Perhaps you saw the article in the AJC this past week.  A woman, who was pregnant at the time, recalled passing by the campus of Atlanta’s Morehouse College, years ago, while construction was under way, when her eyes suddenly fell upon a mound of red clay.  “My mouth watered,” she said.  In fact, she yearned to eat that clay, said the article; a craving she apparently had had since childhood.  Only now, during her pregnancy, she finally succumbed to it.  Not only that, but today – some 26 years later – she still consumes about 12 ounces of red clay every day!

This practice of eating clay, or dirt, while certainly not common, is not unheard of, however.  And while it most often affects children, women may also develop these unusual cravings during pregnancy.

In fact, the medical condition is called “pica” (pike-a), a term that comes from the Latin word for “magpie,” a type of bird known to eat almost anything.  And people with pica may eat everything from freezer frost to metal coins, said the article.  But the specific practice of eating clay or soil is called “geophagia” (jee-a-fay’-jee-a) or “earth eating.”

Most prevalent in rural, or preindustrial, societies, this craving or desire to eat “earthy” substances, such as clay, apparently develops as a way to augment a scanty or mineral-deficient diet.

Yet the practice endures to this day.

So at the Sweet Auburn Curb Market in downtown Atlanta, for instance, Ziploc bags filled with white chunks of “kaolin,” (Kale-in) that go for $1.49 a pound, are located behind the produce at one vendor, and next to the cigarettes and over-the-counter medications at another.

Kaolin, a type of clay found right here in Georgia, was also formerly the key ingredient in Kaopectate – the anti-diarrhea medicine.  And one of its side effects, apparently, is alleviating nausea; which, of course, is why it then might appeal to pregnant woman.

See – you can learn something new every day!  But eating dirt or clay?  Yechh!

On the other hand, it does remind me of the fact that, according to Genesis 2 at least, human beings were actually made from the earth.  “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)  In fact, the name “Adam” literally means “man of the red earth.”

And then on Ash Wednesday, of course, when we receive that smudge in the shape of a cross on our foreheads, we are reminded, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Or, even in everyday parlance, when someone is plain and practical and unpretentious in their approach to life, what do we say?  We call them “earthy,” or “down-to-earth.”

I guess what I’m saying here is that, biblically and otherwise, we have something of a symbiotic relationship with the earth and with the soil.  For tens of thousands of years, in fact, we (meaning human beings) have toiled in it.  We have plowed and planted the earth, and then cultivated and harvested the crops that grew from it for our food and sustenance.

If there was one thing, therefore, that people down through the ages could understand and identify with, it was the soil; the soil from which (it was believed) they literally came; and the soil in which they labored for their very survival.

And so if there was one thing Jesus’ audiences could also easily understand and identify with, it was the soil as well.  In fact, in today’s gospel reading Jesus actually tells them that they, themselves, are soil; at least in terms of God’s Word working in their lives.  And he does so, through a parable…

But first, I think, we need to set up the context for this parable.  Dale Allison, a professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, does an excellent job reminding us of the flow of Matthew’s gospel.

For instance, the first four chapters of Matthew, says Professor Allison, introduce us to the main character, Jesus.  “They tell us who he is… how he came into the world, how his ministry got started, etc.”

Then we have chapters 5-7, commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, which is a collection of Jesus’ ethical teachings.  Next come chapters 8-9 where the focus now shifts from “words” to “deeds” and we are introduced to Jesus’ acts of compassion and healing.  Following them is chapter 10, “the missionary discourse where Jesus commissions his disciples and instructs them to say what he has said and to do what he has done…”

Then these chapters on the words and deeds of Jesus (chapters 5-9) and the words and deeds of the disciples (chapter 10) lead up to chapters 11-12, which record primarily the response to both John the Baptist and Jesus.  “Unfortunately,” writes Professor Allison, “it all adds up to an indictment: many of the people, under the sway of their hard-hearted leaders, have decided not to join Jesus’ cause.”

This, then, finally leads us to chapter 13, and today’s gospel, where, according to Professor Allison, the burning question is:  “How is it that so many in Israel have rejected the Messiah?  That is, “How did his own (people) receive him not?”  And chapter 13, which opens with today’s gospel reading – the Parable of the Sower – then addresses this very issue.

But one last point, before we take a look at the parable itself.  In the verses that are not included in today’s reading (that is, verses 10-17), the main issue is the question of why Jesus chose to speak in parables in the first place.  Which then leads into a conversation, as well, about the relative difficulty of understanding Jesus’ parables.

Tom Long, who is a professor of preaching at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, claims that Jesus used these often “confusing” parables in order to force people to think more deeply about the meaning of the gospel.  In others words, Jesus did not want to have people grab the gospel too quickly because such a “quick grab” almost invariably results in a shallow faith that does not last – one of the points that Jesus actually makes, of course, within the Parable of the Sower itself.

To support this claim, Long tells the following story.  The great preacher, George Buttrick, was once flying on an airplane.  And as he sat there, he had a legal pad in front of him on which he was furiously scribbling some notes for Sunday’s sermon.

The man sitting in the seat next to Buttrick noticed this and inquired, “Say, what are you working on there, sir.”  Buttrick answered, “My sermon for Sunday – I’m a Christian preacher.”

“Oh,” the man replied.  “Well, I don’t like to get caught up in the complexities of religion.  I like to keep it simple.  You know, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’  The Golden Rule; that’s my religion.”

“I see,” said Buttrick, “and may I ask what do you do for a living?”  And the man responded, “Why, I’m an astronomer.  I teach astrophysics at a university.”

“Ah, yes, astronomy,” Buttrick shot back.  “Well, I don’t like to get too caught up in the complexities of science, myself.  ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.’  That’s my astronomy.  Who would ever need any more than that, eh?”

Touché.  Point well taken.  Shallowness of any kind, whether in religion or science, or anything else for that matter, is not a good thing.  And so it behooves us, this morning, to give Jesus’ parable here something more than a “quick going over.”

Although actually, at first, it’s really not too hard to understand.

“A sower went out to sow,” said Jesus.  Pretty straightforward, and it doesn’t take too much brain power to figure out that God is the sower here.  And that the seed he’s sowing is his Word.

The first problem, however – especially for modern listeners – is the apparent wastefulness of the sowing.  By that, I mean the sower appears to be throwing his seed around rather indiscriminately, doesn’t he?

Scott Hoezee writes that, today, we might have the same reaction if we heard a story about a farmer who hooked up his planter to the back of his tractor, but then threw the switch to activate the planter even before he was out of his driveway!  “There he is putt-putting down the country lane with corn seed scattering everywhere he goes.  It bounces on the road, some flies into the ditch.  When he finally gets near his field, he first has to cut through a weedy and thorny patch with corn seed still flying out loosey-goosey from that planter that, by all rights, had been switched on way too early.”

Hoezee’s point here, of course, is that no farmer in his right mind would be so careless in the scattering of valuable seed.  It would be the kind of wastefulness that a “frugal and economically-minded farmer would never tolerate.”

Yet, this is exactly what God chooses to do with the seed of his Word.  Jesus says that God is just such a foolish farmer.  “He’s got (apparently) more than enough seed to go around, and so throws it anywhere and everywhere, the odds of success notwithstanding.”

Now the ability of the seed to do what it was intended to do, even under adverse conditions, is something I want to come back to

a little later.  But what I’d like for us to focus on at this point, instead, is the third key element in the story after the sower and the seed; that is, the soil.

Four types of soil, of course, are mentioned: hard-packed soil, rocky, shallow soil, soil filled with thorns, and finally good soil.  And as he sat there in that boat, looking at the crowds packed along the shoreline, it was as if (someone has noted) Jesus was able to “scan” their hearts with a kind of “spiritual MRI.”  In other words, he could see “the hard hearts, the shallow hearts, the thorny hearts, and the pure and unencumbered hearts.”  And so to such an audience he now tells his story…

The “hard-packed soil” on the path is those “hard-hearted” people, isn’t it?  People who have completely shut their hearts and minds to the possibility of God working in their midst.  In Jesus’ day these were undoubtedly the people who found it difficult, if not impossible, to conceive that God might be doing something new and wonderful in the world through his Son, Jesus Christ.

In our own time, it’s perhaps a little different.  The hard-hearted people, in our day, are more likely to be the people who have completely ceased to believe in the possibility that God even exists, much less can actually make a difference in their lives.

Recent best-selling books, written by self-proclaimed atheists, who attempt to make the age-old claim that there simply is no God, are just one example.  But hardness of heart can also be found among those who reject God on intellectual grounds, as well; those who mistakenly believe that a commitment to knowledge or to science somehow precludes any kind of faith.  And, sadly, it can also be found among those people who have been hurt deeply in life, sometimes by the church itself, and now they wonder – even if there is a God – how such a God could have allowed these things to have happened to them in the first place…

Next there’s the “rocky, shallow” soil.  Then, as now, people can often get “side-tracked” by the superficial things in life.  Two items in the news in recent days caught my attention.  One is that the latest statistics show that while serious skin cancer has decreased among young men, it has actually increased among young women.  The reasons aren’t completely clear yet, but the greater likelihood for young women to want to be tan in the first place, even frequenting tanning salons during the winter in order to keep their tans year round, has been cited as one of the possibilities.  The other news item are the reports that people were lining up all over the country, even waiting for days in some cases, in order to buy the new iPhone that has just hit the market.

At a time when global warming, the risk of terrorism, the horror of genocide on the African continent, the AIDS pandemic, rapidly rising gas and food prices, the collapse of the housing and now the banking industries in our own country, all threaten the world and life as we know it, it never ceases to amaze me just how silly and shallow and superficial we can be, at times, as a society.  That is, staying tan and having the latest techno-toy are apparently more important, for many of us, than any of these above-mentioned threats to our planet and to our existence.  Furthermore, there was actually more press coverage, it seemed, of Christie Brinkley’s nasty celebrity divorce than there was over the travesty of justice and threat to democracy and self-rule perpetrated by Robert Mugabe’s regime over in Zimbabwe.

Shallowness, or the lack of real depth in one’s life, is a serious issue, of course, when the tough times come.  Edward Markquart, a Lutheran pastor who grew up in Minnesota, tells the story of working as a canoe guide during his college summers.  And among those they would take on these canoe trips were reform-school kids who had gotten in trouble with the law.  Tough and worldly on the outside, they, nevertheless, had very little experience when it came to the outdoors.

Markquart relates that they would often camp beneath tall pine trees, some reaching 65 feet in height.  But when storms would come and the winds would blow, they would hurriedly get the tents and canoes away from these tall trees.

The reform-school kids would naturally ask why.  And Markquart would tell them, “Because it’s dangerous.  Underneath all this ground is solid granite; and the top soil is only a few inches deep, which means that when the wind comes, it blows these 65 foot tall pine trees right over because they don’t have any roots.

It’s the same with some people, says Markquart.  Inside they’re just as shallow, they don’t have any deep roots, and so when the hard times come – and they will, for all of us – they simply can’t stand up to them.

The third kind of soil is filled with thorns and weeds.  Scott Hoezee says these people “are just plain busy and crowded.” He writes, “These hearts are neither calloused nor shallow.  In fact, there is some real depth to them.  Lots of stuff grows here.  But in the end, it’s too much.  The seed of the gospel comes in and sprouts just fine, but faces stiff competition for light and warmth and nutrients.”

Hoezee goes on to suggest that concerns about 401k retirement plans, Roth IRAs, the kid’s college fund, and their stock market portfolios “absorb a lot of nutrients from the soil of their hearts.”  In addition, youth sports, community involvement, the PTA at school, politics, neighborhood associations and socializing with friends – and it’s mostly all good stuff – still makes people busy, often too busy, he contends.  And so the seed of the gospel simply gets choked out…

Finally, of course, there’s the “good” soil, the soil in which God’s Word can sprout and grow and produce the kind of “fruit” Jesus hoped his followers would always produce.  But these aren’t very good odds, are they?  One out of four; only one soil out of four soils (according to Jesus’ story) produces the kind of growth God is looking for.  Remember, just a little less than one out of four at the plate got Jeff Francoeur sent down to the minors.  And the truth is: it’s not such a hot batting average for Christians either…

And then, of course, we have the inevitable question, don’t we?  Which is simply: What kind of soil am I?  Am I the kind of person who’s become so jaded, or has been hurt so deeply at some point that my heart has been completely “hardened” against the possibility of God working in my life?  Or am I a “shallow” sort of person who jumps at every latest fad, and takes my cues in life from celebrities and whatever else is the most popular thing going at the moment?  Or is my life just so busy, even with good things sometimes, that faith doesn’t even have a chance to grow?  Or is it somehow possible that I am basically “good soil”; that the seed of God’s Word has actually found a place in my heart and, even as we speak, is growing in my life?

The tendency – and the temptation – of course, is to assume that it has to be one of these four possibilities; that we’re either hard-packed, shallow, thorn-infested, or good soil, and that’s it.  One of the above, and nothing else.

But what I would suggest to you this morning is that you and I have been all of the above at one time or another.  That there have indeed been times when our heart was hardened, or times when we have been shallow and superficial, and other times when we were just too busy for God, and yet also times when we were prepared for and even receptive to God’s Word – and that it, therefore, found a home in our hearts.

So the real question then, for me, is not simply “What kind of soil am I?” but rather “What kind of soil am I… today?”  The realization and acceptance of the fact that we are not always good soil for God’s Word, that we actually fall victim to those soil conditions that make it next to impossible for God’s Word to take root.  But also that the soil of our hearts changes as we change, and as we face the various challenges and temptations and difficulties of life.  Which takes us back to the ability of the seed to do what it’s intended to do; a topic I said we’d get back around to… eventually.

I once came across a story about some archeologists who were excavating, a number of years ago, in the courtyard of a medieval monastery.  And during the period of time while they were digging, some seeds that had been dormant for over 400 years had actually begun to grow.  King Henry VIII had closed this particular monastery back in 1539, and the herbs tended by the monks had died.  But now they had sprouted to life again after the archeologists has disturbed the earth in which they were buried.

