill Levine says this about the story for today:

The parable suggests that the gift of eternal life in paradise is possible. “Heaven,” however understood, is ours, but it is also ours to lose. The point is not that we have to “earn” it. The point is that we uphold our part of the covenant by behaving as human beings should behave: we care for the poor; we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. If we expend everything on ourselves, then there is nothing left in our heavenly treasury. [1]

The alternative is to care. To make compassion a muscular verb. To open our gates, to set more places at our tables, and to live as neighbors. How do we do that? I don’t know; for there is no single answer. Like the stories of Jesus, there may be more than one right answer. Yet we keep at it. We persist. We live in the love of God, who gives us a world where there is enough for everybody.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
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[1] Amy Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014) 295.

The Slippery Deal Maker

Luke 16:1-8
September 18, 2022
Pentecost 15

William G. Carter  

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.


This week, two Bible study groups confirmed what I believe about this parable: that it’s a real stinker. Preachers avoid it. Teachers ignore it. It creates more trouble than it’s worth.

A wealthy landowner hears that his manager is stealing from him. Calling him in, he says, “Hand over the books. You are being relieved of your position.”

This is when we discover how greasy the manager really is. He devises a quick plan to cover his assets. Before word gets out that he is fired, one by one, he summons the people who owe his boss some rent on the estate. “How much do you owe?” If the first man says, “A hundred jugs of olive oil,” worth the equivalent of a year and a half’s salary, he says, “Cross it out, write fifty.”

He leaves, the next debtor is summoned, and he says, “I owe a hundred containers of wheat.” The manager says, “Not anymore. Cross it out and write eighty. Put it in your own handwriting.” We can expect a smile to emerge on both of their faces.

This manager is sly. He is as crafty as he is dishonest. He will cut a deal with the neighbors in the town where all of them will continue to live. And if the boss discovers these deals, he will look terrible if he goes back on the manager’s word to tell the merchants what they really owe him. That’s assuming, of course, that he actually has kept track, and had not turned over the whole matter to the manager.

The manager cannot be trusted. That was the accusation, now we have the proof. And did you hear what the boss says when he discovers the whole mess? He says, “Good for you. I have to praise you. You are really on the ball.”

That’s the parable. The Word of the Lord.

Most people want this parable to say a good bit more. They want the Boss to condemn this kind of behavior or have that crook thrown into jail. But the Boss won’t have any of it. He compliments his former employee for his shrewdness and presumably lets him off the hook. He lets him go.

It seems like Luke, the Gospel writer, wants the parable to say a good bit more. He scrambles through his collections of Jesus’ teachings, tacking on some wise words about wealth and its corrupting power. He quotes Jesus to declare, “Nobody can serve God and their stuff; it’s one or the other.” True enough, but these extra sayings have nothing to do with the heart of the story. Jesus is telling a story about a wily crook who gets away with his scam. He says it with admiration in his voice.

We know these people, don’t we? Of course we do. Part of our issue with reading this parable is that we read it in here, inside a church. But step outside the church and we see these people all the time.

A minister friend went to visit somebody at the hospital in downtown Baltimore. He was looking for a parking space near Johns Hopkins Hospital. The parking garages were full. Needless to say, so were all the spaces on the street. He circled the hospital three times, looking for something to open up. It got so bad he even resorted to praying for a parking space.

Suddenly a space opened up right in front of him. It was perfect. And he knew he could brag to family and friends about what a wonderful prayer he had offered. He pulled in and parked. He went to see the patient. The visit went well. Whistling down the steps, he returned to the car, reached in his pocket for the keys, and they weren’t there. Just then he saw the keys dangling in the ignition. He had locked his keys inside the car. He stopped and wondered what to do.

While he pondered this, a ten-year-old boy wandered up. “Something wrong, mister?” he said. My friend muttered, “I locked my keys inside the car.” The boy said, “I can help you.” He removed a long wire contraption from his pocket, jimmied it in the window, and within thirty seconds, the door was open and he handed the keys to Eugene.

