Link to the text: Luke 9:28-36

Link to the referenced image

I want to refer you all to the image on your bulletin insert. If you’re zooming and you want see it you can either look on our parish Facebook page or simply Google, “Transfiguration by Raphael.” By using the language of imagery, the Renaissance master has managed to tell the story in a new way that was impossible using the written word, and when I discovered this painting it completely transformed the way I think of what happened on the mountaintop that momentous day. More on that in a minute. First I want to just look at some of the things going on here.

 

The backdrop is a landscape of a mountain, and there are two scenes unfolding simultaneously at the top and at the bottom. At the top is the story we always think about when we hear the word “Transfiguration.” Jesus is radiating a glorious and holy light from His body while Peter, John, and James shield their eyes from its brilliance. He is joined by two long-dead icons of Jewish history–Moses clutching the tablets containing the Ten Commandments, and Elijah holding the book of his prophecy.

 

At the bottom of the mountain, the other nine disciples struggle in vain to determine how to assist a young boy seized by a demon. If you look closely, you can tell the disciples are having a squabble. Some indicate they’d like to act directly to cast the demon out themselves, but others point up to the top of the mountain as if to say they should wait for Jesus to come back and do it.

 

When Luke recorded the Transfiguration he had to devote one paragraph to each of these occurrences separately, so what we get is Jesus, Peter, James, John coming into the middle of the dilemma with the young boy upon their return from up top. But Raphael in his genius recognized that clearly both situations were happening at the same time, and that they constitute a single complex story rather than two distinct ones.

 

What I want to do today is break down both of these individual paragraphs of the Transfiguration narrative, and then explore what it might mean to consider them two parts of a whole. We’ll start at the top of the mountain and go down from there.

 

Something that strikes me about Jesus’s Transfiguration is how loaded it is with references to the history of the Jewish people. This is significant because their history was and is so important to their shared identity. That’s why so many prayers in the Bible open with “God of our Ancestors,” or “God of Abraham and Sarah,” or “God who freed us from bondage in Egypt.” Our modern eyes might glaze over when we read things like, say, the genealogy of Jesus, but there’s a reason it’s there. It means something to say that Jesus is descended from the House of King David because it prefigures that He will one day reign as King Himself. And it means something that the genealogy includes someone like Ruth, who lovingly crossed barriers to unite families of different social and racial identities.

 

The most obvious historical reference being made on the mountain is in the two men who have joined Jesus from beyond the grave. Moses and Elijah, in addition to being real people of an age past, are deeply symbolic people whose words and actions are extended through the ministries and teachings of Christ. 

 

Moses symbolizes the Law because he was the one to whom God initially gave the decalogue and hundreds of other commandments to provide a framework for how we are to love God and love our neighbors–guidelines for a radical way the human race can share this earth together justly and peacefully.

 

Elijah symbolizes the tradition of prophets; of those who speak directly to God and who share God’s word with the rest of us. His life even predicts certain elements of Jesus’s in that he ascends bodily to heaven and is believed to be coming again on some future day.

 

And then there’s those words of God as issued from a cloud: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” Why does that sound familiar? (Pause) They are a clear callback to the words God spoke at Jesus’s baptism, the moment when many first recognized Him as the long-awaited Messiah.

 

And last but not least is that joyous, radiant light. The similarity to the Exodus passage where Moses comes down from Mount Sinai not knowing “that the skin on his face shone because he had been talking with God” is no coincidence. Moses’s shining face was a well known story about a person who had just experienced intimate communion with their Creator, and that story was repeated before the eyes of Peter, John, and James, and they would have immediately recognized that a similar kind of Divine communion was happening. 

 

There is a lot going on here that serves to tell us who Jesus is. He is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, the apex of human history, the Son of God. But contained here is also a simple testament to the feeling that we often refer to as “mountaintop experiences.”

