Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
1 Timothy 6
6Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; 7for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; 8but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. 11But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
I have it on good authority that there is no money in the future.
How does this happen? When do we chuck our Visa cards and try to tear up our polymer twenties? That’s not clear. And I should add a giant caveat that we’re talking about the Roddenberry future and not the Lucas future. You can be fans of both, but when it comes to money, you have to make a choice.
But before I continue to commit the grave homiletical sin of praising Star Trek while trashing Star Wars, I want to make a prediction. Soon, someone will make a movie about the life of Gene Roddenberry: Decorated WWII pilot becomes a commercial airline pilot becomes a cop with the LAPD becomes screen writer becomes television producer and the creator of a sci-fi universe. I think my favourite part of the story involves Lucille Ball: she went way out on a limb to produce the series pilot, and without her the whole thing may have never happened.
When I say it’s not clear when money becomes irrelevant on Earth, I mean the somewhat obsessive people who track and record the Star Trek ‘canon’ don’t have a definitive answer. In one episode, Kirk tells Spock that when they travel back in time to 20th century Earth they’ll need to to get some money, since it’s still in use. And in the worst film of the lot, the one where they save the whales, Kirk is on a date with the whale doctor, who famously says “Don’t tell me they don’t use money in the 23rd century?” How can you be expected to ‘pick up the check’ when you come from a time without money?
I’ll give the last work on the future to Captain Picard, who said: "A lot has changed in three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of 'things'. We have eliminated hunger, want, [and] the need for possessions."
So there you have it: A shiny future without want or need, without the base desire to have more than others, where people live peaceably and without fear of the future. Is this even possible? And if it were possible, would people choose to live this way? You might argue that after 10,000 years of inventing civilization we’re hardly going to get it together in the next 300. Or for the Christian church, we’re hardly going to realize the vision of 1 Timothy anytime soon, 1,900 years after these words were put on paper:
Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; 7for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; 8but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.
Individuals, of course, have demonstrated the kind of detachment described throughout the Bible. There are even a handful of examples of faith communities that have tried to live out the command found in Acts 4 that believers should hold everything in common. Generally, however, these experiments have been short lived. By in large the church has been no more successful at eschewing money than any other communistic group.
It’s not from lack of instruction, though:
Proverbs 3.9: Honor the Lord by giving God your money and the first part of all your crops.
Proverbs 11.4: When God is angry, money won’t help you. Obeying God is the only way to be saved from death.
Proverbs 18.11: The rich think their money is a wall of protection.
Ecclesiastes 5.10: If you love money and wealth, you will never be satisfied with what you have.
Ecclesiastes 6.2: God may give you everything you want—money, property, and wealth. Then God doesn’t let you enjoy it, and someone you don’t even know gets it all. That’s senseless and terribly unfair!
Matthew 6.24: You cannot serve both God and money.
Luke 12.33: Sell what you have and give the money to the poor…make sure your treasure is safe in heaven, where thieves cannot steal it and moths cannot destroy it.
Acts 8.20: Peter said to him, “You and your money will both end up in hell if you think you can buy God’s gift!
1 Timothy 6.10: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
Notice that it’s one of the “pastoral epistles” (1 Timothy) that lives up to it’s descriptor and offers the most pastoral advice: in the pursuit of wealth people have ‘pierced themselves with many pains.’ On the surface it may sound somewhat ‘blamey’ to say they have ‘pierced themselves,’ but the author of 1 Timothy qualifies it somewhat: [they] “fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.”
In the same way we have developed a more compassionate approach to people who struggle with addiction, 1 Timothy makes it clear that the desire for wealth is a trap that people fall into: it would seem that can’t help themselves.
And the other passages, while less pastoral in approach, provide practical advice to those who live in a world of daily struggle with money and possessions: Money can’t save you, it can’t protect in times of trouble, you will never feel you have enough, and when you die you can’t take it with you. And as for Peter yelling at Simon Magnus, I’ll simply refer you to Acts 8, a remarkable chapter of grace and wonder. There, I’ve planned your afternoon.
Back to money: What 1 Timothy is suggesting is a return to the essence of Christian living:
11But as for you, people of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
See, however, that he’s not saying give away your money or sell all you have (But if you want to you should see Sue after the service). Recall from last week that 1 Timothy is about ‘hope delayed,’ and living in the world in that period before Christ’s promised return. 1 Timothy is about the middle-way, the compromise that each believer must make in the here-and-now. He understands that we need money to continue, and I’m certain he understands that the goal of communal living remains just a goal: therefore we ‘fight the good fight’ of seeking to live well in the world.
