August 8, 2013

“Are Your Barns Full of I’s?” 08.04.2013 Sermon

By Bishop Craig Schweitzer

Luke 12:13-21 • August 4, 2013

Click here to view a video recording of this sermon.

Brothers and sisters in Christ grace and peace to you from God our Father and Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

I hope you were paying attention during the gospel reading today. If you were, hearing this good news may sting just a little – even if you aren’t fighting with a relative over an inheritance or worried about what you are going to do with all of your success as the result of being the most amazing farmer to ever live on planet earth.

We live in a time and place and culture that makes it difficult for us to wrap our heads around just how much wealth is available to us. And the challenge that I think we face as people who seek to follow Jesus is how do we remain faithful to our life in Christ in the midst of wealth.

Economist and Historian, Robert Heilbroner challenged his students studying economics to do a little exercise. Heilbroner hoped that it would help students who had lived their entire life in a first world nation like the United States to better understand the wealth that was before them and how easy it is for this wealth to consume them. He challenged them to try and imagine living their lives in the same way as one and a half billion people in the world do. The way that 1,500 million of God’s beloved children live each and every day of their lives – yes, even today in 2013.

– First, he said, take all the furniture out of your home, except one table and a couple of chairs. Use a blanket and pads for a bed.
– Take away all of the clothing except each person’s oldest dress, pants, shirt, blouse and coat. Only one pair of shoes per person.
– Empty the pantry, the refrigerator and the freezer of all food except for a small bag of flour, some sugar and salt, a few potatoes and onions, and some dried beans.
– Dismantle the bathroom, shut off the running water, and remove all the electrical wiring in your house.
– Better yet, let’s take away the house itself and move your family into the garden shed in the backyard.
– Move out of your neighborhood into a ghetto of makeshift buildings and mud streets.
– Cancel all subscriptions to newspapers and magazines and get rid of all your books. This is no great loss, since none of you can read anyway.
– Get rid of TVs, cellphones, computers and all other electronic gizmos. Leave one radio for the entire community.
– Move the nearest hospital or clinic to at least a day’s walk away. Replace the doctor with a midwife.
– Throw away all your bank accounts, stock portfolios, pension plans and insurance policies. Your family has $10 of cash hidden in an empty coffee can.
– Give yourselves a few acres to grow crops on, from which you earn $500 a year. Pay a third of that in land rent and 10 percent to loan sharks.
– Lop off at least 25 years of your life expectancy.

(Robert Heilbroner, “The Great Ascent,” Chapter 2, numbers adjusted for inflation)

By Hielbroner’s comparison, most of us sitting in this worship space today are among the richest people in the world. And it is as rich people that I think you and I are being invited to listen to Jesus today.

Someone once asked John D. Rockefeller “How much wealth does it take to satisfy a person?” To which he replied, “Just a little bit more.”

“MORE” VIDEO

Brothers and sisters, please don’t hear me trying to guilt you into thinking wealth is a bad thing. Wealth is not necessarily wrong or sinful, according to Jesus, but it can expose problems that are. And the primary problem with wealth for those who seek to follow Jesus is revealed when wealth, and acquiring more and more of it, becomes the sole focus of our existence. Instead living out our life in Christ by loving our neighbor as ourselves, we end up loving only ourselves and completely ignore our neighbor.

Saint Augustine said that God gave us people to love and things to use, and sin, in short, is the confusion of these two things.

There’s a great Jimmy Stewart movie from the 1965 called Shenandoah. I’ve always been fond of this Civil War film because my dad was an extra in it. Jimmy Stewart plays a crotchety old farmer that in many ways resembles the farmer in Jesus’ parable today. Here’s how Jimmy Stewart’s character Charlie Anderson prayed at every meal.

“ME PRAYER” VIDEO

Pastor Kathryn Huey is quite passionate about the subject of wealth. This week she wrote, “Jesus knew that material things – no matter how fun and wonderful and lovely and useful they may be – will never truly satisfy us. We will always want more.”

I share Pastor Kathryn’s passion. I have no doubt that our endless quest for more will never satisfy us. And all too often, in our endless quest, we actually end up feeling a lot more like Stanley Johnson.

“STANLEY JOHNSON” VIDEO

Again, I’m not saying that you need to get rid of everything you own and go live in the garden shed in your backyard. Money is not all bad. But in light of the gospel reading before us today, I want us to seriously reflect upon how our attitude toward money affects us and others around us.

I challenge each one of us to take a look in the mirror this week. Is the reflection you see, an individual whose only focus is on acquiring more and more? An individual who is tirelessly building bigger and bigger barns that are filled only with I’s?

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached a sermon in 1967 called “Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool”. In this sermon Dr. King said, “There are a lot of fools around. Because they fail to realize their dependence on others. Finally, this man was a fool,” Dr. King said, “because he failed to realize his dependence on God.”

So when you look in the mirror this week, I hope and pray that the reflection you see is of a beloved child of God who is rich toward God. And in your richness toward God, I hope and pray that you see the reflections of others in that mirror too. Other beloved children of God who love you and who are lived by you – your family and friends; your pastors and community of faith; your brothers and sisters in the body of Christ from every corner of this world.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God has placed in your hands all that you are and all that you have. Everything, right down to the last breath that you and I take, God has given to us. When we are rich toward God, we live our lives as children who are completely and totally dependent upon God and each other in the body of Christ. You see, in the barns of God’s kingdom, there are no I’s.

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July 25, 2013

“Sit Down & Be” – Sermon 07.21.2013

By Bishop Craig Schweitzer

Luke 10:38-42

Click here to view a video recording of this sermon.