The point is this: if seeds in nature can do it, why can’t the seed of God’s Word?  In other words, if we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that sometimes we’re not very good soil for God’s Word to take root in and grow.  Maybe even for a long time, we aren’t.  But then something happens, something to change our heart and our mind, and the seed that has lied dormant in our lives suddenly, and finally, begins to sprout.  When that happens, it’s called grace.

Fred Craddock, another well-known preacher, tells a story about the time he got a phone call from a woman whose father had just died.  She had been a teenager in one of the churches he had served as pastor some 20 years before, and he would have sworn that if there ever was a person who never heard a word he said – it was that teenage girl!  She was always giggling with her friends in the balcony, passing notes to boys, and drawing pictures on her bulletins.

But yet when her father died, she had looked up her old pastor and gave him a call.  “I don’t know if you remember me,” she began.  “Oh, yes, I remember,” thought Craddock.  “When my daddy died, I thought I was going to come apart,” she continued.  “I cried

and cried and cried.  I didn’t know what to do.  But then – I remembered something you said in one of your sermons…”

And, at this, Craddock was simply stunned.  She had actually remembered something he had said in one of his sermons?  It was proof enough to him that you can never tell how the seed will fall, or where it might even take root.

Maybe it’s also a reminder of why the farmer in Jesus’ parable kept lobbing seeds at even the unlikeliest of targets.  As Scott Hoezee writes, “It’s not that the farmer doesn’t understand the long odds.  It’s just that when you’re talking about salvation by grace, it’s not finally about the odds, but about the persistence of the Holy One who won’t stop (trying).  Ever.”  Amen

Expectations…  Everybody’s got ‘em.  But sometimes dealing with them can be difficult.  Just ask the Braves’ Jeff Francouer, the former Parkview phenom, who just got sent down to the minor leagues because he’s mired in a terrible batting slump.

Expectations can also get in the way…  A man once asked his good friend why that friend had never married.  The friend sighed, and said, “Well, I guess I just never met the right woman…  I guess I was always looking for the perfect girl.”

“Oh, come on now,” said his buddy.  “Surely you met at least one girl over the years that you wanted to marry.”

“Yes, there was this one girl,” he finally admitted. “I guess she was the perfect girl…  The only perfect girl I ever really met.  She was perfect in every way…  I really thought that she was the perfect girl for me.”

“Well, why didn’t you marry her, then?”

The friend paused, and then sadly replied, “Apparently… she was also looking for the perfect guy.”

And what’s true for us individually is also true, many times, for us collectively as well. For instance, congregations are notorious for wanting, indeed expecting, the perfect pastor.

In fact, I once came across the following list of expectations of the perfect pastor:

• He preaches exactly 15 minutes, never a second more, and then promptly sits down.
• He condemns sin… but never steps on anyone’s toes.
• He works from 8 in the morning until 10 at night doing everything from writing sermons to sweeping the floors; and he’s on call 24/7, fifty two weeks out of the year, yet he leads a balanced life and still has time to be with his family.
• He earns only 400 dollars a week (and gives half of it back as offering), drives a late model car, buys a lot of books, is always well-dressed, and provides for his family’s every need.
• He’s 36 years old, but has 40 years of experience.
• He is tall on the short-side, heavy-set in a thin sort of way, and handsome, but not too handsome to be a temptation.
• He has eyes of blue… or brown, to fit the occasion, and wears his hair parted in the middle – the left side is dark and straight, the right side, brown and wavy.
• He has a burning desire to work with the youth, and yet is always visiting the elderly.
• He smiles all the time, while keeping a straight face; he has a keen sense of humor but is always very serious.
• He makes 15 pastoral visits a day on church members, spends all of his time out in the community evangelizing non-members, and yet is also in his office whenever he’s needed.

I gotta tell you.  If you find that guy – hire him on the spot!  But

I also gotta tell you – that pastor doesn’t exist!  Because when we look for perfection, of course, we’re always going to be disappointed, aren’t we?  For there is no perfect pastor, just as there is no perfect congregation.

A few years ago there was a piece circulating in Lutheran church newsletters with some tongue-in-cheek suggestions for church members unhappy with their pastor.  “Simply send a copy of this letter to six other churches who are also tired of their ministers,” it said.  “Then bundle up your pastor and send him to the church on the top of the list, while at the same time adding your church name to the bottom of the list.  In one week’s time, you will receive 16,436 ministers, and at least one of them should be a dandy.  Have faith, and remember don’t forget to follow these instructions to the letter.  One church broke the chain… and they got their old minister back!”

The truth of the matter is – there is no perfection to be found in this life, at least among human beings.

In the novel Eminence, written by Morris West, the main character, a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, is, at one point, being interviewed by a journalist who asks him, “What’s wrong with the church?”  And the cardinal replies, “The same things that have been wrong with it for two thousand years – people!”

The other day I was looking up a church online at the ELCA website when I came across another congregation in the very same town.  So, out of curiosity, I clicked on this congregation’s report, as well, and discovered that it was only organized back in 1994, when it reported an average of 229 worshipers per Sunday.  But just thirteen years later, in 2007, they reported 4,948 worshipers each weekend!

Of course, now I was really intrigued.  So I clicked on the link to their website and browsed for a few minutes until I saw that you could actually listen to their pastors’ sermons.  So I went to that page, and randomly picked out a sermon by their senior pastor to listen to.  And in this sermon, their pastor was talking about the reasons why so many people outside the church have absolutely no interest in becoming involved in the church.  One man, in particular, had recently said to this pastor, “The biggest stumbling block for me isn’t Christ… its Christians.”  The man then went on to talk a little about the hateful, unforgiving, condescending, and judgmental things that Christians have said and done at times.

Well, after relating this encounter, and the man’s feeling that Christians, not Christ, are the problem, this pastor then did something surprising.  He asked everyone in the congregation that morning to turn to the person next to them and say, “You’re the problem!”

Now if I had only known that it was this easy to grow a mega-church, I would have told you folks that you were the problem a long time ago!  (Just kidding.)

But my point is simply this, often times we are the problem; pastors and congregations alike.  And a big part of the problem is, again, our expectations.

There was a cartoon once that showed a young boy standing toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose with his teacher.  Behind them was a blackboard covered with unsolved math problems; presumably ones that the boy had been unable to finish, or do correctly.  And in the caption, the boy is saying to his teacher, “I’m not an underachiever… you’re just an over-expecter!”

Expectations.  Everybody’s got ‘em.  And they can really get in the way.  Sometimes… they can be really hard to deal with.  Just ask Jesus…

You see, expectations, especially unmet expectations, were a big problem for him as well.  Now you wouldn’t think so, being the Son of God and all that.  But they were.

For instance, in the verses just before today’s gospel reading, Jesus is having a conversation with the crowds about John the Baptist. He says to them: What were you expecting when you went out into the wilderness to hear him preach?  Did you go out into the desert looking for someone dressed in fine clothes, speaking messages that were uncritical and comforting; easy for everyone to hear, including the rich and those in power?

Or did you go out there to see and hear a prophet?  Someone who was going to challenge you with the hard and honest truth.  Let

me tell you folks, said Jesus, John was indeed a prophet of God.  “Truly I tell you, among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist…”

And as our passage this morning opens, Jesus is saying to them: But you just don’t get it, do you?  What were you expecting?

You’re like immature children, he says.  And then he characterizes their expectations in this way: We played the flute for you, and yet you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and yet you did not mourn.  In other words, as Hubert Beck has described it, “We called the tune, and you wouldn’t dance to it; we sang the song that was supposed to move you, and you wouldn’t be moved!  What more can we do to make you do what we want you to do, to act like we want you to act…?”

“For John came neither eating nor drinking,” continues Jesus.  Remember John was the guy (says scripture) who wore camel’s hair clothing, and ate locusts and wild homey.  Not exactly the type looking for a life of leisure; not exactly the fun kind of guy you’d want to invite to your party.  And Jesus reminds them that they said of John, “He has a demon.”

While I “came eating and drinking,” said Jesus.  Someone who really enjoyed sitting down and sharing a good meal with people; who never turned down an invitation, no matter who it came from; that is, the kind of guy who was always at the top of everyone’s guest list.  And yet, says Jesus, you call me “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”

In other words, John and Jesus were almost polar opposites.  John was austere and confrontational.  And the people didn’t like that.

Whereas Jesus was accessible and understanding.  And the people didn’t like that either!  It seemed that no matter who God sent, it was never right.  Neither John nor Jesus met their expectations…

And it’s at this point that the lectionary normally skips ahead to verse 25, completely omitting Jesus’ harsh words in verses 20 thru 24.  Here Jesus sounds a lot more like John the Baptist than he does himself.  And maybe that’s why the folks who decide on the lectionary chose to skip these verses.

But I wanted you to hear them this morning.  Because they reflect the degree of anger and frustration Jesus was feeling at that moment.  He began to “reproach” the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done, says our reading; that is, to rebuke them and express his “disapproval.”

He did this, because if anyone should have understood what he was all about and what he was trying to do; if anyone should have “gotten it,” it was these cities.  If anyone should have repented in the face of, and in response to, his power and authority, it was them.

But it seems, given the conversation they’ve been having here with Jesus, that they hadn’t.  Obviously, they just didn’t get it.  Therefore, says Jesus, it will be more tolerable on the Day of Judgment for Tyre and Sidon, where he had not done any similar deeds of power; and it will even be more tolerable for the notoriously wicked city of Sodom – than it will be for you.

Expectations; unmet, unfulfilled, unrealistic expectations would apparently be their downfall…

Several years ago, you may recall, those bracelets with “WWJD” on them were all the rage in Christian circles.  The “WWJD,” of course, stood for “What would Jesus do?” and it was a reminder to the one wearing it that, when facing difficult decisions, they should stop and try to think about what Jesus himself might do in that very same situation.  And then let that conclusion inform and shape their decision-making.  Not a bad idea, I thought.

But, unfortunately, and even though such a bracelet doesn’t even exist, many Christians are much more likely to wear one that has the letters “WDWWJTD” on it.  That is “What do we want Jesus to do.”

You see, many times we’re far less interested in knowing, or thinking, about what we could do to reflect our walk with Christ (in other words, what we could do for Jesus), and much more interested, however, in knowing, or thinking, about what Jesus could do for us!  …Expectations again.

How often – rather than focusing on our daily walk with Jesus, and how that walk of discipleship could and should impact the things we do and the decisions we make; that is, the expectations we should have of ourselves – we focus, instead, on our expectations of Jesus.  What can Jesus do for me?  How can he help me?  How can he make my life better, or more fulfilling?  How can he give me the things I want out of life?

The problem, here, is that it’s not supposed to be about our expectations, it’s not about what we want. Rather, it’s all about what we need.

Like any good parent, God is not really interested in, or swayed by, what his children want or desire. No, God, like any good parent, is much more concerned about what we need; about taking care of the basic needs of his people so that they can be healthy, happy, and well-adjusted.  And so that was what Jesus was all about as well.

Therefore, in the concluding verses of our gospel this morning, Jesus, in effect, puts down all the wise and intelligent people who think they’ve got it all figured out; the folks who are all caught up in the expectations they have of Jesus, instead of the expectations they should have of themselves in response to all that Jesus has done for them, and offers them.

“Thank you, Father,” says Jesus, that you’ve revealed these things, instead, to “infants.”  Now, however, he’s not referring to immature children. The Greek word here literally means “not speaking,” and therefore refers to that child before he or she can talk.

But it can also be used metaphorically to refer to those who, like infants, are completely dependent upon God.  Who, instead of having all these expectations and making demands of God, simply depend on God – like an infant – for everything they need in life.

Again… it’s not about what we want, it’s about what we need.  And to these so-called “infants” who trust and rely upon God, Jesus speaks the famous, and comforting, final words of our passage this morning.

Paul Tillich, one of the theological giants of the 20^th century (and also a Lutheran), once wrote, “When I was of the age to receive confirmation and full membership in the Church, I was told to choose a passage from the Bible as the expression of my personal approach to the Biblical message and to the Christian Church.  Every confirmee was obliged to do so, and to recite the passage before the congregation.  When I chose the words, ‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden,’ I was asked, with a kind of astonishment and even irony, why I had chosen that particular passage.  For I was living under happy circumstances, and, being only fifteen years old, was without any apparent labor and burden.  I could not answer at that time; I felt a little embarrassed, but basically right.  And I was right, indeed; every child is right in responding immediately to those words; every adult is right in responding to them in all periods of his life, and under all… conditions…  These words of Jesus are universal, and fit every human being and every human situation…”

What Tillich was saying here is that all of us, no matter who we are, or what age or station in life we find ourselves, have basic needs that only Jesus Christ can fulfill, and burdens that only Jesus Christ can help us carry…

On this 4^th of July holiday weekend, we have all probably stopped to think, at some point, about the freedom and independence we enjoy as Americans.  And what it means to live in this great nation; not a perfect nation, mind you, but a great one nonetheless.  And it occurred to me that we have a tendency, at times, to focus only on the good things this country has provided us, and all the wonderful aspects of being an American citizen.

But it also occurred to me that the greatness of this nation is, in the end, not really all about our wants and our desires, or our “personal expectations,” either.  In the end, the greatness of our country is not really about what we, or anyone else, wants, but what we actually need.

That’s what, I believe, this country was founded upon.  That’s what separates the United States, in my opinion, from virtually every other nation on the face of this earth.  And it’s probably no more beautifully expressed than in the words that are inscribed on a bronze plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty; that historic landmark in New York harbor which has welcomed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of immigrants to these shores; including all four of my grandparents.  It’s a poem, entitled “The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus:

Not like the bronze giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles.  From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips, “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Thus, even the Statue of Liberty, herself, does not represent what we, or anyone else, wants, but rather what we truly need.  And what Lady Liberty has so perfectly symbolized for more than a century now, is our need for a fresh start, a second chance, a new beginning, and a place to call home.

Well, as powerful as the symbol of the Statue of Liberty may be, and as poignant as that poem which adorns her pedestal may be, there is no more comforting or welcoming presence in this world than our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ; and no more comforting words, than the ones he spoke long before there even was a United States, or a Statue of Liberty, for that matter.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” said Jesus, “and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Jesus knew full well, of course, about all the things we either want, or desire, in this life.  But he loved us so much, that he chose not to give us what we wanted; but, instead, to give us what we so desperately needed.

