Sermon: Plant, Grow, Produce

Matthew 13

“Plant, Grow, Produce”

            Today’s parable is all about the good soil.  In order for the seed to grow and produce it needs to fall into the right the environment.  It makes me think of the commercial that is run every spring by miraclegro – they show you a plant grown in ordinary soil and the same plant grown in miraclegro soil.  The miraclegro soil plant is twice as large and produces twice the flowers or tomatoes then the other plant.  Makes me want to buy miraclegro since of course I want the biggest, healthiest plants and flowers possible. 

            But, I have also learned, it takes more than miraclegro to really make the plants grow.  They need to be watered, they need the right amount of sun, they need additional nurture.  Just putting them in the best possible soil is not enough. 

            I have also been amazed, in and around my yard, at what grows and what does not grow.  Seeds from last year’s petunias must have fallen down into the cracks of our driveway around the big flower planters.  Those same flowers that I had such a time with last year, making sure I watered them to keep them alive, without any care at all, grew up out of the driveway pavers and bloomed beautiful purple flowers through the summer.  Go figure. 

            So, as I think about the literal translation of this parable and the spiritual meaning behind it, I wonder why the sower is so careless with the seed.  It seems as if the seed is falling everywhere, including places that it will not grow.  But then, when I think about my own experience to where I have witnessed seed growing despite the best odds, it makes me see this parable in a new light.  The sower is not careless, the sower is willing for seed to fall in non-fertile environments because there is always the possibility.  There is always the possibility that in what appears to be rocky soil, or the beaten path, the opportunity for growth. 

            Our God, is a God of possibilities, a God of risk taking, a God of what might even appear to be careless generosity.  But since our God is also a God of hope, God provides seed in every environment of our lives. 

            So, what is this seed?  Jesus uses everyday objects to help people learn more about God.  So, as he explains this parable, he shares that the seed is the Word of God.  So, then we may need to ask: what is the Word of God?  Is it scripture?  Is it the commandments?  Jesus, himself, reaches back into the scriptures of his people and quotes from Isaiah – about the blind shall see and the deaf shall hear.  The word of God may come to each of us in a different way.  For some, the Word of God is the message of eternal salvation.  For others it is the call for justice and peace and this world.  For others it is to be the light of God’s love.  For others, it is a moral teaching to be a good person.  For others it is the gift of forgiveness.  And with forgiveness, some feel that the Word of God is the call for reconciliation. 

            What is the seed?  What is God sowing so generously upon this world?  What is God expecting to grow and bear fruit?  Can the answer be as simple as love?  We say that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.  We have the Golden Rule – to love our neighbor as ourselves.  And if the seed is love, if the Word of God is to love others, how do we till the soil so that the environment is fertile?  Do we, as a congregation, see ourselves as the good soil, open and receptive to God’s word?  And if not, what are we willing to do within ourselves, within our congregation, to move towards healing and wholeness and love? 

            And do we believe, that when the soil is prepared, God will continue to throw seed upon us and life will grow?  God never gives up on God’s people.  We are faced with a lot of stress.  Over and over again, when I push certain conversations, there is such concern about our finances and keeping our building open.  We need to name this stress and ask ourselves, in this stress, is the seed of God’s Word for us able to grow?  Bearing fruit for God is not keeping our building open, as hard as that is to hear.  Bearing fruit for God is taking the Word of God and multiplying it:  Multiplying justice, multiplying peace, multiplying love, multiplying forgiveness and reconciliation. 

            Each and every day, God is sowing seed.  The Word of God is constantly falling into our lives.  Jesus is a realist.  He names it as it is.  Some days, the seed falls onto the hardness of our hearts, of our lives and just bounces off.  Other days it takes root but the stress of the world around us just chokes it dry.  And then, then there are days where we have what some call a God moment, and we really feel the joy, the peace, the love of God in our lives and we are renewed and energized and given hope .

God is continually planting, the seeds are continually growing, the soil needs consistent attention, and from there, God desires results.  God desires the seeds to bear fruit.  Your session has  a letter to go home with you all today, a letter that asks for your patience as we journey through this rocky time together, and let us work towards a path of forgiveness, so that together, we truly can bear the fruit God calls us to bear.  Amen.  

sermon: parable of the Yeast -

“Embracing God’s Story in our Lives”

Q: What did the yeast say to the bag of flour?

A: Come on we Knead to be serious! 

Q: Why did Mama Flour and Papa Yeast tell Baby Bread to get a job?

