Rev. Amy Zalk Larson- Good Shepherd Lutheran Church    Decorah, Iowa

Beloved people of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

I have a lot of compassion for the disciples in our Gospel reading today. They’ve been asked to do incredibly hard things and they’re intimidated. Jesus wants them to hold others accountable and then forgive when others repent, even if the same person sins against them seven times in one day. That’s a lot. That’s hard. They say to Jesus: We need help, make it better, increase our faith.

I’m guessing many of us feel kind of like the disciples right now. The world is a lot. Things are hard. We could use some help here Jesus. Maybe if we could just have a little more faith, that would help us to keep on keeping on. Then we could work together with people who think differently, we could be more hopeful, we could forgive, we could work for change. So Jesus, help us out. Increase our faith. Seems reasonable, right? Jesus doesn’t seem to think so. I don’t like the way he responds to this request. He’s direct and harsh and not at all warm and fuzzy. Yet I have a sneaking suspicion that Jesus’ response is exactly what we need today.

Before we ponder his response, I do have to say that Jesus’ metaphor of the master and his slave doesn’t work for us today. No one should be called a worthless slave. I hope you never think of yourself that way. Jesus used all sorts of common images from his daily life in an unjust economic system. We heard another one of them a few weeks ago in the parable of the dishonest manager.

Jesus used these images not to endorse injustice but to make his teachings concrete.

To be able to take in Jesus’ wisdom today, it’s more helpful to picture scenes from our daily lives our jobs, homes, schools, families. So, imagine this. You’re struggling with something at work or in class, you tell the boss or teacher and he says, “You’re right, that’s so hard, let me just make it bet- ter. You tell me how to help you and I’ll do it, whatever you ask of me.” That might feel good at first, but would you learn and grow? Would you gain confidence in your gifts? When the disciples are struggling with what he’s asking of them, Jesus offers a different type of encouragement. The ways he encourages reminds me of the best boss I’ve ever had, Dave Jarvis. Dave’s been Executive Director at Rainbow Trail Lutheran Camp in Colorado for thirty-one years. 

I worked for him for three summers, two as a camp counselor and one as the summer program director. Dave has incredible vision for how to develop faith as well as leadership and community building skills in campers. At many camps, the counselors organize and lead the worship services, daily activities, and evening events. This often results in wonderful, counselor-led programming.

But at Rainbow Trail, the kids work together to plan out the daily schedule and take turns leading worship and all camp activities. The counselors work behind the scenes to help the kids communicate and compromise, schedule and organize, plan and prepare to lead. This is a ton of work!

It’s a lot easier for counselors to lead everything. This model also means counselors get just 24 hours off between each session with campers. At most other camps, they get closer to 48 hours off. Besides all this, there are literal mountains to climb with kids, it being Colorado and all.

Working at Rainbow Trail is a lot. It’s amazing and life-changing, but it is also intimidating and overwhelming. When I was program director it was early in Dave’s tenure at the camp. I some- times told him, “I think this is too much for the staff.” That never went over well. Dave didn’t respond by saying, “Oh no, maybe we should do something to make it easier. Maybe we should ask them what they think would be best.” No. Dave would look at me with his intense eyes and his jaw set firmly. “They’ve got it,” he’d say. “You’ve got it. Get back to work.” Dave knew his role was to have the vision and lead his team. It would not have been good if that vision had changed based on the feelings and demands of the staff. He kept his eye on the big picture. He helped the staff to know we could do the work. He didn’t do this by being warm and fuzzy, but by giving us tools and trusting us to use them.

Jesus responds in a similar way when his first disciples and when we feel like things are too hard, when we think we need more faith. He says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” He’s using some hyperbole here. I picture Dave Jarvis saying to me, if you had faith the size of this water bottle, you could tell it to fly to the top of the mountain on Hike Day and it would obey you.

There’s also something lost in translation with Jesus’ words here. What he says is more like: “if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, and you know you do, you can work wonders.” You have enough faith, Jesus says to us. You have all that you need for these difficult days. This is true for each of us, for you. God has created you good. God has given you so many gifts:

     Jesus has claimed you as his own and made you part of his church;

     Jesus creates faith in you, through the power of the Holy Spirit;

     Jesus sends you to carry out his vision.

