Psalm 89 p 475
1I will sing of your steadfast love, O LORD, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.
2I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.
3You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to my servant David:
4‘I will establish your descendants forever, and build your throne for all generations.’” Selah
5Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones.
6For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD,
7a God feared in the council of the holy ones, great and awesome above all that are around him?
8O LORD God of hosts, who is as mighty as you, O LORD? Your faithfulness surrounds you.
9You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.
10You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
11The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it—you have founded them.
This is the Word of the Lord….Thanks be to God
Luke 1:26-38 p 831
26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.30The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”34Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”35The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.37For nothing will be impossible with God.”38Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
This is the Word of the Lord….Thanks be to God
Luke’s Gospel opens with the writer telling us that he is writing “an orderly account…so that we may know the truth”.
But frankly, there could hardly be a less orderly account—a priest struck mute, an elderly woman about to have a baby, and a young woman, in a back water town, visited by an angel, given a surprising and disturbing message.
Throughout the centuries, there has been much art work depicting the event told to us in this morning’s gospel lesson. It is called the Annunciation: The Announcement. And in most of the paintings, there are typically a few things present: Mary, the Angel, the dove, representing the Holy Spirit, a lily, and a book—although sometimes the book is replaced with a spinning wheel or spindle, which represent suitable activities for a young woman.
And, most often, Mary is shown with her head down, or at least her eyes cast down, in a humble, obedient pose. Sometimes she is on her knees, sometimes she is seated on a chair-but most of the time she looks pretty terrified- after all, angels are scary- and the text tells us that Mary was “much perplexed”- in this, she is at least ahead of the shepherds, who also get an angel visitation- they were “sore afraid” in the KJV of the story- that is, scared right out of their socks, if shepherds even wore any socks.
But Mary is “much perplexed”= which translates as “greatly troubled or disturbed”…..well, wouldn’t you be, if you heard this kind of announcement? Your whole future- gone, in an instant, not even counting the singe marks on the ground from an angel of Lord, Gabriel, the messenger, showing up one sunny afternoon, or the worry about how you could possibly go home and tell your parents or your fiancée.
Mary is greeted by the angel as “favored one” or “blessed one”, it could even mean “happy one”- but I’m not sure Mary is happy. Happy doesn’t seem to be one of the things she is feeling at that moment.
Tradition has that Mary was favored because she was extra holy, or without sin, or extremely obedient. But in Mary, God is showing us that God does surprising things and regards us- all of us! With favor and blessing. We are regarded, we are seen, we are noticed by God. And not because we are special, or extra holy, or without sin. Not because we are powerful, or have status, or are shakers and movers. In fact, quite the opposite. But that is what God is like.
The text says that “Mary pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” She pondered—which sounds very calm, and contemplative--
but have you met any 13 yr old girls lately? They are rude—they are pushy—they will drive their mothers to tears and their fathers to all night worry. They will challenge anybody, yell about anything, slam doors, stomp up the stairs, throw hairbrushes- and dispute nearly everything- so when Mary “ponders”, what she is actually doing, says the original Greek, is debating, working "to bring together different reasons, to reckon up the reasons, to reason, to deliberate.”
I think what Mary is doing is wrestling- perhaps in much the same way Jacob wrestled with God. Jacob was visited by an angel, as well, at the river Jabbok, and he wrestled with the angel until daybreak, and limped for the rest of his life from that encounter.
So I’d like us to think of Mary in a different way- not as a passive, pure vessel, ready only to receive, but as someone who is actively engaged with God. Someone like Deborah or Jael, who takes action when called to do so by God. Someone like Jeremiah, the prophet who yelled back at God. Someone like Jacob, who really wrestles with what God is asking her to do. Someone who is weighing the cost of the announcement the angel brings to her.
Someone, perhaps, like each of us.
Because it is my hope and prayer that we do actively engage with God, even wrestle with God. That we do ponder, debate, dispute, what God is doing in our lives—both as the church and as individuals.
God acts in ways that we cannot comprehend—God acts in ways to redeem, and heal, and restore, even when we can’t understand how in the world that might be able to happen.
As the story unfolds, Mary acts as a creative partner with God. God has initiated this wonderful thing; God is doing this. But the word in Greek that means ponder also has the meaning of “to resolve, to come to a conclusion.” And Mary can hardly understand what is about to take place, or how it even CAN take place- how can this be? she asks. But after wrestling, she agrees to take an active part in God’s plan. Because, as a song from the Iona community puts it, Mary says to the angel “Tell God I say yes”. May it be so for us as well.
Amen.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Advent Meditations Week 4
Advent Devotional Calendar
Monday December 19 Luke 1:1–25
Luke writes, he says “an orderly account”, but the account is anything but orderly. Luke goes back, before Jesus, to an old priest and his wife. In looking back to your life, and the generations before you, are there any places where you see the action of God? Have you ever experienced anything so weird—or so holy—that you couldn’t find words to describe it?
Prayer: Holy One, in prayer or in silence, let us always listen for your Word. Amen.
Tuesday December 20 Luke 1:26–38
A song from the Iona community in Scotland puts Mary’s answer to the angel as this: “Tell God I say yes.” In what ways can you say yes to God in this day?
Prayer: Surprising God, give me a heart that always says yes to you, even when it is risky or uncomfortable or challenging. And then, Lord God, by your Spirit, give me strength and courage. Amen.
Wednesday December 21 Luke 1:39–48a (48b–56)
We know that Elizabeth withdrew from society, and remained in seclusion for these months. It is when Mary visits that Elizabeth gets a real, physical confirmation of what the angel had told- the baby “leaped for joy”. Have you ever had a time when you were waiting on the promises of God? What did you think in that in-between time? How did you get through that time?
Prayer: Lord God, most of our lives seem to be lived in the “in-between” time. Time between your promises and the actual confirmation of that promise. Give us grace to wait and see, for with you nothing is impossible. Amen.
Thursday December 22 Luke 1:57–66
“All of them were amazed” the text says. This gospel that Luke is writing is anything but an orderly account. But that is the way God is—overturning the established way of things, making things new in surprising and joyous ways. What surprising things has the Lord done in your life?
Prayer: Lord, be with us, as we draw close to you. Be with us, as we draw close to Christmas. Be with us, as we hear your surprising good news. Amen.
Friday December 23 Luke 1:67–80
Zechariah’s first words spoken after being struck mute are these: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel”. After a daunting experience, seeing an angel, being struck mute, and nine months of derision by his neighbors, Zechariah’s first words are praise. Is praise always our first response? How will you praise God this Christmas?
Prayer: Faithful God, give us mouths that always give you praise. Amen.
Saturday December 24 Galatians 3:26-27
The church in Galatia struggled with what to believe: there were lots of competing messages, many of which sounded good. Paul writes to the people of the freedom and grace given to them—and to us-in Jesus Christ. The old divisions are gone: we are known only as a child of God. A favorite song often sung on Christmas Eve is, “Children of the heavenly Father.” And thanks be to Jesus Christ, that is who we are.
Prayer: Loving and Compassionate God, thank you that through Jesus Christ, you have claimed us as your own. Amen.
Monday December 19 Luke 1:1–25
Luke writes, he says “an orderly account”, but the account is anything but orderly. Luke goes back, before Jesus, to an old priest and his wife. In looking back to your life, and the generations before you, are there any places where you see the action of God? Have you ever experienced anything so weird—or so holy—that you couldn’t find words to describe it?
Prayer: Holy One, in prayer or in silence, let us always listen for your Word. Amen.
Tuesday December 20 Luke 1:26–38
A song from the Iona community in Scotland puts Mary’s answer to the angel as this: “Tell God I say yes.” In what ways can you say yes to God in this day?
Prayer: Surprising God, give me a heart that always says yes to you, even when it is risky or uncomfortable or challenging. And then, Lord God, by your Spirit, give me strength and courage. Amen.
Wednesday December 21 Luke 1:39–48a (48b–56)
We know that Elizabeth withdrew from society, and remained in seclusion for these months. It is when Mary visits that Elizabeth gets a real, physical confirmation of what the angel had told- the baby “leaped for joy”. Have you ever had a time when you were waiting on the promises of God? What did you think in that in-between time? How did you get through that time?
Prayer: Lord God, most of our lives seem to be lived in the “in-between” time. Time between your promises and the actual confirmation of that promise. Give us grace to wait and see, for with you nothing is impossible. Amen.
Thursday December 22 Luke 1:57–66
“All of them were amazed” the text says. This gospel that Luke is writing is anything but an orderly account. But that is the way God is—overturning the established way of things, making things new in surprising and joyous ways. What surprising things has the Lord done in your life?
Prayer: Lord, be with us, as we draw close to you. Be with us, as we draw close to Christmas. Be with us, as we hear your surprising good news. Amen.
Friday December 23 Luke 1:67–80
Zechariah’s first words spoken after being struck mute are these: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel”. After a daunting experience, seeing an angel, being struck mute, and nine months of derision by his neighbors, Zechariah’s first words are praise. Is praise always our first response? How will you praise God this Christmas?
Prayer: Faithful God, give us mouths that always give you praise. Amen.
Saturday December 24 Galatians 3:26-27
The church in Galatia struggled with what to believe: there were lots of competing messages, many of which sounded good. Paul writes to the people of the freedom and grace given to them—and to us-in Jesus Christ. The old divisions are gone: we are known only as a child of God. A favorite song often sung on Christmas Eve is, “Children of the heavenly Father.” And thanks be to Jesus Christ, that is who we are.
Prayer: Loving and Compassionate God, thank you that through Jesus Christ, you have claimed us as your own. Amen.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Sermon Dec 11 2011
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 p 803
61The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;2to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;3to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.
4They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.8For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.9Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the LORD has blessed.
10I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.11For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
This is the word of the Lord….thanks be to God
Psalm 126 p499
1When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.
2Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
3The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.
4Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb.
5May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.
6Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.
This is the word of the Lord….Thanks be to God
Today is the Third Sunday in Advent. It is the JOY Sunday, the day we light the pink candle. Originally observed only in the city of Rome, it comes from the Latin word "Gaudate"—the day we "Rejoice." And indeed, today’s Scripture lessons call for us to rejoice. We need to take care to understand what it means, though. We are not simply to be happier on Advent's third Sunday. To rejoice is to engage in a radical act and to adopt a certain stance toward God and humanity. It is, in many ways, to defy what the world tells us and shows us, and live out a radical truth—that God is in control, despite what things look like.
Psalm 126 is a Song of Ascents, one of the songs the pilgrims of Israel sang as they went up to Jerusalem. And the Songs of Ascents were joyous, for to be able to go to Jerusalem, the Holy City, was both a requirement for faithful Jews, and a blessing.
But if we look carefully at the psalm, it is not all happy happy joy, joy. It is, in fact, a psalm of lament—of crying out to God. It begins with remembering the great things God has done: “When God restored…the fortunes of Zion”. It begins, not with present praise and celebration, but in looking to the past. The psalmist remembers: The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. But the great things are no more, apparently, because the psalmist’s next words are: “Restore our fortunes, O God”. Literally, “turn, O God”. And then: a prayer, “May those who sow in tears reap with joy”.
The psalmist can pray this, the people of God can sing this, because they have an already established relationship with God. They have experienced the goodness of God—even if they do not see it today, in this moment. Even if there is no joy right now—they can remember, and trust, and look to the future.
The psalmist insists that God will see to it that we who are lost will find our way home, and we who sow in tears will reap with joy.
The prophet Isaiah is speaking, in this morning’s portion, to the people who have returned from exile. And while this is what the people of God longed for, prayed for, cried out to God for, the reality is different from their dreams. Even returned to Jerusalem, there are still problems. The world is still broken. There are still disparities in income, there are still political divisions, there are problems between the people who were brought back from exile, and the remnant who stayed in Jerusalem. The city and the Temple are not restored to their former glory, and Jerusalem does not look like the restored and healed community. The gritty reality of life does not seem to match the promises of the prophets.
But Isaiah says this to the people: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me”, he says, “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”—the Jubilee year, the time when debts would be forgiven, when land would be returned to the rightful owners, when slaves would be set free. A time when the world would be restored, when economic injustice would end, when theer would be no more mourning, or shame, a time when the world would be healed, not broken.
Jesus spoke those same words, reading from the scroll in his home town synagogue. Those words of good news, of freedom and release. His first sermon, really. And the people were so astonished—and offended that they tried to throw him off a cliff and kill him.
I once heard a woman read these same words as the text during her service of ordination to the office of teaching elder, or minister of word and sacrament. And I was astonished—and offended. Surely, I thought, it is one thing for Jesus to read those words. It is quite another thing for her! But I now think, that the church must claim these words for itself—to speak as the “me” in that text “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the oppressed…to bind up the broken hearted…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Maybe we should read it as “the spirit of the Lord is upon us…”
Because that is what the church is called to do: to proclaim good news, to bring comfort to those who mourn, to proclaim and enact liberty to captives….to feed the hungry, to clothe the cold and naked, to talk about what God is doing—we, who know God’s actions, we who have a prior relationship with God, we who see that the world needs restoring again.
The promises of God are faithful and true. God, who has restored in the past, will restore again. The word “Promise,” turns out not to be empty, but a word closely related to “mission.” It derives from a Latin word, “pro-missio” meaning, “to send, hence put, in front, hence to engage to (do something).” A promise, then, is a call to take action, to move, to perform a required service. The promises of God become our mission statement.
We do well to look at John the Baptist, out in the wilderness, who when questioned by the authorities, was very clear about who he was not: Not the Messiah, not Elijah, not even a minor prophet. Just a voice, and a witness, pointing to the light, rejoicing as he goes. The church acts as a witness, a voice of testimony, a pointer—and lives out what it is talking about—justice, redemption, restoration, love.
