This was preached on Feb 24, 2013. I'm planning on preaching during Lent about the various ways to understand the atonement. This is is the Classic or Victory theory.
This sermon is, I heard, almost entirely theological and not very entertaining. If you are into that sort of thing - here it is:
Text: I Cor. 1:18 ff
Purpose of Lent: To ready our hearts and minds to enter into the events of Holy Week and Easter - so that we might experience the power of the death and resurrection of Christ to change lives and indeed, to change the world.
The cross is the central symbol of Christianity. Look around the sanctuary. Think about all the places we see crosses: On steeples, signs for churches, around Christian’s necks, as body art, on T-shirts. We make the sign of the cross on Ash Wednesday and every time we baptize, or anoint someone to remind them of baptism. Many Christians, even Protestants, make the sign of the cross as a part of prayer.
Yet our understanding of the cross is not always very deep. Imagine trying to explain to an alien, or to a very persistent and intelligent child why the cross is so central to us. It is a symbol of a torture device, used to humiliate, inflict pain, execute and terrorize. Why is that a central symbol of our faith?
If we get past our familiarity with it, the cross is a jarring, stark reminder of the shocking way God in Jesus Christ entered and left our world. And I’m convinced that as we grow in our relationship with God through Jesus Christ, eventually we have to face the cross and try to understand two things:
what God was doing, letting his precious Son our Savior die that way?
What does it mean to belong to a community built around the cross?
Now, you’d think that after 2000 years, these questions would be all figured out. That there would be an answer and I could stand up here and preach it, or give you a book to read it, or even a youtube video we could all watch together. But God is a funny guy. He seems to have arranged it so that knowing him has more to do with struggling with profound questions than with having a firm grip on pat answers.
Christians have, from the very first, struggled to make sense of the cross. We’ve agreed that the cross is essential to Christ’s work of “atonement” - of saving us, or reconciling us, or making a new life with God possible for us.
At-one-ment is an interesting word. One of the few theological words that actually has an English root - it means “At-One-Ment” or bringing what was broken apart back together. We affirm that Jesus’ death on the cross was crucial to fixing whatever was broken between us and God.
One way to understand that is that in his death, Christ won a giant victory over the power of death.
The reading from 1 Corinthians focuses attention on the cross as the power of Christ: "For the word, of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (RSV).
Seeing atonement as victory is rooted in the Gospel of John’s imagery of darkness and light. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. There is a struggle between the forces of darkness and the forces of light.
There are a couple of things that give us pause about this way to understand the cross: One is that it seems like it’s based on a dualistic view of the world, in which two roughly equal powers vie for supremacy. If God is good, and God created the world, then where did all that evil come from? The answer to that gets a little messy and hard to swallow.
And the second drawback to this view is that it is about good and evil, light and dark, black and white. And the world just isn’t that way. It’s mostly shades of grey. There is so much good in the worst of people and so much bad in the best . . . Even situations where it seems obvious who is right and who is wrong . . . people are doing things they THINK are right and good. They may be mistaken, but nobody sets out to do the wrong thing.
Much of being a grown up is understanding that. And surely God understands it better than any of us. What evil could be defeated without also stamping out the good that grows entwined around it? Didn’t Jesus say, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do?”
Nonetheless - there is a lot about this view that commends it. This view takes seriously the darkness and evil of sin and death. It recognizes that much of what goes on in this world is the product of forces which would crush beauty, creativity, love and life. And we cannot take a long unblinking look at the world around us without seeing the darkness that often corrupts the human heart. Mass killings. War. Child abuse and neglect. Violence against those who are different. It’s a dark world out there.
And we know how prone we are to participating in the darkness: How satisfying a cruel comment can be. How easy it is to ignore a pain that we could fix. How “worth it” it seems to inflict damage on someone else’s property, or to damage creation itself, for a little extra profit or to save some time.
This is what sin is - the darkness that wraps it’s stinking hands around our hearts and squeezes the life out of our ability to love and care for one another.
But Christ, by dying on the Cross, confronts that power of sin and hatred and death head on. Only Christ - because he is God - is strong enough to enter into the cosmic battle against evil. And only Christ is strong and good enough to defeat evil. By going to evil’s home court - the cross is a torture device that kills its victims - there’s nothing MORE evil than the cross - Jesus gives death every opportunity to win. But the power he displays on the cross is the power to enter into death and then come out victorious on the other side.
Peter’s first sermon: "This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it" (Acts 2:23-24).
The cross’ meaning is only made clear in the resurrection. But once it is clear that Jesus who died lives again, we can see the cross as the final battle that proves once and for all which is stronger.
God overcomes the power of darkness.
Love wins over hate.
Life is more powerful than death.
The most ringing statement of this view of the atonement is Paul’s. (Which I love and use at every funeral I do.) "‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘0 death, where is thy victory? 0 death, where is thy sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 15:54-57).
To live as Christians is to live in the midst of a world where darkness and sin still vie for control over lives and hearts - but live knowing that we need not be defeated by those evil powers. That we share in the victory over these things. So even when we see their awful force, we have courage to stand against them, knowing that God will not let them extinguish us utterly.
This understanding of the cross invites us say with St. Paul in the face of every trial and difficulty, "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us . . . Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:37, 39).
Showing posts with label sermons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sermons. Show all posts
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Going to the Dogs - Sunday, Aug. 17th Sermon
God and DogsMatthew 15:21-28
August 17, 2008
All my favorite jokes – all three of them – involve dogs and God, or at least dogs and religion. My favorite goes like this:
Did you hear about the dyslexic, insomniac agnostic?
Yep, she stayed up all night, wondering if there is a Dog.
Well, our scripture takes us back to a puzzling passage which includes talk of God and Dogs.
It is a puzzling passage, in which things seem to get turned backwards, like the spelling of God and Dog. It is a passage that troubles us – like a dog wanting attention, who puts his wet nose in our hand, or bumps into the newspaper we are reading, or who whines or even barks to say, “Hey, look up. Pay attention.”
IN this passage Jesus seems to call someone a dog. Then, as the story unfolds, her dogged persistence is rewarded. Jesus says, “Great is your faith.”
Now, I know this is kind of an unusual tack to take, but I was thinking that if Jesus described someone as doggy – but of great faith, maybe we could learn something about faith from looking at dogs. So I want to suggest some ways we can learn from Dogs that might actually help up become more faithful human beings.
The first attribute of Dogs that we might consider is that:
1) Dogs know their master. Dogs look at the world in a fundamentally different way than, say, cats. A dog and a cat were describing their living situations.
The Dog said, The person I live with feeds me, he gives me shelter, he fills my water bowl, he pets me and he loves me. He must be God. The Cat says, The person I live with feeds me, he gives me shelter, he fills my water bowl, he pets me and he loves me. I must be God.
Now I know some of you are “cat people” – you have cats. Some of you have very lovable cats and I’m not dissing anybody’s pet here. But I think we can agree: Dogs have a master. Cats have staff.
Well, there’s a book out called the Theology of Cats and Dogs that challenges us to think deeply about what that basic difference can show us about our own faith. The premise of the book is that a lot of us treat God as if we were cats and God was our “staff”. We believe that the Almighty is there to facilitate our comfort and serve our needs. When we need God, we expect him to be there. But for long stretches of time, we don’t think we need the Divine Presence at all. And, quite frankly, we’d be just as happy if God left us alone.
Contrast that attitude with the faith of a dog. A Dog has a master. And there is really nothing that a dog wouldn’t at least TRY to do for his master. Really, a dog’s main aim in life is to be with and please the person that he sees as Master. Life is about making the Master happy.
Do we have faith like a Dog? Do we know who our Master is? The woman in our story correctly called Jesus “Lord” every time she called on him. “Lord” means Master. It doesn’t mean best buddy, or most important connection or powerful ally. It means the one who is served. How do we think of God? As our Master? Or as our Staff?
2) There’s another bit of Dog behavior that the woman in the story exhibits: She is very persistent in bringing her need to Jesus. She calls out. She keeps on calling. She runs (apparently around the group of annoyed disciples) and kneels before Jesus. Kneeling in front of someone who is walking – now there is an attention getting gesture. She just wouldn’t give up or get discouraged.
That’s kind of dog like. Dogs are persistent. Last week, when Tim and I were with the boys at Lake Michigan, I took a walk down the beach while they swam. And pretty soon I came upon a big black wet Labrador retriever. When he saw me walking toward him, he ran to a blanket, picked up a tennis ball, galloped over to me and rolled it at my feet. Well – what would you do? I picked it up and threw it down the beach, and he bounded off after it, got it, ran as fast as he could back to me and rolled it to me again. So I threw it again. And again. And again. The first 10 times it was fun. Then it just got to be amazing. In the water, out of the water. The dog was unstoppable. It was a game. The first one to give up loses. And I finally had to concede defeat, though I told him I was doing it for his sake - thinking that the poor creature would have a heart attack.
This woman chased Jesus and wouldn’t give up. How persistent are we in taking our prayers and requests to Jesus? How persistent are we in bringing the needs of others to Jesus? How easily are we discouraged when our spiritual life doesn’t seem to be giving us the results we were hoping for?
I’d bet that there are times when each one of us gets discouraged. We have problems that aren’t getting fixed. We have hurts that won’t quit aching. We have weaknesses that we’d like to see strengthened. And sometimes, God seems to be taking his own sweet time in bringing situations to a satisfactory conclusion. At times like that, we might do well to remember the story of the woman who doggedly pursued Jesus, whose faith was such that she just wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t be shoo-ed away, wouldn’t be ignored and who took even an insult and turned it into yet another plea. The poet Edwin Markham, wrote about this encounter:
He drew a circle that shut me out -Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.But love and I had the wit to win:We drew a circle that took him in.
Yes, Lord, she said, but even the doggies get to eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table. I’m only asking for a crumb. But I won’t go away without something from you.
If we could have something of the persistence of a dog in our relationship with God, and if we could take the doggy attitude that it is our greatest joy to bring joy to our Master – we might find ourselves actually growing in our Christian lives and in our faith. Even if we ain’t nothing but a hound dog – Jesus can be counted on to, at last, bless us with kind words and a healing blessing. He said to the woman, “Great is your faith. It shall be done for you, just as you have asked. This hour your daughter is made whole.” Jesus’ nature is to give to his beloved grace upon grace, even more than we ask.
And maybe that’s enough to learn from dogs. But there is something else – and it’s not about each of us as individual doggy Christians. It’s about life in the pack.
Dogs are very social animals. They like to live in packs, of other dogs or of humans that they think are dogs. "The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue." -
And they have some very good social skills that we should not be embarrassed to adopt.
"A man may smile and bid you hailYet wish you to the devil;But when a good dog wags his tail,You know he's on the level." -
Dogs greet those they love with enthusiasm. When I open the back door, there is Chief, wagging his tail, dancing around me, letting me know he’s glad I’m home. Now, sometimes I’d rather be met by someone who can help me carry in the groceries, or ask me how my day has gone, or pour me a cool drink of water. But even so, being wagged at and loved on is pretty darn nice. And you don’t have to be a dog to do that.
At home, how do you greet the rest of your pack?
At church, how do we greet those who come to our door?
Do we rush to the door to meet our loved ones?
Do we wag our tails to show them we are glad they are here?