In many ways, the call is to change your relationship with money, something that remains a timeless challenge. We all know the people that have money but complain that they need more. Or the people who would be tempted to share what they have, but remain unconvinced that people in need deserve help. Or the people who are utterly convinced that whatever money they have came purely from their own effort, and not the support of all the people and structures that allowed for their success.
And so this becomes the task of the church: to urge others to share what they have, to caution others on the danger wealth poses to the health of the soul, and to call for changes in the structure of society that creates inequality on the first place. And that’s only half the problem. We can’t ignore that fact that two-thirds of our economy is based on consumer spending, some necessary, but much of it not. The relationship between runaway consumption and climate change is slowly becoming obvious to the population, and the planet suffers.
On March 28, 1958, the White House published a booklet simply entitled “Introduction to Outer Space.” In it, the President’s Science Advisory Committee made the case for developing the technology to explore space. These were heady times: the Soviets had already launched two versions of Sputnik, including Laika, first dog in space, and the Americans were struggling to keep up. Of course, we know that the Americans would eventually win the ‘space race,’ but the White House document predates all of this.
Someone cynical might dismiss the booklet as one more piece of Cold War propaganda, but I think there was more to it. First, it made a case for a new branch of science that would improve communication and human understanding. And secondly, it cast a vision that captured the imagination of at least one screenwriter when the authors of the booklet set a goal: “To explore and discover, the thrust of curiosity that leads [us] to try to go where no one has gone before.”
Science fiction can imagine a future without want or need, where the hunger for possession no longer defines us, and so it falls to people of faith to catch up, to reclaim and restate a vision that we cast in the first place. May we make it so, Amen.
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
1 Timothy 2
2 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. 3 This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For
there is one God;
there is also one mediator between God and humankind,
Christ Jesus, himself human,
6 who gave himself a ransom for all
—this was attested at the right time. 7 For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth,[a] I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
Dear St. Paul,
Lately I’ve been reading your list of attributes for ministers found in 1 Timothy 3, and I have to say it fills me with questions. First of all, you list fourteen attributes: is 50% a pass on this test, because seven items on the list might be more realistic than fourteen. And concerning the fourteen, what if someone mostly achieves each attribute, getting half-way there, you know, say 50% of each?
So I think I’ve nailed seven for sure: temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not pugnacious, but gentle, and peaceable. These seven seem like “a gimme” to be honest, although I do have some pugnacious colleagues, so write me back if you want a list.
When you say ‘don’t be a wine-lover’ you mean don’t drink too much, right? And ‘a lover of money?‘ You know that ministers get paid now? Of course, needing money and loving money are two different things. I have only one wife, I’m not a new convert, I guess I’m beyond reproach (assuming I can get through this list) and I can mostly manage a household. And when you say ‘keep your children under control,’ you’re not including adult children are you?
Actually, Paul (can I call you Paul?) I just noticed that the NRSV say ‘bishop’ instead of the attributes of a minister. Kindly disregard this letter, and thanks for your time. I still have that pugnacious colleague list if you want it.
Sincerely, Michael
The truth is, the church has has a long and troubled history reading 1 Timothy. Early on, some of the church fathers took issue with it’s inclusion in the Bible, though they tended to the gnostic side of the tradition, and were ignored in the critical moment the canon was being formed.
More recently scholars have concluded that the language and the types of concerns listed belong to the period after Paul’s life and ministry. Add to this the inclusion of material that attempts to silence women in the church, and we begin to see why 1 Timothy is seen ‘Pauline’ rather than authentic Paul.
It is, nevertheless, part of the canon, and therefore deserves our attention, even if we read it with some caution. The test with books such as 1 Timothy is ‘what material is consistent with the life-giving message of Jesus‘ and ‘what truth about God can we uncover through a book that may deserve less attention than others.‘ We can’t ignore the book, but we can’t promote it either, particularly a book that has been used to subjugate women in the church for most of the last 1,800 years.
Back to our passage then, trouble for the United Church mind begins almost immediately. Pray “for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.” Being on the more political side of the Christian spectrum, we have tended to be more critical of our rulers rather than seeking a ‘quiet and peaceable’ life within the existing order of things.
You will notice, as an example, that the traditional Anglican prayer for the Queen and her government are not part of our prayer life. Going back to the earliest days of Methodism in Canada, our tradition was less supportive of the religious order that was originally imposed on Upper Canada, and as a result we were regarded with some suspicion. A quick glance at those involved in the 1837 rebellion and you see mostly ‘dissenting’ traditions, Methodist of various types, and even some Quakers.
