Strike the Rock

Margie Quinn

One hundred hours. That’s the commonly cited statistic for how long a human body can typically survive at “average” temperatures without access to water. That is roughly four days. The temperature in the Sinai Peninsula, where Moses leads the people in this story, is 81 degrees today. You can imagine how hot it was just a few months ago and even 81 degrees in the desert…I would be grumbling. In such extreme heat and exposure to sun, the timeline for survival shortens considerably. Claude Piantadosi writes: “At 90°F survival time with limited activity easily can be decreased by a factor of two.”

Now we’re down to fifty hours. Exertion — such as walking long distances in the day time, carrying one’s belongings, tents, and small children, and wrangling livestock along the way — shortens the timeline even further. “Sustained high sweat rates can reduce estimated survival time without drinking water to as little as seven hours, or approximately the time it takes to walk twenty miles,” Anathea Portier-Young writes. “One long, day’s march on an unusually, but not impossibly, hot, June day was all it would take to finish God’s people.” Because they had no water.          

On our immersion trip to Tuscon back in June, Jeff, Dair, Liam, Meda, Quinn, Calin and a few other friends and I learned the impact of what it looks like to walk in the desert with no water. One morning, we woke up very early and met up with a guy named Joel in the Sonoran Desert. Joel wore a baggy, Hawaiian shirt, aviator glasses and pants that were too big for him. He told us about his dog named Noodles. Joel wasn’t some flashy guy in a crisp uniform. He was just a concerned man who told me, “I don’t believe in any religion, I just don’t want people dying in the desert.”

 Joel was with an organization called Humane Borders, whose mission statement as it reads on the website is: to save desperate people from a horrible death by dehydration and exposure. Every week at the crack of dawn, even this week, Joel drives around in his beat-up truck in the Sonoran Desert, checking on the water barrels, testing the water pH and refilling any that need water because just in 2023 alone, we have lost 500 of our siblings in the desert to exposure and dehydration. Joel knows the name of every water barrel in the desert (they give all the barrels a nickname). He does this because he doesn’t want people dying in the desert. There should be water.  

When we meet our Israelites in Exodus today, they wonder, too, “Why is there no water?” But let’s back up.

In 15: 22, Moses has crossed the Red Sea, led the Israelites out of enslavement, saved them from the wrath of the Egyptians and after three days in the wilderness, they begin to complain. They can’t find any water and the water they DO find tastes bitter. So, Moses cries out to God who shows Moses a piece of wood. Moses throws it in the water and the water becomes sweet. And there is enough.

How quickly we forget that there is enough.

Two weeks later, the Israelites complain again, going as far as to long for their time in Egypt under captivity where at LEAST they could eat scraps of food, even if they were enslaved. So, God hears them and rains bread down from heaven, asking them to gather just enough for that day. They look at it and go, “What is it?” God tells them to gather what they need, no more and no less but of course some of them gather a little bit more, like those people who hoarded toilet paper during Covid. Rightfully so, the folks that gathered more than they needed looked at their leftover bread at nighttime and find worms in it. It’s like when I open my pantry and forget that I had purchased a loaf of bunny bread and see that is blue from mold. God makes their bread foul-smelling, too.

How quickly they forget that there is enough.

Right before we get to our passage today, we learn that God was going to provide manna for the Israelites for the next forty years. Now we get to Exodus 17, and again, the people start whining that there is no water to drink.  Interestingly enough, the Hebrew syntax here actually favors, “There was not enough water for the people to drink. In fact, geographically, if they had just turned the corner, they would have found a stream.

I call this “spiritual amnesia.” We forget the crossing of the Red Sea, the manna and quail, the bitter water turned sweet and God’s ever-present faithfulness to us in times of scarcity and need.

And yet, I would quarrel and grumble, too! I’m exhausted, my feet hurt, my mouth is parched and when I get to my next resting place, I discover again that there is no water.

Is God among me or not? As Anathea Portier-Young writes, “If God is supposedly with you, in the midst very organs, blood stream, and cells that require water for nutrition, metabolism, temperature regulation, waste removal, shock absorption and more — why is there no water?”
           So, Moses cries out to the Lord. The Hebrew word here is tsa’aq, a word that is exceptionally strong, often used in response to life-threatening circumstances, like when the Egyptians were gaining speed on the Israelites as they fled for the Red Sea and Moses cried out to the Lord.  “What am I to do?” Moses cries out here. “They’re gonna stone me!”

God’s response leaves Moses in a vulnerable position. God asks Moses to put himself out in front: “go on ahead of the people” (Exodus 17:5). The Hebrew verb is ‘br, “to cross over”, followed by the preposition liphnê, literally “to or before the face of.” That is, Moses must cross in front of the people, and witness their anger, fear, and insistence. “In so doing,” Anathea Portier-Young writes, “he will also see the need that is written upon their bodies and in their faces, and he will have to confront and respond to the magnitude of their thirst.” Moses takes that walk, probably one of the longest of his life, and heads up to the rock of Horeb.

He doesn’t go alone, though. He grabs his trusty shepherd’s staff, the same one that has played a role in multiple miracles involving snakes (Exodus 4:2-4), blood-red water (7:14–25), thunder and hail (9:23), locusts (10:13), and the splitting of the sea (14:16). Perhaps the staff is weathered and stained, like a well-worn Hawaiian shirt.

In any case, God commands Moses to go to Horeb with some of the elders of Israel. Remember, this is the same place where Moses got his call, where God met Moses from within a burning bush, “signaling both God’s attention to the people’s suffering and God’s choice to be in the fiery midst of it,” Anathea Portier-Young continues. God shows up in this surprising way as if to say, “I see you, and I am right here.” God’s standing before Moses upon the rock is a bodily testament to God’s presence in the place of contention and thirst.

Strike the rock, God says, and water will come out of it for the people to drink. And it will be enough. Moses obeys, even begrudgingly as he decides to name the place Massa and Meribah: testing and quarreling. This is a reminder to God’s people that when they continue to ask, “Is the Lord among us?” the answer is always yes.

 Yes, there IS enough. There is enough water from the rock. There is enough manna and quail. There is enough from a mysterious man who takes a little boy’s loaf and fish and turns it into plenty. There is enough from a guy named Joel in a Hawaiian shirt who checks those water barrels even today. There is enough.

The life-giving gift of water is symbolic of the ultimate goal that God’s children may not only survive in this wilderness but that they might flourish. Even as they remain in a wilderness place, God provides water and says that there is enough.  

Today is world communion Sunday. As we celebrate this table with Christians all over the world, I feel convicted that for me, there has always been enough. Today, not everyone in our world has enough bread or enough juice to partake in this Holy feast with us. I think I want to remain convicted as I come to the table every week that my commitment as a Christian is to take as much as I need (and not more) and then to go out and to strike the rock so that others, like our friends at Room in the Inn, like our friends in Flint and Louisiana and in Grundy County might have enough. I come to the table, and I try not to take more than I need and then I go out and find my own staff and put on my own Hawaiin shirt or my own wacky pair of earrings and I look for places where there is still thirst, where people are still asking, “Is the Lord among us or not?”    

Church, who are those in your midst who thirst for water, who lack what they need to survive? What surprising resources will your landscape yield to meet their needs? On what rock are we as the Church ensuring that everyone may know that the Lord is among us because the Lord is working through us. We aren’t waiting for people “out there” to do it. We are going out to the woods and finding our own stick, whittling it down and looking for the places in our lives where people thirst. We come to this table to get reinvigorated and re-fed and then to go out and have enough stamina and courage, like Joel, to check the water barrels and to be reminded week after week that when we sit with our friends at Room in the Inn, when we find the places where people thirst in Nashville and beyond, that the Lord is among us and working through us. All we have to do is strike the rock. Amen.

A desire for shared joy

Frans de Waal is a biologist who teaches in the psychology department at Emory. He and his team taught a group of capuchin monkeys to trade pebbles for pieces of food. I watched a video of a monkey in a crate, separated from the lab worker by an acrylic panel with a few holes in it, large enough for the monkey’s hand. The monkey reaches into a small box of pebbles, takes one, offers it to the lab worker, and receives a juicy piece of cucumber. All of the monkeys in the group have learned this behavior, and when they’re not already full after breakfast, they happily exchange pebbles for food, a dozen times or more in a row.

The team modified the experiment so there were two monkeys in separate crates, side by side.[1] The monkey on the right offers a pebble to the lab worker and receives a piece of cucumber. The monkey on the left watches. Then the monkey on the left offers the lab worker a pebble and gets a piece of cucumber. All is well.

Now the monkey on the right offers the lab worker another pebble and gets a grape – that’s like monkey candy. And the monkey on the left is watching. Now he reaches through the hole, pebble in hand, and the lab worker gives him a piece of cucumber. You can tell he’s not happy. He takes half a bite, and throws the rest into the corner, his eyes on the scene in the other crate, where his buddy gives a pebble and gets a grape.

The monkey on the left gets agitated, grabs a pebble, eagerly reaches through the hole, and puts it into the lab worker’s hand. He gets a piece of cucumber, again, and this time he doesn’t even take a bite: he throws it back through the hole, visibly angry, and starts shaking his crate in protest.

All the capuchins in the group do this. They happily munch on pieces of cucumber until they see their buddy in the other crate who gets to eat a grape and they don’t. It violates what we would call their sense of fairness.

