Shepherding the Wind

This morning we read from the Book of Ecclesiastes – a truly amazing piece of literature.  Its author identifies himself as Qoheleth – Hebrew for “the teacher”, or one who speaks to an assembly.  Today we might call him a preacher.  Qoheleth’s wide-ranging sermon probes big questions about the meaning of life.  It is spellbindingly honest in its description and heartfelt in how it identifies our emotional response to all that happens to us.

Today he ponders all the work he is doing and all the effort he has put forth in life to make something of himself and wonders if it has been worthwhile or not.  “I must leave it to those who come after me,” he says, “and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish?”  He despairs that those who have done nothing to earn it will benefit from his labors.  He considers whether all his hard work and even his restless nights have been for naught.  And, famously, he calls all of it “vanity”.  The effort, the despair, the worry about what others will do with what he will pass on to them – all of it is vanity.

Biblical scholars have written a great deal about what the word Hebrew hebel means.  It was the King James Bible that first translated it as ‘vanity’ and the word seems to have stuck.  But is the teacher’s understanding of vanity the same as ours?  Some suggest he means “meaningless.”  All of our toils are meaningless.  Others suggest futility or useless.  Hebel carries with it the sense of breath or vapor – things that are short-lived, transitory.  My favorite translation is “shepherding the wind” – an evocative image that, like our phrase “herding cats”, suggests we have set ourselves to an impossible task and pursuit. 

The teacher has spent his life trying to shepherd the wind.  Will he give up on this endeavor?  If so, what will take its place?

On 14^th of January in the year 1869, on what I can only assume was a very cold and snowy day, Agnes Davidson married Hugh Emerson in Potsdam, NY.  This bible may have been a gift they received or something they purchased for themselves. 

 

 

There is a beautiful certificate in it commemorating their marriage, which each signed.  The following pages record my family’s genealogical beginning with the names of their children, their dates of birth, and marriages.  The same information follows for their grandchildren, then great-grandchildren – my generation.  The information on the newest two generations is not up-to-date and needs tending.

 

Beyond needing updating and being large and heavy and falling apart, The Emerson Family Bible weighs on me for another reason.  It is in my possession because it has been passed down to the youngest male Emerson of each generation under the theory we would 1) outlive our brothers and 2) pass on our last name.  It weighs on me because I do not have a son with whom to entrust it.  I have only one male cousin and he does not have any children.  I look at this bible and realize the Emerson name passed down from Agnes and Hugh ends with me.  I don’t lose sleep about it, but it is something I carry with me.  And it is just one of the tangible ways I identify with the teacher and his sense of hebel.  Try as hard as I might, the wind eludes my efforts to shepherd it. 

What does letting the wind be the wind look like? 

In today’s gospel reading Jesus encounters a person who wants him to intercede in a family squabble.  He wants Jesus to instruct his brother to divide the family inheritance and give him half.  Jesus refuses to get involved, but uses the opportunity to issue a warning about greed.  He tells a parable about a person who keeps doing more and more, becoming wealthier and wealthier as time goes by, but has an impoverished soul.  He is not, as Jesus puts it, “rich toward God.”  His simple plan for life is to relax, eat, drink, and be merry.  What could go wrong with that?  Well, its Jesus' story so het gets to tell any way he wants to and so the man will die that very night and have nothing to show for his life because he spent it focused on the material and never once made an investment in the spiritual – in what will endure in the life to come.

Years ago I was present to hear an elderly bishop address a clergy gathering on the topic of retirement.  It changed my perspective on life in at least one way.  He described one challenge we clergy will face.  Clergy, he pointed out, are prone to collect many, many, many, many books over the years.  It is an occupational hazard for sure.  When he retired he moved all of his things out of his church office, including boxes and boxes and boxes of books.  He had lived all his life in houses provided by the churches he served so retirement also meant he and his wife had to find a place to live.  As they looked around he quickly realized there would be no room for the vast majority of his books.  Disposing of them created one of the biggest challenges of retirement and I have not bought a book since then that I didn’t think about the bishop’s talk.  All the stuff of my life eventually will need to go somewhere where I can’t take it.