That is, someone who could take away those heavy burdens that we are always carrying around with us on our shoulders.  Someone who could give us the kind of peace and rest that we are forever seeking, but never seem to find.  Someone who loves and accepts us for who we are, and then tells us that, no matter who we are, we are always welcome in his Father’s house.

Amen

(Matthew 10:40-42)

Three couples from my past…  Their names were Vern and Mary Anne, Mike and Lori, and Herm and Eleanor.  I encountered each of these three couples at a particular time and place in my past, and they all left an indelible mark on my life and also my call to ministry as well.

The names of the first couple were Vern and Mary Anne (two words).  I can’t remember their last name anymore, but I do remember their first names because they were so similar to close family friends of Jeanette’s while she was growing up, Vern and Mary Ellen Arft.  Again, this couple was Vern and Mary Anne.

And although I haven’t seen or talked to them in close to 28 years now, I’ll never forget them.  They were members of Zion Lutheran Church in West Jefferson, Ohio where I served during my first year at seminary.  The program was called “Ministry in Context,” or MIC for short (although, as students, we sometimes added the “K-E-Y” and said that it was “Mickey Mouse.”)

The idea, more or less, was to assign all the first-year seminarians to area churches where, outside of the classroom and a purely academic environment, they could get involved on Sunday mornings in worship and Sunday school, and then also serve one other day during the week in order to experience, again, (quote unquote) “ministry in context.”

Vern and Mary Anne were about my parent’s age at the time, also with two sons – one still at home and the other off to college.  Mary Anne was the church organist and that’s how I first came to know her.  But early on in the year, she and Vern invited me over to their house after church one day for Sunday dinner, and a few hours of rest and relaxation; an invitation they then repeated almost monthly for the rest of that year as well.

For a student who ate only cafeteria or the occasional “fast” food, a good home-cooked meal was a God-send, and so I jumped at the chance.  From day one, Vern and Mary Anne welcomed me into their home like I was family; indeed in some ways I think I was filling the void created by their son being away at college.  I’ll never forget, Mary Anne even remarked one time, after I had thanked them again for their hospitality, that they hoped some other couple out there would think to do the very same for their own son.

A typical Sunday afternoon went something like this: a wonderful home cooked meal followed by sitting around in their family room watching sports on TV for a few hours.  Sometimes I even drifted off to sleep on their couch.  And, then, later that afternoon Mary Anne would typically send me off with some leftovers to warm up for supper, and Vern, who worked for a candy company, usually had a bag full of my favorite sweets (back when I could still eat them and not gain any weight!) to take with me on their road.

Now they didn’t have to do this, but they wanted to.  And while they also seemed to enjoy my company, in reality I was the one who truly benefitted; from their hospitality and from their kindness…

A couple of years later, Jeanette and I were newly married and found ourselves on my first internship down in Beaumont, Texas.  That’s where we met Mike and Lori.  I do remember their last name: Lockwood.  The Lockwood’s were a young couple, several years old than us, but also without children at that point.  They were members of Bethlehem Lutheran Church and also members of my internship committee.

And they, too, went above and beyond the call of duty.  Others in the congregation certainly befriended us and occasionally invited us over to their homes, but Mike and Lori let us hang out with them.  In fact, their house was a welcomed escape, and retreat, from our tiny duplex on the weekend, and pretty soon Lori let Jeanette bring over our laundry as well, since the little washing machine in our apartment tended to “eat” our clothes, and the Laundromat could get expensive.  It was not unusual, therefore, for us to go over to their house on a Friday nigh or a Saturday afternoon to watch a movie and have a pizza, while our laundry was getting done.

Now Mike and Lori were also from Ohio; Toledo and Maumee, respectively, and so we really hit it off with them.  But they, too, went to the next level with their hospitality and friendship.  And we kept in touch with them for several years afterwards, once even getting together back up in Ohio.  But eventually we lost contact with them, although, as I say, we’ll never forget them…

Finally, just about four years later, after I had completed my seminary studies but had to repeat the internship, at my own request since there had been some bad conflict down in Beaumont while I was there, I ended up being assigned to another Zion Lutheran Church, this time in Gibsonburg, Ohio, southwest of Toledo between Bowling Green and Fremont.  It’s here that we met Herm and Eleanor Rolf.

Because Jeanette had to tie up some loose ends with her job down in Columbus, and the parsonage where the congregation was going to house us wasn’t going to be available for a couple of months, Herm and Eleanor offered to let me stay with them, and quickly opened up their home to me for as long as I needed it.  Their own children were all grown and gone at this point, including their youngest son who was about my age.

Once again, they quickly adopted both of us (me and Jeanette) into their family, and treated us like we were their own children.  When I was ordained the following summer, they even drove all the way out to New Jersey to be a part of that important day, and we kept in touch with them for all these years until just recently.

We would often stop in and visit them whenever we were traveling to and from Jeanette’s parent’s home in Michigan, even after we had kids.  In fact, one time, when Kristyn was little (I can’t believe she just turned 21 yesterday, how time flies!), Kristyn asked if we were going to visit her “other” grandparents.  We didn’t know what she meant by this.  Jeanette’s grandparents were still living at that time, down in Florida, and at first we wondered if Kristyn was referring to them.

No, said Kristyn, my grandparents in Ohio. You don’t have grandparents in Ohio, we started to say… and then we suddenly realized that she was referring to Herm and Eleanor!  A third couple whose hospitality and “welcoming ways” will not soon be forgotten.

Welcoming and hospitality, of course, figure prominently in our short, but powerful, gospel reading this morning.  Now, normally, we are reminded in scripture to welcome the “outsider” and to show hospitality to the “stranger.”  Many of us, undoubtedly, also remember how Jesus told his disciples that whatever you have done unto the “least of these my brethren, you have done unto me.”  Or who could forget this verse in the Letter to the Hebrews, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

And all of this was consistent with the Old Testament traditions regarding how God’s people were expected to treat the sojourners and the aliens in their midst.

But this morning’s lesson puts a little twist on these expectations regarding hospitality and welcoming.  Instead of talking here about how we are to treat others, especially the strangers and aliens in our midst, today’s verses are focused, instead, on how others should treat us; that is, as Christians witnesses of Jesus Christ.

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,” said Jesus, “and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”  As Bryan Findlayson has written, “To welcome the messenger and accept their message is to welcome the one who sent the messenger.  To welcome a disciple is to welcome Jesus, and to welcome Jesus is to welcome the one who sent him, namely, the Lord God.”

In Matthew 10, you see, Jesus has been all about commissioning and then sending out his disciples as his ambassadors. Quick, who can tell me the name of the United States ambassador to Great Britain?  To Israel?  To Mexico?  Probably no one, because the ambassadors identity is irrelevant.  What is important, however, is who or what the ambassador represents.

And so it is with Christian disciples as well.  As you’ve heard me say before, and will undoubtedly hear me say again, “it’s not about us.”  Rather, it’s all about the one who sent us; that is, Jesus Christ. Scott Hoezee adds, “So often when we read Matthew 10’s closing words about handing out a cup of cold water… we often picture ourselves as the water-givers, reveling in the fact that to serve even society’s lowliest people is the same thing as serving Jesus himself.  And there is something to that line of thought, as Jesus made clear in the famous verse, ‘I was in prison and you visited me, naked and you clothed me…’  But in Matthew 10,” he says, “it may be a bit more radical than that: here in these verses it’s not that when we serve others, we serve Jesus, but rather that when others serve us they serve Jesus because they are supposed to see the true Christ in us.” It’s really a simple concept, actually.

A substitute Sunday school teacher once couldn’t open the combination lock on the supply cabinet.  So she went to the pastor for help.  The pastor went with her to the supply room.  He took the lock in his hands and started turning the dial. After the first two numbers, however, he got a puzzled look on his face, stopped turning the dial, and serenely looked up – as if to heaven – for the answer.  Slowly, he began moving his lips silently and then turned the dial to the last number, and the lock fell open.

The teacher gasped.  “Wow!  That was something,” she said.  “I’m totally in awe of your faith, Pastor!”  The pastor replied, “Ah, it’s nothing really…  Pointing upward, he said, “The combination’s written on a piece of tape on the ceiling.”

Here, with the issue of welcoming and hospitality, it’s also pretty simple, “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.”

As Scott Hoezee, again, points out, “I have always relied on the kindness of strangers” is the famous closing line spoken by Blanche Dubois in the classic, award-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams.  “In Matthew 10,” writes Hoezee, “Jesus basically tells the disciples that they, too, must rely on the kindness of strangers when they go out to proclaim the good news of the kingdom…  By doing so, Jesus puts the disciples at the mercy of the hosts they would encounter along the way…  Jesus is not talking (here) about a message to be heard, but about the reception of a person, namely himself as he dwells inside the disciples.

And so I think about those three couples who had such a meaningful and lasting impact on my life and ministry; three couples I will never forget.  What they did for me, and also for Jeanette, was thoughtful and kind. But in doing it for a future pastor of the church it was even more than that.  Because just as we can see the face of Jesus in the face of that person in need; in the same way, then, when we welcome and extend kindness to a pastor, or even to a “pastor-in-training,” or even any fellow Christian, it’s as if we are actually doing these things to our Lord himself.  No… we are, in fact, doing these things directly to Jesus.

And so what does that also say about how we should treat and regard pastors and church-workers?  For instance, I can’t tell you how many hurtful and unkind things I have heard spoken over the years about a former pastor, especially when I was visiting with parishioners as their new pastor.  Now I always tried to stop them dead in their tracks because I thought such talk and behavior was totally inappropriate and uncalled for.  But now I see that it’s actually even worse than that; for, again, when they say such hurtful and unkind things about a pastor, or a church-worker, or even a fellow member of the congregation, they are really saying these things about Christ.

Father Anthony Clavier, an Episcopal priest, reminds us “Hospitality towards other Christians isn’t to be based on whether we like their opinions (for example, what James Dobson had to say about Barack Obama in recent days), but on their status. Another Christian is another Christian.  That’s worth remembering next time you get into a quarrel at a vestry (or church council) meeting, or accuse someone of not being a ‘real’ Christian!  Jesus is talking about a culture of kindness; a habit learned through living a selfless life, a life-giving life, a life lived in Jesus.”

Larry Patten points out that, in today’s gospel, the word “welcome” was used – in just those three short verses – six times.  And looking even further, he also discovered that variations of the word “welcome” were used at least sixty times in the New Testament.  “Welcome” appeared more than “sword” (28 times), but less then “angel” (over 150 times).

But “welcome” occurred just as frequently as “worship” and “teacher.”  Which is to say, he writes, that when you consider how important worship and teaching were to Jesus’ ministry, then welcoming ranks pretty high.

Jesus also talks about “rewards” in today’s passage.  Whoever welcomes a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, whoever welcomes a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous.  Even whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of the little ones… truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.

Now commentators have sometimes argued over who these prophets, righteous persons, and little ones really were.  Were these job titles or some other kind of designation in the early church?  Or is it simply this, if someone welcomes one of Jesus’ followers – from the greatest of them, to the most insignificant – it doesn’t really matter, he or she will be rewarded.

Yet, speaking of “rewards” like this, as Pastor Ed Markquart has pointed out, does not imply that we somehow earn salvation, or that salvation is not a gift.  What it means is that these acts of kindness will not go unnoticed or unrewarded.  Another way of putting it is that those who welcome Jesus’ followers will be blessed by God for even the simplest acts of kindness and hospitality.

Consider Jesus’ one example: the giving of a cup of cold water.  In Jesus’ day, a traveler in hot, dusty Palestine would certainly appreciate something as simple as a cold cup of water.  “What a treat,” writes Markquart.  “What a reception.  What a welcome…

To give a cup of cold water was a symbol of meeting another person’s essential need… a pure gift.”

Even more than that, hospitality – in this context – is also a sign, as someone once noted, that the “reign of God is near.”  The offer of a cup of cold water may seem like an act of charity which brings a spiritual reward, writes Bryan Findlayson, “yet the context works against such a view.  It is but a description of the welcoming of a disciple and, thus, the welcoming of their message,” and the welcoming of the very one who sent that message…

In the 1950’s, marketing whiz Stanley Arnold was working at Young & Rubicam, where he was asked to come up with a marketing campaign for Remington Rand.  This company, at that time, was among the most conservative in America.  Its chairman of the board was retired General Douglas MacArthur.  Intimidated, at first, by a company that was so much a part of America, Arnold nevertheless also found in that phrase the inspiration for his campaign.

After thinking about it for a while, he went to the New York offices of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Beane, and placed the ultimate “odd-lot” order.  “I want to purchase,” he told the broker, “one share of every single stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange.”  After a vice president tried to talk him out of it, the order was finally placed.  It came to $42,000 for one share in each of the 1,098 companies listed on the Big Board at that time.

Arnold then took his diversified portfolio into a meeting of Remington Rand’s board of directors, where he argued passionately for a sweepstakes campaign with the top prize called “A Share in America.”

The conservative old gentlemen shifted around uncomfortably in their seats and discussed the idea for a while.  “But Mr. Arnold,” one of them finally said, “we’re not in the securities business.”  And another added, “We’re in the shaver business.”

Arnold then responded, “I agree, gentlemen, that you are not in the securities business, but I think you also ought to realize that you’re not in the shaver business either.  You’re in the people business.”  The company bought his idea…

Sometimes, perhaps even many times, as Christians we mistakenly think that we’re in the church business, or the bible business, or the morality business.  But the simple reality is that we, too, are in the people business.

That’s what Jesus was always most concerned about – people.  That’s why it mattered to him how we treated the least among us.  And that’s also why it mattered to him how his disciples were treated, as well.  Because for Jesus, in the end, it all came down to people and to our welcoming ways.

Amen

(Genesis 21:8-21)

Now you’ve probably all heard the expressions: “Truth is stranger than fiction,” or “You can’t make this stuff up!”  Consider the following example.

