Two Sermons on the Feeding of the Five Thousand

This blog post is based on my February 24th, 2019 sermon, which was originally titled, "The Church Is Always in the Desert."

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, beside women and children.   --Matthew 14:13-21, New Revised Standard Version

Years ago I preached a sermon on this text, and after the worship service a worshipper grabbed me by the arm and started jabbing me in the chest with the index finger of his right hand, all the while exclaiming, "I can tell you exactly what happened. There was no need for a supernatural miracle. The people had all brought food with them, but they were afraid to take it out because they didn't know whether the others had brought food or not. But once they realized that others had brought food as well, then they relaxed and were able to share as the disciples and Jesus had shared. That's what really happened."

I replied, "I think you make a very persuasive case, now will you please stop poking me!" Later I told a friend about this man's very emphatic explanation of the loaves and fishes, and he said, "Well, either way it makes a great story."

Either way, it makes a great story, and either way it could make for a powerful sermon. All last week I wondered which sermon I should preach this morning. Should I preach the we-all-need-to-share sermon, or should I preach the we-need-a-miracle sermon? Which sermon did Katonah Presbyterian Church most need to hear this morning?

I wasn't sure, so then I wondered whether I could preach both sermons on the same Sunday. After all, if the four Gospel writers had included the loaves and fishes story a total of six times, then surely I wouldn't be out of line to preach two sermons on this text on the same Sunday!

Now, the compromise I'll make with you is that each of these sermons could be about five minutes, so that with a brief wrap-up, plus the time I've already been speaking, the total sermon length should still be just under fifteen minutes.

So, here's the first sermon: We All Need to Share!

Years ago the Quaker theologian and author Parker Palmer was on a flight from Chicago's O'Hare airport to Denver's Stapleton airport, which was the old Denver airport. Now, this took place in that long ago time when there were no security lines at airports, no electronic screening, and you could carry pretty much whatever you wanted in your carryon baggage.

The plane pulled away from the gate, taxied for a very long time, and then came to a stop at a remote corner of the airport next to a chain-link perimeter fence. The captain's voice could be heard on the intercom, "I have some bad news. There is a storm front in the west, exactly where we are headed. Denver is socked in and shut down. There are no alternatives. So, we'll be staying here for a few hours. That's the bad news. The really bad news is that we have no food on board." (Now again, I should mention that this story took place in that long ago time when when people looked forward to a delicious meal on the airplane, complete with silverware and cloth napkins. I don't remember such a time myself, but I've read about it in books.) Thus, when the captain announced that there was no food onboard, everybody groaned. Some passengers became angry.

(In the days of old, when passengers feasted on airplanes)

But then, Palmer said, one of the flight attendants stood up in the aisle and took the microphone. "We're really sorry here, folks. We didn't plan it this way, and we can't do anything about it. We know that for some of you this is a big deal. You're hungry and were looking forward to a nice lunch. Some of you have a medical condition and really need to eat. Some of you may not care. So I have an idea. We have a couple of empty bread baskets up here, and we're going to pass them around. Everybody put something in the basket. I know some of you have brought a little snack along, just in case--peanut butter crackers, candy bars. Some of you have Rolaids, Life Savers, chewing gum. And if you don't happen to have anything edible, you have a business card or a picture of your kids or a bookmark. The thing is, I hope everybody puts something in the basket. And then we'll reverse the process. We'll pick the baskets up at the back of the plane and pass them around again and everybody can take out what he or she needs."

"Well," Palmer said, "what happened next was amazing. First, the complaining and griping stopped. People started to root around in pockets and handbags and briefcases. Some stood up and retrieved luggage from the overhead racks and got out boxes of candy, a salami, Italian sausage, cheese, crackers, a bottle of wine (again, this was in the long ago days when this was permissible!). Now people were laughing and talking. The flight attendant had transformed a group of anxious people focused on their need, deprivation, and scarcity into a gracious community."

The flight eventually took off from Chicago and landed in Denver, and as he stepped off the plane, Palmer found the flight attendant and said, "You know there's a story in the Bible about what you did." She said, "I know the story. That's why I did it" (as quoted in a sermon by John Buchanan, "In Remembrance of Him," preached at Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church, October 2, 2011).

This first sermon focuses not so much on the miracle, but on what happens to us when we are motivated to share graciously with one another. As Barbara Brown Taylor explained in a sermon that she preached on this text:

The problem with miracles is that we tend to get mesmerized by them, focusing on God's responsibility and forgetting our own. Miracles let us off the hook. They appeal to the part of us that is all too happy to let God feed the crowd, save the world, do it all. We do not have what it takes, after all. What we have to offer is not enough to make any difference at all, so we hold back and wait for a miracle, looking after our own needs and looking for God to help those who cannot help themselves (from Barbara Brown Taylor, "The Problem with Miracles," in The Seeds of Heaven).

Those who preach this first sermon emphasize the fact that Jesus told the disciples: "You give them something to eat," putting the responsibility squarely on the disciples' shoulders. That's the first sermon: we-all-need-to-share.

In contrast, the second sermon is We-do-need-the-miracle.

Three years ago last summer, another one of my favorite preachers, Nadia Bolz Weber, was speaking at a conference of Lutheran pastors and musicians. She was preaching on the Feeding of the Five Thousand. She knew that Lutheran bishops and seminary professors would be present. She wanted to be sure that she delivered a wise, funny, and learned sermon that did justice to the Lutheran theology of the Eucharist. She struggled to write the sermon. She felt like she was too much in her head. She woke up at two in the morning on the day that she was supposed to preach and rewrote her entire sermon. She decided to write the sermon that she needed to hear and not the one that she thought that the bishops and the professors were expecting.

