The Jeremiah Principle

God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet when he is a just a boy.  God tells him, “Before you were even born, I knew you.”  In other words, “I have been preparing you for this calling for a long, long time.”  Once old enough to assume the role, Jeremiah journeys throughout Israel preaching and teaching.  He speaks out against idolatry, exposes greedy priests, and challenges false prophets.  Not everyone likes to hear unfiltered truth.  The priests in one town conspire to kill Jeremiah and God must intervene to save him.  On another occasion a temple official in Jerusalem has Jeremiah beaten and put in stocks at one of the city’s gates.  Those who pass in and out mock the prophet.  He literally becomes a “laughing stock.” 

In today’s first reading we encounter Jeremiah at a time when he has had enough.  He wants God to bring down retribution on his persecutors.  He wallows in struggles of his calling.  He describes the inner turmoil and conflict it has spawned.  And he lashes out at God who has been like a “deceitful brook”, like “waters that fail.”  God has let him down. 

One commentator says Jeremiah’s pain can be characterized as an “unsettled ache”, as “a war within.”  Jeremiah takes on a calling he thinks will bring him great joy, and initially it does.  At first, when he finds God’s words he “eats” them and they “delight” his heart.  But then reality sets in.  Jeremiah learns firsthand life is not always easy and resistance (or worse) is not uncommon.  In today’s reading we find him at a point where he is just done with all of it.

Years ago I knew a parishioner who managed a family-owned care facility for the elderly.  Once a month I conducted a worship service for the residents and often stopped by her office afterwards for a chat.  She loved her job and the staff and the residents.  And she loved the family she worked for because they shared her values of compassion, concern, and treating people with dignity.  At some point the family sold the facility to a corporation and that is when everything changed for the parishioner.  She came under more and more pressure to make the bottom line look better by minimizing expenses in order to maximize profits.  She was forced to reduce the staff and to make other cuts which diminished the quality of care given to the residents.  With each monthly visit I sensed her unhappiness growing.  She had not lost her love for the residents or the staff.  In fact, her love for them gave birth to a deepening, darkening inner ache that grew with every decision she was forced to make by a heartless corporate entity.  Eventually, she had to quit.       

Whatever your vocation, I hope you understand it to be a calling and I hope it brings you joy and great delight.  I suspect there are aspects about what you do that take a toll on you.  As an example, teaching is a wonderful profession.  There is something thrilling about creating a learning environment to facilitate discovery and growth.  But the job is not this simple and straightforward.  I have never known a teacher who did not struggle with an unsettled inner ache birthed by the incredible time demands of the job, difficult parents, meddlesome administrators, budget cuts, poor pay, and/or unmotivated students. 

No vocation is immune to burnout.  We are eager at the beginning, but at some point learn we must endure.  What initially is a delight can become a thing we dread.  At first we are fired up, but eventually get fed up.  This morning we learn we can name this “the Jeremiah Principle.”  As with Jeremiah, it may be the result of naïve expectations encountering the real world.  Or, as was the case of the parishioner managing the care facility, it may come about because conditions change in unforeseen and disagreeable ways.  No matter what the cause, the result is the same.  It creates an inner, unsettled ache.

Going all the way back to God’s command to Adam to till the earth and tend to creation, there has always been a strong connection between the work of our hands and the condition of our heart.  Work is many things, one of which is spiritual.  If you like what you do, who you do it with, and who you do it for, chances are good you are a peace with yourself.  If you don’t like what you do, who you do it with, and/or who you do it for, then most likely you know exactly what the phrase unsettled ache feels like.

Tomorrow is Labor Day.  Far more than seeing it as a day off from work, the church invites us to ponder the work we do and why we do it.  Listen to the opening part of the collect for Labor Day:

Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good…

The prayer asserts we are interconnected.  Because we cannot live apart from the contributions of others, we are called to think of our labor as being an offering for the welfare of all people.  For some this will be a radical shift.  It will move you from thinking about what you are getting out of the work you are doing to focusing on what your work is doing to benefit others.

I can tell you one person who needs to shift his mindset in this way – Jeremiah.  God responds to his lament and says,

If you utter what is precious,

and not what is worthless,

you shall serve as my mouth.

Jeremiah’s work is to speak in such a way that God is speaking through him.  What an incredible job!  And what a blessing it can be to those who hear him speak.  God’s words through him may guide, they may encourage, they may heal, they may correct, they may reprove.  They are God’s words and they are words people need to hear, even if they don’t want to listen.  Speaking is Jeremiah’s contribution to the common good.  It is the purpose of his labor.

But Jeremiah has forgotten this and made himself the focus of his work.  “I did what God called me to do and look what happened to me.”  Jeremiah has yet to realize he cannot control how other people will receive his labor and he cannot control what they will do with it.  All he can control is what he says.  He can control if his words are precious or worthless.  If he does this God makes three promises to him:

I will make you to this people

a fortified wall of bronze;

  they will fight against you

but they shall not prevail over you,

for I am with you

to save you and deliver you.

First, God promises to make Jeremiah strong.  Second, God promises Jeremiah will meet strong resistance.  And finally, God promises to be with Jeremiah to save and deliver him.  Jeremiah must learn to concentrate on his contribution to the common good and stop focusing on what it costs him to do this.