So, our forebears had to argue for a place in the religious landscape, and succeeded mostly for a force of numbers. Only later on, when wealthier Methodists take their place among the elite in Ontario, do we see greater alignment between church positions and the position of the government. By the early part of the last century, particularly through the lens of temperance, we see the Methodist project and the work of the government become one.
Later on, beginning in the 1960’s and 70’s, we see the church recapture the oppositional stance toward government that it possessed originally. By the 1980’s we were fully prophetic once more, with very little chance that the project of the church could be confused with the agenda of the government of the day. And this continues, except that our Premier is a member of the United Church, and so the future of the church’s influence over the government remains unclear.
Scholars tell us that this passage is part of the transition from the martyrdom period of the church to the accommodation period. At the very beginning of the Jesus movement, believers were unwilling to pray to Caesar or make sacrifices to the various gods of Rome and were therefore put to death. Of course, persecution waxed and waned, with some emperors more troubled by Christians than others.
By the time 1 Timothy is written, it has become apparent that the world will not end immediately as expected, and voices within the church began to look for a ways to be in the world but not of the world, to live faithfully as Christian Romans, and not just Christians.
So the author of Timothy turns the traditional approach of the church on it’s head. Instead of a tiny group of believers standing against a hostile world, 1 Timothy argues for a growing group of believers opening itself to the world, so that all might be saved by Jesus.
It is a dramatic shift, one that completely reorients the church and opens the way to the expansion that follows. There is even a snippet of ancient liturgy, a prayer or a hymn that likely came from worship shared at that time, that backs up this reorientation from hostility to openness:
there is one God;
there is also one mediator between God and humankind,
Christ Jesus, himself human,
who gave himself a ransom for all
Jesus death and resurrection becomes universal then, not just for a small group of followers, those added to the faith one-by-one, but for all people.
Of course, this idea is not without controversy. Then as now, many want to limit the number of people with access to salvation, lest it be diminished somehow and become too common. There is a very human urge to remain special, and salvation for all people troubles those who need to be unique.
So two messages in this short passage in 1 Timothy, but really the same message. Be open to the world in a way that will save as many people as possible, and don’t defeat yourself by being an enemy of this world or by closing yourself off from this world.
In other words, try for a 50% grade wherever possible. Don’t become too closely associated with Caesar and his government, but don’t be an enemy either. Remain the church of Jesus Christ, unique as his followers, but remember that he died to save all, not just a select few.
There is a lively debate in the church to try to identify the moment that we became less relevant to Canadian society. The decline in numbers, a traditional marker, actually started in the year of my birth, 1965. But it wasn’t my fault. But I’m working on a theory that we actually became less relevant to Canadian society in 1927, the year that prohibition was repealed and society said ‘no’ to a government project that was completely identified with the mission of the church.
In some ways it is a cautionary tale. Become too closely associated with government, and people will turn away. But the opposite is true too. Become too oppositional, too given to protest and constant criticism, and people will turn away. We need to find the middle ground, between having a strong voice and being open to all. May God help us as we try. Amen.
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Psalm 14
1 The fool[a] says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?
They devour my people as though eating bread;
they never call on the Lord.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.
7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord restores his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
Karl Barth once said that we should read with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.
Or did he? Well, it turns out that the formulation that become a quote that became a touchstone that became a mantra that become the centrepiece of every United Church preaching course since the beginning is hard to pin down.
Even the good people at the Princeton Theological Seminary Library admit that the exact quote cannot be found. The closest thing they have been able to find is a reference in a later interview where Professor Barth said something like ‘of course you remember that time I said the thing about the Bible and the newspaper?’ Well, that’s good enough for me.
Preaching, you see, is really about a collision of weekly events that conspire to create sermon. They are, in no particular order: the readings for the day; events in the world; the latest theological ideas trapped in the preacher’s brain; the concerns of the congregation; the state of the church, both local and worldwide; whatever the preacher said the last time these readings came up; the season of the church year; and the temperature in the sanctuary. MIx, ruminate, bake at 350° and preach. It’s really as simple as that.
But if you took Barth at his word—and he was the greatest theologian of the last century—then you need to put current events near the top of the pile. And that becomes a problem. Long gone are the days when people would open the Globe or that other paper and read the most important stories of the day. We are confronted by the greatest variety of news sources in human history at the same time many argue that depth and accuracy is suffering as never before.
So there is too much news and the quality of dubious. And if that were not enough, there is a constant tension between news that is topical and the news better described as the ‘state of the world.’ Syria fits the first category, while trouble in the Middle East fits in the second. Or the latest jobless numbers might be in the first category, while poverty might properly be put in the second. And all fall under the banner of news.
