Steve, Jenn and Mike talk Luke 7
Video Transcript
good afternoon friends
my name is jennifer long and i’m
currently a pastor at emmanuel lutheran
church in corning new york
i’m here with my fantastic colleagues
steve langford who is retired from the
united methodist
church and living in arlington texas and
writing with a fervor
unlike any other and mike troutman who
is
pastor of first presbyterian in ferguson
missouri
um and we are here today to share with
you
luke uh the gospel of luke chapter seven
and uh some of our thinking about that
all right uh i was uh given the honor
of uh reading first so i’ll be reading
from the message eugene peterson’s
uh work uh i wouldn’t call it a
translation
but kind of uh trying to put the
intent of the text in the ways that we
may understand it a little differently
so here it goes verse 1 when jesus
finished speaking to the people
he entered capernaum a roman captain
there had a servant
who was on his death bed he praised him
highly and didn’t want to lose him
when he heard jesus was back he sent
leaders from the jewish community asking
him to come and heal his servant
they came to jesus and urged him to do
it saying he deserves this
he loves our people he even built their
meeting place
jesus went with them when he was still
quite far away from the house the
captain sent
friends to tell him master you don’t go
you don’t have to go to all this trouble
i’m not that good of a person you know
i’d be embarrassed for you to come to
my house even embarrassed to come to you
in person just give an order and my
servant will get well
i’m a man under orders i also give
orders
i tell one soldier go and he goes
another come
and he comes my slave do this and he
does that
take it about jesus address the
accompany crowd
i’ve yet to come across this kind of
simple trust anywhere in israel
the very people who are supposed to know
about god and how god works
when the messengers got back home they
found the servant
up and well continuing from the new
revised standard translation at verse
11 soon afterwards jesus went to a town
called name
his disciples in a large crowd went with
him
as he approached the gate of the town a
man who had died was being carried out
he was his mother’s only son she was a
widow
and with her was a large crowd from the
town
when the lord saw her he had compassion
for her
and said to her do not weep then he came
forward and touched the brother
and the bearer stood still and he said
young man
i say to you rise the dead man set up
and began to speak
and jesus gave him to his mother
seized all of them and they glorified
god saying a great prophet has arisen
among us and god has looked favorably on
his people
this word about him spread throughout
judea and all the surrounding country
the word of god for the people of god
amen thanks be to god
yikes we only have 20 minutes to talk
about this i just hit the timer that’s
all you got
oh both stories are about death
so i see this as is as a prelude to
luke’s resurrection narrative this
one was about to die the other was dead
and the issue is jesus’s authority
so that’s the way i would approach it
where do you enter into it jim
um i’ve been thinking about um what does
it mean to be close to death
um especially during a time of pandemic
where we’re looking at 400 000
on a list close to death now has looked
like being alone
which i think has been really hard for
family members i know it’s been really
hard for clergy
i have not had um i think
except for two deaths in my congregation
so sometimes i would say it feels a
little distant to me
but even in doing those funerals it just
is so
the sense of distance even when you are
standing together in one place
but masked and six feet apart um
we can’t be close to death so that that
one really kind of
um engagement i think the other place um
that i enter into this
is the the real struggle with while i
understand
that all of these are intended to teach
us and i can think of wonderful ways
they speak to us metaphorically
how does someone who is living with
cancer
how does somebody who is getting ready
to bury their spouse because they’re on
hospice
hear these things and not ask the
question if jesus could heal them
why has jesus not done it for me and and
it’s not that i don’t
understand and have a true deep theology
behind
that i do i just think whenever i read
stories like this
those questions pop up for me certainly
and i think this you know more than
teaching
uh well equally to the teaching is the
reflection and the experience of luke’s
community
where this happened all the time you
know where people would die and get sick
and not get better and
you know you also could have to put it
in the context of the
expectation that jesus was coming soon
and so why is all this hurt and pain and
tragedy happening around us
is our faith somehow not faith enough
that these things are happening so you
know this is a deep
and moving experience that
i think we maybe in this time of covet