Jesus highlights how our material possessions are not who we are and someday will become a burden to how we move forward in life.  And yet they can be all we work for.  They become our heart’s desire and the focus of all we are about.  Bigger and bigger.  More and more.  Better and better.  Did you know you can now buy a refrigerator with a camera inside you can access from your smart phone?  Is it really that hard to remember you need to buy some milk when you are at the grocery store? 

In Jesus’ parable God calls the man building bigger barns a ‘fool’, which is not exactly how I hope to hear God address me.  But in truth, most of us come to this realization on our own somewhere down the road of life.  Why did I buy all these books?  What was I thinking when I spent thousands of dollars for an appliance I could see on my iPhone?  Look at all this stuff I have accumulated.  Does any of it mean anything? 

Should we be invested in future generations?   Should we focus on building wealth and material possessions?  Today’s readings raise questions as contemporary as our very lives.

I have always been fascinated with Erik Erikson’s work on developmental tasks associated with each of life’s stages and I find his thinking to be a helpful lens through which to examine today’s readings.  Erikson labeled the major developmental challenge during the ages of 45-65 ‘generativity v. stagnation.’  Generativity is a marked “concern for establishing and guiding the next generation… It is a matter of caring for whatever is being generated, attending to its nurture and growth… It involves a continuing emotional investment in what is being generated.”  For those of us in this age range our on-going work is to contribute to the common good rather than to retreat from it (an action Erikson labels “stagnation”). 

Do you hear in today’s reading how the teacher is weighing generativity and stagnation?  Erikson would say he is making the shift to the final developmental stage in life, which typically begins around the time one turns 65.  He labels this challenge ‘integrity v. despair.’  By integrity Erikson means the following:

· Being faithful to the image-bearers of the past.

· Accepting your place in the life cycle.

· Accepting the people who have played a significant role in your life – for good or for ill.

· Accepting responsibility for how your life has turned out.

Despair, on the other hand, arises when a person is unable to accept that life is too short to go back and “get it right.”  Because time no longer permits one to “start over”, we are tempted to surrender to deep feelings of regret.  Such despair, one author writes, is “often hidden behind a show of disgust… or a chronic contemptuous displeasure with particular institutions and particular people – a disgust and displeasure which [ultimately]… signify the individual’s contempt for himself.”

So, rather than shepherding wind or building bigger barns, Erikson suggests that the vast swath of our adult years involves a continued giving of ourselves to others and to life.  It is a project of producing what you are passionate about; “caring” and “emotional investment”.  And, it is about accepting who you are and who you are not; about accepting what you have done and what you have not been able to do.  It is about accepting yourself for who you are and not defining yourself by the winds you could not shepherd.  It is about locating your life in principles bigger than yourself; timeless principles not bound to our current age. 

St. Paul describes it as “as seeking the things that are above, where Christ is” and knowing your life is “hidden in Christ.”  Contrast this with the person in Jesus’ parable who “thinks [only] to himself”, and speaks only in the first person singular: “I will tear down”, “I will build”, “I will store”, and “I will say to my soul”.   When the only conversation you have is with yourself, how startling must it be to hear the voice of God speak to you, especially if God says “You fool!”?

So, about my family bible.  Here is what I am thinking of doing.  The idea that the youngest son of the youngest son must pass it along to his youngest son is arbitrary at best, burdensome at worst, and more than a tad sexist.  What matters about it is that we decedents of Agnes and Hugh know from where we have come.  What matters is how this bible connects us together and across generations.  I need to get the information up to date and talk with my siblings, cousins, nephews, and nieces to see who would like to carry this task forward and to see how we might make this bible common to all and not just a possession of mine.  As opposed to shepherding wind, this seems both manageable and meaningful.  Thank you, teacher, for your sermon.  In this small way I have learned how to let go of shepherding the wind.

Reminding God to do the Right Thing!

Jack Miles’ book, God: A Biography, was first released in 1996.  In it he examines what the bible says about God through a very specific lens; not one used by a theologian to ponder lofty ideas or one used by a historian to check for accuracy and verifiable details, but a lens used by a literary critic to ask how God as a character is developed as the story unfolds.  Such an approach is not easy to take, says Miles, because of our tendency to read into every chapter the knowledge of God we already have from episodes in the bible’s future.  When you first read a book, attend a play, or watch a movie, each character develops from scene to scene as more and more information and insight is shared.  But if you have read the book before, already attended the play, or are seen the movie multiple times, you bring to each scene all that you have learned about a character from previous readings, performances, or showings.

