Power and Weakness

Today was the second in a series bookending our first ever Harry Potter Vacation Bible School at Calvary UMC in Frederick. I described it in this way: The Harry Potter story is one in which love for friends and for the world wins out against this relentless drive for power and control. God uses our vulnerabilities (weaknesses) too.

Scripture:
2 Corinthians 12:6-10 (NRSV)
But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. 
 
Luke 22:24-27 (NRSV)
A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” 
 
Sermon: Power and Weakness
Let us pray: 

Patient teacher, we know we seek to control our own lives, but you remind us through scripture and story that you have different intentions for us. You intend us to love. So be with us in worship this morning, speak through the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, so we draw ever closer to your intentions for us. Amen.

I have a confession to make. I am a huge nerd. I know that is surprising to all of you, but I had to preface my sermon this week with that. When I wrote my ordination paperwork, I referenced Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings and probably Star Wars and Firefly too. So I am pretty used to connecting the Bible to my geekery. And that’s what we did this past week. We looked at the popular world of Harry Potter and used it to teach about Biblical stories and Christian values in our second Vacation Bible School of the summer. 
 
One of those values has really struck me lately. The Harry Potter story is an illustration not just of a battle between good and evil but between the love of power and the power of love.
Sure, there are definitely evil characters in the books. Lord Voldemort is the epitome of evil: he has no redeeming qualities and really spent his whole life being evil, even his childhood. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, the heroes of the story, are a little more complex, but they are at their cores good people. I would think many of us would prefer to think of ourselves as the Harrys, Rons, or Hermiones of the world, but even though evil is apparent even in our own communities, I think we would be hard pressed to point to someone and label them as the embodiment of evil the way Lord Voldemort is in the story. And so we can distance ourselves from the story. Oh, we think, we would join resistance movements if we lived in that kind of world, but we don’t, so as long as we are nice to people that counts as acting out goodness in the world. We have less responsibility in this framing of the story as good v. evil. So I want us to look at it differently. This is not just a battle of good over evil, but of power and weakness.

Did you catch that phrase in our scripture reading today about power and weakness? Paul, was writing to the Corinthian community in what sounds like a defensive way. Someone must have accused him of being weak, of being not as important as everyone made him out to be. I mean, if someone refered to me as weak, I would probably be mad. And Paul probably was too. But his response is not to show power, not to prove that he was strong, but to agree with the criticism. Yes, he says, yes I am weak. This, as my friend David points out, is a truly vulnerable moment for Paul.

He tells his Corinthian readers that he is hurting; really hurting. He is looking for God to take something from him, some part of him that caused him deep pain. We don’t know what it is, but we do know that Paul wants to be done with it. He wants an instant cure.¹ 

And he admits to that desire to the whole Corinthian community. He is hurting and uses the famous phrase everyone wonders about: he says he has a thorn in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7). We don’t know what it is. But I understand his desire to be done with pain and want an instant cure. 
 
My understanding comes not from a physical illness or pain in my own life, but from the pain that comes from being vulnerable enough to love and then having to face losing that love. Brené Brown, a researcher and storyteller, defines “vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”² It is easy to decide the risk is too great, to decide that feeling is linked with failing, with weakness, and we try to shut ourselves off from vulnerability. This is what Voldemort’s whole life illustrates. His father left, mother died, he grew up in an orphanage, and so even as a child, he decided that loving someone who could leave him or die was too great a risk. Instead, he would focus on what he could control and began to pursue power and success at any cost. 
 

Over and over again throughout the books, Voldemort scoffs at the power of love. When he confronts Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets, he wants to know the great power that protected Harry as a baby, and when he discovers that Harry was protected by his mother’s love, Voldemort dismisses that as luck.³ Voldemort always believed that if he discovered a more powerful wand, or used more powerful magic, he would never have to love anyone and risk being hurt by them. But that meant that he never risked knowing the power of love either.⁴ He was so afraid of experiencing the thorn in his side that Paul spoke of, so afraid of being weak, that he never knew the true strength of love. 

When Voldemort was preparing to face Harry Potter for the last time, one of his henchmen asked to go find Harry and bring him to Voldemort. Voldemort declined the offer, saying “[You do not understand Potter] as I do. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come.”⁵ Voldemort called Harry's love for his friends, his compassion for those who were hurting, his willingness to sacrifice himself for others, a weakness. And surely, Harry felt weak in the Battle. Over and over again, the narrator describes how Harry tries to compartmentalize as he sees the death toll rise, tries to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but he feels so much pain. And still he is willing to give up his own life for the ones that he loves. And that love is what kept him alive when he was thought to be dead. That love, that weakness--- spoiler alert--- wins. 

Now, I don't think any of us are like Voldemort, not in the sense of his complete failure to empathize or feel remorse, but I do think we sometimes avoid being vulnerable because we don’t want to risk, we don’t want to appear weak, we don’t want to hurt. And we don’t want to change. Maybe we don’t trust that love actually wins. Many of you know I have had multiple miscarriages and suffer with infertility, and I have found that despite all the ways I have witnessed love winning in the pursuit of parenthood, despite all the different ways there are to parent, there are absolutely times I want to shut myself off, stop trying to be a mother in any way and just do something different. Maybe take up juggling? Have you ever felt that way? In the wake of a divorce or a friend’s betrayal or a lost job or an unexpected death, do you want to run away, shut yourself off from feeling? Find some way to not feel so weak and exposed?

