Lost with Jesus: 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

In a sense, this story of Jesus and Zacchaeus the tax collector is the end of Luke’s Gospel. This is the last of Jesus’ many encounters before He enters Jerusalem, and that is a story which all four Gospels have in common. But we have four Gospels, each of which highlights a particular facet of the Good News that Jesus brings. And in this last encounter before He enters Jerusalem, we hear the key to understanding Luke’s Gospel: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10).

How, in Luke’s Gospel, does Jesus begin his public ministry? In his hometown synagogue, he read from the prophet Isaiah, “to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners…to liberate the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” and in his reading of those words, Jesus declared them to have been fulfilled. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus begins by proclaiming the good news to those lost in poverty, prison and oppression.

On our homecoming Sunday, we heard Jesus warn His would-be followers that foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Strange to say, but there is Good News in that. Jesus comes to seek and to save the lost, and when He finds them, he walks with them. He shares the plight of the lost. When Jesus tells us the story of the Good Samaritan, He tells us a of a man who was lost, beaten to an inch of his life and given up for dead by his fellow Jews, until his worst enemy becomes the one man who finds him by caring for him. In that compassion, all the boundaries created by human beings fell away into one question: will you reach out to the lost?

Then, we heard Jesus warn His followers that if we follow Him, we risk alienation from the familiar supports of family, tribe, wealth and power, that only now have we realized were never enough to support whatever we building for a secure future. And in that we hear Jesus asking us, will you join me in walking with the lost? Later, we heard Jesus compare God to a shepherd who will risk all to find the one lost sheep. What might Jesus be calling me, calling you, calling us, to risk so that those who are lost might be found?

We have seen the lost in woman ‘sinner” who anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears, but whose sin was not important enough to mention. We have seen the sinner in the tax collector whose sin Jesus preferred to the self-righteousness of the Pharisee.

And today, of course, we see the lost in Zacchaeus, not just a tax collector, but a chief tax collector, hopelessly corrupted by his regular contact with the Romans for whom he collects taxes: a man who has been corrupted by power and corrupted absolutely. Zacchaeus is completely isolated from the community of the sons of Abraham. But even to him, Jesus Christ reaches out with grace and hospitality, not with judgment and condemnation. To which his fellow Jews react with grumbling and a sense of betrayal.

But then Zacchaeus says something very strange. “See, Lord, that half of all my possessions I give to the poor.” That’s what Zacchaeus already does. He knows what a compromised position he lives in, and he already does his best to soften the injustice inherent in the tax system he helps administer. So, when Jesus says that “salvation has come to this house,” He is recognizing that Zacchaeus was already being saved before Jesus saw him on that sycamore tree.

Of course, that salvation is not complete. “If I cheat anyone, I repay them four times as much.” If Zacchaeus has been saved, why would he need to make provision for if and when he cheats anyone? Alas, the Roman system of taxation was simple. Tax collectors were assigned to collect a certain amount of money from their district. Zacchaeus and other tax collectors had to deliver that total amount or else it was their pound of flesh which the Romans would extract. So, the tax collectors had to get their assigned taxes, from whomever they could get money from by whatever means necessary. Under those circumstances, it was likely that they would probably end up squeezing some taxpayers for more than they really owed.

In other words, Zacchaeus is still a sinner. He is still complicit in an unjust system, and occasionally his complicity will become more like collaboration in that injustice. He admits that to Jesus, and yet Jesus still says, “Salvation has come to this house.” Jesus knows that we imperfect human beings cannot simply turn a switch and go from sinful to sinless. And He doesn’t demand that of us. He only asks that we accept his grace, and begin the process of salvation.

And so we come to the end of this Gospel of the lost. In what way are you lost? Fear and uncertainty over the future? Two years ago, I was uncertain over whether God was calling me to stay in Virginia, or move to Alabama. Now I know that God has planted me here on Sand Mountain, to walk with the good people of Christ Church, and to walk with the lost of Sand Mountain, the poor and the seekers. Where are we going together? The Good News is that we don’t have to know where we are going. As long as we are following Jesus, then Jesus is always with the lost, wherever they are. And if Jesus is with us, then we are always being saved. The end.

In Memoriam: Joe Wooten

“For this is the will of my Father, that every one who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Joyful, funny, friendly, soft-spoken, a man you couldn’t help but like…who else could we be speaking of on this day than Joe Wooten? I have been privileged to hear from Joe’s family the many stories of his humor and joyful countenance. I have heard from many others of his friendliness, his generosity and his helpfulness; whether at his work in the First Bank of Boaz, his participation in the “Thursday Night Choir, and in his founding and support of his parish church.

