How Much to Live Forever? A Homily for the Eighth Sunday After Pentecost

A Homily for the Eighth Sunday After Pentecost.  Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto.

Readings:  Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9, 43; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

’So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:21)

The healthiest body on earth belongs to a man called Bryan Johnson, or at least, that’s what he says, because he has spent millions of dollars making it that way.   If you haven’t heard of him, Johnson is one of the those people who made a fortune in technology and who is now pursuing his passion project, which is longevity.   

Johnson has a single minded focus on his body, with a daily regimen that includes nutritional supplements, plasma transfers, and light therapy - but his real goal is to live forever.  If Johnson has a philosophy, it seems to be “Don’t Die”, and his ultimate hope is that ultimately he can cheat death through a kind of digital consciousness, where artificial intelligence will allow Bryan Johnson -  all his thoughts, ideas, and words - to have some sort of post-biological, potentially unlimited lifespan.   If Johnson has any kind of religion, it could be described as a religion of permanent existence.

Some immediate critiques of Johnson’s longevity project come to mind, and not necessarily theological ones (though they can easily be made as well).   What makes this particular man’s existence significant or worthy of preservation, when children are dying of famine in Gaza?   Why should this man be able to spend millions on his health and wellness when countless people lack basic health care?    While the ultra rich of previous generations donated money to build libraries and hospitals, the ultra rich of today seem to focus on vanity projects that benefit themselves and the people like them (though we might say a charitable word about the Gates Foundation and it’s anti-malaria campaign).

I can’t resist comparing Bryan Johnson to the rich man in Jesus’ story from today’s gospel because there are some obvious parallels.    The man in the story is also quite wealthy and his goal is a comfortable longevity where he will have “ample goods laid up for many years” so that he may “relax, eat, drink, be merry” (Lk 12.19).  Jesus frames the story as a caution against greed (“covetousness” in the KJV) which could be summed up colloquially, as I heard someone say recently, as “no one takes a U-Haul to their funeral”.   But behind this obvious conclusion is a more subtle caution about misplaced trust in self-sufficiency.

Jesus has a lot to say in the gospels, particularly in Luke, about rich people, and not much of it is complimentary.   Usually Jesus portrays wealth and the pursuit of wealth as being contradictory to the values that Jesus associates with the Kingdom of God:  faith, humility, charity, and above all a dependence on God.  In fact, the story about the man who dies suddenly with full barns  is a springboard for a series of teachings that follows in Luke 12, and those teachings focus mostly on the assurance that God will provide for our very existence.

The rest of Luke 12 has some well known phrases, such as Jesus’ “consider teachings:  ^“”Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap … and yet God feeds them” (12.24) or “Consider the lilies,  how they grow: they neither toil  nor spin;  yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these” (12.27).  As Jesus explains, if God will do this for birds and flowers, how much more will God do for you? Both examples support Jesus’ promise that the Father will give us what we need.      

Then Jesus circles back to our gospel story, and explains what he meant when he said that you can’t gather treasure on earth and also be rich toward God.  What did he mean by this?  Well, Jesus goes further when he tells his friends not to put their trust in earthly wealth, which can vanish.  Instead he tells his friends to “strive for [the kingdom of God” by selling their stuff, giving it away, thus earning “an unfailing treasure in heaven” (12.31-34).

I think Jesus is saying more than just go earn heavenly merit points by doing good things on earth.    I think it’s much more profound and much more interesting.   By telling us to “strive for the kingdom”, Jesus is encouraging us to fully participate in God’s economy.    In other words, if the God who created us provides for us by giving us the essentials of life, then our role in this economy is to share in this provision by attending to the needs of others.

The word “kingdom” is communal, it implies a society that is ultimately created by God and which is dependent upon God for its continued existence.    And because the kingdom of God is communal, that means that we can and must speak of a common good.    As followers of Jesus, we accept that we can’t just pursue our welfare for others.   When Jesus commands us to care for the least among us (see Mt 25), he is reminding us of  how striving for the kingdom of God means striving for the common good of those around us.