I think those are good things. And anyone can do it. We call it “being the greeter” and Jeff Burlew doesn’t want to ask you to do that. He hasn’t got any one signed up to greet and usher this month. So I’m going to be asking. Because hospitality is not just some nice icing on a church cake. It is the cake.
In this story, The disciples say, “Send her away.” We don’t want to be that kind of disciple. We want to be the kind that acts out God’s delight in each person, and welcomes them into this place hoping that here they will find themselves at home with God and with us. Let’s wag our tails and welcome each person that comes as if they are made out of bologna. Which, let’s face it, most of us are.
Sincere and enthusiastic tail wagging is the third doggy like trait we might try to develop as we grow in our Christian faith.
The encounter Jesus and the disciples have with the Canaanite dog-woman is a somewhat puzzling passage. It’s almost impossible for me to conceive of Jesus ignoring someone, almost turning her away, and calling another human being a dog. But in the end, perhaps it was her doggy-ness – her persistence and her calling him Master – that Jesus wants us to see. Maybe he wants us to see that he recognizes and blesses those aspects of faith. Great is your faith! He says to the woman. What you have begged for, you shall have. If there is healing and hope for her, there is healing and hope for us all.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Meditation on Baptism
This is the "message" from Sunday's service. It's not polished up. I'd like to think I preached it better than these notes indicate.
August 10, 2008
Matthew 14:22-36
The little girl had hoped that her pink bathing suit, with the silver fish scales pattern would give her a graceful, mermaid look. But as she stood by the pool, and looked at her reflection, she was afraid that it just made her look like a pink, chubby fish. She listened for the teen age life guard, the very cutest one at the pool, to tell her she was a good swimmer and that she could do it. But, just as she feared, he explained the procedure without enthusiasm, “4 lengths of the pool. Crawl stroke. No hanging on the sides.” If she passed the test, she could swim in the deep end. But she was afraid she’d fail. She was afraid that anyone who was looking could see her heart just about beating out of her chest. Most of all, she was afraid of the water. She curled her toes over the edges of the pool. Beneath them the black tiles read 6 FT. Over her head. She was about to get in over her head. She tried to take a deep breath. But she couldn’t. The water was so deep. And the far side of the pool seemed like a mile away. She jumped in and the water closed over her. Her legs seemed to pull her down toward the drain. The water stung her eyes, and she shut them and swam, blindly, toward the far side. Don’t be a scaredy-cat, don’t be a scaredy-cat, don’t be a scaredy-cat, she tried to get into the rhythm. But it was no use. She was already too afraid.
Fear is a powerful thing.
In the Bible, water is a symbol of life – to be sure – but also a scary symbol of the opposite – of death. Water is a symbol of the things that are most fearful – losing control, losing order, losing orientation, losing power, losing life. Noah. The crossing the Red Sea. River Jordan.
Not surprisingly, the sea was a fearful place for the fishermen followers of Jesus. Even though they made their living on the sea, they knew the dangers of the open water. And they were justifiably afraid when they were out on the sea and the wind changed, a storm blew up and their ship was battered by the waves. Then, in an utterly inexplicable turn of events, the looked through the wind driven rain and the tossing waters and saw Jesus approaching them, walking on the water.
There was so much fear in that little boat. Matthew says that the disciples were “terrified” – a word he only uses one other time in the whole Gospel, to describe how Herod felt when he heard there was another King, born in Bethlehem. They were deeply afraid of what was happening to them, and what might happen to them in the future. Because, clearly, they were no longer in control. They did not hold their own lives in their own hands anymore. The storm, the wind, the waves. And then Jesus! And Jesus, far from calming their fears, seemed to be one of the things that frightened them the most. So much fear!
Then one of the disciples did something remarkable – He stepped back from his own emotional response to a threatening situation. He stepped away from the contagious fear of his friends. He stood up, despite years of training in how not to rock the boat. He threw his leg over the side and stepped out OUT into the rolling, unstable, dark and story sea. And, for just a moment, he walked toward Jesus.
Then, not surprisingly, he sank.
It’s not surprising that he sank. It’s surprising that he had the courage to walk.
It’s not surprising that he fell. It’s surprising that he attempted to answer Jesus’ call.
It’s not surprising that he failed to do what only Jesus could. It’s surprising that he took seriously what it means to be a disciple – to follow Jesus ANY WHERE Jesus may lead.
For just a moment, the call of Jesus Christ was undeniable, and one disciple answered – not with a faint “I will” or a promise in his heart or a pledge of financial support. One disciple got out of the rocking boat and set his feet into the waves. And when he did that – it didn’t matter that he fell, that he sank, that he failed. Because Jesus reached out his hand – immediately – and lifted him from the deep.
Jesus carried him in his arms, as a lifeguard carries a drowning man, or a mother carries an exhausted toddler, or a lover carries his bride across the threshold. Peter stepped out in fear and was carried home in faith.
To be baptized is to take that step out of the boat. It is to enter the water at the invitation of Jesus, in spite of what others are thinking, saying, fearing. It is to walk the impossible way towards him, in the full knowledge that you can’t get there on your own, but that you can count on Jesus to reach out and take a hold of you where you are, and lift you up and save you. It is to jump out of the boat where your fear traps you, and into the water where Jesus grasps you.
It is not that you will become someone who can do the impossible, but that the impossible grace of God will become real to you . . .
It’s not about success. It’s about faith. It’s not about stopping fear. It’s about not letting fear stop you. It’s about dying to death and rising to new life.
The little girl failed her swimming test that day. She made it across four times, flailing and gasping for air. She dragged herself out of the water on shaky arms, snagged her pink swimming suit on the cement deck, and tried to catch her breath. The life guard bent over and said, “You didn’t quite make it. But you will next time.”
And I did. For some reason, the next time, it was no big deal. And I’ve passed lots of swimming tests, and lots of other tests since then. But the one I remember is the one I failed. Because I was so afraid, and I jumped in anyway.
What is it that frightens, really frightens, us? What keeps us white knuckled clutching the sides of our little boat in the midst of the stormy sea?
As we celebrate the baptism of yet another little Christian, dying to the old life and entering the new, let’s ask ourselves what it would be like to live out our own baptism.
What would it take for us to say, “Jesus, if it’s really you, bid me come” ?
And to step out, into our deepest fears and enter the arms of our Savior?
August 10, 2008
Matthew 14:22-36
The little girl had hoped that her pink bathing suit, with the silver fish scales pattern would give her a graceful, mermaid look. But as she stood by the pool, and looked at her reflection, she was afraid that it just made her look like a pink, chubby fish. She listened for the teen age life guard, the very cutest one at the pool, to tell her she was a good swimmer and that she could do it. But, just as she feared, he explained the procedure without enthusiasm, “4 lengths of the pool. Crawl stroke. No hanging on the sides.” If she passed the test, she could swim in the deep end. But she was afraid she’d fail. She was afraid that anyone who was looking could see her heart just about beating out of her chest. Most of all, she was afraid of the water. She curled her toes over the edges of the pool. Beneath them the black tiles read 6 FT. Over her head. She was about to get in over her head. She tried to take a deep breath. But she couldn’t. The water was so deep. And the far side of the pool seemed like a mile away. She jumped in and the water closed over her. Her legs seemed to pull her down toward the drain. The water stung her eyes, and she shut them and swam, blindly, toward the far side. Don’t be a scaredy-cat, don’t be a scaredy-cat, don’t be a scaredy-cat, she tried to get into the rhythm. But it was no use. She was already too afraid.
Fear is a powerful thing.
In the Bible, water is a symbol of life – to be sure – but also a scary symbol of the opposite – of death. Water is a symbol of the things that are most fearful – losing control, losing order, losing orientation, losing power, losing life. Noah. The crossing the Red Sea. River Jordan.
Not surprisingly, the sea was a fearful place for the fishermen followers of Jesus. Even though they made their living on the sea, they knew the dangers of the open water. And they were justifiably afraid when they were out on the sea and the wind changed, a storm blew up and their ship was battered by the waves. Then, in an utterly inexplicable turn of events, the looked through the wind driven rain and the tossing waters and saw Jesus approaching them, walking on the water.
There was so much fear in that little boat. Matthew says that the disciples were “terrified” – a word he only uses one other time in the whole Gospel, to describe how Herod felt when he heard there was another King, born in Bethlehem. They were deeply afraid of what was happening to them, and what might happen to them in the future. Because, clearly, they were no longer in control. They did not hold their own lives in their own hands anymore. The storm, the wind, the waves. And then Jesus! And Jesus, far from calming their fears, seemed to be one of the things that frightened them the most. So much fear!
Then one of the disciples did something remarkable – He stepped back from his own emotional response to a threatening situation. He stepped away from the contagious fear of his friends. He stood up, despite years of training in how not to rock the boat. He threw his leg over the side and stepped out OUT into the rolling, unstable, dark and story sea. And, for just a moment, he walked toward Jesus.
Then, not surprisingly, he sank.
It’s not surprising that he sank. It’s surprising that he had the courage to walk.
It’s not surprising that he fell. It’s surprising that he attempted to answer Jesus’ call.
It’s not surprising that he failed to do what only Jesus could. It’s surprising that he took seriously what it means to be a disciple – to follow Jesus ANY WHERE Jesus may lead.
For just a moment, the call of Jesus Christ was undeniable, and one disciple answered – not with a faint “I will” or a promise in his heart or a pledge of financial support. One disciple got out of the rocking boat and set his feet into the waves. And when he did that – it didn’t matter that he fell, that he sank, that he failed. Because Jesus reached out his hand – immediately – and lifted him from the deep.
Jesus carried him in his arms, as a lifeguard carries a drowning man, or a mother carries an exhausted toddler, or a lover carries his bride across the threshold. Peter stepped out in fear and was carried home in faith.
To be baptized is to take that step out of the boat. It is to enter the water at the invitation of Jesus, in spite of what others are thinking, saying, fearing. It is to walk the impossible way towards him, in the full knowledge that you can’t get there on your own, but that you can count on Jesus to reach out and take a hold of you where you are, and lift you up and save you. It is to jump out of the boat where your fear traps you, and into the water where Jesus grasps you.
It is not that you will become someone who can do the impossible, but that the impossible grace of God will become real to you . . .
It’s not about success. It’s about faith. It’s not about stopping fear. It’s about not letting fear stop you. It’s about dying to death and rising to new life.
The little girl failed her swimming test that day. She made it across four times, flailing and gasping for air. She dragged herself out of the water on shaky arms, snagged her pink swimming suit on the cement deck, and tried to catch her breath. The life guard bent over and said, “You didn’t quite make it. But you will next time.”
And I did. For some reason, the next time, it was no big deal. And I’ve passed lots of swimming tests, and lots of other tests since then. But the one I remember is the one I failed. Because I was so afraid, and I jumped in anyway.
What is it that frightens, really frightens, us? What keeps us white knuckled clutching the sides of our little boat in the midst of the stormy sea?
As we celebrate the baptism of yet another little Christian, dying to the old life and entering the new, let’s ask ourselves what it would be like to live out our own baptism.
What would it take for us to say, “Jesus, if it’s really you, bid me come” ?
And to step out, into our deepest fears and enter the arms of our Savior?
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Sermon - Aug. 3
Matthew 14:
The Feeding of the Five Thousand
“5000. But Whose Counting”
The Feeding of the Five Thousand
“5000. But Whose Counting”
This picture is the scene for today's scripture/sermon.
