Monday, July 31, 2017

"Have You Understood All This?" Probably Not: A Sermon on Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

We’re reaching the end of our journey through Jesus’ collection of parables. After offering Jesus’ two longer parables on the sower and the weeds of the field, this week the lectionary gives us everything it had previously skipped, leaving this series of rapid-fire, one to two sentence glimpses of the kingdom. Since this is really five separate stories—well, six, if you count the concluding one Jesus snuck in at the end—let’s refresh briefly on the purpose of parables.

One of my favorite comments on parables is from Pastor Nadia Bolz Weber, where she says that “reading parables…is like using riddles to get directions to the airport.” Jesus’ parables don’t give us simple solutions. In fact, the opposite seems true. Jesus’ parables seem to serve the purpose of intentionally disrupting the disciples and our views of how the world should be. Just when the disciples seem to think we have a handle on what Jesus is saying, he throws in a parable that scrambles our understanding.

But why would Jesus do this? Why would he intentionally hide the kingdom in this coded language? Is it, as some have argued, as a test to separate the true believers from the false? Or is he trying to give us some secret message that outsiders couldn’t follow? What’s he doing here?

Matthew explained Jesus’ purpose in verse thirty-five, “I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.” I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world. Parables, in their open-endedness, offer images to ponder a truth that is bigger than explanation. Imagine that you’d never seen the sun on a warm summer’s day. Now imagine someone tried to explain the sun to you. They could tell you all day about how it is a gigantic ball of gases burning and reacting hundreds of billions of miles from the earth. They could tell you about the chemical reactions that take place, the rotation of the earth on its axis that cause summer and winter, the shifts in weather patterns as air moves over water and land, causing clouds and rain, or raising the temperature. All of this information is true, and none of it would give you the feeling of standing in the sun in the way that a story could. That is the beauty of parables. In the parables, Jesus makes known what is unknowable. Not in total, because the total is too vast, but in part.

So Jesus told parables to provide clarity, but he also told parables to obscure it. And the reason for that, I think, is because too much clarity is dangerous. There is a tendency in humanity to look for simple answers. We as a species are not fans things we cannot reduce to clear-cut yes/no answers, we find ambiguity frightening. We like simplicity, cause and effect. We would like a relationship with God where we do A and God rewards us with B. But the world God created is complex. Sometimes, we can do everything right, and still everything can go wrong. And if our faith is based on the conviction that when we do A, God rewards us with B, and instead C happens, and C is the worst thing imaginable, at best we can worry that we did something wrong. And at worst, it can shake us to wondering if God did something wrong. But tragedy and crisis are not proof that we have made a mistake, nor are they proof that God is not in control, they are simply a reality of an incredibly complex world. Think about what Jesus was preparing the disciples for. They thought he was coming to be a conquering hero, but they were going to watch him die. And if their faith was based on this false conviction of Jesus as warlord, then his death could cause them to lose hope. But if Jesus had managed in his teachings to insert just a sliver of doubt, just a seed of possibility, into their certainty, then they might be able to withstand the destruction of all they thought possible, and come thorough to the promise of resurrection on the other side. This is the gift of doubt that Jesus offers us with parables.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed…the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree.” Trees were an ancient symbol empire. The disciples would have expected a parable about the kingdom of heaven as a tree. But Jesus said it was like a mustard seed. Mustard seeds ARE small, that part is true. But they don’t become trees, or even particularly large shrubs. What they are is pervasive and stubborn. A good analogy to a king born in a stable who came riding to glory on a donkey.

The kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour. Yeast, right away, sets up all sorts of surprise, as it’s usually a symbol of corruption. Jesus himself said in Matthew, “beware the yeast of the Pharisees.” But here, Jesus describes the kingdom as yeast. Yeast that was, according to the original Greek, not mixed in but hidden in flour. There’s a level of sneaky subversiveness to this story. And three measures, that’s fifty pounds of flour. This is not one woman making a loaf for her family; this is baking on a wide scale. And what if, hypothetically, she wasn’t baking at all. The text doesn’t go into detail, it just says she hid yeast in flour until the flour was leavened. Imagine the surprise for whoever was baking, when their plain ordinary flour seemingly began to rise on its own, when the yeast hidden within it began to grow. The kingdom of heaven is like that.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, of such value that when a plowman, who was not looking for treasure, but was just going about his every day work of plowing the field of another, stumbled across it, that he would sell everything to possess it. Even if it meant cheating the landowner on whose land the treasure was found. This one, as an aside, is the one that makes the least sense to me, the one I struggle with the most. Because the plowman’s actions seem if not illegal, at least a bit unethical. I don’t know what Jesus is telling me in this one. For me it reads a bit Machiavellian, but since that doesn’t really jive with anything else Jesus said or did, it seems like I must be missing something here. As you wrestle with this text this week, I’d love to hear any insights you might have on what Jesus could mean in the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, and on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold everything he had and bought it.” The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant whose whole job and goal and purpose is to seek out and find the pearl of great price. So what if the pearl is humanity. What if humanity is the pearl of great value, so sought after that God the merchant will go to any length, take on any cost to reach us. And are we not even more valuable than a pearl?

The kingdom of heaven is like a net that gathers up fish of every kind, both good fish and bad. The disciples’ ears must have perked up at this one. Remember, they were fishermen, Jesus called them to be fishers of people, clearly this one was for them. But then Jesus gave the explanation, the angels, not the disciples are to sort the good from the bad. The disciples don’t even have a part in the story. The kingdom of heaven is like a net which gathers up everyone within it. So vast, so encompassing is the kingdom, that all are gathered together in the kingdom of the Lord.

