Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 25A

Matthew 20:1 - 16

We have jumped ahead a chapter in Matthew; in chapter 19, Jesus had a conversation with a young man who wanted to know what he had to do to have eternal life, and when Jesus told the young man to give up everything he had and follow him, the young man went away grieving. And then Peter said, "… we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" (Matt. 19:27) This parable is a response to Peter’s question.

Author Brené Brown tells the story of teaching this parable to children in vacation Bible school. She had one group of children start jumping jacks and promised if they did jumping jacks the whole time, they would be paid $500 in Monopoly money. So they began, and then a few minutes later Brown invited another group of children to begin, and then in the last minute she invited a third group. After she told them all to stop, she paid the children what she had promised. And when the children who had jumped the longest saw that everyone was paid the same amount, the kids immediately protested saying how unfair it was.[i]

I think that’s probably how most of us react to this parable.

We want our effort to matter. We want to be set apart and rewarded for our faithfulness. It’s as if everyone is competing for a share and we want to be sure to get ours. And, if we’re honest, we want people who don’t work as hard as us to get less.

But, again, Jesus teaches us differently.

In the parable, the landowner promises the laborers they will be paid “what is right.”

And we learn that
“what is right” is not a calculation or a formula;
“what is right” is not “what we think we deserve”;
and “what is right” is not what we think others deserve either.

“What is right” is not determined by us.

In God’s economy, God decides what is right.

The grace that is given to us through faith in Jesus Christ is free and unmerited, unearned.

God graces us because God loves us. And God loves us because God created us and formed us. There isn’t any other reason.

The parable lets us choose how to respond to God’s grace.

In the parable we hear from the ones who started early in the morning and felt like they were treated unfairly. They grumble that the landowner has made all the workers equal, without any regard for how much harder the earliest ones had worked.

The landowner challenges the grumbling workers, asking, in this translation, “Are you envious because I am generous?” (v. 15) The question is even more pointed than that though; the translation of the Greek is,

“Is your eye evil because I am good?”

Earlier in Matthew Chapter 6, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says,

22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matt. 6:22-23)

Remember how Luther defines sin as being turned in on oneself? Here we have the laborers turning their eyes not toward God but toward themselves and what they might gain. Their evil eyes cannot see God’s goodness.

We don’t hear from the laborers who showed up late but we can use our imaginations to consider how they may have responded.

When Episcopal priest Robert Farrar Capon tells this parable he sets it in modern times, and he casts the late workers as unkempt, wearing a lot of leather and playing loud music on the street. He suggests that when the last ones hired see what they’ve been paid, they just keep walking, quickly, sure there’s been a mistake, and just as sure they aren’t going to be the ones to correct it.[ii]

But in my imagination I don’t think the last ones hired were lazy.

Maybe they had spent the day navigating remote learning for their children and only went to the marketplace when the school day was finished. Maybe they had been caring for an elderly family member who couldn’t be left alone. Maybe they had anxiety or another disability and could not come to the marketplace when it was crowded, so they waited until later in the day.

Imagine the latecomers’ surprise and joy when they discover that they get the same grace, the same unconditional and boundless love from God as everyone who got there before them!

In this parable Jesus teaches me that God’s grace for me is not diminished because God loves you or anyone else, too.

It may take a while, but eventually even Peter understands.

In the Acts of the Apostles Peter witnesses the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Gentiles and when he reports the events to the church in Jerusalem, he tells them,

If then God gave the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God? (Acts 11:19)

Despite all the ways we try to make the kingdom of heaven look like our world and we want God to do what we want God to do, Jesus shows us the kingdom of heaven is where God’s grace springs from God’s goodness and nothing else.

Thanks be to God.

[i] Brené Brown. “Grace is not attractive.” https://www.theworkofthepeople.com/grace-is-not-attractive, accessed September 19, 2020

[ii] Robert Farrar Capon. Kingdom, Grace and Judgment. 391-397.

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 24A

There’s a scene in the movie “Seabiscuit”where the young jockey Red plans to keep his horse just behind the favorite until he makes his sprint and then pull ahead for the win, but his plans change. Another horse and jockey foul him and suddenly Red urges his horse forward and the two lead the race as Red berates the other rider and pushes him repeatedly toward the rail, punishing him for the foul. In the home stretch, all the other horses pass them, and when the race ends, Red and the offending rider finish in last place. When the owner and trainer come to Red after the race and ask him what happened, he’s agitated and angry and he yells, “He fouled me! Was I supposed to let him get away with that?” “He fouled me!”