A: He was just loafing around! 
            I can’t even remember the last time, I personally, used yeast.  Once, many years ago, I did try and make my own bread.  But, after all the work, it didn’t really turn out that great so I didn’t try again.  I do have memories of my mother making bread.  Of setting the dough aside, letting it rise, being fascinated by how it grew in the bowl, and then my mother kneading it, setting it aside, and letting it rise again.  I learned, through the power of observation, that there was something special about yeast.  And I was amazed, that such a small amount of it, could be so powerful.  I still am not sure what yeast is.  It is some sort of microorganism, that is actually alive, so when it is in the right conditions, grows and produces carbon dioxide.  The carbon dioxide it is what causes the bubbles which makes the dough rise.  Archeologists believe people have been using yeast to bake bread for over 4,000 years. 

            As I learned a little more about yeast, it struck me that yeast – breathes.  Well, it doesn’t have lungs so it doesn’t really breathe, but it does convert sugar into carbon dioxide.  In a sense, it does breathe.  Throughout our scriptures, breath is so important.  In the creation story, God breathes into Adam and gives him life.  In one of the resurrection stories, Jesus breathes upon his followers as he offers them peace and sends them out into the world.  Without breath, there is no life.  We even have a method of praying called a breath prayer. 

            Does Jesus know this as he uses yeast as a metaphor for rapid growth?  My guess is that he does.  The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast – that a woman took and mixed with her flour until it was all leavened.  The Kingdom of heaven – God’s reign, God’s peace, God’s presence in the world, just requires a small pinch of an active ingredient that is willing to come alive and breathe, that is willing to come alive and convert the environment around it into something it can use, creating growth.  Is it no accident that Jesus, in this simple parable, speaks of something that can hardly be seen and uses it to illustrate growth? 

            The Kingdom of heaven, this is what is important to Jesus.  He wants his followers, he wants those who will listen to connect to this.  The Kingdom of Heaven.  And then he explains that in something small, growth can happen.  But then, in just a few chapters later, we get another example of yeast:  The yeast of the Pharisees.  Rapid growth can happen in both the positive and the negative.  We have to be careful, we have to use caution, we have to live in this world with both the good and the bad and discern where it is that God is at work and where it is that other powers are at play.    

            And that brings me to the following exercise that we are going to examine this morning.  Last month, I asked you all, what makes you thirst?  If Jesus says to us, I am the living water, come to me and you will not thirst, why is it, that we thirst?  We do, we thirst about so much.  Today, in your bulletin is an insert with a list of where, we, in this particular congregation, are thirsting.  We thirst, we desire, we care deeply about – that is what these expressions are about.  We care for this world, we care for the hurts around us, we care about our community right here in this place.  So, in our care and compassion, when we see things in a way that are not the way in which they should be – we thirst.  As yeast, when we thirst, we are encounter what Jesus calls the yeast of the Pharisees.  We desire the good but we come across the powers that seem to be in contrast to God’s Kingdom, God’s reign. 

            On one side of the insert are the various ways in which you, gathered here in this place, have named as areas in which you thirst.  On the other side is something I have called God’s story.  The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast – that a woman added to the flour until the entire batch was leavened.  God desires us to be a part of God’s story.  As a people of faith, we are called to live into God’s story, we are called to embrace it as our story.   Our call to worship this morning comes from the creation story, where God created the world and called it good and blesses it.  That is our story.  We believe God created this world, and we believe that this world is good.  We also believe that in human free will, not all people choose to participate in God’s story.  And so we live in this tension, we live in this world view that the world God desires is not always the world we encounter.  And that is the list we have before us of where we thirst. 

            The exercise I want us to explore is this:  if we truly want to be the yeast, if we are living into full participation of God’s story then we name and proclaim that God’s story is our story.  We can be the yeast of love, peace, forgiveness, and that we are willing to take God’s story out into the world so the world can be leavened.  All of those places where we thirst, those are places for us to be engaged, to be embedded, to be active participants.  For example:  if we thirst because there are people who are hungry and homeless – learn their story, build a relationship with the other, seek ways to be a resource for those immediate needs.  Being the yeast is messy.  It means losing oneself into the whole in order to produce results.  Once the yeast is mixed into the dough, you can’t pull it back out.  It is in there.  If you thirst for peace in our world, there are so many groups working on ways to promote peace, such as the Rockaway interfaith clergy group that is creating a group called Interfaith Neighborhoods working on building peace in our own communities.  Of course we want war to end, but maybe we need to focus on something right here in our own community.  If we cannot be at peace, how can we expect the greater world to be at peace. 

