Luke 21:5-19

A few years ago, I worked as a tour guide at the Old North Church in Boston’s North End. You know the place; it is famous for a couple of lights in the window and a poem. People would visit this renowned church from all over the world, and most are surprised to discover that it is still an active congregation.

I would often get asked, when was the last time a service was held here? To which I would reply, last Sunday at 11:00. There would be this look of astonishment on their faces, and many would just walk away. It seemed hard to comprehend that, except for a few years during the Revolutionary War, services were held at Old North every Sunday.

However, one of my favorite stories involved the painting hanging on the wall above the altar. As fitting its location, it’s a painting of Jesus, sitting at a table with bread and wine before him. As I mentioned, it hangs above the altar as a clear indication of communion. Every couple of weeks, a tourist would point to that painting and ask if that was Paul Revere. I would chuckle and say no, it’s Jesus.

On one particular day, I was feeling rather cheeky, and when I was asked the question about the painting, I replied that no, it was not Paul Revere; it was Jesus who completed his assigned mission. I received some rather interesting stares, and I could tell it was all being worked out in their minds.

People are easily distracted from the reality that is going on all around them. We see what we want to see and ignore what we do not want to see. We have an idea, a preconceived notion of what something is or is not, and our minds fill in the rest. For example, tourists come to Boston to see historical sights; they do not expect that any of these places are still being used for what they were initially built for, including a church.

In today’s Gospel passage from Luke, we listen in on a conversation Jesus is having in the Temple. The Temple they were standing in was the Second Temple built about 538 BCE. The first Temple, the Temple of Solomon, was built in 957 BCE and replaced the tabernacle, which was constructed under the direction of Moses. Unfortunately, this Temple was sacked a few decades later, and it was not until 538 BCE that a new one was built.

Details of the construction of the Second Temple can be found in the Book of Ezra. Construction of the Second Temple took 21 years to complete after being called for by Cyrus the Great. In comparison, the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, took 83 years to complete, and Boston’s Big Dig took 15 years. However, I am not sure the construction of the Temple made as much of a mess of the traffic in Jerusalem as the Big Dig did in Boston.

When picturing the Temple, one must imagine more than one building. Yes, the place of worship, the building that held the altar of sacrifice, was one, but the Temple precincts comprised many buildings. But the Temple was the grandest of all the buildings and the largest.

Now, Jesus is sitting in this building with his followers, and he is talking about the destruction of this building. They would know the history and that it has been destroyed before, but they cannot imagine it happening again. Those with Jesus naturally want to know when this will happen and will there be any signs, and Jesus tells them not to be distracted.

He goes on to describe what some of those distractions will be. Beware, Jesus says of those who will come and say that the end is near. There was a time when the world was coming to an end just about every week. One TV preacher or another, no doubt in need of a new plane or an expansion of their mansion, would say that the world was ending, and you needed to send them all of your money. I’m not sure why since the world was ending, but I will let you meditate on that.

Even today, people are constantly looking for signs, but even Jesus tells us that he does not know, so don’t worry.

Jesus says, “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified, for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.”

Then Jesus offers these words of comfort, “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.” So, we have that to look forward to.

All distractions.

Distractions are designed to make us look the other way. Make us give up and choose a different direction or give up all together. But what Jesus offers us today is hope, which we must cling to.

Hope is an essential aspect of the Christian life. Actually, I think hope is an important aspect of life in general.

We had a national election on Tuesday, and it might have gone differently than you had hoped. I remarked that the critical part was that the system worked and there was no violence.

The next day I noticed some prominent people making fun of some candidates and not picking at their policies or lack of policies but at physical features of physical disabilities. This angered and depressed me that in 2022 we have come to this. Why is it that every disagreement was to devolve into childish name-calling? Disagree with the other side and what they believe, but when the conversation devolves to Middle School name-calling, it is all over.

As I am prone to do on occasion, I expressed my thoughts in the social media realm and, as one can imagine, was greeted with opposition from some quarters. The essence of the conversation boiled down to the fact that people are so angry and divided that this is what is left. My response was that I disagreed, that adults can, and should, rise above petty nonsense and that we agree on more than we think. The disagreement comes on how we fix what needs fixing, not that things need to be fixed.

The conversation continued, mainly with the people who disagreed with me, restating their objections. In the end, I was told that this was an idyllic view of humanity, with which I disagreed. I said I disagreed because I hoped for a better tomorrow. I have hope because I have no other choice. Hope drives me forward because hope brings life, and the opposite is unacceptable.

I will admit that it might be a little “pie in the sky,” but I honestly believe we can change.