Had the workers in the vineyard not seen what the others were paid, all would have gone home happy, we may safely presume, from the first to the last. It’s like the owner of the vineyard did all he could to make the lack of fairness obvious.

Managers and business owners hear this story and wonder what kind of operation the owner of the vineyard is running. How does he recoup his labor costs?

Union reps listen, and they are adamant that you can’t pay some workers for one hour’s work what their fellow-workers make in an entire day.

Take the story to the corner of the parking lot at Home Depot where out-of-work people gather, waiting for someone to hire them, and they smile. They know how hard it is to make a full day’s wage with hourly pay. They know the desperate disappointment of watching truck after truck drive by.

When Jesus first told this parable, many farmers in Galilee had lost their land, and they had to make a living as day laborers. Mid-size and large farms, many of them owned by absentee landlords, were usually operated with day labor rather than slaves; it was much cheaper, and there was an abundance of landless peasants. “Day-laborers constituted a limitless and disposable fuel … that made the ancient economy run,” writes Stanley Saunders.[2] Day-laborers in Galilee were poor, underemployed, and heavily taxed by the Roman authorities. One denarius, a small Roman coin, appears to have been the going rate for a day of field labor, but a denarius was a poverty wage. For a denarius, you could buy bread to feed a family of four for about three days. For a lamb you had to pay 3-4 denarii; for a simple set of clothes, 30 denarii.[3]

The landowner in the story is peculiar. He goes out early in the morning to hire laborers, which was the usual time. But then he comes back at 9 to hire more, and you say to yourself, “Well, he must have realized that he needed more hands to get the work done.” When he comes back again at noon, you wonder if he knows what he’s doing or if he is one of those rich guys who got himself a vineyard and a winery as a hobby. And then he comes back in the middle of the afternoon. It’s hot, everybody is dreaming about quitting time, and he keeps hiring. You’re running out of explanations that would make sense of this kind of behavior. Is he perhaps not quite right in the head? But that’s not the end of it. The sun is already low in the west when he returns again to the marketplace, and he hires every last worker he can find. In this story, the day begins in the familiar setting of the tough Galilean rural economy, but it ends in a world that looks and feels very different.

Imagine you got up at dawn to go to the corner where they pick up day laborers. You know that if you get hired, you can get some bread on the way home and your family will eat dinner. But you don’t get picked in the first round. You go to the other side, hoping to have better luck over there, but you don’t. The younger ones are hired first. The stronger ones are hired first. So you wait, you got nothing else to do, and just when you decide to call it a day and go home, this landowner shows up and asks you, “Why are you standing here idle all day?”

That stings. You already feel like a left-over person, no longer needed, unnoticed, forgotten, and this man calls you idle. This man who doesn’t know how long you have been on your feet, how hard you have tried to find work, or how hungry you are, and how much you dread coming home tonight with empty hands.

“We’re here because no one has hired us,” you say.

“You also go into the vineyard,” the landowner replies. And you go. You’re not doing it for the money, you don’t even ask him how much he’s paying. You go because … who knows. Perhaps it’s just to show him that he can’t call you idle when all you are is underemployed. You go and work in the vineyard.

Soon the manager calls everybody to line up, starting with those hired last, starting with you. You barely got your hands dirty. How much could it be for an hour’s work? It doesn’t really matter. It won’t be enough anyway. And then the manager puts a coin in your hand, and it’s a full day’s pay.

The news travels fast to the end of the line, where the ones hired first are waiting to be paid. Now imagine you’re one of them. You’ve worked twelve long, hard hours. You are dirty, sweaty, your clothes are sticking to your skin and your back is aching. But you’ve seen the ones who got paid first. You’ve seen their faces, how their eyes lit up with surprise, and your back is already starting to feel better. You move to the front of the line, and the manager puts a coin in your hand. It’s a denarius. One denarius.

You turn to the people around you, and they are just as upset as you are. “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” You have made them equal to us. You have offended our sense of justice and fairness. Sure, you can do as you please with what is yours, you’re the boss. The air is charged, a thunderstorm is brewing. As a reader, I’m waiting for somebody to step forward and say the words that bring relief and ease the tension. But this is the end of the story: this uncomfortable silence after the landowner asked, “Are you envious because I am generous?” When Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is like this, what does he mean?

The story holds the pain of those in every generation who have been treated as disposable people in the marketplace, unwanted, no longer needed, overlooked, and it holds their hope that a very different kind of payday is coming, when no one counts the hours they have put in, and when all receive the full reward. It also holds the pain and the hope of those in the company of sinners whom no one considers worthy of divine reward, and whom Jesus calls and welcomes into the kingdom.

But this story also holds the anger and resentment of those in every generation who worry that too much mercy for others will only breed further lack of effort on their part. All those in the company of the self-made upright who cannot imagine themselves as recipients of gifts they didn’t earn, but whom Jesus calls and welcomes with equal compassion as he welcomes notorious sinners.

This kingdom story holds a mighty surprise, and whether we respond with joy or with grumbling depends entirely on how we see ourselves: Have I been working since the break of dawn, or am I only just beginning to learn how to be a worker in this vineyard where status and entitlement are meaningless?

We rarely complain, it seems to me, about getting more than we deserve. I watch a capuchin monkey happily munching on a grape while his buddy is shaking his crate in protest. The scene feels uncomfortably familiar, like looking into a mirror.

But there’s another scene, one that feels movingly familiar, also from the depths of evolutionary time. De Waal’s research team ran the same cucumber/grape experiment with chimpanzees; and they found that among chimpanzees, sometimes the one who gets the grape waits to see what his partner gets, and refuses the grape until his buddy also gets one.[4] Sometimes, care and concern for the other and a desire for shared joy are stronger than the lonely pleasure of a sweet grape without company.

Sometimes, when Jesus says, “the last will be first, and the first will be last,” it sounds like the great reversal, the cosmic turning of the tables, when the Mighty One brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.

Sometimes, though, it sounds like a generous leveling, when “the last will be [just like] the first, and the first will be [just like] the last,” when far from anxious comparison and envy, we all rejoice when the work in the vineyard is done.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2014/08/15/338936897/do-animals-have-morals

[2] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-25/commentary-on-matthew-201-16-5

[3] Ulrich Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (EKK 1/3), 146.

[4] Guy Raz and Frans de Waal, TED Radio Hour, September 5, 2014 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/338936897

Only vegetables

Thomas Kleinert

In our Tuesday and Wednesday book groups we have been talking about Peter Gomes’s The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus. Just last week we discussed his take on the famous acronym WWJD - What would Jesus do? Gomes argues that we can’t know what Jesus would do, no matter how convinced we are that Jesus, given the choice between a Hummer and a Prius, would drive the latter. Jesus got in a boat a few times, but he walked everywhere he went, and the one time he rode into town, it was on a borrowed donkey. According to Gomes, the better question to ask is, What would Jesus have me do? We are much less likely to speculate, and much more likely to take our own context into account.

I’m driving to work in a Honda van the size of a tank. I like it because he has room for my kayak and all my gear, and when I take the seats out there’s room for a bed in the rear. When I open the sun roof, I can lie on my back and look at the stars. With all the seats in, there’s room for six or more, but most days I drive around by myself. What would Jesus have me drive? Trade in the van for a used hybrid with twice the gas mileage? Leave the van in the garage and take the bus to work? Get an e-bike and only drive the van when I’m going to the river? What would Jesus have me do?

I’ll get to an answer, hopefully soon; one step closer to honoring God the way I believe God must be honored; one step closer to being a neighbor to my contemporaries and to the children of our children’s children. Others will perceive other demands in their desire to honor God; others will ask, What would Jesus have me do? and arrive at different answers.

I believe the late Peter Gomes, chaplain and professor at Harvard, would have loved the story about Ruth Graham, or Mrs. Billy Graham as she would have been properly addressed back in the 1970s when she attended a ladies’ luncheon with wives of conservative pastors in Germany. She dressed for the event as you would expect a white woman of her background and public position in 70s America to dress. A nice suit, modest, but not Amish; something with a little color and a brooch on the lapel. Simple shoes, short heels, well-coiffed hair, nothing showy. The lipstick she had chosen went well with her blue eyeshadow – she had stopped by the ladies’ room to make sure everything was just so, and she was pleased: she looked nice! The German pastors’ wives didn’t believe women should wear makeup at all, or anything that made them look too worldly. One of them, sitting across the table from Mrs. Graham, was so upset by the shameful attire of the famous evangelist’s wife, tears rolled down her cheeks – right into her beer. Mrs. Graham had no idea what upset the woman so. She was too busy trying to contain herself. “What self-respecting pastor’s wife drinks beer, at lunch, at a gathering dedicated to help bring people to Jesus?”

I don’t know if this story would make it past the fact-checkers, but it is a good one.[1] What would Jesus have us do? We come up with very different answers, and what to us is so very important and obvious, may not even be in the picture for others. That’s how Paul ended up writing about vegetables.

