Matthew 20:1-16, “A Question of Fairness?”, Sept. 21, 2014, Doug Fritzsche

“It’s not fair!!!!”

………If you have ever had children … or siblings … or, frankly, just been around other people …. You have heard those words … shrill and pointed as fingernails on a blackboard…… It’s not fair.

If you’re a parent … or an uninvolved sibling …. Or the teacher’s aide … chances are that you then face a task that has three parts. …

Part 1: listen to the complaint and the responses – that is, gather the facts….

Part 2: Make an assessment – That is, figure out what standards of decent conduct you might use as a comparison and then see how things line up.

Part 3: Take steps to bring things back into balance … restore some fairness if necessary.

That seems like the situation in our message from Matthew this morning. The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard is one that really upsets our sensibilities. We modern Americans tend to put a price-tag on everything. And, when someone hires someone else to do a job, it follows that there ought to be some basis for whatever pay they get.

One standard we use is the hourly wage. Someone spends so many hours on a job, they get such-and-such an hour … times so-many hours … equals how much they earned. Seems straightforward enough. The longer you work, the more you make.

Another standard would be piece-work. You stack so many widgets into so many boxes and you get this-or-that per widget or such-and-such per box. Again… straightforward. The more work you complete, the more reward you get.

We can even look at some more complicated standards … Like the way waiters and waitresses get paid…. Part hourly and part gratuities …. So it is some combination of how long you work, how much you do and … this is a little arbitrary …. How good your service was? … Or is it how much it was appreciated? … Or even how generous a tipper your customer was? … Either way, some of the wait-staff goes home with more than others. … Maybe we think that’s kind-of-fair because we can see some sense behind the pay mechanism. … On the other hand, some restaurants realize that some customers are …. just lousy tippers …. and they pool the tips. … Is that fair either?

I’m bringing all this up because Jesus is trying to help us understand a facet of God’s value system. Jesus calls it the kingdom of heaven … or the reign of God … and some of us think of it as God’s dream for creation. And these values shape the way-things-are in that dream.

In the parable, the owner of the vineyard went out looking for some day laborers. Kind of like you might check the parking lot of Home Depot or scan Craigslist if you were looking for someone to give you a hand for a day. He hired some laborers early in the morning and put them to work. He went back around 9 and found some others standing around looking for work … and he hired them … telling them that he would pay them “whatever was right” for their work. He went back at noon and three o’clock and five o’clock and did the same.

Then, at the end of the day, he lined them up … last-hired to first … and paid them all the same wage.

And, just as we would expect … with our various standards of comparison … he got a pretty bad reaction from the ones who had been there all day.

“It’s not fair!!!”

But the owner pointed out that he had paid what was promised…. And … if he wanted to be a little generous with what was his … who should complain?

And it is easy to decide then that this is a story about God’s mercy … that God is willing to forgive right up until the end of the day … and that the reward of an unending life with God is available to any who come to work in the vineyard … even at the eleventh hour.

That was certainly the interpretation Constantine put on the passage. Constantine, you might recall, was a Roman emperor who was responsible for making Christianity a state-sanctioned religion. Before him, it was tolerated – or not – as an errant brand of Judaism subject to persecution at the whim of the Roman officials. Constantine actually passed an edict allowing freedom to follow any religion – including Christianity.

He is one of Christianity’s first big-time patrons. He literally put Christianity on the map. He organized the Council of Nicea … where our Nicene Creed was written. And, while he was famous for what he did to spread Christianity and build monuments …… he stalled when it came to actually becoming a Christian..

Eusebius reports that he waited until he was on his deathbed. As he lay dying, Constantine finally asked for baptism … expecting absolution from a lifetime of sins … and promising to live as a better Christian if he survived.

That’s one reason why I’m a little hesitant to let this slip by as some kind of allegory for why it is never too late to convert to Christianity. … Because it also would serve as an excuse to put the values Jesus offered in last place.

You guys at Shepherd of the Pines really ought to understand this. You’re church planters. We have a makeshift kind of arrangement and a common dream of becoming a church that binds us together … but you are the first … and you have already put in plenty of labor in the hot sun … and more to come … And I don’t think anyone here would begrudge one bit of that effort to anyone who wanted to join us at this hour … or at any hour yet to come.

That’s part of the value Jesus is trying to communicate when he says “the last will be first and the first will be last.” …

This passage in Matthew is the center of three examples of Jesus’ teaching about a kingdom where the last are first and the first are last. The first is an example of a rich young man who wants what Jesus offers, but can’t bring himself part with his possessions and give to the poor … then follow him.

In the next, there is talk about the trappings of status. .. Jesus paints a picture disparaging the powerful who are tyrants over other people, saying that “It will not be so among you; whoever wishes to be first among you must first be your slave.”

This set of values is vastly different than the hourly-wage-and-piecework we might use to decide what someone is worth. And if we try to apply this teaching only to some …. imaginary spiritual realm that exists only in the bye-and-bye …. Then we are in danger of missing two very important points.

The first is that we live in the presence of a living Christ. Not something remote and off-in-the-future, but here and now. The real presence of Christ is what we affirm every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper.

The second is that eternal life with God has already begun. Today is just as much a part of that life as any day in the future.

The real value expressed here is not one of greater and lesser … That’s the value system the parable rejects. But in rejecting it, reveals the underlying assumption … that EVERYONE is getting enough. THAT’s the value we are talking about.

Earlier we realized we would have to use some kind of standard to guide our decisions … Here is the standard: ALL people are valuable… We recognize that easily enough in the political arena, where we quickly agree to the idea of one-person-one-vote. …

It’s tougher in the nitty gritty area of daily subsistence, where the unconsidered language of our economic culture …. makes it too easy to demonize the increasing number of our brothers and sisters ….who have found themselves in backwaters of unemployment, under-employment and hopelessness they cannot escape.

The world has changed …through computerization … globalization – think out-sourcing … astronomical college tuitions … and debt. Think of this: People who lost their jobs during the recession tried to hang on by spending their savings and then going into debt. Now 1 in 10 in the good-earning years of 35-44 are having their wages garnished. …. And THAT’s the lucky ones who have jobs.

The value that is in decline right now is the value that ALL people need both a chance to do something useful and to do it for a sufficient wage. That’s a value God expressed to the wandering Hebrews in our reading from Exodus…. Manna: … It wouldn’t last overnight. Nobody could store it up. But every day there was enough.

Friends, values aren’t abstract things for philosophers and preachers to ponder about. They are the real-world, real-time tools that we use to chart our destinies and the course of our world.

Values are what we use – or set aside – when we choose to spend millions and billions to prosecute wars around the globe … knowing full well that every drone strike serves as a recruiting call for a new generation of enemies….. And values are what we use – or set aside – when we say we can’t afford to undertake the process of repairing our long-neglected bridges and pipelines and urban infrastructure …. Things that build-up, create jobs and bring hope.

Pretending that “security” has to do with foreign threats … while at the same time consigning millions-of-people here to marginalized-lives-with-no-security…. for home…or job … or even the next meal …. Is hideous self-delusion.

Values are what we learn from the presence of Christ in our lives … and what guides our hands and feet and lips and pens … in the world we inhabit… where we exercise some control …. But, ultimately … we acknowledge …. belongs to God.

 

Let us pray: Generous God, who provides all good things, guide us by your word in a world where the noisy clamor ….of everything from pop culture to politics ….distracts us from your message of love … love for strangers … love for enemies … love for the least of these … Inspire us to live toward your dream of a creation where everyone created in your image has security enough for the day. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.

Matthew 18:21-35, “Newness Math”, Sept. 14, 2014, Doug Fritzsche

There’s a process I go through in preparing a sermon. Part of that process is prayer and meditative time – asking God for some meaning in the scripture that the lectionary places before us on a given Sunday. … But part of it also simply is the rhythm of the passing of time.

Months before I preach the text, Kathy and I will talk about it a little as we plan the music for the Sunday. You have to plan in advance. Even a talented musician like Kathy appreciates time to practice. …. So, I’m aware of a general theme.

Last week, for example, the theme was about the first steps of reconciliation when we need to acknowledge that “we hurt” because of something a brother or sister has done … and that we have to extend some effort to maintain the relationship.

And this week, Matthew continues along that line with a lesson about forgiveness … How does Peter put it? “… how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”

We might imagine that Peter is pretty smug as he makes the remark … I mean SEVEN times – How Christian is THAT? …. Oh, yes. He’s all over this forgiveness thing!

I can only imagine that Peter looked like he had been smacked when Jesus responded: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times!”