God’s words sink in very deep.  Jeremiah picks himself up, dusts himself off, and gets back to the job of being a prophet.  His career will span the rule of five different kings.  By the time he is old he will witness the complete destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army.  He will be remembered as the weeping prophet.  But he has been faithful to his job, speaking the words people need to hear, even if they reject them and persecute him for speaking them.

The parishioner who quit her job never came to church very often and for some time I lost track of her.  One day I went to visit a person who recently entered a care facility I had not visited before and who did I meet managing it?  The parishioner.  She looked as if the weight of the world had been removed from her shoulders.  This facility was family-owned and managed on values she could support.  Unlike Jeremiah, she did not need a change of perspective.  All she needed to contribute to the common good was a change in scenery. 

This morning we hear Jesus say,

“If you want to be my follower you must deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me.  If you want to save your life you will lose it, and if you lose your life for me you will find it.”

This is the great paradox of the Christian living and it runs counter to everything we think we know about life.  Learning how to apply this principle to every aspect of our life is a lifelong work in progress.  Through Jeremiah we are encouraged to consider how it applies to the work we do.  Are you deep in the throes of the Jeremiah Principle, tied up in knots on account of the work you do?  Perhaps, like Jeremiah, you need to reexamine your expectations and refocus your motivation.  Perhaps, like the woman managing the care facility, you need to acknowledge you can no longer be at the place you are working and need a fresh start.  No matter what your circumstances on Labor Day, I hope you will ponder Jesus’ promise, “If you lose your life you will find it.”

Location. Location. Location.

The three most important words in real estate are “location, location, location.”  Location matters, even in the bible.  This is certainly true with today’s gospel reading.  The text tells us Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi.  Now, this may not mean much to you and me, but it meant a lot to his companions and to the early readers of Matthew’s gospel.  Just as we associate car making with Detroit and Mardi Gras with New Orleans, Caesarea Philippi was associated with several particular things.

The city is located about twenty miles north of the Sea of Galilee and sits at the base of Mt. Hermon.  The Book of Enoch says this is the site where fallen angels took humans as wives creating a race known as the nephilim, who are described as being giants.  There is a cave on the side of the mountain in Caesarea thought to be bottomless.  Its opening is called the Gates of Hades and myth holds the nephilim are consigned to its depths.

For centuries the city and mountain are an important location for the worshippers of Baal.  In Hellenistic times, it is renamed Paneas and new temple structures are added for the worship of the Greek god Pan.  You may be interested to know Pan had the hindquarters, legs, hooves, and horns of a goat, but the torso and head of a human.  He enjoyed his afternoon naps and if interrupted let out a terrifying scream which created a “panic” in those who heard it.  By Jesus’ day, the city is expanded to include a large royal palace, and Philip, the region’s ruler, renames it after Caesar and himself. 

During the Jewish War from 66-70 AD, the Roman general Vespasian favors Caesarea Philippi as a recreation spot.  When he is named Emperor he leaves his son Titus to oversee the siege of Jerusalem and returns to the Caesarea where he reclines in comfort in the palace.  After the fall of Jerusalem, the ancient historian Josephus reports Titus and his troops return to Caesarea with Jewish captives and Vespasian has some of them thrown to wild animals.

When Matthew’s original readers learn Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi, they associate all of this background with what they are reading in the text.  Jesus is in a place of steeped in Jewish mythology, pagan worship, and Roman imperialism.  And it is exactly in the center of this city with its ancient temples and lavish palace Jesus asks his followers who other people think he is.  And then he asks them directly, “Who do you say that I am?”

The context matters.  It illuminates the question and shapes the answer.  Had Jesus been walking through a large field of grain when he asked it, Peter’s response might have been “You are the bread of life.”  Had they been sitting around a fire on a star-filled night, Peter might have answered, “You are the light of the world.”  But here, in Caesarea Philippi, a center of political power and cultic worship, Peter answers Jesus is superior to both.  You are the Messiah – the one sent from God to lead our people.  You are the son of the living God – the one to whom all worship belongs. 

Location, location, location.  I believe Jesus comes to us in every context where we find ourselves and asks, “Who do you say I am?”  The context will always shape our response.  Let’s say you give your spouse one final kiss before he deploys.  Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  You are my strong tower who will keep me safe and those I love safe.  Or let’s say you are singing your favorite church hymn with all you have to offer.  Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  You are the one who fills my heart with rejoicing.  Or let’s say you are sitting by a hospital bed keeping vigil as a loved one nears death.  Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  You are my shepherd and I shall not want. 

Location, location, location.  Let’s say we are walking with Jesus in downtown Charlottesville this morning.  Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  You are the Lord who commands us to love God and one another.  You are the one who gave his life to expose the forces of hatred, violence, and bigotry.  You are the one who calls us to establish justice and righteousness and equality within our borders. 

Let’s say this morning we are living in the coastal region of Texas, trying to make sense of the devastation and struggling with the challenge of putting our life and our community back together.  Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  You are the one who lifts me up on eagles’ wings and promises I will run and not be weary.  I will walk and not be faint.