I recently began a new job as Spiritual Advisor at a drug and alcohol treatment center. For many people, this is their last stop before jail or something worse. This past week we talked about gratitude and the power that changing the way we think about things can change the world. I came across a quote that impacted me, “if you are breathing, you can make a change.” It does not matter your situation, and maybe worse days are ahead, but if you have breath left in your lungs, you cannot give up; you can make a change.

Jesus never promised that our lives would be easy. In fact, he said on several occasions that if you follow him, life will be difficult. However, the promise that Jesus made and makes is that although life will not be easy, he will be right there with you.

Jesus came to earth the way he did; he was born sort of life us. He lived his life the way people of his age did. He fell in love, had his heart broken, stubbed his toe, skinned his knee, and had friends and relatives die. He was persecuted, tried in a mock trial, and sentenced to death. All this was done so we can relate. God took on the frailty of human flesh, so we had someone to show us the way through the good times and the bad, which involves hope.

Friends, last week I challenged us to make a difference, to work to bring God’s kingdom to earth, not in the future but now. We cannot wait for some politician to do it; we need to do it. We need to make it happen, and we have to have hope that it will happen.

Do not be distracted by what the world wants, do not be distracted by what you see and hear on the news. Instead, keep your eyes on Jesus and remember, if you have air in your lungs, you can make a change.

Amen.

Luke 19:1-10

Two kittens shut down the B and Q lines of the New York Subway system for about two hours one day a few years back. The B and Q are two of the main lines that run from Brooklyn into the heart of Manhattan. A two-hour disruption will cause a problem, no matter what time it is.

One morning, a Thursday at 11 a.m., two scared kittens were spotted running down the tracks right next to the third rail. That’s the one that carries the power, 600 volts – not transformer power, but enough to use up all nine lives. So, they decided to cut the power to the whole line. And for almost two hours, the commuters and subway officials waited while a few went on a subway safari to rescue the flustered felines. But, alas, the kittens managed to stay out of reach long enough that the disruption was no longer tenable. So, since the kittens weren’t in visible danger, they returned power to the rail and started the local trains and eventually the express trains but issued an alert inviting the drivers to keep a lookout for the strays.

Naturally, in a day of instant commentary on anything and everything, the opinions were many and various. From the animal lover who praised the compassion of the administrators – or questioned why they gave up so soon just to keep the trains running on time (with the inevitable Mussolini quote tossed in) to the commuters who were patient or not, and the conspiracy theorists who speculated that terrorists in catsuits were behind it all, not to mention the anti-government voices who blamed the president at the time for letting the cat out of the bag. Bah-dum-bum.

The argument centered around one point. Were they worth it? And before you get all heated up, let’s make a shift here. We’re not talking about kittens on a subway track. We are talking about a little guy out on a limb.

Zacchaeus is an interesting character. He is not only a tax collector but the chief tax collector. So, as you can imagine, he was not well-liked in his community for two reasons. One, he was the tax man. Two, being the tax man meant you sided with the government over your fellow Jews. We can infer from what is written about these guys that most of them were corrupt and took more than they reported.

I have shared before about my experiences in Romania. I helped run a nonprofit there for a few years and would often visit the various sites we were supporting. After a few years of hitching rides, I decided it was time for me to drive. You think driving here is bad…

Anyway, if you violated one of the many written and unwritten traffic laws in the country, you, as one would imagine, would get pulled over by the police and issued a citation. You paid the fine to the police officer right there. You did not go to court and hope to have it dismissed; nope, it was cash on the barrel head.

They had these little coupon books and would tear out a coupon that would match the fine. So say the fine was $5, the police officer would tear our 5 one dollar coupons and give them to you. Of course, once back at the station, the police officer would have to reconcile his bool with the cash.

You did not always get the correct number of coupons to match the fine. It was a very different situation if you were an American and had American dollars—sort of like Zacchaeus.

So, Luke sets the stage for us. Again, Zacchaeus is the chief tax collector. He is the one that would come to your house and take all you had if you owed the government. He was the guy that recruited all the other guys, and he was rich. In Luke’s gospel, things don’t always end well for the rich, so immediately, we get an idea in our minds where this is going. But is it?

Zacchaeus hears that Jesus is coming to town and decides he wants to see him. Most rich people would send a memo and ask Jesus to go to their office to see them, but Zacchaeus does not do that. Instead, he runs, not walks but runs down the street where Jesus is going to be passing by. Keep in mind Zacchaeus, although despised, is still a pillar of the community, and he is running down the street to see some passing evangelist. Then it gets even crazier.

Because, as Luke mentions, he is “short of stature,” Zacchaeus, the great man has to climb a tree so he can get a glimpse of Jesus.

