11-15-2020 Entrusted and Afraid

Thomas J Parlette

“Entrusted and Afraid”

Matthew 25: 14-30

11/15/20

           Let me pose a question. If you could choose to visit a famous site somewhere in the world, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or the Colosseum in Rome or the Great Pyramids in Egypt – which would you choose? I know that’s not an easy question to answer. There are so many beautiful places in the world to visit – that’s why Juliet and I like to watch the Amazing Race!

           British photographer Oliver Curtis has created a very successful career in films, television and fashion photography. His success revolves around capturing the perfect picture at the perfect moment. But he also has an odd side project. He likes to visit famous places and monuments around the world, and then point his camera in the opposite direction, away from the famous site. So he’s taking pictures of the scenery around these world-famous monuments, like the Taj Mahal in India, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but ignoring the monuments themselves. He has published these pictures in a book titled Volte-Face, or in English, About Face. (1)

           We use the term “about face” to refer to someone who experiences a complete change in attitude or opinion.

           Think about Oliver Curtis’ project for a moment. This photographer is in the presence of a well-known monument, but he wants to gain a new perspective – a perspective gained by focusing on its setting. And, as a consequence, he sees things most people never notice.

           How often do you stop and question why you notice the things that catch your attention? Generally, we follow the crowd. We fit in with our peers and our cultural expectations. We rarely question our priorities or our choices. What would it take for you to make a complete “about face,” a reversal in your choices, ideas or priorities? What if you could see your life from God’s perspective? That’s a question to consider as we approach this text from Matthew today.

           The story goes that a man went on a journey and entrusted his wealth to his servants. The man represents God, we are the servants, and the wealth – well, we’ll get to that in a minuet. There are two keys words here that we have to consider if we’re going to understand this story and apply it to our lives. Entrusted and Afraid.

           You’ll see some reference to entrusted or trustworthy at least three times in these verses. The man entrusted his wealth to his three servants. He presented them with a big responsibility and a big opportunity. This man obviously had great faith in his servants, he believed them to be trustworthy. He saw great potential in them, and great opportunities all around them. He saw them as God sees us – great potential and great opportunities to excel in the world. Why else would the master have entrusted his wealth to them?

           The first and second servants invested the wealth of their master as he hoped they would. When the master returned, they presented him with a considerable profit on his money. And the master praised their efforts and invited them to share in his happiness.

           But the third servant hid his master’s wealth and did nothing with it. Why? Because he was afraid. He was afraid of the master. He was afraid of the opportunity. He was afraid of the responsibility. And when his master returned, the third servant dug up the wealth and gave it back to the master. No return on the investment. Just one big lost opportunity. And the master condemned the servant for letting his fear override his responsibility.

           Perhaps the saddest and least productive emotion in life is fear. It is the least fruitful emotion. Fear’s only fruit is regret and lost opportunities and an increased focus on self and your own security.

           Over the last year, the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a new vocabulary for many of us. We are now familiar with “PPE”, and “social distancing” and “flattening the curve.” I read that in Germany, a new word was created to describe the hoarding of food and staple items brought about by the pandemic – Hamsterkauf. The German word for hoarding is “Hamstern,” which comes from the image of hamsters storing up food in their cheeks.

           During the Cold War, the German government published a list of items that the average German household should have on hand in case of emergency – like pasta, painkillers and, of course, toilet paper. Germans referred to this list as the Hamsterkauf list. (2)

           The third servant in this parable was guilty of Hamsterkauf. He was afraid and hoarded his master’s money because he didn’t trust his master’s character. Just like us, he’d had a few heartbreaks and setbacks in his life. And he no longer trusted the master’s goodness or the master’s priorities. So he decided to focus on his own security. Dig a hole in the ground, bury the wealth, take no chances, and wait for the master to return. No risk, no responsibility – but also, no reward.

           Think of all the things in life we miss out on because we are afraid. We don’t trust God’s goodness and God’s promises. Think of all the opportunities we could harvest with our God-given talents and opportunities if we were just bold enough to base our goals and priorities on God’s promises instead of our own security.

           Amy Purdy was a typical 19-year-old with a bright future ahead of her when she came home early from work one day with what she thought was the flu. She woke up from a nap, and her hands and feet were numb, And purple. Her blood pressure began falling. She was rushed to the hospital in cardiac arrest. Amy had contracted an often fatal form of meningitis. The nurse attempting to put an IV in her arm announced that Amy had only a few hours to live.

           When Amy awoke from a coma, her doctor explained that they would need to amputate her legs below the knee to save her life. You would think that someone facing that situation would not only be in despair at the loss of their legs, but also consumed with fear about what life would be like moving forward.

           But Amy faced her new life with determination. She wasn’t going to give up, even without her lower legs. She tried to return to snowboarding, one of her favorite hobbies, but she couldn’t find prosthetic legs that allowed her to snowboard well. So Amy did a lot of research, partnered with a doctor who provided her prosthetic legs, and they created new legs designed especially for snowboarding. And Amy Purdy became the first woman to win a bronze medal in snowboarding in the Paralympic Games.

           Amy and her husband also founded Adaptive Action Sports, an organization that helps athletes with disabilities to participate in the sports they love. Amy even competed on “Dancing with the Stars”, and she had the opportunity to share her story on television and at major speaking engagements.

           Amy says that when she lost her legs, she set three new goals for her life: “I’m never going to feel sorry for myself, I’m going to snowboard again, and that whenever I figure this out, I want to help other people do the same.” And that’s exactly what she’s doing. Her sports organization helps athletes with disabilities to reach their full competitive potential. Her best-selling book and speaking engagements inspire people who face unexpected losses. Amy Purdy’s challenges could have caused her to live the rest of her life in fear, watching out for her own security and comfort. Instead, she is investing her life in helping others. She is pursuing opportunities to do good works. She is living with Holy Boldness. (3)

           The saddest and least productive emotion in life is fear. Amy overcame her fear and she is having a fruitful life.

           Think how often the scriptures say “Don’t be afraid.” As I’ve said before, it could be a subtitle to the Bible. Could it be that the opposite of faith is not unbelief, but fear? That command – to live without fear – isn’t linked to some promise that nothing bad will ever happen to you. It’s not linked to some promise that God is going to answer your every question and always work according to your expectations and your timeline. The command is linked, however, to the promise that God will be with you through every challenge.

           This story from Matthew tells us that Christ is looking for people with Holy Boldness. The boldness to let God direct your talents and energy toward good works that bring glory to God. A mind-blowing responsibility, yes. A mind-blowing opportunity, also yes. Notice that the outcome of this story rests on faith in God’s character and obedience to God’s commands. Both faith and obedience require the boldness to let go of your own security and comfort, and let God use you for something bigger.

          Robert Young was a successful businessman in Seattle when, on a business trip in New Mexico, he noticed a newspaper headline that read: “Elders Freeze to Death.” The article detailed the crushing poverty on local Native American reservations, and the horrible living conditions of many elderly Native Americans. Robert couldn’t explain why the news story grabbed at his heart, but it did.

           A few weeks later, when Robert learned of an “Adopt-A-Grandparent” program for Native American elders, he called the number and signed up. Robert was paired with a 78-year-old Native American woman in South Dakota named Katharine Red Feather.

           Katharine welcomed Robert into her family as her newest “grandchild.” In spite of her poverty, her letters to him were full of joy, proudly sharing news of her large family. When Robert asked Katharine if there was anything he could send her, she asked only for a bottle of shampoo and some aspirin. Robert couldn’t imagine living in such poverty that shampoo and aspirin were such luxury items. He determined to visit Katharine Red Feather and see her living conditions for himself.

           Robert and his wife, Anita, were shocked by the poverty they saw on Katharine’s reservation. And he was humbled by the joy and love of Katharine and her family. When he returned home, Robert couldn’t find satisfaction in his work. He worried all the time if his adopted grandmother was safe and warm and had all she needed. That summer, Robert, Anita and a handful of friends travelled back to South Dakota to build a house for Katharine. As news of their project spread on the reservation, Katharine’s family and friends showed up to help, and they had a big celebration when the home was complete.

           Now Robert could relax and get back to his ambitious and successful life, right? Not exactly. God had given Robert a new vision and Robert knew he couldn’t bury his talent in the ground and do nothing. So after a lot of research and thought, Robert Young sold his half of his successful business. He and Anita moved to Bozeman, Montana, and started the Red Feather Development Group, to provide affordable, secure housing to Native Americans. (Americans. (4)

           Remember the two words that we had to consider in order to understand this Bible passage? Entrusted and afraid. God has entrusted you with great wealth. Your life. Your talents and energy, your intellect and influence. God can’t use you if you are afraid of investing your life in good works for God’s glory. So now is the time to ask yourself, what do you want to hear at the end of your life? What will it take to hear God say “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”

           May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, p37.

2.    Ibid… p38.

3.    Ibid… p38-39.

4.    Ibid… p40.

11-08-2020 Now Is the TIme

Rev. Jay Rowland, “Now Is the Time” a sermon based on Matthew 25:1-13. This sermon utilizes material published by Jill Duffield, “All Time Belongs To God” in presoutlook.org, Looking Into The Lectionary, 23rd Sunday after Pentecost.

Now Is the Time

Given the events of this week and recent months too, I want to start by quoting our denomination’s Declaration of Faith:

“There is no event from which God is absent; [God’s] ultimate purpose in all events is just and loving. That purpose embraces our choices and will surely be accomplished. [God our] Creator works in all things toward the new creation that is promised in Christ.”

Faith statements such as this are not only “Affirmations of Faith” but also Assurances of Faith.  I find myself leaning hard upon any and all words of assurance passed down to us by previous generations as well as through the scriptures.

It is very easy these days to lose perspective, to feel as if what we’re experiencing is unique or somehow more difficult than any previous generations have had to endure.  And so, given everything we’ve endured so far in the year 2020, it seems to me that what is most called for right now is perspective.  Perspective infused by the Holy Spirit, perspective through which we may see current and recent events as the medium through which we must and we shall live in hope and act in love as carriers of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I think it has now become painfully clear that living faithfully as disciples of Jesus Christ does not come easily nor inevitably. Christian discipleship in all its self-emptying is hard work. Spiritual work.  I wonder if we perhaps believe that spiritual work, spiritual maturity isn’t “work” but is instead supposed to be peaceful and serene like watching a sunrise or sunset. If so, then it can be painful to experience the difference between faith and fantasy.

To put it another way, choosing to serve our living God who demands our all is difficult.  And dare I say it, no more difficult for us than it was for those whose faith was challenged by the living during the Plague, or the Reformation or any of the bloody wars and conditions of the Middle Ages while social upheaval swept across Europe. Or here in America how can it be said that life in 2020 is more difficult than it was for those who experienced Slavery, or the Civil War, or the “Spanish Flu” or WW1, WW2. Christians who lived through those times surely struggled to cope with what must have appeared to them to be the end of the world.

Just as we are now, prior generations also had to discover, rely upon, and practice resilience and faith. Resilience from their faith in the midst of the chaos of what must have appeared to be “the end of the world”

Resilience can be thought of as keeping oil in our lamps despite the late hour. Resilience is a miracle in how it can see us through fatigue and disappointment, through myriad distractions, disillusionment, weariness, complacency, temptation. Navigating times like these requires all the virtues of Christian maturity we can muster. With much intervention by the Holy Spirit.

Because contrary to the dominant narrative and myth that proclaims “failure is not an option” reality has a way of forcing us to confront the fact that we do fail. Often. Failure is nothing to hide or be ashamed about.  As people of faith, we confront our failure and we practice repentance, forgiveness & seeking forgiveness, and we learn humility … all of which contributes to a truly holistic, healthy, and mature faith rather than the illusion, denial, and self-deception which runs rampant in the halls of government and “modern” society 

As we continue to endure uncertainty in the wake of this last week’s election and the world near to us and far from us continues to suffer from COVID-19 ... climate change … and the fall-out from recent natural and human-created disasters, all of this continues to impact how we live and move and have our being as disciples of Jesus Christ in the year 2020.

I was tempted to skip the gospel parable from Matthew today. Like most of the parables of Jesus, this one comes across as harsh, exclusionary, judgemental.  But I decided to take it on in the hopes of perhaps opening our eyes and our hopes--with the help of the Holy Spirit.

For centuries the parables of Jesus have been inflicted upon people by a distinct group of other people for their own particular purposes.  Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish scholar of the New Testament, at Vanderbilt Divinity School, has taught me this, among other things. Parables challenge presumptions among religious authorities and people.  Jesus’ parables are stories that intentionally create discomfort among any who are comfortable or complacent with spiritual corruption, to challenge human patterns and structures which displace and divide people.

Today’s parable is another example: 

The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.'

 But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut.

 Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.'

 But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.'

Most of us have been conditioned to project God into this scene rather than see ourselves in it. But parables are not metaphors or allegories about God. But unfortunately, that’s how parables have long been taught, interpreted and presented. And in this parable, many of us are conditioned to hear God saying to someone, if not us: “truly I tell you, I do not know you.”  But that is a direct contradiction to most everything Jesus says and does in the Gospels.

What if Jesus intended this parable to be a mirror? What if Jesus hoped to expose our accepted patterns of living and relating to one another as a way to remove the blinders covering up our behaviors, structures, and institutions? 

What if this parable is intended to help us feel what it’s like to be on the losing end of human patterns and practices of division and enmity and competition?

What if Jesus tells this parable in order to reveal the deeply entrenched, hidden patterns and structures and presumptions of those who wield authority and power upon those who have no authority or status or power? What if this parable reflects the damage we inflict upon our own communities —particularly our own faith communities?!  

What if the whole point is that Jesus wants us to see whom we truly serve as opposed to who we think or say that we serve? … confront us with the question: are we truly serving God’s kin-dom or the status quo?

Our ways of living and being in this world either serve God or they don’t. 

Who in this world today benefits most from our way of living and being and relating? 

Can any of us say without hesitation: God 100%?

Of course not.  Which brings us back to the importance of admitting our human failure, the importance of discovering humility.

The gospel calls us to always be ready to welcome and reflect Jesus Christ as Savior not because it comes naturally to any of us, but because it does not, or as someone somewhere once famously said, “ … not because it is easy, but because it is HARD”

Keeping the oil in our lamps requires much of us if we are serious about reflecting the true Light of the world.

Jill Duffield puts it this way, beautifully:

Ours is the oil of gladness that comes with unity, regardless of our differences.

Ours is the oil of anointing that marks us for priestly service … that prays for everyone and asks God to intercede in ways that bring repair and reconciliation.

Ours is the oil of healing that eases the suffering of those left beaten and battered and abandoned on the side of the road.

Ours is the fragrant oil of burial that the women took to the tomb when they discovered it empty.

Ours is the oil that dedicates to God all spaces & places, reminding us that we stand on holy ground whether our feet are standing in church, synagogue, or mosque … or standing on the streets, the floors of our homes, or the floor of factories, hospitals, boardrooms, courtrooms or classrooms.

Ours is the expensive oil that we pour out on Jesus' feet in adoration and worship, knowing that the unabashed love of God bears witness to the grace we receive from Christ and extend in his name.

Now is the time to fill up our lamps with the oil of Scripture that informs and encourages, shapes, and guides us.

Living faithfully in this time demands that we choose to serve God no matter how much it puts us at odds with our culture, or our political affiliation, or our even our blood relatives.

Duffield continues,

Now is the time to stock up on the oil of gladness and healing, the oil of dedication and anointing.

All time belongs to God. No chapter of history is abandoned by the Creator.

The God who so loves the world, enough to send the Son to save it, calls us into covenant to love it, too. This is by no means easy. In fact, it requires all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

I believe we are called, no, wait, I believe we were born for this: to be filled by God’s Holy Spirit, to let the Lord fill up our lamps, and keep our lamps lit—not hidden in embarrassment, nor hidden behind our failures, our shame, our privilege or our wealth or our possessions.  

Because Jesus is surely coming--ready or not. But Jesus does not come wielding fear or punishment—no, that’s how the world comes to us.  Jesus does not want any of us to be afraid of Him, or of God; Jesus does not want us to live in fear of any man, or any person, or any thing. 

Jesus simply calls us to be ready.  Regardless of the hour. Regardless of whatever seemingly dire situation seems to be bearing down on us. Because to be “ready” means understanding that we truly need Jesus and we want Jesus to appear just as He promised!

Because if ever there was a time in our lives that we truly need Jesus, now is the time. 

So be ready!  Let that lamp of God that is in you shine God’s light.  For the time has surely come.

Now is the time. 

11-01-2020 What New and Better World Awaits?

Thomas J Parlette

“What New and Better World Awaits?”

Matthew 5:1-12

11/1/20

In 1987, the band REM released a song that could have been written yesterday. You probably know it. It’s called “It’s the end of the world.” It contains a refrain that seems to sum up our world today:

“It’s the end of the world as we know it.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

Sure feels like it. It sure feels like REM looked into a crystal ball and saw into the future back in 1987.

In the most recent issue of Christian Century, Layton E. Williams writes, “I’m not sure the world has ever felt as upside down as it has in 2020.” And he is right. This whole year deserves one big asterisk. A global pandemic, economic crisis, political division and discord, protests for justice and a better world for all people, and every week it seems, some new catastrophe or news story that makes us roll our eyes and think – “Now what? What else can possibly happen?”

A year ago, life included parties, happy hours, and travel. It’s more mundane activities included public transportation, workdays in an actual office, going to church, shopping for groceries, picking the kids up from school not located at the kitchen table and hugging other people. That world is gone now. Every single one of those elements of normal life we once took for granted has been disrupted, destroyed and turned on its head. The world we inhabit now is strange, unfamiliar, scary and just downright exhausting. We don’t know what the future will hold or how long this season of upheaval and uncertainty will last (1).

Many times in recent months I have thought that the world is broken. Ending, even. That everything has become messed up. I have longed for the world I knew pre-pandemic. Despite its imperfections and injustices, it was a world that was largely comfortable for me. I know, I know – my white privilege is showing.

But the beatitudes we have before us today offer us hope. In this series of blessings, Jesus reminds us that the world as we have generally encountered it is not at all the world that God intends or desires for us. Indeed, in many ways God’s desired world is an inversion of the world we expect and feel comfortable with and perhaps even entitled to – particularly those of us who benefit from privilege.

With these eight strange and unexpected blessings, Jesus of Nazareth begins his epic Sermon on the Mount, throughout which he offers instruction, parables, promises and commands to his followers about the ways that God intends for us to live and the world God calls us to work toward. It’s significant that Jesus begins here, with these upside-down blessings. And to be honest, there’s a sermon in every verse here today – but we’ll save some for another day.

Jesus begins by centering on those who suffer, those who remain faithful in the face of hardship, those who focus themselves on compassion and care for others, on justice and righteousness and on making true peace for a better world for all.

These are not the groups of people that our world tends to favor or exalt – in fact, it’s just the opposite. In our dog-eat-dog world, the spoils go to the victor, the glory to the powerful. We celebrate those who are dominant, aggressive and competitive. We reward those who prioritize themselves above all else, who win at any cost.

Meanwhile, we avoid suffering, we reject calls for justice and peace and we see self-emptying concern for others as weakness.