This is work. And it will not always be easy, or popular, or received well. But it is the work we are called to do—Isaiah even mentions work clothes: garments of salvation and robes of righteousness. And we do this work, this rejoicing, this pointing, this witnessing, because of the very nature of God: “ 1 Thessalonians says “the One who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.”
The prophet Isaiah uses the language of rejoicing instead of mourning. This talk is rooted in the character of God the faithful. It is as natural as the earth bringing forth its shoots. Restoration and healing happen, because God is acting. It is the nature of the Creator. And so we rejoice. This is the work of the Spirit of the Lord that Isaiah talks about. And we join in that work with joy.
Amen.
61The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;2to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;3to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.
4They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.8For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.9Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the LORD has blessed.
10I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.11For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
This is the word of the Lord….thanks be to God
Psalm 126 p499
1When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.
2Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
3The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.
4Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb.
5May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.
6Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.
This is the word of the Lord….Thanks be to God
Today is the Third Sunday in Advent. It is the JOY Sunday, the day we light the pink candle. Originally observed only in the city of Rome, it comes from the Latin word "Gaudate"—the day we "Rejoice." And indeed, today’s Scripture lessons call for us to rejoice. We need to take care to understand what it means, though. We are not simply to be happier on Advent's third Sunday. To rejoice is to engage in a radical act and to adopt a certain stance toward God and humanity. It is, in many ways, to defy what the world tells us and shows us, and live out a radical truth—that God is in control, despite what things look like.
Psalm 126 is a Song of Ascents, one of the songs the pilgrims of Israel sang as they went up to Jerusalem. And the Songs of Ascents were joyous, for to be able to go to Jerusalem, the Holy City, was both a requirement for faithful Jews, and a blessing.
But if we look carefully at the psalm, it is not all happy happy joy, joy. It is, in fact, a psalm of lament—of crying out to God. It begins with remembering the great things God has done: “When God restored…the fortunes of Zion”. It begins, not with present praise and celebration, but in looking to the past. The psalmist remembers: The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. But the great things are no more, apparently, because the psalmist’s next words are: “Restore our fortunes, O God”. Literally, “turn, O God”. And then: a prayer, “May those who sow in tears reap with joy”.
The psalmist can pray this, the people of God can sing this, because they have an already established relationship with God. They have experienced the goodness of God—even if they do not see it today, in this moment. Even if there is no joy right now—they can remember, and trust, and look to the future.
The psalmist insists that God will see to it that we who are lost will find our way home, and we who sow in tears will reap with joy.
The prophet Isaiah is speaking, in this morning’s portion, to the people who have returned from exile. And while this is what the people of God longed for, prayed for, cried out to God for, the reality is different from their dreams. Even returned to Jerusalem, there are still problems. The world is still broken. There are still disparities in income, there are still political divisions, there are problems between the people who were brought back from exile, and the remnant who stayed in Jerusalem. The city and the Temple are not restored to their former glory, and Jerusalem does not look like the restored and healed community. The gritty reality of life does not seem to match the promises of the prophets.
But Isaiah says this to the people: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me”, he says, “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”—the Jubilee year, the time when debts would be forgiven, when land would be returned to the rightful owners, when slaves would be set free. A time when the world would be restored, when economic injustice would end, when theer would be no more mourning, or shame, a time when the world would be healed, not broken.
Jesus spoke those same words, reading from the scroll in his home town synagogue. Those words of good news, of freedom and release. His first sermon, really. And the people were so astonished—and offended that they tried to throw him off a cliff and kill him.
I once heard a woman read these same words as the text during her service of ordination to the office of teaching elder, or minister of word and sacrament. And I was astonished—and offended. Surely, I thought, it is one thing for Jesus to read those words. It is quite another thing for her! But I now think, that the church must claim these words for itself—to speak as the “me” in that text “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the oppressed…to bind up the broken hearted…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Maybe we should read it as “the spirit of the Lord is upon us…”
Because that is what the church is called to do: to proclaim good news, to bring comfort to those who mourn, to proclaim and enact liberty to captives….to feed the hungry, to clothe the cold and naked, to talk about what God is doing—we, who know God’s actions, we who have a prior relationship with God, we who see that the world needs restoring again.
The promises of God are faithful and true. God, who has restored in the past, will restore again. The word “Promise,” turns out not to be empty, but a word closely related to “mission.” It derives from a Latin word, “pro-missio” meaning, “to send, hence put, in front, hence to engage to (do something).” A promise, then, is a call to take action, to move, to perform a required service. The promises of God become our mission statement.
We do well to look at John the Baptist, out in the wilderness, who when questioned by the authorities, was very clear about who he was not: Not the Messiah, not Elijah, not even a minor prophet. Just a voice, and a witness, pointing to the light, rejoicing as he goes. The church acts as a witness, a voice of testimony, a pointer—and lives out what it is talking about—justice, redemption, restoration, love.
This is work. And it will not always be easy, or popular, or received well. But it is the work we are called to do—Isaiah even mentions work clothes: garments of salvation and robes of righteousness. And we do this work, this rejoicing, this pointing, this witnessing, because of the very nature of God: “ 1 Thessalonians says “the One who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.”
The prophet Isaiah uses the language of rejoicing instead of mourning. This talk is rooted in the character of God the faithful. It is as natural as the earth bringing forth its shoots. Restoration and healing happen, because God is acting. It is the nature of the Creator. And so we rejoice. This is the work of the Spirit of the Lord that Isaiah talks about. And we join in that work with joy.
Amen.
Advent Meditations Week III
Advent Meditation Week 3
Monday December 12
Ephesians 6:10-17
This passage sounds like girding for battle—which it is. But it is interesting to note that all of the equipment, the clothing, is defensive: shields, helmets, breastplates. But what is interesting, in light of all that battle armature, is verse 15: “Put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace”. What can you put on that will prepare you, this Advent season, to proclaim the gospel of peace? Is it reading Scripture? More time in prayer or meditation? More silence?
Prayer: God of peace, so often we feel like life is a battle— with others, with our employers and co-workers, with disease and poverty, with ourselves. Help me to put on whatever will make me ready to proclaim your peace. Amen.
Tuesday December 13Acts 3:17-4:4
“Repent, therefore, and turn to God, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,” says Peter. In the Bible, repenting is always linked to turning- turning away from sin, and turning to God. But the Bible also knows that turning may happen again and again—that we may lose our way, and get lost, and need to turn and return to God. Turn this day to God, and be refreshed and renewed.
Prayer: Holy God, in Christ you have made for us a new way. Help us always to turn to you. Amen.
Wednesday December 14
Malachi 3:16-4:6
16Then those who revered the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the LORD and thought on his name.17They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them.18Then once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.
“Hail the heav’n born Prince of Peace! Hail the sun of righteousness!” The language for that Christmas carol comes from this passage of Malachi. In what ways is Christ a sun for you? How does the righteousness of Christ affect your life?
Prayer: Righteous One, have mercy on us. Your day is surely coming: let us look to you as our light. Amen.
Thursday December 15
Hebrews 1:1-4
“In these last days God has spoken to us by a Son” says this letter, “through whom he also created the worlds.” The writer of Hebrews tells of Christ not as an infant, but as the word of God, from the beginning of time, when God was creating the heavens and earth. How does that change how you see the baby in the manger?
Prayer: Lord Christ, in the fullness of time, you came to us. Lord Christ, in a mystery of light, you created the world. Lord Christ, you are the word of God. Speak to us now. Amen.
Friday December 16
Hebrews 1:5-14 The angels appear in the nativity story to announce the birth of Jesus. This portion of Hebrews compares the angels and Jesus, and shows that Christ is greater than angels, is God—the angels worship him. We often see angels portrayed in popular culture—but what message do they bring? In what ways are they different from the biblical angels?
Prayer: Christ, you are the son of God, come to dwell with us. With all the angels, let us worship and adore you. Let us ne angels—messengers of your good news. Amen.
Saturday December 17
John 7:40-53
“Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee!” someone in the crowd around Jesus said. People expected a Messiah who came from a much grander place than the back water town of Galilee. But that is the way God works—in surprising ways, in ways that are not like the ways of the world, to save and redeem to build up and heal. Where is an unexpected place you have seen the work of God?
Prayer: Mysterious One, you do not work in ways we understand, and are seen in places we would not expect. Yet you come to us, and to all, to heal and to save. Amen.
Monday December 12
Ephesians 6:10-17
This passage sounds like girding for battle—which it is. But it is interesting to note that all of the equipment, the clothing, is defensive: shields, helmets, breastplates. But what is interesting, in light of all that battle armature, is verse 15: “Put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace”. What can you put on that will prepare you, this Advent season, to proclaim the gospel of peace? Is it reading Scripture? More time in prayer or meditation? More silence?
Prayer: God of peace, so often we feel like life is a battle— with others, with our employers and co-workers, with disease and poverty, with ourselves. Help me to put on whatever will make me ready to proclaim your peace. Amen.
Tuesday December 13Acts 3:17-4:4
“Repent, therefore, and turn to God, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,” says Peter. In the Bible, repenting is always linked to turning- turning away from sin, and turning to God. But the Bible also knows that turning may happen again and again—that we may lose our way, and get lost, and need to turn and return to God. Turn this day to God, and be refreshed and renewed.
Prayer: Holy God, in Christ you have made for us a new way. Help us always to turn to you. Amen.
Wednesday December 14
Malachi 3:16-4:6
16Then those who revered the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the LORD and thought on his name.17They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them.18Then once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.
“Hail the heav’n born Prince of Peace! Hail the sun of righteousness!” The language for that Christmas carol comes from this passage of Malachi. In what ways is Christ a sun for you? How does the righteousness of Christ affect your life?
Prayer: Righteous One, have mercy on us. Your day is surely coming: let us look to you as our light. Amen.
Thursday December 15
Hebrews 1:1-4
“In these last days God has spoken to us by a Son” says this letter, “through whom he also created the worlds.” The writer of Hebrews tells of Christ not as an infant, but as the word of God, from the beginning of time, when God was creating the heavens and earth. How does that change how you see the baby in the manger?
Prayer: Lord Christ, in the fullness of time, you came to us. Lord Christ, in a mystery of light, you created the world. Lord Christ, you are the word of God. Speak to us now. Amen.
Friday December 16
Hebrews 1:5-14 The angels appear in the nativity story to announce the birth of Jesus. This portion of Hebrews compares the angels and Jesus, and shows that Christ is greater than angels, is God—the angels worship him. We often see angels portrayed in popular culture—but what message do they bring? In what ways are they different from the biblical angels?
Prayer: Christ, you are the son of God, come to dwell with us. With all the angels, let us worship and adore you. Let us ne angels—messengers of your good news. Amen.
Saturday December 17
John 7:40-53
“Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee!” someone in the crowd around Jesus said. People expected a Messiah who came from a much grander place than the back water town of Galilee. But that is the way God works—in surprising ways, in ways that are not like the ways of the world, to save and redeem to build up and heal. Where is an unexpected place you have seen the work of God?
Prayer: Mysterious One, you do not work in ways we understand, and are seen in places we would not expect. Yet you come to us, and to all, to heal and to save. Amen.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Advent Calendar Week 2
Monday December 5 Psalm 122
In this psalm, the faithful tie together the fate of the temple and the fate of society: they are both bound together, and they will prosper together. The families of the faithful are in there, too- “for the sake of my relatives and friends, I will say “Peace be within you.” In what ways do we see our church relating to the whole community? How often do we see our calling as the church to be the welfare of the larger society?
Prayer: Christ, you came as ruler of the whole world. Help our church to remember and care for others outside our walls. Amen.
Tuesday December 6 Psalm 33
This psalm spans the gamut of a command to praise the God who made all creation, to an assurance that God will keep people alive in famine. The psalm is founded on trust in God’s goodness: “our hearts are glad in him, because we trust in his holy name” says the psalmist. In what do we place our trust? In this Advent season, let us examine ourselves and look at what we really trust in: our own hard work? Luck? The government? Family? A God who comes to live among us?
Prayer: Holy One, we wait for you, for you are our help and shield. Help us always to trust in you, even when the wait seems long. Amen.
Wednesday December 7 Psalm 50
In this psalm, God speaks directly and forcefully to the people. Sacrifices will do no good if the people continue to steal, lie and slander others. It is thanksgiving to God that is seen as an acceptable offering, and a life lived out of that thankfulness. It is very fitting that the Advent season, a time of preparing our hearts for Christ, comes after our American Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving is always the correct way to approach and honor God.
Prayer: Let us glorify you, O God, with lives of gratitude. For you are our God, and will show us salvation. Amen.
Thursday December 8 Psalm 18: 1-3, 18-20
The psalmist tells of calling on the Lord. God hears, and bends the very heavens, and comes down. In what ways is the birth of Christ an answer to prayer? In what ways has God heard your cries, and delivered you?
Prayer: Holy One, you hear us, and deliver us. I will call upon your name. Amen.
Friday December 9 Psalm 102
If yesterday’s psalm was a song of hope and trust, this psalm is a psalm of lament. The singer feels that God is hiding, that God is not acting. And yet…the singer also can lament, freely, because he has already experienced God’s great love and mercy, and looks forward to continued action by God. Have you ever felt that God was not responding to you, was absent? How did you feel? What did you do? The psalms of lament remind us that it is not only okay, but a sign of a firm relationship with God, to lament to God.
Prayer: Awesome God, there are often times when you seem absent. We cry out to you, and trust in you. Do not hide, do not forget, but remember us and hear our prayers. Amen.
Saturday December 10 Psalm 90
How many days have you lived? How many more do you think you will live? “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart” says this psalm. The goal of gaining and counting up our years is not to amass wealth, or prestige. It is to have a heart that is wise in God. In God’s time, our lives are short—and yet they still matter. “O prosper the work of our hands!” prays the psalmist.