            And that is the next part of the exercise.  There are two stories – God’s story and the Story of the World.  There is so much anxiety and fear in our world today and we are called to go out and bring God’s story into the mess.  A huge problem exists when we allow the story of the world to come into God’s story.  And that is where some of you named the conflict within our own church family.  We have allowed the story of the world, the yeast of the Pharisees to come into God’s story and we need to address this.  We need to pray about it.  We need to be adult about it.  We need to live into forgiveness and mercy and grace and most of all love.  We need to say, no more, yesterday is gone we cannot change it and from this point on, we will only allow God’s story to be the story we live in this place.  We will be more patient with each other and we will set aside our own fears and anxieties and stress and allow God to guide us as we focus on our role of being God’s yeast. 

            Jesus started small.  He focused his attention on twelve disciples.  He even turned some people away.  If people’s hearts were not ready to be a part of God’s story, he let them go.  Enough people understood what it meant to be yeast that the church grew, enough people desired to encounter the Kingdom of heaven that the Holy Spirit led more and more out into the world and lives were changed and transformed.  We thirst because there is work to be done – so go out into the world and let go of yourself and embrace God’s story as your story as you live your life.  And just like the yeast, you will, by your very nature, convert the environment around you into the Kingdom of heaven.  

Sermon - Unfair Grace

Matthew 20:1-16

“Unfair Grace”

            As a mom, one of the many lessons I am trying to help my girls understand is:  Life is not fair.  Now, for their young minds, we are talking about simple things such as picking TV shows, movies, or which toys we are going to play with.  Fairness is very important to them.  When one gets to pick a show to watch the other expects a turn to pick a show to watch.  It all has to play out even.  And when it doesn’t, tantrums can get thrown with the words screaming out – That’s not fair! 

            In my own life, the first time I really realized how unfair life is, was my senior year of college when I was driving back to college with my car packed with what I needed for the year, including all of my things from my semester in Costa Rica.  In order to break the drive from CT to NC up, I stopped over night at a friend’s place and during the night, someone broke into my car and stole everything.  Now, the thing is, some really sad and tragic things had happened in my community while growing up, but none of them had happened directly to me.  Yes, there were sad things to work through but until the drama was spotlighted directly on me, I really had no idea how unfair things really can be. 

            So, as we read this parable today, it is easy for us to keep it at arm’s distance.  It is easy for us to read it and say, why are they complaining?  Why are they whining?  Why are they upset?  A landlord hirers workers and they work for a day’s wage.  Sounds fair to me.  But there was still more work to do, so he goes out and hires more workers and this is where it gets unfair, this landlord becomes generous and pays these workers a day’s wage.  Wow, bonus for them.  But then he hires more workers and then pays them a day’s wage as well.  Is he being too generous?  Why would he do that?  Doesn’t the landlord know that he is going to make some of his workers angry?  Is he trying to create conflict? 

            As we examine this parable, it is easy to pick sides.  It is easy to say, I can understand why those early workers are upset, they worked hard all day long while the others only did a partial days work.  It is only fair if you pro-rate the other workers pay.  But then, it is also easy to side with the landlord – he is being just and fair in that he is paying what he offered.  He’s not cheating anyone out of anything. 

            Now, Jesus picked money as a focus in his parable as he is teaching his followers about the Kingdom of Heaven.  Money is just a metaphor, but it gets our attention and makes the complaining that ensues understandable.  I’ve been there, I’ve been in a situation where I felt others were rewarded financially and it made me feel underappreciated.  Didn’t I work just as hard?  I was not cheated out of anything, I got what my contract stated, but there was another message being sent outside of the contract and that was about appreciation.  Yes, the landlord paid what he said he was going to pay, but by paying the others the same rate, he underappreciates those first workers. 

            What is fair and what is unfair?  The audience Jesus spoke to would understand the language he is using here.  Most of them were day laborers.  They knew what it meant to go to work at these various times and what kind of pay they would receive.  They would easily be swayed to the complaining of those early workers because it was something they could identify with on an almost daily basis. 

            Perhaps in today’s day and age Jesus would teach this:  The Kingdom of Heaven is like:  People lined up outside the Apple Store for a week prior to the release of the new iphone 6.  On the day of the release, the sales associates started at the back of the line to hand out the phones and those that waited longest received their phone last.  Everyone in line gets a phone, but the order of expectation changes.  Those that waited a week complain that it is unfair that those that only waited one hour received their phone first.  But the message is:  everyone received a phone.  It might not be fair, but it is just.   

