"Living Out Generosity: Gifts" a sermon on Matthew 6:19-21

Matthew 6:19-21
“Living Out Generosity: Gifts”
Preached Sunday, September 24, 2023

Today is our final Sunday in our sermon series, “Living Out Generosity.” We have been talking about our membership vows we make as United Methodists, to faithfully and generously serve God with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness.

Generally, stewardship campaigns at churches focus majorly on the financial, and we will focus on that today, AND, I have chosen to focus on all of our vows for this series because I truly believe that generosity begets generosity. And when we are generous in one area of our lives, it spills over to our others.

So throughout this I have tried to simplify how we think about these things and what it means to live them out. Let’s do a re-cap:

To be generous with our prayers is to draw near to God.
To be generous with our presence is to show up.
To be generous with our service and witness is to see Jesus, be Jesus, and share Jesus.

And that brings us to being generous with our gifts. And while sometimes we talk about being generous with gifts as being generous with our talents, our spiritual gifts, which God has gifted all of us with and that is a part of a generous Christian life - today I want to talk specifically about financial gifts. For I feel, of all the things we talk about: prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness - this is the one that makes us most uncomfortable. It’s the hardest one to talk about. And even, hear me say this, great harm has been done by those who talk about it flippantly or without sensitivity. While I summed up the other vows in short phrases that push us to not just be but do - draw near, show up, see, be, share - I cannot yet do that today when I talk about giving generously with our gifts. What I can do is encourage each of us to get a little uncomfortable. To talk about our understanding of money and finances, to make a plan that ensures our basic needs are met, and that takes into account love of God and love of neighbor.

So why is talking about money such an uncomfortable thing for us? Something that makes us shift in the pews or a topic that is considered one of the impolite things to talk about: sex, money, and politics are the three things that can make the conversation at a family dinner go awry - even though as a church we are, in many ways, called to talk about these things - that is, the Gospel doesn’t exclude any areas of our lives.

In order to figure out why talking about money makes us uncomfortable - we have to have uncomfortable conversations. Conversations with ourselves and with God - and conversations between spouses and even parents and children. We need explicit conversations about how we approach money and giving and we need to pass these conversations on to our children as well.

We need to start with looking within ourselves and identifying our narratives we’ve been telling ourselves about money. This includes how we grew up, if we wanted or had enough, if we were formed with narratives of abundance or narratives of scarcity. If we saw giving as something that was done because people were shamed into it, or because people cheerfully planned to give, or if we ourselves were the recipient of generous giving. If we get anxious or scared when we talk about money. If having money or not having money affects our self-worth, our self-image, how we view ourselves. We bring all of this to the table, to the forefront of our minds, when we start to talk about money and giving. We need to understand where we’ve been to understand where we are. This is not easy work and it is work our larger culture, by and large, tells us not to do - doesn’t want us to do. If we don’t talk about money, money is more likely to have power over us. To shame us, to control us, to get us to buy certain products or act in certain ways that selfishly benefit others, to continue the never-ending rat race of always wanting and working for more.

Instead, I believe when we do our own inner work, and understand our own money stories, our own reactions, we can then begin to have agency in how we use this resource to the glory of God and aid of others.

Henri Nouwen in his book “The Spirituality of Fundraising” says, “The reason for the taboo [around money] is that money has something to do with the intimate place in our heart where we need security, and we do not want to reveal our need or give away our security to someone who, maybe only accidentally, might betray us.”

Basically, I am not saying that we are bad people for having a complicated, uncomfortable, relationship with money and I do not want to make you feel guilty for it this morning - what I am saying is, our relationship with money is based on our very human need for security, to feel safe. When we realize that this is the place where this comes from, I feel like it erases some of the stigma around money. At the end of the day, our concerns about money come from that place in our heart that is concerned about our safety and security and the safety and security of those we love.
Our culture tells us that the answer to our questions about security comes in the accumulation of wealth and material goods - but the Bible has a very different answer.

The Gospel from this morning says to not put our trust in earthly things: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

I want to highlight that last line, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Now, we usually think that where our heart is, our treasure will follow. Right? Like, we give and invest and spend money on the things that are important to us. Jesus actually says that it is the opposite. Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. This is not just a change in semantics. Jesus knows that the place where we spend our money will become our treasure, whether we want it to or not. Let me repeat that ‘cause I think it’s important: Jesus knows that the place where we spend our money will become our treasure, whether we want it to or not. Financial commitments require time and energy. They can pull our heart in a direction that perhaps neither we nor God ever intended. If you buy a house that requires a large percentage of your income, you have no choice but to spend time and energy and money in paying for it. For my generation, it is student loan debt. I have many friends who have become consumed and overwhelmed with the burden of finding a job that pays enough that they can make even the smallest dent on their loans - not to mention one that offers health care! Our ability to pay back these large, all-consuming debts becomes a marker of our worth and our ability to even survive. When you put your treasure into anything, your heart will follow. And some of it, we can’t help. Some of it is the way our system is set up with systems of generational poverty, student loan debt, medical debt, the rising cost of living, and so much more. And that’s not cause for shame. It’s an unfair and injustice reality that breaks God’s heart.