Prayer: Eternal God, a thousand ages in your sight are like an evening gone. And yet, you remember us, and have sent Christ to us. Prosper the work of our hands, that they may give glory to you. Thank you. Amen.
In this psalm, the faithful tie together the fate of the temple and the fate of society: they are both bound together, and they will prosper together. The families of the faithful are in there, too- “for the sake of my relatives and friends, I will say “Peace be within you.” In what ways do we see our church relating to the whole community? How often do we see our calling as the church to be the welfare of the larger society?
Prayer: Christ, you came as ruler of the whole world. Help our church to remember and care for others outside our walls. Amen.
Tuesday December 6 Psalm 33
This psalm spans the gamut of a command to praise the God who made all creation, to an assurance that God will keep people alive in famine. The psalm is founded on trust in God’s goodness: “our hearts are glad in him, because we trust in his holy name” says the psalmist. In what do we place our trust? In this Advent season, let us examine ourselves and look at what we really trust in: our own hard work? Luck? The government? Family? A God who comes to live among us?
Prayer: Holy One, we wait for you, for you are our help and shield. Help us always to trust in you, even when the wait seems long. Amen.
Wednesday December 7 Psalm 50
In this psalm, God speaks directly and forcefully to the people. Sacrifices will do no good if the people continue to steal, lie and slander others. It is thanksgiving to God that is seen as an acceptable offering, and a life lived out of that thankfulness. It is very fitting that the Advent season, a time of preparing our hearts for Christ, comes after our American Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving is always the correct way to approach and honor God.
Prayer: Let us glorify you, O God, with lives of gratitude. For you are our God, and will show us salvation. Amen.
Thursday December 8 Psalm 18: 1-3, 18-20
The psalmist tells of calling on the Lord. God hears, and bends the very heavens, and comes down. In what ways is the birth of Christ an answer to prayer? In what ways has God heard your cries, and delivered you?
Prayer: Holy One, you hear us, and deliver us. I will call upon your name. Amen.
Friday December 9 Psalm 102
If yesterday’s psalm was a song of hope and trust, this psalm is a psalm of lament. The singer feels that God is hiding, that God is not acting. And yet…the singer also can lament, freely, because he has already experienced God’s great love and mercy, and looks forward to continued action by God. Have you ever felt that God was not responding to you, was absent? How did you feel? What did you do? The psalms of lament remind us that it is not only okay, but a sign of a firm relationship with God, to lament to God.
Prayer: Awesome God, there are often times when you seem absent. We cry out to you, and trust in you. Do not hide, do not forget, but remember us and hear our prayers. Amen.
Saturday December 10 Psalm 90
How many days have you lived? How many more do you think you will live? “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart” says this psalm. The goal of gaining and counting up our years is not to amass wealth, or prestige. It is to have a heart that is wise in God. In God’s time, our lives are short—and yet they still matter. “O prosper the work of our hands!” prays the psalmist.
Prayer: Eternal God, a thousand ages in your sight are like an evening gone. And yet, you remember us, and have sent Christ to us. Prosper the work of our hands, that they may give glory to you. Thank you. Amen.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Advent Devotions Week 1
Advent Devotional Calendar
Monday, Nov 28 Matthew 21:1-11
The crowds had been waiting for Jesus. Or, more specifically, they had been waiting for the Messiah to arrive…and what they got didn’t look anything like what they had been expecting. A guy, a farmer, a country hick, really, on a donkey…..not on a white steed, not with fan fare and trumpets and weapons…but Jesus. Humble, riding on a donkey.
Advent is a time of waiting. What are you waiting for? Or, rather, who are you waiting for? In what ways does the God who comes to us in Jesus Christ not resemble all of our assumptions about what God is like?
Prayer: Holy God, we are waiting for you. Help us always to receive you as you are, full of humility and grace, and not as we expect you to be. Amen.
Tuesday, Nov 29 Matthew 21:12-22
I’ve always been bothered by this passage. Both the people in the Temple, and the fig tree, were minding their own business—just doing what they needed to do to do business, just trying to grow at the side of the road. And Jesus comes and starts tearing things down. But what I just have noticed, in re-reading, is the word ‘prayer’: “My house shall be a house of prayer, and the tail end of the story, “whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.” Maybe prayer is the point of the story—not getting on with our lives, doing what we’ve always done—but intentionally stopping, and setting aside the day to day, and praying. In faith.
Prayer: Loving and disturbing God, you came in Jesus to set things right, to knock down the things that get in the way of our life with you. Give us breath to pause, and stop, and be with you in prayer at this busy Advent time. Amen.
Wednesday, November 30 Matthew 21:28-32
In the ancient world, when a word, especially by a parent, even more especially by a father, was said, and was heard, it was to be obeyed. Hearing was obeying. There was no alternative. In the parable, however, Jesus tells of a son who at first says no, but afterwards goes and does the work of his father. He then asks the crowd gathered around him: “Which of these did the will of his father?” Is it our words that make a difference, or our actions? Or both? St Francis of Assisi said “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary use words.” In what actions are we telling the Good News?
Prayer: Holy Father, let my words, my actions, my whole life be a reflection of the goodness you have given to all in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Thursday, December 1 Matthew 21.33-44
This was a typical setting in Roman-occupied Palestine. A wealthy land owner bought some land, prepared it, hired tenants to work it, and then went away to another part of the Empire to attend to other business affairs. “While the cat’s away the mice will play” is another saying. Things take a wrong turn—making this parable sound more like an episode of CSI than something in the Bible. And yet, Jesus twists the story and begins talking about a cornerstone. “Christ is our cornerstone” we sing. In what ways is Christ our cornerstone, undergirding our lives? How do we produce fruit in the kingdom of God?
Prayer: Holy One, you are the foundation of our lives, you are the strength we seek. Give us eyes to see you, and lives that produce fruit for your kingdom. Amen.
Friday, December 2 Matthew 22:1–14
Why are we hearing these stories about weeping and gnashing of teeth, during Advent? Isn’t Advent a time of expectant—and hopeful—waiting? Why all this talk about judgment? One of the things we might wonder about is the man who shows up without a wedding garment. He was just pulled in off the street, for heaven’s sake! Maybe he didn’t have a wedding garment! But ancient tradition was that the slaves who invited the people in would also give them a wedding garment—specifically so they would be arrayed in fine clothes, and so they could come without feeling shame if they had no good clothes to wear. The king was giving them everything they needed to come and feast—and the man who showed up without it was directly insulting the king. God has given us all we need in Christ—in what ways are we refusing God’s gracious gifts, by refusing to use them?
Prayer: Generous God, in Christ you have given us all we need. By your Spirit, let us clothe ourselves as your children, your beloved guests. Amen.
Saturday, December 3 Matthew 22:15–22
“Whose head is this?” (literally, whose image is this?) And whose title? Jesus asks the crowd. What images do we have of Jesus? A little baby? A smart young teacher? A rebel against the Roman occupiers? What titles do we use—Lord? Suffering Servant? Savior? The image we have of God, and the language we use, often grew out of our childhood experience. What are some others ways you can think of, some other images to use, as we travel through Advent?
Prayer: Lord God, we are made in your image. Help us not to confuse our image with yours, but only to worship you. Amen.
Monday, Nov 28 Matthew 21:1-11
The crowds had been waiting for Jesus. Or, more specifically, they had been waiting for the Messiah to arrive…and what they got didn’t look anything like what they had been expecting. A guy, a farmer, a country hick, really, on a donkey…..not on a white steed, not with fan fare and trumpets and weapons…but Jesus. Humble, riding on a donkey.
Advent is a time of waiting. What are you waiting for? Or, rather, who are you waiting for? In what ways does the God who comes to us in Jesus Christ not resemble all of our assumptions about what God is like?
Prayer: Holy God, we are waiting for you. Help us always to receive you as you are, full of humility and grace, and not as we expect you to be. Amen.
Tuesday, Nov 29 Matthew 21:12-22
I’ve always been bothered by this passage. Both the people in the Temple, and the fig tree, were minding their own business—just doing what they needed to do to do business, just trying to grow at the side of the road. And Jesus comes and starts tearing things down. But what I just have noticed, in re-reading, is the word ‘prayer’: “My house shall be a house of prayer, and the tail end of the story, “whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.” Maybe prayer is the point of the story—not getting on with our lives, doing what we’ve always done—but intentionally stopping, and setting aside the day to day, and praying. In faith.
Prayer: Loving and disturbing God, you came in Jesus to set things right, to knock down the things that get in the way of our life with you. Give us breath to pause, and stop, and be with you in prayer at this busy Advent time. Amen.
Wednesday, November 30 Matthew 21:28-32
In the ancient world, when a word, especially by a parent, even more especially by a father, was said, and was heard, it was to be obeyed. Hearing was obeying. There was no alternative. In the parable, however, Jesus tells of a son who at first says no, but afterwards goes and does the work of his father. He then asks the crowd gathered around him: “Which of these did the will of his father?” Is it our words that make a difference, or our actions? Or both? St Francis of Assisi said “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary use words.” In what actions are we telling the Good News?
Prayer: Holy Father, let my words, my actions, my whole life be a reflection of the goodness you have given to all in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Thursday, December 1 Matthew 21.33-44
This was a typical setting in Roman-occupied Palestine. A wealthy land owner bought some land, prepared it, hired tenants to work it, and then went away to another part of the Empire to attend to other business affairs. “While the cat’s away the mice will play” is another saying. Things take a wrong turn—making this parable sound more like an episode of CSI than something in the Bible. And yet, Jesus twists the story and begins talking about a cornerstone. “Christ is our cornerstone” we sing. In what ways is Christ our cornerstone, undergirding our lives? How do we produce fruit in the kingdom of God?
Prayer: Holy One, you are the foundation of our lives, you are the strength we seek. Give us eyes to see you, and lives that produce fruit for your kingdom. Amen.
Friday, December 2 Matthew 22:1–14
Why are we hearing these stories about weeping and gnashing of teeth, during Advent? Isn’t Advent a time of expectant—and hopeful—waiting? Why all this talk about judgment? One of the things we might wonder about is the man who shows up without a wedding garment. He was just pulled in off the street, for heaven’s sake! Maybe he didn’t have a wedding garment! But ancient tradition was that the slaves who invited the people in would also give them a wedding garment—specifically so they would be arrayed in fine clothes, and so they could come without feeling shame if they had no good clothes to wear. The king was giving them everything they needed to come and feast—and the man who showed up without it was directly insulting the king. God has given us all we need in Christ—in what ways are we refusing God’s gracious gifts, by refusing to use them?
Prayer: Generous God, in Christ you have given us all we need. By your Spirit, let us clothe ourselves as your children, your beloved guests. Amen.
Saturday, December 3 Matthew 22:15–22
“Whose head is this?” (literally, whose image is this?) And whose title? Jesus asks the crowd. What images do we have of Jesus? A little baby? A smart young teacher? A rebel against the Roman occupiers? What titles do we use—Lord? Suffering Servant? Savior? The image we have of God, and the language we use, often grew out of our childhood experience. What are some others ways you can think of, some other images to use, as we travel through Advent?
Prayer: Lord God, we are made in your image. Help us not to confuse our image with yours, but only to worship you. Amen.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Tax Time?
Exodus 33:12-23
12Moses said to the LORD, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’13Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”14He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”15And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here.16For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”17The LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”18Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.”19And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.20But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.”21And the LORD continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock;22and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by;23then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”
Matthew 22:15-22
15Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.16So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.17Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”18But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?19Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius.20Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?”21They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”22When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
Our calendars say “October 16th” today, but according to the text this morning, it is April 15. Tax Time. And the question posed to Jesus is, is it lawful to pay taxes to the government, or not?
In many ways, this question makes no sense to us. Of course we pay taxes. We pay taxes on everything- gas, clothes, cigarettes, our income. The only two sure things in life are death and taxes. But to the people in 1st century Palestine, this is a loaded question. The Pharisees and Herodians are trying to trick Jesus.
And they start with flattery- “We know that you are sincere. We know that you teach the way of God, and that you show no partiality”- and they use an idiom which means, literally, “you do not look at other’s faces”. Which is ironic, because Jesus’ answer is all about faces, and icons, and images.
But first comes the “Gotcha” question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, to Caesar?” The Jewish people have been taxed by the Romans—in fact, Jesus’ own story began with a tax. Mary and Joseph must travel to Bethlehem, for the census, that all the world should be counted—which was Rome’s way of ensuring an accurate tax roll. Back to the present of the story, the Pharisees and the Herodians think they have him- if Jesus answers “Pay the tax”, then he is colluding with the Roman occupiers, and will lose the support of the common people. If he says “don’t pay the tax” then he is a revolutionary- and a traitor.
Jesus answers their challenge with a question and a challenge of his own: “show me the money”. Actually, he says “show me the coin.” Now coins of the Roam Empire had the image, the icon, of Caesar on them. At this time, archeologists remind us, it would have been "Tiberias Caesar, son of the divine Augustus and our high priest." The coin would have had on the other side an image of the imperial mother, Livia, as the goddess of peace.
And Jesus’ point is this: faithful Jews were to follow the 10 commandments- and the first two are: 1) You shall have no other gods before me, and 2) “You shall make for yourself no graven images”- But the coin of the realm violated both. They featured another god, namely Caesar, and his cast image on the face of the coin.
Which begs the question: what are faithful Jews doing with one of those coins in their pockets? God has forbidden false images and idols. Here are religious leaders, within a stone’s throw of the Holy of Holies, with miniature blasphemies in their change purses. Whether they know it or not, Jesus has just nailed them for hypocrisy. By identifying Caesar’s face on the coin, they have revealed their own inconsistencies. Jesus has just caught them in hypocrisy. Gotcha back!
But this story isn’t a “Jesus is really clever and gets the best of his opponents” story. This story is about whose we are, and who we are, to whom our allegiance is due, and in whose image we are made.