In her sermon Nadia confessed,

I just couldn't preach a Jesus wants you to be nice and share your juice box sermon to you today . . . Not that thousands of human beings sharing with their neighbors isn't a little miraculous, it is, it's just that . . . maybe this story is too important for it to be [primarily] about people sharing their lunches.

Because miracles, and not lessons about sharing, are what we really need. So as crazy as it is--I believe in miracles--not because I think I'm supposed to but because I need to. I need to believe that God does what we cannot do (from a sermon by Nadia Bolz Weber on the Feeding of the Five Thousand, July 25, 2015, from her blog , the emphasized bold text is her own).

The disciples themselves were just as hungry and just as weary as anyone else in the crowd. They were grieving the death of John the Baptist, how he had been beheaded because the king had been so entranced by a dancing girl that the king promised to give her whatever she asked for, and the girl's mother told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist. That's a grisly story, and I'm struck by the contrast between that lavish, drunken royal banquet and the desert feeding with five loaves and two fish.

The disciples were grieving and hungry and depleted and worn out. They were in need of a miracle. As Nadia Bolz Weber said, "the most important resources that day was not the fried chicken and potato salad that people had hidden in their tunics, but the need of humanity for a God that can do miracles."

Those who preach this second sermon, the we-need-a-miracle sermon, are quick to point out that right after Jesus says, "You give them something to eat," Jesus says, "Bring them here to me."

All of you who are exhausted caregivers, any of you who feel hopelessly overwhelmed the moment that Jesus says, "You give them something to eat," can take heart in the fact that "Jesus includes you in the category of the hungry and himself in the category of bread" (Nadia Bolz Weber).

Which of these two sermons do you most need to hear this morning? The we-all-need-to-share sermon or the we-all-need-a-miracle sermon?

I suspect that some of you probably do resonate a little more with one sermon than the other, and that you may well resonate more with one sermon on one Sunday and with the other sermon on another Sunday.

What I know is that all of us--the we-need-to-share crowd and the we-need-a-miracle crowd--are here in this desert wilderness together and it is time to eat.

(thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

As Tom Long writes in the quote that is printed on your bulletin cover:

Indeed, the church is always in the desert, the place where it cannot rely upon its own resources, which are few. The church is hungry itself and is surrounded by a world of deep cravings, people who are lonely, disoriented, and poor in many different ways. Against the savage realities of human need, the church sees only small numbers on the membership rolls and even smaller ones in the mission budget. It is no wonder, then, that the church joins the disciples in crying, this is a desert. Send the crowds away to fend for themselves. Jesus is still the teacher, though, and there is a lesson for the disciples--and the church--to learn: God is abundantly able to provide (from Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion series).

At the end of the day, I don't believe that these two sermons are contradictory at all. To the extent that we know ourselves as hungry and in need of God's grace and miracle-working power, we will be surprised again and again by what happens when we pass the baskets and share what we have.

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

With which of these two sermons do you most resonate, and why?: The We-All-Need-to-Share sermon or the We-All-Need-a-Miracle sermon? Please feel free to use the space below to post your comments and questions.

Corruptors of the Corruption

This blog post is based on my sermon from February 17, 2019, which was originally titled, "You're Gonna Ruin My Bad Reputation!"

[Jesus] put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come ad make nests in its branches." He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."    --Matthew 13:31-33, New Revised Standard Version

(thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

There's a scene in Robert Duvall's movie, "The Apostle." Robert Duvall's character Sonny is a preacher who believes that God is calling him to start a small church in rural Louisiana. On the very first Sunday there are no more than five or six people in worship. Sonny greets everyone and says, "We're small but powerful." He then has them turn to their neighbors, and they repeat, "We're small but powerful!"

From time to time I've quoted that scene in worship, particularly on a low attendance Sunday such as a snow day or President's Day weekend. We may not have as many in worship as we normally do. We're small but powerful.

There is something very compelling in the thought of someone small being secretly powerful, or capable of growing and becoming strong.

At first glance, this would seem to be the message of a parable about a small mustard seed growing into the greatest of shrubs. Jesus seems to reiterate the point by telling another brief parable about a little bit of yeast being enough to make an enormous amount of dough rise.

Yet as preacher and scholar Thomas G. Long points out, there is a lot more happening in these two very brief parables. (see Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion, pp. 152-154. This sermon borrows heavily from Long's interpretation of these parables. Direct quotes are indented.)

If we read these parables too quickly, or listen to them being read in worship too casually, we are going to miss seeing the twinkle in Jesus' eye or his almost mischievous grin.

A mustard seed is small, but it's not quite the smallest of all the seeds. And a mustard bush is not really the greatest of all shrubs, and it certainly does not grow into a tree large enough for flocks of nesting birds. 

There is a reference in the Old Testament book of Daniel to the Kingdom of Babylon as a tree standing majestically at the center of the earth, with a top that reached to heaven. This tree was visible to the ends of the earth; its branches were broad enough to provide nesting space to all the flocking birds of the air; and from this tree all living beings were fed.

To a people who believed that great kingdoms or mighty empires were supposed to look like massive cedars of Lebanon or giant sequoias, Jesus offers the humble image of a mustard bush.

The main point remains the same: something small grows into something big. But another point gets made as well: this greatness does not come in the form we expect. As New Testament scholar David Garland has pointed out, the realm of heaven is breaking into the world in a disarming way. After all, we do not sing, "A Mighty Mustard Bush is our God." (David Garland, Reading Matthew, as quoted by Long). Try looking for that hymn in our purple Glory to God hymnal. You won't find it.

A Mighty Mustard Bush!

Thus, from small beginnings, the kingdom--or realm--of God grows into something great, but it is not the kind of greatness we expect.