 

We’ve all had them, right? At least I hope we all have. They’re those times when we really feel the loving, intimate presence of God right there with us like a light burning inside us and radiating beyond us. These are truly wonderful experiences that are important for our development as mature believers. But I’m sure we’ve also all experienced what St. John of the Cross called “The Dark Night of the Soul,” when that presence feels far away and we are prone to be given over to doubt and spiritual loneliness. It is true that God is equally present with us when we are at both ends of that spectrum of feeling, but it’s hard to blame Peter for wanting to set up booths and bask permanently in the splendor of that intimate moment even if that wasn’t meant to last.

 

We’ll get back to Peter and his booths in a minute, but first, what was going on at the same time at the bottom of the mountain? We don’t know nearly as much about it because it’s written in a way that Jesus and the three who went up with Him come down in the middle to resolve it, but we do know this much: A little boy has suddenly begun shrieking and foaming at the mouth. His father declares that he’s been possessed by a demon and seeks help from the nine present disciples, but they were unable to do anything about it. Raphael was probably right in the way he depicted the disciples’ confusion. Some are pointing toward the boy and others are pointing up to Jesus. Jesus had not long before given them authority to cast out demons in His name, but still many of them believed they weren’t able to actually do it unless He was right there with them.

 

And so when Jesus meets them back at the bottom He calls them out for their faithlessness in the power He’s vested in them and heals the boy, inspiring even more awe.

 

It begs the question, what would have happened if Peter got what he wanted? What if the small group of them had been able to stay forever in the warm glow of Divine intimacy? Well, it would mean that confusion and disorder would continue indefinitely down below. A child would remain unhealed. A lesson would remain untaught. What Peter learns is that while the mountaintop is a blissful place to visit, at some point we all have to come back down.

 

When you think about it, even though Jesus’s time as flesh and blood among us ended with His bodily Ascension, much of His life before that point was actually about descension. As we sing in one Christmas hymn, “He came down to earth from heaven.” Not only did God come down to take human form at the incarnation, but the form God took was itself lowly. Rather than appear as a member of the ruling forces, God took on the flesh of one at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Tracing Jesus’s movement throughout the Gospels typically finds Him moving from higher elevations to lower ones, and after His crucifixion He descended to the dead for three days.

 

The Transfiguration repeats this theme. As Jesus and the three descend the mountain they re-enter a world below that is chaotic, frightening, and aching to be healed. What He reminds the “faithless and perverse generation” awaiting Him there is that He has already blessed them with the gifts needed to address the suffering of their neighbors. They should remember that His presence is always there bestowing those gifts, seen or not. And He reminds us of this still every time we gather to again read this lesson.

 

Now here’s a spiritual exercise I’ll recommend for this week. Spend some time in prayer and contemplation reflecting on a mountaintop experience that you’ve had. See if you can remember the feeling of a fire burning in your heart and how it really did seem to radiate out from your body. When you’ve got the memory of that feeling fully imagined then take the faith to remember that the light of Christ is still shining within you even after you’ve descended the mountain. Then ask what it means to carry that light through the dark places of the world so that others can see it. Doing so you can lead your neighbors up the mountain to encounter the living Christ so they can kindle that same fire within them.

 

I’ll sum it up in the words of the great Episcopalian writer Madeleine L’Engle:

 

“We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light which is so lovely they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

 

Amen.

 

 

Text: Matthew 14:13-21

“God is great. God is good. Let us thank God for our food. Amen.”

 

If you’re like me, this is likely one of the first ten prayers you learned. Now it’s becoming one of the first ten prayers my kids are learning. Nothing teaches little kids a few basic facts about God like saying we should offer thanksgiving for our food. With this act they learn that God cares for them and provides for them, that whatever they have comes from God, and that God takes delight in their enjoyment of those things. 

 

Food is also essential to building and developing healthy relationships and healthy communities. 

 

My family doesn’t just eat dinner together every night because we all need food. We do it because it’s a good time to intentionally sit down together and talk away from all our phones and TVs and other distractions. It strengthens our bonds as a family. And can anyone who’s married honestly say that no point in your dating process involved sharing a meal together.