But we are here at St. Paul’s Church in downtown Suffolk and Jesus asks us, “Who do you say I am?”  Our answer is shaped by our context.  If we were answering on the morning of our Pilgrimage Sunday, worshipping at each of the five locations over the course of our 375 years as a parish, we might have confessed “You are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  You have been our help in ages past and our hope for years to come.”

Over the months since then our parish context has continued to evolve, as it always does, and requires our thoughtful discernment to understand who Jesus is for us right now and how we are called to respond.  Over the summer we have welcomed several new families into our faith community.  We are now in a position to add a new Sunday morning class for upper elementary school children to compliment our nursery, pre-school and early elementary class, and youth class.  We are in a position to form a youth group for 5^th graders on up.  We will begin to have a monthly meeting starting in September and building from there.  We are also looking to provide a youth confirmation class beginning this fall.

Who do we at St. Paul’s say Jesus is?  Given who we are and where we are, we can answer in many different ways.  Given how we have changed this summer, a new response is being added and emphasized.  Jesus is our Rabbi who teaches us about life and the faith and helps to form us into good and godly people.

And what about you and your personal location?  Given where you are in your own life right now, who do you say Jesus is?

Jesus the Bigot

There are not many times in the bible when you will find Jesus being the villain in a story.  In fact, today’s gospel reading may be the only time it happens.  In it, Jesus displays the full bigotry of his people when he dismisses a Canaanite woman’s plea for help.  The Canaanites were descendants of Noah’s grandson, Canaan, who was cursed because of his father’s sin.  The bible portrays Canaanites as being a wicked and idolatrous people who occupy a territory along the Mediterranean from current day Lebanon to Egypt.  God promises this land to Abraham and several of the early books of the bible describes the Israelites’ conflicts with the Canaanite people.

By Jesus’ day, Canaanites lived in small towns and communities in and among the people of Israel.  Even though they are native to the land, they are treated like third class citizens.  Israelites consider them to be no better than dogs, a dehumanizing status dripping with contempt. 

One particular Canaanite woman approaches Jesus and begs him to pray for her daughter who is possessed by a demon.  Jesus has been exercising demons since the beginning of his public ministry and he understands “binding Satan” to be an important part of his work, but it is a work he has only done for his people.  The woman begs and pleads, but what does Jesus do?  Nothing.  He does not even respond to her.  He ignores her.  Eventually, some of Jesus’ followers become so annoyed by her they urge Jesus to get rid of her.  Jesus answers them, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”  He cannot be bothered with her because she is not one of his people. 

Hatred and bigotry are not new, but they certainly are on our minds as we gather to worship this morning.  My heart broke last weekend watching what transpired in Charlottesville while I was on vacation in Montana.  I can tell you what happened in our Commonwealth deeply affected the people I met in that state. 

I look for much good to come out of what happened.  At every baptism we renew our covenant with God to seek and serve Christ in all persons and to respect the dignity of every human being.  Seeing the opposite of this vow on display makes concrete for me who I am and who I choose to be.  I reject the hatred and bigotry we saw last weekend and embrace more firmly and with deeper conviction the vows I made at baptism.  In one way or another, I sense the overwhelming majority of our citizens doing the same thing.  Our common commitment to equality and decency has grown by leaps and bounds by witnessing its opposite.

Earlier this summer a family was invited to come to our church.  It was Memorial Day weekend, so we had a cookout and pony rides.  St. Paul’s was for them St. Paul’s – a place where they were welcomed and made to feel at home and the mother told me they would be coming back – and they have.  For the purposes of understanding this story, you need to know the family is Pilipino.  The mother saw where another church in town was advertizing a Vacation Bible School open to everyone in the community.  When she went to sign up her children, the person at the registration desk asked her bluntly, “Are you really her for the bible school, or do you just want free babysitting for all your kids?”  Another mother said, “Keep those Mexican kids away from my children.” 

I tell you this story not to shame that church, not too prove hatred and bigotry are alive and well right here in Suffolk, and certainly not to embarrass the family.  I tell you this story because when I heard it I said to myself, this will not happen here at St. Paul’s.  My own spirit became more generous and more determined to welcome every single person who comes to this place.  We are not privileged members of an exclusive country club admitting only those people who are “like” us.  We are children of God, deeply loved and profoundly forgiven.  And through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we are uniquely empowered to share God’s love and forgiveness with every person, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, or sexual orientation.

And speaking of God’s love, let’s get back to Jesus, who on this day is not doing a very good job of manifesting it.  He ignores the Canaanite mother’s pleas for help and refuses even to acknowledge her presence by speaking to her.  But she will not be dismissed so easily.  She kneels before Jesus and cries, “Lord, help me.”  Finally he addresses her, but in the meanest way possible: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Wow!  So in Jesus’ mind, Israelites are sheep and children and Canaanites are dogs.  What he says is as offensive as using the “N” word is to us today and, sadly, it shows us just how deeply entrenched Jesus is in the mindset of his day.  Now, some preachers will not see it this way.  They will say Jesus is only testing her because they cannot accept he had such an abhorrent personality trait.  After all, Jesus is supposed to be perfect.  But this is not a test.  As embarrassing as it is to say, this is just Jesus being ugly.

