Friends,

I absolutely love the scripture that is assigned over the summer. We are in the gloriously ambiguous “Season after Pentecost”, or as some people call it, “Ordinary Time”, and this is where the powers that be assigned the great passages that didn’t fit into the themes of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter. Keeping in mind that scripture existed well before our seasons of the Church, it goes with reason that there are neglected themes and lessons that fall outside of the general framework in which we tell our salvation story. These fantastic parables, stories, prophecies, and teachings have found their way to this amorphous season, and if you join us on these hot Sunday mornings, you can also live into some of the lesser known passage from our sacred texts.

While there is not a unified theme through the Season after Pentecost, we can pick up on some of the themes that Jesus simply preached about. A couple of weeks ago, I got to preach a difficult passage where Jesus commends his would-be disciples to give up on what is delaying their discipleship. He tells someone who wants to bury his father, “let the dead bury their own dead.” He goes on to tell the crowd that the kingdom of God is not for those who look back when they put their hand to the plow.” This passage is hard on a number of different levels. This coming Sunday, you will hear me preach on Jesus’s tense encounter with Martha and Mary, he commends Mary’s ability to abandon chores to listen to his teaching, much to Martha’s frustration.

If each of the liturgical seasons has a theme, I wonder what it would be like if we made up a season that fit these passages. What would the themes be, or would there be a collective community celebration like Easter or Christmas? I imagine it would be a season of letting go… as I write I realize that I am essentially describing the common Lenten practice of giving up sweets or whatever. Ok, so it’s a season of giving things up, but not in a penitential sort of way. Theoretically, during Lent we give up the things that cause us to sin, but these things are not inherently sinful, they are actually quite good and necessary. Good and necessary things can still sometimes hold us back from the divine connection we crave. What if we had a season where we temporarily let seemingly necessary things go, and try to listen to Jesus as Mary did.

In Jesus’s time, labor was generally divided by gender. Scripture does not give a judgement call on this either way, as it was simply how society existed. It no longer exists that way and we could talk about this forever, but that is not the point of this scripture. These passages are challenging, and have inspired very compelling counter arguments, because we are meant to empathize with Martha and the unnamed would-be disciples. Mary left Martha to do all of the work. I would be upset too! And, now that you mention it why didn’t Jesus teach while he was helping with the chores too. Come on, Jesus. It can be a both/and situation. The same goes with those questioning Jesus in Luke 9:51-62. One person just wanted to say goodbye to their family. Another wanted to bury his father. Wouldn’t you? I would.

If Jesus came up to me and told me to stop social media, or to sell my truck, I would accept it, because deep down I know these things are either not necessary or down right distracting. This is what I would expect Jesus to tell me if I needed to follow him upon his return. What if he told us to stop going to work, or to stop going to sporting events on Sunday, or to go ahead and let the bulletin go unfinished for Sunday? What if Jesus told us to follow him, and we said, “but I’m serving in Church on Sunday.”?

Every Sunday we say collectively, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” While we wait for Christ’s coming again, we have created all of these things to try to live well, responsibly and faithfully. I do not bemoan anyone’s efforts to live in this world with good intention. My prayer is that if Christ does come knocking, then we will be ready to let go of even the good things to follow our savior. Perhaps, spiritually preparing to let go can be good within itself, considering we cannot take these things with us. Hold onto what is good, but do not let it keep you from walking with the Lord.

Blessings,

Nick