And then there is the question of volume. Not the microphone kind, but the volume of any one area of discussion and what it can do to your preaching. There are current event preachers, latest movie preachers, famous poem preachers, ‘my foolish children’ preachers and the worst of the lot: hobby-horse preachers. You know them: doesn’t matter what reading or seasonal road they’re on, they always pull up in the same place.
And then a Sunday comes when the sermon basically writes itself. This is that Sunday. Irritated and grumpy from reading all that Premier Marois had to say about her so-called “Values Charter,” I turned to the readings for today and read:
The fool says in her heart, “There is no God.”
I think I made my point: I may as well sit down. But what would be the fun in that?
For those who spent the week on silent retreat or on a remote island somewhere, the Quebec Values Charter is proposed legislation that would disallow conspicuous religious symbols or clothing for public servants in Quebec, including teachers, day-care workers or anyone else employed through a provincially-funded agency. The release of this proposed charter included crudely drawn pictures of the subject of the legislation: a turban, a headscarf, even the back view of a Jewish man wearing a Kippa. Without exaggeration, I would suggest that the last time a government published cartoonish pictures of a Jewish man in a condemning manner would be in Germany in the 1930’s.
But the real story has been the fallout since mid-week. A giant fissure has emerged, not between religious and non-religious as you might have expected, but between separatists who favour freedom of expression and those who do not. All I can say is ‘stay tuned,’ because when began as a potential ‘black-eye’ for Canada and Quebec is quickly becoming a political farce.
Meanwhile, the fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God.’ The other news event that has captivated the attention of many in the last few years is the rise of what some are calling the “New Atheists.” The late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and two lesser known associates have been playfully called ‘the four housemen’ of this movement, a movement to defeat the influence of religion in contemporary life.
In many ways it is part of the response to the trauma of 9-11 and the general perception that militant Islam, and conservative Christianity on the other side, pose the greatest threat to peace in our day. At the same time, secularism (or atheism) seems to evolve and advance as science and commerce displace the liberal arts in education. It’s also a young persons viewpoint, more commonly held among those under 30.
Whatever the root, I can say with some certainty that God is worried, though not for the reasons we might think. The first hint of this is found back in Psalm 14, when the Psalmist continues to elaborate of the foolishness of those who claim there is no God:
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
Well, there’s your problem: God looked down on all of humanity to find a little understanding, to see if anyone truly sought after God, and was bitterly disappointed. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. In other words, God sees only atheists.
The word atheist, atheoi in the Greek (αθεοι) literally means ‘those who are without God.’ So for the Psalmist, those who are disobedient, those who reject God’s ways, are atheists, and are without God. Something to think about the next time you are planning to be bad.
The second thing that worries God in this era of the new atheists is best expressed, naturally, in the Book of Job. In this passage it is Zophar, one of Job’s so-called comforters that puts him (and the rest of us) on the spot:
Can you fathom the mysteries of God?
Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?
They are higher than the heavens above—
what can you do?
They are deeper than the depths below—
what can you know?
In other words, it is foolishness to speak with any kind of certainty about the ways of God. Except that Zophar and the other two ‘comforters’ spend the rest of the Book of Job doing exactly that. And then God speaks, and it ain’t pretty:
2 “Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
3 Gird yourself up like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Appropriately, Job is speechless. And one is left to wonder, what if many of the world’s most prolific religious commentators were speechless in the face of God? What if they (and we) spent at least half our time confessing that God is a mystery, unknowable, and therefore will not speak.
In some ways, the new atheists are right: too many people spend too much time describing how their view of God is utterly correct and everyone else’s view is completely wrong. Of course, the new atheists have fallen into the very same trap, so certain of their view of the cosmos that they have become fundamentalists too.
We are not, however, condemned to silence for long. We can speak of our experience of God, we can speak of conclusions drawn from careful study of the Bible, and we can learn of God from the saints that have gone before and share their stories of conviction and faith.
There is another Karl Barth story, no better documented that the quote I began with, but passed down from the first people to heard the story. Dr. Barth was speaking with seminarians at Princeton, or maybe Union in Virginia, when one of them asked the great professor to sum up his theological legacy in a single sentence. He thought a moment, then said: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Amen.
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 14
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
It seemed like a good idea at the time: Honour the first president of the young republic with an Egyptian-style obelisk and in doing so create the tallest structure in the world.
