One day, a battered life boat washed ashore.  The castaways rejoiced at their find.  Once they examined the boat, however, they found it full of holes.  The wood was rotting.  There was no telling how long it had been carried by ocean currents until if found its way to the lonely island.

The castaways held a meeting to decide what to do.  A few of the castaways held the belief that the boat could be patched with island mud and tree sap.  This seemed doubtful.  Some argued that the repairs to the boat would never hold up.  They would only serve to get them out to sea where the patches would dissolve in the salt water, thus sinking the boat and delivering a splendid meal to the sharks.  But others argued that the boat was their only hope of salvation.  Many were undecided.  One by one, they convinced the islanders that they boat should be repaired.  “We can’t stay here forever.  We have to do SOMETHING!”

The greater part of the castaways, all but two, began their work.  The boat was patched.  Two of the castaways refused to work on the boat.  They insisted the plan would never work.  They tried to warn the others of the foolishness of their plan.  But the others just insisted that the two were just being negative.  They weren’t being team players.  There’s no “I” in team, they said.  But there is in life, the two replied.

At first, they were annoyed at the two dissenters.  Then they began to make fun of them, and laugh at them.  But as the boat progressed, the others began to be openly hostile towards the two.  They withheld food rations from them for not helping with the boat.  If you don’t work, you don’t eat, they said.  Soon, the two were forced to move to another part of the island.  Just before the others were about to launch their boat, they came and offered the two one last chance to join them.

It’s funny, isn’t it?  People seem to be willing to believe anything if there are enough other people who believe it.  That’s certainly true of religion.  How else can you get the idea that there is such a thing as holy underwear?

Religion is like underwear for some people.  It makes them feel safe and secure.  It’s the buffer between their earthly bodies and the world around them.  Some people wear their religion like a suit of clothes.  It’s what they wear in public.  It changes according to the style of the day.  And, as in any fashion style, there are rules to how you wear it, rules you must follow or risk being cast off by society.  And then you have to choose.  Follow the dictates of style, or go with the crowd.

I don’t like to wear ultra stylish clothes.  I did once.  But now, I feel better wearing classic looks that never seem to go out of style.   Of course, they’re never really in style either.   A simple shirt, or a pair of comfortable jeans always seem to suit the purpose.   I’m too old to care anymore about what other people think of me.   But it’s hard to be different.

I know.  It isn’t easy being one of the few Catholics in our church to be in favor of the right for gays and lesbians to marry.  In fact, it wasn’t easy a few years ago to be a Kerry supporter during the 2004 election in our parish.  We took a lot of abuse.  Some people went so far as to tell us we had no right to call ourselves Catholic if we supported Kerry over Bush.  It isn’t easy to stand for something.  Jesus didn’t want anyone to have any illusions about that.

The people of first century Judea believed that God rewarded you for being righteous, not in some far off heaven, but right here on earth.  But Jesus made it clear time and again that if you truly follow his teachings, if you live the kind of life Christ is calling you to live, you will not be treated well.  You will be ridiculed.  You will be persecuted.  The fourteenth chapter of Luke makes it clear.

“But great crowds were going along with him, and he turned (and) said to them, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, that one is not able to be my disciple.  Whoever does not bear their cross and come after me is not able to be my disciple.  For which of you, wanting to build a tower, does not first sit (and) count the cost, if he has (enough) to complete?–that lest perhaps, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish, all the ones seeing might begin to mock him, saying, ‘This person began to build and was not able to finish.’  Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first to deliberate if he is able with ten thousand to meet with twenty thousand coming upon him?  And if not, yet being far from him, he sent a message asking for peace.  So, therefore, any one of you who does not forsake all that he has is not able to be my disciple.’”  (Luke, Chapter 14—a direct translation)

Hate is such a strong word.  It did not hold the same meaning for first century Palestine as it does for us.  It would almost appear here that Jesus is opposed to family values of any kind.  But in this case, when Jesus says we should “hate” our fathers, mothers, wives, and children, he means that we should not be concerned about what other people think about us.  To “hate” you family in the first century sense meant to bring disgrace upon them, by your words and actions.  The family was highly valued then, as now.  To bring dishonor on your family was to “hate” them.

Saint Paul said he was a “fool for Christ”.  Jesus called upon us to love our enemies.  He told us to take care of one another.  He said that revenge, or what most Americans think of as “justice”, was wrong.  He told us to share what we had.  He said the loving one another was more important than making money and acquiring stuff.  He said we should abandon anything, anyone, or any way of living that separates us from the source of all love and energy.  And if you live that way, people are going to think you’re nuts.  They may even hate you.  You don’t think so?  Try being among the only people in America calling for peace and forgiveness on 9/12/01.

Jesus wants to make it clear what living an enlightened life is like.  He is reminding us that we better count the cost before we start.  It isn’t going to be easy.  You have to be willing to “take up your cross” because they killed him for telling the truth.  They’re not going to be any nicer to you.  Look what they did to Gandhi.  Look what they did to Martin Luther King Jr.

There were people who thought we were crazy for running a marathon.  When I asked my doctor for a note indicating I was in good health so I could join a training program called the Los Angeles Roadrunners (whom I highly recommend, by the way), he told me the psychiatric care was upstairs.  People thought I was nuts.  Many still do.  And running that marathon hurt like a son of a bitch, I can tell you.  Yet I have a sense of satisfaction for finishing that race that none of the people who laughed at me will ever feel or understand.

There is a lot of pressure on us to follow the crowd.  Some people seem to live their lives based on talking points.  They spit back whatever the media tells them.  I remember going to a Linda Rondstadt concert and the woman in front of me said she hoped Linda wouldn’t dedicate any more songs to that no good Michael Moore.  I told her that I really enjoyed his films and she responded, “Michael Moore hates America.”  I asked her why she believed that, but she could not answer.  She didn’t know why she thought that, other than she didn’t like him pointing out America’s faults.  Well, somebody has to do it.

Jesus is pointing out that there is only one way to get to know the divine.  You have to live that life of love and service.  We have to take care of one another and when we do that, we touch the spirit of the creator.  We awaken the divine in ourselves.  No other path will take you there.  Every other path is centered in the self.

I remember once at the kung fu club when a guy came into the club and said that he wanted to learn how to use the weapons of our particular system, but he didn’t want to start at the beginning and learn the whole style.  We had to tell him that you needed to know the system to use the weapons properly.  He left disappointed.  It is as Mr. Miyagi said to Danielsan:  you have to stand on one side of the road or the other, but if you stand in the middle, you get squashed like a bug.  You either karate-do yes or you karate-do no.  You either live a spiritual life or you don’t.  And if you do live a spiritual life, life is going to be difficult.  People will think you’re wacko.  You have to know that going in.

One thing I learned from practicing kung fu is that you have to lose yourself in order to find yourself.  You have to let go of yourself.  You have to risk looking clumsy and foolish.  You have to lose that ego.  The truth is that you find yourself by taking care of others.  And that seems to go against everything we’ve ever been told.  What is it we’ve heard over and over again?  God helps those who help themselves.  There is a certain amount of truth in that, but it doesn’t mean to be selfish.  It simply means you have to get off your butt and do something.  You have to plant a seed and water it if you expect it to grow.  It isn’t about you.  As Carly Simon said, “You probably think this song is about you.”  But it isn’t.  It’s about all of us.

I wonder what those two castaways did.  Did they go ahead and join the others on that ill advised voyage in a poorly patched up boat?  Did they go along with the others?  Or did they stay behind on the island, because although they wanted to escape the island also, they knew that leaving on that boat could only end in disaster?  What would you have done?  Are you willing to live your life the way you think you should in spite of what other people think of you?  You may find that the best course of action for you goes against everything you’ve ever come to believe.  You may find that the best path to follow is the one that seems the least appealing.  Are you willing to be a fool for Christ?

After treating my back, this fellow took me for a walk, and proceeded to tell me everything about myself, things he never could have known, things I barely even admitted to myself. I tell you, he either had true psychic abilities, or an acute sense of reading a person. Either way, I was gob smacked. He gave me some amazing insights into my behavior. He also told me that I had a “destiny” to fulfill, and instructed me that I needed to begin studies in a martial art. He didn’t say which one. Well, when somebody tells you something like that, you give it serious consideration.

At the time, I had a good friend with whom I attended linguistics classes. He studied kung fu. He offered to show me the school where he taught and practiced. I declined because I didn’t want to change our relationship. We were good friends. Had I joined his club, he would be my superior in rank and that would change the dynamics of our friendship. So I joined a different kung fu club. I began studies under the fellow who taught David Carradine, the star of the TV series, Kung Fu. But I didn’t like it there.

So I went to my friend’s club, watched a class, and eventually joined. Now, through my friend, I had already become good friends with several of the club members before I ever joined. Once I became a member of the club, I found myself in close association with most of the senior members. As a result, I found myself progressing rapidly. I became president of the club. I was promoted quickly. I rose to the rank of instructor after only about six years. And let me tell you, six years is nothing in the martial arts world. I knew deep down that I didn’t deserve the honor.

One of the club members, someone I hardly knew really, offered to give me some private lessons on Sundays. I jumped at the chance. I had always felt rather self-conscious about my promotions, feeling somehow that I had been moved up more because of whom I knew than because of my own abilities. So for several years, I attended special private lessons so that my abilities would come to match the rank I was given. I know that there were some guys in the club who resented my entrance somewhat meteoric rise in the inner circle of the kung fu club.

That’s how you learn stuff, isn’t it? When you know nothing, you get to know the people who DO know something, and learn from them. When I became an elementary school teacher, I attached myself to the veteran teachers, kept my mouth shut, and my ears open. I learned all I could from them. And, as a result of this, I advanced in the leadership circles within the elementary school where I taught. I didn’t really plan on that. It just happened. We have all heard this a million times. It isn’t what you know, it’s who you know.

This is nothing new. It was just as true two thousand years ago as it is now. Jesus addresses this issue in the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel According to Luke. Jesus has been on the road on his way to Jerusalem. Time after time, he has been invited to the homes of various Pharisees, the forerunners of the modern rabbinic tradition, for the purpose of observation. Each meal was an opportunity to set a trap for him, to trip him up in some way, to catch him saying or doing something that would give them an excuse to arrest him and get him out of the way. This Jesus challenged the established order, much as others have over the centuries. Jesus challenged the people to see God not as an angry king, but as a loving father.

“On a sabbath Jesus went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees,
and the people there were observing him carefully.
He told a parable to those who had been invited,
noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet,
do not recline at table in the place of honor.
A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him,
and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say,
‘Give your place to this man,’
and then you would proceed with embarrassment
to take the lowest place.
Rather, when you are invited,
go and take the lowest place
so that when the host comes to you he may say,
‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’
Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Then he said to the host who invited him,
“When you hold a lunch or a dinner,
do not invite your friends or your brothers
or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors,
in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.

Rather, when you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke, Chapter 14)

We don’t throw a lot of parties. Recently, my wife’s brother was in town. He lives in Arizona, far away. So she invited over all the cousins and family so everyone could get to see each other for the first time in years. It was a great party and everybody had a great time. It was great craic, as the Irish say. We just wanted to enjoy each other’s company. I always love the opportunity to talk with her cousins, especially her cousins Joe and Brenda. They’re just good people, and lots of fun. People don’t always throw a party for fun, though.

The Pharisee in this bible story held a dinner in order to set a trap for a young upstart teacher. And those others present attended in order to advance themselves in the social pecking order. They wanted position and status. They jockeyed for prime positions and the table, for where you sat indicated your position in the group. They attended the dinner to see what they could get out of it. Certainly, the Pharisee who held the dinner knew that his position among the authorities would rise should he be able to trip Jesus up in some way. We all know about these sorts of parties. Today, we call it “networking”.

Every year, my kung fu teacher, my “Sifu”, has a birthday banquet. Well, actually, the club holds the banquet—in his honor. Left to him, there would be no banquet; although, I am sure he would be royally pissed off if we failed recognize his birthday. Anyway, my sifu’s birthday banquet reminds me of these sorts of dinners. Students are seated at various tables based upon their rank within the club. The table where our sifu is seated is reserved for an exclusive inner circle of students.

Before the banquet begins, each students scouts around to see where he or she is seated. And during the banquet, all the students look around to see where everyone else is seated. From time to time, you hear the clinking of a spoon against a glass, and someone rises to spout carefully chosen words of praise for our teacher, hoping to gain some prestige and rise a notch or two in the teacher’s eyes.

Our teacher, however, only ever responds that all honor and praise belong only to his teacher, the one who showed him the way. After the dinner, our sifu takes the opportunity to hand out promotions and recognize those students who have served the club well during the past year. For him, the banquet is about sharing an evening with his “children”. You see, the Chinese title, “Sifu”, does not mean “teacher”. It means “father”.

As many of you know, because of an injury, and various other reasons, I was away from my kung fu club for several years. I returned to the club a little over a year ago. In that year, I have had to struggle to re-learn so much of what I had forgotten. So this last year, when I attended the birthday banquet, I fully expected to be seated at the bottom table. I was the prodigal son. I had been away. I was just grateful to be back.

I was stunned when Peter, the man upon whose shoulder the daily operation of the club had fallen, invited me to sit at the teacher’s table. I was overwhelmed with a feeling that I did not deserve the honor of sitting with the teacher. I know that some of the guys in the club looked at me and wondered why I was sitting there. I’m sure some of them felt they belonged there in my place. I only know that rather than taking pleasure in the honor, I felt humbled by my teacher’s insistence that I belonged there.

The bible frequently uses the image of the banquet as a representation of the heavenly kingdom. Jesus tells us that heavenly kingdom is within each one of us. The God-spirit, the Tao, or whatever you want to call that creative spirit, has invited each of us to join in that heavenly banquet. We are the poor, the beggars, the crippled, the lame, the blind. I know that I am invited personally to sit at the father’s table, not because I deserve it, but because my father wants me there. It is my choice to freely accept the love of my father.

There are many around, I’m sure, who will believe I do not belong there. There are those who would try to keep many away from the father’s table. They would keep the single mothers, the gay, those who worship the father in some way other than theirs, away from the love of the father. There are those who feel they deserve the love of the father and we do not. Jesus makes it clear that the banquet is open to all of us. Those who would set themselves at the high table, will find themselves brought low, not because of some punishment from God, however.

God is all inclusive, all embracing. Jesus taught that God was, is present in each one of us. “Whatever you do to these, the least of these, you do to me.” The moment we exclude others, the moment we push others away, we push God away. If God is at the center of the table, then we push ourselves away from that center as we separate ourselves from those people we feel unworthy to be there.

Jesus instructed us to be perfect, even as our father in heaven is perfect. The evangelical fundamentalists like to ask, “What would Jesus do?” We know what Jesus would do. Jesus would be inclusive. Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Jesus would invite the Muslims to build a mosque near ground zero. He would be the first one to pray there. Jesus understood we were meant to serve one another, not to be served. We are all invited to sit at the father’s table. We earn our place there by welcoming others to sit beside us.

We joined L.A. Roadrunners. Over 98% of everyone who trains with them finishes the race. They’re a great group. We trained for six months. The training was tough. But it was nothing compared to the actual race. Oh, the beginning of the marathon was fun and exciting. The music, the crowds, the cheers, all made those first few miles fall like quail when Dick Cheney is hunting. But after I ran a few miles uphill, the tide of joy for the race sort of ebbed a little. And by the time I got to mile twenty, Ijust wanted to scream. Every muscle in my body was screaming at that point.

My wife could run a lot faster than I could. So, of course, I encouraged her to run on ahead. I wanted her to turn in the best time she could. So I was running alone, just me and my Walkman. And, by the way, the third or fourth time you hear that song, you just want it all to be over. But after I crossed that finish line, and the volunteer placed that finisher’s medal over my head, tears came to my eyes. They were not tears of pain either. I had done it. I had finished. In that moment, I knew. It was worth all the pain of the training. It was worth all the pain of that day.

It was some kind of journey, I can tell you that. Life is often compared to a journey. Thanks to the Greeks, we see life is a very linear way. You start out being born, and you continue until you die, right? It’s very linear. The Middle East and Asia, not to mention James Earl Jones, tend to see life as more of a circle, and endless cycle of cycles, Spring to Winter and again and again. Birth and rebirth. The marathon was, at that time, a circle. It ended where it started. And when you think about it, most journeys are circles. That is, you go some place, but you come home again, don’t you? That’s the way it usually happens.

Literature loves to use the journey as a metaphor for life and learning. The Bible is full of journeys. The life of Jesus was one long journey from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. The story of the Good Samaritan takes place during a journey. That’s how you learn things. You have to relate what you learn to something you already know. In the Gospel According to Luke, Jesus is on a journey to Jerusalem when this happens:

Jesus passed through towns and villages,
teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him,
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”

He answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.

After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.

And you will say,
‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’

Then he will say to you,
‘I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.

And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.” (Luke, Chapter 13)

The Bible thumpers love to use this story to scare the hell out of people. You better get your life straight ‘cause you ain’t gonna make it, boy. You ain’t gettin’ through no Pearly Gates ‘cause straaaaaaight is the path and narrrrroooow is the gate, and few there be that find it! It doesn’t jive well for me with the image of a loving forgiving father-God that Jesus usually describes. Jesus constantly refers to God as father, even from the cross. Nobody wants to live in fear of Dad. That would certainly be an abusive father. No, it’s not about that. That’s just crazy talk. There are several things at play in this story.

First of all, clearly Jesus gets straight to the point in this story. He is asked if only a few people will be saved. The word translated as “saved” in Greek means “to be rescued”, or “kept from destruction”. Jesus never answers that question, however. He does not answer that question because that is not the point. What the questioner wants to know is not how many will be saved. What the questioner wants to know is whether HE will be saved. That’s what really matters, isn’t it? Who cares how many are going to make it if you aren’t.

So Jesus tells him to “strive for the narrow gate.” In other words, he’s saying that attaining enlightenment is going to take work. Well….duh! The Jewish people at that time believed that, being God’s “chosen people”, they had a in with the all mighty. Jesus was telling the young man that you don’t get an easy way out just because somebody cut the end off your penis. That isn’t how it works.

And won’t you be surprised to see a bunch of the people you thought were nobodies there in Heaven with all those famous dudes from your culture like Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac. Jesus is saying that God loves everybody. If God is a parent/God, then S/He must recognize that, like all children, people seem to want to be the favorite child. It isn’t enough for us to be loved, we want to be loved to the exclusion of everybody else.

Finding the way to God, the Tao, the Atman, the Great Spirit, or whatever you want to call that power, is not easy. One look at the lives of any of the people we think of as holy should tell you that. But people are basically lazy. I know I am. And they want to be assured that they can make it into heaven simply be virtue of being circumcised, or baptized, or because they have magic underwear, or something like that.

