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Sermon – Matthew 18.21-35, P19, YA, September 14, 2014

19 Friday Sep 2014

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This week has been a bit rough.  We started the week talking about Ray Rice and the NFL’s handling of the physical abuse of Rice’s then-fiancée.  The incident raised all sorts of questions about domestic violence:  how genuine the NFL’s stance on domestic violence is, why people stay in abusive relationships, and what domestic violence really looks like.  And then, just days later, we honored the anniversary of September 11th.  We made space for those who are still mourning deaths, we remembered our own experiences of that day, and we reflected on how much our world has changed in the shadow of that event.

Needless to say, when pondering the horrors of domestic violence and terrorism, the absolute last thing I wanted to do this week was to pray on our gospel lesson from Matthew.  The scene is familiar.  Jesus has just told the disciples about how to resolve conflict within the community of faith, and Peter appears with a question.  “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?  As many as seven times?”  In other words, Peter basically comes to Jesus asking the question that we all want ask, “Okay, so I know you want us to be a community that honors God, even when we fight.  But how many times, exactly, do we really have to forgive someone?  I mean, surely there are limits to how many times we have to keep forgiving someone?”  I give Peter credit.  Peter manages to come off sounding pretty generous.  I mean, how many of us would propose forgiving someone seven times before cutting them off completely?  Instead, our most common colloquialism is “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  In our culture, we will forgive someone once and clear the slate.  But if people cross us twice, we believe we would be foolish to stay in a relationship with them because they have proven that they cannot be trusted.

But Jesus does not concede to our modern sensibilities about forgiveness.  Jesus’ response to Peter is shocking, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.”  Now seventy-seven times is way more leeway with which most of us feels comfortable.  And that is not even taking into account that some translations translate Jesus’ instructions not as seventy-seven times but seventy times seven.[i]  Regardless, the point is that Jesus is basically saying that there is not true end to forgiveness.  “There can be no limit on forgiveness, because [forgiveness] is a never-ending practice that is essential to the life of the church.”[ii]

What ultimately makes us feel uncomfortable about Jesus’ words is that when we begin to talk about forgiveness, most of us have some pretty distorted beliefs about forgiveness.  Some of us believe that forgiveness means excusing or overlooking the harm that has been done to us and saying that everything is okay.  For those who hold that belief, forgiveness can be equated with stuffing our feelings down deep inside or downright lying in order to keep the peace.  Others of us believe that forgiveness means allowing those who have hurt us to persist in their behavior.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness is so important, that we become recurring victims of offenses.  Still others believe that forgiving means forgetting what happened.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness is pretending an old hurt does not still hurt.  Finally, others see forgiveness as something that we can do at will, and always all at once.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness must be immediate and offered quickly.  The problem with all these models of forgiveness – of overlooking the harm, saying everything is okay, of allowing recurring behavior, of trying to forget, or forgiving once and for all – is that these models of forgiveness fall apart when we run into extreme situations like the ones from this week with Ray Rice or September 11th.

The tremendously good news this week is that all of these understandings about forgiveness would have been foreign to Jesus.  I was reading one of my favorite authors this week on her thoughts about forgiveness.  Jan Richardson says of forgiveness, “The heart of forgiveness is not to be found in excusing harm or allowing [the harm] to go unchecked.  [Forgiveness] is to be found, rather, in choosing to say that although our wounds will change us, we will not allow them to forever define us.  Forgiveness does not ask us to forget the wrong done to us but instead to resist the ways [the wrong] seeks to get its poisonous hooks in us.  Forgiveness asks us to acknowledge and reckon with the damage so that we will not live forever in [the damage’s] grip.”[iii]

That is why Jesus tells the hyperbolic parable about the servant and the forgiving king.  The forgiveness by the king of ten thousand talents (or the equivalent of 150,000 years of labor)[iv] is almost ludicrous in its generosity.  The servant would never have been able to pay that amount back.  But then again, the forgiveness we receive from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is also ludicrous – ludicrously abundant, underserved, and more than we could ever earn.  And yet, the times we struggle to forgive will be like when the unforgiving servant cannot forgive the hundred denarii owed by another servant (or the equivalent of a hundred days of labor) – a much less egregious amount to owe.  In order to be a people who live under Jesus’ excessive forgiveness, we must be a people who are also willing to work on the art of forgiveness.  But we do not do that work out of obligation – instead we do that work as a gift to ourselves.

There once was a woman who went to see her Rabbi.  The woman was a divorced single mom who was working to support herself and her three children.  She explained to the Rabbi that since her husband walked out on them, every month she struggled to pay the bills.  Though she and the kids could not afford everyday treats like going to the movies, her ex-husband was living it up with his new wife.  The Rabbi suggested that the woman forgive her ex-husband and she was indignant.  “How can you tell me to forgive him,” she demanded.  The Rabbi responded, “I’m not asking you to forgive him because what he did was acceptable.  What he did was not acceptable – it was mean and selfish.  I am asking you to forgive him because he does not deserve the power to live in your head and turn you into a bitter angry woman.  I would like to see him out of your life emotionally as completely as he is out of your life physically, but you keep holding on to him.  Know this:  you are not hurting him by holding on to that resentment.  You are only hurting yourself.”[v]

Jesus does not propose that we forgive seventy-seven or seventy times seven times because Jesus is a sadist.  Jesus knows forgiving is hard.  But Jesus also knows that the worst part about forgiveness is not that the work is hard.  The worst part about forgiveness is that when we do not forgive, we only hurt ourselves.  And Jesus does not want us to be locked in a prison of resentment and anger.  Jesus wants us to be free.  One of the reasons Jesus asks us to forgive so many times is because Jesus knows this work does not happen overnight.  Forgiveness is not a once-and-for-all event.  Forgiveness requires us to keep going, to keep trying, because only in the practice of trying – in fact trying until our earthly lives are over – will we ever come close to the profound forgiveness that we receive through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Our work on mastering the art of forgiveness is not a gift that we give to others.  Our work on mastering the art of forgiveness is the gift that we give to ourselves.  We work on the art of forgiveness because we are working on loving ourselves as much as Jesus loves us.  Amen.

[i] Lewis R. Donelson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 69.

[ii] Charles Campbell, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 69.

[iii] Jan Richardson, “The Hardest Blessing,” Sept. 9, 2014, as found at http://paintedprayerbook.com/2014/09/09/the-hardest-blessing/#.VBOogcKwKi0.

[iv] David Lose, “Pentecost 14A: Forgiveness and Freedom,” Sept. 7, 2014, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/ 2014/09/ pentecost-14-a/.

[v] Paraphrased story by Harold S. Kushner, quoted by Charlotte Dudley Cleghorn, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 72.

Sermon – Matthew 18.15-20, P18, YA, September 7, 2014

11 Thursday Sep 2014

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I have heard the argument many times before.  When people see conflict, poor behavior, and ugliness in the Church, the complaint is always the same.  People feel like they see enough ugliness in the world, at work, at school, or even at home.  When they come to Church they just want to be around people who love each other, who never fight, and who are always on their best, most loving, supportive behavior.  Many imagine that the Church should be a conflict-free zone of love and joy; full of those who love the Lord, love one another, and love every person who walks through those doors.  We want an escape from the world when we come to Church – not more of the same.