Many of us have heard the moral of the story, the tag line, like this: “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s”.
Which would be easy, and great, if our lives were neatly divided into God areas and not-God areas, two separate columns in the book of life. And some faith traditions have made distinctions between spiritual kingdoms and authority, and temporal kingdoms and authority. But we understand that God is Lord of all our life—not just a portion of it, not just part of it, not just Sunday morning, but all of it.
“The earth is the Lords, and the fullness thereof,” Psalm 24 says, “the world and they that dwell therein”. That’s us- all of us, all of our life. Despite what we might think, given how much of us our jobs and the banks and the credit card companies own, we are the Lord’s. Our baptism was the sign and seal of that—that God claimed us.
Which is comforting—but doesn’t make Jesus’ challenge any easier. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render unto God the things that are God’s- well, that looks like all of it, doesn’t it? Does that mean we don’t have to pay taxes?
Do you remember the story of Jonah we acted out a few weeks ago? In that story, the people of Ninevah even had their animals repent, put on sack cloth and ashes- because all of life, all of their belongings, all of everything was involved in repenting and turning to God.
Jesus challenge to us is to see that everything—everything—belongs to God, is under the authority of God. God’s claim on a person has no limits—it embraces all areas of life. In First Peter, the author writes advice to the church: “Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor”. (1 Peter 2:17) Which sounds like the emperor is held in high esteem- certainly a prescription for paying taxes. But when we look carefully, we see that the emperor is held in the same esteem as everyone else. We are to love the family of believers, the church. And we are to fear God.
Moses feared God, although not in a cowering way. And not in a highly anxious, worrying about what kind of God this God is way. Moses feared God, revered God—and yet was able to go toe-to-toe with God, to argue with God on behalf of the people. Moses had a sense of awe that made him brave. Because Moses knew what kind of God, God is. Not a god like Caesar, capricious and vain and scary, but a God who says “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy”…and that is us. We who are made in the image of God, as Genesis says.
So we have Caesar’s face on the coin, and we have the living God, in whose image we are made. A cold metal face on a coin, or the presence of the living God. Which will you choose? To whom do we belong, to whom do we give our allegiance?
I want us to try something this week. When you go home, I want you to look around at your life. The tv? The car? The cat? Your children? But I also want us to wrestle with what Jesus meant when he said “Render unto Caesar…and render unto God.” Because, to be honest, we live in both kingdoms. We pay taxes in the kingdom of Caesar, and we talk about, we pray about, we live in the kingdom of heaven. We are not, I don’t think, going to stop paying taxes any time soon. Some people talk about the church “being in the world but not of the world.” How does our faith shape our daily decisions, including our economic ones? How do we negotiate living out this life of faith, given the economic reality we are in, we who are the 99% the occupiers of Wall Street have been cheering about?
So, as the church, I want us to struggle, together, about what it means to give our whole lives to God. What it means to be made in the image of God—and how that shapes our behavior, our talk, our spending—the whole shebang—all of it, all of life. We can work on discerning, together, how to live before the God in whose image we are made.
12Moses said to the LORD, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’13Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”14He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”15And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here.16For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”17The LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”18Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.”19And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.20But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.”21And the LORD continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock;22and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by;23then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”
Matthew 22:15-22
15Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.16So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.17Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”18But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?19Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius.20Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?”21They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”22When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
Our calendars say “October 16th” today, but according to the text this morning, it is April 15. Tax Time. And the question posed to Jesus is, is it lawful to pay taxes to the government, or not?
In many ways, this question makes no sense to us. Of course we pay taxes. We pay taxes on everything- gas, clothes, cigarettes, our income. The only two sure things in life are death and taxes. But to the people in 1st century Palestine, this is a loaded question. The Pharisees and Herodians are trying to trick Jesus.
And they start with flattery- “We know that you are sincere. We know that you teach the way of God, and that you show no partiality”- and they use an idiom which means, literally, “you do not look at other’s faces”. Which is ironic, because Jesus’ answer is all about faces, and icons, and images.
But first comes the “Gotcha” question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, to Caesar?” The Jewish people have been taxed by the Romans—in fact, Jesus’ own story began with a tax. Mary and Joseph must travel to Bethlehem, for the census, that all the world should be counted—which was Rome’s way of ensuring an accurate tax roll. Back to the present of the story, the Pharisees and the Herodians think they have him- if Jesus answers “Pay the tax”, then he is colluding with the Roman occupiers, and will lose the support of the common people. If he says “don’t pay the tax” then he is a revolutionary- and a traitor.
Jesus answers their challenge with a question and a challenge of his own: “show me the money”. Actually, he says “show me the coin.” Now coins of the Roam Empire had the image, the icon, of Caesar on them. At this time, archeologists remind us, it would have been "Tiberias Caesar, son of the divine Augustus and our high priest." The coin would have had on the other side an image of the imperial mother, Livia, as the goddess of peace.
And Jesus’ point is this: faithful Jews were to follow the 10 commandments- and the first two are: 1) You shall have no other gods before me, and 2) “You shall make for yourself no graven images”- But the coin of the realm violated both. They featured another god, namely Caesar, and his cast image on the face of the coin.
Which begs the question: what are faithful Jews doing with one of those coins in their pockets? God has forbidden false images and idols. Here are religious leaders, within a stone’s throw of the Holy of Holies, with miniature blasphemies in their change purses. Whether they know it or not, Jesus has just nailed them for hypocrisy. By identifying Caesar’s face on the coin, they have revealed their own inconsistencies. Jesus has just caught them in hypocrisy. Gotcha back!
But this story isn’t a “Jesus is really clever and gets the best of his opponents” story. This story is about whose we are, and who we are, to whom our allegiance is due, and in whose image we are made.
Many of us have heard the moral of the story, the tag line, like this: “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s”.
Which would be easy, and great, if our lives were neatly divided into God areas and not-God areas, two separate columns in the book of life. And some faith traditions have made distinctions between spiritual kingdoms and authority, and temporal kingdoms and authority. But we understand that God is Lord of all our life—not just a portion of it, not just part of it, not just Sunday morning, but all of it.
“The earth is the Lords, and the fullness thereof,” Psalm 24 says, “the world and they that dwell therein”. That’s us- all of us, all of our life. Despite what we might think, given how much of us our jobs and the banks and the credit card companies own, we are the Lord’s. Our baptism was the sign and seal of that—that God claimed us.
Which is comforting—but doesn’t make Jesus’ challenge any easier. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render unto God the things that are God’s- well, that looks like all of it, doesn’t it? Does that mean we don’t have to pay taxes?
Do you remember the story of Jonah we acted out a few weeks ago? In that story, the people of Ninevah even had their animals repent, put on sack cloth and ashes- because all of life, all of their belongings, all of everything was involved in repenting and turning to God.
Jesus challenge to us is to see that everything—everything—belongs to God, is under the authority of God. God’s claim on a person has no limits—it embraces all areas of life. In First Peter, the author writes advice to the church: “Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor”. (1 Peter 2:17) Which sounds like the emperor is held in high esteem- certainly a prescription for paying taxes. But when we look carefully, we see that the emperor is held in the same esteem as everyone else. We are to love the family of believers, the church. And we are to fear God.
Moses feared God, although not in a cowering way. And not in a highly anxious, worrying about what kind of God this God is way. Moses feared God, revered God—and yet was able to go toe-to-toe with God, to argue with God on behalf of the people. Moses had a sense of awe that made him brave. Because Moses knew what kind of God, God is. Not a god like Caesar, capricious and vain and scary, but a God who says “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy”…and that is us. We who are made in the image of God, as Genesis says.
So we have Caesar’s face on the coin, and we have the living God, in whose image we are made. A cold metal face on a coin, or the presence of the living God. Which will you choose? To whom do we belong, to whom do we give our allegiance?
I want us to try something this week. When you go home, I want you to look around at your life. The tv? The car? The cat? Your children? But I also want us to wrestle with what Jesus meant when he said “Render unto Caesar…and render unto God.” Because, to be honest, we live in both kingdoms. We pay taxes in the kingdom of Caesar, and we talk about, we pray about, we live in the kingdom of heaven. We are not, I don’t think, going to stop paying taxes any time soon. Some people talk about the church “being in the world but not of the world.” How does our faith shape our daily decisions, including our economic ones? How do we negotiate living out this life of faith, given the economic reality we are in, we who are the 99% the occupiers of Wall Street have been cheering about?
So, as the church, I want us to struggle, together, about what it means to give our whole lives to God. What it means to be made in the image of God—and how that shapes our behavior, our talk, our spending—the whole shebang—all of it, all of life. We can work on discerning, together, how to live before the God in whose image we are made.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Exodus 32:1-14 p 69
32When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”2Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”3So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron.4He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.”6They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.
7The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;8they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!<9The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.10Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”11But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?12Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’“14And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
Matthew 22:1-14 p 803
22Once more Jesus spoke to the scribes and the pharisees in parables, saying:2“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.3He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.4Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’5But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business,6while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.7The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.8Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy.9Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’10Those slaves went out to the borders of the kingdom and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.11“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe,12and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And the man was speechless.13Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’14For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Perhaps you have received them: those “save the date” cards, sent months ahead of the actual wedding, so that you can mark your calendar, and make sure you reserve that day for the big wedding. But imagine that you received a save the date card for a royal wedding- perhaps the wedding this past summer of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Imagine your excitement at being invited! Imagine what the reception would be like: the fanciest foods, an open bar, perhaps a champagne fountain and a dessert table- and now imagine, after the food has been bought and carefully prepared, the catering hall reserved, the musicians hired, that you just decided to bag it. Stay home—and not even have a good excuse. “Why didn’t you come? I invited you especially?” the host asks- “oh, no reason really. Just didn’t feel like it”.
The kingdom of heaven is like a wedding banquet—where the guests don’t bother to show up. In Middle Eastern tradition, the event would have been planned, and the guests invited. And as the day drew near, the host, having counted the number of people attending, would slaughter the animals and prepare the festive meal—and look at the menu: oxen and fat calves— think prime rib and lobster, 7 course meals- lavish extravagance! And once the meal was ready, or close to being served, the servants would go house to house and summon the guests to the feast. “All is now ready- it’s time to feast! Please come!”
Except the invitees don’t go. Ken Bailey describes it this way: “Imagine you have invited friends over for dinner. And you have spent all day cooking and cleaning. They come, they are sitting in the living room, maybe having a beverage, talking, and you walk out of the kitchen to say ‘dinner is ready! Come to the table”! and they shrug, give some lame excuse, and then walk out the door…”
Not only do the invited guests in the parable not come, they give rude, half-hearted excuses- the text says “they made light of it”- “whatever”- and then they move from rudeness to violence—they seize the king’s slaves and kill them- all for inviting them to dinner!
They made light of it, the text tells us. - the word literally means: “they did not think about, and thus not respond appropriately to” the gift they had been given—an invitation to the bridal feast, given by the King. Feasting in the Kingdom of Heaven—and the guests just shrug their shoulders and say “whatever”. They do not understand the gift they have received, and so don’t bother to attend.
The king is enraged, and after punishing them and their city, sends more slaves out to find more guests. “Go out and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” So they go out, to the far reaches of the kingdom, and gather in all they find, both good and bad. The first guests were unworthy, and now there are guests, both good and bad, so that the wedding hall was filled.
The Gospel according to Matthew is believed to have been written in the context of a faith community that is struggling. They are Jews who have followed Christ—and they are being shunned by their families, kicked out of their synagogues, pushed out of their homes and jobs. They have received this gift—the Good News of God in Jesus Christ—and they can’t understand why their families, their friends, their loved ones, don’t see things the way they do. What would you do if given the greatest gift? Shrug your shoulders? Walk away?
But the Matthean community also struggled—as we do—as to what a life lived in accepting this gift looks like—what behavior are you going to have, haven been given this gift? How will your life be changed? In looking at you, in your behavior, your actions, your speech, how will I know the good news is good?
The first part of this parable makes sense. But it is the last part that I struggle with—a guest, called in from the street, on the spur of the moment, per the king’s orders, and gets yelled at: “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?”
What?? This guy was just out on the street, minding his own business, when the slaves come and take him to the banquet hall. Apparently there was no time to go home and wash up and change—if the man even had a fancy wedding robe. And then, to pour salt on the wound, the bouncers are called, the man is handcuffed, taken out, and thrown into the outer darkness.
But to the Matthean community, this is not just about the proper attire. It is about behavior. How are we to behave, in light of the great gift and invitation we have received? “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” Galatians says. “You have put on Christ, in Christ you have been baptized!” we sing at baptisms.
If we are invited to the feast, then we should behave as if at a feast. Behave as grateful people. “Rise to the occasion”.
“What we do matters because who we are matters” David Bartlett says of the Gospel of Matthew. The life we live counts for something. And the WAY we live counts for something. Our own Book of Order calls us to live lives that “are a demonstration of the Christian gospel in the church and in the world.” (BOO G-6.0106) Our good works do not save us—that is the action of Christ. But we respond with thanksgiving—we do not treat lightly the gift we have been given. “If our doing good is not good, and our doing bad not genuinely bad, if there is neither judgment nor condemnation, then grace itself is thin and wasted.” It is not cheap grace, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it. It is not wasted grace. It is costly grace. We cannot just shrug our shoulders and walk away.
When I was in Mexico, I went to the cathedral every morning, as a way to practice some Spanish. And every morning, the poor and the homeless would gather in and around the cathedral. I saw one man there every morning—dirt poor, sleeping on the sidewalks, with a little plastic bag of clothing and belongings carefully tied up beside him. Now, Mass was said in the cathedral every morning. But Sunday, of course, was the most crowded, the best attended. So on Sunday morning, going to Mass, I saw the same homeless man again. That morning, though, he was pulling a garment out of his tattered plastic bag of clothes. It was a white guayabara- the kind of formal shirt Mexican men wear for special occasions. This man, who had so little, was dressing up to go to Mass, to go to the feast. He knew what a gift he was receiving, and he was dressing and acting accordingly.