But when you look at the word “saved”, you have to ask yourself, “saved from what?” People assume that this passage is about being saved from eternal damnation. But I don’t think it is hell from which people are to be saved, not from the point of view of Jesus. It is fear.

What we experience here in this life is fear. That is why the question is asked. How many will be saved? Will I be saved? The question is asked because the questioner is afraid. The questioner is thinking about death, or hell, or something like that. Jesus seems to make it clear again and again that God loves us all and forgives us all and will take care of us all. We are all heirs to the kingdom. The weeping and wailing Jesus talks about isn’t the weeping and wailing of hell. It is the weeping and wailing of fear. One way or the other, there is no death. But you can’t let go of the fear of death until you understand that death is an illusion. And that takes work, as anybody who has ever conquered a fear of anything can tell you.

The only way to lose that fear and anxiety is to have faith in a loving spirit God. Remember, in Greek, “faith” is a verb. It is not something you have. It is something you do. And that will take some work. It takes prayer and meditation. It means taking care of one another. It means loving people you don’t particularly feel like loving. It takes thought—and no thought (as the Zen masters have come to understand).

You don’t gain that understanding by birth right. You don’t gain it by having a little water thrown over your head. You don’t gain it by taking some magic pill. Finding a path to enlightenment reminds us that it is a path, a journey. Robert Frost, in his poem, “The Road Not Taken”, said:

“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

We all learned in high school what he meant by that. But there is a reason the road not taken is “less traveled by”. It is a hard freakin’ road to take. If it were easy, everybody would take it. We’ve all taken difficult roads in life. Sometimes we took them on purpose. I know the best choices I ever made in life were the ones most difficult, having kids, going to college, studying kung fu, learning the guitar. And sometimes we take those difficult roads by accident. I don’t think I would have run a marathon had I know how difficult it would be. But I did. Either way, you gain a lot from those difficult paths you choose. I will say this. I am certainly glad that Jesus said that the last shall be first, because that is about where I came in on that first marathon—last. Well, maybe not last, but it sure felt like it. It will be nice to come in first for a change.

From that moment on, I knew I was destined to play the guitar. And for that Christmas, my parents bought me a ¾ size Orlando steel string acoustic guitar. I picked it up. I tried to play it. I didn’t know anything about how to play it, but I tried to play it anyway. The strings hurt my fingers. And it didn’t sound anything like that Fender Mustang plugged into an amp. So the guitar ended up in the closet. I didn’t touch a guitar again for four years. Of course, it might have helped had my parents secured lessons for me, not that they had the money for that.

But even though the guitar sat in a closet, the fire still burned inside me. When I was thirteen, and living in a small mountain community bored to tears, I took my grandfather’s guitar, a 1939 Gibson L-30 archtop, out of my parents’ closet. Then I found a book on how to play the guitar my parents had purchased for my brother when he wanted to learn (he didn’t stick with it either, obviously.). The book was about playing classical guitar, but I could still use it to show me how to tune the guitar and the book did have a chord chart.

Then I picked up a Beatle song book by dad had brought me. It had chord diagrams over the music. I learned to play chords from that book. I started with the most simple songs. “Eleanor Rigby”, for example, had only two chords, two simple chords. I knew those songs. I knew how they were supposed to sound. I played several hours every day. I played until my fingers began to bleed. Then I would soak my fingers in ice water and then play some more. It was very painful, but I was determined to learn. In time, I developed calluses on my fingers and they didn’t hurt anymore. By the time we moved away from that little mountain home, I could play the guitar. Forty years later, I still play. The guitar is such a part of my life, I can’t imagine being without one.

That’s kind of the way we are, isn’t it? Once an idea takes hold of us, it won’t let go. No matter what we do, it keeps nagging us. We can ignore it for a time, but it’s always there, in the back of our minds. It is the way of things. This is how the world changes.

At some point, we, as a species, came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with slavery. For thousands of years, people kept slaves. Then, the idea started to spread that it was wrong for one person to own another. By the early eighteen hundreds, most of the what we call “civilized” countries began to outlaw slavery. Of course, here in the United States, slavery was such an integral part of our culture and society that it would take a civil war to bring the practice to an end. But end it did. And a hundred and fifty years later, we almost have equal rights for the people who once belonged to other people. Change never comes about easily.

Jesus understood this. Or at least, the writer of the Gospel According to Luke understood this. In the twelfth chapter, Luke has Jesus speaking to a crowd. It isn’t clear whether he speaking to his followers only, or to a more general crowd of people. And it doesn’t matter whether Jesus ever spoke these words or not. The truth of the message is still valid.

“I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled. But I have a baptism to be baptized, and how I am being held together until it might be brought to completion. Do you think that I came to give peace in the earth? No, I say to you, but division. For from now on, five in one household will be divided, three upon two, and two upon three. They will be divided father upon son and son upon father, mother upon daughter and daughter upon mother, mother-in-law upon her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law upon mother-in-law.

But he said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising upon west, you immediately say that rain is coming, and it comes to be so. And when a south wind blows, you say that a scorching heat will be, and it comes to be. Hypocrites. You know how to interpret the face of the earth and of heaven, but how do you not interpret this present time (kairos)?” (Luke, Chapter 12—direct translation)

Fire is a powerful symbol. Fire, in our atavistic memory preserves us and destroys us. It endangers us and keeps us safe. It cooks our foods and burns our homes. Consider the mythical phoenix bird. Upon its death, it burns. And out of the ashes, it rises again to new life. Passion burns within us. It was a pillar of fire that helped to lead the Hebrews to the promised land. Moses spoke to a burning bush. Out of that fire, came the law. And the law was a new way of living. Fire tempers the steel blade. It makes it stronger.

Jesus came to set the world on fire, and I’d say he succeeded. This poor son of a construction worker (for that what being a carpenter meant in the first century), without the internet, without mass media, without wealth, or military power, managed to change the world. Moreover, this Jesus managed to light a fire in the hearts of those who heard him. Those who heard him recognized the truth. That truth began to burn inside. They could ignore it for a time, but not forever. His message could sit in the closet, like that Orlando guitar my parents bought for me. But the fire was burning.

And while that fire is burning, you are not at peace, let me tell you. Jesus did not come to bring peace, he came to set the world on fire. He turned the world of first century Palestine upside down. If you notice his words, he said he came to set family against family. Family was the foundation of Jewish society. Father against son, son against father—that is the antithesis of Jewish culture.

When John the Baptist came, he told the world to repent. That word, in Greek, does not mean to be sorry for you evil ways. It means to change your way of thinking, to see the world in a new way. That was the message of Jesus. See the world in a new way. God is not some angry ruler who punishes the sinner and rewards the righteous. God is a loving parent. God wants us to be happy. Real joy comes not from wealth or power, but from love. If we could just learn to love one another, we can make this world a real paradise.

Of course, like learning to play the guitar, loving one another is not the easiest thing to do. It can be very painful. Like learning to play the guitar, it’s something you have to practice. It takes to time to be any good at it. And it takes a while to develop those calluses. You have to suffer a lot, not because suffering is good. Having blisters on your fingers is not particularly good, but having blisters on your fingers is how you develop calluses. This is not a message we like to hear, but it’s true. And we know it’s true.

Once, after I lost a great deal of weight (one of the many times—damn those yo-yos), a woman asked me hopefully how I did it. I told her that I cut my calories way down and counted them religiously—and I exercised every day. You should have seen her face drop. She had hoped I would have an easy answer. But there are no easy answers. Deep down, she knew that. Deep down, I know that too. I’ve tried my share of miracle diet drugs. Counting calories and exercise works. The miracle drugs don’t. We know the truth when we hear it.

This is why Jesus reminds the crowd that they recognize the signs of the weather. They know when a storm is coming, or when it’s going to get hot. They ought to be able to recognize the truth when they hear it. When he asks how it is they do not recognize the present times, he uses the Greek word “kairos”. The usual Greek word for time is “chronos”, from which we get chronology, etc. The word “kairos” suggests time in the sense of “the now”, this present moment. In other words, you recognize the signs that the weather is changing, how is it you don’t recognize the truth right in this moment right now when you hear it?

People back then were no different than people now. They wanted easy answers. They wanted a messiah to come and tell them they should hate the Romans. They wanted someone to validate the culture in which the wealthy could rule over the poor with the blessings of God. They liked the part about God loving them and all, but weren’t too sure of the part about loving one another. They liked eternal life and heaven, but weren’t too keen on that cross carrying crap. But it’s that cross carrying crap that brings us closer to God.

That’s because we only grow out of crisis. Addicts only quit when they hit bottom. We don’t seem to make changes in our lives until the whole thing falls apart. Look at our economy. We knew that the real estate bubble was about to burst. But we just kept on doing what we were doing until it all fell apart. And NOW we’re passing legislation against some of those practices that caused the destruction of our economic system. I didn’t learn to play the guitar until putting up with the pain of learning was better than putting up with the pain of extreme boredom. We just don’t change what we’re doing until doing what we’re doing is too painful to do anymore.

And it seems like we don’t start to look for our spiritual side until we become so dissatisfied with our lives that we can’t seem to go on anymore. And when we finally reach that point, we begin to feel that fire burning again, reminding us there is something we’ve forgotten. We wonder why life has to be so hard. Maybe it has to be hard because if it weren’t, we wouldn’t talk to God at all.