And, during the week, I read the text a few times. I try to engage it by reading things others have said about it over the years. And then, I really start to struggle with it on Thursday night, after I do the newsletter.

Of course, this Thursday was 9/11 …. And the night before, our President had gone on TV urging a new set of military actions against still another terrorist group that has sprung up in the wake of the political disarray that sprang up in the chaos of our military withdrawal that followed a war that was foisted off on the basis of shoddy intelligence to a population that was aching and mourning … from 9/11.

That’s a long sentence …. I don’t expect you to make any sense of it … I certainly can’t. If it wasn’t so serious, it would remind me of the children’s song about the old lady who swallowed a fly….. What it DOES remind me, though, is that forgiving is the one approach to that hard knot we hold in our hearts … the knot of resentment.

And I can see a clue in here that suggests that Jesus may have been onto something. Because, in one way or another, all the teachings of Jesus relate to this one little super-power … the ability to forgive. I even have a reminder taped to my computer that says, “Love is an act of ….endless forgiveness.”

If you have experienced love on any level, you’ll understand what that means.

I’ve explored this topic with several people in the past few days, and it is interesting what they make of forgiveness.

One told me the story of a woman who embezzled money from the church. A lot of money…. Enough money that she way sure to spend time in the state pen if they pressed charges. But she was a life-long member of the church – where she showed up every Sunday with her preschool-age child … What would happen to the child if Mom went to prison? … Her parents were members there too. And the church elders resolved to try to avoid making criminal charges. They confronted her … and she apologized … wrote a letter to each member … and paid the money back … She went bankrupt to do it … and completed a course of counseling. ….

And my friend insisted to me that there are some key components to forgiveness. Acknowledgment of the wrong done. … A sincere apology …. Some kind of restitution … And evidence that steps have been taken to correct the behavior … like the counseling.

I like that a lot. It really appeals to my sense of right and wrong. It raises the matter of justice being done and … without justice, there doesn’t have to be forgiveness. Sweet and simple.

Peter would have liked it, too. And, I can guarantee you one thing. With standards like those, we’d NEVER have to worry about forgiving someone seventy-seven times … Actually, seven would be quite a stretch.

In fact, so rarely do I hear about even one instance of this kind of forgiveness that I thought the story was worth repeating.

I have to think Jesus meant something different than a more civilized way to balance the scales than the old “eye-for-an-eye” system.

Frankly, I had to back away from 9/11 to think about this topic. That catastrophe was too pre-meditated, too grandiose, … too surrounded with propaganda … too deeply nested in global disparities in wealth and power and the clash of cultures. There are some things where my effort to forgive would just be glib and banal … and ultimately meaningless.

But that doesn’t remove Jesus’ insistence.

Our translated scripture talks about a “member of the church” doing us wrong. But the original Greek text referred to a brother … or a sister … and there isn’t any reference to membership. We could quibble here and ask, “Who is my brother?” Jesus once defined a brother or a sister or a mother as anyone who does the will of God. And we might also say something like “any child of God is my brother or sister.”

On the other hand, we simply say … “Just the people in this room.”

One part of this challenge is, literally: Who is my brother or sister? The other is: What does it mean to forgive?

A couple of days ago June Steenkamp, the mother of Reeva Steenkamp who was shot by her boyfriend, Oscar Pistorius …. the double-amputee running star …. in what the court ruled was a culpable homicide …. was interviewed on TV. She said that she would forgive him. She added, “I’ve lost everything that’s important to me … but, still, I can forgive.”

But she also said that she believes the verdict … equivalent to what we call “manslaughter” … was too light a ruling.

There is something in our hearts that can’t let go too soon … that won’t give up the often-vain idea that the past can somehow be changed … corrected … and that things can be back as they were. …. Even when our intellect tells us to let go, our hearts hang on.

Resentment is a burden we carry alone. I’ve heard it described as a poison that we concoct from the dregs of the past, …..then drink it ourselves … so to spoil our futures.

Oftentimes we know that the object of our resentment is blissfully unaware … and couldn’t care less.

Inside ourselves, the process is a lot like grief. When someone does us wrong – sins against us in the words of Matthew – we experience loss…. The loss of all the things that might have gone right … the loss of a trusted relationship … and who knows what other complications might be attached? … Shame? …. Guilt?

I think of this burden in the resentment of a co-dependent man whose wife is passed out drunk every afternoon at 4 … and who begs for forgiveness the next morning … and he says, “I forgive you.” ….

Or the abused spouse who looks in the mirror at still one more black eye …. Surely that isn’t what Jesus meant by seventy-seven times?

And a hundred other things that leave us hurt and abandoned and bewildered about how it could have gone so wrong.

And if we have to heap on top of that a saccharine scriptural command to forgive … as if Jesus was asking us to pretend everything was all right…. That doesn’t sound much like Jesus.

So, no pretense …. First, we have to acknowledge and engage the grief. There is a whole school of therapy called “grief work” and it has to do with naming and claiming and processing the many facets of loss. It is based in the loss and separation that happens when someone dies … but many of the ideas of actively engaging our loss – rather than trying to passively endure it – apply to other damaged relationships too.

And then … once we have worked this thorn into something cohesive, specific, with definition and limits … we can let it go.

“Forgive” is a heavily loaded word. It is full of obligation and legalism, as well as misbegotten notions like “forgive and forget.” Forgive means to release … to let go … to not hang on to … it is acknowledging that we are now in a new place … that there is no way to change the things that have happened in the past …. And that we go forward from a new beginning.

This is a call from a God who makes things new… a call to free ourselves from a prison of the past in which we are chained by grievances and nourished by resentment. When we cannot forgive, we stay in that dungeon until the end of time. And there is the bitter end of our passage in Matthew.

And this needs to be clear, too. The new beginning doesn’t imply staying open for a new round of old behavior. It means freeing ourselves from the burden of resentful pretense that we can somehow “get even” or “make things right.”

It is an acknowledgment that there are outcomes under God’s control that are far different that what we might have in mind … yet are still good.

It is a process that we may begin with prayer – asking for God’s participation – and which ends when we drop the heavy stone of resentment.

 

Let us pray: Gracious, merciful God, you whose forgiveness we take for granted … help us to find within ourselves the wealth of your mercy … that we may forgive our brothers and sisters … and move forward in unburdened newness. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.

 

 

Matthew 18:15-20, “Can’t We All Just Get Along?”, Sept. 7, 2014, Doug Fritzsche

Sometimes the scripture reading goes by pretty fast, and I just want to make sure we heard something Jesus was saying here.

Listen again: “…if any two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.”

“…if any two of you agree on earth about anything you ask …. “

If any two of you agree about anything …. Boy, that sets a pretty low bar. … But it points to the heart of this passage about conflict and the limitless possibilities opened by reconciliation …. If we were able to simply set aside all those complicated things that make us want what we want and, consequently, set us on a collision course with our fellows.

If you have ever been tempted to look at that passage as some kind of reference to a Santa Claus God, I invite you to consider the alternative: that the challenge is bigger … and the stakes much higher. If we can get a handle on the conflicts we constantly generate, we are opening the door to what Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven.

Just a few minutes ago, we joined our voices together in a Unison Prayer of Confession. We do that every week, and maybe we fall into the trap of thinking of it as just a liturgical routine.

I know that the practice is being dropped in a lot of churches. They have replaced it with Unison Prayers of Praise or a Prayer of the Day.

A friend of mine … another pastor … sometimes teases me about it. He calls it “ladling on the guilt”, and asks questions like, “Do you always beat them up with a prayer of confession?” He says I’m too much of a Calvinist.

But today’s passage from Matthew … in fact the whole of chapter 18 from Matthew … got me thinking about what’s really behind that important part of our Sundays together.

One of the things we call ourselves is a “confessing church.” By that, we mean that we ascribe to a number of statements-of-understanding adopted over the centuries. These documents are called “confessions” and they are part of our church constitution. In fact, a new one is in the process of being adopted. This Belhar Confession came out of the agony of apartheid in South Africa, and adds to our understanding of God’s relationship to the human community…. And how us humans are called to relate to each other.

In one sense, these confessions are not the same kind of statement we make when we ask God for guidance and forgiveness in the events of our lives … but in another way, they are exactly that: These confessions acknowledge that we live in a world where sin is commonplace … where we are sucked into it just by going about our day-to-day business … and that God dreams something better for this creation.

Oh, yeah … and that God wants a relationship with us and is willing to pursue that in spite of the many many times our thinking-and-unthinking-acts get us crosswise with what we imagine God would prefer.

