Luke 15:1-3; 11b-32
1All the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to listen to him. 2 The Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3 Jesus told them this parable:

“A certain man had two sons. 12 The younger son said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the inheritance.’ Then the father divided his estate between them. 13 Soon afterward, the younger son gathered everything together and took a trip to a land far away. There, he wasted his wealth through extravagant living.

14 “When he had used up his resources, a severe food shortage arose in that country and he began to be in need. 15 He hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to eat his fill from what the pigs ate, but no one gave him anything. 17 When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have more than enough food, but I’m starving to death! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I no longer deserve to be called your son. Take me on as one of your hired hands.” ’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

“While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion. His father ran to him, hugged him, and kissed him. 21 Then his son said, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! 23 Fetch the fattened calf and slaughter it. We must celebrate with feasting 24 because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life! He was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his older son was in the field. Coming in from the field, he approached the house and heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the servants and asked what was going on. 27 The servant replied, ‘Your brother has arrived, and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he received his son back safe and sound.’ 28 Then the older son was furious and didn’t want to enter in, but his father came out and begged him. 29 He answered his father, ‘Look, I’ve served you all these years, and I never disobeyed your instruction. Yet you’ve never given me as much as a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours returned, after gobbling up your estate on prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.’ 31 Then his father said, ‘Son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.’”

Philippians 4:6-7
Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. 7 Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus.

Whom do you identify with in the parable of the prodigal son?

Who sees themselves in the character of the older son?

Who relates to the prodigal son?

Who relates to the parent?

I have a theory… that whether or not you like the parable depends on which character you identify with.

When I was a teenager, I identified with the prodigal son. I moved out of my parents house when I was 14 years old, because my father’s second wife thought I was the worst child ever.  I basically took my inheritance and moved in with my Great Aunt Alice.  Fortunately, Alice loved me.  She would say to me, “as good kids go, you go.”  So I did not have to “waste my inheritance in extravagant living,” although my stepmother was convinced that the ordinary expenses of cute clothes and extra-curricular fees spent on me were an utter waste!  I related to the prodigal son because I had left home in search of a better life and found acceptance with Alice and with God, so I liked the parable.

When I was a college student, I identified with the older son, so I did not like the parable!  One of my professors assigned us a monstrous research project.  I and nearly every other student in the class labored long hours in the library, writing, researching and rewriting all term long only to receive C’s and D’s.  Only one student got an A on her project.  That one student went to the Professor’s office every week and asked for help on her project because she was a single mom surviving on public assistance and couldn’t afford to get a low grade or she might lose her scholarship, so the professor helped her.  I got a C+ which was one of the higher grades for those of us who did the work on our own!  I was so mad!  I felt like she had cheated and the Professor had helped her cheat while the rest of us worked our tails off!  I related to the older son a lot.

As a mother and a Pastor, I sometimes relate to the Father.  I work long hours and I wonder if my family resent all the evenings and weekends that I have spent planning holidays for the church when I couldn’t even find the time or energy to get a Christmas tree for my own house last year? I think of all the recitals I have missed because the church had an event that night and all of the spring breaks that were also Holy Week.  So instead of going on a spring vacation with my family, I was at the church all week, while my husband used vacation time to watch our kids.  I wondered if my family felt like they were the neglected older son, who didn’t get my attention even though they are wonderful.

Jesus liked to use ordinary, familiar things as metaphors for spiritual concepts.   Things like chickens, figs, and family relationships, that the people in the first century would have been very familiar with.  But for us 21st century city dwellers, Jesus’ metaphors may seem strange and unrelated.  Then there’s the first century socio-political context that Jesus didn’t explain because everybody knew what was going on at the time, just like we can’t escape the news today.  So it takes a little research to fully understand scripture.

You’re going to want the scripture handy, so please take out your bulletin.

Most of us have families, so this is one of the more understandable parables in terms of the metaphor, so let’s take some time to unpack the socio-political context.

There’s a lot of context in verses 1 and 2.

Objectively speaking, tax collecting for the Romans was a good job.  Tax collectors were each assigned an amount that they needed to collect from their area and given the protection and support of locally stationed soldiers.  Tax collectors weren’t paid a wage, instead they kind of worked on commission.  Whatever they collected beyond their assigned amount was theirs to keep.  And this was a job that anybody could get – you didn’t need to be born into the right family or be a Roman.  Ordinary Judeans could go from poverty to comfort practically overnight by getting a job as a tax collector for Rome.

On the other hand, Rome had conquered Judea kind of like Germany conquered France in World War II, so tax collectors were viewed as collaborators — people who betrayed their country and their family for the sake of money and safety.  

So the Pharisees, who, like Jesus were called Rabbi – which means teacher.  Who also spent their time teaching people about God were were disgusted that Jesus was willing to spend time with collaborators.  They were disgusted that Jesus was willing to eat at the homes of Tax Collectors, because how can the food bought with wealth extracted from the poor of Judea at sword-point be kosher?