In yesterday’s AJC there was an article about Gloucester, Massachusetts, a small town up in New England which has been particularly hard-hit by declines in the fishing industry.  Besides the serious economic problems they are facing, it also seems that within the past year seventeen teenage girls have become pregnant out of wedlock.  And town officials were, at first, hard pressed to explain it given that, on average, only four girls per year normally turn up in the “family way” (as they used to say).

Even more disturbing than the four-fold increase in teenage pregnancies, however, was the startling revelation that, apparently, these girls had made a “pact” between themselves to purposely get pregnant, and then raise their babies together!  According to yesterday’s article, this story exploded after Joseph Sullivan, principal of Gloucester High School, was quoted by Time magazine as saying that the girls – all 16 years old or younger –actually confessed to making just such a pact.

In the past, of course, a typical teenage girl who suddenly discovered that she was expecting would immediately worry about what to do next, and how she was going to support this child if she decided to keep it, and whether or not she was going to be able to finish school. But none of these traditional concerns seem to have fazed these young women.

And in trying to understand and explain this startling, sad, and strange episode, Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk noted the recent glamorization of teen pregnancy in pop culture.  Similarly, Sarah Brown, the chief executive of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancies, suggested that some of the blame lies with the nation’s Hollywood-obsessed culture.  “It’s not surprising,” she said, “that teenage girls can get confused or even seduced by the allure of celebrity pregnancy.”  Which is to say, perhaps, that these girls were merely imitating celebrity examples like Ashlee Simpson or Jamie Lynn Spears…  

Well, just to show you that issues related to pregnancy and family planning are not unknown to the Bible, and that, even in scripture, “truth is often stranger than fiction,” we have this morning’s first lesson as a perfect example.  In fact, after reading through it the first time, my initial reaction was, “You can’t make this stuff up!”  Moreover, you wouldn’t!

And what I mean by that is simply this: if the Bible was pure fiction, and if the writers were just making this stuff up as they went along, I seriously doubt they would have ever written a story that is first so disturbing, and second casts those classic biblical heroes, Abraham and Sarah, the patriarch and matriarch of our faith, in such a bad light!  Yet here it is in living color, out in the open; a troubling and tragic tale…

Now how many of you have ever heard a sermon about Hagar and her son Ishmael (although you may have noticed that he is never referred to by name in our passage this morning)?  I certainly haven’t.  Nor have I ever preached one before (which was actually part of the attraction this time around, I have to confess.)  That’s because I can’t ever remember this passage being part of the lectionary.  As a matter of fact, it’s only the alternate reading even today.

But there was something compelling, albeit troubling, about this particular story when I looked at it again this past week.  Not only do these towering biblical heroes, Abraham and Sarah, come across as being so obviously human, they are also portrayed as utterly lacking the faith and understanding that we normally and automatically ascribe to them.  In other words, not only are they just like us, in some respects they are actually even worse than us!

However, in order to get a complete picture of what we’re talking about here, we have to backtrack a few chapters in the story to see how the events in today’s reading actually came about.

It’s back in Chapter 12, for instance, that we are first introduced to Abraham (then known simply as “Abram”), and learn that God has called him to leave his country and his father’s house, and journey to a land that God will show him.  And it is here, says God, that he will make a great nation of Abraham, and make Abraham’s name great, and, in so doing, also make Abraham a blessing to others.

Now that’s all well and good; but there was just one little problem, wasn’t there?  Abraham, and his wife Sarah, had no children.  Even more than that, they were now too old; for both of them were well beyond the normal childbearing age.  So how was God going to make a great nation from them if they had no offspring and no heirs?

So, therefore, in Chapter 15 Abraham points out the obvious to God, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?  …You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”  Without much luck in the “getting pregnant” department, Abraham naturally begins to assume (and also to regret) that apparently a mere slave is actually going to be the vehicle through whom God will make of Abraham this great nation.

But God immediately takes Abraham outside, and shows him the night sky, and challenges Abraham to count the stars – if he can. And then God simply says to him, “So shall your descendents be.”

Then some more time passes, but still no child.  We can safely assume that Abraham and Sarah, despite their advanced age and decreased stamina, were still having fun doing their best to conceive – it’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it! – yet nothing.

And so it’s at this point that they begin to lose patience with God and even go so far as to decide to take matters into their own hands.  And by doing so, they actually sow the seeds for what was to come in our lesson this morning.  You see, instead of “hanging in there” and trusting that God would somehow make good on his promise to them, Sarah says to Abraham:  “This just isn’t working.”  And so she convinces Abraham to sleep with her Egyptian-born slave-girl named Hagar saying, “You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children… it may be that I shall obtain children by her.”

Now this sudden turn of events is completely foreign to us, I know. But it was not at all unusual in the ancient world.  Indeed, these kinds of relationships, such as the one between Hagar and Abraham, were both an accepted and legal custom at that time.

Therefore, it was a perfectly legitimate and reasonable way of supposing that the promise that Abraham would have an heir might be fulfilled.  It just wasn’t what God had planned.

Now do you remember my sermon series back in Lent about the “will of God”?  At that time, using the insights of Leslie B. Weatherhead, an English pastor during World War Two, I suggested that one way of thinking about this is to consider that God’s will is not a single, all-encompassing, master plan, but actually can be broken down into God’s intentional will, God’s circumstantial will, and finally God’s ultimate will.

As we noted at the time, God’s “intentional will” is simply what God intended for his creation from the very beginning.  But because God gave us the gift of free will, and therefore, we have the opportunity, as well as the ability, to resist God’s will, it is also possible for us to talk about God’s “circumstantial will” in which God is forced to respond to the circumstances, we ourselves have created – and not all of them are good.

For instance, Weatherhead dealt with the question of whether Christ’s death on the cross was God’s original intention.  Probably not, he concluded.  Rather, the cross was clearly the result of human rebellion and sinfulness. However, God took these circumstances; that is, the human evil which then led to the cross, and then completely transformed the event bringing victory out of defeat, love out of hate, hope out of despair, and life out of death.  And in so doing, God also brought about, and revealed to us, his ultimate will – which absolutely nothing we do can ever change or deny…

Well, I think Weatherhead’s attempt to understand the will of God in this way is also helpful here.  You see, the Book of Genesis makes it perfectly clear that it was God’s will for Abraham and Sarah to have a child, a son from whom there would descend this great nation.  Not a household slave.  Not even a son born to Abraham and a servant-girl.  But a child born to both Abraham and Sarah.

But, again, when Sarah proposed that Abraham father this child and heir through Hagar, not only were they revealing their lack of trust in God, they were also taking matters into their own hands and creating an entirely new set of circumstances for God to deal with; circumstances that were not a part of God’s original plan.  And the interesting thing for us, now, is to see how God actually dealt with these circumstances.

One more note before we reach today’s lesson itself.  According to Chapter 16, Hagar became pregnant almost immediately which resulted in two things.  Number one, since Hagar had no difficulty getting pregnant it was now obvious that the problem was with Sarah, not Abraham.  And number two, it was pretty much inevitable, then, that Hagar would now hold this pregnancy over Sarah’s head.  “…when she saw that she had conceived,” says the Bible, “she looked with contempt on her mistress.”  (That is, Hagar, herself, is not without blame in these events.)

The irony here, of course, is that all of this was Sarah’s plan – no one else’s, although Abraham was certainly a willing co-conspirator.  She brought it all upon herself, so to speak; she had no one else to blame.  As the Bible says, “what you sow, you shall reap.” And that was exactly the case for Sarah.

Fearing, now, that Hagar might take her own place as mistress of the house, and ancestress of that great nation of God’s people he had promised them, Sarah goes to Abraham to complain, and to his detriment he tells her, “She’s your slave-girl.  Do with her as you please.”  (Abraham’s not such a nice guy at this point either.)

And so Sarah “dealt harshly” with her, says the Bible, forcing Hagar to run away.

Now that might very well have been the end of it.  You see, if Hagar had simply run away and never returned, we never would have had the events which were recorded in this morning’s reading.

But even though these were circumstances of Sarah and Abraham’s making, and not God’s; God, nevertheless, intervened in a loving and gracious way.  Knowing that she was unlikely to survive by herself, pregnant and alone in the wilderness, an angel of the Lord found Hagar by a spring of water, and told her to return and to submit to her mistress.  But this angel of the Lord also promised Hagar that she would have a son, and that his name would be “Ishmael” which means “God hears” for “the Lord has heard of your misery.”  And that, through this son, her descendants would be too numerous to count.  Almost the very same promise that God had made to Abraham and Sarah.

In response to God’s mercy and grace, Hagar refers to God as “the God who sees me,” and, in a delightful play on words, she exclaims, “I have seen the One who sees me!”

We are told that Abraham was 86 years old when Ishmael was born, and now more years go by during which Abraham and Sarah still remain childless.  Finally, one day, God, in the form of three strangers, approaches Abraham’s tent.  And after Abraham feeds them and allows them to take their rest under a tree, they ask about Sarah and then one of them says, “I will surely return to you in due season and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”  Of course, Sarah, listening from just inside the tent, and knowing that this was impossible, given her age, can’t help but laugh at the preposterous idea that she and Abraham might actually become parents after all.

But as Chapter 21 opens, we hear that, in fact, “The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised.”  And so Sarah conceived and bore Abraham’s son in his old age. Abraham was now 100 years old.  And Abraham named this son, Isaac, which means “he laughs.”  Sarah laughed at the idea of giving birth to a son in their old age, but God had the last laugh…

And so finally we’ve have reached the point in the story recounted in today’s passage.  As we heard, it was time for Isaac to be weaned, which – in the ancient world – meant that he was now about three or four years old.  And during the party that Abraham has thrown to mark this happy milestone, Sarah suddenly notices Ishmael “playing” with her son Isaac.  So, once again, she goes immediately to Abraham and demands that he now get rid of both Hagar and her son.

“What gives?” you might very well ask.  Granted there has been some bad blood, insecurity, and jealousy over the years; and in the past Sarah has been pretty touchy about anything having to do with Hagar or her son.  But to demand that Abraham kick them out just because Ishmael was playing with his little step-brother?  Come on.  That’s a bit much – even for Sarah.

Yet, as is so often the case, the issue here hinges on a translation – in this instance, the word “playing.”  For example, there are scholars who see the word as referring to some sort of “rough-housing,” and therefore propose that Sarah is merely concerned for her young son’s safety.  Keep in mind that if Ishmael, as previously noted, was born when Abraham was 86 years old, and Isaac when he was 100 years old, and this is some 3 or 4 years later, it would then make Ishmael 17 or 18 years old at this point.  A little too big and strong, especially if he wasn’t careful, to be horsing around with a little pre-schooler.

But the problem with this interpretation, however, is that Sarah’s reaction and remedy are undeniably a little extreme.  After all, all she had to do was simply break it up and then warn Ishmael to be more careful around Isaac.

Probably the best explanation I’ve read comes from Mark Throntveit, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Luther Seminary.  Dr. Throntveit points out that the word translated as “playing” in verse nine, is – in other instances – often translated as “laughing.”  Now that seems pretty harmless as well.  But then Dr. Throntveit reminds us that Isaac’s name, “he laughs,” comes from this very same word.  “We might literally translate ‘playing’… as ‘Isaacing,’” writes Dr. Throntveit, “that is, Sarah saw Ishmael ‘playing the part’ of Isaac, pretending to take Isaac’s place as heir of the promise.  Certainty is impossible,” he adds, “but the view that Ishmael was pretending to be Isaac and usurping his future role would explain Sarah’s actions.”

If this explanation is correct, then Sarah clearly saw Ishmael as Isaac’s rival.  Sarah Buteux has written, “all her old fears and her old hurts rose to the surface.”  And as long as Ishmael remained in Abraham’s household, he would forever be a threat to Isaac’s inheritance.

So Sarah demands that both Hagar and Ishmael be sent away.  And actually her demand was not without precedent.  In her culture, she was well within her rights as the primary wife, now that her son had survived the early years of life.  Furthermore, in some parts of the ancient world, the children of slaves – who were not made heirs – were actually required to be set free in order to give them an opportunity to make a life of their own.  So what, at first glance, seems utterly cruel and heartless on Sarah’s part was not really all that unusual under the circumstances.  Although it still doesn’t make it right.

There’s that word again, though, circumstances. God’s original plan and intent was simply for Abraham and Sarah to have a son from whom there would emerge this great nation that he had promised them.  But they had a problem believing in this promise, they lost patience with God, and they finally took matters into their own hands.  And now they’ve created, not only a complete mess of things, they have also created a set of “circumstances” to which God must, once again, respond.

Because, you see, the simple, undeniable fact is that Abraham loved Ishmael, his first-born son.  What father wouldn’t?  “The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son,” said our lesson in understated fashion.  Another way of putting it is that Abraham was truly torn over what to do.  You see, Ishmael was never second best in Abraham’s eyes.

But Abraham was, nevertheless, being forced to choose.  There was Isaac and Sarah and God’s promise on the one hand, and then Ishmael and Hagar and the love he had for them on the other.  And apparently Abraham simply wasn’t able, or willing, to choose between them.

But then, as we heard, God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed… whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you.”  In other words, even though Abraham and Sarah have made a complete mess of things, God now repeats his promise to Abraham and reminds Abraham of his ultimate will – and that not even these unfortunate circumstances can, or will, change it.

And yet God’s words to Abraham are not without grace as well.  Ishmael must go, it is true, but “I will make a nation of him also,” says God, “because he is your offspring.”

So Abraham rises early in the morning, either to simply avoid Sarah or to perhaps give Hagar and Ishmael a head start while it was still cool out, and he sends them away.  And once again, just as we saw earlier, it all could have ended right here.  In fact, Hagar actually feared and, frankly, expected that it would.  After wandering aimlessly in the desert, she and her son ran out of bread and water.  Leaving Ishmael behind under some bushes, she then walked away from him so that she would not have to watch him die.

But once again, God heard the cries of Hagar, and the voice of Ishmael, whose name, remember, means “God hears.”  And God opened Hagar’s eyes to a well of water, and she gave her son a drink.  And then God, we are told, “was with the boy and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow.  He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.”