Or maybe your avoidance of vulnerability comes within community. Maybe you don’t want to argue anymore, so you don’t engage with anyone about politics who doesn’t agree with you unless it is to shut them down. Maybe you are afraid of illness and so you don’t want to visit anyone in the hospital, not matter how lonely they may be. Maybe you are uncomfortable around people speaking a different language and so you belittle them and avoid them and start to believe they are profoundly different from you. To be vulnerable means that we might have to feel not only our pain, but also another’s pain. And if we feel someone else’s pain, we might feel a responsibility to do something to support them. 
 
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are vulnerable throughout the story. And their vulnerabilities are risks, they do get hurt. Harry spends so much of the books looking for a father figure in the headmaster Dumbledore, in his godfather Sirius, in teachers like Lupin and Mad-Eye Moody. And these figures often fail him in some way; they hide truth from him, they leave him, they turn out to be someone they are not, or they simply make a mistake. And yet from each of these figures, Harry learns love and grows stronger in that love. Even with their betrayals and failures, still that love built him up to be the hero he becomes at the end of the story. 
 
And that’s the point Paul is trying to get across, I think. He is acknowledging that he is just like us, just like Harry. He doesn’t want to hurt. He doesn’t want to be so vulnerable. He has asked God to take away his weakness. But God didn’t take away his weakness, and God doesn’t take away ours either. Through Paul’s prayers, God speaks to him and all of us, saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Through the Harry Potter story, through our own lives, we see the same thing. True power, the power of love, is made perfect in weakness, in vulnerability. In taking risks and walking without certainty.

This is what Christ asks of us. This is how Jesus himself lived. In our Gospel story today, Jesus reminded his disciples that true greatness isn’t about power but about service. Throughout Jesus’ life, he consistently chose love over power, even though that meant instead of a crown of gold he wore a crown of thorns. He chose love even when facing violence and ridicule. But this choice of love is the power of Christ. That in our vulnerability, in our risk taking, in our weakness, love has the last word over death. 
 
My question for you, for us, to go home with this week is in what ways do we choose love? Not in what ways are we good and nice to other people, but in what ways do we open ourselves to one another, even when it makes us weak and vulnerable? In what ways is God making us perfect in our weakness, perfect in our love?

1David Finnegan-Hosey, Christ on the Psych Ward (New York: Church Publishing, 2018), 67.
2Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (New York: Gotham Books, 2012), 34.
3J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Press, 1999) 317.
4See J.K. Rowling, “Chapter 35: King's Cross,” Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Press, 2007) 705-723.
5J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Press, 2007) 654.

Wasted?

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Creating Enemies

This is a sermon I preached for Calvary UMC in Frederick.

Scripture: Matthew 5:38-48 (NRSV)
 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Sermon: Did Jesus stutter?*

One of the variants of the meme.

There is a meme that I see from time to time that shows Jesus sitting beneath a tree, surrounded by people. He's teaching, and he says, “Love one another.” Another speech bubble appears from the crowd; “but what if,” the crowd asks, “what if they are gay or Muslim or have less money than me or don't have a home or have a different skin color or were born in a different country or voted for someone I don't like?”  And Jesus answers, “Did I stutter?”  Jesus tells us in our scripture reading today from Matthew’s Gospel to love our enemies. He tells us to pray for those who persecute us! And he doesn’t stutter when he says it.    

But we can still get around the difficulty of this scripture because, really, who are our enemies? After all, we are not superheroes. Most of us anyway. We aren’t fighting shadowy villains in spandex bent on taking over the world. Nor are we feudal kings fighting other lords for land, even though we might be side-eyeing our next-door neighbor for planting an ugly bush on our side of the property line. While there may be plenty of people we don’t like, enemy is probably not a word we use in our daily vocabulary.  But we do have enemies. And some of them are taught to us.

Some of you remember the Cold War, right? My dad loves bad 1970s action movies, so I have seen many many movies in which all the bad guys have terrible Russian accents. The epitome of evil, such movies teach us, can be found in Soviet Russia. It seemed so silly to me, but remember, I was two when the Wall between East and West Berlin came down. I never had duck and cover bombing drills in school. But I have experienced the creation of an enemy. When I was in ninth grade, we huddled in Health class and watched the news when the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City came down on September 11, 2001. I was taught pretty quickly that I had enemies after all. At first, it was just learning about this terrorist group called Al Qaeda. But eventually, through news reports that constantly used the word “Muslim” to describe the word “terrorist,” I forgot about white domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, and learned that Muslims were the real terrorists. And terrorists were my enemy.

No one ever said to me, “Shannon, Muslims are your enemy.” But through media and people’s fear, that notion kind of sunk into me. So imagine three years after 9/11, when I went on my first trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I found myself surrounded by Muslims. It was a little confusing. They were not very scary. We went to a big international event one evening when we on that first mission trip and I saw people wearing shirts in English that playfully, or snarkily, read: “I am a Muslim. Do not panic.” In fact, the Muslims I met had undergone far worse terror at the hands of Christians during the genocide in the 1990s than I had experienced on 9/11. But how easily we create these universally bad people in our imaginations.   If it had not been for Muslims, I might not be the Christian I am today. You may have heard me tell this story or read about it because I talk about it a lot: Ðana was one of our translators on that first trip to Bosnia, and she is who I visited earlier last month when I was on vacation. She is a Muslim; her father was killed near the community mosque by Christian soldiers when she was a child. One day, our host Saja took me and my sister with her and Ðana to a friend's house for a dinner. Being on a strange continent with strange people who didn’t speak our language eating strange, but surprisingly tasty, food in front of a house that was still stained with bullet holes should have been terrifying. But my sister and I sat thigh to thigh on a tiny bench and ate, listening to the drone of the huge beetles that zoomed around the porch light as well as the music of the almost-guttural Bosnian language. And in the midst of this, Ðana reached over and hugged us to her. “I love you,” she said. 

