Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Preached at Canadochly and Grace on July 23, 2017
Preaching text: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

I mentioned last week that people change over time. While we are still who we were as children, teenagers, young adults, or whatever in many ways, there are also a lot of things about ourselves from those times that we’ve left behind. Friends, interests, quirks, lifestyles, opinions, and so forth all change as time molds and shapes us through our lives. That’s true of all people and God knows that. Which is why he calls us to spread the seed of his good news regardless of the consequences. Only he knows when a heart is ripe to receive him and it’s not really our job to worry about such things. We sow the seed. Period.

Well, Jesus isn’t done with these agricultural metaphors in his parables, so he tells us another one this week. The two are related in many ways, because both highlight our hunger to control things. Human nature is a huge subtext to both parables, last week’s as well as this one.

We are the sowers, so Jesus says that we go out to sow the seed. Only we find the next day that someone has sown a whole slew of weeds amidst our wheat. Our first response? Let’s go get those blasted weeds out of there. Let’s go control the situation. Let’s make it right.

The landowner, God, tempers this impulse. No, do not pull the weeds but let them grow together.
Now, much like farming, I’m no expert on gardening, but I believe weeding is a pretty essential part of maintaining a good garden. Failure to remove weeds in a timely manner is a good way to let your vegetables and flowers fail. And yet here, the landowner says leave things alone.

There’s a reason for that. Because in the world of this parable, NONE of us are experts at gardening. In fact, we’re downright terrible at it. Problem is, we don’t care that we’re terrible, because we’re going to do it anyway.

We’re terrible because we can’t tell the difference between weed and wheat. Consider the dandelion. Universally decried as a weed, destroyer of good lawns, and painfully hard to eradicate. Everyone hates them, until a little girl hands you a bunch of them and says “Here, Daddy, I picked these flowers for you.” Then, what was once trash becomes more precious than gold.

As I said at the beginning, people change. A person who looks like weed now might be wheat later on. They may not be quite what they appear to be. But we are far too eager to judge and tag them prematurely, so we can again control the way the world works. We want to categorize them “good,” “bad,” etc. But how we define those categories is usually entirely based on our human predilections.

“Of course, I judged fairly, Lord. It’s pure coincidence that all the people I judged weed were black, Latino, gay, Muslim, liberal, and every other group society presently claims is rotten to the core. It’s not my fault.

“And it’s likewise coincidence that all the wheat that remains are people just like me.”

Funny how that happens. Especially since that’s what ALWAYS happens when we’re in charge. Our attempt to judge others righteous or unrighteous usually boils down to two things. Either I’m casting attention on others to avoid it coming on myself (because I’m guilty of the same sins) or I’m hoping people will agree that those sins (which are different than mine) are far worse. Both are efforts to justify ourselves and in that endeavor, our hypocrisies know no bounds.

But this truth highlights something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Matthew’s Gospel often gives us Jesus’ own interpretation of his parables and while I certainly agree with Jesus’ take on his own story, I would like to offer another, complimentary, perspective. You see, the field isn’t just the world, it’s also our own heart. And within our hearts grow both virtue and vice, wheat and weeds.

What are we to do about it? Most, if not all of us, desire to be good. We wish to be righteous. But we carry the burden of being sinful humans. Those vices, every now and then, get the better of us. And sometimes our efforts to eradicate them only make us worse. By trying to control sin, we sin even more.

My friends and I were talking about the Hunchback of Notre Dame at our game session on Saturday and it got me thinking that's a good example of this. In the story, Judge Frollo tries to temper his lust for Esmeralda by....murdering her and all the other gypsies. Not quite the sort of solution I think we're really looking for here. (The whole story really is a good example of how virtue and vice are not always easily discerned in people.)

Surprising for some folks, the Disney version of the story really nails this dynamic.

We’re not meant to eradicate our sins though. That’s God’s job, not ours.