He was astonished. He thanked the kid, who looked at him and said, “Is this worth a dollar to you?” My friend pulled out his wallet and said, “It’s worth two dollars.” As the kid bounded away with the money, the pastor drove away, thinking, “Here’s a kid at ten years old who already knows how to break into cars, and what a wonderful thing that he showed up right when I needed him!” Was he thinking about calling the cops and turning in the kid? No, not at all.

Step out of church when you hear this parable, and ask, “Isn’t this how the world works, isn’t it?” Years ago, a man named Dave was one of our members. He’s since transferred his membership to heaven. When he was still around here, he told me about his work as an electrical inspector in a nearby city. “Reverend,” he said, “I can’t tell you how many times I inspected a wiring job, and somebody in charge said to me, ‘I have a paper bag full of money on the countertop and I am going to walk out of the room for a few minutes. Take your time. Leave whenever you need to.”

Dave was getting up in years. I said, “Is there anything you want to confess to your pastor?” He smiled and said, “Whenever that happened, I always failed the inspection and left the bribe behind. One time I was so angry, I called the cops to complain. They sent an officer over to check it out and the paper bag disappeared.” Dave sighed and said, “That’s the way of the world.”

Jesus tells this story about a dirty rotten scoundrel who worked the system of the day. Not only did he get away with it, he was commended by the boss. He was held up as a sort of left-handed good example of what God’s people might be if they were a good bit shrewder than they are. Certainly we know people who think things to death and then never get around to doing anything.

Not this guy; he says, “My back is not strong enough to dig ditches, and I have too much pride to beg.” So he devises a slick plan to do what he wants to get done. Jesus says, “Hey church – pay attention to him. Learn from his artful cunning.”

Now the problem, of course, is that good Christian people hear this story, maybe for the first time. They grow alarmed at the morality of this dishonest manager. True enough; Jesus seems indifferent to the man’s morality. He’s one of the dramatic rogues of the stories that Jesus tells, like the cranky judge who refuses to hear another word from a persistent woman, or the man who refuses to get out of bed when his friends knocks on the door at midnight. Jesus tells stories about Jewish boys who fall down in the gutter so far that they end up tending pigs, and about solitary travelers who don’t have the good sense to avoid the lonely road to Jericho. In the next couple of weeks, we will encounter a few more of these parable characters.

Sure, the hero in our story is a crook. But this is not a story about morality. If you want morality, read the Ten Commandments. That text is clear: Thou shalt not steal. Jesus knew that one; he was there on the mountain when it was given. But that’s the Ten Commandments, not Luke 16.

Please understand: Jesus is not teaching morality in this parable. He is teaching about grace. At the outset, the Boss discovers his manager cannot be trusted. Does he throw him in jail? No. Does he make a public spectacle of the crime? No. The manager cuts a few deals with the people who owe his Boss some money. Does the Boss call a stop to it and exert his rights? No. The dishonest manager gets away with it.

It’s just like the story immediately before it. Remember what happens in chapter fifteen? A wayward son says, “Father, give me my inheritance,” an insult like saying, “I wish you were dead.” What does the father do? He gives it to him…without punishment. And when Junior slithers home, does the father judge him? No, he throws him a huge party. When the older brother refuses to dance, what does the father do? He goes out to try to bring him in, because the party is for everybody. That is grace.

This is the problem with grace. It lets people get away with things. It cancels all forms of punishment. Grace declares that God’s heart is so full of joy, that God’s life is so full of laughter, that nothing matters more than forgiving sins and uniting heaven and earth.

It’s no wonder a lot of people don’t like grace. If somebody hurts us, we want them to pay for it. If somebody offends me, we demand they apologize. But what if we simply forgave them? What if we canceled the debt? What if we stopped the chain-reaction of “he said, she said”? What if we let it go – if we gave it away – if we for-gave? That would be the same thing that God does for us . . . it would be hard thing, because it is a holy thing.

