Pr. Joseph Crippen

Be kindled with the fire of the Spirit again, and God will help you be a part of the healing of all things. Even if you can’t often see it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 20 C
Texts: Luke 12:49-56; Hebrews 11:29 – 12:2

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The fire was almost out for these people.

No flames, just fading red embers cooling. Their life of faith was sluggish, dull, stuck in malaise.

They used to be on fire. They heard the Good News and found the thrill of conversion and new community in Christ. Later, they went through a time of persecution. Some lost their property, some were imprisoned, but their fire of faith burned. Adversity banded them together, strengthened their faith.

But this community to whom Hebrews was written had cooled off considerably. Conversion and persecution were long past. They might be in the second or even third generation, and people do drift away. While those who remain just get tired. Too many problems in the world, with little to excite their faith, find hope in God’s leading.

That’s why an unknown preacher wrote Hebrews. It’s a sermon meant to fire up tired believers.

Today’s part is all about encouragement.

The preacher lifts up hero after hero from the past, beloved ones known from Scripture. Rahab, Gideon, Daniel, the widow of Zarephath. So many others. People who trusted God’s promises and lived faithful lives, served with courage and hope. Even in the face of persecution and death.

This preacher tells them to notice two things. First, all these heroes died before seeing the completion of God’s work in the world. But their trust in God wasn’t based on whether they experienced everything being made right again, or even anything good happening. Their trust was based on God’s faithfulness.

And second, these heroes are now this community’s cloud of witnesses. They’re running the race of faith and life, and these faithful witnesses are cheering them on.

So, the preacher exhorts, let’s run with perseverance the race set before us, releasing all the weight of despair and fear and anxiety and dread that drags us down. Be kindled again.

And now you see that Jesus’ desire to bring fire to the earth isn’t a threat.

Jesus feels the same as the preacher of Hebrews. After three years his disciples still aren’t getting it, still making mistakes, misunderstanding things. There’s been more and more opposition, so they’re getting anxious. And they can sense Jesus’ own growing weight of anxiety as he gets nearer and nearer to his death.

Are my followers ever going to be on fire for God’s reign? Are they ready for the setbacks and the challenges? They seem to want me to do everything. How can I get them aflame with passion for bringing God’s good news to all who desperately need it?

Jesus might also be anxious about you and me.

We’re a lot like the people of Hebrews. Most of us aren’t new converts, haven’t been persecuted. We can easily take our life of faith for granted. We can be sluggish, dull, as followers.

Partly because of the size of the problems in this world we know God wants us working on. Issue after issue, problem after problem. When you look at all the challenges in our society and can’t see much hope for changing even one of them, how do you stay charged up?

And partly for the same reason as the people of Hebrews. We live our lives of faith in our everyday, ordinary world. It’s hard to pay attention and listen to God’s voice all the time in a world where there are so many voices. It’ hard to stay excited for daily growth and challenges, to focus on all the good decisions we need to make. So we settle into patterns, habits, living our lives without much awareness of our life as Christ, for how we are vulnerable in our love, for changing the world. We just get up, do what we do in the day, go to bed, and repeat.

But Jesus says, “how I wish your fire was already kindled!” And don’t you wish that, too?

Except that will mean division, Jesus says.

If you’re fired up about your life in Christ, if the Spirit’s flame is burning in you to become more like Christ, to be a part of God’s healing and justice and mercy, that’s going to ruffle some feathers.

You know this. How many of us have stories of Thanksgiving dinners and family birthday gatherings where the division and tension over critical issues in our world was obvious and painful? How many have loved ones we don’t talk to about certain things, knowing it will get into fights and anger?

And it’s not just about politics, or even just about the United States. God’s desire for you and me and all God’s people to live in mercy and justice, to be safe and whole and loved and fed and sheltered, for all to know God’s abundant, rich life, all this is beyond your life and mine, beyond Minnesota or the U.S. God dreams this for all people.

And if the fire of the Holy Spirit draws you into that way of life, that path, that hope, you’re going to see some divisions. In families, yes. But even in the Christian faith. So many who bear Christ’s name are working against Christ’s way, God’s path the Spirit is firing us up to walk. They’re promoting hatred and destruction and oppression in the name of Christ.

Jesus would prefer all God’s children were together on the side of God’s mercy and justice, afire to work for the healing of all things. Right now, and maybe for a long time, it’s going to split people from each other. But he’d still prefer you’d be rekindled, alight with the Spirit for this work, this life.

So you and I come here every week to be relighted, rekindled.

We may not see the healing of all things, or even much of a small part, the preacher of Hebrews reminds us. But we’re following Jesus on his path and even our small part will make a difference. As Rabbi Rami Shapiro has said, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work. Neither are you free to abandon it.”[1] It is enough for you to be you, to be kindled with the Spirit to love as Christ in your place.