When we have been wronged, often our emotions run high, like Red’s. We want revenge or retaliation. We want to calculate the cost and make the offender pay.

But Jesus teaches us differently.

In today’s gospel when Peter asks, “how often should I forgive?” (Matt. 18:21), Jesus answers him, “"Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. (Matt. 18:22)

And then he tells the parable of the unforgiving servant to show what the kingdom of heaven is like.

In this parable, a king calls in his debts and one of his slaves, who cannot repay the enormous debt that he owes, falls on his knees and pleads to the king for mercy. And the king takes pity on the slave and forgives the debt. But instead of gratitude and mercy toward others, that slave then threatens another one who owes him a debt and throws that one into prison until he can repay him. When the king hears what his slave has done, he is angry; he calls the man wicked, withdraws his forgiveness and orders him to be tortured.

Immediately we should hear the echo of Jesus’ preaching the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, where he said:

14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matt. 6:13-15)

We probably also hear Red’s voice screaming, “You want me to let him (or her) get away with that?”

Because often that is how we understand forgiveness. It feels like forgiveness means letting someone get away with something or excusing bad behavior, or even violence. It feels like we are giving something up to someone who has only taken from us. And we feel justified in announcing our judgment and withholding forgiveness.

But judgment isn’t ours to execute. God is the ultimate judge.

As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans,

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. (Rom 14:10)

Forgiveness is a hard teaching from Jesus. As Bishop Michael Rinehart from the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod wrote, “Forgiveness is relinquishing my right to get even, and giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” It is not easy to grant forgiveness. And as Jesus tells Peter, it isn’t quick.

Thankfully, the parable doesn’t hide how difficult or tenuous forgiveness is. I cringed when I heard how the king later acted out of anger, and how the unforgiving servant dug an even deeper Pit for himself by refusing forgiveness to the one who needed it.

I’m sure part of my reaction is because I recognize myself in their humanity — wanting to limit who I forgive, depending on how much contrition they’ve shown, or wanting to get what’s mine, forgetting that all I am and have is God’s.

The heart of what Jesus is teaching here is that when we practice judgment and withhold forgiveness, it is as if we are forgetting the forgiveness we ourselves have received,
“the free gift of God’s promise” for you and for me.

Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who hid Jews in her home during the Nazi occupation of Holland during World War 2. Before the war ended, she and her sister Betsie were imprisoned at the Ravensbruck concentration camp and Betsie died in the camp in 1944.

After the war, Corrie traveled and preached about forgiveness and reconciliation. In an interview later, she spoke about an encounter she had in 1947 when she traveled to a Munich church. After she spoke at the church, she recognized one of the men there as one of the guards from Ravensbruck. She was flooded with memories of their imprisonment and her sister’s death as she watched him approach her. When he spoke, he told her that he had become a Christian and knew that God forgave him for his cruelty, and now he was asking Corrie for her forgiveness. And in the interview, Corrie revealed with great honesty that she could not answer him immediately, and that in the passing seconds, which felt like years to her, all she felt was anger. She continued,

…I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion — I knew that too.

Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. "Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling."

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!"

For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.[i]

Forgiveness is an act of compassion. Throughout Matthew’s gospel, we hear how Jesus had compassion for the crowds he encountered and how people were transformed afterward by his actions toward them (Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32). The same word is used here when it says that the king had pity on his slave –he was moved to compassion for the slave.

When we forgive, we surrender the outcome to God and say, “Thy will be done.” We believe that the past will not control the future, and that a different future is possible. [ii] We believe that God can work in circumstances and people in ways we cannot understand.

Forgiveness recognizes what God has already done for us. As Paul writes in his second letter to the church in Corinth, “When we are forgiven, in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; … everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

When the unforgiving servant refused forgiveness to the slave who owed him, he refused the new life that had been given to him. He refused the abundance of mercy that had been offered to him. His refusal to be changed and redeemed by God is what led to his own imprisonment; it was a cell of his own making, built on the foundation of unforgiveness.

Jesus shows us we have a choice. We can choose to harden our hearts toward others and remain in bondage to anger and vengeance, or we can choose to surrender ourselves, our hearts and our wills, extending the mercy that we have first been given.

Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your grace that You do “not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities” but instead offer us new life in Christ.[iii]
We confess that we forget the abundant mercy and forgiveness that you have already given us when we declare judgment on others.
Help us live in the kingdom of heaven here on earth, forgiving others as you have first forgiven us.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. 
Amen.