And, when the church offers an opportunity to give, for those who are consciously able to, it’s a chance, an opportunity, not just to support the life, work, and ministry of the church but to invest your treasure in a place where your heart will follow - a place that, every day, works to be more like the Kingdom of God.

I am not embarrassed or ashamed to stand before you today and say that we as a church need your financial gifts to accomplish our goals and to live out the calling that God is placing on our church - to fully discern and live out where God is calling us and who God is calling us to be as a community of love and as a church. I am not embarrassed and I do not approach this ask with trepidation because it is a spiritual act. Nouwen says, “As a form of ministry, fundraising is as spiritual as giving a sermon, entering a time of prayer, visiting the sick, or feeding the hungry.” Just as preaching, leading you in prayer, and offering pastoral care are spiritual acts that I am called to do as your pastor, so too am I called to invite you into generous living and giving generously in all areas of your life, including your finances. All of these things invite you into deepening your spiritual life and living more closely into the life God calls us to as followers of Jesus. And so, I want to talk about money as joyously as we sing our favorite hymns - the reason I decided to do a hymn sing the Sunday we talk about generosity through our finances.

So yes, as a church and as your pastor, we are going to ask you for money. Once again this year, we will be sending out pledge cards and asking you to fill them out. The ask, however, does not come from a place of insecurity for our security is found in God. The ask comes from a place of seeing where, together, our generosity can build a community of love, where we can come together with generosity in all areas of our lives, to create a community of love here at Boardman United Methodist Church, to create the Kingdom of God, here in our midst.

My prayer is that it is not just for the money or gifts that is the outcome of generosity with our finances, not just an increased budget or being able to meet all our commitments and goals - although that is certainly a wanted outcome, too. My hope and prayer is that through the spiritually transformative act of giving, we ourselves would deepen our own faith and relationships with each other and strengthen our ties to God and to this community.

I believe as a church community, we have some of the most important things that the world needs: belonging, friendship, prayer, peace, love, service to others, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we have the ability to invest in the local church, we are saying: these things matter to me and I know they matter to others. I can invest in something I believe in, hoping to share it with others.

And so let’s go back to where we talked about simplifying our membership vows.

To be generous with our prayers is to draw near to God.
To be generous with our presence is to show up.
To be generous with our service and witness is to see Jesus, be Jesus, and share Jesus.

And now, maybe I would say, to be generous with our gifts, is to take stock of our hearts…and our treasure. And see if they are aligned or if they are at odds. To see if our treasure is pulling us in a direction we want our hearts to go in.

And so my closing challenge to you is this:

Ask yourself the hard questions. Have these conversations about your money and your faith with yourself, with God, with your family. And, if and as you are able, make a plan to cheerfully and generously invest both your treasure and your heart here - in a church community that is working to build the Kingdom of God, in a church that has so much to offer the world.

I do want to thank you for going on this generous journey with me. For taking up my challenges. For seriously examining what it means to live a generous Christian life. Thank you for all the ways you already do and all the ways we are all growing together.

Amen.

Call to Worship based on Philippians 2:1-13

Leader: Holy God, we pray to you this morning:
People: Make our joy complete.
L: As many gather and become one in the Body of Christ:
P: Make our joy complete.
L: As we faithfully serve you:
P: Make our joy complete.
L: As we worship our God, who, though equal with God, humbled himself:
P: Make our joy complete.
L: As God works within us, today and always:
P: Make our joy complete.
All: In joy we worship you, Amen.

"Living Out Generosity: Service & Witness" a sermon on Matthew 25:31-45

Matthew 25:31-45
“Living Out Generosity: Service & Witness”
Preached Sunday, September 17, 2023

This morning we are continuing our sermon series on living out our membership vows that we make as part of a United Methodist Church. To serve God faithfully by being generous with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness. I have endeavored to simplify how we think of each of these things. To be generous with our prayers is to draw near to God. To be generous with our presence is to show up. And today we are going to talk about being generous with our service and our witness. I'm talking about them together because I do believe they are so closely related. So to give generously of our service and witness is, simply put:

To see Christ in others.
To be Christ to others.
Those two comprise giving generously of our service.
And then to share Christ with others - which is giving generously of our witness.