And so, in order to create this magical conflict-free Church, we start engaging in behaviors that avoid immediate conflict, but probably make things a lot worse.  Instead of dealing with conflict directly, when we feel wronged by someone, we just talk about them behind their back.  Or, when someone sins against us, instead of approaching the problem with the person, we just call a bunch of people in the church to complain about them.  Or if we are feeling wronged by someone, instead of talking to them one-on-one, we just send them a nasty email, copy the clergy, and, while we are at it, we CC the bishop.  Or if all else fails, when someone does us wrong, we don’t say anything:  we just avoid them; un-friend them on Facebook; and, if we cannot avoid them on Sundays, then we just leave the church altogether.[i]

Part of the reason we engage in these behaviors that usually make the conflict worse is because the alternative is downright scary.  We hear Jesus’ instruction manual for dealing with conflict in the church in Matthew’s gospel and we panic.  First of all, Jesus’ instructions force us to admit that we will have to deal with conflict within the Church.  This premise totally dismantles our dream of the loving, conflict-free Church.  And we are not sure we are ready to let go of that dream.  But secondly, if we can let go of our tight grasp on our conflict-free Church dream, we sure as heck do not want to follow Jesus’ instructions.  Going to someone directly to talk about how someone has sinned against us scares most of us to death.  We are not sure what to say and we are not sure how what we say will be received.  And if we somehow manage to get over our fears and the person rejects us, we cannot imagine taking one or two others with us to approach the offender again.  That sounds way too much like an intervention, and we worry that the number of people in the room will only escalate things.  And since we can barely imagine taking one or two other parishioners along with us, we find the idea of bringing the offence before the entire parish unfathomable.  Jesus must be out of his mind if he thinks we are going to parade our personal business in front of the whole church.

I served in a parish once that went through a major conflict.  A parishioner who had been working with the youth group had developed some serious boundary issues which came to a crisis point.  After receiving complaints from several parishioners, the rector called the person-in-question into his office.  That one-on-one meeting did not go so well.  Rumors started to fly, and the offender’s version of the conversation was quite different from the rector’s version.  Eventually, others had to be brought into the conversation.  The whole issue took about a year to resolve, and the offender was so angry that he eventually left the church and many other parishioners were hurt and frustrated along the way.

Part of the challenge is that using Jesus’ model for conflict resolution is not as simple as the model sounds.  Meeting one-on-one can go horribly wrong, as the meeting with my old rector went wrong.  And having a meeting with three or four people can also go horribly wrong – the offender can feel attacked, confidentiality can be difficult to keep, and rumors can start to spread.  And sharing an individual offense with the entire parish is difficult in our litigious society.  Charges of slander and libel are much too easy to file.

The good news is that I do not think the specifics of Jesus’ conflict resolution plan really matter – at least not in the strictest sense.[ii]  What is more important is that this passage from Matthew does several critical things.  First, this passage debunks the notion that the Church will ever be conflict-free.  That this passage exists at all is evidence that conflict is a natural, unavoidable part of life, even life in the church.[iii]  I know that may sound like bad news to some of us, but actually the reality that conflict is unavoidable opens the door to the second good part of this passage.  In addition to helping us see the inevitability of conflict, this passage also reminds us that there are healthy ways to deal with conflict.  Though we may not choose Jesus’ exact method, there are ways to encourage reconciliation over back-stabbing and gossip.  And those reconciling methods are healthy for the offender, the victim, and the community as a whole.  Jesus is not worried about “whether or not we fight, disagree, or wound one another, but how we go about addressing and resolving those issues.”[iv]

Finally, Jesus reminds us that God is with us even in our ugly moments of conflict.  Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”  We often jokingly quote this passage when we are having low church attendance.  But what Jesus means when he says these words is that when two or three are gathered in resolving conflict, Jesus is there in their midst.  I cannot imagine a more assuring word from Jesus today.

I once knew a couple who were married for 55 years.  One day I asked the wife what their secret was.  She told me several things, but one of them stuck.  She said that if either of them was disciplining the children and the other parent disagreed with their decision, they never questioned the decision in front of the children.  Later that night, they might talk about their disagreement, but they always supported one another in the heat of the moment.  I remember thinking that their practice necessitated respect, biting one’s tongue, and a humble love that was free from pride.  All of that was not visible through the good stuff of their marriage, but instead through the hard stuff of their marriage.

Now I know some of you are going to go home disappointed today.  Your dream of Church being a conflict-free love fest is getting shattered today.  You may have been hoping after hearing Paul talk about love today that we could all just sing, “They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love,” and walk out of here on a cloud.  Truthfully, having people see how we love each other and being able to recognize our Christian identity through our love is wonderful.  But equally wonderful today would be if we could sing, “They Will Know We Are Christians by How We Fight.”

In a few moments, we will do a few things that mark our Christian identity.  We will confess our sins, ask for healing, and pass the peace.  These are all steps toward reconciliation with God, with ourselves, and with one another.  Perhaps you have been experiencing conflict here in our church community, at home, or at work.  Now is your chance to reconcile that conflict, and live into what being a person of faith means.  There is no way to avoid the fact that Christians fight, disagree, and argue.  But how we fight means much more than that we fight.  The church invites us to be a people committed to reconciliation, knowing that where two or three are gathered in conflict together, Christ is in the midst of us.  Amen.

[i] Rick Morley, “Before You Unfriend – Matthew 18:15-20,” August 23, 2011, as found at http://www.rickmorley. com/ archives/803?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=proper18agospel on September 4, 2014.

[ii] Eric Barreto, “Commentary on Matthew 18:15-20,” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx? commentary_id=2164 on September 5, 2014.

[iii] Jin S. Kim, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 46.

[iv] Kim, 46.

Sermon – Exodus 3.1-15, P17, YA, August 31, 2014

05 Friday Sep 2014

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Shoes are a funny thing.  Their basic function is protection – from rough roads and paths, from debris and water, from extreme heat and extreme cold.  Not having shoes can lead to injury, disease, and disability.  But having shoes can create problems too.  Once feet are covered, they can become sweaty or smelly.  Shoes can hide unkempt toenails or misshapen feet, making us hesitant to remove them at times.  And of course, shoes can also be markers of status – those fancy Nikes or Manolo Blahniks.

And so when we are asked to remove our shoes, our first response can often be panic.  Every year when we do the foot washing on Maundy Thursday, I hear people chatting about their foot concerns.  Holy Wednesday of that week could be relabeled, “Holy Pedicure Day.”  I have overheard parishioners strategizing about socks versus hose, about pre-washing their feet before the service, and about avoiding the foot washing part of the liturgy altogether.

Our paranoia about feet and footwear can be found everywhere.  We all know people who have a “no shoe rule,” in their home.  Sometimes when you forget about that rule, you may panic, wondering if you put on those socks with the holes in them that day.  In my daughter’s nursery care room, there is a sign that asks everyone to take off their shoes before entering the room since the little ones who are crawling will put everything in their mouths – including debris from shoes.  Because I usually have my five-year old in tow, plus a baby in my arms, the trouble of shoe removal is often annoying.  When I traveled to Burma, I bought special sandals because we were told that the Burmese always remove their shoes before entering any building.  I knew with such frequency of removing shoes, I had to worry about sandals that were both comfortable for lots of walking, but also easily slipped on and off.

This fall, St. Margaret’s will be offering a new Sunday School program for our Middle School students.  The program is called Rite-13.  The program is meant to help middle schoolers to start claiming their faith lives and their adulthoods as their own.  They will spend time talking about images of God, their prayer lives, their understanding of God’s call to love one another, and what being a young person of faith means.

One of my favorite lessons from Rite-13 is one that talks about prayer.  In the lesson, the young adults and teachers are not admitted into the room unless they take off their shoes.  When I taught this lesson many years ago, the reaction was immediate.  Some of the kids giggled, some looked worried; other kids refused at first and hung back, while others seemed skeptical, but willing.  The action was simple, but the action of taking off their shoes created unease.

Though our Old Testament lesson is filled with vivid images of burning bushes and Moses debating with God, the line that caught my attention this week says, “Come no closer!  Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”  As I pondered on this moment for Moses, when God proclaims the ground to be holy and worthy of shoes being removed, all those places where I have also been asked to remove my shoes kept coming back to me – Maundy Thursday foot washings, my friend who insists that shoes be left at the door in the winter, my daughter’s nursery school room, Burmese diocesan offices, and that Rite-13 classroom.  Though some of those places require removed shoes for religious purposes, some of those places make that request for purely practical reasons.  But despite the sacred and secular division, I found myself imagining each of those places as places that God might call holy ground.

When I come forward for foot washing on Maundy Thursday, I do so to allow the foot washer to claim their servant ministry.  As I vulnerably offer my battered feet, and they humbly kneel to wash those feet, the ground becomes hallowed in the sacred exchange.  As water splashes on the wooden floor, something holy happens on that ground.