The rich man in Jesus’ story strives only for his own good.  We hear nothing about his desire to share his crops and wealth with those around him.  And so he dies, materially wealthy but spiritually bankrupt.   He assumed that he could provide for his own existence, and discovered that his self-sufficiency was an illusion.

As Christians, we believe that our existence comes from God.   There’s a wonderful passage from the Book of Acts, where Paul tells the Athenian philosophers that God made the whole earth and gave us our existence, and so, in his lovely phrase, he says that it is in God that “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17.28).   

I realize that there are many, many people today who would disagree with this claim.   Our self-proclaimed technology visionaries, like Bryan Johnson who I mentioned earlier, believe that we can create and recreate ourselves, and that we can attain an existence in which we aren’t beholden to God and have no obligations to anyone else.   Like the man in Jesus’ story, and like so many of his fellow tech overlords, he seems to think that his enormous wealth should be focused on his own needs.

As followers of Jesus, we are challenged to let God provide for our needs, and in return for God’s providing for us, we are challenged to provide for the needs of others.  That’s the social contract of the kingdom of heaven.    And in return, we are promised something that people like Bryan Johnson long for, the complete and perfect life and joy that God offers us, both in this world and the next.  That existence, full of joy and and beauty and eternal light, can’t be purchased by billionaires, but it is there for the asking.

Table Lessons: What the Grandkids Taught Me About Prayer. A Homily for the Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

A Homily for the Seventh Sunday After Pentecost, 27 July, 2025.  Yr C Readings:  Hosea 1:2-10; Psalm 85; Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19); Luke 11:1-13.  Preached at Prince of Peace, Wasaga Beach, and St Luke's, Creemore, Anglican Diocese of Toronto.

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”  (Luke 11.1)

Today’s reading from Luke is one of two places in the gospels (the other being Matthew 6.9-13,7.7-11) where Jesus teaches his friends what we know today as the Lord’s Prayer.   The reading raises a question which is worth thinking about this morning:   do we pray in order to ask for specific things, or do we pray because it draws us closer to God?  In other words, is prayer about asking favours, or is it about building a relationship of trust?

Serving lunch to three young grandchildren can be, as many of you know, a chaotic experience.   There is the boisterous behaviour, silly jokes, and trying to manage food tastes that are deeply suspicious of anything new.    Amidst the chaos, our grandkids have learned to do something that they never do at home before a meal, which is to say grace.   These children, eight, seven and four, have observed us doing something that they can see is important to us, and have even come to prompt us if we are slow to start:  “Grandma, we haven’t said grace yet”.

As graces go, our are pretty simple.  We thank God for the food, for our time together, for mom and dad, their cousins and other grandparents, and for our dogs who watch expectantly for whatever falls from little plates.    Joy and I are just grateful that the habit has stuck, and we pray that it sticks for as long a time as God gives us with them.  We hope that table grace teaches them something about gratitude and an awareness that they are blessed with what they have.  Hopefully this awareness will translate into spirits of gentleness and generosity as they become adults.  Perhaps even the habit will lead them one day to curiosity about Christian faith.

“Lord, teach us to pray” says one of the disciples.    The disciple seems to feel that they can ask this because it is something Jesus knows how to do and that he can teach.   After all, they have just seen him praying and it is not the first time they’ve seen him.   In fact, Luke describes Jesus praying on five separate occasions prior to today’s gospel reading (Luke 3:21; 5:16; 6:12; 9:18; 9:28).   So it’s natural that the disciples ask Jesus because he shows them by example how prayer is part of life,

The disciples also mention that prayer is something that John the Baptist has taught his disciples.  The word disciple means student, and what the disciples as students want to learn from their teachers - John and Jesus - is how to be closer to God.   So this request shows us a desire for relationship - the disciples see how Jesus prays so that he can remain close to his Father, and they want the same.    In teaching them to pray, Jesus encourages them to think of relationship with God when he says to pray “Our Father in heaven”.

The word “Father” can strike some as paternalistic and even patriarchal, but I think it’s worth noting that, as biblical scholar Jennifer Wyant notes, Jesus chooses this word over “God” or the Hebrew “YHWH”.  Instead of praying to a remote, powerful sky god, Jesus allows his friends to see themselves as beloved children of God.  This sense of the closeness of God as parent is reinforced in the teaching that follows.

