Woe to the Rich

September 28, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, N.Y. 

In 1990, I accompanied John Sundquist, the head of the American Baptist foreign mission society to South Africa. Our aim was to mediate a dispute between the nation’s white and black Baptists.

This was a challenging mission because South Africa was still an apartheid state. Nelson Mandela had just been released from prison but the future was far from certain. John and I decided to decline the invitation of white Baptists to stay in plush Johannesburg hotels and instead stayed in modest homes in the black township of Soweto.

In one Soweto home our very gracious guests put us up in a tiny bedroom where we were to share a tiny bed only slightly larger than a twin. John and I looked at each other warily as we climbed beneath the blanket and I doubted we would be able to sleep.

But we did sleep. And after an hour or so, John turned in his sleep and his long comb-over fell on my face. I thought I was being attacked by a hairy African beast and I bolted awake. John continued to snore peacefully.

Despite this adventure, our mission of mediation was successful and after  few says I decided to fly back home to write it up for The American Baptist magazine. I had a very early flight so I booked a room at a Holiday Inn the night before. I called a cab and the driver, a black South African, offered to carry my bag up to the room.

The room was luxurious even by U.S. standards. Two double beds, a recliner, a fully appointed bathroom, a television, and a minibar.

The driver’s mouth dropped open and he glanced around in astonishment. For a while he was unable to release his hold in the bag. Finally, he placed the bag on one of the beds and – to my embarrassment – said, “Here, Boss.”

I thanked him and, of course, gave him a generous tip, and he slowly left the room.

It was a fitting conclusion to a trip that forced two white American bureaucrats to face the enormous gulf between the rich and the poor. In South Africa in 1990, the gap between the haves and have-nots was massive. And, to a great extent, it still is.

In Luke 16:19-31, this vast disparity between the very rich and the very poor is made clear

The rich man is a pig of Elon Muskian proportions. He’s dressed in fine purple linen, eats and drinks to excess, sleeps in luxury, and – worst of all – is oblivious of the suffering of the poor man at his feet.

The poor man is named Lazarus, which is a form of the name Eliezer, which – appropriately – means, “God is my help.”

As the story unfolds, the poor man dies and is carried up to the bosom of Abraham, or heaven. The rich man dies and goes to Haydes, or hell.

In hell the rich man is tormented, “in agony in these flames,” and we can only imagine the extent of his suffering.

Of all the descriptions of hell we can find in literature, one of the most vivid is from Stella Gibbons’ 1932 novel, Cold Comfort Farm.

In the novel, Amos Starkadder is a lay preacher who threatens his congregation with hell every Sunday. And the congregation, in a strange ecclesial version of Stockholm Syndrome, seems to love it. They sway and moan as Amos tells them what hell means.

“It means endless, horrifying torment! It means your poor, sinful bodies stretched out on red-hot gridirons, in the nethermost, fiery pit of Hell and those demons mocking ye while they waves cooling jellies in front of ye. You know what it's like when you burn your hand, taking a cake out of the oven, or lighting one of them godless cigarettes? And it stings with a fearful pain, aye? And you run to clap a bit of butter on it to take the pain away, aye? Well, I'll tell ye, there'll be no butter in Hell!”

This is not easy to hear, even in an age when modern theologians question whether hell exists.

But it exists for the rich man who knows there is no butter to soothe him, and never will be.

Pathetically, he begs Father Abraham for mercy but he gets no sympathy. Instead, Father Abraham points out the justice of his suffering.

“Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.” (Lk 16:25)

And that’s the way it will be.

“Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” (Lk 16:26)

In one final and futile expression of empathy, the rich man thinks of his five rich brothers and asks if there is some way to warn them of the fate they, too, will face.

That sounds okay to us. Even the obdurate reprobate Ebeneezer Scrooge was rescued by ghosts who came to save him. If he could, the rich man would drape himself in chains and appear to each of his brothers to tell them to stop their wicked ways.

But no. Father Abraham replies that those evil brothers will have to figure it out for themselves.

“If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” (Lk 16:31)

That’s all, folks. That’s all she wrote. 