Now I am not suggesting we go back to the days of shirts and ties, dresses and heels for church attendance. But Christ calls us to live lives of such gratitude that it is visible—just like our clothing. Perhaps Colossians paints a picture of how this garment will look: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other…above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” That is a garment fit for a royal wedding.
32When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”2Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”3So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron.4He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.”6They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.
7The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;8they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!<9The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.10Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”11But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?12Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’“14And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
Matthew 22:1-14 p 803
22Once more Jesus spoke to the scribes and the pharisees in parables, saying:2“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.3He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.4Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’5But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business,6while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.7The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.8Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy.9Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’10Those slaves went out to the borders of the kingdom and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.11“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe,12and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And the man was speechless.13Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’14For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Perhaps you have received them: those “save the date” cards, sent months ahead of the actual wedding, so that you can mark your calendar, and make sure you reserve that day for the big wedding. But imagine that you received a save the date card for a royal wedding- perhaps the wedding this past summer of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Imagine your excitement at being invited! Imagine what the reception would be like: the fanciest foods, an open bar, perhaps a champagne fountain and a dessert table- and now imagine, after the food has been bought and carefully prepared, the catering hall reserved, the musicians hired, that you just decided to bag it. Stay home—and not even have a good excuse. “Why didn’t you come? I invited you especially?” the host asks- “oh, no reason really. Just didn’t feel like it”.
The kingdom of heaven is like a wedding banquet—where the guests don’t bother to show up. In Middle Eastern tradition, the event would have been planned, and the guests invited. And as the day drew near, the host, having counted the number of people attending, would slaughter the animals and prepare the festive meal—and look at the menu: oxen and fat calves— think prime rib and lobster, 7 course meals- lavish extravagance! And once the meal was ready, or close to being served, the servants would go house to house and summon the guests to the feast. “All is now ready- it’s time to feast! Please come!”
Except the invitees don’t go. Ken Bailey describes it this way: “Imagine you have invited friends over for dinner. And you have spent all day cooking and cleaning. They come, they are sitting in the living room, maybe having a beverage, talking, and you walk out of the kitchen to say ‘dinner is ready! Come to the table”! and they shrug, give some lame excuse, and then walk out the door…”
Not only do the invited guests in the parable not come, they give rude, half-hearted excuses- the text says “they made light of it”- “whatever”- and then they move from rudeness to violence—they seize the king’s slaves and kill them- all for inviting them to dinner!
They made light of it, the text tells us. - the word literally means: “they did not think about, and thus not respond appropriately to” the gift they had been given—an invitation to the bridal feast, given by the King. Feasting in the Kingdom of Heaven—and the guests just shrug their shoulders and say “whatever”. They do not understand the gift they have received, and so don’t bother to attend.
The king is enraged, and after punishing them and their city, sends more slaves out to find more guests. “Go out and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” So they go out, to the far reaches of the kingdom, and gather in all they find, both good and bad. The first guests were unworthy, and now there are guests, both good and bad, so that the wedding hall was filled.
The Gospel according to Matthew is believed to have been written in the context of a faith community that is struggling. They are Jews who have followed Christ—and they are being shunned by their families, kicked out of their synagogues, pushed out of their homes and jobs. They have received this gift—the Good News of God in Jesus Christ—and they can’t understand why their families, their friends, their loved ones, don’t see things the way they do. What would you do if given the greatest gift? Shrug your shoulders? Walk away?
But the Matthean community also struggled—as we do—as to what a life lived in accepting this gift looks like—what behavior are you going to have, haven been given this gift? How will your life be changed? In looking at you, in your behavior, your actions, your speech, how will I know the good news is good?
The first part of this parable makes sense. But it is the last part that I struggle with—a guest, called in from the street, on the spur of the moment, per the king’s orders, and gets yelled at: “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?”
What?? This guy was just out on the street, minding his own business, when the slaves come and take him to the banquet hall. Apparently there was no time to go home and wash up and change—if the man even had a fancy wedding robe. And then, to pour salt on the wound, the bouncers are called, the man is handcuffed, taken out, and thrown into the outer darkness.
But to the Matthean community, this is not just about the proper attire. It is about behavior. How are we to behave, in light of the great gift and invitation we have received? “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” Galatians says. “You have put on Christ, in Christ you have been baptized!” we sing at baptisms.
If we are invited to the feast, then we should behave as if at a feast. Behave as grateful people. “Rise to the occasion”.
“What we do matters because who we are matters” David Bartlett says of the Gospel of Matthew. The life we live counts for something. And the WAY we live counts for something. Our own Book of Order calls us to live lives that “are a demonstration of the Christian gospel in the church and in the world.” (BOO G-6.0106) Our good works do not save us—that is the action of Christ. But we respond with thanksgiving—we do not treat lightly the gift we have been given. “If our doing good is not good, and our doing bad not genuinely bad, if there is neither judgment nor condemnation, then grace itself is thin and wasted.” It is not cheap grace, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it. It is not wasted grace. It is costly grace. We cannot just shrug our shoulders and walk away.
When I was in Mexico, I went to the cathedral every morning, as a way to practice some Spanish. And every morning, the poor and the homeless would gather in and around the cathedral. I saw one man there every morning—dirt poor, sleeping on the sidewalks, with a little plastic bag of clothing and belongings carefully tied up beside him. Now, Mass was said in the cathedral every morning. But Sunday, of course, was the most crowded, the best attended. So on Sunday morning, going to Mass, I saw the same homeless man again. That morning, though, he was pulling a garment out of his tattered plastic bag of clothes. It was a white guayabara- the kind of formal shirt Mexican men wear for special occasions. This man, who had so little, was dressing up to go to Mass, to go to the feast. He knew what a gift he was receiving, and he was dressing and acting accordingly.
Now I am not suggesting we go back to the days of shirts and ties, dresses and heels for church attendance. But Christ calls us to live lives of such gratitude that it is visible—just like our clothing. Perhaps Colossians paints a picture of how this garment will look: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other…above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” That is a garment fit for a royal wedding.
Monday, August 29, 2011
More Parables
Matthew 13: 31-33 p 795
31Jesus put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field;32it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”33He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
This is the word of the Lord…..thanks be to God
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed- the smallest seed, at least in that part of the world. the kingdom of heaven is like a seed that is so small that you can barely see it, so small that we don’t notice it when it gets mixed in with other seeds, or gets blown on the wind and plants itself in a field. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, that grows into the greatest of shrubs, and keeps on growing, so big, that it stops being a shrub and becomes a tree, a tree for the birds to come and nest in, a tree to take shade under, a tree that grows beyond our wildest imaginations. Except in the Middle East, the mustard seed is a weed, that invades fields and takes over if you don’t pull them out. Last week’s parable warned against trying to pull the weeds growing among the wheat. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s wheat and what’s weed, and besides, uprooting weeds may damage the wheat. This parable gives us another truth: maybe what we think are weeds are also the kingdom of heaven.
I guess that means…the kingdom of heaven is like some offensive plant you can’t control, that spreads and grows while we are sleeping. The kingdom of heaven is like weeds that disturb the beautiful, neat rows of corn and wheat, and seems not to care about fences or proper boundaries.
Or, to say it another way, the kingdom of heaven is like yeast—not yeast as we know it, in neat little packets or jars, but yeast that is like sourdough- a bit of wet bread left to sour on the countertop, yeast spores that blow in on the wind, yeast that smells bad, yeast that was considered a corruption, in Jewish thought- but yeast that when hidden in three measures of flour- enough to make bread for 150 people. And the one hiding it in the flour is a woman.
Strange kingdom. It comes from small things: tiny seeds, a small amount of yeast. This kingdom turns things upside down, breaks the rules, makes us feel uncomfortable.
And the kingdom of heaven is active, even when we don’t see it—seeds sprouting in the dark of the earth, even while we sleep. Yeast working when we are away from the kitchen, busy with other things. Unusual kingdom.
Matthew 13: 44-51 p 795
44“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.45“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls;46on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.47“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind;48when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.49So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous50and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.51“Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” And he said to them. “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
This is the word of the Lord……thanks be to God
Perhaps you’ve seen them. The shows about finding treasure where there was no treasure to be seen, sometimes hidden in plain sight. You know them: Antiques RoadShow, Storage Wars. Pawn Stars, History Detectives, and now even a show named Buried Treasure. Perhaps you’ve even wondered if you had any treasures in your own home—and it is certainly what drives the numerous yard sales and garage sales!
Finding treasure, finding something hidden, something precious, is the stuff that dreams and stories are made of. It doesn’t have to be discovered in a sunken pirate ship, or buried on a desert island. Maybe it’s among your Aunt Anna’s castoffs, or tucked away in a cobwebbed corner of your garage or basement.
And hat’s what those tv shows show us. People who find an old Barbie doll, from 1963. A sword from the Civil War. An painting that was said by some in the family to be a Picasso. Things that are new and old. And sometimes it has huge payoff- and sometimes it’s just ordibnary, but people think it’s a treasure just the same, because it sat over Aunt Betty’s sideboard all those years, and was part of every Sunday dinner, and is now part of the family life and lore.
As crazy as it seems, this is what the kingdom of heaven is like.
Jesus says: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure in a field, hidden, which someone found and then hid again—and then in his joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Or the kingdom of heaven is like the pearl of great price—which the merchant, trained in the what makes for an excellent pearl, has seen, one day, amid shovelfuls of pearls, years of pearls- He recognizes this is the one- and he sells all that he has and buys it.
Both the buyer of the field and the merchant recognize something of great worth when they see it, and take action. They give all that they have, risk everything, for that one pearl hidden among others, for the field with its hidden treasure.
The kingdom of heaven is like a nearly invisible mustard seed, like yeast, like buried treasure, like a valuable pearl. God’s kingdom starts small, often in unseen ways, working while we are not even aware. But God’s kingdom and rule is not in some far off place that requires a special map: "X" marks the spot right here, right now, in all the ordinary people and places and activities of our lives. That is the Good News: God’s kingdom is here, and we are part of that kingdom-we are the treasure, we are the pearl of great value. Christ is the one who gave up everything to buy us, to redeem us, by his teaching, his healing, his embodying God’s love even as he died for us. And so we rest, and breathe, and live, knowing that we are claimed by God.
The kingdom of heaven is like a fishing net, which brings in fish of every kind. And hidden among the catch waiting to be sorted are the good eating fish, much like the wheat and the tares in last week’s parable. But what is good and bad? Does good require righteousness? How is that righteousness lived out? How can I ever be good enough?
Fortunately, we are not the ones deciding who is a good fish and who is bad, who is in, who is out- and thanks be to GOD! The kingdom of heaven, like the mustard seed and the leaven, is wild and untamed and in a way uncontrollable—thanks be to God—otherwise, it would look like every other kingdom and realm in the history of the world- but it does not—“and that upsets our boundaries and categories, [as] it grows and spreads and takes root in unexpected ways, in unexpected people, until what we thought we knew is transformed and redeemed by our surprising, invasive, sometimes hidden God.”
Last year, we looked at the book of Revelation, and talked about apocalypse: which means an unveiling, a drawing back of the curtain, a showing of what is hidden, what is actually the real reality. What we have in these parables about the kingdom of heaven is also an apocalypse, a revealing- what seems to be so on the surface is not. And what is hidden is the real truth. The kingdom of God is small, at first, hidden, but active, and growing. The kingdom of heaven is about judgment—good and bad. And the kingdom of heaven is also about ordinary things: weeds, yeast, fields of dirt, somebody at work, fish in the sea, our everyday lives, things old and new, right here and right now.
When asked by Jesus if they understood the parables, the disciples said “yes”. I’m not sure that we can ever fully understand these parables, or understand God. But perhaps our understanding grows, even as seeds grow, as we take things out, old and new, and examine them in our lives, moments when God was made real, when God’s action, God’s rule, previously hidden, is now seen, when we realize we are treasured by God, that we are the fish gathered into God’s kingdom.
The kingdom of heaven doesn’t play by the rules of this world. It is God who is in charge, God who plants, God who stirs things up, God who chooses, God who finds, God who saves. May we have eyes to see and ears to hear the goodness of God, even in our ordinary lives. Thanks be to God.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds
Isaiah 44:6-8 p 587
6Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.7Who is like me? Let them proclaim it, let them declare and set it forth before me. Who has announced from of old the things to come? Let them tell us what is yet to be.8Do not fear, or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? You are my witnesses! Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one.
This is the word of the Lord…thanks be to God
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 p. 794
24Jesus put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field;25but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away.26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.27And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’28He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’29But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.30Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”36Then Jesus left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.”37He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man;38the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one,39and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.40Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.41The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers,42and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!
This is the word of the Lord…thanks be to God
Last week we heard the parable of the sower and the seeds. The Sower casts wonderously, extravagantly, generously- and the seeds fall where they will.
In this parable, the kingdom of heaven is compared to a field that has been planted—with good seed, we are told, but an enemy creeps in, in the middle of the night, and sows bad seed- tares, or bearded darnel, a weed that looks like wheat, at least on first glance, and is not only a weed, but is poisonous as well.
And the farm hands are given these instructions: don’t pull up the weeds, but leave it, until the harvest. Let them grow together. At the end, at harvest time, the farm owner will have workers collect the weeds, and bundle them, and burn them. But the good seed, the wheat, will be gathered into the barn.
So, the first surprise, at least for me is this-- An enemy sneaks in, at night, and…..sows more seeds? Of all the things an enemy could do, why would they sow seed- why not burn the field? Why not plow salt into it, the way that ancient conquerers did to their enemies.
