So, there we have them ­ a story about buying property during wartime; a story about rich and poor; a letter about the Christian life. Did you hear it ­ did you notice? They're all about money! I found this is common theme irresistible. So...starting from something practical and concrete, like money... ... does our faith make sense? Faith in the sense of trusting in the goodness and protection of a Supreme Being; faith in the sense of practicing religious traditions and rituals; faith in the sense of believing in a positive, or at least hopeful outcome despite the obvious odds stacked against it? Does faith make sense?

Let's face it: most of us probably would say that, in raw secular terms, the answer is "No."

Interestingly enough, I think that's a good answer in some ways ­ because a lot of proponents of simplistic Christianity will try to convince you of the rightness of this particular faith doctrine or practice because it benefits you (self-benefit makes sense): if you do the right thing, or believe the right way (which leads to doing the right thing), God will richly reward you. In other words, faith is practical, reduced to common sense, and sometimes to good business practice. I am always a bit suspicious of tearful testimonies to a "good Christian" getting rich: they make me wonder if riches aren't held up a little too baldly as the motivation for being "good." Good people may get rich, or be rich, or stay rich ­ but I'm reluctant to promote that as a consequence of faith.

But I expect that faith, as most of us understand it in the mainline church ­ faith that promotes trust, forgiveness, generosity ­ all those and other virtues ­ often don't represent either common sense or business sense. No, faith does not make sense. It is not very rewarding in the world's terms, and the world's terms are usually imminently sensible. Of course, being generous or humble or trusting may sometimes be politically correct, and therefore may be beneficial. But again, motivation makes me a little suspicious. If we display those worthy characteristics to prove our correctness, and perhaps get the appropriate concessions, rewards or warm fuzzies ­ I'm sorry: that's not faith, that's strategy. Strategy is not bad (if you were here last Sunday, you may remember that the scriptures have some good things to say about strategy) -- but don't confuse it with faith.

So, I was struck by how each of the lessons today relate in some way or other to the use of money, and how that use has a role in determining or symbolizing our fate, and our faith. In our contemporary society, what makes sense often has a great deal to do with money, with what we perceive to be economically wise or sound. "Making sense" also has a great deal to do with our sense of safety and security. And in our society and world, a lot of our sense of security has to do with money.

In our story from Jeremiah, the prophet uses his money to demonstrate his utter and totally un-sensible belief in the future of the people of God. In the letter to Timothy, money is scrutinized: and perhaps the shortest summation we can make of the lesson from this passage is that money is a tool, not an idol. In the Luke story, about the rich man and Lazarus ­ interestingly enough, the word "money" as such is never actually mentioned. But what clearly differentiates the rich man from the poor? Obviously ­ uit's money. And what we are given to understand from the passage is that God's will is for the imbalance that differentiates them to be corrected ­ and indeed, that God does correct it! That's it! No other option!

Jeremiah, the prophet in Jerusalem seven centuries before the birth of Jesus, did business in a time of uncertainty. Now Jeremiah, we need to understand clearly, did not have an easy life on any score. His whole life was an image of his understanding of God's will for God's people, and of the consequences of keeping, or failing to keep, the faith. If you read through the book of Jeremiah, you'll find that the prophet's own biography is often agonizing ­ he has to tell people that don't want to hear it, that God is not happy with them. God is not happy with them because they have fallen out of relationship with a God with high ethical standards and a keen sense of justice a‹by their own failures of ethics and injustice. And those failures have consequences ­ and in the worldview of the prophet, those consequences are military and political. The people will be destroyed‹and Jeremiah, is one of the people. This man did not have an easy job, or an easy life.

So Jeremiah's business transaction is an interesting image of hope in God's future: it's the purchase of a piece of property -- the purchase of a piece of property from jail, as Jeremiah was locked up for publicly preaching unpatriotic sentiments during wartime; the purchase of a piece of property when the known world's most powerful nation was laying siege to Jerusalem, the whole order and society were in disarray, people were dying of hunger, and whatever you purchased was worth just about nothing ­ so common sense would tell you that you might as well hang onto your money, because if everything's about to be overrun by the enemy, you'd do well to keep your assets liquid. But Jeremiah has a vision of being offered a piece of property, and lo and behold, along comes his cousin with a field to unload. And Jeremiah not only gives up his liquid assets, but he does it very publicly, getting the deed signed before witnesses, copied, and stored in a safe place.

As I pondered the verses from Luke and from Timothy, I found that I had to disabuse myself of some stereotypes that I've long associated with them. Perhaps you have found yourselves swayed by those stereotypes, too. The Timothy passage contains the famous phrase: "...the love of money is the root of all evil." NOT: "money is the root of all evil," as we've sometimes remembered it, wrongly.. And, as I studied the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke, I had to discard my assumption that Jesus was telling a story about judging the rich man for being rich, and, in contrast, siding with the poor man. On careful reading, I had to admit that the story really didn't say that. (It was an assumption that was a little hard for me to give up.)