So, according to Miles, when we hear today’s reading from the Book of Genesis, which occurs only 18 chapters into the bible, we bring to it everything we know of God from the Exodus and the Psalms and the prophets and the Gospels and the writings of Paul and the Book of Revelation.  Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but Miles wanted to explore what the bible tells us about God if we approach it as an unfolding work of literature.

And what he sees in these early chapters of Genesis is a depiction of God who calls forth creation and then creates human beings not for company and not to receive worship, but to be an image of God’s own self.  Initially, human beings express this image chiefly through procreation and productivity.  The effort, as you no doubt know, sours quickly with the story of the apple, Cain slaying his brother, and a general state of wickedness that culminates with the flood where only Noah and his family are saved. 

God, as a literary character, always seems to be surprised by these turn of events; caught off guard by human behavior, if you will, and placed in a position of having to respond ‘on the fly.’  This is not the picture of St. Paul’s God who, from before the beginning of time, has been working out a cosmic plan of salvation.  It is a picture of God with strong feelings for creation that swing between passionate love and deep regret.

And at this point in the story’s development we come to Abraham – a person God deems as righteous.  It is during this act when Abraham’s character is on the stage that we read today’s Old Testament lesson.  God “hears” of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, but must see in person whether it is true or not.

Now, it might be worth noting how, in the Book of Genesis, God’s character appears on stage in ways that are different from the acts that follow.  Here God visits Abraham in the form of three men who are in fact angels who somehow are God.  The men leave for the notorious cities in order to discern what has been going on and Abraham is left standing with God in conversation.  Believe me, at this point, it is refreshing to read the Bible as literature rather than theology (where you have to make sense of what it means) or as history (where you have to figure out how it actually happened).

Abraham posses a very simple question: “Suppose the men down there are as wicked as you have heard.  Will you sweep away the righteous just to get rid of the wicked?”  “What if there are 50 righteous people?  45?  40?  30?  20?  10?”  Finally God seems to tire of Abraham’s line of questioning and simply walks away.  But in the process Abraham has born the image of God; an image yet to be revealed in the literary development.  Abraham reminds God that God is just, measured, and merciful.

All in all, I think it is fair to characterize the conversation between Abraham and God as being a forerunner to prayer, but it does not look much like the kind of prayer we offer this morning or that I, for one, typically pray.  In worship we offer collects and Eucharistic liturgy.  They are reasoned, articulate, and adoring expressions of our gratitude, our intercession, and our awe.  My own personal prayers tend to offer loved ones to God’s care and keeping.  What I ask for them and for myself is the strength and ability to accept all that comes our way.  But Abraham’s prayer is different.  It is more akin to a debate and in this debate Abraham gets the better of God. 

At the very least, Abraham assumes the future has yet to be determined and even if God is bent on going down a particular path God still can be persuaded to change course and move in a different direction.  I grew up in a faith setting that saw God as sitting beyond time and time itself was something like a giant movie.  For us, we live in the moment; seeing only the particular image as it is being played out on the screen of human history.  But for God the film is unrolled and every image is laid out beginning to end before God.  This perspective creates a spiritual challenge.  How and why should one pray?  If the next scene is already set then what is the point of praying for anything other to happen?  Within this spirituality the most effective prayer, and perhaps the most pleasing prayer to God, is “Thy will be done” – “As you wish” – “Let it happen.” 

Think how differently Abraham approaches God early in the human drama: “God, let’s talk about what is going to happen next because I have a few ideas on the matter.”  And through this prayer Abraham is able to convince God to act in a way different from what God intends.  This perspective on God and prayer gives a unique and empowering emphasis to the teaching Jesus offers to His followers, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” 

Why should you pray?  If you ask someone who conceives of God as being like the person with the entire film rolled out before him, he will tell you to pray because God likes it when you ask… even though it won’t change the outcome.  But if you were to ask Abraham, he would tell you to pray because it makes a difference in how things unfold.  “Sometimes,” he might say, “God needs to be reminded to do the right thing.”