We don’t want to do the holy thing. We want to do our own thing. Maybe that’s why the human race continues in the mess that it is. Imagine what kind of shape we would be in, if we could be gracious to one another? Merciful to one another?

The Boss discovers what his manager has done, and he cuts him a break. He learns how the manager made deals with those who owed him money and continues to cut him a break. Can you imagine that? When was the last time you cut anybody a break? When was the last time the Boss cut you a break?

Let me tell you a parable. Sometime back, my wife and I parked in Row 27 at the Bloomsburg Fair. I think that’s about six miles from the main gate. But the walk was refreshing, and there were deep-fried Oreos and blue birch beer waiting for us. After tasting all the fair’s delicacies, we walked back to the car, about 9:00, on a Friday night. Looking at the traffic jam, we wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

After sitting for fifteen minutes in our perfectly-positioned getaway parking spot, some kind soul let us into the exit line. Not that it mattered; the line wasn’t moving. We inched forward, then paused. Another inch, then stop. I took momentary pity on another poor soul and let him pull in ahead of me. Nobody was moving.

Then the glacier began to budge. We began to roll ahead. But to my shock and dismay, I discovered the guy that I let in ahead of me was letting everybody in ahead of him. Why was he doing that? It is one thing to allow in one car; that’s paying ahead the favor that somebody first paid you. But to let everybody else in? Why, that would be . . . why, that would be just like God!

How gracious God is; how stingy I am.

I keep thinking about grace, and how troubling it is. The only thing that relieves me is a prayer that I pray every day. I highly recommend it. It is the one prayer that I really want to have answered. It fits every circumstance. I need to pray it every day. Goes like this: “God, be merciful to me…”

And God answers it with more grace than I could ever expect. Know what I mean?

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

The Reckless Shepherd

The Reckless Shepherd
Luke 15:1-6
Pentecost 12
September 11, 2022
William G. Carter

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”


Somebody heard this was the scripture text for today. They said, “It’s perfect! All the lost sheep have come home.” I don’t know if they were talking about the end of summer; the vacation is over, school has begun, here you are. I don’t know if they have the growing sense that the pandemic has played out, and it’s time to refill the choir loft and welcome back folks to their favorite pews.

Whatever the case, it is good to see you here. Welcome home. The coffee pot is on. We’re going to have a party.

But let's see if the text fits. You don’t look like sheep. None of you are covered in wool. And if anybody were to call you a sheep, it wouldn’t not a compliment. In the animal kingdom, sheep don’t rate very high on the intelligence scale. They aren’t sly like a fox, wise as an owl, or smugly superior as a cat. No, sheep are pretty stupid.

We had a stained-glass window in my first church. Jesus is standing with a shepherd’s staff. There were a few sheep around him and several rocks. It was time to clean up the window, so we hired a specialist. To our amazement, those weren’t rocks at all. They were the painted heads of sheep, looking about as intelligent as the rocks.

So when the psalmist describes us by saying, “We are the people of God’s pasture, the sheep of his hand” (95:7), that is not necessarily a compliment. We hold it in tension with the diagnosis of the prophet Isaiah, who declared, “All we, like sheep, have gone astray” (53:6). And he did say “all of us.”

Sheep have a way of wandering. Years ago, a good friend bought a few sheep. I don’t know what he was thinking. He lived in the suburbs of Atlanta. Maybe he fashioned himself as a gentleman farmer. In any case, he told me one of them was always escaping. It happened while they are grazing. As my friend put it, “They nibble themselves lost.” One begins to chew, chews some more, keeps chewing, and then loses track of where they are and has no clue of how they got there.

It’s not a bad metaphor for what it means to be human. Our appetites often define us. Look around – some of the flock is missing, Maybe they’re sleeping in. Or they were out late last night. Or there aren’t a lot of weekends left to float on Wallenpaupack. It can become a habit for any of us. Call it “nibbling ourselves out of the pasture.”

