MASadmin – Page 24 – Pocket Sized Pastor*

Children’s Message: God is present in the frustrations. Blessing of Backpacks.

Delivered on September 10, 2023.

*bring lots of copies of the same coloring sheet*

So it’s my tradition after the prayer of the day to bring a message to all of God’s children. And today I have a stack of coloring sheets. They’re kind of neat – and something you can color during the sermon. So if we got a copy of this – we might feel it’s pretty neat, especially if we like the characters on it. So getting one copy of it is cool. But what if, after you finish coloring that sheet, I gave you another one? Still neat – but maybe not as fun. And then – after you finished that one, I gave you another one – the exact same thing. How many coloring sheets would I need to give you before you started to feel a bit bored or tired or wondering why you’re doing it? 2 or 3 or 5. At some point, even this fun thing can feel very routine or not exciting.

Now I know school started – and school can be fun and exciting and terrifying. What kind of feelings did you have on your first day? Accept answers. I remember feeling excited because I’d get to meet new teachers, see my friends, make new ones, and get excited about learning. But then the homework would start. And the lessons that, while exciting, started to feel routine. Sometimes knowing that we’re going to do similar kinds of things at similar parts of the day is pretty helpful – especially if we need that kind of structure to do our best. But at some point – the excitement starts to fade. It might take a day or a week or a month but there are times when school feels like a bit of a drudge. And it’s totally okay if, at some points in the school year, it starts to feel like that. It’s completely normal and natural for that to happen. In fact – and here’s a secret – even parents and teachers and aids and administrators feel like that sometimes to. The teachers have to plan and prep for all the lessons they’re going to be teaching you. The aids have to help too. The administrators have lots of paperwork to do and happen to deal with teachers, parents, and all the not-fun part of education that is necessary to make things run as smoothly as possible. And then parents have lots of schedules to keep track of, lunches to pack, school supplies to buy, and more. Some days are exciting and energetic and we can’t wait for what the day might bring. But other days aren’t as exciting. We just feel we’ve got to get through them.

And on days like those, I like to remember that we’re not going through those days alone. Jesus is with us on exciting days and scary days and on those boring days too. Jesus knows what it’s like to have all those kinds of days and I’m pretty sure Jesus felt a lot of the same emotions you feel too. Jesus got scared and nervous. He laughed and cried. And I’m pretty sure there were a lot of times when, especially when his friends didn’t seem to understand the lesson he was trying to teach, I’m pretty sure Jesus got a little frustrated that he needed to come up with a new lesson plan to try and make it stick. Jesus knows that life isn’t always exciting and new. In fact, most of life doesn’t feel like that. Instead – there are things we get to do and Jesus makes sure we have the grace, the energy, and the community – the church – to help carry us through. That means, when you wake up and you can’t wait to go to school, Jesus is with you – cheering you on. And when you wake up and don’t want to go to school, Jesus is still with you – totally feeling what you feel – but also gently getting you out the door to embrace your vocation as a student or a teacher or an aide or an administrator. Your feelings are totally valid and you get to feel all you feel. Yet you’ve also been given an opportunity to learn, to grow, to teach, to lead, to support, and to love. Being in school right now is hard. Jesus gets that, Jesus sees that, and Jesus will help you through it all.

So I’ve given these before but I figured they might be helpful now too. During the routine of the school year, I hope you remember that you are not alone. I pray that you realize you are a gift to the world and that we, together, can help each other thrive. So we get to be loved cuz you are loved. We get to be kind – to support each other. And you get to be you because the world, and Jesus’s body and the church can’t be what it’s supposed to be without you. The days might not always be exciting, especially when the work just seems like it’s just one thing after the other, but you have all the skills you need be the student God knows you can be.

So let’s bless one another for this upcoming school year.

Let us pray. O God, today we gather to celebrate the beginning of a new school year. It is a time filled with joy and excitement as well as uncertainty and wonder. You are the giver of all knowledge and wisdom and ask for all centers of learning be safe, lively, and fully of the joy, peace, and welcome so all can focus on the pursuit of education and the betterment of ourselves.

Bless students as they enter new settings, meet new people, and learn new ideas. Give them open minds and open hearts to learn and to experience more fully the majesty of the world You have created. Strengthen them as they learn and grow this year. Show them how to serve you best by studying hard, and by discovering and using the gifts you have given them. Fill them with the joy of learning and uplift each of them with your grace and love. Enable them to grow in knowledge and wisdom during this school year and all the days of their lives.

Bless teachers, aides, and all those who stand alongside our students as they work diligently using the skills and abilities you have given them. Whatever their task or duty, guide them to do it in love and faithfulness to you, knowing that even the most ordinary task becomes extraordinary when done in your name. Give them calm strength and patient wisdom as they help, teach, support, protect, guide and encourage all through this road of education. Grant them joy as they lay the foundation of hope for all learners.

Bless support staff, administrators, and all whose work often goes unseen. Remind them that Your work also often goes unseen and yet serves as the foundation that the rest of life is built on. Give them calm strength, patient wisdom, and boundless grace as they hold together every center of living through their dedication and work.

May this year be safe, full of promise, work, and fun. We ask all this in the name of your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hand out tags.

Sermon: Be Curious

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.
Exodus 3:1-15

My sermon from the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (September 3, 2023) on Exodus 3:1:15

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Robert Altar is a professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley and he published a complete translation of the Hebrew Bible in 2018. Translations made by one person can be a bit problematic since their conscious and unconscious biases often show up in the work. Yet they also have the opportunity to notice how different themes and ideas are engaged with by the different books within the Bible. Professor Altar, after translating the sections devoted to Moses’s story, noticed something specific that the Biblical authors were paying attention to. He wrote: “the general rule in Exodus, and again in Numbers when the story continues, is that what is of interest about the character of Moses is what bears on his qualities as a leader – his impassioned sense of justice, his easily ignited temper, his selfless compassion, his feelings of personal inadequacy. Alone among biblical characters, he is assigned an oddly generic epithet – the man Moses. There may be some theological motivate for this designation, in order to remind us of his plainly human status, to ward off any inclination to deify the founding leader of the Israelite people, but it also suggests more concretely that Moses as forger of the nation and prince of prophets is, after all, not an absolutely unique figure but a [person]… bringing to the soul-trying tasks of leadership both the moral and temperamental resources and the all-too-human weaknesses that many … may possess.” Moses was more than an almost superhuman figure living through a biblical story full of blockbuster special effects. Moses was also a person with gifts, abilities, and experiences that shaped who he was. After being rescued from genocide by the midwives Shiphrah and Puah, Moses was raised as an Egyptian in the home of the the Pharoah’s daughter. He grew up, fully aware of his background and his current privilege. When he came upon an Egyptian brutalizing an Isrealite, Moses killed the Egyptian and then fled into the land of Midian located in the north-west corner of the Arabian Peninsula. While there, he made a new life for himself by marrying into the family of a local religious leader and took on the job of managing his father-in-law’s sheep. He lived there for the next forty years, never forgetting the complex identities that made up his story. One day, when the old grazing spots weren’t quite what they used to be, he led the sheep into someplace new where, on a mountain, a bush on fire refused to be burned up.

Now this moment in Moses’s story has, for centuries, sparked out imagination. Art depicting this scene usually has a large bush surrounded by different shadows, light, and color meant to inspire in us an overwhelming sense of God’s power and might. This is one of the many blockbuster special effects moments within Moses’s story so we imagined it had to be a bit over-the-top. Yet the details within this story invite us to imagine it in a slightly different way. The word we translate as bush is an ancient Hebrew word that is rarely used anywhere else in the text. In fact, it’s a word often applied to the plants that sort of fade into the background that we tend to not notice at all. God, the creator of the universe who will part the Red Sea, fill the Nile with blood, and cover Egypt with a bazillion frogs, chose to show up in a plant most of us wouldn’t even notice. Even a little fire wouldn’t get us to raise an eyebrow since we expect, and hope, for a God who does big things. And yet God appearing in the thing we often overlook also feels like the most God-like thing God can do. God’s work in this world can sometimes be over-the-top, making a splash that changes all our lives. But God is also deeply invested in the little things we do with each other that end up being the most important things after all. Forgiveness, mercy, an act of patience, a listening ear, and a little thing that says we care might not seem important on the outside but is vital for us to truly know we’re not alone. God, then, showing up in what we would first overlook feels a bit too on-the-nose when it comes to pointing out one of our very human character flaws. But if “not noticing” is part of who we are – what character trait did Moses have that made him do something different?

Long ago, a few rabbis noticed that our Bible doesn’t actually tell us when the bush started burning. It could have been lit up right as Moses looked at it or maybe it burned in the days, weeks, or months before he came near. We could, I think, stretch our spiritual imagination to wonder if this bush had been burning since the earth was made – a visible manifestation of the presence of God that everyone had the opportunity to see. Yet it took generations before someone walking by finally noticed it. That is, I think, one of the character traits that helped Moses be who God wanted him to be. Moses was deeply curious, able to notice what others didn’t. This curiosity was more than simply a willingness to ask questions; it enabled Moses to live in a state of constant wonder. The curiosity he held – a curiosity we all can truly have – is simply a trust that this moment isn’t the limit of what all our moments might be. Curiosity never forgets its history nor does it assume our story is the default story meant for all. Curiosity takes seriously our faults, our failures, and our relationships while embracing every single one of our joys. Curiosity knows we are not meant to be experts about everything, nor do we need to always have everything figured out. Instead, curiosity is a gift that opens us to the fullness of God. When we’re curious, words and phrases like “tell me more?” and “what do you mean?” and “your story is important for me to hear” fill the dozens of small interactions we have everyday with a sense of love and hope. Curiosity is always supposed to be a verb that shows how we, and others, are never alone. Being curious, asking questions, and knowing there’s always an opportunity for more is one of the most courageous things we can embrace since it trusts we aren’t finished growing into who God knows we can be.

I wonder, then, if noticing Moses’ curiosity can invite us to grow our own. When we take the entirety of his story seriously, we notice how Moses’ curiosity never let the status quo be the limit of what his story might be. His history, his experiences, and his journey with God helped open him to the God who was already around him. Moses was very aware of how his own struggles, character flaws, and imperfections might get in the way of all that God wanted him to do. Yet God knows that a life of faith is less about knowing everything and is all about trusting how we are already fully known. In our quest to be curious, the questions we ask shouldn’t be about trying to get the other person to agree with what we’ve already come up with. Rather they expand who we – and they – get to be. The gift of curiosity never lets us limit who God might be since God lived curiosity out loud by doing the very curious thing of living a very human story. It was this God of Moses who chose to grow, to experience change, to live, to die, and to rise while helping all of us notice what’s already around us. God embraced curiosity since curiosity trusts that there’s always more to come. And if God can be curious, then the least we can do is be as curious with ourselves, our families, our neighbors, and our world, too.

Amen.

Children’s Message: Different Images from the Bible for God (i.e. God as a pronoun)

So it’s my tradition, after the prayer of the day, to bring a message to all God’s children and I have a hymnal supplement. In 2006, our denomination came out with a new hymnal to replace the one that came out in the late 1970s. Stuff from this hymnal is what we reprint in our bulletin every Sunday – but that hymnal, the ELW, is 17 years old at this point. So last year, our denomination put out a supplement – named All Creation Sings – with new songs, new resources, and new orders for worship that we can try. Sometimes we use these new songs in our liturgy during communion and I’ll explore using them more in the coming months. Yet one thing I find really neat about these hymnals – and the supplement – is the special resources at the end of the book. For example, there’s a list in the ELW where a lot of our language for worship comes from and in All Creation Sings is a list of all different images for God. When the Bible talks about God – describes God – imagines God – compares God to things in the world – there’s a list of all that God is described as.

So let’s try that. Let’s imagine God. God is…God and our words can’t fully describe who God is. We have to use metaphors or descriptions to say who God is like. So who do you think God is like?

Go through the list. Examples include as a mother, as a man, as feet, as a bear, as a hen, and more. So many images!

You might notice that I tend to say “God” all the time – rather than use pronouns like he or she or they. And that’s because of a list like this. God is described in a lot of different ways that transfers what our words can do. Even the words in the Bible, while sacred, are still our words – so they are a little limited. So I just use God – and imagine that God represents all the things listed in scripture. God invites us to imagine God in all different kinds of ways – and when we want to know who and what God is like – we pay attention to Jesus because he shows us who God is, what love looks like, and how we have the power and responsibility to love like he does too.

Children’s Message: The Responsibility of the Keys

*Bring your car keys

So it’s my tradition, after the prayer of the day, to bring a message to all God’s children and I have something with me that I carry often in my pocket. It’s my keys. Let’s go through what is on my keys. I have a bunch of little pieces of plastic for the various reward programs that stores I attend have. They give me a special coupon if I give them permission to track everything that I buy. I have a library card, ikea card, shop rite, stop shop, and even a card for A&P grocery store which closed in 2015. I probably should throw that card out.

I also have keys for my home and keys for here at the church – like my office, the altar guild room, and the front doors in the sanctuary. And then I have these two keys – keys for my cars. Keys, for cars, are changing so these are a bit old skool. They have little buttons that will unlock doors but also this key that you insert into a door or into the engine to turn it on. You might see different kinds of keys, called FOBs, that allow you to turn your car on as long as you have it on you or in your car. So that shows you what a key does: it helps us enter the car, turn it on, and go.

Now we live in an area where having a car is sort of essential. It’s very difficult to walk to places since we don’t have sidewalks, homes are far apart, and we sometimes need to travel miles to go to school, to fields for sports, to work, and more. Not everyone lives like we do so not everyone needs, wants, or even uses a car. But thinking about what car keys do helps us lean into the story about Jesus we’re going to hear in our second reading from the Bible. Jesus and his friends are traveling around, preaching, teaching, and healing when they near the city of “Caesarea Philippi.” Caesarea Philippi was a newish city that was a very important city – and was named after the Roman Emperor whose title was “Caesar.” The city was full of soldiers, a market place, important government officials, and a lot of different religious buildings that were designed for people who didn’t believe in God. And among those buildings and statues that people thought described the different beings who controlled the universe, influenced lives, etc – was a statue dedicated to an old Roman emperor. Folks were acting and believing and treating as if even the Roman Emperor was someone with power like God or Jesus. It’s there, in sight of those buildings and the Roman military and all these things that said something other than God was in charge of it all – that Jesus asked his friends a question: who do people think I am? The disciples shared what people thought Jesus was. And then Jesus asked “who do you think I am?” and Peter said the Messiah which is a word we don’t use too often but is all about the One who makes God’s love real in our world. Jesus agrees with Peter and promises that his confession – his proclamation about who Jesus is – will be the strong foundation that the church is built on. We continue to think about, proclaim, reflect on who we say Jesus is – and Jesus keeps coming to us to remind us that Jesus is God’s love made real and how that changes the church, our lives, and the world.

Jesus then talks about keys. And the saying is a bit confusing which is why car keys might help us understand what Jesus is saying. Like how a key enables us to decide, with a car, where to go and to go there – Jesus is saying that because we know him, because of our baptism, because of our faith – we are going to jump into the driver’s seat of, like Jesus, helping make God’s love real in the world. That’s going to mean making decisions, making choices, and doing our best to know Jesus, spend time with Jesus, to pray, and to love like Jesus. And while this is a very powerful thing we get to do – it’s also a great responsibility. Jesus is trusting us – in all that we do, even if we don’t drive or don’t have car keys – to make loving decisions. That’s the freedom our faith gives us – the chance to make love, kindness, patience, hope, and mercy at the heart of everything we do because Jesus chooses each of us to, like him, make God’s love real in our world.

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 8/27/2023.

Sermon: Don’t Forget Your History

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.”

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him, “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Exodus 1:8-2:10

My sermon from the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (August 27, 2023) on Exodus 1:8-2:10.

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So there’s an entire genre of movies, shows, books, and comics devoted to “coming of age” stories. Typically within these stories a young person goes through a series of canon events that matures them into adulthood. Often these tales are funny, tragic, light hearted, or deeply emotional. And we can easily relate to them, even if they’re centered in a culture that isn’t our own, because we have either gone through our “coming of age” stories or hope to have one very soon. These stories remind us of who we are and how we, mostly, consider ourselves to be the mature people God calls us to be. We see ourselves through the eyes of the hero even if they’re going through something we never want to go through ourselves. I wonder, though, what would happen if instead of focusing on the hero, we saw ourselves as part of the wider story. Today’s words from the opening chapters of the book of Exodus are, on some level, the opening lines to a coming of age story that eventually raises Moses up as the person who will lead the Isralites out of slavery and into freedom. But it’s also a story centered on two women who refused to let the wider community rewrite its own history to the detriment of all.