uh are probably a little more sensitized
to than
perhaps in other times in our lives
and can we
trust jesus authority over power over
illness and death when
um our loved ones or when i
am not healed yeah i mean i i think
those for me
i was also thinking mike when you read
um
the message there were two pieces i
caught that were different wording than
mine
um one was um i am not good enough i
think is how yours read it mine said
worthy
and i thought how do we enter into that
what does it mean to be good enough what
does it mean
to be worthy um because i think there’s
a sense
to me that i understand that i am always
worthy in god’s eyes
but there’s always also always a sense
you know the reason for which a
confession exists in a liturgy
that there are ways that i do fall short
so how do i live into
to wanting to recognize that and live
differently and at the same time
recognizing that i am
that i am worthy that i am good enough
for god and then there was
my mine at the it’s at the end of um the
section you read and it says jesus
hasn’t found something mine says i tell
you not even
in israel have i found such faith but
you had a different wording and i was
very interested about that and i can’t
remember what it was i didn’t write it
down quickly enough
about being beside himself
i’ll have to look because i closed my
bible go ahead and keep talking and i’ll
close your bible you slacker oh well you
know
presbyterians what are you going to do
with us you know
you’re you’re you’re your whole own
island aren’t you
picking up on that worthy concept you
notice that when the jews came to jesus
to intercede for the centurion
they talked about him being worthy he
had earned
his right for jesus’s attention and then
he comes in saying i am not worthy
there is that whole human mentality of
believing we
have to earn our way or be worthy of
god’s attention
but you know what i think is interesting
in both of them coming with that that
like you’ve got one who’s saying i’m not
worthy you’ve got others just saying
he is worthy that jesus doesn’t really
engage that jesus
just comes and heals him he doesn’t say
yes you are or no you’re not he just
he sees an a deep need and he responds
to that deep need he does not respond to
the judgment of the need
out of grace this is how he relates he
doesn’t get caught up in
that that issue of of earning and
deserving
which is so central to our human
thinking yeah
yeah what’d you find mike well what i’m
not sure
you know it says real quick uh that
taken aback jesus addressed the
accompanying crowd
i’ve yet to come across a simple kind of
trust anywhere in israel
the very true yeah simple trust
is what yours replaced faith with and i
just i thought that was interesting
yeah um and and one like do i think that
faith is simple trust or
you know not even i mean these words
have such big meaning
so if i’m saying i have faith in
something and five doors down my
neighbor is saying they have faith in
something it might not mean the same
thing
so but i like the idea of um
faith being simple trust as opposed to
being a complex set of things you have
to say you believe or you’re not in
yeah and even more
remarkable i think in this passages
is the fact that you know we read about
a roman centurion ah
not much to us right i mean you know
uh it’s a whole different understanding
when you understand a historical
situation the jews in rome
rome romans uh as occupiers
uh it would be reading much different if
you’d read this
and said oh yeah this is uh
you know some kind of middle eastern
terrorist
or you know a person that we may
despise somehow uh who we really don’t
think is worthy and if we were good jews
in that context we we would see them
as the occupiers as the oppressors and
why is god again this funny thing
we did with elijah and the widow
you know god kind of breaks through the
barriers we
raise up and uh i think
in some ways affirms our common humanity
no matter
what kind of ethnicity or gender
or uh sexual orientation or whatever the
barriers we use
to divide one another jesus breaks
through
in a powerful way
this whole way of thinking of earning
and deserving being worthy
is what divides us in that to us in them
i really like that idea of jesus um
breaking through less about why does god
heal this one and not me
and more about what are the places in
which
god might break through in
in the face of illness in the face of
death um and in these particular stories
they’re about healing and raising but i
don’t think that means
well i mean i i know i believe that god
can break through in those places
whether or not healing and raising is
taking place
at least that’s been my own experience
yeah and and
what kind of healing and raising can god
bring
to my spirit in the midst of this
despair
think of what this mother felt when her
only son is dead
and she’s left totally destitute yeah no
i’m not willing to think about that i’m
i’m
unwilling to think about that
