{"id":763,"date":"2013-09-22T11:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-09-22T15:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=763"},"modified":"2019-11-19T12:15:07","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T17:15:07","slug":"spiritual-health-in-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2013\/09\/22\/spiritual-health-in-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Health in Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luke 16: 1-13<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear the full service.<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear the sermon only.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Opening<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before us today stands Jesus Christ, robed in mystery and announced in a strange parable.\u00a0 There is no easy interpretation for this parable.\u00a0 Why is its hero, my favorite accountant, commended for dishonesty which is a breach of the ninth commandment? We do not know.\u00a0 Why is his master happy to be cheated?\u00a0 We cannot say.\u00a0 Why is an accountant\u2019s swindle upheld, in this parable here attributed to Jesus, as a preparation, somehow, for heaven? No one can tell.\u00a0 What, please, does verse 9, as tangled in the Greek as it is in your bulletin, intend (\u201cMake friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations\u201d? )<\/i>We do not see.\u00a0 What possible connection is there between the story, and the four trailing proverbs?\u00a0 Little at all, except that they all deal with money.\u00a0 How did this story make it into Luke\u2019s travel narrative?\u00a0 It is not clear.\u00a0 Is this dishonest manager our role model, in the church, as we try to \u201cmanage wealth in the direction of justice?\u201d (Ringe)\u00a0 Perhaps!\u00a0 And, most of all, where is Jesus, The Divine Mystery Incarnate, to be found in our reading today? The parable of the dishonest steward has really just one meaning, and it is very good news: Faith gives spiritual health in the midst of change, including the transition into college life.<\/p>\n

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1. Mysterious Presence<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Let us recall the mystery of Christ, the Stranger in our midst.\u00a0 We can announce his presence today, again today.\u00a0 He is among us:\u00a0 dealing with issues we dismiss\u2026speaking with people whom we dislike\u2026considering options we disdain\u2026selecting vocations that do not yet fully exist\u2026expanding spaces that we constrict\u2026accepting lifestyles that we reject\u2026attending to possibilities that we ignore\u2026approaching horizons that we avoid\u2026healing wounds that we disguise\u2026questioning assumptions that we enjoy…protecting persons whom we mistreat\u2026making allowances that we distrust.\u00a0 So, strangely, is He among us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Strangely his voice addresses us.\u00a0 You may mistake is strange presence for absence.\u00a0 Then a voice you have not heard for 50 years, since Vatican II arises.\u00a0 You open the newspaper, as perhaps you did on Friday, to read the statement of the Bishop of Rome, Francis: It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time\u2026We have to find a new balance, otherwise (we will lose) the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel\u2026When God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person? The church is the home of all\u2026We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our own mediocrity (NYT, 9\/20\/13)<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the mystery of Jesus Christ falls upon us, approaches us, and enchants us, when and where we least expect Him.\u00a0 In the strange world of the Bible.\u00a0 In the midst of the community of strangers that is the Church.\u00a0 Hidden in the brutal estrangement of our personal life.\u00a0 Here, behold, the Lord Christ Jesus, \u201cL\u2019Etranger\u201d, \u201cThe Stranger\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contrary to some preaching, even televised and popular preaching today, his presence is neither simple, nor surface, nor easy, nor fundamental, nor shallow, nor ideological, nor one dimensional, nor ahistorical, nor primarily political.\u00a0 He draws us, lures us, and enchants us.\u00a0 So he sets us free.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For St. Luke in chapters 9 to 19 has captured a collage of portraits of Jesus, \u201cOn the Road\u201d.\u00a0 We are on a journey, as Luke reminds the church.\u00a0 We are making a trip to the promised land.\u00a0 We are headed in a certain direction.\u00a0 With our spiritual forebears, we are traveling, on a journey.\u00a0 Israel left Canaan to go to Egypt to find bread.\u00a0 There they became the slaves of Pharaoh.\u00a0 But Moses led them out, parted the Red Sea, and guided them through the wilderness.\u00a0 He brought them the ten commandments.\u00a0 At last, he sent them forth, with Joshua, to inhabit the land flowing with milk and honey.\u00a0 In such a glorious land, they hunted and farmed.\u00a0 They even built a temple, and chose a King.\u00a0 Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon reigned, but were followed by others less wise and less strong.\u00a0 Although the prophets did warn them, the children of Israel left their covenant and their covenant God, and at last suffered the greatest of defeats, the destruction of Jerusalem and the return to slavery in Babylon, 587bc.\u00a0 On these hundreds of years of history depends the cry of Jeremiah, \u201cO that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep, night and day, for the slain of my poor people.