To put this into WWII terms, the Pharisees were basically accusing Jesus of hanging out with Nazi collaborators.

So then Jesus launches into a series of parables.

You’ll notice that we skip from verse 3 to verse 11 in today’s reading.

The two parables before the prodigal son are:

 — the parable of the lost sheep –  where a shepherd has 100 sheep and 1 goes missing so the shepherd leaves the 99 sheep to go looking for the 1 missing sheep and rejoices when he finds the one sheep.

–then the parable of the lost coin, where a poor woman cleans her whole house looking for one lost coin, and is so happy when she finds it that she invites her neighbors over to celebrate, which surely cost her more money than if she had only forgotten about the one lost coin.

–then we get to today’s story of the prodigal son.

Notice that they are all stories of wastefully and joyfully celebrating the return of what has been lost.

It seems obvious to cast the Pharisees in the role of the dutiful older son.  Here they were, trying to do everything right, and Jesus, representing God the Father, was partying with tax collectors and sinners!

I wonder if the Pharisees were thinking, “Sure, Jesus inspired Zaccheus the Tax Collector to pay back the people he had defrauded and many other sinners had changed their lives because of Jesus, but still!  We have been faithful all along!  If Jesus really represents God, then wouldn’t God celebrate our faithfulness instead of celebrating the unfaithful?”

I think the Pharisees were mad at Jesus accepting these Tax Collectors, whose hearts and lives had been changed, because they felt like their hearts and lives didn’t need changing.  But obviously their hearts and minds did need to change because they had forgotten that God is a merciful God.

My classmates and I were also stuck in the thinking of the Pharisees. We were all so mad at our Professor!  Some of my classmates who were working nights in food service and up to their necks in debt with student loans were also muttering about her getting free tuition and not having to work because she was on public assistance.  Why did she get all that help and then get an A for work she had help with, when we had worked so hard without any help?

Our Professor heard our muttering and said, “All of you should have done what she did.  I published my office hours and encouraged you to ask for help many times.  And if my office hours didn’t fit your schedule, I would have happily scheduled a time that worked for you.”  The Professor continued, “I would have been happy to help groups of you work together!  You’re studying to be social workers, to help people!  Isn’t believing in helping one another the whole reason you’re in this class?”

Isn’t helping one another the whole reason we are people of faith?

Look at verse 28.  Look at the assumptions the older son makes in verse 29 and 30.

This is a pretty gentle translation of this verse.  A more accurate translation would be, “Look, I have labored like a slave for all these years, and yet you’ve never even let me have my friends over for chips and salsa!  And now you’re throwing a steak dinner for the whole neighborhood for Your Other Son who spent all your money on prostitutes???!!!!”

Look at these assumptions:

1. First the older son has been assuming all this time that he couldn’t even have his friends over for a party.  Like his Dad was too cheap to spring for Queso!
2. Second, the older son assumes that the prodigal son has been spending his money on prostitutes — it’s kind of like that’s the worst accusation he could think of.  Because, if you look back at verse 13, all it says is that the prodigal son was living extravagantly.  It does not say that the second son was living sinfully. And when the second son runs out of money, he gets a job.  And he is willing to take the worst job ever!  He’s working for a non-Jew, because who else would raise pigs!  And is eating slop, because he doesn’t get paid enough to live!  This sounds a lot like working for the Romans to me.  Since Tax Collectors didn’t get paid other than collecting extra taxes from what they gave to those “Roman Pigs.”

But it’s the Father’s response in verse 31 that I really think needs to be unpacked.

I hear echoes of my Professor in the Father’s response in verse 31, when the Father says, “everything I have is yours.”  

Because it’s like the Father is saying, but you could have thrown a party every weekend if you wanted to!

The older son didn’t even need to ask his Dad to buy chips, his name was on all the bank accounts and he had his own Debit Card!  

He could have been enjoying a fully loaded nacho bar every dang night!

The only person who thought that the older son didn’t matter, was the older son.

Friends, I want you to hear that you matter.

No matter where you find yourself in the story of life…

God is inviting you to the party.

All you tired, all you rested, 

all you underpaid, all you with cushion in your bank accounts, 

all you heavy with burden, all you full of ease—come to the party

For together, we are the story of God’s Interconnected Love. 

Luke 13:1-9
1Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. 2 He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. 4 What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.”

6 Jesus told this parable: “A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 He said to his gardener, ‘Look, I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve never found any. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil’s nutrients?’ 8 The gardener responded, ‘Lord, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. 9 Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’”

Philippians 4:6-7
Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. 7 Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus.

Who likes Figs?

I love Figs!  Or at least I thought I did, because I love fig newtons.  So when I saw fig tree seedlings for sale at my local nursery, I bought one.  

I bought a desert fig.  The figs are green when ripe, and the desert fig is tolerant of drought conditions and poor soil, which was good because I had very poor soil that didn’t hold moisture in my herb garden.  And while I love planting, harvesting, and preserving, the daily grind of watering and weeding is definitely not my cup of tea.