Three weeks ago, I was preaching an old sermon in Eagles Mere, about an hour and a half west of here. It was the last day of a two-week vacation. A few days before I went up there, I heard a couple of friends who moved away from here almost twenty years ago. They discovered I would be there. They had plans to be there. “Want to have lunch after the service?” Sure! It was delightful. We talked for almost two hours. And they said they hadn’t been in a church for years.

While we were talking, two of our current church members walked through the restaurant. I called out to them. You should have seen the look on their faces! One said, “Are you checking up on us?” The other said, “You caught us playing hooky.” Hey, let’s be real: I was playing hooky too.

We will sing it in the last verse of the next hymn: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” Yep, all we like sheep...

In the fifteenth chapter of Luke, there are some religious people who look down on such wandering. They call themselves the Pharisees, which means “the separate ones.” They profess to be different. They desire to be pure. They want so desperately to live in the light of God’s teaching, that they look down on those who have wandered away. Or have been pushed away. Or have felt like God’s teaching makes impossible demands, and they will never live up to them.

The Pharisees hear that Jesus has been spending time with the wanderers. They are offended. Why doesn’t he stay pure – like them?

And Jesus replies, “Have any of you ever had a wandering sheep?”

The Pharisees say, “No!” They would never consider themselves shepherds. Shepherds let their flocks graze on land that doesn’t belong to them. So first-century shepherds were considered thieves. Because of that, they were not welcome in the Jerusalem temple.

So Jesus goes on, “Did you ever hear about the shepherd who lost a little lamb and went after it?”

Ok, that’s admirable – for a shepherd.

And he says, “That shepherd left the rest of his flock alone in the wilderness to go after the lost one.”

Wait – that’s not admirable. That’s reckless. He’s putting the flock at risk to go after the lost one.

And then he says, “When he finds the one lost, he carries it back and throws a party.”

Whoa – a party? That’s wasteful, extravagant, and totally unnecessary. 
The sheep should have known better. The sheep should have come to its senses and come home.

But as the scholar Amy Jill Levine of Vanderbilt points out, sheep are incapable of coming to their senses. A sheep cannot “repent,” because it’s a sheep. It must be found, carried back, and celebrated.

I had always believed this was a parable about repentance, about realizing you’ve wandered, and you need to go home. Thanks to Dr. Levine, I’ve seen something else here. And it’s like the short parable that follows it, of a woman who loses a quarter and searches until she finds it. The quarter cannot repent; it’s a piece of metal. So both parables are not about getting lost and repenting; they are about getting found and being celebrated.

To reframe this whole conversation: let’s not obsess about the sheep that gets lost. That happens all the time. Let’s turn our attention to that shepherd, who risks everything to find what has been lost. Could this be a parable of the Gospel announced by Jesus?

Jesus could have played it safe, you know. He could have stayed up on a cloud and played checkers with his Father. But he leaves what was comfortable to go after those he didn’t want to lose.

He could have come to earth and stayed among the Holy People. Or rather, those who had convinced themselves they were holy. Instead he seeks out those who never thought they’d measure up and chooses to eat with them. Steps over imaginary barriers to be with them. He searches for them in order to stay with them. This is a new definition of holiness, one we will never understand if we hide out in a church. God steps out of the comfortable cloister. God goes looking for us. That’s the good news.

If only we had been paying attention when we read the first couple of pages of the Bible. Adam and Eve, our mythical parents, did something wrong and they knew it. So they hid behind a maple tree. God came strolling through the Garden and didn’t see them. So God called out, “Where are you?” Good question. An old question. It’s the question that never goes away.

Where are you? Oh, there are so many answers. Some are brunching on State Street, others are viewing from home (or say they are). Some may be sick, others disenchanted. Some are nervous about crowds; others are out of the habit of participating. Some might be having fun; others may be annoyed that nobody has found them yet. Who knows?