Ðana, a Muslim woman who had grown up during a war in a country that most USAmericans cannot locate on a map, a woman I had only known for something like two days at this point, told me and my sister, white Christian Americans who had idyllic childhoods but whose country was waging a war against Muslims in the Middle East, that she loved us. And it was in that moment of her telling us that she loved us that I felt God telling me that God loved me.   Love your enemies, Jesus said. He doesn’t tell us why. But in my life, loving someone I was taught was my enemy opened up new worlds for me. It was one of the most transformative experiences of my Christian journey. 

Now you might not get a chance to go someplace like Bosnia to test out Jesus’ command to love our enemies. But Muslims are not the only enemies that have been offered to us. Throughout history and in every culture, we demonize and marginalize.   And right now our culture seems to be all about the creation of enemies, along religious, racial, and political lines especially. Two weeks ago, I went to a preaching conference where two senators were also invited to speak. One of those senators was Cory Booker from New Jersey. He shared a lot about how we are in a moral moment as a country, one that should transcend political parties and he shared what he called the Tale of Two Hugs.

The first hug was between President Obama and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy. Senator Booker joked about how it was an awkward man hug, but pointed out that no matter how awkward it was, it was used as a political weapon against Governor Christie. How dare a good Republican hug that terrible President Obama! But Senator Booker reminded us how awful the devastation was after the hurricane, how exhausted and upset Governor Christie was. And how in that pain, the president reached out in compassion and the governor received it. Similarly, after Senator John McCain’s cancer diagnosis, when he came back to the floor of the senate, Senator Booker crossed the aisle to hug him. And he immediately received hate tweets. How dare he, a progressive, hug a terrible Republican! But Senator Booker said he saw a brother, one he disagreed with often but one who was a fellow human being, in pain, and so he reached out in love. 

Now in some ways, these men are enemies. Unlike me and Ðana who, when we first met, were teenage girls who liked the things all teenage girls liked despite the differences of our backgrounds, Republicans and Democrats often have competing agendas. And those agendas matter. Often, when we read the Gospel lesson to love our enemies, we use it to mean that we ought to just let people take advantage of us, that turning the other cheek when we are wronged means let ourselves be abused over and over again. We pray for those who persecute us and neglect voting against that persecution or marching in the street to speak out against it. I don’t think that’s what the scripture means at all. What Jesus is telling us to do is to recognize one another as human beings, as people in need of love and prayer even when we come from different backgrounds. Even if we disagree with one another. And that love and prayer can be transformational and draw us closer to God.

Jesus explains, For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?...And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Jesus tells us that there is a reward in loving even those enemies. That there is more to the abundant life he calls us to than us only hanging out with people who look like us and act like us and think like us. Instead, God intends a more beautiful world, one of real relationships and transformed hearts--- not only our enemies’ hearts, but our own hearts as well.

Now, I admit that I am preaching to myself this week. Not because society has created new enemies for me, or because some have been constructed when disagree with people, but because some of my friends were deeply wronged. You may be in a similar situation, sometimes seeing enemies at work or at family gatherings or even here at church. And you may see them as enemies because they are simply different from you and you don’t understand them, because they disagree with you, or maybe because they deeply wronged you. This scripture gives us direction to liberate us from the fear and anger with which having enemies burdens us. It reminds us that we don’t have to live this way; that instead we can choose to see one another as human and call one another to live in a new way together. 

Because Jesus doesn’t stutter. He says we are to love one another. Even when we disagree. Even when we are angry. Even while we keep working for justice. Even then we love. And we pray. My prayer for us is that we take this scripture to heart and learn to expect transformation.




*The original title of the sermon and refrain throughout that reference a meme perpetuate ableism. Rather than stuttering, we should be asking if Jesus misspoke. I am committed to reeducating myself about the ableism I've internalized and will work to not make such thoughtless mistakes in the future!

Pray for Us

Scripture:

Hebrews 10:24-25

And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-28

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this. Beloved, pray for us. Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss. I solemnly command you by the Lord that this letter be read to all of them. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Matthew 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher we give you thanks a morning of welcoming new members. And we give you thanks for this time of worship. Guide us now, in the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, to follow the path you have laid before us. Amen.

Growing up, my mother led the church every Lent in taking up a practice. Originally it was to be a new spiritual practice every year, but the very first one they tried stuck and they continue to do it year after year. They call in “prayer partners.” When you walk into church during Lent, you get a slip of paper that you are to write your name on. Then the slips of paper are collected and at the end of the service, they are passed around in a basket for everyone to take a name. You have to make sure it’s not yours, but that week, you commit to praying for whoever you chose at some point every day. Growing up, our family put all our prayer partners together on the Lazy Susan on our kitchen table, and every day before dinner, we would light a candle and take turns for praying for all of them together.

I thought it was a nice tradition. So I stole it when I started serving a church as a pastor. I passed out slips of paper every week, encouraged people to pray, and got a lot of good feedback from folks. But I didn’t know the transformative power such prayer had until the first year I started this at Presbury.

One week, a parishioner who let’s call Maria, got another parishioner who we’ll call Tamara’s name. Maria was one of the matriarchs of the church at that time, a widow with more money than most in the congregation. She loved music and when her grandkids came to visit. She struggled with her health, but always spoke about blessings rather than her struggles. Tamara also did not talk much about her struggles, which were many. She was older and lonely. She wished her family would visit more, but she was also surrounded by affection and respect at the restaurant where she still worked. She was retirement age but she was unable to retire. She also never complained and lifted up blessings frequently, but she was generally quiet. Maria prayed for Tamara, not knowing quite what Tamara’s prayer concerns were since there was only room on the paper for a name, not an explanation, and then she came into church next week and reached into the basket for a new prayer partner. And she got Tamara. Again. Now, Presbury is not a large church. And both Maria and Tamara sat on the same side of the church and I usually tried to switch the baskets to mix up the possibilities of whose name people would get. But Maria had Tamara two weeks in a row.