Have you understood all this, Jesus asked the disciples. Yes! They declared. But you don’t have to be Jesus to guess that they were probably exaggerating the truth a bit on that one. Jesus had to have known they had no idea what he was talking about. So instead he kept teaching and showing and challenging. Kept shifting their perspectives, kept opening to them new possibilities. “Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven,” every disciple who has walked at the feet of the master, “is like the master of the household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” The images in the parables are old, familiar, and comfortable images. But in the hands of Jesus, these comfortable old truths take on new life and new meaning. Not at the expense of the old life and meaning, but with them. So that the wisdom within them is more than before. So I invite you this week, to let these parables challenge you. Let them confuse you. Let them even, maybe, upset you a little. Let your mind and your heart be open to possibilities you did not expect. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all the seeds, but it becomes a shrub so strong, so stubborn, and so pervasive, that even birds can nest in its branches. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Conversation Points for Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• While Jesus used metaphorical speech before (ex. 5:13-16; 7:6, 24-27), Matthew 13 is the first time Jesus specifically spoke in “parables.” The Greek word parabole means “something cast beside” something else, like a comparison or an analogy. The synoptic Gospels expand that meaning to nearly any kind of indirect or metaphorical speech. Historically, the early church has treated the Gospel parables as direct allegories, assigning specific groups to each character or item. Modern theological study understands parables to be both more and less specific than simple allegories. Jesus used parables to proclaim how the kingdom of God is both already and not yet. Boring describes parables as “like a musical composition, a painting, or a poem that is not an illustration of a prosaic point, but is itself an inseparable unity of form and meaning. To reduce a parable to a “point” is to dismiss it as parable and domesticate its message to more comfortable and manageable categories.” Parables challenge the hearers understanding of the world around them. Jesus used parables not to offer tidy moral teachings, but to subvert the secure assumptions under which his hearers categorized their lives and offer a new and different vision for the world.
• Around the two longer parables in Matthew 13, the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Weeds of the Field, Jesus offered five shorter parables, snapshots of the kingdom.
• V. 31-32, The Mustard Seed – A mustard seed is an annual herb that starts from a small seed and produces a plant that is normally between two and six feet high (occasionally up to nine or ten feet high). So it’s a big bush, but not in any way a tree. The idea of a tree comes from the symbol of an imperial tree in representing empires and in the apocalyptic imagery of the coming kingdom (Eg. Ezekiel 17:23 “On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind.” Ezekiel 31:6 “All the birds of the air made their nests in its boughs; under its branches all the animals of the field gave birth to their young; and in its shade all great nations lived”). The tension between the tree imagery and the actual resulting bush of a mustard seed builds on another truth, that the kingdom of heaven does not look as the disciples expected. A king who rides a donkey instead of a warhorse can certainly be represented by a garden herb instead of a mighty tree.
• V. 33, The Yeast – there are a couple of surprising parts of this parable. 1) Yeast is commonly used as a symbol for corruption (Matthew 16:6, “Jesus said to them, ‘Watch out, and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees,’” see also Exodus 12:15-20; 23:18; 34:25; Leviticus 2:11; 6:10; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Galatians 5:9), here it is used in a positive way. 2) Three measures of flour is about 50 pounds, enough to make 100-150 loaves of bread. This is not your average family baking project, this is extravagant, like the sower. There is some allusion to Genesis 18:6, where Sarai prepared “three measures of flour” (and a whole calf) to feed the visitors. 3) The verb for placing the yeast in the bread in the NRSV is translated as “mixed in,” but that’s a bad translation. The Greek word is “hid.” There’s something sneaky and subversive about this. The kingdom then, is hidden and silent, bringing about surprising results.
• V. 44-46, The Hidden Treasure and The Pearl – these two parables are very similar, but also have some key differences. In both, the protagonist goes and sells everything he has to get the one thing. The differences are 1) the plowman was doing his regular work when he stumbled across the treasure, whereas the merchant’s work was looking for treasure. The kingdom of God can be found by seeking or by accident. 2) The plowman acted in his joy, where nothing is said about the joy of the merchant. While the merchant may have been joyful over the find, “joy” in and of itself is not the point of the kingdom. 3) The merchant clearly acted legally, if not in a manner that was necessarily good sense. The plowman’s actions, on the other hand, may or may not have been legal and also unethical. Roman legal discourse is rich with how to respond to finding treasure on someone else’s land.
• V. 47-48, The Net – while a parable in which a net drags in fish, this does not seem to be a reference to the disciples’ call to fish for people. The explanation firmly casts it as an eschatological (end times) parable. This is highlighted by the burning of the fish, which would not be how bad fish would be dealt with (they would be either thrown back or buried). Like the parable of the weeds, the disciples are not the sorters of fish, that is the work of the angels.
• While following a different pattern, v. 52 can also be read as a parable. All of the images in the parables, God/Jesus as the sower, harvest as judgment, etc., are all common images. What is unique about the parables is not the images themselves, but the radical way in which Jesus strung them together to create different ideas. Jesus used parables to bring new meaning from old ideas.

Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.

Monday, July 24, 2017

God Sends the Reapers: A Sermon on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Appropriate for the prolificness of the garden right now, we are in the agrarian parables section of the Gospel. Chapter thirteen of Matthew is all plant parables all the time. Last week we heard the parable of the sower and Jesus’ subsequent explanation of the parable to his disciples. The parable itself focused on the expansive nature of the sower, who throws seeds with abandon and though the seeds faced hurdles still they produced grain a hundredfold, sixty, thirty. But to the disciples, though Jesus still called it “the Parable of the Sower,” he focused much more on the places the seeds landed, challenging the disciples to focus less on where the seeds were sown and more on the ground that was to receive them. What kind of soil are you, Jesus seemed to be asking the disciples, and in the ministry you have been about, what kind of soil are you creating?

What kind of soil are you is undoubtedly a great question because it challenges us the disciples of Jesus to consider whether or not we are creating space in our own lives for the kingdom of God to grow. But it can also be a dangerous question, inviting us also to consider, and make judgments about, the kind of soil others are creating in their own lives. And Jesus used parables to disrupt the categories in which his disciples saw the world. So it seems right in Jesus’ pattern to follow up a parable about considering categories with this parable about confusing them.