There is an even bigger twist to he parable of the yeast. You and I might hear it as a simple cooking illustration, but that's not what's happening. You and I can go to the store and buy a little glass jar of yeast for our bread machine, and we can store that little glass jar in our pantry until we need it again without having to worry about it.

But in the ancient world yeast was not easily contained, and it was considered highly corrosive. In fact, in Jesus' day yeast was a symbol for corruption. To say something like a little yeast leavens the whole loaf was tantamount to saying one bad apple spoils the barrel. Again, as David Garland observes, saying that the realm of God is like yeast was akin to saying that it was like rust.

The other thing to notice in this brief parable about the yeast is what the woman does with the yeast. She does not simply mix the yeast into the flour, which is how the New Revised Standard Version translates that word. According to Tom Long, a better translation would be to say that the woman hides the yeast; she conceals the yeast. In the words of Tom Long:

the parable of the yeast pictures the [realm] of God as a hidden force working silently to corrupt the world--that is, to corrupt the corruption, or as the whimsical lyrics of the 1980s hit country song by Ronnie McDowell put it, "You're gonna ruin my bad reputation." One cannot see the [realm] of God pervading the world, but when its covert fermentation is accomplished, the bland flour of the world will have been transformed into the joyous bread of life. (Long, p. 154).

 Have you ever thought about our ministry in that way? That you and I, through the hidden mercies of God, can be corruptors of the corruption?

I once heard a sermon illustration about a woman named Kathleen, who was a public health nurse in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Some of you may be familiar with the story of Asbury Park, how it was an upscale seaside community in the 1940s and 50s, but by the 60s and 70s it was hopelessly mired in urban blight and corruption. Once fashionable, four-star hotels became nothing more than flop houses. In one of those flop houses there was a nursing home populated mostly by elderly people who were among the poorest of the poor. Conditions were horrific. The management wouldn't allow the public health nurses to come into the nursing home to do an inspection because they didn't want them to see the squalor, and even the city government sided with the management.

So, Kathleen, who was a public health nurse, decided to go incognito. She went down to the nursing home and got herself hired as a chamber maid. She went from room to room changing bed pans, cleaning toilets, and surreptitiously checking blood pressures and monitoring temperatures. As she went from room to room Kathleen said she could see the face of Christ in each patient. (from a sermon by Thomas G. Long, preached at the Duke University Chapel, May 2011).

Now, what can one public health nurse do in the face of urban blight and squalor? Well, what can a little bit of yeast do in a large measure of flour? Kathleen was powerful enough to be a corruptor of the corruption.

I remember another story someone once told me about a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church, who also happened to be a corporate lawyer in Midland, Texas. This particular attorney made a very comfortable living as a partner in a law firm that did a lot of work for the oil and gas industry, but he also did some pro bono work on the side in the area of landlord-tenant law, on the side of the tenants! If he got word that a landlord was up to some abusive practice, he would write a very intimidating letter to that landlord using his law firm's letterhead. That was usually enough to stop whatever shenanigans the landlord had been up to. In telling these stories, the attorney was apt to recline in his plush office chair, prop his cowboy boots atop his mahogany desk, and exclaim how he just loved working for justice! (from a sermon by Patrick J Willson, preached at the Westminster (Virginia) Presbyterian Church. I'm uncertain of the date). I think this attorney was another example of someone working to be a corruptor of the corruption.

I recently learned about the Peace Drums Project, which is an interfaith initiative in modern-day Israel, in Galilee, which is where Jesus grew up. The Peace Drums Project supplies steel drums for middle school students who are Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, and helps them make music together in a single band. The hope is that the students and parents will get to know each other and that some of the stereotypes that they have of each other will disappear as they make music together.

To learn more about the Peace Drums Project, please click here.

What can a small band of drummers do in the face of historic conflict, in the midst of rockets, tanks, bombs, and bullets? Well, what can a little bit of yeast do in a large measure of flour?

In the midst of a complex world with complex problems, you and I can go out and be corruptors of the corruption. We can spread radical gospel ideas such as we're all created in the image of God! We all have a place at the table! We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to return no one evil for evil.

We can infiltrate society with these radical ideas until society looks more and more like the realm of heaven.

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

Please use the space below to post comments or questions. 

When have you felt like you were acting like a corruptor of the corruption? Do you believe that you are being called now in some way to be a corruptor of the corruption?

A Tale of Two Houses

(thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

This blog post is based on my sermon from February 10, 2019. To listen to an audio recording of this sermon, please click here.

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And anyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house, and it fell--and great was its fall!" Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teachings, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes."                                                                                                                                                    --Matthew 7:24-29, New Revised Standard Version

"Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching." That is the first recorded reaction to the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. The word "astounded" in the original New Testament Greek carries the meaning of "bewildered, stunned, or struck with a powerful force."

Have you ever had an intense conversation with someone and almost felt that he or she had struck you with a fist? Their words were that forceful. Perhaps someone delivered an order or gave you an ultimatum, or simply spoke a truth that left you defenseless and utterly vulnerable.

That must have been what happened when Jesus finished speaking. The crowds were astounded, stunned.

In the words of my friend and mentor Roland Perdue, a retired Presbyterian pastor, it is almost as if the "Word became flesh and punched them in the face!" (from a sermon by Roland Perdue, "Oh My Goodness!," preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Charlotte, North Carolina, February 20, 2011).

What would it take for Jesus to astound you?

What would Jesus have to say in order to astonish you?

That the one who begs or borrows is never to be refused?

That if someone strikes you on one cheek, you are to offer the other cheek as well?

That if you hate someone it's just as bad as murder?

That if you call someone a fool you're liable to the hell of fire?

That if you have lustful thoughts it's just as bad as adultery?

That if someone compels you to walk a mile, you should voluntarily walk a second mile?

That not only are you supposed to be non-violent, but more than that, you are supposed to love your enemies?