but god being able to to bring healing
to raising
of the despondency how can god in the
face of illness that we’re not being
cured of how can god bring a life
to a broken spirit yeah
and i think what you have referred to
earlier steve that these
are really about resurrection passages
right
yeah and that extends that jesus has
power over death
not only in this life but the next yeah
and we face death with that assurance
that this is not the last order
yeah do you have a sense of what you
think that looks like
jesus having power over death in the
next life
i have a sense of it but it’s just
uh i wouldn’t say it’s a simple trust
it’s a convoluted trust
and that um yeah i just think that
whatever happens to us at death as steve
said it’s not the last word so i really
don’t know what that looks like
uh and as i’ve gotten a little older and
hopefully
a little more understanding and
convinced of what i believe in and trust
in
i can let go of the assurity of what it
looks like and embrace that
it’s going to happen so the process i
trust the process
the content of it i you know it’s
i don’t know yeah i think for me i feel
like i trust the process without having
any idea what that process is i mean i
couldn’t begin to think about what the
content of it is
um i often think about i asked the
question because i think about i had a
seminary classmate and i know that’s
going back a lot of years for me but
still
who um wrote like a thesis um at the end
of our senior year
on on heaven you know so spent all this
time researching and writing and
ultimately the conclusion he came to i
think he
told me he was quoting somebody else
that said um
i can’t tell you anything about heaven
except i believe it exists
ultimately you know richard rohr
states what so many people theologians
state
is that all of our language is metaphor
so it can’t describe reality it can only
describe the truth
of the reality and when it comes to
death all we have are images that talk
about our concept of death paul
in philippians 2 uses two images one is
interest paid you know for me to live as
christ to die is gain is
interest being paid on what i’ve already
invested and the other
is uh the casting off of the ropes that
moor
a ship to the dock so that that death is
the casting off from this life
on to the next for me the metaphor that
i like to use about death
is that of birth for us for
a a child in utero the birth experience
feels like death the world that he knows
is coming to an end
but as we wait on the other side we
don’t call it death we call it birth
so it’s all image yeah imagery how do we
say
that this is not the last word this is
not the end
so and i know this is bouncing off of
the scripture we actually have for today
but um
one of my favorite things about jk
rowling’s books
is at um at one point
um i want to say dumbledore says i would
have to
this i would have to check to be certain
um dumbledore says um
that death is but the next great
adventure kind of thing um
but i also remember one of the things
that is talked about about her is that
she was wrestling with her own faith at
the time she was writing those books and
trying to figure out what she believed
and what she puts on um harry’s
harry’s parents graves
is a quote from corinthians and the last
enemy to be destroyed is death
yeah and for those of you who may not
get what dumbledore is or harry it’s
the harry potter series that uh i know
at least jen and i
have consumed and find uh
delightful delightful that’s a good way
of putting it delightful
and you get the same imagery out of the
star wars
when obi-wan gets killed and yet harry
is still able to see him and hear him
and interact with him
the same way with yoda they’re quote
physically dead but they’re not gone
yeah it’s that same imagery and you know
and i think we touch on those mysteries
uh throughout this thing and
you know i think i’ve become as a person
a little more
emotionally able to hear mystery
i could intellectualize it
but it didn’t uh fit with the
existential angst that i had
about death i you know i tease people or
i said this before
i said you know when i died life is
really going to miss me
to talk to you about your existential
angst and then
you know it really is about i’m going to
miss life
yeah because i i love the experience no
matter the pain
and hurt that i have lived
um you know overall
am i fortunate i know people have lived
much worse circumstances than i’ve ever
had to experience
and yet they have a sense of peace about
life they’ve been able to
see it and reframe it and
boy that’s that’s an amazing thing to be
able to refrain
your life and to see despite the
the trials and tribulations that
you know life has been good and we can
affirm the biblical
uh understanding that life is good
and isn’t that what happens when we
come to terms with jesus as lord over
death so that death loses its fear it
changes the way we do life
and the way we view it and thank you i
mean i i don’t know for you guys if you