And that’s the thing about the Prayer of Confession: I never felt “beat up” by this piece of the service … I always felt a bit comforted to be with other people who admit that we aren’t some saintly gathering of religious perfection, but instead, were people who fell short every day. … That’s one of the original meanings of the word “sin” – an arrow that misses its mark. …. And in those few moments of silent reflection at the end of the prayer, I can add in a little bit about some personal matters on which I fall short as well.

All of this is kind of easy, because I know God loves me and …. Everything I know about God reinforces this …. That no matter how hard it is to forgive me … God is up to the task. … And that Prayer of Confession every week is like dumping out a backpack full of rocks.

Man, does that feel GOOD….. Yes, my brothers and sisters. Here we are together in community … relieved of the bondage and baggage of a world of sin … and it feels … GOOD….

So, if community is so good, why do we get such knowing nods of agreement when we quote Jean-Paul Sartre in the famous last line of the play “No Exit”, “Hell is other people.”

The simple fact is that we screw up. We fall short, in the words of the hymn. Most of you know that this Fellowship sponsors a recovery group that uses the Bible as well as resources from groups like Alcoholics Anonymous to help people living lives encumbered by alcoholism, addiction and co-dependence find more healthy approaches to living. One resource from Alcoholics Anonymous talks about how people get crosswise with each other in these words: “any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits.

What usually happens? The show doesn’t come off very well. He begins to think life doesn’t treat him right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?”

Sound at all familiar? You don’t have to be an alcoholic to come to the conclusion that so-and-so has done me wrong… or in the words of our scripture, has sinned against me.

We live in an era when the basic stuff of human contact is being frayed by our increasingly wonderful means of communicating with one another. We can smear somebody on Facebook. We can send snarky texts. … Have you heard of anyone who has been fired or laid-off her job by e-mail? … It happens.

But Jesus calls us to something much more human … and I’m afraid that this passage often gets misused because it gets taken out of context. This little snippet is taken from a series of teachings about how important and valuable PERSONAL relationship is in the scheme of things Jesus ushers in.

That’s what this whole chapter in Matthew is about. It begins with a call to humility …. A recognition that one person running the life of someone else doesn’t work. Jesus even says that greatness in God’s dream for creation requires humility like that of a little child. He follows with a story about how important one sheep … one single relationship …. is, in God’s view. That one broken relationship is worth letting the rest of the flock … think what it will … react however it will …. While trying to heal that one breach.

It is hard to remember that humility when we feel we’ve been sinned against. … We want to strike back.

But Jesus says: No, take that person aside and have a face-to-face talk. Not an e-mail or text or voice-mail. Or worse, complaining about it to a third person. ….. So, what do you say? …. The first thing is to admit that “I hurt.” … That’s not easy. What’s easy is to come out swinging and blaming and demanding. …. But admitting that “I hurt” exposes our vulnerability. It makes us humble.

Too often, this text has been offered as a model for Christian chastising … It goes something like this: Go talk to this sinner. If that doesn’t get him to mend his ways, then get your buddy and the two of you go talk some sense into him. If that doesn’t work, set up a kangaroo court before the whole assembly. And if this miscreant still won’t toe the line, then shun him like the sinner he is … a Gentile and a tax-collector.

The core question is this: Is it better to be right? … or is it better to be in relationship?

Jesus filled his life with examples that the great value is relationship. We have to admire the tongue-in-cheek way he delivered that message – you can almost see him giving a mischievous wink as he talked about those who still wouldn’t listen: “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

Remember the tax collector Zacchaeus? Jesus called him down from his perch in a sycamore in Jericho and started a relationship with him. The Syro-Phoenician woman who claimed a right to crumbs from the master’s table? And how many other tax collectors and Gentiles? Jesus sought them out to initiate relationships.

And what is “right” too often has more to do with whose toes are being stepped on. The Belhar Confession I mentioned earlier harks back to a time in South Africa when what was right involved a lot of practices we now find simply wrong. The document is important to our church because we Americans, too, have lived through eras of racial injustice like South Africa.

When relationship is preserved, there is still a chance for healing.

There’s one other point worth clarifying. Our NRSV translation says “if a member of the church sins against you.” … The original Greek doesn’t say anything about membership in an institution. It simply says, “If a brother sins against you….” We understand, of course that sisters are included as well …

But the point is about where we draw the line with seeking to heal broken relationships. …. It may be that the limit is just as expansive as we can imagine the Kingdom of Heaven.

We all have relationships that are strained … I hope we can go out from here this morning with something tangible…. A simple beginning. I have some paper here that I’d like to hand out to each of you. After you get it, let’s sit quietly for just a minute. Then I’d ask you to write two words at the top left. Write the word “Dear” and then a name.

You don’t have to finish the letter today … but just getting in mind the name of someone with whom we can begin the process of making peace is miles ahead of a lot of our world. And it is a step toward the world of God’s dreams.

Let’s take that moment now…..

 

Let us pray: Loving God, we turn to you again and again in our agitated, often conflicted lives …. Seeking the simple assurance that you still love us … that you still want a relationship with us. We turn to you now, asking for a fullness of peace that we can extend through our own … humility and vulnerability … so that we might … in healing our torn relationships … help secure a small corner of the great Peace that is your dream and promise. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.

Matthew 16:13-20, “Who Is The Son of Man?”, August 24, 2014, Doug Fritzsche

After I read this passage, one of the first things I did was to look over some pictures I took at Caesarea Philippi when I visited there a few years ago.

Sure enough, there was a picture of a friend from seminary standing on the expanse of marble stretched out in front of the gates of Hades.

It is an actual place, according to a number of historical sources. And it was a popular place back in Jesus’ time. It was a destination-kind-of-place, the temple to the god Pan – in fact the name of the city had been pronounced PAN-IAS…. A nearby village still has the name Banias ….. before Herod Phillip – son of Herod the Great … renamed it in honor of himself and the emperor.

So, it doesn’t appear that Jesus just picked a shady spot along the roadside for this conversation with the disciples. It was another in a series of multi-layered encounters where there was some show… and some tell … and something to be learned from the way the words and the setting went together.

This shrine to Pan is a big place. Much of it is in ruins now, but the site was embossed on some local first-century coins, so we have a good idea of what it looked like in its heyday.

First, the setting is spectacular. A cliff faced with red rock, with a large natural cave … a spring of water and a pool … The cliffs are carved with niches for statues of Pan’s various consorts. A broad expanse of marble plaza still stands in front. And … in Jesus’ day … bold colonnades led to Pan’s shrine and to the gates of Hades.

The place had been a sacrificial altar dating back to the days when the old Hebrew prophets denounced the worship of Baal and the sometimes-human sacrifices offered to that terrible deity. … The deep cave .. where the sacrifices were dropped … was thought to be the entrance to the underworld …. The afterlife, as it were, of that pantheistic worldview….. The cave was the gates of Hades.

Here, in one place, was power and opulence and glitz and flash…. The power behind the powers that be… at least symbolically. This WAS the institutional religion of the dominant Roman overlords …. Excepting, of course, that Caesar also was a god.

……Maybe the setting casts a little different light on the question Jesus asks. Surrounded by all this evidence of power in popular culture …. “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

I’m pretty sure Jesus wasn’t concerned about how his “brand” was doing in the marketplace of popularity. He didn’t seem inclined to modify his teaching to suit the Jewish powerhouses of the day – the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

How would we respond to that question today? “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

I’ve been struck lately by the number of letters to the editor in the Statesman that include the bewildered … accusing … presumptive question: “Where are the churches?” … in giving public witness to any of a number of injustices.

I noticed it from people writing about refugee children showing up at our borders. But I’ve also seen that sentiment expressed about some of the police shootings of African-Americans in recent weeks. I’ve seen the same sentiment concerning drone attacks in the Middle East.

When I see that kind of question so flagrantly demanding something that we church people ought to find so obvious, my initial reaction is: “So, what church do you go to, and what are you folks saying about it?” My guess is that the answers are “none” and “not-applicable”.

But that gives us a clue to the answer to the first question: “People say the Son of Man is the one who ought to be taking care of the justice stuff I’m too busy to get around to.” So, maybe not Elijah …. Maybe Superman.

In fact, if I look around to see what people are saying about who the Son of Man is … I can get completely lost in a sea of personal priorities and wishful thinking.

Perhaps Jesus’ point in this encounter is that something new is at hand.

Instead of this being an airy piece of theology about an invisible heaven and hell, envision this setting as the place where metaphysics takes on solid form. Just as the gates of Hades are standing there in the background, so, Jesus … standing in the foreground … is handing Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven …. The kingdom that Jesus has preached all along is … at hand.

When he speaks of binding and loosing … “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”…. This is language that has to do with commitments and forgiveness …. Things that don’t happen separately in two different places, but that happen at once … in one place … in the kingdom that is “at hand.”