All of these impressions have coalesced in my heart, in the two years I have known Joe, and especially in the past week. And as I’ve listened to all these stories and tried to take them all in, the word that rises up in my heart when I think of Joe Wooten shall always be hope. True joy depends on hope, because this broken world can too easily suck away our reasons for joy. That could easily have happened to Joe. He and his loving sister, Nan, had to suffer a broken home. So, Joe had a reality-check early in life.

Reality checks can harden peoples’ hearts and leave them bitter about life, but not Joe Wooten. Instead of focusing on what he had lost, by God’s grace, Joe was able to find joy and love where God gave it to him. He found joy in loving grandparents and uncles who helped raise him, as well as Nan. Joe found joy in boyhood friends with whom he spent many nights camping out in their special place. So, how could Glenda help but fall in love with this bright-faced young man whom she met while he was at Jacksonville State and she was at nursing school? And how could any of us help but feel more hopeful whenever we met him?

Of course, Joe knew that that hope, amid the reality-checks of his youth, was not an accomplishment for him to take pride in. It was a gift to Joe from the gracious God who always loved him. And where else could such gratitude lead but to more hope? So it was in Christian hope that Joe and Glenda, along with Bob and Maryetta Terrell, and other hopeful souls, blazed a trail from the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Guntersville to the founding of Christ Episcopal Church in Albertville. It takes a lot of hope to leave a financially secure parish, and start a new church that has to meet in a room over the local hardware store.

But God blessed the hopes of all those founding families. An unused Episcopal church was found in Piedmont. And so Joe and the other families found a way to move that church sixty miles, up the mountain, and replant it on East Main Street. It was in hope that Joe and the rest of the parish restored the old church and gave it new life. And this summer, as I enjoyed lunches out with Joe and Glenda, his hope for his parish family remained strong.

The Bible readings for today were selected by Joe. And it is of hope that they speak. “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things…And he will destroy on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples…He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces.” So, the prophet Isaiah wrote thousands of years ago of his hope for Israel, and his reason to hope in the LORD.

Of course, to hope in God is to frequently have our hopes adjusted. Isaiah’s hope was for an Israel that would triumph over her enemies. When Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, that hope had to be adjusted. Two years ago, Joe and his family were forced to adjust their hopes. Joe and Glenda were looking forward to retirement, as were their children, Jody and Michelle: a more relaxed way of living, the leisure to travel and visit, to deepen relationships. All of that had to be adjusted.

It would have been easy for Joe to lose hope in his God, to rail at the unfairness of it all. And in truth, the God who wrestled with Jacob, would not have abandoned Joe if he had decided to have his own wrestling match with God. But that’s not what Joe did. He fought the cancer in his body. He continued to work at the First Bank of Boaz until his retirement. Joe and Glenda looked for any experimental treatments that might give Joe more time. And Joe did not complain. He did not lose his good humor. He never had a harsh word whenever I met him. He never said, “Why me.”

It was his strong hope that gave Joe the time that he had, far more than the odds would seem to have dictated. Where did such hope come from? It came from his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who says to us today, “For this is the will of my Father, that every one who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Jesus speaks of this resurrection to come in the middle of the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, that great meditation on the nature of the Lord’s Supper. And so, just before these words, Jesus tells his fellow Jews, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” And just in case they missed his point the first time, Jesus puts the exclamation point to it when He says later in this chapter, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

How is such a thing possible? Sadly, how Jesus is present to us in the Lord’s Supper is a question that has divided Christians more than united them. We Episcopalians try not to speculate too much about such mysteries that are in God’s pay grade, not ours. But we do believe that the bread and wine are outward and visible signs of God’s grace. And we believe that the particular grace which God gives in Holy Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ given to his people, and received by faith.

Joe had that faith. He knew that the Son of God was as close to him as the bread and wine on his lips. Joe trusted that Jesus Christ was as present with him as He was present with His first disciples nearly 2,000 years ago. As Joe faced physical death, he knew that the Son of God had already gone before him, was walking with him in the way of his cross, and would be waiting for him in the land of Resurrection.