And so this time, as Maria prayed, she also felt a deeper connection to Tamara. She began to wonder how she could reach out to her. So she decided to send her flowers to work, and signed that they were from her prayer partner. And by the end of the week, Maria gave me cash in an envelope to give to Tamara anonymously.

Tamara told me about the flowers and cried, and then cried again when she opened the envelope. She wanted me to tell her who her prayer partner was so she could thank her. I couldn't, but even if I could, I'm not sure I would have. Because I think that though what Maria did for Tamara was special, in some ways it is the normal next step on our discipleship journey when we are praying and worshiping together.

For the past few weeks, we have been talking about Discipleship Pathways, which are those ways that we can draw closer to God. A disciple, remember, is a follower, in this case a follower of Jesus. Disciples of Jesus set out on a path to become more and more like Jesus, especially when it comes to how we relate to God and one another. The past few weeks, we have talked about how serving God and others and how generosity and giving help us grow and mature in our spiritual lives, help us to become more like Jesus. Worship and prayer are another pathway to help us encounter the living God.

Prayer are worship are two of the ways we are most often drawn into life in the church. Worship attendance is often one of our basic litmus tests for Christians, right? Prayer is ubiquitous to the point that even people who don't know much about God or even go to church still admit to praying, especially in times of need. With this framing, they seem more like entry-level tasks of discipleship than life-transforming ways to deepen our discipleship. But worshiping together and praying together are not just for beginner Christians anymore than our Gospel lesson today about the greatest commandments to love God and neighbor are ones we check off our list of how to become a Christian when we get join the church.

Loving God and neighbor are easy to say, easy to understand, but hard to do. So it is with prayer and worship. We have scripture to tell us the words to say--- heck, my personal prayer life consists more of breathing than it does composing actual words in my head. We have alarm clocks to wake us up and cars to hop in and drive to get us to worship once a week. But to let prayer and worship change us? That is another story. But think about Maria and Tamara, how both of their lives were enriched through prayer and worship. They found a deeper connection to one another and to God.

This connection is something that we don't just need as Christians, but that we need as human beings. Aaron and I listened to a podcast about loneliness this week. Britain's prime minister Theresa May was quoted in the podcast as saying that in Britain, “Two hundred thousand older people have not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month.” Apparently Britain has appointed minister for loneliness because research suggests it is a growing health epidemic, as dangerous as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. It is a risk factor for premature mortality. In fact, they called it a public health crisis.¹

While listening to this podcast, I kept thinking about this pathway to discipleship. I'm sure that like me, you have heard people say that they worship just as well at home in the quiet or in the woods alone as they do in church. They can read the Bible by themselves, and they don't need anyone to pray for them. And while sometimes being alone is important, research like this reminded me at least that we are not created to be alone. And it follows that loving God, worshiping God, even praying are not things we are supposed to do alone either.

Of course, when we pray and worship together, we take a risk. You have heard C.S. Lewis' assertion that “prayer doesn't change God--- it changes me”? But we don't like change. We don't want to change. We want to God to listen to us and do what we want. But prayer and worship in community? That's risky. Too many moving parts. When Maria prayed for Tamara, she felt compelled to do something. She couldn't just go about her daily routine like nothing had changed after praying for Maria. Both of them entered deeper into discipleship, both found a closer connection with God, and began to live with the hope and expectation that God was working in and through them. Prayer and worship are not solitary activities. They must be done in community, for community.

Connection is important, to our health apparently, but also to our faith. Our connection to others makes possible our connection to God. Many of you know that Rev. Beth Richards and I went to a conference to learn about Stephen Ministry, a one-to-one caring ministry designed to be led not by pastors but by people in the pews. Calvary is starting up Stephen Ministry again as a way to help foster those connections. People who are going through a hard time--- grief, illness, loneliness, for instance--- are paired with a Stephen Minister who will pray for them and meet with them weekly just to listen. One of the people at the conference who was a Stephen Minister herself but had had her own Stephen Minister in the wake of a diagnosis said, “I knew God was with me, but I needed someone with skin on.”

This is what the discipleship pathway of worship and prayer does: point us to the God who is ever-present with us by putting us alongside others with skin on who God is working through. Does that mean that your prayer will always be transformative if you start praying with a friend? Does it mean that everytime you join us for worship here at Calvary you will immediately feel closer to God? No, not always. But being here, praying for and with each other, and worshiping together clears a path to allow us to move ever closer to that ever-present God.

So after sharing about this pathway, I really think you needed me to give you some homework to help you work on it throughout the week. I didn't cut up pieces of paper to have all of you exchange prayer partners, but you aren't leaving empty handed today. Today, you have prayer partners right there in your bulletin. Our list of new members. Take that page out of your bulletin and put it in your wallet, in your car, on your bedside or kitchen table. Put it somewhere to remind you to pray for each of these folks every day. Shake their hands today and remember their faces to say hi next week. Go online or call the office and look up their address and send them a welcome card. Who knows? Maybe you will find yourself more connected to God by connecting to one another in prayer.

To echo the words from our 1 Thessalonians reading today: Beloved, pray for us. Me, yourselves, the person sitting next to you in the pew today, and our new members. Pray daily. And show up here next week to see where God is leading each of us, drawing us ever closer in love. 

