Do you all know what a tort is? Tort … T-O-R-T … no E on the end; I’m not talking about those wonderful little German or Austrian pastries. A tort is a civil wrong that causes harm to another person, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the wrong. You leave a puddle of milk on the floor of your grocery store knowing it’s there, then someone slips in it and injures themselves: you have committed a tort. You speed through a stop sign, collide with another car, and injure the driver: you’ve not only broken the law, you’ve committed a tort.
A million years ago when I was in law school studying the law of torts with Professor Bill Lynch of blessed memory, I was introduced to the superhero of Anglo-American civil jurisprudence: the ordinary, reasonably prudent person, often called “ORPman”. ORPman’s super power, as you can tell from his name, is ordinary, reasonable prudence. His conduct is the standard against which allegedly tortious behavior is judged. His conduct is always sensible, never outrageous, not too timid, nor too bold. He is not a coward, but neither is he an excessive risk-taker. His expectations are rational; he is not demanding, but neither is he a doormat.
One of the things I try to do when I read the stories of Jesus in the Gospels, when he uses an odd or striking metaphor like “I will make you fishers of people”
I understand that St. Andrew’s Parish is, today, beginning its annual stewardship campaign, so I suppose it’s appropriate that we heard the story of Jesus being confronted by the wealthy man who wants to inherit eternal life in today’s Gospel reading from Mark. This tale must have been an important one to the earliest Christians, because we find it in all three of the Synoptic Gospels. Mark tells us only that the man is wealthy; Matthew adds that he is young; and Luke informs us that he is a ruler of some sort. But none of those details really changes the basic nature of the encounter: a potential disciple comes to Jesus seeking guidance and Jesus tells him that he must give up everything he possesses – “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor….”
“They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.”
The United States is, at least ostensibly, a very religious country. Nearly two hundred years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that “there is no country in the world where … religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.”
When I was about 8 or 9 years of age, my grandparents gave me an illustrated bible with several glossy, color illustrations of various stories. They weren’t great art, but they were clear and very expressive. My favorite amongst them was the illustration of today’s gospel lesson.
Here we are at the end of the first period of what the church calls “ordinary time” during this liturgical year, the season of Sundays after the Feast of the Epiphany during which we have heard many gospel stories which reveal or manifest (the meaning of epiphany) something about Jesus. On this Sunday, the Sunday before Lent starts on Ash Wednesday, we always hear some version of the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration, a story so important that it is told in the three Synoptic Gospels, alluded to in John’s Gospel, and mentioned in the Second Letter of Peter.
When I find myself in times of trouble,
John, your parish secretary, puts together a mailing every week that he sends to the clergy who will be joining you as presiders and preachers. He includes in that mailing some of the material from an Augsburg Fortress publication called “Sundays and Seasons,” which is a great lectionary resource. The illuminations that your lectors read before each Bible reading giving a little introduction about the lesson come from “Sundays and Seasons.” I’ve been familiar with the publication for a long time, though I’ve never been a subscriber: I used to participate in a weekly ecumenical lectionary study group that included Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and Episcopal clergy and our Lutheran colleagues often brought something from “Sundays and Seasons” into our discussions. 