As Sarah Buteux has written, “And so, in Hagar (and Ishmael’s) story, as awful and tragic as it might be, we actually find hope.  Hagar brings us face to face with our God, a God who sees us, a God who hears us, a God who does not, who can not, who will not turn away from our pain.  We know, through her experience, that our cries do not go unheeded.”

We also see in this story the fulfillment of God’s will… even, at times, in spite of us.  God’s intended and ultimate will was for Abraham and Sarah to be the parents of his chosen people.  It was an honor for which they were hardly prepared, and, as we saw this morning, completely unworthy.  But that’s the nature of God’s grace.

And it is also the nature of Gods’ grace that when we lose patience, and take matters into our own hands, and totally screw things up, that he will respond to the unfortunate, and sometimes tragic, circumstances we create with love and with mercy and with caring.

Amen

(Exodus 19:2-9, 16-19; 1 Peter 2:9-10; Matthew 9:35-10: 8 )

Today’s sermon theme, of course, was also the theme of this past week’s Vacation Bible School. Forty children were enrolled and by Friday, I’m told, we had even more children than that. Usually, you see, it works the other way. That is, you lose students as the week progresses. But we gained! Which is a testament to the hard work, and superlative efforts, of our Director of Family Ministries, Emilie Bush, and her dedicated staff. And so it also seems fitting, therefore, that a week of bible school with a theme like “God’s Big Backyard” would then culminate, as it has today, in a worship service out here in God’s creation.

John Ortberg, in his book The Life You Always Wanted, once offered an “alternate version” of the bible’s creation story. In Ortberg’s version, in the beginning God went to work because it was nine o’clock and he had to. And the first thing God did was to fill out a requisition form to separate the light from the darkness. That completed, God considered making stars to beautify the night, and planets to fill the skies, but then reconsidered. It sounded like too much work; and, besides, God thought, “That’s not my job.” So God decided to knock off early and call it a day. And he looked at what he’d done and he said, “It’ll have to do.”

On the second day, God separated the waters from the dry land. And he made all the dry land flat, plain, and functional, so that – behold – the whole earth looked like… Idaho. Now God thought about making mountains and valleys and glaciers and jungles and forests, but he decided that it wouldn’t be worth the effort. And so God looked at what he had done on that second day and said, “It’ll have to do.”

And then God made a pigeon to fly in the air, and a carp to swim in the waters, and a cat to creep upon the dry ground. God also thought about making millions of other species of all sizes and shapes and colors, but he couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm for these other animals. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t even too crazy about that cat. Besides, it was almost time for the Late Show. So God looked at all he had done and God said, “It’ll have to do.”

And so it went for the rest of that week of creation. And when it was over, God was seriously burned out. So he breathed a big sigh of relief and said, “Thank Me, it’s Friday!” And then God rested from all his labors on the Sabbath…

Of course, the book of Genesis doesn’t describe creation in this way – fortunately! Instead, it describes God taking great care, and being wonderfully creative, and exhibiting a true sense of joy and satisfaction in all that he had made. At each step of the way, in fact, rather than simply concluding, “it’ll have to do,” the bible says that God stopped and surveyed what he had just created and saw that, “it was good.” In fact, when it was all finally complete, God saw everything that he had made and, indeed, “it was very good.”

And, thus, it was into this “very good” creation that God placed us, and called us to be caretakers of it. That is, to “care for” and to “protect” everything God had made: the mountains, and seas, and forests, and jungles, as well as all the plants and animals and creepy-crawly things which inhabited these various ecosystems.

But even more than that… God also gave us a “special” calling; a calling he first extended to the people of Israel. As we heard in our first reading, after God had delivered the Israelites from bondage and led them out of Egypt into the wilderness – out there, out in that wilderness, out in God’s big backyard, if you will – he said to them, “if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession… you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”

“Imagine how the Israelites must have felt hearing these words,” writes Judith Carrick. “Out of all (the) nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests… Against all odds, and surely even against their own expectations, God had allowed this group of slaves to escape the domination of… Egypt… Now here they were, at the foot of Mt. Sinai, after three months of hard travel, hearing through Moses the unbelievable words from God himself, telling them that they were chosen and precious in his sight.”

Then, over a thousand years later, the letter of 1 Peter encouraged and inspired the early Christian community with virtually the same words, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people…” And then our reading from 1 Peter also reminded us exactly why we have received such a calling; that is, “in order that you may proclaim the might acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Which is simply to say, that with this “special” calling came a “special” responsibility. The reason why this priestly people and holy nation has been called and set apart by God is so that it can proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom and what God has done (and continues to do) in Jesus Christ.

And so we also heard this morning how Jesus summoned his followers and gave them authority to cast out unclean spirits and to cure every disease and every sickness, and then he sent them out into God’s big backyard to love and to serve in God’s name.

This past week, the children in our Vacation Bible School learned, through the daily bible stories, that we are called to love and to serve in a variety of ways and a variety of situations. First, they learned that we are called to “serve family” and then to “serve friends.” But they also heard that we are called to “serve our neighbors” and to “serve our community” as well.

Last, but not least, we are called to “serve Jesus.” But as I tried to remind the children in our closing on Friday, when we serve our family, friends, neighbors, and community we are serving Jesus. Because Jesus taught us, over and over again, that the very best way we can possibly serve him… is to serve others.

We’re special people, you and I. Now there are those who remind us of this all the time. Almost every day, in fact, when I come home from church and check the mail, or the phone messages on our answering machine, I keep hearing how truly special I really am. “Edward, you’re a winner! You’ve been chosen to receive a free, all-expense paid trip to Disney World.” Or, “Mr. Kroppa, would you please take a moment and complete a survey for us in order to get your special prize.” Or, “Mr. Edward, call now and we’ll send you and Mrs. Edward on that dream vacation you’ve always wanted to take.”

Three or four times a day, I hear that I’m a pretty special guy.

So are my kids. Ever since she graduated from high school, our daughter Sarah has been hearing weekly from the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, as well as the reserves and National Guard. I guess she’s pretty special, too!

But, of course, these kinds of letters and phone messages are simply a marketer’s ploy to make us feel special or important, so that we can do something for them; buy their product, or answer their survey, or, in the case of our daughter Sarah with the armed services, fill their quotas.

However, it doesn’t work that way with God. God, the creator, the owner of this “big backyard” we know as earth, called the Israelites and told them they were special – even when they had absolutely nothing to offer him! They possessed absolutely nothing that the creator of this universe could possibly have desired from them!

In a sense, God said, “You can’t do anything for me. But I can and will do something for you. Out of all the peoples in the world, I will make you my treasured possession. Out of all the peoples in the world, I will make you a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.

I will bless you. And even more than that, if you keep my covenant, I will make you a blessing to others as well.”

And, in Jesus Christ, God simply repeated and expanded this promise: to bless us so that we could then be a blessing to others. So whatever it is that we have to offer the world as the church, it is not something we possess. Rather, it’s something from God that we are called, and privileged, to share with others.

As Mike Wilkins reminds us, “The church is not a religious institution, it is not a service provider, it is not a retail outlet: it is a community of faith. The word for church in the Bible is ‘ecclesia’ from which we get the word, ‘ecclesiastical.’ It comes to us from two other Greek words, ‘ek’ for ‘out’, and ‘klesis’ for ‘a calling.’ (So) when the Bible calls us the ‘ecclesia,’ it is calling us the ‘called-out community.’ …The ‘ecclesia’ is not an organization or an institution, it literally means a gathering of the people – a gathering of God’s people! Church is not a place – it is a people.”

And it is a people who, through absolutely no talent or effort of their own, are nevertheless sent out into the world to serve God, and to proclaim his mighty deeds.

Now what does this mean? Well, it means that being the church and serving God is not about us. It’s about the God who called us out of the darkness of our own making… and into the light of his marvelous love and grace.

It’s about not taking ourselves too seriously. After all, keep in mind, as I pointed out earlier, that we have absolutely nothing that God could possibly want from us. Because, remember, once we were not a people. We were of no account or consequence. But now we are God’s people. Once we had not received mercy,

and we were instead mired in the muck of our own sin and unworthiness. But now we have received mercy. In other words, we should never take ourselves too seriously because – whatever it is that we have, whatever it is that we are – comes from God, not us.

There’s a story told about Pope John XXIII. One of his advisors, apparently, was constantly nagging him to fix this problem or that problem. This official lived as though he alone saw the severity of the challenges facing the world and the church, and that, without, his warnings and efforts, the entire world would collapse. Finally, the Pope had had enough. So he took this hyper-conscientious advisor aside and confessed that he, too, was sometimes tempted to think and live as though the fate of the entire world rested on his shoulders. He said he was helped, however, by the angel who would occasionally appear by the side of his bed and say, “Hey there, Johnny boy, don’t take yourself too seriously.”

After all, the people God calls and then sends out into the world are not necessarily the “cream of the crop,” if you know what I mean – popes included. Instead, keep in mind that the people God has chosen, and continues to choose, are often very flawed.

For instance, in a quick review of some of the great men and women in scripture, we find one who confessed that he was willing to give his wife to another man to sleep with. Another plotted to kill the husband of the woman he lusted after. Still another murdered a man and then had to run from the law. One was a prostitute. Another had a lifestyle marked by violence. And still another cheated his own brother out of that brother’s inheritance. And, finally, one not only persecuted the early church, but actually stood by as the first Christian martyr was stoned to death.

So what do Abraham, David, Moses, Rahab, Samson, Jacob, and Paul have in common? Despite their many sins and shortcomings, and obvious flaws – God still managed to use them to further and to fulfill his gracious will.

Well, it’s no different with us. We are not worthy of the calling to which we’ve been called. But worthiness has nothing to do with it. It’s all about mercy. And what better way for God to communicate his mercy than to illustrate it through the lives of those to whom he has been merciful…

The second thing to keep in mind is that, since it’s not our own talent or ability or righteousness at work when we serve God, the only thing God requires and asks of us is commitment and dedication. When Jesus sent his disciples out to heal the sick and to cast out demons, it was his power and his authority at work – not theirs. They were, and today we are, simply “laborers” sent out into his harvest.

Once, at a meeting of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Bobby Richardson, the second basemen of the New York Yankees back in the 1950’s and 60’s, expressed this kind of commitment and dedication in a prayer marked by both its brevity and also its poignancy. “Dear God,” said Richardson, “Your will; nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Amen.”

The implication here, of course, is that we have to stake everything we have, and everything we are – on God’s call. As someone once pointed out, a husband or wife who is only 85%, or even 90% faithful to his or her spouse is not really faithful at all.

What’s needed, instead, is 100% devotion and faithfulness. It is said that when Julius Caesar landed on the shores of Britain with his Roman legions, half a century before the birth of Christ, he took a bold and decisive step. Ordering his men to march to the edge of the cliffs of Dover, he commanded them to look down at the water below. To their utter amazement, they saw every ship in which they had crossed the channel from Europe engulfed in flames. Caesar had deliberately cut off any possibility of retreat. Now that his soldiers were unable to return to the continent, there was nothing left for them to do but advance and conquer.

Nearly 1600 years later, the Spanish explorer, Hernando Cortez, did the very same thing. Landing at, what is today, Vera Cruz, Mexico in the spring of 1519, he set fire to the 11 ships which had brought him and his 700 men from Cuba. Like Julius Caesar before him, the commitment and dedication of Cortez was absolute…

Can it be any less for us? God, the creator of the universe, this “big backyard,” has actually chosen us – as unworthy as we are – to be his priestly kingdom and his holy nation. Therefore, can we even contemplate anything less than 100% devotion in response?

Fritz Kreisler, the famous violinist, once said, “Narrow is the road that leads to a violinist. Hour after hour, day after day, and week after week, for years, I lived with my violin. There were so many things that I wanted to do that I had to leave undone; there were many places I wanted to go that I had to miss, if I was to master the violin. The road that I traveled was a narrow road and the way was hard.”

In fact, a woman once came up to Fritz Kreisler after one of his concerts and said to him, “I’d give my life to play as beautifully as you do.” To which Kreisler replied, “I did.”

You know, you can almost substitute the word “disciple” for “violinist” in that passage written by Fritz Kreisler and come up with something very similar to what Jesus had to say about the way of life for those who dared to commit themselves to following him. The way is not easy. It is not without self-sacrifice and single-mindedness. The road to be traveled is, indeed, a narrow one.

But the rewards are unmistakable… and they are eternal.

For Fritz Kreisler, of course, it was all about the opportunity to master a musical instrument, and to be acclaimed throughout the world for his prowess. For the average Christian, the rewards – at first glance – would certainly seem to be much more modest. But when you step back, and stop to think for a minute, you realize how untrue that really is.

Because, for the Christian, even the average Christian, the reward is this:

• knowing that you have contributed to a cause greater than yourself – to God’s cause,
• that you have been a blessing to others simply by sharing the blessings of God with them,
• that through the power and authority of Jesus Christ you have helped make this world – in the here and now – a better place,
• and that you have lived your life as that good and faithful servant whose real treasure still awaits in heaven.

God created us and set us loose in his big backyard. But God also called us with a “special calling” to serve others. And to make that big backyard a better place.

Amen

(Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26; Hosea 5:15-6:6)

After doing this for about a quarter of a century now (preaching, that is), I’ve been at it long enough to know that sometimes sermon writing, like any kind of writing, can be difficult.  In fact, the late Red Smith, a famous N.Y. Times sportswriter of a generation ago, once described writing this way: “There’s nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter… and open a vein.”

At other times, however, the sermon practically writes itself.  Again, I’ve been at this long enough, week in and week out for over two decades now, that my mind has been trained to think theologically and my powers of observation conditioned to be ever on the lookout for sermon ideas and sermon themes and sermon illustrations.  Which is simply to say that, if you do something long enough, it will eventually become second-nature to you…

And such was the case, once again, this past week.  On Monday afternoon, when I took my first look at the scripture lessons assigned for this morning, all it took was a single glance at today’s Gospel.  As soon as I read through it that very first time, two words immediately popped into my head – the two words which then, soon afterwards, became today’s sermon theme: “The Untouchables.”