A few verses earlier, Jesus told the story of the dishonest manager who was commended by his master “because he had acted shrewdly.” (Lk 16:8) This is a puzzling story and is not easy to interpret.

But the story of the rich man and Lazarus is all too clear. It is, in fact, a warning to the rich.

“Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation,” Jesus said earlier in Luke. “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.” (Lk 6:24-25)

Does this mean that the rich are condemned to hell? All the rich? What about those of us who, compared to the poor of Soweto or the hungry of America, are rich?

John T. Carroll, a Presbyterian professor of New Testament, thinks it is not merely riches that condemns the rich man. 

“It is not wealth alone that causes his demise, but his failure to act generously toward the man he encountered outside his home every day. With wealth comes great responsibility.”

What does that say to the rich of our era?

Well, we could name names, but we won’t.

Because we all now rich oligarchs who build hugely profitable corporations but refuse to allow their employees to unionize. We know executives whose bonuses are literally millions of dollars higher than their beleaguered employees. There are health care executives who maximize profits by limiting the benefits they allow for sick people. There are the super rich who welcome tax cuts that force the reduction of Medicaid, food assistance, and other allowances for people in need.

Well, woe to all these people.

Happily, there are also super rich people – we could name the Rockefellers, the Gates, the Buffets, the Soros, the Bloombergs – who set aside large portions of their vast wealth for philantrophic programs. There is Oprah Winfrey. There is Robert F. Smith, an African American billionaire who paid the student loan debt for the entire 2019 graduating class of Morehouse College, approximately $34 million.

Is it impossible for the rich to get into heaven? We need to remember that, for God, all things are possible.

But this parable of the rich man and Lazarus has important lessons for us all.

Professor Carroll writes:

“It is too late for the rich man, and there appears to be no hope for the rest of his family. But what about us? In this fictional narrative, Jesus invites listeners to examine their own life choices and actions in light of the reality that we have limited time in which to live well. 

“We will have only so many opportunities to do the right thing. It is not too late for us: Not too late to pay attention to the needs around us. Not too late to share what we have to help others flourish. Not too late to challenge business practices and economic systems that allow a few to enjoy massive wealth while others experience unrelieved, crushing poverty. 

“The work of this parable isn’t finished until we answer the question: How will we respond?”

Calculating Shrewdness

September 21, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

 “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” Luke 16:8.

Commended him?

Doesn’t that strike you as odd?

Here is a manager (Luke 16:1-13) who has been stealing his master’s property for years and, when caught, goes on to steal even more by telling his master’s creditors they can pay less than they owe.

What, from the master’s point of view, is commendable about that?

And what is the point of this story that Jesus is telling this crowd of tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees, and scribes?

Moments earlier, Jesus told the tale of the prodigal son. 

The contrast in the lead personalities could not be greater: One is a foolish young man who loses all his fortune in profligate living but repents and returns to his father, who immediately forgives him. The other is a cheat and a scoundrel who tries to make allies by cheating his master out of more goods that are owed to him.

Moreover, we love to hear about the prodigal because we know Jesus is talking about God’s unconditional love for each of us, no matter how far we stray. It’s a story most of us could repeat by heart.

But the story of the dishonest manager is much less familiar to us. I can’t remember the last time I heard a sermon about this character, probably because it’s so hard to figure out the point Jesus is using him to make. There is no comment about the dishonest manager in the Lutheran Study Bible, and many commentaries are prefaced with the observation, “This is a difficult passage to understand.”

Still, the dishonest manager himself is oddly familiar to us. We’ve all known this man.

He’s the smarmy guy in the office who embellishes his expense account and seeks a promotion by undermining the boss and creating cliques among the staff who grumble that the boss should be replaced.

He is, as Martha and our five daughters would point out, the mansplainer in staff meetings who listens to women’s ideas and presents the same ideas to the boss as his own.

The church version of this guy is the layman who disdains the preaching of a woman pastor, and corrects her scholarly exegesis of scripture when it doesn’t agree with his own prejudices.

He’s the politician who promises to represent the voters but accepts thousands of dollars from powerful lobbies to support the interests of the very rich.

