Inner & Outer Growth in Following Christ 8/23/20 Pentecost 12A

 

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

INNER & OUTER GROWTH IN FOLLOWING CHRIST

8/23/20     Pentecost 12A

            I don’t like the kind of press that Christianity has been getting in the media, nor the reputation of Christianity among people who have quit going to church - or never started, because our witness of Jesus as Messiah and Savior, and our portrayal of life in the kindom of God, instead of drawing them to God, has put them off from God.  It makes me wonder if we who DO follow Christ are not presenting the truth that Jesus taught, or are presenting it in such a way that has belied the message of freedom, hope and vision that Jesus brought. 

Yes, there IS the fact that even Jesus was rejected by the larger society, and even by the religious leaders of his time - I mean, he was killed.  And it’s still true that the message of Christ and the love of God is often counter-cultural, and may well be rejected by those invested in the ways of the world and profiting by it. 

The teachings of Christ and the place of Christ’s church does not have the value that it once had here - somehow God and Jesus have been made to look hateful, judgemental, legalistic, racist, contentious, less than authentic, and no answer to issues people face. 

Yes, Christ-followers are just humans, and will be fallible; we will be tempted and sometimes deceived; we may be short-sighted about various ills of society that we aren’t conscious of yet, that the Holy Spirit still is reforming us about.  It’s not that Christ-followers are going to be perfect examples, all the time, of love, peace, kindness, patience, & steadfastness, for example.  And yes, it sells papers and draws viewers to reveal failings in dramatic ways.

Yet, do we need to give them so much ammunition? 

It bothers me that the name “Christian” is linked with narrowness of thought, rejection of differences, one-issue judgementalism, a freedom to make sexist and racist comments - and behaviors; a covering up of blatant sin; a rejection of scientific exploration and knowledge; and even a rejection of scholarship and good thinking.  Christianity has a reputation nowadays that is not attractive to thinking and caring people.  Many of our own children, raised in our congregations, don’t like what Christians have come to represent.  Sometimes I don’t like saying that I’m a Christian - not because I’m ashamed of my faith or of Jesus, but because I don’t want to be lumped with those more extremist folks who make the news.  Reporters and bloggers seem to think all Christians are summed up in these limited views, and don’t see that there are other Christians who reject that way of being Christian.  Somehow, we are not communicating or living the beauty and depth of Jesus’  truth, and the transforming message that he taught.

I’ve found myself wishing there was another name I could call myself, as the name “Christian” has become so stereotyped, and in a negative way.  Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry likes to say he’s part of the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement. You may have noticed that I often use the descriptive  phrase, “Christ-follower.”  Early converts to following Christ called their new lifestyle of God’s kindom, “The Way,” ie the Way of Jesus, the Jesus Way.  I’ve heard some believers in Christ talk about being on the Jesus Path.  After all, the name “Christian” was coined in the town of Ephesus, by that city’s population in talking about the gathering of folks Paul converted in his missionary work there.

I admit that I do feel some shame in wanting to distance myself from some who also claim to follow Christ - although I don’t like the way Christ’s message is being presented by them.  I’d like to feel a greater unity of purpose with those who do theology differently; I almost feel more tolerance toward those who don’t attend worship but are truly seeking a path to wholeness and living in ways that treat people right and value the environment - than I do with some other Christians who I feel are bringing our faith into disrepute, and misrepresenting the life I feel Jesus calls us to. 

 

Another problem I see in what is called mainline Christianity is that of yet another stereotype - the well-dressed, two-parent suburban family,  middle class, white, culturally conservative, nice people who attend worship pretty regularly  - - but who don’t seem to carry what they hear over into their ways of doing business, or their respect of people of different races or genders, who don’t feel the need to confront their own angers, or sexual behaviors, or greed, or other ways of living that are not according to what Jesus says about the kindom of God. 

In fact, they may not even recognize these things as problems in their lives.  Not that we don’t all have our blind spots, and not that we grow into a greater sensitivity as we walk longer with God. 

            It’s more that being a Christian has become a rather shallow stereotype - a nice person who doesn’t rock the boat, is a good citizen, gives to charity, loves their children, helps some neighbors - it’s like attending worship and being a nice person has become what a Christian is… and which is NOT all that following Christ means at all!  Many of these good folks were baptized and confirmed, and seem to think they’ve done the Christian thing and don’t have to worry about it anymore - don’t need any more knowledge of Scripture, don’t need any more wrestling with issues, don’t need to look inside any more as to their values & behaviors, don’t need to question any more, don’t need to be challenged any more, because “been there, done that.”  

I sometimes ask myself, where are the elders in faith who have wrestled with life’s problems who have faced the disorders of loss or grief or other challenges to faith, and have come out with a deeper love and understanding, a stronger trust in God?  Our children need to see that there’s more to God than attending worship and being a nice American.  Where are those who have done even what the 12-step groups see as basic to turning one’s life around -

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Where are the Elders who are seeking authenticity with God, who are seeking a vision of unity and peace and justice?  Who are following the Jesus Way - letting God’s Spirit transform their hearts, heal their hurts - and resisting being conformed to the world?  Who are cultivating a relationship with God through prayer and reflection, who are working to let their life be that holy sacrifice to God, wholly submitted to God?

So many seem to look at Christianity as a box to be checked off, a creed learned, a set of precepts nodded to.  Following Christ is actually a life-long journey, a path with curves and stumbles and sometimes a wonderful vision - a dynamic, unfolding path of Christ being formed in us, and bringing that inner transformation out into the world not just in our personal life, but in our living and seeking of justice and peace in the world.  Christianity tells of who we are, how God means for us to live for the world to be saved; and it tells the truth about how difficult this is, struggling with how our inner nature wants to go its own way; and how God continually reaches out in love so that this new life may become a reality. 