After explaining the parable of the sower to his disciples, Jesus followed up by putting before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field…” Now, as a fun fact for future reading, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to” becomes Jesus’ signature start to telling a parable. “May be compared to” is not a direct connection: this is this. Rather it speaks to the expansiveness of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus spoke in parables because these multi-faceted stories captured more in fewer words than a direct statement ever could. But even parables, with their various entries of meaning, are not broad enough for the depth and the breadth and the majesty of the kingdom of heaven. So Jesus used many parables to give windows into this grace. Explanations and parables of the kingdom of heaven are like the difference between describing the Grand Canyon, photos and video, and actually standing at the rim looking down into the expanse. Descriptions give a bit, photos and videos tell even more, but only by standing and peering into it can you begin to comprehend just how little you can know.

In this parable, Jesus told of a farmer who sowed good seed in his field. But when the plants grew up, it was discovered that someone had come and sown weeds among the wheat. Most commentaries agree the “weeds” in this parable are probably a plant called darnel. Darnel is a plant that is common in the same growing climate as wheat, and it is tricky because it looks almost exactly like wheat as it grows. The difference is only really clear at the very end of the harvest when the wheat stalks develop heads of grain and bend. So the farmer’s concern that the slaves would pull out the wheat with the weeds was legitimate, it really would have been next to impossible at such an early stage in the plant’s development to tell the two apart. He could have rid his field of the weeds, but would have lost much of his harvest in the process, way more of his harvest than if he allowed the plants to grow up together and dealt with the problem at the end. Unlike the sower in the first parable, who seemed to not understand good agricultural practice, this one seems to make sense.

So again the disciples pulled Jesus aside and were like, OK, now explain this one to us. And again, Jesus rattled off the analogies. The sower of the seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of heaven; the weeds are the children of the evil one, the enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Jesus doesn’t say it, but I think we can imply then that if Jesus is the sower of the good seed, then the slaves of the household, the ones who wanted to go out and weed all the bad out of the field, are the disciples. Especially coming on the tails of the parable of the sower and the questions about the kinds of soil. So I think it’s interesting that Jesus tells a parable to tell the disciples about how they are not to weed the field. Yes, there are weeds amidst the wheat, but you can’t tell the difference so just leave it all alone and it will all turn out just fine.

This is great advice because we humans really don’t have great track records when it comes to being able to tell what is good from what is bad. Think about our relationship with the Law. God was like, you folk are going to have some trouble getting along, so here are some laws to help you all play nice with each other. And we humans are like, great, thanks God. You’re right, the law is super helpful. See I’m following it and you’re not so you can’t be my friend, and you can’t be my friend, and you can’t be my friend… The wheat / weeds parable offers an important corrective to the disciple’s natural tendency to get distracted from the abundance of the sower to concern about the soil. You are too rocky, you can’t be my friend, you are too thorny, you can’t be my friend, you are too birdy, you can’t be my friend, I and I alone must be the good soil. Good thing Jesus has me, since I am so great!

Now, don’t get me wrong, there will be a judgment. Jesus was quite clear about that in both the parable and the explanation of the parable. There will be a judgment, but we are not the ones who do the judging. Notice that while Jesus did not come out and directly say who the slaves of the household were, he was very clear about the reapers. The reapers are not the disciples; the reapers are the angels. The slaves of the household, whom I think we are to assume are the disciples, are specifically told NOT to try and separate the weeds from the wheat, but to let them all grow together. To tend the weeds as well as the wheat, for only by doing that could they ensure a good harvest for the reapers.

And here’s another cool thing I was thinking about with this whole don’t weed but tend angle that Jesus seemed to be giving the disciples. Now, bear in mind, I’m from the city, and my agricultural knowledge is limited, but if the land was very well tended, it seems like it could stand to reason that the wheat could overcome and choke out the weeds. The thorns did it in the parable of the sower, because they had a head start on the seed. But if the two started together, why couldn’t the wheat win? Again, not a farmer, but I did a little bit of research on this, AKA I Googled it, and there is such a thing as no-till farming and it seems to sort of be that. So I wonder if the message for Jesus to us the disciples is don’t worry about the judging, because you’re just not very good at that. But tend everyone equally, love everyone, care for everyone, and the good seed will thrive. In fact, it may even grow so hearty that it chokes out some of the weeds on it own. People of God, there is good work for us to be doing in the fields of the kingdom, we are to care for the crop.

But there’s even good news for us in the judgment. Especially as we read this from our Lutheran worldview. One of the key principles of Lutheran theology is this idea of saint and sinner. As Lutherans, we believe that no one is every truly a saint, truly right with God in every way, but neither is any one ever truly evil and always on the wrong side. Instead each of us is both saint and sinner, one-hundred percent of both, all of the time. Which means that in the parable, we can see not just the world but also ourselves as the field. The Son of Man sowed good seed in us, but because of sin, because even though Jesus justified us, made us right by God through grace, we are still in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves, there is still weeds that grow in us. It’s not like we were baptized and then we never again did anything wrong, ever. That’s why we start our worship with confession and forgiveness every Sunday, it’s why we end each worship by gathering around the table, it’s why Luther encouraged us to remember our baptism daily. We do this because we need to remember every day that there are weeds in us, to identify those weeds, and to give thanks to God for forgiving us and helping us to root out those weeds, that we might be more able to shine like the sun with the righteousness that God has created in us.

But even with all this, even with confession and forgiveness, with communion, with remembering our baptism, with prayer and community and with effort, those weeds within us are persistent. Just a couple weeks ago we heard that super complicated sentence from Paul, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” This continual struggle of self-improvement can be exhausting. And so, I don’t know about you, but it feels like some pretty good news to hear that in the end, God will send the reapers to get rid of the weeds. That my failed attempts to curb my pride, my anxiety, my need to judge, all these frustrating and negative parts of myself that I cannot seem to manage, that in the end God knows I cannot weed them out my own, and God will remove them from me, that I may shine like the sun in the kingdom. Maybe this is further proof of my judgmental weediness, but there’s something super satisfying about thinking about the petty judgmental part of myself weeping and gnashing its teeth while my better self, my stronger self, my real self is finally free from its power.