A parable is a tool to help teach and the Kingdom of Heaven has absolutely nothing to do with money or iphones.  It has everything to do with God’s grace.  So how does this translate?  Do we really get upset that everyone that labors in God’s vineyard receives the same amount of grace?  To me, it does not seem to be something to squabble about, and yet, part of the parable illustrates our human nature that God’s abundant grace is going to cause conflict. 

So, I started to think about a movie called:  Dead Man Walking. In this movie, a man is on death row for a horrific crime.  He is perceived to me a monster and deserves to die.  Except, there is a nun that becomes his spiritual guide and visits him over and over again talking to him about God’s love and forgiveness.  The family of the victims is irate.  How dare this nun spend time with this awful man.  How dare she try to bring God’s love to him while he is on death row.  This is a really tough movie, but it shows those human feelings of how unfair God’s grace is.  Does a criminal, a murderer, even a terrorist deserve God’s grace? 

Starts to put this parable a little closer to our hearts as we thing about who should be in God’s kingdom and who should stay out.  Prison ministry is a real challenge but Jesus calls us there and there are churches that see this as their harvest, the place in which God sends them.  Even on the cross, Jesus offers grace to the criminal next to him.  Ours is a story of unfair grace the question is, where in the parable do we find ourselves? 

Do we see ourselves as those who have labored since the crack of dawn, or do we see ourselves as the one that comes in at noon?  Or do we see ourselves in this parable at all?  The Kingdom of Heaven is like:  it is like a vineyard with laborers.  But this is not a stagnant story, it is not about a specific set of laborers but an on-going recruitment with more and more workers coming in through the day.  The landlord does not sit around but goes out and finds more workers.  There is movement out of the vineyard and then back into the vineyard, an ebb and flow. 

Now, we can simplify this a little bit and say:  let’s name the church as the vineyard.  If this particular body is the vineyard, how do we interact with each other, how do we perceive the various workers God has brought together into this place?  Do we share ownership with the whole?  And then we need to ask; what business are we about?  Are we about being a part of the Kingdom of Heaven?  The Kingdom of Heaven is embracing God’s grace, right here, right now, in our daily lives.  It is not about eternal life, it is not about being saved through Jesus Christ.  It is about being called into God’s work in this world in which we live.  It is about receiving God’s grace and the desire to serve God out of no other reason than love. 

Next Sunday, we are going to have the community breakfast.  The greater community enjoys this breakfast, God has brought them to us, how are we called to respond?  There are lots of options.  We can choose not to attend; we can come and sit with our friends; or we can partner up and intentionally sit with people we do not know.  As laborers in God’s vineyard, we are called to work and God desires us to build relationships with others, we are called into work right here in the world in which we live.  Deck Hall is our safe place.  We are comfortable there and through the breakfast, God brings us the greater community.  Be present, ask people how they are doing, learn about who they are, everyone has a story to tell.  Or take the opportunity to use the breakfast to invite one of your neighbors, friends, or relatives.  The kingdom of Heaven is about growth, it is about life, it is about moving past what we think is fair and living into God’s presence right here in our midst.  Don’t keep this parable at arms length, let is sit with you, put yourself into it, and let it speak to you in your own story of faith.  Amen.    

sermon: Got Water?

Romans 8:31

Got Water?

            Today is our last Sunday for the sermon series on Got God?  Through the summer, we have been exploring ways in which people in our scriptures have encountered God and the ways God has encountered people.  We call our scriptures the Living Word of God for a reason, we have this amazing history spanning over 4,000 years of how God has been at work and we are called into the story to understand that God is still at work in the world today, in each and every one of our lives. 

            This past week, I was at the Church Growth and Evangelism Conference and a major theme of the conference worship was Baptism.  We were reminded that in our own baptism, we are participating in the journey of being God’s people.  I loved this one image that was shared:  that as worshiping communities gather together, they are, in themselves, the baptism font.  We, each and everyone of us, here in this place, are a part of the Baptismal sacrament.  We, each and everyone of us here, are asked to respond to the vows of baptism.  We are the fount to provide the living water of God’s love to the world around us. 

            Got God?  Got Water?  Got the Living Water of God’s love?  Today, we receive Abby into the life of the church.  We have made a statement of faith to raise and nurture her in the Christian faith.  Our scriptures are rich in water imagery, and as God’s people encounter various forms of water their lives move into transition, change, they are called to be transformed.  Some fight it, some complain about it, some resist, but together, the people move forward, listening to God and the people God has called to be present with them. 