I have some hope that this covid-19 crisis might be a time when the church of Jesus Christ finds a new vision of what it means to follow the Jesus Way; what it means to be Christ’s body - the Church; that perhaps in the changes forced on us we don’t just settle for going back to the way we’ve always done it, but that the Spirit uses this time of upset to reorder our understandings, reorder our thinking, reorder our inner and outer living of the kindom.  AMEN.

From Order to Disorder (a la Richard Rohr) 8/16/20 Pentecost 11A

 

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

FROM ORDER TO DISORDER ( a la Richard Rohr)

8/16/20    Pentecost 11 A

Our texts this morning have to do with two people who have deep encounters with their own mortality and human suffering, and yet their trust in God carries them to a deeper place of relationship and trust.

The first text is about that cosseted and beloved youngest son named Joseph, who in our text last week was taken from the bosom and the security of that family where he was favored and given gifts, and then seized by his envious siblings and almost killed - but instead was sold as a slave to merchants in a caravan headed to Egypt.  Last week we imagined what it must’ve been like for Joseph to unexpectedly have his safe, normal world shattered, and find himself in a threatening and unknown place.  The Bible gives us no glimpse into what kind of despair he may have fallen into, what kind of anguish and betrayal he felt; and we compared it with the disorientation and crisis we felt, waking up in a different world of Covid-19.  The passage this morning about Joseph's revelation of who he is to his brothers could have been one of anger and revenge - we are almost shocked that instead he offers welcome, and forgiveness with tears - and surprisingly is able to say that though they meant it for evil, it was God who sent him before them in Egypt to prepare the way for  saving the whole tribe.  How did he get to this deep level of trust in God?

I think we can assume that Joseph’s initial reactions to his brother’s betrayal and slavery in Egypt were more along the lines of “Why me, God?” and anger and even despair of faith and life. He was still a young man, and his reactions were probably what ours would be. That he comes out in such a faithful and believing place years later tells us that he did some wrestling with God in the tradition of his father whose name was changed to “Strives with God,” Isra-El.  He’s come out at a very deep, deep place, a very mature place.  One doesn’t get to this level of acceptance by trite phrases and pretending, nor by denying the pain - one only comes out here after great struggles, honest prayer; bringing all one feels to God.  Evidently Joseph found a deep well of faith - a deep trust that God cared and heard his cries. 

The Canaanite woman, from our Matthew text, is also facing a difficult thing and crying out to Jesus. No parent wants to face what she did - the suffering of her child, especially when she can do absolutely nothing about it. This kind of thing wrings a parents’ heart, a mother’s heart, when some part of us that is so beloved is beyond our help. The Scripture says her daughter was possessed by a demon, which we don’t quite understand, but we DO know that the woman feels so helpless before her daughter’s suffering that she comes to this Jewish healer to cry out, cry out, cry out for help.   That she is Canaanite, and therefore a Gentile, doesn’t deter her - her distress about her daughter sends her calling out to Jesus, AND THEN SENDS HER TO HER KNEES BEFORE HIM.

This text has always kind of bothered me… Jesus’ disciples want to send her away, and even Jesus seems to be rude to her.  I’ve not known how to take his words that seem to point out the cultural divide between Jews and Canaanites. I'm more comfortable with the story of Jesus and the woman at the well, who’s a Samaritan - another cultural divide - but Jesus asks her to draw water for him and talks with her.  In this encounter with the Canaanite mother, however, Jesus is rather confrontive - and yet, she comes back at him!  Sometimes I think I can hear Jesus’ words in a way similar to the way a boyfriend’s dad told me gruffly, “Shut the door, were you raised in a barn?” My boyfriend said that meant he liked me.  What I DO see is that she persists -  She challenges Jesus with his own words. “I can’t give the children’s food to dogs,” he says; she quips, “Even the dogs get crumbs that fall from the table.” And then Jesus acknowledges her deep faith - and her daughter is healed.

**********************

           

            I'm going to come at this from a different place for a minute - this week we tallied the 62 surveys that you all have returned (and will get the summaries and observations out pretty soon).  Some things won’t be a surprise, like that over half of our congregation are over 70.  If we add in those in their 60s we get close to ⅔; add in those in their 50s and we get over ¾.  Looking at this statistic, it's probably safe to assume that many of us have experienced life-shattering events like Joseph and this Canaanite mom.  We’ve done our own wrestling with fears and doubts, we’ve felt hopeless and perhaps despairing of life. We’ve come face to face with our own mortality.  The covid-19 crisis is probably not the first time we’ve feared death, although the national and global aspects of this pandemic are new and also fearful.  We’ve faced cancer and other diseases, we’ve felt helpless about a beloved child’s situation, we’ve been through sudden changes and loss. Knowing somewhat about people, I might guess that we haven’t talked out loud about these deep and scary feelings with other people, but kept them private. 

Yet it's true that we’ve had times when our own anguish has been cried out to God, when we’ve wrestled with the “Why me?” question, when our faith and trust in God has been challenged by our loss, our anger, or perhaps feelings of betrayal.  Maybe we’ve had to quit going to church for a while; maybe we’ve not been able to pray the way we had before, and we’ve just not prayed.   