There is a story about a four year old kid who never spoke ever. His parents couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then, at dinner, the kid takes one taste of his dinner and exclaims, “This is pure crap!” His parents, shocked, ask why he’s never spoken before. The kid answers, “Up to now, everything’s been okay.” I’m kind of like that. Times get hard and people pray.

Jesus did cast a fire on the earth. He set a fire to burn in our hearts, reminding us of the truth. He brought a fire to make us stronger. And he brought a fire to brighten our paths and show us the way to a better life. He came to turn our world upside down. And since I came to study his teachings, my life has never been the same. This story reminds us that there are no easy answers. We know that. That truth burns like a fire in our hearts. We already know that. We don’t need anyone to tell us that. All we need is love. That truth is waiting for us, like a guitar in the closet, just waiting for us to pick it up and caress the strings. Don’t worry about the blisters. You can always soak your fingers in ice water.

Anyway, I put on a good show, and after I left the stage, the manager of the bar came up to me and said he wanted me to do a regular weekly gig. Wow. That was like a dream come true. It was what I always wanted. But then he asked me if I had my own public address system. It seems the club only rented the one I used on open mic night. Other nights, the performers had to provide their own. Well, I didn’t have one. I couldn’t afford one. So I had to tell him I didn’t. So he said he was sorry, and that I should call him when I had one. And that didn’t happen for quite a few years. I told myself I would never be caught unprepared again.

So a passable P.A. system was one of the first things I bought later on, once I had some money. But on other occasions, I have been asked to join bands, only to have to say I didn’t have an electric guitar and amp. And that was that. So the next thing I bought was a good electric guitar and a good amplifier. This is because it doesn’t matter how talented you are, if you aren’t ready when the opportunity presents itself. And those aren’t just my words. Johnny Carson said the same thing. He said, “Being at the right place at the right time doesn’t matter too much if you’re not ready.” You have to be ready.

The gospel reading from Luke this week has a lot to do with being ready. This is what Jesus had to say about being ready:

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father took pleasure in giving you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms.

Make money-purses for yourselves that do not become old, an unfailing treasure in the heavens, where no thief comes nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

Let your loins be girded around and the candles be burning, and you yourselves like those looking for their lord who might return from the wedding banquet so that, when he comes and knocks, immediately they may open to him. Blessed those slaves whom the Lord, coming, will find watching. Truly I say to you that he will gird (himself) and sit down with them, and drawing near, will serve them.

And if he might come in the second, or in the third watch, and find so, blessed they are. But know this: that if the master of the house had know what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken through. And you, you be ready, for at an hour you think now, the son of man comes.” (Luke, Chapter Twelve—a direct translation)

The source for this reading comes mainly from the mysterious Q document, that missing gospel from which the other gospels were taken. Luke makes some important changes, however. He places this story after the story of the rich fool, about whom I wrote last week. Jesus tries to tell his followers that we have to freedom to live without anxiety. He says it doesn’t do us any good to worry about our resources, since we really have no control over our lives or environment. Jesus exhorts us to live in faith, trusting that we will have all that we need.

Society lives under the myth of scarcity. We are afraid we won’t have enough. That’s why people shop at Costco. We buy big quantities of things because we don’t want to run out (and we perceive it to be cheaper). Of course, I remember once buying several ink cartridges for my printer because they were on sale and so I figured I could save some money. Then my printer broke. So much for saving money. But things aren’t scarce. The population of the world has managed to double in the past thirty years. That couldn’t happen if there wasn’t enough for people to eat. We have all that we need. We just don’t share it.

But what if we don’t have enough? That’s why Jesus tells us that it is the father’s pleasure to give us all we need. He tells us not to be afraid. Notice that he uses the past tense. The father “took” pleasure in giving us the kingdom. We have the kingdom now. It is already given. It is not something we have to wait until we die to receive. This is the kingdom. The kingdom of God is within you, as Jesus says. We have all we need. There is plenty for everyone. We just have to share, that’s all.

Many evangelical Christians like to use this reading to frighten us into following all the rules. You better be act right and get right with the Lord, because He might be coming back tonight. You never know. So don’t be lazy. We’re the slaves in the story and Jesus is the master. So we better stay awake and be ready when he knocks on the door. You never know when you’re going to die. If you knew when the thief was coming…

But Jesus never tries to frighten anybody. That’s not what he’s all about. If you read more closely, you’ll notice that the master in the story is not coming back angry, ready to punish everybody. The master is coming back from a party, a wedding feast. Wedding feasts are often used in the bible as a symbol for the kingdom of God. The master is happy. And when he gets home, what does the master do? He gathers the servants around and serves THEM a good meal.

I remember back when I was a kid and my dad would come home after he got paid. He would always stop at the grocery store and buy some liquor for himself and my mom (hey…they were alcoholics, okay?), and he would also bring home some treats for me. And if I needed something, of course, my mom or dad would say, “Wait for payday.” So I learned to look at my dad’s payday with great anticipation. I was waiting in the living room when he got home. He was always in a good mood, and I always got stuff. I was always happy to see my dad come payday. Payday was cool. I looked forward to those days.

When Jesus is talking about being ready, he was talking about this kind of anticipation. The God Jesus talked about was not a punishing God, ready to whack all us sinners. The God of Jesus is a loving father. And this loving father takes pleasure in giving us good things and making us happy. We need to be ready when the father comes.

How do we get ready? Jesus tell us to empty our purses. He tells us to share with each other, to give alms to the poor. That is how you repay God for all the good things you have. Jesus makes that clear. If you want to give to God, give to the poor. Because the poor are God, just as you are God, and even that jerk who just cut you off on the freeway is God.

Every day, we have opportunities to give back to God. But we let them slip by. We walk past the homeless guy on the corner. We make excuses. We tell ourselves that he’ll only blow the money on booze or drugs. Or we tell ourselves that giving money to the guy won’t really help him. Give a guy a fish and he eats once. Teach a guy to fish, and he eats forever. Yeah, well, teaching a hungry guy to fish isn’t really much help, especially if he doesn’t have a fishing pole or net. You might want to feed him too, at least until he learns how to fish.

People come to us all the time in need of something. Sometimes they need money. Sometimes they need advice. Maybe they just need someone to watch their kids for a couple of hours. Sometimes they just need someone to hold them and listen to their troubles. The truth is, helping out with money is the easy way out. It’s way harder to give of yourself. Either way, that person coming to us is a child of God. They are knocking on our door. Are we ready to receive them? Or are we too wrapped up in our own lives and our own troubles to hear them?

One of my students told me that whenever he wanted to talk to his mom about something while she was watching TV, she would wave him off and say, “Wait for the commercial.” And that hurt. That kid wanted to be at least as important to his mom as a television show. That mom wasn’t ready when the master knocked at the door, plain and simple. I know that I fail in that regard all the time. But I’m trying to be better.

That reference to “girded loins” calls up the image of the first century person’s garments. Back in those days, you girded your loins when you tied your robes around your legs so you would be ready to run or to fight if necessary. That way, you wouldn’t trip over them. We are reminded to gird our loins. Be ready to do what you need to do. That’s the kind of anticipation that Jesus is talking about. We need to be ready to help.

This is because loving one another and taking care of one another is how you connect to that power, the creative spirit of the universe, whatever you want to call it, call it God or Allah, or the Tao, or the Prajna, or the Great Spirit, or the Giant Spaghetti Monster. Be loving and giving, and you connect to God.

I’ve told this story before, but I remember the third time we ran the Los Angeles Marathon. We weren’t ready. We hadn’t trained for it. The day we ran, it was raining like crazy. The streets were cruel. The city had pulled up support early. We were exhausted and in pain. We wanted to quit, but we couldn’t, not and look at ourselves in the mirror, anyway. Around mile twenty, we ran into a couple of teenage girls who were also struggling with the race. They wanted to quit, too. We started talking with them and encouraging them. Come on, just another mile. That’s it. Only five to go. Come on, you can do it. Just stay with us. We got them to mile twenty-five, and then they took off on their own, leaving us in the somewhat wet dust and finished the race. They got their finisher’s medal. So did we.

We discovered that by helping those two girls, we forgot our own pain. We smiled for them, even though we didn’t feel much like smiling. Getting them through their race got us through ours. That, my loves, is the secret of the universe. If you want to overcome your troubles, help other people overcome theirs. That’s how it works. You just have to be ready when the opportunity presents itself.

And that’s why Jesus likens himself to the thief. The thief doesn’t come in ways you would expect. If he did, you’d be ready. You would have your defenses up. But God comes to us in ways we never expect. God knows how to get around our defenses. Jesus makes it clear that everything the God does is the opposite of what we would expect. God doesn’t come in a loud fanfare. God comes in the “still small voice”. God isn’t in the high and mighty. God is in the homeless single mother.

So this story is about being ready, about being prepared. Islam holds that God often sends angels to us in disguise to test us, to see if we are ready to help, ready to love. Jesus tells us that each one of us is a child of God. God is present in each one of us. The prophet, Isaiah, said that the one to come, the messiah, would be called Emmanuel, literally, “God is with us.” And that’s what Jesus was saying. God is with us. God is all around us, everywhere, in every person we see, including the one we see in the mirror. We just have to be ready when the master knocks.

I discovered that the arrow indicated a fault with the transmission. And I suppose it was pointing up because apparently our transmission went to heaven, or wherever good auto parts go when they die. Of course, we didn’t know that at the time. We just knew something was amiss. And in this case, amiss is as good as 35 miles—away from home. We limped the car to the wedding on surface streets. We had to be there. I was supposed to play a song I was asked to write for the event. We had the rest of the weekend to mull over our situation. You see, we only have the one car. I know, that’s almost communistic in this society, but that’s the way it is.