Paul wrote a lengthy missive to God’s beloved in Rome to introduce himself. He hadn’t founded the church there, but he was planning to visit soon, and he was hoping for their support. Paul was on a mission to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to Jews and Gentiles all across the empire, and the Lord willing, he would travel as far as Spain. He needed letters of introduction. He needed help with travel arrangements. He needed funding. And he may have been wondering if the churches in Rome would be open to supporting him and his work. There were rumors that his gospel of grace undermined moral behavior, that he was preaching lawlessness. And those rumors weren’t just fake news made up by opponents to discredit him. There was evidence to give substance to the charges. In Corinth, some of the baptized understood salvation by grace to mean that all things were lawful, and he had to push back forcefully against their boastful, self-centered attitudes and actions.[2] 

And beyond the rumors of Paul promoting lawlessness, there was the ongoing challenge in the fledgling churches of having people from all kinds of religious, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds come together in worship and share a meal, the Lord’s supper – Ruth Graham’s ladies’ luncheon was a walk in the park in comparison. So Paul wrote about an issue that we know had been particularly disruptive in Corinth and Antioch: what to eat and who to eat with when Jesus is Lord.[3]

“Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables.” It may sound like a line from a foodie blog, but those believers weren’t fussing over the health benefits of a vegetarian diet or the ecological impact of meat production. In the first-century Mediterranean world most animals were routinely offered to one god or another when they were killed. There were no stockyards or meat packing plants to supply the cities, there were temples. For some Christians, eating meat that was part of a pagan sacrifice was no problem; to them, there was only one God, creator of heaven and earth, and so, with thanks to God the giver, they ate their meat.

For others, this was unthinkable. To them, it amounted to participating in the worship of other gods, and some would only consider consuming meat that had been slaughtered and processed according to Jewish law, and so they reckoned it was best to steer clear of meat altogether. Only veggies; veggies were safe. But from that scrupulously maintained conviction it was only a small step to condemning others for watering down their commitment to Jesus and God’s law by not separating themselves more rigorously from pagan practices.

And those who did eat with thanksgiving whatever was served? They were awfully close to looking down with contempt on their less-enlightened fellow-believers who didn’t grasp the true meaning of Christian freedom.

In those early years, the Lord’s Supper wasn’t just bread and wine; it was a full meal. Can you imagine what may have been said when they came together to break bread? Can you imagine the looks and the things that weren’t said? Paul had his own views, but he didn’t take sides or adjudicate the disagreement. Nor did he suggest that meat-eaters and vegetarians organize themselves into separate house churches so they would be able to worship with like-minded believers. Instead, he reminded those who would hear his words read in the assembly, that both those who ate meat and those who abstained, did so to honor the Lord. It didn’t matter if they ate or abstained, but that they did so convinced in their own minds that this was what the Lord would have them do. What did matter, and did in fact matter greatly, was that they not judge one another, nor condemn or belittle each other, but rather welcome each other as God welcomed them.

Paul wants us to realize that we belong to each other as members of God’s household, not because of our shared piety, our shared love for certain hymns or prayer books, or our shared preference for certain theological traditions: we belong to each other because Christ has made us his own and we belong to him. What matters is that rather than sitting in judgment over each other for the ways in which we honor God with our lives, we submit together to the lordship of Jesus, the Messiah of God. In submitting together we will become better able to welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us, for the glory of God.

“Owe no one anything,” Paul wrote in the previous chapter, “except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”[4] That is far from lawlessness, but it is equally far from pious law-enforcement, where what I perceive Jesus would have me do, suddenly becomes the rule for what you must do. No, all of us who confess that Jesus is Lord, must ask what this entails for our worship, and for our life together, and yes, our eating habits, driving habits, spending habits. We must ask and we must wrestle with the answers and help each other become aware of our biases and blindspots.

We Disciples love to quote the maxim, In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.[5] We love the statement, but we also know that one believer’s non-essentials are another’s essentials. Meat, makeup, beer, movies, dancing – the list goes on. When it comes to defining who we are, we are quick to elevate our own pious preferences to essentials, and equally quick to judge and dismiss the pieties of others as non-essentials or just plain weird.

But Paul will not let us walk away from each other and claim that it is necessary for the sake of faithfulness. We are one in Christ, one with God and with each other, because Christ has made us his own. That love is essential, and that love is meant to be manifest in all things, in every dimension of our life together.

The revolution of the cross is not about turning others into clones of our own convictions and calling it conversion. The revolution of the cross is about radical welcome, our welcoming each other as God has welcomed us. We risk who we think we are for love’s sake, and together we become who God made us to be.

[1] Based on Mark Reasoner’s account at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=130

[2] 1 Cor 10:23

[3] See 1 Cor 8:13; 10:25 and Gal 2:11-14.

[4] Rom 13:8

[5] For the history of this lovely statement see https://liberlocorumcommunium.blogspot.com/2010/03/in-necessariis-unitas-in-non.html; it may not have been penned first by Rupertus Meldenius (aka Peter Meiderlin) in 1627, but by Marco Antonio De Dominis in 1617 (“In necessariis unitas, in non necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas”).

Not Perfect, but Practice

Margie Quinn

It was about eight months into my previous ministry gig when I received my first scathing email from a congregant. I was sitting in my office the day after our youth had done a demonstration outside of the church honoring George Floyd when someone’s name popped up in my inbox. It was the parent of a kid. He wrote that he strongly disapproved of the action and was shocked by the fact that we had tried to make church political.

A few months later, after having a transgender pastor from Vanderbilt Divinity speak at youth group, I received phone calls from several parents about the ways in which hosting such a pastor was inappropriate and that those conversations should be “saved for the doctor’s office.”  

In May of 2022, after preaching at Confirmation Sunday, the emails flooded in.  “I couldn’t have left more disappointed in my church of 40 plus years,” one woman wrote. “Church is the one place where we should be frees of anything political and focus on worship.” The next email described my sermon as “galling, inappropriate, and narcissistic.” “Shame on you for grandstanding during the middle of a very special day…” it said. And one more: “Punctuated by a rainbow stole, it seemed to me that she was presenting a political statement under the pretense of all-inclusive love.”

I was gutted. Up until that point, I had not had any conflict with members in the church. I felt encouraged by them and affirmed in my energetic, authentic approach to community. Yet, as anyone who is married knows, the honeymoon phase only lasts so long, and my bright bubble of comfort and smiles had…popped.

Our text this morning in the lectionary rotation jumps from Jesus talking to his disciples about taking up their cross and following him to an instructional offering about how to deal with conflict in the life of the church. We skip over some of the flashier stories like the Transfiguration and Jesus curing a boy with a Demon to go right to the nitty gritty of doing community together. Right before this passage, Jesus has just told the parable of the lost sheep, which in some ways might be setting up the disciples to think about what it looks like to care for EVERY member in Christ’s flock, especially the ones who have gone astray.

“If another member of the church sins against you,” he says, “go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.” Okay, seems easy enough. “If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. BUT, if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of those two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile or tax collector.”

This passage can be hard to conceptualize in our Western, individualized context because we are not living in communities of 50 people, attending house churches together and relying on each other financially or communally in the same way. In our day and age, perhaps our hurts may be dealt with by leaving the church altogether and finding another church home. That certainly happened to me after another parent did not agree with the way our youth group was heading. After a particularly difficult committee meeting, she took her family elsewhere the next week before we had the chance to reconcile. She may not have handled it perfectly, but I can assure you that I didn’t either, speaking ill of her behind her back instead of meeting with her.

What does it look like to try and reclaim a relationship with someone who has hurt us? And then to welcome a few others to listen and witness to the pain with immense trust? And perhaps, even painfully so, to share that hurt with the church, a concept I’ll be honest I’m still wrestling with and trying to make sense of.

I want to add nuance to this text, too. I think about how many of my female colleagues in ministry have experienced sexual harassment by other congregants or fellow pastors. We know that the statistics on church leaders taking advantage of vulnerable members like children or more marginalized identity groups reveal the systemic pain in our congregations. In those cases, it seems as though the church does deserve to know those painful acts. Perhaps in those cases, the healthiest thing to do as a community is to “treat that person as a Gentile and a tax collector,” which doesn’t mean to excommunicate them with harsh, unforgiving bitterness. But maybe to release them to do their own healing away from those they’ve taken advantage of, knowing that Jesus still loves them and invites them to his table in a different way.

I do think, in the cases of conflict where harsh words are thrown around, or feelings are hurt in a meeting, or a painful thing is said from the pulpit or in a Sunday school class or on a service trip, there is power in practicing how to “fight well.” Fighting well is some relationship advice I got from a friend years ago. “Make sure that whoever you partner with, that you fight well.” Perhaps that should be on our sign out front: “Vine Street Christian Church--Where We Fight Well!” Church--where we first have the courage to reach out to someone who has hurt us and ask them to coffee, or to have a phone call, and in doing so, we trust that God’s presence will be among us when we speak our truth, even if our voice shakes.

Not only does it take courage to reach out but it takes a lot of humility to listen. Looking back, I wish that the people behind those emails had come to me in person. When I invited a few of them to coffee to talk about it more, I got…crickets. Perhaps in our virtual communities too, whether it be over email, social media, or text, when we are poised to type something cruel, we have a responsibility that consider that Jesus is among us there, too.

In essence, what makes us Christian is not whether or not we fight, disagree or wound each other (because let’s face it, showing up for years to a community of familiar faces means we are BOUND to get annoyed by the varying personalities and perspectives), but by how we go about addressing and resolving these issues when they come up…even if it looks pretty clunky. As one pastor said, “Church isn’t perfect, it’s practice.” It’s practicing how to pick up our cross and follow Jesus around. Because he is around, even in this.