            I hope, friends, that we HAVE been bold to cry out our pain and fears to God, like that Canaanite woman did.  I hope that we have had the courage to be like our faith ancestors Jacob, who wrestled with God - and earned the name Isra-el, “Strives with God.”  We can tell that Joseph followed in his father’s path, because we can see its results in the words of faith and trust that he speaks in today’s texts.  People don’t get to an authentic trust like that without struggle.  Even our own Jesus wrestled in the garden before he was arrested, and the Scripture says he even sweat drops of blood - I can’t imagine what that would be like.  He didn’t try to ignore or deny the struggle - he endured it, spoke it, wrestled with it.  And finally Jesus found that place of submission where he could say, “Not my will but yours be done.”  And to be able to say later, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”  That’s a deep and mature faith.

            We don’t get to that level of faith by denying our pain; we don’t find that level of trust by saying  a trite, “Just praise the Lord.”  We don’t gain that place of resting in God by repeating phrases like ‘I guess it's God’s will,’ or ‘God needed another angel,’ or ‘every cloud has a silver lining.’  We only get there through bringing to God the cries of our heart, the anguish of our spirit, the despair of our gut, the pain of our confusion and loss.  Only this honesty before God in prayer is the path of insight and deepening faith.  Only this trusting of God with our harshest feelings, trusting that God can take it and that God won’t abandon us - only this authentic crying out, like the Canaanite woman, only this level of encounter with the source of life and our creator leads to the ability to say with Joseph that God’s hand was in this; and leads to the place where Jesus could say, Into your hands I commit my spirit.      

So we’ve come to a very deep place following these texts today.  We’ve talked out loud about some very private things.  We’ve touched on some scary thoughts and feelings that come from our deepest places inside, from when we’ve had to face those scary moments of helplessness, lack of control, imminent danger of loss of life. I remember the fear and confusion and denial when I heard the “cancer” word...and I certainly wrestled with God about it.  This hospitalization the other week was another reminder of my mortality - when  I read my discharge papers,  it hit me that things could have gone really bad really quickly, and I could have died.  Suddenly, no warning, no time to prepare.  I think I’m still processing that - it’s still new.          

Covid continues to be a reminder of mortal issues, too - reading the stories of people’s suffering and struggle to breathe, reading the heart-rending accounts of people dying without their families - and families unable to be with their own beloved ones.  Those fears linger in the back of our minds, especially if we don’t talk about them.

            I hope, my friends, that we are bringing these kinds of cries to God, and not glossing over them with trite sayings and pretended assurances.  This time is an opportunity for us to pray in depth, and wrestle with our creator about ultimate issues, cry out our fears; and find beneath our feet the rock of our salvation, find the depth and solidity of faith, the assurance of trust in God’s care and love.  When we are moved by the stories we read, I hope we are sharing that with God.  When we cough and are suddenly afraid we’ve caught the virus, I hope we’re taking all that fear to God. 

            God loves us, God cares for us, God knows our standing up and our sitting down, our going out and coming in (Ps 139), the words that are on our tongue before we say them.  God knows the number of hairs on our heads and the number of stars in the universe. God even came to our suffering world in Jesus, to show us the vision of living in God’s kingdom and offer us restoration.  We are not alone, and being in God’s hands is the safest place to be ever.  Joseph remembered that and held onto it.  The unnamed Canaanite mom reached out for it.  We can, too.  AMEN.

A Crisis Can Grow Faith 8/9/20 Pentecost 10A

 

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

A CRISIS CAN GROW FAITH

8/9/20     Pentecost 10A 

          It's great to be back with you all again in this online gathering this week and next week - and I look forward to gathering in person for worship in the parking lot comin up in a couple weeks, the 23rd and 30th of August!  Obviously I didn’t plan to be away for the last 2 weeks - things happen to people, one of my favorite phrases in life - things happen, unanticipated, unplanned, and throw normal things into crisis and change. An infection I was treating suddenly took a turn, and my body’s response to the infection took a turn, and there I was in the hospital and even the ICU for a few days.  Whew! 

            It happened to Joseph, favored son from a favored wide, the last & youngest son of Jacob, of whom we’ve been reading in our Hebrew Scriptures the last month.  Jacob the trickster, whose wrestling with God gave him the new name of Israel - Isra-el - one who wrestles with God.  And, of course, the names of the large group of ancestors known as Israelites, and even in our day, the name of a middle-eastern nation, Israel.  Joseph’s brothers resent him, as the favored and youngest; and in the text we read today, when dad sends Joseph out to take his brothers some food, they decide they’ve had enough of Joseph and think about killing him and blaming  it on wild animals.  Brother Reuben succeeds in mitigating it a bit, so they just throw him in a pit with no water - which probably will result in Joseph’s death unless someone finds him - but at least they won’t have done murder with their hands…..Then a caravan or merchants on the way to Egypt is sighted, so they pull Joseph up and sell him, make some bucks.  Whatever, Joseph is out of their life. 

            Imagine being Joseph - things happen to people indeed!  He’s been a rather self-assured young man, he’s had some dreams that seem to mean folks will bow down to him someday, so he might be rather pompous about it...who knows.  Imagine that Dad sends you out with some food to where the older brothers are watching herds, and suddenly your special coat is stripped off you, and your life is in danger. Your brothers’ hatred of you rises up and gets acted out.  Then, when you are despairing of your life, suddenly you are hauled up and out of the pit and given to merchants as a slave to sell in a foreign country.  What a crisis in Joseph’s life indeed!  One day a favored son who gets special presents from Dad, the next day marching with slavers to who knows what. 

            Joseph’s story goes on, and we might remember it from Sunday School.  We’ll be reading some of that story over the next weeks.  Lots of changes happen to Joseph, but it seems his faith in God endures, and he ends up, yes, in a position where he actually saves his whole family.  Years later, of course. 