 

1The Loneliness Epidemic, accessed 27 January 2018, http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/01/23/the-loneliness-epidemic

Do Not Be Afraid, Mary

Scripture: Luke 1:26-38 (NRSV)

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Sermon:

Our theme for Advent comes from the words the messengers from God, the angels, be they Gabriel or a whole host, say when they appear to share the good news of Jesus' birth. Do not be afraid. Our world is a fearsome place, and we are fear-filled people, often for good reason. But the angels remind us that such fear can keep us from hearing and experiencing the good news that God is with us. Last week, we looked at the story of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist and cousin-in-law of Mary of Nazareth, Jesus' mother. His fear was so much a part of his identity he didn't believe the angel standing in front of him. This week, we are talking about Mary, and our fear that God has made a mistake and that nothing can ever change.

So as we delve into this story, let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks for the words of your messengers, and ask that they sink into our hearts today as we worship you. Amen.

Aaron and I returned from vacation just over a week ago. We went on a big European adventure for our thirtieth birthdays, spending most of our time in France, though we also spent a few days in Italy and an afternoon in Switzerland. We drove, well, Aaron did anyway, to get from place to place because we figured we would see more that way. Anytime we saw a really cool old church or old castle, we could just stop on a whim. Except every town in France has an old church or castle. That may be a slight exaggeration, but not by much. I distinctly remember at one point Aaron pointing out the window and saying, “Oh look. Another castle.” Now castles sometimes cost money to go inside, so we didn't always go in those. But churches are free. So we visited a lot of churches. And most of them, being Catholic, seem to be named Notre Dame, or Our Lady, in deference to the Mary we read about in our scripture today.

We saw so many statues, icons, and paintings of her in these churches, particularly of the moment our scripture today describes. She's always calm and serene, regal, usually reading a Bible or some kind of devotional in the Annunciation. Even if she appears small and child-like in stature, there is a calmness to her in these images that makes her seem not just older but otherworldly. And though we Protestants may complain about this veneration of Mary of Nazareth sometimes, we too are guilty of relegating Mary to a pedestal of perfection. Because the more perfect we make her, the less we feel we can emulate her.

But when I read this scripture, I don't read this Mary as this meek, ethereal being. I think she's kind of snarky. Whereas Zechariah cowered in fear and clung to disbelief when faced with Gabriel, she raises an eyebrow and points out the flaw in God's plan. In fact, reading back over the scripture in preparation for this sermon, I had trouble figuring out where such a delightfully self-confident young woman was fearful. Notice the words: perplexed, not fearful: But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Zechariah is terrified when he meets the angel. The shepherds are as well. Mary is perplexed. She is confused and has no qualms about asking the angel to explain himself. That is a bit different than fear.

It is the angel himself who brings up fear. Writer and theologian, Frederick Buechner imagines the scene of Mary encountering the angel from the angel's point of view, and in so doing uncovers an interesting understanding of where that fear comes from. He writes:

She struck him as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child. But he had been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. “You mustn't be afraid, Mary,” he said. As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn't notice that beneath the great golden wings, he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of Creation hung on the answer of a girl.¹

Maybe the fear in this story is not Mary's fear at all. Maybe it's Gabriel's. From scripture, we do not know much about angels, what they think. We don't know that they experience emotions like fear. We only know that they share God's message with us. But I, like Buechner, wonder. Was anyone in heaven talking to God, throwing ideas about redemption back and forth. And did anyone think the whole incarnation thing was a good idea? As Buechner points out, “the whole future of creation hung on the answer of a girl.”

One of the beautiful images of Mary of Nazareth that we encountered in France was a Mary with an intricate and expensive crown on her head and royal bearing. This is not the Mary Gabriel encountered. Mary was just a young woman, girl really. She was nothing special in the conventional sense, certainly not someone who had proven herself responsible or worthy or anything else we might consider a requirement to bear God's own self into a world filled with violence, pain, and suffering. How could one young girl bring God into this kind of world?

So maybe the fear in this story is not just Gabriel's. Maybe it's ours. Fearing that God has made a mistake. A mistake to choose a young, poor, brown woman to bear God’s own self. A mistake for God to put on flesh and dwell among us at all. A mistake to keep loving us. A mistake to keep offering us opportunities to transform the world.

Most of us, though, would never admit that we thought God would make a mistake. But we act like we do. We throw up our hands and say, “I don't know what you're trying to do, God, seems a little off, and nothing we do is ever going to change anything anyway.” And so we don't. Even with angels before us, sharing God's plan, more often than not we don't say yes, as Mary did. More often than not, we have a list of reasons why God's plan wouldn't work. We want a total do-over, to wipe the slate clean. We've given up on the world as it is. We believe changing it is impossible.

But Mary didn't. She asked questions, of course. “How can this be?” she asked, eyebrow still arched in confusion. Almost like she's saying to the angel, “You know there's a pretty big problem with your plan, so how are you going to get around that?” But when the angel answered her, she was in. Because she believed the angel. Nothing is impossible with God. This mess that our world is in is not irredeemable. God uses us, maybe not to bear Jesus in the same way that Mary did, but God uses us to bear God's self, to bring light and love into a hurting world, and to work for the kingdom that will have no end.

Now, I should admit to you that I had a rough week. I found myself crying or clenching my teeth in rage whenever I turned on the news and heard something about politics. On Friday, I read a powerful letter about moral bankruptcy in our country and in the church that made me wonder if we should just shut everything down. And then I came back to this sermon. I came back to Mary of Nazareth and her unwillingness to let fear turn to disbelief and disbelief turn to apathy. When God said, “Will you do this with me?” She said, “Here I am. Let's go.”