When I visit my friend’s home, and slip off my shoes in respect of her rules, something sacred always happens.  Whether we share a hearty laugh, we commiserate over a glass of wine, or we simply break bread together, God is present between us.  The carpet of her home is holy ground.

When I drop of my daughter at school, and dutifully take off my shoes, I mark the space as something other than simply a place to care for children.  Those workers are joining me in the sacred work of raising a child – of sharing in milestones, of caring for bodily needs, of loving and sharing joy.  By taking off my shoes, I remind myself that God is present with our children even when we are not there.

When I entered a building in Burma, I always loved the visual of piles of flip flops near the door.  On those cold cement floors walked servants of God who simply wanted to know that they were not forgotten by their American Christian brothers and sisters.  And though we struggled to communicate in vastly different languages, the friendships that we forged were forged on holy ground.

And when I entered that Rite-13 classroom, and those teenagers and I began to talk about what prayer is and who this God is that we worship, with our feet exposed to each other, our awkward, vulnerable conversations were held on holy ground.

When we hear Moses’ dramatic call narrative today, we often think that Moses is told to take off his shoes because that specific ground at Horeb is holy.  But I wonder if something else is happening in this story.  Perhaps the ground itself is not holy, but what is happening on the ground is what makes the ground holy.  The soil itself is not made up of particular particles that are inherently holy.  The soil becomes holy because of what happens there.[i]  God calls Moses to a task that will change his life forever – to free the people of Israel from bondage and to lead them to the Promised Land.  In this sacred conversation between Moses and God – even when Moses argues with God constantly about how ill-equipped he is for this mission – the ground becomes hallowed because of the vulnerable, honest, sacred exchange between a holy servant of God and the great, “I AM.”

We encounter holy ground in our own lives everyday.  That holy ground is obvious to us in some places – at the communion rail, in our favorite pew, or in our favorite prayer spot.  But this week, Moses invites us to see holy ground in more unexpected places – in our workplace, at school, in our homes – and to take off our shoes in recognition of the holy encounters that are happening.  Now, there may be some places that removing your shoes is impractical – while waiting for the train on your morning commute, on the playground at play, or in your favorite restaurant.  But I want you to at least imagine taking your shoes off in all the places you find yourself this week and see how your perspective changes.  Maybe with your shoes off, that guy who elbowed you on the LIRR seems more sympathetic as you look at the dark circles under his eyes.  Maybe with your shoes off, that silent orderly who cleans up the neighboring hospital room seems like more of a crucial part of the hospital than the doctors and nurses.  Maybe with your shoes off, that clerk at the grocery story who barely makes eye contact seems much more interesting as you ponder how she makes a living serving you.  And when you lay your head down to sleep each night this week, I invite you to thank God for the holy ground in your life and the opportunity to remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.  Amen.

[i] This train of thought inspired by reflections by Anathea Portier-Young, “Commentary on Exodus 3:1-15,” found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2136 on August 28, 2014.

Sermon – Exodus 1.8-2.10, P16, YA, August 24, 2014

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

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We know exactly where our story is going today in Exodus when the introduction says, “Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”  This introduction is ominous because to not know Joseph is to not know how Joseph saved Egypt from famine, making Egypt a world leader in a time of crisis.  But on a more personal note, to not know Joseph means that the warm welcome the Israelites once received in gratitude for Joseph’s service has also been forgotten.  This is how Pharaoh’s reign of terror begins.  Not knowing the formerly friendly arrangement between these two very distinct groups, Pharaoh chooses prejudice and fear.  Afraid that this foreign group will pose a threat, Pharaoh strikes preemptively.  First, he enslaves the Israelites, forcing them into labor for Egypt.  But that kind of subjugation is not enough to assuage Pharaoh’s paranoia.  So Pharaoh starts another campaign – he enlists midwives to kill any male newborns, in the hopes of reducing the number of men who can revolt against his new stratified system.  And when that campaign does not work, Pharaoh extends his reach and calls upon all the Egyptians, instructing them to kill all Hebrew newborn boys that they encounter.

This story is scary because the story is a bit too familiar.  Just in the past several months we have witnessed similar violence and oppression of “the other.”  The advance of ISIS in Iraq is so extreme that their violence is being labeled as genocide.  Whole communities of faith, both Christian and other faiths, are either being displaced, murdered, or sold into slavery.  And though the players and terrain may be foreign to us, genocide is not.  Whether through Pharaoh thousands of years ago, in the Holocaust seventy years ago, or in Rwanda twenty years ago, we know the devastation, trauma, and scars that genocide leaves.  Each time we pray, “Never again,” and yet, here we find ourselves again in Iraq.

A more complicated version of oppression can be found much closer to home – in Ferguson, Missouri, in Staten Island, and yes, even in Plainview.  Though the recent cases are about the racial tensions between police officers and African-Americans, the truth is that racism is a reality throughout our country and involves a system of oppression that benefits some over others.  I remember when I first met my husband, Scott, we had a conversation about racism.  As young seventeen-year olds, we came from very different backgrounds.  He was a conservative Republican (though I think he was a Republican mostly in defiance of the long history of liberal democrats in his family – but that is another story).  He grew up in San Diego:  a military town across the border from Mexico.  His peers were people of every race, nationality, and geography, and what he saw was a mixture of people who seemed to function without much prejudice.  I, on the other hand, was an idealistic Democrat, who saw a very different world in rural Georgia and North Carolina.  I was a part of an organization as a young woman who did not welcome people of color – a fact I did not realize until I wanted to invite my African-American girlfriend to join.  At my high school, there were threats of the KKK coming by to intimidate the few African-Americans at our school.  So when Scott and I first began to talk about racism, you can imagine that we had very different opinions about the role that race places in our country.

The scary part for me in our news lately is that genocide and racism are two different expressions of the same problem.  Both stem from the recognition of difference – of there being one group of privilege and one group of disenfranchisement – or “the other.”  Once an “other” has been established, judgments of value are next.  Through those judgments of values emerges prejudice – and in the instance of race, racism.  When taken to the extreme, that prejudice can lead to genocide – a complete annihilation of “the other.”  So genocide and racism are just markers on a spectrum of reactions to difference.

Now many of you may be thinking, “Okay, so we cannot help but notice differences among us.  And if we notice differences, and the next natural step is a judgment of value, then what are we supposed to do?  How are we supposed to change our natural judgments?  Obviously most of us are opposed to the extreme of genocide, but can we really do anything about racism?”  As a person who has attended many anti-racism trainings and programs, this is where many of us are caught up short.  When we enter into discussion about this issue, we feel guilt, frustration, helplessness, defensiveness, confusion, anger, and shame.  Though most of us can agree that we do not want a society where prejudice exists, truthfully, we just do not even know where to start or what to do.

That is why I love this story from Exodus today.  Though Pharaoh brings the ugliness of our current events into light, the women in this story show the way toward salvation.  My favorite women are the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah.  Pharaoh tells the midwives that as the Hebrew women are delivering their children, if they deliver any male children, the midwives are to kill the boys immediately.  Shiphrah and Puah have several options here.  They can run away – out of fear of Pharaoh, they can disregard their charge from Pharaoh and run for safety.  They can stand up to Pharaoh, refusing to kill others, but face the consequences of Pharaoh’s anger.  But what they do instead is genius.  Instead, they disobey, but they disobey with cunning.  The midwives play into the prejudice of Pharaoh – that the Hebrews are somehow different.  So they come back to Pharaoh with farcical story about why they did not kill the babies, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”  You can almost hear the feigned innocence and incompetence in their response.  Though we all know that the midwives basically lie to pharaoh, Amy Merrill Willis calls this act by the midwives a “gracious defiance,” because of the way “it embraces life and blurs Pharaoh’s attempts to draw lines of distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ between Egyptian and Hebrew, between dominating and dominated.”[i]   Shiphrah and Puah show the world another way to respond to prejudice.  And their small act – their act of gracious defiance – changes the course of history.

