Exodus 1:8-2:10
“Call the Midwives”
Preached Sunday, August 27, 2023
In 2012, the BBC, the British Broadcasting System, released a new show that over a decade later is still going strong: “Call the Midwife.” Has anyone seen it? Hands? Well, I highly recommend it - you can stream it on Netflix. Based on a real memoir, the show focuses on a group of midwives and nuns who live and work out of a convent in East London, in the poorest neighborhoods. The nuns are part of a nursing order, called to serve the last and the least who otherwise could not afford medical care. Young midwives partner with them to offer much needed services. The first season takes place in 1957, in the post World War II baby boom, when 80 to 100 babies were being born monthly in the East London neighborhood of Poplar alone. The show has not been afraid to touch on a wide range of social issues that would have plagued the historic residents of this neighborhood: miscarriage and stillbirths, abortion and unwanted pregnancies, birth defects, illness and epidemics, poverty and prostitution, racism and prejudice, abuse and a whole myriad of things. At times it can be heavy and challenging viewing. But the heart of the show comes from how the midwives and nuns respond in the face of all this: with courage, compassion, mercy, and love. The midwives are a steadfast presence of compassion to the residents - even in the face of societal pressures and norms, they embody the love of Christ to all they meet. Every episode, amidst the pain, focuses on some sort of love in the midst of the hardships of their world - of our world.
Today’s reading from Exodus could have been an episode of Call the Midwife except in Biblical Egypt rather than 1950’s East London.
It was not a safe time for babies to be born. Especially if they were male Hebrew children. There were two midwives, Puah and Shiphrah. Now, midwives, their job is to assist in birth. To be there for the baby and mother. To aid in the entering of life in this world. And the king of Egypt, the Pharaoh, called Shiphrah and Puah to him and he told them to act against that desire to bring life into this world, their job “The King said to the midwives…When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live."
To be clear, this was a direct order from their ruler, from the government, one that they risked their lives to disobey. But they feared God more than they feared their king and so they directly disobeyed, letting the male children live.
And of course this did not go unnoticed by the king so he called Puah and Shiphrah back before him and he said, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?" And these two women, I love their response, they reach down deep and draw on their courage and intelligence, and outright lie to pharaoh. They say, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” And then the text says that God blessed Puah and Shiphrah. I love this cause…yes, they lied or at least twisted the truth, and they certainly didn’t obey earthly orders, but this is a story that shows what God values. Over legalistic truth-telling and rule-following, God values compassion, justice, and saving lives.
The story in our reading continues to highlight women who acted defiantly against oppression, evil, and violence. Using courage, ingenuity, kindness, and compassion to protect the helpless. When Pharoah then orders anyone to kill a young baby Hebrew boy upon sight, Moses’s mother hid him for three months. I can barely imagine how hard this was, physically, mentally, emotionally. The first three months are what we now call the fourth trimester where the baby is still fully dependent upon the mother or caretaker to survive, just as they were inside the womb. And the mother too is in a state of recovery, still flooded with hormones, still bleeding, still barely functioning as a human outside the caretaker role. It’s a time when fear can be so front and center in the brain, and she displayed great courage and love, against all the odds, hiding and protecting her son.
And then, when it came to the time where she knew she could no longer protect her kid any longer. She devised an ingenious plan to give him a fighting chance at survival. Male Hebrew children were, under order of the King, to be put into the Nile to die. She put him in the Nile but in a basket with nothing but a prayer for his survival or perhaps a prayer that if he is to meet his death, for it to be swift and painless. I imagine every part of her was breaking under the weight of this decision. And so she sends her daughter to do what she cannot, to watch over him as he goes down the river.
And who should pick the basket up? The Pharaoh's daughter. Even though she was not a member of the Hebrew people, of this oppressed class - she still had a decision to make that would require courage to do the right thing - the thing of compassion, mercy, justice, and love. And she drew on that courage and her compassion and, in direct defiance of the most powerful man in the country, a man who would have had direct power over her life, she was courageous and compassionate and she let that child live. Not only did she let the child live, she let him nurse at the breast of his own mother - because of the courage of Moses’s sister to step forward, to dare to speak to Pharaoh’s daughter…and then, when he was older and done nursing, she adopted him as her own son.
Every single one of the women in today’s story resisted oppression and were faithful to God by refusing to be passive in the face of evil and injustice. Every single one of them displayed courage, ingenuity, kindness, compassion, mercy, love. At great risk from the powers that be, they still honored God by valuing what God values, by treating the least of these, and especially children, with compassion and kindness. Their small yet big acts that resisted oppression and violence and saved lives greatly pleased God. God would use their acts to bring justice to all the Hebrew people, God’s actions through Moses, the baby that these women collectively saved.
This is one of the great stories in our Scriptures. And yet, we might think, how does this apply at all to me today in the here and now? Or we might think, I could never do what the midwives and Moses’s mother and sister and Pharaoh’s daughter did - or maybe “thank God I don’t live in a world like that.” And I’d like to gently push back against those kinds of thoughts today. All these women in our story were just ordinary people, doing their jobs, in a world with so much hurt. And that could be said of us too. What these Biblical women did, all they did, is they responded to the world around them as God would have - with love, courage, compassion. They were the hands and feet of God. They were helpers. We too are called to respond to the world around us as God would - with love, courage, compassion. We too are called to be the hands and feet of God. We too are called to be helpers.
The late and great Presbyterian minister and children’s TV icon, Fred Rogers, famously said to the children watching his show: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” This is encouraging advice to give to children - look for the helpers. And after those horrible events we see on our news, I often see so many people sharing this quote on social media or on talk shows. And it can bring us comfort and we should look for the helpers. And, beyond that, we are called to BE the helpers. We are called to be the midwives. Those people that help birth God’s love, compassion, and justice. Those who are called to usher in the Kingdom of God to the here and now. To do small yet big acts to resist oppression. Having the courage to always respond in the face of evil with love.
I want to take a step back for a moment and tie what we did during our children’s moment, praying over our kids and the start of the school year, and what we’ve been talking about in this sermon - to tie them together.
In a little bit, after the sermon and during our prayer time, I am going to pray more specifically for our children. We will pray for their hearts, that there is always room for more love. We will pray for their minds, not just that they have room for book knowledge but that they would learn from each other what it means to be human and to be kind. We will pray for their hands, that they would be hands that reach out to others, helping and caring. We will pray for their mouths that they will speak words of love that bring people together, offering connection and life. We will pray for their feet, that they would go to those in need. We will pray for their eyes, that they would see the needs of others and also see the beauty of God in this world. We will pray for their ears, that they will listen to all, especially those who don’t get heard much and that they would listen to the voice of God.
Our kids are living in a world that needs help. A world of violence, of hate, a world that has a pervasive sense of hopelessness.
And so as we pray for these things for them, we also need to pray for these things for ourselves. That we would show them what it looks like to follow God in this world. We will be role models for all our children, and not just our children through birth and blood or adoption, but all the children in this community and the world - that we would show them what it looks like to be a helper.
We would show them by always having room in our hearts for more love. We would show them by learning from others. We would show them by our hands reaching out to others in caring love. We would show them by our mouths, always speaking words of connection and love. We would show them by our feet going to those in need. We would show them by always seeing the last and the least and the beauty in the world. We would show them by listening to the voices of those the world ignores and oppresses. We would show them by listening to the voice of God.
By preaching this story from Exodus today, my goal is to lift up Shiphrah and Puah as role models for us. Role models of what it looks like to be brave and courageous for God in this world. Role models for what it looks like to refuse to be passive in the face of a hurting world. Role models for what it looks like to do what is within our power to show love and compassion. To lift up these role models from Biblical Egypt so that in 2023, we would be role models for our children. That they would look to us and see what it looks like to live for God. To see what it looks like to courageously, lovingly and compassionately work for justice in our world.
For we are called to be like the midwives, to be the helpers, to show our children a better way - God’s way, a way of compassion and love. May it be so.
Amen.
Monday, August 28, 2023
Monday, August 21, 2023
"Yikes! Why?" a sermon on Matthew 15:10-28
Matthew 15:10-28
“Yikes! Why?”
Preached Sunday, August 20, 2023
“Yikes! Why?”