And so, even though the news is filled with stories of morally bankrupt leaders, I began to think of other stories, stories like Mary's, of people who have not given into despair but instead transform the world by saying, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.” I want to share one such story with you.

Tarana Burke is a name that has come up recently in the news.² She is the founder of the Me Too campaign ten years ago, recently taken up on social media and exploded. An actress used this campaign, writing, “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote 'Me too.' as a status we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” The hashtag exploded everywhere and got people talking about the epidemic of sexual violence in the country, and even creating cultures in some places where that violence is no longer tolerated. Tarana said that the campaign evolved out of her own experience. She said the simple words, “Me too,” are so powerful because someone said that to her. She is a survivor, as well, and those two words helped her in her healing, and so she has been able to help others in their healing. We still have far to go, so far it may seem daunting and impossible. And in some ways it seems useless, as some senators are being forced to step down over allegations of harassment but others are possibly getting ready to be voted in regardless of similar acusations. How easy it would be to let our fear that nothing will ever change, our fear that we are powerless keep us from breaking the silence! But Tarana didn't let that fear keep her locked in shame. She spoke out, and through her campaign and survivors sharing with survivors, she shared God with a hurting world.

Now perhaps it's not exactly a fair comparison, to say that either Mary of Nazareth or Tarana Burke's stories are about a simple response of hope in the face of fear and despair. After all, Mary's “Here am I” launched her into a pregnancy outside of marriage and a motherhood that would lead to watching her son die on a cross. Tarana Burke's “me too” has deepened her organizing work with hurting people in hurting places. You can't say, “me too” and go back to life as usual. But so often we think that if it isn't something big, it isn't going to make a difference, so why even bother? Mary's and Tarana's stories show that even simple words can be transforming in big, though difficult, ways.

Do you know of other Mary of Nazareth stories? Of people who refuse to let the fear that nothing will ever change and God's plans are crazy keep them from working with God anyway? Perhaps you may know one from history, like Harriet Tubman, or maybe from watching television and hearing of peacemakers like Malala Yousafzai, or maybe you know someone from church or school or work who has in some way brought God into the world. Find those people. Become those people. Yes, our God might seem pretty crazy at times. But, as the angel Gabriel said to Mary, nothing is impossible with God. Let's jump into the possibility together. 

 

1Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures, as quotes in Maria LaSala, “Mary's Choice: What the Annunciation Story Tells Us About Moral Agency,” 19 December 2011, https://rewire.news/article/2011/12/19/marys-choice/.

2See 17 October 2017 accessed 9 December 2017, https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/17/meet_tarana_burke_the_activist_who. See also Tarana Burke, “The Inception, Just Be Inc., accessed 9 December 2017, http://justbeinc.wixsite.com/justbeinc/the-me-too-movement.

Leaning into God: Living by Faith

A sermon for Calvary UMC right before Reformation Sunday.

Scripture: Romans 1:16-17,3:21-31 (NRSV)

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”

…

But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks for your wisdom and ask that you move among us to open our hearts to receive that wisdom. Speak to us this morning through the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts. Amen.

October is a wonderful month, and October this year is very special. It started with a very important birthday of my own, and it is ending with a very important anniversary--- 500 years since the Protestant Reformation began. One of those days may be a bigger deal historically than the other. But anyway, this month we are celebrating with a sermon series on the important themes of the reformation that continue to help us reform today. Last week, Pastor Steve preached on God's sovereignty, a much needed message in the midst of the chaos that sometimes seems overwhelming. Today we will talk about another key theme: living by faith.

Faith is one of those words we use a lot without being too clear on what it means. Sometimes we use it to mean trust. I have faith in the new directors that the next Star Wars movie will be good. Or, perhaps more relevant for us in church today, we have faith that God is at work in the world. Sometimes we use faith to mean believing in what we can't see. Hebrews 11:1 is one of the more famous Biblical definitions: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Belief in heaven, for example, or the resurrection of Jesus. And faith is those things. But I think the definition of faith we often forget, the one that Paul speaks of in our scripture today, is more than trust, more than belief. Faith is the ability to open ourselves to receive the gift of grace God has already offered to us.

Martin Luther, the German monk who lit the tinder that began the Protestant Reformation five hundred years ago, became obsessed with the concept of faith.¹ Luther was a monk, faith was his job. He was trained in the faith, immersed in scripture. And still, he doubted. He felt distant from God, sure his sins could never be forgiven and he would find himself eternally punished. He sought to discover what good works could cleanse him. And yet, still he felt distant, and he began to see how the payment of indulgences that were created to help assuage people of their guilt and give them a way to atone for their sins prevented people from truly connecting with God. It wasn't until he discovered this passage in Romans that we read today, let it sink into his heart, that he realized he had gotten faith all wrong. In reading how the righteous will live by faith, he felt the “burden of his soul” begin to roll away.² He knew he no longer had to earn his salvation. That God has done the work. He had only to open himself to God and receive the gift of grace.

Luther preached this good news of faith his whole life. The Church was Reformed, and for five hundred years we have experienced the peace and joy that comes with the assurance that God loves us and forgives us, right? Well, apparently, this ability to walk by faith is more difficult than it appears. Though it ought to bring us relief, though it ought to feel for us like we have strong, comforting arms wrapped around us in love, too often we want to be in control. Believing we can earn our own salvation means that we have some control, that we don't have to rely on God after all. If we check the right things off a list, or if we pay the right amount of money, we can control our fate. We can earn God's love.

