Sunday, September 4, 2022

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33

Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil.

When we first moved to England, we had to wait a month for our car to arrive from America. It was brought by ship and took much longer to arrive than the rest of our things. During that time, we only had access to a manual drive English car meaning that I would not only have to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, but also using my left hand to shift gears. Since I’m not very good at manual driving anyway, we decided it would be best for me to wait for our car to arrive before driving.

I had no chance to get used to the idea of driving an American car on the left side of the road and dealing with the English roundabouts. Bruce drove us down to the port in the English car and I had to drive our car to our home. Also, it was a brand-new car, one that I had never driven. I didn’t know the little details about the car that are necessary, like where to turn on the windshield wipers or lights. Everything went well at the port, and we were on our way. I was happy and proud at how quickly I became comfortable with driving on the English roads. It was a little shocking how fast you are allowed to travel on those country roads, but I remembered to stay on the left and did very well.

I did well until we came to our exit from the highway and the first major roundabout during our trip. At the very moment we exited it began to rain and I could not find the control for the windshield wipers. I had to concentrate on getting through the roundabout, so I focused on Bruce’s little red car that was ahead of me and we got through it without incident. I found the switch to turn on the wipers as soon as we were on the next road, and I continued to follow that little red car. The driver was going a little fast for my comfort since I was just getting used to a new car and a new country. Eventually, the car was so far away I lost sight. It was at that moment that I realized that I was not traveling in the right direction. I followed the wrong car.

Luckily, traveling in England is really very easy. The roundabouts may seem like a strange and confusing way of directing traffic, but the reality is that it makes finding your way much easier. If you take the wrong exit out of a roundabout, you just have to get to the next one and you’ll get turned in the right direction. I learned that it was better to follow signs to the towns rather than road names and numbers. Once I realized that I was lost, I just followed the sign to our town at the next roundabout. Eventually I made it home, and I had so much fun in the process. Getting lost is the best way to see the English countryside.

Getting lost is not always a pleasant experience, however. Sometimes a wrong turn can get a driver in trouble. It happened to me when I lived in New Jersey. I was trying to find a business one evening and I came to a crossroad that I thought would lead me in the right direction. I was in the left-hand turning lane and I took the turn when the arrow turned to green. A drunk driver ran his red light and smashed into my car. I was not injured but I believe that my seatbelt saved my life that night. In that case a wrong turn could have meant the difference between life and death.

In today’s Old Testament lesson, two ways lie before the people of Israel, and before us. We are given the choice between life or death, good or evil. Many of our choices have no real consequences. It doesn’t matter if we have hamburgers or spaghetti for dinner tonight or if I wear a red or green shirt. It does matter how we live our life. It does matter if we believe in God or in ourselves. It does matter if we obey the commandments of God or if we decide to walk in His ways. These choices mean the difference between good and evil, between life and death.

It has been incredibly dry in Texas, and in other places, this year. We are finally getting some scattered rain showers. Unfortunately, very few of those drops of rain have fallen on our house. I was driving the other day when a downpour hit the city, and it took me much longer than usual to get home. The water was running on the streets, and the experts were warning of flash floods. I knew it was true until I took a left turn onto a road that was nearly dry. The rain that was flooding the last road had not even fallen on this one. I got home to discover that we did not get any rain, again.

You can tell it has been dry here in Texas because the grass is brown and the trees are stressed. The ranches in the country have empty tanks that look like big dirt holes in the ground. There are many of these dry creek beds around the state. When I first moved here, I didn’t even realize they were creek beds because there had never been any water, and yet when it does rain they fill to the brim and flow like a river. We might have realized that they were dry creek beds by the presence of the trees and shrubs. Out in the country there are often lines of trees that seem out of place; they aren’t part of a manicured landscape, they seem to follow an imaginary creek. The trees grew there because it is the only place a tree can survive in the semi-arid environment. We don’t see it, but sometimes those dry creeks run on top of underground water, so despite the empty creek above, they still have a source of water to stay alive.

The psalmist writes that the man who lives by God’s Word is like a tree planted by the streams of water. This is not simply a matter of living a life that is righteous according to the Law, but instead is about living in a relationship with God. God does not come to us because we are righteous, but we are made righteous by living in His presence. We are given all the faith and grace we need to live. Dwelling with those gifts will keep us on the paths which God has made for us. Dwelling in those gifts means that we’ll avoid those things that will bring harm upon ourselves, our neighbors and the world in which we live. Dwelling in God’s grace means that we’ll not walk in the counsel of the wicked because we have His council by which to walk. Dwelling in God’s faith means we’ll not conform to the ways of the sinners because we are being transformed by His love. Dwelling in God’s presence means that we’ll meditate on His Word, day and night.

Does this mean we are to reject the world and become hermits with only the Bible to keep us occupied? No, we are called to take God with us into it. To do so, however, means keeping His Word in our hearts and in our minds. It means taking time daily for prayer and study, for renewing ourselves by drinking in the waters of life. All too often we think that we are strong enough, faithful enough, knowledgeable enough to live on what is already a part of our lives. We may have read the bible a dozen times, so why do we need to read it again? We go to church and hear a few passages read and expounded, why do we need to read it ourselves every day?