I’m one of those who don’t count. When Jesus feed the crowd beside the sea in galilee, and the disciples were counting the people (One one thousand, two one thousand – five one thousand) they didn’t count me.
“There were five thousand. NOT COUNTING women and children.”
But even though I don’t count – I was there that day. I can give you an eye-witness ACCOUNTING of what happened. You can COUNT on that!
All right, maybe I didn’t see how it all started. I heard later that Jesus had taken a boat across from down the lake, trying to get some private time after he heard about the death of his cousin John. And the folks that had been with him saw where he was going and walked around the edge of the lake to meet him. From my garden, I heard the sound of the crowd down by the water. I looked across the field and saw the men passing by our little village. Where were they going? I wondered. So I wiped my hands on my apron and started in that direction. I got to the road before all the women and children had passed, and who should I see but Martha from down the road.
“What’s going on? Where are you going?” I asked.
She pointed to the lake. “We’re following Jesus”– she said, “You know, the prophet from Nazareth. He’s in a boat and some of the men think they know where he’s going to land. He’s been teaching about the kingdom of heaven like you’ve never heard it before, Suzanne. It’s crazy. Come with us and see for yourself.”
I fell in step with her, intending to walk just a little.
“What do you mean “crazy”? I have enough “craziness” in my life.”
“Yeah. But I don’t mean crazy crazy. I just mean “like you’ve never heard it before.” Like – he said the kingdom of God – bless his holy name – is like that infernal mustard that’s always invading our fields and gardens. Just a tiny start, Jesus says, and pretty soon you’ve got big problems.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“When you own the field, like the Romans own us, I guess it’s not so good. But what if we’re the mustard seed? See what I mean?”
By this time, she’s got me thinking, so I go along a little more.
“And he says the kingdom of God bless his holy name is like leaven that a woman kneads into the bread dough.”
“A woman? Leaven? Doesn’t he know not to talk about God bless his holy name with unclean things like women and leaven?”
“Of course, where would the men be without us to get a rise out of them?” she laughed at her own joke. “This Jesus totally gets that. Clean and unclean don’t seem to count with him. He’s got bigger fish to fry. Come on. You’ve got to hear this guy.”
So that’s how I ended up in the crowd that greeted Jesus when he stepped out of the boat. And I have to tell you, what I saw was awesome. Even though he must have been tired and disheartened and heart sick over the death of his cousin, Jesus didn’t send anybody away. He waded into the crowd and began healing them.
And lots of us needed healing. Including me. I’d gone that day feeling beat up by life. Picked apart. Pulled in a thousand different directions. Dis-abled when it came to making things better. I was heartsick and tired, tired, tired. But Jesus compassion healed me. How isn’t important. But being in his presence healed my heart and made me glad to be alive again.
It wasn’t just me. People around me- people I knew had been suffering lately – were up on their feet, smiling, greeting one another. I looked around for Martha, but she wasn’t around. It was getting late, and I wanted to start for home. But I didn’t want to go without telling the person who brought me “Thank you” for a wonderful day.
I pressed my way through the crowd, looking for my friend. “Martha!” I called. A young woman in blue told me that she’d seen Martha heading down toward the lake, so I turned in that direction. I pulled my head scarf more closely around my face as I passed by groups of men. Still no Martha. I lowered my eyes and pressed on, hoping to see her sandle.
That’s how I ended up right next to Jesus, as the disciples huddled around him. So I heard distinctly what each one of them said:
One of the disciples, maybe it was Peter, said, “Lord. It is getting late. The people are getting hungry and we’re out here in the sticks. Dismiss the crowd so they can make their way to villages around here and get themselves some food.”
That sounded like a good plan to me. And to the other disciples, too. I fully expected Jesus to give his blessing to the disciples suggestion.
But Jesus surprised them. He raised his bowed head, look around the circle of men, made them meet his eye – really – look at him. Then he shook his head. He disapproved. And he said, really slowly and really clearly: “You give them something to eat.”
There was a moment in which the disciples glanced sideways at each other, checking each other for an appropriate reaction. But no one could come up with one. Finally, two or three of them spoke at once – We don’t have enough to feed this crowd! Said one.
Look! There must be 5000 men on that hillside. Come on! Chimed in another.
We’ve got nothing, Jesus.
That’s right! We don’t have anything.
It was the one they call Judas who said that. He was holding a sack with their provisions in it. Jesus looked at it.
Well, at least we don’t have anything EXTRA.
We don’t have even enough for ourselves. You took off so fast, and I grabbed this little bag and it isn’t full and . . .
We have five loaves and two fish. Five thousand men. You do the math.
What difference would 5 loaves and two measly fish make here?
Don’t you get it? We have nothing. Barely enough to get by.
Not enough to share.
Not enough to meet their needs.
His protests petered out. Jesus continued to look around the circle.
He sighed. Bring your “nothing” to me.
Then Jesus turned to the crowd, got their attention and ordered everyone to sit down on the grass. Like lambs, they did it. I hurried back toward the women and children. It was easier to find Martha with everyone still, and I sat down beside her.
From a distance we saw Jesus take the loaves and the fish from his followers, lift his arms up to heaven. We heard him blessing Baruch adonai Elohim – Blessed art thou, O Lord, who brings forth bread from the earth. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples began to distribute them to the crowd.
Jesus, who had done so much that day, sat down. It was up to the disciples now.
The men were served first. We women sat and watched. A few of the ladies from my village wanted to get up and help. The disciples had a big job. Have you ever fed 5000 people? Or even 500? At my daughter’s wedding there were 150, and I thought I would never get to sit and eat. But I told those ladies to sit back down.
I said, “I think this is something Jesus wants his disciples to do. This is for those who follow Jesus. A sort of training, I think, to see what they have learned from following him all these months.”
We talked amongst ourselves as the disciples worked their way through the crowd. Every once in a while I glanced that way. Peter had rolled up his sleeves. The twin disciples chatted with folks in the crowd as he worked. Judas didn’t. It was interesting to see that after each group was served, the disciples were able to go on to the next. I kept watching to see when their supply would run out. But they made their way from group to group and the nothing they had seemed to turn into abundance in their wake.
When they finished with the men, they approached the crowds of women. A couple of the older ones held their backs – sore from bending down, extending their arms. It was work. I could tell that. But their hands were not yet empty. I’m not sure where all the food came from. The folks in group had plenty. And my portion was delicious. Satisfying.
By the time we were finished, the disciples had gone back to the men and started to clean up. That’s what gets you about a big meal, isn’t it? The clean up.
When they came around to get our left overs, we ribbed them a little. “I bet when you signed up to learn from Jesus, you didn’t expect advanced leftover removal – did you?” He didn’t mind our teasing, “Look at all this!” He said. “Can you believe how much food we served? Look! I didn’t think we even would have enough. But Jesus was right. There was more than enough. There was an abundance. And look around. Each one of us has a big basket full of scraps and crusts and broken pieces. We could feed even more!”
How many did you serve? Martha asked him.
Between the twelve of us . . . we counted nearly 5000 men. Not counting the women and children.
Aw, Martha, don’t believe him! I said. He can’t count! He thought that all he had was 5 loaves and two fishes. He just smiled and shook his head.
So you see – I don’t count. But I can count. And by my count, the “not enough” of the disciples + the blessing of Jesus = an abundance, a feast, a experience of the overwhelming grace of God- bless his holy name. What happened when Jesus said, “You give them something to eat” filled our stomachs for a day and our hearts for a lifetime. I wonder if a hungry world can still count on Jesus and his disciples
“There were five thousand. NOT COUNTING women and children.”
But even though I don’t count – I was there that day. I can give you an eye-witness ACCOUNTING of what happened. You can COUNT on that!
All right, maybe I didn’t see how it all started. I heard later that Jesus had taken a boat across from down the lake, trying to get some private time after he heard about the death of his cousin John. And the folks that had been with him saw where he was going and walked around the edge of the lake to meet him. From my garden, I heard the sound of the crowd down by the water. I looked across the field and saw the men passing by our little village. Where were they going? I wondered. So I wiped my hands on my apron and started in that direction. I got to the road before all the women and children had passed, and who should I see but Martha from down the road.
“What’s going on? Where are you going?” I asked.
She pointed to the lake. “We’re following Jesus”– she said, “You know, the prophet from Nazareth. He’s in a boat and some of the men think they know where he’s going to land. He’s been teaching about the kingdom of heaven like you’ve never heard it before, Suzanne. It’s crazy. Come with us and see for yourself.”
I fell in step with her, intending to walk just a little.
“What do you mean “crazy”? I have enough “craziness” in my life.”
“Yeah. But I don’t mean crazy crazy. I just mean “like you’ve never heard it before.” Like – he said the kingdom of God – bless his holy name – is like that infernal mustard that’s always invading our fields and gardens. Just a tiny start, Jesus says, and pretty soon you’ve got big problems.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“When you own the field, like the Romans own us, I guess it’s not so good. But what if we’re the mustard seed? See what I mean?”
By this time, she’s got me thinking, so I go along a little more.
“And he says the kingdom of God bless his holy name is like leaven that a woman kneads into the bread dough.”
“A woman? Leaven? Doesn’t he know not to talk about God bless his holy name with unclean things like women and leaven?”
“Of course, where would the men be without us to get a rise out of them?” she laughed at her own joke. “This Jesus totally gets that. Clean and unclean don’t seem to count with him. He’s got bigger fish to fry. Come on. You’ve got to hear this guy.”
So that’s how I ended up in the crowd that greeted Jesus when he stepped out of the boat. And I have to tell you, what I saw was awesome. Even though he must have been tired and disheartened and heart sick over the death of his cousin, Jesus didn’t send anybody away. He waded into the crowd and began healing them.
And lots of us needed healing. Including me. I’d gone that day feeling beat up by life. Picked apart. Pulled in a thousand different directions. Dis-abled when it came to making things better. I was heartsick and tired, tired, tired. But Jesus compassion healed me. How isn’t important. But being in his presence healed my heart and made me glad to be alive again.
It wasn’t just me. People around me- people I knew had been suffering lately – were up on their feet, smiling, greeting one another. I looked around for Martha, but she wasn’t around. It was getting late, and I wanted to start for home. But I didn’t want to go without telling the person who brought me “Thank you” for a wonderful day.
I pressed my way through the crowd, looking for my friend. “Martha!” I called. A young woman in blue told me that she’d seen Martha heading down toward the lake, so I turned in that direction. I pulled my head scarf more closely around my face as I passed by groups of men. Still no Martha. I lowered my eyes and pressed on, hoping to see her sandle.
That’s how I ended up right next to Jesus, as the disciples huddled around him. So I heard distinctly what each one of them said:
One of the disciples, maybe it was Peter, said, “Lord. It is getting late. The people are getting hungry and we’re out here in the sticks. Dismiss the crowd so they can make their way to villages around here and get themselves some food.”
That sounded like a good plan to me. And to the other disciples, too. I fully expected Jesus to give his blessing to the disciples suggestion.
But Jesus surprised them. He raised his bowed head, look around the circle of men, made them meet his eye – really – look at him. Then he shook his head. He disapproved. And he said, really slowly and really clearly: “You give them something to eat.”