The whole thing revolves around the second question … the question Jesus asked Peter … the name, Petros, means the same thing as Rock … Petra ….. “and on this rock I will build my church…”

So, the question, Church, is this: “Who are you saying that the Son of Man is?”

We have creeds that we recite … sometimes from memory … that say something about what our institutional church has to say on this subject. And that’s great, for what it is. But the Nicene creed hasn’t changed since it was written in 325. …. However, a lot of other things have changed since then, not the least of them being moon landings, atomic bombs, climate change, the internet and an effective treatment for the ebola virus.

The miracles we see in the gospel stories are more and more explained as psychological maladies …. Demons have fallen out of fashion: they have pills for that …. Or as conditions that are treatable… or soon will be…..

And yet the handful of us gathered here tenaciously insist that we are in touch with something real … something powerful … something essential …. Something that lets us hope in a world of strife and confusion.

Last Sunday, a bunch of us were out in the hot sun at Back to School Day, handing out spiral notebooks to returning students. It was a nice thing to do, and, I know you’re all nice people who do nice things … but that really doesn’t explain why you were out there frying in the 100+ degree stadium. Sometimes it is hard to put your finger on, but that was an expression of the life of a community gathered in the name of Christ. It is like breathing. At worship, in prayer and study, our community breathes in Spirit … in mission and ministry, we breathe it out. That regular breathing is a natural part of a healthy organism. And it doesn’t exist without the One who calls us.

We all need to find our own language for who we say the Son of Man is. And I’ll try to share a little of my own short version.

Jesus is how God enters our story. The Son of Man is the emblem of the great impact of God on history that continues to reverberate to this day. The Word made flesh is a thing of constant newness, inviting us to discard old resentments and move forward in the light of love and forgiveness as Jesus showed was the desire of God for all creation.

God did it this way in an attempt to get the message through on a scale we can accept – a human scale. God did it this way to show us that we are not alone.

Jesus shows God’s economy of abundance, feeding the thousands, rather than let them go hungry. He disregards the powerful and upsets the status quo and offers the keys to the kingdom that not even the gates of Hades can shut out.

Jesus revealed God’s heart, a heart that suffers when rockets detonate in the Gaza strip …. And when fear of strangers leads one of us to shoot another in a moment of panic. ….

He offers all that God makes possible on a scale that is entirely human. And in his Resurrection, he offers us the certainty that God’s love is far beyond even the power of death.

The Son of Man is the Christ-energy that continues to surge through our world, urging us ever toward patience and tolerance and love and kindness and forgiveness and … we pray … to the kingdom he ushers in……

I want to take a minute now to ask you for your own words. Who do you say the Son of Man is?

………….

Thank you. Today, you’re Peter. Your words, your thoughts … your story … your life with Christ …. Is the rock on which the church is still being built.

 

Let us pray: Gracious God, you have given us in Christ the window through which we may witness your love and hope for your creation…. Help us to know Christ in our lives so we may be the light you have sent to shine…. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.

Matthew 15:10-28, “Who’s a Dog?”, August 17, 2014, Doug Fritzsche

Ever watch the Westminster Kennel Club dog show? It is like the Miss America Pageant for the dog-lovers among us. Fancy breeds … Spectacular grooming … poise … prancing … impeccable training.

But … despite all the refinement … the big show in no way diminishes the special place we have in our hearts for our own dogs. Many of us here have dogs. We can tell stories about the adventures of our canine companions. … Maybe we have rueful stories about the prince’s ransom we had to pay to the vet for one or another doggie malady.

In some ways, having a dog is the ultimate luxury. They don’t do much to earn their keep. It costs a fair amount to feed them. They shed and need baths and do rude things. … But still, they become part of the family.

A friend told me the difference between dogs and cats: If you have a cat, you provide it a nice home, feed it well, stroke it and groom it and give it a nice bed to lie down. And the cat thinks it is god and is entitled to all that worship………. If you have a dog, you provide a nice home, feed it well, stroke it and groom it and give it a nice place to lie down … and the dog thinks you are god.

I mention all this to remind us that our perception of the dogs in our lives are radically different than the views of the people of Jesus’ day. Nothing cute, cuddly, lovable or noble about THOSE dogs.

A more apt comparison would be to the dogs of some impoverished nations of Africa, where dogs live among humans, but fend for themselves as scavengers,…. fighting over the scraps and waste. When dogs are mentioned in the Bible, it often is in a negative or derogatory light. … Earlier in Matthew, Jesus commented, “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs…” (7:6) In Jesus’ story about Lazarus and the rich man, the scavenging dogs in the streets were relegated to licking the beggar’s sores. (Luke 16:21).

Deuteronomy says that even the wages earned by a dog are not acceptable as offerings. And in Exodus and Judges and Samuel and Kings and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Psalms and Proverbs …. Dogs generally are disparaged. …. Even Webster’s Dictionary’s second definition of “dog” follows suit: “A worthless or contemptible person.”

And that is what is so very troubling about this passage. We see the Jesus we know for so many very good attributes: love, kindness, compassion, generosity, justice … I could go on, but you get probably get the idea …. And he has such harsh words for this poor woman with a severely troubled daughter.

She cried out that the daughter was demonized …. That was a common diagnosis of the day. … We can’t guess what the symptoms might have been …. Or whether there would be a modern treatment that would be effective….. All we know for sure is the mother’s desperation …. A desperation that made her immune to fears of rejection … to questions about Jesus’ Jewishness …. She was a Gentile after all. … and immune to the conventions of the time that an unaccompanied woman should never approach a strange man.

She was at the last gasp of desperation for finding help for her daughter.

And Jesus … who has just told her that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel … adds an insult to his rejection: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” … It doesn’t take much imagination to know what pack of dogs he means.

One way to look at this is that an all-knowing Jesus already was aware of the woman’s faith and was simply drawing her out as a kind of a test or example. … Another way to think about the same words would be to entertain the notion that Jesus – being fully human – was going through a learning experience himself – discovering through the desperation and persistence of this mother … and his own compassion … that his mission extended far beyond the limits of the lost sheep of Israel.

But I also offer you the prospect that this encounter was a special kind of teaching experience. Remember, it was the disciples … the small cluster of folks Jesus was constantly trying to get-up-to-speed on his vision of God’s dreams for creation … it was the disciples who initiated the encounter, urging him to: “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”

…. There are a lot of different styles of teaching in the Bible. Proverbs, for example, is a list of easily memorized bits of advice on how we might live better, happier lives. … And Jesus is renowned for his parables – stories that can be cast alongside the events of our lives for standards and comparison.

But there is another form of teaching that crops up again and again. It is teaching by example or by symbolic action. For example, Jeremiah fashioned a wooden yoke for himself and wore it as part of his prophecy that the Babylonians would conquer the Jews and carry them into a life of slavery. When another prophet – one who forecast a rosier outcome – broke Jeremiah’s wooden yoke, the prophet made another one out of iron.

It is the kind of teaching that says a picture is worth a thousand words. Jesus had picked up a common attitude toward the Gentiles who also inhabited first century Palestine. The Jews disparaged them and saw them as unfit … even to invite to a meal.

So, with the slur toward the Canaanite woman, Jesus probably tapped into some not-very-hidden well-of-disdain among his inner circle – the kind that sees an outsider as something lower-on-the-scale …. Maybe not quite human. …. A dog. … We all have language like that … sloppy, disparaging references …. I saw a clip on TV… a police officer in full military gear taunting protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, with the words, “Bring it, you animals!” ….. We all have the language of hatred and division close at hand.

I want to rush to Jesus’ defense and say, “No, Jesus wouldn’t do that!”

But Matthew and Mark both report that he did.

Then the table turns so fast it takes your breath away. The Canaanite woman’s retort stakes a claim in God’s kingdom … even if we were dogs …. “Even the puppies eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

And, …when Jesus responds,… it is in full acknowledgement of her humanity:…. “Woman” …. No more of this dog business … “Woman, great is your faith!” and her daughter was healed.

All along, Jesus has brought us the message: METANOETE: It is a Greek word we have discussed before. It means a lot: Come to a new way of knowing, of being … repent .. turn around … change… because … The kingdom of God is at hand.

This is what METANOETE looks like… awakening to the awareness that … standing in front of you … with the face of a stranger you don’t particularly want anything to do with …. Staring right AT you is the image of God … Not a dog … a human being.