            In our text from the gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ followers are suddenly in a crisis - crossing the sea of Galilee, they are suddenly in a squall and being battered by wind and waves - and Jesus is not there.  Jesus had stayed behind to pray, and would be joining them later - if they make it, that is! Jesus further freaks them out by walking on the stormy water to get to them - and when he gets in the boat, the storm calms.  They are not really without Jesus. 

            These seem like good Scriptures for us to ponder with all the changes flying around us, largely due to the covid virus.  It looks like there are still a lot of adjustments to a new way of life - things are going to be different for the foreseeable future.  We’re having to let go of our hopes that things will go back to “normal”... We’re unsure of how the virus is going to be controlled, and how school and work will go, how the economy will go, how racial issues will go, how the election will go…..there’s a lot to worry us and raise our anxiety as the situation changes so rapidly.   We can feel for Joseph; we can feel for Jesus’ followers in their small boat battling the huge storm outside.

 

Where is God when these kinds of crises happen?   Where is God when unanticipated and unplanned things happen, and our plans are turned upside down?  Where is God when things outside our control upend everything, and we feel alone in a little boat on a wild sea, or we find ourselves being taken to a new country and not treated well?  When the skills and things we know how to do to cope, suddenly don’t work, or are not effective? 

We might feel abandoned by God, or let down or angry, because we were not spared or protected.  We prayed, we attended church, we cared for others, we gave offerings - maybe we expected God to make everything okay for us, protect us, spare us, because we were doing the right things.  But it didn’t happen - things happened to us. Perhaps our old way of understanding faith is challenged. 

I think perhaps that’s what’s going on in folks who say it's okay to not wear masks, because God will take care of them - that to wear a mask means we fear God won’t protect us, and is a lack of faith.  They can’t seem to deal with the reality of the situation because they insist on the way they’ve thought of God as protecting them from earthly things - that’s what faith means to them, and they won’t move past that. 

If that’s the way faith has seemed to work in our minds, it’s a difficult challenge to deal with the reality of a pandemic virus that can infect and kill believers in God, as well and easily as it infects and kills anyone. 

These are the kinds of crises that make us wrestle with God as Jacob/Israel did.  Is God at fault?  Has God let us down?  Abandoned us?  Or might it be that our understanding of God and faith was too limited, too small, and mistaken?  That we made assumptions about faith and God and misunderstood?  So then, what IS the right way to walk in faith and trust?  What DOES faith mean?

Faith in God doesn’t make human life and human ills not happen to us - that isn’t what being in the body of Christ means.  We’re humans, and things will happen to us, things in common with all humans.  We can get cancer; we can have a child who is an alcoholic; we might lose our job or be mistreated by a boss or cheated on by a spouse.  If the water is polluted, we as well as all humans take in that pollution and our bodies suffer.  If a hurricane knocks the power out, our power goes out, too.  If some strange virus jumps over the animal to human border, we are part of that humanity.  If our national economy tanks, our own finances take a dive, too.  If the way of life we’ve assumed works well for us is revealed as not working well for people of color, and they rise up in anger, that’s our reality, too.  We live on earth. 

And on earth is where God works, here and now.  Jesus walks through the storm to be with us.  God loves us, and will always be with us.  Nothing can separate us from God -  not grief, nor covid, nor loss, nor betrayal, nor illness, nor anything!  God is with us when things happen to us - we’re not spared any human ills, but God walks through it with us - we are not alone. We can persevere with God in us, among us, with us - we can find creative responses, we can endure and hold onto God’s truth.  We can adapt as needed, we can overcome. 

As a pastor, I've talked with people who have left churches because they prayed for their dad but he died. Or that some other prayed wasn’t answered like they wanted - they prayed diligently, too, and were trying to live according to what the church taught them.  But they couldn’t get past the feeling that God let them down - somehow they couldn’t make that turn to say, “Maybe it’s me that has misunderstood.”  They wouldn’t wrestle; they were too angry. 

Jacob/Israel said to that man he wrestled with, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” He hung in there with God, insisting on working it out.  And God hung in there with him, too, and didn’t just leave and say, “Too bad!”   Job hung in there with God, even with his massive losses and grief that he longed to understand.  Joseph evidently hung in there with what he knew of God, and was able to say years later, “You meant it for evil, but God used it for good.” Jesus’ followers learned to hang in there, too, even trying to walk on water like Jesus did - Peter managed a few steps before he looked too much at the storm. 

So something has happened to us people right now - it doesn’t mean God is punishing us, or God has left us or anything like that - God still loves us, God still is with us. The truths of faith are sure, and God will walk with us through these storms.  Yes, we wear our masks, wash our hands, and stay a certain distance away as ways to mitigate the spread of this thing.  But our call to faith is still true, our call to mission is still true, our compassion for the “least of these” as the Bible puts it, is still true.  We are still Christ’s church, we still gather for worship.  We still love one another.  We still care for our whole community and our country… and our world.  God walks with us and makes us strong even if things happen to us.  AMEN.

God's Perspective Differs, yet God Loves the World 7/19/20 Pentecost 7A

 Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

GOD'S PERSPECTIVE DIFFERS, YET GOD LOVES THE WORLD

7/19/2020    Pentecost 7A

It was too hard to choose just one text this week, because there’s an abundance of riches in the assigned readings for today. So I used the gorgeous thoughts of Psalm 139, which is among my favorites, in our prayer time. The lesson from one of the letters in the New Testament (Epistle), Romans, talked about how the whole creation is just waiting for God to do a new thing. All of creation wants to be restored. The text from Genesis starts the whole series of stories about Jacob, whose name is later changed to Israel. A chapter or so earlier, he is born fighting his twin for being the firstborn; when they were grown he cheated his brother out of firstborn’s rights, and tricked his father to get the firstborn’s blessing. He’s a twister and a trickster; but after this latest trick, he’s sent away for his own safety. This text about him sleeping on the ground with a stone for a pillow is the first night Jacob sleeps alone and away from his family, and for some reason God comes to him in the first of several encounters. This cheater and twister recognizes the presence of God and sets up some stones as a marker for his experience of God right there. But really folks, wherever he had slept God was going to talk with him that night. God had to deal with Jacob, and any place on this holy creation would do.