But thank God the Canaanite woman is not finished.  She responds, “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”  Jesus is stunned. Instantly he sees past her ethnicity and recognizes in her something uniting them as human beings.  He sees her faith.  He understands the Canaanite woman’s motherly concern for her daughter is no different from an Israelite woman’s motherly concern.  Jesus heals the girl in that very moment and never again will differentiate between those from the nation of Israel and those outside of it. 

Jesus changes in a profound way, and so can we.  He forsakes his cultural heritage of bigotry and hatred for something grand and beautiful – the kingdom of God where love, peace, and righteousness reign.  Each of our readings this morning highlights God’s desire to welcome and embrace all people and all nations.  First Israel, and now we as Christians have been called not for special, exclusive blessings and rarified status above all others, but to be witness bearers of God’s love for all people. 

While we respect the dignity of every human being, we denounce every ideology and any movement seeking to make one group or class superior to another.  We will speak out against any and every effort to diminish the potential of human flourishing for all people and act if necessary to insure equal rights and equal opportunity for all.  

For me, it begins right here, right now, in this place.  St. Paul’s will continue to be an expression of what we know and hold true about God’s love for every person.

A Tabernacle of Guppies in a Fishbowl

Akron, OH is blessed with a wonderful array of metropolitan parks and as a boy I loved the opportunity to visit them and hike their rugged trails.  My favorite park, far and away, is called Hampton Hills, which encompasses land above the Cuyahoga River valley and the hillside terrain, which falls down to the river’s level.  The five-mile hiking trail forms one big loop.  The first section follows a meandering stream, which it crisscrosses several times using wooden log bridges that would make Indiana Jones squeamish.  From here, the path makes its way up a steep ravine and across a lush meadow before following a circuitous route back to the parking lot. 

On summer afternoons my mother drove me, a friend, and our Irish Setter to Hampton Hills and we never came back half as clean and dry as when we went – especially the dog!  I was fascinated by the park, and still am.  Tree trunks fallen across ravines waited like a tightrope to be walked.  Steep banks of dirt carved out by flash floods begged to be scaled.  A variety of critters scurrying about longed not to be spotted.

But it was the stream I loved the most.  It was alive.  It’s gentle current carried a small twig from here to there and as I watched I imagined myself small and piloting it as my vessel.  Water spiders darted about.  Guppies swam to and fro.  There was a turtle or tadpole or frog every few steps.   And all of it worked to make Hampton Hills a magical place for me when I was growing up.

One day I had a thought, the kind of thought only an eight-year-old boy can imagine: Why not bring a part of Hampton Hills home with me.  I begged my mother to let me capture some guppies and, after much badgering, she gave in.  Little Keith, armed with an empty coffee can and all the skill of a deep-sea fisherman, splashed and thrashed up and down the stream and managed to catch (as I recall it) four guppies! 

I remember the ride home holding on my lap a precious tin can filled with all the wonder of Hampton Hills.  When we got home I emptied its contents into a goldfish bowl and watched my tiny friends swim back and forth in their new home.  I remember realizing just how dirty stream water is.  I reasoned, as only a child with no knowledge of environmental impact studies can reason, the fish would be much happier swimming in some nice clean water from our kitchen faucet.  To this day I don’t know which got to the guppies first; either the fluoride treated water or the boring environment of the glass bowl, but my fish survived only a day or two.  Even if they had lived, I realized my guppies swimming in grungy water paled to the thrill of going to the stream itself. 

There may be nothing more human than attempting to capture something wonderful and mysterious, but it the process only creating something describable, manageable, and certain.

I think about my experience of Hampton Hills whenever I read the story of the Transfiguration.  Jesus takes three of his disciples up a mountain to pray.  At some point, he is transfigured before their eyes and the disciples observe him in his undimmed, heavenly glory.  Suddenly two figures from long, long ago stand with Jesus: Moses (the giver of the law) and Elijah (the founder of the prophetic movement).  One of Webster’s definitions of ‘mystery’ is “something incomprehensible and awe-inspiring.”  The Transfiguration is true mystery in this sense.  It is completely different from anything else in experience.  It is wonderful and glorious.  It is beyond words. 

In his classic 1917 book The Idea of the Holy, Rudolph Otto analyzes various accounts of people’s deep experience of God in order to discern some common threads.  He discovers no matter who the person and no matter what the experience, every encounter with God is marked by “tremendous and fascinating mystery.”  It is an experience of a Reality that is “wholly other”, beyond human fabrication, conceptual control, and measurability.  The experience evokes in the person utter astonishment and fear; not fear as in terror, but rather fear as compelling reverence.  Otto calls it Holy Awe.  People who experience this Reality sense how finite they are in the presence of God’s majesty.  It is not unusual for a person simultaneously to be repelled from God while at the same time being drawn close, entranced and captivated by the mystery.  This, according to Otto, is how people react to an encounter with God.

Robert Frost said all religions start with a lump in the throat – a burning bush or a descending dove, an encounter with mystery.  Frederick Buechner writes “through some moment of beauty or pain, some sudden turning of their lives, most people have caught glimmers at least of what the saints are blinded by.”  I have not had a blinding experience of God’s glory, as the saints and subjects of Otto’s research have, but I have had moments where I have caught a glimmer of it.  I imagine the same is true for most of us here this morning.   Buechner says, “we are all more mystics than we choose to let on, even to ourselves.” 