When Jesus asks the Disciples, “Who do YOU say that I am?,” maybe he wants them to consider that he is God AMONG us, even in or especially during the midst of conflict.

Charles Hambrick-Stowe asks the question, “If we in church do not forgive and heal, who on earth is going to do it?” If we do not try to overcome our differences and risk relationship with people outside of our gender, age, socioeconomic status, in this place and conform to the individualism or comfort of an echo chamber, then what makes us Christian? Unfortunately for us, we are not free from each other; we are free in each other.”

I always thought the verse, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them,” meant that Jesus is among us when we show up for each other, like when Larry served communion to me and my boyfriend Collin after having lunch at his place, knowing that if there’s more than one, we get to celebrate communion with each other. It’s a meal that cannot be done alone. In context, though, this verse situates itself as guideline for holy practice (not perfect) in a church setting. Holy, clunky practice; like picking up the phone, with shaking hands, and having the courage to address the hard stuff. Like sitting down for coffee after praying hurried prayers for peace and guidance, before looking someone in the eye and naming the hurt; or gathering a group together in the chapel or a classroom to work through a misunderstanding; practicing healing and forgiveness because we believe in inter-dependence with each other, not independence from each other.

            When that parent left our church, I almost picked up my phone to call her so many times. Since leaving that church, I’ve often thought about writing her a letter as a good place to start. But I don’t know if I’m ready to set aside my bitterness and try to forgive and be forgiven and heal. I don’t know if I’m ready believe that Jesus is among me as I stumble my way through conflict. But I want to be there. Maybe by preaching about it, I’ll actually practice it.

Being a community of faith is so hard when we start to devolve into the sad and hurtful places. It is so tempting to walk away; but this morning, I want to encourage you (and myself) to think about what it means to walk toward, to take that first step in acknowledging “where it hurts,” as civil activist Ruby Sales writes, knowing that Jesus is right there walking alongside us. Where does it hurt, church? Let’s practice here—not to be perfect, but to be persistent in our commitment to Jesus, who is among us and always has been, in our clunkiness and in our courage. Where can we meet each other and be balm for the wound, as Jeremiah says?

Will you pick up your pen with me? Or your phone? Will you meet me for coffee? I’ll try to listen to you, and maybe you’ll try to listen to me. We won’t be perfect, but we’ll practice.

Church builder

Who do people say that the Son of Man is? There’s no lack of answers to the question who Jesus is. Everyone has an opinion: the tv preacher who sweats through his suit in under three minutes, whether it’s on AM radio, cable, or youtube; the roofer whose truck displays a fish sticker next to the yellow flag, “Don’t tread on me”; the tik tok opinionator, and your next-door neighbor. Everyone has an answer.

Who do people say that the Son of Man is? Thumb through the gospels, Anna Carter Florence suggests, and you can’t help noticing that people say a lot of things about who Jesus is. He is Mary’s child. He is the light of the world. He is a prophet without honor in his own hometown. He is the son of Joseph. He is the King of the Jews. Jesus is the one who can heal your child, cast out your demon, forgive your sins, and raise your hopes. He is a prophet, a rabbi, a builder, and a pain in the neck. He is alive, he is dead, he is risen, he is on his way. People say Jesus is a lot of things. They say it standing on soap boxes, sitting next to you on the plane, and writing it on billboards. They say it in pulpits and classrooms, on talk radio and in letters to the editor. In just about any context you can imagine, people say all kinds of things about Jesus, because nearly everybody has an opinion.[1]

Who do people say that the Son of Man is? That’s the safe question, a question any reporter and pollster will be glad to investigate; a response doesn’t require any personal involvement or commitment. You shoot off a quick survey, make some phone calls, and list your results: “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” People say all kinds of things, you report. You could spend a life-time compiling all those statements. You could, if there wasn’t the second question. “Who do you say that I am?”

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” It was Peter’s proudest moment. He was the first to follow Jesus and the first to declare that Jesus was God’s Messiah, and in response Jesus renamed him, gave him a new identity, a life defined by the purposes of God. “Simon son of Jonah, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

This is the first time the word church is used in the gospel. Knowing who Jesus is not just a matter of repeating the right answer. But neither is it about finding our own unique answer, our own personal Jesus, the personalized accessory to fit our lifestyle and our political sensibilities. Naming who Jesus is means letting him rename us, letting him give us a new identity. Naming who Jesus is means letting him claim us, more than us claiming him: it means letting him make us part of the project he calls my church.

Let’s remember where this exchange is taking place. They were in the district of Caesarea Philippi, that’s about twenty miles north of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus raised the big question not in the disciples’ familiar surroundings of the lake and their home towns, but in the shadow of Rome’s powerful presence. Jesus raised the question in the place where Herod the Great had built a temple to the emperor Caesar Augustus, in the town that Herod’s son Philipp enlarged and renamed after Tiberius Caesar and himself — Caesarea Philippi, Philipp’s Caesarville. Jesus raised the question in a place where Rome’s troops celebrated their victory after the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus raised the question in a place where the faithfulness of God was profoundly in question. And Peter confessed Jesus to be God’s Messiah in the deep shadow of Rome’s idolatrous, oppressive power.[2] And it was there, with the temple to Caesar in the background, that Jesus first spoke of his church, promising that the gates of Hades would not prevail against it.

And it was then and there that Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.[3] We don’t know why, upon hearing those words, Simon “the Rock” Peter took Jesus aside and objected, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!” It may have been shock. It may have been love, love that cannot stand the thought of seeing the loved one suffer. It may have been political calculus that wanted to chart a different course for a successful Jerusalem campaign. Whatever the motivation, for an instant, Peter sounded like the devil who showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, saying, “You know, there’s an easier way to be ruler of all.”[4] One moment Peter spoke truth like only God can reveal it — You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God — and in the very next scene, he heard Jesus address him as Satan.

Peter is the model disciple, because he is so much like the rest of us: brave, bold, fearful, impulsive, eager, slow - he embodies the whole spectrum of human responses to Jesus, yet, though stumbling and fumbling, he continues to follow him on the way..

“You are setting your mind on human things,” Jesus told him. What’s wrong with setting our minds on human things? Aren’t we human, after all? We set our human minds on human things, using human language, human concepts, and human imagination to make sense of the human condition. I don’t think Jesus scolded Peter for setting his mind on human things. I think he told Peter to get behind him because Peter presumed he had his mind on divine things. Simon “the Rock” Peter became a stumbling block when he presumed to know what was appropriate for God’s Messiah and what was not. In Peter’s mind, suffering and death simply were out of the question. He became a stumbling block when he wasn’t able to fit the way of Jesus into the mold of his familiar categories for divine things.

We do not and cannot know what it means to call Jesus God’s Messiah until we follow him, until we let his life reshape our imagination and reorganize our cherished categories. Likewise, we do not and cannot know what discipleship means until we practice it, until we’re willing to take off our shoes and let our feet touch the holy ground of the way of Jesus and walk in it.

“Those who want to save their life will lose it,” Jesus says, “and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” We know that, don’t we? We know that when we’re too firmly attached to what we have and know, we’re in danger of perceiving change only as threatening. Many fear nothing more than loss, and in holding on to what little we have and think we know we lose everything. We know that, it’s one of life’s great lessons, and we don’t need Jesus to tell us. And Jesus isn’t writing advice columns. Jesus calls us out of our obsession with ourselves — our thoughts, our ambitions, our sins, our fears. He invites us to let the focus of our attention be on him — his compassion, his teachings, his mercy, his faithfulness — his life. Jesus calls us to step out of our carefully constructed and tightly secured little kingdoms. He calls us to follow him on the way to the kingdom of God, to let our feet walk us into the truth of who he is and who we are and what life is meant to be. Jesus doesn’t promise that we will gain the whole world. He says that those who lose their life for his sake will find it. He says that there is life beyond our anxious self-absorption, beyond the hunger to have what others have, and beyond the thirst no earthly drink can quench.

Jesus is building his church with people like you and me and Peter: not with super heroes, but with human beings. We are all there is to make a church with, and the builder is up to the challenge. And that’s why sometimes people crippled by guilt and shame hear the word of forgiveness and raise their heads. That’s why in so many towns and neighborhoods refugees find welcome far from home, and the courage to start over. That’s why there are safe places where victims of abuse discover hope and begin to live again. That’s why there’s a young couple who won’t have to spend the night on the street because the manager of a motel is a brave woman who dares to be kind. Daily, people are fed, clothed, sheltered, healed, forgiven, lifted up, and given new life because Jesus is building his church. In the long shadow of the gates of Hades, Jesus is building his church with people like you and me and Peter, and the gates of death’s dominion will not prevail against it.

[1] See Lectionary Homiletics, Vol. 19, No. 5, 38.

[2] See Eugene Boring, Matthew (NIB), 342.

[3] Matthew 16:21

[4] Matthew 4:8-10

Who do YOU say that I am?

Margie Quinn

I have become an apologetic Christian. And I don’t mean “apologetic” as the defense of one’s faith, taught in seminaries and colleges (people offer classes on how to practice apologetics to build strong argumentative discourse skills).