            The text from Matthew’s telling of the story of Jesus is another parable about the kindom of God, which starts out a lot like last week’s parable - a sower sows a field with good wheat seed. Once again, the setting is a familiar agricultural one.  But also once again, the sower doesn’t act like a good farmer, and surprises us. Last week, the sower scatters seeds of the gospel over all kinds of land that seems not receptive. This week, an enemy of the sower secretly comes and tosses a bunch of weed seeds, and they all start to grow up together. And the sower says “let them grow.”  He doesn’t make his workers go pull weeds, but lets it be until the end times, when the angels will do the sorting. 

            So there’s a couple themes going on in these texts -  that of God being everywhere on our planet - like wherever Jacob slept that night, and that there’s nowhere we can ever go that’s away from God’s presence and love. God fills all creation, this precious planet that we were made from handmade for, this earth that we live on, grow on, and care for.  All of this is God’s -  God made it, God called it good, including us. It would also be true on Mars or Venus, or even Pluto, which I  hear is a planet again….. One geographic place is not more holy than any other; our living rooms and kitchens are holy when we encounter God there. Our camps under the tree and stars, our ventures to lakes and rivers. We don’t have to be in a certain building to worship God.   

The other theme seems to be that God is not limited by what we think is the right thing to do, or what we judge to be the good. God chooses this trickster and cheater Jacob, who goes on to trick some more folks and be tricked himself, even as God continues to work with him. And the sower in Jesus’ story would not get our kudos for his gardening methods, letting the bad & good exist together.

I’ve struggled with this parable most of my life, because it hasn’t seemed to make sense to me that the realm of God, the kindom of God, would be good wheat and bad growing together.  Of course, my own conservative religious upbringing tended to put things into clear categories - this is right, that is wrong; this is the correct view about salvation, and those others are wrong (only we called them unbiblical, because we were the only ones who were biblical). These people do the right things,those people don’t. These people look like good people are supposed to, and those don’t. You  either are saved in the correct way and go to heaven, or you’re not and go to hell. The sower should have separated the wheat and the weeds right away, and we should hang with other wheat people and avoid the weed people. My home church wouldn’t even let my youth group camp with another church’s youth group because their pastor didn’t have the right theology about when Jesus is coming back - they must have had other errors, if they were wrong on that! 

It was difficult for the younger me to understand how people who were good church people could also be mean; and I saw them be mean, and didn’t know how to feel about it. I tried to root out every sin the preachers and Sunday School teachers  described from my life, and assumed that’s what good Christians did. I could well have ended up in the right-wing kind of Christian practice we see on TV, very hateful to those who believe differently, and intolerant of those who didn’t agree with my point of view. 

Let me share some stories of my gentle Dad and how he was a good example of how an adult seeks to make their own decisions about things and look beneath the surface. In High School, I hung around with the Jesus People, hippies who found God. We had a weekly Friday night coffee house with about 10 guys playing guitar and singing new Christian songs and giving testimonies. And we had Bible studies weekly, too. So I invited all these blue jean wearing, long haired hippies with Jesus stickers all over their cars, to hold the Bible Study at my house one time. My parents were a bit freaked by the idea, and weren’t sure what they felt about me hanging out with these kinds of people. But dad said yes - he dressed in his church suit and tie; and with his Bible under one arm, he greeted and shook hands with each person who came in the door that night. He stayed in our study, towards the back, and my friends were cool with it.  Afterwards, he said, “Those guys know their Bible, Becky.” He changed his mind about these young folks who didn’t dress right or look right or sing the hymns from the hymnal - they did love God. 

Later, off at college, I began worshipping at a local Presbyterian church. You know that I started off at a Bible college, right? I transferred and graduated from Wheaton College later, but started at a fundamentalist Bible college where we all majored in Bible. They approved this Presbyterian church for us to attend, so you know it was a conservative church. I told my parents I was going to a Presbyterian and not a Baptist Church, gasp gasp, and a couple weekends later my Dad drove up and attended worship with me to see if I was getting too weird. Afterwards, I introduced him to the associate pastor who led the college group, and dad quizzed him a bit.  And he decided that Presbyterians were okay, they did love God.    

Dad died before I graduated, but I’ve kept up his example of seeing past externals to whether people love God. We all judge, we can’t help it. We notice differences. And if we’re insecure, someone with a difference can be seen as challenging or criticizing what we hold as true, and can’t get past it.  (And sometimes they do  challenge and critique, and loudly.) I’ve been the one judged - One of my daughter’s little girlfriends, 1st grade or so, came to play at our house in Oct when we had Halloween decorations up - her mom never let her come back because her church taught that Halloween was evil. Another of her girlfriends, in their teens now, was surprised that we could be Christian and Democrats, because her church preached that a true Christian had to be Republican. That time, they stayed friends anyway.

I had begun a call as a college chaplain one month before 9-11 happened, and in the Norfolk area - huge Navy area, lots of military connections. The Isamic Center where Muslim  students worshiped was vandalized, and the chaplains began to lead on understanding faiths. Many students there were from countries where Islam was the main faith, and they had a student group like Christian groups did. I met some devout and God-loving people that challenged my knowledge of Muslims, and when they invited us to a supper after dark in Ramadan, me and my children attended and learned.