When we talk about being generous in our service, seeing Christ in others and being Christ to them, there is no passage that comes to mind more than Matthew 25. In it Jesus tells us that when we feed the hungry, give a drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, give clothes to the naked, visit the sick and the prisoner - we do these things to Christ himself.

What we do to each other, especially those who are in the most need, those who are the most marginalized, what we do to the least of these, we do to and for Jesus.

Mother Theresea said, “I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, This is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.”

I fully support the practice of reminding ourselves that the least of these are Jesus.

The next time you see someone who is an addict say, “This is addicted Jesus.” The next time you see someone living on the street say, “This is homeless Jesus.” The next time you see something on the news about immigrants or you hear or see a local raid say, “This is undocumented Jesus.” The next time you see someone who is acting erratic or talking to themselves say, “This is mentally ill Jesus.”

We need to practice seeing Jesus in the least of these. We need to train ourselves to recognize that Christ is among us - and often in those who might make us feel most uncomfortable or unsure of what to do.

When we see Jesus in the other, we are compelled to serve them. And when we serve others, out Christian charity or goodness or whatever it is, we come to see Jesus in others. The order is not what matters, what matters is the love and respect not just for Christ but for all those whom Christ manifests himself in: the least of these among us. For in the words of Catholic activist Dorothy Day, “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” This can be a hard realization for us as Christians who proclaim and feel a deep love for God, but too often fail to love the least of these or those we classify as others, not us. And yet, in order to deepen our faith, deepen our love for God, we must undertake the practice of loving our neighbor.

Which brings us to the second part of service. If the first part of service is seeing Jesus in the other than the second part is being Jesus to them.

We know that Scripture tells us that we are the hands and feet of Christ. St. Theresa of Avila, expanded upon this well known Scripture by saying:

“Christ has no body but yours; no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which his compassion looks out upon the world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.”

We may be the only Christ someone ever knows when we offer them love through service. Or we may be the first representative of Christ they ever meet when we are generous in our service.

Christian service can really by summed up as this:
See Jesus in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner, the least of these.
And BE Jesus to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner, the least of these.

Or, as it says in a famous quote attributed to John Wesley: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

All, all, all. See Christ in All. Be Christ to All.

This is Christian service.
Which is also closely tied to our Christian witness.

As we BE Christ to others, have no doubt that we are being watched. By those who want to know why we do what we do. And let’s be honest for a moment, Christians have not been the best witness to Christ in our world. The famous Ghandi quote is, “'I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Jesus calls us to be Christ to the world, to treat all we meet as Jesus, to show our faith through our love. But when you ask most nones (those who aren’t affiliated with any religion) or dones (those who have been hurt by the church) what they think of Christians, what the witness of Chrisitians by and large has been in our country and world - they are likely to say some unappealing and downright harmful things. The crusades; enforcement of strict gender roles and norms including inciting violence against those who don’t fit into strict boxes; the co-opting of religion by political parties that tell us there is one way to vote if we are Christian; the abuse perpetrated and covered up by religious leaders; they may even talk about street corner preachers and billboards that shout HELL IS REAL and try and scare and shame people into a relationship with Christ.

Friends, this is not it. It’s not how Christ calls us to act. It’s not how we share Christ with the world.

The early church didn’t grow because of the right doctrine or amazing worship services or family friendly programming or even convicting sermons. The early church grew because of the radical way they showed up and showed love to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. This was their generous Christian witness. But it wasn’t done without also talking about why they did: their love for Christ and Christ’s love for the world.

A quote famously attributed to St. Francis of Assisi and spread widely in Christian circles is this: “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.” Yes, it’s true - our Christian service, what we do, how we see Christ in others, how we be Christ to them - this is a powerful Christian witness. And, it is not enough in our world. We must show our faith with our whole lives: our actions and our words.

If we only talk about our faith but that talk is not infused with love and not backed up by our actions, people will have no desire to enter into a relationship with us, our church, or our God. It will be empty talk.

And if we only DO but never talk about our faith, how are others to truly know the why behind what we do and how we live our lives? How are they to know how our faith gets us through the hard times, comforting us through dark nights. How it increases our joy, making the light all the brighter. How it has given us a community and relationships that surround us with support and love. How our faith shapes us, forms us, has made us who we are...if we don’t say WHY along with what we DO, then no one will know beyond “well, they were being kind.” We must combat the negative witness of those who call themselves Christians but don’t share the love of Christ in this world. We must. We must let Christ lead us in all we do.

In order to share our witness, we must also share our service. In order to share our service, and for them to know why we do what we do, we must share our witness.

It’s like the hymn goes: “They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” And I would add - by telling them about that love.

Today we had the joy of baptizing three wonderful children of God. In our baptismal liturgy we promised that “With God's help we will proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Christ.” So that we would surround these children with a community of love and forgiveness, that through us, they would come to know Christ - they would know the God of love.