At the Transfiguration, Peter is the first to speak in the presence of mystery.  “It is good for us to be here,” he says.  “If you wish, we can make three booths to capture this momentous occasion.”  Now a booth is a kind of tabernacle or shrine and Peter suggests the wonder, the glory, and the mystery of what he perceives can be contained so it can be preserved. 

Well, nothing can contain the glory of God, but this will not stop us from trying.  How many people in organized religion hold their particular angle on the Mystery is more important than the Mystery itself?  In reality, every system of ethics, every institution, every dogma, every ritual, every scripture, and every program of social action can become little more than a fishbowl of guppies if a person tries to say it is the Mystery and treats it as such.

I knew my fishbowl was not the stream and I would never attempt to convince anyone it was.  For me, its value rested in the way it pointed back to its source.  A person who has never been to Hampton Hills could never look at my fishbowl and sense the wonder of its origin.  You have to experience the stream for yourself in order to appreciate the dim glimmer of glory in the bowl.  You cannot force tabernacles on a person and expect miracles.  Each of us has to experience God’s mystery for ourselves.

To those of us who would try to erect a tabernacle to the Mystery, the cloud comes to overshadow us, as it did Peter.  God’s voice is heard, “This is my son.  Listen to him.”  And as they leave the mountain Jesus says to Peter, “Don’t tell anyone about what you have seen until after I have been raised from the dead.”  In other words, don’t try to speak of the mystery of God.  You can’t.  Live with it for a while.  Hasty words will not capture it anymore than erecting a booth.

Peter never did get to build his tabernacle.  Just as well.  After all of his ups and downs something more wonderful happens.  He himself becomes a tabernacle to God.  It comes as a result of living with Christ and following Christ.  Meister Eckhart, a medieval German mystic, describes it this way:

The bodily food we take in is changed into us, but the spiritual food we receive changes us into itself; therefore divine love is not taken into us… but divine love takes us into itself, and we are made one with it.

My prayer for each of us is that as God takes us into God’s mystery we will not attempt to make the Mystery one with us, but rather we will allow ourselves to become one with it.  I pray that your life will become a tabernacle of God’s love always pointing others back to its source.

Treasuring Things New and Old

Jesus said, “Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the homeowner who treasures what is new and what is old.”

What is your first memory of learning something?  Obviously you learned a lot from a very young age, but what is your earliest memory of a learning?  Mrs. Griffin was our elderly neighbor.  I remember sitting in her kitchen when I was four years old as she laid out a handful of toothpicks on the table and showed me how to arrange them to spell my name.  I can still visualize the moment my name became more than a sound, it became an image.

My kindergarten “Report of Progress” card states “the fundamental purpose of kindergarten is to help the child make the adjustment from home to school and to lay the foundation for future formal education.”  As such, it chronicled how I was doing in such categories as takes part in group work, conversation and play, shows helpfulness toward others, behaves courteously, respects property rights, listens, relaxes at rest time (a skill I have mastered!), thinks, chooses and works independently, works up to ability, uses materials creatively (paint, wood, clay, etc.), follows directions, controls self, is cheerful, is self-confident, observes safety rules, and responds to and participates in musical activities (the first half of the year my mark in this area was “is improving”, which is better than “seldom”, but in the second half I am proud to say I improved to “usually” – the highest mark possible).     

I am sure you are familiar with Robert Fulghum’s “All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”  Reviewing my report card I see again the truth of his insight.  Those early lessons form the core of who I am.  They are the oldest part of me and I carry them forward with me to this very moment.  How I live in to them continues to evolve.  These old truths become new every day.

I grew up in an age when children went to Sunday School every Sunday.  Classrooms had a poster where each of our names was written and we got a checkmark on it for the particular week we were present.  At the end of the year students who never missed a Sunday were given a certificate for perfect attendance.  More received one than did not.  Can you imagine!  I don’t remember a single lesson from back in the day, but we had a weekly memory verse and glued cotton balls to popsicle sticks in a way that was supposed to look like sheep.  While I don’t have a particular recollection of a specific learning, these Sunday experiences also form the core of who I am.  They instilled in me old truths that I make new every day as I seek to live them in our changing world.

Jesus calls us “scribes of the kingdom of heaven.”  Scribes were teachers of the law.  They first appear after the return from exile to Babylon.  The Temple has been destroyed and the walls around Jerusalem are in ruins.  The nation needs rebuilding.  During this work someone unearths the scrolls of the bible.  Several generations have passed since they were last read or taught.  Everyone gathers to listen and soon learns the infrastructure is not the only thing needing attention.  God’s people must learn God’s law and then learn how to live it.  Scribes become the teachers and while they did not issue Reports of Progress, they were tasked with helping God’s people make the adjustment from life before knowing the law to a life of living the law. 

By Jesus’ day, some 400 years after this beginning, the role of the scribe has morphed from teaching the law to enforcing a legalistic interpretation of it.  Imagine if someone took all those kindergarten categories and wrote out in exacting, specific detail how to fulfill each one.  Well, with four centuries of accrued applications, this is what the scribes require of the people.  How awful are the results?  Well, Jesus runs afoul of the scribes when he heals a person on the Sabbath, a day on which the scribal law says you can do no work.