That the meek, of all people!, will inherit the earth.

(As Garrison Keillor once said, "it may be true that the meek will inherit the earth, but so far they only have North Dakota!")

Suppose for a moment that the Gospel writer Matthew had never collected different sayings of Jesus and assembled them into the Sermon on the Mount. Suppose that a preacher like me simply said them one morning from the pulpit:

That the one who begs or borrows is never to be refused.

That if someone strikes you on one cheek, you are to offer the other as well.

That if you call someone a fool you're liable to go straight to hell.

What would you say after the worship service? "Thank you, pastor, your sermon really made me think" ?

I think not! I suspect that you would be utterly astounded, like I had punched you in the face!

Through the years there's been a debate among Christians about how best to interpret the Sermon on the Mount. Did Jesus really expect us to live out these teachings, or did Jesus' teachings represent some kind of ideal that we could never attain in this lifetime, and thus serve primarily as a reminder of our need for grace?

It seems to me that Jesus, according to the Gospel writer Matthew at least, answers that question for us:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who builds a house upon the rock.

Jesus did not say, "Well, if you're a truly wise person, then you would know not to take my words too literally, and you could pat yourself on the back for being so sophisticated."

No, instead, Jesus says "everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who builds a house upon the rock."

In the words of preacher and scholar Tom Long:

Jesus calls those who hear his message to put his words into practice, because the Sermon on the Mount expresses God's will not just for the church but also for the world. The commands of the sermon describe what it means to be fully human, not just what it means to be religious. Only a life based upon the vision embodied in the Sermon [on the Mount] can stand firm and true when all the storms of life have done their worst.

 The house of greed washes away when the rains of economic crisis come.

The house of power collapses when the political climate changes.

The house of pragmatic living-for-the-moment slips off the foundation when life opens up with a mystery like birth, deep suffering, or death. (Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion, pp. 84-85). 

 But a house built upon the vision that Jesus gives us in the Sermon on the Mount is sturdy enough to stand through any storm of life.

When the Gospel writer Matthew sets up the scene for the Sermon on the Mount, he invites us to imagine Jesus speaking to two different groups--first, to the disciples, who have come near, and then, secondarily, to the crowds, who are close enough to overhear.

Jesus, therefore, is speaking symbolically through the disciples to the world, anticipating the mission of the church to teach all the nations to obey everything Jesus has commanded. (Long, p. 46)

You could say that Jesus is creating the church, giving birth to a separate reality in the midst of the crowds. The disciples are being made into a new community, the ecclesia--the called out--the word that Matthew uses for "church."

And the church is called to embody these teachings of Jesus, to show--primarily through their actions, not simply their words--that these teachings are indeed God's will for the whole world.

From time to time, I invite us to look at a statement that is printed on the Announcements page in our bulletin. It's a statement that was first used in our bulletins when Bruce White was pastor (1971-2000). Each week the statement is included in the very first paragraph. It reads:

What does it mean to be a Christian church in our time? We believe it means that we have decided to take seriously the teachings of Jesus about the Way of Life. It means that we have made a commitment to be open to the power of God's love.

As a church we have decided to build a house on rock. We have decided to take seriously the teachings of Jesus about the Way of Life. This means that we will not fit into "a crowd that seeks its security in prestige, property, or propriety." (Roland Perdue) Instead, we will be part of a group that looks to the birds of the air and considers the lilies of the field, knowing that our ultimate security lies with God.

These days our Monday morning study group has been reading short stories by Flannery O'Connor. She once wrote, "the Bible says, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. It should have said, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."

When we talk about the meek being blessed, or about the command to love our enemies, we will indeed seem odd.

I invite you sometime soon to read through the Sermon on the Mount. It's found in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. It takes about eight or nine minutes to read through silently. Read through it and let it sink in how odd it is, but also how life-giving it is.

As a church, we--the members and friends of Katonah Presbyterian Church--have said that we intend to take seriously the teachings of Jesus, which means that we are called to do this work together.

Together, we do our best to apply the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount to our own lives and the life of our community.

We learn to talk about each other in ways that honor the child of God in each one of us. When Jesus says that if you say "you fool" you'll be liable to the hell of fire, he is engaged in a bit of word play. That word translated hell is gehenna in Greek, and it refers to the place outside the city walls where trash was burned. Don't trash-talk anyone, Jesus says, or you might be taken out with the trash yourself.

As a church, we do our best to interpret the hard sayings and difficult commands in the Sermon on the Mount. When, for instance, Jesus spoke very strict words prohibiting divorce, he was speaking primarily to a situation in which men would attempt to abandon their wives on a whim while relying on the technicality of obtaining a certificate of divorce. (see Long, pp. 58-60).

So how do we apply Jesus' words about divorce to our own day and time? As a church we should do everything we can to support couples who are doing their best to honor the commitments that they have made to each other. At the same time, the church should support those who have concluded that the most loving, most honorable path available to them is to sever the marriage ties. In both instances, we are taking the words of Jesus seriously, and doing our best to figure out what it means to follow Jesus in our own day and time.

As we take seriously Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, we realize that the famous Golden Rule--do unto others as you would have them do unto you--is not simply another way of saying that if you scratch my back, then I'll scratch yours. Instead, in the words of Tom Long, we learn to interpret the Golden Rule in the context of the entire Sermon on the Mount.

What do the children of God want others to do to them? They want to be recognized as who they are, God's very own people, and they want to live in a world where mercy, meekness, and peace prevail. So, Jesus now calls them to treat the world in the same way, to treat the world as if it were already restored, as if it were already what it one day will surely be, a place were the merciful God is all in all and humanity is gathered at the great and joyous banquet. (Long, p. 81)

Are you astounded yet?

I know I am.

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

Please feel free to use comments section below to post observations or ask questions.