So I planted my little foot long fig seedling and waited for it to grow.  I did not have to wait long!  It grew and grew and grew.  It grew up and it grew out.  The roots spread sideways wider than leafy branches and very shallow,  like a cross between a spider and a centipede!  If figs are happy they will fruit twice a year, spring and late summer, and this was a happy fig, even though my soil was hard as a rock, well, my soil was mostly rocks!   Soon we were having to chop roots off to keep them from digging up our garden paths and cut back the branches that were shading out the herbs.

About the only thing that will cause a fig tree to not produce fruit, is too much nitrogen, applied too close to the base of the tree.  The excessive nitrogen will burn the bark and encourage too much leaf growth at the expense of fruit.

I soon discovered that fresh figs are wet, slimy, not very sweet, and strangely crunchy.  We’re not even going to talk about how they get pollinated.  Seriously.  Don’t look it up, or you may never eat fig newtons again.

In order to make fig newtons, you need to make the figs into jam first.  They sweeten and gel very well once you cook them down a bit!  They don’t even need pectin.

I did it!  I grew and made my own fig newtons, from scratch!

As I said last week, Jesus liked to use ordinary, familiar things as metaphors for spiritual concepts.   Things like yeast, chickens, and figs, that the people in the first century would have been very familiar with.  But for us 21st century city dwellers, Jesus’ metaphors may seem strange and unrelated.  Then there’s the first century socio-political context that Jesus didn’t explain because everybody knew what was going on at the time, just like we can’t escape the news today.  So it takes a little research to fully understand scripture.

You’re going to want the scripture handy, so please take out your bulletin.

The “occasion” referred to in verse 1 was Jesus teaching a very large crowd of people.  Luke 12:1 describes, “a crowd of thousands upon thousands… so that they were crushing each other”

In this teaching session, sometimes Jesus was teaching on what he wanted to say and sometimes Jesus was responding to questions and comments from the crowd.  Right before our reading Jesus was talking about the coming conflict, and it looks like Jesus is talking about both his crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome that Was coming in 69AD.  Warning them to pay attention to the political climate and that there will be consequences for the choices people were making.  Biblical scholars argue about whether Jesus was talking about the political consequences of the Jewish Rebellion against Rome, or if Jesus was talking about the hypocrisy of people who claimed to be religious but didn’t practice neighbor-love, but I think it was both.  There was a general lack of personal and social holiness all around.

So in the second half of verse one, somebody relates the story of some Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices.  In the time leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem there were several incidents like this.  Jewish rebels would attack Romans, and the Romans would hang out at the Temple and wait for these ultra-religious rebels to come make their offerings.  It made the rebels easy to find, so the Romans did it.  This in turn would fuel the rebellion because, how dare those Romans mingle the blood of “righteous men” with the blood of the sacrifice!  But it also made other people angry, because if these rebels would stop attacking the Romans then the Romans wouldn’t keep sending soldiers to the Temple to catch them.  The rebellion against Rome was a politically contentious issue, because objectively, the Romans were one of the nicest occupiers Judea had ever had!

Have you ever been to a lecture or panel when a member of the audience stands up and rambles on with no question in sight?  I’m getting the feeling that what happened in verse 2 is that Jesus managed to pull a question out of a long wondering comment!  And that question in verse 2 is pretty politically and religiously charged!

“Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans?

This question is politically charged because the rebellion against Rome was a very politically divisive topic.  It’s religiously charged because Jesus calls out the common belief that suffering is punishment for sin.

Hopefully, if you’ve been in the United Methodist Church for a while you have been taught that God is a God of Grace not of punishment!  The storms and tornadoes happening across the Bible Belt are not punishment for the horrible legislation some of those states have passed against women and Trans folks.  I mean, do we really think that the people of Alabama are any more sinful than the people of Idaho, or of Oregon?

Jesus responds, “no, I tell you,” in verse 3, but some people get confused and think that Jesus is telling people to change their hearts and lives, or else, because Jesus goes on to renew his warning about paying attention to what’s going on in the world from the end of chapter 12 because there is a chapter break in the middle of the conversation!  Remember – chapters and verses are much later additions to the Bible whose placement is pretty random.  Also, Koine Greek doesn’t have punctuation – so the placement of commas to suggest phrasing and periods to end sentences is pure conjecture by Biblical translators and editors!

Given the context of the teaching session that begins in Chapter 12 verse one, the chapter break falls in the middle of this teaching session, so it makes sense that Jesus is still on the same topic of the coming consequences for political unrest and social injustice.

The example of the tower of Siloam in verse 4 serves as reinforcement to Jesus’ response, that, no, God wasn’t punishing the Galilean rebels because the people crushed by the tower of Siloam were  innocent people who just happened to be too close to the tower when it collapsed.  They didn’t have building codes at the time, so sometimes things fell down.  The idea that sometimes shoddily constructed buildings just fall down randomly, would have been common knowledge at the time.

So Jesus’ main teaching in this passage can be summarized as:

Did God punish these people with death for their sins?  No. Just no.