But this is the way evil enters into our world and our lives…quietly, silently, not with a bang, or even a whimper, but…..without our noticing. While we are sleeping.
In many ways, this parable is about evil—and theodicy, a fancy word for why bad things happen to good people. “You sowed good seed, didn’t you, master?” the slaves ask the house holder. “Where, then, did these seeds come from?” But, much to our dismay and frustration, the house holder never really answers this question. All we get is “an enemy has done this….” Basically, a shrug. It happens, the householder seems to be saying.
The householder doesn’t seem upset, doesn’t seem anxious, doesn’t seem to feel a need to take any action—a this time
And that’s the next surprise—“let the weeds grow up with the wheat.” Really? We in America spend a great deal of time weeding—we pull, we spray, we mulch, we plow between the rows.
And the weeds keep coming back. Maybe that’s why the house holder doesn’t seem too fussed about all this—he knows what weeds are like—persistent. Sneaky. Very clever-the darnel, the weed, looks a lot like wheat. And its roots become entangled with the wheat, some say—so pulling out the weed will also damage the wheat crop.
The householder is wise enough to know to let the weeds grow along with the wheat—because the householder also knows that, in the end, there will come a judgment, and a separating—the weeds to be burned, and the wheat to the storehouse, the barn.
His barn—not just any barn. But it is not those workers, the ones working in the field right now, the ones asking the question of “shouldn’t we DO something?” who will be the ones to gather, and sort, to burn or store.
That will be God.
There is judgment in the Gospel of Matthew. There is a real sense of evil, and sin, in the world and even among the faithful, and judgment. So this passage not only asks about theodicy-why bad things happen to good, “righteous” people, in the faith community, but also asks questions about our selves—
Where does our sin come from? Do we have weeds, or wheat, growing inside us? Will there be judgment—and what will it be like?
Rob Bell, a famous pastor and preacher, at least in the evangelical. Emergent church crowd, famously wrote the book earlier this year “Love Wins”. And he has been hammered for it—for in it, Bell writes that the overwhelming message of God in and through Jesus Christ is love. Not punishment. Not judgment—not eternal fire. Love. And many people did not like that, did not want to hear that.
So what are we to do, then, with this passage?
Jim tells the story of visiting a church in the Czech Republic. During the days of the Cold War, the days of the Soviet Regime, a pastor was holding services. Which was dangerous. To be a believer was not a good thing. And one day, the pastor found a list of names, left on a pew. Someone had been coming to worship, and writing down who was attending church. The pastor had an idea of who the writer might be. Because turning people in to the Soviet sponsored government was one way to get ahead.
But, in the years after, the grip of the Soviet block weakened, and was eventually overthrown. So now, there were files, that were now open to the public. Not only with names of who had been targeted, but also names of the informers. Members of their own congregations! What will the church do? Will the church weed out those who conspired against them? Will the church decide, like South Africa, to live out forgiveness and reconciliation? Will the church wait—knowing that God is our judge? What will the church do?
For this parable is first and foremost a parable about the church. The community of the faithful, gathered in Christ’s name, to worship God. The explanation in the text, given after the parable, is written for the Matthean community—the early church, asking what do we do with people, our own members, who are evil, who are sinful, who disagree with us, who cause trouble, who are hurtful to others—what do we do??
And the less than satisfying answer is “wait”. Wait. Take the long view—because, in the end, it is God who will sort it out. The same God who made the world, who rules over it now, will bring it to completion at the end.
Now, this is not a “don’t worry, be happy” kind of answer. It instead, rests on trust in God. The Psalmist wrestles with the same problem. In Psalm 36, She writes of evildoers: “Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in their hearts….the words of their mouths are mischief and deceit….they plot mischief while on their beds; they are set on a way that is not good….” But the answer is this: “Your steadfast love”, your chesed, your trustworthiness. Lord, extends “to the heavens” that is, it fills the universe. And then, a final plea from the Psalmist to God: “Do not let the foot of the arrogant tread on me, or the hand of the evildoers drive me away.”
The Psalmist knows, as we say “Our help is in the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
But what are we to do, in this between time? What are we to do, when we want to take action, we want to root out evil, in our hearts, in our communities, in our churches? What are we to do—we want action!
We are to wait: in trust, because we trust God. We are to wait: because we might be mistaken about the difference between what is truly weed, and what is truly wheat. And we are to wait, because digging up the weeds might endanger the wheat.
As you might know, the Presbyterian church has struggled- for a long time about how to deal with our differences. Do we live with others who disagree with us, who think differently from us? Where is the line in the sand? Last year, some major changes were made to the PCUSA Constitution, including those that changed language for those seeking ordination in the church. Faithful people, on both sides of this issue, struggle about when to stay, and when to go- is the church so broken that we need to leave? Is the disagreement between us so large that I cannot in good conscience stand with you? Do we need to root out those who disagree with me?
Many congregations struggle with people who are hurtful—in action, in words, in intent. Where is the line between being the church, the body of Christ, and being hurt and abused? Where is the line in ourselves, between wheat and weeds?
The parable calls us to wait. But in our waiting, we are not to be passive: we are called to grow and thrive. We are called to shine like the sun.
“Bloom where you are planted” is an old saying. I don’t really like it: I think it is too simplistic, too cheery, that it is a quick, Hallmark card kind of answer to what are some of life’s deep and intricate problems.
But, apparently, this is part of what this parable teaches. For this parable is about the kingdom of God—the community of God.
A kingdom that is like a field, in which not just one type of plant grows. Where good and evil exist—at least for a time—together.
I saw a glimpse, a little bit, of what that kingdom looks like. And I saw it at Camp Whitman this past week.
Camp Whitman has been rocked by the death of one of their counselors. He died doing what he loved: snorkeling. And here is the kind of person Graham was: earlier in the summer, Graham had a few campers who were frightened of the water, and had what was for them a scary and difficult experience in the water. Graham asked for extra waterfront time with them, so that that scary experience would not be the way they remembered camp. He wanted them to love the water and camp as much as he did.
But his death has rocked that faith community, causing people to ask why did this happen, and why did it happen to Graham? Where was God in all this? Why wasn’t he saved? Didn’t they pray hard enough? Was Graham not faithful enough? Why did death and evil rear its head at camp, of all places?
And yet-here is where the glimpse of the kingdom of God was. At camp. At talent show night, of all things. The camp had made the decision to go ahead, and try and make this past week as normal a week for the campers- campers of all ages and faith development and races and backgrounds, campers with developmental disabilities, campers with not much talent, frankly, some of them- all were welcomed at the talent show. And there was joy—even in the midst of soul shattering grief, and questions about evil, and God’s action or lack of it.
Those campers sang—and danced—together. They laughed and they hugged, and they all clapped for everyone’s talent- what ever it was. They bloomed where they were planted—even in the midst of death and grief and evil. They shone like the sun. Thanks be to God. Amen
Friday, August 19, 2011
Sermon Aug 14 2011
Isaiah 55:10-13
10For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 11so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. 12For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
1That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9Let anyone with ears listen!”
18“Hear then the parable of the sower. 19When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”
The Parable of the Sower
Parables are a mystery: they have a twist, a surprise in them. They are like a joke with an unexpected punch-line, which is what makes it funny. And parables use ordinary things, out of everyday lives, to talk about the surprises of God’s kingdom.
Listen: a sower went out to sow. And he sows the seed all over the place willy-nilly, apparently. That’s our first surprise. There doesn’t seem to be much planning, much plotting. In first century Palestine, farmers would scatter the seed first, and then plow the thin soil over it later. So it makes sense that some of the seed would land on rocks, perhaps, or in thorns.
But this doesn’t seem to be a very smart or, at least fortunate, farmer. Most of the seed lands on inhospitable places: some on a well worn path, some on rocky soil, some among the thorns. And that seed fails to thrive – pretty much a total loss. Only a portion falls on good soil. So, in the story, only one out of the four places where the sees lands is any good. Not a very good average. Not a very smart business plan.
In fact, to our ears, the farmer seems wasteful. Seed is expensive, it takes a great deal of effort to plant, and till, and harvest, and even in the best of years farming is risky. So wouldn’t the wise farmer, the prudent farmer, do a better job of sowing seed where there would be a better chance of a good harvest? Even in first century Palestine, surely, the farmer could have been a little more careful with the seed.
Ah- but this is not the Parable of the Wise Farmer. It is not the Parable of the Farmer who planned well. Sometimes this is called the Parable of the Soils.
And that is where we usually enter into this story. Because, in all stories, whether from our childhood, or the books we read, or the stories we see on television, we want to feel connected to the story. Especially in parables, we ask ourselves, “Where am I in this story?”
And this parable is usually told, and preached, and understood, this way: “Which kind of soil are we?” Are we rocky soil where faith never even has a chance to take root? Are success and wealth choking out the word of God in our lives? Are the troubles of life burning, scorching our shallow faith?
This parable is preached this way because that is Jesus’ answer when the disciples ask Jesus what the parable means. And all of those are might be true for us, at different times in our lives. We all, I think, have had times when we felt choked by life, or scorched by life, or alone and vulnerable. Times when we have felt God’s mercy and love was absent, that we were dry and parched, so burdened that nothing could grow in us.
Or perhaps this story about soil is a way of understanding our families. Perhaps that’s another surprise, or at least a puzzle: why is it that so many of us have grown up in families, with brothers and sisters, going to church—and some of us stay, and some of us never darken the door again? Why is it that the same lessons were heard, the same Sunday School classes attended, the same hymns sung, and some hear and bloom, and some do not?
Every year, we have Vacation Bible School. And every year, after the songs have been sung, after the ice cream wrappers have been picked up, after the decorations have come down and the floor has been swept, we say, “Oh, if only we could get those children to come back!” And some of us wonder if it is worth it. If it is working: why do so many come for a week in the summer, and we never see them again, until next summer? Why do their parents show up on Friday in the middle of the day, but they do not come the rest of the year? Why do we put so much time and energy and money into something that is only 20 hours a year out of a child’s life? And many, not just in our churches here, but in many churches are asking if now isn’t the time for VBS to be done. Over with. Certainly, in this technology savvy age, in which even the 7 year olds have cell phones to call their mom at the end of the day, in which nearly every child has access to computers, or at least an X-box or Wii, singing songs, making crafts, doing home science experiments, and racing around on the grass outside just aren’t cutting it. This doesn’t seem to be a very good use of resources and time.
Ultimately, though, parables are not about us. They are about God. They are about the mysteries of God, and about God’s mysterious grace.
And that is the third surprise. This story is about God’s Profligate, overflowing, abounding grace. Not grace that is carefully meted out, nor even grace that is carefully planned in strategic ways. It is about grace that is seemingly wasted. It is about grace that overflows like water, overflowing the edges of the bowl, grace that flows down like might waters, grace that goes everywhere- rocky soils, well worn paths, thorny areas—grace that just goes!
“This parable is not about what good soils we are, and how well we understand the divine mysteries. This is about what God is doing in staggering numbers. …If the return is really a hundredfold, then those bumper crops will flood the market. Everyone will have some, including those with hardened hearts.” It will be like zucchini season- when we’ve got so much, we don’t know what to do with it anymore—so much zucchini that we’ve run out of ways to cook it, so much that we are reduced, as Garrison Keillor says, to sneaking over to our neighbors in the middle of the night and leaving them bags of zucchini on their porch- when they already have all that they could ever need as well.
For look- listen! God’s grace is so overflowing that even the bad soil gets the seed. The logical place to sow seed would certainly be on good soil, or at least soil as good as we could make it. And the logical thing to do would be to sow seed more carefully, on soil that would be guaranteed to gives us a good yield- but that’s not what happens in this story.
“This parable is like a joke, like a riddle—hiding as much as it reveals about God. It leaves us scratching our heads about what this really means, and about the world as we know it, and about what God is up to.
And what God is up to, Always, Always, is about grace. This sower is “a high-risk sower, relentless in indiscriminately sowing seed on all soil—as if it were potentially all good soil….Which leaves us to scratch our heads, and wonder if there is any place or circumstance in which God’s seed cannot sprout and take root.”
The surprise is this: God’s grace goes in places that seem guaranteed not to work. Gods grace gets thrown in places and on people that we might think of as hopeless, lost causes. Because for God there are no lost causes. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Grace is for people who think they don’t deserve it, cannot be good enough, are so broken God couldn’t-ever-love and forgive them. Isaiah reminds us of this: the word of the Lord, the grace of God, shall not return to me empty, God says. But deserts shall rejoice, and bloom. Grace shall fall on dry places, and barren places, and rocky places, and thorn infested places—and people.
Let us who have ears hear. Amen.
10For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 11so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. 12For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
1That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9Let anyone with ears listen!”
18“Hear then the parable of the sower. 19When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”
The Parable of the Sower
Parables are a mystery: they have a twist, a surprise in them. They are like a joke with an unexpected punch-line, which is what makes it funny. And parables use ordinary things, out of everyday lives, to talk about the surprises of God’s kingdom.
Listen: a sower went out to sow. And he sows the seed all over the place willy-nilly, apparently. That’s our first surprise. There doesn’t seem to be much planning, much plotting. In first century Palestine, farmers would scatter the seed first, and then plow the thin soil over it later. So it makes sense that some of the seed would land on rocks, perhaps, or in thorns.
But this doesn’t seem to be a very smart or, at least fortunate, farmer. Most of the seed lands on inhospitable places: some on a well worn path, some on rocky soil, some among the thorns. And that seed fails to thrive – pretty much a total loss. Only a portion falls on good soil. So, in the story, only one out of the four places where the sees lands is any good. Not a very good average. Not a very smart business plan.
In fact, to our ears, the farmer seems wasteful. Seed is expensive, it takes a great deal of effort to plant, and till, and harvest, and even in the best of years farming is risky. So wouldn’t the wise farmer, the prudent farmer, do a better job of sowing seed where there would be a better chance of a good harvest? Even in first century Palestine, surely, the farmer could have been a little more careful with the seed.