We are concerned about the lack of rain not only because our lawns are dying, but because our source of water is disappearing. We still need to use water even if there is no new water filling the aquifer. Thankfully the recent rains are helping, but there is still a long way to go for us to be out of drought conditions.

Have you ever experienced a spiritual drought? Have you had times when you just didn’t feel the living water fill you? I’ve been in churches where the Word was not proclaimed, and the people seemed to be following that wrong path. The choices they are making do not seem to have life and death consequences, but they do affect the eternity of those who listen. They’ve lost touch with the God of the Bible. A person who attends my Sunday school class told a story yesterday about a friend who attends a different church. He asked about the decisions they are making and how they see those choices in light of the scriptures. The man’s friend said, “Oh, the Bible has changed, you know.” While the Bible is a living document that we must interpret to understand, we are reminded that God is the same today, tomorrow, and always. His Word does not change, even as we might hear it in new ways.

The problem is that too many people who think the Bible has changed have not even spent time in the scriptures. They are not letting the Living Water fill them with daily scripture reading, study, and prayer. They listen to those who teach on a passage here and there, but they don’t delve deeply into the Word to hear what God really has to say, relying on those who twist the Word to fit their ideas and ideology. I once attended a group that didn’t study the bible, they read books about issues and then discussed them from every point of view than God’s. It is no wonder many Christians are living in a spiritual drought.

We need to drink water daily to live; the same is true of the scriptures. After a time without renewal and study we lose sight of what matters, the lines between the wicked and the righteous blur. We lose touch with God. When we live without regular study and reading of the scriptures, we are like the tree that is planted in the dry field far from the source of life. God intends for us to be like the tree that dwells by the streams of water, drinking in His Word daily for life. We can choose to be satisfied with what we know of the scriptures, but then we will risk losing touch with the God who speaks to us through His Word. That risk leads to the risk of following the wrong path.

We have each been given a vocation, a calling in this world. It is through our vocation that God’s grace flows into the lives of others and His purpose for our lives is accomplished. Our vocation might not sound very godly; as a matter of fact, sometimes our jobs seem very counter to God’s intent. Is a stable hand really doing God’s work when he shovels the manure each day? What about those accountants, lawyers and stockbrokers riding the train each day? Is a mother serving God when she feeds her children or a shop clerk ringing up my total at the grocery store?

Jesus says, “So therefore whoever of you who doesn’t renounce all that he has, he can’t be my disciple.” His point is not that we are to give up everything of this world and lead a life of separation like a hermit. He is telling us that we must check our priorities. What matters most? What is the purpose of our work? Who are we serving when we start our day? To follow Jesus means putting Him first. It means leaving aside our agendas, our expectations, and our desires so that we will do what He has called us to do. As recipients of God’s grace we are called to make Him the priority in our life, to consider His Word when we make decisions and to walk in His ways as we respond to His call.

We are shocked by Jesus’ comment in today’s Gospel lesson. He said, “If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can’t be my disciple.” This makes it seem like Jesus is contradictory since He talks about honoring mother and father and loving our neighbors, even our enemies. How can we both honor and love them and also hate them? Jesus is telling us to consider the cost of following Him.

The word “hate” is defined in Webster’s as “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury, extreme dislike or antipathy, loathing.” If it is used as a verb, it means, “to feel extreme enmity toward, have a strong aversion to, find very distasteful.” Imagine the shock Jesus must have provoked with His comments in today’s lesson. We are to hate our mother and father?

“Hate,” was understood differently in ancient Israel, however; it had to do with priorities. To hate something meant to turn your back on it, to separate yourself from it. Jacob loved Rachel but hated Leah. Obviously, he did not feel a strong aversion to her since they created several children together. That passage simply means that Jacob put Rachel first, turning his back on Leah for Rachel’s sake. When Jesus calls us to hate our mothers and fathers, our wives and our children, He is not telling us to abandon them or treat them as enemies. He is simply calling us to put Him first, setting aside everything and everybody else for His sake. It is a matter of priorities, placing God ahead of everything else, including ourselves. It is a heavy cost and never easy, but it is the life to which each disciple is called.

Imagine how hard it must have been for Philemon to get the letter from Paul. We do not know the whole story. We know a little bit about the characters, the time and place where this story is set. Paul is the writer, a passionate Christian who has not only taken God’s Word to the world but has suffered for its sake. He is a prisoner, though we do not know from which of his many imprisonments he is writing this letter. We know that Timothy is a friend and co-worker in Christ, a “son” of Paul not in the biological sense, but because Paul was the one who instructed him in the Christian faith. We know that Philemon is a man from Colossae of some means because he had at least one slave. He was Christian. We know that Onesimus was a slave from Colossae who became a Christian under the instruction of Paul.

We do not know how Onesimus became a slave. We do not know why he ran away or how he came to befriend Paul. We do not know what happened to these characters after Paul sent his letter. Did Paul have any impact on the relationship between Onesimus and Philemon? Were the reconciled? Did Onesimus suffer the consequences of his infraction against Philemon? Did Philemon have mercy and receive his slave as a brother in Christ? Did Paul ever see them again?

