The Cost of Yes

 

Sermon Mark 1:1-14 January 10, 2021 Baptism of the Lord Sunday

The Cost of Yes

Disbelief occurred on Wednesday. The Capitol building of our United States was assaulted as the joint chambers were getting ready to certify electoral votes. For some they were grateful for the riotous behavior. They were feeling their voices were being heard. There was cheering across social media stating the joy they had in the take back of a country headed toward totalitarianism. Others though, were shocked that our nation could become so unstable in her democracy that a revolutionary coup was trying to take place. 

The insurrection has cost us as a nation. 

It has cost us as a people. 

It has cost us as a community and as neighbors and as people of faith.

I realize that on Thursday as I went to exercise and other places throughout the day, 

not one of us spoke of what happened. 

When 9/11 occurred, we spoke about it for weeks and months in shock and horror about what happened. 

But Thursday, all voices around me were silent about what had happened on Wednesday.

In less than 20 years we do not speak (except in media platforms) openly about our concerns of government, of social behavior, of faith, of security, of anything beyond TV shows.

Our opinions, our values, our thought processes of any subject are constantly rejected, mocked, yelled at, and even assaulted. We have never in our lives been so constrained in our ability to speak than ever before. We demonize anyone and everyone whose ideas are different from ours. 

How did we come to this?

As I studied Mark’s opening gospel message over the last few weeks, I was reminded again and again, the cost to Jesus for his Yes to God. Jesus stood before John the Baptist and said yes to a baptism of the Holy Spirit that would thrust him into the world of hate, envy, sin, evil and strife.

Who in their right mind would consider doing anything that would cost them their life?

And yet, we witness that there is always a cost to yes. 

There is always a cost to the who and what we say yes to. 

And if we choose to say yes, 

we best be prepared to know the truth 

of what we have made our allegiance to. 

If we say yes to Jesus we best be prepared 

that it is a costly yes. 

It is not a yes, of when we feel like it or something that looks good on a resume. 

It is a yes that takes over every ounce of our life, 

even our breath- if we are serious about it. 

How do I know this? 

I have Jesus as my example. 

An encounter with Jesus cannot be undone. 

The presence of the Spirit is something so powerful it changes us. 

It sets us out into a risky, scary world 

where we are to go and proclaim him, 

not deny him, 

because we trust he is guiding us.

We witness in this first chapter of Mark that Jesus joins the line of people standing at the edge of the river Jordan. He along with others are waiting for this new amazing fiery preacher man to baptize them into a new life. 

The people coming to John the baptizer were willing to accept the sin in their life and to reject it and to repent, to turn from their ways, and begin to live a new life saying yes to God. 

Jesus comes behind them and also rejects sin and turns to the life God sent him to live. He turns to the life that will lead him to death. He paves the way for his followers. 

He shows them that YES has a cost. 

It has a cost that began with the words of God calling him beloved Son and then immediately he was confronted with his yes by being tempted in the wilderness. 

The angels ministered to him and he was refreshed by the Spirit and ready for ministry.

Jesus came to preach the truth of God’s love. 

AND To preach the truth of love: he suffered, he was mocked, and he died. 

The cost of yes to be a follower of Christ, to speak the truth of God’s love is not cheap (as Bonhoeffer says). 

To be a follower is to risk our very life to say yes to Jesus and to live a life in the fullness of discipleship.

In every century beginning with the first disciples, the followers of Jesus were undermined at every turn. Here we are 2000 years later and we are grateful for their YES! They were undeterred in their willingness to preach the truth that Jesus is our God incarnate, Emmanuel with us, our Lord, and Savior. Can we still proclaim him like this outside of a Christmas service? Can we proclaim him above all other Gods? Or is that unsettling for many? We can gather and agree to coexist with other religions without religious persecution. But, that doesn’t mean we cannot share our faith and live our faith openly.

The gospel of Mark gives us a taste of the haste of the ministry of Jesus. In every generation there is a haste for his ministry. It takes us through his life with attention to his purpose and mission to share the truth of the kingdom of God and for those who hear of it to embrace it urgently for salvation is near.

As we read scripture we are influenced by our experience. 

The lenses of our reading for understanding are framed by the templates of our prior reading and the world of our learned experiences. 

It is important for us to constantly test our understanding as we pray with an open heart trusting the Spirit to reveal God’s insight for that text before us.