That was my exact and immediate reaction after I read today’s Gospel lesson while worship planning. One of the first things I do when worship planning is I go to the assigned lectionary texts. The Revised Common Lectionary is an ecumenical tool for pastors and churches where every Sunday of the year has four assigned texts: an Old Testament, a Psalm, a New Testament, and a Gospel. And I always read the Gospel first because most of my preaching, but not all, comes from the Gospel texts. And so I read this week’s and I went “Yikes! Why?” and I immediately went to read the other texts thinking, “No way am I gonna touch that story with a 10 foot pole! I’ll preach on the Epistle or Psalm” But then, I caught myself because I wasn’t following the advice I would give other preachers or even other Christians wanting to understand God better. And that advice, as uncomfortable as it may be, is to dive deeper, to move toward the discomfort. For it is only in working through discomfort that we grow. If we stay comfortable with our lives, if we live in the comfort zone, we become static. We don’t change. Church growth experts say there is no such thing as a static church. If people think you are plateauing, you are actually in decline. And while that is about church growth, I think it’s true for all kinds of growth. As Christians and, especially as United Methodists, we believe in sanctification, that is that we are called to do the daily work, that through the grace of The Holy Spirit, we are continuously being transformed to become more and more Christ-like. To become more loving. To every day, little by little, bit by bit, better love God, better love neighbor, and better love self. In other words, we are called by Christ to change. And in order to change, we have to disrupt our comfort. We need to move into discomfort so that, on the other side of it, we can embrace the change that God calls us.
So, let’s get uncomfortable this morning. And I really mean it. I am going to retell part of this morning’s Gospel lesson and really try to communicate exactly how uncomfortable everyone was in the interaction we heard today. How Jesus, the disciples, the Canaanite woman, and us as the readers all experience deep discomfort in this story - and then the change that came out of that discomfort once they worked through it and the tension was resolved.
But real quick, before we do that, I want to talk about the first part of this Scripture lesson today. This whole bit of “it’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles you but what comes out of it.” Cause Matthew carefully crafted the two stories to illuminate each other. So the Pharisees were very concerned about following the law, about doing things the right way, checking all the correct boxes. Jesus and the Pharisees butt heads a lot. Actually, one of my favorite theories is that Jesus himself came out of the Pharisee movement because you criticize most harshly those you are a part of - United Methodists are surely proof of that. But that’s another sermon for another time. So he said it’s not about whether or not your hands are clean when you eat. And it’s not about what you eat. Two things that the Pharisees had strict rules about. But it’s about what comes out of your mouth that defiles you or makes you pure. So if you do all the quote on quote, right things but you demean others, don’t act with mercy and love, you are defiled. And let’s say you don’t do “all the right things” but you do welcome the stranger, offer mercy, show love and compassion…you are pure or right with God. Theologian and Pastor, Gary Charles says it like this: “For Jesus, religious purity and faithful discipleship are not measured ultimately by how many perfect attendance badges one earns for Sunday school or worship, how often one has read the Bible from cover to cover, or how much money one contributes to the church treasury. Purity and faithfulness are shown ultimately by how the church speaks and lives out the radical hospitality and love of Christ.” Basically, Jesus was arguing against a tradition, an institution, that was stuck, that had plateaued. That was comfortable doing things the way they had always been done, washing hands and following dietary laws but not changing in ways that showed justice, compassion, and mercy.
Okay, so that’s the background Matthew lays for Jesus’s extremely uncomfortable encounter with a woman, begging for mercy.
“Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.” Tyre and Sidon would have definitely been considered unwashed, dirty places. If a holy fence had been put up as to what and who and where was included in the religious tradition, Tyre and Sidon would have been on the other side of that fence. It was a place where an Israelite with any street sense wouldn’t walk alone.
And it is there that a Canaanite woman starts yelling at Jesus. Now, Matthew, right away, by singling out this woman as a Canaanite is communicating that she is not only an outsider but the enemy. In the time of Jesus, Canaanite was already an outdated term to describe someone. Theologians and preachers talking about this text often refer to her as the Syrophoenician woman - a term describing where she was from, her ethnicity. But probably of Canaanite descent. And the Canaanites were the historic and well-known enemy of the Hebrew people - but it wasn’t really used to describe people living in Jesus’s day…unless perhaps someone wanted to clearly mark someone as not only an outsider, but the worst of the outsiders. One of them. And the Syrophoenicians, the Canaanites, let’s just say that there were a lot of religious, ethnic, and racial stereotypes about them. Bigotry against them by the Israelites was well-known and often played a role in every interaction between an Israelite and a Canaanite. So this woman who was yelling at Jesus, she was not only an outsider, but her and her people were historic enemies. Now, as a woman and as a Syrophoenician, it was not a wise decision for her to start yelling at Jesus. It was not following decorum. It was not socially acceptable. And whatever backlash she encountered for yelling at Jesus, well, nowadays people might have said “she had it coming.”
Now, if someone was yelling at Jesus and his disciples as they walked through this region, well, they might expect some shouts of derision. “You don’t belong here!” “Leave!” or insults hurled their way. But the woman yelling at Jesus, she is not insulting them, she is pleading for Jesus’s help.
Because while it was not socially acceptable for her to yell at Jesus. And while it may have even been dangerous for her as a woman to yell at a group of men who would consider her an enemy, an easy target…there is one part of her identity that completely overrides the others. She is a Syrophoenician Canaanite, yes. She is a woman, yes. But she is also a mother. And her daughter, her daughter needs help. Her daughter needs healing. Her daughter is possessed by a demon. She is ill. And so this woman does what any loving mother would do, she sees an opportunity for her daughter to be healed and she takes it. She has obviously heard about Jesus, even in this unwashed, holy fenced off region of the Roman Empire. She has heard about Jesus and what he has done. He is a miracle worker. He has healed the sick. He has cast out demons. He is what she has been waiting for. The mother who is likely at the end of her rope, desperate for any solution, any treatment, any cure, any miracle for her daughter, she sees a glimmer of hope. She hears Jesus is passing by and she just goes for it, throwing caution to the wind.
She begins shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." EXCUSE ME, SIR, ISRAELITE, JESUS, HAVE MERCY ON ME! HEAL MY DAUGHTER! HELP ME! HELP ME! PLEASE! SON OF DAVID, PLEASE!”
And, I need to give you a warning in case you weren’t paying close attention to the Gospel reading this morning. This is where Jesus starts to not look so good. He does not come off as the good guy Jesus we have all come to expect.
So she’s shouting, have mercy on me! Please! Help me! Heal my daughter! And Jesus…ignores her. He gives her the silent treatment. The text says, “But he did not answer her at all.”
“And then the disciples start ragging on her. Their hearts were not moved by her cries for help. We might have expected all these men that we call saints, the disciples, those closest to Jesus, we might have expected them to say, “Jesus, listen to her, don’t you think you could heal her daughter? Don’t you think you could drive the demons out? Don’t you think you could help? You’ve done it before. It’s for her daughter. Have mercy on her.” But, no. That’s not what they say. They say, “Geesh, Jesus, all her shouting is giving me a headache. She won’t leave us alone and is just yelling, can’t you make her go away? She’s annoying us.”
To which Jesus replies, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” His answer is clear, I wasn’t sent to help this woman. My mission and ministry is for the Israelites, the Judeans, those who are the same religion as us - not the double outsider, enemy woman shouting at us.
It is then that she is quieted. Maybe she wondered, am I really not going to get this help for my daughter? This man, this miracle worker, he can change everything for me and my daughter. He can heal her. He can. But he won’t.
So this is when she is quieted. She stopped shouting and came and knelt before Jesus, prostrating herself, humbling herself, “Lord, help me.” Now, some here have said that her calling Jesus Lord was a sign that she believed in his Divinity. But the word used, directly translated, could be just “sir.” She’s simply asking for help from Jesus, knowing what he can do for her, what he can do for her daughter. “Lord, help me.” A final plea, a simple ask for a man who had cast out demons before.
And Jesus, it gets even worse, even more uncomfortable. He looks down at this woman who is begging at his feet, this desperate woman who just wants her daughter healed, and he says to her, “It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.”