Only, have you tried to earn someone's love before? How did it work out for you? But we still do it all the time. This is not a problem of the medieval Catholics, my friends. Even today we find it easier to clench our fists in control than we do to open our hands to receive.

Two hundred years after Luther nailed 95 theses about how we are made right with God through our faith not through our works, John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, was also struggling with his faith. John Wesley was the son of a preacher. He experienced a miracle as a young child being saved from a fire. He started a club in college with his brother and other friends that earned them the name Methodist because their practice of faith was so regulated, scheduled, methodical. He became a missionary, crossing the Atlantic to preach to people in Georgia in early 1736. He was on board a ship bound for the Georgia colony when a ferocious storm shredded the main sail and flooded the decks. Many of the English passengers aboard screamed in terror that they would soon be swallowed by the deep. But a group of Moravian missionaries from Germany calmly sang throughout the squall. They were unafraid of death, an astounded John Wesley later recounted in his journal. But it wasn't until two years later on May 24 that Wesley, back in England, discouraged by the path his life had taken, and miserable, stumbled into a Moravian society meeting. He would never have gone if he did not remember the calm singing on the ship two years before. That evening someone read from Luther's Preface to the Epistle to Romans. About 8:45 p.m., he writes, “while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Wesley realized that as much as he tried, he could not control God's love for him. It is a free gift. The Moravians he saw on that boat understood that gift. They found peace even when it was difficult because they were secure in God's love for them. They knew God was with them through the storm. They didn't have to compete for God's affections, or try desperately to get God's attention. Their hands were open, and they trusted God.

I myself have been try to unclench my hands and open myself to receive God. As I have mentioned to you before, I might not be the most organized person in my everyday life, but I have a plan. Graduate college, graduate seminary, get a job, get married, get ordained, have kids...only that last piece hasn't worked so well for me. Three years of trying, two miscarriages, and decreasing hope. Last year, I lamented to a friend that hope hurts too much. That I don't trust hope. And so she told me not to focus on hope. She said, focus on faith. Lean into God in troubled times, stop trying to control everything, and look for the good things in life. Seek the gifts instead of just the things you are missing. Around the same time, someone gave me a simple gift, a candle in a jar with the words, “Faith does not make things easy--- it makes them possible.” And for a year, I have lit that candle and prayed. I have tried to lean into God when I am feeling bitter and hurt and lost. I have given thanks when I don't really want to because there is always something to be thankful for. I have tried to let go of all the “shoulds” I have in my life. This should have happened. And instead I have tried to see God beside me and receive not the grace I think I should receive, but the grace I already have just for being a child of God.

Now, Wesley still struggled with doubt, and so did Luther, and I certainly will too. Wesley wondered why he wasn't more joyful sometimes. Reformation is a constant process, which I hope you will find through this sermon series. Faith is a journey. It is something we have to live by.

I don't know that one day I will wake up and lean into God naturally, always seeing the beauty and possibility in every day. Luther and Wesley didn't. But in those moments they did, in those moments I do, that is what it looks like to live by faith.

So in what ways do you clench your hands, telling God that you know a better way of doing things, or simply unable to believe that God could love you of all people? And what can help you to open your hands ever wider to receive the gift of grace God offers us? My prayer for all of us is that we can continue to reform our own hearts, that we may live by faith.

1Marin E. Marty, Ocober 31, 1517: Martin Luther and the Day that Changed the World (Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2016), 19 and 23.

2“We Live By Faith- Romans 1,” 1 June 2005, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, accessed 14 October 2017, https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/we-live-by-faith-romans-1/.

Lombriz of Grace

Another sermon for Calvary UMC in Frederick.


Scripture: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (NRSV)

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!”

…

“Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

Sermon: Lombriz of Grace

Let us pray:
Patient teacher, help us to listen to scripture, the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts. When you tell us many things in parables, open our hearts to receive the word of the kingdom of God, and to live into that kingdom. Amen.

I hope you all will get to meet my grandfather. He and his girlfriend like to travel bit together, so they might come by one Sunday. He doesn’t quite get the whole preacher thing despite the fact that his daughter and granddaughter are pastors. But he dutifully brags about me anyway. That’s what grandparents are supposed to do after all! One of the things he brags about most, though, is about how many places I have traveled to. He always says, “Tell Ruby again how many countries you've been to!” And sometimes, if he wants to tease me, he'll say, “And how many of those trips did you go on for free?” Because most of the trips I raised money for either through missions boards or research grants. And frankly, if someone offers to send me somewhere, I will go. For instance, my last year of college, I took a year-long class on agriculture and politics in Venezuela just so I could go to Venezuela.

Now, I explained last week that Aaron and I are from the country; we grew up around farms and helped our parents garden, but I am not a huge fan of dirt--- or rather worms. I won’t even eat gummy worms. But, as it turns out, dirt and worms are actually a big part of agriculture, even in Venezuela. Taking this class about Venezuela was great, and going to Venezuela was even better, but at one point on the trip, we were standing in this huge pavilion positioned near the top of a mountain, listening to one of our hosts giving a lecture in Spanish about worms. In this pavilion they had huge troughs where they put a combination of manure and dry coffee husks or paper with rice inoculated with a beneficial fungus that prevents disease. They threw some worms in, the worms ate the mixture and secreted the resulting compost that was then taken to the fields. Underneath the troughs, they collected the juices that dripped through the dirt and they bottled it up. Apparently it is really good to then pour on top of the soil or spray on the leaves of plants and stuff. So, here I was, a little grossed out by all these worms, listening to this guy talk about worms in Spanish and throwing some political teachings about socialism in there too, wondering what the heck I signed up for.