Now, we need to take a brief pause here. We have no idea why Zacchaeus has decided that he needs to see Jesus. Notice scripture does not say he wants to speak with Jesus, get a blessing from Jesus, or anything else. Zacchaeus wants to “see” Jesus. Maybe he is curious about what this is all about. Perhaps he does not want to be left out of the water cooler conversation at the tax office the next day. Whatever his motivation, nothing will get in his way.

Here comes Jesus. People are all over, some shouting, some looking on with skepticism, and Zacchaeus up in his tree. Jesus stops in the road, looks up at this curious little man in a tree, and calls to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” Jesus calls him by name and says that he “must” stay at his house. We do not know why Jesus singled out Zacchaeus, but he did right there in front of everyone. Jesus is going to stay in the home of the most despised man in town.

Again, we don’t know Zacchaeus’s motivation. All Luke says is that he wanted to see Jesus. “Trying to see who Jesus was” (verse 3). Why? Was it a change of heart? Was he worried about competition? Was it hope or fear? Or a little of both? We don’t know. And apparently, that doesn’t matter.

Now, this is the real curious part of the story. The transformation, the change in behavior, the giving away of half of what he has, and the desire to pay back four times if, notice he does not admit to anything here if he has defrauded anyone. All of this happened because Jesus said he was coming to dinner. So Zacchaeus came down that tree transformed.

At least there is the appearance of a change. We have to take a deeper dive into the words being used here. Zacchaeus tells Jesus that he “will give” and he “will give back,” but the original text says, “I give” and “I give back,” not future but present. Is Zacchaeus one of the good guys? Is this way Jesus is coming to his house?

The crowd certainly does not think so. They start to grumble when Jesus says he is going to Zacchaeus’ house for dinner. “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”

The crowd is not happy that Jesus is going to dine with sinners. “He is not worthy of such an honor,” they say. Jesus, stay on course. Stay out of the gutters, off the side streets, out of the trees. Keep to your own kind. His kind, the sinner kind, is not worth bothering with.

But by going to Zacchaeus’ house, Jesus is saying he is my kind. A child of God. If Jesus ignores him, he ignores you. He did not come to ignore the ones willing to go out on a limb to see him—the ones who put their reputation on the line. The ones who throw proper decorum out the window and, with child-like ambition, climb a tree to get a glimpse of Jesus as he passes by.

Luke leaves us wondering what was in the mind of Zacchaeus when he ran down that street and climbed that tree. He does not leave any clues about his motivation. Zacchaeus took a chance; he risked it all to peek at Jesus.

No matter what, Zacchaeus is worth it, and so are you. No matter what anyone else thinks, we are worth the effort, the disruption, and the inconvenience of loving.

Now ask yourself this question of this passage: “Where are you in the story?” Are you standing with the crowd, shaking your head at those people who aren’t worth it? Or are you standing next to Jesus, inviting yourself into the homes of those others think are sinners? Or perhaps, are you too out on a limb, hoping for a glimpse of Jesus and a whole new way of living?

By the way, seven hours later, they found those kittens, named them Arthur and August, and decided they were worth it.

Amen

Mark 9:38-50

In one of the Churches I served as an interim minister, I met a man we will call John. John was a wonderful and delightful man. He was dedicated to the Church and one of the people I could call on when I needed something. If I called John, he would drop whatever he was doing and rush to help.

Like me, John had come to the Church after being raised a Roman Catholic. There was not one instance or event that caused John to leave the Church of his birth; instead, it was after a long period of discernment. He felt more comfortable where he was now than he had ever felt before.

It was time for elections for the Church council to occur, and I asked John if he would be willing to serve. It felt right to me to ask John; he was, after all, dedicated to the Church. John said that he would pray about it and get back to me. After a couple of weeks, I asked John if he had come to a decision, and he answered that he was willing to serve.

After about a year, John came to me and said he needed to drop off the Council as he had determined it was not for him. He was constantly getting frustrated with the slow pace that the Council was taking. He wanted decisions to happen much faster than they were and felt like we were dragging our feet. He was also concerned that all we talked about was money.

John and I sat for a while and listened to all he had to say. I tried to explain that we needed to move slowly to ensure we were making the right decisions and that, unfortunately, the nature of Church councils is to be concerned for the temporal matters of the Church. The Council is the body that is responsible for the running of the Church and ensuring that all the bills are paid so we can continue to have a place to worship.

John said he understood but did not like coming home after meetings frustrated and having ill feelings toward others on the Council. So, again, I sat and listened and tried to offer wise counsel on the matter, but in the end, we determined it would be best for John to resign from the Council. I recall saying that serving in Church leadership was not for everyone, and no one likes to see the sausage made.

