Sermon on Luke 14:25-33

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

When Jesus talks in Luke about hating family members, carrying crosses, and giving up all possessions, one could be forgiven for thinking twice about following him.

Jesus seems to have turned the sharp wit he used in last week’s reading about the dramatic dinner party to the “large crowds” that were now traveling with him.Jesus didn’t stop at turning the social ladder upside down—he warned his followers that difficulties would come, so they should be prepared.

After all, Jesus knew he was provoking the powers that be to the point where we know it ended: execution by the state. We also know what happened after, but Jesus’ followers still needed to know what was at stake: their reputations, their comfort, and even their lives.

Jesus was setting before the crowds a choice that was life or death, similar to what God presented in our reading from Deuteronomy: “I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.”

Jesus’ words seem harsh because he was deadly serious about his mission and wanted his followers to commit to living the Beloved Community.

It’s meant to be tough to hear these words. Surely Jesus didn’t literally mean that we all have to intentionally hate our families—that would be at odds with the greatest commandments to love God and neighbor.

But Jesus needed his followers to know that following him—this unpredictable rabbi who was challenging the Roman Empire—might cause family members to disown them. If they couldn’t handle that possibility, it would be better if they turned back now.

And as I already mentioned, Jesus’ teachings and works of power would get him executed, and his followers needed to be ready to accept that fate too, because the Romans weren’t known for their mercy.

As for Jesus’ insistence that people can’t follow him without giving up all their possessions, he had a precedent of sending his disciples out pretty much empty-handed, dependent on others’ hospitality. It created the mutuality of the Beloved Community. If his followers weren’t willing to be dependent on the generosity of others, maybe they weren’t cut out for what he would ask them to do.

As the crowds around him grew, he needed them to realize that this wasn’t just a matter of following him around watching him do miracles.

Jesus knew that hardships and suffering were coming for him and his followers, but also that their participation in creating Beloved Community would lead to more freedom, abundance, and love for them and the world.

He offered them a life or death choice, just like God’s Law in Deuteronomy, and he wanted them to choose life in him.

We as Lutherans might find this idea of the Law being life-giving a little uncomfortable. We focus so much on God’s grace that we have a hard time knowing what to do when we read parts of the Law that God gave God’s people after the Exodus. We worry that we might be getting too much into the “shoulds” or maybe the “shalt nots” and losing sight of God’s grace.

But our reading from Deuteronomy tells us that the Law wasn’t about restriction or mindless obedience—it was meant to be life-giving to the newly freed Israelites.

It was about deepening their trust in God and helping them live in ways that honored God, their neighbors, the earth, and their own selves.

Luther named three uses of the Law:

1.    First, that it gives us a way to live together as large groups of human beings in ways that guide us toward not hurting each other.

2.    Second, it shows us a standard that we can’t fully attain, and so it convicts us of our sinful, imperfect nature and evokes gratitude for God’s grace.

3.    Third, specifically for Jesus followers, it helps us love God and our neighbor better.

Luther himself found life-giving help in the Law, and so can we, as long as we always remember that we’re not saved by our actions but by God’s grace.

The particulars of the Law can be perplexing and even troubling to a modern reader, but it was given to people in a different time and place. We have refrigeration, which allows us to eat shellfish that was dangerous to the Israelites. Most of us wear clothes made of mixed fabrics. Our norms, around marriage for instance, are very different from what we read in the Law.

The particulars of what is life-giving can vary over the course of thousands of years, and we need to think deeply and pray deeply about how we interact with the Law as people of faith in our time, but it is meant to be life-giving. It’s meant to show people how to love God and their neighbor better and how to participate in the Reign of God, just like Jesus was encouraging his followers to.

Our world could certainly use more love of God and neighbor.

There’s so much pain in the world.

I’ve been barely able to wrap my mind around yet another school shooting last week. The pictures of starving people in Gaza haunt me, and my stomach churns when I think of people being held hostage.I hold my breath when I check the news, waiting to see what new devastation is being wreaked around the globe.

Faced with all that’s wrong with the world, it's so easy turn to things that bring us enjoyment in the moment to numb ourselves from the pain: scrolling, buying things, binging tv, food, alcohol, etc.

But numbing doesn’t satisfy. It can even exacerbate the deterioration of our mental health. And it can lead us to consume even more in a world that’s falling apart under the weight of our overconsumption.

When God implores God’s people to choose life in Deuteronomy, it sounds so pertinent for us today. We may not observe the Law the way the ancient Israelites did, but God still has a way of life for us that is life-giving.

Are we willing to renounce the ways we numb ourselves to the pain of others as we work to make the world a more just and peaceful place?