And so, dear people of God, dear servants of the household, tend the field you have been given. Labor in love over every plant in your presence, even if you suspect it might in fact be a weed, because we don’t have a great track record on telling these things apart. And even if it is, we can be a bit ham-handed with these things and will very well pull out the good with the bad. The good work God has for us, the work which God created us to do, is to tend the whole field, to nourish it, to care for it, and to watch it grow. Tend the field, and do not get discouraged when no matter how carefully you tend, the weeds still sneak in. Acknowledge, repent, hear God’s promise of forgiveness and get to the work of tending again. Because there will be a harvest, and God will send harvesters way more skilled then us, who will carefully separate the weeds from this good harvest, and we will indeed shine like the sun. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Conversation Points for Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• While Jesus used metaphorical speech before (ex. 5:13-16; 7:6, 24-27), Matthew 13 is the first time Jesus specifically spoke in “parables.” The Greek word parabole means “something cast beside” something else, like a comparison or an analogy. The synoptic Gospels expand that meaning to nearly any kind of indirect or metaphorical speech. Historically, the early church has treated the Gospel parables as direct allegories, assigning specific groups to each character or item. Modern theological study understands parables to be both more and less specific than simple allegories. Jesus used parables to proclaim how the kingdom of God is both already and not yet. Boring describes parables as “like a musical composition, a painting, or a poem that is not an illustration of a prosaic point, but is itself an inseparable unity of form and meaning. To reduce a parable to a “point” is to dismiss it as parable and domesticate its message to more comfortable and manageable categories.” Parables challenge the hearers understanding of the world around them. Jesus used parables not to offer tidy moral teachings, but to subvert the secure assumptions under which his hearers categorized their lives and offer a new and different vision for the world.
• This is a second parable where Jesus first told a parable to the crowd and then offered an explanation to the disciples alone.
• V. 24 is the first usage of a phrase Jesus used to begin many parables, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to (is like)…” The repetitiveness of this phrase restricts simplifying the comparison to one thing. The kingdom of heaven is like someone sowing good seeds, a mustard seed, yeast, etc. Because the kingdom of heaven is complex, no one metaphor can capture all of it. Instead, each offers a different piece of the mystery.
• The “weeds” (sometimes translated as “tares”) were very likely darnel, a plant that grows in the same climate as wheat and looks very similar to wheat until the heads of the wheat appear. Darnel was a major problem until modern technology allowed wheat seeds to be separated from darnel seeds.
• The distinctive element for Dr. Boring in this parable is the two sowings, first a sowing of good seed, then a second sowing of bad. In the parable of the sower, the difference was the type of soil, here the difference is the seed itself.
• Dr. Boring sees the transition from the crowd to the disciples in v. 36 as theologically significant. The reader “overhears” Jesus’ private message to the disciples, thus readers are considered part of the “in-group” of disciples.
• Like the parable of the sower, much of the parable of the weeds and wheat remains unallegorized. Jesus didn’t explain the sleeping, the initial servants, the fate of the good seed, etc. The allegory about the good and bad seed is one explanation, but there are clearly many more.

Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.

Monday, July 17, 2017

Good News and Challenge: A Two-Part Sermon on Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Matthew 13:1-9

You may or may not have noticed, because I deliberately ask Gwen not to print the Gospel in the bulletin so it doesn’t become a memory test for me, but I only read half the assigned Gospel reading for this morning. What you just heard was verses one through nine. We will get the second section, but I wanted to try something different this morning. See the lectionary gives us two sections of chapter thirteen. And Jesus was speaking to two different audiences in those two sections. The part we just heard Jesus was speaking to a large crowd of people, then verses eighteen through twenty-three, he spoke only to his disciples, only to those who had traveled with him and were closest to him. And I wondered if the relationships of the audiences may have affected the way Jesus spoke to them. So I thought rather that look at the text as a whole this morning, we might break it up into two smaller sections, so we could really focus on hearing Jesus through the experiences of those to whom he was speaking.

But before we get into that, let’s step back even one step further and talk about parables. Because this is the first time in Matthew that Jesus told a parable. And parables are a unique literary tool. They are not like an allegory or a fable, with one clear and distinct meaning. Parables instead open the hearer to consider a variety of different possible meanings. Dr. Eugene Boring described parables as “like a musical composition, a painting, or a poem…to reduce a parable to a “point” is to dismiss it as a parable and domesticate its message.” Jesus used parables to challenge his hearers understanding of the world around them and offer a new and different vision for how the world could and should be.

So who was the audience for the parable we just heard? Verse two tells us that great crowds gathered around Jesus, so many people that he got in a boat and pushed out to sea so that they could all hear him better. Who were these people? We know from other Gospel stories that the crowds who followed Jesus were not the wealthy and powerful of Judean society. They were the outcasts, the downtrodden, the lost, the least, and the lowly. Tax collectors and sinners, lepers and beggars, children and widows, people who in the game of life had been dealt bad cards. Caught between the power grab of the Romans and the jostling of their own religious and political leaders, at best they were overlooked and forgotten. At worst, well, think about what happened to Jesus when he drew too much attention.

But beyond the people to whom Jesus was directly speaking, remember this summer we are reading the Gospel of Matthew not just as a history lesson on Jesus but on a guidebook for discipleship. So let’s also consider who was in Matthew’s wider audience. The Gospel of Matthew was very likely written in what is now modern-day Turkey around eighty C.E. It was an area where both Jews and Gentiles lived, and as Jesus followers, Matthew’s community faced persecution from both groups, in addition, of course to the threat of the Romans. We’re still just ten years out from the sack of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. Given all of this hardship and persecution, Matthew’s audience could easily relate to the people in the crowd, hopeful but unsure about the promise Jesus offered.