Yikes! Did Jesus just…call this woman a dog? Yes, yes he did. And make no mistake about it, whether it was 2000 years ago or today, the implication of calling a woman a dog, and using any word remotely related to dog, like words I can’t and wouldn’t say in the pulpit…yeah. It’s just as insulting.
Jesus, what the heck!? Why are you being such a jerk? Or as my sermon is titled: “Yikes! Why?”
And here, the woman flips Jesus’s words back at him. She could have flipped him off and walked away. Honestly, I wouldn't have blamed her. But she KNOWS this man can heal her daughter. She knows it in every desperate bone in her body. And so she doesn’t give up. She says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” On one hand she is lowering herself, agreeing with Jesus’s description of her as a dog. On the other hand, she is staking her claim: I belong here. If not at the table then by it. And You. Can. Heal. My. Daughter.
To which…Jesus relents. He replies, “‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.”
At any time in that telling were you uncomfortable? I know I was. Because Jesus, who just argued with the Pharisees that they were stuck in their tradition. He said that it was what came out of a person’s mouth that made them unclean - not whether they washed their hands before eating. He said what mattered was how you treat people. How you show hospitality, love, mercy.
“Yikes! Why?”
Preached Sunday, August 20, 2023
“Yikes! Why?”
That was my exact and immediate reaction after I read today’s Gospel lesson while worship planning. One of the first things I do when worship planning is I go to the assigned lectionary texts. The Revised Common Lectionary is an ecumenical tool for pastors and churches where every Sunday of the year has four assigned texts: an Old Testament, a Psalm, a New Testament, and a Gospel. And I always read the Gospel first because most of my preaching, but not all, comes from the Gospel texts. And so I read this week’s and I went “Yikes! Why?” and I immediately went to read the other texts thinking, “No way am I gonna touch that story with a 10 foot pole! I’ll preach on the Epistle or Psalm” But then, I caught myself because I wasn’t following the advice I would give other preachers or even other Christians wanting to understand God better. And that advice, as uncomfortable as it may be, is to dive deeper, to move toward the discomfort. For it is only in working through discomfort that we grow. If we stay comfortable with our lives, if we live in the comfort zone, we become static. We don’t change. Church growth experts say there is no such thing as a static church. If people think you are plateauing, you are actually in decline. And while that is about church growth, I think it’s true for all kinds of growth. As Christians and, especially as United Methodists, we believe in sanctification, that is that we are called to do the daily work, that through the grace of The Holy Spirit, we are continuously being transformed to become more and more Christ-like. To become more loving. To every day, little by little, bit by bit, better love God, better love neighbor, and better love self. In other words, we are called by Christ to change. And in order to change, we have to disrupt our comfort. We need to move into discomfort so that, on the other side of it, we can embrace the change that God calls us.
So, let’s get uncomfortable this morning. And I really mean it. I am going to retell part of this morning’s Gospel lesson and really try to communicate exactly how uncomfortable everyone was in the interaction we heard today. How Jesus, the disciples, the Canaanite woman, and us as the readers all experience deep discomfort in this story - and then the change that came out of that discomfort once they worked through it and the tension was resolved.
But real quick, before we do that, I want to talk about the first part of this Scripture lesson today. This whole bit of “it’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles you but what comes out of it.” Cause Matthew carefully crafted the two stories to illuminate each other. So the Pharisees were very concerned about following the law, about doing things the right way, checking all the correct boxes. Jesus and the Pharisees butt heads a lot. Actually, one of my favorite theories is that Jesus himself came out of the Pharisee movement because you criticize most harshly those you are a part of - United Methodists are surely proof of that. But that’s another sermon for another time. So he said it’s not about whether or not your hands are clean when you eat. And it’s not about what you eat. Two things that the Pharisees had strict rules about. But it’s about what comes out of your mouth that defiles you or makes you pure. So if you do all the quote on quote, right things but you demean others, don’t act with mercy and love, you are defiled. And let’s say you don’t do “all the right things” but you do welcome the stranger, offer mercy, show love and compassion…you are pure or right with God. Theologian and Pastor, Gary Charles says it like this: “For Jesus, religious purity and faithful discipleship are not measured ultimately by how many perfect attendance badges one earns for Sunday school or worship, how often one has read the Bible from cover to cover, or how much money one contributes to the church treasury. Purity and faithfulness are shown ultimately by how the church speaks and lives out the radical hospitality and love of Christ.” Basically, Jesus was arguing against a tradition, an institution, that was stuck, that had plateaued. That was comfortable doing things the way they had always been done, washing hands and following dietary laws but not changing in ways that showed justice, compassion, and mercy.
Okay, so that’s the background Matthew lays for Jesus’s extremely uncomfortable encounter with a woman, begging for mercy.
“Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.” Tyre and Sidon would have definitely been considered unwashed, dirty places. If a holy fence had been put up as to what and who and where was included in the religious tradition, Tyre and Sidon would have been on the other side of that fence. It was a place where an Israelite with any street sense wouldn’t walk alone.
And it is there that a Canaanite woman starts yelling at Jesus. Now, Matthew, right away, by singling out this woman as a Canaanite is communicating that she is not only an outsider but the enemy. In the time of Jesus, Canaanite was already an outdated term to describe someone. Theologians and preachers talking about this text often refer to her as the Syrophoenician woman - a term describing where she was from, her ethnicity. But probably of Canaanite descent. And the Canaanites were the historic and well-known enemy of the Hebrew people - but it wasn’t really used to describe people living in Jesus’s day…unless perhaps someone wanted to clearly mark someone as not only an outsider, but the worst of the outsiders. One of them. And the Syrophoenicians, the Canaanites, let’s just say that there were a lot of religious, ethnic, and racial stereotypes about them. Bigotry against them by the Israelites was well-known and often played a role in every interaction between an Israelite and a Canaanite. So this woman who was yelling at Jesus, she was not only an outsider, but her and her people were historic enemies. Now, as a woman and as a Syrophoenician, it was not a wise decision for her to start yelling at Jesus. It was not following decorum. It was not socially acceptable. And whatever backlash she encountered for yelling at Jesus, well, nowadays people might have said “she had it coming.”
Now, if someone was yelling at Jesus and his disciples as they walked through this region, well, they might expect some shouts of derision. “You don’t belong here!” “Leave!” or insults hurled their way. But the woman yelling at Jesus, she is not insulting them, she is pleading for Jesus’s help.
Because while it was not socially acceptable for her to yell at Jesus. And while it may have even been dangerous for her as a woman to yell at a group of men who would consider her an enemy, an easy target…there is one part of her identity that completely overrides the others. She is a Syrophoenician Canaanite, yes. She is a woman, yes. But she is also a mother. And her daughter, her daughter needs help. Her daughter needs healing. Her daughter is possessed by a demon. She is ill. And so this woman does what any loving mother would do, she sees an opportunity for her daughter to be healed and she takes it. She has obviously heard about Jesus, even in this unwashed, holy fenced off region of the Roman Empire. She has heard about Jesus and what he has done. He is a miracle worker. He has healed the sick. He has cast out demons. He is what she has been waiting for. The mother who is likely at the end of her rope, desperate for any solution, any treatment, any cure, any miracle for her daughter, she sees a glimmer of hope. She hears Jesus is passing by and she just goes for it, throwing caution to the wind.
She begins shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." EXCUSE ME, SIR, ISRAELITE, JESUS, HAVE MERCY ON ME! HEAL MY DAUGHTER! HELP ME! HELP ME! PLEASE! SON OF DAVID, PLEASE!”
And, I need to give you a warning in case you weren’t paying close attention to the Gospel reading this morning. This is where Jesus starts to not look so good. He does not come off as the good guy Jesus we have all come to expect.
So she’s shouting, have mercy on me! Please! Help me! Heal my daughter! And Jesus…ignores her. He gives her the silent treatment. The text says, “But he did not answer her at all.”
“And then the disciples start ragging on her. Their hearts were not moved by her cries for help. We might have expected all these men that we call saints, the disciples, those closest to Jesus, we might have expected them to say, “Jesus, listen to her, don’t you think you could heal her daughter? Don’t you think you could drive the demons out? Don’t you think you could help? You’ve done it before. It’s for her daughter. Have mercy on her.” But, no. That’s not what they say. They say, “Geesh, Jesus, all her shouting is giving me a headache. She won’t leave us alone and is just yelling, can’t you make her go away? She’s annoying us.”