[i] Corrie ten Boom, “I'm Still Learning to Forgive.” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/boom.html, accessed September 11, 2020.

[ii] Sermon Brainwave. Luther Seminary.

[iii] Psalm 103:10

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 23A

Matthew 18: 15-20

When I hear this gospel, I cannot help but hear it in the context of church discipline; in our model constitution in the ELCA, these verses provide the framework for the discipline of church members. On our first hearing of the text, it comes across as “three strikes and you’re out” —a lot of law, not a lot of gospel, and, frankly, not a very interesting sermon text.

The first strike isn’t even the sin. While Jesus says these are the steps to take “if” someone sins against you, we know there’s no “if”. In our human condition, we will sin.

So, Jesus says that when another person sins against you, first you should address them one on one. If he or she cannot hear you, that’s strike one.

If they cannot hear you, then you should find two or three witnesses to accompany you and try again. If he or she still cannot hear you, that’s strike two.

The next step is to bring the matter before the church for resolution. And if he or she still cannot hear you, that’s strike three.

It is only after these three failed attempts – one on one, with witnesses and as the corporate body of Christ –that you treat the person as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

Three strikes and you’re out.

But that doesn’t sound like the same Jesus who had just told his disciples in verse 14, “It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost. (Matt. 18:14)

So this morning, I want to invite you to ask a couple of questions about the text, and then hear the text as if you have never heard it before.

The first question I want you to ask is , “Why is Jesus talking about this now?” Immediately before this he told the disciples the parable of the lost sheep where the shepherd leaves the 99 to find the lost one. And next week we will hear Peter ask how many times he should forgive. Matthew is the only gospel writer to include this conversation; we don’t know why the other gospel writers don’t include it, but it could suggest that Matthew was trying to address conflict that was happening in his community in the late first century.

The second question to ask is, “Who is Jesus talking to?” We know he’s talking to his disciples, but it’s helpful also to remember that what Matthew calls the church would have been small house churches of a dozen or so people who gathered together. Many of them might have been extended families. There weren’t congregations with hundreds, or even dozens, of people during Matthew’s lifetime. There were none of the denominations, confessional doctrines or even creeds that we associate with the capital-C Church today.

That’s also why in my reading, I used the words “brother or sister” instead of a “member of the church” which is what you find in the New Revised Standard Version translation in verse 15. The Greek word used here is ἀδελφός  which actually means “brother”. Translating the word as “brother or sister” helps us remember that, in Christ, we are all adopted as children of God, siblings to one another, in one family.

So now, as we listen to this passage, instead of hearing it as policy for the institutional church, let’s try to hear Matthew speaking to the small communities and families of Jesus’ followers who were gathered around Word and Table.

While we like to imagine churches as places where peace and goodwill prosper, we know families squabble. Generations of family linked together by blood and DNA and church families too. That doesn’t surprise us and it didn’t shock Jesus either. Whenever there is a group of people gathered together there is going to be disagreement.

In our communities of faith we have used this text as prescriptive policy for church discipline. And, because Pharisaic law looked at Gentiles and tax collectors as either unclean or unrepentant and cast them out of community, we have heard this instruction as if Jesus was saying, “If the sinner doesn’t listen to you, cast them out.” Excommunicate them. Cut off fellowship with them. Banish them.

But again, does that sound like the Jesus you know?

When we look to Scripture to see how Jesus dealt with Gentiles and tax collectors, we see where tradition says that Matthew himself was a tax collector and yet he was called as one of the twelve apostles. (Matthew 10)

And Luke tells us Jesus called to Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and had dinner at his house. (Luke 19)

And the woman who spoke to Jesus a few weeks ago about the crumbs from the table was a Gentile. (Matthew 15:22)

So it turns out that Jesus did not cast out the Gentile or the tax collector, but instead broke bread with them, listened to their pleading, and loved them.

So when he tells his followers, “let such a one be to you like a Gentile or a tax collector”, perhaps what he is telling us is to love the person with the love of Christ.

What’s clear is that he does not say, “Break off relationship and never talk to them again.”

But all too often, in the church, we don’t follow Jesus’ teaching. We get it wrong from day one.

There are times we wound another person deliberately and the need for confession and forgiveness, and for reconciliation is obvious.

And there are circumstances, such as physical violence, murder or rape, when these gentler steps toward reconciliation do not apply.

But often, we may not know what we have done or how deeply we have hurt another person.

As we say in the confession at Compline, “Some of my sin I know – the thoughts and words and deeds of which I am ashamed – but some is known only to God.”

Someone may be wounded, and we may not be able to see the pain we have inflicted upon them.

Jesus would have the person who is wounded confront the person who sinned against them.

But that isn’t the way our world, or our congregations, function most of the time. Instead, the wounded person turns to a third person or a group of people and vents their anger and frustration there. We create triangles and talk about each other, instead of speaking directly with one another. We fastidiously avoid confrontation.

But here’s the thing, as Michael Chan writes, “to deny someone God’s corrective word is every bit as sinful as the deed under scrutiny.”[i] As siblings in Christ, we do not confront one another to point out sin and pile on shame, judgment and condemnation. Instead we are called to name the sin that we see so that the person may be convicted or “convinced and confident that [the evidence] is true.”

When we confront the sinner, our goal is conviction, not condemnation; conviction that leads to Godly sorrow and repentance.[ii]

When I discover that I have wounded someone else, either through reflection or because it is brought to my attention, it is painful because that isn’t how I want to love others.

But it is even more painful to discover too late that someone has been hurt and is suffering and I didn’t know. All too often when that happens the wounded person has churned in frustration, only to get fed up and break off relationship, angry, hurt and disillusioned. The path to reconciliation is much more difficult then.

In today’s gospel, Jesus offers us a way to be a community of Christ followers, reconciled with one another and united in faith.

Jesus doesn’t promise that we won’t hurt each other and that it won’t be messy – lives lived in relationship are going to be messy – but he promises that faithful and loving community in Christ is possible. In fact, this whole passage is about choosing the kind of community we want to be: divided or united.

The later verses are ones that we again often hear out of context. It’s hard to hear the Good News in Jesus’ promise that “if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done” if you can recall a time when you prayed for something and your prayers went unanswered.

But in the context of pursuing reconciled relationships and restoration to community, what Jesus tells us is that if the two or three who have been in conflict can come together in prayer and be unified in faith, God is there with them and listening to their prayers.

The Good News that Jesus promises here is not that God will answer our prayers by giving us everything we ask, but that God cares about our relationships with one another, and is with us, even when we are in conflict. God is listening and watching and working in and through us, even in our brokenness and imperfections.

Instead of “three strikes and you’re out”, Jesus reminds us to “try, try and try again.”

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus who reconciles us to You and through whom we know mercy and forgiveness.

Teach us to live as siblings together in community, and love each other as Christ loves us.

Give us courage to boldly name our sin and pursue redemption and reconciliation with those who we hurt.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. 

Amen.

[i] Michael J. Chan. Dear Working Preacher. Luther Seminary.

[ii] Notes from lectures by Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson in the NC Synod Racial Justice Network’s course “The Hidden Curriculum of White Supremacy”

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 22A

Matthew 16:21-28

Peter the blockhead is now a stumbling block.

It’s easy for us to laugh at Peter. He is often the voice of the disciples in the gospels, and maybe we recognize something of ourselves in his impulsiveness and desire to please, or in his attachment to playing it safe and staying comfortable.

But Jesus’ rebuke of Peter is no joke.

Having set his face toward Jerusalem (Luke 9), Jesus told the disciples that being the Messiah would mean that he would undergo suffering and be killed. It’s the first of three such predictions in Matthew’s Gospel.

And immediately, Peter responds, “God forbid it, Lord! Say it ain’t so!”

And immediately, Jesus rebukes him, saying, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Addressing Peter this way, Jesus echoes his confrontation with Satan in the wilderness after his baptism. (Matthew 4) There when the Tempter laid traps for him, Jesus said, “Away with you, Satan.”

Maybe Peter thought he was speaking up for Jesus or even protecting him, but what he was really protecting was his own human understanding and ideas about who the Messiah was, what submitting to the Lord should look like and how others should receive Him.

And Jesus calls him out for paying more attention to the human things than to divine things.

Peter proclaimed Jesus as Lord, but the prediction of suffering and death sounded profane to Peter’s ears and he was unable to reconcile how the Messiah, Lord and Savior could also be arrested, tortured and executed. He could not imagine how God could be present in the events Jesus foretold. Surely, there would be triumph and victory, not the cross and crucifixion.

But Jesus’ rebuke is not only a rejection of the temptation to remain in the comfortable and safe company of his disciples and to preserve his own life.

With his words, Jesus put Peter in his place both figuratively and literally. 

When he tells Peter, “Get behind me” Jesus uses the same words he used to call first disciples, saying to them, “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19) and it’s the same words he used to teach discipleship, saying, “[W]hoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38)[i]

With his rebuke, Jesus reminds Peter that he is a disciple, a follower of Jesus. With his protest, Peter tried to put his own thoughts ahead of God’s ways and stand between Jesus and the calling on his life.[ii]

So Jesus tells him, “Peter, you’ve gotten ahead of yourself, and me.” “Get behind me so that you can follow me.” “Don’t be a stumbling block or obstacle on the Way.”

When we first hear Jesus’ rebuke, the scolding sounds harsh, but Jesus didn’t break off his relationship with Peter. He didn’t send him away. He got his attention, corrected him and called him back to discipleship, back into relationship centered on God’s will.

Listening to Peter and Jesus,

I wonder what I try to protect, thinking I am guarding things of God, when I’m really protecting my own human understanding and ideas. I wonder where I hold on too tight to what God has given me, placing my trust in the gifts instead of the Giver. I wonder, too, where my imagination is so limited that I cannot understand what God is doing.

Public theologian Brian McClaren has said,

the gospel is a transformation plan, not an evacuation plan. It is focused not on airlifting souls to heaven, but on transforming lives so [we] can be agents of God’s will being done “on earth as in heaven.[iii]

I need Jesus to speak into my life and call me out when I fall to the temptation to be a guardian or gatekeeper, or fail to see how God may be doing something entirely new, even if it feels frightening and unpredictable to me. I need Jesus to remind me to follow him and follow God’s will.

I wonder, too, where I fall to the temptation to play it safe and preserve my life or the life of our congregation, instead of following Jesus in suffering for the sake of the world, and where I lose sight of the promise that God is with me.

Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Silence in the midst of evil is evil.” The gospel gives us, as followers of Jesus, an imperative to stand up, speak out and show up — to be witnesses against injustices that are happening in our world, even, or perhaps especially, when it means we will be uncomfortable or unpopular.

These human things — intellectual knowledge and ideas, security and comfort — trick me into following devilish plans and draw me away from God and from following Jesus. [iv]

These human things tempt me to put my self and my thoughts ahead of God’s ways so I can make something happen the way I want it to, instead of trusting that God is present and events will unfold according to God’s will.

Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t walk away from me in all my humanity. Most of the time, he doesn’t even scold me too harshly. 

He patiently and tenderly calls me back to what is Holy, 
reminds me who I am as a beloved child of God, 
as a Jesus’ follower, 
a disciple of this loving and merciful, abundantly gracious Lord and Savior.

Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your Son Jesus who shows us how to serve in the world according to Your Way and thank you for your loving rebuke when we put ourselves ahead of You.
Help us to follow Jesus and trust in Your will even when we cannot make sense of what we see happening;
Thank you for calling us to account when we try to limit Your power and presence in our lives; give us courage and strengthen us to deny ourselves for Your sake.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen.

[i] Audrey West. “Commentary on Matthew 16:21-28.” Luther Seminary. workingpreacher.org

[ii] ibid

[iii] https://brianmclaren.net/

[iv] Joy J. Moore. “Dear Working Preacher.” Luther Seminary. workingpreacher.org

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 21A

Matthew 16: 13-20

Today’s gospel reminds us to listen to the whole biblical narrative with an ear for who gets named, or re-named, and who is left nameless in the background.

Matthew’s gospel gives us lots of opportunities for this kind of listening, beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, which includes, by name, three Canaanite women — women who we learned last week would have been outside the Jewish community. (Matt.1-17) But it’s not only in Matthew; throughout Scripture we hear people renamed by God: Abram is re-named Abraham (Genesis 17:5); Jacob is re-named Israel (Gen. 35:10); and Saul is renamed Paul (Acts 13:9)

And in today’s gospel, after the disciple Simon makes his confession of faith, Jesus renames him Peter, which comes from the Greek petra or rock.

This is the same disciple who a few weeks back nearly sank in the stormy sea and was called out by Jesus for having little faith.

The same Peter who, we know, will not want to hear Jesus tell of his death and resurrection. (Matt. 16:22)

The same Peter who, we know, will want to stay on the mountaintop at the Transfiguration when Jesus is illuminated, and God speaks from the heavens. (Matt. 17)

The same Peter who, we know, will deny Jesus three times at his arrest. (Matt. 26)

This often-reckless, selfish, and imperfect disciple is the one whom Jesus calls “the rock” and says, “I will build my church upon you.” (v. 18)

I found myself wondering what Jesus meant. Scholars debate whether Jesus spoke of Peter himself, the foundational confession that Peter makes here, or something else entirely.[i]

During our lectionary study earlier this week, one of my colleagues called Peter “Peter the blockhead.” Maybe you remember that “blockhead” was a favorite insult by the Peanuts gang in the comic by Charles M. Shulz. Lucy calls Charlie Brown a blockhead and his teammates pile on him, blaming him for losing the baseball game. His little sister Sally calls Linus a blockhead for ruining her Halloween. Calling someone a blockhead was another way of saying, “You got it all wrong.”[ii]

The image of “Peter the blockhead” being the rock upon which the Church is built has stuck with me, precisely because sometimes Peter got it all wrong, and Jesus loved him anyway.