Our misaligned and unholy priorities have been painfully and devastatingly evident over the course of this pandemic. As a result, we have a great many more names and lives to remember on this All Saints Day than we should, with over 220,000 deaths nationally as I write this and there’s no doubt the number has grown by the time you watch this online.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus makes a promise: that regardless of how this world fails us, God’s commonwealth or kin-dom, if you will, will ultimately comfort and lift up those who are faithful and good. At the end, in verses 11 and 12, Jesus speaks directly to his hearers, not only naming abstract groups, but also reassuring those listening that if they also seek to be faithful and good, no matter what the world throws at them, God will ultimately be faithful to them, as any good parent is faithful to their child. And as we heard from 1st John, “We are God’s children now.”

In verse 11 of this passage, Jesus turns the Beatitudes from a lecture into an invitation – an invitation to live the blessings he describes. Jesus frames the Beatitudes into a description of the kind of people we ought to strive to be,

After all, those who mourn do so because they love someone who has been lost, or something that has been lost. Do we care enough about those who have died in this pandemic to mourn them? Will we care mercifully for those being hurt by this situation, whether in terms of health or finances or safety? Will we let ourselves feel the pangs of hunger at the persistence of unrighteousness and the pervasiveness of systemic racism? Will we do the hard work of making real and holy peace – instead of settling for the comfort of keeping a false peace that allows injustices in this world to continue? As Ken Bailey points out, biblical peace is not just the absence of violence and war, but the presence of true reconciliation and spiritual health.

In times of crisis, our impulse is to shore up our defenses and do whatever it takes to keep ourselves alive. But God has created us not simply to be mortal but to be moral as well. Our call from God is to have a broader vision of care for all people. Those who do this, Jesus says, are blessed. Perhaps not in the world that we know – the one that props up powers and principalities, that celebrates individual freedoms over collective flourishing – but certainly in the kin-dom of God (2)

Our world has been turned upside down for 8 months now, with no real end in sight – and that upending has meant immense suffering and struggle. I don’t imagine any of us would identify a global pandemic as good, nor do I believe God would call it so. I believe God is as deeply grieved at the situation as we are. Our faith tells us that God doesn’t keep these things from happening – but God suffers with us along the way.

          But while we have been shaken up, while we are in this space of upheaval, perhaps we can see our reality from a different vantage point.

           Ken Lindner is CEO of Ken Lindner and Associates and the author of the book Crunch Time: 8 Steps to Making the Right Life Decisions at the Right Time (2004). He is also a championship Paddle Tennis player.

           A few years ago, Ken’s team lost in the final round of a national Paddle Tennis tournament. Ken was determined to learn from this disappointment. So he decided to go up into the stands and watch the winning team play a few rounds.

           Ken got an entirely different view of the game and of his opponents when he saw them play from up in the stands. From up there, he could see the Big Picture. He recognized the other team’s techniques, their strategy and their weaknesses. As Ken sat there and soaked up a whole new perspective on his opponent’s game, he realized that he could apply this wisdom to every part of his life. As he writes in in his book Crunch Time, “The lesson was: Far too far too often, while fighting our day to day battles on the ground, we never look beyond ourselves, or the immediate moment, situation, need or craving at hand. Therefore, we fail to view things from the fuller, richer, wider context of the Big Picture.”(3)

           Perhaps we might consider the Big Picture as we lean into the discomfort of asking ourselves why we were so comfortable with the world as it was before. Why was that world in so many ways the inverse of the world Jesus illustrates in the Beatitudes, and was it ever right side up in God’s eyes?

           For those of you who know that song from REM, “It’s the end of the world”, you know I left out a vital piece of the refrain. It goes like this:

          “It’s the end of the world as we know it.

          It’s the end of the world as we know it.

          It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”

           If this is the end of the world as we knew it, I wonder, what new and better world might lie ahead? We can feel just fine, as the song says, because we can be confident that God is leading us somewhere. We are God’s children, and a new and better world awaits. A world closer to what Jesus describes in this passage for today.

           May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Layton E. Williams, Christian Century, Oct. 21st, 2020, p22.

2.    Ibid… p22.

3.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, p11.

10-18-2020 Another Trap

Thomas J Parlette

Another Trap

Matthew 22: 15-22

10/18/2020

          Leadership is an important topic in today’s world. You know, there is a professor from University College London who has written many books on personality and leadership. And he has some strong views concerning incompetent leaders. He says incompetent leaders create a toxic culture that drags everybody in their sphere of influence down. And he claims that the number one trait that incompetent leaders possess is arrogance. According to this professor’s studies and experience, an arrogant leader is a toxic leader.

          This professor put together a simple, but amusing, 10 question quiz to measure a leader’s level of arrogance. Here are some of the questions he asks:

          “Do you have a special gift for playing office politics?”

          “Are you blessed with a natural charisma?”

          And this one, my favorite, “Are you just too talented to fake humility?”(1)

          If you answer yes to too many of these questions – you might be a bit arrogant.

          In our passage for today, the Pharisees join forces with the Herodians, and they try to make Jesus look like an incompetent leader. They lay yet another trap for Jesus by asking him a loaded question – “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”

          The Pharisees were sure that they had Jesus cornered. Whichever way he answered, he was going to make somebody angry. The Romans demanded heavy taxes from the Jewish people while at the same time oppressing them. Zealous Jews believed that paying taxes to Rome was not only a burden on them, it was also dishonoring God because they believed they owed their ultimate allegiance to God – not Caesar. If Jesus wanted to make himself popular with the Jewish people, he had only to say it was against God’s law to pay taxes to Caesar. However, if he did that, advocated in public against paying taxes, well the Romans would not be pleased.

          Nobody likes paying taxes. And to be honest, the Pharisees didn’t really care about Jesus’ opinion – they only cared about ruining his popularity with the people. Jesus, of course, didn’t care about his popularity or even his safety. He cared about only one thing – doing the work of God. So Jesus didn’t have to struggle with his answer. He said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Just as some people resent paying taxes, some people would rather not give God the things that are God’s.

          Pastor Brian Kluth tells of a friend’s four-year-old daughter, Amanda, who was determined not to put her quarter in the offering plate one Sunday. Amanda’s parents were trying to teach her to be a faithful and cheerful giver. But Amanda wasn’t having any of it. Her parents were embarrassed that they had to pry the quarter out of her little hand and drop it into the plate.

          Later that afternoon, Amanda’s mom heard her playing on the backyard swing. Every time Amanda got the swing to it’s highest point on the swing set, she would shout at the sky, God, I want my quarter back! God, I want my quarter back!(2)

          Some people are like Amanda – they would rather not give God that which is God’s.

          Jesus wasn’t trying to pile extra stress on us when he pointed out our responsibility to both pay our taxes to the government and give to God’s work. He was trying to teach us an important spiritual principle – Giving is the ultimate sign that we trust God.

          If you want to know what you really believe about God, examine your checkbook. Your level of giving toward God’s work matches your level of trust in God. Do you believe that, if you invest in God’s work, God will always provide for your needs? This where the rubber meets the road when it comes to faith. Do you trust God enough to give a portion of your resources to do God’s work?

          Consider the story of Jerry and Muriel Caven. The Cavens had started numerous successful businesses over the years. As they reached retirement age, however, they realized that accumulating wealth was not what life was all about. They believed God was leading them to participate in a new venture. That venture was overseas Christian missions.

          Instead of jealously protecting their retirement savings as most of us do, the Cavens decided to give away larger and larger portions of their income to God’s work. Jerry Caven says that their generosity was stoked by the realization that God was the true owner of all they had anyway. As he says, “Once we understood we were giving away not our money, but God’s money to God’s work, we had a peace and joy we never had back when we thought it was our money.”(3)

          Trust in God leads to greater peace and joy.

          Trusting in money and material things for our security or status or identity is a sure path to misery. Do you really want to put your trust in something you can lose? Trusting in material things leads to anxiety, fear, greed and conflict – all the qualities that are out of alignment with God’s will for our life. The path to joy lies in sharing with God in the work of the Kingdom.

          God wants to save us from the empty, frustrating, meaningless insecurity that comes from putting our trust in material things. The life of greed is a bottomless pit. There is never enough to satisfy. But giving to the work of God gives our lives meaning and purpose.

          And that brings us to the second thing Jesus was teaching us in this passage. First of all, giving is the ultimate sign that we trust God. And secondly, giving is the ultimate opportunity we have to impact the world.

          Sometimes we look at giving money to God’s work, and we see a loss from our bank account – we see a minus sign on the balance sheet. And that’s where anxiety and greed kick in. But what if we looked at giving to God as an opportunity instead? Because our giving to God’s work is the greatest way to impact the world in a concrete way.

          Pastor W.A. Criswell once told the story of a man who was asked, “What did you do yesterday.

          And the man said that yesterday he taught a class in a church college. On Tuesday, he was down in the Rio Grande Valley working in a Vacation Bible School. On Wednesday, he was operating in a church hospital in Nigeria. On Thursday, he was teaching the Bible in the Amazon jungle. On Friday, he was building a church in the Philippines. On Saturday, he was preaching in Tokyo, Japan.

          His friend stopped him – “You’re kidding me right? There’s no way you could do all that!”

          And the man said, “But I do it every day. I make a pledge to my church and my money goes all over the world doing good in the name of Jesus.”(4)

          It’s probably true that you may never physically go to Haiti to feed a starving child, or dig wells in Honduras, or provide after-school activities to needy kids in inner city Detroit. But through your giving, you can do all these things and more. Your money can fuel ministries that save lives all over the world.

          You may be unsure about which ministries God is calling you to. You may be super-busy and not know how you can fit ministry into your schedule. You may not have much money and feel that your giving wouldn’t make an impact anyway – but you would be wrong. Truly every little bit helps. Through giving what you can to God, you can be in ministry all over the world. You can bring hope and resources and life and salvation to people everywhere – not because you have superhuman talents and a fat bank account, but simply because you trusted God and gave what you could.

          In 2011, former University of Georgia football coach Mark Richt and his wife Katharyn, both devoted Christians, sold their second home – an eight room mansion worth almost 2 million dollars – so they could give more time and money to charities. Mark and Katharyn had been reading the book The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision.

          The book created in them a passion to contribute to international missions. As Mark Richt said, “You know what? I don’t want to pour money into a home like that when I can use it for better things, for eternal things.”(5)

          Most of us don’t have a 2 million dollar house to sell to give to missions, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t have the same joy that the Richts discovered. Every dollar we give to the work of God is an eternal investment in sharing life and hope.

          Giving is the ultimate sign that we trust God. Giving is the ultimate opportunity to impact the world. And finally, Jesus is teaching us that giving is the ultimate pathway to joy. Every hard teaching of God results in a blessing for those who believe and obey. When Jesus taught, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it,” he was teaching a profound and eternal truth. He was teaching us to live in faith rather than in fear.

          Fear tells us that we need to maintain control of our lives because there isn’t enough to go around. Fear tells us that happiness is found in comfort and certainty. Fear is the little voice in our heads that says, “I’ll start giving to God’s work once I get a new job, or I pay off my car, or when the kids are grown.” But joy and peace and fulfillment are only found in following Christ and aligning our priorities with God’s will for our lives here and now. Today. Chances are that if you keep putting off making God first in your life, it will probably never happen.

          When Johnny Jennings was 18 years old, he visited a children’s home associated with his church. He tells how moved he was when 3 little boys at the home came running up to him and begged to be adopted.

          Johnny was too young to consider starting a family at the time. But he knew God was calling him to do something to help. So, at 18, he began collecting money to give to the children’s home. He would go around town collected cans and aluminum scraps, anything he could recycle. And he gave his recycling money to the home. This became his lifetime act of faithfulness.

          That is why recently, at the age of 88, Johnny Jennings was honored by the state of Georgia for giving more than $400,000 to the Georgia Baptist Children’s Home through his recycling work. When asked why he dedicated his life to this mission, Jennings says, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”(6)

          Giving to God’s work is the surest way to maximize your impact and experience more joy in life. There is nothing else you can possibly spend your money on that can offer you a better return on your investment. But to experience that joy, you have to take the step of giving sacrificially to the work of God. So render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. But more importantly, render unto God the things that are God’s.

          Your giving shows you trust God. Giving is the ultimate opportunity to impact the world. Giving is the also the ultimate pathway to joy.

          So, in a few weeks, when you receive your pledge information from the church, I hope you will take advantage of an opportunity to give to God’s work.

May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, p 13.

2.    Ibid… p14.

3.    Ibid… p14.

4.    Ibid… p15.

5.    Ibid… p15-16.

6.    Ibid… p16.

10-11-20 When God Lets Us Down

Rev. Jay Rowland

Exodus 32:1-13

Psalm 106:1-6,19-22

Philippians 4:4-9

As I’ve thought about everything that’s been happening recently I’ve found myself wondering if people are starting to believe that God is asleep at the wheel. Or asking, “where’s God?” in all this, wondering if/when God will show up.

Maybe you are having similar thoughts.

And so that’s what I’d like to explore with you today. But I must clarify that this reflection is not about whether or not God lets us down but, rather, how to handle it when we feel like God is letting us down--which is just as hard. I want to reflect upon this because it’s very human and totally appropriate.

I don’t believe that God ever intentionally lets us down, but I know that we can be quick to think so, especially during a crisis. Another of my beliefs is that I do not believe that God causes suffering. I know many of us wonder why God allows suffering—and that’s a very important question. But right now I’m more interested in the “what now, God?” question than in the “why, God?” question. Because the “what now, God?” question invites us toward acceptance more readily than the “why” question. The “what now, God?” question allows us time and spiritual space to express our grief, our disappointment, our pain and suffering to God who suffers with us and longs to lead us through it.

I also believe that we can be disappointed in God--even angry at God--while also still trusting in and counting on God to see us through. This is one of the most important facets of our Judeo-Christian faith: lament. Lament is an ancient gift of our Judeo-Christian faith tradition found throughout the Old Testament.

Another important note to reveal is that I do not personally fancy, as some do, an adversarial relationship between God and us (or between us and God). But clearly, in the living of life, adversity happens to us. “Stuff” happens that wrecks us and ruins us and threatens our faith. We suffer terribly whenever our life, our sanity, or our family is hurt or suffers. There’s no shortage of suffering going on lately and it’s still too raw, so I prefer to address our common reality indirectly by considering the crisis situation faced by our religious/spiritual ancestors the Hebrew people as told in Exodus.

To briefly review what lead up to our reading today, God has rescued the Hebrew people from their brutal enslavement in Egypt and choses Moses to lead this rescue mission. The good news is that it succeeded. The Hebrew people are free thanks to God. But this good news is tempered by the reality that they now have no place to live. They are, effectively, homeless for the foreseeable future, living “on the road” day after day until a place is found where they can start a new life together. God is putting as much distance between the Hebrew people and everything that went with their previous life of slavery and abuse. God has done everything possible--even the “impossible”--to prove to the people that God is with them.

But the people are sort of like, “Thank you for setting us free from slavery. But … this is dangerous! We’re stuck way out here in the wilderness--totally exposed and vulnerable! We could easily die out here! This feels nearly as bad as slavery in Egypt. At least there we had food, water & shelter”

The Exodus story presents to us the narrative of the relationship between God and God’s people--beginning with the Hebrew people. Exodus documents the beginning of this relationship and some of the um, complexities along the way. Exodus reveals so much about our ongoing relationship with God, the complexities of the God-human relationship and the human-human relationship too. After God rescues the Hebrew people from the brutality of slavery in Egypt, the days pass slowly. The people realize their newly won freedom has created a different kind of struggle, now they are worried about food and water. This is totally appropriate. But God responds and provides for their most basic needs faithfully, patiently.

Whenever adversity strikes, we worry and we easily panic. And when we panic, we tend to presume the worst possible outcome and assume that God Has Let Us Down. We forget how God has always come through for us.

An example comes from our Exodus story. God calls Moses up the mountain to meet with God to make plans for their new life together in a new place. But after Moses is gone for many days the people worry, then panic. They presume the worst, that Moses is either dead or missing and that God has suddenly forgotten them. And so they decide to make their own “god” - one they can see and touch and project themselves onto; one they can literally pick up whenever their panic-driven impulses run wild, a god to help them feel (falsely) secure while they do whatever they want to do.

It goes to show how in any crisis, whether it be it in Exodus or in life in the year 2020, we can see how easily panic and anxiety-fueled assumptions only add more confusion and stress to an already confusing and stressful situation. This is a recurring theme throughout the Bible and in our life together: God’s people worry, panic, act on panic and end up making a very difficult situation even worse. Even so, throughout Exodus, God (just like God does throughout our life) faithfully responds and provides. In the midst of a crisis, in the panic and the fear, we’re often too upset to see that God is intimately involved. And so it FEELS like God has let us down.

Let me back up a bit. Wanting the end of something bad is good, of course. But when the bad thing is finally over, life doesn’t instantly switch from being all bad to being all good. On the contrary, when we spend so much time and life-energy wanting something bad to end, this does nothing to prepare us to live without it. It’s one of the complexities of life— longing to be free of something “bad” in general or in particular is one thing; living free of it is quite another thing and perhaps creates complexities we didn’t see coming, whether the bad thing is slavery or bullying; heart-break or heart disease; addiction or cancer.

Whatever bad thing we long to be rid of has the power--or is it the consequence--to warp our perception of good and evil; faith and fate; fair and unfair, God and people; etc. So how do we handle that?

The Apostle Paul has some thoughts worth considering. Paul and his congregations faced all kinds of adversity and complexity. His letters and his prayers are not pithy, flowery, “Hallmark” sentiment, but, rather, honest responses to life & death crises—both for Paul personally and for his friends and congregations too.

When life spirals out of control, whenever we are provoked to panic and presume the worst, whenever we start believing that God Let Us Down, Paul shows us how to turn toward God and trust God in those moments: how to hang on until things settle down and we can respond from a place of calm and faith rather than panic; to hang on until we can process what’s going on, give it more thought, seek support, apply our imagination, and spirit.

And so Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always” —but this can be counter-intuitive especially during a crisis, so Paul repeats this"—”again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.”

Remember that the Lord is near Paul says. Keep that in mind when fear and panic and presumption and chaos are spirling all around you seeking to pull you down too. Instead of joining that current of panic, Paul says, “let your gentleness be known to everyone”

Gentleness. Sounds impossible. But how? Here’s how, Paul says: Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Set down worry and panic; choose instead to not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Paul offers himself as an example, he’s saying, “hey if I can do this, you can too.” Paul has learned to lean on the Lord in the midst of crisis and panic, in the midst of beatings, imprisonment, hostility, isolation. And so he says to us, “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.

What things? All the things God has shown us in Christ; all the things Paul has done and shown through crisis after crisis he has endured. And what does he say will be the result? Total unfiltered, unbridled success? Total Victory and domination? The end of our problems? The end of all crises? No.

Only this: “and the God of peace will be with you.”

And this: “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

10-04-2020 Only One Goal

Thomas J Parlette

“Only One Goal”

Philippians 3: 4b-14

10/4/20

I have never been a morning person. It has always been a challenge to roll out of bed and get going in the morning. Juliet and Thomson pop up out of bed every day at 5:00 or 5:30, no problem at all. But for me, it’s really easy to just roll over and go back to sleep. That’s why I always used to love staying in hotels and getting a wake up call.