And remember, you and I, and all who love God’s justice and mercy and are led by God to Christ’s path, are not alone. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses of those who have gone before us, who now are joined by our brother, Gary, witnesses who know how hard it is to stay afire, how challenging the divisions can be, how daunting the world’s grief really is, and who are cheering you, and me, and all God’s faithful ones to keep at it.

We need God’s fire. There may be divisions. But in the Spirit we keep following Jesus on his path of faithfulness, trusting it is the way of life for all things, surrounded by witnesses cheering us on.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] Rabbi Rami Shapiro, paraphrase and trope on a portion of the Pirke Avot (Sayings of the Fathers, Talmud)

Abundant life is about who you treasure, not what. Because God treasures you, and all God’s children, and will help you do the same.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 18 C
Text: Luke 12:13-21

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

This is a familiar pain.

A beloved parent dies, and the children become hyenas, fighting each other over the carcass, wanting all the scraps they believe they deserve. It’s ugly and heartbreaking to witness or experience, especially when such a fight would break the parent’s heart. That’s what’s happening here. Our friend thinks Jesus should arbitrate this family dispute, force the brother to share the inheritance.

The tragedy in these situations is that the family ceases to be a family. Siblings become opponents, enemies. People don’t speak for years, decades, sometimes never reconciling.

What this brother treasures is the inheritance. What he needs more than anything is to treasure his brother, treasure the relationship, treasure the family. No inheritance is worth that.

Until our friend understands that life abundant and worth living is about who you treasure, not what, Jesus can’t help him.

Treasuring the whats gets us into trouble every time.

Jesus speaks today about the desire for money, because it’s money our friend treasures. But what causes all the pain and suffering in this world, and even in your life, is when people treasure the what, not the who. Sometimes it is money. Sometimes something else.

If you treasure being right, then when you disagree with loved ones someone will be a winner and someone a loser. Someone you love is hurt because you treasured the what, not the who.

If you treasure safety and comfort, then when you make buying decisions, when you vote, when you live in the world, you will support systems that provide you what you want at the cost of your neighbors. Someone suffers because you treasured the what more than the who.

When our society treasures ideas and opinions more than people, laws trample over people, crush them, kill them. Polarized political fighting happens when people forget the who – that is, the people who are deeply affected – and treasure the what – being right, getting their way, not having their privilege challenged, denying their own prejudice and bias.

Everything that ails our society, our culture, our personal lives, can be traced to treasuring a thing rather than a person. No thing is more valuable than a child of God. No inheritance, no perceived right, no need to win, no stubborn refusal to learn and grow, no principle, no doctrine. That’s what Jesus keeps saying.

The last time this summer someone tried to get Jesus to give him what he wanted, Jesus focused on love of God and love of neighbor.

He taught that eternal life isn’t a thing to be received, it can only be lived, right now, in love of God and love of neighbor. Because love of God and neighbor also isn’t a what, a thing to be believed. It’s a way of life that, when lived, focuses you and me on what really is valuable, what treasure really matters to us.

We start with love of God because God is the first Who we can truly treasure.

God is not a what to pontificate about or to define or to fight about.

The holy and Triune God who made all things is a Who, who loves you and the whole creation enough to die for you and the whole creation. Who came in person, in Christ Jesus, to show you, and me, and all people, the face of God, the heart of God’s love. To give tangible proof that you, and I, and all people, and the whole creation, are beloved.

That’s the Who you want to treasure first: the God who loves you beyond death itself, who will always be with you and give you life. Treasure God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength, because God treasures you with all God’s heart and soul and mind and strength.

Treasure that. Lean into that: you are God’s beloved.

And when you treasure the God who treasures you, you are changed.

The Word of God’s love for you and the creation wraps in and around your heart, and you are transformed into someone who loves in the same way, who treasures the who, not the what.

This Meal Christ gives works its way into your cells, your bones, your breath, and transforms you into someone who treasures your neighbor as you are treasured.

This Spirit God fills you with stirs in you and shapes your heart and your mind and your soul and your strength and creates a new person who loves and treasures all God’s children.

If our friend today really wanted Jesus’ help, he could have asked, “Teacher, could you help me and my brother reconcile? I really miss him.” Jesus would have loved to help with that.

And when this value system, this treasuring, spreads throughout the family of God on this earth, no oppression or suffering or systems or laws will be able to withstand it.

We can help each other a lot in this.

If our conversation and lives – whether personal or communal – start focusing on things, protecting institutions, defending points of view, being right, or whatever, we can say to each other or to ourselves, “who is it we’re not treasuring right now?”

If our life together starts veering into abstract things we think and argue, even about God, we can say to each other, “where is God in all of this and how can we treasure God’s presence here? How is God’s love shaping us and our lives?”

Abundant life is lived with whos not whats. And God deeply desires you to know abundant life. And me, too. And all God’s children.

That’s something worth treasuring, for the rest of your life.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen