Thompson's Blog

Seeing Through the Palm
Mark 11:1-11

1 When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.'” 4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, 5 some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. 7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. 9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” 11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

The question is: was the manner in which Jesus entered Jerusalem a parade? Or was it a parody of a parade? When we look at this story are we seeing a portrayal of power and victory or was it an event designed to undermine our passion for power and victory? There isn’t an easy answer to this question. Especially since we get slightly different messages from the way this story is told in the different gospels and we sort of blend them all together. Luke tells the story in a way that highlights the exuberant nature of the event. He says that when the Pharisees tried to get Jesus to reign in the festivities Jesus said the rocks would cry out if the people got quiet.

I don’t think it’s easy for us to understand what was going on with the way Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time because there were many different agendas at play, but I’m inclined to think that the way Mark tells the story we are to see this episode as more of a parody of a parade than it was an actual parade.

If this had been an actual parade, and if it was set in our time, Jesus would have entered the city in a Hummer with the top off. Or given the fact that he was never one to muscle his way around, he would have at least found someone with a convertible Corvette for him to sit on, but if this had been a parade he would have been riding on some kind of vehicle that portrayed power. Parades are fancy occasions that hype up the situation. And Mark seems to be saying that this was no parade.

The way Mark tells the story, if this procession was set in our day in our city, I think Jesus would have been sitting on a borrowed lawn chair in the back of Karl’s pickup. Now there probably isn’t anyone who makes better use of an outdated undersized pickup than does our faithful maintenance angel, Karl, and in that sense his old truck is an impressive vehicle, but Karl’s pickup does not exude the image of power or privilege and neither did that colt that Jesus arranged to borrow for a little while for his entrance into Jerusalem.

Now there is an element of a parade here. There were many people who were actually excited about Jesus coming into Jerusalem, and these people trusted that Jesus was the guy who was going to reveal the glory of Israel. Mark shows that there was actual enthusiasm for Jesus as he entered Jerusalem even though he was riding on a borrowed animal that was so small his feet were probably touching the ground.

The way Mark tells this story I think we should think of this processional as being along the lines of a Ron Paul rally. There were true believers on hand who held out hope that he actually might take control and get the nation in order. Honestly, I’m not sure what to think about the way Jesus chose to enter Jerusalem, but the one thing that is clear is that Jesus wasn’t confused about what he was doing.

The only consistent theme in all of the Gospels is that Jesus knew exactly what he was doing, and I’m convinced that Mark wanted us to see this as an event that was more along the lines of street theater than it was an exhibition of conventional power. In this Gospel, the way Jesus entered Jerusalem was more of a parable than a parade. I think it’s a story that’s designed to make us wonder.

So if you find Palm Sunday to be an emotionally confusing celebration I’m right with you. I’m really not sure how to feel about a day like this. It’s the day we celebrate the dramatic entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, and it’s a painful reminder of how misunderstood Jesus really was. We want to whoop it up for our guy who entered Jerusalem with the means and resolve to change the world, and we know that it cost him his life.

It’s not easy to hold together a sense of celebration and sorrow, but I think this passage invites us to embrace both of these emotions on this day we call Palm Sunday. It makes sense to parade with Bandito up and down the aisles of the sanctuary and to join with those original religious pilgrims who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem as their savior – and to also acknowledge that we stand with them in having no idea what we are doing. Jesus knew exactly what he was doing, and what he did is something for us to cheer – and to bemoan.

If you look at the way Mark tells this story it’s actually hard not to see this entrance into Jerusalem as a parody of a military procession. The Mount of Olives is the highest point in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and it was considered to be the place from which the liberation of Jerusalem would be mounted. Like any good military commander, Jesus assembled his people on this strategic and religiously significant place as he prepared to take hold of the city, but instead of gathering weapons and provisions for a military coup – he had arranged to borrow a colt for the afternoon. And he had assured the colt’s owner that they would promptly return it. This is not the stuff of a conventional revolution, but it was some powerful political theater.

Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem imitated a military procession, and it highlights the non-militaristic strategy that Jesus employed to change the world. Jesus had passionate followers, and the people who lined the road as he came into town was not an ignorable body of people. This was a powerful assembly of people who were ready for something powerful to happen. They didn’t lay their garments on the road and cut branches to decorate his path out of some kind of religious obligation or duty – it was passion that moved them to do what they did.

These people were desperate for somebody to do something to restore the glory of Israel and to make their lives better and more meaningful. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think they would have taken whatever action he called for them to do, but Jesus didn’t harness the enthusiasm of the moment. This processional didn’t end with a fiery sermon on the steps of the Temple. He didn’t say anything when he got to the Temple. Mark says he just walked in, looked around, and left. They had assured the owner of the colt that Jesus would return the animal immediately, and they weren’t going to let him down.

Honestly, the way this event ended reminds me of something I would have organized – not that I’m on the same page with Jesus in regard to what he was doing, but this sounds like the kind of evangelism program that I’m inclined to employ.

Today’s story highlights the essence of the struggle we have as Christians. I think we have this desire to be a part of something big and dramatic and powerful and life changing, but the way Jesus went about this is hard for us to embrace. It’s not easy to construct an institution that actually embodies the values and the strategy and the self-giving love of Jesus Christ. How do you build an organization around someone who had no real interest in establishing a conventional institution? Our challenge is to follow a man who chose to engage in a parody of conventional success.

This procession into Jerusalem portrays the powerfully appealing nature of who Jesus was, and it points to the way in which Jesus challenges each of us to the core. It’s hard for me to understand what an institution is supposed to look like that’s built around this man who used his power to undermine all the ways we like to accumulate power.

I think this is a story that designed to make us wonder. We don’t know what Jesus was thinking when he walked into the Temple and looked around, but the way this story ends invites us to look around and reflect on who we are and what we are doing.

I don’t think Jesus is unimpressed with what goes on around here, but nobody needs to be overly impressed with who we are and what we do. Jesus could see through the palm and into the hearts of the people who were cheering him on, and he knew how hard it is to live by the guide of faith in God and not in pursuit of the rewards of this world.

This is a strange day in the life of the church, but that’s not such a strange thing because we have been called to live in a strange way. Jesus was out to save the world, but he didn’t do it in the way that anyone expected. It’s a wondrous thing that Jesus did, and we do well to wonder what all of this means for us. Thanks be to God for the wonderful ways that God’s mysteries continue to unfold. Amen

Profane Piety
Matthew 23:1-12

1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father–the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

There’s really nothing mysterious about this passage of scripture. While we don’t have an insider’s view of what the scribes and pharisees were doing that upset Jesus, it’s not hard to understand the nature of the problem. You don’t have to know what the long fringe and the large phylacteries were all about in order to know that these people were full of themselves. It’s interesting to know about the fringes and phylacteries. It’s always good to understand the ways that previous generations of religious people turned sound teachings into foolish traditions, and this deal with the phylacteries and fringes was classic.

A phylactery was a small pouch that contained a small parchment with a few key verses from the Torah written upon it. Devout Jews would wear these pouches on their foreheads and on their wrists because there is this instruction in several places within the Torah to keep these key teachings as a mark on their hand and as a frontlet before their eyes. It’s not clear within the Old Testament verses whether or not this was to be taken literally or figuratively, but the Pharisees took it very literally and they wore extra-large versions. Their vision was sometimes impaired by the size of their phylacteries, which seems like perfect irony. Instead of practicing their faith in such a manner that their sense of understanding and vision expanded, they were actually blinded by their religiosity.

We would say that the Pharisees were familiar with the letter of the law but not the spirit. They were tragically misguided in the implementation of their faith. They were confused as to who the tradition was to glorify – which is a problem that seems to get recreated by each generation and religious tradition. You can never overestimate the ability of human beings to distort the spirit of a good thing, or the nature of an honorable tradition.

(At this point the sermon was interrupted by an ensemble that sang a parody of some praise songs – watch “wrong worship” on youtube)

I don’t know who those people were, but I’m so happy they were willing to show us who we don’t want to be. Thankfully we don’t have anyone around here who embodies such profane piety, but Jesus had to deal with some powerful people who were like this. Jesus was profoundly offended by the way in which the leaders of Judaism had come to love the prominence that their positions provided them more than they loved the truth that was contained within their tradition. Religious prestige is a seductive thing, and it’s an easy thing to become blinded it. I guess one of the benefits of being the pastor of a struggling church is that it’s not that hard to keep my sense of self-importance under control.

Of course there are no automatic ways of keeping focused on the truth. You would think that it would be impossible to be a professed follower of Jesus Christ and engage in any form of petty self-centered greedy violence, but it happens. Like the Pharisees who considered themselves to be serving God when they placed heavy burdens on those who were already weak, we all have the capability of living in contradiction to that which we profess, and there are no guaranteed ways of keeping our attitudes in conformity with the God we claim to serve. We can twist the greatest spiritual opportunities into the worst cases of selfish vanity.

I guess there’s often some contradiction between who it is we claim to serve and who it is we actually serve. This is an old problem that we’re examining today, but it’s a current problem as well. Jesus understood our desire to obtain greatness, and he told us what to do if we wish to be great we need to become the servant of all.

It’s hard to get around the fact that Jesus pointed to servanthood as the avenue to greatness in the Kingdom of God. We can’t erase this word servant from Jesus’ vocabulary, so what we’ve done is to turn the role of a servant into a more attractive vocation. I mean some of the most honored and prestigious individuals in our society call themselves public servants. You would think that the people who clean the bathrooms at city parks would be given their spiritual due and be called public servants, but this title has been co-opted by people who hold powerful offices and get interviewed on the Evening News.

Certainly not everyone who falls into this broad category of being a public service appears regularly in the High Profile section of the Democrat Gazette, but being a public servant can be a very lucrative thing within our society, and I don’t think this is what Jesus was talking about when he said that we must be the servant if we wish to be great.

You can’t fault politicians for twisting language to suit their purposes. This seems to be the primary job skill required, but it is unfortunate the way we’ve twisted Jesus’ words in the church. Maybe the most obvious manipulation of the language is in the way in which we pastors speak of serving churches. To be such a servant in the United Methodist Church is to be guaranteed a decent salary, comfortable housing, health insurance, a pension, and a reasonable amount of time off. Some such servants are bringing down six figures, but it’s not a shabby deal for any of us who serve as full-time elders. I don’t regret that we have a system that provides jobs for people like me, but I don’t think we’re using Jesus’ words accurately. It’s a nice image, but it’s not the truth — pastors are much too highly regarded by parishoners to be considered servants.

I say this because I’ve known a servant, and he didn’t get treated with the kind of respect that I experience. The servant I knew didn’t have the title of servant. He didn’t have a title at all. His name was Robert Anderson Jr., but everyone called him Jr.

Jr. went to work for my grandparents a few years before I was born. My mother said Jr. was around when she married my father, and Jr. seemed to do whatever my grandparents wanted him to do. He cooked, shopped, cut grass, paddled the boat when my grandmother wanted to go fishing. He cleaned the fish that she caught, and he put on a white jacket when company was coming.

Jr’s job changed a little bit right before I was born because my grandmother was in a car accident that left her as a quadreplegic, and at that point he became one of her nurses as well. Rehabilitation was pretty primitive in the late 1950s, and life span was often short for people in her condition, but my grandmother lived another twenty years, and this is probably due to the fact that she had many good caregivers, but in particular she had Jr.

Jr. did most of the cooking at my grandparents house, and it was in their kitchen that I had a lot of exposure to Jr. He was a person who liked to laugh, so it was always worthwhile to step into the kitchen and have a word with Jr. He was consistently the most entertaining person I was in contact with when I was a child, but he didn’t have an easy life.

Jr. lived in poverty. Jr. wasn’t a great manager of his limited resources, but he didn’t have that many resources to manage. I don’t know what kind of financial arrangement existed between Jr. and my grandparents, but my grandfather didn’t achieve his success in business by being overly generous. It was essential that Jr. have transportation so he could do what my grandfather wanted him to do, so my grandfather made sure his truck kept running, but he didn’t have a nice truck.

When the telephone company cut the service off to Jr.’s house for not paying his bill, my grandfather was frustrated by his inability to get in touch with Jr. when he wanted, so he made arrangements for a pay phone to be installed in Jr.’s house – which isn’t something I’ve ever known to happen anywhere else.

My grandfather and Jr. had a powerful relationship. My grandfather generally stayed irritated with Jr. and occasionally he would fire him, but the breaches never lasted long because my grandparents couldn’t function without him.

For over thirty years Jr. served my grandparents. After my grandmother died and my grandfather’s health failed it was Jr. who got him out of bed, made sure he had food, took him where he needed to go, and who put him back in bed. Just how dependant my grandfather was on Jr. became clear when Jr. was shot and killed by the deranged father of his girlfriend. Two weeks after Jr. was killed my grandfather died as well.

Jr. never had any authority, he was not well respected, and he was not one to spend much time in church. Of course he was generally working at my grandparent’s house most Sunday mornings, but the man who preached Jr.s funeral didn’t take this into account when he began preaching at Jr.’s funeral. The preacher was sure that Jr.’s ways weren’t right, and he made it clear that we aught to do better than Jr.

I was upset by the way that the preacher spoke of Jr., and I’m proud to say that as we gathered at the graveside I asked if I could say something and I choked out the words, Robert Anderson Jr. was a good man. I think Jesus might have said he was a great man.

All I know is that because I knew Jr. I know what it looks like to be a servant, and it’s not an easy job. Because I knew Jr. I know that there is a big difference between being served and being the server. We preachers give a lot of lip service to the language of servanthood, but the truth is that a servant has no voice. The servant is the person who has no authority, and this is the status we must be willing to embrace if we wish to be great in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus redefined the nature of successful living, and it’s a struggle for us to embrace this uncommon wisdom. It is a struggle, but I like to think that it’s possible for us all to live great lives – even if they are saying nice things about you in the marketplace. The truth of the matter is that it just doesn’t matter what they’re saying. The only thing that matters is that we come to see, and hear, and respond to the call of Christ to live with more compassion for our neighbors who are hurting than desire for status in this world. We all have the opportunity to be great in the eyes of God, and thanks be to God for this. Amen.

Indiscriminate Stupefying Love
Matthew 22:34-46

22:34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” 41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: 42 “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, 44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”‘? 45 If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” 46 No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

What a good passage of scripture we have to contemplate on this Sunday we have designated as “Reconciling Sunday”. This passage of scripture doesn’t leave any doubt as to what we are called to do as followers of Jesus. We are to love God with our whole beings, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus spoke these words to men who weren’t inclined to be very inclusive when it came to defining their neighbors, but the only division Jesus seems to acknowledge is the one between ourselves and God, and love largely eliminates that line.

It’s unfortunate that it’s necessary for us to bring attention to this line that’s been drawn within our church, but when certain people have been excluded from full participation in the church I think it’s important for us to call attention to the un-Christian nature of the lines that are currently in place.

If nothing else, this passage of scripture calls attention to the problems that occur when religious structures become too exclusive. This business of setting aside people to manage religious communities is probably necessary, but it’s inherently fraught with danger. It’s easy for us to get particular about who is most deserving of God’s love and grace. It’s easy for us to forget Who’s community this really is. It’s hard for us to believe that God’s love is as expansive as it is. It’s important for us to see that God doesn’t discriminate, and neither should we.

It’s always dangerous for us to design processes that discern who is called by God to be leaders in the church. Inevitably we will make mistakes in regard to who has the skills for such work, but when we declare a particular classification of people to be unqualified for professional ministry we have aligned ourselves with the worst form of religious tradition. By declaring that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people are categorically unqualified for ordination I feel that we are standing with the legalistic Pharisees who couldn’t accept what God was doing through Jesus Christ – because Jesus didn’t fit their criteria for the One who would come in the Name of the Lord.

We don’t know if these highly trained experts in the field of Jewish law asked Jesus what he thought was the most important commandment because they wanted to know what he thought, or if they thought they could show themselves to be craftier than their religious rivals, the Sadducees, who had been unable to ask Jesus an unanswerable question. The scripture says they were testing Jesus, but testing isn’t all bad if you are wanted to get to the truth. They seem to acknowledge that he answered their question well, but Jesus was moved to ask them a question, and it left them speechless.

You just don’t want to try to get the best of Jesus – it’s not going to go well, and I think that’s essentially what we’re doing anytime we try to reign in the indiscriminate love of God. These ancient religious experts approached Jesus with a question they thought would put him to the test, but they were putting themselves on trial, and they went away speechless – stupefied. I like that word, stupefy. It conveys a profound sense of the need to stop talking because you’ve encountered a larger truth.

I’m not silent about this ordination issue because I believe it’s our denominational policy that needs to be quiet. I’m not silent because I know people who have left ministry in our church because of our misguided policy. I don’t know what was going on within the ancient Jewish community that gave rise to these verses in the book of Leviticus that people now use to justify the exclusive language we have in our Book of Discipline. I don’t exactly know what Paul was dealing with when he wrote what he wrote the words he wrote that are used by some to disqualify others, but I do know that my friend and peer in ministry was driven out of his job because he was in a committed relationship with another man. When someone in a position of authority over him made this an issue he chose to leave rather than fight because the Book of Discipline was not on his side.

My friend is fine, he isn’t employed by the United Methodist Church anymore, but he’s engaged in ministry, and he always will be. He’s been called by God to share the expansive love of God, and he will find a way to do that, but I still get mad about what happened to him when I think about it. I don’t know the people who are behind the names on each of these stoles, but I dare say each one of these stoles represents an outrageous story of some kind. And each of those stories represents the way in which fearful people have tried to contain the voice of God.

But God will not be stupefied. I don’t know if God will find a way to change the United Methodist Book of Discipline before the institution becomes irreparably irrelevant to the bulk of our neighbors, but God doesn’t care about the maintenance of an institution. God cares about the wellbeing of our neighbors, and God’s concern for all people will not be silent.

Which is something that really scares me. A remarkable thing happened last week. Now the exact nature of this number is hard to pin down, but some would say that world population topped 7 billion people this last week. The world may not have suddenly felt a bit more crowded to you, but let me give you some perspective. Jesus had about 200 million neighbors in the world while he was walking around the Palestinian countryside, and it took about 1,800 years for world population to reach 1 billion people, but it only took us 10 years to go from 6 billion people to our current level of 7 billion people.

Now our rate of growth is diminishing. It may take us twenty years to obtain our next billion people, and twenty five to obtain the next billion, but we’ve got a lot of neighbors out there, and those of us who live in the United States aren’t being very neighborly in some significant ways. We Americans make up about 5% of the population of the world, but they say we use about 30% of the world’s resources – which makes me feel like we aren’t being as loving as we can be toward the bulk of our neighbors.

Now I know none of us set out to place any burdens on the rest of our neighbors in the world, but I don’t think we need to remain ignorant of what it costs our neighbors in the world for us to maintain our lifestyles. I don’t say this with the intention of generating guilt about the way we live, but I do find statistics like that to be very informative. It reminds me of what it is we really need to be wrestling with as opposed to the things we often find to get upset about.

It seems to me that we church people often get caught up somewhat irrelevant religious observance issues and we fail to recognize the larger picture. It seems to me that we need to be more concerned about how more people can simply have dinner than to worry about who someone else has chosen to have dinner with.

It’s easy for us to get distracted in our pursuit of loving God with our whole being. We can even get so caught up in good causes that we fail to love God with our whole heart. The path that Jesus blazed for us is hard to follow. Jesus didn’t just love the victims of the policies that were generated by ignorant religious bigots. Jesus loved the bigots as well. This love that Jesus spoke of and practiced was for all of our neighbors – not just the good ones. This is not to say we don’t need to address the problems that some of our neighbors generate, but we always need to go about our work in a spirit of love.

The truth is that we are all poor neighbors in some ways and our only hope for peace in this world is for us to learn to address the various problems that exist between us in direct but loving ways. Jesus had this remarkable capacity to be loving toward all people, but he was also very clear about bad behavior. He didn’t act like it was fine for power to be misused. He used his power in a perfectly loving way toward all people, and we are called to do the same.

You might say there are many different battle lines that are drawn within our world. We’ve got them within our denomination, we’ve got them within our families, within our nation and with other nations. Jesus didn’t avoid conflict and neither will we. We can only hope that others will resist us in loving ways when they feel that we are misguided in our thinking and behavior, but we are always called to treat others with love.

We’ve got a lot more neighbors than Jesus had, but it never has been easy to love any number of neighbors. This business of loving God with our whole being and our neighbors as ourselves is off-the-scale difficult, but this is the most important thing we are called to do. Nothing else really matters. It’s love for our God and our neighbors that will enable us to have reconciliation within our denomination, and it’s that same love that will enable us to live in harmony on this planet.

It’s that indiscriminate nature of God’s love that has drawn us together this morning. It’s that love that moves us to sing praise to God, and it’s the extent of that love that leaves me – stupefied. Amen

They Asked, He Told … A Parable
Matthew 21:23-32

23 When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24 Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 28 “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29 He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go.31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

When I read this passage I couldn’t help but think of the significant event that happened this week in our nation which was the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. I don’t know if this qualifies the United States Military to be labeled as a progressive organization, but this certainly represents progress. I honestly think this change in policy will enable other institutions to be more open and honest about the various ways we humans are sexually configured. In the United Methodist Church, if they ask, you still can’t tell if you want to become an officer (so to speak), but maybe this change within the military will help the church move ahead.

The exchange between the leaders of the temple and Jesus in today’s passage doesn’t reflect this same debate, but it does expose a deep conflict within the religious community during Jesus’ day, and the dangerous nature of dialogue. It’s so much safer to be quiet than to speak.

The don’t ask don’t tell policy that used to exist within the military wasn’t a satisfying policy, but it points to the safety of quietness. Flying under the radar is an effective strategy at times, but it isn’t good when people are compelled to operate in a secret manner within their own community, and there’s some strategic secrecy going on in our gospel lesson today. There were high stakes involved in the questions that were posed and the answers that were sought. The question at hand was about authority. Who had it, who wanted to keep it, and how to use it?

The men who approached Jesus didn’t come asking him a question in hope of learning something. The question they posed was designed to give them information they could use against him. Just prior to this exchange Jesus had overturned the tables of the money-changers in the Temple and while it was clear that Jesus had been motivated to do this out of his passion for God, and it was undoubtedly an act that had been inspired by God, but it never works for people to lay claim to God’s authority for themselves. The chief priests and elders could easily have used Jesus’ words against him if he had said it was God who gave him authority. Then they would have labeled him as a blasphemer – which is much worse than an ordinary troublemaker.

Jesus wasn’t afraid to answer their question – he was already facing eminent death, but he wanted to expose their misguided agenda in the process. And by posing a question to them about the nature of John the Baptist’s authority he placed them in a compromising position. If they didn’t acknowledge that John the Baptist had been led by God they risked putting themselves at odds with a lot of people who loved John the Baptist and considered him a true prophet. If they did consider him to be led by God they showed themselves to be at odds with God by choosing to ignore him.

Jesus’ counter-question put them in an awkward position and Matthew portrays this well. Their little huddle and internal debate about whether or not they should answer Jesus’ question is a nice portrayal of powerful people conspiring to maintain position without regard for the truth. They asked, but they wouldn’t tell, so Jesus told a parable, and it said it all.

This is not a hard parable to understand. It is a story that highlights the difference between saying the right thing and doing the right thing, and it shines a bright light on those who were inclined to talk the talk as opposed to walking the walk. Which I dare say has some relevance to all of our lives. These chief priests didn’t calculate the danger of asking Jesus a question. They thought they could ask him a question that would place him in a compromising position, but they failed to recognize how un-tethered they were to the source of true authority.