            A few weeks ago, I shared about the I Am statements of Jesus from the Gospel of John.  We focused on Jesus being the Bread of Life.  As he encounters the Samaritan Woman at the well, he proclaims that he is the Living Water.  Who ever comes to him will never thirst.  And yet, we thirst.  There is such a thirst in our world today.  We thirst to know God, we thirst to believe that God is truly still present with us, we thirst to find God in our lives.  And yet, Jesus proclaims, I am the Living Waters, all who come to me will not be thirsty. 

            We thirst because people disappoint us, we thirst because we hurt, and grieve, and suffer.  We thirst because we don’t understand this world we live in.  We thirst because we know there is injustice, oppression, and wrong.  We thirst because we desire peace, and unity, and understanding.  And Jesus tells us to come.  Come to me, I am the Living Water. 

            This past week I heard story after story of congregations thirsting, thirsting for survival, thirsting for solutions to their decline, thirsting for children and families to come to them, thirsting for hope, thirsting that the Holy Spirit would pour out upon them and heal them of all their hurts.  This past week I also heard story after story of the Living Water.  Of how congregations are taking risks, engaging courage, stepping out of their comfort zones to come to the well and drink. 

I could have picked a variety of passages today about water, but instead, I chose this passage from Romans 8.  Paul writes: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Do we believe this?  Do we believe that nothing in this world can separate from the love of God?  And yet, we thirst.  We thirst because we let things get in our way.  So often, we thirst because we let our fears shadow our faith.  Our God is present right here with us, and yet, we thirst. 

As we move into the season of fall, I want to encourage more people to consider participating in small group Bible Studies.  There is a new curriculum available called:  Engage.  We used it a little bit with the Sunday morning Study, but it has a greater depth that I would like to have us explore as a congregation.  Today, each of you has a notecard in your bulletin.  And I have set up the Well as a symbolic reminder that we must come to God to receive the Living Water.  I invite each and everyone of you, to write on one side of the card – what makes you thirst.  It could be anything, what weighs down your heart, your spirit, your connection to God.  It could be war, illness, stress, grief, depression, addiction.  And on the other side, I invite you to write down the day or days and time that would work for you to be in a Bible Study or faith conversation group. 

Got Water?  The Living Water comes to us through community, it comes to us through study, it comes to us through growing together as God’s people.  Remember, we are called to be the baptismal fount, we are called to be the Living water for the world around us.  If the fount is empty, if the fount is dry, if the fount thirsts, our abundant God will provide.  Come, come to the well, come to the Living Water of God, come and drink, for nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from the love of God made known in Jesus Christ.  Amen.   

Got Zeal? Sermon

Acts 9

“Got Zeal?”

                        Shortly after the time of Jesus, a man named Saul “Got God.”  Saul was a Pharisee and he understood the scriptures and he understood the law.  He knew God, he loved God, and he was going to do anything and everything he could to stop this movement of people that were proclaiming Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah.  Saul was zealous, he was passionate, he was committed to his religion and his tradition.  He was so strong in his beliefs, he did not question at all that his understanding of God could be anything but the right understanding.  Besides, there was too much conflict in the land already.  There was pressure from the Romans and now, this movement of people were creating more problems. 

            Saul did not need to question his understanding of God, it had been passed along to him for generations.  It was tried and true.  He understood God through his history, through his scriptures, through his tradition, and through the law.  Without a doubt, Saul was a man of God, a man with a passion to his understanding of God, and a man that would go to any extremes to make sure others also stayed firm to the religious institution.  Saul had God and he had Zeal. 

            All we have to do today is turn on the news and we can see how history repeats itself over and over and over again.  What is happening in Iraq, and what is happening in other parts of the world reflects what happens when people – shall we say – Got God.  When people have such a firm understanding of who God is and there is no room for allowing others to understand God in any other way but the way they want us to.  Does God, in any faith tradition, call us to kill innocent children?   Does God, in any faith tradition, call us to force people to convert to the religious structure of a particular people?  I am pretty sure, those of us sitting here would, without a doubt cry out, “No!”  But what is happening in Iraq is no different than what happened back in the day and age of Saul. 

Saul had zeal and there was conflict and there was change and life was not feeling so secure and so something had to be done.  And so the early Christians had to be the ones to blame and they had to be the ones stopped.  Iraq is also under a lot of stress, a lot of change, a lot of instability and so people dig in deep to their convictions and attack “the other.”  It does not make it right, but history will continue to repeat itself over and over again as long as we continue to live in a world where there is instability and deep zeal for understanding God in a way that is not open to how others might also understand God.  We, as a people, also need to know and understand the difference between zealous groups and the mainstream people within a faith tradition.  Unfortunately, hate begets hate and people latch onto these small extremist groups and stereotype the greater faith group based on the actions of these extremists.  We saw this after 9-11, local Muslim business owners had their property vandalized and in some cases destroyed as people re-acted to the tragedy right here in our own country. 