Now, if you’re a baby boomer like myself, the words “The Untouchables” probably trigger flashbacks of car chases and machine gun battles from the late 50’s/early 60’s crime drama of the same name, starring Robert Stack as Prohibition Agent Eliot Ness who waged war against Al Capone and organized crime in Chicago back in the 1930’s.  The TV show was, in turn, based on the autobiographical memoir of the real life Eliot Ness, and his experiences leading a special team of agents known as the Untouchables.  They had received this nickname because these handpicked agents were incapable of being bribed or corrupted.

Therefore, since they were out of the gangster’s reach, they came to be known as “untouchable.”

But if this is the image that immediately popped into your head when you first heard these words (as was the case for me), stop right now and put it out of your mind.  Because these are not the kind of untouchables I want you to be thinking about this morning.

On the other hand, if when you first heard “the untouchables” you thought of the “caste system” in India (which was my second thought, by the way), then you’re absolutely correct.  Because this is the sense in which we’ll be examining the term in today’s sermon…

For those who may not be familiar with it, there has existed

in India, for the past 1,500 years or so, a system of social stratification that follows a basic precept (one which is the very antithesis of our American understanding): namely, that “all men are created unequal.” You see, the ranks or classes in Hindu society come from a legend in which the main groupings emerged from a primordial being.  From the mouth, came the priests and teachers.  From the arms, came the rulers and soldiers.  From the thighs, came the merchants and traders.  And from the feet, came the laborers.  Finally, there is a fifth group, whom the primordial being does not claim.  So they are the outcasts, also known as… “the untouchables.”

These people, today over 160 million in number, are considered too impure, too polluted, to rank as worthy beings.  Prejudice defines their lives.  They are shunned, insulted, banned from temples and higher caste homes, and made to eat and drink from separate utensils in public places.  They suffer from a form of racist and economic bondage that has been compared to the apartheid system that once existed in South Africa.  And it’s an extreme version of what we, ourselves, experienced in this country during slavery and even up through the days before the civil rights movement in the second half of the 20^th century.  (Which, regardless of your political persuasion, is what makes the apparent nomination of Barack Obama so significant.)

So where’s the connection?  Well, when we read this morning’s gospel, we have to remember that in Jesus’ day, and in the society in which he lived, there were also untouchables; people who were similarly shunned because they were thought to somehow be impure.

For example, there were the Samaritans.  These were the distant, (some would say “illegitimate”) cousins of the Jewish people who were descended from the colonists that the Assyrians brought in after they defeated the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C.

and simultaneously deported much of the native population.  Consequently, by the time of Jesus, there was a good deal of antagonism and hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans.  Which is what made Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan so powerful and so moving; not even the bad feelings between these two peoples stood in the way of the Samaritan coming to the aid of that injured Jew.

And then in our passage this morning, we have represented three other groups who were also shunned and/or considered impure; three other groups of so-called “untouchables.”

The first were the tax collectors and sinners; in other words, Matthew and his gang.  Tax collectors, even more so than today, had a negative reputation in the ancient world.  You see, Rome sold the contracts for tax collection to the highest bidder who, in turn, typically overcharged the people in order to make a profit.

Linked together with the tax collectors in our passage are those the gospel writer (presumably Matthew himself) simply refers to as “sinners.” We aren’t given any more information about them than this.  But the apparent common denominator here between them and the tax collectors, the implication if you will, is that these groups do not observe the Jewish law.  And, as such, a good law-abiding, law-observing Jew would normally have avoided any kind of social contact with them, including table fellowship.  In other words, Jesus is depicted here as eating with the wrong kind of people.

Who you choose to eat with, even today, is an important means by which community is established and social status is demonstrated.  Those who eat together generally share the same values and social position.  (For example, just think back for a moment to your high school cafeteria and tell me that there wasn’t a “pecking order” that governed who ate with whom; the jocks and popular kids at their own tables, for instance, and the nerds and geeks at theirs.)

So, naturally, by eating with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus raised more than a few eyebrows, especially among the Pharisees who took these things very seriously.  That is, regulations having to

do with food and purity were very important to them.  Not surprisingly, then, the Pharisees immediately questioned Jesus’ disciples about this behavior.  But Jesus overhears their question, and, quoting from Hosea (our first reading this morning), he challenges their objections by saying, “Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”  (More about this later.)

Then we have the second group of untouchables.  While Jesus was saying these things, a leader of the synagogue suddenly came up to him and told him that his daughter had just died.  Then he pleaded with Jesus to come and lay his hand on her so that she might live.  Jesus gets up and goes with him, but before he even gets there – while he’s still walking – a woman suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years, we’re told, comes up and touches his cloak, saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”

In those days, of course, a women’s monthly menstrual flow rendered her ritually unclean and temporarily impure.  And so

for someone, like this particular woman, whose bleeding was continuous – not only was this condition painful and debilitating, preventing her from marrying or having children – but her impurity was, therefore, virtually permanent as well.  Not only that, but anyone who touched, or was touched by, her was also made unclean.  Needless to say, this practically insured that she would have been ostracized by the community.

Yet notice how Jesus responds when he feels her touch.  He turns and says to her, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.”  Instead of recoiling at her touch, for fear of becoming unclean himself, he instead welcomes it, and instantly she was healed…

Finally, Jesus arrives at the home of the man whose daughter had died and there we have the third group of untouchables in our passage.  And, once again, Jesus is risking ritual defilement.  Here it’s helpful to remember how the priest and the Levite (in that parable of the Good Samaritan I mentioned earlier) walked right past the beaten man beside the road.  Since it was difficult for them to tell if he was still living or not, they were naturally concerned about becoming defiled or unclean themselves by touching a corpse.  According to Jewish law, any person who physically came in contact with a dead body was unclean for a week and required ceremonial cleansing on the third and seventh days.  Or else risked being completely cut off from the Jewish community.

But once again Jesus emphasizes mercy, this time over legality and purity regulations; just as he emphasized mercy over social status and reputation in the case of Matthew and his friends.  Even though physical contact with an unclean person, or even just touching things that the unclean person had touched, was thought to transmit that impurity; and even though contact with a dead body made that individual unclean – Jesus did not hesitate to receive or, in this case, to actually initiate such contact himself.  Dismissing the mourners, saying, “…the girl is not dead, but (simply) sleeping,” Jesus went in and immediately took her by the hand, and, as we heard, the girl sat up…

Three groups of “untouchables,” then, three groups of people – both the living and (in one case) the dead – who were to be avoided; the outcasts of society; people that no law-abiding, deeply religious, or self-respecting person would want to have anything to do with – if possible.  As Pastor Luke Bouman has written, “…they were people without place, future, dignity, and in a very real sense, cut off from life, though only the little girl is dead.”

However, in a society, and in a faith, where these distinctions and prohibitions were considered important by many, Jesus chooses to show his followers another way.  David Watson has noted that, “Matthew’s Jesus cares deeply about the Jewish law, but he interprets it differently than his opponents do.  He gives priority to (those) elements of the Jewish law that emphasize concrete acts of love and mercy.”  As Watson observes, “(Jesus) enters into the messiness of everyday human activity and offers righteousness, community, and healing.”  In stark contrast to the so-called religious people of his day, Jesus actively seeks out the sinner, the outcast, and those considered unclean.  And in modeling this kind of behavior, Jesus not only sets an example for his disciples to follow, he also gives us a glimpse into the very nature of God…

Earlier I indicated that there would be more to say about Jesus’ desire for mercy, instead of sacrifice.  As I noted at the time, he was quoting from the prophet Hosea here.

Hosea’s story, of course, is a very interesting one.  You see, God decided to show the people of Israel – through Hosea – what God was really like.  And so, if you remember the story, God commands Hosea to marry a prostitute; a woman named Gomer.

(I had a male cousin named Gomer, which I always thought was a funny name for a guy.  And, similarly, this was certainly a strange name for a woman, as well!)

Moreover, the circumstances of their marriage were equally strange… tragic even.  For even though Hosea was good to her, and gave her children, before very long, Gomer leaves Hosea and resumes her previous life with great gusto.  And, in doing so, she makes Hosea look like a fool.

But therein lies the teaching moment.  Because God then says to Hosea, and to all of Israel, “This is what its like to be me.  For you, my people, have been unfaithful to me, and have gone after other gods instead of me.”

Then comes the unexpected, the unthinkable really.  God tells Hosea to take Gomer back; to actually buy back his adulterous wife, and to reaffirm his love for her and his devotion to her.  Heaven knows, she didn’t deserve it.  Nor does it miraculously make her a better person, or help Hosea win any friends or somehow enhance his reputation.  The fact of the matter is, everyone knows full well what she’s done, and they probably think he’s insane for bringing her back.

But God was trying to make a point here, with Hosea’s life.  Hosea is commanded to take Gomer back because that’s what it’s like to be God!  It’s not about justice or fairness or what we might think is right. Rather… God is all about steadfast love and mercy and grace.  You see, how God instructed Hosea to deal with his wife Gomer, is precisely how God deals with us, and our unfaithfulness, and our sinfulness.  In Jesus Christ, God redeems us.  In other words, God buys us back and reaffirms his love for us and his commitment to us.  Because if it was about justice, or fairness, or what’s right… we wouldn’t stand a chance, would we?

…And so, in Jesus, we see God reaching out to the outcasts and even touching the untouchables.  In Jesus, we see God welcoming those who are shunned and ostracized because of who they are, or how they live.  In Jesus, we see God embracing those who everyone else has intentionally avoided and completely written off.  Why?  For the simple reason that God is a God of steadfast love and mercy…

Of course, there’s a final question to be asked, isn’t there?  An uncomfortable question…  That is: Who are the untouchables today… in our lives?  Who are the people that we find revolting and repulsive, for whatever reason?  Who are the people we automatically recoil from?

Tony Campolo tells the story of walking one day down Chestnut Street in center-city Philadelphia and encountering a homeless man who was approaching him on the sidewalk.  This bum was covered with dirt and soot from head to toe.  There was filthy stuff caked on his skin.  His beard hung down almost to his waist and there was rotted food stuck in it.

The man was holding a cup of McDonald’s coffee and the lip of the cup was already smudged from his dirty mouth.  And as he staggered towards Tony, he seemed to be staring into this cup of coffee.  Then, suddenly, he looked up and yelled, “Hey mister!

Ya want some coffee?”

As Campolo writes, “I have to admit that I really didn’t.  But I knew that the right thing to do was to accept his generosity, and so I said, ‘I’ll take a sip.’”

When Tony handed the cup back to him, he said, “You’re pretty generous, aren’t you, giving away your coffee?”  And the old man looked him straight in the eye and replied, “Well, the coffee was especially delicious today, and I figure if God gives you something good, you ought to share it with (other) people.”

Upon hearing this, however, Campolo became a little cynical, and thought to himself, “Oh, man.  He has me really set up.  This is going to cost me five dollars.” So Tony said to him, “I suppose there’s something I can do for you in return, isn’t there?”

The homeless guy thought about that for a second, and then said, “Yeah!  You can give me a hug.”  (“To tell you the truth,” writes Campolo, “I was hoping for the five dollars.”)

So the bum put his arms around Tony, and Tony put his arms around the bum.  And then Campolo realized something, “He wasn’t going to let me go!”  Here, people were walking by on the sidewalk, staring at them.  And Tony, all dressed up in a suit and tie, was hugging this dirty, filthy bum.  And he was embarrassed.

But how long had it been since another human being had embraced this untouchable?  And how many other untouchables are out there; cut off from and shunned by society because of the way they look, or they way they speak, or the way they act, or the color of their skin, or even their lifestyle?

Laurel Dykstra, writing for Sojourner’s Online, says this, “Jesus asserts that whatever purity means, it is not threatened by occupation, outsider status, failure to conform, or type of body.  That is good news indeed for those of us who because of sexual orientation, transgender identity, HIV status, a lack of address, mental illness, prostitution, addiction, immigration, and many other reasons, are considered not quite clean.”

“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” asked the Pharisees.  When Jesus heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

In the 19^th century, a Roman Catholic priest was sent to minister to the lepers who had been quarantined on the island of Molokai in the Hawaiian chain.  This priest was sent to serve these scorned and sickly people; these untouchables. But even though he tried for years to reach out to them with the love of Jesus Christ, as best he knew how, he never quite succeeded in connecting with these people in a way that led them to respond to his ministry.  So, finally, he decided to give up.  He sent word to the people on Oahu to send a boat for him and also to find someone else to take his place.

But on the Sunday he was scheduled to leave, as he stood there on the dock waiting for the boat to arrive, he happened to glance down at his hands and noticed several white spots.  And in that moment, he suddenly realized that he, himself, had become a leper.  This meant, of course, that he wouldn’t be able to take that boat back to Oahu, for now he also belonged in the leper colony.  However, this isn’t the end of the story of Father Damien.

You see, when he left that dock, and slowly walked back up the hill to the little church he had tried so hard to serve, he suddenly discovered a church full of people.  Somehow the word had spread, and they had finally come to hear their priest.  That’s because he was no longer an outsider.  He had become one of them. And so

he stayed on at that leper colony for the rest of his life, touching thousands with the love of Jesus Christ…

Jesus reminds us that there are “untouchables” all around us; people we shun and avoid all the time, and for all sorts of reasons.  But he also reminds us that – in spite of the risk –  to be a Christian is to reach out and dare to touch these untouchables in tangible and concrete ways, with the steadfast love of God.  In God’s eyes, you see, mercy trumps everything else.

Amen

(Matthew 7:21-29)

The month of May is the traditional time for graduation in this country.  Not only for those graduating from high school in the South, like our daughter Sarah who graduated from Parkview a week and a half ago; but also for those graduating from colleges and universities, as well as graduate and professional schools.  And graduations, as you know, require commencement speakers who, while typically not compensated financially (at least that’s what they tell us), normally receive, at minimum, an honorary doctorate plus expenses.  All in all, nice work, if you can get it.

Now, of course, we’ve just completed a month of graduations at institutions of higher learning across the country, and so, out of curiosity, I went online to see exactly who these commencement speakers were this year.  As a group, not surprisingly, politicians were quite popular again, especially on their home turf.  For instance, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin was the commencement speaker at Agnes Scott College; Congressman Charles Rangel of New York spoke at Bard College; and Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania delivered the commencement address at Susquehanna University where our future son-in-law, Josiah Ramsey, graduated this spring with both my daughter Kristyn and my wife Jeanette in attendance.