Now, I am not suggesting (nor does Jack Miles suggest) that we view God as being only a literary figure or as being only like the literary figure of the early Genesis stories.  Holy Scripture provides a multi-faceted image of God who is, among other things, both immutable and open to change.  What I am suggesting is that in our prayer life we have permission, though I personally do not often take advantage of it often, to approach God with very specific, concrete proposals and ideas:

Ask: Lord, my friend is in the hospital following a massive heart attack and his daughter is going to be married in two weeks.  Will you, who hears the cries of all, please grant him relief and make it possible for him to be at the wedding.

Seek: Lord, my brother has caused me much harm that he can neither see nor acknowledge.  Will you please teach me how to confront him that he might amend his life and not do wrong to others as he has done wrong to me.

Knock: Lord, so many innocent people are dying on the streets of our country and hatred and violence are on the rise.  Please watch over us and send forth your Holy Spirit to impart peace, respect, and understanding.

Today’s readings invite us to embolden our prayers, believing the future is open and God is interested in our input.

Listen Up!

Martha!  Martha!  Martha!  Why is everybody always picking on Martha?  She is a doer in a world where things need to get done.  In today’s reading from Luke we are told she has many tasks to accomplish after visitors arrive unannounced.  There is food to prepare, dishes to serve, accommodations to arrange.  We saw in the reading from Genesis a wonderful example of how hospitality is highly valued in the culture.  Martha is doing something as old as the bible itself – making her guests feel welcome. 

But her sister Mary?  Well, not so much.  She is sitting at Jesus’ feet – a traditional posture for a disciple.  She is not doing anything, only listening.  By praising her over her task-oriented sister, Jesus says the most important thing any one of us has to do is to listen to him.  Mary gets what Peter had to be told on the mountain at the Transfiguration: “While Peter was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.  Listen to him!’”

Bishop Hollerith, in a communication with our diocese this week, highlighted the importance of listening in today’s world.  He wrote, “it is not always clear what, if anything, we might do to make a difference” in response to the shootings in Orlando, Minnesota, and Dallas.  He goes on to suggest three ‘spiritual postures’ which are helpful when “faced with social tragedy and conflict”:

·   First, he says, pray!  “Prayer,” our bishop writes, “is the stance we Christians take in the face of our own powerlessness.  It is our unceasing faith in the power of God to create healing opportunity.”

·   Next on his list, listen!  Bishop Hollerith contends (as do I) “we live in a society where people are generally far more interested in asserting their opinions than listening to what others have to say.”  He instructs, “As Christians, we must demonstrate an alternative way of being in the world, one that values openness to the experiences of others and acknowledges that the truth is usually a multifold reality.  In particular, deep listening involves paying close attention to the stories of those who differ from us.  And a listening posture helps create an environment where healing and reconciliation are possible.”

·   Finally, Bishop Holly says we are to speak!  He writes, “God calls every one of us to speak against injustice as we experience it in the day to day, ordinary contexts of our lives.”  “This is especially important to do,” he says, “when we hear others - even those who are close to us - articulate hate or indifference or prejudice - the very tinder of social violence.”

So lets spend some time thinking about the value of listening. 

It seems to me one of the best compliments a person can be paid is this: he/she is a good listener.  Scott Peck, the author of The Road Less Traveled, holds “you cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.”  Far from being a passive endeavor, now more than ever listening is hard work.  It requires us to turn off our multi-tasking mentality, to set aside our own personal agenda, and to suspend our own judgments in order to be completely available to another person. 

Stephen Covey, who wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, observes “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”  Turn on any news talk show and you will discover people of differing opinions talking at (and over) one another, but never listening.  Our encounters with one another should open up our world and enlarge our perspective because it is only through listening we learn.  If we listen only with the intent to counter our world remains smaller and our perspective more narrow.  It stays confined to our own experience and understanding.

The most valuable thing we do at our monthly meeting of Suffolk Clergy United is to listen to one pastor tell his or her story.  And because we are an interracial group founded after the church shooting last summer in Charleston, we invite each person to focus on his or her experience of race. 