And…

Will there be consequences if people don’t change their hearts and lives?  Yes.  That’s how life works.  

Most of the time we reap what we sow.

So here’s where we come to the fig tree as a metaphor for how God responds to us when we need to change our hearts and minds, starting with verse 6.

First of all, the author of Luke is very clear that this is a parable – that is, a fictional story meant to illustrate a point.  Do not take parable’s literally!

A second thing to note when interpreting parables is this question, “which character in the parable is consistent with the personality of God?

There are those who interpret the characters in this parable to be:

The Vineyard Owner is “Father God”

The Gardener is Jesus

And the Fig Tree is the sinful person.

This interpretation is primarily based on the Penal Substitutionary Theory of Atonement.  Atonement is basically another word for salvation, penal refers to punishment and substitutionary is about substitution.  The idea is that Father God, the God of the Old Testament is a super angry dude sitting on a cloud in heaven who cannot even bear the sight of sin, therefore the Angry Father sent his son to earth as a substitute for us to take the punishment we all deserve.  How many of you were taught something like this?

I like to call this the Heavenly Child Abuser Theory of Atonement.

This Atonement Theory is a fairly new invention.  It only dates back to the 1800’s, and the beginning of the Evangelical/Fundamentalist movement.

It has 4 major problems:

1. If you actually READ the Hebrew Bible, God is constantly sending prophets with messages of mercy, to the worst people!  The whole point of the book of Jonah is that God’s mercy towards Nineveh, who were Israel’s enemy, was greater than Jonoah’s mercy.  Jonah wanted the Ninivites to die, and was mad when they repented and God delivered them. 
2. The second major problem with Penal Substitutionary Atonement is Trinitarian theology.  If we believe that God is One – Creator, Christ and Spirit, then all of God has the same personality.  Speaking in Trinitarian terms, God didn’t send Their “son” as a sacrifice to God’s own anger.  Trinitarianly, God put on flesh, Godself, to bring us a message of Grace. Penal Substitutionary Atonement divides the Trinity into separate persons who separate motives, rather than One God with one motive.
3. The third major problem with Penal Substitutionary Atonement, is that, like all Atonement Theories, it is a theory that some people claim to be the truth.  All theories are attempts to explain reality.  Theories are not reality itself.  Let me say that again:  theories are attempts to explain reality.  Theories are not reality itself. The exact mechanics of Salvation is a mystery, in the mystic sense of the word mystery.  That means it’s something that we have faith in, but do not really understand.
4. The fourth major problem with Penal Substitutionary Atonement is its emphasis on the individual.  The whole concept of “personal salvation,” and Jesus dying for “my” sins is a 19th century invention.  The Hebrew Bible rarely speaks of individual sin, King David is one of the rare exceptions. Most of the time prophets were sent to Kings to speak of the sins of the whole nation.  Sins like exploiting the poor, worshiping idols, or an unfair justice system.  The Covenant of Abraham, of Moses, and of Solomon were covenants between God and the whole nation, not between God and one person.  The early church was also very communal.  With rules requiring sharing of resources within the local church and among all Christians, as Paul frequently exhorted churches in his letters to send money to support apostles and churches facing persecution.   As United Methodists we embrace the concept of personal and social holiness – the idea being that some sins are between you and God, but most sins are systemic – our current failure as a country to welcome the immigrant among us and treat them as native born, is a systemic sin – something we are all a part of, even if we disagree.  And even sins like adultery are more than just personal, because the end of a marriage affects the whole community.

Given that I am clearly not a fan of the Heavenly Child Abuser Theory of Atonement, allow me to present to you an interpretation of this parable that is more in alignment with a Methodist understanding of Grace.

A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard.  

I think the man is a man.  Given the context of the whole teaching session with the crowd, with people asking questions and making comments about guilt and punishment, I think the man is a human.  The owner is us.  People who think the world is ours and can all too easily get caught up in the idea that punishment is the way to enact justice.  Which can lead to questions like:   If people don’t do what they ought to do, then why doesn’t God punish them?  This is the age old question of theodicy:  

Why does God allow evildoers to prosper?  

Why doesn’t God just cut them down?  

Why does God allow evildoers to take up space and resources that could go to people who actually produce good fruit?

So I think the owner of the vineyard is all of us who have ever asked God, Why do you allow evildoers to prosper?

I think the gardener is God.  The God who gives second chances.  The God who offers mercy.  The God who so loved the world that They came down here, not to condemn the world but to save the whole world.

The God who spent a year teaching, healing, and changing hearts and lives – metaphorically fertilizing people with the gospel message of Grace, Justice and Neighbor-Love.

Jesus as the gardener is a very Methodist interpretation of this parable.

A Contextual, or historical-critical interpretation might go something like this.

What if the man was Rome?

Judea was the fig tree.

The vineyard was the Roman Empire.

And the Gardener was, once again, God. 