I have met people who are gay and lesbian Christians, and found them lovers of God, and doing service to their neighborhoods that few would undertake. The old me would have been totally shocked. I’ve had talks with Buddhist students and adults, and while Buddha is not considered divine, I found the followers of this path to be good people and devoted to the same search for understanding as mine, and involved bettering the world the same as we do in kindly ways. I don’t understand the desire to get tattoos, but my son has a whole armfull, and lots of people his age do - and they are also good and kind people, and many of them love God. 

I guess if God had let me go pull weeds when I was younger, I would have pulled a lot of wheat without knowing it. My judgement between wheat and weeds was faulty; I’m glad it will be the angels that do it and not me. There have been some people along the line that have thought I was a weed, and would have rooted me out. I’m glad they weren’t in charge of weeding either.

So what are we to do, friends, with this field of mixed wheat and weeds, if we can’t pull out the weeds? The best sermon I ever heard on this parable ended like this - “The only answer is, “Grow into the fullness of our “wheatness,” and PLANT MORE WHEAT.” So in this world where we live, look for the common love of God, and leave judging to the angels!   AMEN. 

       

Carelessly Sowing Seeds of the Gospel 7/12/2020 Pentecost 6A

 

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

CARELESSLY SOWING SEEDS OF THE GOSPEL

7/12/2020   Pentecost 6A

            Oh good, I get to talk about gardens!!! 

This was my first response on seeing that this week’s gospel parable is about God as the Sower of seeds.  My second response was that I hope I don’t bore you all because I just get so excited about gardening.  Jesus, here, is once again using an agricultural setting that people then would be familiar with - Jesus is good at using familiar settings - and tells a story to make people pause and ponder.  And once again, Jesus says that this is what the kindom of God is like.  Most of Jesus’ parables are like this - Jesus knows the context of the listeners, Jesus starts with things they understand, common things, part of their culture.  And yet Jesus also makes the story so different, when it starts out to be so similar….he challenges their assumptions - and ours.

            Folks who study the 1st century culture tell us that sowers of seeds used more of a broadcast method spread by hand, not the straight rows of the farms we see as we drive through the country nowadays.  Carrying a bag of seed slung over their shoulder, the sower takes a handful and spreads it around as he or she walks.  Compare that to my grandfather, who had boards notched at 2” spaces, 3” spaces and so on, so he spaced his precious seeds appropriately in his garden - he wasn’t farming large fields, obviously, although he had a large garden.  He measured the distance between the rows, too, so the plants had the correct distance to grow well. 

I have a plot at a community garden over in DeWitt, started by the Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church.  (I’ve gardened in community gardens for a long time, even starting one back in my Norfolk community.)  Most of the folks there have had their plots a long time, and over the years have added lots of soil amendments - compost, manure and such - so that the clay soil bears better.  My plot hadn't been worked for a while, so I turned it all over and added lots of leaf mulch and fertilizer.  My crops have been okay, but not lush.  The soil needs more work, like adding some OCRRA compost.  I don’t do rows, but I don’t just scatter, either - I was influenced by the Square Foot guy, and garden in clumps - but getting good spacing is important. I don’t like thinning things, it hurts me to pull the little sprouts…..although I do eat them if I have to thin… microgreens - that’s the new name.  I set paths between the areas of the garden, so I don’t walk on the actual gardening soil and pack it down hard.  I would never put seeds on the paths.  And I pull weeds - I don’t want them to take over. 

I suppose that 1st century farmers - and all farmers of all time - know about soil amendments, spacing, paths and weeds.  They didn’t have Wegmans  or Tops or Price Chopper to get foods from - their existence depended on their successful farming.  They obviously had knowledge of getting a good crop.  Our Native Americans here were also successful farmers - usually the women, and had tools for breaking up the soil, deer antlers for the eastern tribes;  and knew about the good fertilizer of fish. They knew that beans helped the soil (fixing nitrogen we know nowadays). One of the wise tips from our Natived ancestors is called the Three Sisters - planting corn, beans and squash together - and putting a fish in the ground at the base.  

So the sower in the parable is a strange, profligate, and careless farmer.  I’m sure all farmers worked their soil and prepared their fields, then as now, getting out rocks, digging out wild weeds and so on. What sower, who had to keep back seeds from being eaten this year for seeding next year’s crop, would waste those precious seeds on rocky patches, hard patches and weed-infested patches?  The sower in the story offers seed anywhere and everywhere. Some of it gets no results, some of it gets puny results that dies, some of it gets choked off - fortunately some of it takes off and grows like crazy. 

The writer of this book has Jesus giving an allegorical interpretation of the parable which is interesting, and has been preached on many, many times. We know the view of the parable that was in today’s reading. Since it’s a parable, though, we don’t have to be limited to that take on the story - parables work on us in deep ways, and speak to us at different times in different voices.  There are always lots of levels and many ways to go with parables.  I know scholars of a certain period taught that a parable has one real meaning and we have to learn it and teach it that way forever.  Preachers a bit older than me were taught that as a rule.  Thinking has changed, like it always does, among scholars.  Now the view is that parables are more open-ended and layered, and new ways of looking at them are being proposed. 