He’s the racist governor of a red state seeking to look tough to his far-right minions by shipping undocumented immigrants of color to Washington or Cape Cod so northern liberals will be forced to take care of them.

He’s the pharmaceutical executive who claims to be developing much needed medicines to treat the sick but makes millions through the over-prescribing of opioids, or by raising the cost of EpiPens and insulin beyond the ability of sick people to afford them.

He’s the business owner who presents a warm and generous face to his customers but obscures the fact that he is underpaying his employees, or that he has been paying women workers less than male workers who are doing the same job.

He’s the realtor who advertises comfortable houses, condos, and apartments to the general public but claims to have no vacancies when persons of color, Muslims, or Sikhs come looking for a place to live.

To be honest, we’ve all known far more dishonest managers than we have known repentant prodigals.

And the one thing these dishonest managers have in common is, to use Jesus’ own words, they are acting “shrewdly.” They have all figured out how to improve their own lot in life by diminishing the lot of others.

But why would this kind of self-serving shrewdness be something the dishonest manager’s master would commend?

I think the first thing to note is that in this particular parable, the master is not a stand-in for God. Certainly the prodigal’s father is a god-figure and he reminds us that God’s love is ever present and unconditional.

The dishonest manager’s master is no such thing. He is simply a crass human character made up by Jesus and we needn’t worry that God or Jesus find the manager’s reprehensible behavior to be commendable in any way.

I sat with a group of Lutheran pastors in a bible study recently. One of the pastors suggested the master may have been impressed by the nerve, the gall, the naked temerity, the chutzpah of this guy. “Got to hand it to you, Dude! Unbelievable. No – commendable!” 

But that’s as far as it went. There’s no suggestion the manager got his old job back – just a rueful slap on the shoulder by his former boss.

Keeping in mind that Jesus is addressing a group of tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees, and scribes, what is his point?

For one thing, Jesus seems to be wondering aloud why his own followers are less creative and less shrewd in their own stewardship given that they are managers of a far greater household.

And perhaps this tale of rich people and shrewd managers is to illustrate the futility of focusing your life on money or your economic survival rather than on God. 

In the end, what have the master or the dishonest manager actually accomplished? The manager’s loyalty to his own economic survival has made him disloyal to his master because, obviously, he can’t be loyal to both. 

Jesus put it this way:

“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.” (Luke 16:13a)

But it was Jesus’ final statement that aroused the Pharisees in the crowd:

“You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Luke 16:13b)

Reading beyond this morning’s text, to Luke 16:14-15, we get a clearer picture of the point Jesus is making:

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.”

In these passages, Jesus is addressing a diverse crowd composed of people who can’t stand each other: tax collectors and other sinners, who are known to be dishonest; and Pharisees, who regard themselves as paragons of honesty and virtue. The tax collectors and sinners hate the Pharisees, who they regard as insufferable posturers; and the Pharisees despise the tax collectors and sinners because they live sinful and despicable lives.

Only Jesus sees them for what they really are. The tax collectors do not deny they skim off the top of their collected gains for their own use, and Jesus has already assured them in the parable of the prodigal that God loves them anyway.

But so, too, do the Pharisees welcome the gifts and support of the poor and common people who seek to assure their salvation by supporting these religious leaders. This unmerited collection of riches, Jesus says, makes them no different than the tax collectors. And to prize wealth is to prize what is an abomination to God.

Reading on, Jesus drives the point home with his parable about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31).

But as we wrestle with the issues of shrewdness and choosing God’s realm over money, perhaps the best way to conclude our meditation this morning is to read again the passage from Paul’s letter to Timothy (I Timothy 2:1-7) 

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone,  for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.  This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all.

God’s message to us this Sunday is this:

Love God more than money.

Work creatively, resolutely, and shrewdly for the advancement of God’s realm in all the world.

And never forget that Jesus is our faithful mediator with God;

And God loves us unconditionally and for all time.

Whoever Believes

 

September 14, 2025, First Lutheran Church, Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y.