The truth is you just don’t want to enter into a debate with someone who is the perfect embodiment of God and simultaneously willing to die to reveal the nature of God. That’s just not a person with whom you want to tangle, but they were so blinded by their own self-importance they were unable to recognize how poorly constructed their own religious empire had become. They knew to lay claim to the authority of Moses, but they didn’t know what that actually meant.

It would take another parable from Jesus before these officially religious people realized he was talking about them, and things deteriorated from there. Unfortunately they were so unconscious of their faithlessness this experience didn’t lead them into any kind of self-examination. Instead it led them into resolve to try to eliminate this man who dared to challenge their authority. And we all know how well that worked out for them.

Now I wish we could just celebrate this as a good story of the bad guys getting caught in their own net, which it is, but it isn’t just a story about them. This is a net we call all fall into if we aren’t careful. We’re here this morning because we love Jesus and we have genuine gratitude for the way in which he was willing to die in order to reveal the true nature of our loving God for all of us. But he also died in the way he did in order to expose the emptiness of giving lip-service to God without wanting to understand what it means to actually serve God.

The religious authorities of Jesus’ day felt very righteous in their resistance to Jesus because they felt they were maintaining traditions that had come to them from Moses. They hadn’t made up their religious practices, they had been handed the traditions that they were out to protect. You can fault them for not really wanting to engage in any critical analysis of how well their current practices matched up with the teachings of Moses and the prophets, but we all know how resistant institutions are to change. Nobody likes to be the clown who raises questions about cherished traditions.

Of course Jesus did more than raise questions, he literally overturned the tables, and while we appreciate what Jesus did we don’t always understand the ways in which Jesus is at odds with those of us who claim his name. If we aren’t careful we’ll fall into the same trap that those who were claiming to follow Moses fell in to. They claimed his name but they had strayed from the essential nature of the Mosaic tradition.

Clearly those of us who do the official work of promoting Jesus are particularly susceptible to this problem of maintaining traditions that carry Jesus’ name while failing to abide by his teaching. I can testify that we clergy people continue to make officially heathen people look rather saintly. If any Elder in the United Methodist Church reads this parable without experiencing a bit of the cringe factor they are either in jail for a righteous cause or delusional. This type of spiritual threat to those of us who work as professional Christian leaders is real and powerful. It’s easy to forget who really runs the church.

But it isn’t just a problem for clergy people. This invitation to follow Jesus was for us all, and the truth is we are all equally challenged. Jesus doesn’t just want us to love his name, he wants us to love God more than we love anything else and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And if anyone thinks this is not bone-jarringly difficult you aren’t paying attention.

We don’t need to be delusional about the world in which we live and the ways in which we are duped by various empires in this world that are at odds with the Kingdom of God and who distort the nature of God. I mean I hate to sound ungrateful for the comfort and security that we enjoy as citizens of this country, but none of us need to be confused about the priorities of our nation. Our nation doesn’t claim to be a religious institution, but we don’t need to treat it like one either. And we aren’t really inclined to want to want to know the ways in which our allegiance to God is compromised by our fondness for security.

Loving the good positions we enjoy in life is not the same thing as loving God, and that’s what the chief priests were confused about.

I guess the good news for us is that we do have Christ as our lord, and while we are probably all compromised in our capacity to follow him well, his love for us is uncompromising, and the opportunity for us to experience redemption is always at hand. While we often fail to resist the claims of various godless agendas upon us, there are those moments in our lives when we actually do step into the vineyard and join in the good company of those who do more than say the right words.

The tax collectors and prostitutes may have been the first to find their way into the Kingdom of God, but there’s hope for all of us, and I take comfort in this. God doesn’t let any of us go regardless of what we say or fail to do. And thanks be to God for this! Amen

The Jesus Jobs Bill
Matthew 20:1-16

20‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage,* he sent them into his vineyard. 3When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; 4and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. 5When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” 7They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” 8When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” 9When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage.* 10Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage.* 11And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” 13But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?* 14Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”* 16So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’*

So if you want to get elected these days you’ve got to have a jobs plan. We have an inordinate number of people out of work in our country and this is a large national concern. There are a lot of people who are hurting for lack of work these days. I’m largely worn out by the current political rhetoric, but I’ve been paying a little attention to what various politicians are saying about how they would get the economy going so to speak. And I can tell you that nobody has a plan that is similar in any way to what Jesus had to say in this parable.

Jesus didn’t offer this parable as a jobs plan, but it sort of comes across as one. Pay everyone the same amount of money regardless of how long they work – which is not a plan that’s going to go over well with with any political party. We’ve all got our forms of measuring what’s good and fair, and I’m guessing there’s something inherently troubling about this scenario to all of us. If there was a party that would support a government program that would function in this way, they would be called The Let’s Just Have A Party Party or maybe the Te- quila Party.

There are plenty of people who would like to have one of those jobs where you show up for an hour and get a day’s pay, but it would be hard to know how to get one of those jobs. The way Jesus told the story the choice of who went to work when was entirely random. There are some people who would say that preachers only work for one hour a week – which is a terrible exaggeration. I don’t think I ever preach for more than 15 minutes.

This work/compensation issue is a sensitive one. It evokes passion in some powerful ways. This is one of those issues that just doesn’t generally come up in polite conversation. A politician can talk about a jobs plan, but people don’t generally talk about how much they get paid for the work they do. Sometimes people don’t want others to know how little they make. Sometimes people don’t want others to know how much they make. It’s a sensitive issue, and Jesus stepped right into the middle of it. He brought it up in a way that highlighted our tendency to get defensive about how much we think we deserve, but actually it illustrates the abundant way God loves us regardless of what we deserve.

Once again, we are presented with some funny math from Jesus. Last week we were told to forgive our offenders an unfathomable number of times. This week we are presented with the story of a really wacky compensation system. We have here the story of a landowner who paid the same wage to people who spent wildly different amounts of time in the field, but the scoundrel in the story is not the landowner. The way Jesus told the story, the scandalous behavior came from the man who worked all day and complained that it wasn’t fair, but his complaints were dismissed by the landowner as having no merit.

It’s not hard for any of us to see where the man who had been working all day was coming from, but once again, Jesus was wanting us to see that the Kingdom of God functions with a different set of values. This story does a good job of blurring our understanding of who is most deserving in the eyes of God. Jesus didn’t want any of us to get into the business of defining who was most valuable in the eyes of God.

This parable actually reminds me of the wildly diverse manner in which pastors are compensated in the United Methodist Church, but I don’t think our compensation system presents the same message of the parable. It’s oddly reflective of the situation in the parable because in our Annual Conference its the amount of money that different pastors are paid that varies wildly while the amount of time spent in the field is relatively constant.

I guess I play the role of the scoundrel in this story because I’m often harping among my peers about what I consider to be an unfair labor practice. In fact I’m doing my best to get people to look at the unfairness of our system, but I wouldn’t do it if I thought we functioned in the way we do in order to illustrate the extravagant grace of God that comes down where it will without regard for who is most deserving. If that’s why we pay pastors the way we do I would shut my mouth and be grateful I get to participate in such a faith-based-Bible-inspired drama.

I wish I believed this parable is what had inspired our conference to have unfathomable variations in the compensation packages within our clergy community. I wish it had grown out of our desire to not even care what we received in compensation for the role we get to play, but that’s not what I’m inclined to believe.

Now before I go any further I want you to know that I’m not complaining about the amount of money I get paid. I feel like I’m the guy in the parable who got hired around noon but was paid a full day’s wage. That guy didn’t really have anything to complain about in regard to his wage, and neither do I. And I like to think I wouldn’t complain about anyone else having a better deal if we all just acknowledged that it’s crazy to try to measure worth in the Kingdom of God, and it’s all ok as long as no one is going hungry. But this isn’t the message that our system is sending, and it sort of drives me crazy.

Just so you have a little sense of what I’m talking about, there are some full-time Elders in our state who make less than one third of the salary of of other full-time Elders. I can’t give you exact numbers because I’m having trouble getting these details from the people who have them, but I’m not making this up. These are the extreme cases, but it’s very common for some Elders to make twice the salary of others. These are people with the same credentials doing roughly the same work with comparable numbers of years in ministry that are being compensated in a wildly divergent manner.

Our compensation system greatly reflects a Monopoly Board. Some pastors get paid with rent from Boardwalk and others are living off the rent from Baltic Ave. Now I know we’re in church and I shouldn’t be talking about money, but Jesus brought it up this morning. Now I know we don’t live in a world that’s fair, and clearly Jesus didn’t want us to count on fairness as being the guiding principle of the Kingdom of God, but Jesus had little patience with systems that rewarded privilege and that’s how this system tends to operate. The type of un-fairness Jesus embraced placed more value on the people who were the last to be invited to the table.

Jesus told this parable to illustrate the fundamental element of grace that enables any of us to live in relationship with God. None of us have earned God’s favor. The Kingdom of God doesn’t function like a game of Divine Dodgeball. You don’t get picked to be on God’s team because of your extraordinary ability to hurl a fast ball at evil. And I don’t think he wanted us to labor under the illusion that any of us do work that is more valuable than the work that others have been called to do. And this is what really bothers me about the way our denominations functions.

I’m sorry to pull you into one of my pet-peeves, but I’ve become a little activated about it all. I feel a lot like Don Quixote jausting with a wind-mill, but I just can’t help myself.

Probably the message I need to remember is that the money really doesn’t matter. This is certainly what this parable portrays, and it’s something we all need to remember. And it’s not just about money. This parable points to the fact that there isn’t a place for privilege in the Kingdom of God. None of us are invited into relationship with God because of our gifts, graces, or heroic efforts. Our place in the community of God is rooted in the gracious initiatives of God. The church needs us all to do what we can, but it doesn’t hinge on any of us.

There is no shortage of jobs available for those of us who choose to follow Jesus, and the rewards are wildly abundant, but we don’t need to mistake our positions in society with our standing in God’s Kingdom. It’s easy to get these things confused, but today’s parable helps me to see pretty clearly how Jesus jobs plan works, and it’s nothing like the way the marketplace generally operates.

Being a person of relative privilege I’m not entirely comforted by this passage, but I’m glad to know how things function in the Kingdom of God, and I’m really glad to know that when things go poorly for any of us here on earth it is no reflection of the way God views our value in heaven. I’m not unhappy to hear that there is such a thing as privilege in the eyes of God, and it isn’t arbitrary. In the Kingdom of God it is those of us who are in the most need and who have the greatest pain that are held the tightest by God, and thanks be to God for this! Amen.

Doggedly Faithful
Matthew 15:21-28

²¹Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²²Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” ²³But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” ²⁴He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” ²⁵But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” ²⁶He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁷She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” ²⁸Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

This morning’s reading is not a typical portrayal of Jesus. In this episode, Jesus just doesn’t come across as the gracious savior we know him to be. He comes through at the end, but his initial reaction to this Canaanite woman was not very nice – at all. I’m guessing it was even startling to Matthew’s original Jewish readers.

Now anyone who was sensitive ancient Jewish/Gentile relations would have expected tension to arise when Jesus entered the region of Tyre and Sidon. This was an area that had never been successfully incorporated into the nation of Israel. The conflict between the Israelites and the native people of this land went back to the days of the conquest, and in some significant ways the conquest had never really been successful in this part of the world. For the Israelites, the residents of this region had come to exemplify God-forsaken gentiles, while the people of this region harbored resentment toward the Israelites for trying to redefine their worldview. There was a clear division between them, and good Israelites just didn’t go to this part of the world unless they had to.

We don’t know why Jesus went there, but the truth is that he was in conflict with upstanding people in the heart of Israel, so maybe he went there for a break. But that’s not what he got. He had hardly set foot in the place when a situation arose. Jesus get’s approached in a dramatic way by this woman who was on the outside of his faith tradition and she begged him to heal her daughter who was possessed by something terrible.

Matthew doesn’t give us a clue as to why he ignored here the way he did when she came to him in such a passionate but respectful manner with her desperate appeal. His silence is troubling to our non-native sensibilities, but the disciples weren’t bothered by that at all. Being men who had been steeped in bigotry since childhood toward non-Jewish people in general and gentile women in particular, they were more troubled by the pleading of the woman than his lack of response. Their natural instinct was to usher her away, but Jesus didn’t go that far. Jesus didn’t encourage them to get rid of her, but he did say he had not come to do anything for them. He said he had come to serve the people of Israel.

Jesus revealed no inclination to help this woman, but the woman persisted, and at that point Jesus says this startling thing. He said it wasn’t right for him to give to the dogs the food that was provided for the children, and at that point this story could have gone in a couple of different directions.

I’m guessing things could have greatly deteriorated at this point. This woman’s kinfold could have gotten involved, and depending on who they were it could have gotten ugly for Jesus and his disciples. They weren’t in friendly territory and they weren’t behaving in a friendly manner. But the conflict didn’t escalate. The woman said something that totally deescalated the tension of the moment and persuaded Jesus to respond to her great need.

She took what appears to have been nothing less than a derogatory comment on her heritage and she turned it in to a further appeal for his help, and Jesus responded to her comment with great appreciation for her faith, and affirmation that her daughter had been healed.

It brings to mind the fact that the best coaches are not necessarily the nicest people. A good coach elicits good performance, and behaving nicely is not necessarily the most effective way to get an athlete to perform at their highest level. Now this is not to excuse the ignorant behavior we have all known coaches to exhibit, but sometimes it takes some tension to bring out the best in a person.

I’m reminded of a story my friend Jim Bryant told me last week. Jim is a man who has been practicing law in Little Rock for many years, and as we were having lunch he told me about a situation that he considered to have been his finest moment in client representation.

Jim was representing a couple who had hired a contractor to build them a house, but they were young and inexperienced and they didn’t have a good contract with their builder. The builder far exceeded what they were able to pay, but they were responsible for paying for the house. They had no way to get financing for the house, and they were in trouble. They hired Jim to help them negotiate with the builder, and Jim thought he had come up with a reasonable proposal to settle the case, but when he called the contractor’s lawyer to negotiate a settlement he ran in to a brick wall.

The lawyer for the contractor was the top trial attorney for one of the largest law firms in Little Rock, and she didn’t obtain that position by being easy on the adversaries of her clients. When Jim called her to talk about a settlement she just said no, and she saw no need to talk about it. They had a contract and they needed to come up with the money.

Jim was upset about the situation because without a deal this couple was going to experience a financially devastating situation. The man was a salesman for IBM and he had a promising career ahead of him, but they were facing bankruptcy and that wasn’t going to play out well for anybody. Jim was in disbelief that the other lawyer wouldn’t even talk to him about the situation, but in the midst of his distress it occurred to him that IBM had this policy of buying the homes of their employees whenever they were relocated, and he saw that as the solution. He called a local IBM executive he knew and told him the story and suggested that they transfer his client to Fayetteville and they did. IBM bought the house, and everyone lived happily ever after so to speak.

Jim said he would hear from this couple about once a year for several years and they would call to thank him for saving them. To this day he considers that idea to have been his most ingenious resolution to a case, and it came about in response to the harsh response he got from that other lawyer. I don’t think he would give credit to that other lawyer for bringing out the best in him, but sometimes that’s what happens when we encounter situations that frustrate our agendas.

When things aren’t easy we can go in different directions, and while frustrating situations often move us to act in unfortunate ways, there are occasions when the very difficulty of the situation is what helps us to become more focused on what it is we really need.

Matthew doesn’t speculate on what Jesus was thinking when he threw additional obstacles in front of this woman who approached him for help. He doesn’t soften the story for us in any way. Matthew has Jesus saying some things that we aren’t comfortable hearing, but this isn’t a good story for people who want to promote bigotry. The traditionally despised person is the hero of this story, and I think this is a point Matthew wanted to make.