The problem was, serving on the Council had become a stumbling block for John. He would get frustrated at a meeting and develop feelings about others that were not charitable. In today’s scripture lesson from Mark, Jesus tells us what we need to do when something is a stumbling block in our spiritual lives.

I believe that Mark’s Gospel is underappreciated. It is widely believed that the Gospel was written by John Mark, who traveled with Paul and Barnabas and later with Peter. It is understood that what John Mark is writing is based on the teaching of Peter and that Peter is the primary source for what is written.

John Mark does not leave many clues about when the Gospel was written in the text. However, there is a connection to Rome, and there is no reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, so it is believed that these words were written before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, which would make this the first of the four Gospels to be written. It is understood by many that John Mark was writing this Gospel for the Christian community in Rome.

The Gospel clearly shows that Jesus is the Messiah but also points out that Jesus has come to serve and give up his life for all. There is no ambiguity in Mark that Jesus is the Son of God and has power over demons, heals the sick, and forgives sins. But Mark also points to the fact that Jesus is fully human, expressed through his agony the night he is arrested and the pain he felt on the cross. Marl also points out the secret nature of what Jesus is doing. Jesus speaks in parables and often tells those he has done something for not to tell anyone.

Parables are a helpful tool in teaching, although I sometimes wish Jesus would get to it and say what he was thinking. Parables require the listener to listen, really listen, and look for the clues being given. Parables also require those listening to think for themselves. Jesus is not going to spoon-feed his disciples; he wants them and us to develop our spiritual minds and the ability to discern what is right and what is wrong.

The other interesting thing about parables is they sometimes leave the teachings open to interpretation. I have said before that I believe it is the job of the Church to take these 2,000-year-old lessons and make them new for the present age. This parable talks about lopping bits off that bother us, but that is not precisely what Jesus was getting at. So, the challenge becomes, how do we make this relevant to those listening today?

We need to begin with a question. What keeps you from truly following Jesus?

I started with the story of my friend John and how his service on the Church Council was becoming a hindrance to him and his spiritual life. He tried all sorts of ways to deal with it but decided that he needed to “cut off” that part of his life.

Jesus uses some radical examples if your hand is the issue, cut it off; if it’s your eye, gouge it out. I would not recommend that for spiritual purposes, and I think there are other ways of dealing with what keeps us from truly following. But that is what parables do; they make us think. It is not always what is right on the surface that we are supposed to understand.

Most actions have a cause; something caused them to happen. Sometimes those causes are out of our control, but we can often control them. For example, I slipped on the ice because I did not put sand down or wore the wrong shoes. The action was falling; the cause was negligence. What this parable to trying to get us to do is to dig deep and find the answers.

How often do we say that person makes me mad? Okay, we might get angry, but it is not the other person that makes us mad; it is not even their actions that make us mad; we let ourselves get mad and then blame the other person. It is much easier to point away from ourselves than point towards ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong; some people make us mad; it sure might be us, and it might be them. The point is that we need to find the root cause, which is not easy. Getting to the heart of the matter is the focus of our spiritual life. Asking hard questions about ourselves and our environment is essential.

I often speak of how Jesus commanded us to love one another, and I add that it’s love and not like. We have to love each other, but we do not have to like each other. This is an integral part of our spiritual life and one that Jesus is getting at here. This idea of loving everyone does not require us to be a doormat; for our preservation, we sometimes have to cut people off. We do not have to keep toxic people in our lives. If that person constantly makes you mad, cut them off. If that person frequently drives you to have uncharitable thoughts about them or others, cut them off. If that job is unfulfilling or brings you to do things you don’t want to do, cut it off. Sometimes it’s not the hand or the eye that needs to go but rather the other person. Yes, there might be an underlying issue in you, but for the time being, it is okay to establish boundaries while we figure it all out.

When I was training as a spiritual director, one of my mentors described the spiritual journey as making a slow descent through all of the stuff in our lives that we do not want to deal with. I like to think of it as that place in our homes where we jam all the stuff when people come over. We all have that place. Maybe it’s a drawer, or perhaps it is a room. We jam it full of stuff because we don’t want to deal with it.

Our spiritual life is about opening that door and dealing with what is on the other side one thing at a time. If we look at the project as a whole, it can be overwhelming, but if we take it one small piece at a time, it becomes easier. We open the door; we take out one item and deal with it no matter how long it takes. Then we go back and repeat the process. We may never get the room empty, but we need to try.

So, what is that thing, or what are those things that keep us from following? What do we have in that room that we need to deal with? Do you need help dealing with some of the stuff there? If so, there are people who can help you do not have to do it alone. The spiritual life is a marathon, not a sprint, so take your time.

Amen