\u201d (9:1)\u00a0 Like Israel marching in chains to Babylon, and then trudging home again two generations later, we people of faith are on a journey, from slavery to freedom.\u00a0 Faith heals, manages, handles the hardest of change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Luke\u2019s mysterious Christ meets us today, hidden in the maelstrom of wild, unexpected change and economic crisis.\u00a0 On the road, the journey of faith, the Gospel of Luke has most to say, and Jesus most regularly addresses, the issue of money.\u00a0 Remember how Luke traces the Gospel.\u00a0 Mary in the Magnificat honors the poor.\u00a0 John the Baptist preaches justice, in the great, unique tradition of the Hebrew prophets, from Amos forward.\u00a0 Isaiah\u2019s words and hopes are affirmed.\u00a0 Jesus blesses the poor, not just the poor in spirit, in his \u2018sermon on the plain\u2019.\u00a0 Remember the parable of the \u2018rich fool\u2019, \u201ctonight is your soul required of you, and these riches, whose shall they be?\u201d\u00a0 Luke sets Christian discipleship at odds with, in contest with, anxiety about possessions.\u00a0 And, by the way, great ready in conclusion, to meet Lazarus and Dives.\u00a0 Jesus Christ calls us to manage our possessions toward justice, both as a community and as a community of faith and as individuals. <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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2. Personal Application<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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But you may wonder whether this parable speaks to you, especially if you are in financial calamity.\u00a0 Along Luke\u2019s Jerusalem road, Jesus has a healing word to say about possessions, money, and wealth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To me it is clear that the chief communal issue before Luke\u2019s (Antioch?) congregation was the management of wealth.\u00a0 This means that they had money.\u00a0 This also means that they did not immediately throw it away.\u00a0 This further means that they reasoned that the apocalypse of the end was not so very near that no financial planning was necessary.\u00a0 This additionally means, as Luke\u2019s writing shows, that they were trying to learn to become prudent, astute, imaginative, shrewd, clever, insightful, accountable, enterpreneurial managers.\u00a0 So they are reminded, in argument from less to more:\u00a0 \u201cKeep faith in the little things, to be ready for the big ones.\u201d\u00a0 An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.\u00a0 \u201cBe faithful with money, which belongs to God, so that you will become faithful in soul, which belongs to you.\u201d\u00a0 A stitch in time saves nine.\u00a0 \u201cDo your pre-season training with possessions, so that you will be ready for the regular gridiron season of the spirit.\u201d\u00a0 Look before you leap.\u00a0 Be penny wise, not pound foolish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In other words, \u201cuse possessions so as to gain, not to lose, your future\u201d (Craddock).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Be creative.\u00a0 \u201cFor all the dangers of possessions, it is possible to manage goods in ways appropriate to life in the Kingdom of God\u201d (Ringe).\u00a0 Remember that you are a manager of someone else\u2019s accounts, an absentee landlord who has a claim.\u00a0 And go ahead, be clever.\u00a0 Be creative and loyal, but if you have to choose\u2014be creative.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In other words, whether you are 18 or 98, attention to, stewardship of, care for resources matters, and matters greatly. <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

3. The Gospel of the Dishonest Manager<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The deeper truth in this passage, though, is simply that faith heals and handles change.\u00a0 Faith carries the power to master the vicissitudes of change.\u00a0\u00a0 Ultimately, this parable cannot be interpreted along moral, or economic, or even political lines.\u00a0 So read, it makes no real sense.\u00a0 Luke has gone ahead to read the parable so, in part, by appending the four proverbs about fiduciary fidelity.\u00a0 We have honored his teaching.\u00a0 But the parable itself says something else.\u00a0 Like the mystery of Christ itself, the story is not moral but mystical, not theoretical but theological, not law but grace.\u00a0 It is good news<\/i>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The good news is that faith heals and handles change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A man gets the pink slip, and leaves under suspicion, with the sheriff on the way.\u00a0 He is looking at doing time. He is on the lamb. He is headed for jail, prison, the lockup, the pokey, hoosegow, calaboose, the slammer, the joint, the tank, in stir, goin\u2019 up the river, doin\u2019 time, in the brig, the gray bar hotel, the big house, the can.\u00a0 (Isn\u2019t language wonderful?\u00a0 As the steel magnolias said, \u201caccessorize\u2014it\u2019s the only thing that separates us from the animal kingdom\u201d.\u00a0 I would add speech.)\u00a0 He is not a moral exemplar. But just as his ingenuity handles the sudden change in his circumstance, so the powerful grace of faith, the faith of Jesus Christ, handles the constant change of life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Faith manages change, masters change.\u00a0\u00a0 So Paul can shout, \u201cI have been crucified with Christ.\u00a0 It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.