The approach to reading and studying scripture should match that of the Bereans who we read about in Acts chapter 17 as soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. ¹¹ Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. ¹² As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

The ability to discern and search for truth is key to our yes to faith.

We must ask questions. 

We must research. 

We must scrutinize. 

In our search for truth we have the opportunity to be open to the joys of growth in faith. We will receive strength in our resolve to proclaim what we believe.

When we have a handle on our yes as a follower of Christ it becomes the rule by which we make our way in all other aspects of our life. If our yes to Jesus as a follower is wishy washy, if it is on shaky ground, if it is only when we feel like it, then all other ideals will supersede our following Christ. We will end up chasing after an ideal that sucks us away from any yes we ever made to the discipline of faith in Jesus.

You see in this 21^st century we can’t escape the influence of radical ideals who have gone before. 

History books and other texts have been rewritten and altered. 

We will be confronted with the teachings of Karl Marx, Malcolm X, Stalin, and many others. We best know our own constitution and democracy were influenced by Toqueville of France.  Karl Marx called religion the opium of the people. 

He was successful in stealing the hope of heaven 

from the faithful 

by mocking the very truth 

of their ability to transcend difficult times. 

He succeeded in dividing people into groups of hate and sedition. 

He is only one example of the effect 

how 

one man’s 

writings and propaganda 

can have on a large scale.

Marxists were successful in pushing the ideal that it is human effort that make humans make history. 

Writers, philosophers, theologians, idealists 

make their mark on our conscious and our outlook. 

What they contribute forms a template of influence. 

These sources enter into our psyche as we relate to Jesus and can distort us.

Christians have no choice but to wrestle with the dominant culture of their time in every time. H.R. Niebuhr

As nations struggle; 

As governments rise and fall, 

it is the Christian responsibility 

to study the struggle 

and make choices 

of who we say yes to. 

We make sure that in every oath we take: 

baptism, 

ordination, 

marriage, 

public office, 

confirmation, 

membership; 

that we are willing to live by the YES to those oaths. 

Our words and our yeses hold us accountable to God and to each other.

Cheap grace, as Bonhoeffer said, is the deadly enemy of the church. 

I would add that a weak yes to Jesus is the demise of our strength as a church and as an influencer in society. 

As followers of Jesus we don’t want to impose our faith on others for fear of offending them. If the grace we believe is truly as costly as Bonhoeffer says, only those who truly want to take the risk will say yes. It won’t offend anyone. The gospel doesn’t offend because in Romans 1:16  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 

Good news of love and new life is never offensive. We just need the courage to speak what we believe. Perhaps we can really believe the intensity of God’s love for us as we witness the heavens tear open for Jesus as the Spirit descends and declares him a beloved Son at his baptism.

How can we live the Christian life in this modern divided world? 

We remember our baptismal vows and rejoice in them. They give us the ability to live the costly grace in our everyday life. We make sure our yes to Jesus is above all other yeses. We believe in sin and the need for forgiveness. We believe in repentance and the truth of forgiveness. We believe in the new life given to us as followers of Jesus. We believe it all and allow it to rule our life and guide our ways.

When we can do this then we can come together to seek to find a way to talk about all of our life and our different ideas and our different choices. It has to start with us. How did we get to this? I’m still learning. But, I know one thing for sure. In Jesus Christ I have the courage to engage with each different thought as we seek to put Christ first with our yes. There is a cost. There is always a cost. Let us be willing to seek to serve and witness the heavens open to us calling us beloved as we go forth. Amen.

Property of Monica Gould sharing is permitted but not to be reprinted without permission.

Resources: NIB Gospel of Mark Pheme Perkins; Christ & Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr; The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Live not by Lies by Rod Dreher

The Return Home

 

Sermon Luke 2:36-39 December 27, 2020 Christmas 1

The Return Home

It’s hard to imagine a life as a widow for more of your life than the years being married. But, it happens. It happens more than we realize. Anna is a blessing story for us. Her short entrance into the story at the birth of Jesus causes us to pay attention.

A woman whose life did not go as she planned ends up living her life at the Temple serving God day and night. I’m assuming that the Temple offered her a home. The requirement under the Law is that all widows and orphans are to be taken care of as part of the ministry and commitment to God. Usually it is the family responsible and then if there is no family to speak of it becomes the responsibility of the faith community. This is why we can assume that Anna had no family. We can also assume that she was respected and well liked because she was known in the Temple. The words spoken about her are quite positive.  