i know that there was a time at which i
spent a lot of time thinking about it
and finally came to the conclusion for
myself
is that i’m not afraid to die um and i’m
not unready to die
um but i would be sad for what i would
miss yeah
yeah so what’s that fomo fear of missing
out i
i don’t want to die because of my fomo
that just sounds kind of lame but
yeah yeah
i like the text in uh hebrews 12 that
says we’re surrounded by this great
cloud of witnesses
uh i like the concept of a one-way
mirror
and in one way mary the people on one
side can see the other
but the people on the other side don’t
only see a reflection of themselves
yeah i like that idea except kind of now
i feel like i’m in a police
interrogation room just putting it out
there
well that you know the other images and
paul is i see it in the mirror
yeah yeah dimly darkly i like dimly
better because it’s
you know it’s um we’re just not
ready to accept and if we are then we
see i think a little clearer through
that mirror
and now we see that okay
whatever it is on the other side of it
i’m going to be all right
and uh that does come my
you know my dread and my fear um
a little i i wouldn’t say that i’m on
the other side of the fence
that i could make that affirmation that
you made jen
but i’m getting closer to it yeah um
i guess as i get closer to death i’m a
little closer to that understanding too
by choice by
we’re force up on transfiguration sunday
in in a week
and isn’t that what happened in the
transfiguration that one-way mirror was
taken away
so that the three disciples were able to
see
moses and elijah if you’re going to
literalize that
they were still alive and so they’re
interacting with jesus without this veil
between
yeah so there’s
there’s there’s little glimpses
throughout
the new testament scripture that says
that
death is not the last word no no
go ahead no you should comment on that
first because i’m going a little
different direction
well i was just going to say that you
know the other
message of or i don’t want to jump ahead
too much
is that you just can’t stay on that
other side of looking through the mirror
you got to live life and see the life in
the face now
and live out our moments as we live them
um because if not i think what jen said
sometimes we miss out on what
god is already doing in the midst of
uh of the world can we see it so where’s
god here and then
yeah yeah so garth brooks sings the song
about that
called uh standing outside the fire i
have lots of thoughts on that which i’m
gonna say
until we’re talking transfiguration but
uh i’m actually instead of going forward
was looking back and um
the text that is the pericope that is
right before what we read today
is uh have you built your house on sand
or on rock yeah i think it is very
interesting to think about
foundation like what’s my foundation and
then to read those two stories i just i
think it’s another angle another way of
shaping um
[Music]
another way of thinking about this text
for me that was really interesting
yeah and that’s what we i think
in our own ways have tried to encourage
people to do
is to say what’s your foundation what’s
your thinking about this
we’re kind of throwing all this stuff up
and uh
it’s like spaghetti to tell if it’s done
or not you throw it against the wall
does it stick with you i mean does it
does it take
does it have a sense that it it takes on
meaning for you that places you maybe in
a different place
or uh that anchors you in your place
but to have that place where we’re it’s
the solid place of uh
our faith that simple trust that the
centurion shows
so beautifully
what a perfect place to end because
believe it or not i just stopped the
thing from ringing in the background
20 minutes already again already again
it has happened again which means mike
you’re up
i know i get two last words here
i feel special
had i been able to predict that i might
have asked for something different too
lately
oh yes then you should have been able to
predict it but
alas
can you hear my eye roll from here you
should be able to hear it from here
i do i do so let’s pray
we’re just amazed heavily one that
you touch our lives and you open us up
and you break us open and you put us
back together again
and our journey is a journey
of discovery of hope
of promise and so
we asked that you would use these videos
that we’ve done
so that people and all of us together
may come together and join
in a sense of your love and grace and
that we can live our lives in this world
without fear
knowing that you have asked us to live
boldly
with grace and love and peace
as our guides and compasses so we thank
you for this time
we thank you for those who watch these
and we ask that your spirit may bless
all of us on our journey
for ask this in jesus name amen amen
i cannot part without saying don’t just
live boldly friends i’m lutheran sin
boldly
in the words of martin himself yeah
peace of christ peace all of you thank
you guys for conversation
thanks