For Jesus, scribes of the kingdom of heaven are grounded in what is old.  God’s law reigns supreme in our lives.  But this law is not to be understood through the prism of 400 years of legal tradition.  It is to be seen through the prism of Jesus himself.  When the light of the law shines through the prism of Jesus’ words and deeds a new and glorious sight is seen: the kingdom of heaven. 

Ours is a dynamic tradition where God’s will is continually discerned by being steeped in what is old and engaging in what is new.  For whatever reason, we Episcopalians seem more willing to embrace this notion than most other Christian denominations.  We are not afraid of what is new.  In fact, we are willing to consider how what is new may in fact be a better expression of what is old than our previous understanding.

Forty-three years ago yesterday, 11 women stood before an Episcopal bishop at a church in Philadelphia and took the vows for ordination to the priesthood.  They became known as the “Philadelphia 11” whose ordination was tagged as being “irregular.”  It would take another three years before the church decided women could be ordained “regularly” and while the ecclesiastical process was messy, it illustrates one way our church lives into Jesus’ image of being a scribe of things new and things old.

The theologian Karl Barth famously told preachers to hold the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  One of the most popular classes at my seminary was called “The Bible and The New York Times.”  The assignment was simple.  Every day each student was required to read the assigned bible passages from the Daily Office and every day each student was required to read The New York Times.  Class time consisted of a lively discussion of where the two intersected and/or clashed.  It is another wonderful image of what it means to treasure things old and things new.

David Gushee is a columnist for the Religious News Service.  In an article titled “My visit to the land of teenagers”, he writes about his recent experience taking a group of young people on a week long retreat.  The last time he had “attempted” youth ministry like this was 1986 when Ronald Reagan was in office.  Much has changed since then. 

He noted most of the participants were born after 9/11 and have no memory of it.  Rather than having a consciousness shaped by historical events, Gushee observed how these teens are shaped by “an encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary music and online reality.”  Even though these teenagers grew up in a church (and in the south), they have very little familiarity with the bible.  Gushee realized quickly that “bible” is no longer a language spoken at home or in the world of our children.  He had to start with the very basics: how the bible is organized and how the system of book, chapter, and verse works.  To their credit, Gushee notes the young people are eager to master what he is teaching them.

Also hopeful is how today’s youth are asking the very questions asked in the bible: why is there suffering in the world, what makes life meaningful, what does social justice look like, is there a right and healthy way for me to embrace my sexuality, do I matter?  We are scribes of things old and things new in this critical conversation.

Take a look at the world around us and if you don’t like the way it looks, then you realize we have not yet achieved fully what God’s dream looks like when understood through Jesus.  Our world needs “improving.”  More than ever it needs scribes who can master what is old and apply it to what is new – not in a reactive way stating what we need to do is return to the values of old (and here, what is meant, is the way the values of old were manifested), but in a way which engages the new with the old. 

God’s dream for the world as expressed through the life of Jesus continues to emerge.  We had not grasped it fully prior to 1974 when women were not permitted to be ordained in the Episcopal Church.  We are so much richer now.  But we are not there yet.  “Is improving” is not the same thing as “Usually.”  We scribes of the new and the old have our work cut out for us.  Thanks be to God for the promise God’s Spirit will always be with us to guide us.

The Grace of Doing Nothing

The Japanese army invaded Manchuria in September 1931, an event exposing the weakness of the League of Nations, giving license to Hitler’s European ambitions.  Richard Niebuhr, a professor at Yale Divinity School and one of the 20^th Century’s leading theologians and ethicists, addressed the crisis in an article published in 1933.  Titled “The Grace of Doing Nothing”, Niebuhr based his argument on the biblical reading we heard just moments ago.  He held to a stance that doing nothing is not the same as not doing anything.  Patient faith, he said, is required when the unintended consequences of doing something (or doing anything) in the face of evil can destroy the very thing one is trying to protect.

Not so, responded Richard’s older brother Reinhold Niebuhr, a professor at Union Theological Seminary who was also a leading theologian and ethicist at the time.  He responded to his brother in a published article titled “Must We Do Nothing?”  While applauding much of his brother’s thinking, Reinhold argues against an ethic guided only by Jesus’ teaching “let the person who has not sinned cast the first stone.”  If this is all that instructs us, Reinhold held, no one would ever be able to respond to an evil act.

If today’s parable of the Wheat and the Weeds was the only teaching in the bible on how to respond to evil, we would have a real problem on our hands.  Standing alone, let the weeds grow with the wheat and Jesus will take care of it at the harvest time translates to such things as you should never correct your child’s inappropriate behavior, never act against gender-based violence at home or abroad, and let the president bully whoever he wants however he wants whenever he wants.  Thank God it is not the only teaching in the bible on how to respond to evil.

But thank God as well it is a teaching in the bible.  Otherwise every church would be a place where every sin in every person is sniffed out and brought to light.  Otherwise our nation would be locked into a reactive relationship with every country in the world – if you do evil X, we must always retaliate with response Y.  Otherwise we would live a tortured existence trying to purge our own soul of even the tiniest manifestation of sin.  There is a time to be patient.  There is a time when there is grace in doing nothing.