And so Joe walks with Jesus today, in that wonderful mystery, the Communion of saints. Saint Joe now stands before the throne of God, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I wonder which of his many jokes Joe decided to try out on God first. Whichever one it was, I’m sure that God delights in his son Joe. And just as our friends here on earth pray for us, so our friend Joe now prays for us before that throne. And he will always pray for us, until we rejoin him before that that throne. Until we see him again before that throne; and until “the last day,” when we all shall be raised up, let us be comforted by, and share, in the hope of Saint Joe Wooten.

The Promise of Spirit, Power and Resurrection: 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time

When I first read the Old Testament reading from the prophet Joel, I was reminded of Peter’s first sermon on the first Pentecost. Strong in the Holy Spirit, Peter was inspired to recall these words from today’s reading: “In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants -- men and women alike -- and they will prophesy.”

As this week has worn on, I’ve found myself turning myself to another section of this small book in the Old Testament, but no less important in the life of our church. Every Ash Wednesday, we hear these words from Joel: “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Return to the LORD your God, for he is merciful and compassionate…Who knows? Perhaps he will give you a reprieve, sending you a blessing instead of this curse.”

As a parish, we are already mourning our brother, Joe Wooten, as his joyous spirit still struggles to move on to the next stage of his life’s journey. Based on his instructions, expect songs of joy and celebration at his burial. But of course, we will miss our friend until we see him again in heaven, and we rightly mourn. Laura and I are mourning the loss, by fire, of the seminary chapel that has been one of our spiritual homes.

The prophet Joel understood loss, and mourning. He also understood that while weeping may spend the night, joy comes in the morning. But it seems that in this broken world, we can have both, but not one or the other.

Indeed, one week before Halloween, Joel’s prophecy makes for good reading. He begins by describing an attack on the crops of the land by locusts: “What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.” But suddenly, the swarming locusts seem to have mutated into a foreign army; “powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white.”

“Weep,” Joel writes to all the people of Judah, “weep like a bride dressed in black mourning the death of her husband.” The land of Judah has suffered natural disaster, foreign invasion, and death. Her economy and security have been devastated. It is in that context that the people of God are called to a time of mourning, and fasting. In the present, the people and the land suffer.

But then, Joel has the audacity to say: “Then the LORD became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. The LORD answered and said to his people, ‘Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.’” In the present time, the people suffer. But in Joel’s prophesying, the past and the future seem to come together in that string of promises you just heard: “Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication…I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter.”

Clearly, in this time of present suffering, Joel is speaking of God’s promises for the future. But so sure are the promises of Almighty God that the prophet, and we, can speak of those promises in the past tense, as though the promises themselves have already been fulfilled because we know that what God promises, God does.

God promises us a return to prosperity and security. But through the prophet Joel, God promises something even greater those material blessings: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh…Even on the male and female slaves in those days I will pour out my Spirit…And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”

Now Joel, as far as he could see in the Spirit, looked forward to the vindication of Judah against her enemies. We know that the promises of God go far beyond vindication, wealth and security. All those things are fleeting. But resurrection is the end of all things. Resurrection is our purpose. And in Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead nearly 2,000 years ago, Resurrection is our future.

So, amid our mourning, amid our anxieties over money and national security, let us strive to live as people of Resurrection. Open your hearts to the Spirit, who can do powerful things through you and this parish that Joe Wooten helped to found. As God promised the people of Judah, so God promises us that this Spirit will give us visions of what we can do, and the power to accomplish them. And if, at this moment, you’re not sure if you can do that, it’s alright. God is still there, holding death and life, past, present and future together.

A priest friend of mine wrote this about the destruction of the seminary chapel yesterday on Facebook. Prophetically, she also wrote this about us: “The longer I'm alive and the longer I'm a priest the more I can't comprehend how God can hold all the pain and beauty at the same time. Thanks be to God that God can hold the destruction and not self-destruct. Thanks be to God that the one God, our creator, redeemer, and sustainer, knows how to deal with ashes and dust better than we ever could on our own.”

Justice: Ours' and God's: Luke 18:1-8

It's true that Jesus' parable of the widow and unjust judge is introduced as being about the "need to pray always and not lose heart." But there's another theme in this parable that is at least as prominent. A widow kept pestering a judge saying, "Give me justice against my adversary." Eventually the judge says, "I will give this widow justice because she keeps bothering me." Jesus then says, "Won't God provide justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? I tell you," Jesus promises, "He will give them justice quickly."