Consider the Lilies

     (thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

This blog post is based on my sermon from February 3, 2019.

Last week there was a story on the BBC about a mother and daughter in Chippenham, England. The mother has dementia, and one day the mother was being visited by her GP, Dr. Philip Grimmer. He noticed a whiteboard that had been positioned in his patient's line of sight. On that whiteboard were written such messages as:

YOU'RE OKAY.
EVERYONE'S FINE.

YOU'RE NOT MOVING.
NO ONE IS MOVING.

YOU HAVEN'T UPSET ANYONE.
YOU DON'T OWE ANYONE ANY MONEY.

When asked, the daughter explained to Dr. Gimmer that she had written on the whiteboard the responses to her mother's most frequently asked questions. The daughter said that her hope was to reduce the number of frantic phone calls that her mother made to her and to other family members, but more than that, the hope was that the whiteboard would relieve her mother's anxiety.

Dr. Grimmer told the BBC that he had not seen anything like it before in thousands of house calls. "It's caring, reassuring, and sensible," he said. "It's such a simple idea."

Dr. Grimmer had tweeted a photo of the whiteboard messages to a few of his interested colleagues, and since then the tweet has been liked over 40,000 times and has helped spark a global conversation about caring for people with dementia. (see Kris Bramwell, "Dementia Whiteboard touches hearts around the world", BBC News, February 1, 2019)

It seems to me that in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus has done something very much like taking a whiteboard and writing on it the messages that we most need to hear when our own chronic anxiety threatens to overwhelm us.

To those of us who obsessively worry about having enough--enough money, enough health, enough time--Jesus takes a dry erase marker and writes on a whiteboard for everyone to see:

DO NOT WORRY ABOUT YOUR LIFE,
WHAT YOU WILL EAT OR DRINK,
OR ABOUT YOUR BODY ABOUT WHAT YOU WILL WEAR.

IS NOT LIFE MORE THAN FOOD,
AND THE BODY MORE THAN CLOTHING?

Jesus continues:
LOOK AT THE BIRDS OF THE AIR,
THEY NEITHER SOW NOR REAP
NOR GATHER INTO BARNS,
AND YET YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER FEEDS THEM.

And then later Jesus says:
CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD, HOW THEY GROW;
THEY NEITHER TOIL NOR SPIN, YET I TELL YOU,
EVEN SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY WAS NOT CLOTHED LIKE ONE OF THESE.

As preacher and scholar Thomas G. Long points out:

At first, Jesus' words about the birds and the lilies, lovely as they are, are not very compelling. Sure, birds and lilies don't worry about life, but they also don't have mortgages, car payments, grocery bills, and college tuitions to keep them awake at night. All of us would like to be relieved of worry and anxiety, but Jesus appears to be suggesting an unrealistic strategy--"look at the birds, look at the lilies"--to which one is tempted to reply, "Yes, but look at the bills!" (Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion, p. 75)

Jesus is not suggesting that human beings can be like birds or lilies. Instead, Jesus is using a teaching technique that was fairly common in his day--arguing from the lesser to the greater. If God so generously provides for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, then how much more so will God also provide for you and me?

There is something else we should notice. The verbs look at the birds of the air and consider the lilies of the field are, in New Testament Greek, very strong verbs. (Long, p. 75)

Jesus is essentially imploring us to scrutinize the birds of the air and painstakingly examine the lilies of the field.

What is it that Jesus wants us to see?

The poet Mary Oliver died last month, and I'm reminded of her admonition to "pay attention," which she said is "our endless and proper work."

In her poem "Wild Geese," Mary Oliver wrote:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert,
repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of
your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will
tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles
of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the
clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and
exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
(Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese," originally published in Dream Work, 1986)

In telling us to scrutinize the birds of the air and painstakingly examine the lilies of the field, Jesus is inviting us--no, Jesus is commanding us, compelling us--to look, really look,

at a world where God provides freely and lavishly, a world where anxiety plays no part, where worry is not a reality. Jesus [tells] us to allow our imaginations to enter such a world, to compare this world with the world in which we must live out our lives. (Long, pp. 75-76)

The rent is still due, of course.
Middle schoolers still have to contend with school bullies and all kinds of social pressure.
More than a few of us anxiously await the results of the latest medical scan.

But as Tom Long reminds us:

We have seen this other world, this world of God's gracious and tender care, and it promises to overthrow the power of anxiety. We still worry [about all kinds of things, but having seen this other world, we now know] that there is nothing in this world that can take away what God provides--dignity, a sense of worth, the confidence of being treasured in the heart of God. (Long, p. 76)

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

Questions for Discussion:

1. What would your whiteboard tell you to stop worrying about?

2. How compelling do you find Jesus' admonition to look at the birds of the air and consider the lilies of the field?

 

 

The Beatitudes in an Age of Outrage

(thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

This blog post is based on my sermon delivered on January 27, 2019, which in turn relies heavily and quotes extensively from Mary Hinkle Shore's article, "The Beatitudes in the Age of Trump," published in the Journal for Preachers, Lent 2019. This blog post is intended for reflection and discussion among the members and friends of the Katonah (NY) Presbyterian Church.

Mark is a member of a Lutheran congregation in North Carolina. By Bible Belt standards at any rate, the congregation is somewhat left-leaning. Most of the church members avoid talking openly about politics, but during the 2016 election Mark would proudly wear his "Basket of Deplorables" t-shirt to choir practice. Mark's pastor is quick to point out that Mark also regularly volunteers in the church and in the community.

