The News as Text for Sunday 6 November 2016

Haggai 1:15b-2:9

In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts

Reflection        Where is God today on the final stretch of the presidential campaign? Today our gospel text is the news; TV, newspaper, online, radio, blog sites and twitter feeds where a two minute story is considered long. All day and night we are bombarded with blurts of breaking news. The pundits have refined the art of igniting fires, provoking torrential waves of emotion and carrying the collective consciousness of us, the United States citizens, out of our hearts and our souls and our minds.

Individually and collectively we have become like bubbles in the froth of hurricane whipped waves, smashing and crashing into our selves and one another. We can barely keep up with the tennis match volley of “who dun-it to whom.” We have forgotten that  the preferred political fish is red herring and allowed ourselves to be distracted from issues that matter by perpetual prurient panderings. 

We, the people, are swept away in tides of emotion. We have lost our hearts and our souls and our minds in the media tumult that bombards us. We have forgotten who and whose we are and the sacred ground on which we stand.

Here is the thing. Although we are privileged to pledge our allegiance to one of the richest nations in the world, our first and foremost allegiance belongs to God. We are the people of God. We are the visible body of the Christ in the world today.

What this means is we are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds, and love our neighbors as ourselves. Beginning with the book of Genesis the entire narrative  is punctuated with prophets, not the least of whom was Jesus, prophets who never stop warning God’s people to “love the Lord our God will all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds, and love our neighbors as ourselves.” 

But we turn away from God and one another. We may no longer bow down before wooden statues and golden calves as did our ancient ancestors but we are beguiled by countless junk gods that consume our lives and our time; from electronic devices to enormous TVs, expensive cars and towering buildings, lust and greed for pleasure and money, and of course our idolatry of “the way things used to be.” Because we worship them we suffer loss upon loss upon loss because we are worshipping things that cannot last. 

You may well ask, “How are we  “to love the Lord our God will all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds, and love our neighbors as ourselves.?” It is actually very simple. Turn off our TVs, the radio. Unplug the phone, the computer, and every media delivering device. Go into our rooms, close the door and pray to our God in secret. Pray with our whole hearts and souls and minds saying, “Not my will, Your will be done.” 

Our God is a God of love and hope for all people. As difficult as it may be for us to see or even believe, on this very day, at this very moment our God is working in the world for the good of all people. It is time for us to honestly look at all that we say, all that we do and the way that we vote asking, how do my thoughts, my words and my actions reveal to the world that God is with us? How is my vote a revelation of God’s love and hope for all people today? 

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Gospel text for Sunday 18 September 2016

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 Luke 16:1-13 Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” ...............

Reflection....        What can be said about a dishonest manager who lures the very same people he has cheated into cheating their master for their gain as well as that of the dishonest manager himself? And what was the master thinking when he praised the dishonest manager for colluding with the master’s debtors to cheat him? Once again it seems Jesus is spinning tales to elude our minds and awaken our spiritual consciousness “…for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”


.................Being the presumptive “children of light” the disciples and we tend to be rather clever when it comes to construing strategies to insure our security and survival. According to Jesus the same cannot be said with regard to our spiritual awareness. The dishonest manager saw money and those indebted to him as assets needed to insure his security and survival. He put his faith in himself and his cunning game plan. In so doing the dishonest manager made his grand scheme to acquire money and indebtedness his god, which of course never pays off. What the misguided manager failed to note is that money comes and money goes. One cannot secure his life by trying to hang onto it nor by coercing others into debt. This is not to say that money is not good. Money is good, except when it causes dishonesty and division between people and takes the place of God, in whom we put our faith and hope for security and survival. Money is good when it is an instrument for promoting love among all people.


.....................Which brings the current political scene to mind. What if this country spent the fifteen-hundred million dollars being dissipated on the 2016 presidential campaigns on cultivating relationships and loving our neighbors instead? What if the United States of America decided to take the Spirit of our 1789 Constitution seriously and truly sought to “promote the General welfare” of all people? What if “We, the people” chose to walk The Way of Jesus demanding those with the greatest position, power and pelf use their God given resource to cultivate relationship and promote love among all people? It is time for us individually and collectively to ask the question, “Who or what is our God? Whom do we and our leaders serve?” Because, “no slave can serve two masters,” and the way we spend our money reveals what is our God. If you found this post to be meaningful, please share by clicking on icons below. Thank you.