Our job is once again, here as it was in the last parable, to sow the seed. Within the world and within our hearts. We’ll never do it perfectly, but that’s not what God wants. No hero of Scripture is ever perfect. Moses was a coward. David a murderer. St. Paul a persecutor. Peter an idiot. God didn’t choose them because they were perfectly righteous. He chose them because he chose them, because he loved them. And he chooses you and me because he loves us. In spite of all the weeds in our heart.

We spend so much time in the church worrying about sin, our own and others. But that’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to spread the word, to show the world the kingdom God intends for all people. A world where there is no sickness, poverty, hatred, war, prejudice, inequality, or pain. A world to be given for all imperfect people here on earth, those guilty of this sin and that. A world won by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

It is my hope, and even my expectation, that when the “end of the age” comes, God will send his angels into the field to harvest the souls of humankind. And because of Jesus and his sacrifice, the weeds of our hearts are long forgive and those angels find no weeds at all in the world. That’s the happy ending I long for. And I may have a part in making it happen, by being the sower God wishes me to be, regardless of my vices, flaws, and errors. I think that’s true of all of us. Go and sow the word. Amen.

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Preached at Grace and Canadochly on July 16, 2017
Preaching text: Matthew 13:1-8

I grew up a city boy, so I certainly can’t claim to be any expert on farming and agriculture. But I think I understand on at least a basic level. You till and plow a field, making it ready for planting. You plant the crops at a particular time of year; generations of farmers have recorded the exact week and day for optimal results and you follow that to the letter. You fertilize and in some cases water (artificially, as in irrigation) the crops as they grow. You use chemicals to drive off pests and weeds. And the end result, you hope, is a bumper crop of whatever you planted and worked so hard to produce.

In other words, it’s everything the sower in Jesus’ parable doesn’t do.

Now, we humans have been farming for thousands of years, so I don’t think this difference is one of their times and ways verses ours. I suspect strongly that any farmers hearing Jesus’ story would have reacted as we do. “That’s not how you sow seeds! It’s wasteful. It’s inefficient. If I was employing that sower, I’d fire him on the spot.”

Which is a big part of Jesus’ point.

The parable is about spreading the Word. It’s about evangelism. But the subtext of the parable is human nature, specifically our need to control everything and to succeed at everything. All that work that we put into growing crops, into agriculture, is intended to control the outcome. We want to see that bumper crop as often as possible and with good reason. That’s our food. That’s our means to survival. That’s the farmer’s means to make a living by selling those crops to people who need to eat them. All important things; all far too important to leave to chance.

So we use our science, we use our technology, we use our centuries of experiences to control the process to ensure an optimal outcome. Failure is not really an option. Many a farmer has faced that. Many a nation and society has experienced famine and the starvation that goes with it. These outcomes are to be avoided at all costs, so we work and we control and we do everything we can to ensure the opposite happens.

All that we do with agriculture we also want to do with people when it comes to spreading our faith. We want to ensure the outcome. We don’t want to fail. We want control.

So we create all these gimmicks and programs and evangelism/outreach plans, all intended to ensure a bumper crop of new converts to sit in our pews. Certain things must be ensured to maximize the outcome. They must be like us; they must want the same things. They can’t rock the boat. They can’t change anything. They just have to show up, sit in the pew, sing the old songs, and put money in the plate. And our church will thrive again.

And none of these sure-fire programs have EVER worked.

Because human beings are not corn or wheat or barley or hay or any other crop. They are thinking feeling creatures who are very savvy about being tricked, manipulated, and used. They do not want to be controlled. They are very quick to figure out that our gimmicks and programs are really about us and not about them.

Jesus shows us the alternative. His sower sprays the seeds everywhere. And a good chunk of it goes into places where it will not thrive. But what does land where it needs to explodes in great success. Jesus’ parable highlights that salvation is not something we can control. The Spirit will act where it will and will save whom it chooses. As he says in John’s Gospel, the Spirit is like the wind, “blow[ing] where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”

Truth be told, we don’t even control our own salvation, let alone someone else’s. Yes, we are baptized and we’ve taken those promises on ourselves in confirmation. But we sin all the time. Those promises we made in those rites and sacrament, we break them. If our own salvation was up to us, we’d be toast. But it’s not. It’s up to the Spirit. It’s God’s choice. We cannot control it.

