Jeremiah 29:10-14 Years ago I traveled from Iowa to San Francisco to attend a work-related conference. It felt like a different world. Walking through the city, I encountered the homeless on every street, begging. My colleagues and I talked about what was the right thing to do – whether to give, how to give. We wanted to help, we wanted to do the right thing, but it’s often unclear what the right thing is. One of my colleagues decided that she was going to give something to every person who asked and she did– until she ran out of money to give. When one more man approached her asking for something, she stopped, looked him in the eye and said, “I am all out, I have given it all away, and there is still so much need. How much am I supposed to give?” He shrugged and turned away. It was […]
Continue readingAuthor: Maggie Gillespie
A Cheerful Giver
2 Corinthians 9:6-15 ; Luke21:1-4 I remember an autumn Sunday from many years ago when I sat in the pews of my church, and the pastor stepped into the pulpit. It was the custom at that time for the pastor to make the announcements of the church right before the sermon. He began with an announcement about the budget. At that time in my life I paid zero attention to budget matters, but apparently there were some financial difficulties, budget shortfall, if you can imagine such a thing. I only half listened, but at some point I noticed that his announcement was running really long. About 20 minutes later he stopped talking. He acknowledged rather sheepishly that he had spent too much time on the announcements and would forgo his sermon rather than make us suffer through another 20 minutes of him talking. The congregation laughed, he wrapped up with a prayer, and that was that. But […]
Continue readingFor Those Who Want Answers, Let Us Pray
Job 19:23-27 Luke 20:27-38 When I was a young child, I have been told, I asked questions all the time. “Why” questions. It drove my mother crazy. She felt like she had this little mosquito following her around, buzzing in her ear night and day. Why? Why? Why? It was like a form of torture that she would try to endure, offering answers as best she could, but eventually she would cave and say, “I don’t know.” She didn’t have all the answers like I expected her to. Later, I got married and I transferred all my hopes and expectations to my wise husband. I asked Kim all my questions, but it turned out he didn’t have all the answers either. I have spent much of my life pestering the people closest to me with unanswerable questions. I might be an unusually irritating person, but doesn’t everybody want to have […]
Continue readingThe Blessing and the Woe
Luke 6:20-31 This week our book discussion group gathered together to talk about the most recent book we have read: Ordinary Grace. A man named Frank looks back on one particular summer in his childhood. 1961 in a small town in Minnesota. He was 13 years old, his brother Jake was 9. And in that summer, they confronted death for the first time. It wasn’t as though they knew nothing of death, actually. Their father was a minister, and they had been to plenty of viewings and funerals in their childhood already. But this summer was different. There were four deaths for these young boys: lives taken by tragic accident, by violence, by unknown causes. Four deaths they met at close proximity. All four, lives taken too soon. And throughout the story there is the question of faith – and grace. How does faith carry us through times of loss? How […]
Continue readingToxic Faith
Luke 18:9-14 There is a scene in the movie Beaches, with Bette Midler. Some old friends have come to see Bette Midler’s character, CC, perform on stage, and they go backstage to see her after the show. CC just can’t stop talking about herself and her performance. But finally she turns to her guests and says, “But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do YOU think of me? So we have another parable from Jesus today, and he tells this one for the benefit of those people who tend to think they are better than everyone else. It’s left to us to figure out who those folks might be. Do you think they are the Pharisees? Maybe…maybe not. He tells a story about two characters – one who spends his prayer time thinking about how pleased he is with himself and disparaging the other guy, the one who spends his prayer […]
Continue readingNot to Lose Heart
Luke 18:1-8 Let me tell you a parable. There was a man who had two daughters – one was Tenacious and the other was Gracious. When Tenacious wanted something she went to her father to ask for it. He would say, “give her what she wants so she will get out of here. When Gracious wanted something she would go to her father, also. However, the father was not so quick to grant her wishes, because he enjoyed her conversation so much he would prolong it.[1] Think on that for a while. Parables are hard, and Jesus used parables an awful lot. I think it might have been because there was a lot of competition for the people’s attention. There were other teachers around, not least of all, the Pharisees. There were other freelance prophets and wannabe messiahs wandering around looking for an audience. You know, if one man’s message […]
Continue readingOne Foot In, One Foot Out
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 Luke17:11-19 In one of our recent Bible study classes at the church we talked about all the many words we have to express being on a trip, a journey. How many ways to be a traveler: Sojourner, migrant, immigrant, vagabond, refugee, pilgrim, fugitive, exile. So many, and all meaning something different. Aren’t we all, somehow, travelers on a journey to or from somewhere, anywhere, or nowhere? In our travels we encounter borders, lines which, when crossed, tell us we are no longer in one place but now in another. Some people, with a spirit of adventure, want to cross borders while others do not. Some want the border lines to be erased while others want them fortified with impregnable walls or fences. There are others, still, who prefer neither of those things. They like the borders and they like to be able to wander back and forth […]
Continue readingHope for the Rich
Amos 6:1, 4-7 Luke 16:19-31 Some years ago I was talking with some people about what the Bible says about wealth. We had just read a passage from Luke where Jesus says, “Woe to you who are rich.” We wondered if he really meant that. Because, is it really that bad being rich? Most of us who are not rich would like to be, if we had the chance. I can hear your objections already. “I’m not interested in being wealthy. I’m not the kind of person who wants big fancy houses and yachts and cars.” And maybe you are not. But it seems to me the most appealing thing about having wealth is to not have to worry about money. The thing that most of us would probably like the most is to never have to worry about whether we have enough money for the things we need […]
Continue readingFor Those Who Squander
Luke 16:1-13 Luke’s parable of the dishonest manager is my pastoral penance to pay every so often, when it comes up in the lectionary. And I am, apparently, not the only one who has misgivings about it. In one of my study Bibles it has a footnote saying, “there is no satisfactory explanation for this parable.” It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that we were on a journey with the heroes of our faith – the great cloud of witnesses, the saints that have gone before us. And now we face this dishonest manager, a character who hardly seems a viable candidate for the faith hall of fame. Although Jesus might not agree with my assessment. He certainly didn’t make the preacher’s life easy, though, with this parable. Because, on its surface, it just doesn’t seem right. “Be like this dishonest manager,” Jesus says. And I […]
Continue readingPillars of Faith, Part 4: Faith Waits
Luke 14:1-11 It’s curious that, after just having put his opponents to shame, the leader of the religious leaders, the Arch-Pharisee, invites him over for dinner. Why might he have done that? He might have been invited because the Pharisees thought this had gotten out of hand and they wanted to try to reconcile. Good intentions. So, maybe that was it. He might have been invited because the Pharisees’ professional reputation was on the line. Their credibility was at risk because the crowds of witnesses were cheering Jesus on while he was humiliating the leaders. He might have been invited because they decided to take the high road. They would show that they could “turn the other cheek” with the best of them. Or, he might have been invited because they were keeping a close eye on him. Remember that they have been trying to catch him in a serious […]
Continue reading