The story begins in the years after Joseph and his family were reconciled. As you might recall from a few weeks ago, Joseph had a pretty traumatic life. Their father, Jacob, had continued the family tradition of naming one child as their favorite at the expense of everyone else. Joseph, instead of trying to keep the peace, wasn’t shy about rubbing this fact in the face of his 11 brothers. In response, the brothers did something horrific: they faked his death and sold him into slavery. Joseph quickly ended up in Egypt where he had no control over the violence done to his body nor the freedom to go wherever he wanted to go. After a series of dramatic events, he ended up as part of the Pharoah’s inner circle and, in the process, gained a lot of political power. But that didn’t really mean much since he was still enslaved. Eventually a famine spread through the entire area and Joseph’s skills enabled Egypt to thrive while everyone suffered. His father and brothers became refugees, coming to Egypt to find food. After a rather dramatic and tearful reunion, Joseph’s brothers were encouraged to settle the entire household inside Egypt itself. Their history up to this moment was pretty complicated but the brothers, Joseph, and the Egyptians, had worked together to build a new community that was more than what they were before. But as the years passed, this story was forgotten. The Egyptians grew suspicious of these people who didn’t look or talk or believe like they did. Their fear enabled the Egyptians to become resentful of these folks who had lived there for generations but were now labeled as foreigners. As the Israelites grew in size, the Egyptians became paranoid. They started to narrow their own history to the point where the Israelites could no longer be a part of it. They enslaved them, forcing them to build the cities that symbolized the might of their kingdom. And when this incredible violence failed to satisfy their xenophobia, they moved into the next stage of what this fear often brings.

Now the next part of the story started with an upside-down request. The Pharaoh ordered midwives to kill all the sons born to Israelite women. He told Shiphrah and Puah, whose vocation was all about bringing life into the world to, instead, do the opposite. Rather than remembering their shared humanity, the Pharaoh chose to let fear consume him, his community, and his people. This was an extreme attempt to end the Israelites’ story and we get the sense that all Egyptians either supported this endeavor or didn’t think that they could, or should, speak up. In light of his power, authority, and a history that pretended to be something other than it was, he assumed this request would be answered and supported. And yet, in the heat of this overwhelming moment, these two midwives said “no.”

One of the interesting things about this story is that we don’t really know who these women were. We never hear their internal thoughts nor discover a coming of age story that describes how they could, in the future, defy the supreme leader in the land. The only thing we’re told is that Shiphrah and Puah feared God. That was all they were equipped with to do the opposite of what the Pharaoh ordered them to do. The word “fear” is a bit confusing in English since we define it as an extremely unpleasant emotion caused by a belief that someone or something is dangerous. We either try to avoid fear at all times or limit it to something manageable like riding a roller coaster or watching a horror movie. Yet the fear Shiphrah and Puah held wasn’t something designed to be overcome nor was it the opposite of faith. It was, instead, rooted in a faith that trusted that their God was always near. Fear is more than a feeling; it’s a signal that we need to slow down and pay attention. Rather than assuming everything is fine with our status quo, fear invites us to notice that something more is around us. Fear can be helpful, keeping us safe during difficult situations. But fear can also consume us, changing how we live our lives today by warping and forgetting the fullness of our story. The fear that grounded Shiphrah and Puah wasn’t the fear that fed the actions of the Egyptians. It was, instead, a reverence that kept them focused on the God who was active in, around, and through them. This fear didn’t consume them; it, instead, helped them to remember who they were and whose they were while being surrounded by another’s unjustified worry and fear. This doesn’t mean they weren’t fearful of the Pharaoh, the Egyptians, and what could happen if they were caught; nor does it mean that they, as human beings, didn’t have their own biases and prejudices that shaped their relationships with others. But rather than letting their fear or the fear around them limit who they could be, the fear of God enabled them to say “no” in spite of everything else that was going around them.

Now when we look at the wider Christian story, we have plenty of examples of Christians using their faith to commit the same kinds of genocidal acts the Egyptians are described as doing within the book of Exodus. And while it would be easy for us to ignore that part of our own history by focusing solely on the heroes of our faith, I’m not sure if that’s the most faithful response. We don’t need to rewrite our story; instead, we need to own it – to point to all the complications and joys and sorrow and evil and good that has shaped us into who we are today. God believes that we, though sinners, have the capacity to grasp the fullness of our history since God, in Jesus, chose to enter that same history and let it grow in the nearly 2000 years since he rose from the dead. Jesus didn’t ignore our complicated story; instead, he faced it head on and, through the Cross, showed us how it can become something more. Our urge to celebrate the Shiphrahs and Puahs of the faith is one that we should embrace as part of our collective coming of age story that shows what the kingdom of God is all about. And yet we also need to remember that we’re not always the heroes we want to be because fear can warp who we truly are. There are times when we will feel as if we’re not equipped to do what needs to be done to share and hold and learn and grow from the complicated history that define our lives and our world. But if a little fear is all that was needed for Shiphrah and Puah to make a difference in their world, your baptism and your faith is all you need to do the same. God knows that your story – your full story – should be known and that it will never limit who, in Christ, you get to be. Rather, you and I and the entire church will continue to grow through our own coming of age story that leads into the age of Christ – where God’s mercy, God’s love, and God’s peace is given to all.

Amen

Sermon: You Don’t Need to Be Silent With God

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.
Matthew 15:21-28 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 11th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (August 20, 2023) on Matthew 15:21-28.

So I noticed that after I returned from my vacation, one of my cats became a bit uncomfortable with silence. When we got back, she acted as if we never left in the first place which is her standard operating procedure. But around two o’clock that morning, while I was fast asleep, something changed. She was on the other side of the house and began to meow. The meows were soft, at first, but quickly grew louder as she came over to my side of the building. At first, I thought the smoke alarm was going off so I woke up, ran out of my room, and saw a 10 pound ball of fur meowing at me. I assumed that maybe something outside had surprised her and after getting her to quiet down, I went back to sleep. I didn’t think much of it because cats will be cats but when the next night rolled around, she did it again; and again; and again. For the last few weeks, whenever the silence becomes too much, she feels the need to fill it with sound. It isn’t the most fun experience but it is, I think, something most of us can relate to. Whenever we find ourselves caught in a silence overflowing with tension, worry, or fear, we desperately want to fill it with something else. There are times when we welcome the silence and other times when it completely overwhelms us. And there are other moments, out-of-the-ordinary moments, that surprise us – like when Jesus responded to a mother with silence.