One of the small luxuries that used to be available in most hotels was the personal wake-up call. Remember when the desk clerk would ask you when you checked in, “Would you like a wake-up call?” Then a real live person would call at the appointed time – “Good morning, Mr. Parlette, this is your wake-up.” And then you could decide if you wanted to go back to sleep or not. Alas, these days wake up calls are now assigned to computers and there is no one at the other end of the line. I know that many people use their phones as an alarm clock, so the idea of a wake-up call seems a little out-dated.

But they are not completely gone. There are still a few high-end hotels that will provide a wake-up call that is guaranteed to get you out of bed. One luxury hotel in Aruba makes an initial wake-up call, then sends an employee to knock on your door a few minutes later to ensure that you are indeed up. Another hotel sends a butler with coffee, tea and pastries to knock on your door. Works for me! At the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, if you miss your wake- up call three times, the hotel manager will send a security guard to bang on your door until you answer. No chance you’re missing that kind of wake-up call!(1)

Speaking of ways to wake up, a mother once wrote in to a college’s online parent forum asking for ideas for really annoying wake-up songs to help her teen-age son get out of bed. Turns out that her son had a hard time getting out of bed, so he was missing a lot of his classes. So she had taken to creating music playlists of annoying or embarrassing songs to get her son out of bed, which she downloaded onto his phone to be his alarm songs. She had some success with songs like “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Rock a Bye, Baby” and a couple of cheesy disco songs. But she was hoping to get some more suggestions from fellow parents. Everything from “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham to “In a Gadda Da Vida” by Iron Butterfly made the list.(2)

In today’s passage from Philippians, Paul refers to a different sort of wake-up call. He recalls the time he had a personal wake-up call to change the way he was living.

Paul, whose Hebrew name was Saul, was an Israelite, a descendent of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. He had a respected family heritage. He was a student of the Law of Israel. He studied under Gamaliel, a widely known and respected Pharisee. Paul was educated, influential and respected. By all measures in his society, he was a success. And he had one singular goal in life – to protect the Hebrew law. That was his only goal.

Now we should note that successful people usually have worthwhile goals for their life. If you want to honor God with your life, if you want to make sure that you don’t waste the precious gifts God has given to you, then the best thing you can do is create some worthwhile goals for yourself.

Goal setting comes from the belief that your life has purpose. If your life were random and meaningless, then setting goals wouldn’t make sense. But if your life has purpose, if you have the opportunity to make an impact in your sphere of influence, then setting goals is the best way to do it. Worthwhile goals require vision, planning, discipline and sacrifice. Successful people have a vision for where they want to go and who they want to be, and they create a plan to get there.

Such was the case for a young man named Chad Williams. Williams was partying his way through community college when he experienced his personal wake-up call. He realized that his life was going nowhere and he needed some worthwhile goals for his life. So he chose the toughest goal he could think of – he decided to join the Navy SEALS.

As you probably know, the Navy SEALS are an elite special operations force. Their training is so rigorous, and their missions are so demanding, that only a tiny number of people who apply for SEAL training ever complete it.

Chad’s father put him touch with an active Navy SEAL, Scott Helvenston, who began mentoring him. In 2004, just before Chad entered the SEAL training program, Scott, his mentor, was captured in Fallujah, Iraq. He and three other SEALS were murdered, and their bodies were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River. Their fate was broadcast by television news stations around the world.

Chad’s goal in life suddenly and dramatically changed. Chad was now focused on becoming the best Navy SEAL possible in order to honor his mentor, Scott Helvenston. Seems like a worthwhile goal. Chad trained hard, made it into the SEAL team, and served in missions all over the world. He had achieved a goal few people could even dream of. But after all his sacrifice, dedication and hard work, Chad still felt empty and restless. He began to wonder, had he invested all his energy and skills and time in this goal only to find that it wasn’t what he truly yearned for in life? That same thought had once occurred to Paul as well.

At one time, Paul proudly sought his own worthwhile goals. He describes himself as being zealous for God. “Zealous” isn’t a word we use much anymore. It means being “enthusiastic or passionate for a cause.” Paul wanted to honor God and his religious heritage as a member of the tribe of Benjamin. He demonstrated his commitment to these goals by carefully studying the Hebrew Law and by persecuting those Jews who didn’t strictly obey the Law – particularly this new sect of Jews who followed a rabbi they claimed had been raised from the dead and taken into heaven named Jesus.

In fact, his goal – which he was totally committed to – led him to go house to house in Jerusalem, hunting down followers of Jesus and dragging them off to jail. He even participated in an act of mob violence when a crowd of equally zealous Jews stoned to death a young preacher named Stephen. By his own standards, Paul was very successful in achieving his goals. But what does it mean if you are very successful at achieving your goals, and they turn out to be the wrong goals?

You may have heard the name Jon Krakauer before. Jon is a mountain climber and best-selling author of books about his climbing adventures. In his book Into Thin Air, he writes of the day in May, 1996 when he finally reached the summit of Mt. Everest. A number of his fellow climbers had died along the route. Krakauer wrote, “I understood on some dim, detached level that it was a spectacular sight. I’d been fantasizing about this moment, and the release of emotion that would accompany it, for many months. But now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, I just couldn’t summon the energy to care.”(3)

What do you do when you finally arrive at your goal, your mountaintop, and the thrill that you thought you would get from achieving your goal, isn’t all that great?

Sometimes our goals and our definition of success need to be pried out of our hands before we wake up to what’s really important. Many of you know what it’s like to have a wake-up call like that. You are consumed with thoughts of a promotion at work until you get the call that your child is in the emergency room. Your priorities get sorted out really quick at a time like that. And that’s what happened to Paul. While on the road to Damascus to arrest more followers of Jesus, Paul (who was going by his Hebrew name, Saul, at that time) was struck blind by a flash of light from heaven. And then he heard a voice – “Saul, why do you persecute me?” Saul spent three days in Damascus, blind and helpless, questioning the direction of his life. Suddenly his one and only goal in life was called into question. Now what?

From a young age, Stephen Sutton, a native of the United Kingdom, dreamed of becoming a doctor. But when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age of 15, his dreams changed. Stephen started a blog on Facebook and wrote a bucket list of things he wanted to accomplish. Among those items were “learn to juggle,” “skydive for charity,” and “get my name in the Guinness Book of World Records.” As Stephen’s cancer progressed, he also added to his list the goal of raising 10,000 pounds for the Teenage Cancer Trust, a cancer charity in the UK. And he selected one more goal: to inspire someone else to become a doctor since he wouldn’t live to fulfill that dream.

Stephen’s blog inspired people around the world. He had the opportunity to speak at numerous places, and even met British Prime Minister David Cameron. He had an amazing impact on everyone who came into contact with him. Unfortunately, Stephen passed away in 2014 at the age of 19, but people continued to donate to the Teenage Cancer trust in his honor. As of 2017, 5 million pounds had been donated in memory of Stephen Sutton.(4)

It is amazing how one young man’s worthwhile goal not only had a positive effect on others, but it lives on after him. More than one young person was inspired to become a doctor because of Stephen Sutton. That’s the power of a truly worthwhile, God-honoring goal. And that brings us back to the story of Paul.

Paul had encountered Christ on the Damascus Road. After three days of blindness, Paul was healed through the intervention of a follower of Jesus named Ananias. And at that moment, Paul’s previous goals for his life began to look like rubbish, as Paul says.

“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage…” Later he declares, “I want to know Christ – yes to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead…”

Later still, he sums up his new goal – to serve Jesus Christ, to be an imitator of Christ in all he did.

And he encourages the Philippians and us, to make that our goal as well. You were made to serve Jesus Christ. You were made to live out Jesus’ values and priorities. You were made to do good works that express the love and hope of Jesus Christ in the world. That is our only goal.

And that brings us back to the story of Chad Williams, our Navy SEAL who thought he would find fulfillment in a military career with one of the most elite special forces teams in the world.

One evening, Chad and his girlfriend were invited to a worship service. The Speaker, Greg Laurie, preached on a passage from the Old Testament about Naaman, a commander in the Syrian army who contracted leprosy.

You might remember the story – in order for God to heal him, the prophet Elisha told Naaman he had to remove all his armor and bathe himself in the Jordan River. Laurie made the point that Naaman had to humble himself, give up his symbols of strength and protection, and submit to God’s plan before he could be healed. Something in the story of Naaman spoke to Chad Williams deepest need, and he became a Christian that night. Today, Chad Williams is a best-selling author and speaker who shares his faith in Jesus all over the country.(5) In his estimation, being a Navy SEAL is great, but being a disciple of Jesus Christ is of far greater significance.

If you want to move forward in life, if you want to accomplish something significant in life, then you’ve got to set worthwhile goals for yourself. That’s what successful people do. And that’s great. But if you want to honor God with your life, if you want to make a positive impact for God, an impact that lives on after you are gone, then you need to have only one goal in life – serving Jesus Christ. It doesn’t mean you need to be a missionary in a foreign country or a Christian worker in the inner city. It does mean that you will seek to be the person God means for you to be wherever you do end up. It is what you were made for. It is where you will find your identity and purpose and peace. It is the one thing that will make the most difference in the world.

To imitate Christ – that is our only goal.

May God be praised. Amen.

1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, p3.

2. Ibid… p3.

3. Ibid… p5.

4. Ibid… p5-6.

5. Ibid… p6.

9-27-2020 No Good Answer

Thomas J Parlette

“No Good Answer”

Matthew 21: 23-32

9/27/20

          Dr. Phil, the well-known television psychologist and celebrity was once asked “If you could interview anyone in the world, past or present, who would it be?”

          And Dr. Phil responded, “I would like to sit down and interview Jesus Christ. I would really like to talk to him about the meaning of life.”

          I don’t know about that. I think Dr. Phil might want to go back and re-read this passage from Matthew. Because when you start asking questions of Jesus, it usually doesn’t go as you expect. Your question gets turned on its head, Jesus confuses and confounds you and you are likely to get a question back in return, and probably a story as well. It can be dangerous to ask Jesus’ questions.

          Our passage this morning comes in two parts. The first part is a confrontation with the Temple leadership in Jerusalem. The second part is a quick parable about two sons being asked to go work in their father’s vineyard.

          Jesus has just arrived in Jerusalem. The previous day he entered the city to shouts of “Hosanna, Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Then he goes to the Temple and causes a scene by overturning tables and throwing out all the merchants and moneychangers.

          Our passage occurs the next day when Jesus returns to the Temple and the Chief Priests and the elders of the people were waiting. And they had a question for Jesus – “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority.” Note that they do not say he has no authority, because clearly he does. They want to know where the authority came from.

          They are saying, “Look, you just rolled into town and started this commotion in our Temple. Who are you? Where did you go to school? Who did you study with? What are your credentials, are you even board certified to do this, do you have a license to preach and teach?”

          And it’s a legitimate question. The Priests own authority in Israel had been given to them in the time of Moses and had been passed down for generations. Now they wanted to know where Jesus’ authority had come from and who gave it to him.

          But Jesus cleverly avoids giving an answer, because there is no good answer – the question is a trap. If he answers their question, Jesus risks being rejected by the people and condemned by the religious leaders – or he risks being untrue to what he knows about God.

          So, as any good Rabbi would do, Jesus answers their question with a question of his own. “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” Another question with no good answer. Jesus has turned the tables. And the Priests and elders know it. They quickly confer – “If we say from heaven, he will say then why didn’t you believe him. If we say it was of human origin, the crowd will turn on us, they think John was a prophet.”

          Since there is no good answer, the Priests and elders shrug their shoulders and say “We don’t know.”

          “Then I won’t tell you by what authority I am doing these things… but I have a story for you. What do you think?”

          “A man had two sons; he went to the first and said ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today. He answered, ‘I will not’, but later he changed his mind and he went. The father went to the second son and made the same request and the son said, ‘I’m on my way’ but he didn’t go at all. Which of the two did the will of the father?”

          This time there is a good answer, and it’s the only answer – obviously the first.

          In this parable of the Two Sons, we see two types of people. The response of the first son was defiance. “No, I won’t go. How dare you even ask. I have other plans.”

          A lot of people are like that – a little defiant, a bit stubborn.

          Former competitive swimmer and nine-time Olympic champion Mark Spitz might have had a touch of that stubbornness and defiance. Spitz, you may remember, won seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, all in world record time. This was an achievement that lasted for 36 years until it was surpassed by Michael Phelps, who won eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

          Some of you may also remember that, in an era when other swimmers were starting to shave their body hair, Spitz swam with a moustache – the Tom Selleck look, before Tom Selleck. When asked why he grew a moustache Spitz said, “I grew it because a coach in college said I couldn’t grow.” We probably all know someone like that – someone who does things just because they were told they weren’t allowed.

          A coach from the Soviet Union swim team once asked Spitz whether having a moustache in the pool slowed him down. So Spitz decided to have a little fun with the Russian and said, “No, in fact, it deflects water from my mouth, so it makes me even faster.” Then he added that this was the real reason he was so fast – he owed it all to his moustache. Spitz was just joking, but the Soviet coach took him seriously. And the following year, the entire Soviet team grew moustaches. All because a coach once told Mark Spitz he wasn’t allowed to have one.

          We all know people whose first response to anything might be a little defiant. Fortunately though, many of these somewhat stubborn people have good hearts, and when they have time to reconsider and think it over, they come around, in fact, sometimes they become the most valuable workers. The first son in this parable is just like that. He was initially defiant, but after he thought about his father’s request, he changed his mind, put on work clothes and went out into the vineyard.

          Now the second son, though he was quite polite, his response was really much worse than his brother’s initial defiance. His response was insincere. The second son was like a lot of us. There are many people who are nice, very friendly, good Christian people who will never argue when asked to do something, never protest, and yet getting them to actually do anything is nearly impossible.

          Years ago, the City Commission of Miami, Florida established a municipal beautification committee. They appointed 25 members to the committee. But the word got around town and it seems that everyone wanted to be on that committee – they all wanted a say about the beauty of their city. Nothing wrong with that. Request after request was granted until finally 131 people were appointed to the Miami municipal beautification committee.

          Then the committee scheduled their first meeting to get organized and begin the work. Only 19 people showed up. 131 appointed – 19 showed up.

          Oh people wanted to be on the committee, but they didn’t want to do the work involved.

          That the second son in this parable – he said he would work in the vineyard, but he never showed up. This parable asks us “What’s more important – saying the right words or doing the right action? Words or Actions? Lip service or doing something? What is essential if one is to be judged righteous, is doing the will of God, showing up and doing the work.

          During the Revolutionary War, a young man is reported to have come to George Washington and said – “General Washington, I want you to know that I believe in you and your cause. I fully support you.”

          Washington graciously thanked him and asked the young man, “What regiment are you in? Who is your commander? What uniform do you wear?”

          The young man answered, “Oh, I’m not in the army. I’m just a civilian.”

          Washington replied, “Young man, if you believe in me and my cause, then join the army, put on a uniform and join the fight.”

          That is what Jesus expects us to do as well. It’s not just lip service, you have to do something, get some skin in the game, support a cause or project that means something to you in bringing about God’s Kingdom on earth.

          In her commentary on this passage in the series Connections, Shawnthea Monroe writes:

          “What is more important, getting the words right or the work right?... On a personal level, the parable of the Two Sons fills me with hope. My congregation includes many older adults whose children do not attend church. This “lack of faith” is cause for much concern among a generation raised to believe that church attendance is a requirement for salvation. These children are good people who donate to charities, volunteer at homeless shelters, and work at the food pantry, but rarely attend church. I often use this parable as a way to reassure parents that people who do good work are still doing God’s will, even if they will not enter God’s house.”

          And we’re seeing this with the millennial generation as well. Monroe goes on to say:

          “There is a growing body of evidence that millennials are generous with their time and money. They seek out ways to connect to those in need and have a desire to live out their values, not just write a check or make a pledge. In many ways, they are the first son – they say they will not do the will of the father, but at the end of the day, they do the work.”

          And that’s good news! The Christian faith is more than a set of words and ideas – it is a way of acting in the world.

          God blesses those who put on their boots and overalls, and show up to work in God’s vineyard.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Charles Campbell, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p. 117.

2.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, p. 67.

3.    Ibid… p68.

4.    Ibid… p69.

5.    Shawnthea Monroe, Connections, Westminster John Knox Press, 2020, p. 351.

6.    Ibid… p351.

9-20-2020 Thinking Out Loud

Thomas J Parlette

“Thinking Out Loud”

Philippians 1: 21-30

9/20/20

In what is arguably Shakespeare’s greatest play, we see Hamlet thinking out loud about whether it is better to suffer the tragedies of life or just end it all.

“To be or not to be…

To live, or to die? That is the question.

Is it nobler to suffer through all the terrible things

Fate throws at you, or to fight off your troubles,

And, in doing so, end them completely?

To die, to sleep – because that’s all dying is –

And by a sleep I mean an end to all the heartache

And the thousand injuries that we are vulnerable to –

That’s an end to be wished for!

To die, to sleep. To sleep, perhaps to dream – yes,

But there’s the catch. Because the kinds of

Dreams that might come in that sleep of death –

After you have left behind your mortal body –

Are something to make you anxious.

That’s the consideration that makes us suffer

The calamities of life for so long.

Because who would bear all the trials and tribulations of time –

The oppression of the powerful, the insults of arrogant men,

The pangs of unrequited love, the slowness of justice,

The disrespect of people in office,

And the general abuse of good people by bad –

When you could just settle all your debts

Using nothing more than an unsheathed dagger?

Who would bear his burdens, and grunt

And sweat through a tiring life, if they weren’t frightened

Of what might happen after death –

That the undiscovered country from which no visitor returns,

Which we wonder about and which makes us

Prefer the troubles we know rather than fly off

To face the ones we don’t? Thus the fear of

Death makes us all cowards, and our natural

Willingness to act is made weak by too much thinking.

Actions of great urgency and importance

Get thrown off course because of this sort of thinking,

And they cease to be actions at all.

But wait, here is the beautiful Ophelia!

Beauty, may you forgive all my sins in your prayers.”(1)

Paul, too, is thinking out loud today as he faces the very real possibility that he will be executed. Paul’s words here are reminiscent of Hamlets soliloquy when he says, “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. I do not know which I prefer, I am hard pressed between the two.” Although they muse on the same topic, the two come to very different conclusions.

Philippians is the most unabashedly affectionate of Paul’s letter. There is nothing here like the frustration found in Galatians or the chiding tone in the Corinthian letters. No, the church in Philippi is clearly near and dear to Paul’s heart.

Paul has three main points he wants to communicate to he friends in Philippi. First and foremost, he wants to thank them for there are and generous support of him.

Paul also wants to encourage the Philippians to be steadfast and single-minded in their loyalty to the gospel and to each other.

And finally, Paul wants to comfort and strengthen the Philippians in the light of some kind of unknown persecution that they were facing or expected to face in the near future.(2)

It is this theme – comfort in the face of suffering and single-mindedness among believers that informs this passage for today.

Paul uses his own possible execution as a starting point. He ponders aloud if it might be better to die – and be with Jesus, than go on living and dealing with all the persecution that comes his way.

Ultimately, unlike Hamlet, who seems to end his soliloquy in a rather hopeless state, Paul comes to the conclusion that it is better to suffer his “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” because the Philippians need him around to encourage and guide them. Paul encourages us to choose life, as the t-shirt from the 80’s used to say, which allows us to continue to witness to the power of the Resurrected Christ.