This is a vision for the healing of the world. It is a life-changing and demanding vision. It asks a lot of us. Jesus asks a lot of us. Jesus asks us to love people who make our blood boil, to explain our neighbor’s actions in the kindest way possible, to show up for community when we are tired, hold others accountable, forgive, put our gifts to use in service to others. This can all be a bit intimidating. It’s OK if we feel daunted, unqualified, ill prepared. Jesus won’t be deterred by our feelings and demands. He can’t be stopped from carrying out the vision. He’ll keep calling us to join him, to use what we’ve been given and follow where he leads

 As we do, we find we truly have everything we need.

 As we do, we experience the healing Jesus is bringing to everyone.

We can trust and follow him.   

As of Thursday, Sept. 29th, the CDC updated the COVID alert level in Winneshiek county to GREEN/LOW. Good Shepherd’s response:
– Green- low: Masks optional and respected
– At all levels, communion bread and individual cups will be used. Pre-packaged servings will be available for those who request them.
GENERAL GUIDANCE
If you test positive for COVID or aren’t feeling healthy, stay home and join in worship online.
If you have been exposed to COVID-19 but have tested negative, please wear a mask in worship until ten days after your exposure even if you are vaccinated and boosted.

Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church    Decorah, Iowa

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved people of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

This story makes me wonder. I have so many questions.

Why wouldn’t the rich man help someone right at his gate, someone so clearly in need? 

• He ate great food every day. He wore all the best clothes.
• He had more than enough to help.
• Why did he just pass by?

Apparently, this rich man even knew Lazarus by name!

• Isn’t it harder to ignore someone’s pain when you know their name?
• Why didn’t he stop? Why wouldn’t he help?

Was he thinking:

• Those sores are awful, I don’t want to get near them. 
• Lazarus might be angry, he might not be safe.
• He must have done something wrong to end up where he is. 
• God has blessed me with wealth, God must be punishing him.

Did the rich man feel guilty?

• He was ignoring God’s teachings through Moses and the prophets, teachings that call us to be in a right relationship with those who are poor. 

Was guilt weighing on him?

• Did he feel worse with each passing day, until finally he was paralyzed by shame?
• Did he think, Ahh, I don’t know what to do, how to help. There are so many poor people, so many problems. I don’t know where to begin.

Was he happy, at peace?

Was he lonely?

Did he experience the life that really is life? Or was he in his own private hell on earth, separated from the generous, abundant, connected life that God longs for us to know.

It seems the great chasm between these two men formed when they were still alive.

How did the rich man get so stuck?

How did we get so stuck?

• Why has a great chasm grown between us and those at our gates, on our southern border?
• How have white people become so separated from our siblings of color?
• We in the US have so much more food and wealth than two-thirds of the world, but we experience record levels of isolation and anxiety.
• People in the two-thirds world know so well how to feast and tend to community yet long for even some of the food we throw out each day.

Is there any hope of change? Of healing? Can we still be saved, here and now, from isolation and agony? From paralyzing shame? From hell on earth?

In Jesus’ shocking parable, there’s no hope for the rich man. He’s stuck in torment forever. 

He’s powerless. That’s a new feeling for someone used to getting what he wants on demand. Others have always tended to his needs, made him comfortable, done his dirty work. Resources and connections have shielded him from the worst of the world’s suffering. His problems could be easily solved with enough money. But there’s no helping him now. The chasm is fixed, firm, nothing can change. There may not even be help for the rich man’s brothers who refuse to listen.

So what hope is there for us? Is this parable saying we better start sharing or we’ll end up in hell forever? It’s important to remember what Jesus’ parables do. In last week’s sermon, Rev. Allie Scott offered such helpful insight into this. She said, “A parable is not a fable with a sweet little moral at the end of the story” … and continued, “Parables shock us out of our expectations, make us question our fundamental values in this world, and show us the ways in which God is at work.” 