Another member of that same congregation is Charlie, who sleeps with a loaded handgun in his nightstand. He is a retiree living in a modest house on a quiet street that has never seen a home invasion. Yet Charlie is vigilant. He comments to his pastor that if someone comes after him or his family he does not intend to go down without a fight. And he reports that since he decided to keep the gun close, he sleeps much better. Charlie volunteers in the church and with the local sheriff's department. Often throughout the year, you will find him spending his Saturday mornings helping to control traffic so that participants in bike rides or road runs in their picturesque, western North Carolina mountain town will be safe.

Still another member of that same congregation is Julie. Julie is on the Religious Affairs Committee for the local chapter of the NAACP. On her Facebook feed, you can keep up with the latest marches and meetings that she plans to attend. She is convening a group in her church to see how their congregation can be more involved in ministry on behalf of immigrants and refugees. These days she finds herself making a lot of snarky comments and raging at the television news, but she also takes time each week to talk to a man in the church who regularly sends right wing emails to her and about a dozen others.

Mary Hinkle Shore is a New Testament scholar who taught for 13 years at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Six years ago, she felt a strong sense of call to return to parish ministry, and she became the pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brevard, North Carolina. Mark, Charlie, and Julie are members of the congregation that she is privileged to serve.

As Mary Hinkle Shore observes,

Americans regularly hear that our culture is getting more and more divided into enclaves of people who think alike. Social media algorithims [tend to direct us toward opinions that more or less match our own]. And yet almost all of us who belong to a Christian congregation find ourselves in the same pew week after week with people that no algorithim would pair with us.

Each week we make a confession of sin and hear words of forgiveness. We share the Peace of Christ with one another. Christ nourishes us in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Mary Hinkle Shore writes that

just by worshipping together, [her congregation] resists the temptation to believe that if they only voted Mark off the island, or Julie, we would offer a better witness to the Gospel . . . The temptation of the present age is to believe that after just a little violence--the snarky joke, some deportations, the death penalty, or what the gun in the nightstand can do--we will be safe.

The Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5:1-12, make it clear that our safety lies elsewhere. The Beatitudes are the first extensive words spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. They are the opening words to the Sermon on the Mount.

Mount of the Beatitudes, near Tabgha, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee

And how does Jesus begin his most famous sermon? With words of blessing. This point cannot be emphasized enough. Jesus is NOT saying that we need to work even harder at being meek or pure in heart. Instead, Jesus is telling us that we are already blessed.

Many of the blessings mentioned in the Beatitudes would have been familiar to Jesus' original audience and to the congregation of mostly Jewish Christians in Antioch near the end of the first century, for whom the Gospel of Matthew was most likely written. Promises about the coming of the kingdom of heaven, seeing God, and being called children of God would have been familiar from the Psalms, the songbook of Ancient Israel.

The surprise, according to New Testament scholar Robert Smith, is that these promises were usually understood to be promises for the faithful in Israel, for those who excelled in righteousness, for the successful ones. But in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that these blessings are for the very ones who were the most insecure by the standards of the day, that is, people who lacked social standing, political power, or even spiritual power. (Robert Smith, as quoted in Mary Hinkle Shore's article in the Journal for Preachers).

The ones who are blessed are poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted, and the slandered. This is not a list of winners! Mary Hinkle Shore says that

we read down this list and wonder whether the blessing of God is not a consolation prize awarded to those who are too kind for politics, too passive for business, and too sensitive for ministry.

But about such people, Jesus says that they are blessed now--right now!--because they will in the future have the kingdom of heaven, be comforted, inherit the earth, be filled, have mercy, see God, become daughters and sons of God, have the kingdom of heaven (note that Jesus repeats this one twice!, and finally have a great reward.

Thus, the Beatitudes are present blessings based on a future promise. Why would Jesus speak in this way? Well, when does it help to know the end of a story at its beginning? Answer: when the story is going to get scary in the middle. As Mary Hinkle Shore observes,

if, in the scariest parts of the story, we are to reject trying to get safe by violence, hatred of enemies, laying up treasures on earth, then we must know something about the nature of God and our destination. We must know that ultimately we are held in the love and justice of God. When we know that this is the end of the story, our imaginations and our lives change. Jesus' promises have the effect of pulling the future they describe into the present "ahead of time." 

Another scholar and former pastor, Richard Lischer, describes it this way:

If I am out of work and on relief, and the owner of the local grocery store promises me a job in two weeks, whether or not I now adopt a stance of hope in the world depends on the character of the one who promises. (Richard Lischer, as quoted by Mary Hinkle Shore).

Is the grocery store owner trustworthy? Does he keep promises? If so, then my life has already changed.

Now, does Lischer's would-be grocery store worker have a job yet? Technically, no. He will have a job in two weeks; even so, this afternoon he twirls his wife around the kitchen when he arrives home. Tonight he sleeps without the usual interval in the wee hours spent staring at the ceiling, wide awake. Next week, he makes sure he has something in which to pack his lunch to work each day. The day before the job starts, he lays out his work clothes. His life has already changed. All of these observable actions flow from a promise made by a trustworthy grocery store owner. (Mary Hinkle Shore).

If the word of a trustworthy grocery store owner can have that kind of impact, then how much more powerful would a word of promise be from Jesus? Jesus speaks with authority, and he speaks to our fears.

It may seem that the goal of political rhetoric nowadays is to keep everyone angry, but underneath anger is almost always fear. We are afraid of many things. Some of us fear that there is no longer a meaningful distinction between truth and falsehood; some fear that our "American way of life" os about to be lost. We fear the other, the bully, the loser, the rich, the poor. We are afraid of getting old, getting cancer, being irrelevant, being in the minority. We are afraid of dying. All this fear makes us hunger and thirst for security. (Mary Hinkle Shore).

 The Beatitudes take us in a different direction. To those who have always been utterly vulnerable Jesus speaks promises of present and eternal security. From that place of ultimate safety, the followers of Jesus are free to risk living in the ways that Jesus describes in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.