When we look at these children, we should say to ourselves, “Here is Jesus as a child. I will treat them like Christ himself. I will show them, with my words and actions, who Christ is, and what the Love of God looks like.”

This is generous service and witness. That we would see ALL we meet as we see these children that we baptized today. Loved by God. Loved by Jesus. Seeing them as Jesus himself. That we would see the least of these and every person we meet as Jesus. Then once we see them as Jesus, we then can BE Jesus to them, being the hands and feet of Christ in this world. And as we BE Jesus to them, sharing Jesus with them, not just with actions of love but words of love too.

Being generous in our service & witness is just this:
Seeing Christ.
Being Christ.
Sharing Christ.

So my challenge to you this morning is not an easy one, it is one that requires self-reflection and discipline, and that is to ask ourselves:: Are we being generous with how we see others? How we treat others? And how we share the Love of Christ with our actions and words? How can we train our eyes, our hands, our mouths, and our whole hearts to be generous in love, in service, and in witness? This is the call of the Christian life, a call to a life of generosity, and of love.

May we all be found to be generous.

Amen.

"Living Out Generosity: Prayers" a sermon on James 4:7-8

James 4:7-8

Living Out Generosity: Prayers
Preached Sunday, September 10

When we join a local United Methodist Church, we make vows to faithfully serve God by being generous with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness. Last week we explored what it means to be generous with our presence. To put it simply, to show up. To show up for God: to intentionally set aside time to just be in God’s presence. And to show up for our neighbors: to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.

We are continuing on with our sermon series on these membership vows and how we live them out in a spirit of generosity - knowing that they are all interconnected. And as we begin to live out one or more of them with intentional generosity, the others will also follow.

Which brings to today when we focus on our membership vow to faithfully and generously give of our prayers. This may seem like the most basic of our vows, or the easiest, most instinctual for someone following the Christian life. And a generous prayer life does lay a fertile foundation for generosity in the other areas to grow and flourish. And, I think part of the problem is we often assume prayer is this basic thing, this instinctual thing - but for many people, it’s not. We don’t know how to tackle it, we fear we aren’t doing it right, it gets blown out of proportion and we so often over-complicate it. As our Scripture from Romans says, “We don’t know how to pray as we ought…” And I don’t think that’s a shaming thing - it’s more like, an acknowledgement, that even from the time of Paul to now, people struggle with prayer. So today we are going to try and take a simple and practical approach to prayer. I do think we could spend a whole year preaching on different aspects of prayer and different ways to approach it. I don’t want to diminish the broadness of prayer, I don’t want to erase the complexities and nuances of prayer - what I do want to attempt to do is present prayer as an access, a bridge, a doorway to God with no barriers in the way. Something simple, easy, and accessible enough that prayer can become a part of all of our lives, enriching our relationships with God and one another.

That’s the most straight-forward way to talk about prayer - that is relational and two-fold. First, prayer shapes our relationship with God. Second, prayer shapes our relationships with each other.

Let’s look at the first:

In the book of James, these words of wisdom come to us: Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you. Many may read this as a contingent statement. IF we draw near to God THEN God will draw near to us. I would say, however, that this is not a contingent statement but a consequential one. When we make the effort to be closer to God then the natural consequence of that action, the outcome of that action, is that we are closer to God. As simple as that.

Prayer forms the foundation of our relationship with God. If we want to have a relationship with God, if we want God to draw near to us then we need prayer. If we want to have a deep and rich relationship with God then we need a deep and rich prayer life. If I were to simply define prayer I would define it as drawing near to the presence of God. To draw near to God, that implies action on our part. Acting on a desire to be closer to God. I want to highlight prayer as acting on a desire. So often when we talk about prayer or intentionally working on our faith, we frame it in “shoulds.” I should pray more. I should be more intentional about spending time with God. I should go to church more. I should, should, should… Shoulds come from a place of shame and I don’t think shoulds get us anywhere. God doesn’t want our shoulds. God wants our desires. I catch myself thinking in “shoulds” a lot and have been intentional about re-framing them as wants. I want to pray more. I want to be more intentional about spending time with God. I want to draw near to God.

God is always present with us, God is always as near to us as our next breath. What sets prayer apart from simply being is when we make a conscious effort to act on our desire to be with God: to stay in God’s presence, to orient ourselves - our hearts, our souls, our minds, our bodies - toward the Divine. Every Sunday when I walk down the aisle of the sanctuary, come up here to lead us in worship, I pause for just a moment at the altar. I take a deep breath and I say to myself “pivot.” To pivot my mind and body away from everything else, the worries, the conversations, what I experienced before worship, what I have awaiting after - I pivot away from that, and pivot towards God. At the most basic level, this is what prayer is. To pivot ourselves toward God.