What I love about Shiphrah and Puah’s story is that they basically teach us that we can all make a difference – in fact, we can all change the world.  Now I know that sounds idealistic or pie-in-the-sky, but think about this.  Shiphrah and Puah were of little consequence in their time.  They have very little power.  They work under Pharaoh and they are women in a time when women had even less power than they do today.  All they did in a little slice of history was disobey an order and tell a tiny little, but incredibly awesome, lie.  And from that small, tiny action, they save an entire people.

Andy Andrews wrote a book called The Butterfly Effect, in which he argues that each of us makes decisions every day that have a ripple effect on others, and that simple, courageous efforts can have an extraordinary impact.[ii]  The possibilities are endless:  the teacher who encourages a student who later befriends another student who is going through a rough patch; the grandfather who volunteers to read at the local elementary school who instills a love of reading in a child who later becomes a prolific writer; the parishioner who makes a sandwich for a client of the INN, who is no longer so hungry and disheartened that he cannot care for his struggling family; the young woman who helps a mom load groceries into her trunk who is then encouraged to be much more kind and patient with her rowdy, sometimes frustrating children.

The point is that when we talk about the world’s ills – racism, prejudice, or genocide – we often feel overwhelmed and incapable of affecting change.  But the truth is, we can be a part of changing the world every day.  The choices we make impact others and ripple out in much larger ways that we can imagine.  Sometimes our choices are bold and courageous, but sometimes they are small, often unnoticed choices.  But our choices have the potential to impact greater change than we know.  Thousands of years ago, Shiphrah and Puah were the gracious defiers who quietly and cunningly stood up to a bully and tyrant.  This week, you can be the gracious defier who chips away the world’s injustice.  The choice is yours – and the potential for goodness is great.  Amen.

[i] Amy Merrill Willis, “Commentary on Exodus 1:8-2:10,” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching. aspx? commentary_ id=972 on August 19, 2014.

[ii] David Lose, “The Butterfly Effect,” as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1599 on August 19, 2014.

Sermon – Matthew 15.10-28, P15, YA, August 17, 2014

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

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We have all either heard or said the words ourselves, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Maybe your dad said the words when you overheard him using an inappropriate word.  Maybe your mom said the words when you caught her being impatient with someone.  Maybe you said the words when your own child caught you having a late night treat that you said was off limits to everyone.  Do as I say, not as I do.  The phrase is our universal way of admitting that even though we know the right things to do, we do not always do them.  In essence, we are failures.  In this simple phrase we hear echoes of Paul’s words to the Romans, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”[i]  But the phrase, “Do as I say, not as I do,” is a little bit more than simply admitting failure.  The simple phrase is also a phrase full of frustration, exasperation, and impatience – a rueful admitting of defeat, a hint of embarrassment at one’s failure and hypocrisy, and a petulant insistence that your words be heeded anyway.

What is harder than hearing a parent utter these words is hearing Jesus utter words like this today.  The beginning of our gospel lesson is a long passage in which Jesus explains how misguided the Pharisees have become.  They are so caught up in worrying about rituals that the Pharisees have not noticed that what is coming out of their mouths is much more offensive than what is going in their mouths.  Instead of worrying about the legalities of cleaning rituals, Jesus is instead insisting that they need to worry about how their words are defiling them more than their unclean hands are defiling them.

So after this long diatribe about how the Pharisees are essentially being hypocrites what does Jesus do?  He gets caught being a hypocrite himself.  He has just given the disciples a lecture about worrying about the words coming out of their mouths when Jesus turns around and basically does the exact same thing.  A poor Canaanite woman comes to Jesus, shouting for mercy for her demon-possessed daughter.  Normally the gracious healer, Jesus totally ignores the woman.  Then, when the disciples beg Jesus to send her away, Jesus makes some snide remark about how he is only here on earth to help the Israelites, not some lowly Canaanite.  When the woman throws herself at Jesus feet, Jesus then says the unthinkable – something so awful that even we are embarrassed.  Jesus says to the woman, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  Even to modern ears, Jesus’ words sting.  We like the kind, generous, caring version of Jesus – not this version of Jesus who calls people dogs and refuses to help them.  But even worse is what happens next.  The Canaanite woman calls Jesus to task.  “Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

We have all been there.  We have all been mid-stream in doing what we thought was the right thing, living our lives the best way we know how when someone – a child, a friend, or even a stranger – has called us out and made us see the ugliness in our words and actions.  I have been caught several times by my daughter.  We have a practice of praying before our meals at home, trying to teach our daughter some easy prayers.  One night we were out with friends who I knew were not church-goers.  When the meal came, we all began to eat.  But my daughter, rather loudly asked, “Why aren’t we saying the blessing, Mommy?”  I tried to quickly and quietly shush her, but I am sure whatever stammering I did only made things worse – both for my daughter and our friends.

Most of us are pretty hesitant to talk to people about church, especially why they do not go to church.  We are hesitant because at some point in our lives we have had pointed out to us how the church is full of a bunch of hypocrites.  And, honestly, few of us have a response to that accusation because we know we do not live the lives we aspire to live.  Even Mahatma Gandhi is rumored to have said, “I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”[ii]  The sting of that quote or conversations that involve similar accusations usually make us steer clear of even bringing up church with our non-church friends.  Or when we try to address their valid concerns, we end up stammering into some explanation that basically ends up sounding like, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

The problem with these encounters is that none of us likes to admit is that though we go to church, and though we pray to God, and though we raise our children in the faith, we still do not really have this whole faith thing all figured out.  We are still unsure about some things, we do not always understand why we do what we do, and most of us are not confident enough in Holy Scripture to feel like we could hold our own in a debate.  Though many of us have had powerful experiences with God, most of us still feel like failures in being good Christians.  In fact, if you ask most adults in church, the two things they dislike the most are teaching Sunday School and evangelizing.  The reason we dislike those two things is because we are afraid – afraid of being asked a question we cannot answer or afraid of being exposed as the hypocrites we fear that we really are.

The good news is that we are not alone.  Even Jesus, the same Jesus that Gandhi praises, has been in our shoes.  When the Canaanite woman comes back at Jesus with her sharp accusation about even dogs getting crumbs, Jesus has a choice.  He can pull the classic parental line, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Surely he is exasperated by the Canaanite woman and all the disciples constantly pushing him and asking questions.  A simple, “Do as I say, not as I do,” and then a stomping away in the other direction would not be unforgiveable.  Or Jesus can take a moment, check his pride at the door, and admit he is wrong.  And that is exactly what Jesus does.  “Woman, great is your faith!” Jesus says, and heals her daughter.  Jesus finally hears the Canaanite woman and admits he is wrong.  He could have easily stood his ground, stuck to his mission to the Israelites, and followed tradition.  But instead, Jesus chooses mercy over pride.  Jesus chooses to admit he is wrong over saving his reputation.  Jesus chooses change over tradition.  As ugly, embarrassing, and unappealing as Jesus seems earlier in this story, Jesus’ willingness to change his mind, change his behavior, and change his entire mission makes him much more appealing, inviting, and energizing.[iii]

Though hard to listen to, Jesus’ transformation in this story is an invitation to us to be open to such transformation in our own lives.  There is something wonderfully freeing about Jesus’ simple transformation.  All Jesus basically does is say, “You know what, I was wrong.”  Instead of stammering through some awkward response to my daughter about why we were not praying with the non-church-going friends, I could have just said, “You know what, you’re right.  Let’s say a prayer.”  That simple giving of thanks probably would have been way less awkward, hypocritical, and confusing than just thanking God out loud.  Or when someone accuses us or our church of being hypocrites, we could just say, “You know what, you’re right.”  Once we confess our sinful natures and then explain why church still holds some meaning for us, maybe we could open the door to a more honest, vulnerable conversation about the good stuff of our church.

The invitation today from Jesus is simple.  Be open to the fact that we are all going to mess up this whole faith thing.  We are all going to preach one thing and do another.  And instead of saying a hurried, “Do as I say, not as I do,” we can all start a different conversation.  Instead we can all try to say, “You know what, you are right.  I am sorry.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make a change.”  My guess is that the freedom your confession brings will not only liberate you, but liberate others as well.  Amen.