 

And for that matter, food is also an essential element in our bonds as a church family as well. There’s a reason why we put a table at the center of our worship space and why the climax of our weekly service involves eating bread together. And there’s a reason why we get together after the service for coffee and snacks and there’s a reason why significant events in our shared lives like baptisms, weddings, and burials all include a reception.

 

Holy scripture lifts up the role of food in building God-centered community from almost the very beginning. Abraham is praised for his hospitality toward a group of strangers who were secretly angels. The Israelites who follow Moses through the desert rejoice as bread falls from the sky and water flows from a rock. Jesus Christ affirms the value of those whom His society did not value…by displaying the humility and grace to share a meal with the likes of criminals and adulterers. And one of His last acts before He was killed was to break bread with his friends. In doing so He asked that those who believe in Him through the ages of ages may continue to keep the feast of His body and blood.

 

And can you imagine the joy in a community of 5,000 starving people when their needs are met. By a miracle that only God could produce, they now have an abundant supply of food.

 

Scripture actually teaches us about two different types of food. Physical food nourishes our bodies and gives us the energy we need to do the work of caring for God’s people and God’s creation. And then there’s spiritual food, which Jesus gives us to revive our spirit and sustain us when the journey before us as Christians is difficult or emotionally tiring. Spiritual food gives our lives meaning and connects us with all of God’s creation to which each of us is an integral part.

 

One of the amazing things about how Jesus works His miracles is that he shows that food can be both physical and spiritual at the same time. Those 5,000 who received the bread had their physical need for food and energy satisfied, but they also had an encounter with the true living presence of God that changed their lives and opened them each up to the goodness and love that exists for all God’s children. And this newness of life that was conveyed through the spiritual food from Christ was not experienced solely on an individual level, but also invigorated the life of the community as a whole.

 

I must have been feeling particularly torturous this week, because while I was thinking about all this and how much I miss the gift of sharing food with people, I decided to watch a movie I hadn’t seen in several years that is all about how a really good community meal can be an encounter with the divine. I don’t know how many of you have seen or read Babette’s Feast?

 

It’s a foreign film, and it takes place in a small Scandinavian fishing community in the 19th century. I know that to some it already sounds like the most boring thing ever, but it really is a great movie. The most powerful person in this town is the extremely strict pastor. From him the residents there have learned a type of theology that neither I nor the writers of the movie find very true to what we know about who God is. He has taught them that pleasure is wicked and sinful, so if they are enjoying any aspect of life, they are probably disobeying God. As a result, life for these folks is slow and austere.

 

The two main characters are his two daughters who, in their twenties, were the talk of the town because of their beauty. Every eligible bachelor at some point has asked their father for one of their hands, but he doesn’t really approve of anybody dating his daughters, so the two most sought-after women grow old together as single women.

 

The meaning they find comes from truly following the command Jesus gave in today’s reading: “give them something to eat.” Their lives become centered on feeding and caring for their neighbors, especially those who are unable to feed and care for themselves. Mostly this means bringing bread and soup to the elderly. The bread is often stale and the soup flavorless, but since everybody worries that enjoying food might be a sin, nobody really complains about it.

 

Everything changes for the sisters and the rest of the town, though, when a mysterious stranger appears. Her name is Babette, and she has just fled from France to escape the war. She knocks on the sisters’ door one night and begs for them to take her in, promising that she will cook them dinner every night in return for their hospitality. So in this way the two who have spent their lives feeding and caring for people become those who receive the same service from another. Babette stays with them for several years, cooking their bland, tasteless food and never revealing that in France she had been a gourmet chef.

 

One day several years later the unthinkable happens. Babette inherits  a fortune, and tells the sisters that she intends to prepare a giant feast for them to repay them for letting her stay with them. And she encourages them to invite as many of their neighbors as they want. The sisters are nervous that this might lead them down the dangerously sinful path of actually enjoying a meal, but they also feel it would be rude to turn down the favor, so they accept the invitation.