If you read the story carefully, you'll see that it really says nothing directly about the Rich Man being punished for his actions toward, or neglect of, Lazarus. It certainly doesn't say anything at all about what kind of a person Lazarus was, other than lacking in material resources. We have no idea whether he was otherwise good or bad. But the story does indicate that God clearly sees injustice, and imbalance in the goodness and wholeness of God's creation. This may seem like a little thing, but did you notice that the Rich Man doesn't have a name in this version of the story, and the poor Lazarus is the one who is named? In the literary conventions of the Bible, naming a character is a key way of emphasizing the authority or position of a person in a story. In not naming the rich person, the storyteller is indicating that in God's eyes, wealth is not equivalent to higher status or value, and that poverty does not diminish the worth of a person. Jesus, in this story, was telling his hearers that God grants status and authority according to different criteria than the world does. And because God's criteria are different, God restores the balance of creation. God's will is for those who have had too little of the world's gifts to have a reasonable life, be satisfied and whole in the God's new world.

The image of God's realm that we are given in Jeremiah's purchase of property, from jail, during wartime ­ is one of hope, survival, a future. The image of God's realm that we are given by the parable in Luke is one of imbalance, inequity restored. Dear friends in faith, neither one of these images make sense to our contemporary, secular minds ­ any more than they made sense to the ancient Hebrew court in Jerusalem, or to the Pharisees of Palestine in Jesus' time. These are images of God's future, and God's future, according to Jeremiah's image, did not depend upon prevailing against Babylon. In fact, Jeremiah preached ­ traitorously ­ that Jerusalem would NOT prevail ­ that was not the point!. Buying the field was a symbol that God's future involves something else: the people would survive as God's people because they would be humbled, would have to confront their sin, and would be renewed, a different people, with different commitments, and yet still God's people. That's faith on both sides ­ God's faith in the people/the people's faith in God. Does it make sense?

Jesus' image in the parable is one where justice ­ the meeting of need ­ prevails over the protection of privilege. There are no privileged characters in God's new world!

Can it be that restoring the balance tipped over by the world's inequities is more important than prevailing over the enemy? This is a very difficult concept for us, as American Christians, citizens of the world's only superpower at this particular moment in history. Could we be overwhelmed by terrorism? Could we be drowned in economic catastrophe? And still trust that we can survive as God's people?

What these biblical passages are saying to us is ­ YES! It may make no sense at all, but God's priorities are different. We are God's people because God loves us, not because we dutifully conform to certain religious practices, or because we have freedom, wealth or power. We are God's people because we share, and because we seek to make the benefits of God's earthly gifts available for all, not because God has rewarded us with riches or with safety. We are God's people because we hope, against all the odds, even when it doesn't make sense.

Living toward God's hopeful future may not make sense in secular terms ­ but it is an image for who we are as God's people, and it requires us to have our priorities straight. This week, I attended my first meeting of our Board of Stewardship, preparing for the fall campaign, and you know what that's all about ­ MONEY! That's not money the idol, but money the tool ­ money that will make it possible for us exemplify, live out our vision of God's realm; money that will represent demonstrate what our priorities are. This is an interim time, when we're examining ourselves as a congregation, seeking to define who we are along the spectrum of faith practice, where we are in time and space, what the community around us needs this church to be, and discerning who is best equipped professionally to lead us in addressing the signs and demands of the times.

These two stories call upon us to be very honest, in this time, about saying what is really important to us. In Jeremiah's time, the official government policy in Judah was deception and self-deception. The king's court counted riches and power as God's reward for goodness, and Jeremiah brought anguishing punishment upon himself for telling the truth and exposing the nation's weakness. That weakness led to disaster. But Jeremiah's hope, and the people's hope, was to preach the truth: not only that self-deception leads to disaster, but that God's future is still a future of hope, based on different priorities.

So I think, maybe, the scriptures have something to say to our church right now, don't you think? Dear sisters and brothers in faith ­ what do we hope for? Where is our hope found in this world, in this time and place, under these circumstances, when there is so much of which to be afraid. In this post 9/11 world, we are afraid for our physical safety, even for our survival -- and not just our bodily survival, either, but the survival of our way of life, our understanding of who we are in the world. In this 21st Century society, we are afraid of losing our values, we are afraid that what comforts us with familiarity is slipping away. In this 21st Century economy, we are afraid that our job skills may become obsolete before our career span ends. In this church, in this very family of faith, we are afraid ...that the church might not stay the church we love; might not go back to being the church we used to love; might not raise its budget; might not attract enough newcomers to give it the same love and attention we've always lavished on it.

And in this uncertain time...we have enough hope to baptize a baby. Note well, I said we have enough hope to baptize a baby ­ because it's not just the minister's act or the McLaren family's commitment, it's ours. You know that baptizing isn't a zap from God, to protect the baby from further harm, right? It's an acknowledgement on our part of what God already knows ­ that Aidan McLaren is already a forgiven sinner, and in this community of love and support and hope, he can grow up where he will come to understand, by how we treat him, by how we treat each other, and by how we treat the world Šthat's how Aidan will experience the true meaning of acceptance and forgiveness.