July 13, 2014 - Pentecost + 5 - Sowing the Seeds of Love

Sowing the Seeds of Love

Pentecost + 5 - July 13, 2014

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

This is my family’s second summer living in our current home. Last summer, we had a baby and a 2 year old, so we were too busy to worry much about planting a garden, and come this summer, we still hadn't figured out where the best place for a garden would be, so we’re content to have a few tomato plants and some herbs planted in pots. But when the time comes next year, I think we've finally made up our minds. We’ll dig up the soil where there’s plenty of sun and good drainage. While we’re turning the dirt, we’ll set aside the rocks, and add in some of the compost we've been working on. We’ll probably put down some kind of weed barrier, and we’ll plan out our garden – what kinds of vegetables, where to put each one. We’re not gardening experts, so we’ll pay attention to the instructions on the back of the seed packet, making sure we plant the seeds at the right depth and the right distance apart and next to other kinds of plants that are compatible to them all growing well together, all to help make sure that we’ll have a good harvest at the end of summer.

My daughter doesn't get this whole process though. Norah is 3.5, and she doesn't get that there needs to be an order and a method to planting. Someone gave us some packets of seeds this spring, and all she wanted to do was dump the seeds out in her hand and go toss them on the dirt, in the lawn, in the rocks alongside the driveway, which I noticed this morning we need to weed again - soon. If it were up to her, she’d mix them all together, stick her hand down in the pile of seeds and just spread them to the four winds, letting them land wherever they land, not worrying about how many seeds would go to waste that way.

Norah is like the sower Jesus talks about in this parable we heard today. Usually when we read this parable in church, we focus on the four different kinds of soil that Jesus talks about: the path, where the evil one comes and snatches the word away; the rocky ground where the seed springs up quickly, but withers away just as fast when trouble comes; the thorny ground, where the word of the kingdom begins to grow, but then gets choked out of existence by the cares and seductiveness of the world around us; and then finally, the good soil, that produces this amazingly, unexpectedly bountiful harvest, way more than you would ever dream of getting. And we spend a lot of time wondering about what kind of soil we are or ought to be – and there’s some good thinking and reflecting and discussing to be had there.

But this time around, I was struck by what Jesus calls this teaching. When he is alone with the disciples, explaining what the parable means, he doesn't call it the parable of the four soils. He doesn't call it the parable of the seed. He calls it the parable of the sower. Though he spends most of his time talking about the kinds of soil, it seems to me that we should spend some time thinking about the sower in this story and looking at what the sower does.

And what the sower does is plant seeds like my preschooler would. He doesn't seem very wise. He doesn't act like he knows much about farming. He’s downright reckless with the seed he has. He’s wasteful. He just reaches his hand in that ol’ bag of seed slung over his shoulder, grabs a handful, and then tosses it every which way, in every conceivable direction. He doesn't look at the instructions on the back of the packet. He doesn't carefully drop one seed every few inches into neatly hoed rows that he measured out beforehand for optimal growing space. No, this sower just spreads the seed around everywhere. Generously. Plentifully. Lavishly. With an open hand, sowing seed with abandon.

It’s not what we would expect. It seems like such a risk to pay no attention to the kind of soil the seed will land on. It’s taking a big chance with the limited resources the sower has – because if the harvest fails, what will you do next year? If the harvest doesn't produce enough to eat and then some, how will you have any seeds to plant next year?

This fear of scarcity is only too familiar to us. We are a result-driven kind of people. We want to be able to predict and control the outcome of our hard work. We want to ensure a future where there is enough, and so we carefully plot out our gardens. We are timid with our seed spreading. We plant only where we think there will be an acceptable return on our investment of time and money and effort.

And just in case you've kind of gotten wrapped up in this gardening metaphor at a literal level, remember that the seed Jesus is talking about is the word of the kingdom. It’s the good news about what God is doing, about the ways that God is breaking into the world, shining light into dark places, replacing fear with faith, transforming anger into forgiveness, bringing hope instead of despair, raising life out of death. This is the seed of love that Jesus has been busy sowing since the beginning of his ministry – and he is holding nothing back. There are many people around Jesus, watching him at work, seeing him reach out to tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners, healing on the sabbath – and they think he’s wasting his time, that he shouldn't be sowing the seeds of God’s love into the lives of people they judge to be the hard path or the rocky soil or the thorny patch.