 

The day the meal is to happen, the whole town is on edge with this same anxiety. How can they be gracious of someone’s hospitality while not falling into sin? And then the feast occurs, and it looks like the most amazing meal that has ever been served. If you’re a foodie, you can’t take your eyes off the screen. And it’s a lot of fun to watch the townsfolk as their faces silently flit between delight, fear, and guilt.

 

And there’s that one guy at the gathering. He’s an out-of-towner who doesn’t know the local customs or culture, and while everyone else is trying hard not to take pleasure, this guy will not stop talking about how delicious everything is!

 

Over the course of the great feast something changes, though. These folks who have been neighbors their whole lives begin to open up and share stories and jokes that have never been shared before. The fullness of the flavor of their food has unlocked a new sense of wonder and eagerness for the good things of creation that were previously buried. While before they had trudged through their dull lives, now thanks to this act of kindness from Babette, they are truly alive and can share their joy with their neighbors of the good things that exist on God’s earth.

 

Babette’s Feast is a testament to the power of hospitality and good Christian kindness in bringing people together as a community. It also preaches the wonder of how food both physical and spiritual unites us in a sharing of the joys of the earth God as given us.

 

So, when we hear the charge from Jesus to “give [the hungry crowd] some food,” we should be ready to think of it in two ways. The physically hungry people of this earth deserve the food that gives life to their bodies. And the spiritually hungry deserve to be fed as well. In both the physical and the spiritual sense, Jesus provides more abundantly than what is needed. 5000 hungry people are satiated, and there are enough leftovers to fill twelve baskets.

 

And the life that Jesus brings to all He feeds, it’s not just a little bit longer life, but a life that expands to eternity.

 

Meeting our neighbors’ need for nourishment in part means feeding them. And we’re doing that. I’ve seen the pile that’s going to Forbes House and I see the weekly food donations as well. But we also feed our neighbors spiritually, by inviting them to come a step closer to the One who provides life eternally and abundantly.

 

And yet I would ask us all that when we read scripture about how humans respond to the actions and saying of God and Jesus, that we consider ourselves as different characters in the story. Seeing ourselves as the disciples who are given the charge to feed is the most obvious way to read the story, but how would it be different to see ourselves as part of the crowd; of those who receive the abundant food offered by Jesus. 

 

This means reframing our vision to understand ourselves as people in need. And then the food offered at our table takes on newer, deeper meaning. We approach the Communion rail with the humility of a hungry beggar, with the gratitude of coming to understand how much abundance God has provided for us, and the joy of taking in the richness and delight God bakes into creation.

 

Amen.

I’ll start today by asking: Does anyone know what the difference is between a parable and a fable?

 

Probably the most famous fables for our culture were written by Aesop in the 6th Century BC. Each of his fables ends by saying “and the moral is…” Like in his most classic fable, the Tortoise and the Hare, he writes out the very familiar short story and ends by saying “and the moral is: slow and steady wins the race.” And they really are intended to be that simple.

 

Parables, on the other hand, are more complicated. They come out of the Hebrew Wisdom tradition and were used by Rabbis like Jesus not to invite us to take in a simple, one sentence message, but to cultivate our minds to ask the big questions that challenge our understanding of God’s world. 

 

They’re designed so that when we first hear them they sound as though they have a simple and heartwarming, “slow and steady wins the race,” kind of message. But they’re all like those seeds scattered to the wind by the sower. They get under our skin, take root, and then grow in directions we don’t expect. We come back after time to look again at something old and familiar like “The Good Samaritan” or “The Prodigal Son” and we no longer recognize it. We notice some detail we overlooked before, or we’ve gotten older and gained experience that changes how we think, or we’ve heard somebody else’s perspective–and it’s different and new and it offers us a new kind of spiritual and intellectual nourishment than it previously did.