I was upset, since we live in a state of perpetual poverty, but I calmed myself by reminding myself that in a worst case scenario, we could cash out one of our 403B retirement accounts and get a new car if we absolutely had to do so. So I started to investigate what kind of cars we could buy. I had it all figured out. Then Monday came.

We had the car towed to our mechanic. Thank God for AAA. I highly recommend AAA if you don’t already have it. Anyway, in the meantime, my wife was sort of liking the idea of getting another car because you sort of like having a car upon which you may depend, if you know what I mean and I think you do. So I started to research even more. Then we got the news about the transmission. Bad. Then we got the news that under IRS rules, we could not cash out our accounts under almost any circumstances—even with a penalty. The money could not be touched until we retire. So what do you do when that happens? Luckily, God is good. Our mechanic was able to keep the bill under $1600. We got the car fixed and now we can drive it. Although, he recommended we not take our old baby on any long trips.

This was very upsetting. It so bothered me that we have no money. Other people buy cars. Other folks have money. But we are in such a lousy financial situation. Our mortgage is so freaking big, it takes most of our income to pay it. I felt so envious of people who have money available to them. So when I looked at the Bible readings for this week, I discovered they were written specifically for us. It’s amazing how often that happens.

In this week’s reading from Luke, Jesus is speaking to an ever increasing crowd. Clearly, the movement is growing. He is invited to a local rabbi’s house for dinner. At dinner, in a move that can be seen as very politically incorrect, Jesus refers to all the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites. Meanwhile, the crowd outside the house grows. Jesus speaks to them.

Someone out of the crowd said to him, “Teacher, speak to my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who placed me judge or divider over you?” And he said to them, “See and guard from all greed, for someone’s life is not in the abundance of possessions.”

But he said a parable to them, saying, “The region of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he was reasoning in himself, saying, ‘What might I do, for I do not have a place where I will store my fruits.’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and I will build greater. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my life, ‘Life, you have many goods laid up into many years. Rest, eat, drink, be merry.’

But God said to him, ‘Fool. This night your life is demanded from you, and the things you have, whose will they be?’ This (is) the one laying up treasures for himself and not being rich into God.’” (Luke, Chapter 12—a direct translation)

It was not uncommon for a rabbi to render a judgment in cases like this one. One might presume that the person asking Jesus the question was a younger brother. Jewish law dictated that the oldest son would inherit the largest portion of an inheritance. No doubt, this young man had heard the teachings of Jesus regarding the rich and the poor and expected Jesus to side with him. But, just as in my case, you don’t always get what you expect.

It must be remembered that people in that time believed that God rewarded the righteous with wealth and prosperity. But Jesus tells them that it is not wealth after which people should aspire. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with wealth, but the desire for wealth is not going to lead a person in the right direction. This is precisely what Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha said also. He said that it is desire that makes us suffer. Let go of desire and you let go of suffering, including the desire to be free of desire.

So many times I turn to God as though S/He were some kind of on line catalog. God, please send me this, or God, please send me that, postage paid, tax-free, always remembering to say thanks, of course. The holy books, however, all indicate that this is not the way God operates. Jesus, who, according to the early texts, was God incarnate, reminds us that he is not the judge of who gets what. We get what we need. This is the teaching of Jesus. Ask, and you will receive. Prayers like this attempt to put us in control.

That’s what we want, isn’t it? We want to control everything. We want to control God. But we can’t. The truth is, we can’t control anything. That’s what got us in trouble in the garden, according to the Adam and Eve myth. We wanted to be like God. We wanted control. Even as a child, I wanted to control my parents. I wanted to tell them what to do. But that isn’t how it works. And whether I liked it or not, I had to do what my parents wanted me to do. Often as not, I didn’t like it. But it usually ended up being for the best.

What I need is all in that prayer Jesus taught us. Give us this day, our daily bread. That’s all I need. I thought I needed a new car. What I really need is a car that will get me from point A to point B. Now you might think that it would be better if I had a car that would get me from point A to point B without worry. But can you ever have that? New cars break down too. We just don’t think they will. That is an illusion.

So consider it. My prayers were answered. The repair came in, if not at a price that made me happy, at least at a price we had the money in the bank to pay. Our mechanic was able to fix the car. And the retirement funds remain untouched. It would be nice to have a new car, that’s true. It would have been nice to have a pony when I was seven, too. But it wouldn’t have been a good idea.

And when you consider all the emotional suffering I was going through, it is simply just crazy. All the worry in the world won’t get the car fixed. And, in the end, had something happened, had I a heart attack or something and died Sunday night, I would have gone through all that suffering for nothing. Let’s face it, you can have the best job, the best car, the best house, the best of everything, and then you up and die, and what have you got?

Once upon a time, I used to think that when you found the right person, you got married. That way, you were safe. After all, you don’t want to go through life alone, do you? But marriage isn’t safe. You can get married, and that person can still leave you. That person can die. Any number of things can happen. And there you are, alone again (naturally, thanks, Gilbert).

The truth is, you can’t control anything. And any thought that you can is just an illusion on your part. We all know those people, “control freaks”, we call them. They drive us nuts. We would like those people to just let go. But you can’t let go of what you never had. The truth is that we’re all control freaks to some degree, and we need to let go of that illusion that we have any control at all. At any moment, everything can fall apart. Just ask the people in New Orleans.

All you can do is trust. All you can do is have faith that you will have everything you need to get by. Now you might say that there are a whole lot of people who don’t get what they need. People die. People pray for help and they die. That is true. That’s the way it goes. There is more to the universe than our lives here. So we die. That’s what happens. What happens after that, we don’t know. We have beliefs, but they could be wrong. Either way, there’s nothing we can do about it. We have no control. We can only do the best we can and hope for the best. And we don’t even know what the best is.

There was a time that I would have thought the best thing would have been for God to save my first marriage and that S/He would let me keep my job as a store manager. Boy was I wrong. I have since discovered that I am so far better off now than I was before because of those challenges in my life. Things happen the way they happen because it is the way they are supposed to happen. That is where faith comes in. And faith, as I have said before, is, in Greek, a verb, not a noun. It is not something you have, it is something you do. True peace of mind comes from understanding and embracing this idea. It takes a lifetime to learn.

As always, I found my message from God in the teachings of Jesus. But you can find those messages in many places. You just have to be open to them. Just consider the words of those great holy men, The Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might just find, you get what you need.” Oh yeah. Oh, and if you feel like donating some cash to the cause, feel free. God won’t mind.

Then, when I got my first good computer and the internet was new and wondrous, I went on line for the first time. One of the first places I searched out was the web page for my musical hero, Arlo Guthrie (Woody Guthrie’s son—but then, if you don’t know Arlo, you probably wouldn’t know Woody). I found a web page for him and for his record company, Rising Son Records. I noticed a link to his concert schedule. Cool, I thought. Let’s see if he’s performing in Los Angeles any time soon. And as I looked down the list of cities Arlo would be visiting, probably in a red VW microbus, it hit me. This guy was on the road about 300 days a year!

This had been my dream. I wanted to be just like Arlo. And he was on the road 300 freakin’days a year! Well, I didn’t want that. The thought of being away from my home and the people (and animals) I love for most of the year did not sound appealing in any way. This was definitely NOT what I wanted. I guess dreams aren’t always what they seem.

Last night, my wife, Becky, and I were watching a comedy program that aired on NBC for exactly four episodes several years ago. It was called “God, the Devil, and Bob”. It was a great series, but, as you might guess, it offended a few too many people. The story was about this loser named Bob, and his dysfunctional family. The all mighty and Satan have a bet. If God fails to save Bob, then the universe is over. God looked a lot like Jerry Garcia. It was a very funny show. What has this to do with dreams of rock stardom?

As it turns out, this has also been a dream of mine. When I was a kid, I would see movies about people being visited by God or by angels and I so wanted to have an experience like that. I remember watching that old movie about the miracle at Fatima and thinking, I’d like to see something miraculous like that. Or I’d be watching John Denver and George Burns in “Oh God” and imagine how great it would be to be able to talk face to face with the creator. Life seems so uncertain so much of the time. It would be nice to get a little face to face advice from the godhead. I mean, wouldn’t it be nice if God just spoke to us? But then, S/He did.

I mean, that’s what the holy books are all about. Yeah, they’re all filled with stories that seem impossible to believe. And yes, some of them are pure fiction. But that doesn’t make them any less true. When I was in school, they used to show me a model of the hydrogen atom, with one proton and one neutron in the center, and a single electron orbiting around them, kind of like a mini solar system. But any physicist will tell you that’s not what an atom is like at all. It’s just the easiest model for people without a background in advanced mathematics to understand. And that’s what the holy books are. They are models of the spiritual universe put in a way we can understand—sort of.

Most of the teachings of Jesus, the man called the Christ, are put forth in those books we call the gospels, the “good news”. Many of those teachings appear in both the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew in a sermon called “The Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew, and “The Sermon on the Plain” in Luke. If you are a fundamentalist evangelical believer, then you probably believe that those were two separate events. But then, if you are a fundamentalist evangelical believer, you’re probably not reading this, unless you stumbled upon it by accident and if you did, I warn you now, you’re not gonna like what you’re about to read.