This shocking parable of the rich man and Lazarus gets under our skin. It lets us experience that great chasm our sin causes, and helps us know the limits of our power. It awakens us to the hell on earth that we are living, that we are perpetuating. We are captive to our sin. We are in need. On our own, we can’t solve the grave problems we face. We can’t, by sheer force of will, overcome racism, the global wealth gap, the climate crisis that most impacts those with fewer resources. Relationships with others aren’t something we can have on demand.

We need God, the hope of the world. We need God’s kingdom to come on earth. 

In God’s kingdom the poor and downtrodden have their needs met. The rich and powerful are taken down a notch or two or ten, for our own good. In God’s kingdom, people are freed from  physical captivity, and from shame. Our eyes are opened to one another, we are drawn together. The playing field is leveled, and relationships are healed. We all experience the life that really is life – a life of abundance, relationship, joy.

As we are drawn into God’s kingdom, we see that we are never fully healed until all are well, never fully nourished until all have enough, never enough on our own. In God’s kingdom we see our need to give and receive. And this is our hope – that God is always working to bring us all into the kingdom. Jesus came to us to announce the kingdom of God is here among you. Jesus came to shock us, get under our skin, open our eyes, and gather us into life-giving relationship with God and others. And, nothing can stop Jesus from doing this, not even death, not even hell. Jesus even went to hell to bring us back, to overcome all those great chasms, all that separates us from God and one another. Jesus still enters each of our private hells on earth, each new day, to raise us to new life.

Nothing, nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. This love sets you free. You are set free from guilt and shame, free from a life of demanding everything go your way. You are set free for life in the kingdom – a life of love and joy, service and generosity, real relationship.

Here today, in worship together, we experience God’s kingdom among us. We are shaped by parables and psalms that help us recognize it. We are humbled and raised up and drawn together with people we might otherwise overlook. At the table, we get a foretaste of the feast that all will share. We are sent to join God in bringing in the kingdom here on earth.

This is the life that really is life.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Rev. Allie Scott – Good Shepherd Lutheran Church    Decorah, Iowa

Have you ever been that kid at a pool with a beach ball? The one who pushes the beach ball under the surface, maybe sits on it, and then after pushing and struggling to keep it underwater, after letting the water go still, pulls their hands back or shifts their body weight such that the ball flies into the air and then, BAM – out of nowhere it hits some unexpecting sibling or friend? Me too. 

I think about that image when we read parables like today’s gospel reading. Today’s parable of the dishonest manager is a strange one, a surprising one – like that beach ball. We don’t really know where it’s going until it shoots up from the surface in Jesus’ last statement, and even then we’re not entirely sure what happened. 

Let’s unpack it a bit. So there is this wealthy man whose household manager has been embezzling, or overspending. As scripture says, he was “wasting his estate.” We’re not entirely sure how, or to what extent, but word has gotten back to the “master,” and he’s not pleased. So he demands that this manager give him a full account of his accounts on his way out the door. To be clear: The manager has been fired. He’s done.

Well, this dishonest manager starts freaking out. He may be dishonest with his boss, but he’s very honest with himself: He knows he’s too weak for hard labor, and too proud to beg. But when it becomes public knowledge that he’s an embezzler, he’ll never be able to find another management job again. He knows that. So he starts laying the ground- work for his future by ingratiating himself. He goes from house to house, reducing debts owed to his current former boss by as much as half, so that once word gets out, some- one else will still think well of him, hire him, maybe refer him to another household, may- be start the whole cycle over again.

This is not a person you expect to be the good guy in the story. And yet, the story ends with the master commending the dishonest manager for acting shrewdly. Certainly, embezzling your boss’ profits and then reducing the principal his debtors owe him is clever; but it’s certainly not honest and doesn’t help the master in any way. This parable is not a lesson in good business strategy, that’s for sure. 

But then Jesus, contrary to expectation, compliments the children of this age, rather than the elders who strive to follow him, as having more capacity for this same shrewd- ness. Jesus tells the disciples, and by extension us, to use our wealth for the present help of others, even by dishonest means, because you cannot serve God and wealth.