For many of us, all we have to hear are the words John 3:16 and we know exactly what it means.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

It helps that we have heard these words our earliest years in Sunday School. It also helps that “John 3:16” is a meme that spreads throughout our culture. We see it on bumper stickers, on billboards, in spray-painted graffiti on abandoned buildings, on lapel pins, and of course on thousands of church lawn signs.

At first glance, these are among the most comforting words in the New Testament. God loved us so much and God will not let us die. For reassurance, we might be inclined to skip on ahead to John 3:17 “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

So we can relax and not worry about what is going to happen at the end of our lives.

Unless, of course, we look a little closer at the passage.

“Everyone who believes.”

Oh oh. 

On most days I’m a believer. But not every day. Some days I like to end the day in meditation and prayer. Other days I’d rather close the day playing computer games or laughing At Seth Myers’ sardonic humor and my thoughts are far away from God. On some days I love my neighbor and on other days I’d be glad if he disappeared forever. Like Clarence Darrow, I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

Have you ever been at the funeral of a loved when your grief turns to unease? You look at Dad in the coffin and you can’t stop thinking: did he believe? I don’t think he ever went to church. I don’t think he was very religious. In fact, as much as I loved him, he could be quite nasty. Did he believe enough to merit eternal life?

Angela Zimmann, pastor, Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem, Israel, feels our pain.

“These are not simply theoretical questions meant for dusty library debates. In emergency rooms, at funerals, in the push-and-pull of parish life, the men and women in our pews struggle with these questions, and the nagging doubts: do I believe? Do I believe enough? What about my loved ones who don’t profess belief? Will they perish? The Bible says so, doesn’t it?”

These are all appropriate questions, especially on Holy Cross Sunday. It was on the cross that Jesus accomplished God’s mission of love to redeem the world. Last week in our study of Luke 14, Jesus said, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

If we are seeking reassurance of our salvation, that passage is troublesome. The cross is a horrible fate and Jesus’ followers knew it.

Crucifixion was an extremely well-known method of execution of particular (and painful) relevance to Jesus' Jewish hearers. Josephus described the religious persecutions of the Jews under the Seleucid king Antiochus IV, “they [the Jews] were whipped, their bodies were mutilated, and while still alive and breathing, they were crucified” (Ant. 12:256) – Biblical Hermaneutics

After the final defeat of Spartacus in 71 BCE, the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus ordered the crucifixion of approximately 6,000 surviving rebel slaves. The bodies were lined along the Appian Way, a major Roman road, for over 100 miles as a horrifying public warning to deter any future slave revolts against Roman authority.  

Happily, we don’t crucify rebels any more and many commentators seek to clarify what Jessus must have meant when he said carry the cross.

Wise commentators say it means to deny oneself, to prioritize God's will over one's own desires and plans, and to be willing to suffer, endure hardship, and make sacrifices for the sake of the Gospel. This concept requires a daily, active commitment to Christ's teachings, involving self-sacrifice, obedience, and a continuous renunciation of the self as the primary focus in favor of His will and service to others.

Right. If that is what believing in Jesus requires to merit God’s love and eternal life, I’ve got to confess: I’m in trouble. Who could live up to those unyielding standards? Even Pope Leo XIV takes breaks from poping to play wordle with his brothers.

Reading further in this passage from John, Jesus refers what may, to many of us, be an obscure passage from an obscure book, Numbers. “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (Jn 3:14-15)

The story of the serpent takes us back to the wilderness wandering of the people of Israel. After years of roaming, the people are getting tired and angry. They are rebelling against Moses and God and their entire pilgrimage seems doomed. God – in one of the bible’s strangest examples of tough love – sends venomous serpents to attack the people. Many are bitten, and many die of the poison.

“Moses made a serpent of bronze and put it up on a pole, and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.” (Nu 21:9)

As bizarre as the story seems, many commentators believe it is a metaphor that goes to the heart of what John – and Jesus – are teaching.

Jennifer Garcia Bashaw says John uses the bronze-snake analogy to demonstrate how people will receive life from Jesus. When the Israelites looked at the bronze serpent, they saw a mirrored representation of the poisonous destruction they faced from the poisonous serpents. The source of their death became the agent of their healing and survival. So it is with the cross.