[i] Romans 7.19.

[ii] I say that this quote is rumored to be from Gandhi because I could not find a source for the quote.  There seems to be debate about whether Gandhi actually said these words, this quote is legend, or this is a combination of comments he made.

[iii] David Lose, “Pentecost 10A: What the Canaanite Woman Teaches,” as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2014/ 08/ pentecost-10a/ on August 14, 2014.

Sermon – Genesis 32.22-31, P13, YA, August 3, 2014

06 Wednesday Aug 2014

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One of the things we often talk about in church is our relationship with God.  We talk about God as a companion on our journey – one who walks with us as we grow and develop and change in our faith life.  Some of us enjoy that image because the image recognizes the ways that our relationship with God evolves over time.  We talk about God as one who is in dialogue with us – one who needs us to listen as much as we talk.  Many of you have talked to me about how often you forget the listening part of your relationship with God, not realizing how your prayer life has become more of a monologue than a dialogue.  We talk about God as one who requires vulnerability – one who wants not just the glossy versions of ourselves that we present to the public, but also the messy, angry, and sometimes ugly versions of ourselves that we rarely let anyone see.  Some of us have felt a sense of comfort and freedom in vulnerability, while others of us have found vulnerability too challenging.  But rarely do we talk about God as sparring partner – a prize fighter, capable of leaving real physical scars, leaving us marked visibly for others to see.

That is the image we get from our Old Testament lesson today.  In order to understand how Jacob comes to wrestle with God at the Jabbok, we need to go back in Jacob’s story.  Jacob is a twin, the brother of Esau and son of Isaac and Rebekah.  Jacob receives his name because the name Jacob means, “the one who takes the heel.”[i]  Because he grabs on to the heel of his brother as he follows Esau out of the womb, he is named Jacob.  The name turns out to be quite appropriate.  Jacob will be grabbing and grasping for much of his life.

Jacob’s life unfolds like a soap opera.  When Jacob is older, we are told that Jacob manipulates Esau out of his birthright.  Then, Jacob tricks his blind father Isaac into believing that he is Esau so that he can cheat Esau out of the blessing due to him as the firstborn male.  Jacob flees for his life from his angered brother Esau, returning to his family’s homeland.  There he meets Rachel and falls in love.  Unfortunately Rachel is the younger of two unmarried sisters, and the tradition is the eldest is married first.  In a twist of fate, Jacob is on the receiving end of deception when he is tricked into marrying the older sister Leah.  He has to continue working for Laban to get Rachel too.  But not to be outdone, Jacob manipulates Laban, and manages to trick Laban into giving Jacob most of the family’s livestock before Jacob flees yet again with his large family and wealth.  But Jacob can only run so long before fate finally catches up with him.  Some twenty years since leaving home, Esau is in hot pursuit of Jacob.  Scared, Jacob sends some gifts as an attempted bribe for Esau.  But he hears that Esau is approaching with 400 men, and so Jacob splits up his family and sends them ahead of him, leaving Jacob alone at the Jabbok in the dark of night.

This is where our story picks up today.  The story is a bit confusing, but basically Jacob wrestles with God all night long.[ii]  We are told that the two seem to fight as equals, but at the end of the scuffle, God strikes Jacob in the hip, leaving Jacob with a limp.  Jacob asks for a blessing from God, once again grabbing in life.  God asks Jacob his name, and instead of lying to God like Jacob lied to his father, Jacob comes clean.  “Jacob,” he says.  Now this part may sound simple enough, but God is not simply asking for and getting Jacob’s name.  Jacob is confessing.  “I am Jacob – grasper of a heel.  I have grabbed my whole way through life:  cheating, conning, scheming, plotting, and taking what does not belong to me.  I am thoroughly psychologically broken, and now you have broken me physically.  So please, give me, cheater that I am, a blessing.”  And what happens next is a total transformation.  God gives Jacob a new name, “Israel.”  God names Jacob, “Israel,” because Jacob is one who struggled with God – yisrael.  No longer will Jacob be known as the grasper.  Instead Jacob will be known as one who struggled with God – and though marked by a limp, is one who came out a new person – Israel.  With his new name, “Jacob enters into a new future, and passes his name, faith, and future on to his descendants, who bear that name even unto this day.”[iii]

The reason why I tell you the whole of Jacob’s story today is because we cannot fully understand the metaphor of wrestling with God until we understand Jacob as a person.  Jacob, father of the people of God, is by no means a shiny example of faithful living.  From birth, Jacob seemed destined for a life of manipulation, attempts at control, a willingness to deceive for personal gain, and constant scheming.  And though we would like to wag our fingers at Jacob, the truth is, there is a little bit of Jacob in each of us.  The reason we disapprove of Jacob is because at some point in our lives we have been a grasper of heels.  Perhaps we have not deceived on such a grand scale as Jacob, but we have certainly tried to manipulate situations toward our own personal gain.

I am reminded of the movie Mean Girls.  The movie chronicles the ways that high school girls manipulate, lie, and maneuver to become and stay popular.  At the center of the movie is a character called Regina George, the most popular girl in school, who is simultaneously loved and hated by her peers.  Most of the characters despise her, but oddly also find themselves drawn to her and want to be like her.  By the end of the movie the entire charade collapses, and all the girls come to an unspoken agreement to stop pretending, manipulating, and scheming, and simply be themselves.  Regina manages to redirect her aggressive ways into sports, and the satisfaction mellows her in the rest of her life.

Though Regina’s transformation was not a spiritual one, her change is as dramatic as Jacob’s – a total change in the way she operates, but not without the scars of the past.  I would imagine if we asked either Jacob or Regina if they would give up a limp caused by God or scars from high school, both would say, “no.”  The battles were necessary for the complete transformation of both – and the lingering injuries help remind them to never go back.  The reason they would say no is because the wrestling, the battle, the sparring has transformed them into something new and wonderful.  No amount of limping could detract from the new blessed lives each of them can now live.

The same is true for us.  There are parts of our lives that cannot simply be healed or gently be brought to God in prayer.  There are parts of our lives that we are going to need to enter into battle with God for in order to transform them.  The wrestling is necessary because the wrestling forces us to push through whatever is separating us from God and who God calls us to be.  And for those of us who are particularly stubborn or prone to grasping, the wrestling is required to break down our wills enough to get us to the place of being able to confess – confess who we really are to God.  Then, and only then, will we find our transformation – a renaming of who we are so that we can be fully who God invites us to be.  But be forewarned – no one leaves the ring from a match with God without a few scars.  Amen.

[i] Denise Dombkowski Hopkins, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 6.

[ii] Amy Merrill Willis, “Commentary on Genesis 32.22-31” as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/ preaching.aspx? commentary_id=2132 on July 30, 2014

[iii] David Lose, “Tell Me Your Name,” July 24, 2011 as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post= 1597 on July 30, 2014.

Sermon – Romans 8.26-39, P12, YA, July 27, 2014

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

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These last few weeks of following the news have been rough.  As the situation in Palestine and Israel has deteriorated once again, I have listened as story after story of deaths by bombs has been reported.  Even hospitals, which would normally be left as safe havens, have been decimated – with doctors, nurses, and injured peoples killed.  Words keep getting thrown around like “justified,” and “terrorism,” and “power.”  But at the end of the day, people are being killed for the sake of safety and security.  As we imagine each Palestinian mother, father, and child dying, we hear the Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words.

Then there is the Church in Mosul in Iraq.  As ISIS has moved in, they have demanded that all Christians either convert to Islam, pay a religious tax, or be executed.  As hundreds of Christians have chosen to flee, many have been robbed and abused.  Homes and places of worship are marked with the letter “N” for “Nazarene.”  Those labeled buildings are being destroyed or taken over by ISIS.  The Christian community that had been present for over 1600 years is almost completely gone now.  As we imagine Christians fleeing with only the clothes on their backs, we hear the Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words.