“Paul’s own afflictions,” writes Professor Morna Hooker, are not described in a negative way. Instead, they “are seen as an opportunity for the gospel: people talk about his case; therefore, they learn about the Christian faith, and other Christians are encouraged to make a similar stand.” Faced with an ending, Paul becomes stronger, more focused, more productive and more positive. As Paul muses about death, he sees new life.

The church can take comfort from Paul’s words, especially in times of struggle and persecution. “Throughout history, persecution has often strengthened the church,” writes Professor Hooker. “The amazing fact that oppression leads to growth reflects the paradox that lies at the heart of the gospel – namely, that God’s power is revealed through the weakness of the cross and that victory comes through apparent defeat.”(3)

Knowing that his on end may be near, Paul offers some advice to the Christians in Philippi, advice that is equally valuable to us today. Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or I am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.

Paul wants us to live in a manner worthy of the gospel, always showing the grace and love of Jesus Christ. He wants us to become stronger and more focused, standing firm in one spirit and striving side by side with one mind. Such strength and unity doesn’t often happen in good times. In fact, it usually happens in difficult times.

Arlington Presbyterian Church, west of the Pentagon in Virginia, worshiped in a beautiful stone sanctuary for more than 80 years. But over the years, the congregation had watched their numbers dwindle, and it’s aging building had become a burden. But instead of selling its 10 million dollar property and building a new sanctuary somewhere else, the congregation made a bold move, meant to benefit their surrounding community.

As you might expect, the cost of living in Arlington in extremely high – many teachers, store clerks and first responders can no longer afford to live where they work. So Arlington Presbyterian joined forces with a nonprofit group that builds affordable housing. The church sold its land to the nonprofit group, and then the group constructed a six-story building on the site of the church, with five floors of affordable housing above retail space on the first floor. On the first floor, the church now rents space for offices, meetings and worship.

The transformation of Arlington Presbyterian was not an easy process, and there was struggle both inside and outside the church. Paul’s words to the Philippians provided good advice to them – to live in such a way that you are “in no way intimidated by your opponents.” The congregation “risked it all for the sake of their neighbors,” says Ashley Goff, who became the pastor of the church after the change had begun. “It’s almost like they became curious about death, the curiosity of how to die well,” says Goff.

Fortunately, the church did not die. More than 400 people have moved into the building, and Arlington Presbyterian is now meeting in its new space. The congregation has become stronger and more focused, standing firm and striving side by side with one mind. They are experiencing new life after looking death in the face. And this, Paul would say, “is God’s doing.”(4)

This text from Philippians, Paul’s soliloquy on life and death, is an invitation to focus on hope, to find joy in the midst of all of life’s circumstances, so that God may be glorified. Gospel living is not about finding an easy way out. It is about learning to see hope and possibilities even in the darkest moments of our lives.(5)

By choosing life instead of dwelling on death, we choose to look beyond our circumstances and believe that God will show us a way through our difficult times. God will lead us out. There is no need to abandon hope; rather, we may embrace it and live.(6)

That is God’s invitation for all of us today. In the midst of whatever you are living through, choose life.

May it be so for you and for me.

May God be praised. Amen.

1. Ben Florman, www.litcharts.com, retrieved 9/10/20.

2. David Bartlett, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p87, 89.

3. Homileticsonline, retrieved 9/8/20.

4. Ibid…

5. Gilberto Collazo, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p88.

6. Ibid… p90.

9-13-2020 The Challenge of Forgiveness

Rev. Jay Rowland

Romans 14:1-12 and mostly Matthew 18:21-35

Romans 14:1-12 key verses; my own transliteration

1 Welcome those you consider “weak” in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. ... 4 Who are you to pass judgment ...? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

7-9 We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. … 

12 So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

Matthew 18:21-35

21 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.

24 “‘When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him;25 and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made.

26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.

28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place.

32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.”

35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

The Challenge of Forgiveness

In case you haven’t heard, this is an election year [sorry: my lame attempt at sarcastic humor]. Weeks ago, the political ad machinery started the requisite full-court press. Most of these ads exert considerable effort to convince us to vote for [insert candidate or party here] because [insert candidate or party here] has ALWAYS been all about upholding the VALUES we all care about. Kathryn Matthews rightly notes that our super-charged political culture has always been enamored with so-called “values issues” which present hard-line, party polemics exclusively applied to wedge issues such as sexual orientation or, say, reproductive rights rather than, say, racial and economic justice.  Most candidates who espouse so-called “values” proclamations in public discourse often claim some justification from Christianity or religiosity for whatever stand is taken. 1

Whenever any so-called “Christian” or “Evangelical” politician refers to “values” in public discourse they inevitably create and perpetuate a false impression, a caricature, of Christianity and faith. Candidates love to grandstand their political positions and do so with either near-divine certainty, or claiming divine endorsement (or both), yet flippantly, even casually reject and demonize entire classes of people using their own narrow interpretation of religious standards, the Bible, and even Jesus Himself. 

And of course, too often this spills over into faith communities.  And so too many people feel unwelcome or rejected by God or a church based on what they’ve heard from politicians rather than what faith communities actually stand for.  What makes this even worse is when churches spend any time making similar judgments about who's worthy of full inclusion in the life of the church. Because what that means is that little or no time or focus is devoted to considering the challenges Jesus presents to all of us through such basic notions as, say, forgiveness. To put it into proper perspective, Kathryn Matthews asks, have you ever heard of a church or denomination refusing to ordain someone for failing to forgive? 1

So why, then, do we allow ourselves to get distracted by someone’s sexual orientation? However we may feel about something or someone on any given day, I think we all know what it feels like to long for forgiveness. Or if not that, then perhaps how hard it is to forgive someone who has hurt us.  What breaks my heart is that so many people come to worship every Sunday bearing heavy burdens, anger and resentment, guilt, shame and they long for something to help ease or share this burden rather than stir up feelings about issues or people which divert our attention which are far less important at the end of the day (every day!).

This very human struggle and difficulty regarding forgiveness persists in every period of history, in every nation, in any and every setting of the church, and in most every human heart.

The good news if we choose to be honest, is that each and every one of us has at one time behaved like the first servant/slave in Jesus’ parable—the one who received grace beyond measure. As Tom Long describes that situation, it's "something like saying that a lowly mail-room clerk owed the CEO of IBM a 'bazillion dollars.' It was hard to know who was more foolish--the servant-slave, for getting into that size debt, or the king, for extending that sort of credit line to a servant-slave" (Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion via Matthews1).

The hypocrisy on display when the tables are turned and he has the opportunity to forgive seems absurd if it did not describe us so well (Matthews). Do we even understand how much we have been forgiven or do we instead only think about how much or how often we have been wronged?  Henri Nouwen writes, "Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family." 1

Before we can ever come close to understanding the radical notion of grace, let alone the spiritual power of the Grace abundantly and freely offered to each one of us through The Lord, perhaps we must first confront the matrix of our own lives when we’ve been in a position to extend grace or forgive someone.  If this was “easy” we would probably never fully appreciate its considerable power and worth within the human heart.

Like air and water, forgiveness is both precious and necessary to life. If someone is genuinely, deeply sorry and has truly understood the pain and injury they have caused, how many times should they be forgiven? (Matthews) If we only forgive begrudgingly, or because we see it as a commandment there is little if anything to be gained or healed by forgiveness. Until we ourselves have longed for or asked for and received forgiveness ourselves, perhaps we will never trust that forgiveness is a good thing in reality as opposed to in theory.  

Professor Richard Swanson articulates2 the conflicting impulses provoked in many of us  by this exchange between Peter and Jesus in the Matthew’s Gospel today: 

(my partial paraphrase): if Peter is asking Jesus if we are religiously obliged to let people walk all over us, and if Jesus’ answer provokes anyone to absorb abuse only to “forgive, and forgive, and meekly forgive, then Jesus gives a bad answer.” As a professor and as a pastor [Swanson notes that he has] heard stories of abuse from [his] students and parishioners and declares that [he] has not, does not, and will not EVER suggest that Jesus is telling anyone to merely accept abuse…”  

Forgiveness has been known to set one free from the toxicity of holding onto the anger and rage abuse unleashes upon the one abused, but Swanson rightly cautions, “there is a difference between that and forgiveness which perpetuates abuse.” Indeed, we are all painfully aware of the considerable harm and injury inflicted by priests, clergy and other predators who have manipulated Jesus’ words here in Matthew 18 (or elsewhere in the Bible or “church doctrine”) in order to perpetuate abuse.   

So, given the fine line between healthy forgiveness and the perpetuation of evil or abuse, what does forgiveness need to look like in the life of the church and in our own lives? 

The answer, of course, depends upon the situation and the harm that was done. There is no easy answer or one-size-fits-all application. When it comes to such weighty matters perhaps it is useful to recall Jesus’ words in a different context, that we must be “as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Perhaps it ultimately depends on how long we are willing to carry the burden of withholding forgiveness. Withholding forgiveness trap us in the past and destroy the possibility of any future joy.  I recall a Zen or Buddhist proverb which compares the withholding of forgiveness to carrying hot coals in one’s hands. 

The challenge of forgiveness is that it disrupts a delicate balance. Timing is critical. Sometimes the time isn’t appropriate or healthy to forgive … yet. Yes, forgiveness gets abused and manipulated. But what anyone does with our forgiveness is beyond our control. It is out of our hands once we extend it. Jesus challenges us to trust in the potential for forgiveness to nurture the health and well-being not only of the wider community, or the one who is forgiven, but above all the heart and soul and spirit of the one who forgives. 

Preacher Tom Long puts it this way: "We know too well that the little boat in which we are sailing is floating on a deep sea of grace and that forgiveness is not to be dispensed with an eyedropper, but a fire hose" (Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion).1 With that clever image in mind, perhaps it comes down to this: 

Do we want to live in a world, in a nation, in a church community where people dispense forgiveness with "an eyedropper," or with "a fire hose"?

NOTES

1 I acknowledge my use of Kathryn Matthews’ on-line commentary, including the two quotes by Tom Long, and especially her organization of material and ideas:: https://www.ucc.org/worship_samuel_sermon_seeds_september_13_2020

2 Richard Swanson, blog, https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/a-provocation-fifteenth-sunday-after-pentecost-september-17-2017-matthew-1821-35/

9-6-2020 Jesus' Keys to Resolving Conflict

Thomas J Parlette

“Jesus’ Keys to Resolving Conflict”

Matthew 18: 15-20

9/6/20

          From the very beginning of Creation, there has been conflict. It’s right there at the start when Cain killed his brother Abel. Conflict has always been with us. One of the great challenges of being human is getting along with others.

          The famous dramatist George Bernard Shaw and the legendary British leader Sir Winston Churchill had several disagreements. You might remember the story where Shaw once sent two tickets to Churchill for opening night of one of his plays, with instructions for Churchill to “bring a friend – if you have one.”

          Churchill sent the tickets back with a note that said, “I will come on the second night – if there is one.”(1)

          It’s not just interpersonal relationships that can be difficult. For instance, in 1325, a group of rowdies from Modena, Italy invaded the town of Bologna, also in Italy. This group of miscreants from Modena caused considerable mischief and upheaval in Bologna – they even stole the oak bucket from the public well.

          This incident incited a 12- year war between the citizens of Modena and Bologna. Thousands of men died in the fighting. When the war ended after more than a decade, Modena re-claimed their oak bucket – and it’s been housed in the bell tower of a local cathedral ever since.(2) 

          Many of you are familiar with a statue called “Christ of the Andes,” which stands high in the mountains between Argentina and Chile. It’s supposed to symbolize peace between the two countries, but it ended up causing some conflict. Shortly after it was put up, the Chileans began to protest that they had been slighted by the placement of the statue. The issue? The statue has it’s back turned to Chile.

          Fortunately, just when tempers were at their highest in Chile, a Chilean newspaper man saved the day. In an editorial that not only satisfied the people but made them laugh, he wrote, “The people of Argentina need more watching over than the people of Chile.”(3) Conflict resolved!

          In this morning’s Gospel lesson from Matthew, Jesus gives some guidance on how to deal with conflict, especially with conflict in the church. Jesus gives us his three keys to resolving conflict.

          Jesus’ model of conflict resolution is a carefully staged process. If another member of the church has wronged you, he says, take out Key One – Go to the other person and point out what this one has done wrong. No witnesses. Just the two of you.

          If that doesn’t work, try another key, Key Two. Take one or two others along with you, and repeat the process. There’s a very practical reason for bringing the others along. They can serve as witnesses if Key Two likewise doesn’t work.

          You’re going to need those witnesses if you pull out Key Three. Using this key, you “tell it to the church.” There’s still hope the other person will come around, realizing what pain he or she has caused, and repenting for it. But “if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

          A careful, measured series of escalating steps was the grievance procedure for the first-century church. It also became the foundation of the disciplinary procedures of a great many modern Christian Churches.

          The theological foundation of this process is the power of the keys. The Roman Catholic Church assigns this power to priests and other church leaders under the authority of the Pope. Every parish priest exercises this power by pronouncing absolution – declaring to people that their sins are forgiven. For those in the heritage of the Protestant reformers, the power of the keys flows directly from the word of God in Scripture, as people understand it through the act of preaching.

          To the question “What is the power of the keys?”, the Heidelberg Catechism supplies this answer: “The preaching of the holy gospel and Christian discipline toward repentance. Both of them open the kingdom of heaven to believers and close it to unbelievers.”

          The goal of the process is reconciliation, not punishment. But there are times when that is impossible. Sometimes there’s no admission of wrong, no move toward reconciliation, not even when the whole church is calling for it. In such a case, then Jesus’ advice is to “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

          Now incase that last bit sounds a little harsh coming from the mouth of Jesus, consider this for a moment. How is it that Jesus treats Gentiles and tax collectors” Did he ignore them? Did he abandon them? Did he avoid them?

          No – he went out of his way to eat with them, to spend time with them. He was famous for that – actually infamous in some people’s eyes. Jesus never gave up on them. He always reached out to them. He always hoped for reconciliation. True, they were outside the group of disciples, but Jesus reached out to them anyway.

          As the biblical scholar Warren Carter has pointed out, Jesus did not see the Gentile and tax collector as outcasts, he saw them as “objects of restorative action.”

          It’s a shame really that this passage has been used to justify throwing people out of the church, when Jesus is not talking about that at all. Jesus’ keys to conflict resolution are all about reconciliation, not excommunication. The Three Keys are about restoring relationship and understanding each other.

          The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”(4)

          Or, in more practical terms, we could follow the advice from an old U.S. Army training manual for non-commissioned officers. Sergeants were given advice on how to handle two soldiers from the same barracks who keep fighting and arguing with each other. Assign them both to washing the same window, the manual advises: one on the outside, the other on the inside. As they stand there with their cleaning solution and rags, moving them in the same circular motion, they can’t help but look each other in the eye. As they do, they realize they have more in common that they have differences. They may even start laughing, as the common problem – the dirty window- takes precedence over their petty conflict.(5)

          Jesus’ Three keys to resolving conflict seek to bring us closer to each other, and ultimately closer to God, the only one who can bring about full reconciliation.

          Hunter Farrell tells a story on PrebyterianMission.org about the night he walked with Pastor David into the New Jerusalem Presbyterian Church, in the indigenous community of Santa Barbara in one of the poorest of Peru’s 25 regions.

          He says, “As we walked into the sanctuary on that bitterly cold night, Pastor David looked at me and whispered, ‘Pray with me brother, because I’m going to do something different’.

          The Pastor David did something I had never seen anyone in Peru do before – after inviting the 50 or so people who had gathered for worship to stand in a circle, he took his Bible and placed it on the ground. Now, among the indigenous folks of Peru, allowing the Word of God to touch the ground was a sign of disrespect, so Pastor David quickly got the attention of the members of New Jerusalem – you could hear a pin drop!”

          Then Pastor David spoke: “Brothers and Sisters, what is the one thing we must do each day to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?”

          There was an uncomfortable silence. Finally, a teenager answered, “We must follow Jesus every day.”

          “Yes, said Pastor David, “so everyone – take a step toward the Living Word,” and we all took a step toward the Bible.

          “What happened?,” he asked.

          Again, silence. He asked us to take another step toward the center of the circle. Now we were standing uncomfortably shoulder to shoulder. Again he asked – “What happened?”

          Finally, a young girl responded, “Pastor, we came closer together.”(6)

          Jesus’ Three Keys to conflict resolution give us a strategy to work towards reconciliation among the members of the Body of Christ – but only God can bring about full and complete reconciliation.

          That is what we seek when we gather at the communion table. We gather around the Living Word and we take one step closer to the reconciliation that God offers.

          May God be praised. Amen. 

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, p. 50.

2.    Ibid…p. 50.

3.    Ibid…p. 50-51

4.    Homileticsonline, retrieved 8/20/20

5.    Ibid…

6.    Ibid…

8-30-2020 A Brilliant Design

Thomas J Parlette

“A Brilliant Design”

Romans 12: 9-21

8/30/20

          So I wanted to buy some new running shoes recently. I just wanted some basic, mostly white running shoes that I could use for walking and also when I’m working a swim meet. USA Swimming is very particular about on deck attire and they want us to wear just white shoes – I guess loud neon colors might distract the swimmer, I don’t know.

          In my research online though, I came across a new kind of performance running shoe that has a brilliant design. It’s from Addidas and its called the Futurecraft Loop. It’s brilliant because the whole shoe is 100 percent recyclable, no plastics or glue is used. So as you leave foot prints when you’re running, you can feel good about the fact that you are leaving no carbon footprints. Brilliant!

          Or how about raincoats. They will keep you dry, but the plastic in most of them will eventually sit in landfills for many years. In addition, plastic comes from fossil fuels, which put carbon in the air. But now you can choose a raincoat made from fast-growing algae. That’s right – algae. It mimics plastic in every way, but also consumes carbon from the atmosphere, so it’s actually carbon negative.

          Other brilliant designs include a typeface designed to increase legibility for people with low vision, a prefabricated “hospital room in a box,” a credit card that monitors your carbon footprint, and an electric motorcycle that is largely 3D-printed.

          All of these brilliant designs were hailed by Fast Company magazine in their September 2019 issue as “award winners that are re-shaping our world.” The winner in the category of social good was “The Water Box” from flint Michigan. This mobile filtration unit plugs into the public water system and pumps out safe, lead-free drinking water.(1)

          Recyclable running. Carbon negative raincoats. Hospitals in a box. Mobile water filtration units. All brilliant designs.

          Of course, innovative ideas are nothing new. Flip phones were great when they were first introduced, because they were so easy to answer. Answer by flipping it open; hang up by flipping it closed.

          Remember the Rubik’s Cube? It was eye-catching and beautiful, and it’s design made you want to grab it and play with it. Yes, it was hard to solve, I certainly could never do it, but the cube didn’t really require an instruction book, you just picked it up and started turning. Brilliant.

          Looking back even further, consider the brilliant design of a pencil or a pair of scissors. These are great products that you use every day, they are extremely intuitive in their function. It’s very hard to improve on the design of a pencil or a pair of scissors. Brilliant design.