What I know is that God desires our company. That God desires to gather us in. God believes we are worthy of living in his presence – even to the point of celebrating our return. And it’s not merely a return to these pews or these people – it’s a return to his embrace. It’s the knowledge in heart, soul, and mind that we are loved and wanted – and that God invites us to make a positive difference in his world.

That’s why we are baptizing little Parker today. He is God’s little lamb even before he consciously knows it. Throughout the journey that he undertakes from this day forward, God will be looking for him. Should he ever nibble himself lost, God will go looking for him. Should he wake up and seek for God, that is the proof that God has already found him. His life is held by grace. This is the promise into which he is baptized. Just like the rest of us.

It’s the promise that we hear in one of the Psalms of Israel:

Is there any place I can go to avoid your Spirit? To be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there! If I go to underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, you’d find me in a minute –
You’re already there waiting. (Psalm 139:7-10, The Message)

One of the privileges of my work is hearing the stories of those lost and found. Someone told me, “I thought I had so much, but didn’t realize how impoverished I was.” That’s a good beginning. Or the person who said, “I had been wandering without purpose, but something clicked and came into focus.” Sometimes it’s the dramatic tale that goes, “My bad habits were causing major wreckage, but one night I woke up.” These days, I listen to for the subtle initiatives, like the person who said, “I don’t how I ever found this church, but here I am.” She didn’t find the church; God found her.

“I was lost but now I’m found” – that’s the plot line of one of God’s favorite stories. And if all of this is about repentance, it’s the kind of repentance that God makes possible. We can run for a while, but we can’t hide. Not really. For we are loved from beginning to end. And the good shepherd will risk everything – even a crucifixion – to make sure we know it.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

New Songs, Again

Isaiah 42:10-17
2022 Jazz Communion

September 4, 2022

William G. Carter

Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth!

Let the sea roar and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants.
Let the desert and its towns lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy, let them shout from the tops of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord, and declare his praise in the coastlands.
The Lord goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior he stirs up his fury;
he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes.

For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant.
I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbage;
I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools.
I will lead the blind by a road they do not know, by paths they have not known I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I will do, and I will not forsake them.
They shall be turned back and utterly put to shame - those who trust in carved images,
who say to cast images, ‘You are our gods.’

 

“Sing to the Lord a new song…” Here we go again! If there’s anything descriptive about jazz, anything demanding about jazz, it is the constant creation of brand-new music. This can be a common complaint, even among jazz fans. They show up at the concert, pay the ticket or cover charge, and then hear something they’ve never heard before. It happens even if they thought they new the music.

I think of the classic Miles Davis Quintet of the early 1960’s. The trumpeter had a stellar group. In the recording studio, they kept producing new music. On the bandstand, they mostly played the same old songs. Well, at least it sounded like them. Someone said, “Was that last tune, ‘My Funny Valentine’? Kind of sounded like it, but then something happened.”

Yep, that’s jazz. As I’ve said often, jazz takes perfectly acceptable songs and messes with them. So much so that they sound new.

It is an act of interpretation. The saxophonist plays a melody by making it her own. The bass player bends the note to infuse it with feeling. Old Miles Davis told his band members this is the way to make music. “Never play anything straight,” he said. Make it your own. Give it your own spin. Freshen it up. Bring it alive. Musically, that approach is as old as Louis Armstrong.

Spiritually, that’s as old as the Bible. One of the remarkable things about the Bible is that it keeps interpreting itself. Nothing is ever stated and then left alone. Moses said, “Love your neighbor,” and Ezra responded, “Does he mean the Gentiles?” The prophets elucidated, “Love the poor, welcome the stranger, befriend the foreigner.” Then the religious expert asked, “But who is my neighbor?” to which Jesus said, “Let me tell you about a generous Samaritan.” Faith is a conversation, a ongoing conversation that moves forward if it is alive.