Brothers and sisters in Christ grace and peace to you from God our Father and risen Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

At this point in the summer season, my guess is that you are saying one of two things – you have already had your fill of the heat and summer fun and are ready for whatever is coming your way this fall OR you are still waiting for your schedule to slow down enough so that you can actually enjoy a little summer fun before it’s too late.

When I’m in El Salvador with our brothers and sisters at Cristo Rey Lutheran Church a common greeting we offer each other is, “como es das?” Which means “How are you doing?” or “How’s it going?” Usually the response is “bein” or “mue bein” – “good” or “very good”.

If I ask that same question to someone in North Dakota the response is very different. More often than not, it sounds something like “I’ve been really busy!” or “I just don’t seem to have enough hours in the day anymore.”

That’s one of our favorite self-descriptions isn’t it? When we are asked how we are doing or how everything in life is going, we like to stress how high our activity levels are. We want people to know all about the craziness of our calendars.

I think that’s one of the great tragedies actually of living in the United States. We place such significance on initiative and  hard work; on getting things done and always trying to outdo the competition, that we fail to take time to slow down and enjoy things like having a little fun in the summer. We are so busy doing something that we rarely stop in order to just be for a little while.

Let’s face it. Most of us, myself included, we’re not all that good at dialing it back a little. We struggle for balance between always doing something; always moving at the speed of light that at times we loose touch with what it actually feels like to just sit down with Jesus and be.

And when we do in fact slow down a little, it’s usually just enough to catch our breath before we jump back into the busy-ness our lives. Our gospel reading today brothers and sisters from Saint Luke speaks to that directly.

Martha was busy – busy sweeping the floor, baking bread, setting the table. Martha, as Luke tells us is, “distracted by her many tasks.” She is caught up in busy-ness, distracted making sure that the dog is in the utility room, that the bikes are in the garage and the skateboards are out of the way; that the hors’ d’oeuvres are ready and the drinks are chilled; that the chex-mix is in the proper bowls and the candles are lit. Martha is busy making sure there is a place for everything, and everything is in its place, no thanks of course to Mary.

Martha is irritated. Martha is annoyed. And in what’s possibly the best version of biblical whining that we have, she marches into the living room and says to Jesus, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.” To which Jesus says “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part.”

“The better part”? Now what in the world does that mean? What is Mary doing that Jesus would point to it directly and say it is better?

I think it’s a point that we often miss in the midst of this very familiar gospel story. Jesus isn’t pushing Martha aside and telling her that she is kind of grabby and needs to take a break. Remember her sister Mary is not stretched out on the couch taking a nap. She is sitting at the feet of Jesus. One could argue that she is in fact doing something.

I believe Jesus is telling Martha, and you and me today, that the core of our existence – of who we are as children of God – is in our life with him. And that life with Jesus is not boring. It doesn’t require us to overbook our calendars. This life with Jesus is experiencing being with Jesus always. Being with Jesus in worship and service and in telling everyone we meet about the story of God’s redeeming love and mercy for all people. It’s an active life who’s center is not in the amount of work we have before us. To keep distractions and worries at the fore-front instead of Jesus.

I think that’s what’s going on here. Jesus calls Martha, Mary, and everyone of his followers since this day in Bethany so long ago, into deep devotion toward the central element of faith – being with Jesus. The apostle Paul describes it as Christ “formed in” us. (Galatians 4:19)

I think Mary was beginning to figure that out. Discovering that her life with Jesus was more important than making sure the lemonade was cold when the guests arrived. Does this minimize our call to serve our neighbor as Lutheran Christians? Absolutely not. But hopefully this story of Mary and Martha helps center us a little.

I just returned from a week of spiritual retreat in Dallas. During this retreat, one of my mentors said that, “our outward journey of faith is deeply rooted in and sustained by our inward journey of faith.”  Did you hear that?

Our outward journey of faith, how the world sees us as followers of Jesus, is deeply rooted in and sustained by our inward journey of faith, the times that we simply sit at the feet of Jesus and be. And Lutheran Pastor Rob James said that the question he wrestles with is: “If we are not listening to Jesus, how are we sure that we doing the right work?”

Believe it or not brothers and sisters in Christ, your life in Christ is way more than making sure you say a quick prayer from time to time to check in with God or methodically doing a devotion every day or even showing up for worship once in a while. Jesus offers Martha, and you and me too, a better part that isn’t just about staying busy all the time.
Two things to take with you – First, when you and I are distracted by many things, we miss what’s most important. Martha is worried and distracted by her mile-long to-do list. Jesus doesn’t say that having a list or wanting to do the list well is wrong. He simply says that Mary has chosen the better part. In other words, Mary has stepped out of the fast lane, put down her to-do list for a short while, and slowed things way down.

The best “To-Do List” I think I’ve ever seen had five things on it: 1. Wake up, 2. Take a shower, 3. Eat, 4. Breathe, 5. Blink when eyes start getting dry. Repeat as necessary.

Hopefully you the see the wisdom there. I think it reminds us of what is most important. So the second thing I offer you today to take with you is this. It comes right out of Mary’s example: “Don’t just do something, sit there.” A lot of us never take the time to do that and for some of us it is almost impossible to even think of attempting it. But I challenge you to do just that in the next seven days.

Don’t just do something.

Sit there.

Sit there.

Set aside all of the distractions and worries that make up your life and focus on the “better part” that Jesus offers.

And in doing that, I hope and pray that you experience being with Jesus. It’s the better part for all of us who seek to follow the risen savior Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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