Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10, Year A , July 13, 2008

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 10

Year A

July 13, 2008

Resurrection Lutheran Church

Genesis 25:19-34 Psalm 117:105-112

Romans 8:1-11 St. Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

A week or so ago I was giving grief to Pastor Ed for scheduling me for this Sunday. After I had agreed and started looking up the lessons, I discovered that they were not particularly to my liking. Now to be honest it is not the passage itself that gives me so much grief. If is rather the part of the passage we do not hear today, the verses immediately following in Matthew in which Jesus explains the meaning of this parable that cause me such discomfort.

My discomfort comes from what I was taught by my seminary professors. I was taught three primary things regarding New Testament parables. First and foremost was never, ever try and understand them as allegory. Second was that in the time of Jesus, the teacher never, ever explained the parable to the followers. It was their job to work out the possible understandings of the meanings. And finally, parables can give birth to many different insights and lessons for our lives.

And what we have in Matthew after this lesson is Jesus breaking the first two rules for dealing with parables. It is enough to make my head spin.

One striking thing about both this parable and the explanation that follows it is that it is repeated in all three of the Synoptic Gospels. So in spite of my desire to do away with this troublesome parable interpreted in an allegorical manner by Jesus, I cannot get off the hook so easily. If all three of the Synoptic Gospels recorded it, it must be important.

I am indebted to a series of books on the parables by Fr. Robert Farrar Capon for some of the ideas I will share about this parable. If you ever want to look at the parables of Jesus in a new light, I commend reading his short and very readable books.

Many people assume that the seed in this story is the Gospel, but today I will offer a slightly different view point. In the interpretation of this parable which follows, all three of the synoptic Gospels Jesus describes the seed as being the word. The Gospel According to Luke specifically records that Jesus calls the seed the word of God[1]. In our time and place the Word of God generally refers to the Holy Scriptures. But there is another possible understanding. The Gospel According to John told us that the Word become flesh and dwelt among us.[2] So I though, just perhaps Jesus is trying to tell us in this parable that we need to be sowing Him, Jesus, in our community and in the world around us.

One thing we learn in this parable is that the sower, and let us assume that the sower is us now, sows the seeds, might I say just a bit wildly with a seeming wild abandon. The seed is thrown all over the place. There is no apparent concern to save seed from being wasted on the paths, the rocky ground, or the weed patches. There is no concern about what the birds may do. Instead I see the sower just going around madly, throwing seed all over the place.

And I think that is exactly how we are called to share Jesus. We need to spread Jesus around all over the place. Not just in the places where we think the soil might be just perfect. We need to be brave, and trusting enough, to sow Jesus in places where, at least in our view, the soil seems manifestly unsuitable for the seed of Jesus.

The kingdom of God, the purpose of God, is at work everywhere in the world around us, even in those places where it seems least likely to us. Our job is to scatter Jesus all over the place just like the sower in this parable.

And finally, let me argue that Jesus is calling us to work in the parable of the sower. Now in a Lutheran church calling people to work might be seen as a dangerous thing. After all, Luther was a great believer and propounder of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, something I am definitely not trying to argue against, trust me.

In fact, Luther was so committed in his new found insight of justification only through faith, that he really wanted to throw the book of James out of the Bible. Why, because James seems to encourage works. James basically argued that our works demonstrate our faith. But for Luther, coming from a church which had elevated the idea of works as necessary to an extremely high level, it was all about faith. Of course if you know the history of Luther, you know he worked an awful lot for the kingdom of God as well.

But Luther’s touchstone was justification solely through faith, which I fervently agree with. And for Luther, any suggestion that works were necessary or required was just plain wrong.

I do not believe that James was arguing for a works-based faith. But James did believe that our faith is lived out in our works, something I also fervently agree with. James believed that the Christian faith was a faith demonstrated by what we did and not only by what we say. That is why James said: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”[3] James went so far as to say that faith without deeds was useless.[4] I suspect that is what troubled Luther the most.