So imagine yourself in the crowd of Jesus followers on the beach or the crowd of the community of Matthew. Your whole life has been struggle and opposition. You are powerless and you know it, and the people in power over you are cruel and heartless and sociopathic. But you’ve heard some of this message of Jesus, and how he has promised that the kingdom of God has come near, come near to people like you. It seems too good to be true, but he speaks with such hope that you want to hear more. It is to this crowd that Jesus said, “Listen! A sower went out to sow…” And then he told this story of this reckless sower who seemed to throw seeds around willy-nilly, with no regard for where they would land. The sort of subsistence farming practiced in the arid Galilean region required focus and attention, no farmer worth his sense would waste good seed like that on ground that seemed worthless, yet the sower in Jesus’ story did. And what’s more, despite the adversity the seed faced, from birds, from thorns, from rocky soil, even in the face of all of that, somehow, the seed produced an impossible return, a hundredfold, sixty, thirty, this in a region where fourfold was common and ten was the best imaginable.

To an audience who understood what it felt like to be seen as worthless, to daily face down adversity, what unbridled hope this story must have filled them with. Because here was a sower in Jesus who shared the seed of the kingdom abundantly, extravagantly, almost wastefully. This sower did not care about the seeming potential of the ground. The love and the grace and the hope Jesus offered was not restricted to those whom society deemed could give a good return, but was spread far and wide, regardless of worth. And the sower’s seeds faced adversity, so the adversity faced by the crowd and the community of Matthew should not be a reason for despair but for hope. This story told them the journey from sowing to harvesting was not a straight line; Jesus said were birds and thorns and rocks. So when they faced adversity, they could take comfort in that promise. But regardless of the struggle, in fact defiance of that adversity, the seed of God’s kingdom would take root and grow and produce a harvest more plentiful then they could even imagine. The Parable of the Sower promised the crowd that the victory of the kingdom of God was sure. Jesus the sower was casting out the seed widely, and because God is faithful, God would bring forth from this abundance an extravagance of riches. As the crowd pondered their own struggles, what hope and optimism must have filled their hearts at the promise of God’s abundant harvest. Triumph was not their work to bring, but Christ the sower sowed the seeds wildly, and from those unlikely and trial-plagued seed, God would bring forth worth beyond measure.

This was the story Jesus told to the crowd gathered on the lake shore. But the disciples, who had been with Jesus for a while, and who were used to the complexity of his teachings, pulled him aside. “Why do you speak to them in parables?” They asked. You can hear the unspoken question, we’ve been traveling with you for a while now and we don’t always understand your parables, what makes you think that these yokels are going to get it? And so to them, his closest followers, his faithful students, whom he had been discipling and mentoring and whom he was preparing to fulfill his own God-given mission, he offered this explanation.

Matthew 13:18-23

Notice a shift in the focus. When Jesus was speaking to the crowd, the focus of the parable was totally on the action of the sower. It was the sower alone who sowed the seeds with reckless abundance. The seeds faced adversity but eventually produced extravagant harvest. But with the disciples, Jesus called it the parable of the sower, but he never mentioned the sower at all, instead he immediately began talking about the soil. So I wonder if the message for the disciples was for them to not worry about the sower or the harvest at all, because their focus was to be on the soil. This of course brings up the question that always accompanies this text, what kind of soil are you? Turning the disciples’ attention to the specific types of soil forced them to stop worrying about what the crowd may or may not have understood and instead pay attention to their own understanding. Had they really “heard the word and understood it”? Or were they weak soil, with thin roots, at risk of attack from birds or thorns, or plagued by rocks? Don’t worry about the crowd Jesus seemed to be saying. The harvest is sure and as the sower I will cast seed where I please. As for you, focus on your own soil. Will the seed that I have cast in you bear fruit, or are you so focused elsewhere that it will be snatched away?

But more even than simply, focus on your own soil, to these twelve who have just returned from the mission on which Jesus sent them, the one we’ve been hearing about the last couple of Sundays, to “proclaim the good news…cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons,” I wonder if Jesus was calling them to consider the sort of soil they were creating. Because the thing about soil is it is not a stagnant reality. Good soil over time can grow fallow and bad soil, with care and tending, can be amended. Had they, as they had traveled about on the mission to which Jesus had sent them, been making good soil of the places where they’d been? Jesus the sower was busy casting out the seed, had these disciples increased the probability of the seed falling on good soil to produce the harvest a hundredfold, sixty, or thirty? Or had they left the soil untended, the weeds to roam, and the rocks in place so that the seed could not gain hold? For the crowds Jesus offered unbridled hope, but for his disciples, he left work to be done.

There is then both good news and challenge for us in the parable of the sower and its accompanying explanation. The good news is the harvest is sure. Christ the sower does not reserve judgment for who should and should not receive the seed of grace. Like an extravagant and foolishly hopeful farmer, Christ sows love far and wide. The good news is that while we were still sinners, that though we may still be rocky soil, riddled by thorns and plagued by birds, still Christ comes and sows love in us. And in the miraculous, extraordinary kingdom of God, that expansive sowing leads to a harvest beyond our imagining. Yes there are trials along the way, but the promise of the kingdom of God is sure. God is faithful, and there will be a harvest.

The challenge for us is there is still work to be done. The harvest will come, that is not our doing. But while we wait for the harvest, our job is to be about amending the soil. To be about pulling weeds of distraction and greed, removing rocks of shallowness and self-absorption so that roots can take hold, chasing away birds of violence and hatred that steal away promise.