Now there are plenty of times in Matthew where Jesus is silent. He’s often pretty quiet when he goes off to pray and he chose to answer many questions during his trial and execution with silence. But his actions in today’s story are a bit peculiar since they don’t seem very Jesus-like. Jesus and his friends had taken a bit of a detour, heading towards the cities of Sidon and Tyre located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The region was home to ancient cities who had fought against Israel for hundreds of years over power, money, and their faith. And while the Roman Empire had united the region in an uneasy peace through a robust military occupation, the cultural and religious barriers between the two regions remained. Jesus crossed the border to visit an area where folks like him were not the so-called “norm.” He was the outsider many would have wanted to avoid. Yet this unnamed woman, identified as a descendent of the ancient enemies of Israel, came to see him. We can assume, I think, that she must have been pretty desperate to, in front of all her neighbors and friends, transgress the cultural and religious rules she and Jesus abided by. And it makes sense because her daughter needed help. Her first words to Jesus were a plea for mercy, admitting the hurt and pain consuming her family’s life. Jesus heard her cry, listened to her words, and did what none of us ever wanted him to do: he answered her with silence.

We, in our own ways, are familiar with this kind of silence. We have, through our struggles, traumas, and various crises, felt as if God was silent with us too. What we want is for God to break the silence – to make the promises declared to us in our baptism – real. The healing, the love, and the hope we see in the Bible is something we want ourselves – and our loved ones – too. And when that doesn’t happen – we are the Canaanite woman. Our text doesn’t put her feelings or her thoughts into words, instead letting the words spoken by the disciples fill the void left by the choice Jesus made. They wanted her gone, so they told Jesus to send her away. And while Jesus doesn’t do exactly what they asked, he does let the woman know that his mission in the world doesn’t include her or her daughter. It’s a bit of an odd thing for Jesus to say since non-Jews have been a part of his story since the magi brought gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh when he was very young. But here, in the face of deep human need, he told the woman she wasn’t included in what God was up to. This isn’t the fun Jesus, the kind Jesus, the Jesus we lean on when times are hard. But it is the Jesus who puts into words and actions what the silence from God feels like. What she needed back then and what we need during our own moments of fear and worry, is for a God whose heart breaks open instead of being closed and cold. She, though, had a very different – and the very human experience – of, in the presence of God, feeling completely alone. The silence she experienced was a silence of fear and worry; a silence of shame and humiliation; a silence of wonder and one filled with way too many questions. It was a silence we know we’ll – and one we inflict on others who don’t live or act or believe like we do. It’s a silence built on the expectations we use to limit what love can do.

And maybe that’s why Jesus, after crossing these cultural, religious, and physical borders, did the same. For a moment, he lived everything this silence represents. Jesus wasn’t only the one who walked on water, calmed storms, and fed thousands with a charcuterie board consisting of a little bread and fish. He’s also very human – who chose to grow up, to be cared for, and to be so emptied of divine power that, when he prayed in a garden before he was arrested and dragged to trial, he experienced the silence that empties our soul. Jesus responded to the Canaanite woman with this silence and when he and his friends broke it, they showed what this silence can do. But when she was confronted by that silence, she refused to let Jesus be anything other than the God she believed him to be. In the words of Professor Richard Ward, this is what “faith and fulfillment looks like.” It’s through Jesus “whom God makes salvation and justice happen,” fulfilling an ancient promise that Israel would bring this light to all. “It is [this] hope that [drew] this Canaanite woman to Jesus with [a] plea” to break through what silence brings. She refused to let this silence be the last word when it comes to God’s love. And she called all of God’s agents – even Jesus himself – to fulfill the promise God already declared for everyone. When we find ourselves wrapped by a silence that is not the kind of quiet which helps us connect with our God, we can choose to be like this woman and never let go of the promises of God. That does not mean our prayers will be answered in the way we want or that we, or our loved ones, will be fully healed. But it does mean the silences we live through will not be what determines our value or worth. We can, and should, be persistent in asking for help, asking all of God’s people to make the responsibilities given to us in baptism – the responsibility and call to love, to support, and to serve – to make those responsibilities real in the lives of others. And when the silence feels too much and all we can do is let out cries fill empty halls in the middle of the night, we can trust that the One who heard the Canaanite woman; the One who grew into God’s inclusive promise; the One who faced the loneliness of death with arms stretched wide, open to all; and the One who broke through the silence of the tomb with a resurrection of hope and new possibility – this One, this Jesus, – will not let the silence be the last word of our story too.

Amen.

Sermon: Wrong but not all Bad

Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. These are the descendants of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him an ornamented robe. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.

Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.

He came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” “I am seeking my brothers,” he said; “tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’ ” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornamented robe that he wore, and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

Then they sat down to eat, and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.
Genesis 37:1-4,12-28

My sermon from the 11th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (August 13, 2023) on Genesis 37:1-4,12-28.

Professor Amey Adkins-Jones, in her commentary on our first reading from the book of Genesis, asked a compelling question: “is it possible for these brothers to be completely and terribly wrong, without being all bad?” That question isn’t easy to answer but it is one we hope would be asked about us when we’re the problem in any particular situation or experience. To answer that question truthfully, we need to bring nuance into our reading of this story. By examining the context, the situation, and the meaning within its words, we invite this story from the past to reveal who we are today. And when we do that work well, we grow into the new life Jesus has already given to us.