And when Jesus charges his followers to count the cost of following him, that has resonance today, too.Jesus called his disciples to “hate” or give up whatever had a hold on them that would keep them from God’s mission.

Are we willing to give up our reliance on things that make our lives more convenient to the detriment of the future of our planet?

Even our reading from Philemon has implications for us. The interpretation of this letter over the course of history, especially in this country, is fraught. But though it deals with the topic of enslavement without directly calling for its termination, Paul makes it clear that Philemon is to consider Onesimus his brother in Christ and treat him as he would treat Paul. We are one in Christ. The image of God is in each of us, and we should treat every person accordingly.

Are we willing to divest ourselves the best we can from, for instance, supply chains that exploit others?

These are big questions, and we can’t make any significant changes alone. But also, nothing will change unless individuals like us step up.

Choosing life is complicated.

But we can rest in the knowledge that we aren’t and in fact can’t be perfect, and God knows that and loves us anyway. God saves us by grace alone, not by anything we do or don’t do.

We can forgive ourselves as God forgives us when we fall short of our ideals of renouncing numbing, giving up overconsumption, and divesting from exploitative systems.And that frees us to love God and our neighbor the best we can.

We can’t measure up to the cost of discipleship. It’s only because of Jesus’ journey to the cross that we can even try to follow in his footsteps.

But now that we are freed in Christ, we can foster the Beloved Community as best we can—together. It’s a community, after all. We can’t make a huge difference on our own, but together, we can change the world with God’s love.

Whenever you can, however you can, choose life—together.

Sermon on Luke 14:1, 7-14

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Focus: Just as Jesus pointed the guests and host of that Sabbath dinner to the liberation of the upside-down Beloved Community, the Holy Spirit connects us with others into the Body of Christ where all are valued and nourished.

Function:This sermon will encourage hearers to connect with others.

Last week, we talked about Jesus breaking the letter of the Sabbath laws in order to uphold the spirit of Sabbath by liberating a woman from her ailment.

This week, our Gospel gives us the story of a different Sabbath. Jesus was at a Shabbat dinner hosted by a leader of the Pharisees. Before we boo the Pharisees, remember thatthey weren’t the bad guys. They were highly respected religious leaders, and Jesus may have even been one of them.

Still, it seems that Jesus was getting their attention and not in a good way. After last week’s story, perhaps they were watching him to see if he would get involved in another disagreement about observing Sabbath.

If that’s what they were hoping for, they sure got it. Our reading today skips over a few verses where Jesus cured a man with edema, or swelling. Jesus then turned to the dinner guests and asked them if it was lawful to cure people on the Sabbath.

Everyone was silent, so Jesus echoed what he had told the religious leader in last week’s reading: if any of their children or animals fell in a well on the Sabbath, they would pull them out.No one disagreed, resulting in the most awkward of silences.

So, maybe Jesus was an obligatory dinner guest or even that person you might invite just so they can stir the pot and keep the conversation interesting. But either way, Jesus was getting their attention, and we can only imagine how tense that dinner was.

But Jesus was also paying attention to them. He watched as they claimed the spots of honor they felt they deserved.

The parable he told them draws from the Proverb we read in the first reading. It sounds like Jesus was reminding them of some advice for how to climb the social ladder.

But by giving them that advice, he was indirectly calling them out on the status-jockeying they were trying to get away with. So, really, he set up a lose-lose situation: either you pompously sit at the high place or show false modesty by sitting at the low place. Either way, you don’t get the result you’re looking for.

And then, he told the host a different piece of advice that definitely wouldn’t raise his social standing. “Don’t invite anyone who could return the favor. Invite those who have been ignored and excluded.”

Essentially, instead of teaching them how to climb the social ladder, Jesus turned the ladder upside down.

If the host followed Jesus’ instructions, probably none of that night’s guests would be invited. And ifsomehow they were, if they followed Jesus’ advice, they would sit at the lowest spot, deferring to those who were normally marginalized.

This is the upside-down Reign of God, where the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The least in society will sit in the places of honor, and those who normally vie for the best seats will sit at the lowest, if theydeign to be there at all.

As we discussed last week, Sabbath is about liberation. And on this particular Sabbath, Jesus illustrated the way God would turn the world upside down, freeing us from our human hierarchies and injustices.

What’s good news to the impoverished and marginalized can sound like bad news to those who already hold the power in society, but full human flourishing manifests when all human beings are valued as the images of God they are.

The point of Jesus’ parables wasn’t about pride or humility at all—it was about inclusion, liberation, and love.

These are the things worth pursuing—then and now.