“When people look at Jesus lifted up on the cross, they are looking at a mirrored representation of their own destruction—the evil of empire, the oppression they participate in, the violence that beats at the heart of society, the scapegoating tendencies of people who allow innocent people to suffer for sins that aren’t their own. When they truly see what Jesus’ death represents—humanity’s self-destructive nature that drives societies to fear and violence—that revelation, that recognition of the truth will be enough to help them start healing humanity. The cross is the symbol of misplaced blame and oppressive violence, and it is the means by which we repent of the cycle of blame and violence. We cannot be healed from a disease that remains hidden.”

Angela Zimmerman writes that “the original meaning of the Greek word translated as ‘belief’ or ‘believe’ is pistis/pisteo. ‘Pisteo’ is fully grounded in relationship. To ‘believe’ is not simply a mental exercise, but ‘an all-embracing relationship, an attitude of love and trust in God.’ The connection between God and humanity is central to the notion of pisteo.’ The growing relationship between Jesus and the community, the signs and wonders which permeate the Gospel embolden and enable such belief.

“And after this explanation of salvation, we come to John 3:16. It is the next step into the kingdom of God, not the first one. After we see ourselves in the mirror of the cross, then we can come to understand and trust in God. The word we translate as “believe” (pistis or pisteuo) also means “to put faith in/to trust in.” When John uses the word, it carries the connotation of action (to follow); it is not merely an academic or mental exercise. 

Zimmerman translates John 3:16 this way:

“For God loved the world in this way, that God gave the one and only Son, so that everyone who trusts (and follows) Jesus will not perish but will have eternal (abundant) life.

“Salvation comes to those who trust in who Jesus is and follow him, but only after the cross has shown them who they really are and how they participate in the violent, scapegoating ways of all human societies. 

God loved the world enough to show us the truth—that we cannot be healed until we recognize the disease that afflicts us. As John 3:17 says, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him.” 

Salvation comes not in belief (mere intellectual assent), but in looking on the cross, recognizing ourselves in it, and allowing the truth to heal us so that we might trust and follow the Crucified One.

Amen.

Whatever the Cost

September 7, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

 “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Lk 14:26)

Wow. As members of my former Baptist tribe might say, “Jesus, you could have talked all day without saying that!”

Hate? How can hate be a part of the Gospel of Love?

Has anyone ever told you they hate you?

It’s an unpleasant but not necessarily rare experience. Martha and I have a son and five daughters. There comes a time when every adoring and cuddly Daddy’s girl and admiring son stops seeing the old man as a saintly provider and starts to see him as an uncompromising tyrant who restricts their phone time, won’t let them leave the house until they explain what they intend to do, and spends hours vetting potential boyfriends to suss out their evil past.

 “I hate you!” 

Yes, I’ve heard that on occasion. Perhaps you have, too. In most cases these outbursts are normal eruptions in the ebb and flow of parent-child relationships. I think it only becomes a problem if the parent responds, “I hate you, too!” Parenting requires the maturity of knowing your child doesn’t really mean it and that the gale will soon pass. 

But when Jesus tells us to hate those closest to us, it sounds like he means it.

I think we can all pause for a few moments to feel perplexed by Jesus’ unexpected use of the word hate.

Fortunately I was able to express my perplexity to the doctor of ministry and budding Greek scholar with whom I share theological pillow talk.

“Jesus is asserting his deity,” Martha said, quoting a study source:

“Every member of man’s family is a human being, and the love shown to humans compared to the love shown to Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, must be so different that the former seems like hatred.”

Martha also quoted a Gordon Conwell professor that in Luke 14:26, Jesus uses the word “hate” to mean, regard with less affection, love less, esteem less.

There is some cost to following Jesus. It requires us to carry the cross and follow him. 

When I was 17 I began exploring the possibility of Christian ministry. I consulted my pastor – a young man barely ten years older than me – and he pulled a worn paperback book off his bookshelf.

It was The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

“Read this,” my pastor said, “and we’ll talk.”

I was too young and uninformed to realize what a scary thing my pastor had done. 