I hope you all had an opportunity to read the passage earlier and ponder the questions I put in the resource pages.  We have an opportunity here to imagine and listen to the Spirit talking to us about what the kindom of God is like, with this crazy and careless sower.  God obviously thinks its worthwhile to scatter the seeds of the gospel anywhere and everywhere.  Back in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the prophecies of Isaiah, God says, “ My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not like your thoughts,”….and, “my words will not  come back to me empty,” or void, or empty-handed as some translations say; but will accomplish what I want.  Just like rain falls on the just people and the unjust people, another place says - God’s word goes out to all.  How the gospel is accepted by those who hear may vary - that’s what the interpretation in our text says.  Others have pointed out that even within ourselves, the words of the gospel may fall on different levels of our own receptivity - some things we may hear and accept and follow, and other words may bounce off a place of unconsciousness in us, or a place that is not ready, not prepared,  not amenable to it.  And as we go through life, we may hear things in the gospel after difficult personal times that we couldn’t hear before.  And I think that the wisdom from the prophet Isaiah tells us that even seeds that don’t seem to take are doing something in the preparation of those that hear it. 

God doesn’t have to farm like we do!  And I believe God is always working on improving our soil.  Faith isn’t static - it isn’t a list of beliefs that we memorize at confirmation, and are then set in our outlook forever.  People experience things as we live - good, bad and indifferent.  They often deepen us, and open our understanding.  Walking with God through all these things over the years gives the Spirit time to add compost and fertilizer to our souls. 

American culture emphasizes the energies of youth more than age, sociologists tell us.  Other societies value and honor age - and by contrast, we see that ours doesn’t. We value striving, accumulating, gaining power, making things happen, getting our viewpoint heard, and DOING.  Our culture doesn’t have a lot of value on reflection, accepting, letting things be, and just BEING, which are more the values of ageing.  It seems to me that, with all ages being here at the same time, that both these energies are supposed to work together - doing and being are important in various times.  Reflection and action are the mark of the wise.  Ways that the older folks have learned are seasonings to the energy of the youn ger folks.  Parts of the gospel that bounced off me as a younger person have grown clearer as I’ve aged, as my soil has been improved and amended by God the gardener. 

There’s certainly been a theme in my preaching these last years, about the development of our spirituality and faith being a call to each of us - that God desires us to come closer, wrestle with difficulties, and understand more deeply.  We are called to be transformed into the image of Christ, reborn, enlightened, made new, living into the new life of the resurrection - whatever the words, faith is a process, a journey; faith evolves.  Those forst seeds that fall on hard or rocky or thorny ground - they do something, they pique our interest; they tell us of the possibilities of this new life; when we’re ready to hear it, the words of the gospel are still here. 

So - if God is like this, sowing the seeds on all kinds of soil, generously spreading the precious seeds of the gospel - not really careless after all - what does that say to how we join this work of spreading the gospel ?  I think it means that we, too, are to be generous with the gospel, spreading the goodness of this message wherever we are and to whomever we’re around - do good to those who despitefully use you, Jesus says.  If an enemy makes you give the them your coat, give them your shirt, too.  The gospel isn’t just for us to share with those we approve of; in God there are no distinctions.  So we provide a ministry to the community through our preschool and none of the parents joins our church - so what?  We are sowing seeds.  So the kids that throng to our VBS attend other churches, so what?  We are sowing the gospel seed.  So we attend a march for people’s rights and nothing immediately changes...so what?  We are sowing seeds of the gospel.  God spreads the good news for God’s purposes, and it won’t come back empty-handed, even if we’re not the ones to see it. 

I think we do have to be ready to talk about the hope that God has given us; to tell why we are so generous, why we are reaching out,why we care.  At some point I hope to have us practicing with each other is a safe way, to tell about what is most important to us in faith.  And I think we have to each bring our gifts and insights to the mission Jesus left us with - no handing it off to the pastor - the pastor’s job is to build folks’ faith  and strengthen THEIR ministries, not be the lone ranger of the gospel.  Christ’s call is for each of us to learn God’s farming methods, and pitch in.  AMEN.

Taking on Jesus' Yoke 7/5/20 Pentecost 5A

 

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

TAKING ON JESUS' YOKE

7/5/2020    Pentecost 5A

I have always loved desserts - and other things, too, of course - deviled eggs, for one thing...watermelon for another.  Good 4th of July picnic foods!  My Mom often told a story on me, that one time she said, What do you want for dessert, Becky?  There’s cake, jello and ice cream - and I answered, some of each!  And she always told how I defended myself  - that the ice cream melts and runs around everything else in my stomach, so I’m never too full for ice cream!  Our favorite was Daddy’s homemade ice cream, and on holidays like the 4th of July, we would gather at my Aunt Ginny’s place on the river, and take turns churning that old thing until it got too hard for us.  After dark we played with sparklers; then when it was good and dark, the parents would set off fountains and rockets, while the mosquitos had their dinner on our legs and arms. 

Mom gave me mixed signals about enjoying desserts.  At one moment she’d tell me I was going to be fat if I ate those desserts; the next moment she’d be asking in a criticizing voice, Why didn’t you try your Aunt’s banana bread or your sister’s brownies? They worked hard on them!  There was no way to please her - I got negative comments if I ate, and negative comments if I didn’t.  Another conflicting message was about school work - she complained that I wasn’t popular enough because I worked on stuff too hard, then turned around and asked why I got a B+ instead of an A. 

That’s what I thought about when I read the beginning of this passage in Matthew 11 - people discounted John the Baptizer because he was so ascetic - living in the desert and eating locust and wild honey, wearing skins….then they discounted Jesus because he ate and drank with sinners!  There’s just no pleasing some people!  We are inconsistent with our expectations and there’s always something to criticize - especially if we don’t want to hear what they are saying anyway. Discount the person, discount their message.  And we all grow up with these kinds of inherited patterns or mixed messages and ambiguities and the resulting neuroses of one kind or another.  In times of stress, these things come out more in us, too.