I also should confess, that sometimes I feel that way when I read some of Jesus’ teachings. What the heck is this Christian discipleship thing I signed up for? Look at this parable. Jesus shares the parable, and, in a rare teaching moment, also interprets it for us. The seeds are the word of the kingdom, he says, meaning the kingdom of heaven, the world of goodness and mercy that God intends for us. The soil is our hearts. He doesn’t tell us who the sower of the seeds is, so we’ll come back to that. Once he explains what the seed is, he gives us four types of soil, or people’s hearts. He says that some people hear about the kingdom of heaven, but they don’t understand it. Rather than having time to ruminate on it, instead the devil snatches it away. It’s as though they never experienced God’s love at all. Then there are people who receive the word of God, perhaps they start going to church or a Bible study or AA, but as soon as trouble comes their way, they let go of the word they have received, angry that they are still struggling. Bitterness and anger don’t just define them for a season, but shrivel them up until they turn away from God. Still others hear about the kingdom of heaven, start to seek it, but choose wealth and other cares of the world instead. It is the good soil that we want our hearts to be like--- soil so healthy that the harvest is beyond our wildest imaginations and we find ourselves doing mission and studying scripture and inviting others into our community. These hearts make up for the failings of the other hearts, and ending with the abundant harvest leaves us without worry for the future.

Most of us have heard this parable many, many times. So you might be confused about why it makes me wonder what I signed up for. But here is my question: how many of us can say our hearts are that good soil, healthy soil, all the time? What about all the people I love who are like the hard-packed path: people who just never grew up in church and never quite get what’s so good about Jesus or church or the Bible? Or who did grow up in church and were treated so poorly by people calling themselves Christians that they just cannot let those seeds take root? Will they remain that hard-packed path forever? And what about those times I myself feel like the rocky ground, that all the goodness God has showed me withers under the bitterness in or busyness of life? Can I and people like me never become good soil again? Sometimes when you start asking questions of scripture, you begin to wonder if it really is such good news after all.

But then I remembered standing on that mountain in Venezuela listening to a guy talk passionately about worms. Before learning about vermicompost, I assumed the quality of soil was fixed. Rocky soil will always be rocky. Certain weeds or thorns can never be gotten rid of. Missing or depleted nutrients can never be reintroduced. The soil was created that way and thus it shall always be, right? Wrong. Soil can be transformed. Adding compost to soil, fertilizer, or worms--- you can buy thousand-count red wrigglers in packs for vermicompost in case you were interested--- these are ways you can add nutrients back into tired or thin soil, give it a boost to help nourish healthier plants. Can all soil become good soil? Probably not, and definitely not without time or work. But soil quality can be improved. Just as our own love for God can grow and transform us.

So there is good news in this passage. It’s just such news involves work. We can become good soil through the simple acts of being in community, praying, reading scripture, and serving one another in mission. It may be a long process, even worms cannot transform soil overnight, but it can be done. And then that soil that may have been too inviting to the birds, or too rocky, or too thorny, might slowly be transformed until it can bring forth grain, growing up and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.

Remember who the sower represents, after all. Sowing seeds is an ancient way to farm, but people hearing Jesus tell this story would not be picturing a rich person but rather a poor farmer, a tenant farmer who can only eke out a living. Such a person would want to sow wherever the best possibility of a harvest would be, not on a path where birds could eat the seed, or on rocky soil, or somewhere where there was a weed infestation! But the sower did sow seed all over those places, extravagantly, as though there was an unlimited supply.¹ Do you know anyone so extravagant? Jesus, perhaps. You know, the guy who fed five thousand people with some bread and fish, who could heal people if they just brushed up against his clothing, who stood up to the might of Empire and the power of evil to show us the way of love.

If this is the one who sows the seeds, then this one can help us transform our at times thin and pitiful soil to reap a harvest that you would not believe, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty. Jesus’ audience that day, would consider a twofold harvest to be a good one. And instead their ears hear a story about a sower who throws seed and reaps and abundant harvest. It was yet another story that reminded them and should remind us that, with God, all things are possible. Maybe that first time we hear the word, it will not take root in us. Sometimes we have to talk about it, share it with others, pray about it until we finally get it. But God can help transform the kind of soil we are, so that we will bear fruit of the kingdom of God, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.

I want to end with a prayer written by a pastor on a beautiful blog called Unfolding Light. Let us pray:

Sower God, what hard-worn paths of habit, what packed-down roads drivennness have we trod out across our lives, ruts that do not receive your seed? Soften them.
What birds of desire snatch up your seed before it roots in us? Calm them.
What shallow, rocky soil lies in our hearts, what refusal to open our depths and surrender? Loosen us.
What thorns of bitterness choke your grace? Let them wither, all of them.
And where is your lovely soil in us— humble, human hummus— thick with holy rot and death, rich with all that has failed and fallen, crawling with the secret worms of grace that give life in the dark earth that we are? 

Find those places, fall upon us, sink in, and flourish. Amen.²

In this time of dedication, pray on those worms of grace.


1Some of this was inspired by Sarah Dylan Breuer, “God is a Foolish Farmer: A Farewell Sermon for St. Martin's,” Proper 10 Year A, 6 July 2005, Sarah Laughed: Dylan's Lectionary Blog, accessed 11 July 2017, http://www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/2005/07/proper_10_year_.html.


2Edited for first person plural rather than singular. Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Sowing,” 12 July 2017, Unfolding Light, accessed 15 July 2017, https://www.unfoldinglight.net/reflections/2232pzkreec8354mnsjkp99ywa9bg6.