To which Jesus replies, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” His answer is clear, I wasn’t sent to help this woman. My mission and ministry is for the Israelites, the Judeans, those who are the same religion as us - not the double outsider, enemy woman shouting at us.
It is then that she is quieted. Maybe she wondered, am I really not going to get this help for my daughter? This man, this miracle worker, he can change everything for me and my daughter. He can heal her. He can. But he won’t.
So this is when she is quieted. She stopped shouting and came and knelt before Jesus, prostrating herself, humbling herself, “Lord, help me.” Now, some here have said that her calling Jesus Lord was a sign that she believed in his Divinity. But the word used, directly translated, could be just “sir.” She’s simply asking for help from Jesus, knowing what he can do for her, what he can do for her daughter. “Lord, help me.” A final plea, a simple ask for a man who had cast out demons before.
And Jesus, it gets even worse, even more uncomfortable. He looks down at this woman who is begging at his feet, this desperate woman who just wants her daughter healed, and he says to her, “It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.”
Yikes! Did Jesus just…call this woman a dog? Yes, yes he did. And make no mistake about it, whether it was 2000 years ago or today, the implication of calling a woman a dog, and using any word remotely related to dog, like words I can’t and wouldn’t say in the pulpit…yeah. It’s just as insulting.
Jesus, what the heck!? Why are you being such a jerk? Or as my sermon is titled: “Yikes! Why?”
And here, the woman flips Jesus’s words back at him. She could have flipped him off and walked away. Honestly, I wouldn't have blamed her. But she KNOWS this man can heal her daughter. She knows it in every desperate bone in her body. And so she doesn’t give up. She says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” On one hand she is lowering herself, agreeing with Jesus’s description of her as a dog. On the other hand, she is staking her claim: I belong here. If not at the table then by it. And You. Can. Heal. My. Daughter.
To which…Jesus relents. He replies, “‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.”
At any time in that telling were you uncomfortable? I know I was. Because Jesus, who just argued with the Pharisees that they were stuck in their tradition. He said that it was what came out of a person’s mouth that made them unclean - not whether they washed their hands before eating. He said what mattered was how you treat people. How you show hospitality, love, mercy.
And then this woman comes along, this outsider enemy, and she is shouting, begging, pleading for mercy, for hospitality, for love. And Jesus…gives her the silent treatment and then insults her? Jesus, what!? Based on what you just said in your conversation to Peter about the Pharisees…you just made yourself unclean. You didn’t live up to your own standards. And everyone, everyone is deeply uncomfortable.
Jesus is uncomfortable as he is being pushed and shouted at.
The disciples are uncomfortable, not because of how Jesus acted, he acted like they’d expect a good rabbi to act toward a Canaanite woman. But they were uncomfortable because this woman wouldn’t stop yelling at them.
The woman was uncomfortable because she was putting herself out there to derision if not worse!
Now, we’ve covered the “yikes!” part of this interaction. But we haven’t quite covered the why.
Some say that Jesus was being a good Jewish rabbi, testing the seriousness and commitment of this outsider woman by making her prove herself.
Some say that Jesus was only pretending to be a jerk for the benefit of his disciples, to drive home his point he had just made in this argument with the Pharisees.
Some say that this interaction, and through working through his discomfort, actually changed Jesus’s understanding of the scope of his mission and ministry and who God sent him to save.
And for me, I am not 100 percent sure that we need to pick one of those three and be certain of it. Perhaps instead we need to work through the discomfort of the HOW it all happened and focus on the bigger why.
Because what we do know is that this marks a turning point in Jesus’s ministry where the circle is drawn wider. In today’s Gospel reading he goes from “I was sent only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel” to “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And then the Gospel of Matthew ends with “Go and make disciples OF ALL NATIONS.” That is a much bigger ministry and scope than the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And it includes Syrophoenician Canaanite women and their demon-possessed daughters. In fact, it includes all. Every nation.
Through working through discomfort, the understanding and scope of Jesus’s ministry was completely changed. Through pushing through discomfort, Jesus and this mother change everything. They draw the circle wider.
Thank you for diving deeper with me today. Thank you for working through discomfort with me. May this story embolden us to move toward our discomfort, knowing that on the other side of it, Jesus will do more for us and with us than we could ever imagine.
May it be so. Amen.
Jesus is uncomfortable as he is being pushed and shouted at.
The disciples are uncomfortable, not because of how Jesus acted, he acted like they’d expect a good rabbi to act toward a Canaanite woman. But they were uncomfortable because this woman wouldn’t stop yelling at them.
The woman was uncomfortable because she was putting herself out there to derision if not worse!
Now, we’ve covered the “yikes!” part of this interaction. But we haven’t quite covered the why.
Some say that Jesus was being a good Jewish rabbi, testing the seriousness and commitment of this outsider woman by making her prove herself.
Some say that Jesus was only pretending to be a jerk for the benefit of his disciples, to drive home his point he had just made in this argument with the Pharisees.
Some say that this interaction, and through working through his discomfort, actually changed Jesus’s understanding of the scope of his mission and ministry and who God sent him to save.
And for me, I am not 100 percent sure that we need to pick one of those three and be certain of it. Perhaps instead we need to work through the discomfort of the HOW it all happened and focus on the bigger why.
Because what we do know is that this marks a turning point in Jesus’s ministry where the circle is drawn wider. In today’s Gospel reading he goes from “I was sent only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel” to “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And then the Gospel of Matthew ends with “Go and make disciples OF ALL NATIONS.” That is a much bigger ministry and scope than the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And it includes Syrophoenician Canaanite women and their demon-possessed daughters. In fact, it includes all. Every nation.
Through working through discomfort, the understanding and scope of Jesus’s ministry was completely changed. Through pushing through discomfort, Jesus and this mother change everything. They draw the circle wider.
Thank you for diving deeper with me today. Thank you for working through discomfort with me. May this story embolden us to move toward our discomfort, knowing that on the other side of it, Jesus will do more for us and with us than we could ever imagine.
May it be so. Amen.
Monday, August 14, 2023
"I AM...Here" a sermon on Matthew 14:22-33
Matthew 14:22-33
“I AM…Here”
Preached Sunday, August 13, 2023
Allow me this morning to activate our Biblical imaginations and tell some stories. If you have heard them a hundred times, may they speak to you anew. If this is your first time, may you be blessed by the hearing.
And so…
In the beginning, God walked on the fresh ground of the newly formed Earth. And God, one with God’s new creation, got down on their hands and feet, and said “Let us make humankind in our image.” And God took the saliva of their mouth, spit into the dust until it was wet enough to be like clay and with the hands of an expert potter, shaped the first human out of the ground, lovingly and carefully molding the earth, until God had the first human called Adam, meaning, “Man of Dirt” or “Earth human.” And God, their eyes filled with love like a parent looking at their newborn baby for the first time, took a deep breath, leaned over Adam’s face, as if to give him a kiss and breathed life into his nostrils. And Adam’s lungs expanded and Adam was filled with life - life that came directly from the breath of God, the Spirit of God. And as Adam breathed that first breath, gasping, coming to life, the first thing he saw was God. In fact, the very first breath that the very first human breathed was the Spirit of God, the breath of God. And Adam may have turned to God and said, “Who are you?”
And that is a question that Moses asked God. Moses had been on the run from God and the run from who he was for a long time. A Hebrew man who was supposed to be murdered the moment he left his mother’s womb. And through the miraculous courage and audacity of midwives who lied to Pharaoh that Hebrew women gave birth before they could get there; through the reckless hope of his mother and sister to put him in a basket and send him down the river; through the kindness and nerve of Pharaoh's daughter to rescue him, in opposition of her father’s wishes…Moses was able to grow up, having nursed at his own mother’s breast while enjoying the privileges of being a member of Pharaoh's house. God had a purpose for Moses - and yet, Moses wandered far from that purpose. Killing a man and running away, exiling himself. He lived many years in the desert, away from all who knew him, who saved him, who had expectations for him. But while Moses may have been running from God, God was pursuing Moses, doing all he could to get his attention. And one of those days, God finally did, in the form of a burning bush. And in an encounter that Moses could hardly make sense of he asked God, he asked the burning bush, who ARE you? To which God replies: “I am who I am.” Or, in Hebrew, Yahweh.