No, I am an apologetic Christian in the sense that I am a person of faith who constantly apologizes for being a Christian. It stems from a good place. The more that I have studied Christianity and the harrowing history of our faith, the more I have learned about the European Christians who warped the gospel into a Christian colonial movement, killing and enslaving indigenous and black bodies all for the sake of “making believers of all nations.” Since that colonial moment, the Christian church has contributed to the religious trauma of countless marginalized groups, our LGBTQ+ siblings, people going through divorce, victims of sexual assault…we have a lot to apologize for.

So, because I have so many friends and family members who have been burned by the church, I think that I overcorrected. I hold pride for my faith in one hand and shame for its consequences in the other. I try to downplay the importance Jesus has on my life and make sure to give the caveat every time I share my vocation that “But, I’m a cool pastor….at a cool church…” In all the overcorrection, I have forgotten how to say who Jesus is to me.

On Monday, our legislators gathered back at the capitol for a special session. This is where the governor calls back everyone in the House and Senate to address bills that weren’t resolved at the last convening. While there were many bills introduced for this session including bills on mental health and substance abuse services, scholarships and financial aid and school transportation, the focus for many, as y’all know, was on the bills addressing gun reform and gun safety.

The first community event held last week was a prayer. People held hands and prayed for God’s presence in the upcoming week whatever tongue or fashion they wanted to.

I called Reverend Wesley King on Monday morning and asked, “Are you going to wear your stole down there? I don’t want to wear mine and seem self-important.”  “Yes!” he said. “I think it’s important to let people know where the church stands.” In other words, we need to communicate out into the world who Jesus is to us. What a gift his words were. During the march down to the capitol, sitting in subcommittee and committee hearings, standing with ministers during a pastoral press conference and working on the safety team during the vigil on Thursday night, I wore this stole. And I can’t tell you how many people asked me, “What church do you serve?” and I got to say, “Vine Street Christian Church.” Many said to me, “I am so glad that you are here.”

I have gotten so scared of how the Church has hurt others that I have forgotten how to answer Jesus when he asks, “Who do YOU say I am?”

So, let’s look at our scripture today and start with the when. When Jesus addresses his disciples in this passage, what has just transpired is the feeding of the 5,000. Then the Pharisees and scribes demand that Jesus show them a sign if he really is who he says he is. He is being challenged by the religious powers at the time to prove that he is the Son of God. Then he takes the disciples to somewhere called Caesera Philippi. This is the district where the first king of Israel led the northern kingdom of Israel into idolatry. It’s also where the Cave of Pan lies, otherwise known as the pagan gate of Hades. This is a place with a lot of competing powers around, a place to find religious alternatives and a place for the competing voices, as Karoline Lewis says, “for your loyalty, obedience, dedication.” And it is there, in that public place, that Jesus asks his disciples to identify who he is in front of everything competing for their loyalty.

Who do people say that the Son of Man is? What’s the buzz out there? Where are we at in terms of people understanding that I am God enfleshed and stuff?

The disciples tell him, “Some say John the Baptist…others Elijah…others Jeremiah or one of the prophets…” Yeah, Jesus says, but who do YOU say that I am? Some say that I am a crazed prophet or perform miracles with the aid of Satan. But who do you say I am? Some say that I’m loyal to one political party or cultural trend; I’m your “homeboy,” I’m “hippy Jesus,” but who do YOU say that I am? Some say that I am a militant power exploiting the economically weak, a King above all others but who do YOU say that I am? How have YOU seen me witness out in the world?

My dad, after watching the events at the Capitol on Monday, called me on Tuesday morning and told me that he feels angry and doesn’t know what to do about it. He was in his men’s bible study that morning and a man confessed that he didn’t think he was Christian enough because he doesn’t go to church all the time and he doesn’t read his Bible a lot. My dad asked me, with passion in his voice, “What if the measure of our faith isn’t by how much we go to church or read the Bible but by how many tables we turn and how many Pharisees we stand up to?” What if THAT is the mark of following Jesus?

I want to embody my dad’s passion. I want to embody Peter’s confidence when I say who Jesus is to me. Peter, who does not have the best track record. He’s the one who denied Jesus over and over and over again, yet Jesus hears HIS testimony and says, “You are the rock.” Peter who said, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God,” the one who scripture has promised will come. “What I have experienced in you, Jesus, is that you are the Messiah, the one who has been sent to us as a gateway into the kingdom of heaven,” Jin Kim writes. Kim goes on to wonder if Jesus was not responding to Peter’s particular strengths and accomplishments as a disciple (which left much to be desired) but to his testimony.” Peter becomes the rock and foundation of the church through what he says. The church! Which, I guess, isn’t a building but a people like Peter willing testify confidently about a gospel that is both personal and communal to us. I bet it was Peter’s emboldened response that got Jesus to say, “You are the rock.”

“Who do YOU say that I am?”

For Dair, Jesus is nature, grass, the sun.

For Calin, his Lord and Savior.

For Gia, he lives within her and helps her be more like him.

For Jack, he is a guardian.

For my Dad, he is a table-turner, a resistor to the competing powers of this world

For me, he is my compass for justice. He is the ultimate protestor, prophet, advocate for the marginalized. He is the most wild, inclusive love-centered liberator we’ve got. He is as vulnerable as a baby. He is a different kind of King. He breaks bread with every kind of person.

And for Peter, he is the one who has been promised. The son of the LIVING God. Not the stagnant God. The living, breathing God among us.

This week at the capitol, he was a tenacious teenager who got up and spoke in front of many, challenging us and convicting us to walk alongside of our young people when they cry out for help.

He was grieving mothers, “wailing women,” like the book of Jeremiah says, who dump ashes on their heads and wear sack cloth as a way to say, “Look! They say “Peace” when there is no peace.

This week at the capitol, he was organizers sitting in the cafeteria sharing chips and salsa with each other, sustenance for the week ahead.

He was the people passing out the water bottles to activists in that hot heat.

He was the ears to hear. He was the eyes to see. He was everywhere.

Church, I don’t think we have to apologize for who we experience Jesus to be. In fact, I think that when we go out from here to school, to work, amongst friends, at the capitol, we can go knowing that our proclamation of faith might actually appeal to people and invite them in and have them hear who HE is to us and say, “I want to check out that church.” As Abigail said to a friend, “I think you should come to church with me. You wouldn’t hate it here.”

I want to be bold like Peter and like my dad and like those young people at the capitol this week, who are not afraid to say who Jesus is to them. Maybe he’s a table-turner for you. Maybe he’s a peacemaker for you. Whoever who he is to you, the world needs to hear your testimony because it is the rock and foundation of our church. It goes out from these walls and tells the liberating, soul-saving and radical news of our Messiah, the son of the living God. Amen.

Faith

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,” Mark Twain famously wrote in The Innocents Abroad. That was a long, long time ago, long before air planes with hundreds of seats crossed oceans and mountain ranges, and before colossal cruise ships regularly dumped thousands of visitors into small coastal cities, making it practically impossible for the travelers to meet some of the locals, let alone talk with them. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts,” Twain wrote. “Broad, wholesome, charitable views of [humans] and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”[1]

Travel in Twain’s sense is not necessarily about going to far away places, especially when going there is primarily driven by the desire to collect iconic Instagram pics. Travel is about getting out of our little corner to meet the neighbor who is a stranger, to hear their story in their own accent, to taste their food and try to dance to their songs. Travel is about crossing all manner of borders to immerse ourselves in our neighbors’ world – not to appropriate what’s theirs, but to see them and their take on life with less prejudice, and perhaps to see ourselves in new ways.

Today and tomorrow, Tennessee legislators will be traveling to Nashville for a special session of the General Assembly, and I hope at least some of them will not just log miles, but have the courage to get out of their little corner.

The gospel reading for this Sunday is about Jesus crossing borders and a mother pleading with unrelenting persistence for her child’s well-being. We know what having a sick child can do to a parent: it makes you fearless.[2] It makes you say horrible things to the receptionist who won’t give you an appointment until two weeks after Labor Day. It makes you very rude to doctors who run test after test for hours, but won’t give you more than two minutes to tell you about the results. It makes you scream at the insurance rep who tells you that your plan does not cover the treatments your child needs. It makes you stay up all night doing research on the web, finding out where the best clinics are, the best doctors, the most promising programs. Your tender love turns fierce, and you will do anything it takes to make your child well.

Tomorrow, mothers, fathers, siblings, grannies, students and teachers will once again surround the capitol, gather on Legislative Plaza, and stand in legislators’ offices, pleading with unrelenting persistence for the lives of our children and neighbors. We hope their words will find open ears and open minds.

When Jesus crossed into the region of Tyre and Sidon, he entered territory that was foreign in every respect: foreign accents, foreign customs, foreign food, foreign gods – and yet he went there, made a significant detour, in fact, to get there. A woman from that region approached him, shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” It wasn’t proper for a woman to approach a man who didn’t belong to her family for help. It was unthinkable for a Jewish man to be approached by a Gentile woman, let alone when demons were involved.

And this woman wouldn’t stop shouting; she kept at it, insisting on mercy for her tormented daughter. We don’t know why Jesus crossed the border into her world, but we know why she crossed every line of propriety: we know what having a sick child can do to a parent. The barriers of custom, language, and ethnicity were high between her and the man from Nazareth, but they were no match for her love for her child. Shouting without any restraint she begged the Lord Jesus to liberate her daughter. And Jesus showed no reaction whatsoever, like she wasn’t even there.