There was a moment in which the disciples glanced sideways at each other, checking each other for an appropriate reaction. But no one could come up with one. Finally, two or three of them spoke at once – We don’t have enough to feed this crowd! Said one.
Look! There must be 5000 men on that hillside. Come on! Chimed in another.
We’ve got nothing, Jesus.
That’s right! We don’t have anything.
It was the one they call Judas who said that. He was holding a sack with their provisions in it. Jesus looked at it.
Well, at least we don’t have anything EXTRA.
We don’t have even enough for ourselves. You took off so fast, and I grabbed this little bag and it isn’t full and . . .
We have five loaves and two fish. Five thousand men. You do the math.
What difference would 5 loaves and two measly fish make here?
Don’t you get it? We have nothing. Barely enough to get by.
Not enough to share.
Not enough to meet their needs.
His protests petered out. Jesus continued to look around the circle.
He sighed. Bring your “nothing” to me.
Then Jesus turned to the crowd, got their attention and ordered everyone to sit down on the grass. Like lambs, they did it. I hurried back toward the women and children. It was easier to find Martha with everyone still, and I sat down beside her.
From a distance we saw Jesus take the loaves and the fish from his followers, lift his arms up to heaven. We heard him blessing Baruch adonai Elohim – Blessed art thou, O Lord, who brings forth bread from the earth. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples began to distribute them to the crowd.
Jesus, who had done so much that day, sat down. It was up to the disciples now.
The men were served first. We women sat and watched. A few of the ladies from my village wanted to get up and help. The disciples had a big job. Have you ever fed 5000 people? Or even 500? At my daughter’s wedding there were 150, and I thought I would never get to sit and eat. But I told those ladies to sit back down.
I said, “I think this is something Jesus wants his disciples to do. This is for those who follow Jesus. A sort of training, I think, to see what they have learned from following him all these months.”
We talked amongst ourselves as the disciples worked their way through the crowd. Every once in a while I glanced that way. Peter had rolled up his sleeves. The twin disciples chatted with folks in the crowd as he worked. Judas didn’t. It was interesting to see that after each group was served, the disciples were able to go on to the next. I kept watching to see when their supply would run out. But they made their way from group to group and the nothing they had seemed to turn into abundance in their wake.
When they finished with the men, they approached the crowds of women. A couple of the older ones held their backs – sore from bending down, extending their arms. It was work. I could tell that. But their hands were not yet empty. I’m not sure where all the food came from. The folks in group had plenty. And my portion was delicious. Satisfying.
By the time we were finished, the disciples had gone back to the men and started to clean up. That’s what gets you about a big meal, isn’t it? The clean up.
When they came around to get our left overs, we ribbed them a little. “I bet when you signed up to learn from Jesus, you didn’t expect advanced leftover removal – did you?” He didn’t mind our teasing, “Look at all this!” He said. “Can you believe how much food we served? Look! I didn’t think we even would have enough. But Jesus was right. There was more than enough. There was an abundance. And look around. Each one of us has a big basket full of scraps and crusts and broken pieces. We could feed even more!”
How many did you serve? Martha asked him.
Between the twelve of us . . . we counted nearly 5000 men. Not counting the women and children.
Aw, Martha, don’t believe him! I said. He can’t count! He thought that all he had was 5 loaves and two fishes. He just smiled and shook his head.
So you see – I don’t count. But I can count. And by my count, the “not enough” of the disciples + the blessing of Jesus = an abundance, a feast, a experience of the overwhelming grace of God- bless his holy name. What happened when Jesus said, “You give them something to eat” filled our stomachs for a day and our hearts for a lifetime. I wonder if a hungry world can still count on Jesus and his disciples
Monday, July 21, 2008
This is Sunday before last's sermon.
Jesus had two "Sower" stories together. This is the first. The second one is the text for the 8/20 sermon.
July 13,2008
“What a Waste”
Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23
Parable of the Sower
Planting technology is amazing to me. How many of us drove by a corn field on the way to church this morning? And how many of us know how some of that corn gets planted? It’s amazing! Lots of tractors now have something that looks like a GPS (global position system) monitor in them. I have one of those on my phone, and we used it to navigate on the mission trip. Mine can navigating unfamiliar cities or find the closest McDonalds. The farm GPS however, does something even more amazing: it tells the planter where to plant. Not only that, with one more gadget attached it can actually drive the tractor to and on the rows themselves.The benefit here? Nothing is wasted. The GPS, guided by satellites, knows exactly where every seed is planted within one inch of its actual location. With the location of every single seed known, where to apply fertilizer or pesticides become more exact. What the seed needs to grow successfully can be delivered EXACTLY to where the seed lies in the field. Nothing gets wasted. Because waste is the enemy.
Scientific studies are done to figure out how far apart rows should be. Whether planting 15 inches apart is better than 30 inches apart. Is the decrease in yield per plant and the increased number of seed offset by the greater number of plants? The land shouldn’t go to waste, either. It’s valuable, too. The goal is to get as close to complete efficiency as possible.
Efficiency. Minimal waste. Most effective strategies for maximizing resources. These are some of the values that guide farming practices today. Contrast our super efficient, minimally wasteful farmer with the guy Jesus talks about in our scripture lesson today. The sower in Jesus’ parable is the model of complete inefficiency. He’s throwing those seeds everywhere: On the path, in the weeds, on the rocks! What in the world? What a waste! What is going on in this parable??OK. Full stop. When I read the lesson this week, I had to remind myself of what we know about parables. The word parable means “riddle”. It is a story that contains something that you have to figure out. It’s a puzzle, sort of. It pulls you in and makes you examine what you thought you knew – to see it in a different way.
On the trip, another leader challenged us with this very unspiritual – completely silly riddle: What can you take through my green glass door? I can take a tree, but I can’t take a stick. I can take some grass, but I can’t take my lawn. And you had to figure out what the rule was for figuring out what could and couldn’t go. I could take food, but I couldn’t take drink. I could take a dinner, but not a lunch. Can you see the rule? I know I took a risk using that illustration, because you may spend the rest of the service trying to figure out that parable/riddle instead of the one from the bible. But I had to take a chance. Because when you figure it out – it’s very easy. It makes perfect sense. But you have to look at things differently. In silly parables, you see something trivial differently.
But Jesus’ parables are spiritually rich and deep. They make us see the world/God/ourselves differently. Jesus was a master of using parables to help his listeners get beyond what they were sure of, and to be pulled under the surface, into the depth and breadth of the grace and mercy of God.
A parable requires that the hearer respond. The only way to know if you had figured out the green glass door was to offer – I could take coffee, but I can’t take tea. Jesus’ parables often leave the conclusion up to the hearer.
A parable is a story with an unexpected twist - where something unexpected happens – like in this Parable, in which the farmer, with a wanton disregard for efficiency, scatter his precious agricultural input across a field that was not prepared, was not weeded, a lot of which was not even good crop land to begin with, wasting the seed, wasting his effort, wasting his money, wasting his time.
But . . . and this is important: Why this parable? What’s the situation that Jesus is trying to get people, trying to get US - to see differently with this parable?
Part of the answer we can figure out by looking in the previous chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. By the time we reach chapter 13 in Matthew’s Gospel – Matthew’s account of Jesus’ ministry – we find out that lots and lots of people were not “getting” the Gospel that he came to share. And they were rejecting – at first just a little bit, but by this point really A LOT – of what Jesus had to say. In fact, they were rejecting Jesus.
How could that be? How could it be that Jesus could travel around the countryside, preaching love and forgiveness, performing acts of kindness and healing, instructing a very religious people in how to grow closer to God . . . and be so completely rejected by the folks he loves and serves? I mean he can’t do anything right! Open your Bibles to Chapter 12. His disciples pick grain, and the Pharisees say – “That’s against the law on the Sabbath!” The same day, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand, and even explains that his legal precedent for doing so, and the legalists – look at verse 14 – they went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. Next, Jesus heals a blind, mute man, and the Pharisees say that he must be using devil worship to accomplish these miracles. They go from correcting him, to refusing to listen to him, to conspiring to destroy him, to accusing him of Satanism, which is about as far from what Jesus was about as you could possibly get. The disciples have to wonder? How did this happen? Why did Jesus get rejected by so many, so powerful people?
This parable is, in part, Jesus’ answer. And it’s not a sociological critique of power structures, or conflicting expectations or anything reasonable and superficial like that. Instead of addressing the surface of the issue, Jesus tells a story to pull the disciples under the surface and into a deeper understanding of what the world and of God.
Look, he says, A sower went out . . . and the disciples still don’t get it. So Jesus spells it out (this is a parable where Jesus explains himself. So we should pay close attention. This is a “gimee”) –
Jesus says, I get rejected because some people are hard, like a path, and my message can’t sink in. Some people are shallow, like the thin, rocky places. They don’t develop any depth of faith. Some people let the ambitions and cares of the world crowd out their spiritual commitments. But BUT BUT !!!, Jesus says, that is not the whole story. Because some of the seed falls on good ground. Some people do listen, some people do respond, some people do sink deep roots in the Word of God, some manage to rise above the cares of the world. And those people thrive! They drink deep from the living water and raise their heads to the Sun of God, and they blossom and cross-pollinate and bear much fruit. Their harvest – 30, 60, or 100 new kernels of grain - kernels of new life - makes the Sower’s heart glad. And for the sake of that harvest, God sent Jesus into the world.
Did God “sow” the word of New Life in the most efficient manner possible?
I think we can agree that God did not. Jesus could have spread the word much more efficiently if he’d had the mass media to broadcast his sermon on the mount to millions. Instead, he wasted all those good stories on a few dozen, a few thousand – what a waste!
Wouldn’t it have been better to pick more powerful and influential disciples, instead of wasting all that wisdom on a bunch of fishermen and what not? What if he’d gone straight to Rome and converted Ceaser instead of Simon Peter. Wouldn’t that have been a better use of his time?
He only had three years of ministry, and so much of that was wasted, walking from town to town. If God had valued efficiency as much as we do, he would have equipped Jesus with a nice 12 passenger van.
And maybe that’s the deeper twist to this parable – maybe that’s the more profound riddle Jesus hopes that we will figure out: That God’s way is to broadcast widely and indiscriminately his love and his mercy and his grace. God is a Sower who, without any apparent concern for efficiency, generously – abundantly – sows the world with great cascading handfuls of grace. He sows without judgment of who will receive it, who will reject it, or who needs it most. God’s way doesn’t wait until the weeds are pulled, the earth is turned, or the rains have fallen before grace is sown in our lives. God says, Ready or not,
receptive or not,
responsive or not – here I come.
And if my love is sometimes wasted – if people don’t, or can’t respond - that’s the price that I am willing to pay for those that do take root and flourish. For the sake of those who do respond, I am willing to be wasted. That’s the kind of God I am.
And, if God is so intent on spreading his love and grace widely and abundantly . . . does that challenge the careful, cost-effective, calculating way we tend to go at it? Mary Simon and I talked about this often last week in Benton Harbor. We have all these kids, and all these adults, out doing all this stuff . . . but are we wasting our time? Is it really worth the time and effort and expense to have a 3 or 4 dozen old people in a nursing home have someone pay attention to them? Does it really make any difference to those kids at the Boys and Girls Club if some white kids from rural Illinois show up to make bead necklaces and play basketball with them? Mary and I both have advanced degrees and years of experience – should we be sorting through used clothes in the basement of an Emergency Shelter? Isn’t that a waste of resources, somehow? Isn’t taking kids all the way to Benton Harbor to work with poor people wasteful when we have poor people a lot closer to home?