Now our reading begins many years after the story we heard last week where Jacob wrestled with the “man” at the Jabbok river. For decades, Jacob’s behavior of recognizing and manipulating other people for his own benefit had bred success. But, at Jabbok, everything finally caught up with him. His twin brother Esau was coming to see him and, it was assumed, he would try and get revenge on the one who cheated him out of his birthright. Jacob did everything he could to delay the violence he thought was coming his way. And when he was at his most vulnerable, God showed up and, in a wrestling match, changed Jacob’s name to Israel. When Esau finally arrived, he and Jacob were reconciled and we’d expect that such a life-affirming moment would encourage Jacob to reflect on why things turned out the way they did. But when we finally meet his son Joseph, we notice how old family behaviors had returned. Way back in chapter 32 when we first met Jacob and Esau, we saw how they weren’t only competitive against each other but that each one was also a parents’ favorite. Issac, their father, preferred Esau because Esau was a hunter who kept the dinner table full of meat. Rebecca, their mother, preferred Jacob but we’re not told exactly why that was. This favoritism was more than one parent simply being more comfortable with one son rather than the other. It, instead, grew to the point where all of them manipulated each other so that one child’s future came at the expense of the other. These behaviors and actions shaped who Jacob and Esau knew themselves to be. And as they grew older, the trauma they were given became a template for parenthood that they used with their children. Years later, Jacob copied his parents by picking a favorite. Like his mother and father, the reason for it is pretty thin since Benjamin, not Joseph, was actually his youngest child. But regardless of the reason for Jacob’s favoritism, its consequences were very real. And this trauma he inherited was lived out through his children.

When we meet Joseph, the first thing we learn about him is he’s a bit of a tattletale. He’s also, as we hear later in the story, a dreamer but not necessarily in a good way. In the part of the story we didn’t read out loud, Joseph shared with his brothers two dreams. These dreams, unlike the previous ones described in the book of Genesis, were not labeled as visions from God that anyone could understand. These dreams required interpretation and Joseph assumed he was going to be the hero of it all. He described dreams that glorified him at the expense of his brothers and his parents. And he had internalized his father’s favoritism to the point where he couldn’t see how these dreams also revealed his own hidden desires. The dreams, his need to keep sharing them, and his status as the most preferred child through the gift of a special jacket, made his brothers pretty resentful. It wasn’t long before the brothers’ jealousy consumed them and they looked for an opportunity to end Joseph’s story.

Now I’m not trying to let these brothers off the hook or to cut them some slack since their trauma does not justify the violence they chose to inflict on their brother. But I wonder if by noticing the intergenerational trauma within the story, we can better notice what this word from God reveals about us. It isn’t difficult to make Joseph a hero, his brothers the villains, and turn the horrors of the rest of Joseph’ story – including the slavery, the famine, the betrayal, and many incidents of violence, into a good that we label as “God’s plan.” But what if we, instead, borrowed words from Prof. Adkins-Jones and “cast his brothers not as evil people but as hurt people?” How would our lives be changed if we chose to recognize the hurt in our own lives while refusing to pretend as if the consequences of this inherited trauma are, so how, not real? This isn’t about seeking blame or labeling ourselves as victims or even trying to push aside all the good that has been a part of our lives. Rather, it’s about choosing to not let any story – even a family story – get in the way of who we truly are through the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. It’s difficult to be a beloved child of God when we have absorbed and put into practice old traumas we did not create on our own. To move through this past, we sometimes have to do what we don’t want to do: such as naming the different ways our parents and guardians were unable to fully live into the vocation of parenthood God gave them. We would also, in the same breath, recognize how we – through our own vocations as grandparents, uncles, aunts, friends, neighbors, church members, and even children – have failed to live into those vocations too. It’s okay, I think, to admit that our parents and guardians weren’t perfect and that the phrase “that’s just how it was” isn’t always an excuse for behaviors that perpetuate hurt and harm. We, instead, can be brave and courageous by noticing the ways we have been a Jacob or a Joseph or even one of the brothers. It’s easier to say this than to actually do it and I’ll admit it is weird to talk about this while knowing I’ve already probably passed on to my own children some intergenerational trauma too. I hope that when they have the courage to tell me how off I was that I won’t get defensive or turn into a worse version of myself. I pray I’ll be able to recognize that this challenge is one of the ways we learn how to wrestle with – and not against – our neighbors, our family, our friends, and our God. And how it is through this kind of struggle that we learn how “[fairness, equality, and favor isn’t about] by everyone getting the same thing” but by helping people get what they need so they can feel like they truly belong. The work of working through intergenerational trauma enables us to stop defining favor and blessing as a competition that forces us against each other but that we are truly part of God’s vision where greatness and wholeness does not come at “the expense of others.” This kind of work is hard and it feels as impossible as walking on water because we’re human and we never know how emotional, spiritual, and faithful this whole thing will turn out. But it is, I think, something God trusts us to do because we have a Jesus who has done this work too. Jesus didn’t let the story of the disciples, their families, their fear, their worry, their sin, or even their unfaithful actions during his earthly ministry to be all they could become. Instead, he reached out, grabbed them by the hand, and promised that – through it all – they would never sink. Your story is, even now, wrapped up in God and Jesus promises that our defensiveness, our worry, our shame, or our need to always come out on top, will not be the limit of who we get to be. Instead, because of baptism and through the gift of faith, you are more than you once were because Jesus has you and will help you become so much more.

Amen.

Sermon: A God We Wrestle With (and who, luckily, wrestles with us)

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
Genesis 32:22-31

My sermon from the 10th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (August 6, 2023) on Genesis 32:22-31.