Ah- but this is not the Parable of the Wise Farmer. It is not the Parable of the Farmer who planned well. Sometimes this is called the Parable of the Soils.
And that is where we usually enter into this story. Because, in all stories, whether from our childhood, or the books we read, or the stories we see on television, we want to feel connected to the story. Especially in parables, we ask ourselves, “Where am I in this story?”
And this parable is usually told, and preached, and understood, this way: “Which kind of soil are we?” Are we rocky soil where faith never even has a chance to take root? Are success and wealth choking out the word of God in our lives? Are the troubles of life burning, scorching our shallow faith?
This parable is preached this way because that is Jesus’ answer when the disciples ask Jesus what the parable means. And all of those are might be true for us, at different times in our lives. We all, I think, have had times when we felt choked by life, or scorched by life, or alone and vulnerable. Times when we have felt God’s mercy and love was absent, that we were dry and parched, so burdened that nothing could grow in us.
Or perhaps this story about soil is a way of understanding our families. Perhaps that’s another surprise, or at least a puzzle: why is it that so many of us have grown up in families, with brothers and sisters, going to church—and some of us stay, and some of us never darken the door again? Why is it that the same lessons were heard, the same Sunday School classes attended, the same hymns sung, and some hear and bloom, and some do not?
Every year, we have Vacation Bible School. And every year, after the songs have been sung, after the ice cream wrappers have been picked up, after the decorations have come down and the floor has been swept, we say, “Oh, if only we could get those children to come back!” And some of us wonder if it is worth it. If it is working: why do so many come for a week in the summer, and we never see them again, until next summer? Why do their parents show up on Friday in the middle of the day, but they do not come the rest of the year? Why do we put so much time and energy and money into something that is only 20 hours a year out of a child’s life? And many, not just in our churches here, but in many churches are asking if now isn’t the time for VBS to be done. Over with. Certainly, in this technology savvy age, in which even the 7 year olds have cell phones to call their mom at the end of the day, in which nearly every child has access to computers, or at least an X-box or Wii, singing songs, making crafts, doing home science experiments, and racing around on the grass outside just aren’t cutting it. This doesn’t seem to be a very good use of resources and time.
Ultimately, though, parables are not about us. They are about God. They are about the mysteries of God, and about God’s mysterious grace.
And that is the third surprise. This story is about God’s Profligate, overflowing, abounding grace. Not grace that is carefully meted out, nor even grace that is carefully planned in strategic ways. It is about grace that is seemingly wasted. It is about grace that overflows like water, overflowing the edges of the bowl, grace that flows down like might waters, grace that goes everywhere- rocky soils, well worn paths, thorny areas—grace that just goes!
“This parable is not about what good soils we are, and how well we understand the divine mysteries. This is about what God is doing in staggering numbers. …If the return is really a hundredfold, then those bumper crops will flood the market. Everyone will have some, including those with hardened hearts.” It will be like zucchini season- when we’ve got so much, we don’t know what to do with it anymore—so much zucchini that we’ve run out of ways to cook it, so much that we are reduced, as Garrison Keillor says, to sneaking over to our neighbors in the middle of the night and leaving them bags of zucchini on their porch- when they already have all that they could ever need as well.
For look- listen! God’s grace is so overflowing that even the bad soil gets the seed. The logical place to sow seed would certainly be on good soil, or at least soil as good as we could make it. And the logical thing to do would be to sow seed more carefully, on soil that would be guaranteed to gives us a good yield- but that’s not what happens in this story.
“This parable is like a joke, like a riddle—hiding as much as it reveals about God. It leaves us scratching our heads about what this really means, and about the world as we know it, and about what God is up to.
And what God is up to, Always, Always, is about grace. This sower is “a high-risk sower, relentless in indiscriminately sowing seed on all soil—as if it were potentially all good soil….Which leaves us to scratch our heads, and wonder if there is any place or circumstance in which God’s seed cannot sprout and take root.”
The surprise is this: God’s grace goes in places that seem guaranteed not to work. Gods grace gets thrown in places and on people that we might think of as hopeless, lost causes. Because for God there are no lost causes. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Grace is for people who think they don’t deserve it, cannot be good enough, are so broken God couldn’t-ever-love and forgive them. Isaiah reminds us of this: the word of the Lord, the grace of God, shall not return to me empty, God says. But deserts shall rejoice, and bloom. Grace shall fall on dry places, and barren places, and rocky places, and thorn infested places—and people.
Let us who have ears hear. Amen.
Sermon Aug 7 2011
Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21 p. 506
8The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.
14The LORD upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.
15The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.
16You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.
17The LORD is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings.
18The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
19He fulfills the desire of all who fear him; he also hears their cry, and saves them.
20The LORD watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.
21My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever.
Matthew 14:13-21 p796
13Now Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”16Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”17They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”18And he said, “Bring them here to me.”19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
This is the word of the Lord…..thanks be to God
If there was only one story you could tell, what would it be? You know, the kind of story that sums up, in one caption, one illustration, the kind of person a person is? We often tell these stories after someone has died. We heard many stories about Jean this past week. If there was one story we could tell about Jesus Christ, about what God is doing in Jesus Christ, what would we say?
This story, of the feeding of the 5000, is the only story to appear in all of the 4 of the gospels. This story must have meant something deep and wonderful to the early church, a way to explain who Christ was, and what God is like.
I can imagine the disciples telling the story, years after the event: a little embarrassed, perhaps, laughing in that sort of shamefaced way….”well, we were just trying to be practical, you know- it was really late, and the people were a long way from home…and then—and then- Jesus looked at us and said “you give them something to eat…….” And then the smiles began, and perhaps a few tears- “and so, we gave him what we had- which wasn’t much!” and then we took up baskets- large baskets- of leftovers- we started with practically nothing, and there were leftovers- 12 baskets- we each went around and collected what was left over- that’s what I can’t get over- we all ate, and had enough to eat, and there were leftovers after having practically nothing at all!”
What kind of God is God? What kind of Savior is Jesus?
A God who is concerned with us on a bodily level. A God who knows that talk is cheap. That hungry people don’t care about religion—they only want to see that their children get fed.
And a God who calls us to participate in miracles.
Very early in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is in the wilderness, tempted by Satan. And Satan shows him all the stones lying on the ground—“turn these into bread” Satan says. People will follow you, you will be popular, you will rule the world if you can feed them. It was a strategy that was working for the Roman army—bread! The people may not like the oppressors, but at least there was bread!
But in that wilderness, Jesus resisted, turned down Satan’s offer. He did not want to rule by being a “bread king”. Here, out in this wilderness, Jesus sees the crowd, and has compassion. Why feed them now? Perhaps it is this: he turns to the disciples and says: You give them something to eat.
Yikes. 5 loaves and two fish. Not even enough for 12 disciples, much less 5000 men and their families. And yet, they hand it over to Jesus.
And Jesus looks up to heaven, and blesses the bread, and breaks it, and hands it out. And there is enough. More than enough—an overflowing, abundant more than enough. Enough so there are leftovers- 12 baskets of leftovers. Twelve BIG baskets—and the words there mean a surprising abundance, more than expected, more than just enough.
We have talked recently about being co-laborers with God, co-participants with God’s work in the Kingdom. It is true here- Jesus calls the disciples to be part of the solution—“you give them something to eat”. It is a participatory miracle. Jesus intends to bless people through the works of his followers. As someone has said, Jesus could just as easily have made a happy meal—or at least the 1st century version of a happy meal—show up in everybody’s lap, and it would have been just as much a miracle. But that’s not what Jesus did. And it’s not the way God calls us to work in the world as followers of Christ.
The church finds its identity when it participates in the mission of God. We are followers of Christ when we are joining the mission of Christ’s compassion to the world. The church knows who it is and what it is doing when we are involved in doing the work- the compassionate, merciful work—of God. I have a friend who says “be careful what you pray for—because God just might use you to be part of the solution.” Praying about the hungry people? God will move you to help. Concerned about domestic violence? God will find a way to use you.
We feed people here. One Great Hour of Sharing. Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. The food pantry, the mobile food truck. Free Friday lunch. The clothing drive. Ask anybody who’s worked those events—how moving it is, to be able to help people. The Food pantry truck was in Burdett last week- the entire truck was emptied in 40 minutes.
But we have to remember it is God who is feeding—and we are hungry, and are fed, as well. In Session this week, we talked about where we find ourselves fed: in church, at this Table, in Sunday School, when we are serving others. In a few minutes we will go to the table, and we will celebrate the gifts of God for the people of God. We will be pass the bread around, just as it was passed in that Galilean wilderness all those years ago. We will be fed with God’s amazing, surprising abundance and grace. We will have leftovers, as well. We will tell the story of what God is like, and how God cares for us through Christ, and how we are to care for the world that God so loves. Amen.
8The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.
14The LORD upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.
15The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.
16You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.
17The LORD is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings.
18The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
19He fulfills the desire of all who fear him; he also hears their cry, and saves them.
20The LORD watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.
21My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever.
Matthew 14:13-21 p796
13Now Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”16Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”17They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”18And he said, “Bring them here to me.”19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
This is the word of the Lord…..thanks be to God
If there was only one story you could tell, what would it be? You know, the kind of story that sums up, in one caption, one illustration, the kind of person a person is? We often tell these stories after someone has died. We heard many stories about Jean this past week. If there was one story we could tell about Jesus Christ, about what God is doing in Jesus Christ, what would we say?
This story, of the feeding of the 5000, is the only story to appear in all of the 4 of the gospels. This story must have meant something deep and wonderful to the early church, a way to explain who Christ was, and what God is like.
I can imagine the disciples telling the story, years after the event: a little embarrassed, perhaps, laughing in that sort of shamefaced way….”well, we were just trying to be practical, you know- it was really late, and the people were a long way from home…and then—and then- Jesus looked at us and said “you give them something to eat…….” And then the smiles began, and perhaps a few tears- “and so, we gave him what we had- which wasn’t much!” and then we took up baskets- large baskets- of leftovers- we started with practically nothing, and there were leftovers- 12 baskets- we each went around and collected what was left over- that’s what I can’t get over- we all ate, and had enough to eat, and there were leftovers after having practically nothing at all!”
What kind of God is God? What kind of Savior is Jesus?
A God who is concerned with us on a bodily level. A God who knows that talk is cheap. That hungry people don’t care about religion—they only want to see that their children get fed.
And a God who calls us to participate in miracles.
Very early in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is in the wilderness, tempted by Satan. And Satan shows him all the stones lying on the ground—“turn these into bread” Satan says. People will follow you, you will be popular, you will rule the world if you can feed them. It was a strategy that was working for the Roman army—bread! The people may not like the oppressors, but at least there was bread!
But in that wilderness, Jesus resisted, turned down Satan’s offer. He did not want to rule by being a “bread king”. Here, out in this wilderness, Jesus sees the crowd, and has compassion. Why feed them now? Perhaps it is this: he turns to the disciples and says: You give them something to eat.
Yikes. 5 loaves and two fish. Not even enough for 12 disciples, much less 5000 men and their families. And yet, they hand it over to Jesus.
And Jesus looks up to heaven, and blesses the bread, and breaks it, and hands it out. And there is enough. More than enough—an overflowing, abundant more than enough. Enough so there are leftovers- 12 baskets of leftovers. Twelve BIG baskets—and the words there mean a surprising abundance, more than expected, more than just enough.
We have talked recently about being co-laborers with God, co-participants with God’s work in the Kingdom. It is true here- Jesus calls the disciples to be part of the solution—“you give them something to eat”. It is a participatory miracle. Jesus intends to bless people through the works of his followers. As someone has said, Jesus could just as easily have made a happy meal—or at least the 1st century version of a happy meal—show up in everybody’s lap, and it would have been just as much a miracle. But that’s not what Jesus did. And it’s not the way God calls us to work in the world as followers of Christ.
The church finds its identity when it participates in the mission of God. We are followers of Christ when we are joining the mission of Christ’s compassion to the world. The church knows who it is and what it is doing when we are involved in doing the work- the compassionate, merciful work—of God. I have a friend who says “be careful what you pray for—because God just might use you to be part of the solution.” Praying about the hungry people? God will move you to help. Concerned about domestic violence? God will find a way to use you.
We feed people here. One Great Hour of Sharing. Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. The food pantry, the mobile food truck. Free Friday lunch. The clothing drive. Ask anybody who’s worked those events—how moving it is, to be able to help people. The Food pantry truck was in Burdett last week- the entire truck was emptied in 40 minutes.
But we have to remember it is God who is feeding—and we are hungry, and are fed, as well. In Session this week, we talked about where we find ourselves fed: in church, at this Table, in Sunday School, when we are serving others. In a few minutes we will go to the table, and we will celebrate the gifts of God for the people of God. We will be pass the bread around, just as it was passed in that Galilean wilderness all those years ago. We will be fed with God’s amazing, surprising abundance and grace. We will have leftovers, as well. We will tell the story of what God is like, and how God cares for us through Christ, and how we are to care for the world that God so loves. Amen.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Cooperative Providence
Sermon (Romans 8:18-30)
This morning we continue reading Paul’s letter to the house churches in Rome. Now I know Paul can get a little wordy and his logic a little convoluted. All right, maybe more than just a little. But Paul is passionate, and he is trying to describe God at work in his life, in the church, and in the world. Before I read this morning’s text which continues where we left off last week, let me try to recap the journey Paul has taken us on.
Paul begins his letter reminding his audience that the gospel isn’t a story about God’s power. The gospel is power, the power of God for salvation. It is Jesus Christ. His death and resurrection give witness to a God who loves us just the way we are, who loves us too much to leave us powerless and at the mercy of Sin and death, and whose love is stronger even than death. It is the human predicament that we find ourselves unable to do the things we know we should do, or to stop doing the things we know we shouldn’t. And we are helpless to change ourselves.