Those are legitimate questions. And Mary and I puzzled over them some this week. But by the week’s end, it seems to me, God had opened our minds and our hearts to a different kind of answer: We “got it” - our answer- in the deeper faith, and the wider compassion and the more tender mercy clearly evident in the lives of the young people who offered themselves to others in God’s name. They experienced the pain and the power of serving others first hand. And they don’t want to stop. These young men and women were willing to be used by God to spread his love – even if some of the love was wasted - some of it was not. And the effort wasn’t wasted on them.
What they did was not precision planting technology. But every morning they got up and prayed for courage and put a smile on their face and went out there and showed in their deeds and their words and their servant attitudes the love of God to a waiting world. And when I looked at them I know as surely as I know my own name that some of the seed fell on good ground and brought forth grain – some a hundred fold. Let anyone with ears, listen.
“What a Waste”
Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23
Parable of the Sower
Planting technology is amazing to me. How many of us drove by a corn field on the way to church this morning? And how many of us know how some of that corn gets planted? It’s amazing! Lots of tractors now have something that looks like a GPS (global position system) monitor in them. I have one of those on my phone, and we used it to navigate on the mission trip. Mine can navigating unfamiliar cities or find the closest McDonalds. The farm GPS however, does something even more amazing: it tells the planter where to plant. Not only that, with one more gadget attached it can actually drive the tractor to and on the rows themselves.The benefit here? Nothing is wasted. The GPS, guided by satellites, knows exactly where every seed is planted within one inch of its actual location. With the location of every single seed known, where to apply fertilizer or pesticides become more exact. What the seed needs to grow successfully can be delivered EXACTLY to where the seed lies in the field. Nothing gets wasted. Because waste is the enemy.
Scientific studies are done to figure out how far apart rows should be. Whether planting 15 inches apart is better than 30 inches apart. Is the decrease in yield per plant and the increased number of seed offset by the greater number of plants? The land shouldn’t go to waste, either. It’s valuable, too. The goal is to get as close to complete efficiency as possible.
Efficiency. Minimal waste. Most effective strategies for maximizing resources. These are some of the values that guide farming practices today. Contrast our super efficient, minimally wasteful farmer with the guy Jesus talks about in our scripture lesson today. The sower in Jesus’ parable is the model of complete inefficiency. He’s throwing those seeds everywhere: On the path, in the weeds, on the rocks! What in the world? What a waste! What is going on in this parable??OK. Full stop. When I read the lesson this week, I had to remind myself of what we know about parables. The word parable means “riddle”. It is a story that contains something that you have to figure out. It’s a puzzle, sort of. It pulls you in and makes you examine what you thought you knew – to see it in a different way.
On the trip, another leader challenged us with this very unspiritual – completely silly riddle: What can you take through my green glass door? I can take a tree, but I can’t take a stick. I can take some grass, but I can’t take my lawn. And you had to figure out what the rule was for figuring out what could and couldn’t go. I could take food, but I couldn’t take drink. I could take a dinner, but not a lunch. Can you see the rule? I know I took a risk using that illustration, because you may spend the rest of the service trying to figure out that parable/riddle instead of the one from the bible. But I had to take a chance. Because when you figure it out – it’s very easy. It makes perfect sense. But you have to look at things differently. In silly parables, you see something trivial differently.
But Jesus’ parables are spiritually rich and deep. They make us see the world/God/ourselves differently. Jesus was a master of using parables to help his listeners get beyond what they were sure of, and to be pulled under the surface, into the depth and breadth of the grace and mercy of God.
A parable requires that the hearer respond. The only way to know if you had figured out the green glass door was to offer – I could take coffee, but I can’t take tea. Jesus’ parables often leave the conclusion up to the hearer.
A parable is a story with an unexpected twist - where something unexpected happens – like in this Parable, in which the farmer, with a wanton disregard for efficiency, scatter his precious agricultural input across a field that was not prepared, was not weeded, a lot of which was not even good crop land to begin with, wasting the seed, wasting his effort, wasting his money, wasting his time.
But . . . and this is important: Why this parable? What’s the situation that Jesus is trying to get people, trying to get US - to see differently with this parable?
Part of the answer we can figure out by looking in the previous chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. By the time we reach chapter 13 in Matthew’s Gospel – Matthew’s account of Jesus’ ministry – we find out that lots and lots of people were not “getting” the Gospel that he came to share. And they were rejecting – at first just a little bit, but by this point really A LOT – of what Jesus had to say. In fact, they were rejecting Jesus.
How could that be? How could it be that Jesus could travel around the countryside, preaching love and forgiveness, performing acts of kindness and healing, instructing a very religious people in how to grow closer to God . . . and be so completely rejected by the folks he loves and serves? I mean he can’t do anything right! Open your Bibles to Chapter 12. His disciples pick grain, and the Pharisees say – “That’s against the law on the Sabbath!” The same day, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand, and even explains that his legal precedent for doing so, and the legalists – look at verse 14 – they went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. Next, Jesus heals a blind, mute man, and the Pharisees say that he must be using devil worship to accomplish these miracles. They go from correcting him, to refusing to listen to him, to conspiring to destroy him, to accusing him of Satanism, which is about as far from what Jesus was about as you could possibly get. The disciples have to wonder? How did this happen? Why did Jesus get rejected by so many, so powerful people?
This parable is, in part, Jesus’ answer. And it’s not a sociological critique of power structures, or conflicting expectations or anything reasonable and superficial like that. Instead of addressing the surface of the issue, Jesus tells a story to pull the disciples under the surface and into a deeper understanding of what the world and of God.
Look, he says, A sower went out . . . and the disciples still don’t get it. So Jesus spells it out (this is a parable where Jesus explains himself. So we should pay close attention. This is a “gimee”) –
Jesus says, I get rejected because some people are hard, like a path, and my message can’t sink in. Some people are shallow, like the thin, rocky places. They don’t develop any depth of faith. Some people let the ambitions and cares of the world crowd out their spiritual commitments. But BUT BUT !!!, Jesus says, that is not the whole story. Because some of the seed falls on good ground. Some people do listen, some people do respond, some people do sink deep roots in the Word of God, some manage to rise above the cares of the world. And those people thrive! They drink deep from the living water and raise their heads to the Sun of God, and they blossom and cross-pollinate and bear much fruit. Their harvest – 30, 60, or 100 new kernels of grain - kernels of new life - makes the Sower’s heart glad. And for the sake of that harvest, God sent Jesus into the world.
Did God “sow” the word of New Life in the most efficient manner possible?
I think we can agree that God did not. Jesus could have spread the word much more efficiently if he’d had the mass media to broadcast his sermon on the mount to millions. Instead, he wasted all those good stories on a few dozen, a few thousand – what a waste!
Wouldn’t it have been better to pick more powerful and influential disciples, instead of wasting all that wisdom on a bunch of fishermen and what not? What if he’d gone straight to Rome and converted Ceaser instead of Simon Peter. Wouldn’t that have been a better use of his time?
He only had three years of ministry, and so much of that was wasted, walking from town to town. If God had valued efficiency as much as we do, he would have equipped Jesus with a nice 12 passenger van.
And maybe that’s the deeper twist to this parable – maybe that’s the more profound riddle Jesus hopes that we will figure out: That God’s way is to broadcast widely and indiscriminately his love and his mercy and his grace. God is a Sower who, without any apparent concern for efficiency, generously – abundantly – sows the world with great cascading handfuls of grace. He sows without judgment of who will receive it, who will reject it, or who needs it most. God’s way doesn’t wait until the weeds are pulled, the earth is turned, or the rains have fallen before grace is sown in our lives. God says, Ready or not,
receptive or not,
responsive or not – here I come.
And if my love is sometimes wasted – if people don’t, or can’t respond - that’s the price that I am willing to pay for those that do take root and flourish. For the sake of those who do respond, I am willing to be wasted. That’s the kind of God I am.
And, if God is so intent on spreading his love and grace widely and abundantly . . . does that challenge the careful, cost-effective, calculating way we tend to go at it? Mary Simon and I talked about this often last week in Benton Harbor. We have all these kids, and all these adults, out doing all this stuff . . . but are we wasting our time? Is it really worth the time and effort and expense to have a 3 or 4 dozen old people in a nursing home have someone pay attention to them? Does it really make any difference to those kids at the Boys and Girls Club if some white kids from rural Illinois show up to make bead necklaces and play basketball with them? Mary and I both have advanced degrees and years of experience – should we be sorting through used clothes in the basement of an Emergency Shelter? Isn’t that a waste of resources, somehow? Isn’t taking kids all the way to Benton Harbor to work with poor people wasteful when we have poor people a lot closer to home?
Those are legitimate questions. And Mary and I puzzled over them some this week. But by the week’s end, it seems to me, God had opened our minds and our hearts to a different kind of answer: We “got it” - our answer- in the deeper faith, and the wider compassion and the more tender mercy clearly evident in the lives of the young people who offered themselves to others in God’s name. They experienced the pain and the power of serving others first hand. And they don’t want to stop. These young men and women were willing to be used by God to spread his love – even if some of the love was wasted - some of it was not. And the effort wasn’t wasted on them.
What they did was not precision planting technology. But every morning they got up and prayed for courage and put a smile on their face and went out there and showed in their deeds and their words and their servant attitudes the love of God to a waiting world. And when I looked at them I know as surely as I know my own name that some of the seed fell on good ground and brought forth grain – some a hundred fold. Let anyone with ears, listen.
July 20 Sermon - Weeds: To Whack or Not to Whack?
July 20 Sermon
Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43
Weeds: To Whack or not to Whack?
It has certainly been a good year for weeds! Have you noticed? Creeping Charlie, dandelions, crab grass, nut grass, violets, clover, fox tail, Johnson grass – ouch! – I can see some of the farmers and gardeners in the congregation beginning to twitch! And that’s just in my yard.
Weeds are doing really well this year! There are all kinds of weeds – “weed” is really what we call anything that is growing in a place where we don’t want it to grow. For instance, a couple of years ago, a little bit of creeping Jenny escaped from the water garden where I had placed it and rooted in the ground. There is now a four by four patch in the garden covered with the stuff. Pretty, but obviously plotting a romantic reunion with her boyfriend Creeping Charlie. I’m trying to chaperon, but they are determined and they get together despite my watchfulness.
You know, once Jesus told a story about weeds. Matthew puts it right in the same chapter as the parable about the Sower who threw his good seed about with such wild abandon. Here’s another story about a farmer with . . . unexpected growing practices:
He sows good seed (Jesus later explains that He is the sower. And that the good seed are the children of the kingdom - those who listen to him and grow in relationship to Him.) And an enemy (Jesus says this is the Evil One) comes in the night and sows bad seed – weed seed – which are children of evil. And these seeds also germinate and grow. So the hired hands of the man who owns the field come to him and say, “Wow. We’ve got trouble! There are weeds growing out there.” And they ask some questions, “Are you sure the seed you sowed was pure? Was there something the matter with your seed? And if you did sow good seed, where did these weeds come from?”