Most scholars believe that both Matthew and Luke are relating the same event. A careful read of both shows that both authors say Jesus went up to a high place. Luke mentions that he is standing on a flat place. The major problem is that the area in which Jesus taught is not particularly mountainous. I would suggest that both authors used the sermon as a literary device in order to put down on paper the teachings of Jesus, and that the things he said were taken from many, many occasions and all put into one definitive “sermon”. Both authors probably borrowed heavily from the famous missing Q document. It doesn’t really matter. The following reading is not from either of those sermons; however, it is still God talking to us:

“And it happened, as he was praying in a certain place, just as he stopped, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say, ‘Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Our bread, the super-substantial, give to us each day. And release our sins, for we ourselves release everyone who is indebted to us. And bring us not into temptation.’

And he said to them, ‘A certain one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and might say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread for my friend has come near to me from a journey and I have nothing which I will set before him.’ And that one within answered (and) might say, ‘Do not give me trouble. Even now, the door has been shut and my children are with me in bed. I am not able to get up and give to you.’ I say to you, if he will not rise and give to him through being his friend, yet through his shamelessness, he will rise and give as much as he needs.

And I say to you, ‘Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone asking will receive, the one seeking will find, and to the one knocking, (it) will be opened. But what father among you, if a children will ask bread, will not give upon him a stone, or if a fish, will he, for a fish, give him a snake? Or, he will ask an egg, he will not give to him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know good gifts to give to your children, how much more the Father, the one out of heaven, will give the Holy Spirit to the ones asking him.’”( Gospel of Luke, Chapter Eleven—direct translation)

So, in a sense, God has spoken to us. This is how you live. It’s okay to be poor. Don’t worry about material things. Have faith. God will take care of you. You take care of one another. Share what you have. Help people out. Be willing to go that extra mile for people. Don’t spend so much of your life worrying. Look at the flowers. They don’t worry, do they? It’s good to make peace. Forgive one another. Don’t give up. Treat people the way you want to be treated. If you keep looking for the truth, you will find it. It’s all pretty simple stuff, but then, the really breathtaking things are. Can you imagine how beautiful the world would be if we all lived that way? What more do we need God to tell us? Jesus even taught us how to pray.

The prayer he teaches us here, the famous “Lord’s Prayer” existed from the earliest days of the church. Since it appears in both Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark, it almost certainly came from the missing “Q” document. The version in Matthew concludes with the doxology, “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever.” Luke’s version does not. The earliest manuscripts of Matthew do not contain this doxology, so it is likely that it was added at a later time. However, the Didache, and early church document and manual, does include a version of the doxology in its version of the prayer.

Many scholars believe that this prayer is just a model for prayer. We aren’t really supposed to memorize it and repeat it. However, that early church manual, the Didache, advises all good followers of Christ to repeat that specific prayer six times per day. Early monks would repeat the prayer 108 times per day, and kept count on belts made of little beads—the origin of the modern rosary.

The prayer is not overly long, nor elaborate. And it is in direct contrast to the conventional view of God in the first century. At that time, God was a king. And you feared the king. You wanted to do what the king said, because otherwise you were in deep trouble. It was your job to protect and serve the king, and then the king would do nice things for you.

But Jesus refers to God not as a king, but as our “father”. You do what your father says because you love him and want his approval, not because you fear him. You take care of your king. But your father takes care of you. It is your job to protect the king, but it is your father’s role to protect you. These were radical words for the first century. The king doesn’t love you, but your father does.

The Lord’s Prayer has been called the perfect prayer. It covers all the bases. It is short and to the point. It remembers that God is holy. It calls for the coming of the kingdom of God, which, for Jesus, was just as internal as it was external. In other words, bring the kingdom of God into your heart. Embrace the godhead. It acknowledges our dependence on God for survival and our own imperfections. It reminds us to be forgiving of others. And, as has been noted by scholars, it is non-denominational. Any religion that acknowledges the existence of a higher being could pray this prayer. It contains no dogma. It is simply perfect and beautiful.

It came to me that my dream of being a performer really did come true. As a teacher, I perform every day in my classroom. I have my audience. My dream came true, and I don’t have to be on the road 300 days per year. I’m not away from my family. I’m not in a different city each night. I have all the benefits with none of the problems. My life is really better than I could have ever desired.

And really, my dream of talking with God came true, too. I mean, why would I want to see the all mighty face to face? Do I need to see God to have faith? No, I believe there is something there. I don’t understand it, but I know it’s there. Do I want some kind of guidance? If I live my life the way Jesus taught, I should be in good shape. That doesn’t mean things will be pleasant all the time, far from it. But I will be able to live with myself. All the guidance I need is in those holy books, all the holy books. God has spoken to us.

If I did see God face to face, it would probably freak me out. And when I consider the stories I’ve read, most people who have had some kind of heavenly contact don’t have the most pleasant of lives here on earth. Two of the three kids who had the vision at Fatima died. Saint Francis had a very difficult existence. People who have visions do not have an easy time of it. Besides, God talks to us all, all the time. S/He just doesn’t use words. I look at a sunset. I look at a new born colt. I look into a child’s eyes. I look at my wife when she smiles. I get the message. I see God all the time.

Anyway, even in the beginning, English is used. During the afternoons, classes were divided up and mixed for music, art, and physical education. You see, those subjects are very physical. You can use English only and the kids will still understand you. It’s called comprehensible input in linguistics. This way, kids could start to learn English without any anxiety. This was a great bilingual program based upon the natural language acquisition approach to second language learning. There was only one problem.

The teachers in the program were elementary school teachers, and not trained in linguistics. During those early afternoon music, art, and P.E. lessons, it wasn’t the subject that was important, it was the English. It didn’t matter if the kid got the concepts of the subjects. It was only the English that mattered. But teachers quickly shifted the focus from English to the subject matter. They wanted the kids to be successful at making a macaroni picture frame (and who wouldn’t want to be good at that?). Many of the teachers, out of frustration, would slip back into the kids’ native language to make the instructions more clear thereby defeating the whole purpose of the lesson. The truth is, it’s easy for us to lose sight of what is really important. Take for example, this week’s gospel reading from Luke.

“And it happened, as they were going, he entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha gladly received him into the house. And she had a sister named Miriam, who was sitting down beside the feet of the Lord and was listening to his word. And Martha was being distracted concerning much service, and she went and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me alone to serve? Then speak to her that she might help me.’ And the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled concerning much, and one thing is a necessity. For Mary picked out the good part which will not be taken away from her.’” (Luke, Chapter 10, a direct translation)

I always had problems with this little reading because I could see Martha’s point of view. I have been in many situations in which I wondered why I seemed to be doing all the work. And consider for the moment the word “they” in the first sentence. Is Luke referring to just Jesus and his twelve homies, or is he talking about those 72 people Jesus sent out and who had returned so happy and all from casting out demons? I would have to say that I would be a little pissed if I had to prepare food for 72 surprise guests who just happen to pop by. But of course, this story may well never have happened, or it might have. What is important is that it teaches a lesson about spirituality.

This story illustrates a contrast in two behaviors. The text says that they gladly welcomed Jesus. They were happy to see Jesus. The text also uses the word “Lord” three times. Luke is stressing the position of Jesus as “master”. He is important. His words are important. His teaching was important. Miriam is listening. And Martha is busy preparing a meal.

Yesterday, my most wonderful wife, who is perfect in nearly every way, was busy cleaning the sink after loading the dishwasher. At that moment, a program about the paranormal I was watching started to feature a haunted house in our locality. Becky is enamored with ghostie programs. She watches Ghosthunters on the Scify network religiously. I called her over to watch it. She said she would be there in a moment, as soon as she finished the sink. But it was only a short segment. I called to her to hurry, but she just kept on cleaning. By the time she got to the set, the segment was over. I told her I was sorry she missed it. She simply said she needed to get the sink clean. My feeling was that the sink would still be there after the program was over. By the way, I would have cleaned the sink for her so she could watch the segment, but she says I don’t clean it well enough.

It is easy for us to get involved in something, and miss out on the things in life that are really important. I know a guy, a friend of mine, who works nearly eighty hours a week. He doesn’t mind. He does it so he can provide a good life for his family. He works hard and makes good money. The problem is, that he never gets to be around his family. He’s always working. He doesn’t get the benefit of them and they don’t get the benefit of him. What good is it to provide everything for your family, but deny your family the one thing they need most, you? What is really important in life?

According to Jesus, what is important is making that connection to the divine creative spirit, to God, if you will. There would have been plenty of time after the teaching for Martha to prepare a meal, and then Miriam (Mary) would have been available to help. Jesus reminds Martha that she is worried about a whole lot of things, but there is only one thing that matters. Miriam (Mary) has made the correct choice.

It is important, also, to point out that Miriam is sitting at the feet of Jesus. This is the traditional posture for the student and teacher. Jesus has accepted Miriam as a student. Rabbis did not accept female students. This is just one of many instances in the New Testament in which the status of woman in society is elevated. Jesus likes to make it clear that women are equal to men. The story of Jesus, as written by whomever wrote it, frequently places women in positions of importance. It is a woman who washes his feet. It is women who first see the risen Christ. This message would not have been lost on the first century followers of Jesus. It was the later church that would put women in a subordinate role.

This story is a perfect example of the teachings Jesus gave in his famous sermon on the mount (or Plain, if you’re reading Luke). The birds don’t work. They manage to survive okay. The flowers don’t work, and look how pretty they are. Martha is worried about taking care of business. She wants to welcome the Lord. Meanwhile, she is missing everything the Lord has to say. And yet, Jesus does not criticize her for spending her time the way she does. He doesn’t go out and chastise her and demand she come inside and listen. He does not even say she is doing the wrong thing. He simply says that Miriam has chosen the “better” part, not the “good” part, as opposed to the “bad” part, but the “better” part. This would imply that Martha’s choice was also good. Serving others is important.