Yahweh. Clergy and scholars have talked about how Yahweh, the name of God we call Yahweh is actually the - you read for this this world - the “tet·ra·gram·ma·ton” - the imprononcable name of God, the Hebrew letters YHWH, we have filled in the vowels to be able to say it, pronounce it, talk about it. But what it could have sounded like was this: *Breath in* *yah* “breath out” *weh* Yah - weh. Yah - weh. I AM…the God who is. The God who breathed life into the first human, the God of the burning bush, the God whose name we say…when we breathe.
And as long as we live, God is *with us* as inseparable from us as our breath, our very life. David marveled at this in Psalm 139, that there was no where he could go where God was not with him, from The Message paraphrase, hear this Psalm, and actually as you hear it, I’d invite you to shut your eyes and focus on your breath, God-with-you, present in every inhale and exhale:
“I’m an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and you’re there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can’t take it all in!
Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.
Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.”
God, you are breath-taking. And breath giving. Open your eyes if you shut them.
Paul echoes this sentiment in Romans, we heard it read here today:
“But the righteousness that comes from faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Hear it like this: Can we go and get the presence of God and wrangle it down here? Or up here? We can go to the farthest corners of the sky and the deepest parts of earth, the mountain tops or caves, heaven or hell, and can we get Christ and bring him back here? It’s actually an absurd question because, yes, God is there! There is no where we can go where Christ is not…but we do not need to go get Christ. We do not need to bring Christ to anywhere or anyone. Because Christ is already there. On our lips, in our hearts, and in our very breath. God is with us, wherever we are.
Okay, so far, thank you for indulging me in retelling and sharing these Scriptures with you, none of which are listed in the bulletin as the sermon text for today. And, for us to fully grasp today’s Gospel Lesson, the Good News that is being proclaimed today, I wanted to build this foundation, this understanding of the God who first lovingly breathed the breath of life into us, the God who is the great I AM. Yahweh. The God who knit us together in our mothers’ wombs, the God who is with us wherever we are, the God who is on our lips, in our hearts, and in our breath. And so, with that foundation, allow me to tell one more story of our faith.
The disciples and Jesus had just healed many people, preached and taught, fed the 5,000 plus. And it was time to get in the boat, cross the water, knowing that there were more people on the other side who needed the Good News of Jesus. But Jesus, man, he was a little tired and people-d out. So he said to the disciples, “I’ll meet up with you later - I gotta go take care of me and my soul first. I need to spend some time in prayer - I'll catch up with you.” And so he went and prayed - and as he went and prayed, the disciples went out on the boat and the waves and winds were stronger than they expected - and many of them were experienced fishermen after all so they must have been fairly strong. The waves kept pushing the boat further out than they meant to be. And so Jesus, instead of waiting, decided to go out to where the disciples were, meeting them where they were, walking on the water. But the disciples saw the shape of a man walking toward them, through the winds and the waves, a dark shape coming toward them and they were terrified and screamed, “It’s a ghost! We’re all going to die!!!! AHH!” Or, some version of that at least. But no sooner than the words had left their mouth, Jesus was immediately there with them, calling out to them, telling them to not be afraid. He said, “Take heart - it is I.” It is I. I want to interrupt my telling of the story for a moment to talk to you about the declaration, “It is I.” This is our common English translation of the Greek but a direct Greek translation of what Jesus says is not, “It is I.” But it is “I AM.” Take heart, do not be afraid…I AM. Now he was speaking Greek but the disciples, even amongst their fear and confusion in this moment, the waves and the winds, literal and metaphorical, even amidst the translation of Greek and Hebrew, or whatever language Jesus was speaking to them, would have heard the echo to the name of God. I AM. The name God gave to Moses at the burning bush. Yahweh. Yah-weh. And so, hearing this declaration of Divinity from who they now recognize to be Jesus, they take deep breaths, their fears calmed. And then Peter, bold yet bumbling, faithful but oh-so-human, Peter says, “Jesus, if that’s really YOU, if YOU are really I AM…then call me out on the water to you.” And Jesus says, “Come.” And Peter, he steps out and he is doing it, he is walking on water, his eyes are fixed on Jesus and he is DOING it…and then, a particularly nasty gust of wind, the spray from the waves hitting him in the face, and he takes his eyes off Jesus, he becomes afraid, and begins to sink. “HELP ME, Jesus!” He cries out. And IMMEDIATELY, before Peter has even drawn another breath, Jesus is there.
I want to state explicitly now what I have tried to imply through telling these stories together:
Our God is always as close to us as our next breath. The God who first breathed life into us. The God who is The Great I Am. That God who knows and loves us intimately, who fills us with life and breath and the God who there is no where we can go where God is not. Up to heaven or down to hell, God is there. And God is HERE. Wherever you are and whenever you are but breathing - God is there. And that nearness of our God extends to the God who is quick to come to our aid, who comes to us amidst our fears and the turbulence of this world, like Jesus came through the wind and the waves, and immediately reaches out a hand, always extending it towards us, our lifeline.
Now - I want to point out a paradox. Jesus is ALWAYS with us. Jesus comes to us, making us aware of his presence with us. *And* as Jesus told Peter to COME to him…we too are called to go where Jesus is.
But wait…how does that make sense? If Jesus is always with us - how can we go to where Jesus is? Yes, Jesus is always with us, as near as our next breath, and we are called to be brave and bold like Peter, even when we are bumbling and oh so human like Peter - called to keep our eyes on Jesus, and step out of the comfort of our boat, to come to Jesus, in a turbulent, and waved-battered world. To step out of the church building into our communities. To step out of our comfort zone into the unknown. And when we do so, we are not bringing Christ with us - cause Christ is already there…Have you ever heard of a place referred to as God-forsaken? Yeah, of course. That actually really grinds my gears cause it’s not God who has given up on those places, on those people who may be described in that way - it’s us, the followers of Christ who have gotten too scared by the waves and the winds of this world and instead of going bravely to those places, our eyes fixed on Jesus who is already there, we have gone back to the boat where it is comfortable.
God is ALWAYS with us, as close as our next breath. AND, that Spirit of God that is within us says to us “Come.” Come to where Jesus is. Out in the world. Out on the turbulent seas. Out where we can share the Love of God, the Love of I AM, the Love of God that is on our lips and in our hearts. There are so many people in our world who don’t know how close to them God already is. They need to be shown the love of God. They need to feel God’s Love, to take deep breaths, to realize they are cared for by the Great I Am…And how do they do that? They are shown by those who represent the Great I Am: and that’s us. As Paul says in Romans, “For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”
Take a deep breath.
In. Yah.
Out. Weh.
In. Yah.
Out. Weh.
God is with you. Now, get out of the boat. And go to where God is.
“I AM…Here”
Preached Sunday, August 13, 2023
Allow me this morning to activate our Biblical imaginations and tell some stories. If you have heard them a hundred times, may they speak to you anew. If this is your first time, may you be blessed by the hearing.
And so…
In the beginning, God walked on the fresh ground of the newly formed Earth. And God, one with God’s new creation, got down on their hands and feet, and said “Let us make humankind in our image.” And God took the saliva of their mouth, spit into the dust until it was wet enough to be like clay and with the hands of an expert potter, shaped the first human out of the ground, lovingly and carefully molding the earth, until God had the first human called Adam, meaning, “Man of Dirt” or “Earth human.” And God, their eyes filled with love like a parent looking at their newborn baby for the first time, took a deep breath, leaned over Adam’s face, as if to give him a kiss and breathed life into his nostrils. And Adam’s lungs expanded and Adam was filled with life - life that came directly from the breath of God, the Spirit of God. And as Adam breathed that first breath, gasping, coming to life, the first thing he saw was God. In fact, the very first breath that the very first human breathed was the Spirit of God, the breath of God. And Adam may have turned to God and said, “Who are you?”