OK. That’s exactly the question we wish God would answer. God, if you intended this world to be a beautiful garden or good and wholesome growth, then what is with the evil in this world? I can see that you created Mother Teresa and my boy. But where did Hitler come from? Or the kid that bullies my kid at school? If you knit me together in the womb, like it says in Psalm 139, what about the fetus with Down’s syndrome? Where did that come from? What’s with this bad stuff growing alongside the good in the world? What about evil in the world?
Being it in a little closer to home: What about the church, God? Matthew’s Gospel was written to address the concerns and questions of the early church. And the early church was already asking the kinds of questions that churches are still asking: What about these people who come to church and they don’t believe quite like I do. Or live quite like I do? I’m not sure they belong in this field. I mean church. I don’t think they really are the same kind of plant as me. What are they doing here? What about bad seed in the church?
Bring it even closer now: What about me, O God? I’m trying to follow your way. I’m wanting to give my heart to you. But here in my heart I still find greed, and anger sometimes. I’m still battling selfishness. Self-righteousness rears it’s ugly head. Are you sure I’m good seed? What about the bad things still in heart and soul?
And to these questions, the Sower offers only the simplest, most basic answer – in fact it is not even an answer – it is just a statement of fact: An enemy has done this. That’s the way it is. Why is there evil in the world? In the church? In me? God just says, “It’s not what I wanted. But there it is. Both of us are going to have to deal with it.”
Ah Ha! Deal with it!! YES!
In the parable, the sower's helpers want to immediately rush out and DO SOMETHING! about those evil weeds. “We’ll head right out with our garden gloves and our sprayers of round-up and get rid of those nasty things! Don’t worry, God, we’re on the job! We’ll handle this! Just you watch! We’ll yank those weeds out of the garden faster than you can say, “glyphisate resistance”. Yee Haw, Round-up cowboys! Here we go!”
Over and over again throughout history, the so-called “helpers” have rushed in to whack the weeds of the world, the weeds in the church, and the weeds inside each human heart. In the world, that’s how crusades happen. Someone says, “Let’s rid the Holy Land of the Infidels!” Let’s whack ‘em!
In the church, That’s how schism happens.
On A Prairie Home Companion radio show, Garrison Keillor talks about how difficult it is to form a choir in the Church of the Sanctified Brethren, the mythical denomination in which he grew up. He says that anytime they got beyond enough members to form a mixed quartet, they'd discover some point in Scripture to disagree on and would split rather than tolerate false doctrine.
Keillor remembers envying the large choirs of Lutheran churches. But he didn’t think it was possible to have that many people sing together without having at least one person, most likely a soprano or tenor, guilty of unconfessed sin or of not toeing the official line on some theological point. (From The Lutheran, Feb 2005, an article by Keith Gatling)
It’s funny. But not too funny.
On a personal level, whacking weeds is how emotional repression and uncontrollable rage happen. One of you sent me a funny story about that this week about someone who wanted to be good, and must have really thought she had her weeds eliminated, but . . . then something happened. At a traffic light. A man was stopped, waiting for the light to turn green. When the light changed, he was distracted and he didn't budge. The woman in the car behind him honked her horn. He still didn't move. She honked again. By this time, she was pounding on the steering wheel and blowing her horn non-stop. Finally, just as the light turned yellow, the fellow in the first car woke up and drove through the light. The woman in the second car was beside herself. Still mid-rant, she heard a tap on her car window. She looked up to see the face of a police officer. "Lady, you're under arrest," he said. "Get out of the car. Put your hands up." He took her license, registration, had her sit in the back of the patrol car for a long, long time. Finally, he let her go. "Sorry for the mistake, Lady," he said. "But I pulled up behind you as you were blowing your horn and cursing out the fellow in front of you. I noticed the stickers on your bumper. One read "Follow me to Sunday School." The other, "What Would Jesus Do?" So, naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.
See? She thought she had her weeds under control until she discovered a cockle-burr under her saddle . . .
When we discover that weeds are growing alongside the precious wheat, we want to do root it out! Blast it with herbicide! Yank it up! But the sower says, “Not so fast, you guys! If you yank out the weeds, you’ll also uproot the wheat.”
And here’s the key to this parable: The difference between seed and wheat is not so easy as we sometimes think. The kind of weed Jesus describes in the story is “zizania”. Today it is called “darnel” wheat. This is a very particular type of weed that looks just like wheat as it is growing up. It still grows plentifully in Syria and Palestine. It looks like wheat, it appears like wheat but it is not wheat. But it’s difficult – indeed impossible to distinguish for sure which plant is which as it is growing.
God says, “Don’t go week whacking in my field! You can’t be sure about the difference between the wheat and the weeds – the good stuff and the bad. And I don’t want you harming the new life that I’ve started in this field.”
Now, that’s a disappointing response, isn’t it? We’d like God to congratulate us on our zeal. We’d like him to cheer for us as we wade into the field to do battle with the forces of evil. We’d like him to recognize what great little workers we are, and say, “Well done, good and faithful weed whacker.”
But God, the Sower, the Owner of the field that is the world, says, no. Don’t you try to fix this for me. We’re both going to sit here and wait. Because at this point, none of my helpers has a lock on what is wheat and what is weed. And, who knows, what looks like weeds today may turn out to be wheat sometime in the future.
I want to tell you a little story about that: It’s not my story, but it’s from a pastor in Kansas – which is, of course, my personal Holy Land. Rev. Pamela J. Tinnin was pastor of Partridge Community Church-UCC, the only church in Partridge, KS, USA (population 250) when this happened. Here’s her story:
“Last week I spent some time in the waiting room of a social service agency in Hutchinson. Except for the large woman with bright red hair who sat behind the desk, there was only one other person there, a thin woman who looked to be in her early forties. In blue jeans worn white at the knees and a sleeveless cotton blouse, she looked tired, her eyes sunk deep in the sockets, her hair lying in damp curls. I was waiting to talk to one of the staff people about a project I’m trying to organize, a volunteer chaplaincy program for people who find themselves homeless and in dire straits.
Glancing over, I saw that the woman was looking out the window at the street, her eyes sad, her hands held still in her lap, her feet in the scuffed tennis shoes side-by-side, flat on the floor.
I picked up a year old Readers Digest and began flipping through the pages. To be honest, at that moment, I didn’t have the energy to take on anyone else’s problems and she looked like problems came in the door with her. Early that morning I’d had some bad news from California. Pretending to read, all I could think of was how little I could do for the woman sitting across from me, much less my family, almost 2,000 miles away.
Just then a whispery, rough voice said, “Are you in trouble?” I looked up, and then behind me, thinking the slender woman was talking to someone else, someone who’d come in when I wasn’t looking. But when I turned back she was still waiting for me to answer. “Me?” I asked. “In trouble?”
She ducked her head then, like she was embarrassed, but answered. “Your face…you look like something bad has happened…like you feel really lost.”
I couldn’t speak for a minute and could feel myself flush with shame, me thinking all the time she had wanted something from me. Then to my surprise, I told her what had happened, told her how hopeless I felt, told her how more than anything I kept hoping for a miracle. She moved closer and sat down in the next chair. She told me not to give up hope, that miracles do happen. “About five or six years ago I got into smokin’ dope; then it was cocaine and meth…my husband left me…then he went to court and took my kids away,” she said. “I thought my world had come to an end…I didn’t believe in anything…not my family or friends…not even God,” she said, and smiled a funny smile that only curved one side of her mouth.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept quiet and patted her arm.
“But you know, just when I’d almost given up, I met some folks who gave me another chance,” she said. “They gave me a place to live; helped me get a job. Pretty soon, I’m gonna get my own place…try to get my kids back, least part of the time. Don’t you worry,” she said, “things work out.”
And she tipped her head then and winked. “This is a hard old world,” she said. “We got to be there for each other. Don’t you think that’s the good Lord’s plan for things?”
Just then a woman in a suit, a clipboard in her hand, came through the door and said, “Mrs. Holcomb?”
The woman in the worn jeans stood, reached down and slung an old blue backpack onto her shoulder. She stepped past me, then turned back and hugged me hard. I could smell the shampoo she’d used.
“Good luck,” I told her, “and thank you…thank you.”
She walked away and I sat there thinking how easy it is to look at someone and not even see who she is. You can never tell. . .
We can’t always tell. And we can’t ever tell for sure, who is the good seed that God has sown. Or that the weeds won’t turn out to be wheat, by God’s grace, some day. All we can do is wait.
Wait. Wait until the crop bears fruit. Wait until the wheat has reached maturity. Wait until the harvest. And THEN . . .
Jesus says, you won’t have to do a thing. I have a crack crew of reapers coming in. And they know what to do. (The hired hands drop out of the story at this point, do you see that? They think they are going to save the day, but they don’t even make it to the end of the story. It’s not about them!)
You see, when the grain reaches maturity at harvest, the seed heads of the bearded darnel – the weed – are not heavy, and the stalk continues to stand upright, while the stalk of the wheat bows under the heavy weight of that crop. At the end of the season – which Jesus says is the end of time – in other words, what we call “Judgment Day” – there won’t be any trouble distinguishing between the weeds and the wheat.
Then the weeds, proudly waving in the breeze, will be gathered first. And, in a cool turn of the story, they will become kindling for the sower’s fire. The very thing the Evil One meant to be a hindrance and to cause damage ends up being gathered up and taken to be used by the Sower of the seed.
That’s how I understand the bit about throwing the weeds into the furnace of fire. Now if you want to think that that part is about evil doers burning in hell, well . . . have at it. You could make that case. But that’s not how I read it. I read it to mean that, in the end, it IS possible – at least it is possible for God – to tell the evil from the good.
In the end, the truth will come out.
And the weeds do not win.
They do not ruin the harvest.
They do not bankrupt the farm.
In the end, they just provide a little fuel for the fire. Even the weeds get put to good use by God.
But the righteous! Ah, the righteous! They are gathered into God’s own barn where they will be safe and secure. And where – wonder of wonder – Jesus says, “They will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father!”
And that’s where we want to be. Good grain, shining like the sun, safe with God. And we can be. We will be. But in order to be, we have to resist the temptation to take the role of overzealous weed whackers. We have to be content to be good seed, to do the best we can, growing alongside the weeds. That good seed is promised an eternity with God. Shining. Shining like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
Let anyone with ears – or weeds – listen!
Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43
Weeds: To Whack or not to Whack?
It has certainly been a good year for weeds! Have you noticed? Creeping Charlie, dandelions, crab grass, nut grass, violets, clover, fox tail, Johnson grass – ouch! – I can see some of the farmers and gardeners in the congregation beginning to twitch! And that’s just in my yard.
Weeds are doing really well this year! There are all kinds of weeds – “weed” is really what we call anything that is growing in a place where we don’t want it to grow. For instance, a couple of years ago, a little bit of creeping Jenny escaped from the water garden where I had placed it and rooted in the ground. There is now a four by four patch in the garden covered with the stuff. Pretty, but obviously plotting a romantic reunion with her boyfriend Creeping Charlie. I’m trying to chaperon, but they are determined and they get together despite my watchfulness.