To the disciples, the whole scene was annoying and embarrassing, and they urged him to put an end to it. “Send her away,” they said. And she kept shouting, “Lord, have mercy!” “Tell her to be quiet,” they said, but she kept pleading, “Lord, have mercy.”

How wide is the circle of God’s mercy that has the life of Jesus as its defining center? Wide enough to include one like her?

When Jesus finally speaks, he doesn’t sound like the Jesus we thought we knew. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Let her shout – she doesn’t belong to the flock I was sent to tend. But this Gentile woman is determined. She throws herself at his feet, praying, “Lord, help me.”

The Jesus we know would reach out and take her by the hand, wouldn’t he? He would tell her to get up and go home, assuring her that her child was well; or he would go home with her and free her child from what was tormenting her. But this stranger in a strange land says, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

How wide is the circle of God’s mercy that has the life of Jesus as its defining center? Which voices will prevail: the woman pleading, “Lord, help me?” or the voices of those already in the house, already at the table, already full, those who are telling Jesus, “Send her away”?

This is a hard story. It reflects the  hard, and often harsh, debate over who belongs and who doesn’t. It’s a hard story to hear because Jesus just taught that it is not what enters the mouth that defiles, but what comes out of it; because in the language we use, our attitudes and commitments spill from our hearts and over our lips. And Jesus says – and it’s Jesus who says it, and not one of the disciples, it’s Jesus, no matter how much I wish it were not so – Jesus says, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Is he perhaps talking to himself, thinking out loud? Is he speaking to the disciples, inviting their comments? Or is he looking the woman in the face saying it? We don’t know, but we wonder.

Many have wrestled with this story, trying to reconcile the Jesus they thought they knew with the Jesus who not only withholds his compassion, but comes across as incredibly rude. Some have proposed that he didn’t really mean it, that he was merely testing the woman’s resolve – how cruel that would be. Others have suggested that he wasn’t testing the woman’s resolve but the disciples’ understanding, that he was waiting for one of them, just one, to stand with her and say, “Lord, have mercy.” That’s a kind thought, but there’s nothing in the story to suggest that this was a test.

I am intrigued by the fact that Jesus talks about bread. Throwing the bread to the dogs would be wrong, he tells the mother, since it was the children’s supper. She knows all there is to know about feeding children, yet she doesn’t erupt in rage or collapse in silence under the weight of the insult comparing her daughter to a dog. No, she picks it up and, with quick wit, turns it just a tiny bit. “Yes, Lord,” she says, “yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” What she has asked of him won’t take away anything from the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Crumbs of mercy would be plenty to save her child. Hadn’t he just fed 5,000 people with a lunch that looked like nothing to his disciples? And when all had finished eating and all were full and satisfied, weren’t multiple baskets of broken pieces left? She had been paying attention; she knew that what her daughter needed was his to give, and that there was enough for all. “Woman, great is your faith!” Jesus finally said. “Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed.

Almost immediately following this hard story about children and dogs, there is another bread story. Jesus is again with a crowd, curing the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others, and Matthew tells us, they were amazed and praised the God of Israel. Why would Matthew emphasize that they were praising the God of Israel? Because among them, there were now a bunch of Canaanites and other suspect Gentiles.

And now Jesus said to the disciples, “I have compassion for the crowd … and I do not want to send them away hungry.” No more sending away of those who hunger for the bread of salvation. No more sending away of those who hunger for liberation, for healing, for justice, for fullness of life. Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks, broke them, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

Of this bread, there is more than enough for all of us. There’s no reason to draw circles that keep “them” out, whoever we might imagine “them” to be; no reason to live in fear that there might only be just enough mercy for some.

There is so much that divides us along lines that have been drawn ages ago and continue to be redrawn, with new labels replacing old ones. Division, prejudice, fear and insult have been our lot for as long as any of us can remember. But this perplexing little story shows us how courage and mercy cross those lines for healing.

In mercy, God has drawn the circle wide, liberating us to come out of our little corners and discover the not so distant land where we are no longer strangers and aliens, but all of us members of the one household of God.

[1] Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, Conclusion. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/3176-h.htm

[2] With thanks to Anna Carter Florence, Lectionary Homiletics, Vol. 19, No. 5, August-September 2008, 30.

Wrestling With God

  There are only a few people in scripture who see God face-to-face. Scripture says that Adam and Eve hear God walking around in the garden while they are hiding, but they don’t see God’s face. Many prophets hear God speaking to them and serve as the mouthpieces for God, but they don’t see God face-to-face. Someone who does, though, is the prophet Moses. In Exodus 33, we read that “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” I love that. “As one speaks to a friend.” Moses--who stuttered when he spoke, who murdered a man and then fled the scene in shame, who had an inferiority complex when it came to leading his people.

Then we have Hagar. Remember her? She was an enslaved woman, given to Abraham by his wife Sarah to bear a child (No one asked Hagar if she wanted to do that). A woman without any social capital or agency. A woman on the run after Sarah treats her harshly and she flees into the wilderness. At the height of her brokenness, God reveals God’s face to her. By the way, she is the ONLY woman in the Bible who sees God face to face. She speaks to God, gives God her own name for Him (El Roi, God who sees), and says “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?” Yes you have, Hagar.

            And finally, Jacob. Oh, Jacob. A lot of times when I open the Bible and read about the people God equips for God’s mission, I’m like “Him? Her?” and this week was one of those weeks where I thought “Him?”  

            But like Season 2 of a show where they give you the recap of the last season for a few minutes before the new episode starts, let me take you back to the beginning with Jacob. Jacob is a twin, the son of Rebekah and Isaac. Even before he enters the world, we learn that he is wrestling his twin, Esau, in the womb. In fact, his name means “to supplant,” “to take the place of, “to take by the heel.” Jacob comes out fighting, competing, and hoping to surpass the strength, favor, merits of his twin. Esau is a hairy guy who is a skilled hunter and a man of the field. Think Golden boy. Think man’s man. Jacob is “smooth-skinned,” a quiet man living in tents. Think, withdrawn, introverted child, jealous of the attention his twin gets. Esau is a daddy’s boy. Jacob is a mama’s boy.

            And not to skip over five chapters but like a movie montage, I just want to take you through the highlights of his life so that you get a sense for his humanity, this supplanter. First, Rebekah makes him trick his dad by dressing up as his brother. Jacob lies to him and makes his dad give him a blessing instead of his twin. Then he must flee because he lied to Issac, and Esau wants to kill him. Then, he falls in love with a woman but her dad makes him work for it; seven years of patience, before he can be with Rachel. He even gets the talk from Laban which made me laugh because that’s still going on today. “If you ill-treat my daughters,” Laban says, “or if you take wives in addition to my daughters…remember that God is a witness between you and me.” Then Laban, Jacob’s father-in-law lies to him about that and we’re not gonna get into the Leah/Rachel thing but find me after the service and we can chat. Then Jacob lies to Laban so that he can return home with his family. Then he tries to bribe his twin with presents so that Esau doesn’t kill him. I think y’all get the picture. We’ve got a man who has grabbed life by the heels alright and done whatever he has needed to do out of desperation or deception to supplant.

And it’s so human. Sibling rivalry. Check. Lies to his parents. Check. Runs away from home because it’s too stressful. Check. Falls in love. Check. Has a complicated relationship with his in-laws. Check. Suffers, deceives, is deceived. Check.  

            Are you tired? I am, and we haven’t even wrestled with God yet.

So here Jacob is. He’s on his way home to face Esau. He has been travelling and hears that Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men. He’s afraid and distressed. He sends his flocks and herds and camels ahead, sends his companies of men ahead, and finally sends his family ahead, crossing the ford with them before returning alone.

            It’s time to wrestle. He takes off the armor, drops his weapons, gets everyone out of the stadium and steps into the ring alone.

            Alone, you know? Like when you wake up in the middle of the night with racing thoughts or the pain of grief or the sting of loneliness, the weariness of anxiety or grief or loneliness on you. Even if you’re sleeping next to a loved one or in a home with your family…alone; that’s how you feel. Alone, wondering how you got so estranged from the sibling, wondering how to make your Dad love you as much as your mom does. Alone…and wrestling.

And in this case, while we aren’t sure who exactly Jacob wrestles with, I’d like to believe that he wrestles with God. He wrestles all night. Even when he is struck on the hip and it goes out of joint, he holds on. Maybe he grabs this angel, God, by the heel. “Let me go!” the angel says. “Nope, not until you bless me,” Jacob responds.
            Who knows what blessing Jacob thinks he’s gonna get, but I guarantee it wasn’t the one he got. Sometimes we pray for one blessing and get another. We think something will be good for us and God says no no, I’m going a different route.     

            Up to this point in this story, Corinne Carvalho writes, Jacob has never been depicted as a strong man. That is Esau’s role. But Jacob survives out of pure stubbornness to give in. In doing so, in fighting through that sleepless night, by not letting go, his story goes from wrestling alone to persevering with many. He starts as Jacob and his new name becomes the name of our ancestors: Israel.

            Because church, this is really a story about Israel and God. Jacob’s new name is “he who has striven with God and prevails,” or “God perseveres.” Israel: a people who refuse to let go of God. That is our history. Not a people who supplant, a people with a NEW name. The name doesn’t mean morally perfect and the name doesn’t mean immune to suffering and the name doesn’t mean leaving the fight unscathed; the name connotes struggle, wrestle, walking away wounded, but walking away nonetheless.