And we too, can be quick to judge others and the quality of the soil of their lives and think that it would be better not to waste our time reaching out, sharing this good news, sowing the word of the kingdom there, so instead we stand, tight-fisted, afraid of being too extravagant, doling out one seed at a time, instead of embracing the joy that comes with scattering the seeds of God’s love with wild abandon, trusting, like Isaiah says, that God’s word will not return empty, but will accomplish that which God purposes and succeed in the thing for which God sent it.

That’s the thing – the world around us – and within us – is made up of all of these kinds of soil; and sometimes we think we know best where God’s word should be shared. But this parable of the sower invites us to think differently. To live boldly. To grab a fistful of seeds and fling them widely, wildly, freely, trusting that God is at work in all of those soils, turning the compacted path, picking out the rocks, weeding out the thorns, carefully tending to the gardens of our hearts, preparing the soil with love, making us ready to receive God’s word and grow in ways and places that are beyond our imagination. Our job is to follow along Jesus as apprentice seed sowers, sharing the word of God’s kingdom without reserve, sowing the seeds of God’s love with all we meet. God will take care of the harvest – bringing forth an abundant crop that defies expectation, one that will feed the whole world. Let’s get to work!

Amen.

July 6, 2014 - Pentecost + 4 - The Rhythm of Rest

The Rhythm of Rest

Pentecost + 4 - July 6, 2014

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

This weekend being the Fourth of July, I've been thinking about freedom. We celebrate our independence as a nation, as individual people. We value that our country is the land of the free. We honor our forefathers and mothers who came to a new land and made a new life and had the wisdom to declare that all people are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's common to hear Americans trumpeting this right to freedom in many and various forums.

And yet, as I thought about this holiday and looked at our gospel reading for today, I got to wondering about how free we really are. Though we have political freedoms that many around the world long for, there is more to freedom than just the form of government we live under. And it seems to me that in some big ways, we are held captive.

Let me explain. A few months ago, I was listening to the radio, and caught part of an interview with author Brigid Schulte, who is a reporter for The Washington Post, and also of a book, entitled Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time. Now, I’m a working mom, and I’ve witnessed the intensifying pace of life of people around me for years now, so I was intrigued. I checked the book out of the library – and ironically, had to return it before I had had time to read more than a few chapters. (!) But I did read an article in The New York Times based on the book. Ms. Schulte's struggles to balance her family and work responsibilities led her to research this time crunch that our culture seems to wrestle with so mightily in our pursuit of happiness. She described much of her experience as “contaminated” time – so whenever she was home trying to have family time, she'd be checking work email or text messages on her phone and trying to respond. When she was at work, she'd be making phone calls to her kids' teachers or trying to coordinate the car pool. Her mind was constantly racing, filled with the unfinished to-dos on her list, so that she never felt fully present in whatever she was doing at the moment. Her research led her to someone who studies the ways people spend their time. As he reviewed the time log she had kept, he found 27 hours of “leisure” time in a given week – almost none of which felt very leisurely to her. And so he asked her, “what does leisure look like to you?” Her response? “A sick day.”

It's not a very healthy way to live, nor is it an enjoyable one, and it doesn’t feel very free. We feel the pressure of expectations – from work, from family, from our friends, from the organizations we volunteer for (or would like to, if only we could find the time!), from ourselves. We want to capture the American dream – the family, the house, the cars, the meaningful work. We want to have it all. We believe we should be able to have it all – and if that means working crazy hours – both at work and trying to provide our loved ones with whatever TV and the internet suggest we should have, well, then so be it. So many of us are caught on the hamster wheel, so sucked into our society's glorification of busy that we hardly know that we're caught – or how to just get off and stop for a while. And even when we recognize how harmful these patterns can be, there's an undertone of pride in our busy-ness. It's an accomplishment to come home at the end of the day and look at the calendar and pat ourselves on the back - “Boy, look how busy we are – but we pulled it off!”