There is a sense in which this woman sort of embraced the dog comment. One characteristic that many dogs are known to exhibit is focus on a task. When my daughter got married we not only added a new person in our family, we also acquired his dog. It’s an English bulldog, which is like a big head with legs, and when Knute gets focused on a ball or a stick or whatever toy is at hand there is no distracting him from it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a display of raw focus as I’ve seen with that dog. Of course many dogs are known for their capacity to stay focused on a task. I guess that’s where this word, doggedly, comes from, and it’s a redeeming characteristic.

This woman wasn’t just like any old dog, she was like a Bulldog, and Jesus couldn’t shake her. Matthew told this story to highlight the redeeming work of a woman who refused to quit trusting. Jesus can be trusted, but he didn’t make it easy for people to trust him. You might say Jesus didn’t want to waste the grace of God on people who weren’t paying attention.

Clarity is a wonderful thing, and we have a savior who wants to help us become clear about who we trust and what we truly need. None of us like being in difficult situations, and we sure don’t like it when other people do things that make our situations worse or don’t do things that could make our situations easier. But when that happens it’s good to remember this remarkable woman in that far away place who refused to be separated from the love of God – even when that resistance came from Jesus Christ himself. When things get difficult pay attention – God’s saving grace may well be near.

Thanks be to God for this.

The Thing That Changes Everything
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-46

31 He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; ³²it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

33 He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with^* three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

44 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

45 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; ⁴⁶on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

It was a dark and stormy night, and I was doing Calculus homework in the library of the Wesley Foundation at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. I didn’t get it. I was angry and frustrated with my homework and life in general, and I decided to get up and walk home in the rain. I got all suited up in my new gortex rain-jacket and I headed out the door. As soon as I stepped outside a huge bolt of lightening struck somewhere behind the Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority House which was right across the street. I jumped back against the Wesley Foundation building and I heard a voice come from overhead. “Thompson, this is your God.”

I’m not making this up. It was an actual voice that I heard – it wasn’t a voice generated in my head. It was in fact the actual voice of my Greek friend, Costas, who had been watching the storm from his upstairs bedroom window in the house that was right beside the Wesley Foundation. He had seen me jump when the lightening struck, and he was quick witted enough to take advantage of the situation. I guess for a moment I may have thought the voice had come from God, but Costas started giggling soon after he delivered his line, and I realized what was going on.

I think I may have told this story before, but it’s just one of those stories you have to tell over and over. It wasn’t as funny to me at the time as it was to him then or it is to me now. In fact, at the time, the turn of events actually heightened my anger and frustration. I remember walking home in that thunderstorm daring God to go ahead and hit me with the next bolt.

Which is not something I recommend doing. Obviously God didn’t take me out with a bolt of lightening. God enabled me to get home safely, but then God sent me to seminary – which is a tough thing to do to a person.

I don’t totally attribute this particular experience with my decision to go into ministry, but it is largely symbolic of how it all came about. My immersion into Christianity is deeply rooted in my sense of crisis and despair. My passion to know more about Jesus didn’t grow out of my sense that things were going well with me or this world. My embrace of Jesus was fueled by my desperate need for a source of hope.

Now it’s not like I had never heard of Jesus before I was a sophomore in college. I was well steeped in church from childhood, but it wasn’t until I was in college that I came to differentiate Jesus from the church. Now it’s not that I had been terrorized as a child by the church – as some people are. I know that some people get a message from preachers and Sunday School teachers and other misguided Christian leaders that is truly terrifying, but that wasn’t my experience. My experience was that I couldn’t really see a difference between what I experienced in church and what I experienced in society.

Now there were good people in 1st UMC in Wynne – people I cherish to this day, and there was a lot of support to be found within the church. I must say that I felt very nurtured by my childhood church community, but what I learned in church didn’t prepare me for life as I came to know it as a young adult. The world wasn’t making sense to me, but the message I seemed to get from church was that I just needed to get with the program. You do the right things and you get good stuff. You follow the rules and you’ll be ok.

Honestly this message wasn’t so clearly presented to me in church, but what I wasn’t hearing in church was any resistance to what I sensed to be a machine that was out of control. I think I assumed Jesus was a part of the machine that maintained the problems I was seeing within our society at the time, and I was full of despair about it all.

You put calculus homework on top of a person who is already pretty miserable, and that is a person in need of relief.

And I found it at the Wesley Foundation in Fayetteville. I found it in the way I was reintroduced to Jesus through my friend Lewis who was the director of the Wesley Foundation. I don’t think I had ever thought of Jesus as someone who had lived at odds with the world until I started listening to the way Lewis portrayed Jesus in his preaching. I had never thought of a Christian community as anything other than a highly respectable gathering of people who wore nice clothes. Now I’m not saying that there’s something wrong with behaving properly and dressing well, but contrary to the message that generally emerges from mainline American Christian communities, Jesus generated a lot of trouble for the proper people of his day.

It’s not that Jesus had a problem with propriety, but Jesus did have a problem with people who wanted to maintain order at the expense of injustice, and this was a seed that took root in my discontented heart. I could resonate to a savior who was at odds with people who were satisfied with the way the world was going. It’s hard for me to describe the way in which this message grew within me, but I would describe the Christianity I grew up with as being much like unleavened flour. It wasn’t active in a way that spoke to me.

Flour that has yeast added to it is going to do something when you add water, and Jesus used this image of leavened flour to describe the Kingdom of God. You might say I was like unleavened flour that got infected with yeast at the Wesley Foundation. If you’re leavened flour and you go walking in a thunderstorm things are going to start happening.

I didn’t go to seminary because I wanted a career in ministry. I didn’t have confidence that the world was going to last long enough for me to have a career. Had I known we were going to slowly bake ourselves to death instead of going out in a nuclear bang I might have gone into some other line of work, but I honestly went to seminary with the enthusiasm of a person who had found a treasure in a field and the urgency of someone who didn’t think there was much time left.

I just wanted to know more about Jesus. I had come to believe he was the one who had a grip on ultimate reality, I wanted to know more about him, and I was not disappointed with what I learned. I’m grateful I had the opportunity to explore this treasure we call Jesus. Of course I primarily came to discover that I don’t really have a clue as to the nature of this One who embodied the grace of God and who sought to reveal the Kingdom of God, but my love for Jesus grew in seminary. I’m not saying I know him well, but I love what I think I know about Jesus.

The funny thing for me now is that I’ve come to function as a mid-level manager in this organization that I once believed to be a great source of distortion about Jesus. Now I try to portray Jesus as I understand him to be, but I’m sure I clean him up in some ways that I fear good Christian people might find to be offensive. I know that to some extent I serve to keep the religion machine operating at the expense of the truly radical nature of Jesus’ message about the Kingdom of God. I don’t try to hide Jesus, but I’m guessing I probably contribute to the vast volumes of misinformation about him. But I also know that Jesus just can’t be contained.

The truth may be that those of us in the Christianity business manage to package the message of Christ in the form of a seed that can hardly be detected, but it’s a seed that won’t go away. As the scribes, Pharisees, and Roman emperors discovered, you can’t do him in. The good news of the Kingdom of God will take root in people in ways that would never be expected. The flour of humanity has been infected with the germ of Christ – and it will not be contained.

In my opinion, this church is evidence of the way in which Christ continues to infect the church. This is not a place that has been co-opted by propriety. This is not a place that’s overly invested in maintaining the way things are. This church is more of a sanctuary for refugees than a seat of power, and I’m grateful to be here.

I’m not always in touch with my gratitude. Sometimes I get too caught up in the business of trying to maintain proper order in our community. Sometimes I get distracted by the endless challenges of our facility. And I’m always worrying about problems that might develop. Often these things prevent me from seeing what a pearl of place this is, and how near we are to the Kingdom of God.