Reflecting the meaning of the metaphor, another pastor described her family’s experience of trying to build rock cairns, the stacked towers of stones that you can find in all different places, built for all different reasons. I’ve seen them near mountain trails and in rivers, signposts that a place has meaning. In their attempts to build cairns, two things stood out to her; first, despite their appearances, the rocks didn’t have any perfectly flat surfaces, which made it really difficult to stack them evenly and keep them from slipping and tumbling over. And second, she confessed that trying to find ways to balance them tested her family’s patience and they gave up. [iii]

Like those precarious rock cairns, the Church that we have today is filled with its own imperfections and rough edges and sometimes it feels like it wouldn’t take much to make it come tumbling down.  There are gaps where the gospel that we proclaim doesn’t match up with the witness of our lives. And sometimes it is enough to cause us to lose patience, throw up our hands in frustration and even want to give up and walk away.

But God doesn’t give up. Not on Peter and not on us.

God is still here among all of us imperfect, rough-around-the-edges people. In fact, God calls us “precious living stones” (1 Peter 2:5) and works through us to build the Church that we may continue to tell the world how much God loves us all.

A third image comes from earlier in Matthew 7, in a part of the Sermon on the Mount that we didn’t get to hear this year; it’s where Jesus says,

24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  25 The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.  (Matt. 7:24-25)

Too often, in our sin, in our self-centered failure to trust God, and our temptation to listen to lies and evil that would destroy what is given by God, we question why God would try to build anything with us or entrust this life-giving Gospel to us. But God is a God of wisdom, not foolishness, and God has built on rock, a solid foundation grounded in faith.

In The Message translation of this passage, Eugene Peterson writes that Jesus told Simon, “I’m going to tell you who you really are.” Who you really are in God’s eyes. Not who others say you are, not who you appear to be on your clumsiest or least grace-filled day, but who God says you are. There are times when we are blockheads. There are times when we stumble and fall down or get knocked down. But the God who loves us sees all of our imperfections, knows our sins before we even commit them, and forgives us abundantly.

The ekklesia or Church is the community united by faith in this Good News, in God’s saving action for each one of us. And Jesus has placed the Church into our hearts and hands, that our neighbors and community would know it too.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your Son Jesus who sees us and calls us by name. Thank you for your abundant grace that sees our imperfections and the works through us anyway.
Teach us to trust your wisdom and share your Good News that our neighbors will know Your love.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen.

[i] Audrey West. “Commentary on Matthew 16:13-20.” Workingpreacher.org.

[ii] There is even a book published in the 1960s called The Gospel According to the Peanuts; the author Robert Short was a Presbyterian minister and Lutheran pastor Martin Marty wrote the foreword.

[iii] “A stack of rough stones.” Liddy Barlow, “Sunday’s Coming,” The Christian Century.

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 20A

Matthew 15:10 - 28

I almost didn’t read the first part of today’s gospel. The Revised Common Lectionary suggests that verses ten to twenty are optional, and certainly there is plenty to chew on in the story of the Canaanite woman’s encounter with Jesus.

But hearing all of it together, I think, helps us remember the biblical narrative is not just a series of patchwork events stitched together. It is instead a whole cloth quilt, that invites us to see a fuller vision of God’s love for us.

In the first part of this chapter, Jesus is talking with the religious leaders about the traditions and rules dictated by their faith. In verse 8, he quotes the prophet Isaiah to them, convicting them of honoring God with their lips but keeping their hearts far away from God. (Matthew 15:8)

When our gospel reading begins, the disciples come to Jesus, asking, “"Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?" (Matt. 15:12) This week, I heard another pastor say, “Sin cannot stand to be named or confronted.”[i] Let me say that again:

“Sin cannot stand to be named or confronted.”[ii]

When we react with offense at Jesus’ own words, we need to stop and reflect on what is provoking that emotion within us.