But the Gospels and the life of Jesus is full of examples of Jesus call for us to live out our faith in our actions. The call that has also touched me the strongest is the one in Matthew 25 where Jesus calls us to feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty, to visit the sick and those in prison. You have but to look in our own community and in the world to see how the Christian community has failed so often in this call.

As I was thinking about the implications of this in the world today, I was struck by the tension I often see between those who would set up the idea of the “social gospel” against evangelism. In a sense they set up the same conflict between Luther and James.

But I believe the truth of sowing Jesus in the world is that we need both. We need Luther and James. We need the social gospel and evangelism. They go had in hand, even though, as Luther thought, they may seem contradictory.

But when I think about the Christian faith and all I don’t understand fully about it, there is nothing wrong with a little contradiction. This is especially true if it leads to sowing the seed of Jesus in the community and the world.

Jesus calls us to go out there and work for the spread of the Gospel in word and deed. Jesus calls each and every one of us to go out and wildly spread Him throughout all the world.

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[1] Luke 8:11.

[2] John 1:14.

[3] James 1:22.

[4] James 2:14, 20.

Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, August 26, 2007

The story today is a fascinating one. What is it in people that would make them begrudge a woman who had been crippled for eighteen years from being healed. There had to be a blindness in their hearts and minds that seems to be astounding to me. The healed woman immediately started praising God for her healing, but the religious leaders present immediately became indignant and complained.

It is a strange faith indeed that cares more for its animals than its people. But just like the lesson from a few weeks ago, it is so very easy to get caught up in the details and not realized the implications of what we are saying or doing.

Now animals really were important back in those days. They were critical for survival and signs of wealth. So it naturally was important to take care of them, even on the Sabbath, the animals had to have their needs had to be met. After all, they cannot care for themselves.

So I was scandalized as I read the lesson from Luke and thought of the audacity of treating a human being worse than an animal. It seems inconceivable to me that anyone could be so either hardhearted, or ignorant, or uncaring.

And then I was forced to face the ugly reality of our world. Every night in the United States thousands of people go to bed hungry or without shelter. Millions around the world do so. I have to live in the knowledge that my pets have it better than millions around the world.

Newsweek reports that this year we will pay more than $40 billion to keep our furry friends fed, adorned, amused and healthy—the latter a huge growth category, with more and more owners paying top dollar for elaborate medical treatments to forestall that inevitable last visit to the vet. By the end of the decade, we'll be spending $50 billion on pet products ... . Walk the aisles of Petco or PetSmart, past the Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses for your dog and the $140 Catnip Chaise Lounge for your cat, and you'll discover just how well-trained we Americans have become. "I don't know who's been domesticated: the animals, or the humans?" says Jeff Corwin, Animal Planet's globetrotting wildlife biologist. 56 percent of dog owners and 42 percent of cat owners buy their pets Christmas presents (OK I’m guilty too). Pets can listen to their own Internet radio station (Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" is one of the more popular songs on DogCatRadio.com), post their pictures and make play dates on dogster.com and catster.com, and earn frequent flier miles on United. They even have cell phones now: PetsCell is a bone-shaped telephone that attaches to your dog's collar and allows you to ring him up (sorry, incoming calls only).

It is not that I want to begrudge us all our pets. Anyone who knows me knows that. But I have to think that perhaps we are no better than the Pharisees in this story for our willingness to lavish so much on our pets. The three dogs Emmanuel and I have live far better lives that millions of people in the world.

Of course I can pat myself on the back because I don’t begrudge those suffering people of the relief efforts being made to assist them. I even help out as much as I can. But at the same time I must not let myself off the hook too easily. It is easy to distance myself from the Pharasees because my words are not their words. My actions are not their actions.