But so often, our world is focused on status, wealth, views, likes, and going viral.We network instead of connecting. We post instead of catching up in person. We strive for attention when what we really want is to be loved, valued, and included.

It may sound dramatic to say that loneliness is an epidemic, but that’s what experts are saying about our society today. We’re disconnected and don’t know what to do about it. Loneliness is a vicious cycle, where the more isolated we become, the harder it is to reach out.

As we spend more time online without really talking to anyone, as we increasingly work from home without connecting with people around the water cooler, and as third spaces like community centers and, yes, faith communities become less common, we’re falling deeper and deeper into loneliness.

We all want to be loved, valued, and included, but that can feel elusive.

But that’s exactly what we foster when we live into the Beloved Community Jesus calls us to.

When we set aside our concern for social standing and who to network with to get ahead, we start paying more attention to those around us, really seeing others instead of just how being in relationship with them makes us look.

We can view sitting at the lower spot as humility, but if we’re only doing it in order to be invited to a higher place, we’re still making it about us.

I’ve heard it said that humility isn’t about thinking less of yourself, but about thinking of others more. If we’re beating ourselves up for being proud, we’re still centering ourselves.

Humility is about “right-sizing”: those who are esteemed in society might need to quiet themselves and listen to others, and those who are marginalized might need to step into their authority and inherent worthiness.

We can embrace that we are deeply valued by God and at the same time be awed by that fact. And most of all, we can treat those around us as the miraculous images of God they are. Turning outward can help us do that humble “right-sizing.”

In our vicious cycles of loneliness, it’s hard to reach out, but that’s how we break out of loneliness and break into the Beloved Community.

Who’s on the periphery of your social sphere? Who do you pass by? Whose day might you brighten by making contact? Who might you reconnect with or deepen your connection with?

Maybe there’s someone in this room you could connect with, or someone down the street, or even someone in a different country—thanks, modern technology for making that possible!

Whoever it is, please reach out. It’s scary to make the first move, but usually people are happy to be reached out to. Remind someone that you see their worth, and so does God.

And when we show hospitality to strangers, whether or not we entertain angels without knowing it, we can start seeing the divine in every guest.

We’re at the midpoint in Ordinary Time, the long green season of the church year that stretches from Pentecost to Advent. Let’s use this time to reflect on how we spend our ordinary days. Let connecting with people be part of your everyday life, and may our lives be as open and inclusive as this Table. That’s how Beloved Community spreads.

Sermon on Luke 13:10-17

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Sabbath was our theme throughout last year. We spent a long time talking about how important rest is, how our culture doesn’t make room for it, and the biblical mandate for rest practices.

And yet in today’s Gospel, it sounds like Jesus was flouting the Sabbath laws given by God.He cured this woman even though it was the Sabbath. The religious leader in the story called him out on breaking the Sabbath commandments.

It’s not like the religious leader didn’t want this woman cured. He was just trying to faithfully observe the way of life given by God after the exodus. Sabbath means no work, and surely curing someone was work. If there were life-threatening circumstances, then of course, he could intervene, but why couldn’t Jesus have good boundaries and cure her tomorrow?

This was an ongoing controversy among God’s people. What counted as work? When was it permitted to do work even though it was the Sabbath: to save someone’s life? To ease someone’s pain? When were humans overstepping and pretending we’re too important not to work—essentially playing God? Even God rested on the seventh day of creation.

The synagogue leader seems to have fallen on the stricter side of the question. But instead of pulling Jesus aside to voice his concerns, he called him out publicly. And instead of speaking to Jesus himself, he addressed the crowds. Not just once, but he “kept saying to the crowds” that there were six days to work, and that they shouldn’t come looking to be cured on the day of rest.

But Jesus wasn’t having it.

Jesus was making it clear that Sabbath is about liberation. The language throughout the story uses imagery of bondage, not just healing and illness. Jesus used the language of “bound,” “bondage,” and “set free.” Jesus didn’t just cure the woman: he liberated her.

That’s important, because Sabbath isn’t just about rest. It’s about liberation.

When God liberated God’s people in the exodus, God gave them the Law, including Sabbath laws. Those laws reminded God’s people week in and week out that they were God’s, not Egypt’s. They were no longer enslaved—they had the freedom to rest and enjoy God’s creation, just as God had done at the beginning of time.

God reminded God’s people about the Sabbath laws in our reading from Isaiah, too. This came at the end of the Babylonian Captivity, when God’s people had been taken into exile by the Babylonians. They were once again being freed from a foreign power, and God was reminding them what it means to be God’s people.