So at 10:00 am last Sunday, my brother-in-law and I were setting up a large canopy for our day at the beach. Eight kids between the ages of 6 months and 11 years old were already covered up to their neck in sand and I was really paying attention to my phone. It took a few minutes to notice the string of text messages letting me know the livestream at CLC wasn’t working. Once I saw the texts, I wrote back and immediately opened up Facebook to see what was up. But my help wasn’t needed since Karen had everything working. Since I was already plugged into worship, I settled into my beach chair and joined in. It was wonderful seeing how you embraced Sydney, our guest preacher. And I enjoyed having the gentle roar of ocean waves as a backdrop for our prayers and music. We’ve known, for quite a while, that not everyone can physically gather together for worship on a Sunday morning. Some beloved children of God can’t safely leave their home while others have vocations that fill their Sunday mornings in different ways. There is something powerful about seeing the body of Christ physically together but it’s also fun to pray the Lord’s prayer with our toes buried in the sand. The gift of technology has made real something the church has always proclaimed: that the body of Christ truly extends across all space and time. For centuries, this was hard to internalize since listening to the Word and celebrating the Lord’s Supper was something we needed to be physically together to do. But now we can see, hear, and do worship even when an Ocean or a Sunday morning committed keeps us physically apart. Our old experience of living as the body of Christ is something we’re all learning how to wrestle with. And as we heard in our first reading from the book of Genesis, wrestling through these kinds of boundaries is what we are called to do.

The Jabbok River, known today as the Zarqa, begins northeast of the city of Amman in modern-day Jordan before turning west and heading straight for the Jordan River. For centuries, it served as a kind of national boundary, marking the place where ancient Israel ended and the kingdom of Ammon began. Yet before it was a political boundary, it was a personal one for a set of twins who had, for decades, competed against one another. Approaching the river from the south was Esau, Issac’s first born, whose impulsive appetites often got him into trouble. Across from him, coming from the north, was Jacob who, years before, manipulated his way into a position of authority and power that made him, and not Esau, the heir of their father’s household. Esau was, to put it mildly, pretty annoyed at the shenanigans caused by his brother but before he could get his revenge, Jacob fled. Both did their best to live as if their brother didn’t exist by creating large households full of wives, children, servants, and wealth. Esau, though, did a bit better and created a private army that followed his every command. As the years turned, their worlds gradually grew closer together and soon the Jabbok river was the only boundary keeping them apart.

Jacob didn’t know what Esau was going to do but he assumed it wasn’t good. As he neared the Jabbok, Jacob’s anxiety grew. He didn’t think a little water in the wilderness was going to be enough to protect the future he already built for himself so Jacob did his best to make it bigger. He decided to send gifts and servants to Esau as a kind of bribe. But when one group left, Jacob’s anxiety grew and so he sent more people and more gifts to stop the future he believed was coming his way. Nothing he did seemed to lessen his fear so even sent his spouse, his children, and the future God promised to him towards what he assumed was coming his way. And soon Jacob was all he had left while standing on the bank of Jabbok river. Everything he built and valued about himself was across the boundary and in his brother’s hands. The only one who had yet to cross, or so he thought, was himself. And then, in the middle of the night, a wrestling match broke out.

Now Jacob’s opponent in the wrestling match is a bit weird since the so-called man doesn’t fit our image of God or God’s angels. They aren’t usually worried about their identity being revealed when the dawn eventually breaks. But I wonder if the “man’s” identity isn’t meant to be the focus of the story. Instead, it’s about what Jacob did: he wrestled. And while waiting to cross the boundary of the Jabbok, Jacob wrestled with more than God. He was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with his past, his story, and the future he tried so hard to create. He wrestled with everything, refusing to let go because, by this point, it was all he had left. He thought he was at the boundary into a future he did not want. But as he wrestled, a new reality came to life. He had, already, crossed the boundary since everything he said and did was already influenced by it. His story had become so shaped by what he thought might happen that he even threw the future God promised to him at it, hoping that could make it go away. The life Jacob hoped for – the life he thought made it good – had been transformed by the fear he refused to let go. He couldn’t imagine anything else to hold onto which is why he, and all of us, need a God who chooses to grab a hold on us. We need a baptism that affirms, in a very public way, the love God breathed into us when we took our first breaths. We need the gift of faith to show us that we never wrestle anything alone. We need the gift of a community to remind us that our worry and our anxiety do not make us unacceptable to God. We need to hear – to trust – and to experience how we really are part of the body of Christ. When we come to a boundary we are anxious to cross, that boundary has already crossed us. Our thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and point of view have been influenced and changed by the fear at the heart of what we think will come next. We imagine the boundary is still ahead of us even though, for all practical purposes, it’s already behind us. So God, through grace, holds us while we wrestle with what we have yet to work through. This struggle isn’t about overcoming what we’re facing; instead, it’s about not letting the unknowing that has already influenced us continue to be what defines us. We get to strive towards God and into God’s future because God, in Christ, has already shown how far God will strive for us.

Because of what God has already done, we then get to let the body of Christ rather than a fearful future shape the lives we choose to live. If we spend our Sundays inside the sanctuary, we need to always act as if the entire body of Christ is with us. When we run into a fellow church goer after not seeing them in-person in awhile, our words shouldn’t feel as if we’re accusing them of unfaithfulness. If we, through the living of our lives, find our toes buried in the sand on a Sunday morning, living as the body of Christ will ask us to make our worship more intentional and visible. We might post a comment to share that we’re here or make a plan to click play on the video later in the day. When we do that, we’re not watching church; we’re doing church with the community our God has called us to hold onto. We grow through this worship by proclaiming to each other that our fears, worries, and anxieties will not be what defines us. Rather, it’s the Lord who binds us that will always make us who we are. Sometimes that support will require us to humbly listen to each other when the worries become too much. We also make sure to encourage and make sure no one feels like they’re somehow less because their anxiety requires them to access the God-given gifts of therapy and appropriate medications. We, as the church, don’t let old boundaries we’re wrestling with get in the way of the love, hope, and forgiveness God has given us. Together, we strive for God because Jesus, through the Cross, has already shown how far God always strives for us.