As Beth Tanner writes, “We survive by nothing more elegant than not giving up.” We get through the days after a sudden death or a hard divorce or a failed test at school simply by getting up and getting dressed. Sometimes that’s all we can do. Every loss, every divorce, every cancer diagnosis, every death of someone we love leaves its mark. Or maybe, a limp. And sometimes all we can do is hang on because we are not a people of passive faith but a people willing to wrestle with and challenge God head-on, who stay in the ring and fight.

We get in the ring with God and hang on, even when we are tired, or in pain, or have doubts. We fight for a relationship with God. We confront God. We challenge God. Moses did that. Hagar did that. Jacob did that and I wonder if that’s why God chose to reveal God’s face to them. Because they were willing and free to be angry with God and they told God they didn’t understand how the world worked and they stayed and they fought.

I’m trying, and maybe you are too, to fight. With my questions and doubts and my pain and I’m trying to refuse to let go until I get that blessing; a blessing that also comes with a wound. If you live long enough, you know that wound. That wound is part of the Christian life. There was a man who carried a cross—he knew about that wound. Jesus showed us that--he showed us that he was far from perfect…fully human and fully divine. Jacob shows us that, too. He was far from perfect but he was faithful.

            In this text, he’s not a role model for moral perfection, he’s just someone who wrestled through the night and didn’t surrender. Those people are called anti-heroes. And aren’t those the most interesting heroes anyway? The anti-heroes? Severus Snape. The Grinch. Sherlock Holmes. Lisbeth Salandar. Loki. The Minions in Despicable Me. Jack Black in School of Rock. Jacob in the Bible. These are people who have scarred pasts, who make human decisions and who strive anyway for the good of other people.

  What I’m trying to say church is that God calls unlikely people into the movement and into a world in which the Spirit moves among us, doing the work of justice and peace. He puts us right into that work with a limp because that’s the way that we build empathy and compassion and relate to a God who walked on the earth and did the same.

When I was in Kentucky at General Assembly, I went to hear a man preach named Dr. Rev. William Barber. He has been arrested sixteen times for “emoting and praying too loudly.” He’s a leader of a movement called the Poor People’s Campaign and the leader of Moral Mondays, a series of weekly, racially diverse protests that began in North Carolina in 2013 after a certain group of people in that state pushed through restrictions on voting rights and unemployment benefits and other social programs.

            What’s interesting about him is that he’s not a man with a lot of physical strength. He was born with a form of arthritis known as ankylosing spondylitis that can lead to, among other things, inflammation and fusion of the spine. That’s the condition that he wears and walks with every day, limping in some ways. Barber brought the house down. He preached for 45 minutes without stopping and at the end of it, in his signature move, threw the binder with his sermon in it on the ground. That’s the fire he brings. This is what he says: “My commitment for the rest of my life — until I can’t go anymore, if the pain says I can’t, and even then I’m going to find a way to still do something — is to be with those in this country who every day have inflicted upon them the restrictions of a democracy that’s full of the arthritis of inequality. The pain of racism, and classism.” He says, “This cane has marched in marches,” he said, holding up the wooden staff. “It’s been in the jailhouse. It’s been in the White House. It’s been in the Senate confirmation hearings. It reminds me of when I couldn’t walk.”

Barber is inspiring to me because he wears his wound wherever he goes. I often try to hide mine—it’s vulnerable to wear the limp and walk anyway. It can feel exposing. But that’s the kind of life I want to have. I want to be welcomed to wrestle with God in the loneliness of the night and not let go. I want to be welcomed to wrestle with God when I don’t feel God’s presence or see God face to face. I want to be welcomed to wrestle with God when it feels impossible to hold on. I want to be known in my humanity, like Jacob, this unlikely anti-hero who becomes the name Israel; who takes himself and wrestles and becomes a people-group who persevere and strive with God. It’s not about perfection, it’s about salvation. I want to be like William Barber. I want to be like the Grinch. I want to be like Severus Snape, the most courageous character in Harry Potter and I want to be willing to wrestle with God. Do you?

A world of wounds

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds,” wrote Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac, first published in 1949.

Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.[1]

You don’t need to be an expert in ecology to know that we live in a world of wounds, and to know that many of them are human-caused. There’s a growing consensus among scientists that Earth has entered the Anthropocene — the first epoch to be defined by the overwhelming impact of humans on Earth’s vital systems. Most of the geological epochs of the past 4.6 billion years have lasted millions of years each, but human beings are now affecting the conditions of life everywhere, and we have done so in what is, in the Earth’s history, the blink of an eye. The Anthropocene is thought to have begun in the 1950s, when fossil-fueled industrialisation accelerated dramatically. “For a long time, environmentalists were hampered by having to urge action against threats that were largely invisible or so dispersed that the underlying pattern could be denied,” Camilla Cavendish wrote a week ago in the Financial Times.

The community believed itself well and did not want to be told otherwise.

But climate change is no longer theoretical: it’s here. And it’s no longer something that happens elsewhere, to other people. We can all see it in the weather patterns, in wildfires, in the hottest summer on record.[2]

In a way, we’re merely waking up to what we have known for ages, and what some humans have pointed out with prophetic urgency, while others dismissed it as wildly exaggerated, too restrictive, or out of step with the times. The community that wants to believe itself well does not want to be told otherwise.

According to the biblical witnesses, human beings have a unique calling in God’s creation. We were created in the image of God to subdue the earth and have dominion over every living thing on the land, in the sea, and in the air.[3] We were indeed created for global impact, but dominion, although it may sound so very similar to domination, has nothing to do with it. Domination seeks to force its own vision upon the world, turning everything and everyone into means to self-serving ends. Dominion seeks to know and serve God’s vision for creation; dominion is about letting be, about seeing with kind attention, about naming the wonders, about caring for God’s creation as agents of God’s dominion. When human beings don’t know our place in creation, our dominion becomes abusive and destructive tyranny.

We are meant to serve as God’s agents, but we prefer operating without covenant obligations. In our sacred texts, this distortion of our relationship with God is called sin: the desire to be human without God, and its effects, which include further distortions in how we relate to each other, to the whole creation, and to ourselves. We choose self-assertion over love, and instead of serving God, we serve what Paul calls “the flesh.”

“Living ‘according to the flesh’ is to live for that which is transient, pursuing self-interests at the expense of others, and ignoring the presence of God,” is how one scholar describes the term. It is “a metaphor for the human tendency to seek and to possess all that brings immediate and imminent satisfaction to one’s own self. [And] the consequence of this way of living [, according to Paul,] is death.”[4] It’s like rushing into a dead-end-street, pretending it’s the freeway to a better, fuller life.

The impact, though, goes far beyond the ones doing the pretending, and not just since the beginning of the Anthropocene. Listen to this lament by the prophet Hosea,

There is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing.[5]

The land mourns, and all who live in it languish, because human beings live “according to the flesh.” “How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither?” Jeremiah cries out.[6] And Isaiah laments, “The heavens languish together with the earth. The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have … broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth.”[7] A curse devours the earth; don’t we know it.

In Romans 8, Paul writes that

the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.[8]

It’s not just human beings who cannot fully be, under the reign of sin and death, who we were made to be: the whole creation is waiting, because its freedom is tied to ours.

We know, says Paul, “we know that the whole creation has been groaning until now.” Groaning—but God is a God of life and blessing, and God will do redemptive work, should those gifts be endangered. And freeing people to be what they were created to be is characteristic of God’s redemptive work. It is a deliverance, not from the world, to some otherworldly plane, but to true life in the world.[9] Israel knows this because groaning under the yoke of slavery they cried out, and God heard their groaning, and made a way for them out of bondage in Egypt.[10] And the church knows this because God raised Jesus from the dead, making a way for humanity out of bondage to sin and death. And what God did for Israel, what God did for Jesus, God will do not only for those who are in Christ but for the whole created order.[11] Humanity’s freedom from bondage to sin and death and creation’s freedom from bondage to decay go hand in hand.

Christ has made us his own, and led by his Spirit, we enter ever more deeply into our transformation into the image of Christ, finally becoming true and faithful image bearers of God. The gift of the Spirit disturbs and disrupts what was previously a settled pattern of pride and denial. Those whom Christ has made his own, who pray with him, “Abba, Father” are weaned from the drugs that kept reality at arm’s length from them, as James Dunn put it so well.

Believers are being saved not from creation but with creation … Having the Spirit does not distance believers from creation but increases the solidarity of believers with creation.[12]

We rediscover who we were meant to be all along: caring agents of God’s dominion. Joyful participants in the communion of Creator and creation.