Jesus wasn’t surprised that he had offended the religious leaders, and he wasn’t apologetic. Instead, he answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.” (Matt. 15:13)

His words recall the parables of the sower and weeds and wheat that were in our gospel lessons earlier in the summer.

God did not plant sin in this world. Sin is not of God. It is like wild kudzu that grows unchecked out of our “self-centered failure to trust God.”[iii]

In Compline at the end of the day, our prayer of confession states, “Some of my sin I know – the thoughts and words and deeds of which I am ashamed – but some is known only to you.”[iv]

Insidiously, sin entwines itself around our hearts and chokes our hearts, hardening them against God.

I am grateful that confession prompts me to ask, “What needs to be uprooted in my life?” and “Where does my heart remain far away from God?”

Puzzled by the newest parable, Peter asks Jesus to explain, and Jesus answers,

“17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.  19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. (Matt. 15:17-19)

Faith and discipleship – following Jesus – is heart work.

The story of the Canaanite woman shows us a Jesus whose heart needs some work. At first Jesus doesn’t even respond to the woman’s plea for mercy and then, when he does respond, he scorns and insults her.

We want to come up with a reasonable explanation for his callousness. Jokingly, we might wonder if Jesus was “hangry,” tired and hungry from long days of ministry.

We want the Jesus who felt compassion for the crowds or had healed lepers and paralytics. We want the Jesus who is above reproach. But when we proclaim Jesus is both fully divine and fully human, we must be willing to see the fullness of his fallibility and humanity. His prejudice, name-calling and seeing the woman as “less-than-human” all comes from his heart.

When Matthew calls the woman a Canaanite, she becomes the archetype for the “other” or a “foreigner”, the very kind of person considered unclean and unwelcome by the Pharisees earlier in this chapter. And then, Matthew adds the woman’s confession that her daughter is demon-possessed, marking them both as untouchable, undesirable and unworthy.

And at first, that appears to be how not only the disciples, but even Jesus, see them.

Despite the mother calling him “Lord” three times and crying out to him for mercy and help, her ability to use all the ‘right’ words and even prostrate herself on the ground before him, Jesus appears unmoved. The disciples just want her to shut up and go away.

It sure looks like they all were behaving in exactly the same ways as the leaders Jesus had rebuked earlier.

Their hard-heartedness makes me ask, “Who are the “Canaanite women” in my life - the people I can ignore because I’ve been taught they aren’t worth my time?

But the Canaanite woman doesn’t give up. She trusts who she has heard this Jesus is. She trusts what she knows he has done in the name of God. And, she believes that God’s mercy is wide and deep enough to include her daughter and her.

And in the end, Jesus responds to her witness of faith.

A teacher once told me, “What you see depends a great deal on where you sit.” This woman’s experience illustrates that “Jesus does not always come through for us as we expect. Inside this story and inside our own stories, Jesus does not always conform to what we hope for.” And Matthew leaves us wondering, “How do we respond honestly and reengage our faith when Jesus does not come through for us as we expect? [v]

The woman persists even when she would have rightfully been defeated by her circumstances and the hateful actions and words directed at her.

And, the Good News is the woman was right.

God’s life-saving mercy is abundant and it is for all. Jesus comes alongside us, the Son of God in the flesh, and shows us a better way, a way where our hearts are not choked off but draw near to God and all of God’s people.

Committing  to the same “heart work” we see Jesus do, let us pray with the words of Jesuit priest, St. Claude La Colombière:[vi]

O God, what will you do to conquer 
the fearful hardness of our hearts?

Lord, you must give us new hearts,
tender hearts, sensitive hearts,
to replace hearts that are made of marble and of bronze.

You must give us your own Heart, Jesus.
Come, lovable Heart of Jesus.

Place your Heart deep in the center of our hearts
and enkindle in each heart a flame of love
as strong, as great, as the sum of all the reasons
that I have for loving you, my God.

O holy Heart of Jesus, dwell hidden in my heart,
so that I may live only in you and only for you,
so that, in the end, I may live with you eternally in heaven.
Amen.

[i] Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson

[ii] Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson

[iii] Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson

[iv] Compline, Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

[v] Bartlett, David L.; Taylor, Barbara Brown. Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Feasting on the Word: Year A volume) (Kindle Locations 12122-12124). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.

[vi] Hearts on Fire (St. Louis, MO:Institute of Jesuit Sources 1993) p54.

 

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 19A

Matthew 14:22-33

In Matthew 8 the disciples are on the Sea of Galilee when a storm whips up and nearly swamps the boat they are sailing, and Jesus nearly sleeps through the commotion. When they wake him and call out to him, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” he says to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” And Matthew tells us, “Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm.”