….. This period of time we are living in is the 50^th anniversary of a lot of things. And the media have marked the anniversaries with all kinds of reminiscences. CNN has a series called “The Sixties”. It is a retrospective on that time of huge social upheaval … the British invasion … the sexual revolution … the Vietnam War … Hippies … LSD and … lest we forget … the whole painful era of acknowledging and fostering the civil rights of America’s minorities, particularly African-Americans who were descendents of slaves.

It was a tough period for the country, but eventually our laws got it right. One person, one vote … equal opportunity and access … and avenues to seek redress against lingering institutional discrimination.

To pretend that … that was then, and this is now, and everything is fine and dandy … That’s the same level of pretense Jesus was pointing out earlier in today’s reading. He was pointing out that following the complex Jewish dietary laws was fine, but what defiles a person …. What diminishes a person in the eyes of our Maker …. It isn’t what goes in … it is what comes out … the attitudes … the actions … even the words ….

It isn’t simply the new round of racially charged tension that is swirling around Ferguson, Missouri, and the shooting death of Michael Brown, a young black man.

In the images of carnage as missiles blow up schools and hospitals in the Gaza strip, ….

In the plight of thousands of Yazidi refugees in Iraq,

In these and so many more, we see the attitude of the powerful toward the powerless …. Dogs …. Less than.

The question here really isn’t “What does it mean to be a dog?” … we already have our pre-programmed prejudices and answers. Maybe we control them and resist them, but, if we’re honest, we acknowledge them.

The question Jesus raises is: “What does it mean to be human?”

Rene Descartes, a 17^th century French philosopher, approached that question with some well-known words, “I think, therefore, I am.”

What a great statement for our narcissistic era.

But Jesus calls us to something more, with the example that being fully human means acknowledging the full humanity of all people …. Not just with our laws, but in our attitudes, actions and words.

 

Let us pray: Lord of all, as you offer us insight into how to live well …in the creation you have entrusted to our care,…. help us to find the worth and humanity ….in the other humans around us…. Help our attitudes, actions and language further your dreams for your creation. In Jesus’ name. AMEN.

Matthew 14:22-33, “Distractions”, August 10, 2013, Doug Fritzsche

          What could Peter have been thinking???

          This is the most perplexing thing to me … It happens kind of in the middle of the story. Maybe we look at this as a story of Jesus calling us to take risks … and maybe it is.

          But WHAT ABOUT PETER?

          Here’s the thing: It is dark and windy on the Sea of Galilee. Probably 4 in the morning. Waves are tormenting the boat.

          It wasn’t a big boat. There’s a museum in Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee where an ancient boat – probably a lot like this one – was found encased in mud. It is 25 feet long, about 7-and-a-half feet wide. It could have easily carried the disciples and a few more across the Galilee.

          Storms are common enough on this treacherous body of water and Peter and his companions had the nautical skills to contend with the weather. … But we can imagine that – after a full night of struggling with the elements – Peter and his companions were exhausted.

          And a spectral figure appears on the waves, walking toward their little boat. Of course they are alarmed…. Maybe terrified…. They shout out “It is a ghost!”

          But Jesus quickly moves to quell their anxieties: “Take heart; it is I; do not be afraid.”

          ….. or at least that’s how our NRSV translation puts it. … In the Greek, Jesus is using the words that identified God: “ego eimi” …. That’s Greek for “I am.”

          And Peter then echoes the words Satan used to tempt Jesus earlier in Matthew’s gospel: …… “if you are”…. If you are ‘I am’ ….. Lord, if you are, then command me to come to you on the water.”

          …..So, I wonder about this. When Jesus says, “Come” … Telling Peter to get out of the boat and hike across the waves …. He’s answering … a prayer … and a challenge … from Peter. I always picture Jesus in this story with a kind of knowing half-smile … as if he was thinking … “Well, there’s Peter …. Again!”

          Have you ever stepped off a perfectly good boat in a high sea and a stiff breeze … far from shore? What would prompt you to do that?

          Russ here served in the Navy. The Navy has regular drills to train sailors to be prepared to abandon ship if the situation is bad enough. That’s just good sense … good self-preservation … and at least you end up in another boat … a smaller boat, but still a boat.

          But Russ is also a scuba diver. And that means he has also jumped off a perfectly good boat … just to see……. That’s mostly what divers do … they just go see what’s down there. And one of the earliest lessons in diving is the tough one where you put your head under water in a swimming pool and – against the instincts and warnings of your body, which is telling you: “NO! NO!” … you inhale … underwater … through a regulator.

          And when it comes to all the complicated things that have to go RIGHT when you strap 60 pounds of gear to your back and step off a perfectly good boat …. The one thing a diver is taught is “trust the technology.” …. Without that trust, a panicked diver is nothing but a danger to himself and everybody else. Isn’t that right, Russ?

          There’s a maneuver divers use to get off a boat. Its called the “giant stride” and I’ll show you a dry-land demonstration. You sidle up to the edge of the deck dressed in fins and tank and mask and weights and wetsuit …. Then you gather everything up in your hands – hold it close to your body – and you just step out …. As far as you can. … And SPLASH! You’re in the water and – if you’re breathing at all – you’re sucking air out of your equipment.

          That’s a kind of trust we know well. We trust our brakes to stop our cars. … We trust our lights to come on at the flip of a switch. … We have so many things we trust to work right that we don’t even think about them.

          But stepping off a boat into the water …. Might we have “second thoughts”?

          That’s what happened to Peter. … The word we see rendered as “doubt” could just as well be translated as “second thoughts”.

          We’re schooled by life to have second thoughts … in everything from our decision to have ham and eggs for breakfast …. Ooh the cholesterol … to our choice of a mate … we want guarantees …. And even then … what stands behind the guarantees?

          Taking a giant stride of faith really isn’t that rare an occurrence. At every turn, our gospel tells us to take risks for the sake of the Word … to reach out in love … to love our enemies … to welcome strangers … all these are giant strides of faith.

          And we hear of others in the news … giant strides that seem almost superhuman in their risk-taking and resolve….. Dr, Kent Brantley and hygienist Nancy Writebol stepped out to serve those suffering in the spreading ebola epidemic in West Africa. Both of them worked in Monrovia, a city in Liberia, as missionaries for the Christian aid groups SIM USA and Samaritan’s Purse.

          He was treating patients directly, wearing head-to-toe protective clothing as he made the rounds of the clinic. She was a hygienist, assigned the task of disinfecting those protective garments after they were used.

          Both of them contracted the disease ….and both are receiving an experimental treatment – a treatment on tested only on monkeys – and are showing some improvement. … There is no recognized, proven treatment for ebola, which is why the World Health Organization has declared the outbreak an emergency and is seeking even more medical assistance.

          The harsh reality of the ebola disease crashed in on these two medical missionaries. Were they distracted?

          That’s what happened to Peter when he noticed the storm howling around …and quaked in his fragile mortality. He had second thoughts.

          Most giant strides of faith are not as extreme as these medical missionaries’ journey to Africa. Most are more like what we experience in our Fellowship here in Bastrop. The work of planting a new church is risky. It is adventuresome …. It is also demanding and, at times, tiring.

          But we became involved in it and stay involved in it because … at some point … we sensed a pull in this direction. A call from Jesus …. “Come.”

          And maybe Matthew has something particular to say to us today. He points out that … from the earliest days … with Peter, the Rock on whom Jesus was to build the church … Part of the process of coming to know God is stepping out in faith … then being distracted by the things around us … then starting to sink ….

          The funny thing about this part of Matthew’s gospel is that it follows right-on-the-heels of Jesus feeding 5000 men plus who-knows-how-many women and children.

          Those were good times. A picnic on the hillside. Everybody gets enough to eat … and leftovers besides. The disciples could have said something like “Boy, Jesus, you ARE the Son of God!” …. But not a word. … Immediately they got in the boat and headed out.

          What it took was a hard night in a boat … a risky step overboard … distraction by the forces whirling around them … and second thoughts ….

          Jesus got them back on the boat and THEN …. Only after all that … the disciples said “Truly you are the Son of God.” ….. Immanuel … God with us.

          Our story isn’t one that promises a foxhole Jesus … a deity who will bail us out when we’re in a jam. It is a story of a God who summons us irresistibly …. in the midst of the churning realities of life … and who never abandons us.

          Remember what was the first thing Jesus called out to the disciples who saw him walking in the midst of the storm: “Take heart!”

 

Let us pray: God who has been with us since you hovered above the waters of creation, hold us fast. … Help us come to recognize you through your calling … through worship … through community … and even through the distractions and second thoughts that sometimes can reveal you ….as the one clear truth. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.

 

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52, “Parables Then and Now”, July 27, 2014

When I bought my first house in Albuquerque, New Mexico … out in what Texans call the desert, but the locals refer to as “semi-arid” … I became acquainted with the Russian Thistle.