Initially, we may have to practice this pivoting, this drawing near to God. To make that shift in our minds and hearts to make ourselves aware that we are in God’s presence. For some it comes easier than others but prayer is a skill that we can develop, to learn, to form into a habit. When we do this regularly, prayer can become like second nature for us. We can orient ourselves more easily towards God and become aware of God’s presence around us and draw ourselves into it with less exertion. Prayer takes practice! This is what I believe we are called to do, to pray without ceasing, as the writer of Thessalonians says - and in order to get there, we have to make the conscious effort to orient ourselves towards God over and over. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg says this about prayer, “You must get up from your routines & your busyness and take a step toward engaging the sacred. You need to make the choice to move your body, your will, into the direction of prayer.”

So when we desire to be in the presence of God, when we actively choose to draw closer to God...now what? It is here that I believe prayer can take many forms. Our words, either spoken or thought, our breathing, our laughter, our tears - all these things can be seen as prayer when we are aware that we give them in the presence of God. I already quoted from our Romans Scripture this morning that we do not pray as we ought. The full quote is: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words. And God, who searches hearts, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Our sighs can be our prayers. Whatever we have to offer God in that space where we have intentionally drawn near to God, the Spirit intercedes, receiving our prayers in all their forms.

I am not going to delve deeper into what those forms can look like. Some talk out loud, some go for walks and give God their thoughts, some journal, some breath, some talk in the car, some create lists of people they are praying for, some use books of written prayers - part of the practice of prayer becoming a habit, a rhythm, part of your life, is finding the method that works for you.

The act of prayer is deeply intimate. If prayer is what shapes our relationship with God, it has to be. If we long to have an intimate relationship with God, we must engage in the vulnerable act of prayer. When we are before God in prayer we are bared - God knows every part of us - and offers us grace and loves us deeply. Whatever we have within us, we are called to actively bring it before God - in whatever form it takes, God receives it as prayer. And, as in any relationship, bringing our listening heart before God is important as well.

So - as we draw near to God, as we consciously act to orient ourselves so that we are aware of God’s presence around us, God also draws near to us. That is, God is always ready to receive our prayers. God is always with us - God is only ever as far away as our next breath. And yet, we are so often unaware. When we enter into a space of prayer, all of a sudden we are aware that God has been right there all along, extending out a hand, inviting us into relationship, into conversation, into love this whole time. And through praying, through pivoting, through drawing near, over and over again, we build a deep and rich relationship with God and we become more aware of God’s presence with us throughout our lives.

Prayer is the act, more than any other, that shapes our relationship with God. Our relationship with God then shapes every other aspect of our lives.

Prayer is two-fold, because it shapes our relationships with each other as well. We promise each other in our baptismal and membership vows to pray for each other. More than that, we say that to each other week after week. If we aren’t actively praying for each other, then why do we have a prayer chain or a prayer list? Too often churches call that the gossip train - and if we are not praying for each other when we look at those emails, when we see the names on the list - then that’s what it is. But. If we are praying for each other, it is something else entirely, it is building relationships with each other.

When we pray for someone, it changes how we see them. It is hard to pray for someone and to not see them as children of God. Jesus even tells us to pray for our enemies. It’s hard. And it doesn’t excuse actions that people do that hurt others - and it causes us to pause and realize that God cares for each and every one of us. As we pray for each other, our relationships are changed.

A quick testament by a show of hands: have you ever had a relationship change - grow stronger, heal, or be born - because of prayer?
By another show of hands: have you ever felt the power of others praying for you?
And, by show of hands, have you ever been compelled to action - to seek reconciliation, to lend a helping hand, to change a behavior - because of prayer?
Thank you for sharing the power of praying, by testifying to it, by raising your hands.

Prayer shapes our relationships with each other. How much better would our whole world be if all of our relationships were steeped in prayer for one another?

When I need prayer, I know I have people in my life I can ask for prayer and through the power of prayer, I know I can feel God’s love and grace supporting me because I know I have others praying for me. I don’t know what the outcome of the prayers will be. I don’t know if they will be answered in the way I want...but what I do know is that I am not alone - and that I will never be alone. And when I pray for others, I am compelled to let them know with my words and actions that they are not alone either. Through prayer I am assured that I am a beloved child of God that has a home in a community of beloved children of God. That which we proclaim in the baptismal liturgy with our words, we proclaim it with our hearts and with our lives when we pray for one another.