I think this is probably an ongoing problem for all of us. We experience the liberating message of Christ that enables us see how well we are loved in spite of our failures, we see that this world is in the hands of God regardless of who seems to be in control, we feel empowered to be the people we know that God has created us to be, but we fall back in to fear of not living up to the demands of the machine. We aspire for greatness at the expense of faithfulness. We feel the pressure of society to be more properly quiet than rightfully outraged.

We go after this pearl with all that we have, and then we trade it in for plastic. I may just be speaking for myself, but sometimes I need to be reminded that following Christ is not just a matter of making small adjustments to business as usual. The message of Christ changes everything. It doesn’t mean that we have to depart from our ordinary lives, but it does mean that we are not owned by anyone other than God. This pearl of divine knowledge may not evaporate so easily from your way of thinking, but sometimes I forget what I’m doing and who I’m seeking to serve.

It’s a pearl that we’ve been given, and it’s a foolish thing to misplace it. The message of Christ has come to us as a gift. I thank God for it, and I’m grateful to have been reminded of it. Because of Christ I’m here to declare that it’s a bright and beautiful day – regardless of the weather or anything else.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Flocking to Jesus
John 10:1-10
“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

You can spend a lifetime in Arkansas without having any live encounters with sheep – unless of course you come to QQUMC on Palm Sunday, but if you spend any time in any church or Sunday School you become exposed to this image of shepherding. I don’t guess I’ve ever known an actual shepherd, but I’ve been reading the 23rd Psalm for years, so I think nothing of saying that the Lord is my shepherd. It’s interesting to think of how much the economy of Jesus’ day has influenced the language of our faith. It makes me wonder what the language be like if Jesus had been from Arkansas in the 20th century. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter Wal-Mart by way of the greeter is a thief and a bandit.

Such an image may not have made it through the centuries.

But this shepherding language has stuck, and it has created a curious situation for us. This is a case in which we are more familiar with the metaphor of shepherding than we are with the nature of the job. I become aware of this when I encounter texts like this where the terminology becomes more specific. I mean I didn’t know what a sheepfold was until I took a look at a commentary. I still don’t know what a Palestinian sheepfold actually looked like, but I’ve got a general concept, and it makes for an interesting image.

The way I understand it, back in those days in many villages there would be a large shelter where different shepherds would bring their flocks at night or for a period of time. Different flocks would mingle in the fold until their shepherd would come and call them together and they would follow him out to a pasture somewhere. These people generally raised the sheep for their wool, so they would have the animals for years, and there would be a lot of familiarity between the shepherd and his sheep. The sheep would know the voice of their shepherd, and they wouldn’t follow the song of anyone else. I can sort of imagine how this could work because of the way we are with our dogs. Dogs can tell who’s calling them, and there are some people who have dogs that will do what they’re told. I’ve never had such a dog, but I know people with very responsive dogs.

So in today’s scripture we have talk of a sheepfold with a gate and a gatekeeper who would know the shepherds and would allow them in or out. The people who came to rob the sheepfold would crawl over the wall and not enter by way of the gate and the gatekeeper.

Now one of the challenging things about this passage is that Jesus makes reference to himself as the shepherd in the first part of this passage and then he speaks of himself as the gate in the second part. Now this is ok because the main distinction he’s drawing in this passage is between himself and the dishonest scoundrels who try to break in and steal the sheep.

So we’ve got two images for Jesus but they work in the same way. In the first metaphor Jesus is the shepherd who is recognized by the gatekeeper (who I’m thinking represents God). Jesus is the shepherd who speaks in a way that is recognized by the sheep (who represent average people who are just trying to find their way), but they are often stolen by unscrupulous thieves (who represent the self-righteous religious authorities who were offended by Jesus. In the previous chapter Jesus healed a blind man on the Sabbath – which was an event that totally threatened and offended their religious sensibilities).

This is the first image, but according to John, there were some people who didn’t get the picture, so he drew them another one. He then described himself as the gate in this sheepfold. He said that you come in and out through him if you want to have abundant life, but those who enter and leave through other means are bandits and thieves. In this metaphor Jesus has himself playing a more definitive role. He lets the sheep in and out, but he doesn’t trust any of the shepherds. This image reinforces his lack of trust of the religious authorities who were so blind to the presence of God in his life and work.

So what we have here is some imagery that isn’t familiar to any of us, but we don’t have to understand the ancient Palestinian economy in order to understand the problem that Jesus was addressing. And what we have here is a clear case of religious conflict. Now there’s a novel concept – people at odds with each other over their concept of God. Who would ever have thought of such a thing?!!

The problem with this passage of scripture is not that it involves ancient imagery or a mixed metaphor. The problem with this is that it points to the ongoing reality of conflicting images of God. Jesus wasn’t harassed and ultimately killed by people who didn’t believe in God, the people he was identifying as thieves and bandits were highly religious people. These were the people who were highly educated and highly revered. They were the protectors of the traditions that were assumed to have come from God. The people Jesus pointed to and called thieves and robbers thought of themselves as being proper people.

I stumbled on to an amazing show the other night. It’s a series that currently showing on the public television show called American Experience. The series is about the Freedom Riders during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. This particular show focused on the music of the movement, and I was really moved by the show. It was a powerful portrayal of the conflict, and it was a clear clash between religious convictions. Many of the people who were opposed to equality were not un-churched people. Now they utilized some godless thugs to do some of the dirty work, but to a large extent the people who sought to maintain white privilege thought they were serving God. They thought God intended for things to be the way they were and they fought to keep it that way.

I guess all of us have culturally generated images of God, but sometimes God gets lost in the culture.

I’m not that familiar with the way klansmen and other advocates of segregation used scripture to support their position, but I’m guessing they could find some. It certainly wasn’t hard for the civil rights workers and their preachers to find scripture to support their position or to find spiritual songs to incorporate into their movement, and this is what sustained them. I was struck by what this one minister, Rev. Samuel Billy Kyle, said about the music. He said the music reinforced the notion that they were going to win – not in an arrogant way, but he said, “If there is a God somewhere, and God’s word is true, then they were going to win.”

And they did win. Laws were changed – hearts were even changed in many cases, and this is a tribute to the righteousness of the cause. The cause was just, and the strategy was correct. They resisted ungodly laws in a godly manner. They engaged in non-violent resistance to violent policies, and it brought down a powerfully entrenched system. It cost the lives of many people who heard the voice of Jesus calling them to stand up for what they believed was true to the word of God, and it was the source of abundant life for many people.

That television show helped me understand the nature of the conflict that Jesus was addressing in this passage of scripture. And it reminded me that there has always been resistance to the real presence of God’s truth in this world – and often that resistance comes from people who feel like they’re well acquainted with God. This passage of scripture serves as a source of encouragement to righteous people who are thrown aside by others who define God in a different way.

We currently are not unfamiliar with religious conflict, and I’m not talking about the friction that is often hyped between the Christians and the Jews and the Muslims and the various other religious franchises around the world. I’m not saying that such conflict doesn’t exist, and the nature of that conflict is similarly generated by culturally created images of God, but anyone who has been involved in church operations on whatever level has been touched by the kind of conflict that can exist between followers of the same Lord.

This is a tough thing, and while Jesus was clear about the difference between the sheep and the bandits our job is not to do any of that kind of labeling. Our job is to be diligent in our pursuit of that which is true to God, and when we come to positions of clarity about what we believe it’s important to stand firm in a loving way. There’s a vast difference between the pursuit of righteousness and the exercise of self-righteousness.

We’ve got some struggles going on in our very-own denomination. All of the essential numbers are shrinking within the UMC in our country, and we’re trying to figure out how to function in a more effective manner. There are some struggles going on in regard to how we organize, and I dare say these struggles reflect differences in images of God and beliefs about God. I think the amount of money we choose to spend in various ways reflects what we believe to be true about God.

But the largest struggle we have going on in the United Methodist Church right now is what we believe to be true about the nature of human sexuality. I appreciate the way in which this congregation has made a clear statement about our belief that God creates people in a variety of legitimate ways in regard to sexual orientation. We have said we don’t need to exclude anyone from full participation in the church based upon the way in which their gender manifests itself, and I believe this to be God’s own truth.