Paul can declare in Christ there is now no condemnation. Through Christ we have been given the gift of God’s Spirit that frees us from setting our minds on things that are destructive to our relationships and to ourselves. We are able now to set our minds and reorient our whole being on the things that are life-giving. It is the Spirit that makes us children of God who can pray, “Abba,” that is, “Our Father.” But the powers of Sin and death aren’t done yet. As children of God, we who are “joint heirs with Christ” also suffer with him so that we may also look forward to being glorified with him.
That brings us to this morning’s text: Romans 8:18-30, found on page 919 in your pew Bible. Listen for the word of God.
*********
18I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
*********
Did you hear all that “creation” language? “Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” Creation hopes for the day it “will be set free from its bondage to decay.” Creation groans in “labor pains.”
Up to this point in his letter, Paul has been describing the human condition. Christ has come; Sin and death are on their way out. But we still struggle daily to avoid the siren call of the powers of this world which perpetuate fear and tell us to worry only about ourselves. At the same time we long for the day when wars will cease, people will have enough to eat, children will grow up in safe and nurturing families, and broken relationships will be restored.
Now Paul expands our vision. It is not only human beings who are struggling, who are suffering, who know life is not as God intended. It is not only we who long for God’s promised kingdom. All of creation longs for that day as well.
The word Paul uses for this longing comes from the image of one straining the neck in anticipation. Think of a person on a train platform waiting for the arrival of their beloved who has been away for a long time. Maybe you’ve been that person eagerly waiting the time when you will be reunited. Then you hear the train whistle in the distance – you know the train is coming soon. Everyone waiting walks toward the edge of the platform straining their neck to catch of glimpse of the engine. That’s what Paul is describing. Creation is waiting on tiptoes straining its neck for a glimpse of God’s coming kingdom.
Creation is waiting on tiptoes because all of creation is broken. In many places in our world you can see the effects of human presence. Cities are overcrowded, choked with smog, endless suburbs and traffic jams. The folks in the Los Angeles area have been preparing for Carmeggedon – the shutdown of the 405, which is the main thoroughfare from the valley to downtown. The media were even telling folks to stay home rather than risk getting caught in gridlock on alternate routes.
Maybe Paul was ahead of his time or perhaps his friends Priscilla and Aquilla who were from Rome told him about the city. Rome had become a burgeoning metropolis at the center of the empire. It was no longer able to support itself having to import its water through an extensive network of aqueducts, and its food via fleets of cargo ships. Some would say these were Rome’s weaknesses and the cause of its downfall.
Fortunately, we here in the Finger Lakes are somewhat isolated from this. I hear often from folks who visit this area how beautiful this area is. Jim & I love taking walks up Tichenor Rd. The vineyards, the corn fields, the view of the other side of the lake – all of it is so idyllic. But if we’re honest, we face environmental concerns here, as well. And I don’t even have to bring up drilling in the Marcelles Shale or the Liquid Petroleum Gas storage facility.
But creation is not giving up in despair; it waits like Paul, like us, like all who are in Christ, in hope for what God has promised will happen, and already shown in Jesus Christ: our redemption. And that is the first point I want to leave you with: Creation is not once and done; it didn’t just happen “in the beginning.” God is still at work creating.
Yes, there are some in the wider Church who insist it happened just as the Bible said in six days. While folks from the Intelligent Design camp argue that God created the whole universe according to a blueprint established from the very beginning. And there are those who argue it all happened without the need for a god. I look around at the world and I see a Creator behind it, a very great one, to whom I give thanks.
Still, most of the arguments about creation focus on what happened long ago and seem to suggest it was all set in motion and now runs on autopilot. Less attention is given to what God is doing now. Yet, the scientific evidence points to a continually evolving creation with some species dying out and new ones being created. And the biblical witness attests to a God who is still creating, still involved with creation.
One analogy is God as playwright who directs her own play. God gives general direction, but allows the actors the freedom to improvise, or even rewrites part of the script to accommodate the players. God the creative and flexible playwright; a creator who keeps on creating. By the way, the classical word for this is providence.
This evolving, living, God-guided creation is groaning in labor pains. But did you also hear: we, too, who have been given the gift of the Spirit, also groan with creation. And there’s another connection. Paul writes that the Spirit who “helps us in our weakness … intercedes [for us] with sighs too deep for words.” I love the poetry of that phrase and I give the translators kudos for its beauty, but what Paul actually writes is this: the Spirit intercedes for us with inexpressible groans. God’s Spirit is so close to our hearts that words are not necessary.
Creation groans, we groan, the Spirit groans. We’re all connected – that’s the second point. Just as creation’s suffering is in some ways a consequence of human action, so its hope for freedom and renewal is connected to and dependent upon us, the children of God. That is also something science has discovered: life on this planet is interconnected, a web of life. Life in God’s Kingdom is based on relationship. Paul reminds us God’s Spirit helps us to see our connection with creation.
Some see this as a clear call for us to be good stewards of the earth. We can’t turn a blind eye to the problems in creation anymore than we can ignore the needs of people around us. If we as Christians give up on creation, we give up on God, the one has made us and sustained us. It’s the Spirit that nudges us to notice and be sensitive to the groaning of the world. But if that seems too much, Paul also tells us the Spirit is our connection and creation’s connection to God. This is why we along with all of God’s creation can wait eagerly with patience. If God the creator is still creating and guiding, if we have been promised adoption as children of God, if the future of creation is connected to our future, then we and creation can wait with hope.
Here’s the third point. We don’t get to wait with hope by sitting around twiddling our thumbs. We have a part to play aided by the power of God’s Spirit. Here’s what Paul says, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.”
Frankly, this is a difficult sentence to translate and too many have wrongly interpreted Paul to mean, “Don’t worry; everything always works out just fine for believers.” A better version of the text says this: “We know that in all things, God is working toward the good … together with those who love God,” together with us.
Paul makes a very strong claim for providence but it is a kind of cooperative providence. We cooperate in providence by working toward what we hope God intends. We cooperate in providence by looking for God’s hand in the beauty and mystery of creation.
What we are not allowed to do as Christians is to say that it’s all up to us and if we can just figure out the right plan, we can solve this problem. Nothing in heaven or on earth is all up to us. We’re too little and it’s too late. What we are allowed to do as Christians is to look for those moments and those places where God is moving the whole creation out of its groaning toward the fulfillment of God’s promises. What we are invited to do is to take our role in God’s great drama.
And Paul, having glimpsed the glory of where this drama is going, can only conclude in doxology, giving praise to the God who will never abandon us.
This morning we continue reading Paul’s letter to the house churches in Rome. Now I know Paul can get a little wordy and his logic a little convoluted. All right, maybe more than just a little. But Paul is passionate, and he is trying to describe God at work in his life, in the church, and in the world. Before I read this morning’s text which continues where we left off last week, let me try to recap the journey Paul has taken us on.
Paul begins his letter reminding his audience that the gospel isn’t a story about God’s power. The gospel is power, the power of God for salvation. It is Jesus Christ. His death and resurrection give witness to a God who loves us just the way we are, who loves us too much to leave us powerless and at the mercy of Sin and death, and whose love is stronger even than death. It is the human predicament that we find ourselves unable to do the things we know we should do, or to stop doing the things we know we shouldn’t. And we are helpless to change ourselves.
Paul can declare in Christ there is now no condemnation. Through Christ we have been given the gift of God’s Spirit that frees us from setting our minds on things that are destructive to our relationships and to ourselves. We are able now to set our minds and reorient our whole being on the things that are life-giving. It is the Spirit that makes us children of God who can pray, “Abba,” that is, “Our Father.” But the powers of Sin and death aren’t done yet. As children of God, we who are “joint heirs with Christ” also suffer with him so that we may also look forward to being glorified with him.
That brings us to this morning’s text: Romans 8:18-30, found on page 919 in your pew Bible. Listen for the word of God.
*********
18I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
*********
Did you hear all that “creation” language? “Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” Creation hopes for the day it “will be set free from its bondage to decay.” Creation groans in “labor pains.”
Up to this point in his letter, Paul has been describing the human condition. Christ has come; Sin and death are on their way out. But we still struggle daily to avoid the siren call of the powers of this world which perpetuate fear and tell us to worry only about ourselves. At the same time we long for the day when wars will cease, people will have enough to eat, children will grow up in safe and nurturing families, and broken relationships will be restored.
Now Paul expands our vision. It is not only human beings who are struggling, who are suffering, who know life is not as God intended. It is not only we who long for God’s promised kingdom. All of creation longs for that day as well.
The word Paul uses for this longing comes from the image of one straining the neck in anticipation. Think of a person on a train platform waiting for the arrival of their beloved who has been away for a long time. Maybe you’ve been that person eagerly waiting the time when you will be reunited. Then you hear the train whistle in the distance – you know the train is coming soon. Everyone waiting walks toward the edge of the platform straining their neck to catch of glimpse of the engine. That’s what Paul is describing. Creation is waiting on tiptoes straining its neck for a glimpse of God’s coming kingdom.
Creation is waiting on tiptoes because all of creation is broken. In many places in our world you can see the effects of human presence. Cities are overcrowded, choked with smog, endless suburbs and traffic jams. The folks in the Los Angeles area have been preparing for Carmeggedon – the shutdown of the 405, which is the main thoroughfare from the valley to downtown. The media were even telling folks to stay home rather than risk getting caught in gridlock on alternate routes.
Maybe Paul was ahead of his time or perhaps his friends Priscilla and Aquilla who were from Rome told him about the city. Rome had become a burgeoning metropolis at the center of the empire. It was no longer able to support itself having to import its water through an extensive network of aqueducts, and its food via fleets of cargo ships. Some would say these were Rome’s weaknesses and the cause of its downfall.
Fortunately, we here in the Finger Lakes are somewhat isolated from this. I hear often from folks who visit this area how beautiful this area is. Jim & I love taking walks up Tichenor Rd. The vineyards, the corn fields, the view of the other side of the lake – all of it is so idyllic. But if we’re honest, we face environmental concerns here, as well. And I don’t even have to bring up drilling in the Marcelles Shale or the Liquid Petroleum Gas storage facility.
But creation is not giving up in despair; it waits like Paul, like us, like all who are in Christ, in hope for what God has promised will happen, and already shown in Jesus Christ: our redemption. And that is the first point I want to leave you with: Creation is not once and done; it didn’t just happen “in the beginning.” God is still at work creating.
Yes, there are some in the wider Church who insist it happened just as the Bible said in six days. While folks from the Intelligent Design camp argue that God created the whole universe according to a blueprint established from the very beginning. And there are those who argue it all happened without the need for a god. I look around at the world and I see a Creator behind it, a very great one, to whom I give thanks.
Still, most of the arguments about creation focus on what happened long ago and seem to suggest it was all set in motion and now runs on autopilot. Less attention is given to what God is doing now. Yet, the scientific evidence points to a continually evolving creation with some species dying out and new ones being created. And the biblical witness attests to a God who is still creating, still involved with creation.
One analogy is God as playwright who directs her own play. God gives general direction, but allows the actors the freedom to improvise, or even rewrites part of the script to accommodate the players. God the creative and flexible playwright; a creator who keeps on creating. By the way, the classical word for this is providence.
This evolving, living, God-guided creation is groaning in labor pains. But did you also hear: we, too, who have been given the gift of the Spirit, also groan with creation. And there’s another connection. Paul writes that the Spirit who “helps us in our weakness … intercedes [for us] with sighs too deep for words.” I love the poetry of that phrase and I give the translators kudos for its beauty, but what Paul actually writes is this: the Spirit intercedes for us with inexpressible groans. God’s Spirit is so close to our hearts that words are not necessary.
Creation groans, we groan, the Spirit groans. We’re all connected – that’s the second point. Just as creation’s suffering is in some ways a consequence of human action, so its hope for freedom and renewal is connected to and dependent upon us, the children of God. That is also something science has discovered: life on this planet is interconnected, a web of life. Life in God’s Kingdom is based on relationship. Paul reminds us God’s Spirit helps us to see our connection with creation.
Some see this as a clear call for us to be good stewards of the earth. We can’t turn a blind eye to the problems in creation anymore than we can ignore the needs of people around us. If we as Christians give up on creation, we give up on God, the one has made us and sustained us. It’s the Spirit that nudges us to notice and be sensitive to the groaning of the world. But if that seems too much, Paul also tells us the Spirit is our connection and creation’s connection to God. This is why we along with all of God’s creation can wait eagerly with patience. If God the creator is still creating and guiding, if we have been promised adoption as children of God, if the future of creation is connected to our future, then we and creation can wait with hope.
Here’s the third point. We don’t get to wait with hope by sitting around twiddling our thumbs. We have a part to play aided by the power of God’s Spirit. Here’s what Paul says, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.”
Frankly, this is a difficult sentence to translate and too many have wrongly interpreted Paul to mean, “Don’t worry; everything always works out just fine for believers.” A better version of the text says this: “We know that in all things, God is working toward the good … together with those who love God,” together with us.
Paul makes a very strong claim for providence but it is a kind of cooperative providence. We cooperate in providence by working toward what we hope God intends. We cooperate in providence by looking for God’s hand in the beauty and mystery of creation.
What we are not allowed to do as Christians is to say that it’s all up to us and if we can just figure out the right plan, we can solve this problem. Nothing in heaven or on earth is all up to us. We’re too little and it’s too late. What we are allowed to do as Christians is to look for those moments and those places where God is moving the whole creation out of its groaning toward the fulfillment of God’s promises. What we are invited to do is to take our role in God’s great drama.
And Paul, having glimpsed the glory of where this drama is going, can only conclude in doxology, giving praise to the God who will never abandon us.
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