God who came to try to help his chosen people give up the madness of violent rebellion and instead refocus on what actually changes people’s hearts and minds – What built the popularity of Christianity to the point that Christianity became the dominant religion of Rome:  Neighbor-love.  Because the early Christians cared for the sick, fed the hungry, loaned money to those in need, welcomed strangers, were non-violent, and were compassionate to All People, Christianity conquered Rome with love.

Rome was ready to cut Judea down, and Rome did wipe Judea off the map in 69AD.

So in this interpretation, perhaps God was delaying Rome to give Jerusalem and Judea a chance to embrace neighbor-love.  Perhaps Jesus was there to fertilize the hearts and minds of the people to occupy Rome with love?

Perhaps the parable of the Fig Tree was a warning that Rome was coming to wipe Judea off the map, and if they didn’t stop fighting Rome and start bearing the fruit of neighbor-love, then being cut down would be the natural consequences of their actions.

The irony being that a Fig Tree should thrive in a vineyard, because grapes use a lot of nitrogen from the soil and Fig Tree’s need not too much nitrogen to fruit, the first century people who heard this parable would have been confused that a fig tree, that usually fruits twice a year, and goes down to fruiting once a year if stressed,  would fail to fruit at all when planted in a vineyard.  I think this is the purpose of the metaphor of the fig tree –  to point out that there’s no reason for the fig not to fruit in its current conditions.  The Fig Tree – God’s people shouldn’t need to be fertilized in order to produce the fruits of the Spirit.

And yet, God the Gardener was willing to hold back Rome long enough to give the people a chance to change their hearts and minds.  God is willing to mediate, delay or hold back the consequences of our actions to give us another chance.

When people allow God to change our hearts and minds we “bear fruit,” in the form of helping others in meaningful ways.

Church, for many of us, the season of COVID felt like life as we knew it got cut down.  Everything changed literally overnight and we kept hoping that life would go back to the way it used to be, but by now we know that life is never going back to the way it was before.  Churches shrank.  Families are divided along political lines.  The Fig Tree of our Country that should be bearing the fruits of liberty and justice for all, clearly isn’t.  People who claim to be Christians are calling compassion a toxic idea!  There are wars and rumours of wars

But Paul wrote in the midst of Roman build up to wiping Jerusalem off the map, do not be anxious about anything.

Do not be anxious about anything.

Do not be anxious about anything.

Because God is still our Good Gardener.

Even if the Fig Tree gets cut down, God keeps gardening.

Judaism is still here.

Christianity occupied Rome with love.

When everything changes, God keeps gardening.

When a plant that is no longer producing is removed, God is making space for something better.

When we replace a big sprawling tree with a little seedling, it looks pathetic.

It’s small, and takes more effort to get it growing.

It’s easy for us to feel discouraged as we watch the Big Old Tree of mid-Twentieth-Century Church being cut down.  Cut down as more local churches close every year.  Cut down in worship attendance.  Cut down in social influence.  Cut down in financial resources.

But God is not done gardening!

I see seedlings of new life in the way Haven Dinner is growing.

Seedlings of new life in our ministry partnership with Rahab’s Sisters and Family Promise.

Seedlings of new life in our community relationships with METBA and the neighborhood association.

Worship attendance is down, but engagement with the church in other ways is up.

God is doing a new thing, it just doesn’t look like the old familiar Big Fig Tree, and  we just can’t quite see what that new seedling is going to grow into yet.

So rather than being anxious about what we don’t yet understand,  let’s lean into Paul’s advice from Philippians 4:6-7 and ground ourselves in prayer.  Tell God all our concerns and our wants and our hopes, and give thanks that God is doing something so new that we can’t quite see it yet!

Then let’s rejoice that we worship a God of Grace who is still willing to dig around our wild, wondering fig roots to change our hearts and minds so that we can be a part of what God is doing next.

Luke 13:31-35
31 At that time, some Pharisees approached Jesus and said, “Go! Get away from here, because Herod wants to kill you.”

32 Jesus said to them, “Go, tell that fox, ‘Look, I’m throwing out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will complete my work. 33 However, it’s necessary for me to travel today, tomorrow, and the next day because it’s impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’

34 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who were sent to you! How often I have wanted to gather your people just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you didn’t want that. 35 Look, your house is abandoned. I tell you, you won’t see me until the time comes when you say, Blessings on the one who comes in the Lord’s name.” (Psalm 118:26)

Philippians 4:6-7
Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. 7 Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus.

Before we moved to Portland, we lived on a 5 acre hobby farm and had a little farm stand where we sold eggs and herbs and veggies.  We had a flock of about 35 chickens and we always kept a rooster because if we didn’t have a rooster, the hens would hear the neighbor’s rooster in the distance and leave us for the neighbor’s rooster!

Chickens are very community oriented birds.  When one chicken finds a nice patch of bugs to eat, or the humans bring feed, she will immediately make a food call to alert the rest of the flock to the presence of food.  And while roosters will fight one another for dominance, the main way they court hen’s into their flock is to scratch up a nice juicy bug, make a loud food call, then jump out of the way for the hen to eat it.  I always imagined that the roosters were saying, hey, chick, come with me and I’ll take you out for a real nice dinner!