          Back in the first century, the apostle Paul had some innovative ideas about what it meant to be a true Christian. He shared his design with the followers of Jesus in Rome, using words as surprising today as they were when they were first written.

          For starters, Paul encourages us to do the opposite of what people expect of us, especially when we are attacked. Instead of fighting fire with fire, Paul says, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” The approach most people take is: “Don’t get mad, get even.” Heaping curses on evil doers is acceptable behavior in most faiths and cultures. But Paul says, “Bless.” The Christian design is to offer good to persecutor instead of fighting back, counterattacking, or evening the score.

          “At this point Paul stands firmly with Jesus,” says pastor and scholar N.T. Wright. “In both Jesus’ teaching and his own practice there was a striking new note: Hostility was to be met with prayer, and violence with blessing.” As Jesus himself said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

          Pastor Peter Marty tells the story of a woman named Martha, who had a terribly difficult childhood. “Mom regularly beat me with a strap,” she recalls. “She was mean even when I did nothing wrong. My dad was cruel for reasons I never understood. He’d pack my lunch for school and often put a rock in it instead of a sandwich. As hungry as I was after school, I dreaded coming home.”

          Marty asked her how it was that she and her husband managed to raise a beautiful child of their own after the hellish childhood she had endured. So often, abused children become abusers, and the cycle of violence continues. But Martha revealed her strategy, she said, “I was determined to do the complete opposite of what my parents did for me.”(2)

          Hmmm – do the opposite. Love instead of hate. Bless instead of curse. “Do not repay anyone evil for evil,” says Paul, “but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.” That is a brilliant design.

          You might remember that it worked for George Costanza in a Seinfeld episode. George’s life was not going well. So he went to the beach to figure things out. As he tells Jerry and Elaine at the diner, “every instinct I’ve ever had has been wrong.” So he decides to do the opposite. Instead of his usual lunch of tuna on toast, he decides to have the complete opposite – which for him is “chicken salad, on rye, untoasted, with a side of potato salad, and a cup of tea.”

          And all of a sudden, George’s life turns around. He gets a new girlfriend and lands his dream job of working for the New York Yankees, all by doing the opposite of what his gut tells him to do.

          That’s what Paul’s design is as well. Paul encourages us to live according to the values of the Kingdom of God, instead of the values of the world. The world is “dog eat dog,” with people living by what their gut tells them, competing fiercely and being willing to harm each other in order to succeed. But the values of God’s kingdom invite us to do the opposite, and live in harmony with one another.

          The world is full of climbers who want to show off and be accepted by powerful and influential people. But the values of God’s Kingdom encourage us to “not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.”

          The story of Henri Nouwen is well-known. In the summer of 1985, Nouwen left his position at Harvard Divinity School and joined a movement called L’Arche, which mean “the Ark.” He moved to France and spent nine months living with people with learning disabilities, and sharing life with them. Then Nouwen joined the L’Arche Daybreak community in Canada and served as its pastor until his death in 1996.

          Nouwen took seriously the instruction of Paul to “associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.” He moved from Harvard to L’Arche, he said, so that he could be “closer to the heart of God.” In the L’Arche Daybreak community, he supported a young man named Adam, who was severely disabled. As he cared for Adam, he came to a deeper understanding of his faith and what it means to be loved by God. Within L’Arche, the focus is on loving those who feel alone and abandoned because of a mental disability.(3) That too, is a brilliant design.

          Finally, Paul encourages us to conquer our enemies in an innovative way – “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Paul doesn’t want Christians to be passive in the face of their enemies, rolling over and playing dead when confronted by evil. No, says Paul, take action: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

          In his book The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene tells of a speech Abraham Lincoln delivered at the height of the Civil War. In it, Lincoln referred to Southerners as fellow human beings who were in error. An elderly lady chastised him for not calling them irreconcilable enemies who must be destroyed.

          “Why, madam,” Lincoln replied, “do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”(4)

          The unexpected and innovative design of the Christian life is to overcome evil with good, instead of fighting evil with more evil. If our enemies are hungry, we feed them. If they are thirsty, we give them something to drink. In the end, we destroy our enemies by turning them into friends.

          “To transform an enemy into a friend requires one person to step forward and initiate the change,” says blogger Suzanne Kane. “That’s often propelled by love, the kind of human emotion that forgives all slights, looks past harsh statements, past injustice, social pressure and aggressive actions and finds common bond.”(5) Such a transformation is often grounded in what Jesus said during the Sermon on the Mount: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”

          When faced with an enemy, don’t attack them. Instead, “Golden Rule” them. Feed them. Give them a drink. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

          The Apostle Paul challenges us to do the opposite of what people expect of us, blessing instead of cursing. He invites us to live according to the values of the kingdom of God, instead of the values of the world. And he encourages us to conquer our enemies with kindness.

          Yes, there is evil in the world, and Paul knows it. “But God’s people are to meet it in the way that even God met it, with love and generous goodness,” says N.T. Wright. God knows that “the way to overthrow evil, rather than perpetuating it, is to take its force and give back goodness instead.”(6) That’s what Jesus did on the cross, and what we are challenged to do in daily acts of love and sacrifice.

          And that is a brilliant design, right up there with hospitals in a box. And it’s a design that is never finished, but one we need to work on every day.

          May God be praised. Amen. 

1.    Homileticsonline, retrieved 8/15/20.

2.    Ibid…

3.    Ibid…

4.    Ibid…

5.    Ibid…

6.    Ibid…

8-23-2020 A Team-building Retreat

Thomas J Parlette

“A Team-building Retreat”

Matthew 16: 13-20

8/23/20

          I don’t know if you have noticed or not, but it seems like CEO’s and HR Departments of nearly every sort of business, as well as every sports coach in the land these days is talking about how to build a winning culture. Building the right culture is said to be the magic formula for uniting your team around a singular vision.

          Some companies address this challenge by scheduling a team-building expert. Maybe you’ve been to a team-building retreat. They’re designed to get people away from their workplace, outside their comfort zone, and teach them to work together to learn a new skill or face a new challenge. It sounds good in theory, but not all team building experiences live up to their billing.

          The folks at Quickbase software company asked for feedback on some of the worst team-building exercises that actual businesses have put their employees through. Some of them are pretty unbelievable.

          One company brought in a consultant who asked all the employees to kick off a team-building meeting by going around the conference table and sharing what they didn’t like about their fellow employees. And of course it didn’t go well – within minutes, all the employees were angry or in tears. It was like something Michael Scott would do in “The Office.”

          Another person wrote about a team-building retreat at a horse farm. The goal of the exercise was to improve each employee’s communication skills by having them learn to communicate with a horse. OK, that’s a new approach, might be worth a shot. But everything fell apart when one particularly rambunctious horse got out of control and trampled one team member so badly, an ambulance had to be called.

          But one of the strangest team-building exercises on the Quickbase blog was from an employee who said their team sat through a 2 hour exercise where they were instructed to visualize flying over the ocean to a mythical place called the “Temple of the Dolphin.” Then they were asked to watch dolphin videos and study the unique leadership skills of dolphins. I didn’t know dolphins had leadership skills, but I don’t know, maybe.(1)

          Jesus, on the other hand, was ahead of his time when it came to team-building. He took his disciples off from time to time for retreats – getaways that usually included time for prayer or conversation about the Kingdom of God.

          Sometimes. However, Jesus took his disciples to a place outside their comfort zone. Such a place shows up in today’s passage from Matthew. Caesarea Philippi, an ancient Roman city known for it’s worship of foreign gods.

          There was a sacred cave at the entrance to Caesarea Philippi, and all around this cave were carved niches filled with small statues of the various gods worshiped there, gods like Hermes and Echo. The region was also full of pagan religious sites devoted to the god Pan. Pan was the half-man, half-goat god who had the ability to create a feeling of sudden and overwhelming fear in people. In fact, it is from his name that we get the English word “panic.”

          So Put yourselves in the disciple’s shoes. Jesus has led you to a place that makes you very uncomfortable. Having been raised in the Jewish faith which rejected all forms of idolatry, you feel like a fish out of water in such a place. Everywhere you look, you see evidence of shrines and statues and inscriptions to various pagan gods. You’re confronted with abomination in every direction. And as you begin to stare at your sandals to avoid looking at these offensive statues, Jesus asks a strange question: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

          Feeling somewhat relieved – “Oh, Jesus is just taking an opinion poll”- they offer some potential answers. Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; I’ve heard Jeremiah’s name come up or one of the other prophets.

          Everyone has their own idea about Jesus. And they are all good images, positive comparisons. Those mentioned are some of the most important prophets in Israel’s history. But then Jesus asks another question. “What about you, the ones who know me best. Who do you say I am?”

          I’ve always imagined a long silence here as the disciples think about their answer. They sheepishly look at each, maybe one or two of them shrug as if to say, “I don’t know…You answer him.” Finally, Peter responds.

          “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

          Peter doesn’t realize it in the moment, but he has just stepped through a one-way door. There’s no going back. He has announced that Jesus is the Anointed One promised by God to the nation of Israel. He’s the guy. He is God in the flesh… not the image or statue of a dead idol as seen in Caesarea Philippi, but the Son of the living God.

          I like to think that this is when Jesus turns to face his disciples. And they see a big smile on his face. Jesus walks over to Peter, puts his hands of his shoulders and looks him in the eye. “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

          You know, we like to think of Pentecost as the birthday of the church. The Holy Spirit came like a rush of wind and the disciples were empowered to preach God’s message to the world. I know I’ve said that many times in sermons and children’s sermons over the years. And it is true. But the first time the word church is mentioned in the Bible is actually in this passage, here in verse 18.

          This moment though is the real birthday of the church, Pentecost was more of a confirmation, an empowering of the church to move ahead on it’s own, without Jesus’ physical presence, but still guided by the Spirit. This is the birth of the church that Jesus will build.

          And notice the subtleties here. Jesus says “on this rock I will build my church. Not the church. Not a church. My Church. This is Jesus’ church – not my church, not your church, but Jesus’ church.

          The word Jesus uses for “church” is ekklesia. That term doesn’t refer to a building, it refers to a community. Ekklesia mean, literally a “called-out people.” Jesus is casting a vision for his disciples. He is showing them that his ministry isn’t just for this time and this place and this people. His ministry will continue long after his death. His ministry will attract people from all over the world. Jesus’ church is for all time and for all people. So what does it mean to be a called out people?

          First of all, Jesus calls us to be a light to the nations of the world. Let your light shine before other, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. To be a light to the world means that we are to be living examples of what living in God’s Kingdom is all about.

          A few years ago there was a story in Leadership magazine from the city of Jackson, Mississippi. There had been a scandal among their city council members. The council president, along with another member, had been caught in an unethical situation. A number of community leaders were brought together for a televised panel discussion on the issue.

          Journalist Matt Friedman participated in the panel. At one point, the moderator asked, “Matt, whose fault is this? Who bears this responsibility?”

          Matt savored the question for a moment. He admits that he was ready to denounce the council president in no uncertain terms. But suddenly, another man spoke up. It was Pastor John Perkins, also a participant on the panel. Pastor Perkins said simply, “I do. It’s my fault.”

          Everyone turned to stare at this strange comment. “I have lived in this community for decades as a Bible teacher,” Perkins said. “I, and other like me, should have been able to create an environment where what our council president did would have been unthinkable because of our efforts in all the churches of this town. You want someone to blame? Blame me.”(2)

          Pastor Perkins understood what Jesus meant when he said, “You are the light of the world.” We are called to be the embodiment of righteous living- and that means taking responsibility. We are meant to be an example of what living in God’s Kingdom is all about. Letting our light shine before others mean working for peace, justice, compassion and empathy for everyone in this community, our country and the world.

          Jesus also calls us to be a community of love. Ekklesia is a plural word. Once you become a follower of Christ, you are one in heart, mind and spirit with every other follower of Christ all over the world throughout time and history.

          We cannot follow Christ and look out solely for our own interest. We cannot follow Christ and look down on others around us. We are a community that spans more than 2,000 years of history and covers every nation, every skin color, every language, every nationality and every social class on earth. If you remember, Jesus final prayer for us asked that we would be one – one in heart, one in mind, one in love.

          Maybe you remember this story from December of last year. A little boy named Michael in Grand Rapids, Michigan was getting adopted after years in the foster care program. When Michael’s foster parents told his kindergarten teacher that the adoption hearing was coming up, the kindergarten teacher arranged for every child in Michael’s class to attend the hearing and show their support for Michael. Imagine the judge’s surprise when she entered the courtroom for a standard adoption hearing and saw 39 five-year-olds waving red paper hearts in support of Michael. The judge even took the time to ask the children what Michael meant to them.(3)

          When you become a follower of Jesus, you were adopted into the church, the called-out people. You are no longer alone. You have a family that shares your joys and your heartaches. That’s what it means to be the church. Jesus calls us to be a light to the nations and a community of love.

          And finally, Jesus calls us to reach out to those who do not know him. Two thousand years ago, Jesus had a vision of people all over the world joining together in prayer and Bible study and worship, going out to minister to those in need and loving each other with a sacrificial love that is so contagious that it draws others to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

          Francis Chan, the author of the book Crazy Love, visited church congregations around the world and studied what passionate, committed, courageous Christian faith looks like. He told of his conversation with a Chinese pastor who served the underground church in China. For most of the last century, the church in China was forced to exist in secret cells because of state persecution. Amazingly this did not hinder the church’s growth.

          This pastor said that the persecution faced by the underground church forced them to focus on Jesus’ mission even more. He said that the underground Chinese church is built on five pillars – Studying the word of God/ devotion to prayer/ the expectation that every single believer would share their faith in God/ regular expectation of miracles and embracing suffering for the glory of Christ.(4)

          That’s not a formula that you would think would be all that attractive – particularly the part about suffering. And yet, it is estimated that there are currently 100 million Christians in China. The so-called underground church accomplished amazing things in Jesus’ name.

          My friends, we have been “called-out.” Called to be a light for the nations of the world; called out to be a community of love; called to reach out to those who do not know Jesus yet. That’s the Team-building retreat that Jesus leads us through. Who wouldn’t want to a member of a team doing that!

          May God be praised. Amen. 

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, p.40.

2.    Ibid… p. 42.

3.    Ibid… p. 43.

4.    Ibid… p. 43.

August 2, 2020 Seeking Refuge

Rev. Jay Rowland

Psalm 17

Psalm 17 packs quite a bit into its 15 verses. David is so desperate he finds it necessary to remind God that he, David, is one of the “good guys” as he runs to God for refuge from those who seek to do him harm. I can’t help but think about how prevalent is David’s sense of urgency and his raw desperation for so many of God’s children right now. Over here, over there, nearly everywhere, people are struggling to survive, seeking refuge, living the prayer of Psalm 17.

For instance: consider the women, children, teenagers—the families—our neighbors in this hemisphere, who are fleeing unbearable living conditions; fleeing the violence of drug cartels & gangs who kidnap their children, demand money for “protection” from other gangs or drug lords; fleeing beatings, abductions, rape; seeking refuge just as any of us would. Consider the raw desperation which forces people to “choose” to walk a veritable Road to Jericho, that is, hundreds of miles of danger from bandits, predators lurking in the shadows, eager to pounce on these vulnerable refugees like lions devouring prey, ready to steal their cash, to kidnap their children, or worse, rape them or sell them as sex-slaves. If you manage to somehow survive the journey, your destination offers you a lengthy detention in conditions worse than prison, if not immediate deportation, enduring countless indignities and deprivations, and separation from, isolation of children and teenagers. All of which is terrifying and traumatizing. Meanwhile, COVID-19 thrives in these crowded detention pens. All this because you had the audacity to flee an untenable life marred by violence, abuse and hopelessness. The prayer of Psalm 17 resounds,

Show your steadfast love, O savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries ... Guard [them] as the apple of the eye; hide [them] in the shadow of your wings, [hide them] from the wicked who despoil, [from] deadly enemies who surround them. Whose hearts are closed to pity; whose mouths speak arrogantly. They track me down; now they surround me; they set their eyes to cast me [down]. They are like a lion eager to [devour], like a young lion lurking in ambush.

Consider also, the raw desperation and the urgency of people living with the daily threat of ending up like George Floyd, or Breonna Taylor, or Ahmaud Arbery, or Philiando Castille, or … Don Myrick gifted saxophonist who toured the world and my heart as a member of Earth Wind and Fire, shot in his own apartment, killed by an LAPD officer 27 years ago today as we record this (July 30, 1993). Consider the people who lived in Greenwood Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa, which in the year 1921 was brutally attacked by armed whites, who looted and torched Black homes and businesses, killed and tortured and hunted down Black residents like they were animals. Then this once shining city, a symbol of hope and prosperity to Black people everywhere, a place known as the Black Wall Street, was gleefully reduced to ashes by ordinary white Tulsans. Then this horror was immediately, unceremoniously buried, forgotten, invisible to history, as if it never happened.1 The prayer of Psalm 17 resounds,

Show your steadfast love, O savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries ... Guard [them] as the apple of the eye; hide [them] in the shadow of your wings, [hide them] from the wicked who despoil, [from] deadly enemies who surround them. Whose hearts are closed to pity; whose mouths speak arrogantly. They track me down; now they surround me; they set their eyes to cast me [down]. They are like a lion eager to [devour], like a young lion lurking in ambush.

Consider all who are struggling to survive the COVID19 pandemic. Survive not only the lethal illness itself, but the collateral damage it inflicts on the financial health and well-being of mostly middle class and small businesses and on the national and world economy. This virus keeps on killing …. children & adults, & teenagers too: sons & daughters; mothers & fathers; grandmothers & grandfathers; the famous & the not-so-famous; striking elected officials & unelected officials; people with preexisting conditions & people without pre-existing conditions. Multitudes sickened, multitudes dead and dying, one thousand per day in our nation right now … stolen from their families, or fighting to breathe.

As if all of this was not in itself horrific enough, we see images every day of arrogant, self-righteous individuals angrily proclaiming their constitutional right to refuse to wear a mask. These individuals include prominent voices in government and church openly encouraging this defiance of common sense, fanning the flame of a raging virus-fire, completely tone-deaf to the sheer lunacy of politicizing a public health necessity. Wearing a mask is an effective way to reduce the risk of spreading this destroyer of a virus which is already stealing the “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” people are so self-righteously screaming and demanding in grocery stores and social media blasts. Hear the prayer of Psalm 17 resounding,

Show your steadfast love, O savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries ... Guard [us] as the apple of Your eye; hide [us] in the shadow of your wings, [hide tus] from the wicked who despoil, [from] deadly enemies who surround us. Whose hearts are closed to pity; whose mouths speak arrogantly. … . They are like a lion eager to [devour], like a young lion lurking in ambush.

If only human consciousness could be transported, implanted if only for a moment, it would take all of two, maybe five minutes for even the strongest among us to discover the unbearable realities so many people have to endure through no fault of their own. Instead there is so much righteous indignation, so much arrogance polluting the air and the airwaves, blind to and tacitly supporting the unacceptable yet inescapable torment people are trying so hard to escape. Not even David himself had to face the sustained torment so many people of color do every day, generation after generation of people, all of whom are made in the image and likeness of God.