Finally, much closer to home, children are crossing our own borders in waves.  Thousands and thousands of unaccompanied minors are fleeing violence, abuse, and poverty in the hopes of asylum in our country.  Just to have crossed the border means these children have already been through significant ordeals.  Without parents and sometimes without a word of English, they come in the hopes of safety and security.  While our governmental leaders and even some of us worry about long-term solutions and costs to our country, many religious communities are offering emergency food, shelter, clothing, and medicines.  As we imagine rooms filled with confused, scared, vulnerable children, we hear the Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words.

There are many things about today’s portion of Paul’s letter to the Romans that I find confusing.  Paul says wonderful things like “…all things work together for good for those who love God,” and “If God is for us, who is against us?” and “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”  And yet, could any of us utter any of these phrases to a Palestinian, a Christian in Mosul, or a Latino refugee child in Texas?  How can Paul admit that we have deep weaknesses, so strong that the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words, and yet still believe that nothing can separate us from God?  Instead Paul’s words come off as pithy to those of us who also groan with the agony of this world, overwhelmed and feeling helpless in a world that bombards us with awful, terrible news of suffering and pain.  If God is for us, we are unsure that God’s team really can win.  We have seen too many things working together for evil to believe that all things work together for good.  And we in fact feel very separated from the love of Christ, especially at times like these.

Many years ago, while I was serving as a chaplain, I met a woman who had been ill for quite some time, and who was wondering whether death might be approaching.  We talked for a long time, and she finally admitted to me that she had stopped praying.  She had stopped praying because she no long knew what to say to God.  She had run out of words, and she was afraid to show any of the anger that was bubbling up inside of her to God for fear that God would abandon her.  She felt alone – isolated both from the world and from God – and that feeling left her bereft.  She could not even pick up the Bible anymore because of Psalms like the one we heard today that begins, “Give thanks to the LORD and call upon his Name…Sing to him, sing praises to him, and speak of all his marvelous works.”  Those words made her angry.  She did not want to give thanks to the LORD, and she resented the Psalms for telling her to do so.

Being a person of faith is not easy.  We often find ourselves in these conundrums.  How are we to trust in the LORD, stake our claim on God’s love, when much of our experiences run counter to the idea of God’s love conquering all or nothing being able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?  When our lives have not turned out how we expected, when our loved ones suffer, or when the world seems to be doling out more hatred than our souls can bear, we find leaning on God’s love to be almost impossible.

And yet, that is Paul’s invitation today.  Paul takes our broken selves and heaps piles of love on top of us.  When we are weak, and we do not even know how to pray, Paul says that the Spirit helps us.  The Spirit knows our pain and suffering, and in fact, the Spirit too groans in pain and suffering – with sighs too deep for words.  The “Spirit’s groans are unspeakable words of intercession for those of us who groan in weakness.”[i]  Why does the Spirit think that God might hear?  Because God has made those same groans.  Every time God’s people broke their covenant with God, God groaned with sighs too deep for words.  As God’s son hung on a cross, God groaned in agony over his death.  God knows our groans because God groans too.  God groans when Christians are forced from their homes in Iraq.  God groans when God’s people kill one another in the most holy of lands.  God groans when we turn innocent children into political issues.

And yet, even in those darkest moments of groaning, God loves us.  Hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword cannot separate us from God’s love, Paul tells us.  “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” says Paul.  Paul, who had persecuted and murdered Christians earlier in his life, turns his life around and embraces love.  Paul who has seen and participated in the worst of life manages to see that the loving embrace of our God never left him; and then he shares that love with others.  He is thoroughly convinced.  Nothing.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Not even death, not even evil rulers, or awful abuses of power, or sinful ways, or wayward people of faith can separate us from the love of God.  Nothing.[ii]

As I have been following the news this week, I have begun to see God’s love percolating.  I listened to an interview with a Jewish teen who is studying in Israel right now.  The interviewer asked the teen how he felt about Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and though the teen initially stated that he supported Israel’s actions, as he talked his way through the complicated issue, he finally confessed that he simply did not want anyone else to have to die – on either side.  As violence continued in Mosul, I watched on Facebook as people changed their profile pictures to the symbol for “N.”  The explanations for the changes are simple.  “I too am a Nazarene.”  As politicians struggle to find the most economical, politically savvy way to handle the children seeking refuge in the United States, I have watched Christians of all stripes advocate for these children – from Catholics and Episcopalians to Evangelical Protestants and Southern Baptists, from Quakers and United Methodists to Unitarian Universalists and Jews.  Russell Moore, of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention was quoted as saying, “These children are made in the image of God, and we ought to respond to them with compassion, not with fear.”[iii]

As I visited with that woman in her hospital bed, we talked about the other Psalms: the ones that invoke God’s wrath and vengeance.  All of the anger and abandonment that she felt was also present in those songs to God.  She was not the first to rail against God.  And she would not be the last to rediscover God’s love for her.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Not hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword.  Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation.  Not bombs or evictions or refugees.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

[i] J.R. Daniel Kirk, “Commentary on Romans 8.26-39” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx? commentary_id= 2152 on July 25, 2014.

[ii] David M. Greenhaw, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 282.

[iii] Michael Paulson, “U.S. Religious Leaders Embrace Cause of Immigrant Children,” as found at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/us/us-religious-leaders-embrace-cause-of-immigrant-children.html on July 23, 2014.

Sermon – Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23, P10, YA, July 13, 2014

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Growing up as the child of a rural Methodist Minister, there was never a lack of fresh produce in our home.  Now that was not because my family went to the grocery store a lot or because we grew our own vegetables, but because multiple times per week, we would find a brown bag sitting on our porch, full of produce from parishioner’s gardens or farms.  Sometimes we knew who they came from, but sometimes they were entirely unmarked bags just waiting for us.  And sometimes people caught us at home so we were able to thank them properly.  But my favorite bags of food came from a local farmer and church member named Frank.  Frank was a funny guy – always wearing his overalls, with a bandana hanging out of his back pocket.  Frank had lived on farms his whole life, and he had a funny way of talking about the farm.  Anytime we tried to thank him for the tomatoes, squash, or cucumbers, he would just scoff and tell us that they were some of Old Bessie’s volunteers.

Bessie was his tractor.  Frank used Bessie to seed his fields, but Bessie was temperamental.  The device that shot the seeds into the field did not really operate properly – it would turn off and on at will, and so Frank always tried to get Bessie into position as quickly as possible before she start spewing seeds.  But invariably, Bessie would spray seeds in the barn, in the ditch on the way to the fields, along the roadside, and even by their house.  Though he would curse and yell at Old Bessie, Frank never seemed to get the glitch fixed, and I guess he loved Bessie too much to trade up for a new one.  Consequently, he would get “volunteer” plants all over his property.  Instead of pulling them up, as they grew and produced all over his property, his youngest sons had to go around and pick them.  These “volunteers” from Bessie were the producers of much of the food we ate throughout the summer and fall.

In a lot of ways, I think the sower in Jesus’ parable today is a lot like Bessie the tractor.  Jesus says that the sower throws seed all over the place – on the path, on rocky ground, among thorns, and in good soil.  By farming standards, the sower is pretty awful at his job.  Most farmers and gardeners are quite careful about how and where they plant.  For those of you not involved in our own community garden here at St. Margaret’s you may not know that they spent quite a long time planning and researching for our garden.  They thought through where the best sunlight would be, how deep the bed should be, what kind of soil to put into the raised bed, and what kind of weed cover to put down.  They even managed to secure some fox urine pellets to spread around the box to deter rabbits from eating all our hard work.  Nowhere in the planning did our Garden Committee suggest we just take some seeds and throw them around the property and see what happens.  And yet this is what the sower seems to be doing in Jesus’ parable today.

The question is why the sower sows seed in such a seemingly wasteful way.  The sower must know that seeds do not get a chance to grow when they are so exposed that birds will eat them before they can germinate.  The sower must know that the soil is not deep enough in the rocky areas to take good healthy root.  The sower must know that thorns usually choke out plants, not letting them grow to full maturity.  So why does the sower not simply save the seed for the healthiest soil?