Just like Simeon she had been praying in the Temple waiting for the coming of the Messiah. And just like Simeon the Spirit of God revealed to her that Jesus, the baby, was the Savior of the nations. It’s also interesting to note that her lineage is important enough to Luke for him to mark it down for the readers. She was the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. Asher means happy. Asher is the eighth son of Jacob and therefore the eighth tribe of Israel. This tribe ended up with the land North and west along the sea between Sidon and Helkath. Tyre was also located within the land of the tribe of Asher. I’m sure the name of her father and the name of her tribe was important to the readers for the credibility of the testimony of Anna to the world.

Luke pays attention to the details  that matter for the telling of the story of Jesus. He wants to make sure he has documented everything that will make folks tune their ears and their hearts to the saving story of Jesus.

What details of your story around this Christmas with Jesus are important for you to document for future readers to understand how this Christmas was different? How has this year with Jesus at the manger made an impact on you and your family? It is often in the tiny details that the Spirit makes us aware of what we need in our life to change our life and be on the road of continued growth in Christ our Lord.

In this last verse of chapter two (39) we learn that Mary, Joseph and Jesus headed home to Galilee where he would grow up from a baby into a young boy and into a man.

Everyone headed home.

The shepherds, the wisemen, all those who had gone to the different cities for the census, they all returned to their homes. They returned to the ordinary of their lives.

Perhaps, we need that reminder. Return home. You see we have a need for stability. We have a need for normalcy. We have a need to know that everything will turn out right. While the fanfare of the celebrations are great. And this year even that has been challenging. We still did our best to make a big deal about Christmas. I’m not sure if you have already put away all of your decorations, gifts, put the trash out on the road, or if your still gazing in wonder at your beautiful tree and the glowing fireplace, and the adorable Santas and nativities? Either way, the question is, what next?

Simeon in his, what next plans, let us know his plans. He could now go and rest his weary body and transition from this life to the next. He could do this in peace because his dreams and promises had been fulfilled. Anna, in her what next plans, could transition from preaching about the Savior who was to come, she could praise the Savior who has come.

Christmas and Easter are life altering moments for people of faith.

We approach these church events every year already knowing what to expect.

Yet, every year we also anticipate the surprise of the experience of Christmas and Easter as if for the first time.

We reach into the recesses of our memories and

search for that moment in our life when

the love of Christ appeared to us and made sense.

We reach back and we try to remember

our first church experiences

when we paid attention.

When we listened to the readings and

we remembered them so well we could recite them with the reader.

Treasured moments.

We are moved emotionally, spiritually, in a way forward in our faith and in our growth of love. And each year we move in the direction that draws us closer to God and family. And when the moment is over, we return home.

Returning home is where the new experiences occur.

By returning home we

allow the sacred moments to

enter into the ordinary of our life.

As we all return home at the end of this season we have the opportunity to document the things that mattered.

We document them for how we responded to an important event in the time of our cycle of life.

I think its pretty amazing how we celebrate the Christmas story of the birth of Jesus.

Each year we are a year older, yet the story itself is 2000 years old.

The story doesn’t change but we change and grow with it.

 

So, today, before the flashes of those special moments of this year are gone, write them down.

Write down the words that were exchanged.

Write down how you communicated through the computer.

Write down how you sat around a firepit to sing of the Savior instead of in a heated sanctuary.

These little memories may serve well in the future in ways we least expect.

 

We do not hear about Jesus again in scripture until he is twelve years old. And then it is just a glimpse. The next time we hear about him is as he enters the ministry God has sent him for. The people who witnessed the blessing of our Savior at his birth, were able to return to their ordinary lives filled with hope.

They were renewed in faith, love, and certainty that God loved them. It’s there for us too, to carry the certainty of our faith into the days ahead. God’s love for us is from everlasting to everlasting. Amen.

 Written copyright material of Monica Gould December 27, 2020. Not to be duplicated without permission from author.

Many are Called

 

Sermon Matthew 22:1-14 October 11, 2020

Many are Called

We used to think hosting birthday parties and banquets was challenging figuring out how to invite people and where to seat them and if we invited enough or the right people. We used to fret over the feelings of everyone involved worried that someone would feel left out or we would lose funding if we didn’t seat the right people next to each other.

Parties and banquets in the days of covid have possibly been as turbulent as this allegory given to us by Jesus in the gospel of Matthew.