The humorist Dave Barry writes “Crabgrass can grow on bowling balls in airless rooms, and there is no known way to kill it that does not involve nuclear weapons.”  Jesus chose well when he associated evil with the image of the weed.  Like weeds, evil is not going away any time soon.  But I like what a character named Dietrich says in Eifelheim, Michael Flynn’s awarding winning science fiction novel:  

Jesus said the weeds would grow with the wheat until the Judgment so one finds both good people and bad in the Church.  By our fruits we will be known, not by what name we have called ourselves.  I have come to believe that there is more grace in becoming wheat than there is in pulling weeds. 

There is more grace in becoming wheat than there is in pulling weeds.  This, I believe, is the simple genius of today’s parable.  Every farmer’s field in Suffolk has weeds in it, but do you know what, the crops outgrow them.  What is good is stronger than what is not.  Focus on the good and it will thrive.

Focus on the evil and something dark is likely to occur.  Richard Darré was an influential ideologist in the Nazi party and eventually became Minister of Agriculture.  He argued Germany should envision itself as being a garden as opposed to a wild forest.  The gardening image suggested the nation needed tending.  If left on its own a garden will be overrun with weeds, changing the very nature of the plants intended to grow there.  A gardener, he said, must “ruthlessly eliminate” all weeds so they will not deprive the better plants of nutrition, air, light, and water.  The image fit perfectly with Darré’s belief of ethnic purity and it gave rise to Germany’s efforts in eugenics as well as its campaign to euthanize undesirables. 

I liked much about George W. Bush’s presidency, but I became deeply concerned after 9/11 when he stated our country’s intention was to “rid the world of evil.”  That, I thought, was an ambitious goal, given not even God’s own Son could do it.  I can make the case from Scripture we were justified in going after Osama Ben Laden and those responsible for killing thousands of innocent people by attacking our country.  But what if, after accomplishing this, we had allowed today’s parable to set our policy?  What if, rather than focusing on the weeds, we had looked more to the wheat by nurturing our relationships in the Arab world and creating deeper bonds with Islam?  Hindsight and $4.95 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, but if we had taken this course I think it very possible our world would be in a better place than it is right now.

The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds gives us a valuable tool to carry in our spiritual toolbox.  The grace in doing nothing should always be considered an option, but it is not always the right tool.  Here is a true story about another church in another denomination in a different town.  It has been led for the past year and a half by an interim minister who, because the previous pastor had been there for some time, is tasked with asking a lot of questions, challenging the way things are being done, and (in general) shaking up things that need to be shaken up.  As you can imagine, this does not sit well with some.  Well, a few Sunday’s ago the interim minister stood before the congregation and announced he would be leaving to accept a new call.  One of his detractors responded with mock applause.  Now this is a situation where there is no grace in doing nothing.  This is a weed that needs to be pulled because silence means approval.  Someone needed to turn to the person and say, “Bill, that is not appropriate.”

I have too many beds in my yard.  The weeding is endless.  But as time goes on what I have planted continues to grow and expand.  As it grows it gives less and less space for weeds to flourish.  If I do nothing the weeds will take over, but with each year that passes, I have less weeding to do.   There is more grace in becoming wheat than there is in pulling weeds.  What is true in the garden is true in the spiritual life as well.  Through today’s parable Jesus invites us to see and accept the humanity in every person we know and in every person we meet.  Each of us has our faults, but, as I said a few weeks ago, each person is beautiful as well.  What is beautiful about each person outshines by far what is not.  Focus on the beauty and watch it begin to thrive and flourish and blossom.

You Can't Plant Seeds with a Closed Fist

There is an old saying that holds you can’t plant seeds with a closed fist.  Think about it.  If you want to plant a seed you have to open your hand and be willing to let it go.

This morning we hear again one of Jesus’ best-known stories – the Parable of the Sower and the Seed.  The focus of the story is neither the sower nor the seed, but rather the ground on which the seed falls.  For centuries farmers in England, when scattering seed, have subscribed to an ancient proverb:

One for the rock, one for the crow,
One to die, and one to grow.

Jesus tells his story to explain why his teachings don’t always take root in a person’s life.  Some people are shallow.  Some are consumed with worldly concerns.  Some are attacked by the evil one.  And some people are like rich, fertile soil.  The seeds Jesus sows landing on these folks become a bountiful harvest in their lives.  Some sermons (including ones I have preached) encourage us to examine our own life to discern where each of the four conditions exists within us.  As Jesus tells the story the focus is on the ground and we are the ground.

This morning I want to help us enter the story from a different perspective.  I want us to think about the person who opened his or her fist to plant a seed.  Why do sowers sow? 

Why did Jesus sow?  Because he wanted to share the Good News of God’s love for all people and the coming of God’s kingdom here and now.  He sowed this seed through the words he spoke and he sowed them through the deeds he did – healing the sick, lifting up the broken hearted, reaching out to the outcast, forgiving the sinner, challenging the proud and mighty, giving his life in service to others – even to death on the Cross.  The seeds he sowed changed the world.

And they continue to change the world as new sowers cast Jesus’ seeds about through their own words and through how they live their lives.  While we are the ground in Jesus’ parable, at some point we also become the sower.  So let’s spend some time reflecting on what it means to be a sower.