Bible scholar Yolanda Norton notes how the petition to “guard me as the apple of the eye” is a common refrain in the Hebrew Bible. It appears in Deuteronomy (32:10), where it is explained how God sustained Jacob in the wilderness and “guarded him as the apple of his eye.” A rather interesting reference given what we know about Jacob—the one who steals his brother Esau’s birthright and ultimately flees to live on the run from Esau out in the desert!

“While Jacob was far from perfect,” Norton explains “his [life] was filled with loss, reconciliation, and a continued desire to struggle with God in difficult situations.” This tells us that God’s ear is inclined to hear a just cause whether or not it comes from a just person. “We often misinterpret righteousness as perfection,” Norton says. What gets God’s attention is not the righteousness of the person praying, but rather the personal prayer that God protect the innocent. Our transgressions do not define who we are in God’s eyes, Norton observes. And so righteousness tends to blind us to God’s intrinsic mercy.

Psalm 17 would set us free from any notion of self-righteousness. No one should have to endure any cruelty or injury--intended or unintended--which too often accompanies individual brands of “righteousness”. Psalm 17 boldly sends us to God boldly expecting God to deliver all who seek refuge from stubborn, unyielding forces standing in the way of their refuge. The prayer of Psalm 17 would thus also have us ask God to show us how we can best be God’s allies in this world.

Psalm 17’s lyrical request, “hide me in the shadow of your wings” (v 8) is also a powerful image appearing throughout the Hebrew Bible. God’s wings of protection and shelter appear in six different chapters of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:2; 8:8; 10:14; 11:12; 18:1; 24:16) (Norton). The prophet Ezekiel has some twenty-three references to wings (Norton). “The prophets ” Norton declares, “conjure wings in both natural and fantastic, supernatural contexts, to signify God’s presence and provision in the midst of chaotic circumstances.”

Norton also notes how even in Exodus (19:4) God’s “wings” are a sign of deliverance not only from empire but also from forces of nature, testifying to God’s shelter to those who have been traumatized, those who have been displaced by humanity’s inhumanity—the worst of empire and nature. The refuge of God is deliverance from seemingly insurmountable situations. Solace can be found in the long and deep shadow of God’s “wings” (Norton).

And so I say let us, then, in the midst of our present chaotic circumstances, boldly look to God’s wings, stretched out before us to provide refuge to God’s people everywhere. Let us hold fast to this profound hope in God. Though chaos often appears unrestrained and though at times we feel like we’re surrounded not only by the menace of this virus but also by human arrogance unleashing all kinds of unnecessary harm, we are surrounded all the more by the everlasting Arms of a Loving God, in the outstretched arms of Jesus—not only from the Cross, but into every crossroad we find ourselves.

As we share again the Sacrament of Communion, hold fast to and remember Jesus’ words, “take and eat … this is my body, given for you.” Together let us take refuge in Him. In His Body. For God’s Everlasting Arms, Jesus’ Outstretched Arms enfold and surround us, drawing us into God’s Embrace—God’s wings of shelter, the apple of God’s eye. You, and me, and everyone seeking refuge.

_______________________________

Notes:

1 The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 by Tim Madigan (St. Martin’s, 2003)

Observations from Biblical Scholar Yolanda Norton appear in Commentary on Psalm 17, 2019. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4277

7-26-2020 The Kingdom is Like...

Thomas J Parlette

“The Kingdom is Like…”

Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52

7/26/20

          Jesus told a great many parables that were agricultural in nature. Not surprising since his audience was largely made up of fishermen and farmers. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus hasn’t really gotten to the big city yet. He’s still in the region around Galilee, preaching, teaching and healing among the common, everyday folk. He won’t venture into the big city until after the Transfiguration.

          Matthew 13, from which our verses for today are drawn, is especially agrarian. Everything is seeds and weeds, with a little yeast thrown in, some buried treasure, some fine pearls and finally a net cast into the sea.

          We began this chapter with the Parable of the Sower and then the Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat – both of which Jesus takes the time to explain – the only two parables in Matthew that he does that with. In between the seeds and the weeds, we have four Kingdom parables, a parable of judgment and a pop quiz, followed by a charge to the disciples.

          The Kingdom parables all begin with the phrase “The kingdom of heaven is like…”, and describe how God’s Word works in the world and how people will react to the Word.

          The first three – the one about the mustard seed, the yeast and the buried treasure – are interesting because they present some surprising difficulties.

          First – there’s the mustard seed. Most of us have heard the parable of the mustard seed many times- the tiniest seed growing into the greatest of all shrubs. It has become sort of a quaint, comforting little story about fulfilling potential. But in reality, this is a strange story. The mustard plant was not desirable at all – in fact it was a weed, an invasive species and nobody would intentionally plant it. It is only because the seeds are so small that they go un-noticed by the sower and get planted by accident that we end up with a mustard shrub tree at all. And yet even though it is initially un-planned and perhaps un-wanted, the mustard seed grows into something valuable, something desirable – even useful, as the birds come and find a place to nest.

          And then there’s the yeast. In most cases, yeast is something evil, something unclean. Yeast is something a Jewish household was supposed to get rid of – remember the unleavened bread during the Passover, no yeast – and yet in this parable, again, something you would normally want to get rid of has positive effects. Just a small amount of yeast leavens three measures of flour – which would have been enough to feed a whole community of people.

          Within the last week, our country has been saddened by the loss of two icons in the on-going fight for civil rights and social justice. Rev. Cordy Tindell (C.T.) Vivian passed away and then John Lewis also passed. Both men played an active role in the movement for voting rights and racial equality in the 1960’s right up until the present day. And they left an indelible mark.

          On his first Inauguration Day in 2009, Barack Obama, our country’s first African-American President, presented John Lewis with a photo inscribed “Because of you, John.” Without the efforts and sacrifices of people like John Lewis and Rev. Vivian, a Black President would not have been possible. Both men were proud to cause what Lewis used to call “good trouble.”

          In 2018, Lewis said to his supporters:

          “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month or a year. It is the struggle of a lifetime. Never be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

          What John Lewis called “good trouble, necessary trouble,” Jesus might describe as yeast. Certainly both John Lewis’ and Rev. Vivian’s lives acted like a bit of yeast in our society, leavening our common life and yielding a hundred fold. Jesus points out here that God’s Word acts like a mustard seed or a bit of yeast. The world is changed into something closer to what God intends when we sow God’s Word consistently and faithfully.

          Just how valuable is this Word? Jesus tells two more parables to illustrate.

          First, there is the parable of treasure in the field. This is an interesting parable with some problematic details. To begin with, why is this person digging around in someone else’s field? There is something a little shady about someone clandestinely excavating a field that doesn’t belong to them and quickly hiding the found treasure and running off to make a deal on it. A little sketchy. But the point is, that’s how valuable the treasure of God’s Word is.

          But I think I do prefer the parable of the merchant in search of fine pearls to make the point. This one is a little more straight-forward. The merchant knows value when he finds it – and he’s willing to give everything he has to attain it. That’s how valuable God’s Word is – it is worth giving all you have.

          The fifth little parable Jesus tells here follows the lesson taught by the weeds growing among the wheat story. It is, in general, about judgment. There will come a time when judgement will come. At the end of the Age, a net will be cast – and the good will be separated from the bad. So make sure you are hanging on to what is truly good and valuable.

          Then Jesus gives his disciples a pop quiz – “Have you understood all this?” And they answer, “Yes.” And Jesus refers to his disciples as “scribes who have been trained for the Kingdom of heaven” and likens them to “the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

          This is the part of this passage that hardly anyone really remembers. A lot of us remember at least one or two of the short parables Jesus tells today – but hardly anybody remembers being called “scribes of the Kingdom, called to bring out the treasures from what is new and what is old.”

          This is where our Old Testament reading from Psalm 119 really supports Jesus’ teaching. The treasure that Jesus points us to today is the Word of God – the same word the Psalm celebrates as “wonderful” and “light-giving”, something to be yearned for – “With open mouth I pant, because I long for your commandments.”

          Jesus challenges us to bring out the treasure of God’s Word from the Psalms (something old) and from his own teaching (something new) – for God’s Word is the valuable treasure that leavens our society and grows into something worthwhile and valuable.

          Sometime in the early 1980’s, Greg Jones remembers watching a wonderful interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu on public television. It is hard to believe now, but that was back when apartheid was still very strong and there was no outward sign that it would end anytime soon. Tutu said this curious thing:

          “When the white people arrived, we had the land and they had the Bible. They said, “Let us pray.” When we opened our eyes, they had the land and we had the Bible. And we got the better of the deal.”(1)

          The Word of God is always the better end of the deal – a priceless treasure, worth everything we have, that leavens our society and yields s hundred fold, bringing our world closer to what God intends.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Greg Jones, “Africa and the Bible,” www.episcopalcafe.com, July 28, 2007.

7-19-2020 Life and Death Matters

7-19-2020  Life and Death Matters

Rev. Jay Rowland

Romans 8:12-25

Last Sunday, during the Young Worshippers time I spoke about the difference between “living according to the flesh” and “living in the spirit” Paul talks about in the beginning of Romans 8. I pointed out that this difference is one of the themes that makes the Harry Potter books so engaging. 

It’s also what makes our life in Christ so engaging, right?

So I’d like to pick up where I left off last week with you Young Worshippers. In the passage before us today, as Paul picks up right where he left off last week, boldly declaring,

“ … if you live according to the flesh, you will die.” (Romans 8:13) 

For me, this verse evokes the famous scene in Genesis where God says to Adam and Eve, You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.  (Genesis 2:16-17)

You may recall from this scene that some time later on, the crafty serpent comes along to offer a free interpretation to Adam & Eve; something along the lines of, Did that Old Fool really say you’ll die?!  Oh c’mon--that’s so dramatic! Listen, You Won’t Die. I’ll show you-you’ll see you won’t die-go ahead, take a bite. You’ll still be alive. Oh and by the way, you’re welcome.  (Genesis 3:4)

The thing is, it’s true: Adam and Eve did not die.  

They changed. But they did not die. Not bodily anyway.

The way I see it, a vital part of them died that day. But not the whole. The part of them that died is the part that knows that God is The Source of abundance: abundant life, abundant joy, abundant health, abundant peace.  Everything we crave and truly need to be whole.  

The Scripture put it this way, “Their eyes were opened.”  (Genesis 3:5)  

In other words, they discovered you can DEFY GOD and you won’t die!  You won’t fully live, either, but you won’t die. Not really.  They also discovered that they could live without having to care about God, Creation or … even each other.

Cut to the serpent:  “What? Was I wrong? Is that wrong? Hey, all I did was clarify terms. Don’t blame me for this mess! I didn’t force anybody to do anything they didn’t want to do.”

This is what plays out in my imagination when I hear Paul’s declaration “if you live according to the flesh, you will die.”  

I hear the serpent perk up and say, “No you won’t.”

Paul: Yes you will.

Serpent: No you won’t.

So who’s right: Paul or the Serpent?

Well …  both, right?.  

When Adam and Eve defiantly eat of the fruit God bid them do not eat, what “died” in that moment was their reliance upon the vital interconnectedness of life: their unbroken communion with God, with Creation, with each other.  

In Paul’s letters, "flesh" almost always signifies a power, call it sin if you like but in any case a significant force or impulse that resists the Spirit of God (*Mary Hinkle Shore) and as Paul says elsewhere, is “hostile to God.” 

Whenever we live like we are somehow entitled to get whatever we want, when we want it, that’s living in a way that opposes the spirit of God and is hostile to God. 

What that “looks like” as it plays out in everyday life is living in constant fear of losing what we have or not getting what we want. Paul calls that living in "bondage to decay" which is the exact opposite of living in the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Note this freedom is not freedom from the material world, but freedom within a restored creation; the freedom of being an embodied spirit made in the image and glory of God (cf. Genesis 1:27).    (*Mary Hinkle Shore)

Earlier in Romans, Paul uses the words "son of God" and "child of God" to refer to Jesus. Here, it’s significant to note that Paul changes and applies these precise terms to refer to followers of Jesus, 

... all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. (Romans 8:14-15) 

Through the person of Jesus God “adopts” us as God’s own children. And just as children eventually receive an inheritance from their parents, we share as adopted children of God the freedom God offers and delivers through Jesus Christ. 1

And so, living according to the flesh is life driven by a power that enslaves us and keeps us from participating in God's glory. Living in the Spirit is life driven by the power that frees us from that enslavement through our adoption in Christ and identifies us as children of God.

To be children of God just as Christ is, is to experience both humiliation and exaltation. To be in Christ is to share in Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection. In describing what it means to be children of God, Paul is *not* saying that anyone including Christ earns glory and freedom by suffering; rather, Paul notes that as children of God, our life is characterized by the same pattern that shaped Christ's life. 

Theologian James Dunn puts it this way when he says that we are being saved not from creation but with creation:  “The sonship [we] are privileged to share in some sense with Christ, [we] in turn share in some sense with creation."  He continues, "The gift of the Spirit reclaims the believer for God and begins ... the tension between human belonging to God and human entrancement with the world of human control and success, the warfare between Spirit and flesh" (Word Biblical Commentary: Volume 38A, Romans 1-8, James D.G. Dunn, p.87)

Paul eventually broadens the scope of suffering to include anything intended to separate us from God's love (8:35-39). For now, the suffering Paul speaks of is that which comes from knowing what the world could be as we live in the world as it is. (*Mary Hinkle Shore)

The suffering we see and experience threatens our trust in God’s sustaining and creative Love. Right now it’s hard to “see” let alone trust God’s love when nearly all we see and experience lately is so much chaos and division and destruction.  I’m not suggesting that we ignore all of that and pretend that we can find freedom and resolution by somehow learning to focus on living more according to the spirit. 

No, that’s not how we live.  And that’s not who we are. We are children of God because we follow Jesus who faced rather than fled from the painful realities and truths of life. I guess that’s what I’m driving at: We follow Jesus. Not vice-versa.

Even so, all of this going on right now is very very heavy.  I feel it in my body.  I feel it in my spirit.  And I find myself just wanting everything to be other than it is right now.  I want God to just make it all better right now.  C’mon Jesus do something. But then I realize that’s not following Jesus or trusting Jesus.  That’s me trying to lead Jesus.  

In times of crisis and suffering, we can catch ourselves telling Jesus what to do, or how this is supposed to go. Chaos, uncertainty, and fear can provoke us into doing that, or provoke us into assuming that there is something we are supposed to be doing, or that we’re somehow supposed to overcome the anxiety that comes with all of this and somehow reconcile everything that’s happening with what we believe in our hearts about Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the life.

And so perhaps the key to living during all of this is finding ways to deepen our spiritual connection with God, with Creation, with one another. Finding and meeting God the Spirit in our breath, in meditation.  I will share a link to my resource for guided meditation and talks that I find helpful in restoring my spiritual orientation (at the bottom).  But what works for me may not work for you. Search for resources which can build up your spiritual orientation.  

I do not mean to suggest that this will instantly or magically resolve any of the crises happening all around us or the anxiety churned up. But in my experience what this can and does do is create and nurture space within our oft-depleted spirits, space into which the Holy Spirit of God can do its necessary work in our spirits, moment-by-moment, day-by-day, as we live with these intense life and death matters, hand-in-hand with God in Christ, hand-in-hand with God’s glorious creation, hand-in-hand with one another.  For that is what enables us to see in the midst of pandemic and everything else that causes anxiety, in spite of what our eyes tell us is happening, that the Kingdom of God is ever and always inching ever closer to us.          

My go-to resource for guided meditations which helps me build up my spiritual orientation is Tara Brach.  To see her website, copy and paste the following address into your web browser: https://www.tarabrach.com/guided-meditations/

Endnote(s):

* Indicates terminology which is the work of Mary Hinkle Shore in her Commentary on Romans 8:12-25. I found the following excerpt particularly interesting and insightful: (italicized emphases are mine)

1 “A cluster of words from the realm of family helps Paul describe the freedom that believers have in Christ and the relationships in which they now find themselves: sons, Abba, Father, children, adoption, heirs, joint heirs. The vocabulary describes relationships within a family and a household. Such language is not particularly common in Romans. Two times in the opening verses of the letter, Paul reminded his hearers of Jesus' identity as a child of God. He defined God's good news as "the gospel concerning his Son, who was... declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:3-4, NRSV). He refers to Jesus once more as Son in Romans 5:10.

“Then, in Romans 8 Paul uses the words for "son" and "child" to refer not to Jesus, but to his siblings who are led by the Spirit. As "flesh" had referred to a power that enslaves humans and keeps them from participating in God's glory, the Spirit is the power that frees and enlivens humans for a new identity as children of God.

“To describe what it means to be children of God, Paul employs a series of compound verbs built on the preposition syn-. We are joint heirs with Christ, suffering with him, and being glorified with him. Readers should not fret over the conditional syntax in verse 17. It is a simple condition in which "since" could be used as well as "if" (cf. the translation of the same Greek word at Romans 8:9). The idea is not that anyone (including Christ) earns glory by suffering; rather, as Paul seeks to describe what it means to be a joint heir with Christ, he notes that the joint heir's life is characterized by the same pattern that shaped Christ's life. To be connected to Christ is to know humiliation and exaltation. To be a joint heir with Christ is share in Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection.

“In the remaining verses of the reading, Paul talks as forthrightly as possible about the suffering of humanity and creation as together we await the revealing of what we are in Christ, that is, children of God. As syn- compounds had described our connection to Christ, now they describe the mutual suffering of all creation: the whole creation, Paul says, groans together and suffers together, "and 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" (Romans 8:22-23).  http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=974

7-12-20 Seeds

Thomas J Parlette

“Seeds”

Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

7/12/20

           There was once a farmer sitting out on his porch near a remote stretch of dirt road. A stranger puller up to ask directions, and the farmer offered him a glass of lemonade. 

          The stranger asked, “So how’s your cotton coming along?”

          And the farmer said, “Ain’t got any.”

          “Did you plant any?”

          “Nope – afraid of the boll weevils,”      

“Well, how’s your corn?”

“Didn’t plant any – afraid there wouldn’t be any rain.”

“Well, how are your potatoes?”

“Ain’t got any – scared of the potato bugs.”

“Really, what did you plant?”

“Nothing – I just played it safe.”(1)

But really, how safe is it to not plant any seeds at all?

Jesus was a keen observer of the world around him. His observations resulted in many of the parables that he told. That is certainly true in today’s parable about seeds and soil. It’s a simple parable – but one the most important that Jesus tells. It appears in all three synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – which suggests that it is something we should pay attention to.

A farmer went out to sow. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

In Jesus day, sowing seeds was done by hand. You had your bag of seed, you pulled out a handful and you scattered along the ground. Imagine how inefficient this farmer must have been in his sowing. The seed was going everywhere. Jesus doesn’t talk about nice ordered rows, carefully labelled some he’d know what was growing. This farmer seems very slip-shod in his work. The biblical scholar Don Juel writes, “The farmer in our story is not overly cautious, he doesn’t play it safe. He throws seed everywhere, apparently confident that there will be a harvest in spite of the losses.”(2) He simply keeps sowing his seed, believing that growth will come. This leads us to believe that this parable isn’t really about the farmer and his methods, or about the seeds. It’s more about the soil in which the seeds land. And it’s about God, who brings forth the harvest.