We may risk loving those who call us deplorable, praying for our persecutors, not shouting "You fool!" at the television set [no matter how tempting that might be!]. and greeting with joy the powerful resistance that our actions will call forth from the rulers of this age. (Mary Hinkle Shore).

As we risk living such a life, followers of Jesus inhabit an alternative universe right here in the middle of this one that seems so often characterized by mean-spiritedness and the dehumanization and exploitation of others. Indeed, living into the values Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount has the power to transform our current realities.

Will Willimon is a retired United Methodist bishop and the former chaplain and preacher at Duke University. He remembers one Methodist congregation that was torn apart by conflict and turmoil. Pastor after pastor left, declaring that this was the meanest church they had ever served.

Today, though, that same congregation is an example of how the church can be a beacon of hope. What happened? Well, that congregation set up a safe home for women and children who were experiencing domestic violence. That ministry, welcoming outsiders, extending hospitality to strangers, helped the church members to get over themselves. 

One lay leader said, "The women and children taught us lessons in courage, faith, and love. We needed to get outside of church to learn how to be the church." (from an article by Beth Johnson, "Hospitality to Strangers," in The Journal for Preachers, Lent 2019).

We needed to get outside of church to learn how to be the church.

Hold on to that phrase for the next several weeks. Let's brainstorm together about what that might mean in our context, in our ministry to and with the community.

For the next two Sundays we will continue to explore Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. You can read the Sermon on the Mount by reading Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. I invite you to read it at home or on your mobile devices on the train during your morning or afternoon commute. Read through the Sermon on the Mount slowly. Let the words soak in.

In what ways do you see signs that the alternative reality to which Jesus points is already taking hold in our world?

In what ways has our congregation, Katonah Presbyterian Church, already embraced the values espoused in the Sermon on the Mount?

And in what ways might we move beyond our remaining fears and more fully embrace the promises that Jesus has already made?

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

Please feel free to use the comments section to this blog post as an opportunity for questions and reflection . . .

 

 

 

 

Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time . . . (again)

(thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

This blog post is based on my sermon from January 20, 2019.

Do you remember the first time you met Jesus?

Perhaps you grew up in the church and can't remember a time when you weren't hearing about Jesus, and, like most concrete-thinking three-year-olds, you naturally assumed that the pastor was Jesus. 

And as you grew older, you became even more aware that church was the place where they talked about Jesus. You may recall the story of a children's sermon in which the pastor asked the children, "What has two long ears, a cotton tail, and hops around?" There was a long period of silence. Finally, one child responded, "Well, it sounds like a rabbit, but since this is church, the answer must be Jesus."

Perhaps you did not grow up in the church, but there was something about a friend of yours who was a Christian that you found compelling. Perhaps this friend was an Evangelical Christian who invited you to pray what is often called "the prayer of salvation" or "the sinner's prayer," and you prayed that prayer, and asked Jesus to come into your heart, and for you there will always be this before and after moment that defines the rest of your life.

Or perhaps you were going through a very difficult time in life, many nights crying yourself awake, and then one night, as the tears ran down your cheeks, a warm presence filled the room and wrapped its arms around you.

Or maybe you were weighing whether or not to take a great risk and begin a new adventure, but you weren't sure if now was really the time or not. And in the night you had a dream. You were walking along a lakeshore at night, with a full moon, and Jesus suddenly appeared ahead of you, and said, "Follow me," and later, the next morning, you wondered whether that meant Jesus wanted you to go ahead, take the risk, and begin the adventure.

Or maybe you have issues with the premise of the question, because to you it makes about as much sense to ask someone about the first time that they met Jesus as it would to ask them about the first time that they met Julius Caesar or Cleopatra.

More than twenty years ago the late Marcus Borg wrote a bestselling book entitled, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. 

In that book Borg wrote,

[Jesus'] own self-understanding did not include thinking and speaking of himself as the Son of God whose historical intention or purpose was to die for the sins of the world, and his message was not about believing in him. Rather, he was a spirit person, subversive sage, social prophet, and movement founder who invited his followers and hearers into a transforming relationship with the same Spirit that he himself knew, and into a community whose social vision was shaped by the core value of compassion.

Borg, who at the time was a professor of Religion at Oregon State University, helped reignite the old debate about how closely the Jesus of History truly resembled the Christ of Faith. 

I want to be quick to say that I appreciate Borg and have learned much from his writings through the years. Nonetheless, one of the criticisms of Borg and other members of the Jesus Seminar is that the portrait of the Historical Jesus that finally emerges from their work is one that looks and sounds a lot like a professor of religion at a major university.

I suspect that most of us are guilty of trying to make Jesus into our own image.

Centuries before Borg, the Gospel writer Matthew could have written Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. (see comments by Patrick J. Willson in the Feasting on the Word lectionary commentary).

Most scholars believe that Matthew was writing from Antioch, in modern-day Syria, near the end of the first century. Matthew was hoping to introduce Jesus once again to a Christian community that was undergoing persecution and was starting to wonder exactly what kind of Messiah they were meant to follow. Who was this Jesus, this Christ, that they were already calling, "Lord?" That's the question that Matthew wants to answer.

Traditionally, this story of Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness is read on the First Sunday of Lent. Most preachers (including me) are quick to make the leap between Jesus' forty days in the wilderness to our own forty-day journey during Lent. We are quick to jump from talking about how Jesus avoided temptation to talking about how we can avoid temptation.

The gift of reading a text like Matthew 4:1-11 in January is that it takes the focus off Lent and puts the focus back on Jesus, which is what Matthew intended.

Indeed, as others have pointed out, the temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness are really Jesus' temptations and not ours.

Have you ever been tempted to feed the whole world in an instant by turning stones into bread?