Martha’s choice to serve was good. Miriam’s choice was better. Moreover, Miriam’s choice was none of Martha’s business. Martha wants Jesus to tell Miriam to get in the kitchen and help out. But Miriam has her own idea of what should be done. Jesus makes it clear. Martha, you worry too much about shit. Martha made a choice. She wants validation for her choice. She wants her choice to be the ONLY correct choice. Not only is Martha’s choice not the only good choice, it isn’t even the better one.

I used to read bible stories and think that some of them were pretty stupid. And then I stopped myself. I considered. A great many people have read this book over the centuries, some of them very, very intelligent, rational people. They seem to feel that this is an important book with important things to teach us. So I changed the way I read the book. I started to read the book with the assumption that the stories were good. I started reading the bible with the point of view that if a story seemed stupid to me, then I must be looking at the story the wrong way. How could I view this story so that it made sense?

We always tend to see things through our own cultural glasses. And we always assume that our own culture sees things the correct way. We don’t notice that Miriam has made the choice to forego her traditional role as servant to take on the traditional male role as student because that is normal for us. But for people back in the first century, that would have been radical. We don’t always see things the same way as the writers of the bible because our world is so different from theirs in so many ways. But that doesn’t make the truth of the story and less powerful.

We still set the wrong priorities in our lives. We still waste the golden moments that come in our lives. We miss out on opportunities to grow because we are too anxious on concerned with day to day living. As someone once said, when you’re fighting back the alligators, it’s easy to forget that the reason you were there was to clean out the swamp. The story still has meaning for us today. The bible, the Tao Te Ching, the Sutras, the Koran, and countless other holy books have something to teach us. Are we too busy with life to listen and learn how to live?

My father immediately jumped out of the car and into action. My dad was a firefighter. He knew how to administer first aid. So, the first thing he did was to straighten the guy out on the pavement. Then, he took off the man’s cowboy boots and felt the bottom of his feet to see if he still had sensation, so he would know if there had been a serious spinal injury. He took care of the man until the police and an ambulance arrived.

Later, we would find out that the rider was angry because neither the police nor the ambulance drivers picked up his cowboy boots, so they were lost. He tried to find out my father’s name so he could come after him to pay for the boots. What gratitude, eh? It didn’t make any difference to my father.

My father helped the guy out not because of who he was. Hell, he was a perfect stranger (or somewhat imperfect, it would seem). What I mean is, my dad did not help the rider because he knew him, or because he was a friend. He helped him because he needed help. It’s what you do. My dad couldn’t NOT help. You see someone who needs help, and you help them. That’s the way I was raised, anyway. Of course, the rider couldn’t force my dad to pay for the boots because here in the United States, as in most countries whose justice systems stem from English common law, have Good Samaritan Laws, laws that protect people who voluntarily go out of their way to help a person in need. But what exactly is a “good Samaritan”?

The term “good Samaritan” comes from a story in the gospel of Luke.

There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said,
“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law?
How do you read it?”

He said in reply,
You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself.”

He replied to him, “You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live.”

But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus,
“And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus replied,
“A man fell victim to robbers
as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.
A priest happened to be going down that road,
but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.

Likewise a Levite came to the place,
and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.

But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him
was moved with compassion at the sight.

He approached the victim,
poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.

Then he lifted him up on his own animal,
took him to an inn, and cared for him.

The next day he took out two silver coins
and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction,
‘Take care of him.
If you spend more than what I have given you,
I shall repay you on my way back.’

Which of these three, in your opinion,
was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?”
He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.”
Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke, Chapter 10)

This text comes mainly from the gospel of Mark, from whom Luke copied large amounts. But Luke adds the story of the Good Samaritan. The author of Luke (who probably wasn’t Luke, by the way) was writing for a primarily gentile audience. And here he wanted to contrast the Jewish belief in the law with Christ’s message of compassion.

The people at the time would have been familiar with the idea of an afterlife, although it was a new and radical idea to them. The Jewish faith never had much to say about a life after death, but there are allusions to a resurrection in the Old Testament writings. During the first century, the idea was hotly debated. The Pharisees (who would create the Rabbinical tradition) believed in a resurrection. The Sadducees, who were scribes and lawyers, did not. The people at the time would also have been annoyed at those two groups because both tended to walk around like they were better than everyone else (not unlike religious leaders today). So they would have been anxious to read a story about a Levite and a priest who failed to help the poor victim, fully expecting the third character, the one who would render assistance to be a simple Jewish man. But it wasn’t.

The story tells us the third man was a Samaritan. The Jews and the Samaritans were as close to enemies as they could be without going to war. They hated each other. But it is a Samaritan who comes to the aid of the Jew. Moreover, he does not only give immediate aide, he leaves the victim in the hands of the inn keeper and provides enough money for his care. The Samaritan goes well beyond what most of us would expect of anybody.

Of course, it is no mistake that it is a lawyer who asks Jesus the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Leave it to a lawyer to try to find out the loopholes around the law. The law said to love your neighbor. It didn’t say who your neighbor was. So maybe it is okay to not help some people. The words translated as “neighbor” literally means the person next to you. Lawyers in first century Palestine were experts at getting around the law.

Of course the lawyer in the story wasn’t trying to get around the law. As a matter of fact, he used to law to get out of helping. By Jewish law, touching a dead body would have defiled a good observant Jew, especially a priest or a Levite. So those two could both say to themselves that it was okay for them to pass by the victim, doing nothing. They had no choice. They could not break the law, could they?

The Samaritans followed the same law. This Samaritan didn’t care about the law. Probably, like my father, the law didn’t even occur to him. He only saw a person in need. The text says he was “moved with compassion.” The translation actually indicates this as a gut feeling. He felt compelled to help. It wasn’t an intellectual decision. It was visceral. Jesus makes it clear that it was the Samaritan who was actually following the law, the great commandment. Jesus also makes it clear just who exactly is your neighbor. It is whoever is in need.

But the story can been seen on another level, too. It can be seen as an allegory. Here we are, the traveler, beset by the bandits of our world. And we lie by the side of the road. And then here comes the law and organized religion, and they give us no comfort whatsoever. They do not bring us to life. They leave us on the side of the road. And then, here comes love (God, if you will), and without caring who we are, or how we got that way, picks us up and carries us to the Inn. And love cares for us and takes care of us, not only for that moment, but for whatever we need, even in the future.

You know, those of us who pray, often do so trying to talk God into helping us out. We beg. We bargain. God, please let me get this job and I promise I’ll be good from now on. Just get me through this hangover and I promise I’ll never drink again. But the truth is, we don’t have to talk God into taking care of us. It is the very nature of the divine to take care of us. People may bitch about religion in general and Christianity in specific, but the God I see in the teachings of Jesus loves us and wants us to be safe and happy.

Why don’t our prayers get answered? They do. We just don’t always get the answers we want. And who knows, maybe there are reasons we just don’t get. Maybe the plan is too intricate and complicated and changing whether you pass that algebra test really will mess up some grand eternal plan for the universe. Nobody knows the answer to that one. Whether or not we get what we want, the divine perfect spirit of love is always there to comfort us. It’s is the nature of God to love.

God, like the good Samaritan, does not care who we are or what we’ve done. God doesn’t care about the law, or what religion we follow. God is there and that gives us comfort. When the law lets you down, when religion lets you down, God is there. That comfort may come through any number of people, our own inn keepers. And you, as well, are the conduit for that love and comfort. You are the hands of God on earth. You are a vessel for that perfect divine love. The trick is to listen to that inner Samaritan, and not to that inner priest or lawyer. So when you see people in need, even your worst enemies, help them out, and don’t worry about the boots.

I had a good friend tell me recently that he didn’t think it was possible for humans to love perfectly. He said that even the love a mother has for her child can be selfish. I suppose he is correct, in a way. But I still have to disagree with him. Because, just like the Good Samaritan, there is that moment, that one pivotal moment, when a person sees someone in need, or something that needs doing, and in the heart, there is a hunger to help. In that moment, that moment in which we are compelled to help, is perfect love. It may only last a moment, but it is there. And a moment is as good as an eternity. Perfect love exists. And that gives me hope for our kind.

I remember one puzzle in particular, regarding some pennies, that drove me nuts.  You have twelve pennies, one of which is counterfeit.  The fake coin is either heavier or lighter than a real coin.  You are given a balance scale.  Explain how you can determine which coin is counterfeit, and whether it is heavier or lighter, given only three weighs.  Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?  The book indicated that the average amount of time to reach a solution was twelve hours.  That’s one hour per penny!  There is a solution.  I confess that after several hours of working on the puzzle, I gave up and looked in that back of the book for the answer.

That’s what most of us want.  We just want the answer.  What’s the bottom line?  That’s why watching television is more popular than reading.  We’re lazy.  Or at least, we can be.  As a generation, we’ve grown used to instant gratification.  I mean, look at us.  Everything has to be immediate.  I find myself standing in front of the microwave, waiting for something to cook, and thinking, “Come on!  Hurry up!”  There are hundreds of advertisements for weight loss products that all promise to take the weight off in no time.  And for those who can’t wait two weeks to lose a hundred pounds, there’s liposuction.

