Göttinger Predigten
Göttinger Predigten im Internet hg. von U. Nembach
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, 10/06/2013
Sermon on Luke 17:5-10, by Samuel D. Zumwalt
Luke 17:5-10 [English Standard Version, © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers]
5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" 6 And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. 7 "Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table'? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink'? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"
REBUILDING THE NEST: FAITH-FULL WORKERS
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It was as if James had just awakened. He looked up and saw that he was in what seemed to be a waiting room of some sort with three other people. Funny. He didn't remember how he got there nor did he know where he was. But it was a lovely space with soft lighting and museum quality artwork and the sounds of vaguely familiar ethereal music. The furnishings were clearly original work of the highest quality, the kind of workmanship one just doesn't see anymore. Being there had this kind of homeyness that so many restaurants and hotels aim at and miss. It was like being a child again in your favorite grandparents' home without that sense of everything being old and worn. He felt this indescribable sense of well-being that one rarely has early in a morning - so teeming with peace and even joy that one doesn't want to get up and spoil it.
James couldn't be sure but whatever it was that he was experiencing seemed to be mirrored by the others in this waiting room. Or was it a parlor? Or was it a visitors' lounge? He didn't know but he took the chance to interrupt the quiet: "This probably sounds strange to you. But can anyone tell me where we are? I'm usually a person quite in control but frankly I don't remember arriving here or why I've come."
The woman next to him said, "You, too?" And another said, "I was wondering if I had been anesthetized." The other said: "Well, then, I guess it's unanimous. None of us knows where we are or how we got here. Curiouser and curiouser."
A door opened and a man came in wearing clothes of an antique sort of quality. Well, no that's not quite it. They were more like what a British noble might wear at home on the weekend. Obviously excellent fabric and workmanship with a sense of being well-worn, fitting for a bit of labor, and quite comfortable. He looked familiar in that way a famous person's face always seems if you run into him as you're going about your daily routine. Afterwards you say, "That was that fellow from television, wasn't it?"
He greeted each of them warmly and by name as if they were long lost relatives at a family reunion. There was this surreal quality about it all. They didn't know where they were or why they were there or for certain who he was, but it seemed as if that's they way it always were.
"I can tell you're disoriented," he said. "There's really no way to say this other than that your old life has been completed. Where you have been is your past. Your old body is dead."
The four looked at each other in a way that suggested: "Someone pinch me. I must be dreaming." But each also knew immediately what the man had said was true. It was strange.
James said, "I guess I thought it would be different than this...you know traveling through a dark tunnel into the light. All your relatives waiting. Clouds and harp music, etc."
The man responded: "I get that a lot. All those people with near death experiences just haven't gotten this far. None of you is going back. Obviously."
Lois, the woman who had wondered if she were anesthetized, asked: "Now what?"
Larissa, who had spoken to James first, said: "I can't be done. You can't imagine how many things I have to do. People are counting on me. I'm a woman with nine irons in the fire."
Renee, the woman who had said "curiouser and curiouser," just shook her head with a kind of bemused sadness.
The man gently touched Renee on the shoulder: "He will be OK. Your daughter will take care of him in the way you modeled for her."
She gasped: "How did you know what I was thinking?" He answered: "There are no secrets here. Nothing is hidden. Everything is known. No explanations or excuses are needed."
Larissa interrupted: "You seem to be in charge here. So what's it going to take to resolve this misunderstanding. Really, I have far too much to do to waste any more time here. Help me."
The man smiled in a way that only a grandparent can at a strong-willed child. "Larissa, none of that matters. It's not your job anymore. You've cleaned out your desk. You're done."
She insisted: "Sir, really I'm sure you're well meaning, but people are counting on me."
He laughed. "Not any more, Larissa. Not any more. They're attending your funeral."
She stared at him in horror. But he laughed again: "Don't worry, Larissa. You have all eternity to be useful. We'll get to that later on. Nothing that you've been given will be wasted."
He turned to Lois. "Yes, you're going to see him in a while. Your parents, too."
She broke into a huge grin. "Then I can wait. Just knowing that is enough. I can wait."
James asked, "So what do you have for me to do? I guess you know I've always been a leader. Give me a job. Give me a project. Anything will do. I'm your guy."
The man in charge smiled in the way a teacher smiles at the class clown: "Yes, James, I know how you've liked being in charge. It wouldn't have hurt, though, for you to have learned how to follow. In fact, many things might have gone much differently and more according to God's will if you had only learned that you were not intended to be the leader in every situation."
James protested: "But that's my personality type. According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I'm a born leader. Put me in a room with a bunch of Indians. I'm going to be chief."