I am also going to issue a prayer challenge to all of you this morning. And that is to pray for our church. I want to say to all of you that you need to pray for our church. And that’s not a need like a should but it is a need that, if we desire for our church to be transformed for God, to reach new people, to grow, to be relevant to our larger community, that starts with prayer. It’s why I asked you to pray for our Boardman United Methodist Preschool kids - why their names are up here on our altar space and why so many of you took home the name of a kid to pray for. Because the more we pray for them, the more we see them through the eyes of God, and the more the eyes of our hearts and minds are opened to see how we can be God for them. And the same is absolutely true for our church. God is at work in our church - God will be at work in our church - AND we need to pray for this, to intentionally put our church in God’s hands, to place our trust of the future of our church in God’s hands - and that all starts with prayer.

And so in our bulletin this morning you will see there is a bookmark-like card with a written prayer on it. I am asking every person at Boardman United Methodist Church to pray this prayer for our church daily. You can pray more, to add to this prayer, but only if you desire to. I am suggesting the time of 7:07pm - based on Matthew 7:7 and the following verses:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for bread, would give a stone? Or if the child asked for a fish, would give a snake? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

We need to pivot ourselves, and our whole church, toward God. Because we desire the future God desires for us. And that starts with asking - with prayer. So, set an alarm on your phones for every day at 7:07pm. And when it goes off, pray this prayer. Keep this bookmark somewhere you will have access to it - or even take a picture of it to keep on your phone. I believe there is power in knowing that, even if we aren’t in the same place, we are praying this prayer together, with each other, every day, at the same time.

And, don’t get too caught up on the time. Remember, it’s a want, not a should. If the time is a time that doesn’t work for you, I’d simply encourage you to pray this prayer daily at a time that does work.

And, let’s pray that prayer for our church together now:

God who has guided us faithfully through the past, we place our church in your care. Lead us into the future with trust and courage. May we be bold for the sake of the Gospel. May we reach new people with your love. May we grow in love of You and love of neighbor. Our hope rests in your unfailing love and grace. In Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.

As we wrap up our time talking about prayer, I want to ask: are you living a generous prayer life? Are you regularly giving freely of your time and your thoughts to draw closer to God? Are you generously giving all that you are and all that you feel over to God in prayer? And are your prayers generous to one another? Are you praying for your neighbors, your enemies, and your church as much as you pray for yourself? Are you fulfilling our membership promises to one another to pray for the church and one another? Are you fulfilling your baptismal promises to God to draw near to God?

When we are generous in prayer, we are generous in our relationships. We are shaped by the time we spend in the presence of God. Our relationships with one another are shaped in love and grace as well. And everything else in our lives - our discipleship, our relationships, our generosity in all other areas - follows our prayers.

May it be so. Amen.

“Living Out Generosity: Presence” a sermon on Luke 24:13-35 & Romans 12:9-21

Luke 24:13-35

Romans 12:9-21

“Living Out Generosity: Presence”

Preached on Sunday, September 3, 2023

I believe that baptism is one of the most beautiful things we do in the church. Whether we baptize an infant or an adult, there is something in the mystery of the baptismal sacrament that touches me to my core. When we gather around the water, gather around the child of God - whether that person is a child or in the 90’s - it doesn’t matter the age, in Baptism we are all children of God - and we claim that title of beloved together for them, when they are sealed forever as children of God - wow. Is there a more beautiful thing we do in the church?

And the thing about it is, we do it as a community. I’d invite you to turn to page 33 of the hymnal as I talk and look at the liturgy. Notice how it is something we do together. The bolded and not bolded words. There is this back and forth between pastor, congregation, the baptizee, their family and sponsors - and the whole thing is surrounded, saturated, in the presence of the Holy Spirit. We gather together in worship, we bless the water together, we proclaim the title of baptized, as beloved child of God, together. This togetherness is important. In the baptismal liturgy we reaffirm that we are not in this alone - and that we will never be alone in this. We recognize the belovedness in each other. We promise to support each other in the faith, to share the good news, to live according to Christ, to surround each other in a community of love and forgiveness - to be Church - together.

And that is why, in The United Methodist Church, our baptismal vows and membership vows are found side by side together in the liturgy. When you are baptized as an adult, you also take the membership vows of the church. When you are baptized as an infant, you get the opportunity to reaffirm and take those vows through confirmation or later in life. Because we are in this together. And we need each other. To fully live into our belovedness as children of God, to fully live into our call as Christians - we do it together. And so we have these membership vows that are part of our baptismal liturgy, these membership vows we take, as part of the local church, and the whole congregation affirms them together. The congregation says these words to those who were just baptized and/or welcomed into membership in our church. Let’s say them together now - you’ll see them on page 38 of your hymnal or on the insert in your bulletin. All right, now that they’re before you, say these words with me:

As members together with you
in the body of Christ
and in this congregation
of The United Methodist Church,
we renew our covenant
faithfully to participate
in the ministries of the Church
by our prayers, our presence,
our gifts, our service, and our witness,
that in everything God may be glorified
through Jesus Christ.