There’s a fascinating little book on the parables by Rabbi Amy-Jill Levine called Short Stories by Jesus. As with all of her work she views Jesus’s ministry and teaching through the lens of His cultural Jewishness, and finds that there was a rich tradition of Rabbinical teaching that he was leaning into by telling these richly textured stories. 

 

In her introduction she writes: “Jesus told parables because they serve…as keys that can unlock the mysteries we face by helping us ask the right questions: how to live in community; how to determine what ultimately matters; how to live the life that God wants us to live. They are Jesus’s way of teaching, and they are remembered to this day not simply because they are in the Christian canon, but because they continue to provoke, challenge, and inspire.”

 

In the essays that follow, she suggests that we can’t really understand the parable of the lost sheep until we acknowledge that the shepherd has failed at his job of protecting the sheep, making the whole story about a working class man frantically trying to maintain his one source of income. She claims that the point of “The Good Samaritan” isn’t just that we should care for people in need even if they’re our enemies, but also that social reconciliation comes from accepting care and service from our enemies; and that knowing the mustard seed yields a curative herb should inspire us to seek the healing of God’s creation.

 

Her point is not that she has found the one true meaning of all of Jesus’s parables. Rather, it’s that the one true meaning doesn’t exist. We are never done with the parables, because the parables are never done with us.

 

So instead of offering a single, one true meaning of “The Parable of the Sower,” I want to look at three different interpretations: one by Jesus Himself as recorded by Matthew, another by a popular science-fiction writer, and finally I want to talk about a one-sentence response to it offered by a friend of mine and explore how that sentence completely changed my own perspective.

 

The first is the easiest because we just read it. Jesus tells a large crowd of a sower who scatters seeds that either thrive or die depending on what kind of soil they land on. In the eight verses edited out of the lectionary He actually turns away from the crowd to have a private talk with His disciples. He explains just to the 12 of them in secret what the parable is about. The seeds are the Gospel–The Good News of forgiveness of sins, and they are planted in every person’s heart. If a person’s heart is good soil, then the Gospel may flourish within that person.

 

This is the “slow and steady wins the race” interpretation. It’s a perfectly good one, but if we stop here we haven’t taken in the full breadth of what Jesus has to teach us.

 

The Parable of the Sower is, in addition to being a lesson taught by Jesus, the title of a book by Octavia Butler. The story is far too detailed to summarize here, so I’ll just say that it’s a vision of the future more nightmarish than anything George Orwell or Aldous Huxley could cook up. Butler is concerned, as Jesus is, with social justice. Is it just by random circumstance, she asks us, that some human beings are born into a figurative soil that will make it easier for them to flourish than others; that some may be born into safe environments with access to clean water, healthy food, and quality education while others have to work and fight harder to attain these assets? Is this the vision God had for us when creating the earth?

 

Butler’s take on it calls my mind to question how the first people to hear this teaching might have responded to it. Poor Hebrews living under oppressive Roman occupation likely felt themselves to be seeds sown on rocky soil by forces beyond their control. Could the seed of the Kingdom Jesus sows in them be one where they will have the justice they deserve?

 

The final interpretation is a passing comment spoken by a colleague who has an extremely green thumb: “The sower is a terrible gardener.”

 

This little sentence blew open everything I’d ever learned about this story in Sunday School. I’d always assumed that the sower had to be God–and from some perspectives the sower is God. But a good and perfect Divine consciousness who created a vast beautiful universe would do a far better job than what’s depicted here.

 

Good gardeners know where to plant seeds that will grow into thriving plants. They know which plants do well in the sun and which ones need shade. They know that seeds need rich fertile soil and intentionally place them in places where they are likely to flourish.

 

Not so with this sower. Reckless abandon is what I would call their approach. Seeds are strewn anywhere and everywhere the wind may carry them. They fall on good soil, on bad soil, among thorns and rocks, in places where they’re likely to get eaten by birds, and in places where there is too much sun. And of course those scattered in places that were not nourishing fail to grow as well as those that fall on good, healthy soil. That’s how gardening works! 