Journalists and media celebrities were also popular, including: Nancy Grace, Brian Williams, Cokie Roberts, Carl Bernstein, Chris Matthews, Tavis Smiley, and of course Oprah Winfrey.

Presidents, both former and the current office-holder, are always

a good choice.  Former presidents, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, each spoke at commencements this spring; Bush at Bryant University and Clinton at UCLA.  And President George W. Bush actually double-dipped this year, speaking at both Furman University and also the United States Air Force Academy.

Continuing in that same vein, lawyers and judges are another popular choice.  Among this year’s speakers were Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and current justice Clarence Thomas.

You also had some actors (Matthew Modine, Jessica Lange, Chuck Norris, and Cicely Tyson), and even a couple of comedians (Bill Cosby and Robert Klein).

The real surprise for me, however, was the number of commencement speakers with ties to major league baseball.  Why?  I have no idea.  But I counted no fewer than six, including baseball commissioner Bud Selig, former Dodger’s manager Tommy Lasorda, Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr. and also three broadcasters: Joe Buck, Vin Scully, and Joe Garagiola.  I can’t help but imagining that their speeches started out with something like, “Dear Graduates of 2008… life is like a game of baseball.”

Now some choices were obvious, like Cardinal Theodore McCarrick speaking at Notre Dame, or football great Dan Marino addressing graduates at his alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh.  Others must have been interesting, like having both James Carville and his wife Mary Matalin at Tulane.

But some were, at best, curious, and, at worst, simply bizarre.  William Gates Sr., for instance, the father of Microsoft founder and “gazillionaire” Bill Gates, was this year’s speaker at Whitman College.  What was the title of his speech? “How to raise a son who dropped out of college before graduating and became the world’s richest man?”

Then there was Bill Nye, the “science guy” of public broadcasting fame.  He spoke this year at both Harvey Mudd College (wherever that is!) and also the prestigious Johns Hopkins.  But what did he do for the graduates?  Some science experiments?

Finally, the speaker this spring at the Law School of Northwestern University in Chicago, which I’m sure – absolutely positive – could have had its pick of well-respected jurists, or famous attorneys?  They, instead, chose tabloid talk show host Jerry Springer!  Now I know why he probably accepted their invitation.  I bet he was there to recruit future legal representation for all the law suits he must face on his show every year.  But why did they pick him?  (I read that the students actually petitioned to stop him, but were overruled.)

And what is it exactly that these commencement speakers actually talk about?  As you might imagine, these famous and highly successful individuals are undoubtedly invited for the simple reason, and with the sincere hope I’m sure, that they might share some “pearls of wisdom” or “kernels of great truth” with the graduates; important, timely, and down-to-earth advice for those entering the so-called “real world.”

So, I also took a moment to read some of the more memorable commencement speeches of the recent past.  Widely circulating on the Internet, for example, is a commencement address attributed to Kurt Vonnegut supposedly delivered to the graduates of MIT back in 1997.  Certainly a writer of his stature would have something profound to say, you would think…  It begins, however, “Ladies and gentleman of the Class of ’97:  Wear sunscreen.  If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.  The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…”

Now, as it turns out, Kurt Vonnegut did not address the MIT graduates back in 1997, nor did he even write this speech.  It turns out that it was actually just a newspaper column written that spring by Chicago Tribune writer Mary Schmich.  As is often the case, the attachment of a famous name fueled the piece’s popularity, especially giving it a “life of its own” on the Internet.

Interestingly enough, though, Ted Turner did say something very similar while addressing Georgia State’s graduates three years earlier.  Turner, then facing a skin cancer operation, told them: “The one piece of advice I can give you is put on some sunscreen and wear a hat.”

Good, practical advice?  Without a doubt.  But profound?  Hardly.

I also came across the commencement address delivered by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Russell Baker, which he gave to the 1995 graduating class at Connecticut College in New Haven.  After a few introductory remarks he said, “All right, let’s plunge right ahead into the dull part.  That’s the part where the commencement speaker tells the graduates to go forth into the world, then gives them advice on what to do when they get out there.  This is a ridiculous waste of time.  The graduates never take the advice, as I have learned from long experience.  The best advice I can give anybody about going out into the world is this:  Don’t do it.  I have been out there.  It is a mess.”

Since, as he noted, graduates never take his advice, Baker went on to say: “So I will not waste my breath today pleading with you not to go forth.  Instead I limit myself to a simple plea:  When you get out there in the world, try not to make it any worse than it already is…”  And then he offered his list of “10 things to help you avoid making the world worse than it already is” which I will spare you this morning.  But suffice it to say, they were not very profound either, nor especially practical.

Finally, there was the talk given by Apple Computer founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, delivered at Stanford University in 2005.  It’s actually quite good.  You can find both the text of his speech as well as the You Tube video online.  Like fellow computer mogul and rival, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs also did not finish college.  In his address at Stanford, in fact, he began by saying, “I never graduated from college.  Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.”

And then, in a speech that I found to be both very down-to-earth and humble as well, Jobs goes on to say something very profound, I think.  At the end of one of the three stories from his life that he chose to share with the graduates that day, he observed: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.  You have to trust in something…”

The story from his life that Steve Jobs was referring to here was how he had dropped out of Reed College after only six months, but then hung around for another year-and-a-half “dropping in” on classes that interested him, including a calligraphy class.  At the time, studying calligraphy did not appear to have any practical application in his life.  But ten years later, when they were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to him.  So they created that first computer with beautiful typography and multiple typefaces and proportionally spaced fonts.  And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s quite likely that no computer would have had them otherwise.

In other words, if he had never dropped out, he never would have dropped in to that calligraphy class.  And if he had never dropped in to that calligraphy class, today personal computers might not have the beautiful typography that they do.  Of course, as he notes, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when he was in college.  But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.  That is, it only made sense, and you could only see the connections, after the fact.

So, keeping this in mind, let’s finally turn now to this morning’s gospel reading.  The verses we listened to represent the final, concluding section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which runs from the beginning of chapter five through the end of chapter seven in Matthew’s Gospel.  The Sermon on the Mount, of course, is a compilation of some of Jesus’ core teachings; in particular, a collection of sayings and illustrations to help his followers understand the practical applications, and implications, of the Christian life.

Among the more memorable sections in the Sermon on the Mount are the Beatitudes; the relationship of Jesus’ message to the Jewish law; teachings in everyday piety, including the Lord’s Prayer and sayings about earthly treasures; and finally some illustrations of the practical aspects of Jesus’ message, including the Golden Rule.

But now we’re at the end of Jesus’ course on Christian living, so to speak.  And, before us, we have some parting words of advice.  In a way, if the Sermon on the Mount can be seen as a course of study for Jesus’ disciples or students, then perhaps today’s lesson can be viewed as his “commencement address” to them.

Now in the Gospel of John, of course, we actually have Jesus’ “farewell discourse,” given on Maundy Thursday before going out to the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples, which is, in fact, a full-blown speech.  The other three gospels, however, do not really have anything comparable.  Although, as I say, today’s reading (apart from its being rather short in length) does have the “feel” of a commencement address to it.

And interestingly enough, it actually begins with a bit of a warning.  Having taken the time to patiently walk his disciples through the expectations of the Christian life, the “do’s” and “don’ts” if you will, Jesus’ parting words offer a piece of practical, down-to-earth advice.  Now don’t forget, he says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”  Jesus immediately goes on to add, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?”

Notice the difference here between the two verses; subtle perhaps, but a difference nonetheless.  Look at your bulletins.  Notice two words: “does,” as in “does the will of my Father,” and, then later, “do,” as in “did we not… do many deeds of power in your name.  You see, it’s the difference between a continuous or repeated action, implied by the word “does,” on the one hand, and isolated deeds that occurred sometime in the past, implied by the word “do,” on the other.

Or as Brian Stoffregen writes, “This suggests that the ‘doing’ is more a way of life rather than an isolated deed.  The ‘isolated deed’… is when those seeking to enter the kingdom of heaven tell the Lord about the many deeds of power they had done. They look back to what they had done sometime in the past (prophesied, cast out demons, did powerful deeds).”  Instead, writes Stoffregen, “All of us need to look at what we are doing now; not (at) what we might have done…”

Having established, then, that true discipleship is really about a “way of life,” and not just a collection or a series of good deeds or powerful actions, Jesus goes on to illustrate and reinforce his point with the parable of the wise and foolish builders.

Everyone who not only hears his words and teachings, but actually goes out and acts on them is like the wise man, said Jesus, “who built his house on rock.”  And everyone who hears these words and teachings, but fails to act on them will be like the foolish man who built his house on sand.  In each case, the rains fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on their homes.  That is, the storms of life, the problems and challenges and difficulties of life came to both men equally.

But in the case of the wise builder, despite these storms, the house did not fall because, since it was built on rock and it had a solid foundation.  In the case of the foolish builder, however, his house fell and was swept away because there was no strong foundation.

I remember back when we were having our house built up in Pennsylvania.  Our sub-division was located on the side of a hill that had once been a pasture and, underneath the topsoil, it was nothing but solid rock.  The builder, in fact, actually had to blast into the hillside in order to break up that rock to be able to dig the basements and put in the foundations.

And, because we were on the side of a hill, this meant (for those

on our side of the street, at least) that there was a little bit of a downward slope between the street and the house.  It didn’t matter to us, but neighbors several doors down, however, wanted their front yard to be level with the street.  So rather than putting the foundation right on top of the rock, they instead had the builder bring in truckloads of earth to raise the level of the foundation to the necessary height.  However, this also meant that the foundation was no longer sitting right on top of that rocky hillside, but now was sitting on all those truckloads of dirt.  And you can probably guess what happened next.  As the ground that the house was built on began to shift and settle over time, it put all kinds of pressure and stress on the foundation, and then severe cracks began to appear and groundwater began to leak into the basement.

Whereas our foundation, sitting right on top of all that rock, never budged, and our basement stayed dry as a bone.  The houses were almost identical; same builder, same construction, even the same model, I think.  The one and only difference between them… was the foundation they were built on.

The lesson, then, is clear.  All these teachings that Jesus has just shared with his followers – Discipleship 101, if you will – are not simply a collection of things “to do,” or “not-to-do” in isolation.  Rather, if taken together and if one strives to accomplish them day by day, they were intended by Jesus to form the very foundation of the Christian life.  In the end, we are only saved by God’s grace, it’s true.  But the one who accepts that gift of grace, as well as the gift of the Holy Spirit working in his or her life, and who then follows these teachings, will discover the kind of rewarding and fulfilling life – in the here and now – that God hopes and intends for all of us; the so-called “abundant life,” that Jesus refers to in the Gospel of John.

Jesus’ followers have now completed the education contained in the Sermon on the Mount.  Today is graduation day.  And before he sends them out into the world, Jesus offered them this final bit of advice.

And here’s the thing (as well as the relevance of that commencement address given by Steve Jobs I spoke of earlier): You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. In other words, all the teachings and practical advice that Jesus gives us in his Sermon on the Mount don’t always seem to be directly connected to each other, or to form a coherent whole.  In some ways, the materials in these three chapters of Matthew feel, at times, like they’re dis-connected and random, kind of “all over the place.”

It will only be later, at the end of our lives, as we prepare – by God’s grace – to move on to the next life, that we’ll actually be able to look back, and connect the dots, and say, “Oh, now I see, now I get it.”  That’s why it was so important to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to follow the commandments, to love my neighbor and forgive my enemy, to pray and give alms and not worry about life, to avoid judging others, and to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Now it all finally makes some sense, we’ll say.  Now all the random dots are finally connected.

In the meantime, however – as we live day by day in the present – all we can do is simply trust in Jesus, and trust in the teachings of his Sermon on the Mount…

The story is told of a wealthy man who laid a set of blueprints in front of his top assistant and told him, “I’m leaving on an extended trip, and I want you to build a house for me on that location above the lake I showed you recently.  I’ll be gone about ten months.  Here are the plans, and the specs, and the funds to cover the cost.  Have it finished by the time I return.  And I’ll see you then”

Well, despite years of faithful service, this longtime employee immediately saw an opportunity to feather his own nest, so to speak.  So he hired a crooked contractor, employed unskilled labor whenever possible, and put cheap, inferior materials into the building.  When it was finished, it was magnificent looking, but it was really a poorly constructed, flimsy shell.

When the man returned from his trip, he went out with his assistant to see this beautiful new home overlooking the lake.  And the man said to his assistant, “What do you think of it?”  And his employee replied, “I think it’s wonderful.”

“I’m glad you like it,” said the wealthy man.  “You see, I’m retiring from business soon, and I won’t need your services much longer.  But I wanted to reward you for all your faithful years in my employment.  So this house is my gift to you.”

Well… in the very same way, the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount are not about the things we do for God…  They’re really all about the blessings we receive from God when we build our lives on his strong foundation.

Amen

(1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34)

As I mentioned at the outset of our worship this morning, we traded our readings today with those for next week.  That is, instead of celebrating “The Holy Trinity,” as the church calendar calls for, today has been designated instead as “Consecration Sunday” here at All Saints, and I have chosen to use next week’s lessons because they were a better fit.  Of course, next Sunday, then, we’ll simply go back and observe Holy Trinity.

Now I know that such an exchange probably irritates the liturgical purists among us, but, as I shared with our Marianne Zotti, our congregation president when I originally proposed this switch, I suspect that Jesus more than likely would have observed that “the lectionary was made for man, not man for the lectionary.”  At least I certainly hope so!  Nevertheless, what’s done is done.

And, regardless of whether the switching of lessons is liturgically correct or not, the reason for the switch should have been obvious to you when you listened to them.  Because “Consecration Sunday,” of course, is all about stewardship, and commitment, and our faithful response to God; themes that our new lessons this morning (especially the second reading and the gospel) are very much concerned with.

The dictionary tells us, for instance, that to consecrate is to “dedicate,” or “devote” something “to a sacred purpose.”  As you know, this morning we have been asked to make an estimate of financial giving for the coming year, which now begins on June 1 and runs through the end of next May.  It is this giving that directly supports and funds the work of God’s church, both here in our own congregation and synod, and then also throughout the world.