Saul was an extremist, he had such zeal that he led him to extremes such as the stoning of Stephen.  He would do what it took, including murder, to stop these followers of Jesus.  And then something happened.  Was it the power of prayer of the early Christians crying out to God to stop the persecution?  Was it God intervening?  Or did Saul have some sort of seizure?  Whatever it was, Saul’s life was drastically changed on the road to Damascus.  He was knocked down, he heard the voice of Jesus, and he was struck blind.  Through this experience Saul went from a great enemy to one of the greatest missionaries for the movement of bringing the teachings of Jesus to the greater world. 

For Saul, who became Paul, this conversion story was the foundation of his entire life from this point on.  It’s no wonder that he was knocked down to the ground, can you imagine, everything that you believe in, everything that you know and understand about God, suddenly being redefined?  I think it would knock us down.  I think it would take us a little while to get our bearings and refocus ourselves.  The key word here is redefined.  Paul’s roots, his history, his scriptures are still important.  His knowledge is instrumental in how he moves forward.  God does not erase everything Paul knew about God, but rather calls him forward to take his history and allow it to unfold into a new future. 

This is what peacemaking groups are trying to do all around the world as people fight each other over one way of life against another.  Embrace your history but seek to find a way to not dig in your heals to stay the same but rather find ways to grow into a healthier and more vital future. 

Tomorrow morning, I leave to attend a conference about church growth and creating new worshipping communities.  There is a change going on in our culture and people are no longer connecting to traditional churches.  Our denomination is seeking new ways to continue to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people, to continue to share the love of God with the greater world but to do so in a new and refreshing way.  It does not want to throw out our past, but rather embrace our history, our calling to be reformed and always reforming, and continue to find a way to share the scriptures with God’s people. 

I know the question is asked – why are we declining when other churches are thriving.  Many of you have shared with me about churches that your children or grandchildren attend in other places that have young adults and families.  But it means allowing space for change.  Allowing space to not throw it all away, but to open ourselves to knowing and loving God in such a way that we want to make sure that we share that love with the next generation.  Not share our understanding of who God is, but creating fertile soil for the next generation to connect to God in their own way.  That is my hope of this sermon series, to illustrate that throughout the scriptures, each person that has been a leader of the faith has come to God in different ways.  Our scriptures are a story of change, a story of God’s love, a story of people learning about faith, learning about God, and growing into a people of God.  Always changing, always growing, never stagnant, but vital, viable, and open to learning and exploring the faith journey in new and exciting ways.  

sermon: Who do they say I Am?

Matthew 16

“Who do they say I Am?

Today we enter into our fourth week of exploring how various people in the Bible encounter and understand God and their role within God’s calling for their lives.  Abraham was blessed to be a blessing, Shiphrah and Puah took a stand of courage in the face of oppression which opened the way for baby Moses to survive and become a great leader, and King David heard the voice of God through the prophet Nathaniel and expressed his faith through his creative writings of the Psalms. 

For those of us within the Christian faith, asking did Jesus have God might be a strange question to ask.  Of course he did.  But not everyone in his day and age understood this and his identity is still challenged and argued everyday in our modern world.  Who was Jesus?  In today’s passage, Jesus is asking his disciples that very question.  His disciples were out and about and heard the gossip on the street, what were people saying about him?  What was the gossip, what were the rumors?  Now it is interesting – according to Matthew, Jesus first asks who do people say the Son of Man is?   And then he asks his disciples directly – who do you say I am?  I’ve always thought he was asking the same question, I’ve always thought he was asking them what are others saying about Jesus, but maybe not everyone was understanding that the Son of Man and Jesus are the one and the same. 

I could probably do a sermon series on just all the various names for Jesus.  Last week he was the son of David, sometimes he is the Son of God, and today perhaps he is referring to himself as the Son of Man.  Confusing right? 

The word on the street is that the Son of Man is:  John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets.  It does not seem that the greater community is identifying Jesus as the Son of Man.  Jesus then redirects his question at his closest followers – who do you say I am?  And Simon Peter responds:  The Messiah, the Son of the living God.  And Jesus affirms his answers.  The Messiah, the anointed one, Emmanuel, God with us.  The opening statement of the Gospel of Matthew identifies who the Gospel writers wants the reader to know and understand who Jesus is.  Who do they say I am?  Matthew clearly states – Jesus is the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  As the gospel unfolds, the writer is seeking to illustrate to others his claim.  He is saying:  here is my proof, this is why I am proclaiming Jesus is the Messiah, here are the examples. 