At last Monday’s meeting an African-American pastor shared his story of growing up in Jefferson Davis’ hometown in Kentucky.  Years and years ago his grandfather’s brother was charged with looking at a white woman and arrested.  That night a mob descended upon the jail, took him out into the public square, and lynched him.  He talked about what it was like to be a star basketball player on a high school team whose mascot was a rebel who ran around the gym waving a Confederate flag.  He spoke with pride about enlisting in the Marines and being placed in charge of his platoon.  He talked about his call to the ministry and the great clergy he served under before coming to the church he presently pastors. 

The simple act of “sitting at his feet” has changed how I will view him going forward and it has changed me.  He gave a gift to me and to the other pastors present and all we had to do to receive it was to listen.

The psychologist Karl Menniger observed,

“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force.  The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward.  When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.”  

I think this is exactly what is happening in our group of clergy. 

Brené Brown says, “If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.”  To shame I would add naked racism.  What our country needs to do right now if stop, pray, and listen to one another.  If we do this then how we speak and how we act will change.  Don’t take my word for it.  It comes straight from Jesus.  He said to Martha that Mary has chosen the better thing, so quite busying yourself with all of your distractions and make some time to listen. 

I agree with President Obama when he says America is not as divided as it appears, but I would add we are more distant one to another than we imagine.  It is possible to be more emotionally connected to a person a thousand miles away who you have never met than to any person living within a thousand feet of you.  As I said last week the most effective place for us to make change is right here in our local community. 

I hope in the coming weeks and months our interracial clergy group will continue to grow together and then find ways to invite our flocks to join us as we grow in authentic Christian fellowship.  Do you know what our next big move is?  Can I let you on our grand idea to begin the transformation America so desperately craves?  It does not involve translating original Greek, chanting biblical laments in the public square, or channeling the lives of saints who have come before.  No.  It is even bigger than all this.  We have rented a park shelter to come together on a Saturday afternoon in September for a cookout!  “What should we say” one pastor asked, “when people ask us what we are doing to change Suffolk?”  I said, “Tell them we are planning a cookout!” 

Pray for us – not because we can’t get along.  We can.  Pray for us because we clergy are used to showing up at parish pot-lucks and feeding off the casseroles of others as we listen to the cares and concerns of the various members of our flock.  I dare say for me it will be the first cookout in years where I better bring something good to eat!  Pray for me!

The writer Ralph Nichols contends, “The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood [and the] best way to understand people is to listen to them.”  Bryant McGill adds, “One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.”  So yes, I hope folks like the salad or side dish I bring to the cookout, but even more important I hope they sense I want to listen to them.

Where and when can you listen to another person, especially a person whose experience is completely different from yours – especially and including the experience of race?  One of the great opportunities of our time is how the horrific events of the past few weeks, months, and years, have opened the door to honest conversation and listening.  This kind of conversation is not about proving I am right while you are wrong.  Rather, it looks like the honest sharing of one’s story and respectful, empathic listening.  Who might you reach out to to invite into conversation?  Now more than ever, people are open to the risk of being honest if and when they sense even slightly the other person sincerely wants to listen in order to learn.  Where can you begin?

Forty Doors

Who is my neighbor?  Did you know every religious tradition explores this question?  What does that tell you?  It says to me we sense deeply the importance of our connection to one another.  It says we are trying to figure out what we owe to each other (when do I give too much of myself and when do I give too little?).  And it says we believe God has a stake in all of this – that God cares about how we treat one another.

The Quran has much to say about one’s relationship with one’s neighbor. 

“Do good: to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, those in need, neighbors who are near, neighbors who are strangers, the companion by your side, the wayfarer” that you meet.  (Quran 4:36)

Years ago I heard an Iman speak and remember him saying the Quran teaches your neighbor is anyone who lives within forty doors of your house in any direction.  A Muslim’s duty to a neighbor includes the following:

§ You must help him if he asks for your help.

§ Give him relief if he seeks your relief.

§ Lend to him if he needs a loan.

§ Do not block his air by raising your building high without his permission.

§ Do not harass him.

§ Give him a share when you buy fruits; if you do not, quietly bring inside what you buy and do not let your children take them out to excite the jealousy of his children.

§ You must visit (and take care of) him when he is ill.

§ You must attend his funeral when he dies (and take part in burial arrangements).

§ If he commits a sin, prevent it from being known.