At one point we kept Phoenix chickens, which are a fancy chicken, who are smaller and able to fly short distances, unlike most commercial layers, who are bred to be too large to fly so they will produce extra large eggs.

The Phoenix were also really good at hiding their eggs from us, so we had chicks every spring.  One spring I was outside and heard a ruckus in the chicken yard.  Chicken calls have different meanings, and if you spend enough time with chickens you start to learn the difference between a food call, a mating call, and an alarm call, and this was an alarm!  I came running to the yard and got there just in time to see a hawk swooping towards the fuzzy spring chicks.  

Two hens were spreading their wings and scooping the chicks into the lower door of the coop with their stiff flight feathers.  

A third hen launched herself from the upper door of the coop.  Flap, flap, then wings folded back, beak forward like an arrow straight at that hawk. Simultaneously, one of the roosters took off from the ground aimed himself straight at that hawk.  Unblinking those chickens played chicken with that hawk and the hawk veered off.

Jesus liked to use metaphors and stories about ordinary things that most people were familiar with to explain God.  Things like yeast, seeds, and chickens that were a part of everyday life in the first century. But here in the 21st century, most of us haven’t tended a sourdough mother, grown a mustard shrub, or kept chickens, so we hear these metaphors and we don’t quite understand what Jesus was talking about.  We lack context, not only for the socio-political context of the Roman Empire, but also the context of chicken culture.  Both are important to today’s Bible passage.  You might want to have your bulletin handy with today’s reading, so you can follow along.

Verse 31.  How many of you were taught that the Pharisees were Jesus’ enemies?  

So if you were taught that they were enemies then verse 31 is a little confusing, right?  Because some Pharisees came to warn Jesus.

It’s closer to the truth to say that Jesus was a Pharisee.  Pharisees were teachers of the word – Rabbi’s and many people called Jesus Rabbi, or teacher.  It also wasn’t unusual for Rabbis, then and now, to criticize one another.  Kind of like different colleague professors criticizing one another’s academic theories.  They criticized  him, he criticized them – for the most part that was just normal public arguments between leading theologians.  It wasn’t any more personal than, say, Einstein arguing the finer points of nuclear physics with Oppenheimer.  They enjoyed a good debate and walked away, if not friends, then at least allies in the work.

And many of the Pharisees were also pretty anti-Herod and anti-Rome, so they shared Jesus’ political leanings, even if they might disagree with his interpretations of the Torah.  So it makes sense that some of them would warn Jesus, because they were also on Herod’s hit list.

Moving on to verse 32, this is an example of Jesus being salty, as the young folks would say.  Jesus basically asks them to give Herod his schedule.  Part of the saltiness is Jesus calling out Herod for being all talk – here’s where I am, out being super popular because I’m healing people mentally and physically, so go ahead and try to arrest me — knowing that Herod knows that if Herod tries to arrest Jesus while Jesus is healing people that Herod will have a riot on his hands.

But then in verse 33 and 34, Jesus shows that he knows that he’s on his way to the cross.  Jesus knows that when he comes to Jerusalem, a place which Herod controls, that Herod will be no better and no worse than any other king of Jerusalem who killed the prophets sent to help them.

And this brings us to the metaphor about chickens.

When the hawk comes, the hens do their best to gather all the chicks under their wings, scooping and pulling the chicks sometimes tumbling them off their little feet as she gathers them up and herds the chicks towards safety.  But chicks are new to being outside.  They’re so distracted by the scattered corn and the freedom of being out of the nest that there are always chicks who are too busy eating or seeing the sky, that they wander off and don’t get gathered under the wings of safety.

Most people aren’t evil, we’re just distracted.  Distracted by the desire for wealth and popularity and power and freedom and comfort.  Sooooo distracted that we don’t notice the hawk coming for us so we don’t notice God reaching out to gather us under Her wings.  

But even when we don’t notice what’s good for us, God is still reaching out to us.

Jesus launched himself at death and destruction like that hen and rooster, playing chicken with the hawk and Jesus didn’t blink.

So that those who are distracted would be safe.

Because sometimes people don’t get it…

Sometimes we don’t get it..

Until we see the hawk coming for us.

Then, we are finally ready to say, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, because God still loves us when we don’t get it and keeps reaching out to gather us under Her Wings.

So when we see people making bad choices.

People who just don’t get it.

Remember that God still loves them.

That God still loves us.

And remember Philippians 4: 6-7.  Replace that anxiety with prayer and thanksgiving and seek refuge in the peace of God.

Luke 4:1-13
Jesus returned from the Jordan River full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. 2 There he was tempted for forty days by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and afterward Jesus was starving. 3 The devil said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

4 Jesus replied, “It’s written, People won’t live only by bread.” (Deut 8:3)

5 Next the devil led him to a high place and showed him in a single instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 The devil said, “I will give you this whole domain and the glory of all these kingdoms. It’s been entrusted to me and I can give it to anyone I want. 7 Therefore, if you will worship me, it will all be yours.”