\u201d (Gal. 2:20).\u00a0 The faith of Jesus Christ, working heteronomously through life, handles change.\u00a0 Faith is nimble, not flatfooted; agile not stolid; creative not programmed; shrewd not complacent; quick not quiescent; fast not slow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Notice what my favorite accountant does not do.\u00a0 He does not only, merely, just, pray, go to temple, seek ministerial counsel, bellyache, celebrate his victimhood, join the choir, or leave it all up to Jesus.\u00a0 He does not say, \u2018let Go let God\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 He does not claim that God has done this to him.\u00a0 In fact, the faith here acclaimed has no religious clothing at all. No, he does none of that. Rather, he responds, shrewdly.\u00a0 He finds the faith to handle change, and lives the faith that handles change.\u00a0 Change is real hard, and real good.\u00a0 Like life, like love, like faith, like\u2026any of the things of God.\u00a0 I think back, with the joy of faith when grace is present, to all the times I have seen spiritual health emerge, as faith handled and healed change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last week, around September 11, I could not help think of the way people responded on that fateful autumn day, 12 years ago. In August I had driven across the George Washington Bridge, filled with emotions still present, a dozen years later I think of a young father and others on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.\u00a0 Somehow, amid sudden and calamitous change, they found the courage to act in a way that, at least in part, handled change.\u00a0 They even had the presence of mind to call home first.\u00a0 Faith handles change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I could not help think of the men in New York who carried a person in a wheelchair down dozens of flights of stairs.\u00a0 Faith handles change. Faith handles change. The faith of Jesus Christ, our salvation, does not fear to change, nor does faith fear change.\u00a0 Faith manages change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think of all the meetings I have attended in the last three decades.\u00a0 You know, there is a grace and beauty to meetings, at their best.\u00a0 You can see this ordinary grace at work in most group, staff, university, church, community meetings, where faith is called upon to handle change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It makes you wonder whether there is collectively an unforeseen, creative, shrewd response to our changed circumstance as a people, now contemplating our response to Syria.\u00a0 How to meet violence with patient justice\u2026hmmm\u2026in the trust that faith handles change.\u00a0 This is the faith of Jesus Christ, apart from which all else is sin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Returning to Boston after the summer, walking on Boylston Street, I could not help but think of the women and men, on April 15, who found the faith, as first responders, as innocent bystanders, as people on the scene at the finish line of the Marathon, who found faith that brought healing to radical, horrific change.\u00a0 I think I saw some of your there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Watching students, particularly freshmen, navigate the waters of student life, I cannot help think of the ways, with help and faith and encouragement, that so many have found healing ways, faithful ways, to handle the change, to find spiritual health as college begins.\u00a0 On the crowded noontime paseo<\/i> along Commonwealth I think I hear some whispering:\u00a0 I will study hard.\u00a0 I will say no when I need to.\u00a0 I will take a daily walk in Boston and monthly trip to the ocean.\u00a0 I will explore the world around me.\u00a0 I will have some fun along the way.\u00a0 I will invest in the joy of making lasting, lifelong friends.\u00a0 You can remember this week:\u00a0 Faith heals, faith heals by handling change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Keep this portrait of the shrewd manager in your wallet, especially for the days your wallet is empty.\u00a0 Especially for those days when your heart is heavy, your spirit is sour, your souls is sagging.\u00a0 This accountant meets the report of his mismanagement, itself possibly false, with calm.\u00a0 He does not try to change the world, or this news.\u00a0 He raises the basic question with courage:\u00a0 \u201cwhat shall I do?\u201d\u00a0 He thinks creatively, acts entrepreneurially, communicates astutely, relates cleverly, strategizes shrewdly…and lands on his feet.\u00a0\u00a0 When times change, he does too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And Jesus commends him, I guess.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And Luke commends him, I guess.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And even his old boss commends him, I guess.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You can\u2019t help but love the guy\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oh:\u00a0 And I have no idea what verse 9 means.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke 16: 1-13 Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only.   Opening   Before us today stands Jesus Christ, robed in mystery and announced in a strange parable.\u00a0 There is no easy interpretation for this parable.\u00a0 Why is its hero, my favorite accountant, commended for dishonesty which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2427,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763\/revisions\/2427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}