The scarier part of that question is the next natural question.  Why would Jesus also recommend that the disciples spread the Good News in such a haphazard way too?  When Jesus explains the meaning of his parable, he explains that when they share the Good News, there are going to be times when their sharing feels like fruitless sowing.  The devil is going to come in, people’s enthusiasm is going to wane over time, and others will simply be distracted by the cares of the world.  Very few will actually receive the Good News and flourish and thrive.  And yet Jesus seems to be saying, “Sew the seeds of the Good News with abandon anyway.”

Jesus’ advice to the disciples goes against any sound business practices.  I have been a part of many dioceses who do church planting, and in every case they spend years examining the numbers and making plans.  They look for areas of new population growth, where young families are moving in or are already present, where Episcopal Churches have not yet been built, and where there are many who are unchurched.  They develop carefully constructed publicity campaigns and gimmicks to spread the news about the newly forming church.  Billboards, paper ads, new websites, and promotional events are planned.  Nothing about church planting today is like what Jesus is talking about in this parable.  In fact, many of you have had similar feelings about church growth here in Plainview.  Many of you have expressed the sentiment that church growth in Plainview is pretty much a waste since our community has such a large Jewish population.  And of those neighbors who aren’t Jewish, the rest are Catholic.  So instead of throwing our precious evangelism budget away in our neighborhood, many have encouraged me to either figure out different neighborhoods or to target other towns altogether.

So what is Jesus really suggesting and why do we not seem to want to listen?  On Memorial Day weekend, about twenty parishioners walked in the Plainview Memorial Day Parade, promoting St. Margaret’s.  Two faithful parishioners dressed up as garden vegetables to help us advertise the work of our Garden of Eatin’.  As we walked along, we handed out seed packets and small brochures about St. Margaret’s.  Before the parade began, I remember wondering whether anyone would want our handouts.  I know people love to catch candy and other trinkets, but I could not imagine anyone actually being interested in what we had to offer.  I made a point to watch to see if my theory was right.  As I expected, a few people said “No, thank you,” when offered our handout.  However, I was almost shocked when I noticed that several people gladly took our handouts – in fact one woman specifically asked if she could have one.

What I, and probably many of us, would judge as rocky or thorny soil, actually turned out to be good soil.  That is what Jesus is hoping to get the disciples and us to see.  We can never know what different soils will do.  When we share the Good News, we have no way of knowing what kind of soil we are sowing seeds into.  In fact, I would be willing to guess that many times we often judge soil incorrectly.  And since we are probably not the best soil experts, Jesus instead tells us to sow with abandon – to throw our good news all over the place because you never know when a hand might extend toward us, wanting some of the good news we have to share.  That is a part of the fun!

For years I have suspected that Farmer Frank never repaired Bessie on purpose.  I think he enjoyed the mystery of where the tractor’s seeds would germinate and grow.  He liked sharing the abundance of that crazy tractor.  He liked teaching his children about volunteer plants and the importance of sharing God’s blessings.  And he especially enjoyed spying his neighbors who would stop along the road and pick some extra squash or tomatoes, because they knew Frank and Bessie would not mind.  Bessie made all of that possible, and to repair her would have been to take some of the joy and blessing out of life.

This is the invitation of Jesus to us today:  to be like an erratic, haphazard, wasteful sower of good news.  Yes, you might be known as that crazy lady or guy who talks about God too much.  And, yes, your words might fall on deaf ears or be forgotten tomorrow.  But occasionally, your words will be just the words that someone needed to hear that day.  Your reckless sharing of your blessed experiences with God might just be the food someone was longing for.  In time, you may just find that being a crazy sower of good news is kind of fun, and brings you as much fruit as it brings others.  Amen.

Sermon – Romans 7.15-25a, P9, YA, July 6, 2014

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Today we are going to do something a little different.  I want you to grab a partner – maybe someone sitting beside you or someone sitting in the row in front of or behind you, and I want you to look at the tags in your shirts or dresses to see where they are made.  And when you are done, I want you to shout out the locations.

One of my favorite musical groups, Sweet Honey in the Rock, is an a cappella women’s group that sings spiritual and political songs.  One of their songs is called “Are My Hands Clean?”[i]  Here are the words:

 

I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world; 35% cotton, 65% polyester, the journey begins in Central America; In the cotton fields of El Salvador; In a province soaked in blood, Pesticide-sprayed workers toil in a broiling sun; Pulling cotton for two dollars a day.

Then we move on up to another rung—Cargill; A top-forty trading conglomerate, takes the cotton through the Panama Canal; Up the Eastern seaboard, coming to the US of A for the first time; In South Carolina; At the Burlington mills; Joins a shipment of polyester filament courtesy of the New Jersey petro-chemical mills of; Dupont.

Dupont strands of filament begin in the South American country of Venezuela; Where oil riggers bring up oil from the earth for six dollars a day; Then Exxon, largest oil company in the world; Upgrades the product in the country of Trinidad and Tobago; Then back into the Caribbean and Atlantic Seas; To the factories of Dupont; On the way to the Burlington mills; In South Carolina; To meet the cotton from the blood-soaked fields of El Salvador.

In South Carolina; Burlington factories hum with the business of weaving oil and cotton into miles of fabric; for Sears; Who takes this bounty back into the Caribbean Sea; Headed for Haiti this time—May she be one day soon free—; Far from the Port-au-Prince palace; Third world women toil doing piece work to Sears specifications; For three dollars a day my sisters make my blouse.

It leaves the third world for the last time; Coming back into the sea to be sealed in plastic for me; This third world sister; And I go to the Sears department store where I buy my blouse; On sale for 20% discount.

Are my hands clean?[ii]

 

The point of the song and the point of us thinking about where our clothes come from is that there is a lot more to our everyday living than we can ever imagine.  My shirt being made in Guatemala or the Dominican Republic is just a small piece of the story.  Many hands touch that shirt before I ever purchase the shirt – in fact, even the hands that sell me the shirt have a story.  Somewhere, and some times multiple somewheres, along the way our garments are a part of a bigger story – one that regularly involves injustice, oppression, and poverty.  And through our participation in the process, we become a part of that system of sin.

I remember when I worked for a non-profit that advocated for the people of Guatemala, a story had come out about the Gap and how they were using manufacturers that were what we would call “sweat shops.”  I remember telling my boss that I was thinking of no longer shopping at the Gap, and he asked me why?  I thought my reason would be obvious, but before I could elaborate, he explained that almost every clothing manufacturer was touched by the sinful industry of oppression and injustice.  And if not our clothes, then our food or personal care products could also be perpetrators.  The idea of boycotting one company was pointless to him because a boycott could only make the smallest of dents in an unjust world.

The despair that he created for me that day was like the despair that Paul has in our lesson from Romans today.  “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”  I know his words are a bit convoluted, but basically, Paul is articulating how hard doing the right thing is – even when we know the right thing to do, we cannot seem to do the right thing.  And that is assuming we know the right thing to do in the first place!

So what are we supposed to do in this messy world of sin, with our sinful participation in that world?  Well, the church invites us to confess.  Every week after we pray, before we partake of the holy, cleansing meal, we confess our sins – known and even those unknown to us (like those injustices caused by simply putting on a shirt today).  And we confess aloud together – so that we know that Mrs. Edith sins, just like Hunter sins, and just like I sin.  And we even admit together that not just our words and deeds are sinful – sometimes our thoughts are sinful too.  We admit that even though we bit our tongues this week, the sinful thought was still there, letting evil creep into our lives.

But after the confession, an incredible thing happens.  We are forgiven.  We are forgiven again, for the millionth time, and invited to the table as a reconciled community.  We are fed together, having fully acknowledged our sinfulness, and recognizing how we all have work to do.  Finally, we are sent out into the world:  to try a little better this week, to care a little more, to long for justice a little more, and to keep trying to seek and serve Christ in all persons.  Our worship and scripture tell us, “no,” our hands are not clean.  But we are blessed by the God who saves us, and we go forth into the world to keep trying.  Amen.

[i] Found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9sBRnVeUuI on July 3, 2014.

[ii] As found at http://collegeofsanmateo.edu/integrativelearning/learningcommunities/commons/James/AreMyHands Clean.pdf on July 3, 2014.