8 Jesus answered, “It’s written, You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”(Deut 6:13)

9 The devil brought him into Jerusalem and stood him at the highest point of the temple. He said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, throw yourself down from here; 10 for it’s written: He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you 11 and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone.”(Ps 91:11-12)

12 Jesus answered, “It’s been said, Don’t test the Lord your God.”(Deut 6:16) 13 After finishing every temptation, the devil departed from him until the next opportunity.

Philippians 4:6-7
Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. 7 Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus.

Today is the first Sunday in Lent.

Lent is Latin for spring, and observing the Church season of Lent began sometime around the Council of Nicaea in the year 325.  At first Lent was a time of learning and preparation for those seeking to be Baptised on Easter, and only those who were candidates for Baptism would fast.

Then in middle ages Europe, in order to prevent people from eating their livestock during the spring famines, the practice of everyone not eating meat was introduced.  Catholics not eating meat on Fridays is a relic of that practice.

Now there is a modern Lenten practice of fasting or giving something up for Lent.  Often something not very good for you, like coffee or chocolate, or fasting from social media for the duration of Lent.

This year, I’m giving up anxiety.

And I’m inviting you to give up anxiety with me.

During Lent, Christian tradition has held the view that every Sunday is a little Easter, even in the middle of Lent.  So every Sunday, just like we did today,  we will start with Confession and Absolution, and then do our prayers, so we can release all of our anxieties to God.

And I would like all of you to memorize this verse:

Philippians 4:6-7
Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. 7 Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus.

So maybe you take your bulletin home and cut out Philippians 4:6-7 and tape it to your bathroom mirror.  Or take a picture and read it every time you start to feel anxious.

So why fast from anxiety?

Anxiety is actually a useful part of our nervous system’s alert system.

If you’re in a situation that feels unsafe, that’s anxiety telling you to escape the danger.

However, our brains cannot tell the difference between the immediate need to get out of traffic, and the existential dread inspired by current events.

Anxiety that is for immediate threats that require immediate action is healthy and very necessary to keep ourselves safe.

It’s the anxiety that is for long term creeping dread that we can’t necessarily take immediate action on, that I’m giving up for Lent.

Because that long term creeping dread with no clear actions, kind of anxiety, can be overwhelming to the point that we kind of shut down and stop caring.

And we cannot stop caring and still be obedient to God’s call to love our neighbors.

So I guess, you could say that I’m inviting you to give up, giving up for Lent!

This awful ongoing anxiety is usually rooted in 3 basic human desires.  And it just so happens that these 3 desires are exactly what Jesus was tempted with in today’s reading from Luke chapter 4.  So please open your bulletin and keep the scripture handy!

So after Jesus’ baptism, Jesus does a full 40 day, Lent style fast.  Which is why this scripture is so often used for the first Sunday of Lent.

Jesus has been fasting, so the first temptation is bread.

In the Lord’s prayer, and just generally in the Christian tradition, the phrase, our daily bread, is often used to represent our basic physical needs.  Give us this day our daily bread – means more than just bread, it means food, water, shelter, clothing — the things we need to keep body and soul on speaking terms!

The reason our daily bread, that is, our basic needs are a temptation, is because the idea of not having our basic needs met feels like a pretty immediate threat, doesn’t it?  When the price of groceries goes up, we start to wonder if we will have enough to feed our families.  Then we start to feel like maybe we can’t afford to share.  

And if things get bad enough, desperate people tend to react in one of two ways:

1. Some people will say, everyone for themselves. and do whatever they think they can get away with to get their needs met.
2. Other people form community and work together to share what we have and create more resources together.  

I like to call this the Star Trek option.  Since I just returned from Star Trek the Cruise!  There’s an episode of Star Trek Voyager where a bunch of ships are trapped in a space bubble.  The ships who choose the, every ship for themselves path, resort to pirating every new ship to come through the entrance.  Captain Kathryn Janeway takes the second path and forms a Federation of ships where they all share their resources and ideas for the good of everyone in the group.  Guess which group succeeds at breaking out of the space bubble?  The Federation.

I think that is exactly Jesus’ point when he quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 “People won’t live only by bread.” That whole section of Deuteronomy is about how God saved the people when they were escaping slavery in Egypt, and that we should continue to keep the commandments of God by walking in God’s ways… The Way that Jesus taught us.  The Way of sharing resources, welcoming the immigrant among you as if they are native born, (that’s Leviticus 19:33-34) and continuing to invite people into Beloved Community with us.  

Those who are seeking to do evil things for profit want us to be afraid and be selfish.  They want us to believe that there is not enough to share and that strangers are enemies.

God wants us to share the joy of being in community together.

The second temptation is Power and Popularity. Look at verse 6

6 The devil said, “I will give you this whole domain and the glory of all these kingdoms. It’s been entrusted to me and I can give it to anyone I want. 7 Therefore, if you will worship me, it will all be yours.”