You know, once Jesus told a story about weeds. Matthew puts it right in the same chapter as the parable about the Sower who threw his good seed about with such wild abandon. Here’s another story about a farmer with . . . unexpected growing practices:
He sows good seed (Jesus later explains that He is the sower. And that the good seed are the children of the kingdom - those who listen to him and grow in relationship to Him.) And an enemy (Jesus says this is the Evil One) comes in the night and sows bad seed – weed seed – which are children of evil. And these seeds also germinate and grow. So the hired hands of the man who owns the field come to him and say, “Wow. We’ve got trouble! There are weeds growing out there.” And they ask some questions, “Are you sure the seed you sowed was pure? Was there something the matter with your seed? And if you did sow good seed, where did these weeds come from?”
OK. That’s exactly the question we wish God would answer. God, if you intended this world to be a beautiful garden or good and wholesome growth, then what is with the evil in this world? I can see that you created Mother Teresa and my boy. But where did Hitler come from? Or the kid that bullies my kid at school? If you knit me together in the womb, like it says in Psalm 139, what about the fetus with Down’s syndrome? Where did that come from? What’s with this bad stuff growing alongside the good in the world? What about evil in the world?
Being it in a little closer to home: What about the church, God? Matthew’s Gospel was written to address the concerns and questions of the early church. And the early church was already asking the kinds of questions that churches are still asking: What about these people who come to church and they don’t believe quite like I do. Or live quite like I do? I’m not sure they belong in this field. I mean church. I don’t think they really are the same kind of plant as me. What are they doing here? What about bad seed in the church?
Bring it even closer now: What about me, O God? I’m trying to follow your way. I’m wanting to give my heart to you. But here in my heart I still find greed, and anger sometimes. I’m still battling selfishness. Self-righteousness rears it’s ugly head. Are you sure I’m good seed? What about the bad things still in heart and soul?
And to these questions, the Sower offers only the simplest, most basic answer – in fact it is not even an answer – it is just a statement of fact: An enemy has done this. That’s the way it is. Why is there evil in the world? In the church? In me? God just says, “It’s not what I wanted. But there it is. Both of us are going to have to deal with it.”
Ah Ha! Deal with it!! YES!
In the parable, the sower's helpers want to immediately rush out and DO SOMETHING! about those evil weeds. “We’ll head right out with our garden gloves and our sprayers of round-up and get rid of those nasty things! Don’t worry, God, we’re on the job! We’ll handle this! Just you watch! We’ll yank those weeds out of the garden faster than you can say, “glyphisate resistance”. Yee Haw, Round-up cowboys! Here we go!”
Over and over again throughout history, the so-called “helpers” have rushed in to whack the weeds of the world, the weeds in the church, and the weeds inside each human heart. In the world, that’s how crusades happen. Someone says, “Let’s rid the Holy Land of the Infidels!” Let’s whack ‘em!
In the church, That’s how schism happens.
On A Prairie Home Companion radio show, Garrison Keillor talks about how difficult it is to form a choir in the Church of the Sanctified Brethren, the mythical denomination in which he grew up. He says that anytime they got beyond enough members to form a mixed quartet, they'd discover some point in Scripture to disagree on and would split rather than tolerate false doctrine.
Keillor remembers envying the large choirs of Lutheran churches. But he didn’t think it was possible to have that many people sing together without having at least one person, most likely a soprano or tenor, guilty of unconfessed sin or of not toeing the official line on some theological point. (From The Lutheran, Feb 2005, an article by Keith Gatling)
It’s funny. But not too funny.
On a personal level, whacking weeds is how emotional repression and uncontrollable rage happen. One of you sent me a funny story about that this week about someone who wanted to be good, and must have really thought she had her weeds eliminated, but . . . then something happened. At a traffic light. A man was stopped, waiting for the light to turn green. When the light changed, he was distracted and he didn't budge. The woman in the car behind him honked her horn. He still didn't move. She honked again. By this time, she was pounding on the steering wheel and blowing her horn non-stop. Finally, just as the light turned yellow, the fellow in the first car woke up and drove through the light. The woman in the second car was beside herself. Still mid-rant, she heard a tap on her car window. She looked up to see the face of a police officer. "Lady, you're under arrest," he said. "Get out of the car. Put your hands up." He took her license, registration, had her sit in the back of the patrol car for a long, long time. Finally, he let her go. "Sorry for the mistake, Lady," he said. "But I pulled up behind you as you were blowing your horn and cursing out the fellow in front of you. I noticed the stickers on your bumper. One read "Follow me to Sunday School." The other, "What Would Jesus Do?" So, naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.
See? She thought she had her weeds under control until she discovered a cockle-burr under her saddle . . .
When we discover that weeds are growing alongside the precious wheat, we want to do root it out! Blast it with herbicide! Yank it up! But the sower says, “Not so fast, you guys! If you yank out the weeds, you’ll also uproot the wheat.”
And here’s the key to this parable: The difference between seed and wheat is not so easy as we sometimes think. The kind of weed Jesus describes in the story is “zizania”. Today it is called “darnel” wheat. This is a very particular type of weed that looks just like wheat as it is growing up. It still grows plentifully in Syria and Palestine. It looks like wheat, it appears like wheat but it is not wheat. But it’s difficult – indeed impossible to distinguish for sure which plant is which as it is growing.
God says, “Don’t go week whacking in my field! You can’t be sure about the difference between the wheat and the weeds – the good stuff and the bad. And I don’t want you harming the new life that I’ve started in this field.”
Now, that’s a disappointing response, isn’t it? We’d like God to congratulate us on our zeal. We’d like him to cheer for us as we wade into the field to do battle with the forces of evil. We’d like him to recognize what great little workers we are, and say, “Well done, good and faithful weed whacker.”
But God, the Sower, the Owner of the field that is the world, says, no. Don’t you try to fix this for me. We’re both going to sit here and wait. Because at this point, none of my helpers has a lock on what is wheat and what is weed. And, who knows, what looks like weeds today may turn out to be wheat sometime in the future.
I want to tell you a little story about that: It’s not my story, but it’s from a pastor in Kansas – which is, of course, my personal Holy Land. Rev. Pamela J. Tinnin was pastor of Partridge Community Church-UCC, the only church in Partridge, KS, USA (population 250) when this happened. Here’s her story:
“Last week I spent some time in the waiting room of a social service agency in Hutchinson. Except for the large woman with bright red hair who sat behind the desk, there was only one other person there, a thin woman who looked to be in her early forties. In blue jeans worn white at the knees and a sleeveless cotton blouse, she looked tired, her eyes sunk deep in the sockets, her hair lying in damp curls. I was waiting to talk to one of the staff people about a project I’m trying to organize, a volunteer chaplaincy program for people who find themselves homeless and in dire straits.
Glancing over, I saw that the woman was looking out the window at the street, her eyes sad, her hands held still in her lap, her feet in the scuffed tennis shoes side-by-side, flat on the floor.
I picked up a year old Readers Digest and began flipping through the pages. To be honest, at that moment, I didn’t have the energy to take on anyone else’s problems and she looked like problems came in the door with her. Early that morning I’d had some bad news from California. Pretending to read, all I could think of was how little I could do for the woman sitting across from me, much less my family, almost 2,000 miles away.
Just then a whispery, rough voice said, “Are you in trouble?” I looked up, and then behind me, thinking the slender woman was talking to someone else, someone who’d come in when I wasn’t looking. But when I turned back she was still waiting for me to answer. “Me?” I asked. “In trouble?”
She ducked her head then, like she was embarrassed, but answered. “Your face…you look like something bad has happened…like you feel really lost.”
I couldn’t speak for a minute and could feel myself flush with shame, me thinking all the time she had wanted something from me. Then to my surprise, I told her what had happened, told her how hopeless I felt, told her how more than anything I kept hoping for a miracle. She moved closer and sat down in the next chair. She told me not to give up hope, that miracles do happen. “About five or six years ago I got into smokin’ dope; then it was cocaine and meth…my husband left me…then he went to court and took my kids away,” she said. “I thought my world had come to an end…I didn’t believe in anything…not my family or friends…not even God,” she said, and smiled a funny smile that only curved one side of her mouth.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept quiet and patted her arm.
“But you know, just when I’d almost given up, I met some folks who gave me another chance,” she said. “They gave me a place to live; helped me get a job. Pretty soon, I’m gonna get my own place…try to get my kids back, least part of the time. Don’t you worry,” she said, “things work out.”
And she tipped her head then and winked. “This is a hard old world,” she said. “We got to be there for each other. Don’t you think that’s the good Lord’s plan for things?”
Just then a woman in a suit, a clipboard in her hand, came through the door and said, “Mrs. Holcomb?”
The woman in the worn jeans stood, reached down and slung an old blue backpack onto her shoulder. She stepped past me, then turned back and hugged me hard. I could smell the shampoo she’d used.
“Good luck,” I told her, “and thank you…thank you.”
She walked away and I sat there thinking how easy it is to look at someone and not even see who she is. You can never tell. . .
We can’t always tell. And we can’t ever tell for sure, who is the good seed that God has sown. Or that the weeds won’t turn out to be wheat, by God’s grace, some day. All we can do is wait.
Wait. Wait until the crop bears fruit. Wait until the wheat has reached maturity. Wait until the harvest. And THEN . . .
Jesus says, you won’t have to do a thing. I have a crack crew of reapers coming in. And they know what to do. (The hired hands drop out of the story at this point, do you see that? They think they are going to save the day, but they don’t even make it to the end of the story. It’s not about them!)
You see, when the grain reaches maturity at harvest, the seed heads of the bearded darnel – the weed – are not heavy, and the stalk continues to stand upright, while the stalk of the wheat bows under the heavy weight of that crop. At the end of the season – which Jesus says is the end of time – in other words, what we call “Judgment Day” – there won’t be any trouble distinguishing between the weeds and the wheat.
Then the weeds, proudly waving in the breeze, will be gathered first. And, in a cool turn of the story, they will become kindling for the sower’s fire. The very thing the Evil One meant to be a hindrance and to cause damage ends up being gathered up and taken to be used by the Sower of the seed.
That’s how I understand the bit about throwing the weeds into the furnace of fire. Now if you want to think that that part is about evil doers burning in hell, well . . . have at it. You could make that case. But that’s not how I read it. I read it to mean that, in the end, it IS possible – at least it is possible for God – to tell the evil from the good.
In the end, the truth will come out.
And the weeds do not win.
They do not ruin the harvest.
They do not bankrupt the farm.
In the end, they just provide a little fuel for the fire. Even the weeds get put to good use by God.
But the righteous! Ah, the righteous! They are gathered into God’s own barn where they will be safe and secure. And where – wonder of wonder – Jesus says, “They will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father!”
And that’s where we want to be. Good grain, shining like the sun, safe with God. And we can be. We will be. But in order to be, we have to resist the temptation to take the role of overzealous weed whackers. We have to be content to be good seed, to do the best we can, growing alongside the weeds. That good seed is promised an eternity with God. Shining. Shining like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
Let anyone with ears – or weeds – listen!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Sermon - June 8
We’re talking about Micah 8 in terms of Core Values – Remember that statement that defines core values? It came from the National Park Service’s website:
“The core values of an organization are those values we hold which form the foundation on which we perform work and conduct ourselves. In an ever-changing world, core values are constant. Core values underlie our work, how we interact with each other, and which strategies we employ to fulfill our mission. They are the practices we use (or should be using) every day in everything we do.”
Micah 6:8 can be understood as a statement of the core values of God’s people. These three things undergird our life of faith: To do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God.