And that is a question that Moses asked God. Moses had been on the run from God and the run from who he was for a long time. A Hebrew man who was supposed to be murdered the moment he left his mother’s womb. And through the miraculous courage and audacity of midwives who lied to Pharaoh that Hebrew women gave birth before they could get there; through the reckless hope of his mother and sister to put him in a basket and send him down the river; through the kindness and nerve of Pharaoh's daughter to rescue him, in opposition of her father’s wishes…Moses was able to grow up, having nursed at his own mother’s breast while enjoying the privileges of being a member of Pharaoh's house. God had a purpose for Moses - and yet, Moses wandered far from that purpose. Killing a man and running away, exiling himself. He lived many years in the desert, away from all who knew him, who saved him, who had expectations for him. But while Moses may have been running from God, God was pursuing Moses, doing all he could to get his attention. And one of those days, God finally did, in the form of a burning bush. And in an encounter that Moses could hardly make sense of he asked God, he asked the burning bush, who ARE you? To which God replies: “I am who I am.” Or, in Hebrew, Yahweh.
Yahweh. Clergy and scholars have talked about how Yahweh, the name of God we call Yahweh is actually the - you read for this this world - the “tet·ra·gram·ma·ton” - the imprononcable name of God, the Hebrew letters YHWH, we have filled in the vowels to be able to say it, pronounce it, talk about it. But what it could have sounded like was this: *Breath in* *yah* “breath out” *weh* Yah - weh. Yah - weh. I AM…the God who is. The God who breathed life into the first human, the God of the burning bush, the God whose name we say…when we breathe.
And as long as we live, God is *with us* as inseparable from us as our breath, our very life. David marveled at this in Psalm 139, that there was no where he could go where God was not with him, from The Message paraphrase, hear this Psalm, and actually as you hear it, I’d invite you to shut your eyes and focus on your breath, God-with-you, present in every inhale and exhale:
“I’m an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and you’re there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can’t take it all in!
Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.
Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.”
God, you are breath-taking. And breath giving. Open your eyes if you shut them.
Paul echoes this sentiment in Romans, we heard it read here today:
“But the righteousness that comes from faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Hear it like this: Can we go and get the presence of God and wrangle it down here? Or up here? We can go to the farthest corners of the sky and the deepest parts of earth, the mountain tops or caves, heaven or hell, and can we get Christ and bring him back here? It’s actually an absurd question because, yes, God is there! There is no where we can go where Christ is not…but we do not need to go get Christ. We do not need to bring Christ to anywhere or anyone. Because Christ is already there. On our lips, in our hearts, and in our very breath. God is with us, wherever we are.
Okay, so far, thank you for indulging me in retelling and sharing these Scriptures with you, none of which are listed in the bulletin as the sermon text for today. And, for us to fully grasp today’s Gospel Lesson, the Good News that is being proclaimed today, I wanted to build this foundation, this understanding of the God who first lovingly breathed the breath of life into us, the God who is the great I AM. Yahweh. The God who knit us together in our mothers’ wombs, the God who is with us wherever we are, the God who is on our lips, in our hearts, and in our breath. And so, with that foundation, allow me to tell one more story of our faith.
The disciples and Jesus had just healed many people, preached and taught, fed the 5,000 plus. And it was time to get in the boat, cross the water, knowing that there were more people on the other side who needed the Good News of Jesus. But Jesus, man, he was a little tired and people-d out. So he said to the disciples, “I’ll meet up with you later - I gotta go take care of me and my soul first. I need to spend some time in prayer - I'll catch up with you.” And so he went and prayed - and as he went and prayed, the disciples went out on the boat and the waves and winds were stronger than they expected - and many of them were experienced fishermen after all so they must have been fairly strong. The waves kept pushing the boat further out than they meant to be. And so Jesus, instead of waiting, decided to go out to where the disciples were, meeting them where they were, walking on the water. But the disciples saw the shape of a man walking toward them, through the winds and the waves, a dark shape coming toward them and they were terrified and screamed, “It’s a ghost! We’re all going to die!!!! AHH!” Or, some version of that at least. But no sooner than the words had left their mouth, Jesus was immediately there with them, calling out to them, telling them to not be afraid. He said, “Take heart - it is I.” It is I. I want to interrupt my telling of the story for a moment to talk to you about the declaration, “It is I.” This is our common English translation of the Greek but a direct Greek translation of what Jesus says is not, “It is I.” But it is “I AM.” Take heart, do not be afraid…I AM. Now he was speaking Greek but the disciples, even amongst their fear and confusion in this moment, the waves and the winds, literal and metaphorical, even amidst the translation of Greek and Hebrew, or whatever language Jesus was speaking to them, would have heard the echo to the name of God. I AM. The name God gave to Moses at the burning bush. Yahweh. Yah-weh. And so, hearing this declaration of Divinity from who they now recognize to be Jesus, they take deep breaths, their fears calmed. And then Peter, bold yet bumbling, faithful but oh-so-human, Peter says, “Jesus, if that’s really YOU, if YOU are really I AM…then call me out on the water to you.” And Jesus says, “Come.” And Peter, he steps out and he is doing it, he is walking on water, his eyes are fixed on Jesus and he is DOING it…and then, a particularly nasty gust of wind, the spray from the waves hitting him in the face, and he takes his eyes off Jesus, he becomes afraid, and begins to sink. “HELP ME, Jesus!” He cries out. And IMMEDIATELY, before Peter has even drawn another breath, Jesus is there.
I want to state explicitly now what I have tried to imply through telling these stories together:
Our God is always as close to us as our next breath. The God who first breathed life into us. The God who is The Great I Am. That God who knows and loves us intimately, who fills us with life and breath and the God who there is no where we can go where God is not. Up to heaven or down to hell, God is there. And God is HERE. Wherever you are and whenever you are but breathing - God is there. And that nearness of our God extends to the God who is quick to come to our aid, who comes to us amidst our fears and the turbulence of this world, like Jesus came through the wind and the waves, and immediately reaches out a hand, always extending it towards us, our lifeline.
Now - I want to point out a paradox. Jesus is ALWAYS with us. Jesus comes to us, making us aware of his presence with us. *And* as Jesus told Peter to COME to him…we too are called to go where Jesus is.
But wait…how does that make sense? If Jesus is always with us - how can we go to where Jesus is? Yes, Jesus is always with us, as near as our next breath, and we are called to be brave and bold like Peter, even when we are bumbling and oh so human like Peter - called to keep our eyes on Jesus, and step out of the comfort of our boat, to come to Jesus, in a turbulent, and waved-battered world. To step out of the church building into our communities. To step out of our comfort zone into the unknown. And when we do so, we are not bringing Christ with us - cause Christ is already there…Have you ever heard of a place referred to as God-forsaken? Yeah, of course. That actually really grinds my gears cause it’s not God who has given up on those places, on those people who may be described in that way - it’s us, the followers of Christ who have gotten too scared by the waves and the winds of this world and instead of going bravely to those places, our eyes fixed on Jesus who is already there, we have gone back to the boat where it is comfortable.
God is ALWAYS with us, as close as our next breath. AND, that Spirit of God that is within us says to us “Come.” Come to where Jesus is. Out in the world. Out on the turbulent seas. Out where we can share the Love of God, the Love of I AM, the Love of God that is on our lips and in our hearts. There are so many people in our world who don’t know how close to them God already is. They need to be shown the love of God. They need to feel God’s Love, to take deep breaths, to realize they are cared for by the Great I Am…And how do they do that? They are shown by those who represent the Great I Am: and that’s us. As Paul says in Romans, “For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”
Take a deep breath.
In. Yah.
Out. Weh.
In. Yah.
Out. Weh.
God is with you. Now, get out of the boat. And go to where God is.
Amen.
Monday, August 7, 2023
"Eat Your Fill" a sermon on Matthew 14:13-21
Matthew 14:13-21
“Eat Your Fill”
Preached Sunday, August 6, 2023
Listen to the first verse of this hymn, I am gonna ask you to come in on the second:
“Come to the table of grace, come to the table of grace, this is God’s table it’s not yours or mine, come to the table of grace.”
You’ve heard how it goes, now replace the word grace with peace and sing and clap with me, it’s okay if it’s a little clumsy.
“Come to the table of peace, come to the table of peace, this is God’s table, it’s not yours or mine, come to the table of peace.”