Did you ever have a conversation that you thought was going one direction, and then it went somewhere else? If not, stop by and have coffee. Who knows where the conversation will go? That’s jazz, that’s Bible, that’s life with a future – it keeps unfolding and we have to make it our own.

Not only does a new song come from interpretation. It bubbles forth from imagination! This is the gift of God who has made us in the divine image. Who is the most creative person in the Bible? It’s the Creator. The One who makes everything. The One who calls on us to sing along with the new song.

Next in the creative line are the prophets of God. They regularly work the metaphors of imagination. Like the prophet Isaiah! In the poem we heard today, God “cries out like a woman in labor.” It’s loud, it’s forceful. It’s frightening. Have you ever been with a woman in the last minutes of giving birth? She might grab your wrist so hard she leaves a five-fingered bruise, and then she will yell at you. Birth is not gentle. It can take a while. yet in the end, you have something new – a new soul, a new hope. Or in our case, a new song.

What’s so astonishing about this newness is that it’s given to people who have been diminished for a good, long time. Isaiah speaks to those who are stuck. Their country is in a shambles, their smart kids have gone away, their treasured institutions have been shaken, and life as they known it has been on lockdown. And to them God shouts, “Sing something new!”

It’s amazing. God doesn’t say, “Sing something old. Sing something comfortable. Sing what you know. Sing ‘Rock of Ages,’ and ‘I Come to the Garden Alone When the Dew is Still on the Roses.’” And even if we did try to turn back the clock, to sing something familiar, it might come out sounding different. The reason is clear:  God is not stuck. God is not sleeping. God is not afraid. God is alive. And God is ready to give birth.

We are in the realm of metaphors here, yet the meaning seems clear. In God, there is vitality. In God, there is abundant life, not constricted decline. That’s what we want. A spark in the air, a flash of light, a sizzle in the song. I realize sometimes we go through the motions to get through the day. And I will be the first to confess that church can be boring; ever notice that anything important can be boring? And yet, at the center of it all, we want that spark, that flash, that sizzle.

I remember the story of Charles Dickens, attending a meeting of church people. It droned on and on. People made long speeches. They repeated the speeches. There was a funeral pall in the air. Finally Dickens stood to say, “May I make a suggestion? Let us dim the lights, drape the windows, light a candle, join hands, and see if we can connect with the Living.” Because there wasn’t any life in that room!

Contrast this to how Isaiah hears the promise of God, “I will lead the blind by a road they do not know, by paths they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.” The sea will roar. The desert will rejoice. The inhabitants will sing and shout.

Didn’t we perceive this during the covid-19 pandemic? It hit all of us hard, even those who wanted to deny it. Jobs changed. Families shifted. So many things shut down. Yet what happened? Life happened. Imagination happened. Old things were interpreted in a new way. We learned new skills. We took fresh approaches. We connected with those we were neglecting. It was hard, as difficult as a pregnancy that goes on too long. But here you are, carried through all of it somehow. And you’re now live on the internet. And you’re singing! Who would have thought during the pandemic that we would ever sing? Life happens because God is alive.

And today, I shake my head to realize we’ve been jazzing up Clarks Summit for thirty years. Who would have ever imagined it? Only God, I suppose. The church organist couldn’t find a substitute and gently leaned on me. What could it hurt? It’s the last holiday hurrah of the summer. Yet the sanctuary was full. And everybody said, “Can we do this again next week?” Oh my goodness.

But listen beneath the words. All of us want to be in the presence of something Alive. All of us want to be in the presence of God. All of us who have tasted the deep joy know in our hearts that the Holy Spirit plays jazz trombone.

So thank you for being here today. Thanks to all who have been here before. We don’t do jazz every week, lest it become stale and dull. But we do keep coming for the spark in the air, the flash of light, and the sizzle in the song. And when we do, we affirm God is here. Right here, always inviting us to sing the new song.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.