Serving God

​That’s quite a set of readings we just heard!
 
Our Old Testament readings are particularly grim. Concerned about his people, Jeremiah begins, “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.” Our Psalm is about the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem, including the Temple. It’s strong stuff; for me, uncomfortably strong stuff.
 
Our Gospel reading presents its own challenges. The parable of the dishonest manager has always puzzled me. I’m guessing that was Jesus’ intention; he wants us to have to sit with it. If you have never spent time with today’s parable, I encourage you to ponder it over the course of this week and see what it teaches you.
 
We prayed with this parable at our Contemplative Prayer Group, and Norma gave us some help. She pointed out that, whatever else it means, the parable sets up the last couple of verses. “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
 
That makes the parable at least partly a warning about the perils of greed. We can get so caught up in stuff, in the things that we buy or that we covet, that the stuff more or less takes over our lives, to the point that we neglect or ignore God.
 
After talking about that for a few minutes, the Contemplative Prayer Group did what we do. We read the last verse of our passage out loud, then sat in silence for a minute, letting the passage sink in, seeing what word or phrase stuck out for us.
 
The word that stuck out for me was “slave.” I certainly don’t want to be a slave to wealth. Being a slave to God is better. But even to God, being a slave doesn’t sound great. The word “slave” feels harsh and demeaning.
 
For the rest of our session, I continued to sit with “slave” through another few rounds of silence, trying to hear what God was saying to me. And it didn’t get any softer. What I heard was God reminding me that God is in charge, not me.
 
I’ve been sitting with that reminder for the last week.
 
The image Jesus used most often for God was “Father.” I love that image of God. As you know, because I preach on it all the time, I mostly think of God as our heavenly father and us as God’s beloved children.
 
When I picture God as father, I typically imagine God looking at us like doting parents look at their five-year-olds. Sometimes five-year-olds act out. Sometimes five-year-olds get on their parents’ nerves. But even then, parents love their children and think they are sweet and cute.
 
At least, that’s how I was. When my children were little, they didn’t always do right, and they definitely made me angry sometimes. But I always loved them, including when I had to straighten them out.
 
Like probably every child, ours didn’t like going to bed. I’d tell them to start getting ready, and they would ignore me. I’d tell them again, and they would refuse. Eventually I’d start to count. As they knew, counting meant I was serious. They had to get going before I got to five.
 
That worked for years.
 
But one time I started to count, and five-year-old Benjamin stopped me. He asked, “Daddy, what actually happens when you get to five?”
 
The true answer was, I had no idea. I’d never thought about it. I also found Benjamin’s question cute and funny and endearing. But I couldn’t say that! I couldn’t let Benjamin know I was thinking that. I had to assert my parental authority.
 
In what still feels to me like a stroke of genius, I told Benjamin, “I’m not sure. But it would be something unpleasant. And if you still didn’t get going, I’d make it more unpleasant. I’d make it more and more unpleasant until it was clear to both of us that you wished you had started getting ready for bed before I got to five.”
 
Benjamin accepted my answer and headed to the bathroom.
 
When I picture God relating to us, God’s beloved children, I usually imagine something like a better version of that exchange. We don’t do right, and we know we’re not doing right, and we even challenge God. And God loves us straight through it all, and never really wants to punish us, and is more amused than anything else at our shenanigans. And eventually we more or less come on board.
 
But sitting with our Gospel reading, sitting with the phrase “slave of God,” sitting with that reminder that God is in charge, not us, has pushed me.
 
I think again about my exchange with Benjamin all those years ago. I loved him for sure. And I didn’t want to punish him. I just wanted him to go to bed, which he did.
 
But now I ask myself what Benjamin asked me. What would I have done if he had defied me, if he had said, “Let’s see what you’ve got, dad. Because I’m not going to bed.”
 
I wouldn’t have hurt him. But I really would have made his life unpleasant. As best I could, I avoided power struggles with my children. But I was clear that if I found myself in a power struggle with one of them, I had to win it. I needed them to know I was in charge, for their own sake more than for mine.
 
That was true even when the stakes were low, things like bedtime. As our children became teenagers, the stakes went up. When cars and girls entered the picture, and alcohol and drugs were an easy option, it was both harder and more important that Carrie and I remained in charge. (Of course, that didn’t always work, but those stories are for a different sermon!)
 
What I was hearing from God as I sat with our Gospel reading at Contemplative Prayer was something like this: I, God, love you more than you can possibly imagine. And because I love you so much, I need you to remember that I’m in charge, and you are not. And because the stakes are high, I will remind you if you forget. I’ll do whatever you need me to do to remind you.
 
I come back to our passage. We cannot serve God and wealth. We cannot serve God and anything else. We should serve God and God alone.
 
Thankfully, we know exactly what serving God looks like. Our loving Father has given us clear instructions about what we are supposed to do: love.
 
But much of the time, that’s not what we do. We are often like children, playing in the living room after supper, more focused on entertaining ourselves than in doing what is really good for us, which is to say more focused on entertaining ourselves than on hearing God’s voice.
 
Or, worse, we are like rebellious teenagers, acting out in dangerous and irresponsible ways, putting ourselves and others at risk, and refusing to hear God’s voice.
 
Our readings are like God counting. For our own sake, God is trying to reign us in, to put us on the right path, to recall us to the way of Christ which is the way of love.
 
My prayer is that we can heed God’s message and commit ourselves, over and over again, as often as we need to, to love God and our neighbors.
 
In Christ’s name. Amen.