Spiritual Life @ Bucknell

Lost and Found
Luke 15: 1-10
3/31/19

As we wade deeper into the season of Lent,
A season set apart for reflection and repentance,
The lectionary puts before us the story of the Prodigal Son –
Which we will save, annually, for parent’s weekend,
For obvious reasons.
And instead ponder those two little parables
About lost sheep and coins,
That pave the prodigal’s way.

I don’t know a lot about shepherding,
I’ll admit.
but it seems to me a poor shepherding choice to abandon 99 sheep,
for the sake of one who was lost.
That’s just bad math.
“Which one of you?”
Jesus’ asked, “wouldn’t do the same?”
None. No one.
Who does that?
His audience probably thought.

I think these parables are meant to make us laugh a little bit.
To ponder to the absurd,
To poke funny at the stodgy Pharisees and scribes.
The lay and professional religious leaders of his day.
as we ponder the ridiculous possibility,
of an all-forgiving God,
an actual all-loving, all-forgiving God.

This pair of parables is but a prelude,
to perhaps Jesus’ most famous –
the story of the Prodigal Son,

Charles Dickens called it the “best short story ever told.”

And so naturally, most weeks,
We skim over the sheep
And the coins.
In favor of those insufferable sons,
With whom it’s a bit more palatable to identify. Continue reading “Lost and Found”

Matthew 5:38-48
2/17/19
“Perfect”

We will delve a little deeper this morning into the sermon on the mount,
we will wrestle with Jesus’ bold, clear, and seemingly impossible command:
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
I think about this section of our scripture,
more or less constantly,
in this season of polarization and injustice.
For it – like much of what he says –
carries both personal,
and also collective.
dare I say, political, in the small p sense –
meaning and challenge and encouragement.

And as we wade deeper into Black History Month,
I also want you to know a little of the story of the Rev. James Lawson.
Who believed this bit from Jesus,
as much as anyone ever has.
Lawson is not a household name,
but he was one of the intellectual architects of the nonviolent movement for Civil Rights,
He supervised, with Diane Nash,
the lunch counter sit ins in Nashville,
which sparked a national movement.
When Lawson was once spat upon by an angry white counterprotester,
he responded by asking his spitter if he had a handkerchief,
and if he might borrow it.
Which began a relationship.

Lawson traveled to India to study Gandhi’s movement,
and returned to the American South,
and taught Martin Luther King Jr.,
and organized with him, and many others.
And he is,
and the movement for nonviolence direct action are I think,
what Jesus had in mind,
when he spoke these words.
That responding in love,
without violence,
is both a spiritual task,
and is also how we win hearts,
and win movements.
Lawson is a giant of American intellectual history,
and his life is rooted in our text for today.

So, we’re onto our second week,
of wrestling with Jesus sermon on the mount,
and we’re getting into the really messy, meaty, gritty, world-changing stuff.
but if you’re anything like me,
before you can even begin to take this passage seriously,
before we can even think about loving our enemies,
or turning our cheeks
we have to address that very last line.

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Or in the unforgettable King James:
Be Ye, therefore, Perfect. Continue reading “Perfect”