This is a plant that purportedly came to this country mixed in a load of flax seed destined for South Dakota in 1870. As it turned out, this plant was beautifully suited to the American West. It certainly was perfectly suited to my back yard, and each year, I would hew and whack and chop and spray and burn … and the MOST I would ever achieve was a stalemate … a standoff until next spring, when the first tender green sprouts poked out of the dusty soil … ready to do battle again.

You probably know that plant as the tumbleweed.

And I imagine that if Jesus was teaching along the shore of the Rio Grande one summer afternoon – looking around for illustrative material – he might have said something like this:

The kingdom of heaven is like a tumbleweed. When it is time, it breaks off from its roots and blows where the wind leads, scattering seeds that, in their time, will transform the world.”

You see, Jesus’ parables have an edge to them. Maybe even a little sharply pointed humor. They aren’t just nice stories about a little mustard seed that grows into a nice tree where birds roost.

But to get the humor, you have to know that stories about little things ….growing into big important things…. were a part of the popular lore of the day….. The people listening to Jesus were well versed in the words of the prophet Daniel,… who once announced: “The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these: I saw, and behold, a tree in the midst of the earth; and its height was great. The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth. Its leaves were fair and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all. The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the air dwelt in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it.” (Daniel 4:10-12)

Or maybe Ezekiel, who spoke about a mighty cedar … and under its branches “every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind” (17:23).

But, … get this …. A mustard seed? ….. A MUSTARD seed? …. It is the greatest of SHRUBS. … It doesn’t have spreading branches. .. It’s a BUSH… A bush about the same size as a decent tumbleweed. … And, yeah, some of those tumbleweeds do look a little like trees, especially in a wet year … but only a humorist would really make the comparison.

But now we have your attention with a little levity … isn’t that what a good after-dinner speaker will do .. Warm the audience up with a joke? … Now that he has our attention, Jesus is going to challenge us with the tough material: This weed is going to take over. Not like a mighty cedar tree … not the kind of kingdom with kings and dukes and earls and all that vertical power structure. It is taking over because it is insidiously working its way through the landscape and no amount of weeding can keep it from coming back.

There’s a comforting certainty to that parable. The teachings of Jesus … teachings about coming to know the world in a new way … to understand our relationships with one another in a new way … even to see our enemies in a new way … As these small seeds sprout and scatter and spread, the outcome is assured.

But even tumbleweeds succumb to Round-Up.

And so Jesus offered more stories to engage and challenge us. Parables intended to engage us personally … to ward off complacency on our parts.

He tells us about a pearl. He compares the quest for the kingdom of heaven to a merchant, … who was searching for fine pearls, and he found one so perfect … so lustrous … seeming to glow with a special inner light … so wonderful that he was overcome with his desire to have it. …. He went out and sold all that he had … his house … his car … cashed in the IRA … sold the vacation ranchette in Wimberly … his watch … his autographed 1914 Babe Ruth Rookie Baseball Card … to have it.

Jesus wanted to challenge us to imagine that … no matter how hard it is to imagine giving up everything we have … it is even harder to imagine something so wonderful as to make it seem like the world’s biggest bargain.

I was reminded this week of another pearl of great price. .. This one came from the pages of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne, the heroine of the novel, suffered greatly in her puritanical community for being an unwed mother. She named her daughter Pearl. Here is a bit of the story:

“ . . . . that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion. How strange it seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child! Her Pearl! – For so had Hester called her; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indicated by the comparison. But she named the infant “Pearl,” as being of great price, – purchased with all she had, – her mother’s only treasure!” 

I couldn’t read that passage without being distracted by all the little “Pearls” who have crossed my path this week via newspaper and TV and internet …. Little Pearls being carted off on stretchers while their grieving parents shrieked their wishes that there was SOMETHING they could pay to have the injury undone. Certainly they would pay any price … all they had.

Pearls bombed at school in the Gaza strip.

Pearls murdered because they were Israeli.

200 kidnapped Pearls in Nigeria.

Refugee Pearls at our border fleeing murderous violence in Central America.

…………

Matthew began this series of parables with the story of the mustard seed. It is a story that rejects the preeminence of high and mighty leaders, instead preferring to hold up the prolific … common … lowly … dawning of awareness …. The relentless infestation of mustard-weeds …. The relentless dawning of the new way of knowing and being that are the hallmarks of the kingdom.

And it concludes with the example of a master of a household, bringing out of his treasure…. what is old and what is new.

What is old is a world where decisions are made by lofty cedar-tree leaders who can rally support and pursue violence in the abstract … using ideas like heroism and patriotism to mask the gore and slaughter that is the result of their manipulating rhetoric.

What’s new is that everybody on the planet seems to have a cell phone capable of capturing the up-close-and-personal bomb-blasts and machine-gun-fire and the shrieking-and-wailing-that-comes-in-their wake. And the internet carries the clips so fast that the news networks can’t ignore them.

And while that new phenomenon makes the couch a lot less comfortable during the 6 o’clock news, perhaps it also makes it more urgent for us to call our leaders to account… stirrings in the field of mustard.

There are stages in Jesus’ parables. There’s the predisposition – the person searching for something. …. There’s the recognition …. That something astonishing is at hand …. There’s the willingness – to do whatever it takes to bring it about. … And then there’s action … commitment … “he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

So, maybe a parable for today would go something like this: The kingdom of heaven is like a video gone viral … You know what viral means. A video that someone posts on the internet. Then someone else picks it up and posts it on their Facebook page. Then all their friends reTweet it. Then …before long … everybody sees it … So… A video gone viral that shows … to each one who sees it … the image of God in the face of a stranger’s child.

 

Let us pray: Loving God who is always creating, build in us a clear vision of your dreams for your creation. Help us to imagine a world that is safe for the most vulnerable of us. Encourage us to find it of inestimable value … as precious to us as it is to you. In the name of your Child, Jesus, AMEN.

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, “Ambiguous”, July 20, 2013, Doug Fritzsche

“Ambiguity.” … That’s our word for today.

How’s this for a definition? “a lack of decisiveness or commitment resulting from a failure to make a choice between alternatives.” … That’s not bad.

I think of ambiguity as that awkward moment of standing with one foot on the ship and the other on the shore. The boat is leaving, but you realize you forgot to lock your car. … You’re pulled in both directions and feel like you’re about to wind up in the drink. …. That’s ambiguity.

The opposite, of course, would be “unambiguous” – Something that is open to only one interpretation.

Unambiguous might describe the difference between wheat and zizania – the plant today’s scripture refers to as the Tares…. It is also known as bearded darnel… and it is not just a nuisance. It harbors a form of ergot … a mold that is poisonous … sometimes deadly.

This is summertime and our lectionary has taken a definite agricultural turn. Last week we talked about the work of the Prodigal Sower … this week, we take another look at the field … a field that Jesus explains is “the world.”

Isn’t it interesting that a book like our Bible, which is said to have so much to do with ephemeral, pie-in-the-sky matters …. Actually contains so much earthy material?

Today’s gospel reading is divided once again into three parts… The first part. … the second part … and the missing part.

In the first part, Jesus offers a parable. A parable is a story that serves as a kind of skeleton for the way real life things relate to each other. It is designed as a way to provide perspective to situations that may be too close or complex. A parable is different than an allegory. In an allegory, one thing stands for another thing and that’s that. Jesus’ parables were richer than that … as the test of time has shown.

The parable is a way of coming to understand what Jesus called the kingdom of heaven. It is also called God’s reign … by those who imagine the best world is one where God is in charge. … or God’s dream for creation … by those who think God IS in charge and is working things out …. Or even the Commonwealth of Heaven by some who think we people have a role in its coming about.

In the parable, a farmer sowed a field with wheat. When the plants came up, a potentially dangerous weed was mixed in with the grain, and the owner deduced that an enemy had sabotaged the field with weed seeds. The workers want to know whether they might pull the weeds out. But he said “no” … “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.” He says to wait until the harvest. Then they will be separated and the grain stored in the barn and the weeds burned.

In the allegorical interpretation, Jesus explains that the “field” is the world. The good seed is scattered by the Son of Man – that’s a name Matthew indicates that Jesus uses to describe himself – He describes the good seeds as the children of the kingdom. The bad seeds are children of the evil one, sowed by the devil. At harvest time, the angels will “collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers.” They will be tossed into the fire while the righteous shine in the kingdom.

In the section the lectionary leaves out, Matthew once again reminds us that parables – stories left open for interpretation – were Jesus’ usual form of public speaking.