These vows of our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service, and our witness - our generosity of living them out out, our giving of these things openly and freely, is what makes us the Church. They are what makes us a community. We are spending the next handful of weeks as part of our Stewardship campaign looking at these vows. Sometimes we just focus Stewardship on gifts - the finances of our church. And that’s important as it’s a topic that the church needs to help guide us through as individuals and as a community - AND this series will take a more holistic approach because our vows to God and to each other are not our prayers OR our presence OR our gifts OR our service OR our witness - it is “and.” Our prayers, presence, gifts, service, AND witness. And when we begin living generously into one of these areas, we also begin to live generously into the others.

And so today, to start our series off, we are looking at living out generosity by our presence. Because of this I decided to mix it up and preach here today, so that, as your eyes are on me, your eyes are also on the Eucharist behind me, the elements of bread and the cup, that will be for us the body and blood of Christ, the presence of our God with us this morning. Christ is present in this meal and Christ is always present where two or three are gathered in his name.

Through our baptismal and membership vows, we promise to be generous with our presence - Another way to phrase this is this: we promise to show up. Show up with and for God. Show up with and for each other. Show up with and for neighbors.

Now, I do believe that maybe even more than demands for our wallets, which are pretty high, especially with inflation - our world puts just as much, if not more, demands on our time. Almost more than ever before. There are a lot of demands on our time. We have our jobs, which more and more bleeds out into non-working hours because of technology; family commitments - from trying to foster a relationship with your spouse, caring for an ailing parent, running the kids around, babysitting the grandkids, and so much more...trying to balance a social life with it all...and don’t forget being human! You know, sleeping, cleaning, grocery shopping, working out, etc, etc. And then, oh yeah, church! There are a lot of demands for our time and it’s easy to let all the hours of our days be sucked up. So when I talk about being generous with our presence, I am not talking about adding extra things to our to-do list. Those are full enough, trust me, I know!

I am talking about prioritizing how we spend our limited and valuable time. And when we prioritize being generous with the gift of our presence to God and each other, we are prioritizing love for God and love for neighbor - essentials in our lives as Christians.

Our schedules are already fit to burst - it is a very common response to “How are you?” to say, “Busy!” and today’s sermon and the idea of being generous with your presence is not about adding more busy-ness to your life. Actually, as we purposefully and consciously consider how we can be generous with our presence, it may involve stepping back from things so that we can be more attentive to God and others - resulting, perhaps, in being less busy. Giving generously of our presence to God and the church can simplify things because we know where our commitments lie: with God and neighbor. It becomes easier to say yes to what God is calling us toward and to say no to other demands based on where they align with our commitments...and, of course, necessity, because we don’t live in an ideal world!

And so, today I don’t want to make the concept of presence any more complicated than it needs to be either. So I am going to talk about presence as simply as I can in two ways: First, God’s presence with us through this meal of Holy Communion and secondly, us being present for others.

So first, Christ being present with us through this meal...The Road to Emmaus, the Gospel lesson from today is actually one of my favorite Bible stories. It is Easter day, the day of the resurrection, and the resurrected Christ walks beside two men, former followers of Jesus, who were discussing Christ’s death and all that had occurred. And these disciples don’t recognize him. And what strikes me is these disciples, they don’t see Jesus for who he is, the Christ, in his face. They don’t see him in the quoting and teaching of Scripture. They don’t see him in the ways we’d expect them to see him. They finally see the Divine that was there all along, by pulling up chairs to the table, offering hospitality to a stranger turned friend, and breaking bread together. It is only then that they see Jesus for who he is, Christ. Their resurrected Lord. Their friend who they shared bread with many times.

We know that on the night in which Jesus was betrayed and arrested he gathered with his disciples in an upper room - took bread, broke it, blessed it and said “Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you.” We know many times in his ministry, Jesus sat at the table with his friends and sinners and anyone who could pull up a seat - so many times that in the Gospel of Luke, one of the chief complaints hurled against Jesus is that he was a glutton and drunkard! And on the day of his resurrection he did what he had done many times, he blessed and broke bread, and Christ was made known.

Jesus told us that when we gather we should break bread, share the cup, and remember him. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, every time we do that, we experience Christ.

Think of it this way: at his ascension, Jesus promised to always be with us through the power and presence of The Holy Spirit. And we can see God in many places, situations, and people. We can see God, we can encounter Christ’s presence with us, in sunsets and waterfalls; in a cup of coffee and conversation; in hymns and a sermon; in feeding the hungry and caring for the poor. We can encounter God in all those things. And they are GOOD things. And, what sets this Holy Meal apart, is that God makes a PROMISE in this holy meal to always show up.