In the Tuesday morning Bible Study, we discussed this passage and asked ourselves, who do we say Jesus is?   There are various videos on Youtube where people have interviewed people out on the street and asked them this question.  What if we walked over to the flea market after church today and asked people, who do they say Jesus is?  What kind of response do you think we would get?  The responses in the video were varied, including people just walking away.  Some said, a good teacher, a prophet, a moral leader, a radical, a fictional character, a exaggerated story, an important person in history and a few even said, my Lord and Savior. 

So who do you say Jesus is?   Our conversation was varied, and included: healer, teacher, prophet, the closest person to the divine, spiritual, he understood God, and then we get to the ever so hard question of the Trinity.  Is Jesus God?  If he is God why do we call him the son of God?  How is he God and human?  As Presbyterians, we do believe in the Trinity, that God’s very self is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Personally, I am alright with not understanding this divine mystery with complete clarity.  I am comfortable with being present to the stories as a person of faith.  Others need to have a complete understanding of theology and doctrine, and there are a multitude of books on the topic. 

I lean towards the teachings of who Jesus proclaims he is.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus shares various ways for us to understand who he is.  Who do you say I am?  Well, I will tell you who I am:  I am the bread of life.  I am the vine.  I am the gate.  I am the light.  I am the Good Shepherd.  I am the Resurrection and the Life.  I am the way, the truth, and the life.  These are known as the seven I am statements of Jesus and each of them gives us a glimpse of who Jesus is connection to the divine and also for how we can engage Jesus in our daily lives. 

In the Tuesday morning group, I then asked the question, Who does our church say Jesus is?  Each of us, as individuals come to understand Jesus in our own way, but as a whole, as a congregation, as our message to the community in which we reside, what is our message of who Jesus is?  Remember, the Gospel writer of Matthew states clearly who he is proclaiming Jesus to be.  Jesus – the Messiah.  Are we clearly proclaiming who we believe Jesus is?  If our key understanding of who Jesus is – is the Messiah – how do we communicate that?  If it is healer – how do we communicate that?  If it is teacher – how do we communicate that?  If it is a peacemaker – how do we communicate that? 

I believe we proclaim Jesus as his teaching from the end of the gospel of Matthew when Jesus says – when you do this to the least of these, you have done this to me.  When have we seen Jesus hungry?  When we feed those at our doors?  Who is Jesus?  Is Jesus the people that come to the food pantry, to the bag lunch program, the Faith Kitchen, and the community breakfast?  When you do this to the least of these, you have done this to me.  This is at least where our ministry is, it might not be how we understand who Jesus is, but it should challenge us to begin that conversation. 

As our ministries feed the greater community, our God reaches out and connect with us through the spiritual food of communion.  Who do we say Jesus is?  On communion Sundays, I understand Jesus as the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry.  As a people of faith, our God seeks to continue to call us into God’s work in this world.  In and through communion, we remain connected to the faith story of our scriptures, understanding that this is not a story of the past, but a story of our present and a story for the future.  We break bread and share the cup as a way to proclaim that we are participants in God’s work here in the world, and that Jesus calls us to follow as well as to proclaim the Good News of who he is in our lives.  Amen. 

  

sermon: Son of David

2 Samuel 7:8

Matthew 12:15

“Son of David”

            Today, I want us to use our imaginations as we explore King David and his relationship to God, to the Israelite people, and to God’s covenant with him.  We are taking a huge jump from last Sunday, last Sunday, Moses was just an infant baby given the opportunity for life through the courage of two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah.  We are skipping right over the forty years in the wilderness, the arrival to the Promised Land and the time of the Judges.  The people have arrived and they are well settled into their given territories. 

            Let’s image, let’s imagine the sanctuary as the Promised Land.  The front will be the north.  (describe based on Map)

            The Israelites have really never known too much peace.  There have always been neighboring tribes vying for the land and the trade routes to the sea.  And the Israelites have done their best to hold their own and keep their enemies at bay.  Until now.  Something new and significant has happened.  It is the beginning of the Iron Age and the Philistines have figured it all out.  Suddenly, there is an unfair advantage.  The Philistines have weapons that are much stronger then the Israelites and are putting a lot of pressure upon various tribes in the land of Cana. 