The man smiled again as if he were dealing with an impetuous child: "But James, you were not appointed to be the chief wherever you went. Here you will never be chief again. Please understand that there is room here for only one chief. It's not you."
Larissa interrupted: "Ah, just like you men. You're always the same. Who's the Alpha?"
He laughed: "Well, since you obviously need to know, Larissa, I am the Alpha...and the Omega, too!"
Larissa said: "Oh, Jesus!"
With a broad smile, He said: "Yes."
Renee fell on her knees, "Lord, I thought there would be a last judgment."
He answered: "Yes, that's what this is. Each of you is being sorted out for eternity. All that you have done and left undone I know. Indeed I have always known it. Again, there are no secrets here. Haven't you heard I know each thought before you think it, each word before you say it, and each deed before you do it or leave it left undone? Nothing has ever been hidden. And now you are completely exposed. And now you know that I know that you know that I know."
Lois asked, "Everything? The worst thing I ever did?"
He touched her gently: "Yes, that too."
"And now what?" she said. He smiled: "You keep asking that question, Lois."
Larissa said: "Well there are some things you need to explain to me."
He laughed at her: "No, I don't. Your Mom and Dad did you no favors when they let you run the household. They were so delighted to have you that they forgot a strong-willed child needs a lot of direction. Oh, you have many gifts, Larissa. Your heavenly Father gave them to you, but you have been out of control so often. If you had not have pushed John away from you, he might well have taught you that and brought a lot of joy into your life along the way. But you were your own worst enemy, Larissa. And now so many people are just relieved you're gone."
She looked as if she were going to say more, but one look from Jesus and she stopped.
James asked, "So I don't understand. If this is the last judgment, what is this place? I'm a Lutheran. We don't believe in purgatory."
Jesus laughed out loud: "Oh, James, you're really the funniest when you don't intend to be. Are you still trying to be in charge even now?"
Renee said, "I'm really sorry. I understand now that I should have been doing great things. It's too late for that now."
Jesus smiled: "Dear Renee, what do you think you were doing all those years that you cared for your family? When your husband became ill, you never stopped loving him. You taught your daughter how to keep marriage vows when it's toughest. And you showed her not to be scared in the face of life's greatest challenges. You prayed for courage and asked for strength in your weakness, and my Father sent the Holy Spirit to increase your faith. Well done!"
Larissa asked: "So is it the flames of hell for me, since you think I'm pretty much the Wicked Witch of the West?"
Jesus asked: "Well, Larissa, is that what you want?"
James said: "What about me?"
Jesus laughed: "Yes, James, what about you?"
James said again: "I don't get it. I don't understand."
Lois said: "So...you forgive me? And Larissa? And James, too?"
Renee asked: "And you forgive me, too, Lord?"
Jesus said: "We're about to walk through that door to face my Father. He has told you that He is a jealous God who accepts no other gods. You know for a fact that you have all chased after other gods especially the one looking back at you in the mirror. So...do you want to face Him alone? James, do you want to be chief? Larissa, do you want to be everything? Lois, do you want to explain why you did what you did? Renee, were you always so brave and trusting?"
Lois said: "May I see them?"
Jesus pulled up His sleeves and rotated His wrists: "You mean these? The nail marks?" And then He said: "My Father will see the mark of my cross on your foreheads given in your Baptism and that will be enough."
James and Larissa said simultaneously: "Even for me?"
Jesus asked: "Well, is that what you want? Do you want what you don't deserve?"
James and Larissa answered: "Yes!" and "Please!"
Renee said: "I finally get it. We are all unworthy servants. Whatever good we have done, it's just because that's what the Father created us to do. Like caring for my husband and raising my daughter to be a child of God."
James said: "And whatever we failed to do was on us. We wasted what could have been much better moments. And I should have just shut up sometimes and let somebody else lead."
Larissa said: "And the joy we could have had we missed, because we were too full of ourselves. I mean, I was too full of myself. I see that now. What a fool I have been!"
Jesus looked at them with love: "Well, Lois. Are you going to ask your question?"
She answered: "You mean, ‘What's next?'"
Jesus said: "Why dinner, of course!"
And they went in with Jesus to the marriage feast of the Lamb where there was joy and laughter and love and peace and all the things for which they had been too afraid to hope for in this life...and all the things they had missed because of their foolishness. And the Master served them...which was beyond all imagining. For they knew the Alpha and the Omega face to face!
And as for you, dear child, it's not too late. Do the work God has given you to do before the night comes when no one can work. And if you haven't had a bath, don't go through that door without the mark of Jesus' cross on your forehead. And if you aren't too full of yourself, then come with empty hands to receive a foretaste of the feast to come. Jesus wants to feed you!
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.