Proper 20C, 18 September 2022. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1. The summer is ended and we are not saved.
1 Timothy 2:1-7. “First of all, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone.
Luke 16:1-13. You cannot serve God and wealth.

O God of love, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Welcome to this grand sanctuary, this haven of beauty, whether it is surrounding you because you are here in person, or you’re seeing it online again through the lenses of cameras. Welcome to this magnificent community whose mission is to welcome you, no matter how long you’ve been here, no matter how long you’ve been away, and wherever you are on your spiritual journey, even and especially if you are not in such a good place! Welcome to a gathering of people whose mission is also to love you just the way you are and love you too much to let you stay that way! Welcome to a church that is very likely to change you for the better. Welcome to a worship service in which the readings are usually challenging and sometimes confounding, the prayers of the people are often disturbing, and the music is reliably lovely! Welcome to a community long on questions and short on answers, and yet, one where one beggar can always show another beggar where to get some bread. Although we may have been apart for a time, this is not, “Welcome back”; this is, as I like to say, “Welcome forward”.

So, about those challenging and confounding readings. Jeremiah reports what we already know: the summer is ended, and we are not saved. As I said last week, the voice of the Divine, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, is addressing those in positions of authority, those with access to power and wealth, who could save the people. The voice of the Divine is in anguish over the distress of the people, who are suffering and oppressed by those who claim to live by God’s commandments, who believe they “have strapped on the full armor of God,” [1] but who are entirely focused on their own gains, who are willing to increase their positions of power and wealth at the expense of, and by the mistreatment of, those who are less well off. According to the Torah, they are breaching the covenantal relationship; they are not loving their neighbors; they are not caring for the most vulnerable; they are not providing for the aliens in their land. The voice of the Divine laments that there are not enough tears to weep over the calamity they have caused. “Because my people are shattered, I am shattered, I am seized by desolation,” says the Holy One.

The voice of the Divine asks the rhetorical question: “Is there no balm in Gilead?” The answer is yes, of course there is. Gilead was a major trading center for balm, a resin used for pain relief; so there was plenty of balm in Gilead. “Is there no physician there?” The answer is, of course, there are many physicians. “Then why has the health of my poor people not been restored?” The answer comes in the verses after our passage for today: “Because people have grown strong for falsehood and not for truth. They deceive their neighbors, cheat one another, and speak lies. Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit; they refuse to know me,” says the Holy One.

I think we know that is true in our own context. The summer is over and poor people are not being properly cared for; nearly everyone’s patience and skin has been stretched very thin by the last few years. I feel like many of us need to be re-socialized. We need to re-learn how to be kind, gentle, and forgiving with people again, because the summer might be over, but the pandemic is not; the climate crisis is not; and the political deceits, conceits, and shenanigans are not; but there are glimmers of hope.   St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Martha’s Vineyard rallied folks to care for refugees, who were treated as human pawns in the political fight over immigration of asylum seekers. Did you see that good news this week? I loved that they recruited the AP Spanish class at their high school to help interpret!

Our passage from the epistle of Timothy is urging prayers for kings and others in high positions of government. This instruction is presumably directed to people who do not wish to pray for those in power, presumably because those in power are trampling on those who are poor or needy. Pray for those in high places, the letter urges; pray that their hearts will turn, that their minds will change, that they will care for the people with whose well-being they are entrusted. Perhaps you’ve seen the meme from Presbyterian minister Mark Sandlin, who writes: “After close study, I have concluded that Jesus believed there are two kinds of people: your neighbors, whom you are supposed to love, and your enemies, whom you are supposed to love.”

Both of our first two readings are hard, but they pale in comparison to our Gospel portion, which seems to be celebrating dishonesty. When you heard it, did you think, “Wait. What?” Yes, this appears to be Unjust Steward Day in the church! Is it possible that Jesus was really telling a story celebrating dishonesty and injustice? Are any of you hoping that I will pull a translation trick out of this pulpit? Alas, my powerful decoder ring is no match for this story. Even Biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine, in the Jewish Annotated New Testament, warns that this “parable defies any fully satisfactory explanation.” [2] Was Jesus serious or being sarcastic about praising dishonesty? Was he making his followers laugh? The verse right after our reading for today tells us that people who loved money ridiculed Jesus when they heard about his teaching. In response to their ridicule, Jesus said, “You know, you justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts.”

I wonder, when we spend time wrestling with the inscrutable parable, if we are avoiding the clarity of the conclusion. The conclusion to this and Luke’s other parables, and the teaching in Luke’s second volume, Acts of the Apostles, is that money, riches, possessions, and property are to be shared in common for the good of the community. That’s the Torah value; that’s the Gospel value. The parable may defy any fully satisfactory explanation, but the conclusion is as clear as a bell. You cannot serve (literally slave for) God (Who is love, mercy, and compassion) and Mammon, that is wealth, money, riches, possessions, property. You might know that Mamonas or Mammon, was the name of the Syrian God of money or property. The context is this: the writer of the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles is deeply concerned about the corrupting effect of wealth. We know right from the beginning of Luke that it’s not going to go well for rich people in the realm of God. The Magnificat, which is an updated Song of Hannah from the First Testament, proclaims that in God the hungry are filled with good things, but the rich are sent away empty. The Lukan beatitudes (or blessings) declare the opposite of a blessing upon those who are rich, for they have already received their consolation. Luke’s parables tell again and again about the proper and improper use of material resources, about foolish and faithful people with regard to material resources, about unjust and just distribution of material resources. In Luke’s second volume, Acts of the Apostles, we hear examples of the ways in which  early Jesus followers contributed to the community each according to her or his ability and received each according to his or her need. 

If you are rich by the world’s standards (and that includes most of us in this room), I encourage you to learn about Jesus from the writer of Luke, because the Gospel of John doesn’t address the dangers of wealth at all; and Mark and Matthew only have a few mentions about how the lure of wealth chokes the Word of God, or how  ridiculously difficult it is for wealthy people to experience the reign or realm of God. Luke has some things to teach us that we need to hear. The good news is that none of us has to figure this out alone; we are all in this together. What Jesus is teaching is: be faithful, be just, be honest with a little, whether it belongs to someone else or it belongs to you. Being faithful is not about what you believe; it’s about how you behave. The you here is plural; it’s not a directive for individuals. Jesus is teaching a gathering, a community. I think Jesus knows that this teaching is too hard for anyone to learn alone or live out alone.

The refrain in Luke and Acts is: “Give it away, share it widely and generously. Extend the kind of mercy and compassion that comes from the Divine.” Whenever we do that, it puts us more deeply in touch with God’s astonishing and immeasurable love. The economy of love might not be fair; it might not be pretty; it might be naïve; it might even seem unjust; but, it is God’s economy. Our authority comes from the God of Love and not from the god of wealth. In the economy of material wealth, eyes are squinting, unseeing; hands are grasping, clutching; heads are measuring, weighing; hearts are calculating, judging. To slave for wealth is to take our orders from money. In the economy of God, our eyes, hands, heads, and hearts open more and more to the surprising realization of unfathomable abundance. Indeed, while it is possible to squander wealth, it is impossible to squander Love. In in the days to come, how will you experience the freedom that comes with serving the God of Love, Whose name is too holy to pronounce, rather than from serving the god of wealth? In the next week, how will you experience the thrill of letting only the God of Love rule in your hearts? 

1. Ron DeSantis recently said this to top donors when he revealed his scheme to send migrants to Martha’s Vineyard as reported in The Washington Post, 9/15/22.
2. Amy-Jill Levine, in The Jewish Annotated New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 134.