            With the advent of the Iron Age, the tribes of Israel understand they can no longer stand alone against the outside tribes, it is time for them to unify.  And so the shift begins to happen, a transition from being a tribal people to unifying as a nation.  Where is God in all of this?  As the people transition from a tribal state to a unified nation, God lifts of prophets to bring God’s word to the people.  Samuel is the prophet called to anoint King Saul, and then Nathaniel is the prophet called to anoint King David. 

            David does not have a one on one connection to the Divine like Abraham, Shiphrah and Puah, and Moses.  He is a young shepherd boy, the youngest of a large family, with a lot of talent and filled with possibilities, when Nathaniel comes to him and tells him that God has called him to be the next ruler of Israel.   In a sense, it is a similar story to Moses, but rather than encounter a burning bush, David is encountered by a prophet, calling him to a divine purpose. 

            As David grows, there are numerous stories about him before he officially becomes King.  There is the story of David and Goliath, as he slays the Philistine giant.  David plays the harp and soothes King Saul from his inner demons.  And then there are the relationships David builds within the royal family.   He becomes best friends with Saul’s son, Jonathan and marries Saul’s daughter.  Some say he very skillfully placed himself into the royal family so he could more easily rise to the throne.  Remember, Saul was the first king and there was no established rule that the children of the king would inherit the throne.  But that all changes with David. 

            King Saul was unable to unify the tribal states of Israel, but after Saul’s death, David quickly comes in and re-organizes the Israelite army.  He is able to thwart the Philistine threat, and creates social stability.  One resource I read describes him as an Architect of the Nation.  Whether or not David had God, he had incredible leadership skills and created a sense of power so that the people of Israel put their faith into him. 

            Again, where is God in all of this?  As David brought the tribes together and transitioned them to have a national identity, he did some significant, religious things.  He rescued the Ark of the Covenant that had been captured by the Philistines, and he moved the religious center of Israel from Shiloh to Jerusalem.  In doing this, he creates what is called a Royal Theology which brings us to today’s scripture reading of God’s covenant with David that his throne will be established forever. 

            With all of this done, David is wondering if now is the time to build a Temple for God in Jerusalem.  As David talks to the prophet Nathaniel, Nathaniel is encountered by God with the message for David that now is the time for God to establish a House for David, but it will be David’s offspring that will establish a House for God.  The following is God’s covenant:  God speaks:   I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴ I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.  Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me;^[c] your throne shall be established forever.

          And after 400 years of David’s Dynasty ruling over Israel, it truly seemed as if God’s covenant had been established forever.  But the kingdom divides and enemies once again attack and there are periods of exile and hardship and terrible loss for the Israelite people.  And they asked, where is God in all of this?  And the prophets kept speaking and bringing messages of hope and they spoke of a Messiah that would come and re-establish the throne of David and bring back the Nation of Israel. 

            And so when we enter into the stories of Jesus and hear the term:  Son of David, there is so much meaning behind those words.  The gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy, and as Jesus is named, he is named as the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.  For the writer of Matthew, it is essential that the reader make the connection that Jesus is a part of the Royal Theology of King David.  That Jesus is a part of God’s covenant with David, and that through Jesus, the throne of David will be re-established. 

            Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah – Here is my servant – to illustrate that Jesus is not just of the lineage of David, but is also the one that the prophets spoke of.  And as Jesus performed healings and miracles the people themselves began to ask: Is this the son of David?  But the Pharisees are not so sure, and they believe that he is Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.  Amazing how one group could see someone as a part of God’s Holy Story, and another can see him as the enemy to God’s work.  How do we discern the work of God?  And even those proclaiming Jesus as the Son of David had a very specific understanding of who they expected him to be.  They wanted a new King, they wanted the Roman rule to end.  They wanted to be re-established as a nation under the reign of the Throne of David. 

            Got God?  How do we discern the work of God?  Just as David was instrumental in transitioning the people from a tribal state to a great nation, Jesus is instrumental in transitioning the people from a political people of God to a spiritual people of God.  Israel still has a purpose, they are still God’s people, they are still called to be a light to the nations, but it is by doing the work of God instead of being a great nation.  This was a hard transition and one that did not go over too well.  But for those that believe, for those that have faith, for those that embrace God and the story of faith, there is an understanding that the royal theology of David is an eternal covenant, a covenant of faith passed from one generation to the next, a covenant of seeking God in our lives, and a covenant of participating in God’s work in this world. 

            And now, in today’s world, people rich or poor, free and oppressed, of all cultures, nationalities, educational and economic levels connect to this story of faith in one way, shape or form, and have become a part of house of David, and his eternal kingdom, as we live as a people of God, set aside for God’s work in this world.  Amen.