Policies within our Book of Discipline don’t currently reflect this understanding, and I believe this is something that needs to get fixed. I’m not ready to call the people who seek to maintain current policy bandits and thieves because as I say, I’m not as clear about things as Jesus was (or perhaps because I’m not willing to get crucified), but I do believe I hear Jesus calling us in that direction.

I guess I’m strangely comforted by this passage of scripture. It reminds me that conflict happens in religious organizations. Things get broken within the church, but that’s no reason to give up on it. The same God that often gets used in distorted ways is at work in the hearts of people who are struggling to get it right.

We may not know much about the business of raising sheep, but I’m pretty sure that if we’ll pay attention we’ll hear the sound of our shepherd’s song, and he’ll lead us in and out of the gate that leads us into righteous and abundant life. And thanks be to God for this!

“Who Am I and What Am I Doing Here?”

John 1:29-42
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” 31I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ 32And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” 34And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’*
The First Disciples of Jesus

35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ 37The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ 39He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed*). 42He brought Simon* to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter*).

Once again I’m struck by both the wide angle view that John the Gospel writer provides for us as well as the portrayal of what went on at specific moments on certain days in rural Israel about 2000 years ago. John the Baptist speaks of Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, which is about as large of an undertaking as I can imagine, and then we’re told that two of his followers saw Jesus and followed him around 4 o’clock the next afternoon. It’s an interesting juxtaposition that John the Gospel writer seems to employ throughout his gospel. He makes reference to very specific moments and draws really large conclusions about them.

It’s not easy for me to find a clear teaching from this episode that John relates to us. Jesus doesn’t do anything or say anything that instructs me on how I might improve my relationship with God or my neighbor, but it does remind me of the mysterious ways in which God does touch our lives and provide us with opportunities for spiritual growth. Often those opportunities come in the form of new relationships and experiences that open our eyes to how God is in our midst, and generally speaking we are only able to see these things as we look back and try to take notice of where we have been and what we have done.

Part of what I get from this passage is that John the Baptist didn’t really know what was going on at the moment things were happening. He had been motivated to live in the wilderness and cry out for people to be prepared for the One whom God was going to send to redeem Israel, but he didn’t know what that was going to look like. And it appears that he still wasn’t sure what was going on even after he encountered Jesus. He trusted that Jesus was the one to follow, but he didn’t know how Jesus would fulfill the work of taking away the sin of the world.

It’s that not knowing that I can understand. I didn’t vote for Ross Perot back in 1992, but it wasn’t because I was put off by his running mate, Admiral Stockdale, who famously spoke the words, Who am I, and what am I doing here? at the vice-presidential debate that year. I found those words to be very endearing. I didn’t really know how deeply those words resonated with me until I was put under anesthesia for a very short period of time a couple of years ago when I underwent a biopsy of the prostate gland I used to have.

I went into this examination room, where they hooked me up with some kind of intravenous drip, and the next thing I know I’m laying on a gurney in another room surrounded by curtains. I was pretty confused and as this nurse helped me sit up I quoted Admiral Stockdale in a relatively loud voice. Who am I and what am I doing here? was the only thing I knew to say at that moment. I heard Sharla laugh from somewhere beyond the curtain, and that gave me a little orientation, but I really didn’t know the answer to those basic questions for a moment.

In fact I’m frequently haunted by these questions. I know this isn’t what you want to hear from the guy you pay well to provide leadership for our faith community, but it’s the truth. I’m not in total confusion about essential matters, but I continue to try to figure out who I am and what I’m doing. I often wish I had more clarity, but I do feel good about the fact that I’m not a person who ignorantly thinks I know the answers to these questions. I don’t have all the answers I wish I had, but I’m open, and by the grace of God I stumble into the right situations every now and then. This territory of not really knowing who I am and what I’m doing is very familiar to me, and I’m guessing I’m not alone in this way.

I find kinship in this morning’s passage, where the two disciples decide to follow Jesus – not really knowing where he was going. I feel that most of us find this world to be a difficult maze to navigate. I made reference to this in my last newsletter article, and I’ve heard from a few people who have found that to be a point to which they can relate.

Life is hard, but I don’t believe we are left to stumble alone in the dark. God moves in our midst in ways we rarely comprehend at the time, but I’m confident that we aren’t on our own. At a recent dinner-party I was relating a bit of my personal history to some friends and I was compelled to tell the story of the semester I dropped out of college and moved to Vail, Colorado. And to make things even worse in the eyes of my parents was the issue of me living in a condominium with three girls.

Now to be clear, I should point out that I behaved like the perfect gentleman I was raised to be. I didn’t intend for that to be the case, but that was the way it played out. And what might appear to have been a departure from my calling into ministry was a time that helped me develop some clarity about myself. For one thing it was one of the first decisions I ever made that was in clear contradiction to what my parents wanted me to do. And while I am a huge advocate of children listening to their parents, there comes a time in life when children have to make decisions for themselves, and this was such a moment for me. I didn’t make that decision to spite my parents, but when that opportunity arose it would have injured my spirit if I had done what they wanted me to do and not what my heart told me to do.

The really interesting thing about my winter in Vail was the job I found, which was doing something I had previously announced I wanted to learn – which was to cook Chinese food. I had actually called my parents a few months earlier and told them of my goal to learn to cook Chinese food – I remember the pause on the phone after telling them of this monumental decision.

Given the fact that I had embarked on an ill-advised journey it was important that I not fail to find employment, and I was having trouble finding some good work, but as I was walking through town one day I came across the Hong Kong Café. They weren’t advertising for help, but I went in and told them that I wanted to go to work there.

The owner, who was as authentically Chinese as I am, literally laughed at me when I made myself available for work, but he agreed to give me a try and it turned out to be a wonderful working relationship for me. I was totally stimulated by the job, and I learned how to do everything we did. I did prep-work some days and I cooked and washed dishes other days. Some days I worked double shifts and did it all. When the spring thaw came to Vail, the owner invited me to move to San Diego to help him start a new restaurant, but that was not where my heart wanted to be. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do when I moved back home that summer, but I did know I wanted to finish school, and there were some people in Fayetteville I was needing to be around.

Two significant things happened over the course of that next year. I decided I needed to convince Sharla to marry me, and I decided that I would seek admission to the Divinity School at Duke. Neither one of those things were easy, but I was really clear about it. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t give up on either endeavor unless I got a letter from a lawyer threatening legal consequences to my continued pursuit.

Honestly I’m still trying to figure out how to be a good husband and an effective pastor, but I’m pretty convinced that my time in Vail helped me understand more about who I was, who I wanted to be with, and what I wanted to do. It’s not hard for me to believe that God often leads us into places that don’t look quite right in order for us to get in touch with the very thing our souls are needing.

You can bet that this other John, the father of Andrew and Simon (who would come to be known as Peter) was not entirely happy that his sons had left their fishing enterprise to follow this roving healer and preacher. They didn’t know exactly what they were doing, but somehow they knew that staying with Jesus was the right thing to do.

We are all on different paths to the place where we find Jesus staying, and it really isn’t something that other people can give us perfect directions for finding, but when we find a place where we encounter the living Christ we don’t need to be quiet about it.

This isn’t a church that’s full of people who have all the answers, and I’m grateful for that. My sense is that we are looking in the right direction. We are trying to look out for one another and for those whom society has condemned, neglected, and abused. We aren’t doing it perfectly and it grieves me to know that not only are we failing to be as generous as possible to our neighbors we have people within our community who don’t feel valued and nurtured.

To be sure, we are all flawed creatures, and we often don’t really know what we’re doing. But as I told my District Superintendent when I had my annual review last week, there’s not another church to which I would rather be appointed. We’ve got our challenges, but maybe they just serve to keep us from being too comfortable with ourselves. Our primary objective is not to be comfortable, but to find Jesus, find some companions to come along with us, and to stay with him.

May God help us along in this vital endeavor.