August 30, 2020
“Divine Things”
Luke 16:21-28
Said Jesus to Peter…
For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.
It’s all about shifting gears from one line of thinking to another. In this case it is Peter thinking of human things and not thinking of the things of God. Shifting gears.
My brother-in-law told the simple and probably not so unique story of his brother. His brother fought in Viet Nam, served his tour of duty and then returned home. It was a difficult tour and like war duty, it ends abruptly. One day you are fighting and trying to survive, and the next you are on a plane heading home. In this case, the one thing that his brother remembers is being on the plane, returning to the United States and he looks at his fingernails and realizes there is still dirt under them from the jungle fighting. How difficult it was to make the transition; from war to peace. From danger to the everyday. He is having trouble shifting gears.
In comparison, my personal story is quite simple, to this day, I cannot walk into a supermarket without clearly remembering how little there was to buy at the markets in Zambia where we taught many years ago. Often we would go to the African market for bread and chickens. We would walk down to the river nearby and knock on the doors of people who ran the nutrition group and barter for vegetables. One time we rode our motorcycles across the river on the Shankamone Road and bought a few kilos of pork. The pig was hanging from a large tree and the owner was cutting off slabs to sell. We bought. We ate, we lived. But upon returning home after three years there we had trouble adjusting to supermarkets of all things. We love them. It’s been 40 years but I still marvel at all we have. It was not life threatening but still it was and still is, difficult to make that transition: I still have trouble shifting gears.
In all these little stories, we are like Peter, we cannot shift our minds. In Peter’s case, shift our minds from things human to things spiritual. We are behaving like Peter and placing Jesus within our own context, rather than placing ourselves in Jesus context. I recall a seminary course I took a few years ago in the summer. We spent some time discussing the monks and monasteries and the good and faithful people that gravitated to such mountaintop or valley retreats so that they could be unencumbered by the ways of men and women and just think, work, meditate and pray. They did not want to be defiled by the outside world. They wanted just to concentrate on God. That is commendable…but I don’t think that Jesus is calling us to isolate ourselves from the people surrounding us in order to concentrate on the things of God.
So, in the Gospel, according to Jesus as I understand it…it goes something like this…Jesus is not necessarily impressed by great and glorious art in the grand cathedrals or beautiful churches like this one. As I understand the Gospel, Jesus is not necessarily impressed by isolating ourselves on a mountaintop and getting up at 3 am to begin prayers followed by more prayers and a monastic existence. It IS commendable but few can sustain such and there must be a middle ground.
Jesus tells us to have our minds on the things of God, not the things of humans. And we gave come to realize that one of the things of God is giving shelter and food and a just life to those who do not.
Washington Gladden was a Congregational UCC minister in Columbus around the turn of the last century but recently I read an article about him by the current pastor Tim Ahrens whom is a respected colleague and he said this…”Washington Gladden thought that Christians should be in charge of state institutions caring for the poor…not because he was theocratic…but because he said that that is what Jesus asked from us. It would save the soul of the church from its obsession with personal morality (which is whether we are sinning and bound for the hellfires) and that we turn to the social morality (which is the feeding of the hungry and the like).
This line of thinking begs the question, ”So Bob, if you want to be in the midst of caring for the poor and hungry, what are you doing in Dublin, of all places?” Because, I like most of you am a mid-western boy, an Ohio boy and this is where we live and where I minister. And I have long since recognized that in the midst of all this which we enjoy, in the midst of all this focus on things human, there is a hunger and longing for things spiritual. I have seen the support of the Food Pantry and our strong commitment to its continuance. I’ve been here long enough to know some of your backgrounds, the joys and heartaches which you face each day. But amidst it all, I am moved almost daily by your capacity to seek out those things spiritual, those things which challenge you and your children. I enjoy being a part of a church that speaks the Word of God and my greatest challenge each day is to see what is spiritual to you.
Things human. Things of God.
My longtime friend Don lives and works in Dayton. He retired from one career and took on a couple more and so I ask him what he would do when he finally retired. And he quickly offered me his answer. He said that once a week he now visits and serves lunch at a soup kitchen in Dayton and he would continue to head up a scholarship program for less privileged.
Things human and things of God. Things of and for God might be a mountain top retreat or a glorious cathedral or the beauty of an 1877 chapel in the city. Those are all good. But I have to believe that God would certainly be smiling on a simple serving of soup being ladled into a bowl. How sometimes simple things are the things of God.