Sermon – Genesis 22.1-14, P8, YA, June 29, 2014

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

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One of the great things about the lessons in the summer is that we often get these dramatic stories from the Old Testament.  Last week, we had Hagar and Ishmael’s story.  Today, we have the story of the binding of Isaac.  Both of these stories are the dramatic kind of stories that make us uncomfortable and certainly make many people say, “Well that’s the Old Testament God…not the God that I know.”  We cannot fathom who this God is that “tests” people, deliberately asking them to commit the most heinous of crimes – killing one’s own child.  We are perplexed by Abraham, who upon God’s instruction, simply goes to where God sends him, fully willing to commit this most horrible crime, all the while deceptively luring his child to death.  And poor Isaac – we question how God can expect this test of Abraham’s not to create lifelong psychological scars on Isaac.

The only way I could find my way out of this story this week was to reconsider each character in the text.  I started with God, whose test of Abraham feels more like torture.  I have never felt comfortable with the concept of a god who puts us through tests.  That kind of agency and intervention by God is counter to my understanding of who God is.  I do believe that Satan or the powers of evil regularly test us, and awful things simply happen at times.  But our God is a God who gives us free will – who allows us to make mistakes, but never actively manipulates us in a way that could be labeled as testing.  God does not send us cancer, or take our children, or leave us hungry.

So why does this story say that God “tests” Abraham.  Well, one clue is found in the first sentence.  The story begins with this sentence, “After these things God tested Abraham.”  “After these things,” is not just some transitional phrase like, “In other news…”  Those “things” the story refers to are not insignificant.  If you remember, Abraham has had a circuitous journey, and quite frankly, Abraham has not proved to be very trustworthy so far – constantly taking matters into his own hands, and making a mess of things.  Take, for example, those two times that Abraham’s wife Sarah ended up in a harem in Egypt and Canaan.  Both of those times Abraham lied about Sarah, saying she was his sister, simply to protect himself from being killed by a covetous king.  For a man who trusted God so much that he was willing to leave everything behind, Abraham clearly did not trust God fully enough to take care of Abraham and Sarah.  And so he concocted these horrible lies, forcing Sarah into an awful position – not once, but twice!  Then, of course, there was that time that Abraham did not believe that God would give him children.  So the untrusting Abraham and Sarah got impatient, and decided that Abraham should father a child with Sarah’s handmaid, Hagar.  That fiasco led Abraham’s beloved son being cast out into the wilderness, never to be seen again.  So “these things,” are not insignificant things.  Any of us in relationships with family, spouses, or intimate friends know that trusting someone who betrays your trust over and over again is difficult, if not impossible.

Meanwhile, God is making a pretty big leap of faith in the person of Abraham.  God has already witnessed failure after failure in God’s people – from Adam and Eve to Cain and Abel; from the cleansing of the earth with Noah to the return to sin at the tower of Babel.  And so God takes all that experience with broken covenants and this time attempts to enter into relationship with God’s people through the person of Abraham.  All will be blessed through this one person, the blessing passing through Abraham like a prism, “through which God’s blessing is to be diffused through the whole world.”[i]  So in taking on such a substantial risk, and in seeing Abraham falter many times, a time of testing does not sound so abhorrent after all.  In fact, we begin to see that God is making God’s self pretty vulnerable with Abraham.  And because God grants free will, God cannot know what choices Abraham will actually make.[ii]  The longing for assurance while in a vulnerable position is only natural – one we experience anytime we decide to put ourselves in vulnerable positions with others.

So after coming to some peace with God in this story, I began to pick apart Abraham.  Why does Abraham submit to this test?  He has taken matters into his own hands before, including arguing against killing all the Sodomites.  Why does he submit to God now?  In fact, when God commands Abraham to take Isaac up for sacrifice, Abraham does not protest at all.  The ancient rabbis tried to address this frustration by proposing a little embellishment.  Whenever the rabbis did not understand something in biblical text, they would create a little midrash, or imaginative expansion of the text, to help interpret the text.  So in their retelling of the Genesis story, they create a dialogue between God and Abraham.  In the original text we heard today, all we have are these words:  Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah…  The midrash changes the story to read like this:  “Take your son,” God says.  “I have two sons,” Abraham replies.  “Your only one,” God says.  “This one is the only son of his mother, and this (other) one is the only son of his mother.”  “The one you love,” God clarifies.  “I love them both,” Abraham argues.  “Isaac,” God finally asserts.[iii]

What the midrash tries to do is highlight what might have been going on inside Abraham – something the story never tells us.  Just because Abraham obeys does not mean that he likes obeying.  We can also surmise some of Abraham’s conflicted feelings in other parts of the story.  We hear how torn he is by the ways that he responds to both God and Isaac.  When God calls upon Abraham, he replies, “Here I am.”  That age-old response to God, hineni, is Abraham’s way of showing deference to God.  But Abraham says those same words to Isaac when Isaac calls to him.  “Here I am, my son.”  You can almost hear the devastation in his voice.  But you also hear a deep sense of respect and love for his son – the same deep respect and love Abraham has for God.  Ultimately, what we see in Abraham is a deep trust that things might work out for the best.  When Isaac asks where the lamb is for the sacrifice, Abraham says, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”  Some might read that as a white lie, told to placate an inquisitive son.  But I like to imagine that Abraham hoped against hope that God would in fact provide a lamb, instead of his son.  In fact, perhaps that is the only thing Abraham has left in this horrible story – a trust that God will act and save his son.

Finally, there is Isaac.  As I read this story this week, my immediate thought was, “Poor Isaac.  He has some serious therapy in his future!”  And perhaps that is true – that Isaac is the innocent lamb, deceived, and almost killed.  In fact, many scholars call this story, “The sacrifice of Isaac,” as opposed to “The binding of Isaac.”[iv]  But there is more to Isaac’s story than meets the eye.  In the story, two times the text says of Abraham and Isaac, “and the two of them walked together.”  We know enough about scripture to know that when something is repeated, that repetition is significant.  The text does not say, Abraham led Isaac or Abraham forced Isaac.  The text says the two walked together.  We do not know how much Isaac knows at this point, but the way that the two walk together suggests a certain equality – as if the two face this test together.  Though we imagine Isaac terrified under his father’s knife, perhaps Isaac allows himself to be bound, facing this test with is father, fully trusting as his father does that God will provide the lamb.

The artwork depicting this story varies widely.  There are frightened pictures of Isaac, anguished depictions of Abraham, and strong angels who forcefully grab Abraham’s raised arm before he can damage Isaac.  But my favorite depiction is one by Peggy Parker.[v]  Peggy’s woodcut shows a bound, but peaceful Isaac, curled up on the altar.  Abraham is lovingly and with grief looking over Isaac, a knife hidden behind his back.  And above them both is a large angel, wings spread widely, arms extended over them both, as if lovingly embracing the father and son.  What I like about Peggy’s rendering is that there is a sense that all three characters are vulnerable, all three characters are pained, and yet all three characters trust their vulnerability with one another.

This is our takeaway today.  This story is tough – I doubt that I will be using the story as a bedtime story anytime soon.  But this story also reveals how hard being in relationship with God is – not just for us and our loved ones, but for God too.  We are all trying to love and trust one another.  And just like in any other relationship, that love and trust is hard work.  But when we understand that each of us in this relationship, fully committing to being vulnerable and trusting each other, somehow we find the courage to take that first step.  And when we take those steps, we do not take them alone and we are not forced.  We take them together, equally sacrificing security in the trust of something much greater with our God.  Amen.

[i] Ellen F. Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament (Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 2001),60.

[ii] Ellen F. Davis, “Radical Trust,” July 26, 2011 as found at http://www.faithandleadership.com/sermons/ellen-f-davis-radical-trust on June 25, 2014.

[iii] Davis, Getting Involved, 55.

[iv] Kathryn Schifferdecker , “Commentary on Genesis 22.1-14,” as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/ preaching. aspx?commentary_id=2138 on June 26, 2014

[v] http://www.margaretadamsparker.com/biblical/biblical_abraham.aspx as found on June 27, 2014.