I did not realize, at 17, that for Bonhoeffer the cost of discipleship had been severe. He had left a tenured position at Union Seminary to return to his native Germany to oppose the Third Reich. On April 9, 1945, barely a month before the war in Europe ended, Bonhoeffer was cruelly executed by the Nazis for participating in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Piano wire was wrapped around his neck and he was strung up until he slowly strangled to death.

For those who ponder discipleship, this account should be kept in mind. When Bonhoeffer decided to become a Lutheran pastor he may have anticipated a quiet life of writing and teaching. Instead, he died a martyr at 39.

E. Trey Clark, professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, writes, “The word ‘hate’ is sometimes used in the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament to mean ‘love less.’ For example, in Genesis, the phrase ‘Leah was hated’ is often interpreted to mean that Jacob ‘loved Rachel more than Leah’ (Gn 29:30) This seems to be the case here. Jesus is saying that those who want to follow him must love all others less—to such an extent that it might look like hate. Or as biblical scholar Diane Chen puts it, ‘To become Jesus’ follower, one’s preference—loyalty, love, and priority—must reside with Jesus over all people and things one holds dear.’”

“Luke continues to narrate the costliness of discipleship in verses 27 and 33. In verse 27, Jesus says, ‘Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.’ The cross—the Roman method of execution—is used, shockingly, to speak about following the way of Jesus. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, ‘The cross is laid on every Christian.’ Said differently, the cross cannot be bypassed on the road to discipleship.”

The New Testament offers many examples of Christians who faced the consequences of discipleship.

One of my favorites was Deacon Stephen, a convert who was so zealous to win people to Jesus that he wouldn’t stop pressing his message even when it began to enrage his listeners. (Acts 6)

Sticking to one’s message can be fraught with danger.

Years ago, when I was a young magazine editor, I began receiving scores of angry letters from readers who thought the magazine was devoting too much space to social issues and too little to spiritual issues. I mentioned this to George Cornell, religion editor of the Associated Press, and asked him how he handled angry letters. George stroked his chin and said, in his Oklahoma drawl, “I tell ’em, ‘You may be right.’”

Perhaps it would have been safer for Stephen to take this approach with his critics. But instead he angered them even more with arguments so smart that they knew they could not refute them. 

Deacon Stephen, speaking truth to a power that refused to hear it, became the church’s first martyr.

For Deacon Stephen, as for Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the cost of discipleship was high.

For most of us, and for many pastors in many traditions, the cost may not be so high.

But here’s the thing: if there is no cost at all, it is not discipleship.

Throughout my forty years as a reporter, editor, layperson, and guilty bystander in church circles, I’ve observed many disciples who paid large and small prices for their discipleship.

Over the years I’ve known more than one pastor fired from his or her congregation for taking pastoral or diaconal stands they believed to be right:

For preaching against what they believed to be this nation’s immoral war in Vietnam;

For removing the U.S. flag from the church sanctuary on the grounds that God is the God of all nations and all peoples;

For participating in Civil Rights marches;

For presiding over the marriage vows of same-sex couples;

For preaching against the ownership of powerful assault rifles.

I’ve known married women pastors who have been dismissed from their congregations for getting pregnant, or for requesting a one-month leave to recuperate from a mastectomy. 

Today, in our hypertense environment, the moral questions we face cause many of us to ask whether we dare risk the cost of discipleship. Do we dare declare unequivocally:

That war and violence are always sin;

That Black Lives Matter; 

That Islam is a religion of peace;

That no person is illegal;

That no religious views should be forced upon anyone;

That everyone is entitled to express their sexuality in their own way without social prejudice or government imposition. 

That God is love;

And the greatest commandment is always to love one another as we love ourselves.

Two millennia ago, the first Christians established the role of deacon to reach out to all persons to assure they are sheltered, fed, cared for when disabled or ill, protected from prejudice or hatred, and treated with love, fairness, and justice. 

This is a role we all share.

Deacon Stephen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and a host of witnesses, remind us that it is not a role to be taken lightly and that it may come with costs.

But it is a role we must assume with faith in God’s grace; 

Because God’s work requires all our hands.

We are marked with the cross of Christ forever; we are claimed, gathered, and sent for the sake of the world.

Whatever the cost.