We have this story for us about a king and his desire to host a fabulous party. 

This is a striking story told by Jesus according to Boring’s commentary in NIB, “in which all invited guests to a dinner party refuse to come at the last minute, so the host rounds up people from the street to come who find themselves at a party they had never dreamed of coming to.”

This parable is the climax of a three parable set. First the parable of the two sons, then the tenants in the vineyard and now this king and his banquet. This is a parable of instruction in the early church.

It’s a message for those who have answered the invitation to the grace given through Jesus Christ. It’s a reminder of the cost and the hardships that those who choose Jesus will have to face.

In the early church the truth of accepting the life as a follower of Christ was to risk one’s life. There was no doubt that the life of the people post destruction of Jerusalem was turbulent, confusing, full of distrust, difficulties, an upheaval of religion, it was scary!

Remember the gospel of Matthew was written after 70 AD, after the destruction of the Temple.

The Jews had no central place for faith.

And Christians were just beginning to figure out their identity.

Life was hard.

Folks had trouble figuring out who to trust and where to go. 

Sometimes in harsh stories like this it’s troubling to find the message of the love of Jesus.

Yet, it begins with overt hospitality.

The king wants people to come to a party that celebrates his son!!

What a gift!

A wonderful opportunity is laid out for many to come and be in the presence of the Father and the Son.

And at the last minute his guests refuse.

And at the second invitation the guests treat the messengers of the invitation in the same manner the prophets of the Old Testament were treated as well as the early church missionaries,

they were killed for brining good news,

they were killed for bringing the truth.

 

This story presents a strong indictment to those of us who read it even centuries later.

Even though this was written to a specific group of people in a specific time during a specific traumatic historical period, it has perhaps, the possibility to place before us this question. “How might we come to acknowledge specific things in our lives that might indict us?” (Working Preacher)

The truth is that a king who loves his son wants to celebrate his joy with everyone.

How often have we hoped to share our joys with others only to be rejected?

Our heavenly Father not only wants to celebrate his son with everyone

but wants us to receive this gift and then go out and live it.

Notice how he sends his messengers into the streets to invite everyone to come-so similar to the Great commission we will read in Matthew 28.  

How do we receive the invitation from God to come to the banquet?

The invitation is always there and yet, it is more often rejected than it is received.

In the 10 commandments we hear in the very first commandments that describes our God “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.” It is no wonder that the Matthew allegory shows an enraged God of the OT carrying out wrath at the refusal of his people to love him in return.

It begs the question for we the people of the new covenant of God’s love in Jesus Christ, how do we embrace our accountability to the love freely given to us?

Will we disregard the invitation with arrogance?

Will we reject the hospitality of our Lord?

Will we refuse to be clothed in Christ?

Even though all sinners and saints have entered into the house of the king, there is one who still refuses to receive the gift of identity in Christ and sits there in disdain in the kings own home mocking him by not donning the robe of his child.

And so the king has no choice but to throw out the one who mocks him.

One who mocks,

one who refuses to be identified with the son

cannot serve the king

for the father and the son are one.

 

You see, friends, many are called!

From the beginning of creation God has called us.

God has never given us the choice.

God has proclaimed, “You shall be my people.”

And again, in Jesus Christ God proclaimed, “From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

 We are not our own.

God has claimed us with a life of purpose. We have a responsibility.

It is time to accept the truth that many are called.

It is time to accept the truth that being called is to be loved.

It is time to accept the truth that you are one of the many that have been called.

Put on the clothes of Christ.

Accept him and celebrate him at the banquet with the Father.

In these days of covid we’ve found some fabulous ways to celebrate our Lord with-drive by birthdays, outdoor worship, virtual communion, painting work days, video Sunday school.

God has not stopped calling many, let us accept his invitation with our whole lives.

Let us sing the new song of joy and let us serve with love. Amen.

Rev. Monica Gould 

Resources: NIB Eugene Boring; Working Preacher Matthew Skinner; Feasting on the Word Year A

Let Love be Genuine

 Sermon Romans 12:9-21 August 30, 2020 Ordinary Time

Let Love be Genuine

The words of our opening hymn this morning; “Though I may speak with bravest fire, and have the gift to all inspire, and have not love, my words are vain; as sounding brass, and hopeless gain”, are taken from the love chapter written by Paul to the Corinthian church. It is found again in this chapter to the Roman church as we just heard it.