The reading opens with reminders to live into their newfound freedom by speaking life-giving words and taking care of those who were hungry and afflicted. And then, it goes right into a reminder of the importance of Sabbath. Taking care of each other and observing Sabbath go hand-in-hand. These are what it means to be God’s free people.

God freed them from the oppressive power of the Egyptian Empire and the Babylonian Empire, as well as all other empires forever. The Sabbath laws weren’t just about the weekly Sabbath. They also included a sabbatical year every seven years and a Jubilee year every seven times seven years. During these special years, the land and the people and animals that worked it would get a break.

God promised to provide enough food to allow them to let the ground lie fallow for a year, restoring the land and its creatures to health and flourishing for the coming years. In the Jubilee year, debts wereforgiven, enslaved people were freed, and land was returned to its previous owners.

All of this goes against the human urge to expand and hustle and dominate. It goes against human empires’ desire to get bigger and more powerful no matter the cost.

Instead, God frees God’s people from that oppressive hunger for more by instituting cycles of rest and rejuvenation.

So, when Jesus set the woman free from her ailment, it wasn’t breaking Sabbath laws; it completely aligned with the spirit of Sabbath.

Sabbath is about liberation, and Jesus liberated that woman, just as God had liberated her ancestors.

The synagogue leader observed the letter of the Sabbath laws, while Jesus observed the spirit, but it’s still hard today to discern how to observe the spirit of Sabbath.

We talked last year about Sabbath not just being about showing up to church on Sunday mornings, though it’s wonderful to worship with you all. And it’s not necessarily about rigidly setting aside a 24-hour period of not doing certain things.

We spent a whole year talking about Sabbath, because it’s really countercultural today. Our culture values hustle and productivity, trying to squeeze the last drop of potential out of every second of our days and maximizing the profit. We’re not encouraged to rest unless maybe it’ll make us more productive tomorrow.

As we’ve been talking about today and all of last year, Sabbath isn’t about making us more productive. It’s about freedom, gratitude, and remembering Whose we are.

But it’s hard to live that out in a culture that doesn’t value rest and where we’re bound to systems that value people based on their productivity and not their inherent worthiness as human beings made in the image of God.

Our culture values some bodies and tries to ignore and even erase others. People who aren’t white, straight, cisgender male, able-bodied, middle-class and above, neurotypical, documented, slim, and young are marginalized, written off, given lower paid jobs, considered drains on the system,maligned with various unflattering stereotypes, and even criminalized.

It's hard to practice the spirit of Sabbath when you have to work three jobs, take night classes, and take care of your kids as a single parent. Or when because of a disability, the system makes you choose between getting paid to do the meaningful work you feel called to and receiving the benefits that make it at all possible to pay for the treatment, equipment, and assistance that keeps you alive in a society that’s not built with you in mind.

There’s a lot of work needed to make our society and world more just for everyone. And it’s tough to discern how and when to rest, remembering our freedom and belovedness in God.

It’s hard to rest when there’s so much injustice in the world, and it’s also hard to keep going and not give up under the weight of everything wrong in the world.

And yet, God knows what in this world doesn’t align with the Beloved Community and still calls us to rest. God calls us to both rest and liberation. We can’t completely have one without the other.

But God also never calls us to do it alone. Even the big names like Moses didn’t do it alone. We sometimes forget, but Moses’ siblings, Aaron and Miriam, had big parts in the exodus too. Later on, God told Moses he was doing too much trying to be the judge in every matter the Israelites brought to him, so God gave him other leaders to help.

I know a lot of you have participated in choirs and other musical groups. Choral singers and wind instrumentalists have to stop producing sound when they breathe. So, in big groups like choirs, they do what’s called “stagger breathing.” They take turns breathing, so that the sound is maintained by those who aren’t breathing at that second. No one of us can sustain our work constantly by ourselves, but together, we can keep the liberating work going, even as we each participate in liberating rest.

And God works, too, when we rest. The breath of God’s ever-sustaining Holy Spirit moves through us and our world constantly, comforting the suffering and inciting good kingdom-building trouble, bringing about freedom and shalom for all.

The spirit of Sabbath is liberation. We observe the spirit of Sabbath by incorporating rest into our justice work and justice work into our rest. We do both together and with God’s help.

A lot of work needs to happen to make sure that every single human being is treated like the image of God they are, but instead of saying, “we won’t rest until that’s a reality,” we will rest as part of making that a reality.

Rest well, beloved. Continue to live into your divine calling to do justice and to love mercy. The God who created the world and called it good created and loves you and every one of your neighbors.

Live out the spirit of Sabbath by continuing to discern together the rhythms of rest and justice work that set the world free.