The people Jesus was talking to in this story from Matthew were no strangers to the demands and obligations of others. To be sure, they didn’t have a lot of the distractions and alleged conveniences that we have that often just clutter up our lives – no electricity meant going to bed when it got dark, no TV or computers or tablets to keep them up past their bedtimes, no work emails or texts to be answered well past the end of the working day, no elaborate themed birthday parties to plan and carry out and pay for. But they did have to balance the demands of work and family and survival. And this passage reminds us that they also faced the burden of religious expectations. They wanted to be good and faithful people and follow God’s law, and there were plenty of religious leaders around to explain the minutia of how to fulfill God’s word, and more than happy to point it out when the average person failed. They were beat up, worn down when they realized no matter how hard they tried, they’d never live up to God’s expectations, at least as defined by the Pharisees and the scribes and the elders.

And then along comes Jesus, who also knows what it is like to live under the demands and expectations of others. He knows it’s a no-win situation; he declares it at the beginning of this reading. “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Kind of darned if you do, and darned if you don’t – and both John the Baptizer and Jesus die because they refuse to conform to others’ expectations of how they should live.

But Jesus, he calls this whole system into question, and he reveals another way to us, we who think we are so intelligent and wise, who think we can figure out ways to manage everything, who fool ourselves into thinking we can have and do it all and somehow come out on the other side with no cost to ourselves or our relationships. Out of compassion and mercy for all who are burdened and weighed down, weary of the way we are living, Jesus calls us to come to him for rest. The Message version of the Bible puts it this way:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matt. 11:28-30)

This is an invitation to join our lives to Jesus’ life, to be yoked to him. I’ll admit I don’t know all that much about that part of agricultural life, except that the yoke is that long piece of wood that lies across your shoulders – and if we’re yoked to Jesus, that means we are harnessed in with him alongside us. That yoke lies across his shoulders too – and he is pulling those burdens along with us. Don't get me wrong - this passage is not about sitting around, twiddling our thumbs. There is work to be done: real work. Urgent work. Kingdom work. Jesus was never a slacker. He worked and he worked hard at what he was sent here to do. But he knew how to get away, to leave the crowds and their demands behind. He knew how to find that time to reconnect with God, to spend time with his closest followers and friends and be renewed. He knew how to have a good time (remember that wedding in Cana?).

Jesus is our model for a different way of life, a life that embraces the rhythm of rest. When we are yoked with Jesus, walking and working with him, we follow his lead. He guides our steps. He helps us learn to put first things first. He teaches us to make the hard decisions about what really matters to him and for us and for our lives together. We learn about doing work with purpose, work that is meaningful, work that makes a difference in our lives, and in the life of the world. And we learn how to rest, how to let go and trust that God has this, that the world will continue to spin without our effort. It’s a revolutionary idea, in our day and age, no? It's rest as resistance to the pressures of the world around us, a different kind of Independence Day, when we embrace the freedom Christ gives. So, breathe deep, if you’re weary this day. Come to Jesus, if you are burned out and worn down by life. Link your life to his. Let him show you how he does it. Experience the unforced rhythms of grace found in Jesus – and then go to share this grace with a hurting and tired world.

Amen.

June 22, 2014 - Pentecost + 2 - Finding True Life

Finding True Life

Pentecost + 2 - June 22, 2014

Matthew 10:24-39

These are kind of intimidating words we get from Jesus in Matthew’s gospel today. Not exactly the warm and fuzzy, hippie, buddy-Jesus we sometimes look for or expect here. Jesus is talking to the 12 apostles, which means “sent ones” – and that’s what Jesus is doing in this part of the story. He’s picked his 12 closest followers and he’s sending them on a mission, to announce and then demonstrate the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near. Jesus gives them authority – to cast out unclean spirits and cure every disease and sickness, to cleanse the lepers and raise the dead. Exciting, heady stuff – I mean, imagine being entrusted with such work, to be about the business of showing what God’s kingdom looks like when it breaks into our world.

That’s where this whole story starts, if you go back to the beginning of chapter ten. But then comes a whole long set of warnings. “I am sending you out like sheep into a pack of wolves,” Jesus says. “Those closest to you will betray you, you’ll be persecuted by the authorities,” he tells them. The threat of death looms darkly over them. “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword, to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” This work that Jesus sends his disciples out to do will not come without a deep personal cost, requiring a deep personal commitment to the One who is sending them. But that’s only fitting, after all, because these are the things the world will do to Jesus, and disciples are not above their teacher. Slaves are not above their master. It only makes sense that the followers of Jesus, who go into the world to do the kinds of things that Jesus does, will be treated the way that Jesus was treated.