And these lessons, I believe, have something important to say to us as we prayerfully consider our response and our commitment this morning.  So what I’d like to do with you now is take a brief look at two of them, again the second reading and the gospel, beginning with today’s passage from Matthew…

The headlines in USA Today this past week said it all.  The front page of Thursday’s edition read, “Foreclosures take toll on mental health.”  And then, only adding fuel to the fire, the first page of the “Money” section announced, “Foreclosures skyrocket 65% in April.”  Then the weekend edition, which came out the very next day, simply reinforced this heightened anxiety, and the growing sense of worry and dread among Americans, with a cover story entitled, “The Incredible Shrinking Nest Egg: Paltry stock returns, lower home values, dim the view for retirement.”

It’s clear that we are living in “uncertain” times.  Even as the experts argue with each other over whether or not we’re in a true recession, or how long this economic downturn is likely to last, everyday people – like ourselves – simply have to deal with the reality. And we know, all too well, that rising food and gas prices, the sagging housing industry, and the overall ripple effect of these dramatic and significant changes to our economy are a cause for concern.  And, of course, close on the heels of these unsettling economic realities, there comes that increased sense of worry and anxiety.  Largely, I’m afraid, because most of us tend to define ourselves in financial or economic terms.

John Updike once wrote a short story entitled The Wallet. It was about a retired broker, named Fulham, “who had assembled a nice life after thirty years of marriage, a handsome white house in the older suburbs.”  Fulham spends his time in retirement managing his own investments and also those of a few favored and long-time clients.  Every morning now, he goes to an upstairs room in his house, with his Wall Street Journal and a second cup of coffee, and he looks contentedly out the window at his neatly manicured lawn; surveying and enjoying the life he has created for himself…

Then, one morning, disaster strikes.  He suddenly can’t find his wallet.  He looks everywhere; under chairs, beds, he even goes through the pockets of suits he hasn’t worn in months.  Updike writes that Fulham’s wallet was a “reminder” of his life, “containing charge cards for Bay Bank, Brooks Brothers, Hertz, American Express… and cards signifying his membership in the country club, (and the) Museum of Fine Arts…”

So Fulham panics. He even goes a little berserk.  His wife says to him, “I’ve never seen you like this.”  And he asks her, “How am I?”  And she says, “You’re wild.”  To which he responds, “It was my wallet. Everything is in it.  Everything. Without that wallet, I’m nothing.”

Or consider the newspaper account from a few years back which read, “When the landing gear of US Airways Flight 479 collapsed last Friday, and the crew ordered an evacuation down the emergency slides, almost half the passengers reacted by grabbing their carry-on luggage…  One man grabbed two bags.  Another struggled with a large bag.  A woman blocked the aisle struggling to get a garment bag out of an overhead bin.”

Now tell me, do we define who we are… or do we somehow let our possessions do that for us?

With these examples of contemporary attitudes and inclinations in mind, we now turn to this morning’s gospel.  “…I tell you,” said Jesus, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

I’m reminded here of that old Bobby McFerrin song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”  (It’s hard to believe that it came out 20 years ago.  Boy, am I feeling old!)  In one verse he sang, “In every life we have some trouble.  But when you worry you make it double.”  He then concluded with, “Don’t bring everybody down.  Don’t worry.  It will soon pass, whatever it is.  Don’t worry… be happy,”

Sounds a bit like denial to me.  And is that what Jesus is saying here as well?  Simply ignore the troubles and the problems, and that eventually they’ll go away?

Jesus, of course, then goes on to encourage us to consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.  The birds neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, he says, yet God nevertheless feeds them.  And the lilies neither toil nor spin, he points out, yet not even King Solomon, in all of his glory, was clothed like one of these.

Which then begs the question, what exactly does he mean here?”  Does he mean, for instance, that we’re supposed to just kick back and simply trust that God will somehow take care of us?  Isn’t life, at least for us humans, so much more complicated than that?  Don’t we have to do something?

Writing in the current edition of The Christian Century, Tom McGrath responds to such questions by observing, “…it’s easy to misunderstand Jesus here.  We may be tempted to dismiss these examples, thinking that if flowers and birds are carefree, it’s because they’re oblivious and unaware of what might be in store for them.”  McGrath then goes on to conclude, “I sense that Jesus points to the birds and the lilies as examples because they unselfconsciously participate in the life of God, life which is pouring forth through all creation.  Undue worry blocks that participation, which is why we humans often feel distant and disconnected from God.  Fear closes down our hearts; worry puts up a barricade to grace.  The birds and the lilies and all of nature have lessons to teach us about being unobstructed channels for the flow of God’s grace,” he says.

Participate in the life of God, and become unobstructed channels for the flow of God’s grace…  Jesus put it this way, “…strive first for the kingdom of God, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

I guess it comes down to a matter of perspective.  Former coach John McKay of USC once came into the locker room to address his football team after they had been humiliated by Notre Dame by a score of something like fifty-one to nothing.  He saw a group of beaten, worn-out, and thoroughly discouraged young players who were not accustomed to losing.  “Men,” he said, “let’s keep this in perspective.  After all, there are 800 million Chinese out there who don’t even know that this game was even played!”  In other words, keeping score, whether on the football field or in the financial arena… doesn’t really matter in the end.

But it’s also more than that.  Putting things into perspective, according to Jesus, also involves setting priorities and understanding just what is important.  So if we focus on the kingdom of God and strive for it, says Jesus; if we focus on trusting God; we will then be able to see more clearly what’s truly important in life, and moreover also be able to order our lives around these priorities.  For, as he made perfectly clear, no one can serve two masters.

A television program, preceding the 1988 Winter Olympics, once profiled blind skiers who were being trained for slalom skiing…

as impossible as that may sound.  Paired with “sighted” skiers, these blind skiers were first taught, where the terrain was level, how to make right and left turns.  And then, when that was mastered, they were taken up to the slalom slope where their sighted partners skied beside them, shouting out directions, “Left!” or “Right!”

As they followed these commands, they were able to negotiate the course successfully and eventually cross the finish line.  They depended solely on the word of the sighted skiers.  It was either complete trust… or catastrophe.

“What a vivid picture of the Christian life!” writes Robert Sutton.  “In this world, we are in reality blind about what course to take.  We must rely solely on the Word of the only One who is truly sighted – God…  (God’s) Word gives us the direction we need to finish the course.”

Jesus’ final observation in today’s gospel was, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.  Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

A tourist once visited a cathedral where an artist was working on a huge mosaic.  A vast empty wall stood before them, and the tourist asked, “Aren’t you worried about all that space you need to fill up, or how will you ever finish it?”  The artist replied that he only concentrated on what he could actually accomplish each day.  Each morning, he said, he simply marked off the area he intended to complete, and he didn’t allow himself to worry about what lay outside that space.  He just took one day at a time, and he trusted that one day the mosaic would be finished.

So often we approach the challenges and the obstacles we face in this life like they were that empty wall.  Of course, we can either worry endlessly about the final picture we hope to create and how we are going to accomplish it.  Or… we can simply start to fill in the space (as Arthur Caliandro has written), “with wonderful unique images – the imprint of our lives – by doing the very best we can with each day we are given.”

Now the reason why we need to understand this, the reason why we need to strive first for the kingdom of God, put things into perspective, set godly priorities, and then take only one day at a time, is that God apparently has big plans for us.  As St. Paul wrote in our second lesson this morning, we are to think of ourselves as he himself did; that is, “as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.”

That’s quite a job description,” observes Tom McGrath, who goes on to ask, “What kind of stewards will we be if our minds and hearts are closed to the very mysteries we are meant to share?”  And then he draws this helpful analogy, “A trustworthy wine steward,” for instance, “has the full run of the master’s house.  He descends into the wine cellar and brings up the finest wines…  Attuned to the ways of the master and the needs of the guests, the steward matches the wine to the occasion – to the food, to the mood, to the meaning of the moment.  As stewards of God’s mysteries,” McGrath concludes, “we are meant to incorporate those mysteries… but not keep them to ourselves.”

Now when Paul was talking about God’s mysteries here, he was primarily talking about the gospel itself, and our stewardship, or “management,” of the good news of God’s unfailing love and incomparable grace.  But the word “stewardship,” of course, also reminds us (especially today) that we are called to be “managers” of all of God’s blessings; the material as well as the spiritual.

The story is told of a very wealthy man who once stood up at a church meeting to tell the rest of those present about his Christian faith.  “I am a millionaire many times over,” he said.  “And I attribute it all to the rich blessings of God in my life.  I remember the turning point in my faith.  I had just earned my very first dollar and I went to a church meeting that night.  The speaker was a missionary who told about his work.  Now I knew that I only had that one dollar, and that I had to either give it all to God’s work or nothing at all.  So at that moment, I decided to give my whole dollar – everything I had – to God.  And I believe that God blessed that decision, and that’s why I am a rich man today.”

His heartfelt gratitude, however, was marred only by the fact that this earlier generosity had not really been as evident during the subsequent years of good fortune and great wealth.

But, nevertheless, when he was finished, there was an awed silence in response to his testimony.  You could hear the proverbial pin drop.  He then made his way back to his seat, and as he sat down, the little old lady sitting next to him in the pew – somehow sensing that his current behavior, perhaps, did not quite match his earlier generosity, and in response to his claim of having once given everything he had to God – leaned over and whispered to him, “I dare you to do it again!”

“From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required,” said Jesus.  Now the mistake of that millionaire was not that he didn’t attribute his good fortune to God’s blessings – he certainly did.  But he apparently forgot that we are blessed by God to be a blessing… to others.  That is, these blessings from God are intended to be used for a cause greater than our own.

In stark contrast to that millionaire, there is the life of John Wesley, the founder of the movement that eventually became known as the Methodist Church.  A few hundred years ago, this great preacher and evangelist showed us another way.  Just like us, Wesley lived in economically uncertain times.  Yet, from humble beginnings, he became so famous and in demand that his income eventually reached 1400 pounds a year; a sum that would be worth more than $300,000 dollars today.

So what did he do with all this wealth?  Did he tithe it?  No.  Wesley went way beyond tithing.  In fact, he disciplined himself to live on just 30 of those 1400 pounds he earned each year.  In other words, he gave away 98% of all that he earned, and lived on just 2%!

More importantly, he once had this to say regarding money, “It is an excellent gift of God…  In the hands of his children, it is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, (clothing) for the naked… It gives (shelter) to the traveler and the stranger (some)where to lay his head.  By it we may supply the place of a husband to the widow, and of a father to the fatherless.  We may be a defense for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain; it may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame…

According to Wesley, there were but three simple rules to guide our response to money, “Gain all you can, save all you can, (but then) give all you can.”  The first of these, “gain all you can,” comes pretty naturally to most of us, doesn’t it?  The second, “save all you can,” is normally a little bit harder – unless, of course, we’re saving for ourselves.  But, in Wesley’s mind, these first two only matter in as much as they make possible the third, “give all you can.”

And not only did he strive to live out these principles himself, but he also once commented, “If I leave behind me ten pounds… you and all mankind (can) bear witness against me, that I have lived and died a thief and a robber.”

But, as Paul suggested in that second reading this morning, our stewardship, nevertheless, goes far beyond our use of money.  You see, our stewardship has to do primarily, again, with the mysteries of God’s mercy and grace.  As servants and stewards, we are called to be Christ’s presence in the world.

Certainly, the proper use of our money, and the material blessings we have received from God, are an important way in which that presence is felt.  Every time I read that the ELCA has sent a generous gift in response to domestic or international disasters, I know that God’s is there, and that Christ’s love is being shared.  But sometimes… that presence of God can only be felt when we are physically present.

Tony Campolo tells the story, shared with him by his good friend the late Mike Yaconelli, of a church deacon who just didn’t know how to “deak!”  That is, he just didn’t know what he was supposed to do as a deacon.  So Tony’s friend, Mike, finally said to this deacon, “I have a group of young people that go out to the old folk’s home and put on a worship service once a month.  Would you drive them over there and at least do that?”  The deacon agreed.

The first Sunday the deacon was at this old folk’s home, he just stood in the back of the room with his arms folded as the kids were doing their thing up front.  All of a sudden, however, he felt someone tugging at his arm.  He looked down and there was this old man in a wheelchair.  Not quite sure what to do, he simply took the old man’s hand and held it throughout the rest of the service.

The next month it happened again.  The man in the wheelchair came and the deacon held his hand.  So, too, the next month. and the next, and the next.

Finally, one month, the old man wasn’t there for the service.  So the deacon went looking for him and was told, “Oh, he’s down the hall, right-hand side, third door…  He’s dying.  And he’s unconscious…  But if you want to go down there and pray over his body, that’s alright, I guess.”

The deacon went down to the old man’s room, and there were tubes and wires hanging out all over the place.  The deacon reached out and took the old man’s hand and prayed that God would receive him, that God would bring the man from this life to the next, and give him eternal blessings.

As soon as he was finished, the old man squeezed the deacon’s hand and the deacon knew that he had been heard.  He was so moved by this that tears began to run down his cheeks.  He stumbled out of the room and, as he did so, he bumped into a woman.  She said, “You know, he’s been waiting for you.  He said that he didn’t want to die until he had the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.”

The deacon was amazed and puzzled by this, and asked, “What do you mean?”  She said, “Well, my father would say that once a month Jesus came to this place.  ‘He would take my hand and he would hold it for the entire hour.  And I don’t want to die… until I have the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.’”

“Think of us in this way,” wrote Paul, “as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.”  As much as anything else, that’s what I think Paul was talking about here when he spoke of being stewards of the mysteries of God.  Does God use our money and financial resources to make his presence felt in our troubled and hurting world?  Most certainly.

But even more importantly, God simply uses us; the touch of a hand, the warmth of an embrace, that word of encouragement in the midst of confusion or despair.  Today is Consecration Sunday here at All Saints.  We are being asked to make a financial commitment to God’s work.  And that’s important, to be sure.  But what I think God is really asking for – in our response and in our commitment – is everything, not just our money.  That each of us might participate in the life of God, and become unobstructed channels for the flow of God’s grace.

Amen