The first thing to consider is what kind of seeds you are sowing in life.  Oscar Wilde wrote about agitators who sowed the seeds of discontent.  Racism does not simply develop out of thin air.  It is a seed that must be sown.  The same is true for issues involving gender relations and concerns about orientation.  Our response to each comes from seeds sown in us over a long period of time.  Indifference is a seed.  We Christians dream of a field where the seeds of kindness, forgiveness, generosity, compassion, respect, and equality are sown.  Are you aware of the kinds of seeds you are sowing?

Here is another thing to consider.  Sowers of Jesus’ seed are people of deep faith.  Geoff Hamilton, once the host of the BBC show Gardener’s World, says “seedsmen reckon that their stock in trade is not seeds at all... it’s optimism.”  Seeds take a long time to germinate.  You will not see the results of your sowing for some time.  You have to believe what you do now will make a difference down the road.  This faith is essential for parenting and grand parenting.  It is an absolute necessity for teachers and Sunday school teachers.  It takes the faith of a sower to hand out a bulletin, to read a lesson, to give a sermon, to offer a prayer, to pass the peace with a stranger, to put something in the offering plate, or to come to the altar rail expecting to encounter the Living Christ through partaking of a wafer and sip of wine.  You won’t always see the result right away.  You must have faith.

Trust is also important.  You must trust in the power of a seed.  Thoreau said, “I have great faith in a seed.  Convince me that you have a seed… and I am prepared to expect wonders.”  Captain Jim, the character of the lighthouse keeper in Lucy Maude Montgomery’s novel Anne’s House of Dreams, says this:

It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in ‘em…  When I ponder on them seeds I don’t find it nowise hard to believe that we’ve got souls that’ll live in other worlds.  You couldn’t hardly believe there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone color and scent, if you hadn’t seen the miracle, could you?

If you are a sower you have to trust in the power of the seed to do something well beyond anything you could pull off on your own.  Every time and every way you live out the Gospel’s goodness, you are sowing a seed of incredible potential. 

As a seminarian I was assigned to apprentice at Trinity Church in Manassas.  I remember vividly the first time I received communion there.  Ed Campbell, the rector of the parish, came to me as I knelt at the rail.  He placed the wafer in my hand, touched my wrist as I touch yours, looked me in straight in the eyes, and with warmth on his face said, “Keith, the Body of Christ which is given for you.”  Until that moment, communion had been for me primarily a penitential experience.  It was a time for me to list the litany of sins I had committed over the course of the week and to promise really, really, really to be better in the week to come.  The next Sunday I came back to church with largely the same list of sins as the week before, feeling as guilty as ever. 

That morning in Manassas, Ed planted a seed in me that transformed my experience of communion.  It is now a place where I find God’s unconditional love and sense this love as we manifest it to and for one another in our faith community.  Ed passed away several years ago, but if he was here today I am confident he would have no recollection of that particular Sunday.  Like every other Sunday, Ed simply was being Ed.  He sowed seeds.  You never know where the seeds you sow will land, but you must trust that some will land in fertile ground where the power within them will be unleashed in the life of another.

Here is one final thought about sowers.  You will only have seeds to sow if you do not consume every seed you have.  Folks in our society today tend to spend more than they have and commit to more than they have time to accomplish.  The more overextended you are the less seeds you will have to scatter. 

Adolphus Eley owned a hardware store on West Washington Street where the wine shop currently is located.  He was a long time, faithful member of St. Paul’s who generously supported the work of the parish.  When he died in 1906 he gave the building to the church.  We rented it out for several decades before finally selling it in the 1950s. 

Mr. Eley also left a financial gift to the church, which today is overseen by a small group of our members known as The Trustees of the Funds.  Each year it generates about $5,000 of income and the Trustees are tasked with approving how this resource will be used.  Typically, the Vestry and I ask the Trustees to fund a project or pay for an expense not easily handled by the yearly contributions you all make to our operating budget. 

Do you want to know who paid for all of our expenses related to the celebration of our 375^th Anniversary – the buses for the pilgrimage, the printing of bulletins, mailings, invitations, the Saturday evening gala celebration, the Sunday service and reception?  Adolphus Eley.  The fund he set up 111 years ago covered the entire cost of over $6,800.  What an incredible testimony to the value of saving so you have seeds to sow!

Allow me to close by reading a poem from Walter de la Mare’s collection in Peacock Pie.  While it focuses solely on a woman and her actual garden, it is easy to hear in it the kind of richness we find in life as we give our lives to sowing Gospel seeds.

A poor old Widow in her weeds
Sowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;
Not too shallow, and not too deep,
And down came April -- drip -- drip -- drip.
Up shone May, like gold, and soon
Green as an arbor grew leafy June.
And now all summer she sits and sews
Where willow herb, comfrey, bugloss blows,
Teasle and pansy, meadowsweet,
Campion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit;
Brown bee orchis, and Peals of Bells;
Clover, burnet, and thyme she smells;
Like Oberon’s meadows her garden is
Drowsy from dawn to dusk with bees.
Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs,
And peeps at her garden with bright brown eyes;
And all she has is all she needs --
A poor Old Widow in her weeds.

The old widow illustrates the truth of the gospel paradox that the more you let go, the richer your world becomes.  You can’t plant seeds with a closed fist.