It’s the difference between running into a friend in the grocery store aisle and stopping to chat a while versus each of you putting a date on the calendar and promising to make each other a priority, to be fully present with each other. So we encounter God all over in our world. AND, in Holy Communion, it’s a date with God. It’s written on our calendars. God has promised to be there - and so have we. The intentional gift of being present with God - on all our parts. Isn’t that actually really awesome? We have a standing date with God in this meal, to be fully present with and for each other.

Through this meal God is intentionally generous with God’s presence with us. It is a priority for God. God shows up in this meal for us. Because God wants to be with us. And, to be clear, God is ALWAYS with us, but we don’t always reciprocate God’s generous gift of presence by being aware of it. By sharing in Holy Communion, by worshipping, we are opening ourselves up to the awareness of God’s presence with us, as those disciples were made aware of the resurrected Christ’s presence with them as he broke bread. God longs for us to set aside time for God, to be in the presence of God - to reciprocate God’s generosity of the gift of God’s presence by being present with God. For us to intentionally set aside our time, a valuable resource with many demands made on it, to be with God - to share in the sacraments, by worshiping, by praying, by reading Scripture, by intentionally being in Christ’s presence.

For the more we reciprocate God’s generous gift of presence to us by making ourselves aware of God’s presence with us, by giving God the gift of our intentional efforts of being in God’s presence, the more our hearts and lives are transformed to be like the heart of God.

And that brings us to the second part about presence - the part that is a lot less mystical and is a lot more straightforward: us being present with and for each other and our neighbors.

It’s amazing that about 75% of discipleship is just showing up. Showing up to church, to worship, to Bible study, choir practice, committee meetings, church events, mission opportunities - and showing up for each other.

As I said, the more time we spend in the presence of God, the more our hearts are transformed to be closer to the heart of God. To show up for each other as Christ shows up for us. To BE the presence of Christ with someone else. Our presence with others can be the presence that makes them aware of God with them. A pivotal part of this is, as our Scripture from Romans says today: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.” Being generous with our presence with each other is being generous with our rejoicing, sharing in the joys. And being generous with our tears, sitting and crying with those who weep. Being generous with our presence looks a lot like baking casseroles, holding hands, offering a listening ear. To encourage each other. To support one another. To lift each other up.

We are called and we have promised - to give generously of our presence - in the highs, the lows, and the in-betweens. To just be there.

We, who gather in worship together and experience the very real and mystical presence of Christ in this bread...we are called then to go out and be the body of Christ to the world. So when we show up for each other - we are being the body, the physical presence of Jesus in this world, to each other. This ministry of presence is the power of just showing up.

As a pastor, I think about this a lot. As a 32 year old woman, I have already been to a couple dozen or so death beds within either days, hours, or minutes of someone dying. In those moments, I may not always have the perfect words to say. And it isn’t a comfortable experience. But it doesn’t matter. Because my ministry at that time is my presence. To sit there. To hold someone’s hand. And by my very presence reminding them that God is present. And that they are loved by God and by a whole community of faith.

We do not have to be pastors though to give the ministry of presence to those who need it. We simply have to show up.

I think of the women at the cross of Jesus. When Jesus was crucified, most of his followers deserted him...but all four Gospels talk about the women who stayed at the cross. Their staying is a testament of their faith, their love for Jesus, and their love for each other. They are the exemplars for us too. That in the midst of even the most painful and hardest of times, we are called to give generously of our presence to one another.

Friends, through this meal, in the breaking of bread, Christ gives his presence generously to us. We are then called to give our presence generously back to God and to each other. To put it simply: to show up. Show up to church. Show up for each other. Show up and be Christ to one another.

How will you commit yourself to giving generously of your presence to God and to the local church? How will you prioritize love of God and love of neighbor in all areas of your life?

I believe this is not something that just happens. There are SO many demands on our time. In order to say yes to intentional time with God. In order to say yes to intentional time to show up for each other - we have to say no to other things. In order to be generous with our presence, as God calls us to do, as we promised to do in our baptismal and membership vows, we need to take several steps back and look at our commitments. Look at our calendars. Do they reflect the ability to be generous with our presence - with God and each other? And let it be known, I am not casting stones. I too fall into our wider culture’s glorification of “busy.” Too often I fail to be intentional about my time with God. I preach to you and I preach to myself.

And so today, as we intentionally come to this table, a set date with God, where God has promised to be here and so have we… let us bask in God’s generous presence with us, letting it be a step toward our own examination, our own look at how we are generous with our time - and having been recipients of God’s generous presence, may it spur us on toward rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep, and showing up as the generous presence of God with others.

May we all be found as generous.

Amen.

"Call the Midwives" a sermon on Exodus 1:8-2:10

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.

"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.

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.