Now replace peace with love.
“Come to the table of love, come to the table of love, this is God’s table, it's not yours or mine, come to the table of love.”
One more time, this time use the word joy.
“Come to the table of joy, come to the table of joy, this is God’s table it’s not yours or mine, come to the table of joy.”
The rest of this sermon - I’d love you to hear it, to be challenged by it, inspired by it, to realize more deeply God’s love for you through it…and, if you stop here, that hymn says it all - THIS is God’s table, it’s not yours or mine, and it is a table of grace, peace, love, and joy. And, God invites ALL to come to the table to feast and have their fill - of bread and of Christ.
In the United Methodist Church, one of our most unique, distinctive practices and theology is that of the Open Table. And every time that I preside at this table, you will hear me share an invitation to that Open Table. And it sounds something like this:
Here in the United Methodist Church we practice an Open Table. That means it’s not our table, it’s not The United Methodist Church’s table, it’s God’s table and all are welcome here. You do not have to be a member of our church, you do not have to be a member of The United Methodist Church, you don’t even have to be baptized - all you have to want is to encounter our Risen Lord in the bread and the cup.
When we accept the invitation to this table, we are called to come and be open. Open to God. Open to each other. Open to all whom God invites. Coming to this table is an act of releasing ownership. Releasing our grip. Releasing our idea of what is ours, and what is God’s. Because we are not the host of this meal, I am not the host of this meal, Boardman UMC is not the host of this meal, God is the host of the meal. We are the guests. Even when I stand behind the altar table and bless the elements, I am not the host. The pastor is the presider of the meal - the overseer…we could even say, the waitress, the server. We are all the hungry guests, hungry to eat our fill, to encounter our Risen Lord, we are all made equal before this table and before our gracious and generous host of this meal, Jesus Christ.
Because there is something happening here at this table, God’s table, where all are invited to come and eat their fill, a mystery is unfolding here. In the United Methodist Church we have two sacraments, Baptism and Communion - outward, tangible signs of God’s intangible love for us. Sacraments are acts of divine grace, mysterious and sacred. The word sacrament actually comes from the word that we translate as “mystery.” As in, it’s partially a mystery - how this bread and this juice is the body and blood of Christ for us. It’s a mystery as to how we encounter the Divine in it. It’s a mystery as to how God loves and saves us - but it happens! And we experience this mystery and this love through the sacraments.
We believe that something happens here, something mysterious and something holy. It is not what the Roman Catholic Church believes, transubstantiation, where the bread literally becomes the body and the cup literally becomes the bread. But! It’s also not just a memorial either, what Baptists believe, where we come to this table and just remember what God has done while eating mere bread, and mere juice. Something happens, through the Holy Spirit, mysterious and holy, where we truly believe that Christ is present in the bread and the cup, Christ is present in and with us, and in this meal, at this table, all of time and space collapses in a single moment, and this table is linked to all the tables where Jesus ate, where followers of Jesus ate and eat and will eat, past and present and future. Where this table, God’s table, becomes the same table that is God’s heavenly feast.
Picture all of time, stretched out like a linear line, from The Beginning, to now, to that day when a new heaven and earth are created - and then, in the mysterious divine intervention of the Holy Spirit in this meal, all of time, it’s not so much scrunched up into a single dot, but time itself is removed by the One who is beyond time.
Some of you may be on board with what I am talking about, with “Yes, Amen!”s. Still others, maybe your mind is blown by this idea. And still others may be scratching their heads wondering what the heck I’m talking about. Think about it kind of like this, Jesus said to do this meal “in remembrance of me.” And so often we are used to just remembering backwards, to that Last Supper when Jesus instituted this holy sacrament, when Jesus died on the cross…and that is part of it. And, it’s also a remembering forward to what has not yet happened for us - but time doesn’t matter to God. A remembering of what Christ has done, yes, an acknowledgement of what God is doing, yes, and a remembering forward of what God will do. Because God’s promises are as good as done. It’s a remembering forward to the promise of a heavenly banquet where all shall be fed and nourished with bread and with God’s love.
So let us imagine that banquet table, that heavenly banquet, that great feast: the table is laden down with every food that there is on earth and heaven, the food and the people who are at the table are more diverse than we could ever imagine. The table is full, a big party, but the table also seems to never stop expanding, there is always room for more - and more and more keep joining in the celebration, there is always another chair, another plate. The table is wider and more inclusive and more full of JOY than we could ever imagine. And still, this morning, I am asking us to imagine! Hold that image in your head, an image that doesn’t even get close to what we will one day experience but an expansive and joyful image nonetheless. So hold that image of the heavenly banquet in your head while we go back in time to one of the many times that Jesus not only ate with people but fed them, served as Host, our Gospel reading from Matthew this morning.
It's a familiar story, the feeding of the 5,000. But actually, the number would have been higher cause that was just 5,000 men but there were also women and children. There is another version, or a second time Jesus does it, depending on who you ask, in the same Gospel, where 4,000 plus are fed. It’s a story that is planted firmly in our brains - and if you’re thinking there was supposed to be a little boy involved, that’s in the other instance. Briefly, let’s put this story in the context of food inequality in the Roman Empire. The ruling elite and those at the top of the social hierarchy, enjoyed an abundant lifestyle with variety and good quality of food. But most lived just at or below the level of receiving adequate food or nutrition. This is one of the reasons we see so much sickness in the Gospels and so many with a need for healing, it is that many people did not have daily bread - hence how very real and important it was for early followers of Jesus to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It was not an abstract, it was a physical hunger and need driving their prayers. Now it’s not like Jesus was one of these ruling elite. He didn’t quite have money and resources to share. He was a traveling preacher who relied on the hospitality of others. And yet, when confronted with a large, hungry crowd, Jesus says, “Feed them.” And every single person there was invited to come and eat, and have their fill. A miracle and an act of generosity in divine proportions.
Imagine this meal: 5,000 families, men, women, and children sitting down to an impromptu picnic, family units and friends and strangers, intermingling with one another. Food is passed, food is taken, and still there is more food. And as people eat and have their share and their bellies are filled - and they may not have truly been filled very often - more and more joy spreads out across the crowd. More and more laughter. Strangers becoming friends over broken and shared bread. They are incredulous at this miracle of multiplication, they are incredulous at this miracle of community, they are incredulous at the generosity, of the Divine-like nature of their host, of Jesus. And that incredulity spills over in joy and laughter. Imagine that. Hold that image in your head.
And now, take those two images in your head: the image of the heavenly banquet table, the image of the feasting 5,000 plus, hold them both in your mind and then…put our table, no, not our table, God’s table, in the middle of those two images, those two feasts, those two tables.
We are the bridge of those meals shared with Jesus. Open meals, open tables, where all are welcome, where all find a seat at the table, where all are fed, where all find the love of God. Now, along the way of Christian history and practice, this table, this sacrament has become well…stuffy. Solemn. Removed from the joy and generosity that is inherent when Jesus invites us to feast with him. And it’s not that there isn’t reverance as we remember Jesus’s death…but the point of this table isn’t the death. It isn’t to be sad and super serious. The point of this table, of God’s table, is the generosity of God, the gift of Jesus, the gift of having a seat at the table, and the thanksgiving that overflows from the realization of that generous gift. Another name for this meal, maybe you’ve heard it, is the Eucharist. Which in Greek literally means Thanksgiving. It’s why our liturgy for this meal, the blessing we give this meal, we call it The Great Thanksgiving. I had a seminary professor, Dr. Douglas Meeks, who said the only appropriate response to this table is to leave it dancing. To get up, to walk back to your seat, *dancing* because you are overcome with thanksgiving, overcome with joy, having eaten your fill, having encountered Christ - you dance with joy! And when you dance, you invite others to dance with you because joy is infectious.
And the invitation to this table is wide open! So come to the table…
Come to the table of joy, come to the table of joy, this is God’s table, it’s not yours or mine, come to the table of joy.
Amen.
“Eat Your Fill”
Preached Sunday, August 6, 2023
Listen to the first verse of this hymn, I am gonna ask you to come in on the second:
“Come to the table of grace, come to the table of grace, this is God’s table it’s not yours or mine, come to the table of grace.”