So it is with everyone else. God chooses. And it is he who knows when and where a person becomes good soil. That’s something else about us humans. We don’t stay the same. Allow me to introduce you to Pastor Allen, age 15 (30 years ago). He’s arrogant, selfish, obnoxious, and painfully insecure; crazy about girls and WAY too shy to do anything about it. I'm not that person anymore.

Or I can introduce you to my friend John, who at that same age of 15 was a red-meat-eating gun-loving Go-'Merica Republican, who now at age 45 thinks that President Trump is an idiot.

Or my friend James who at age 21 was quite the libertine: new girl on his arm (and in his bed) every week, drank like a fish (and I don’t mean water), smoked weed when he could and is now a red-blooded pro-family Republican with two adorable kids and thinks President Trump walks on water.

And here we all are, 25 years ago. James and John are the first two on the left.

And yeah, that's me in the front center.

We don’t stay the same and it is God who knows when we are good soil or something else. Which is why he calls us to spread the seed of his Word randomly and constantly. We never know when who we are and what we do will plant the seed that the Spirit will grow, because that’s not up to us.

I know that drives us crazy. Myself included. I have many friends who are of other faiths or are atheist. I love them all and I care about what may become of them when they die. But I know that God in his infinite mercy chose me to be among his elect. I know that God is love and that he loves each one of them with same fire and passion he does me. I must trust that one day somehow He will find them good soil for his Word. My job, our job, is to scatter the seed, to be Christians, and to be all that that means. To, as I said last week, do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. That’s our seed. And God will take it and run with it. His goal is to save us all. We have our part. Let’s play it. Amen.

Sermon for Justice Sunday

Preached at Grace and Canadochly on July 9, 2017
Scripture texts: Genesis 4:8-16 , Micah 6:6-8, John 9:1-7

Why Justice? Why are we talking about this? Our question for the day is “How does our faith call us to the work of social justice?" All of these are the same question, just formatted differently, than the question I have argued is the central question of Christianity. That question being “What now?”

You see, we Christians believe that God so loved the world that he send Jesus into it to show us his love. And he did so with miracles of healing and lessons of life, stories of a compassionate kingdom God seeks to create. And, of course, as the ultimate demonstration of that love, he went to the cross, died, and then rose again to grant us the ultimate gift of love, which is life.

The whole salvation thing, we Lutherans in particular among Christians believe is something that’s already been taken care of. Once we are baptized, we’re in. We’re good. All is taken care of. God’s chosen you to be among the elect who will live forever in his kingdom. Debate continues about what God will do with those outside our faith, but even there one thing that is not in question is that it will ultimately be God’s choice and decision on what happens. Salvation is a done deal. It is, as Jesus himself said, finished.

Now, between now and then, we have the whole course of our lives and there emerges that question. “What now?” What are we to do with ourselves? Answering that question is, I believe, one of the central tasks of our Scriptures. And that answer that it provides is “justice.”

I chose today’s texts to illustrate that truth. We begin at the beginning and the famous story of the first murder between Cain and Abel. The question Cain asks of God is the very first question any human asks of God in our Scriptures. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That’s not coincidental, because I believe it is the question the whole of the Bible spends most of its energy on. Are we our brother’s keeper? Absolutely.

All throughout the Old Testament, you see this. From God’s gift of Torah to the ancient Hebrews with its emphasis on care for “the orphan, the widow, and the stranger in your midst” to continuous call of the prophets to remember the poor and needy, the outcast and rejected. Micah is but one example of that emphasis. “What is it that we are to do?” He essentially asks of God. “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” comes the reply.

Jesus takes that and runs with it in his own teachings and behavior. He heals the sick, embraces the outcast, makes the blind to see and the lame to walk, and he teaches the disciples to do likewise. To love the neighbor, to care for them, to do good to them. The early Church likewise takes this and runs with it and much of the New Testament, like the Old, is centered on how to “do justice” with our neighbors.