What’s the big deal about love? 

It’s mushy, 

it’s emotional, 

it’s embarrassing, 

it’s scary, 

it’s elusive, 

it’s too hard, 

it has no place in real life.  or does it? 

Yet, in our Bible from Genesis to Revelation the Judeo Christian premise for life is love. It shows up in our creation the, ten commandments, the shema Deuteronomy 6:5 , in Micah 6:8, in the words of the prophets, and in the incarnation of the greatest love of all in Jesus Christ.

So what’s the big deal about humans not being able to really live a life of love for one another? 

It seems as long as God has been calling us to love one another, we have been at war with one another. 

You know the drill, parents are constantly trying to teach the kids to be kind:

‘please don’t beat up your brother, 

he’s got to have a clean face for school pictures.’ 

‘please stop taking the heads of your sister’s Barbie dolls, 

she really likes to have them in one piece.’ 

Teaching love, living love, and being an example of love is one of our greatest challenges. Trying to be loving to the person who just took your parking space in the rush to get toilet paper these past few months has been an impossible task.

But, Paul isn’t joking here. 

He is trying to build up the congregation with hope and wonder and sheer courage. 

Because it’s in the most difficult times when genuine love is put to the test. 

I’m not talking about our personal battles and hardships. 

I’m talking about our collective challenges as a church 

to work together in love and together demonstrate love 

to those beyond the circle of the church.

 

Because how we live our lives individually 

is how we are looked upon collectively.

We all have meltdowns and anger outbursts, but those are the exceptions. Our calling according to Paul is our overall example of faith.

    The letter to the Roman church was written around 54 to 58 AD. It was written twenty years     before the fall of Jerusalem. It was written after Claudius had expelled the Jews from Rome     and Nero had allowed them to return. Paul is working to have the diversity of the church work together in a manner that they are able to set the example what living out the love of Christ looks like. They were a foreign lot these new Christians throughout the world, Jews, Greeks, white skin, brown, and black skin, rich, poor, and in between, all finding their place in the love of Jesus now becoming the church.

So, now Paul is not only telling them they need to get along, 

but they also need to have regard for their enemy! 

Showing love to them means bringing drink to them and learning how to talk to them. 

It means taking a sandwich to the one you really can’t stand because they support political and social ideals you don’t. 

Paul tells the church to get brave and head straight into trouble by offering a blessing to the people who have tried to hurt them. 

He says go and bless those who persecute you and mock you and take away the ones you love. The most incomprehensible act we’ve witnessed in recent years are the ones of two churches. In 2006 11 children were shot and five died at an Amish school in Lancaster PA. In hours from this tragedy the families of the children and the whole Amish community gathered to forgive the shooter-what unfolded was the amazing story of Amish grace and forgiveness.

Then in Charleston in 2015 a gunman walked into a church attended Bible study leaned the names of the people there and then stood up and shot them dead. Nine people died at the hands of a ruthless, horrible human who had no respect for the life of others. And yet, the people of the church chose to live according to the words of Paul. They met their persecutor and forgave the one who murdered their children, their family members. 

This is probably the hardest kind of love living that Christians are called to live.

Much of what people have against those who claim to be Christians is the hate they hear them spewing at others. Somehow there is an indignant righteousness that lauds superiority of belief over others. 

Jesus went to his death on the cross for us out of love. 

Can’t we show at least a little love for others? 

If we don’t even try, we are mocking our Lord who brought the love of all humanity into our world.

It is really clear that genuine love requires an enormous capacity to forgive. 

It is a powerful thing to be on the receiving end of forgiveness. 

It’s a moment when the story of Jesus is no longer a story but an all inhabiting invasion of overwhelming love, indescribable love.

We are turning a corner this month.

Our children are headed off to school.

We have been in seclusion for six months and we are slowly emerging as we find safe spaces and places to go. We are navigating the chance to be face to face with those we have missed so very much. We are trusting our schools and our leaders as they seek to reengage us in life in a manner that keeps us out of harms way. Even the families choosing 100% virtual school or homeschool are venturing out into an unknown world.

I believe Paul has a few words for us in this second half of chapter twelve to challenge us in living out our faith. 

The church is in a new way. 

The church is no longer the way it used to be and there is no going back. There is no going back because it is and has always been going forward. 

The church is always the church of Jesus Christ.