This is the work for us, dear people. Christ the sower is casting out grace with abundance. We know that God is faithful and the harvest will come. As the laborers we prayed for, our job now is to tend the soil of this good harvest. Thanks be to God, not only for the promise of abundant harvest, but for the privilege of getting to participate in the tending. Amen.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Conversation Points for Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• While Jesus used metaphorical speech before (ex. 5:13-16; 7:6, 24-27), Matthew 13 is the first time Jesus specifically spoke in “parables.” The Greek word parabole means “something cast beside” something else, like a comparison or an analogy. The synoptic Gospels expand that meaning to nearly any kind of indirect or metaphorical speech. Historically, the early church has treated the Gospel parables as direct allegories, assigning specific groups to each character or item. Modern theological study understands parables to be both more and less specific than simple allegories. Jesus used parables to proclaim how the kingdom of God is both already and not yet. Boring describes parables as “like a musical composition, a painting, or a poem that is not an illustration of a prosaic point, but is itself an inseparable unity of form and meaning. To reduce a parable to a “point” is to dismiss it as parable and domesticate its message to more comfortable and manageable categories.” Parables challenge the hearers understanding of the world around them. Jesus used parables not to offer tidy moral teachings, but to subvert the secure assumptions under which his hearers categorized their lives and offer a new and different vision for the world.
• It is difficult to read this parable apart from the often used allegorical interpretation of the four kinds of “soil,” leading the hearer to the question of “what kind of soil am I?” The point Jesus seemed to be making however, was the surprising abundant harvest of the kingdom of God, despite the overwhelming threats it faced. Boring also points out that neither this, or any of the seed parables, portray a slow, natural evolutionary progress to the kingdom of God, but instead a progress that happens mysteriously, concealed and underground.
• One primary issue in the parable is if the harvest (“a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown”) is normal or amazing. Scholars are divided, some saying a harvest of a hundredfold was not considered exceptional, while others argue that four- to ten-fold was more expected, with all of these being the move from the ordinary world to the extraordinary biblical world of hope and promise.
• Matthew understands “the sower” to be Jesus, who has accompanied his church throughout history (28:18), and is the one who is present and active in the sowing of the world (13:37).
• The interpretation of the parable (v. 18-23) is direct allegory, but one should note that while the parable was given to the crowds, the allegory was only explained to the disciples. A parable CAN be allegory, however, a parable is not exclusively allegory.
• Boring offers 4 affirmations for modern readers in wondering together about the parable of the sower:
1) The victory of the kingdom of God is sure. This is not an exhortation to work harder to bring in the harvest, because just like the germination of a seed happens in secret and underground, the kingdom of God will come. The harvest is God’s doing, and God is faithful.
2) The line between sowing and harvesting is not straight; there will be challenges and difficulties.
3) Although the work of the believers don’t affect the final outcome, the choices they make do matter. Believer cannot blithely assume they are “good soil.”
4) The parable presents temporary pessimism in the mission but ultimate optimism in the harvest, which helped Matthew’s readers who looked around at a destroyed temple, a crucified and ascended (and thus no longer present with them) Christ, and the threat of persecution relate to the struggles of the seed as their own struggle, and thus they could look forward to the eventual harvest.

Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.

Monday, July 10, 2017

Let Us Labor, Not Toil: A Sermon on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

My biggest pastoral concern for us as a congregation is burnout. As your pastor, that is the thing that keeps me up at night. Not the state of our finances, not our declining attendance, not even the failing condition of the building. No, my biggest pastoral concern for us as a congregation is burnout. You people are some of the biggest hearted and hardest working people I know. You want to be at the food pantry, you want to support the St. Thomas breakfast, you want to write your congresspeople and read up on issues and help out in worship. Some of you aren’t as physically able to do things as much as you used to, and I know it drives you crazy, because you want to be busy. This is a congregation of doers, when you see a problem, be it around the property or in the neighborhood or on the other side of the world, you want to jump in, rolled up your sleeves, get to work, and solve it. As your pastor, I love that about you. My favorite thing about doing ministry with you is how genuinely much you care about everything and how active you want to be in working on it. But, as your pastor it also keeps me up at night, because I worry that you, that we, take on too much, and I worry that it’s going to wear you out.

Of course, we come by this honestly. We live in a culture that glorifies work. Rugged individualism, the self-made man, this pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps philosophy that tells us that anything, everything, is within our grasp if only we’re willing to work hard enough. But here’s the thing friends, those phrases, that philosophy, it’s a myth. If hard work and determination were all it took to succeed, the women of the Co-op would all be billionaires and this church would have a new roof and no budget problems. But unfortunately, hard work itself is not enough. You know the phrase “God helps those that help themselves?” That phrase is not actually in the Bible. Success is not solely based on ones ability to work hard, but instead requires, work, resources, availability, connection, and no small amount of good old fashioned luck. Sometimes the hardest working people have nothing, and those who do nothing seem to get everything.

As Lutherans, of course, we know this as well as anyone. We know that grace is a gift, we didn’t earn it, and there’s nothing we can do to deserve it, but God gives it to us freely simply because of who God is. We read in Romans just a few weeks ago about how while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And how we are justified by faith as a gift, and it is not of our own doing. We know that, we proclaim that, we believe that, but it is much harder to internalize that. I can’t speak for you all, but I know I am a pastor, I have a master of divinity degree hanging on my wall, and I still find myself trying to prove that I am worthy of God’s love, trying to deserve the gift that I have received. I don’t accept things well; I don’t take help easily. I’m learning, you’re teaching me, but it’s hard.

This was the trap that Luther himself fell into. He wanted so bad to be worthy of God’s love, so badly to do everything right so he could be sure that God would forgive him. He read every rule, followed every order, flogged himself mentally for every perceived failing or stumble or errant thought. I think I’ve told the story before about how he spent so much time confessing his sins that he literally wore out his confessor. The confessor told Luther not to come back until he had committed an actual sin, instead of these nit-picky little details. All of this obsession with trying to do everything right didn’t just wear out the confessor, it also wore out Luther. Luther was working so hard to do everything right, but he was just spinning his wheels. There was always something he could have done better, some prayer he could have prayed with more focus, some thought he could have let go easier. The harder he worked, the further behind he got.

But here’s the good news, my dear, good, hard-working, people of God. You know what got Luther out of this trap of labor and perfectionism. Work. Yep, work. After this whole intro about how hard work is not the answer, what saved Luther’s life was work. And Luther the reformer was one of the hardest working, most prolific, theologians in history. Only part of his writing have been translated into English, and there are fifty-five volumes of Luther’s Works. The guy worked all the time. So the difference wasn’t in the effort put forth, the difference was in the attitude. What shifted for Luther was really realizing that the grace of God was a gift he already had, and nothing he did would ever lose it. Once he understood he was already loved by God, he was able to let go of the results and instead enjoy the process. Because the results were set already, Luther had been saved by God through Jesus, and the amount of effort he put in had no effect on the outcome, he was free to work, to write, to learn, and to teach, to satisfy his own curiosity and not for any need to produce. It was freedom that made Luther one of the most prolific writers of all time, not fear.

