Unlikely Meals

Gospel: Luke 12: 35-38

In the ancient world it would never be the case that a master serve at table for his servants.  No matter how good a job his servants did, in the mind of the master such work is what was expected, requiring no rewards or special events.  The idea of a master serving anyone at table was unthinkable.  And yet here Jesus uses that image to reflect the portrait of God Jesus has, and how the kingdom of God operates in a very different way from kingdoms of the world.

So, in the kingdom of God the master serves a meal for his servants, just as a feast is prepared for the Prodigal Son.  In the ministry of Jesus we find him eating at table with tax collectors and prostitutes one day, while on another day he eats with Pharisees and scribes.  Jesus will have his final meal - the Passover meal - with men who would variously betray him, deny him, and abandon him in his moment of greatest need.  God's table is a vast and wide one.

The table in the kingdom of God is a place of encounter and transformation.  It is a place of celebration as well as one of forgiveness and healing.  The table is not reserved for an elite - the elite often reject the invitation, thinking themselves too good to be with everyone else.  Yet, the elite are not excluded from the invitation list; they exclude themselves.  We hope they will come to the table along with everyone else to enjoy the hospitality and service of the master.

The Hoarding Rich

Gospel: Luke 12: 13-21

It is easy for us to read this Gospel and apply it to the scandalous and sinful income inequality in our own times.  We could very well recall the age of the robber barons and industrialists who stored up vast quantities of wealth while exploiting their workers.  We might well note how our nation was founded through stolen land given to corporations who then brought cheap labor in the form of indentured servants and slaves in order to amass great wealth.  All of that would certainly be true.

Additionally, we might well apply this story to ourselves.  The average person has a vast quantity of things in their homes and storage units they do not use - clothes, kitchenware, our exercise museums, and all sorts of things that could be used by others who need them.  We might not regard ourselves as rich, but to the person from a developing country or the ghetto our comfortable home filled with stuff is a mansion in their eyes.  

If we ourselves are not willing to part with the excess in our own lives, it is then very likely that if we were to become rich we would hoard wealth just as the elite of our societies do in every age and place.  Today is a day to take stock and reduce it, living simply and helping others who have nothing at all.  This Gospel lesson is for all of us, not just the one percent.

Stark Choices

Gospel: Matthew 22: 15-21

At first glance and in the majority of sermonizing on this passage, Jesus seems to provide everyone with a happy compromise when presented with this question of loyalty to Caesar.  He tells us to give Caesar what is his, and give to God what belongs to God.  Seems simple, and everyone walks away apparently satisfied.  Upon deeper reflection, there are important considerations on both sides of the ledger in this apparent detente.  

Caesar has claimed divine status, meaning in the mind of the omnipotent state there is nothing that does not belong to it.  The financial world of money makes the same claim over all things, having the power to control all people and all things.  These powers of the world desire no compromise and will concede not an inch to God or anything else.  Fealty to them will result in the death of the spirit within people and within a society.

At the same time we are reminded the words of Paul: what do we have that does not come from God? Our entire existence and identity as His child come from God.  All on earth that we have to sustain us come from God.  Yet God is not a dictator - God invites in love to accept his mercy and to extend it to others.  The invitation remains ever open to us throughout life.  God waits for us as the father waits for his prodigal son who had given himself to the powers of the world that always leave us barren and forlorn.