Paul was giving hope to the people of Rome. 

I honestly believe verse twelve is our go to verse for then and for now and for the future. 

Please consider memorizing it. “ Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.” 

What a blessing to hear these words in times of great sadness, 

in times of great difficulty, 

in times of great frustration. 

If we are struck down with cancer, 

or a miscarriage, 

or a stroke, 

or the loss of a lifelong partner, 

or the loss of work, or the loss of friends, 

or the loss of togetherness, 

or the coronoa virus, 

or the devastation of a hurricane, 

or the loss of a daily moment of snuggles and hugs; 

this stand alone verse is there to get us through absolutely everything of this world that comes our way. It is the truth for our very being.

All these verses have hope built in for us today. So, let me run through the list of 10 for you today. Pay attention. Don’t nap there at home or here in those pews. As we adopt these hope words and ways the world won’t seem so scary. We’ve got this because God’s got us.  God grants us wisdom and courage to go forth and do the work of love. Here are our marching orders:

1. Love will always do what is good. 

2. Lead the way. Laziness is not allowed. 

3. Keep your heart light shining. 

4. Remember who you serve. 

5. Well, you know…live with hope, patience, and prayer. 

6. Risk being open to others. 

7. Superiority has no place. Be a blessing. 

8. No getting even; no matter how bad you want to. 

9. We all want justice. Do so without denigrating others. 

10. All people have value even in the face of unjust authority. Trust to continue to do the good that Jesus calls us to do.

Finally, by forcing interaction with our enemies, even those enemies in our own heart, we are offering redemption in the act, both for the enemy, and for the giver.

We can trust that God will grant us all we need as we face the next hours ahead of us. Delight in the love of the Lord. Let love be genuine. Go out in joy! Amen.

Resources: NIB Romans N.T. Wright; Working Preacher Romans 2020 Israel Kamudzandu, sermon 2017 notes Monica Gould

 

Choose Your Battles Well

 

Sermon Matthew 15:21-28 August 15, 2020 Ordinary Time

Choose Your Battles Well

Relationships require an ability to communicate.

They also require an understanding of mutuality.

And relationships require some sort of ability for forgiveness.

How do I know this?

 

Well, it’s one of the essentials of our faith.

Whether we adhere to the faith of the Old Testament through the Torah, the ten commandments, and the shema from Deuteronomy 6:8 ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might’, or from the New testament where Jesus added to Deuteronomy 6:8, ‘your neighbor as yourself’; or Paul in Corinthians that we are ‘the body of Christ’.

 

All of these words from Scripture point to the mercy and love of God.

All of these verses point to the fact that relationships require mercy.

This can be the most challenging news for how we interact with each other as a parent, a spouse, a child, a neighbor, a friend, or a stranger.

 

When my first child came along, I was determined to make sure everything I did as a parent would be the correct way of parenting. I was worried about what people thought of me more than how my relationship with my child unfolded. By the time my third child came along I didn’t care what people thought and cared only about how we all got along. It became necessary for me to take the attitude, ‘choose your battles well’ if I wanted to get through seeing the kids into adulthood. So, when my children played in the playroom and didn’t clean up, I decided that was less important than making sure they ate well, or took a bath, or did their homework, or came with us to church. I’ll never forget being fussed  at by parents at church when my daughter decided she was going to dye her hair every color she could imagine. I remember saying to them, ‘I choose my battles and that’s not one of them.’ They were upset with me because I allowed her to demonstrate such a visible expression of herself. Yet, she is an amazing woman. All three of my children survived my style of parenting (at least I think they did). My children chose their battles well too. When they were determined (whether the choice was a good one or not); they stood up for themselves and challenged us to live up to what we professed about our love for them and their right to make choices for themselves. It was hard to watch them when they made choices that brought them sorrow. It was hard for us when we realized we missed crucial signs of anguish. It was hard to learn through one another as we sought to follow God’s word in our lives.

This Scripture passage is an important display of humanity.

It is an important display of Jesus’ humanity.

He is downright rude and crude.

He ignores.

He belittles.

He dismisses the very person who expects the divine to work through him.

 

What kind of example is he setting for his disciples?

What kind of humanity is this divine person showing others?

What point is Matthew, the gospel writer, trying to make by including this for the readers?

It is perhaps a most important set of verses for us to take some time to wrestle with.

It is important for us to recognize how a woman in Scripture chose her battle well.