          It’s interesting that this is one of the very few parables that Jesus actually explains. Usually Jesus tells a story and then lets it hang there, open to interpretation. But not here. Jesus uses this parable to teach something important. Jesus describes four kinds of soil. And again, Jesus isn’t really interested in teaching us how to grow crops – he’s interested in describing four different kinds of people, and how they will receive the Gospel. When you read this same parable in the Gospel of Mark, Mark uses this story to frame the rest of his story. All the people Jesus encounters in the Gospel of Mark following this parable can be grouped into one of these four kinds of soil.

          To start with, there is the unbeliever, the agnostic or even the atheist. “Listen then,” said Jesus, “to what the parable means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.” The seed that falls on the path is like people who hear the Gospel, but they don’t understand it, or perhaps it’s more that they don’t accept it, they don’t take it to heart. They hear the Word, but they don’t make it their own.

          I was reading recently about the so-called Psychic Services Industry. It’s a booming business these days. They are psychics everywhere, according to this report. Did you know that psychic readings and other similar services such as reading palms or tarot cards or tea leaves or whatever, is a 2 billion dollar industry in this country. According to Fortune magazine, many of the consumers of these services are atheists or agnostics, and many of them are top tier executives, particularly in the tech industry. Which proves the validity of the observation that when people quit believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; instead they will believe in almost anything.(3)

          Then Jesus moves to the second group – let’s call this the morning- glory group – the seed that falls on rocky ground. This refers to someone who hears the word, says Jesus, and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

          Rocky soil is not quite as treacherous for planting seeds as the hardened path. Plants might at least grow initially in rocky soil. But the prospects are dim, because the soil is so rocky that the seed doesn’t get the nutrition it needs. Without the proper nutrition nothing grows like it ought to grow.

          Take for example, baseball coaches will talk about the “morning-glory” syndrome. Morning glories bloom in the morning, but then fade in the afternoon’s hot sun. So this morning glory nickname gets applied to young ball players who perform great in spring training and get off to a fast start in the beginning of the season, but by July, they start to struggle with the long, hot season, and they begin to wilt like a morning glory – and they end up back down in the minors to build up their endurance.(4)

          Seed that falls on rocky soil is like that. It may take root at first, but because it doesn’t get the nutrition it needs, it eventually wilts and dies. The nickname morning glory could apply to those Christians who make an initial commitment to Jesus, but then things get tough, and they fall away. Whereas the barren path shows no faith at all, the rocky soil shows at less a bit of faith at the beginning.

          And then there’s the third group, the distracted group. The third group, says Jesus, consists of the seed that falls among the thorns. They hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, the distractions of life, choke the word, making it unfruitful. We talk a lot these days about distracted driving, but what about distracted living, where we focus on nearly everything except on how Jesus calls us to live?

          During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington faced many challenges in leading the Continental army. One of his biggest challenges was maintaining troop strength. His biggest foe was distraction.

          Most of Washington’s soldiers were farmers. So when the time came to plant and then harvest their crops, the army would dwindle as the soldiers would go home to take care of sowing their seeds in the spring. They would show again during the summer to join the fight, but then leave again for the harvest. It was a difficult way to conduct a war.(5) That is the seed that is sown where there are weeds and thorns- they become distractions.

          Three groups – unbelievers, morning glories, and those who are distracted – Jesus knew that many of those who listened to his teachings would fall away or, at least, would give only minimal service to his kingdom. Remember the Pareto Principle? It says that in every group, 20% will do 80% of the work. That’s certainly true in the church.

          Fortunately, there is one more group that Jesus describes. This is the seed that falls on good soil. Let’s call this soil the company of the committed. Jesus says the good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop yielding a hundred, or sixty or thirty times what was sown. Jesus is saying that when we do things in Jesus name, the things that Jesus tells us to do – our influence on our family, our community, even our world is greater that we can possibly see.

          Take the experience of woman named Dale Bourke. She wrote a  book called Second Calling in which she tells about a time she went to a publishing conference. A friend of hers named Bruce offered her a ride to the airport. As they were about to leave, the doorman from the hotel stopped them and said that the hotel’s bus had broken down. Would they mind taking another guest to the airport? They said sure, and the grateful fellow traveler hopped in the back seat.

          Bruce asked the man what he did for a living, and the man said he worked at a Christian publishing house affiliated with Campus Crusade. Bruce immediately perked up when he heard this – “I have really fond memories of that group! When I was in college, I attended a weekend retreat one time sponsored by Campus Crusade and that’s when I became a Christian. It was in 1972 in New Hampshire.”

          Bruce went on to explain that he had not only become a Christian that weekend, but a year later he explained his faith to his family and they became Christians as well. His sister would later become a Wycliffe missionary and translated Scripture for a group in Africa. His parents turned their publishing interest to Christian books and published some of the biggest Christian books of the next few decades. Bruce himself had become the owner of a major Christian publishing house as well, and brought many significant and best-selling books to the public. It was obvious that the impact of that retreat in New Hampshire had reverberated throughout the world.

          Their passenger, the man who worked for the organization that had sponsored that retreat in 1972, sat strangely quiet throughout the story. Then he said quietly, “I led that retreat. It was my first time as a conference leader and I felt like a total failure. I had no idea what I was doing. Until this moment, I have always believed that conference was one of the biggest failures of my life.”

          “By the time we reached the airport,” says Dale Bourke, “we all had tears in our eyes.”(6)

          You never know what’s going to happen when you take a risk and plant a seed. Those of you have been on one of the mission trips to Bedecan know that these seed stories that Jesus tells are a favorite of mine. I have used them as our “send-off” devotional before almost every trip. I do that because every time we conduct a VBS, or help out at Channel One or volunteer at Friendship Place or simply have a conversation with a friend about why church and faith is important in our lives, we are flinging seeds out into the world. It may seem haphazard. It may slipshod. But remember – it is God who will give the growth. Not every seed will land in good soil. But some will. Some will. And God will take it from there.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Homileticsonline.com, retrieved June 30th, 2020

2.    Ibid…

3.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, p10.

4.    Ibid… p11.

5.    Ibid… p11-12.

6.    Ibid… p12.

7-5-20 Come to Me

Thomas J Parlette

“Come to Me”

Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30

7/5/20

          I don’t know about you, but I haven’t felt “normal” since mid-March. With our “stay at home” order, online school, masks and social distancing requirements, everything in life has felt out of balance. My normal, comfortable routines have gone out the window. Everything from stopping to get my morning coffee to getting up early on Sunday morning to come to church is different. It’s exhausting to absorb so much change, so much technology, so much new information that changes every day, sometimes every hour. It’s exhausting. And it is stressful.

          I read recently that many people are finding temporary relief from their stress by watching videos on You Tube. Which I understand, I do that too. But what is surprising is what they’re watching. They’re watching videos of people cleaning their house. That’s right, watching people clean their house. For myself, I’ve always agreed with the wise soul who said that cleaning with kids in the house is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos. But some people are de-stressing by watching cleaning videos. Actually, they are hugely popular, with millions of fans.

          The people tuning in to these videos say that watching someone else clean and organize their home makes them feel less anxious, more in control of their own surroundings. The people who make the videos say they regularly get emails from their viewers telling them their show helped with anxiety, depression and various life crises.

          One young woman said she falls asleep each night to cleaning videos because they clear her head of anxiety and fear. Another viewer said the videos, “make my head stop rushing around for a bit.” And another says, “I think there’s a lot of aspects to our daily life that seem chaotic, so watching something in a state of order is relaxing.”(1)

          That’s an interesting way to deal with stress. My own “go-to” strategies are things like take a walk or ride my exercise bike, listening to my favorite chamber music, or watching an episode of Downton Abbey. But I guess cleaning videos work for some people. But it doesn’t really tackle the deeper problems in our life that cause us to feel out of control in the first place.

          Perhaps you’ve heard of something an organization in South Korea has started doing to help people deal with their stress. This organization stages “living funerals.” Participants in living funerals write out a short testament of their last thoughts and wishes. Then they put on a funeral shroud and lie down in a closed coffin for about 10 minutes.

          Sounds a bit ghoulish, I know. But the point of living funerals, which is a free service offered by the Hyowon Healing Center, is to help people gain a new perspective on life. About 25,000 South Koreans have undergone a living funeral so far. The director of the Healing Center says that some people have reconciled with family or friends after their living funerals. Others have changed careers. Some participants who were contemplating suicide credit their living funeral with changing their minds. The purpose of the living funeral, according to the director, is to realize that “Happiness is in the present.”(2)

          Happiness is in the present. Most of us would agree with that, but many of us don’t really live like that. All too often many of us describe our lives as busy, hectic, even crazy. That seems to be the norm. No one has any time anymore. No one gets any rest.

          In our passage from Matthew today, Jesus challenges the people around him with these words, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

          Jesus points out here that weariness is not meant to be our natural way of living. That’s not what God created us for. In fact, no matter how productive our out-of-control schedule makes us feel, it is actually living in opposition to the rhythms of life that contribute to peace, clarity, and purposeful living.

          Weariness and burdens blind us to the true purpose of our lives and binds us with a sense of powerlessness. They isolate us. When you are weary and burdened, your focus narrows to what is right in front of you, to what is urgent instead of what is important. This behavior is the norm in our culture, so we don’t question it. That’s just the way life is, everybody does it. Except that Jesus says it isn’t the way things are meant to be. So what did Jesus mean by rest for our souls?

          This predates my time in Minnesota, but perhaps some of you remember back in 2005, a store opened in the Mall of America called MinneNAPolis. I tried googling it, but it kept auto-correcting to Minneapolis – but no, evidently there was a store called MinneNAPolis. For 70 cents a minute, tired shoppers could rent a sound-proof room for napping. The rooms had special themes like Deep Space, Asian Mist, and Tropical Isle. Or, if you didn’t feel like napping, you could sit in a massage chair, gaze at a waterfall, listen to soft music and breathe in the “positive-ionization-filtered air.” It was described as “an enjoyable escape from the fast-paced lifestyle.”(3) I could see how that would be nice after dealing with the Mall of America.

          However, rest for our souls is not the same thing as a nap, or a vacation, or breathing in positive-ionization-filtered air while gazing at a fake waterfall. It’s not a temporary respite from our stress. Rest for our souls is a re-orientation of our values and perceptions of life to match up with the values and perceptions of God, the One who created us – the Source of our soul.

          Listen again to Jesus’ words, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

          So the first thing Jesus is saying to us is – “You have a soul.” Or, to be more precise, you ARE a soul. You are not a random collection of cells. You are not the sum of your current circumstances. You are a work of art, made in the image of God. You have the imprint of the eternal, all-powerful God within you. Your soul is a mark of God’s abundant love for you. It marks you as incredibly valuable in God’s eyes. Which leads us to a question – are you experiencing life the way God meant you to experience it? Or do you feel weary and burdened because you are living in a way that is disconnected from your soul?

          Mike Jaffee was a young, successful business man working for a Fortune 500 company. In his mid-thirties, he began to realize that he wasn’t fulfilled in his work. He was neglecting his family. He felt disconnected from any greater purpose in his life.

          Every morning, Mike’s wife would drive him to a train station for his 2 hour commute into New York City. Their 1 year old daughter slept in the back seat on the way to the station. Mike worried that he rarely saw his daughter when she was awake, and his wife was basically a single mom.

          His success at work wasn’t making a meaningful difference in the world. His life was so hectic he barely had time to think. But all of Mike’s colleagues and friends lived like this too. Who was he to think that life could, or should, be any different?

          Then it happened. One morning, Mike decided that he would stay home and eat breakfast with his wife and daughter and take the late train to work. To him, this was a huge sacrifice. All his colleagues came in early and stayed late. He couldn’t afford to stand out. But he was just so tired of being controlled by his job and missing out on his family. That morning, Mike and his wife and daughter had a great time eating pancakes and chatting about their week. And Mike took the late train to the office.

          Because of this one decision to re-connect with his family, Mike Jaffee was not in his office in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, when the first hijacked airplane slammed into the building. His life was spared by a simple decision one morning to have pancakes with his family.

          Mike Jaffee has written a book about the tragedy of losing his friends and colleagues in the Sept. 11 attacks. It’s titled Wake Up! Your Life is Calling. He says his mission now is to be a Human Wake Up Call, to convince people to live meaningful lives that don’t revolve around society’s definition of success.(4)

          That’s what Jesus is for us – the ultimate wake-up call for our soul. Listen to some of the other statements Jesus made about our souls – “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? Or, what can anyone give in exchange for their soul.” Or this one – “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” Jesus cares about our souls because he knows that our souls are a reflection of God’s image within us. So, are you weary and burdened because you are living in a way that is disconnected from your soul?

          Here’s another thing Jesus’ words tell us – we have a bridge between our soul and God. Jesus did not say, “Come to me, and all your troubles will go away.” He said, “Come to me, and I’ll share your life. You won’t be alone anymore.” That’s what he meant when he said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…”

          A devotional that appeared in Guideposts tells about a young boy named Caleb who was diagnosed with a nervous system disorder that left him for a time with temporary paralysis. You can imagine how Caleb’s parents ached to see their little boy’s slow recovery from this illness.

          One day Caleb’s dad came to visit him at school. From a distance, he watched as 5 year old Caleb limped across the playground. Caleb’s father was heartbroken to see other kids playing all around his son, games in which he couldn’t participate.

          But then he saw Caleb’s best friend, Tyler, come up beside him. Tyler could have been off with the other kids, running and playing, but he chose to walk slowly alongside Caleb for the rest of recess.(5)

          Tyler didn’t take away Caleb’s burdens. He simply walked beside him in his weakness. Jesus does the same thing for us, and having that love and power freely available to us makes any burden easier to bear. “Take my yoke upon you…”

          We have a soul and we have a Savior. Jesus also says to us, we have a solution for our weariness and burdens.

          “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

          There is a woman named Rose who has experienced unbelievable stress in her life – stress that should put our anxieties into perspective. Rose is a woman in Rwanda who lost most of her family to the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. This was a horrible conflict in which Hutu citizens of Rwanda murdered more than 800,000 Tutsi citizens in about 100 days. But Rose and her two daughters survived the attacks. When asked how she dealt with the shock and grief of witnessing such carnage, she says, “For this, I have Jesus.”

          Rose adopted two children who were orphaned in the attacks, and now she supports he family by translating Christian pamphlets into the local language and organizing an annual conference for widows. She has been asked what inspires her, what keeps her going in the face of such loss? And one more time she says, “For this, I have Jesus.”(6)

          “Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

          For this, we have Jesus. May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, p3

2.    Ibid… p3-4

3.    Ibid… p4

4.    Ibid… p5

5.    Ibid…p6

6.    Ibid…p7

6-28-2020 What God Remembers

Thomas J Parlette

“What God Remembers”

Psalm 13

6/28/20

          Like most teenagers, Jill Price had her share of difficulties – the usual highs and lows. But Price’s world was changing in ways that she didn’t understand. No one else seemed to get it either. Since she was 8 years old, she could remember just about everything that had happened to her. And then, when she was 14, she had the intuitive knowledge that her memory was complete. She could, in fact, remember everything that had happened to her.

          Her grades in school were average. She couldn’t remember lists, names, dates, formulas any better than anyone else. But she had total recall about events she’d experienced, that she lived through. For example, she could remember the dates she saw the dentist from 5 years ago. She knew what she was doing on any Christmas Day from years gone by.

          Some would say she was blessed – or was she cursed? – with a memory that would not allow her to forget anything!

          Later, in the early 2000’s, Jill would be the first person to be diagnosed with “Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory” or HSAM for short. After spending years working with Dr. James McGaugh, a neuroscientist and memory researcher with the University of California, Irvine, she co-authored a book about her life living with this syndrome called The Woman Who Can’t Forget.

          The claim for what the media would describe as “total recall” is admittedly weird. This sounds like the making of a Twilight Zone episode, or perhaps the Super Power of a Marvel Hero – or maybe Villian, I don’t know.

          Fortunately, as McGaugh and others began to work with Price, the truth of her claims became apparent. She had kept a diary, and this allowed researchers to verify her claims.

          If you were asked to name the dates of single time you’ve visited a doctor in the past five years, could you do it? I know I couldn’t. I have to stop and think what I had for breakfast this morning, let alone last week. But Jill price could rattle those dates off with precision.

          Since the media has caught wind of Price’s amazing memory and the HSAM phenomenon, others have come forward with this ability, including an artist named Nima Veiseh. Once, he corrected scientists when they erroneously cited a certain date on which Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Researchers believe that as few as 50 people in the world have HSAM, so total recall is very rare.(1)

          And then there’s God. God has the highest form of memory. God has the memory of a mother. God has a memory like no one else. God is memory. And yet, curiously, God can also forget. At least that’s what the Psalmist seems to think.

          The writer – let’s assume it’s David, as the heading of the Psalm suggests – says that God has forgotten him. “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” To paraphrase the first sentence, we might put it this way – “Really? You’re still ignoring me God?”

          And then David says, “Can you really forget me forever?” And he doesn’t let up – “How long will you hide your face from me.” He feels like God is absent, that God has withdrawn from the world, at least his world. God has forgotten him – or so David believed.

          He continues like this for the entire psalm. Four times, his complaint begins with “How long…?” This one sided conversation begins to sound a lot like a break-up call. The jilted party has phoned, or these days texted, a jillion times:

          “Hey! How long are you going to ignore me? How long are you going to keep avoiding me? You think you can forget about me forever? Could you please have the decency to tell me how long you’re going to keep me hanging here, cause I’m in some pain – as if you cared. I put my trust in you and you’ve humiliated me! So how long am I supposed to put up with this?”

          That’s the tone here. Raw. Bitter. Harsh.

          In the Old Testament reading for today we heard the terrifying story about Abraham being instructed to sacrifice his son Isaac. He appears prepared to follow God’s instructions. We never hear Abraham’s internal monologue as he leads his son to the altar and ties him up. Everything is silent until God appears in the form of a ram and Isaac is spared.

          The organizers of our lectionary usually arrange the readings so that the Psalm selection somehow speaks to the Old Testament reading. Sometimes it’s very hard to see the connection – but not today. I think these words of David’s lament might give us an insight into what Abraham might have been thinking as he silently walked his son to his death – “How long O Lord… have you forgotten me? How long must I bear this pain… But I trusted in your steadfast love… I will sing to the Lord because the Lord has dealt bountifully with me.”

          Fortunately for Abraham and Isaac, the Lord shows his face, and delivers a ram. But for David, no answer comes from God. David doesn’t get closure or relief. He’s left with doubts and despair.

          Honestly, have we not had moments like this in our lives. This is an experience that we all share with David.

Is this not what we’re feeling as we look at the racial divide and injustice all around us as Black people die. Black lives do matter – and sometimes it feels like God has abandoned us in this struggle.

Is this not what we feel as we wrestle with the Covid 19 virus and it’s impact on people’s lives and jobs and futures. Where is God? Why no answer? It seems like God has switched off the Divine cell phone, or seems to have blocked our prayerful texts.

 So, it seems like God doesn’t care. It would appear that God has run out on us, abandoned us and left no forwarding address. After all we’ve gone through together, and now it seems like God has forgotten us.

          But here’s the thing. There are some things that God cannot forget. And you – we – are one them. God may be omnipotent, able to do all things. But there is one thing God cannot do. God cannot forget us.

          There’s a remarkable passage in Isaiah 49: 14-16. It begins by noting that Zion complains that “the Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” But then, a rhetorical question is posed: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb.”