Two thousand years later, that calling hasn’t changed one whit. We are still meant to do justice for our neighbors in Christ’s name. But somewhere along the line we’ve lost that piece. The church has become a bastion of the established order, regardless of whether that establishment is one that strives for justice or not. Care for the poor and needy has become secondary to the need to maintain buildings, to enforce proper doctrine and dogma within its membership, and to fight the culture wars’ battles across society. What happened?

The answer is simple. We took our eyes off Jesus and made it all about us. Focus on adiaphora (unnecessary things) has become central. Fear has replaced faith in our hearts. False teachings have crept into our midst unexamined, even welcomed. And one of the worst of those is the very one Jesus addresses directly in our Gospel lesson today.

I would argue this one of the most insidious foes to our calling for justice, the idea that the life we are given is the life we deserve. All wrapped up nicely for us in the disciples’ question of Jesus, “Whose sin caused this man to be born blind?”

Because, of course, this man had to deserve it somehow. He’s gotten what he’s merited. His blindness is the obvious punishment for what he or those closest to him have done wrong. Just as my own wealth, health, and success in life is proof positive that I’m getting all that I deserve for being such a good and righteous person.

My mocking tone is intentional, but the sad truth is this is everywhere. Why is there poverty? Because people choose to be poor. Because they’re lazy or in some other way degenerate or morally inferior. Why were Trevon Martin or Tamir Rice or Walter Scott shot? Because they clearly did something to deserve it. They wore a hoodie or they ran or they played with a toy gun in the wrong place. Clearly those are all capital crimes, deserving of death. Well, they are if you’re black.

And wealth and power and success? Clearly those people who have such things are worthy of it. But how many of them truly came by it honestly? And how many swindled, cheated, broke laws, hurt people, and found every loophole they could exploit to expand their wealth and power? Far more than we care to admit.

This isn’t justice.

Whose sin caused this man to be born blind? The question, on its face, is farcical and it’s meant to be. Because the point of our lives isn’t to affix blame, it’s to provide an answer to injustice. And that’s precisely what Jesus does. He doesn’t tell the disciples whose sin is at fault here; He goes over and he heals the man born blind. He does something about it. He fixes the problem.

So what are we going to do? That’s the challenge our faith presents us. There’s injustice all over this world. People are hungry. People are without shelter. People are sick. People are oppressed under various tyrannies. People are treated unfairly because of their skin color, their language, their economic status, their religion, their sexual orientation, and just about every other category you can think of. The rich have too much and the poor have too little. The strong bully the weak (sometimes from behind a badge or some other symbol of authority).

We are Christians. We are the beloved of God, called to be the disciples of Jesus. What are WE going to do about all that? God (and the world) is waiting for our answer. Amen.

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Preached at Grace and Canadochly on July 2, 2017
Scripture text: Matthew 10:40-42

Easily, my favorite person in the world was my grandfather. We called him Bup, because my 2 year old self had some difficulty with the pronunciation of “Pop.” It was a name he bore proudly for many years. He was a salt-of-the-earth sort of guy, blue collar, hard worker, WWII vet, loving father and grandfather and that took priority. He retired early to be with his family. He was tough as nails but gentle as a dove. He threatened to box my ears together more times than I can count, but he never actually did it. I miss him greatly. He died about 15 years or so ago now.

He was a man of deep faith, always made sure his daughters attended worship, but rarely attended church himself. One day, he told me why. He told me a story of when he was a young man in church, attending worship. This was probably during the 1930s, during the Depression, a time of great struggle and hardship for people. A poor family came into the church to worship. The pastor stopped the service, walked to the back of the church, and asked the newcomers to leave. They were not dressed properly to be there. Humiliated, the family slunk out. Buppy as furious. Said he never wanted to be a part of something that would do that to people in need.

I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t either. “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” And as Jesus claims elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, that we find him in the “least of these,” it was painfully obvious that who was not welcome in that church was Jesus himself.