Paul calls the gift of the Spirit “the first fruits,” which announces the beginning of harvest season. The term echoes the joy of tasting the first homegrown tomato after long months of waiting. It sounds like hearing the opening bars of life’s redemption song, the great song of freedom for all of creation. Paul speaks of the great harvest of redemption for which the life of Jesus was the seed. The gift of the Spirit is the first fruits, the first taste, the first glance of the redeemed creation. And the gift of God’s Spirit kindles in us a burning restlessness that cannot put up with the world as it is. First fruits – we know there’s more where that came from, and we lean forward into that promise. That’s what our hope is, a leaning forward into the promise of resurrection for all of creation. And that is no facile hope. Audrey West writes,

This is hope as a woman in labor hopes: breathing through the pain, holding tight to a companion, looking ahead to what cannot yet be seen, trusting that a time will come when this pain is but a memory.[13]

Many of us struggle to hope like that amid the daily avalanche of life-draining news. But we are not alone – never alone in this world of wounds. God abides with the creation that waits with eager longing for the revealing of a humanity that will honor its calling as agent of God’s dominion. And God abides with the church in our desire to live, not according to the flesh, but led by the Spirit of Christ. God is not watching the drama of redemption from a distance, but doing the work, groaning with us, and inspiring us to trust the way of Christ and the pattern of his life, because it is the way to fullness of life for all.

We do live in a world of wounds. Three years ago, Bill McKibben wrote,

The battle is not just to swap out coal for sun; it’s to swap out a poisoned and unfair world for one that works for everyone, now and in the future. Of course, no matter what we do now, we’ve waited too long to prevent truly massive trauma. Already we see firestorms without precedent, storms stronger than any on record, Arctic melt that’s occurring decades ahead of schedule. We’re losing whole ecosystems like coral reefs; we have heat waves so horrible that in places they take us to the limits of human survival. Given the momentum of climate change, even if we do everything right from this point on those effects will get much worse in the years ahead, and of course their impacts will be concentrated on those who have done the least to cause them, and are most vulnerable. That means there is another area we need to be working hard: building the kind of world that not only limits the rise in temperature, but also cushions the blow from that which is no longer avoidable. … We’re going to need human solidarity on an unparalleled level, and right now that seems a long ways away. 

The biggest challenge we face in moving toward resilience, sustainability and healing in this world of wounds is not technical; it’s not even economic or political; it is the oldest challenge human beings have known: to live, not “according to the flesh,” but as fellow members of the household of God.

In grace, God has freed us from the tyranny of sin and death. In grace, we are finally free to welcome one another as agents of God’s dominion of love. And in this welcome, all living things will find fullness of life.

[1] Quoted by Curt Meine https://blog.oup.com/2017/01/130-years-aldo-leopold/

[2] https://www.ft.com/content/c283bb9c-1a67-4659-830d-98580fef2900

[3] Genesis 1:26-28

[4] Arland Hultgren http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2365

[5] Hosea 4:1-3

[6] Jeremiah 12:4

[7] Isaiah 24:4-6

[8] Romans 8:18-21

[9] Terence Fretheim, “The Reclamation of Creation: Redemption and Law in Exodus,” Interpretation 45, 359; my italics.

[10] Exodus 2:23f.

[11] See N.T, Wright, Romans, NIB, 590.

[12] James Dunn in Romans and the People of God, Sven K. Soderlund and N. T. Wright, eds. (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 1999), 87-88.

[13] Audrey West http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1306

Trust the sower, trust the seed

Thomas Kleinert

In the spring, I planted a little herb garden: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. And no, I didn’t pay homage to Simon & Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair – I also planted basil. Parsley seeds are tiny, I just pinched them and sprinkled them randomly on the soil like salt on fried eggs. Sage seeds are larger and round, so I carefully put two of them in a row of shallow, pinky-size holes. I decided to plant two, because I didn’t know how many seeds would actually germinate and survive, and I was pleasantly surprised when all but one out of ten sage seeds germinated and grew into healthy plants. I did lose my entire first crop of parsley, though, because the seedlings came up quick, but got too much sun before they had strong roots. I should have paid more attention to Jesus.

Jesus never told a story about parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme – although he did mention mustard, mint, dill and cumin, now that I think about it – but he did tell stories about soil and seed, fig trees and vineyards, sheep and goats, and all of his stories were episodes in the great story of his life: the story of God’s reign on earth.

When I hear the parable of the sower, I notice extravagant generosity. I see a farmer walking across the field, with a large bag of seed slung across one shoulder, and, holding the bag open with one hand, spreading seed by the handful, scattering them across the land: No pinching of seeds here, no careful counting either. This farmer is sowing with abandon. I am reminded of the armadas of helicopter seeds launched by maples at the end of spring or the delicate seeds of dandelions sailing on the wind like clouds of promise. So many seeds, year after year, and no one keeps count how many germinate, how many grow to maturity, or how many get eaten by the birds or the squirrels, because year after year, there’s a new generation of maples and dandelions, and of birds and squirrels. The deep, generous wisdom at work in the wild flourishing of creation, is also at work in the coming of God’s kingdom on earth, I hear Jesus say. We are invited to trust the extravagance and faithfulness of God, particularly when all we can see is trampled, compacted soil where nothing will grow, or rocky ground, or creepy kudzu smothering all life but its own.

As you listen to the parable of the sower, where do you find yourself drawn into it? Do you identify with the sower who scatters seed with abandon? Or do you see yourself in the seed, thrown into conditions where you struggle to thrive? Perhaps you find yourself wondering what it might be like to simply fall on good soil and sing, “All I have needed thy hand has provided…”? Or do you compare yourself, your life, your heart to the ground? Do you think about the story’s four different soil types, wondering how receptive and responsive you are to the word of the kingdom? Every parable contains a multitude of stories, depending on how you turn it, how long you’re willing to sit with it, and how deep you let it sink in.

When the first generations of the church were facing difficult times in their mission and witness, when all their work seemed in vain, when the word of the kingdom they desired to live and spread appeared to go unheard and unheeded, they remembered the story of the sower, and they asked Jesus, “What does it mean?” And in the answer they received from their prophets and teachers in Jesus’ name, the risen Lord said to them,

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.[1]

The word of the kingdom may face a three-fourths failure rate, but among those who do hear it, really hear it, the yield is – wow! I mean “wow!” because the typical yield of wheat in Jesus’ day may have been 8 to 10 measures per measure of seed, maybe 15 measures in perfect growing conditions![2] The parable is speaking straight from everyday life in telling of seed picked by the birds, or of seedlings withering in the sun or getting choked out by competing plants – all that was the common experience of any Galilean working the land. But a crop of 30 measures for a measure of seed would have been a farmer’s dream come true times two, and Jesus tells us to imagine 100! Jesus tells us to imagine an abundance way beyond reasonable expectations, and especially in those relentless seasons when the word of the kingdom appears to go unheard and unheeded. Trust the sower, he tells us, trust the seed, and do your part to hear the word of the kingdom, to really hear it, and live it – there’s nothing for you to worry about, church, hear my word and live it! Pray for God’s kingdom to come, and live into it.

Beginning in v3, the word “parable” occurs twelve times in ch. 13. The word derives from a Greek word meaning “to throw alongside.” That is, basic to this kind of story is the notion of comparison; one entity is set alongside something else to be illuminated by the comparison. Thus “the kingdom of heaven” is “thrown alongside” or compared to and illuminated by everyday situations that point beyond themselves in ways that, according to one scholar, “[leave] the mind in sufficient doubt about [the parable’s] precise application to tease it into active thought.”[3] Thus a parable doesn’t just mean one thing, but it opens the mind and heart to perceive a meadow of illuminating thoughts and insights. One person says,

I see myself in the sower, and the seed is my life. The story encourages me to invest my life in the good soil of the kingdom, where it will bear fruit beyond my imagining.

To another hearer, God is the sower and the seed is God’s word.

Our lives aren’t always smooth, dark, rich soil, she says. There are times when we have been trampled on so much, our lives resemble hard, dense dirt roads, too hard for God’s word to penetrate. And there are rocky patches where hope springs up, only to wither away in the heat of hard days. And then there are times when God’s word really does take root, but the weeds of worldly worries overwhelm the seedlings. The sower, however, keeps sowing. The sower keeps sowing until some of that seed falls on good ground and bears fruit. As long as the sower keeps sowing, there’s hope for us.

And yet another who has pondered the words of the parable says,

I heard this old Arabic folk tale: When God created the world, he entrusted all the stones to two angels. Each had a full bag. As they flew over Palestine, one of the bags broke, spilling half the stones that were intended for the whole world. Sometimes I feel like the angel’s bag broke over my life, leaving no room for new things to grow. I like the thought that God will keep sowing until perhaps just one seed falls on that hidden spot of deep, rich soil in my life, and there it will sprout and take root – like a tree whose roots reach deep below the rocky surface.

And yet another who has let the words sink in, says,

The story makes me think about how receptive I really am to God’s word. When my faith seems weak, perhaps it is because I have allowed busyness and cares to fill my life, too many distractions and false loves, which threaten to choke off my faith like thorns overgrowing a seed-bed. Or have I become so set in my ways that my paths have become ruts, and I can hear nothing new, not even the word that can break me open?

Jesus has planted his life as a seed in the world, and he has scattered parables like a sower of stories, seeds that produce a rich harvest of listening and understanding, illuminating both his life and ours. And the harvest continues because the sower keeps sowing and those seeds bear fruit daily in faith, compassion and faithful action, and the lives of those who have received him in turn become seeds of the kingdom themselves, scattered and sown with the same extravagant trust in God’s faithfulness that characterized the life of Jesus.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth, [says the Lord]; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.[4]

[1] Matthew 13:18-23

[2] See references at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_ancient_Rome

[3] See Warren Carter https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-15/commentary-on-matthew-131-9-18-23-5 and the widely accepted definition by C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, 1936

[4] Isaiah 55:10-11