Have you ever been tempted to jump from some high place simply to prove that God would miraculously save you? (I hope not!!)

Have you ever been tempted to rule over all the nations of the world, and to gain all the wealth and power and prestige in order to give it away to the poor, the oppressed, and the needy?

No. These are all temptations that Jesus faced. Indeed, we can make the argument that we are the ones who are tempting Jesus. We are constantly tempting Jesus to conform to our own expectations. We want to follow a Christ who will do it our way, who will feed the hungry once and for all because we have grown weary of all the appeals to feed the hungry.

My friend and mentor Roland Perdue, a retired Presbyterian pastor, describes a visit he made to Christ in the Desert Monastery in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is near Georgia O'Keefe's ranch and up the road from Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian Conference Center.

Monastery of Christ in the Desert

The chapel has a huge glass window above the altar. Through the glass you can observe the great red cliffs of New Mexico. And as the sun moves you can see different figures, different faces. As Roland tells the story, as he viewed all the different figures, it seemed to him that every gargoyle had his face on it. And he had an epiphany. He was the one trying to tempt Jesus. He was the one who wanted to know that giving over a half century of his life to ministry had been worth it, that there would be some great reward for all that he had done. He was the one who wanted Jesus to be his kind of guy. (from a sermon preached by Roland Perdue, White Memorial Presbyterian Church, Raleigh, NC, summer 2010).

Do you remember these lyrics from Jesus Christ Superstar?:

So, you are the Christ, you're the great Jesus Christ.
Prove to me that you are divine; change my water into wine.
So, you are the Christ, the great Jesus Christ.
Prove to me that you're no fool; walk across my swimming pool.
Feed my household with this bread, you could do it on your head.


We want Jesus to do it our own way. But more often than not, Jesus says, "not so fast," and he refuses to turn our stones into bread.

The following is an oversimplification, and not entirely fair to Marcus Borg, but in some ways it seems to me that

For Marcus Borg, Jesus was a teacher of wisdom who never claimed to be the Son of God.

For the Gospel writer Matthew, Jesus is the Son of God who defies our conventional wisdom.

Matthew says to the ancient Christians in Antioch and to us, "You know about Jesus' deeds of power, but do you know about his humility? (see again comments by Patrick J. Willson in Feasting on the Word)

You know that Jesus preached about the kingdom of heaven, but have you put on the character that will enable you to live as citizens of that kingdom? . . . and that is where we will pick up next week when we talk about the Beatitudes in Matthew, chapter 5.

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

Questions for Discussion:

1. How would you describe the circumstances of your own first meeting of Jesus?

2. Was there a time in your life when you were reintroduced to Jesus in an entirely new way?

3. How well do you resonate with Borg's description of Jesus as a "spirit person, a subversive sage, social prophet, and movement founder"?

4. In what ways would you say that you have tempted Jesus? What would Jesus look and sound like if Jesus did conform to your own expectations?

5. In what ways has Jesus defied your own settled wisdom and upset your expectations?

 

Where Do We Find Wisdom?

On January 13th, we began a new sermon series:

with thanks to Sue Kravits for this meme

This blog post is based on the first sermon in this new series, and serves mostly as a brief introduction.

A colleague of mine recently declared that she's going to stop her habit of reading the news on her phone when she first wakes up in the morning. "It hypes me up too much, she said, "and the answers I seek aren't there."

We have so much information at our fingertips, so much information that is instantly accessible--everything it seems, except the answers we are really seeking.

We yearn for wisdom. We yearn for a still, small voice in the midst of all the clamor. We yearn to have a wise mind that will help us make wise decisions and avoid painful mistakes. Or could it be that making painful mistakes is a necessary step along the road to wisdom? And the constant back and forth, the ongoing on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand debates in our minds makes us yearn for wisdom even more.

Where do we go to look for wisdom?

Some of us go to the past. We believe that wisdom can be found in ancient voices. Perhaps the Bhagavad Gita has a certain appeal because it is so old. The Buddha lived five hundred years before Christ. Those of us who are here in worship listen to ancient scriptures read aloud each week.

Perhaps part of the appeal of John the Baptist was that he evoked the past. The Gospel writer Matthew says that he was clothed in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist. We might be tempted to shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, isn't that how most biblical characters were dressed?" But that's not true. John's clothing was already ancient by first century standards. He was dressed essentially as the Prophet Elijah, who had lived more than eight hundred years before and whose return was supposed to signal the arrival of the Messiah, God's long-awaited promised deliverer.

John the Baptist, Juan de Juanes, c. 1560

The people flocked to see John the Baptist. Matthew says that the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were making the trek out into the wilderness to hear John preach. Can you imagine everyone in New York City and Westchester trekking up to some remote place in the Catskills simply to hear a street preacher? If you want to hear a street preacher, all you have to do is go to Times Square! Why trek out of the city and into the wilderness?

The Preaching of John the Baptist, by Peter Bruegel the Elder, 1566

Perhaps some people were curious. Perhaps some hoped to find fault with his sermons. Yet I suspect that many went because they were yearning for wisdom.

And then John the Baptist, this fiery preacher and wise teacher, points to a figure of even deeper wisdom. He proclaims, "I baptize you with water, but there is one coming after me who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

John's water baptism symbolizes a cleansing or a washing. Jesus' baptism of fire symbolizes an even deeper transformation, like the smelting of metals.

Over the next several weeks, we will seek together the wisdom that Jesus offers us.

But please know this at the outset: The road to wisdom is through the fire and not around it.

The wisdom we seek is through the fire of deep transformation.

And whether or not it sounds like it at first, that really is good news.

Questions:

Where have you typically looked for wisdom?

Who have been the wise mentors in your life?

In your own experience, can you think of wisdom that you've gained after going through a period of deep transformation?