And it begs the question for us when we should or could or would do the same.

Let’s consider her for a moment.

She is a Canaanite woman. Joshua has just entered her land at the end of the Exodus and claimed it as the Promised Land from God for the children of Israel. She is considered unclean. She is considered foreign. She is considered socially outcast. She is considered outside the boundaries of a true member of God’s household. She has no place among men and especially no place among the religious authorities. The theology and doctrine of her day forbid her from having any value.

She made a conscious choice to approach the One in authority to challenge her right to receive mercy and healing as others had received.

Nothing was going to stop her from appealing to the Son of David.

Nothing was going to stop her from shouting him down and making him honor his own words. Jesus himself had quoted Hosea 6:6 “I desire mercy over sacrifices.”

She was not intimidated by his position.

She knew who he was and expected him to break through the barriers of theology and doctrine and provide for her and heal her daughter.

She turns the tide on Jesus!

 

She initiates her encounter with Jesus.

And she does not do it with finesse,

nor with delicate charm,

nor with wit or fancy,

nor with body language or a dainty wardrobe.

 

She challenges Jesus’ mission through her prophetic shouts.

Her behavior is socially unacceptable.

She violates every norm of her day: she shouts, she speaks to a man, she speaks to a Jew, she demands, she is offensive, she is rude (and so is Jesus), she is in Jesus’ face!

She will not accept that her people are dogs.

Nor will she accept that her people are not children of God eligible for mercy as those Jesus claims to have come for.

 

She makes Jesus alter his actions.

 

In this story we witness Jesus act shockingly toward another.

Mercy is the very thing that Jesus is accusing the religious authorities of lacking.

Now he comes face to face with a challenge of his own.

Can Jesus live up to his claim of mercy in the face of one who is doctrinally marginal?

This Canaanite woman, who does not receive the honor of having her name recorded in biblical history, puts Jesus’ words of mercy to the test of action.

She revealed the length she would go for the salvation of her daughter.

Jesus acted on her behalf as he witnessed her unrelenting faith. His encounter with a foreign woman broke through the barriers and boundaries of theology and doctrine to allow the mercy of God to be fulfilled.

Tuesday August 18, 2020 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the ratification of the 19^th amendment to the constitution of the United States of America allowing women the right to vote.  

                                                                                                        
I wonder if the audacity of the Canaanite woman gave the women of the suffrage movement the same courage to break through boundaries and barriers to bring about the mutuality of all people in their rights including the vote.

Friends, the people who wrote and fought for this constitution went up against an authority to declare what they believed was right. The amendments that follow the Bill of Rights were brought about in the same manner. Alongside our Bibles this should also be an annual read for us as we treasure the rights we have in this nation. Sidebar-let’s consider reading through our Bibles together this year.

I can’t say that the encounters with Jesus will always turn out as we expect.

I can’t say that our encounters with each other will turn out as we expect.

But, as we kneel before our Lord and cry out the ancient phrase, “Lord, in your mercy” we are crying out the words of thousands of years of challenging God to act.

We too challenge God’s divine mercy to intercede on behalf of others.

 

The great faith of others have challenged norms and barriers.

They have shouted prophetic words to challenge doctrines to bring about the ways of mercy and love professed in God’s word.

May God’s people hang on to the power of the Canaanite woman’s ability to choose her battle well. May her ability to shout for mercy when mercy was required be the impetus for us.

Relationships are worth fighting for.

Learning how to choose battles well for mercy and love for the sake of others is key to who we are as people of faith.

It is up to us to seek God’s Kingdom.

It is up to us to hear God’s voice and follow as we are summoned.

It is up to us to challenge doctrines and theology in the light of mercy and love.

It is up to us to go onward, we are not divided, all one body we, one in hope and charity-yes, mercy.

May we be challenged on our assumptions of faith. May we live with such great faith that we can take the initiative to encounter Jesus and together turn the tide for mercy and love. Amen.

 

Resources: NIB Matthew, Eugene Boring; Feasting on the Word Year A, Jae Won Lee; Feasting on the Word Year A, Iwan Russell-Jones.

Sermon belongs to Monica Gould. 

Scattering Seed

Sermon Matthew 13:1-23 (1-9&18-23) July 12, 2020 Communion

Scattering Seed

We are blessed people.

We are blessed people of God.

We are blessed people of God’s creation!