Jesus describes God as a father that will give his children the things they need rather than harmful things (a fish or an egg versus a snake or scorpion) because it is in a parent’s nature to care for their children.   If even bad people can be good parents, Jesus asks, “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Lk 11.13).

Jesus’ mention of “good gifts”brings us to the question I posed at the beginning, about whether prayer is about asking for favours or building relationship with God?   There are times where the disciples ask for favours that aren’t granted, such as when James and John ask for positions of power in heaven, on Jesus’ right and left hand.   Jesus says basically no, I won’t give you that because it’s not how servanthood and the kingdom of heaven work.  But how do we, with our own heartfelt requests and genuine needs, pray knowing that a loved one might not be healed or our financial distress might not be eased?  One of the basic challenges of our faith is that our prayers are not always answered to our satisfaction.

Perhaps here the idea of persistence is helpful.  Jesus describes a man at night hammering on a door for help until the person within finally gives in and agrees to help?  We might take this as a lesson that our prayers have to be annoying, which would would make for some terrible liturgy, but a better lesson would be that our prayers express our faith in a God who loves us infinitely more than the man behind the door or the grudging parent.   

Relationships work in part because of frequency.  We are close to people because we hang out, we listen to and encourage one another, we send cards or emails or silly jokes over the internet.   Relationships slip away when one person stops trying.   Likewise, when our prayers dwindle and fall silent, than God seems to grow more remote and indifferent.   

In teaching us to pray, Jesus teaches us relationship.  The word “daily” as in “daily bread” is important because it emphasizes trust and frequency, that every day we will receive, maybe not what we want, but what we need.   It teaches us to be in relationship with others, to give and to be forgiven, which are essential foundations of community.   And it teaches us to pray that with honesty that we might be spared those trials or temptations that might lead us from God, though Jesus teaches us elsewhere, in the story of the prodigal, that God as loving parent will welcome us home if we stray.

Could it be that relationship with God is like grandchildren at a their grandparents’ table, knowing that this is a place where they are safe, welcome and loved?  And could prayer be something as simple as saying, each day, that we, like children or grandchildren, will receive what we need from our God, like children or grandchildren, and trusting that they will receive what they need?

Meyers and Briggs and Martha and Mary: A Homily for the Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

A homily for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost.  Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, 21 July, 2025.

Lections for Proper 16C: Am 8:1-12; Ps 52; Col 1:15-28; Lk 10:38-42

“She had a sister named Mary, who sat art the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying”.  (Lk 10:38).

Some of you have probably taken one of those personality tests such as Meyers Briggs or the Enneagram.  Seminaries and clergy recruiting boards are very fond of them.   If you haven’t, they way they work is that you are presented with many descriptors and you choose the ones that apply to you. One such choice may be “I am the life of the party” vs “I like to keep to myself”.

The results tend to sort people according to how they think and process information, whether they make choices according to the head or the heart, and of course, the one that everyone seems to understand, whether people are introverts or extroverts, introverts being those who need time by themselves whereas extroverts get their energy from crowds of people.

Here’s a test of whether you’re an introvert.   There’s a book club where you all go to a cafe, you all sit by yourselves at different tables, you read the book of your choice silently in peace and quiet, and then you go home.   If that sounds good to you, then you’re probably an introvert.

Just as there are personality types defined by psychological tests, there are also just common characters, stereotypes if you will,  that we all recognize, and this is especially true in churches.    Every church I’ve been in has recognizable personalities that I know from previous churches.  For example, there’s the person who runs the kitchen with the iron fist, there’s the person at vestry meetings who asks finicky questions about a forty seven cent line item in the parish budget, and the fellow who you’ll never see in church on Sunday but who would be there in the dead of winter to fix the furnace.

Today’s gospel reading gives us two characters, Mary and Martha, whose names have become synonymous with church stereotypes.   Some background first.  Mary and Martha are familiar names to us, some months ago we heard the story of how Jesus visited a house in Bethany and raised Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, from the dead, and then returns for a party where Mary anoints Jesus with costly perfume.    We heard these stories towards the end of Lent this year.   In today’s gospel reading we don’t hear anything about Lazarus so we don’t know if this is the same Mary and Martha, but who’s to say they aren’t the same.