Paul’s concern was not just for his new friend and brother Onesimus. He was concerned about Philemon. There is a question of a financial matter involved in this story. Was Onesimus purchased or did he owe Philemon a debt which forced him into slavery? Did Onesimus steal from Philemon when he escaped? Paul was so concerned for the welfare of both these men that he was willing to repay the cost to restore the relationship. The details of this story don’t really matter; the purpose for Paul is to show us what it means to walk the path of Christian faith.

The purpose of Christian faith is restoration and forgiveness. Philemon knew the power of God’s forgiveness in his own life because he’d become a Christian. He knew the transforming power of the call of God in the lives of those who believe. Onesimus also learned about the forgiveness that comes from faith through the teaching and concern of his new friend Paul. Onesimus, though still a slave, was something new, he was a brother in Christ to all those who believed in Jesus. He was transformed and willing to serve. Did his good graces extend even to the one who had held him as a slave and did he return with courage and hope to the place where he belonged?

Along with forgiveness, we see a lesson in living our vocation in and through the faith we have been given. Philemon was master, Onesimus a slave. In Christ the roles of life may not change but the way we deal with one another does. In our own churches we often have people who are CEOs of a company and their employees worshipping side by side. That relationship reaches beyond the church door as the CEO is expected to treat the employee with Christian love and respect even in the workplace and vice versa, neither one taking advantage of their position in the church or in the world to set themselves ahead or above the other. The life of discipleship means doing things in a whole new way. It means learning how to stay on the right path.

Paul was writing to Philemon to encourage him to receive Onesimus, to grant forgiveness, and be reconciled to him in Christian love. It went against everything he knew about business and society, but for him it was the cost of discipleship. To be a follower of Jesus means more than just words and even good deeds. It means more than giving up the easy things like immoral behavior. It means hating your very life, turning your back on everything for the sake of Christ.

Jesus not only asks us to follow Him, but He demands that those who want to be His disciples “hate” everything else. He was being followed by large crowds; most of them believed in Jesus, at least to a point. They believed that He could do great things and that He was a charismatic and credible speaker. He had authority they had never seen in any man.

They followed until He told them what it meant to be a disciple. But His words were too harsh. Discipleship meant putting Him first. The people in the crowds had not given themselves fully to Jesus. They could leave at any moment, to go home to care for the needs of home and family. They believed but had not committed themselves to Him. It is a very hard thing that Jesus asks. It is hard to give up everything, to turn our backs on everyone we love. I can’t imagine giving up the wonderful life I have been living. It is an impossible request from Jesus.

And yet, does the servant who stays with the master want for anything? No, as the master’s servant he had everything he needed: a home, food, work, clothes, family and friends. Jesus is not calling us to live a life with nothing. He is not telling us to become penniless wanderers. He is asking that we give up even our very lives for His sake to be more than followers. He is calling us to pick up His cross and follow Him.

Our choices have consequences, and though we may not suffer the wrath of God for poor decisions, we will suffer the consequences of a life poorly lived. We will also miss out on the blessings of grace if we turn our back on the One from whom true life comes. God, in His love and mercy, calls us to put Him first in our lives so that He care for us as He has promised. Following Jesus comes at a great cost, but God paid the greatest cost and Jesus made the greatest sacrifice so that we could follow Him. He paid the debt to set us free. In that freedom we are called to willingly serve Him, to turn our hearts away from the world to become His disciples. As disciples we’ll truly know what it means to be blessed, even if we suffer the wrath of the world. Our sacrifice will last but a season and we’ll soon know the blessing of dwelling with Him forever.

God puts us in a time and a place and in relationships to accomplish His good and perfect work in this world. He needs stable hands and mothers, masters and slaves, CEOs and employees to live their Christian faith not only within the walls of the church on Sunday, but daily in the world so that others might see His grace. We don’t know the whole story of Philemon and Onesimus, but we do know that Paul sought to restore their relationship for the sake of God’s kingdom in Colossae, so that the two brothers might work together to make the Church grow in truth and in spirit. The prize we seek as Christians is not to be better than one another but to build the Church of Christ together so that we will shine God’s grace to the world.

To do so, however, means keeping His Word in our hearts and in our minds. It means taking time daily for prayer and study, for renewing ourselves by drinking in the waters of life. We are not strong enough, faithful enough, knowledgeable enough to live on what we have already read. Like the aquifer, we need to be drenched with the Living Water, which is Christ, which we find in the words of the scriptures. We need to read it again and again, to hear it at church, and talk about it in our Bible studies. We need to drink daily to live, and we need to drink deeply of God’s Word so that we’ll stay on the right path. And then we’ll be like that tree planted by the streams of water.

The crosses we must bear have nothing to do with the suffering we experience in this imperfect world. Jesus calls us to willingly give up the freedom we think we have and take up a life following Him, even if it means the loss of everything we love in this world. We’ll find, in the end, that by hating the world and turning to Him, that we’ll have so much more love to give to the world through Him. It is, perhaps, the most difficult choice we’ll ever have to make, but being a disciple will reap the greatest benefits in this life and the next.