madavison

“Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”(1)

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent.  It is a day when many Christians remember we are all equal in the end.  You are dust and to dust you shall return.  The story about Jesus has tumbled through time as if we climbed aboard Bill and Ted’s phone booth time machine(2), and followed Jesus from birth to young adult.  Pause, and think about the speed of the story we journey through each year.

Advent’s waiting, candles, magnificat, and wading into hope, peace, joy, and love led shepherds, and some of us, to a manger.

Some of us journeyed with the Magi from far away places in our lives searching for a person, this child, hoping that the epiphany of his presence could help us change our stars.  And when two paths diverged did you take the one less traveled?

Still, some of us fled with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.  Fled from bad situations.  Fled from feelings to strong to deal with.  Fled from our mistakes, from our neighbors, or fled from ourselves dropping our compass along the way.  Through this migration Jesus has grown.  During the season of Epiphany we meet him in young adulthood.  The once refugee now welcomes as he has been welcomed in a land occupied and yet still home.  This Jesus of Nazareth emerges from the desert to hand us a compass he picked up on his journey.  He is ready to help disciples recalibrate their moral compass with his teaching and by an example he set.

The parables can be effective tools to recalibrate your compass.  These little teaching stories, the ones that scholars think are authentic to Jesus and those attributed to his unofficial biographers, these teaching stories may be the best way to test out your beliefs and practice the way of Jesus against the backdrop of our historical context.  Arguably, it’s always been that way.  You have heard it was said in ancient times that a little child would lead them, well I say to you that our youth are leading us.

Our Regional Youth Council is blogging for lent this year, and once again will turn their attention to the parables of Jesus.  (See a complete list of the parables below.) I asked them to pick two parables: a favorite and one that challenges them.  The assignment: create a devotion about those parables.  Devotions will be posted on Monday morning of each week in Lent and will continue to the Monday of Holy Week.

Join us on the road with Jesus.

Parables of Jesus

According the the work of the Jesus Seminar, these five parables are probably original to Jesus.(3)

• Leven [Matt 13.33b, Luke 13:20b-21]
• Good Samaritan [Luke 10:30-37]
• Dishonest Steward [Luke 16:1-9]
• Vineyard Laborers [Matthew 20:1=15]
• Mustard Seed [Matthew 13:31b-32 / Mark 4:31-32 / Luke 13:19]

And here is a list of all the parables.

• The Growing Seed: Mark 4:26–29
• The Two Debtors: Luke 7:41–43
• The Lamp under a Bushel: Matthew 5:14–15, Mark 4:21–25, Luke 8:16–18
• Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25–37
• The Friend at Night: Luke 11:5–8
• The Rich Fool: Luke 12:16–21
• The Wise and the Foolish Builders: Matthew 7:24–27, Luke 6:46–49
• New Wine into Old Wineskins: Matthew 9:17–17, Mark 2:21–22, Luke 5:37–39
• Parable of the Strong Man: Matthew 12:29–29, Mark 3:27–27, Luke 11:21–22
• Parable of the Sower: Matthew 13:3–9, Mark 4:3–9, Luke 8:5–8
• The Tares: Matthew 13:24–30
• The Barren Fig Tree: Luke 13:6–9
• Parable of the Mustard Seed: Matthew 13:31–32, Mark 4:30–32, Luke 13:18–19
• Leaven: Matthew 13:33–33, Luke 13:20–21
• Parable of the Pearl: Matthew 13:45–46
• Drawing in the Net: Matthew 13:47–50
• The Hidden Treasure: Matthew 13:44–44
• Counting the Cost: Luke 14:28–33
• The Lost Sheep frequently called The Good Shepherd: Matthew 18:10–14, Luke 15:4–6
• The Unforgiving Servant: Matthew 18:23–35
• The Lost Coin: Luke 15:8–9
• Parable of the Prodigal Son: Luke 15:11–32
• The Unjust Steward: Luke 16:1–13
• Rich man and Lazarus: Luke 16:19–31
• The Master and Servant: Luke 17:7–10
• The Unjust Judge: Luke 18:1–9
• Pharisees and the Publican: Luke 18:10–14
• The Workers in the Vineyard: Matthew 20:1–16
• The Two Sons: Matthew 21:28–32
• The Wicked Husbandmen: Matthew 21:33–41, Mark 12:1–9, Luke 20:9–16
• The Great Banquet: Matthew 22:1–14, Luke 14:15–24
• The Budding Fig Tree: Matthew 24:32–35, Mark 13:28–31, Luke 21:29–33
• The Faithful Servant: Matthew 24:42–51, Mark 13:34–37, Luke 12:35–48
• The Ten Virgins: Matthew 25:1–13
• The Talents or Minas: Matthew 25:14–30, Luke 19:12–27
• The Sheep and the Goats: Matthew 25:31–46
• Parable of the Wedding Feast: Luke 14:7–14

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Notes
1. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1986.

2. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, 1989.

3. Funk, Robert, et al. The Parables of Jesus: A Report of the Jesus Seminar. Polebridge Press, 1988.

If we only forward the easy, short and funny things we read online, why are we surprised that our inbox is filled with nothing we’ll remember tomorrow?

What would happened if instead, we shared the most complex, useful and thoughtful things we discovered instead?  (Seth Godin, “Short and funny.” Oct 26, 2019)

One of my favorite movie quotes is, “Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” Ferris Bueller uttered that philosophical musing in the “pager culture” long before cell phones, the Internet, and smart phones existed.  Having an answering machine at home was a statement about one’s affluence and “fad culture” as much as not wanting to miss a call. Thus began analogue FOMO: fear of missing out.  Some things in our culture and the institutions that have helped us form an identity, worldview, and social relationships have changed, are changing, rapidly, almost without thought or as a reaction to external forces beyond our control (maybe even our understanding).  It can be exciting, necessary, frightening, confusing, and disappointing

The Church universal and your congregation is caught up in, and effected by, all this speedy change.  Some of this change is long overdue as Christianity expands its theology and structures to be more than undergirding the Empire of the day, or doing the charity work that maintains the systems that distress and oppress.  Much of the change as needed.  Some change is reactionary, rightly or wrongly, to the speed of #hashtag culture and the consumerism that is driving participating in congregational life deeper into the “if it feels good do it” chant from the 1960’s.  Just like when you grew up and I grew up, the children and youth in our care are caught up in this web. We had different distractions, rebellions, dangers, safety nets, and role models.  But, when you listen past the noise I don’t think the foundational needs of adolescents, children, and families haven’t changed that much.  Please pardon the generalization, but belonging, love, compassion, shelter, clothing, water, self determination, developing a moral compass, education, and identity remain central to humanity in every context.

What is the good news of God that you or your congregation can be a witness of or bring into existence for the complex lives of families or kids today?

How is the way of Jesus a path less traveled, counter-cultural, and relevant in the religious consumerism of  “if it feels good do it” time such as ours?

One of the best stories I know about the complex, useful, and thoughtful things that I’ve discovered during my time serving in Christian ministry is from Tales of a Magic Monastery (1994).

I had just one desire–to give myself completely to God.  So I headed for the monastery.  An old monk asked me, “What is it you want?”

I said, “I just want to give myself to God.”  I expected him to be gentle, fatherly, but he shouted at me, “NOW!”  I was stunned.  He shouted again, “NOW!” Then he reached for a club and came after me.  I turned and ran. He kept coming after me, brandishing his club and shouting, “Now, Now.”

That was years ago.  He still follows me, wherever I go.  Always that stick and always the “NOW!”

Maybe, the very best we can do right now, if ever, is to continue to plant the “NOW!” memories that somewhere, out there, bloom.