In today’s story I think we can assume that Jesus has dropped by with his disciples, so at least a dozen people, and of course they need to be welcomed properly and fed, so Martha is in charge of the hospitality, whereas Mary has adopted a disciple’s posture and “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying”.   Preparing lunch for so many unexpected guests is a big chore, and Martha is frazzled and grumpy that Mary isn’t helping.   Jesus’ answer, that Mary “has chosen the better part”, has provoked centuries of theological writing on what Jesus means by “the better part” and will come to that in a moment.

But to return to my idea of character stereotypes, I know lots of Anglicans who use the names Martha and Mary as shorthand for different church types and roles.  If you’re a Martha, then you can be found in the kitchen or in the altar guild, and you like to work with your hands.  If you’re a Mary, you go to every bible study and belong in the prayer group and go on retreats.  It’s often said in Christian literature that Martha is the active Christian at work in the world and Mary is the contemplative Christian who prays for the world.   Those stereotypes are of course at least half nonsense because we all know people who are happy in both roles, but the stereotypes endure and I know church women who call themselves Marys or Marthas.   Interesting that these are feminine stereotypes.  What about male church stereotypes?   That would be a subject for another sermon.

But what does Jesus mean about Mary taking the better part?  Does that mean that he is elevating one type of discipleship about others?  Is listening to Jesus better than serving others?   If so, then that would be odd seeing as in Luke’s gospel Jesus has just finished telling the story of the Good Samaritan, which is all about serving others.  Hospitality is a huge deal in Luke’s gospel.  A few weeks ago we heard Jesus send out his disciples to seek the hospitality of strangers, who would be blessed for welcoming them (Lk 10.9).  So I don’t think the problem is that Martha is engaged in a lesser role.

More likely, Martha is being gently chastised by Jesus for being aggravated and judgey about her sister.    There are several gospel stories like the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, where one person compares themselves favourably to another.   I think Jesus is saying, let her be, she’s doing good and you were doing good until you let yourself be vexed.

One of the recurring messages of the gospels is that we should listen to Jesus.    In the story of the transfiguration, the disciples here the voice from heaven saying “This is my son, listen to him” (Lk 9.35).  Likewise, Jesus says that his true brothers and sisters are those who “hear the word of God, and do it” (Lk 8.21).   The right place for Mary is to sit and hear the words of Jesus, literally to be in the presence of the Word made Flesh, and this is the correct posture of the church.

The role of the church includes feeding the hungry, speaking for the helpless, striving for justice, being salt and light for the world, and welcoming all to God’s table.  How do we know that the church should do these things?  We know because Jesus tells us to, full stop, period, end of story.   The church obeys Jesus because, as Paul tells us in our second reading from Colossians, he is “the head of the body, the church”, and it is the work of the church to hear the word of Jesus and then to make that word known to the poor through our deeds.   Marthas and Marys are equally needed for this work, we must be hearers of the word AND doers of the word.

If the church does not constantly listen to Jesus and interpret the gospel’s instructions for us in the world we live in, then the church serves no purposes but it’s own.   The prophet Amos, speaking to the complacent and corrupt rules of Israel, warned them their unjust practices would alienate them from the word of God, that the word of God would go silent, would vanish like food vanishes in a famine.

Today, in a world full of lies and boasting, and obscene concentrations of wealth and brutal politics, we can’t let the word of God go silent.   We need to listen to Jesus.  We need to hear stories like the Good Samaritan and enact them in our own ways and local contexts.   We need to show care and hospitality like Martha, and be prayerful and attentive like Mary.   All of us have a role to play - doers of the word, hearers of the word, introverts and extroverts.  We can lose the church stereotypes - they aren't really helpful, while revelling in the fact that God takes all types, and puts our gifts and talents to use in the service of God's kingdom.

Jesus doesn’t need stereotypes but he welcomes all types: Marthas and Marys, introverts and extroverts, and you Nd me!