They had $87,000. And no, that was not a lot of money in 1836. It was not a lot of money when the estimated cost was $1,000,000. But they began construction anyway, assuming that a massive obelisk being constructed in the centre of the capitol would inspire others to give. It didn’t. By 1854, the project was broke, and the options were few.
Someone hit on the idea that states and groups would feel a greater sense of ownership over the project if they were permitted to donate stones. With $200,000 from Congress, and stones appearing from across the land, the project could move forward.
Trouble began almost immediately. The donated stones were meant for the interior of the monument, and could include an inscription. So here is a sample inscription, from a group called the Templars of Honor and Temperance: "We will not buy, sell, or use as a beverage, any spiritous or malt liquors, Wine, Cider, or any other Alcoholic Liquor." I’m not seeing enough heads nodding.
Another stone was sent by Pope Pius IX, a marble stone, which was soon stolen by the leading anti-Catholic party of the day and apparently thrown into the Potomac. Congress withdrew their funds, there was a civil war, and the whole thing sat there as a giant stump for 25 years.
I could say more—including the whole Pisa problem when construction resumed—but I will leave you to Google. Nonetheless, the monument, with a visible difference in the stones at the point of delay, remains perhaps the most famous example of Luke 14.28 and following:
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
The true topic is the cost of discipleship, and whether we have the inner resources available to journey with Jesus to the cross, but that would be jumping ahead. Before we get there, we need to look at Jesus’ second ‘for-instance,’ and that would be a king preparing for battle.
This of course fits with that idea that if something seems out of place or perhaps inconsistent with our picture of Jesus, it requires a second look, precisely because some later editor didn’t have the heart to take it out. It seems very odd, Jesus illustrating the cost of discipleship using a military example, but it remains one of his longest examples.
“Suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?”
Notice first that this isn’t simply a question of numbers. Jesus says “consider whether he is able with ten thousand men,’ meaning do these men have the courage to take on a larger army? Everyone listening would have immediately have thought of some of the history’s great mismatched battles: The Battle of Marathon, the Greeks outnumbered three-to-one, or perhaps Thermopylae, with 300 Spartans and a handful of Thespians (no, not actors) facing the whole of the Persian army.
In fact, the lasting historical and moral lesson of Thermopylae—courage and self-sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds—is exactly what Jesus seems to be getting at when he shares this illustration. It was never about having enough people: it’s about the amount of heart displayed by the few people that remain. Maybe some clever congregation will rename themselves Thermopylae United Church: it would certainly get the history geeks excited.
Now some of you are thinking, ‘when is he going to get to the part about hating your family, because my brother-in-law is a real idiot.’ Wait no more, dear friends. Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”
Oh, that it was simple as casting selected family members in to the outer darkness. Jesus is indulging in what we commonly call a ‘hard-saying,’ a deliberate overstatement that ought to get our attention. Just as he wasn’t really advocating lobbing off limbs or putting out eyes, Jesus is arguing for perspective rather that a literal attachment to his words. I know this because near the end of his life he gives the care of his dear mother to the ‘beloved one,’ (we call him John) and he was very far from hating his family.
In fact, I might argue that the key to understanding this passage is found in the Gospel of Thomas, the so-called ‘fifth gospel’ that didn’t quite make the cut but is worth a look nevertheless. (As a matter of fact, we will be spending an evening looking at Thomas in our eighth study series, some time early next year).
In section 42, Jesus says, “Be passersby.” That’s it. That’s the whole section, and that alone may explain why the church fathers who argued for the inclusion of Thomas lost the argument. It’s a tad cryptic, even vague, but it seems to be saying, ‘don’t become too attached to the things of this world,’ or ‘be in the world but not of the world,’ or ‘when others linger over possessions or people, take the Kingdom view that some day all of this will pass away.’
I know, that’s a lot of interpretation stemming from two simple words—be passersby—but this is precisely the lesson that illustrates the cost of discipleship. Your attachments will be different, your loyalties will be different, the things that truly matter to you will be different, even your attachment to your own life will change.
In some ways, it all seems overly dramatic, or even out-of-the-blue in the developing story of Jesus found in Luke, but it is really just a continuation. As recently as chapter twelve, Jesus is sharing the very same point of non-attachment, but doing so with poetry rather than hard-sayings. Permit me to use a more poetic translation:
22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.
24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?
27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.
30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.
31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.
In effect, Jesus is asking us three questions when he looks at family, and monument building, and planning a battle: Can you detach from the things that seek to hold you? Can you finish what you started? Do you have the courage needed, to be my disciple, and follow in my way?
Jesus concludes his sermon with a simple “whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” I say ‘Amen.’