How does the core value of loving kindness shape our life of faith? The word from Micah is translated, throughout the Old Testament variously as compassion, mercy, loyalty, the capacity to relent, but most commonly as steadfast love. For the next few minutes, let’s think together about what that means for us and how that core value
Govern personal relationships
Guide us in making decisions
Help explain why we do business the way we do
Underpin the whole organization
One place to begin is to notice how important loving kindness was to Jesus. Because there’s no question that loving kindness was one of Jesus’ core values. When Jesus was asked by a lawyer to name the most important of all the commandments, the story is in Matthew 22:34-40, Jesus immediately answered that the most important law was that of love – You shall LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” AND, Jesus added, right behind that one is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
It was the core value of Love that guided Jesus’ in his every day dealings with God in Heaven, and with other human beings.
How did Jesus show his love for God?
He prayed – he often went off by himself and spent time alone with God.
He worshipped in the synagogues and at the Temple – Jesus never separated himself from His community of faith. His parents took him to the Temple as a baby, he went as a young teenager, he continued to go and was there the week before his death. He participated in worship as a member of God's people throughout his life.
He studied God’s Word as it was found in the Scriptures.
We know that because he quoted scripture all the time. The Great Commandment and the Love your neighbor as yourself commandment are both found in the scriptures that Jesus knew. He didn't make those things up. He was quoting the book of Deuteronomy. As he studied that book, he would have waded through about 500 other “Laws” that the Pharisees thought were every bit as important: Laws about food, laws about how to arrange the temple, laws about washing, laws about the Sabbath, laws about all kinds of good stuff.
The Pharisees, who also loved the scriptures, tried to show God their love by keeping every one of those laws. We can’t imagine their individual motives. Were they afraid of God? Were they afraid of God’s punishment? Were they afraid of themselves? Did they fear that without all those laws, their lives would be unmanageable? It’s hard to know. But what we do know is that Jesus understood the core value of steadfast love more fully than they.
And he challenged them about it.
And they challenged him.
The Gospel text that the lectionary assigns for today is about the call of Matthew the tax collector to be one of Jesus’ disciples. The night that Matthew said “yes” to Jesus, there was a party at his house. And the taxcollectors and sinners came. And Jesus came. And because they wanted to be where Jesus was, the other disciples came. In order to be with Jesus, they had to sit with the sinners. But the Pharisees didn’t come. Oh No! They just poked their heads in, saw what was going on and motioned for a couple of the disciples to come outside. “What is your teacher doing in there, eating with tax collectors and sinners?” But when they asked Jesus about it, he just said, “I go where people need me.” And then he quoted what sounds like Micah, chapter 6, but is probably from Hosea – What do you think it means when God says, “I desire compassion, not sacrifice.” Have a little compassion. Have a little mercy. For God’s mercy, as shown through Jesus Christ, is wider than our own. And we know that, because God’s mercy has been wide enough to include each one of us.
One of Jesus’ most famous parables, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, was a brilliant exposition of what compassion means, what love for neighbor means, what having mercy means. It is found in Luke, chapter 10, and it still challenges us to live by the core value of compassion/steadfast love.
There was a famous sociology experiment, conducted; I am embarrassed to say, at the seminary where I earned my degree – Princeton Theological Seminary, though not, I hasten to add, while I was there. Researchers took seminarians, gave them a questionnaire and a copy of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and then sent them to an adjoining building. There they were to deliver an impromptu speech on the text. Some of them were told that they’d taken too much time on the questionnaire, and would soon be late to the next step. Others were congratulated on being prompt and told they had just enough time to get to the next building to stay on schedule. Others were told they had plenty of time. In order to get to correct room in the second building, the seminarians had to pass by a person slumped in the hallway, who coughed, moaned and seemed to be in some distress. Sadly, only 40% of the pastors in training stopped to offer assistance. Not surprisingly, the majority of those who helped were those who thought they had plenty of time.
But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, when Jesus told the story, it wasn’t the priest or the religious leader who stopped to help the man by the side of the road. It was the Samaritan, the outsider, the one upon whom all the good religious folk looked down, who dressed the man’s wounds, took him to an inn and nursed him back to health at his own expense. This is the one who lived out the core value of compassionate love.
Lovingkindness. Steadfast love. Compassion. Mercy.
How do we see this core value being lived out among us?
I think of Betty Lauchner, and Marlene, and Lou going shopping at Bed, Bath and Beyond for the bedroom for linens for the bedroom of the Women in Transition house. Looking at every kind of sheet, comparing prices and value, as carefully as if they were buying these things for one of their daughters or the daughter of a friend.
I think of Terry Pratt, who takes care of generations of her family so carefully, but still volunteers for Vacation Bible School, because she knows how important VBS is to her kids and she wants that for other people’s children, too.
I think of those of you who visit our elderly and shut ins, letting them know that they are still important to us, that they are still part of this congregation and that we love them.
These acts of steadfast loving kindness lie at the core of our life together as a church, just as compassion and mercy lay at the heart of Jesus’ life and ministry.
These words describe what lies at the heart of the eternal God in whom we trust. And these words are a challenge God sets before us.
Steadfast love. Compassion. Mercy.
This week, will we live by the core value of lovingkindness?
Will our actions be guided by steadfast, loyal love?
Will compassion undergird the whole organization of Philo Presbyterian Church?
Will mercy explain why we do what we do?
After all God’s lovingkindness and all God’s mercy to us in Jesus Christ our Lord, that we should strive to exercise steadfastness and compassion – is that too much to ask?
God has shown you, o mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you, but that you
Do justice, and loving kindness, walk humbly with your God.
“The core values of an organization are those values we hold which form the foundation on which we perform work and conduct ourselves. In an ever-changing world, core values are constant. Core values underlie our work, how we interact with each other, and which strategies we employ to fulfill our mission. They are the practices we use (or should be using) every day in everything we do.”
Micah 6:8 can be understood as a statement of the core values of God’s people. These three things undergird our life of faith: To do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God.
How does the core value of loving kindness shape our life of faith? The word from Micah is translated, throughout the Old Testament variously as compassion, mercy, loyalty, the capacity to relent, but most commonly as steadfast love. For the next few minutes, let’s think together about what that means for us and how that core value
Govern personal relationships
Guide us in making decisions
Help explain why we do business the way we do
Underpin the whole organization
One place to begin is to notice how important loving kindness was to Jesus. Because there’s no question that loving kindness was one of Jesus’ core values. When Jesus was asked by a lawyer to name the most important of all the commandments, the story is in Matthew 22:34-40, Jesus immediately answered that the most important law was that of love – You shall LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” AND, Jesus added, right behind that one is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
It was the core value of Love that guided Jesus’ in his every day dealings with God in Heaven, and with other human beings.
How did Jesus show his love for God?
He prayed – he often went off by himself and spent time alone with God.
He worshipped in the synagogues and at the Temple – Jesus never separated himself from His community of faith. His parents took him to the Temple as a baby, he went as a young teenager, he continued to go and was there the week before his death. He participated in worship as a member of God's people throughout his life.
He studied God’s Word as it was found in the Scriptures.
We know that because he quoted scripture all the time. The Great Commandment and the Love your neighbor as yourself commandment are both found in the scriptures that Jesus knew. He didn't make those things up. He was quoting the book of Deuteronomy. As he studied that book, he would have waded through about 500 other “Laws” that the Pharisees thought were every bit as important: Laws about food, laws about how to arrange the temple, laws about washing, laws about the Sabbath, laws about all kinds of good stuff.
The Pharisees, who also loved the scriptures, tried to show God their love by keeping every one of those laws. We can’t imagine their individual motives. Were they afraid of God? Were they afraid of God’s punishment? Were they afraid of themselves? Did they fear that without all those laws, their lives would be unmanageable? It’s hard to know. But what we do know is that Jesus understood the core value of steadfast love more fully than they.
And he challenged them about it.
And they challenged him.
The Gospel text that the lectionary assigns for today is about the call of Matthew the tax collector to be one of Jesus’ disciples. The night that Matthew said “yes” to Jesus, there was a party at his house. And the taxcollectors and sinners came. And Jesus came. And because they wanted to be where Jesus was, the other disciples came. In order to be with Jesus, they had to sit with the sinners. But the Pharisees didn’t come. Oh No! They just poked their heads in, saw what was going on and motioned for a couple of the disciples to come outside. “What is your teacher doing in there, eating with tax collectors and sinners?” But when they asked Jesus about it, he just said, “I go where people need me.” And then he quoted what sounds like Micah, chapter 6, but is probably from Hosea – What do you think it means when God says, “I desire compassion, not sacrifice.” Have a little compassion. Have a little mercy. For God’s mercy, as shown through Jesus Christ, is wider than our own. And we know that, because God’s mercy has been wide enough to include each one of us.
One of Jesus’ most famous parables, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, was a brilliant exposition of what compassion means, what love for neighbor means, what having mercy means. It is found in Luke, chapter 10, and it still challenges us to live by the core value of compassion/steadfast love.
There was a famous sociology experiment, conducted; I am embarrassed to say, at the seminary where I earned my degree – Princeton Theological Seminary, though not, I hasten to add, while I was there. Researchers took seminarians, gave them a questionnaire and a copy of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and then sent them to an adjoining building. There they were to deliver an impromptu speech on the text. Some of them were told that they’d taken too much time on the questionnaire, and would soon be late to the next step. Others were congratulated on being prompt and told they had just enough time to get to the next building to stay on schedule. Others were told they had plenty of time. In order to get to correct room in the second building, the seminarians had to pass by a person slumped in the hallway, who coughed, moaned and seemed to be in some distress. Sadly, only 40% of the pastors in training stopped to offer assistance. Not surprisingly, the majority of those who helped were those who thought they had plenty of time.
But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, when Jesus told the story, it wasn’t the priest or the religious leader who stopped to help the man by the side of the road. It was the Samaritan, the outsider, the one upon whom all the good religious folk looked down, who dressed the man’s wounds, took him to an inn and nursed him back to health at his own expense. This is the one who lived out the core value of compassionate love.
Lovingkindness. Steadfast love. Compassion. Mercy.
How do we see this core value being lived out among us?
I think of Betty Lauchner, and Marlene, and Lou going shopping at Bed, Bath and Beyond for the bedroom for linens for the bedroom of the Women in Transition house. Looking at every kind of sheet, comparing prices and value, as carefully as if they were buying these things for one of their daughters or the daughter of a friend.
I think of Terry Pratt, who takes care of generations of her family so carefully, but still volunteers for Vacation Bible School, because she knows how important VBS is to her kids and she wants that for other people’s children, too.
I think of those of you who visit our elderly and shut ins, letting them know that they are still important to us, that they are still part of this congregation and that we love them.
These acts of steadfast loving kindness lie at the core of our life together as a church, just as compassion and mercy lay at the heart of Jesus’ life and ministry.
These words describe what lies at the heart of the eternal God in whom we trust. And these words are a challenge God sets before us.
Steadfast love. Compassion. Mercy.
This week, will we live by the core value of lovingkindness?
Will our actions be guided by steadfast, loyal love?
Will compassion undergird the whole organization of Philo Presbyterian Church?
Will mercy explain why we do what we do?
After all God’s lovingkindness and all God’s mercy to us in Jesus Christ our Lord, that we should strive to exercise steadfastness and compassion – is that too much to ask?
God has shown you, o mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you, but that you
Do justice, and loving kindness, walk humbly with your God.
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