And that’s reassuring because the question quickly comes to mind: Who among us isn’t some complex mixture of good and bad? Remember in a reading a couple of weeks ago, even the apostle Paul lamented, “Even though I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” (Romans 7:21)

The movie Schindler’s List is the story of a German industrialist during World War II. He saved more than 1000 Polish Jews from concentration camps — and likely death. … One of the people he saved said this: “He was our father, our mother, our only hope. He never let us down.”

Certainly, to use our allegory, this was a man bound for the barn, not for the fire.

But suppose I told you a story about a man who loved the good life – wine, women and song – he cheated on his wife. He was a Roman Catholic – but in name only. He was a member of the Nazi party and his sworn goal was to end the war with two trunks full of money. He exploited the Jews as a cheap source of labor.

How would he fare in the allegory? Barn or fire?

And there’s the rub. …. Same man … Oskar Schindler. … Maybe placed by circumstances in a more prominent role, but like most of us,… a complex mix of greed … lust … the vices … and compassion …. Empathy …. The virtues.

Goodness was in him, but so were flaws. … Both wheat and weeds.

People who deal with the human psyche …. Especially students of Carl Jung …. Speak of an aspect of our personalities they call “shadow.” This is part of our personality that is usually unrecognized by our conscious mind. Jung wrote that “Everyone has a shadow and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” Becoming conscious of that shadow takes work. It is a process called “individuation” that can be a goal of analysis or therapy.

One characteristic of shadow is that – while we might not be aware of it in ourselves – we can certainly spot it in our enemies. Walter Wink, a theologian, writes extensively on modern ways to understand what early Christians called “powers” and “demons”….He touches on this theme as he discusses the sense behind the idea that we should love our enemies.

He says it like this: “The enemy is not just a hurdle on the way to God. The enemy can be the way to God. We cannot come to terms with our shadow except through our enemy for we have no better access to those unacceptable parts of ourselves that need redeeming than through the mirror that our enemies hold up to us. This then is another, more intimate reason for loving our enemies: We are dependent on our enemies for our very individuation. We cannot be whole people without them.” (The Powers That Be p171)

When we come to today’s reading in Matthew, it is easy to take it as an acknowledgement that evil really does exist. But as the parable moves along, it becomes less clear what that might mean to us.

In one sense, it is a warning. If we think we have it all figured out … how to judge good and evil …. How to determine right and wrong … moral from immoral … vicious from virtuous …. Think again! … What comes immediately to mind is the good-intentioned wave of Prohibition that shut down liquor sales in the US from 1920 to 1933 … and unintentionally gave organized crime a foothold in the world of big business. We may be seeing some of the same in the continuing fallout from the War on Drugs.

But does it mean that we cease to try to recognize and struggle against things that we know are wrong? Of course not. But it does acknowledge our own shaky footing as judges and it asks us to trust God with the outcomes.

And it asks us … in the meantime … to acknowledge the weeds among us – the weeds within us …

If we are conscious and aware as followers of Jesus, this can be a burden that can take the shape of guilt or remorse … The positive side is to recognize it and want to change … to experience the new way of being and knowing that Jesus taught. … But the negative side might be a sense of futility …. That I’m not good enough or that what I do doesn’t matter.

That’s why the most important words in this worship service … in any worship service … are the Words of Assurance that follow the Unison Prayer. I heard it put this way: “In a world of ambiguity, the only absolute is absolution.”

We go about the world each week, encountering all the opportunities, pitfalls and pratfalls it contains. We try to do our best. We succeed, we fail. We do good. We mess up.

When we come here on Sunday, we are reminded that the God who knows us so well … Loves Us…. That the good news is that in Christ, …. You are forgiven.

Know that and be at peace.

 

Let us pray: Gracious Patient God, you have given us free range in a world so full of things and opportunities…that we often don’t know what’s best. We know that you have called us to be your people, and we ask your guidance. Help us know right from wrong … good from evil…. Especially when the choices are difficult. Forgive us when we choose wrong. Help us to know that we are forgiven, renewed, and sent forth once again to be your light in your creation. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.

Matthew 13:1-23, “The Profligate Sower”, July 13, 2014, Doug Fritzsche

Out of the mighty river of media that flows by constantly, a couple of items popped to the surface this week, and I’d like you to consider them.

The first was an e-mail a friend forwarded to me. It said, “Even if you don’t like religion, I hope you can enjoy the architecture.” … Then followed … a long parade of spectacular photographs from around the world…. Pictures of astonishing, beautiful churches and cathedrals in all sorts of settings. … I have visited a few of them like the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona, and the Church of Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem … and they brought back memories …. but most were simply wonderful photographic tributes to ….what human beings can do to express their passion, yearning and love … reaching through an architectural expression of beauty for a glorious presence they can only imagine.

The second was a letter in the Austin Statesman from a very incensed gentleman from Arlington named Mark Schatzman. His concern – and it is one that has been expressed in our Fellowship during our prayer times in the past few weeks …. His concern is about the thousands of refugee children arriving at our border…. And his ire is aimed … not at the various governments and agencies charged with border affairs … but at churches.

He says, “There are many Christian churches: Adventist, Baptist, Catholic, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, the Potter’s House and other independent churches. ….. All are Christian-based churches and none are coming forward with strong, compassionate statements for the refugee children on our borders.

“Didn’t Jesus say, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these”? …. Where are the voices of the Christian churches on this?”….

Both of those impressions of Christendom are a bit distorted, perhaps, but they are also close enough to the mark that they make us uncomfortable … and maybe a bit bewildered. The first shows a bunch of churches that – especially in Europe – are mostly tourist attractions, long separated from the spirit that energized their construction. In the second, the writer clearly hadn’t paid any attention to what churches HAVE been saying … although it has gone largely ignored by the news media, so Mr. Schatzman can be excused for the oversight.

Together, the two impressions might give us a bit of landscape for the field the Sower in our gospel lesson was working in.

You might notice from your bulletin that there are three parts to today’s reading from Matthew. There’s the first part … and the second part …. And the missing part. I have to say that I’m intrigued by the way the lectionary set up today’s reading….. because …. The missing part makes all the difference.

You recall the reading. The Sower extravagantly scatters seed around. … That’s how they did it in ancient Palestine. They would scatter the seed, then come along and lightly plow it under. There would be walking paths through the field,… and those would be hard from trampling… and the seeds would sit on top where the birds could get them…. Some would be choked out by weeds….. Some would get a false start on rocky ground…. And some would take root and produce in plenty.

The second part explains the first part…. That is, it turns it into an allegory. It is like a decoder for Jesus’ parable.

That’s why the missing part is so troublesome. Jesus explains to is disciples that – while other people might not be able to work with the ideas put forth in parables – that his followers could. He said, “But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly, I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

So why explain it then? Maybe because at that point in the narrative, it seemed like there ought to be more followers … more people attracted to the Word … but instead, Jesus’ close community was still 12 disciples, a few others … and they were starting to run into increasing resistance from the powers that be…. And even today, that might serve to explain why so many of those architectural triumphs … the beautiful churches I described earlier … are mostly empty on Sundays.

But you can see what a radical shift the explanation is … It is all about the soil … about how ready the soil was for receiving seed …. … While the original parable was all about the Sower …. A Sower who scattered seed so profusely that something was SURE to grow.

THAT story seems a little more fitted to my life. I don’t seem particularly ABLE to MAKE myself into better soil … any more than my garden can work itself. … But there are places in my life where the seed seems to take root … and others where it just sits there perched on hard ground.

We hear scripture,… we pray … we interact as a community in Christ …. All the time. …. BUT we also have jobs … and bills … and houses that need repair … and children and grandchildren who need our attention … not to mention grocery shopping …. Quarterly tax payments ….. All those things that become so much a part of the habitual routine of our lives that we no longer are even ABLE to look at them with the new-way-of-seeing-and-knowing that Jesus offered. …. We become hardened to appeals that remind us of previous bad experiences …. We become calloused from the abrasion of too many cries for help from too many directions…. And the weeds of distraction are a thicket that chokes parts of our lives. … That’s just the way things are … the status quo.

Jesus had a different vision. When he suggested honoring the powerless – Let these little children come to me! …. He was calling for us to take a good hard look at the “way things are” and see how they compare with the vision of God’s dream for creation he shared with the world.

I wonder how many of the problems and conundrums we encounter as we walk the pathway of life might be disguised seeds of opportunity for us to take to heart …. To give a place to sprout and grow.

The refugee children showing up at our border seem like one of these opportunities. We’re treated each evening to horrifying TV images of these youngsters being greeted by red-faced white people shouting blue language the kids probably don’t even understand …. I saw one video clip showing a woman shouting, “Not our kids, not our problem!” ….This is the reception after being sent from a place bad enough … and dangerous enough … that their parents – knowing the perils and risks of the long, unaccompanied journey – That their parents are willing to scrape up whatever they could to send them off in a last-ditch hope for something better.