§ Congratulate him if he meets with good fortune.

§ Grieve in sympathy if a calamity befalls him.

A part of me warms to the specificity of these teachings and it certainly would be a challenge to treat everyone within forty doors of my house in the manner put forward by the Quran, but at least I would have a prescribed area on which to focus.

It fascinates me that Jesus took a much more nebulous approach with his answer to the question “Who is my neighbor” – especially given he was responding to a lawyer (and we all know how lawyers like language that buttons down the details of every possibility).  I think the lawyer would have loved it if Jesus’ answer was every person within forty doors.  The teaching method of the parable doesn’t do that.  It is fluid, even shocking.  It cannot be contained to one single instruction.  Parables have the remarkable ability to speak in a new way to every new situation.  We are not left simply to count doors, but rather must always ask what the Parable of the Good Samaritan might say to a specific event in our lives.

We gather this morning as the names Philando Castile and Alton Sterling have been added to a list that includes Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and Darrius Stewart.   And we gather today remembering…

§ Brent Thompson, age 43.  He was a grandfather, of whom one teacher at middle school where he worked said “he was simply one of the best human beings I have ever known.” 

§ Patrick Zamarripa, age 32.  He was a veteran of two tours of duty in Iraq.  One person described him as “a ‘gentleman’ who loved America.”

§ Michael Krol, age 40.  A family member said he was “a wonderful son, brother, uncle, nephew and friend.”

§ Michael Smith, age 55.  He was a husband and father of two young girls.  A member of the church he attended said Michael “exemplified Christ in the way he loved, cared for, engaged with and ultimately laid down his life for others.”

§ Lorne Ahrens, age 48.  He was a husband and father of 8 & 10 year old children.  Some time back a person posted this about him on the police review website RateMyCop: “You are doing a great job dectective Ahrens, keep up the good work and stay safe!!!!”

We hold in our prayers each of these Dallas police officers ambushed in the line of duty and we pray for those who were injured, including Omar Cannon, Misty McBride, Jesus Retana, and Shetamia Taylor.  And we pray for their loved ones who have experienced an unthinkable loss.

I suppose there are a number of ways to examine the events of this past week through the lens of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, but my focus is on priest and the Levite who saw what had happened and passed on by.  What does it look like to pass by the events of this past week?  Jesus’ parable suggests we have a neighborly obligation to engage these shootings, but how? 

Last month Suffolk Clergy United invited Thomas Bennett, Suffolk’s Chief of Police, to speak at our meeting.  We wanted to learn more about policing protocols in our own community and what the department is doing in the wake of Ferguson and other police shootings.  Chief Bennett talked with us about the department’s evaluation system, how it reviews questionable police work, discipline officers, and trains for appropriate behavior.  He told us the single best new “tool” they have is the individual police officer’s body camera.  Each officer knows he or she is being recorded and this helps with accountability.  It also moderates the behavior of citizens engaged by the officer.  They know they are being recorded and as a result are both more likely to behave appropriately and less likely to fabricate a complaint against the officer.  I came away from the conversation better educated and feeling comfortable with how Suffolk’s police department functions in our community. 

I now have a second question about policing, perhaps some of you know the answer.  What, if anything, is being done to educate citizens about the proper way to respond to a police officer, especially when you have been pulled over for a traffic stop?  Every citizen ought to know how to behave and this education needs to begin at a young age.  A mother in Suffolk – regardless of her race – ought to feel confident her child will be safe if he or she simply responds to a police officer in a courteous and cooperative manner. 

Here is another question: does the Suffolk Police Department promote culture of accountability?  By this I mean, are good police officers able to report on the actions of a bad police officer or are they encouraged to turn a blind eye?  Now, more than ever, the safety of good police officers depends on it. 

Many people are saying now more than ever we need to come together as a nation.  I share in this sentiment, but have little ability to affect what happens in cities and communities across our country.  The wisdom of the Muslim teaching suggests each of us can do much to influence what happens within forty doors of where we live. 