And now in Matthew 14, after healing the sick and teaching about the kingdom of heaven, after the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, we have another sea tale.

Matthew tells us that, after the people were fed and satisfied, Jesus went off on his own and the disciples set sail, planning to cross to the other side. But this time, it isn’t a storm that frightens the disciples. Matthew says the boat was battered by waves, so they were probably exhausted and soaked through and through, but they weren’t afraid of the sea this time. They only cried out in fear when they saw Jesus walking on the sea toward them.

While the translation we just read says these events took place early in the morning, the Greek is more exact, saying it was the fourth watch of the night, which is between 3 and 6 a.m. Most of us would probably call it the wee hours of the night, not early morning.  

About fifteen years ago, I was on the crew of a boat sailing from Annapolis, Maryland to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and I remember taking a fourth watch. Even with modern running lights, electronic instruments, and lighthouse beacons, it’s dark at night on the open water.

At that hour, you aren’t expecting to see much of anything, so it’s no wonder that in the midst of the fog and shifting shadows of those wee hours, the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost.  

But I don’t want to just sail past that detail. The disciples have just spent days with Jesus, soaking in his teaching; watching his compassion and love for suffering and hungry people and learning from him. They had shared the abundance of God’s goodness with the crowds less than twelve hours before, but now they do not recognize him.

If we are honest, we know we often don’t fare a lot better. We worship together, hear Scripture, offer our confession and receive forgiveness, pray and praise God for all God gives us, and yet, in an instant, when we become frustrated, angry, or afraid, we forget everything we know about God and who we are as God’s children.

It’s likely that, in their uncertainty, the disciples reverted to their base instincts, and seized onto what they had been taught about the sea - that it is threatening, a place of chaos, representing all the anxieties, powers and principalities that threaten the good of created order. Operating from that space, they thought what they were seeing must be an apparition and perhaps it had been sent to them by one of those destructive forces. Is it any wonder they cried out?

The experience of miracle and wonder from the day before was lost. As were any of the comforting words Jesus had spoken earlier to them, when he told them, “the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:31)

They became afraid and, in their fear and anxiety, they could not recognize the very presence of God with them in Jesus.

Matthew says, “Immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." (Matt. 14:27)

Again, the Greek is more specific than the English. What Jesus says is ἐγώ εἰμι  ̶  “I am”, the very same words that God spoke to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses to reveal to them that God was with them.

Immediately, Jesus reminds them of a Gospel truth that is more enduring than anything they have been taught about earthly things. They are not alone. The God of Israel, the same God who delivered their ancestors from slavery under Pharaoh and exile in Babylon is with them.

This isn’t a remote God in the farthest heavens. This is God within arm’s reach. Right there in the soup with them.

So first Jesus reminds them who God is – Emmanuel, God with us - and then he commands them, “take heart” or “be of good courage.”

Karoline Lewis writes that “the root meaning of the English word “courage” is the Latin cor and the French couer [cuur] or “heart” which may explain why the English translations vary.”[i] The two other places where Matthew includes this command are when Jesus, speaking to the paralytic brought to him laying on a mat (9:2), says, “Take heart, your sins are forgiven.” And when he healed the hemorrhaging woman who had touched his cloak, saying, “Take heart, your faith has made you well.” (9:22)

Faith is never just an intellectual exercise; it is always a matter of the heart.

The Good News for us today is that the same God, the same “I am” who delivered our ancestors, and who lived among us in the flesh as Jesus, is right here with us today:

in the fifth month of a pandemic that has asked us all to stay safer at home and wear masks to reduce the spread of the virus;
in the disruption of businesses and employment;
in the uncertainty for students, teachers, parents and administrators preparing for a new school year.
In the boredom and exhaustion, and in the fear and unanswered questions, God is with us through it all.

This story of the disciples does makes me ask though, where has my uncertainty and fear kept me from seeing God’s presence in my life and in the world around me? When have I forgotten that I have witnessed God’s good in the world?  

As we go about our lives this week, may we experience Jesus’ words for us: “Be of good courage, beloved,” God is right here, within arm’s reach.”

Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your forgiveness and mercy even when obstacles keep us from seeing you and we forget how near you are.
Thank you for your Son Jesus who shows us your steadfast presence and love.
Open our hearts to the good we witness in the world and show us where we can participate in your kingdom even now.
We pray in the name of your Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus.
Amen.  

[i] Karoline D. Lewis. “Dear Working Preacher”, Luther Seminary.