I have never really been a fan of the whole concept of heaven and hell. I don’t believe a loving God dooms anyone to an eternity of suffering. But I also bristle at the idea that those who perpetuate massive injustice don’t have to answer for it in the end.

This is why “The Good Place” is one of my favorite TV shows. Without giving too much away, through the four seasons of the show, we were treated to an unfolding of an extended theology of heaven and hell. The show begins with the main characters believing they are in heaven, the good place, despite leading less-than-stellar lives on earth. There they are promptly thrust into an array of difficult social situations that make it feel less like heaven and more like hell.

Throughout the show, the characters deal with their own faults and sins committed on earth and eventually plead their case to God herself to save them. When they do eventually plead their case to God, played by Maya Rudolph, they urge her to go down to earth and see that it is almost impossible to be a good person because we are caught up in complex overlapping systems of oppression. She comes back to declare that the world indeed has become too complicated, and recounts her experience there embodied as a black woman.

However her solution is not to show grace to humans, but to implode everything and start over. The main characters offer an alternative. They instead create a sort of purgatory where everyone comes after they die, and have to work out all of their flaws, aided by demons. Eventually, in a process that can take hundreds of years if they’re really bad, they get to come to the good place, a neighborhood of peace and joy where…

Text: Luke 15:1-32Speaker: Mark Rupp

In ten years of pastoring here at Columbus Mennonite, this must be the first time I have gotten to preach on these parables, because I am sure that if I had done so already, I would have forced you all to learn and sing the song I’ve included as an insert in your bulletin. This is a song we sang at the church camp I grew up going to that holds a lot of fond memories for me…so don’t mess it up, ok. A show of hands if anyone is familiar with it.

It’s a fairly simple tune, though the rhythm in the last line gets a little funky. The only tricky part is that its true beauty comes from being done as a round. You’ll note each line of music is a new part of the round, so we will divide into three groups [note where the divisions will be]. 

For this first time through, we will only sing the first verse you have on the insert, even as we repeat it as a round. This is how we did it at my camp. I will sing it through once while you listen. Then everyone will sing it through in unison one time. Then we will start the round with group 1 and have each group sing it through twice. When Groups 1 and 2 finish their second time through, you all can repeat the last line with the other groups, so that we all end in unison on the last line. And remember, just the first verse for this time through.

[Lead the song.]

Thank you for that. As I mentioned, this is a song that was certainly a camp favorite. As soon as any of the leaders would launch into it, something magical would always happen…

Text: Luke 13:1-9, 31-35Speaker: Joel Miller

Luke 13:6-9  – Then Jesus told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'”

Question: In the parable of the not-yet-productive fig tree, which of the two characters, the owner, or the gardener, best represents your image of God?  Which character, including the tree, do you most identify with?

Now it is a little dangerous to be assigning parts to every character in a parable.  Parables aren’t straight allegories, with each fictional person and item having direct correspondence to something in the real world.  It’s not an equation.  The point isn’t to figure out who is who in a parable, and therefore solve the parable.

As we’re recognizing throughout Lent, the word parable comes from the Greek, the language of the New Testament, and it means to “throw alongside.”  Parables thrive on the unexpected.  We see the world in a certain way, and then a parable gets thrown alongside us, and we’re challenged to reconsider.  Jesus was rather fond of doing this.

Like he does in Luke chapter 13 with the fig tree.

What’s important to know about this chapter, and about Luke more generally, is that the air around it is thick with apocalyptic expectations.  A good portion of the Bible is written either with this sense of…

Text: Luke 10:25-37Speaker: Joel Miller

When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Thenl they went on to another village.

This passage takes place at the end of Luke chapter 9.  In the way Luke structures his gospel, this is the pivotal moment when Jesus resolves to go from his home area of Galilee, in the north, with its quiet villages of Nazareth and Capernaum, to Jerusalem, down south – the religious and political center of his people.  For the next 10 chapters Jesus will be making his way to the holy city.  Toward the end of the journey he’ll pass through Jericho.  That’s where he heals a blind man begging by the side of the road. That’s where he meets up with Zacchaeus, the tax collector, who invites Jesus to his house.  Jericho to Jerusalem was the last leg of this route.  About 18 winding miles, a half mile vertical climb, mostly desert.  It wasn’t an easy route. 

It also wasn’t the only route from Galilee to Jerusalem, and definitely not the shortest.  The shortest route was the one Jesus started to take, through Samaria.  That’s where, earlier, in John, Jesus met up with the woman at the well, where they discussed living water, and whether Jerusalem in Judea, or Mt Gerizim in Samaria was the true place of worship. 

This was not exactly friendly territory.  There were age-old hostilities…

Today’s Scripture passage is often referred to as “the transfiguration.” What is it to transfigure? The word implies a change in form, a movement from what is, into something perhaps even more profound. In our Anabaptist Community Bible, which uses the Common English Bible translation, the heading of this passage reads, “Jesus Transformed.” What is this transformation, this transfiguration? Is it merely a change in appearance, or is it something deeper, more profound, a shift that evades words?

As we enter the text, Jesus, Peter, John and James have retreated up, into the mountain for rest and prayer. I can imagine it is quiet, contemplative, the air peaceful, cool, yet charged. As Jesus prays, before his disciples’ sleepy eyes, he undergoes a transformation. The change is physical: his face changes, his clothes become white, electric like lightning. And yet, there is more to this change. Suddenly present are Moses and Elijah, in “heavenly splendor” (Luke 9:30) talking with Jesus, affirming the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy that will be realized through Jesus, in Jerusalem. This is a profound depiction: Moses and Elijah, revered figureheads in the Jewish tradition, have made a post-mortem appearance to affirm Jesus as Messiah. Their very presence validates the person and divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, weaving him into Israel’s ancestral line. Not only do the ancestors declare Jesus’ divinity, but God’s voice speaks into the cloud-covered moment: “‘This is my Son, my chosen one. Listen to him!’” (9:35). As the voice speaks, Jesus is once again alone, in the company of “speechless” (9: 36) disciples. A shocking, radiant transformation has occurred.

Our transformations are not often as radiant as this one. Transformations imply change, and change can be confusing, painful and grief-filled. Even when out of change arises something new and beautiful, it is likely accompanied by the…