The characters Jesus chose for his parable had startling differences.  The priest and the Levite had much in common with the victim, but decided not to get involved.  The Samaritan was a shocking choice to be the hero of Jesus’ story.  Samaritans where hated half-breeds looked down upon by the Jews.  Their religion taught them to avoid Samaritans at all costs.  The lawyer asked Jesus “Who is my neighbor” and what Jesus gave him was not a teaching that says “him, him, her, and her, but not them”, but rather a timeless, instructive, vivid portrait of what it looks like to be a neighbor.

Karoline Lewis, a Lutheran biblical scholar, wrote a very thoughtful reflection on today’s reading.  Here is a part of what she posted:

What if the Samaritan was good because he simply made the choice to come near the [wounded man] in the ditch?  To approach him?  To decrease the distance between him and the man clearly in need of help?

What if eternal life might also be known, here and now and in this place, in nearness, not remoteness?  In proximity, not reserve?  In deciding to be closer, and not looking for ways to push away?

We expend a lot of energy in our lives toward decided detachment, disengagement, and disenfranchisement…

In the end, the Good Samaritan comes near as one who knows the Kingdom is near.  And the Kingdom of God comes near when we do the same.

What might it look like to come near to every person who lives within forty doors of your house?  What might it look like to create deeper, more meaningful experiences with churches within forty doors of our red doors?  As violence more and more permeates our society, what does it look like to choose to be not just a neighbor, but a ‘good’ neighbor in our community?  Isn’t this what we feel is slipping away in our country?  Isn’t this what our faith calls us to explore?  Isn’t this what Jesus calls us to do? 

The Invitation to Harvest

A woman is planning to visit her husband stationed in Germany with the military.  Checking in at the airport, the ticket agent asks the standard security questions.  “Did anyone give you a package you yourself did not pack?”  “Yes,” she answers, “My mother-in-law gave me a package to take to her son.”  The agent pauses, looks up, and gives her a thorough visual inspection.  “Just one more question,” he says.  “Does your mother-in-law like you?”

Without question the thing I dislike most about travelling is packing.  The bad news for those of us here today is no one invited us to a beach house for the holiday weekend.  The good news is we did not have to pack!  The fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg says, “I get ideas about what’s essential when packing my suitcase.”  Perhaps all of this is why I warm up to Jesus’ travel instructions: “Don’t carry a purse, a bag, or sandals.  Just drop everything and go!”

In last week’s gospel reading you will remember the text told us “Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem.”  Everything we will read from that passage forward – including today’s lesson – needs to be understood within this context.  Jesus is on a singular mission and now is the time to act.  He has touched the lives of thousands of people and now he needs his closest followers to fan out across the countryside to tell them the time has come to act.  The kingdom of God is coming near and word needs to get out for everyone to get to Jerusalem.

This effort will not be on-going.  It is a short-term project that requires a huge commitment.  Jesus compares it to a harvest where the community comes together to help a particular farmer bring in his crop.  The work has to be done now.  One or two people alone cannot get it done.  Others must join the effort if it is going to be successful.

You may find two Greek words in the text to be interesting.  The first sentence of the reading states, “The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead.”  The word used here for “appoint” can also mean to ordain.  It underscores the importance of the task at hand.  The seventy have been set apart to do something vitally important. 

The other word is found in a phrase in the second part of that sentence: Jesus “sent them on ahead.”  The Greek word here for “sent” most often is translated cast out and is used to describe how Jesus commands demons to leave a possessed person.  Again, this unusual usage highlights the urgency of the work at hand.  It needs to be done now.

People in today’s society are becoming more and more reluctant to make a commitment to an on-going activity, but are willing to make a specific commitment to a short-term, intensive project with obvious value.  In church life, this manifests itself in specific ways.  People are reluctant to join the choir because it entails weekly rehearsals and Sunday attendance.  But, as we have seen in the past, we are willing to get our children to a week-long evening music camp.  While a dozen of us can be here on Monday evenings to serve in the Food Pantry, our volunteers swell four-fold when we have our Christmas basket distribution.  Norma Spain has found great success with offering a mid-week bible study program that runs four to eight weeks and then takes a break for a month or two. 

Whatever the down side of all this is, the upside is we are people of the harvest.  We are willing and able to contribute and get involved when it matters most so long as it does not tie us down in perpetuity. 