BAM. There’s that beach ball. Jesus just launched it out from under the water, and we’re all sitting here a little stunned, confused about what is happening, and it stings a little bit. You don’t expect Jesus to commend people for being dishonest, but that’s exactly what happens. So what are we, as followers of Christ, supposed to do with that?

First things first: A parable is not a fable with a sweet little moral at the end of the story. A parable does not provide us with rules that will make our lives neat, orderly, and easy; nor does it teach us how to go about our day with dignity. None of that exists in the story of the dishonest manager, or frankly in any other parable. How many of us have lost a dime and scoured the house for it? We’re far more likely to cut our losses and go about our day. How many of you have paid your workers the same whether they’ve worked an hour or a day? There we are with the bad business models again. I’d wager that you’ve never picked your mortal enemy up off the side of the road from an injury that they probably had coming, and then paid their hospital bill, either. 

No, a parable is not a fable. A parable is a story that demonstrates the kingdom of God at hand, as Jesus proclaimed. Parables shock us out of our expectations, make us question our fundamental values in this world, and show us the ways in which God is at work. 

So if we’re looking at the dishonest manager, we need to look at the larger context of expectations and values that surround him. He is one player within a larger, unjust economic system – a slaveholding system. He manages the books for a wealthy slaveholder, whose wealth is built up on the oppression and debts of his neighbors. Which is to say, there is not simply one unjust man in this parable. 

Of course, this sort of economic system, in which wealth is built on the backs of the poor, is not unique to this parable. One only needs to listen to Jeremiah’s lament from 600 years prior, crying over the cacophony of the poor who, even after the harvest has ended, after money has been made, are stuck in their poverty. I’m also reminded of Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Nickel and Dimed, from 20 years ago, in which she worked minimum wage jobs in the United States for a year and wrote about what it’s like to patch together a life on the bare minimum. In it, she harrowingly describes what it does to an entire class of people when the American economic system is built on their backs and their poverty. She wrote: 

“When someone works for less pay than she can live on — when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently — then she has made a great sacrifice for you …The ‘working poor,’ as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a name- less benefactor, to everyone else.

Just like the world in which Jesus lived, the systems in which we live our lives are harsher for some and more complex for all than any one of us can fix. And for too long, the church has tried to convince itself, we have tried to convince ourselves, that as long as we go to church, as long as we follow the rules, we are good, we are set. Heaven is the goal. 

Heaven is not the goal, at least not entirely. Heaven is not just the reward for following the rules, like dessert after you eat your vegetables. Again and again throughout his ministry, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is ours, here and now. The opening message of the gospel is not about what will happen someday but what is happening now to all of creation, to our neighbors, to ourselves, to all that surrounds us. We can choose to build hell every day as we support systems that divide and oppress, under the guise of following the rules and not rocking the boat. Or, we can choose to build heaven on earth and love the hell out of this world.

It’s our call. It is tempting to think that our only options for living within complex and troubling systems are accommodation or resistance. But the reality for most people, whether in the Roman Empire or the United States, is more akin to negotiation, choosing who or what to prioritize with less-than-ideal options. When nothing seems great, all you can choose is the next right thing.

Parables like this one remind us that as followers of Jesus, our values, our actions should step toward the all-embracing love and liberation of all God’s children. Even if it’s messy. Even if it’s complicated. Even when it overturns long-held, deeply embedded societal expectations. 

But look: The entire crux of our faith is that a convicted felon, a man executed by the state, is the bearer of God’s forgiving and transforming love. We expect our God to show up like a king – with wealth, and power, and authority – and instead we get Jesus: Blessed are the poor, love your enemies, let me wash your grimy feet Jesus. BAM. There’s that beach ball again. 

With regard to the dishonest manager, the point isn’t that he’s good. The point isn’t that he’s bad. It’s that, in this one instance, he didn’t focus on upholding an unjust system. He put people ahead of money; and the kingdom of God is filled with people who do the same. 

Thanks be to God, and Amen.