I don’t remember when exactly Bup told me that story, but I’ve known it for a long time and I’ve used it in sermons numerous times. It cuts to the heart of who we see ourselves to be. Is the Church merely a social club for people or is it something more? What are we about? Why are we here?

We’ve been exploring these questions for a number of weeks now as the lectionary is taking us through the Gospel of Matthew. Interestingly enough, in the course of moving, I found my lost copy of Michael Card’s book on the Gospel of Matthew, where he subtitles his work “The Gospel of Identity.”

Well worth the purchase, FYI.

As we close in on Justice Sunday next week, I feel we are being swept along like a boat in rapids. It’s as though we’re being forced to address those central questions time and again. Who are you? Who does God want you to be? What does God want you to be about? And how does one get from where they are and who they are to where God wants them to be?

If I look back upstream in those rapids, I can see my grandfather standing on the shore, as he’s saying to me “If you want to be a man of the church, be one that welcomes Jesus in whatever form he takes.” That’s probably good advice for all of us in answering those central questions of identity. Who are we? Disciples who welcome Jesus, whatever he might look like. I hope we can all say that.

Unfortunately, that’s not a popular stance in this day and age. Few churches today would banish a visitor because of their tattered clothing, but many would be more than willing to excise those alternate sexual identity from their midst. No LGBT here, they would demand. And how many of them enthusiastically support the efforts of our government to keep out refugees and immigrants, people simply looking for a better life than the grinding poverty and brutal violence of much of the Third World?

I hesitate to say this on July 4th weekend, but for a nation of immigrants whose foundations are built on welcoming the “tired,” “poor,” and “tempest tost,” we’re not very welcoming anymore. Is that Christian? Not hardly.

Is that Jesus knocking at our door? Is that Jesus in the immigration center looking at us with pleading eyes? Is that Jesus on the street corner? It very well could be.

As much as I usually detest bumper sticker theology, I have to admit, as time goes on, that WWJD is probably one of the best pithy little sayings one could live by. What would Jesus do? How would he handle these times that we live in? We may not be fully able to guess the answer to that, but we know what he’s already done. We know that he welcomed the stranger and the outcast, one of the most notable was the author of today’s Gospel lesson. Matthew was a hated tax collector, one who was banished from worship due to his profession. We know Jesus loved him regardless of all that. We know Jesus touched and healed lepers who were outcast. That he associated with prostitutes and didn’t care one whit.

And we know that for the sake of all of them and all of us, he went to the cross and died there. We know that for the sake of all of them and us that he was buried and then rose again on the third day. We know that he did this to give us life abundant and eternal out of his love. Time and again, as we read through his Word, we see Jesus saying to us, “I love those people. Love them too.”

The poor, the rich, the gay, the straight, the white, people of color, those who believe in me, and those who don’t. I love them all. Do likewise.

Years ago, when I was a teenager, I used to see Tony Campolo speak. He had this story that he would always share about a trip he took to Honolulu. He had jet lag and so ended up at this bar at 3 in the morning. While he was there, eating, a group of prostitutes came in and Tony couldn’t help but overhear their conversation.

“Tomorrow’s my birthday.” one lamented. “I’ll be 39 years old and I’ve never had a birthday party.”

Tony sat there and thought for a moment. He turned to the barkeep and asked. “What would it take to throw a party for Agnes?” The barkeep nodded for a moment and two conspired to throw a party.

The next night the whole places was decorated up, streamers, cake, the whole 9 yards. Agnes and her fellow prostitutes came in and were shocked and amazed. Tony handed Agnes the knife to cut the cake and she hesitated, with tears in her eyes. “It’s so perfect, I don’t want to cut it. I want to show it off.” Agnes then took the cake and darted out the door. She took it to show it off to her mother, who lived down the street. She then returned, they cut the cake, and all had a good time.

“What sort of church you preach at?” The barkeep asked Tony. “One that gives birthday parties for hookers at 3am.” Tony replied. “I want to be a part of that church.” said the barkeep.

Wouldn’t we all? Amen.