You’ve heard how it goes, now replace the word grace with peace and sing and clap with me, it’s okay if it’s a little clumsy.
“Come to the table of peace, come to the table of peace, this is God’s table, it’s not yours or mine, come to the table of peace.”
Now replace peace with love.
“Come to the table of love, come to the table of love, this is God’s table, it's not yours or mine, come to the table of love.”
One more time, this time use the word joy.
“Come to the table of joy, come to the table of joy, this is God’s table it’s not yours or mine, come to the table of joy.”
The rest of this sermon - I’d love you to hear it, to be challenged by it, inspired by it, to realize more deeply God’s love for you through it…and, if you stop here, that hymn says it all - THIS is God’s table, it’s not yours or mine, and it is a table of grace, peace, love, and joy. And, God invites ALL to come to the table to feast and have their fill - of bread and of Christ.
In the United Methodist Church, one of our most unique, distinctive practices and theology is that of the Open Table. And every time that I preside at this table, you will hear me share an invitation to that Open Table. And it sounds something like this:
Here in the United Methodist Church we practice an Open Table. That means it’s not our table, it’s not The United Methodist Church’s table, it’s God’s table and all are welcome here. You do not have to be a member of our church, you do not have to be a member of The United Methodist Church, you don’t even have to be baptized - all you have to want is to encounter our Risen Lord in the bread and the cup.
When we accept the invitation to this table, we are called to come and be open. Open to God. Open to each other. Open to all whom God invites. Coming to this table is an act of releasing ownership. Releasing our grip. Releasing our idea of what is ours, and what is God’s. Because we are not the host of this meal, I am not the host of this meal, Boardman UMC is not the host of this meal, God is the host of the meal. We are the guests. Even when I stand behind the altar table and bless the elements, I am not the host. The pastor is the presider of the meal - the overseer…we could even say, the waitress, the server. We are all the hungry guests, hungry to eat our fill, to encounter our Risen Lord, we are all made equal before this table and before our gracious and generous host of this meal, Jesus Christ.
Because there is something happening here at this table, God’s table, where all are invited to come and eat their fill, a mystery is unfolding here. In the United Methodist Church we have two sacraments, Baptism and Communion - outward, tangible signs of God’s intangible love for us. Sacraments are acts of divine grace, mysterious and sacred. The word sacrament actually comes from the word that we translate as “mystery.” As in, it’s partially a mystery - how this bread and this juice is the body and blood of Christ for us. It’s a mystery as to how we encounter the Divine in it. It’s a mystery as to how God loves and saves us - but it happens! And we experience this mystery and this love through the sacraments.
We believe that something happens here, something mysterious and something holy. It is not what the Roman Catholic Church believes, transubstantiation, where the bread literally becomes the body and the cup literally becomes the bread. But! It’s also not just a memorial either, what Baptists believe, where we come to this table and just remember what God has done while eating mere bread, and mere juice. Something happens, through the Holy Spirit, mysterious and holy, where we truly believe that Christ is present in the bread and the cup, Christ is present in and with us, and in this meal, at this table, all of time and space collapses in a single moment, and this table is linked to all the tables where Jesus ate, where followers of Jesus ate and eat and will eat, past and present and future. Where this table, God’s table, becomes the same table that is God’s heavenly feast.
Picture all of time, stretched out like a linear line, from The Beginning, to now, to that day when a new heaven and earth are created - and then, in the mysterious divine intervention of the Holy Spirit in this meal, all of time, it’s not so much scrunched up into a single dot, but time itself is removed by the One who is beyond time.
Some of you may be on board with what I am talking about, with “Yes, Amen!”s. Still others, maybe your mind is blown by this idea. And still others may be scratching their heads wondering what the heck I’m talking about. Think about it kind of like this, Jesus said to do this meal “in remembrance of me.” And so often we are used to just remembering backwards, to that Last Supper when Jesus instituted this holy sacrament, when Jesus died on the cross…and that is part of it. And, it’s also a remembering forward to what has not yet happened for us - but time doesn’t matter to God. A remembering of what Christ has done, yes, an acknowledgement of what God is doing, yes, and a remembering forward of what God will do. Because God’s promises are as good as done. It’s a remembering forward to the promise of a heavenly banquet where all shall be fed and nourished with bread and with God’s love.
So let us imagine that banquet table, that heavenly banquet, that great feast: the table is laden down with every food that there is on earth and heaven, the food and the people who are at the table are more diverse than we could ever imagine. The table is full, a big party, but the table also seems to never stop expanding, there is always room for more - and more and more keep joining in the celebration, there is always another chair, another plate. The table is wider and more inclusive and more full of JOY than we could ever imagine. And still, this morning, I am asking us to imagine! Hold that image in your head, an image that doesn’t even get close to what we will one day experience but an expansive and joyful image nonetheless. So hold that image of the heavenly banquet in your head while we go back in time to one of the many times that Jesus not only ate with people but fed them, served as Host, our Gospel reading from Matthew this morning.
It's a familiar story, the feeding of the 5,000. But actually, the number would have been higher cause that was just 5,000 men but there were also women and children. There is another version, or a second time Jesus does it, depending on who you ask, in the same Gospel, where 4,000 plus are fed. It’s a story that is planted firmly in our brains - and if you’re thinking there was supposed to be a little boy involved, that’s in the other instance. Briefly, let’s put this story in the context of food inequality in the Roman Empire. The ruling elite and those at the top of the social hierarchy, enjoyed an abundant lifestyle with variety and good quality of food. But most lived just at or below the level of receiving adequate food or nutrition. This is one of the reasons we see so much sickness in the Gospels and so many with a need for healing, it is that many people did not have daily bread - hence how very real and important it was for early followers of Jesus to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It was not an abstract, it was a physical hunger and need driving their prayers. Now it’s not like Jesus was one of these ruling elite. He didn’t quite have money and resources to share. He was a traveling preacher who relied on the hospitality of others. And yet, when confronted with a large, hungry crowd, Jesus says, “Feed them.” And every single person there was invited to come and eat, and have their fill. A miracle and an act of generosity in divine proportions.
Imagine this meal: 5,000 families, men, women, and children sitting down to an impromptu picnic, family units and friends and strangers, intermingling with one another. Food is passed, food is taken, and still there is more food. And as people eat and have their share and their bellies are filled - and they may not have truly been filled very often - more and more joy spreads out across the crowd. More and more laughter. Strangers becoming friends over broken and shared bread. They are incredulous at this miracle of multiplication, they are incredulous at this miracle of community, they are incredulous at the generosity, of the Divine-like nature of their host, of Jesus. And that incredulity spills over in joy and laughter. Imagine that. Hold that image in your head.
And now, take those two images in your head: the image of the heavenly banquet table, the image of the feasting 5,000 plus, hold them both in your mind and then…put our table, no, not our table, God’s table, in the middle of those two images, those two feasts, those two tables.
We are the bridge of those meals shared with Jesus. Open meals, open tables, where all are welcome, where all find a seat at the table, where all are fed, where all find the love of God. Now, along the way of Christian history and practice, this table, this sacrament has become well…stuffy. Solemn. Removed from the joy and generosity that is inherent when Jesus invites us to feast with him. And it’s not that there isn’t reverance as we remember Jesus’s death…but the point of this table isn’t the death. It isn’t to be sad and super serious. The point of this table, of God’s table, is the generosity of God, the gift of Jesus, the gift of having a seat at the table, and the thanksgiving that overflows from the realization of that generous gift. Another name for this meal, maybe you’ve heard it, is the Eucharist. Which in Greek literally means Thanksgiving. It’s why our liturgy for this meal, the blessing we give this meal, we call it The Great Thanksgiving. I had a seminary professor, Dr. Douglas Meeks, who said the only appropriate response to this table is to leave it dancing. To get up, to walk back to your seat, *dancing* because you are overcome with thanksgiving, overcome with joy, having eaten your fill, having encountered Christ - you dance with joy! And when you dance, you invite others to dance with you because joy is infectious.
And the invitation to this table is wide open! So come to the table…
Come to the table of joy, come to the table of joy, this is God’s table, it’s not yours or mine, come to the table of joy.
Amen.
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