How many of you feel that when you have suffered injustice that you received justice quickly? How many of you have suffered a harm that feels too deep for justice to even be possible? How many of you have gritted your teeth and stayed quiet because it seemed that raising your voice against something you were convinced was wrong wouldn't correct the wrong?

So, how do we reconcile the apparent disconnect between the quick justice that God promises, and the appearence of justice delayed or even denied? Perhaps it depends on whose justice we're talking about: our justice or God's justice.

Our sense of justice seems to be based on the concepts of vindication and satisfaction. We want to be proven right, and that our adversary is wrong. We want to win the debate. We look for someone who has the authority to declare us to be right. Or we canvass for enough votes to declare us to be right. That works fine; provided that our adversary doesn't find some other authority figure to trump our chosen figure; or doesn’t run a better campaign than we do. Perhaps we might even win the last appeal, or the election. Then we can congratulate ourselves on our vindication, while our adversary is left to sulk in resentment over their perceived injustice left denied. Or we might be the ones left to grit our teeth and mourn our loss.

Sometimes our sense of justice demands satisfaction. We have suffered a loss, and that loss must be compensated. So, we seek “satisfaction” for what we have lost. That works in those cases where the loss can be quantified, usually in dollars. When the loss is emotional, satisfaction is a little harder to come by. How much does a broken heart cost: or a body that can never be fully healed?

God’s justice, on the other hand, is perfect, for God is perfection, right? And we’re not, nor will we ever be. So, what good is perfection? Well, in another time, the word, “perfect,” didn’t mean, “without error,” so much as, “complete,” and “fully developed.” So, in truth, God’s justice is complete. None of us can see our adversary as God sees them. We cannot see how the past has hardened them. We cannot see into their conflicted hearts. How often have we tried to articulate the discontents of our own hearts, only to have the right words slipping the fingers in our minds? If we can’t even see clearly the truth in ourselves, how can we expect to see it in others?

But God sees. God’s sight is complete. God sees every painful memory, every secret scar of the heart. God sees every person’s wounded past. God understands that sometimes we do need to be vindicated, that we do need to be satisfied. There is nothing wrong with crying to God day and night for vindication and satisfaction. But if that’s where justice ends, then the world will forever be a place of triumphant winners and sulking losers. But that is not what God wants for any of the children he made and loves. In his perfect justice, God seeks to heal every hurt, every loss, so that all find vindication, satisfaction, and reconciliation.

It was two years ago that I was discerning with the Search Committee whether God was calling me to Christ Church, Albertville, I’m sure that they noticed my personal ministry statement: “Through preaching, formation, pastoral care and worship, I seek to equip the saints to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world.” I believe with all my heart that what God in his justice wants for all human beings is reconciliation with God and each other.

How does that happen? Ultimately, the work of reconciliation is what Jesus does through us. So, how we get there is not in any blueprint we have access to. But we know where it has to start. Today’s parable is not one that Jesus tells the curious public still trying to make up its mind about Him. He is speaking to his followers, his students, his disciples. He is speaking to us. We who call ourselves Christians may sometimes wonder if God’s justice is quick enough. We who call ourselves Christians may not know how we will get to a reconciled church, much less a reconciled world. But with the risen Jesus as close to us as the bread and wine, be sure that God’s justice and reconciliation starts with us. And we don't have to be perfect. We only have to trust that in God's good time, our reconciliation will be complete.

The image is of the Statue of Reconciliation, by Josefina de Vasconcellos. It sits amid the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed by German air forces during the Second World War. A replica of this statue was donated by the people of Coventry to the peace garden of Hiroshima.

Blessed Assurance On the Way

“Be raised up and go on your way, for your faith has saved you.” (Luke 17:19)

The Greek word, which you heard in the Gospel reading as, “Get up,” could also be translated as, “Be resurrected.” And the Greek you heard as, “made well” literally means, “To be saved.” Isn't that what we want more than anything in the world, the blessed assurance of being saved?

But what does that assurance look like? For nine of the lepers in today's Gospel, salvation was simple: relief from physical suffering and an assurance of “cleanness” under the Jewish law. But the tenth leper understood that to be saved is to be grateful for the blessings we have already received, and to go out in search of new blessings, trusting that Resurrection is the end of the journey.

“Ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance…” They know the law. Because of their skin disease, the local priest has classified them as “unclean,” and they must live apart from the community. And whenever they see somebody coming they must announce their uncleanness so that the stranger does not risk becoming “unclean” by merely getting too close to them. So the lepers approach Jesus, keeping their distance. But instead of warning Him, they beg Him…

“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” They beg to be cured, to be rendered “clean” in the eyes of the law and restored to the Jewish community. So “He said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’” Jesus doesn’t say to them, you are healed. He tells them to fulfill the law, to begin walking toward the priests, having faith that they will be healed somewhere along the way, and certified “clean” by the priests.

To the credit of all ten, they had enough faith to at least start the journey. “And as they went, they were made clean.” They were, indeed, cleansed. Their skin disease was cured. They were eligible for membership in the community of Israel again. But had they been made well? Had they been saved?

“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice…And he was a Samaritan.” The outsider, who might not have been accepted by the Jewish priest, turns back in gratitude. But, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?” Jesus wonders. They are too focused on keeping the letter of the law to recognize the true Giver of blessing and healing.

“Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well,” or, “Be raised up and go on your way, for your faith has saved you.” Jesus doesn't promise the Samaritan that there will be no more pain, no more challenges, no more conflicts. As a Samaritan, he may still face exclusion from the community. But Jesus of all people knows that the road of Resurrection is hardly free of obstacles.

But I think Jesus understands that this outsider will rise and go on his way, ever thankful for Jesus's blessings; and assured that he will see signs of Resurrection along his way and the risen Jesus Himself at his journey's end. The Samaritan outsider is sure of his salvation; which is more than a certification of legal cleanliness, or the cure of today's malady, or an emotion that is here today gone tomorrow. It is based on a faith that looks back in gratitude for God's blessings, and looks forward trusting in God's promises.

Wherever his journey takes him, the Samaritan outsider is assured of salvation. May we get up, go, and embrace the same assurance.

For St. Francis, Jango the Praying Dog

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

So here we are; another first Sunday in October, another blessing of the animals, another occasion to take joy in God's creation; and another opportunity to rediscover the death-defying passion of the saint behind all this.

Preaching to birds: literally stripping himself naked of all his possessions: walking right up to a wolf that had terrorized a village but promptly lay down at Francis's feet and became the village pet. Anyone who did these things today we would call crazy. But Francis we honor as a saint, perhaps the greatest of all the saints since the New Testament.

None of us are going to follow in every single one of Francis's footsteps. But in our own way each of us can follow his trust in the God who created all that is good in this world, even unto "Sister Death," as Francis called it. And in that trust, we can also share his calling to restore the House of God.

Restoring God's house is really what lay at the heart of God's call to Francis. After his disillusionment with his wealthy lifestyle and attraction to "Lady Poverty;" Francis began to frequent a Church in the country side that was broken down and in disrepair. But Mass was still celebrated daily by an old priest, and Francis would serve at the Mass. There also he would spend hours each day, meditating before the Church’s crucifix.

One morning, as he knelt there in prayer, Francis heard God speak to him—“Restore My house.” He initially took it at a quite literal level -- he went out immediately, found some of his Father’s most expensive fabric and sold it at market (this might be called theft) and took the money to the Church to rebuild it. This forced the public confrontation between Francis and his father in which Francis literally stripped himself of his father's wealth and walked away naked.

And so Francis started to follow God's call to restore the Church. How? By possessing nothing but the clothes on his and his fellow friars' backs. In this, they shared the experience of God-who-was with-us in Jesus Christ. And when people saw the Franciscans living in total trust that God the Father would give them whatever they needed, then the people would see Jesus Christ himself. In this total trust in God the Father, they mirrored God's Son as no human beings have since. They walked in Jesus's footprints as no one has since. And in this trust, they found the joy in all of God's creation, a joy open to all willing to trust God.

Even in death, Francis found joy. As he lay dying, his friends approached in tears, and yet he cut them off, as he began singing a new verse to his "Canticle of the Sun," which we know from our hymnal as "All Creatures of Our God and King" -- “Praised be you, My Lord, through our Sister, Bodily Death, from whom no living man can escape....” Death, for Francis, as life, was a time for trust in God, and praise in God, and joy in God, and a complete self-emptying. For what can you do before death but empty yourself.

Again, I don’t expect that any of us will imitate Francis’s radical trust in God. But Francis’s example continues to serve as a beacon of restoration for all of God’s Church 800 years later. We have a much smaller piece of the church and the world to restore. What miracles might God work through us if we but trust in God just a little? And what unimaginable joy might we find if we but trust in God just a little?