          Of course not.

          The text continues by asserting that it is more likely that a mother will forget her child than God will forget us. It’s not going to happen.

          And then there’s this addendum in verse 16: “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands…” God says that we are tattooed in his palm!

          Here God is saying that the Divine, ineffable Creator and God of the Universe has inscribed us in the palm of his hand. God cannot forget us. We’re right there in his palm, tattooed in the hollow of the hand of God. God cannot forget us.

          And yet… the psalmist clearly believes otherwise. What can we do when our mind is telling us lies that the heart does not want to believe? We think that God has abandoned us, but our heart does not quite believe it.

          This is what we call the trial or testing of our faith, as Abraham’s faith was tested. It is the refiner’s fire, as James calls it. It is the “fiery ordeal” about which Peter wrote, and about which we should not be surprised.

          So then, we should not be surprised when confronted with moments of divine silence, according to Peter. We should remember that, as James wrote, the testing of our faith has several positive outcomes.

          We should have a conversation with God as did the psalmist in this text. Conversation is good. When we lift up our doubts and fears, our prayers become more authentic than ever. God doesn’t mind, and perhaps welcomes those moments when we share what we really think.

          And finally, we must act and move forward in faith as though God has not forgotten us. Because… God has not forgotten. The psalmist seems to come to this place at the end of the psalm. He writes, “But I trusted in your steadfast love.” Even when he felt ignored and forgotten, his trust in the steadfast love and loyalty – and memory of God – brought him through the crisis.

          But there are some things that God can forget. God does not live with the curses of HSAM, not being able forget the things you would rather not remember.

          God does have the ability to forget – God forgets our sins.

          The prophet Jeremiah reminds us that God says, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

          Isaiah’s word from the Lord is similar - “I will blot out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”

          In Hebrews, we read, “For I will be merciful towards their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

          Many people would say that Jill Price, the remarkable woman with the incredible memory now called “Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory” is blessed. Maybe so – he abilities do serve her well in her job as an administrative assistant at a law firm.

          But often, her memories arise unbidden, chaotic and unwelcome. She says, “Imagine being able to remember, or rather unable to forget, every fight you ever had with a friend, every time someone let you down, all the stupid mistakes you’ve ever made.”

          Sounds a bit closer to a curse. She remembers all that stuff.

          But God does not. God forgets all that stuff.

          God forgets all the times we screwed up and hurt people around us.

          God forgets all the times we’ve been unkind, callous and unsympathetic.

          God forgets all that stuff. And maybe we should too.

          As Isaiah writes, “Even these will forget, yet I will not forget you.”

          Our sins may be forgotten, but we won’t be forgotten.

          For we are what God remembers.

          And for that, may God be praised. Amen.

1.    Homileticsonline.com, retrieved June 8th, 2020.

6-21-2020 Courageous Faith, Compassionate Witness

Rev. Jay Rowland

Romans 6:1b-11 & Gospel of Matthew 10:26-39

I’m haunted by the murder of George Floyd.

I’m haunted by the defiant look, the nonchalance on the face of the Minneapolis police officer who killed him. I’m haunted by the realization that George Floyd is a casualty of the legacy of slavery; the racism and white supremacy that embedded slavery into our nation’s social order from its founding, and which remains in place to this day, unacknowledged, un-confronted and unresolved here in 2020. And so, when I opened my bible to the passages from Romans and from the Gospel of Matthew for today, many of the verses jumped off the page at me and pierced my spirit:

“If we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good?” (Romans 6:2)

“Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call!” (Romans 6:7)

“Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did.” (Romans 6:11)

“Don’t be intimidated. Eventually, everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are. So don’t hesitate to go public now. Don’t be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies. There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being …” (Jesus, in Matthew 10:26-28b)

“Stand up for me against world opinion and I’ll stand up for you ...” (Jesus in Matthew 10:32)

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth … “ (Jesus in Matt 10:34)

“If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find your (true identity) self. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.” (Matt 10:38b-39)

[from The Message Bible]

Please let me assure you, I’m not interested in heaping guilt on anyone’s heads; I’m not interested in blaming, shaming or moral platitudes; I’m not here to throw righteous salt on anyone’s wounds. But I want to be clear with you about how I feel and what I believe. I believe that racism and the embedded ideology of white supremacy stands in the way of the Kingdom of God. Racism and the ideology of white supremacy defies and opposes the Lord Jesus Christ, his life, death, resurrection and ascension.

After the Confederacy surrendered and slavery was dismantled, the racism and the ideology of white supremacy which justified and upheld slavery for hundreds of years remained unchallenged and unchecked. Ever since then black Americans have been consistently opposed when it comes to enjoying the privileges of citizenship. But we need not let any residual guilt or shame provoke us to avoid or diminish the painful legacy of slavery as it continues to oppress black Americans. It’s important that we don’t take on all of the baggage our ancestors left to us—it’s not our personal fault.

But it is our responsibility to do what we can to help level the playing field our ancestors refused to allow or consider for black people. It is our responsibility to speak and act against the daily humiliation, and the daily persecution, torture and destruction of black bodies, minds and spirits. How many more unarmed black men must die at the hands of white authority before we cry out in solidarity, “ENOUGH!”

White America is blind to the unending menace hounding black folks every day of their lives from childhood through retirement—if they even live that long. I cannot profess to be a minister of the gospel, let alone a follower of Jesus Christ and lover of God while remaining silent about the gigantic, diabolical elephant in the room that is racism. This elephant “sits” unrecognized in every room and community in White America. We must remove the blinders and begin seeing the terrorism which seeks to annihilate every black human being. Ask any black person if they’ve ever been pulled over by the police for no reason. Ask any black parent whether or not they teach their children what to do when—NOT IF—but when the police pull them over.

Too often white folk complain, “why does it always have to be about race?”

The answer is, because for black folks in this nation it IS always about race; because every waking-sleeping- breathing moment of every single day of their lives they’ve been told and shown that they are the wrong color. I consider it my sacred duty as a wanna-be “disciple”, as a follower of and believer in Jesus Chris to stand here today and say the words:

Black Lives Matter.

Period.

To say Black Lives Matter takes NOTHING away from any other lives. It simply affirms the worth of an entire community of people who’ve been pushed down and shot down and chased down, harassed, accused, convicted, insulted, degraded, incarcerated and lynched. George Floyd in Minneapolis and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta are the most recent examples. God forbid but there will be others.

Please bear with me, and please hear me out: I’m not condemning all police officers or all white people. I’m not here to spoil anyone’s day or communion with God. But we’ve been sitting out and sitting down too long. It’s time to stand up. The God I meet and the Jesus I meet in the scriptures and in my personal experience stands with every person who is persecuted and oppressed. Jesus was himself harassed, and arrested, and tortured and killed by the human forces of oppression. Jesus was raised by God from death and from the human-inflicted oppression and rejection and terrorism. Jesus was raised by God the Creator and the Author of Love and Life, in order to show us where God stands when it comes to sin and death and persecution and oppression—all of which are present in the sin of racism and white supremacy.

Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel today, Don’t be intimidated. Eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are. So don’t hesitate to go public now. Don’t be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies (Matthew 10:26-28a—The Message Bible). This is my public acknowledgment in my faith community that the ideology of white supremacy remains enmeshed in American society and continues to energize racism, oppose, injure, and kill black people.

I don’t expect everyone in this community or church to agree with me. But I will do what I can to engage the legacy of slavery and racism--to move toward it, rather than run away from it, resisting the temptation to become defensive or non-participatory. We practice Courageous Faith to oppose racism. We can stand with our black sisters & brothers as Compassionate Witnesses to their pain and suffering. This is only the beginning, admittedly small but important first steps we can take together to toward a more compassionate and supportive presence with black people in America.

I believe this is how we can move toward the Kingdom of God which is forever reaching out to and moving toward us through Jesus Christ. I’m hopeful that as we admit we don’t fully understand the legacy of slavery and the realities of racism, we shall begin to move toward reconciliation with our black sisters and brothers. Because I believe that every injury, every death, every humiliation of every person of color at the hands of white authority defies the Kingdom of God that Jesus lived, died and was raised to reveal.

After the flames burned out and the smoke cleared from Minneapolis and other cities which erupted in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, someone shared an old African proverb with me: “The child that is not embraced by their village will burn it down to feel the warmth.”

We all agree that riots and destruction only make a bad situation worse. We all agree that burning down the village is not the answer. But do we have the courage to admit we have not experienced generations of alienation in our own nation, city, neighborhood, back yard or home? Without that experience, we do not understand or accept the impulsive reactions of broken human beings.

But rather than let uncommon incidents further divide us, I propose we try to find common ground in the complexity of our own human experience. Take some time to think deeply. I wonder how many of us have ever experienced being rejected, threatened, shamed, felt unsafe with the police. I wonder how many of us have been physically or emotionally violated by a person who is supposed to protect and nurture us. I wonder how many of us have experienced the dis-embrace of the village, whether that village is that of family, friend group, school, team, a valued organization or interest group—the village you longed to inhabit.

It’s important to consider or at least sympathize with the intense spiritual damage inflicted upon human beings by persons who abuse their authority. Especially when it is repeated. People who are traumatized and re-traumatized are forced to bury or compartmentalize the intense feelings of a physical and emotional violation in order to function and survive in daily society. We all have the capacity to do what we have to to “survive”. But at the same time, we are all equally capable of acting out aggression, even emotional or physical violence as part of that survival instinct—it’s built into our nervous system.

We can perhaps also imagine how such an intense injury can also trigger self-condemnation and self-loathing—beneath the intense anger or rage there could also be self-doubt which festers over time and eats away at a person’s esteem. Unless or until it is met by another human being who shows compassionate witness and nurture or therapeutic intervention and treatment.

Perhaps we can imagine how broken human beings, broken by an injury inflicted by another human being(s) might begin to see themselves as unlovable, as unworthy of anyone’s care, as defective, or as deserving the injury. Perhaps we might be able to image how under such circumstances someone might start getting the message that they don’t matter, not even to God.

We cannot fully or properly understand the full impact of the pain experienced by people of color in our country. But we can seek to understand or offer compassionate witness to their pain rather than reject or deny it or otherwise diminish another’s experience. If we can learn to move toward another’s experience of injustice or trauma, allow ourselves to feel and endure being uncomfortable but present with another’s anger and trauma and intense feelings, we can begin to redefine community and refine our village’s capacity to nurture.

We all have good medicine inside of us, compassionate witness and courageous faith which can become a vaccine for the lethal virus of racism which has daily infected our society and our villages. I’m encouraged to see more and more people standing up against racism after generations of remaining seated; more and more people crying out against racism after generations of silence. This is what I hear when I hear Jesus say in the gospel of Matthew, Stand up for me against world opinion and I’ll stand up for you ... (Matthew 10:32) and Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth … (Matt 10:34) and If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find your (true identity) self. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both your true identity and Me. (Matt 10:38b-39)

I hear Paul’s Christian witness vibrantly apply to racism when and white supremacy when he says, Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call! (Romans 6:7), and Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. (Romans 6:11)

Each of us has good medicine we can apply to the gaping wound racism has inflicted upon too many people--black & white—for too long. Each one of us has an important role in creating a village where every child is embraced and protected by their village. The world and village we believe in and long for every time we pray, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.

To learn about racism and the experience of black people in America, listen to a talk given in 2014 by Bryan Stevenson at the Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis) Town Hall Forum … just click the link below:

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/06/15/bryan-stevenson-westminster-forum

Learn about racism and the experience of black people in Minnesota, check these links:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-05/revealing-the-divisive-history-of-minneapolis

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/2001/06/lynching

6-14-2020 Stained Hands

Thomas J Parlette

“Stained Hands”

Romans 5: 1-8

6/14/20

          There are many ways one could go with a sermon on these verses from Romans. It’s a rich passage to be sure, with allusions to being “justified by faith”, boasting in our sufferings”, “suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope and hope does not disappoint.”

          All of those phrases are worthy of a deep look. But not all in the same sermon. As one of my preaching professors used to say – “Don’t preach on everything a passage has to say, save some for next time.”

          So instead of trying to dive into all the possibilities this passage contains, I’m going to zero in on the final couple of verses, in fact the very last phrase of the text, that says “while we still were sinners, Christ died for us.” To help us do that, I’d like to tell you about Rachel Held Evans.

          When RHE, as she was known online, a wife and mother of two small children died on May 4th, 2019, at the age of 37, it was not just her family, friends and acquaintances who were saddened. Thousands of people across the nation who’d never met her face to face also felt a deep sense of loss. The bond was forged because of what Evans had written about the Christian faith in her popular blog and books.

          Such was the power of her words about moving from the evangelical faith of her youth to a progressive stance on Christianity that a writer for the The Christian Century called her “the most influential mainline theologian of her generation, the C.S. Lewis of her time.” While Evans herself was neither trained nor credentialed in religious studies, and was not ordained and never pastored a church, she influenced many people who entered the ministry, especially women.

          Although she was raised in a conservative Christian home and environment and as a teen embraced that expression of Christianity, she eventually found herself pushing back against traditional evangelical positions. She challenged gender roles in the church and advocated for LGBTQ inclusion. “At times, she was a friendly dialogue partner,” said journalist Kaye Shellnut, writing in Vox. And other times, Evans was “a watchdog against the tradition she grew up in-earning the title ’the most polarizing woman in evangelicalism’ per The Washington Post, and being described as ‘saying the things pastors can’t in the Christian magazine Sojourners.” The Atlantic dubbed her a “hero to Christian misfits.”

          Evans had a broad appeal, even among her critics. While she lay in a coma before her death, her well-wishers ranged from conservative evangelical leaders who openly disagreed with her as well as people so theologically liberal that they disagreed with the very idea of prayer.

          Katelyn Beaty, editor at large for Christianity Today, commented that Evans “wrote unflinchingly about how hard it is trust God, to forgive church leaders, to wrestle with Scripture. There was a quiet sadness to her writing, a grief over having lost a simpler faith and faith community.”

          “RHE taught the beauty of a messy and complicated faith,” wrote an Evans follower, Christina Rosetti, on twitter. “She showed us how to hold multiple perspectives in tension. She made people feel safe to talk about doubt.”

          Although Evans eventually moved away from her evangelical faith to a more progressive position, she never left the church, instead moving to a congregation of a mainline denomination. In her book Searching for Sunday, she says that she remained a Christian despite all her doubts and objections to traditional theology “because Christianity names and addresses sin. It acknowledges the reality that the evil we observe in the world is present in ourselves. It tells the truth about the human condition – that we are not okay.”(1)

          Which, of course, is what Paul says in different words in Romans 5 - “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly…But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

          We are not okay.

          Of course, Paul was not the first to say this. Centuries earlier, the prophet we sometimes refer to as “Second Isaiah” or Isaiah of Babylon” wrote about a Suffering Servant and declared, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way,” and as a result, the Lord has laid on that servant “the iniquity of us all.” And many generations before Isaiah, the Lord told the Israelites to put fringes on their garments so they would remember “all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and not follow the lust of your own heart and your own eyes.”

          It’s always been true – we are not okay.

          But we don’t need to go way back into Scripture to know this. Many of us are aware that we individually and collectively have piles of moral garbage that we don’t want others to see.

          In Searching for Sunday, Evans spoke of the stark language in prayers of confession, which acknowledge plainly our sinfulness, and likened them to the kind of introductions that are typical at Alcoholics Anonymous meeting: “My name is----, and I’m an alcoholic.” In the sme way that those introductions equalize attendees at AA meeting, Evans said, prayers of confession equalize worshipers in church.

          These prayers, said Evans, “remind us that all move through the world in the same state – broken and beloved – and that we’re all in need of healing and grace. They embolden us to confess to one another not only our sins, but also our fears, our doubts, our questions, our injuries and our pain. They give us permission to start telling one another the truth, and to believe that this strange way of living is the only way to set one another free.”

          But, Evans noted, our churches sometimes feel more like country clubs that AA meetings, especially when we mumble through rote confessions and merely exchange pleasantries with fellow worshipers “while mingling beneath a cross upon which hung a beaten, nearly naked man, suffering publicly on our behalf.”

          She said she suspects this habit stems from the same impulse that told her she should drop a few pounds before joining the Y (so as not to embarrass herself in front of the fit people), “the same impulse,” Evans said, “that kept my mother from hiring a housekeeper because she felt compelled to clean the bathroom before the Merry Maids arrived (so as not to expose to the world the abomination that is a hair clogged shower drain).”

          “The truth is, we think church is for people living in the “after picture,” said Evans. “We think church is for the healthy, even though Jesus told us time and time again he came to minister to the sick. We think church is for good people, not resurrected people.”

          Stan Purdum writes about an experience he had a country church he pastored years ago. He decided one Saturday in October to harvest the black walnuts that were falling to the ground, encased in tough green husks as large as baseballs, from a large tree behind the parsonage. He collected a couple of baskets full of nuts. He knew that the nuts were buried deep inside these tough outer skins. While he supposed the husks would eventually split open in time – he saw no reason to wait, and he tried to speed up the process with a knife.

          After some effort, he got a couple cuts made through the shell and began trying to peel off the husk. It was tougher than he expected, so he went after it with a screwdriver, with the clear juice from the meat of the husks running onto his hands. After about a half hour he had succeeded to opening up two walnuts – so he gave up.

          When he washed up, however, he found that the husk juice had left dark stains on his hands that would not come off, not even with undiluted bleach.

          Then it dawned on him, it was communion Sunday the next day. He was going to have to serve communion with his stained hands. So in church the next day, before starting communion, he told the congregation about his walnut adventure, and despite appearances, his hands were clean. The whole congregation had a good chuckle at his expense, and nobody seemed to mind being served communion by a pastor with stained hands.

          After the service, one of the older farmers said, “You know, there is a way to get the nuts open if you still want them. Just dump them in your gravel driveway and leave’em there for a few days, running over them with your car as you come and go. That’ll loosen most of the husks and you should be able to pry the nut out no problem – just remember to wear gloves.”

          In his book New Mercies I See, Purdum writes that “ it was only later that I realized I had missed a good opportunity for a solid theological statement: Nobody comes to the Lord’s Supper with clean hands.”(2) Everybody who comes before the Lord has stained hands.

          Fortunately, God doesn’t require that our hands, or our souls, be clean before welcoming us. The gospel message tells us that God sent his Son NOT to condemn us, but to save us. And although Psalm 24 says that only those with clean hands and pure hearts can stand before the Lord, the point is that God cleans our hands and purifies our hearts so that we can stand in the Holy Presence.

          Whether we actually say these words or not, we come before God, as Evans indicated, with the AA-inspired statement, “My name is----, and I am a sinner.”

          And God responds with, “Your name is child of God, and you are redeemed.”

          That’s what Paul tells us in our text: But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” He’s the servant upon whom, Isaiah said, “the iniquity of us all” – our moral garbage- is laid, and he carries it away.

          Rachel Held Evans, despite her persistent doubts and knee-jerk cynicism, found the right reason to stay with the church – “because Christianity names and addresses sin,” our stained hands, and directs us to the Lord, who cleanses us and redeems us.

          And for that, may God be praised. Amen.

1.    Homileticsonline.com, retrieved June 1st, 2020.

2.    Ibid…