Which brings me, as always, to religion.  People want instant spiritual answers too.  On the one hand, you have the evangelical conservative religious right, those fundamentalists who look at the bible (or the Koran, or the Torah, etc.) as absolute fact and history.  Every word in there was inscribed by the hand of the deity.  Therefore, the earth is only 6,000 years old.  And on the other hand, you have those people who take one look at a holy book and immediately dismiss it as being totally irrational.  Therefore, it has nothing important to offer us.

Well, here’s the story on the bible, folks.  It was written by people, over a very, very long time.  The stories contained within were oral history for perhaps thousands of years.  Then they were translated, often picking up the particular opinions and idiosyncrasies of the translators and then they were copied, and re-copied, picking up the particular opinions and idiosyncrasies of the copyists (Jesus couldn’t possibly have meant THAT, could he?  That just wouldn’t make sense!).  Some of the stories in those books were just plain made up.  But that doesn’t mean they’re not true.

We have a different way of looking at the world than people did thousands of years ago.  We see everything empirically.  We expect everything we read to be factual, if it isn’t designated as fiction, in which case, we accept it as only a story, nothing more.  People in the past saw the world as filled with signs and omens.  Everything seemed to have some sort of symbolic significance.  Everything that happened had a physical meaning, but it had a figurative meaning also.  You can’t read the holy books written thousands of years ago with the eyes of modern culture.  The holy books, and by holy books, I mean ALL the holy books, not just the bible, are not books of facts; but they are books of truth.

The ancient Greeks knew that there were no gods living on Olympus.  They knew that the story of Heracles was just a story.  But they also understood that the stories of the gods on Olympus, that the story of Heracles, were meant to teach important lessons about life and being in harmony with life.  Of course, there were some Greeks, usually the poor and uneducated Greeks, who thought that all those stories were fact.  And the government felt it had to support the state religion.  It even killed some, like Socrates, who openly disagreed with it.  But even Plato and Socrates knew there were important lessons in those stories we call mythology.

But understanding the lessons of the holy books requires work, and a lot of it.  In order to understand them, you have to learn something of the times in which they were written.  You have to learn a little about the languages in which they were written.  And then you have to understand that none of the books contain direct answers.  All the holy books are only books of puzzles, puzzles that beg to be solved.  And unlike my puzzle books, there are no answers in the back.  And like my puzzle books, the problems often seem to make no sense, and frequently seem to have no solution.    Take this reading from Luke, Chapter Ten:

After this, the Lord lifted up seventy-two others and sent them two by two before his face into every city and place where he was about to go.  And he said to them, “The harvest is indeed great, but the workers few.  Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest that he might send workers into his harvest.  Go.  Behold, I am sending you as lambs in the midst of wolves.  Carry no purse, no wallet, no shoes, and greet no one by the way.  Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’  And if a child of peace is there, your peace will be resting upon him.  If not, it will return upon you.  Remain in that house, eating and drinking alongside them, for the worker (is) worthy of his pay.  Do not go from house to house.  And into whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat what is set before you, and heal those who are weak in it, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has approached upon you.’  But into whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets, (and) say, ‘And the dust of the city, that clinging to us into the feet, we wipe off to you.  But know this, that the kingdom of God has drawn near.’”

“The one hearing you, hears me, and the one who rejects you, rejects me.  And the one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”  The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, the demons are subject to us in your name.”  But he said to them, “I was seeing Satan fall like lightning out of heaven.  Behold, I have given you power to tread over snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you, no nothing.  But do not rejoice in this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (literal translation, Luke, Chapter 10)

This piece of text is copied mostly from the Gospel according to Mark.  There is a little material thrown in from a lost gospel called the Q document.  Many scholars also believe that copyists have added a little of their own material as well.  In Mark, Jesus only sends out his twelve homies.  But in the Luke version, he sends out 70, or 72 (depending upon the translation).  Now, just because there are differences in this story in the gospels, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.  I bet if I were to ask you and your family members about what happened at Thanksgiving, I’d get some different stories, and that was just a few months ago.  But you’d probably all agree on who was there and what you ate.

No doubt, Jesus did send some people out to deliver his message.  How many he sent, who knows?  Luke probably chose 72 because there were believed to be 72 nations in the world at that time.  Or he may have chosen 72 because Moses chose 72 elders from among the people.  Numbers always mean something in the bible.  Two was considered the number of adequate witness.  It required two witnesses in court before a person could be convicted of a crime.  The numbers in the gospel accounts could have been chosen simply for their symbolic significance.  But there is a factual reason why he sent them out under the circumstances reported in the gospel.

At that time in Palestine, there were other groups of itinerate teachers besides the Jesus’ buddies. They were the Cynics. Now people often accuse me of being cynical, but the original Cynics were REALLY cynical. They followed the teachings of the ancient Greek, Antisthenes. Antisthenes was a contemporary of Socrates. He was so enamored of Socrates’ teachings that he founded his own school in Cynosarges. He had no use for pomp or pride of the world. Antisthenes wore a cloak and carried a staff and a bag as a sort of a uniform, a badge of his philosophy. This costume became uniform of his followers, but so ostentatiously as to draw from Socrates the rebuke, “I see your pride looking out through the rent of your cloak, O Antisthenes.” These itinerate Cynics also went about teaching the philosophy of Antisthenes (and so indirectly of Socrates).

By telling his disciples not to wear a cloak and not to take a bag, Jesus was making sure that nobody would confuse his followers for the followers of Antisthenes. He wanted people to know that his followers were teaching a message of love and faith in God. Antisthenes taught a love of wisdom and taught that people must perfect themselves through self-development. Jesus was teaching a message of connection to God and faith in the love of the creator, a very different message. He wanted no confusion. That is why he sent them off with no money and no food, to further contrast them by their poverty.

When he told them to stay at the first house to which they were invited, he wanted to do two things. First, he wanted to give them a stable base of operations from which they could go out and teach and then return. He also wanted to make sure that his followers didn’t go house hopping. Back in those days, there was a certain amount of prestige gained by having a teacher stay at your house. If people knew there was a teacher in town, they would have tripped over each other to offer an invitation. Jesus’ followers would have been sorely tempted to trade up to a nicer house, and this would have damaged the image of the teaching. He also wanted to make sure that people would know where the teachers could be found, if they were needed.

Many people see Jesus’ instructions to depart any village where the people will not listen and to shake the dust from their feet as a bit petulant and vengeful. However, shaking the dust from your feet was a ritual that indicated sorrow that you were not accepted. It was not meant to be a way of showing anger. Moreover, it was Jesus’ way of telling his students not to beat people over the head with the teaching. If they wanted to listen, fine. If they didn’t want to listen, that was okay, too. It’s a shame many of his followers today don’t take the same advice. I wish I had a dime for every Jehovah’s Witness who refused to leave me alone. (I must point out here that I have know many fine Jehovah’s Witnesses who wouldn’t dream of annoying anyone)

But what does this passage hold for us?  Well, we are all being sent out on our own mission in our own way.  And we are to bring peace to those around us.   We are to work for our keep.  We take only what we need and nothing more.  We do not force ourselves on others, or force others to follow in our paths.  We are given authority over evil.  That means we have the power to do no evil.  It is our choice.  We are called upon to heal those who are weak.  The Greek word translated as “heal” more accurately is translated as “comfort”.

In the days before Jesus, the prophet would pass his mantel on to his disciple.  Elijah, for example, passed his job onto Elisha.  Jesus is passing the mantel on to each one of us.  We are the hands of God on earth.  We have the power to heal one another.  We have the power to heal the earth.  We do this by loving one another, by being kind.  It’s just that simple.  In loving one another, we find our own peace.  We are sent out as lambs among wolves, but the wolves have no power over us.  In the story, Jesus reminds his followers not to rejoice that they had power over spirits.  Rejoice, rather, that they had found the path to salvation, to enlightenment.  The only way to understand the teachings of Jesus, was to live them.

Of course, you could dismiss this story out of hand.  You could take an immediate glance at it and decide it never happened.  You could decide that the entire gospel is nothing more than a myth.  That doesn’t make it any the less true.  The German theologian, Paul Tillich, once said that there is no need for an historical Jesus for Christianity to be true.  I don’t think I’d go that far.  I think it seems clear that there was a Jesus.  But the truth in the teachings is there, one way or the other.

You cannot explain spiritual things in a material world.  This is why Zen masters use the koan, the riddle, to explain the mysteries of Zen.  What is the sound of one hand clapping?  It is a sound that cannot be heard with the ear.  It is a sound that can only be perceived by letting go of the body, by letting go of time, and the material world.  Of course, a rationalist would dismiss the koans of the Zen master by simply saying they make no sense.  There are many who have.  And yet, those masters have a sense of peace that no rationalist has.  They understand something the rational thinker does not.

It is a mistake to dismiss religion simply because many of those who believe in a higher power have done and continue to do horrible things, just as it is a mistake to believe that the principles upon which our country was conceived back in 1776 are false because our leaders have failed to live up to them.  Our nation has done horrible things.  That doesn’t render the Declaration of Independence false.  The ideals are still true.  It’s up to each one of us to live up to them.

In the end, all of life is a great puzzle.  We can choose to try to solve it, or not.  One of the things I had to learn about solving brain teasers was that the joy of the puzzle wasn’t in its solution.  Looking up the answer in the back of the book gave me no satisfaction.  Knowing the answer gave me no satisfaction.  The joy of the puzzle is in the attempt to solve it.  In living out the message of Christ, we don’t rejoice in defeating evil, we rejoice in living out the message.  Oh, and the pennies, figure it out yourself.  It’s more fun that way.