Domain and glory.  Domain as in dominion and domination — that’s power.
Glory – that’s popularity.

Once again, power and popularity in and of themselves are not bad things.  Power can be used for good and popularity can be leveraged to elevate the voices of marginalized communities, like when a celebrity backs a charity.  Power and popularity are how we get things done in this world.  So power and popularity can feel like a need.  We can become anxious if we feel like our power to defend our rights is being threatened, or if our reputation is being slandered.  We may even be tempted to collaborate with evil in order to have access to power and popularity.  Or even to just keep our heads down and go along to get along, but look at how Jesus responds in verse 8.

“It’s written, You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”(Deut 6:13)

Once again, Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy in another passage about not forgetting to obey God after moving into the promised land after escaping slavery in Egypt.  To Jesus’ Jewish audience this would have been a very serious reminder of their covenant relationship to God.  God their savior… God our savior, is reminding us all, that our Most Important Ally in life is God.  And God commands us to love one another.  Not throw one another under the bus to curry favor with villains. 

Those who want to do evil, want us to be afraid of them and seek their favor.

God is telling us the only one whose favor we need is God.

And we’re already popular with God!

So don’t be afraid, God’s got us!

The third temptation is about safety, starting in verse 9.

Notice how the devil uses scripture out of context!  Psalm 91 is a song praising God for all the ways that God holistically saves us – in body and spirit, instructing us to “not be afraid” and “take refuge in God our fortress.”  There’s nothing in Psalm 91 that specifically says that God will preserve the Messiah from all harm.  It’s just not in there!

Like most people who take scripture out of context to manipulate others, the devil has used one verse taken out of context to say something that the whole Psalm was never meant to say!

God has never guaranteed any of us that nothing bad will ever happen.

Jesus specifically said in the sermon on the Mount from the gospel of Matthew, chapter 5,  verse 45, that God,

“Makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.”

And the context of that verse is talking about loving our enemies, “ 45 so that you will be acting as children of your Father who is in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.”

We all want to be safe.  Nothing is more anxiety producing than feeling unsafe.  

Or feeling that our loved ones are unsafe.

What wouldn’t we do to protect the people we love the most?

But look at Jesus’ response in verse 12

12 Jesus answered, “It’s been said, Don’t test the Lord your God.”(Deut 6:16)

Which is from Deuteronomy chapter 6 again.  Again talking about how to live after escaping from slavery.  But the specific context of Deuteronomy 6:16 is a warning about not following other God’s.  There’s nothing in Deuteronomy 6:16 about avoiding risk.  And this is so interesting to me because growing up, what I was taught in Sunday School and heard in sermons, was that don’t put God to the test, meant don’t try dangerous things to test if God would save you.  But that isn’t the context for Deuteronomy 6:16 at all!  The context for Deuteronomy 6:16 is don’t test God’s patience by following other Gods!  And perhaps this could be understood in this context of: don’t test God’s patience by following those who misuse scripture to manipulate you.

Which reminds me of the way my Black clergy sisters will say, “don’t test me!”  or “Not today, Satan!”

Because the truth is that nobody is actually safe in this world.

God, “Makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Bad things happen.  People get cancer.  People lose jobs.  People die in completely unexpected accidents.

But if you look like me, you may have grown up with the expectation that most of the time, you will be mostly safe.  Most of the time, the law is on your side.  Most of the time life feels mostly fair.

But for people who don’t look like me, for many minoritized groups in this country: 

• for physically disabled people, 
• for those with mental illness and addiction disorders, 
• For people of color
• For LGBTQ+ folks, especially trans folks

Most of the time the law has not been on their side.

Most of the time life is demonstrably unfair.

They grew up with an expectation that life was not mostly safe.

And yet, you will never experience anything more joyful than Sunday morning in a Black Church.  They sing with JOY about God’s salvation and deliverance as if God’s Kingdom has already come and God’s will is currently being done here on earth as it is in Heaven.

They have JOY because for one day a week, at least on Sundays, they fast from anxiety.

Look at Philippians 4:6-7 in your bulletin as you follow along.

They rejoice in the Lord every Sunday because they choose to not be anxious about anything, but instead bring their prayers and petitions and thanksgivings before God.  And Trust that God is really going to do something good!

In these anxious times, I’m asking you to fast from anxiety with me every dang Sunday and as much as you can in the weeks between.  When evil tries to crush us with its onslaught of lies and doom, we will rejoice in the Lord!

Everytime we feel anxious. Stop and pray.

And if you’re struggling to pray, phone a friend or your Pastor and we’ll pray together.  Because sometimes we don’t have enough faith in us, but Matthew 18:19-20 tells us that whenever two or more are gathered in God’s name Jesus is with us.

Friends, we need God to keep our hearts and minds safe for the joyful work of being the Federation of Beloveds who share both our needs and our resources in these crazy times.  So let’s rejoice and be glad!