It’s a worrisome picture though, because none of us gets off the hook, not if we want to follow Jesus. Because we too are apostles. We are sent ones, sent to be about the light-giving work of our teacher and Lord Jesus. We too are intended to be going into the world around us, announcing the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near, and then become living examples of God’s kingdom light breaking into dark places. We are called to welcome the stranger and offer healing to the sick, give food to the hungry and clothe the naked, to care for the orphan and the widow, in these and so many other ways to reach out to those living on the margins and draw them into the circle of God’s love and concern expressed and lived out in our lives.

Here at Ascension, just like the disciples, we are answering that call – as individuals and as a congregation, we are doing amazing things to live out the gospel. Go into West Hall and look on the far wall at the collection bins, where you all bring food and hygiene products, diapers and cleaning supplies, clothing and reading materials and so much more for places like the Waukesha Food Pantry and the Hope Center and our prison ministry. There’s a mission of healing to El Salvador coming this summer, currently gathering simple things like bandages and toothbrushes and arts & crafts supplies; things that seem so basic to us but that make such a difference for the people who will receive them. There’s a group of people who gather once a month to take and serve lunch at Cross Lutheran, one of our partner congregations in Milwaukee. We have a whole care ministries team that offers ways for people to experience health and wholeness, from our pastoral assistants who visit and pray with and bring communion to people in the hospital or who are homebound, to our meal ministry for people going through a death or a birth or chronic illness, to Yoga classes this past year and Zumba classes this summer, and health screenings this August. We have people like Jo (Buth) who work with the refugee settlement ministry.

It’s inspiring and encouraging to think of the many ways that so many are involved in changing and improving the lives of others. But none of this comes without a price. We really can’t begin to compare our experience with that of the early disciples. They really did put their lives on the line to carry out the work Jesus sent them to do; we know that most of these original 12 were martyred for their faith; and most of us will never face anything remotely like that, though there are places in the world where people do put their lives at risk by professing their faith in Jesus. But to follow the way of Jesus and become a servant of others does cost us something. It takes time and money and energy and emotional investment and resources to make a difference – and sometimes we’re not willing to make even that much of a sacrifice. We are a busy people living in a busy world and sometimes we feel we are just barely managing to keep our own heads above water, barely keeping our own lives on track.

But the call of Jesus in this gospel is to do just that. To move past that selfishness that lives in all of us (me too!); to stop living our lives simply looking out for ourselves and what we think will make us happy, what we think will satisfy us, and to begin living like Jesus, following his example – to give, to serve, to welcome, to look out for others before we look out for number one, to hold nothing back because we know we have been given everything. If we try to find our lives the world’s way, ultimately we’ll lose them – but if we’re willing to lose our life for Jesus’ sake, he promises us that that’s when we find real life, true life, the life that really matters. The sacrifice may be great, but the rewards are even greater. So go ahead and give it a try. Dive in to do something that will make a difference in our world. Jesus promises a life that is beyond your wildest dreams.

Amen.

June 15, 2014 - Holy Trinity Sunday - Gathered and Sent

Gathered and Sent

Holy Trinity Sunday - June 15, 2014

Matthew 28:16-20

I recently heard a story about a woman whose husband died, and while that was sad – they were both in their young 50s - what really caught my attention was hearing that the widow began receiving cold calls from a dating service, inviting her to sign up – only a month after he died! I was shocked. It's hard to imagine the chutzpah required to make that kind of phone call, what kind of person can be that pushy and insensitive and so totally lacking in empathy that they would invade her life, rather than letting her mourn in peace.

I got to thinking about that story as I thought about the gospel for today and how we hear Jesus' words in this passage. These are his final words to his 11 remaining disciples, as the author of Matthew records them anyway, and in them, we hear Jesus tell them that they are to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything Jesus had commanded them. And we who consider ourselves disciples of Jesus know that these words are meant for us too. We know that if we are disciples, we should be reproducing that discipleship in the lives of others. And it's not news that most of us are not comfortable with that role. We can feel our heart rates getting faster, our blood pressure rising, our palms starting to sweat at the mere idea of sharing our faith with someone, let alone helping them walk along the path of discipleship!