I see this at play in our capital campaign to raise money for kitchen renovation.  The Vestry, and especially Tom Coxe, have put a lot of time and energy into this project.  They have got us to a point where the harvest is ready and you all are responding with fantastic generosity and enthusiasm.

I also see it at work in our efforts to gear up for next year’s 375^th anniversary celebration.  About 15 of us got together last Wednesday to look at all the old photographs, newspaper clippings, and documents we have stored away.  After two hours of sorting, some organization began to emerge.  We have a lot more work to do, but the harvest of a significant anniversary in our parish’s life is energizing our work.  We have settled in on a slogan for this event and it draws on harvesting imagery: “Connecting with Our Past.  Cultivating our Future.”  This will not be just a trip down memory lane.  Rather, it will shape and mold us into the church we are becoming by reminding us how God has been with us and how the people of God in this place over the years responded to God’s call and presence.

And speaking of the past, here is this week’s nugget from long ago.  It is an announcement from a church bulletin dated April 11, 1948 when the Rev. John Winslow served as rector:

Report of Church Census to be made Sunday Afternoon: This Sunday afternoon at 5 P.M. in the Main Street Methodist Church there will be a service for the report from Mr. John Haloo who directed our recent Church Census in Suffolk.  This should be an interesting report and will probably be rather startling in some of the facts which have been revealed by the census.  It is hoped that we will have a good representation at the service in order to hear this report.

So apparently, area churches came together and our members fanned out across Suffolk knocking on doors to gather information about people’s religious affiliation and habits. 

The next Sunday’s bulletin summed up Rev. Winslow’s thoughts on the findings.  This from the April 18, 1948 bulletin mailed to the home of every member of the parish:

Church Census Shows Surprising Results:  The Church Census completed showed that less than one third of the folk of Suffolk do anything very real about their religion and that about one third of the membership of the Churches carries the burden of the work of the whole group.  Are you a worker or a parasite?  Do you do your share or do you let someone else carry on for you?

Does the word parasite strike you as a bit harsh?  It does me.  I would love to be able to sit down with Rev. Winslow and have a lengthy conversation about his thinking.  He seems to believe that the work of the church is a requirement for all who call themselves Christian.  His focus is on the church as an institution.  I believe the work of the church is an opportunity for a person to live out vows made at baptism.  My focus is on the church as a place of mission.  We center our spiritual life on invitation not demand and I think this is why so many of us at the 10:30 Eucharist are moved by the words, “This is the table of the Lord…  It is the Risen Christ who invites you.  It is the Risen Christ who seeks to meet you here.”

My sense is that when the Lord of the harvest calls for workers to go out into the field, each and every one of you responds.  But keep in mind, keeping the machinery of the church as an institution running – while being important and necessary – is not necessarily the same thing as harvesting.  God’s work is not contained within the four brick walls that frame our church property.  In fact, much of the harvesting we are called to do takes place after we leave this place.

I was reminded of this Friday evening when, in the midst of a drenching rain storm, I got a call from the church telling me water was leaking in from a particular window.  I looked out my front door at the deluge and noticed a mother with three small children taking shelter under the canopy in the Baptist Church parking lot.  As the rain eased up, I grabbed my umbrella and headed here to inspect the window.  But first I went over to check on the family, suspecting perhaps their car was nearby but it was raining too hard for them to get to it.

I learned this was not the case.  They had no car, have only been in town for a couple of days, and had been waiting for an hour for a friend who was going to give them a ride to McDonalds to get some food.  It was now after seven in the evening.  I got my car, brought them here, loaded them up with a variety of items from our Food Pantry, and drove them home.  They were very appreciative.  The mother told me that just before I arrived one of her children said a prayer asking God to stop the rain and help them.  That’s when I showed up.

Now you have to be in a pretty bad state of affairs for me to be the answer to your prayers!  But I can’t tell you how grateful I was to be able to do something so easy that meant so much.  Being a part of God’s harvesting work is like that.  Most often you get out of it much more than you put in.  That is certainly true of my experience on Friday evening.

St. Paul’s has been around for 374 years not because clergy shamed the “parasites” into participating, but because hundreds upon hundreds of faithful men and women responded to a call to the harvest.  One of the greatest blessings I can hope and pray for each one of us is that the Lord of the harvest might ask you to go out to work in the field.