It may not surprise you to find out that our church is speaking out on this subject. This week, PC(USA) – by way of our Stated Clerk, Gradye Parsons, issued a statement saying in part, “I know that God went with the children on their journey. Though subjected to harm and often in the hands of smugglers, these children are alive and in the U.S. because of the prayers of parents and friends and persons like you and I, who read about them and knew they were coming though we did not know their names.

“In the Presbyterian tradition, the congregation as a whole covenants with a family to nurture their children in the faith. We look after one another’s children. We corporately tend to their safety and growth. The children arriving at our borders are no less in need of nurturance and no less bearing the likeness of God.”

The letter is accompanied by a fact sheet ….that puts this all into a more rational perspective …than the high-octane pronouncements of election-year politics might give us. I’ve made a few copies, and I put the web link on our Facebook page in case you want to go to the original.

There are also some concrete things to do…. Uppermost is doing our parts to add facts and sanity to any discussion of the subject. We do that by getting informed and by considering how our faith guides us.

Second, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is involved supporting ministries along the border that are especially impacted. Learn more and donate if you can.

And third, the children-raising-a-claim-of-international-protection face a significant wait before a hearing. One of the holding facilities is not too far away … San Antonio – Lackland Air Force Base in Lackland. We have been talking with the churches in Giddings and La Grange about a regional mission effort. One possibility would be a visitation ministry to the kids detained at this facility.

We might look at this whole conundrum… as a seed…. Raw material for the sprouting forth of the reign of God that Jesus assures us is close at hand. … The Word of God isn’t just talk and ideas … it is also acts and deeds and events …. Responses to the challenges to our routines and complacency.

The Sower knows all about our hard ruts and choking weeds … but the seeds keep coming … each one a package of promise for a glorious blossom.

 

Let us pray: God who makes all things possible, you offer us an unending stream of opportunities ….to extend into your creation …the Grace you have shown us. In all the challenges you present us, help us to seek opportunities for your glory to shine forth. For the love of Christ, AMEN.

Matthew 11:16-30, “The Yoke Is On Us”, July 6, 2014, Doug Fritzsche

Most of us know what a yoke is … it is a device that connects animals together, and allows them to be hitched to something to do some work … horsepower … in its original sense.

But most of us keep that bit of data in the remote storage bins of our memories, to be retrieved only when some arcane question of old-time farming techniques comes up … or when we can use the word as a metaphor to apply this idea to something else.

Churches are said to be “yoked” when they share a pastor, for example.

But if we were in Ohio this weekend, we would see a much more vital, present-tense, up-to-date awareness of this old term. We might be attending Horse Progress Days in Mt. Hope, Ohio, in Ohio’s Amish country.

These folks have an incredible array of farm equipment… designed-to-be-pulled by teams-of-animals. And, while you might say this is old hat and a throwback to bygone days, the annual event is growing and gaining attention….. People who are interested in “sustainability” of food supplies ….have “discovered” the Amish and their traditional techniques … and see them as part of the path of the future.

And that’s another way to think about what it means to be “yoked”…We can be yoked to different ways and means of living life and moving into the future. Are we yoked to a technological, fast-paced way of life? Are we yoked to 24/7 mercantilism?

The Old Testament Book of Isaiah urges us to be free from the wrong kind of yokes. The Prophet was chastising people for being obsessed with their selfish interests. He said:… “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (58:6)

It isn’t just some random metaphor Jesus chose to use. Our scripture reading today seems to make an assumption…. That we are yoked … whether we choose it or not … to something … some group … some way-of-being. ….. And there’s a further assumption implicit in the passage …. That this yoke may be wearing us down.

Do you think things are moving faster than they used to? I thought it was only me … and that I was getting older … and things just seemed to be moving faster.

But a psychologist named Dr. Peter Wiseman has done some tests over time – seeing how long it takes people to cross a city street. What he discovered is that … in cities around the world … people were crossing about 10 percent faster in the last decade than they were in the mid 1990s.

Are we hurrying faster? Trying to keep up with cell phones and e-mail and Twitter and who knows what? Is it a burden?…. And how do we spell relief?

These questions are deep in the subtext of Jesus’ teachings. He was speaking to a downtrodden people, subjugated under the boot-heel of a remote Roman Emperor,…. taxed to near starvation,…. and yoked to a system that never gave them rest.

Their religious system was a reservoir of tradition, but its leaders often were in cahoots with the Romans and were often more interested in maintaining the status quo than in offering…. anything resembling hope ….to the struggling Palestinian Jews.

“Religion”, you know, is a word that is kind of like “yoked” … LIGARE is the Latin word meaning “to bind” and religion … RELIGARE … is to Bind Back …. It is what ties us back to God. ….

Jesus starts by talking about the people of his time …. “With what will I compare this generation?” … He is not just casting about looking for things to compare. … Jesus is reacting to the rejection both he and John the Baptist have received for their own efforts to reach out to these people.

John was an ascetic – remember his diet locust and wild honey?… a shirt of camel-hair?– and they said he was crazy …. Possessed by a demon. …. And Jesus,….with his great enjoyment of people, ….was rejected as a drunk and a glutton ….who hung out with a bad lot.

But they both carried the same message: Change. The Kingdom of God is close at hand.

We don’t want to change. We are yoked to the way things are. And Jesus called for a whole remaking of our attitudes and our mindset. We sometimes translate that as “repent” – but it means so much more.

Describing this resistance to change, Jesus compared the rejecting crowd to children ….playing games and insisting that he and John bring the message the crowd wanted to hear …, not the Word they carried. “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance.” Jesus and John wouldn’t dance to their tune.

And of course, Jesus is right. Mostly, we humans don’t want to change. Change involves the unknown…. Uncertainty … risk … maybe even loss.

Maybe that is why many people find church less compelling on Sunday morning than attending a soccer match. Only when we are aware of our own mortality is the thought of eternal life uppermost in our minds. Only those crushed by the circumstances of life can really appreciate Grace. And forgiveness is only valuable to those who know they have sinned. …. Maybe that explains some of Jesus’ choice of companions…. They were pre-conditioned to hear him … and pre-pared for change.

But the idea of being yoked with Jesus is a different idea altogether. It moves you into a new realm. It denies the status quo. It IS change. … We don’t just wander off in our own direction when we are yoked with Christ.

This is probably the time to remember that there are places in scripture where we are informed that the way is narrow … that there are dangers and demands …. But those passages do not limit what Jesus is telling us here.

He speaks to us as people who are yoked in distorted ways… Like a dachshund yoked to a Kodiak bear … We might be straining as hard as we can, but we have little control over which way we’re going.

That’s what Paul was saying in the passage from Romans we read earlier. Here’s how he put it: “¹⁵I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

Maybe you’ve experienced some of that. Maybe you know someone living in response and reaction to people and powers beyond their control. Not just behaviors like drugs and alcohol, but careers can do that … ideologies that push you to alienate and condemn those unlike you … financial pressures … jealousy …. resentment …. worries about health.

How does Jesus say it?   ²⁸ “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

That is as inviting a message to us today as it was to the people in the Galilean countryside who came to Jesus seeking healing, relief and acceptance.

Somewhere deep in our DNA is the need to not-be-alone. We’re people who seek company of others … We worship a God who is… in some depictions… a community – Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit – a community that extends out to us. That’s the community we’re tied to … yoked to.

It is easy for us to get focused on the missional side of our faith. The doing and the giving. The reaching out. That’s our natural response to Grace – doing our share of pulling … in the yoke.

But it isn’t so easy for us to receive … or even to ask … for comfort … for help … for company.

I hope we can hang onto this part of this passage. … That the connection is two-way … that it is enduring … that we aren’t ever pulling alone … That this yoke is easy to wear.

The last part of this passage … “my burden is light.” Has a straightforward meaning in Greek …. It means the load is insignificant … like a feather.

But it makes a double entendre in English. I saw an illustration that showed it well. It showed a Bible on a stand, glowing in the radiance of light through a window.

“You are the light of the world,” Jesus proclaimed a little earlier in Matthew.

Know that you do not carry it alone.

 

Let us pray: Creator, Christ, Holy Spirit,… connected communal God,… free us from all yokes but yours. Inspire us to find rest in your presence,… rest that rejuvenates and refreshes our innermost selves… Make us healed and whole, so that we may be part of … and joyful witnesses to … your continuing work of creation. In Jesus’ name. AMEN