There are lots of reasons for that, but one of them, I think, is that we are afraid we'll come across like that dating service salesmen, that people will find us intrusive, rude, insensitive, overbearing, or maybe just plain weird for trying to foist our faith on them.

But then I thought of another story, another way of viewing this scenario. Some of you may know that for years before I became a pastor, I lived and worked in Rhode Island. I moved there fresh out of college with my college roommate and her then fiance (now husband), and outside of Heather and Mike, I knew no one. And wouldn't you know it, in less than 2 years, they both up and moved back to Pennsylvania to be closer to their families, and there I stayed. But I'm not sure how long I would have stayed there if it hadn't been for Joan and Vaughn. Joan and Vaughn and I all worked at the same place. Joan actually was my boss for the first year or so that I was there. And knowing that I was mostly alone, Joan had started inviting me to come along to different things – concerts, pow-wows – and eventually Thanksgiving dinner with her large family (she was the youngest of 8 siblings!). I was kind of the adopted stray – it became tradition that every year I'd join them around the big table, filled with immediate family and in-laws and the kids, and Joan’s boyfriend, then fiancé, then (and still) husband Vaughn (I had a good 3rd wheel vibe going on back then!). Vaughn and I also became good friends, and he too, took me in, asking me to tag along on camping and hiking adventures, movies, cookouts. During the 8 years I lived there, we became like family to each other – in a completely organic, natural way. We weren't pressuring each other to be friends. No one was trying to sell anyone anything. We just liked each other and wanted to spend time together.

Today in the church we celebrate Holy Trinity Sunday – which I'm pretty sure is why this passage is assigned to this day, since Jesus says in it, “baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...” I'll be honest, there are times that I felt it was a stretch to use this Great Commission story as a link to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. But recently I began to realize what a great connection is really there – not that the Great Commission helps us understand the mystery of the Trinity – God as three-in-one – so much, but that in thinking about the Trinity, we begin to understand better this call Jesus gives to his disciples, then and now. Because we tend to think that this commissioning is for individual people to be sent out into the world on God's mission – and then we feel guilty as individuals when we don't live this out in our lives, or if our attempts don't bear much fruit. But even Jesus never went out solo to do God's work. From the very beginning of his ministry, we see the Trinity at work, together; as Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River, the skies are ripped open, and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove on Jesus, as God the Father declares from heaven, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased...” From the very beginning, Jesus is sent from a family to represent a family. Relationship is at the very core of who God is – and Jesus is sent to make that relationship known – and then to grow God's family. You all know Sprint's latest campaign – to get people to join the Framily Plan? Their commercials have this odd assortment of folks who seemingly have nothing in common – they run the gamut of ages and races and interests and even species (there's a talking hamster in that exercise ball)! But the point is that family isn't just who you are related to by blood or marriage – and we see that in Jesus' life too, as he goes out, gathering disciples to himself, an odd assortment of men and women, who leave behind their biological families to follow. They eat and travel and worship and pray together until they become part of Jesus' family. They gather to learn the family traditions, the stories shared around a meal, the memories shared and passed down through the generations – and now, today in this passage, we see Jesus sending them to invite the world to become part of God's family, to join them at Christ's table. And while we certainly have the amazing stories of the Billy Graham revival-style events where many become disciples in one fell swoop in the New Testament, we know that that is not the predominate way that the church spreads down through the ages. It happens instead as the disciples are sent into the world and make relationships with the people they meet, and those people invite them into their homes and lives – and as they invest their time and energy in each others’ lives, more and more find themselves drawn into God's family.

That's good news on this Holy Trinity Sunday – that the root of discipleship is found in relationship – God's relationship within the divine self, and that love over flowing into the world, into our lives, and through us to the people around us. And so we gather together in this place at God’s invitation. We tell the family stories, we share a meal, we relive our history together – and then we are sent, not to do the hard sell or try to close the deal, but to be open to others, sharing our time, our lives, our interests, opening the way for what God is already doing in the world to operate in us, so that others will hear and experience the invitation of God to come join the family at the table. It's open to everyone. Thanks be to God.

Amen.