We’re certainly in a continuing time of stress right now - I saw where a person coined the term “Covid exhaustion” to explain how, even though the immediate crisis and changes are past, it’s hanging around so long that we’re getting exhausted. Unfortunately, it's going to hang around longer.  People are already showing their inability to cope with ongoing stress - wanting to get back to how we were, to quit thinking about the dangers and quit following the precautions. Did you read about those reckless folks throwing covid parties, where an infected person attends, everyone buys a ticket to come to an event with them, and the first one to get  sick wins the pot from the ticket sales???  The other day on a Zoom meeting, the leader asked us how we were doing now that its 3 ½ months down the road - I think we all said a mix of okay days and hard days.  The stress is real and unrelenting, and it adds up.

Most people find it difficult to deal with frustration and negative feelings - and not just with this current crisis.  One of the texts also assigned for today was in the Apostle Paul's letter to the Roman believers, where he talks about how miserable he gets, because the good things he wants to do get sidetracked by this other part of himself that wants to do just the opposite!  I know that experience - like I can look at desserts and know they’re going to throw my blood sugar off….but...but...don’t I deserve a treat for being good all day yesterday?  The stress of fighting that battle daily gets to me after a while, and I find myself pacing the  floor and agitating and opening cupboard doors until I give in and have something that soothes me.  Yes, struggles with all addictions are like that - and worse, when there’s a physical addiction as well. 

We fear feeling our fear; we fear recognizing that we’re not in control.  We fear the feeling that we can’t fix things, like the Covid crisis.  So we fuss, we get polarized, we attack one another, all kinds of stress behavior - because we’re uncomfortable and things aren’t the same.  We don’t mean to be snippy - it just happens.  We don’t mean to be jealous - it just happens. Like Paul, we want to be kind and understanding, we just can’t.   Do you remember that old cartoon picture of the guy with an angel speaking in one ear, and a devil speaking to the other ear? We all know what that’s like.  We are fallible and sometimes broken, we can’t fix the world; and the words of Jesus offering us rest from the burdens of life fall as grace on our ears. 

I had to think about what kind of “rest” Jesus was talking about, because I have to say that I haven’t found that taking on the way of Jesus, the spiritual journey of following Christ, to be easy.   Jesus' words sound easy  - believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved…that doesn’t sound too difficult; love one another as I have loved you…that doesn’t seem too onerous;....be kind to one another…I can do that, with some thought.  Yet when we start to try and do them, it opens up a can or worms in our insides…I don’t want to be kind to this or that person; why do I have to love people I find stupid?  Like the man says to Jesus, “lord, I believe - and help my unbelief.’

 Jesus says that his yoke is easy, and the burden is light.  One of the intertestamental books, continuing the horse metaphor, says that God’s reins are but purple ribbons - another image of the lightness of God’s touch.  Yoke is an interesting word - it’s actually got a connection to the word yoga.  Evidently yoking one horse to another was a way to teach it discipline; so the 4 yogas in Hinduism were ways to discipline our minds and bodies towards seeking enlightenment.  I enjoy thinking that Jesus was saying, Take my yoga on, be yoked with me, learn from me, be trained with me, follow my path, my way to God and salvation.  We might remember that early followers of Christ called themselves followers of The Way - the way of Christ.  Christianity isn’t a set of doctrines to memorize so we get an A on the systematic theology test; Christianity is a path to God, a way of living that is intended to bring us into relationship with God, train us, teach us discipline (in a good way), reveal insight and wisdom to us as we deal with our inconsistencies and broken places.  We begin to be humbled as we see our common human predicament, and we begin to understand and empathize with the sufferings of others.  We become more human; and at the same time more Christ-like. Christianity is more a journey of living into an awareness of God that permeates our whole being and lifetime.  Scripture calls it the transforming of our heart, a transformation from the inside out. Jesus calls it gentle and mild and easy; it can certainly be rigorous, though - it is, however, taken because God loves us, and our love for God grows, too.  So it's not a harshness or a mean-spiritedness, a following of rules out of fear. 

It reminds me of that ancient general Namaan, who came seeking the great prophet Elijah in order to be healed of leprosy.  He came with a huge entourage and lots of gifts, ready to undertake a quest or pay all he had - and Elijah doesn’t even come out to see him, but says, go wash in the Jordan River.  Namaan is insulted - it's too easy - there were rivers in his own country that were bigger and better.  So he’s actually going away, giving up on being healed because he feels insulted!  A servant challenges his pride, so eventually he obeys the prophet - and is healed.  Almost, almost, his issues with pride and status kept him from being healed.  We start to do those “easy” things and it ends up making us deal with our own issues….hmmm….

We are called by Jesus to take on his way, his yoke or yoga - and find a soulful rest; we are called to find a restored relationship to God, to creation, and to one another; which is what we’re meant to be and do. God calls us to be an authentic human, made in God’s image; Jesus offers to bring us into that unitive place of oneness with God and all creation that our soul longs for, our true home, our true freedom. 

The celebration of communion today is so appropriate, isn’t it?  The traditional outline of the sacrament tells us that we gather around this table with believers from all times and all places; each other here, those who went before us, and those who will come later; and with all of God.  We are all one, and all dependent on God.  We take our sacred elements from God’s creation - bread and cup, matter and spirit, male and female, all divisions overcome in our greater unity; a wholeness;... we are fed physically and spiritually, nurtured by our loving God.  One day I’ll write a sermon about communion and go into all this much more - it’s a wonderful sacrament, holy and beautiful - and also so basic.    

Let’s prepare our hearts now.