Amen.

Sermon: Wheat and Weeds and You/Me

[Jesus] put before [the crowd] another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while everybody was asleep an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 8th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (July 23, 2023) on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.

So I originally thought my sermon today would be a bit shorter than usual since we’re singing so many Christmas carols. Sometimes the best way to experience the presence of God is to be surrounded by it through song. The songs we sing aren’t just heard; they’re also felt through the vibrations caused by the organ, the piano, our speakers, and our own body as we join in the hymns that have fed the faithful for generations. God’s story is, for us, an incarnated story because God’s promises are meant for the lives we actually live.

But there’s also another reason why today’s sermon feels like it’s allowed to be shorter and that’s because Jesus’ words speak for themselves. Jesus was a storyteller who used metaphors and everyday experiences to reveal truths about the kingdom of God. We call these stories parables and I’ve often said that the key to understanding these stories is by noticing the parts that seem weird. This takes a little work on our part since an everyday experience for us might not exactly match what folks experienced in ancient Israel and Palestine. However, when we finally unpack Jesus’ words, we often discover a character saying something odd or noticing how this reasonable sounding scene is anything but. The absurd bits within the stories are the key that reveals what God’s kingdom is all about. And when we make time to notice all that’s weird, our faith grows. So it makes sense that when we first listened to today’s parable, we kept waiting to hear something weird. And yet the odd thing about this story is how it all kind of makes sense. The setting of a field full of wheat and weeds seems pretty normal and the request to pull out the weed right away is something most of us would agree too. The decision by the farmer to let the weeds and wheat grow together seems weird at first. But when we realize that the wheat and weeds mentioned in this parable looked the same while they grew up, the landowner’s choice to wait until both could be easily separated makes sense. The field, while it grows, will contain a mix of good and bad. And when we extend this parable beyond its literal setting and integrate into our lives, Jesus’ words describe a realistic vision of our world. Within our communities, our neighborhoods, our country, and even our families, there exists the holy, the helpful, the hurtful, the unholy, and everything in between. We only need to exist in this world for a little bit to realize how true this metaphor is. Yet Jesus’ words also reveal how we, in our own ways, are full of wheat and weeds too. This isn’t Jesus trying to tarnish our self-esteem or become some kind of self-help coach. Rather Jesus was pointing out how we, at the same time, participate and resist what God is doing in our world. Jesus wants us to see how sin, self-centeredness, pride, and greed tries to interfere with what God’s love might do. We are not merely good people who occasionally screw up or sinful folks beyond redemption. We are, instead, just as complicated as our communities and our world. We are a field within a field that sometimes loses where we are meant to go. Yet our God chooses to keep planting seeds within it all so that God’s kingdom can grow.

When compared to the other stories Jesus told, today’s parable isn’t that weird. But it does, I think, reveal something weird about us. When we map the different parts within this story to concrete things in our world, the connections we first make feel easy. The landowner is the One who plants seeds full of grace and truth while the field represents where these seeds take root. Those who serve the landowner have answered the call to tend the places where seeds grow and they recognize how difficult that tending can be. The reapers – those who collect the harvest – show how the world, as it currently is, isn’t the limit of what the world will be. God’s kingdom, made real in the life of Jesus, will become real so that pain, sorrow, and brokenness will be no more. Even without Jesus’ explanation, we can easily map Jesus’ words into our world. Yet when it comes to placing us within Jesus’ story, we don’t always get it right. Since Jesus talks about people, our first instinct is to identify ourselves as one of the people in the story too. We know we’re not the landowner nor do we, in our context, want to see ourselves as enslaved or as the evil one. What’s left, then, is the reapers which is a role were particularly drawn to. Deciding who is wheat and who is a weed is something we do, practically, everyday. And while we often use biblical images and quotes from scripture to justify the judgments we make, we rarely admit how we, ourselves, are full of those same weeds and wheat too. We are not called to excuse behaviors and actions that harm, demean, or demand others to be anything other than the beloved children of God they already are. But we are, I think, invited to wonder why it’s easier for us to reap rather than to patiently tend to the seeds God has already planted. This kind of wondering leads to difficult questions such as: what do we put our trust in? Are our values dominated by our need for comfort or do we work hard to cause discomfort in others? Do we choose to root ourselves in traditions that are merely a sanitized version of a past that never really existed? Or are we seeking a future full of change just for change’s sake? Do we want a kingdom where everyone’s story matches our own or do we prefer the world we’re used to rather than letting ourselves embrace what the world might become? When we spend time reflecting on these questions, we start to notice how we, at the same time, are both wheat and weed, saint and sinner. We are not perfect, we are fully whole, and we are not the hero in every story. Instead we are a people in need of grace, of love, and of a hope that does not depend solely on us. What we need, then, is Christmas – which is why Christmas came. We are not called to be reapers since that kind of judgment is reserved only for God. We can, though, give thanks that through baptism and faith, we have already been granted a seed of grace that will grow. When it seems as if the weeds are all around us or if the wheat within us is nowhere to be found, Jesus’ parable reminds us that there’s still a choice we get to make. Instead of practicing our judgment and doing our best to be the reaper God does not call us to be, we can choose to always make our best, most reverent, more loving guess no matter what comes our way. That does not mean that we’ll always be right or that our intentions should outweigh the impact of the choices we make. But it does keep us rooted in a love so big, so grand, and so weird that shows us how God’s story, our story, and the world’s story keeps going through the Crosses we often build.

Amen.