We have been given creativity as a gift in human nature. We have been given the opportunity to be curious, to discover, to learn, to find pleasure, and to flourish in our whole being.

When we learn about the sower who scatters the seed,

we can imagine how broad and how wide

the seed is thrown in the air

catching on to the breeze,

being carried far beyond the sower’s reach

and then slowly settling along

the various places as the breeze settles.

It’s a wonderful image of the power of God’s hand scattering goodness, good seeds, good news, good things across the fields of life.

We know its important that this parable is one of the many parables of Jesus that we find in more than one gospel account of his life and words. This parable is so simple to turn into children’s ministry programs, Sunday school lessons, and plays and songs. As it is read and heard it is often simplified into basic points of faith and salvation. Matthew’s gospel focus’ the parable on the fate of the seeds and in the interpretation the hearer’s understanding.

Like a painting or a poem, we come to it each time with new experiences in our lenses of life and we see and hear new things that nourish us and offer us fresh renewed joy and hope.

We need fresh joy and hope.

 The truth is we all had hoped we could be on with our lives by now. That we could come to church in a different way. We had all hoped that this way we are living could have passed us and we could be on airplanes, at beach houses, running back and forth to sporting, fishing, music and theater events. And yet, here we have arrived at July and there seems no end in sight to the struggle we are all facing. Everywhere we turn we realize the simple things are harder. The things we took for granted in our daily routine require more effort.

We are tired.

We are really tired.

We are wondering where everyone has gone.

We are alone, still living safer at home with shelter in place conditions. Our circle of contact has diminished to just a few.

We hear the words of Jesus to refresh our souls with a story about goodness thrown to the wind.

There are confetti bombs sold in the stores and I’ve watched several videos where graduation, birthdays, and other major life changing events have been celebrated. People have had such great creativity! During this pandemic when contact of hugs and being close together hasn’t been possible people have found other ways to spread goodness and good cheer. From car windows or from across the street they have taken the confetti bomb and let it blast in the air and thousands of pieces of colored paper are carried by the air to offer joy and congratulations.

When I see those things I think of the scattering of the seeds of the good news of Jesus.

It is these efforts of commitment that encourage us each day as we wake up and wonder how we will approach the newness of another day.

We do our best scattering the seeds as far as they can go to spread wonder and joy.

We realize not everyone is in the mood to hear another story about Jesus’ love.

We realize that we all get distracted by the real struggle of life and our ears are not focused on good news. They are focused on news reports and local gossip, on memes, and sarcasm.

But, we are also distracted by very important things too.

Our worries take over our life as our ears are focused on listening to the latest report on how to educate our children or when will our general practitioners start seeing patients again.

The ground around us is hardened and parched.

We have to dig harder than we have before and

we beg for rain to soften the soil just a bit

so the good seeds have a chance to make it.

We hope that if we are not able to be scattering the seeds of good news and kindness perhaps there is someone else who can be scattering the seeds our way.

 

Because, everyday we realize that evil continues to lurk at the door to steal away what morsel of joy descends our way. The fear of what if and what next withers away our generosity. The world of chaos seeks to squeeze our courage from us.

We learn from this story that the seed comes in contact with good soil and

with time,

with time,

it grows and grows and yields an enormous harvest of finest quality.

Perhaps today, where we can be fed and nourished by God’s word.

As we work the soils and struggle through this never-ending time, we won’t give up.

We’ll keep scattering goodness.

We’ll keep insisting on blasting out God’s love.

Because even during this time;

even when we’re so tired

even when we’re so worn out and done,

we discover the heartwarming stories;

the ones that give us courage and nourish our souls; and we can say Lord, one more day, we can do this, we will continue to spread the seeds.

It’s the simple things that we discover the goodness of God. We will continue to spread the seeds and do our part.

A grandson required to come home from college in March now sits at table with his grandfather on a Sunday and asks him if he can keep doing this.

A child who found a way to be a helper at home by just emptying the dishwasher.

Learning that in the hard times there is a harvest of good.

How we rejoice over the time we have spent with our mother and the laughter shared even though she missed being home.

Today the fruit of the harvest is the nourishment of God’s word through the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. The seeds of goodness are spread across tables everywhere as we all partake together as we reap the bountiful harvest of our unity in the body of Christ. We have the strength to continue. Living bread. Amen.

Resources: NIB Matthew, Working Preacher Matthew 2020 post; Rev. Steve Doan.