In our Gospel reading for this morning, Jesus told the crowd to take up his yoke and learn from him. Notice he didn’t say sit in this chair or learn from him or lay down for a nap and learn from him, he said take up his yoke and learn from him. A yoke is a tool of labor, it means there is work to be done. But a yoke is a unique tool of labor, because it binds you to another. A yoke connects a pair of oxen, it allows them to pull exponentially more than they could manage on their own, but it also forces them to work together. When you are yoked to another, you cannot pull more than your fair share of the labor, but you cannot pull less than your fair share either. When we are yoked to Jesus, we are forced to go at Jesus’ pace. At times that pace may be faster than we are comfortable, and at times it may well be slower than we are comfortable, but the pace is not ours to worry about or to set. The burden, the pace, is not ours to bear alone. By being yoked to Jesus we are both freed to participate in the labor and freed from the burden of thinking we must do all of it on our own. The yoke of Jesus is both joy and challenge, both freedom and responsibility, both work and rest, labor that we are invited into and gifted with which moves the kingdom of heaven forward.

So as we read the Gospel of Matthew as a handbook for discipleship, what does this mean for us, my dear, hardworking, people of God. I think it is an invitation to find joy in our work. What really got me pondering in this direction was spending Tuesday with a two-year-old, with the line from Jesus about hiding things from the wise and revealing them to infants ringing in my ears. Because two-year-olds are workers. They are so new that every moment of every day they are working, working to learn new things, to grasp hard concepts, to understand the world around them. It is hard and busy and exhausting work being two. They work hard, and they play hard, and then they sleep hard. Whether they are at work or at rest, it is one-hundred percent of everything, all of the time.

They work hard, but there is no drudgery in their work. Because everything is a new discovery, everything is a fresh perspective. Tasks that I long ago found mundane, picking up leaves off the ground for example, or putting away a pile of books, these tasks were fascinating through the eye of a two-year-old. How high can I stack the books? What might be hiding under this leaf? Will the radio turn on again, if I push the power button? Yep. How about this time? Yep again. And this time? Still yep. Earlier in the text, Jesus had chastised the crowd for being a bit too Goldilocks, John the Baptist was too hard, Jesus was too soft, they wanted a savior that instead was just right. But the yoke of Jesus may be a bit like Mary Poppins, a spoonful of sugar doesn’t just help the medicine go down, but in fact makes it a joy to participate in the work of healing. What if the lesson Jesus has for us is to, like Luther, shift our perspective on our working so that our work is not drudging obligation but joyous discovery.

The other piece of this, my dear, hardworking, people of God, is that the yoke of Jesus may be forcing us to put down parts of the labor that are not in the direction Jesus is moving. Sometimes weariness is not caused by the labor, but by the mental exhaustion of maintaining structures that no longer serve us, of holding up institutions that no longer support us. We cannot bear the yoke of Jesus while simultaneously managing our own pet projects. To lean into the yoke of Jesus means that some much beloved ideals will fall. And we have to be willing to let them, trusting in the promise that death has no meaning for resurrection people, and if things fail it may well be because they were no longer serving us well, and our hands needed to be made free anyway for the new task for which God is preparing us.

Dear good, hardworking people of God, as your pastor, my hope for you, for us, in this summer, this redevelopment process, this time in the life of our congregation, is that we will continue to work. That we will continue to work hard and well and with passion. To work is in your DNA as a congregation. Since the first stone was laid to be a congregation for the workers at the Post factory, this has been a congregation who labored, and you, and I would not be happy to have it any other way. We are laborers, we would be bored and restless without this good work. But my prayer is that we work hard together and with joy. That we do not toil over tasks that do not fulfill us, but instead we lean into the yoke that Christ walks alongside us. It may, in fact it will, mean letting some projects fall. Some things we’ve long loved may not be serving us well any more. But let us find joy in bearing this yoke together and with Jesus. I think, I believe, that we will find the burden rewarding and the journey a joy. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Conversation Points for Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Prior to this, Jesus made clear the difference between himself (the expected “coming one”) and John the Baptist (the one who came to prepare the way). But the people recognize neither John’s asceticism nor Jesus’ peaceable kingdom.
• The lectionary leaves out v. 20-24, a section commonly titled “Woes to Unrepentant Cities.” While seemingly a boon to preachers to not have to deal with Jesus casting judgment on a bunch of places, it does leave the reading jumbled. V. 20-24 are similar in form to the “woes against foreign nations” common in the Old Testament (ex. Amos 1:3-2:3; Isaiah 13-23; Jeremiah 46-51; Ezekiel 25-32; Obadiah). Like the OT prophetic announcements, these pronounce not an unchangeable fate, but a call to repentance.
• Following v. 20-24, v. 25-30 highlight that the woes and calls for judgment were not Jesus’ final word. While Jesus’ message found rejection in some places, it was accepted among the “little people,” those often overlooked by the power players of the time.
• V. 25-26 is not a thanksgiving prayer for successful mission; it is a reflection on the “failure” of the Galilean mission highlighted by the unrepentant cities mentioned in v. 20-24. Those who accepted the message were not the wise, but “infants.” In other places, Matthew regards wisdom and understanding as positive attributes for disciples, so this is not a rejection of wisdom. Rather, it affirms that recognizing Jesus is not about having superior wisdom or religious status, but is a result of revelation.
• That knowledge is revealed is highlighted again in v. 27, where Jesus described himself not as a religious genius, but as a beloved Son who received wisdom through a divine, intimate relationship with the Father.
• The “rest” Jesus offered is not a life of ease, but a life free of the artificial barriers humans put on each other in the name of religion.

Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Jesus' Hospitality Discourse: A Sermon on Matthew 10:40-42

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been working our way through the instructions Jesus gave to his Twelve newly minted disciples before sending them out around the Galilee to “proclaim the good news [that] the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Matthew’s Gospel is a book written to function on two levels, to offer a historical lesson on the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and to be a guidebook for disciples to carry on the mission of Jesus the Christ after he ascended into heaven. It is this second purpose, the guidebook for disciples, that we are focusing on in this season of the church year. And as such, Jesus’ instructions have been both empowering and challenging for us as we consider what Jesus is sending us out to, and how we are to follow these teachings today. Empowering because Jesus sends us out with his own authority, to cure the sick, cast out demons, cleanse the leper, and raise the dead. But challenging, because Jesus warned that he was sending us out like sheep in the midst of wolves, that we will face persecution in our mission. And that Jesus himself did not come to bring peace, so we too must expect that this work will not be peaceful.

But there’s a second challenge embedded in understanding these instructions for us, a challenge that I’m not sure was as much intentional as it was a result of the lens through which the writer of Matthew experienced the world. See, the writer of Matthew was a wandering disciple. His vocation in life was to travel around and spread the good news. And because that was his vocation, his recordings of Jesus’ instructions have a decidedly traveling bend to them. “Take no gold or silver…no bag for your journey… [go from] town or village…” and if you are not welcome, “shake the dust from your feet” and move on. There is certainly good wisdom for everyone in these words, but it also leaves a question. What about those of us whose vocation is not to move around from town or village? What about folks who are older or who care for others or who simply do not like to travel? Is there work for us in the mission of Jesus?

The answer, of course, is yes. As Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.” This morning we finally see Matthew’s perspectives expand a little, to show some of that variety that Paul spoke about.

We heard earlier that when the Twelve entered a town or village, they were to look for a household to welcome them. Which means, of course, some of Jesus’ followers could not be traveling, because someone had to be around to welcome the travelers. But we never find out anything about those people. Here we see the result of being such a household. “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” The Twelve were sent with Christ’s own authority to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven has come near, and since they travel under that authority, the result is that the households who welcome the Twelve, welcome Christ, and in fact have that kingdom of heaven present in their own houses.

But it even goes further than that. Jesus went on: “Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” What Jesus seems to be telling his wandering disciples here is that the people who welcome them are just as important to the mission as they are. The disciples cannot put themselves above the people they stay with, just because they travel around. Not everyone has the gift of being a prophet, but there is just as much importance in welcoming a prophet as there is in being one.

This got me thinking. Most of scripture was written by people whose vocation was to travel around and proclaim that the kingdom of heaven has come near. Those are important gifts, but they aren’t everyone’s gifts. Some of us have the spiritual gifts of staying in one place and proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven has come near. And the spiritual gift of staying and welcoming is different, but every bit as important as traveling and receiving welcome. And given its importance, so important that even the wanderlust disciples, totally focused on travel, mention some of it, I started to wonder what Jesus’ missionary discourse might have sounded like if it was recorded by one of the stayers. So what follows is some ponderings on what such a speech from Jesus might have sounded like. Instead of the “Missionary Discourse,” I’m calling my hypothetical ponderings the “Hospitality Discourse.” I imagine it would go something like this:

The disciples who were to welcome the Twelve, Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Stay where you are, whether your homes are among the Gentiles, in the town of the Samaritans, or with the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Wherever you find yourself, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. You do not need additional gold, or silver, or copper in your stores, nor additional clothing or supplies, what you already have is sufficient for sharing.

When you meet someone in need of welcome, show yourself to be worthy. Do not wait for them to come to you, instead go out and greet them as they come. If they accept your welcome, let your peace come upon them, but if they do not accept, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not be welcomed, shake the dust from your feet and move on to welcome another. There are plenty of people in need of a welcome.

See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for not everyone you meet is well-intentioned. But guard yourselves. Do not let your wariness be a barrier to hospitality. Sometimes grace means telling someone who may harm you, either intentionally or unintentionally, that they must stay away for a period. It is easy to mistake grace for niceness, though true grace does not always feel nice. But grace also means looking for the deeper humanity, and being open to forgiveness when forgiveness is necessary.

A disciple is not above the teacher, nor the slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. In my travels I encountered people who trusted me and people who cheated me, people whom I healed and they praised me, and people whom I healed and they cursed me. But everyone who encountered me was transformed by our encounter, even if that transformation was not made visible. So too will people be transformed by their encounter with you.

So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. The difference you make in the lives of those you greet may not be visible in this lifetime, but it will be made visible. The grace you show in the privacy of your own home is not a secret to me. Goldfish in their bowls are a dime each, yet not one goldfish is too small for the Father’s attention. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than a tankful of goldfish.

Do not think that welcoming others will bring you peace; it will not bring you peace, but a sword. Just as I have come to set man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, this work of welcoming will be divisive. Some people you welcome will be unpleasant or strange, some will be different than you, some will challenge you to be different. Some people will judge you because of those you welcome. They will look down upon you for spending time with the wrong sorts of people, or threaten violence against you on account of the people you host. Whoever puts their status in the community ahead of me is not worthy of me; and whoever puts their comfort and ease above me is not worthy of me, and whoever will not challenge themselves to receive me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

The challenge I give to you is hard, but it is not without reward. For when you welcome others you welcome me, and when you welcome me you welcome the one who sent me. See the words that I spoke in the Sermon on the Mount. When you welcome the poor in spirit, you receive the rewards of the poor in spirit. When you welcome those who mourn, you receive the rewards of the mourners. When you welcome the meek, you receive the rewards of the meek, and so on. Truly I tell you, when you do even so seemingly simple a task as offer just a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in my name, and in the name of those whom I have sent out, that simple act of kindness is itself the kingdom of heaven come near.


I think that might be what it might have sounded like if instead of being written by a wandering disciple, a Gospel was written by a stationary disciple. Instead of the Missionary Discourse, we may have had the “Hospitality Discourse,” Jesus’ message to his disciples whose vocation is to stay. Amen.