Of course, observing the Sabbath was a great idea. It is a good thing. After all the idea came from God. But as time went on from the original institution of the Sabbath more and more rules were created, trying to help people to better understood what was necessary for a good observance. But eventually the rules became the focus rather than the Sabbath as we clearly demonstrated in the story today. As Jesus points out our priorities are obviously wrong for those who are willing to tend their animals on the Sabbath, but not willing to allow a fellow human being to be healed.

It all boils down to whether it is better to observe the letter of the law as opposed to the spirit of the law. How is that played out in Christian churches today?

The people challenging Jesus were drawing lines. They tended to draw lines to keep people out. They used them to decide who was in and who was out.

Jesus, on the other hand, was always expanding the lines to bring people in. Jesus was always pushing people to be better than they were, to be more open to the movement of God in their lives.

What lines do we draw? Do we draw lines to keep people out, or to draw people in?

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15, August 19, 2007

Again this week as last, faith is the key component in the lesson from Hebrews. What is faith? Essentially I understand faith to be belief in action. We take our belief and then we do something about it. In Hebrews today there is a litany of descriptions. Each one of them is talking about action. Faith calls us to action. If we are not willing to risk our belief by taking action we fail to exercise faith.

When I was in school a professor used this example of the difference between belief and faith. When we see a chair, unless is looks particularly rickety, we believe it will hold us. But as long as we just stand there looking at it, believing in it, we are not exercising our faith. When we sit down, when we are willing to take a risk, when we put our belief in action, that is when faith occurs.

I drive over 3 bridges every day to work. I never thought much about it. I believed that they will hold me and I exercised that belief by my faith in driving across them. But like much in life that is easy to take for granted, I never really though much about it. Many of us do that time and time again without even thinking about it. But a few weeks ago, I starting thinking about it, as I’m sure many other people did. A tragic event like the failure of the I-35 bridge can shake our faith in bridges. It can shake us out of our apathy and make us start thinking.

We exercise a degree of faith in most of the things we do in our lives every day. It is just that we don’t think about it all that much. However when it comes to our faith in God we face a challenge. Can we rise above belief and live out a life of active faith in the world. Because that is what God is calling each and every one of us to do.

God has given all of us gifts. And that is a wonderful blessing. Those gifts also must be put into action by faith. Sometimes we might not even be sure of what our particular gifts are. Do you want to know the secret for finding our gifts? Action. Each of us steps out in faith and starts trying to do things and in that way we explore where God has blessed us with talents sometimes unknown.

At the Red Sea the nation of Israel was faced with a choice. It does not matter particularly to me if the crossing was between walls of water as we see in the Cecil B. DeMille movie “The Ten Commandments” or if it was a much smaller passage as some more modern thinks would tend to argue. The point is they were at the bank and had come face to face with whether their belief in God would now be translated into faith. They had three choices at that moment. They could turn back, they could stop and stay or they could move forward in faith. They had to take that first step.

Taking that first step can be a daunting task. The moment we are forced to put our belief into action we are not only taking a risk we are also now committed. I can only imagine how difficult faith had to be for those standing there at the Red Sea. But they stepped out in faith.

Where do we place our faith? Do we find it in ourselves, our family, our possessions, or our country. Or do we live a life somewhat devoid of faith. It can be safer not to act on our beliefs. Faith requires that we be open and willing to be changed. Doing something, taking action, requires us to trust in God and no longer in ourselves.

The end of this passage in Hebrews reminds all of us that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses and calls us to lay aside those things that would hinder us from action. Even here at St. Peter’s we are surrounded by our own cloud of witnesses. We are surrounded by the witnesses of people like Elsie Whitmore and Mary Elizabeth Lee and hundreds more whom I never had the blessing to meet. We are surrounded by the love and legacy of those who have built, cared for, and loved this parish before us.

We are called to run a race. We need to place one foot in front of the other and move forward exercising our faith every day.

What step is God asking you to take in your life today?

Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 14, August 12, 2007

Faith is often a hard concept to define. You can always look up a dictionary definition, but that fails to do justice to what faith is as we strive to live it out in our faith walk. We are all called to be people of faith and many struggle living up to either their own or others expectations of what faith is supposed to be. I think in my own life, defining faith is a bit like the Supreme Court justice who was attempting to define pornography.

Justice Potter Steward wrote in a concurrence in a court case that “hard-core pornography” was hard to define, but that “I know it when I see it.” To me that also describes my feelings about the word faith. It is hard to define in a tangible way, but I certainly know it as I experience it.

“Faith – the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen – is a tricky thing to master. Some Christians, in their desire to be doctrinally correct, espouse a kind of certainty that I think is the opposite of faith. ‘The Bible says …’ is not the beginning of a statement of faith, but an expression of opinion. One could shape a sermon about faith and ask: What is the opposite of faith? Not doubt, but certainty.” You heard right, the opposite of faith is certainty, not doubt. That will shock many people to hear. But there is much truth in it.

My instinct when I meet a person who believes that they know absolutely everything there is to know about faith and has no questions is to run as fast and as far away as I can. These people have replaced faith the certainty. Isaiah Berlin wrote that “few things have done more harm that the belief on the part of individuals and groups … that he or she or they are in sole possession of the truth…. It is a terrible and dangerous arrogance to believe that you alone are right: have a magical eye which sees the truth: and that others cannot be right if they disagree.”

This is a serious issue for the church today. As we struggle through our differences and disagreement, those who hold steadfastly to the idea that they have an exclusive handle on the truth feel no need to engage in conversation about issues we are trying to face together. It becomes a “my way or the highway” situation in which everyone looses. This cuts off discussion. I believe that our faith can be strengthened in discussion with those whom we might disagree, not weakened. But some, for whatever reason, seem to have a fear of engaging others.

Abraham and Sarah exemplified what faith is. Faith is moving from beyond what we “know”. And that is why I’m convinced that certainty is ultimately destructive to faith. True faith requires us to get out of our comfort zone. Sarah and Abraham were able to move beyond what they knew – in this case that Sarah was barren – into the realm of faith. Sarah’s barrenness was a fact, a hard fact of life. She had to live with this fact all of her life. Barren women were utter failures in her time. They failed themselves, they failed their husbands, and they failed society by their inability to provide offspring for the future. Such was Sarah’s lot in life. She had to live her life as a failure. And when God finally came to them, she was beyond her child-bearing years, everything she knew told her that she would never bear a child. And yet, through faith, she ended up being the mother of a nation. She certainly had her moments of doubt. She even laughed when she first heard the news.

This nation, which came through the faith of Sarah and Abraham also knew all about the experience of faith. They were promised a wonderful land and yet spent many, many years dwelling in tents. They had no sense of finality or stability. I have the benefit of a home, a car, a job. Sometimes I wonder if that tends to make faith pretty easy. I wonder if my faith would be as strong if I had no job or home.

In spite of all I have I am forced to think about all the times my faith has failed. I may not have laughed like Sarah, but there have been many times in my life when I was not as faithful as I wish I could have been.

All too often people try to replace faith with rules and regulations. I did this for many years. Rules and regulations provide substance and something we can easily measure ourselves or others against. That is the place the Israelites found themselves in when the prophet Isaiah spoke of his visions in the passage for today. But all their certainty in their rules and regulations was not faith. Their certainty worked against faith. Their practices became a burden to God, a burden God was wearing of bearing. Their practices had become mere ritual with no experience of faith behind them to make them meaningful. And so God rejected them. God went so far as to tell them that God would no longer hear their prayers. That is a scary thought.

What is it God was wanting from them (and from us). We need to cease doing evil and start doing good. We need to wash ourselves and make ourselves clean. God wants people who seek justice, who rescue the oppressed, who defend the orphan, and who plead for the widow. These are not easy things to do. It is much easier if we can please and serve God through a series of religious practices.

What is it God is calling you to do today?