 

What do we make of this?

 

Well, if we take the seeds to be messages of God’s word to humanity, this means those messages are everywhere. Seeds of the Gospel, of the message of God’s salvation and grace are planted everywhere, and when Jesus says, “Let anyone with ears listen!” He’s telling us to be alert to them. To seek out what God is saying to us in all kinds of places. In the places we expect, the fertile places bursting with the brighter colors and pleasant aromas of life, but also in the places we don’t expect. God is also speaking to us through the darker and scarier places–the places we try not to touch for being cut by thorns or where we live in fear of beasts that may devour us. The whole earth is a testament to its creator.

 

So these are three pretty different takes on the Parable of the Sower. Stated a bit differently, these are only three of the potentially countless takes. God’s word is broad and deep and high enough to contain these and so many more truths existing side by side with one another. 

 

A seed of God’s perfect and justice-soaked realm is planted in the heart of every human being created in God’s image. In the most mature disciples those seeds take root and show plainly forth in their actions–in the ways they love God and love their neighbors. Cultivating our hearts to be this kind of soil means searching for kernels of God’s truth far and wide–seeking pleasure in the earth’s beauty without shying away from the parts that threaten us. Those are the parts that reveal to us how the kingdom of humanity is tragically out of step with the kind of perfect justice God imagined when creating us. The transformation from this world into the kingdom of God begins as those seeds within us flourish.

 

Let anyone with ears listen! Amen.

 

Last month my kids finished up their last days of school and it all ended with that time honored tradition known as field day. They eschewed their classrooms to spend the entire day outside playing a variety of games like the potato sack race and the water balloon toss.

 

It all reminded me of my own field days as an elementary schooler and the event that was both the most frustrating and the most fun: the three-legged race. Most of us did it as kids. You’d tie one of your legs to the leg of one of your classmates and race against other pairs. The first time any of us did it we probably fell flat on our face and took our partner with us. To be successful the two of us had to acknowledge that we weren’t operating as individuals but as a single three-legged entity. If we insisted that our way was the only way that would work, we would probably eat dirt again. We had to communicate in ways we weren’t used to, and we had to swallow some of our “I’m right, you’re wrong” pride and make some sacrifice. We had to find a new way and a new rhythm of walking together. 

 

This is the image that came to my mind earlier this week when I read again about taking Jesus’s yoke.

 

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

 

Anyone who regularly prays the Compline service is no doubt overly familiar with these words. As part of that bedtime liturgy, we are invited to lay aside the stresses and the spiritual and emotional burdens of the day and rest peacefully in the wisdom that Christ shoulders part of our load for us so that we may know a peaceful rest that enables us to greet the next day renewed.

 

This quote is often called “The comforting words,” and one level they do come across as comforting in times when we are feeling weary. But we do a disservice to these words if we only see them this way. These are words that can at one time bring great comfort and at other times challenge us beyond our comfort zones to explore new rhythms of walking in community with the other oxen we’re being yoked to.

 

A yoke, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a wooden device that attaches to two beasts of burden and connects them to a plow or some other piece of farming equipment. There are different types of yokes that work for different kinds and sizes of animals as well as for different machines. A farmer can actually cause a lot of distress to both their animals and their machinery if they use an ill-fitted yoke, but done right it can make labor easier on animals in two ways. One is that the standard setup is two animals yoked to a single machine to lessen the weight, but also a well-fitted yoke disperses the weight evenly across the animals’ shoulders so they can work longer and stay in working condition much later into life.

 

Jesus, as a member of the Godhead, knows our prayers before we ask. He knows even better than we do all the burdens that are on both our shoulders and our hearts–be they financial, emotional, professional, or spiritual. As a carpenter, He’s fashioned for each of us a well fitted yoke, and He invites us to take the yoke he’s made specially for us to help ease the burdens life presents us with.

 

We can understand His message better by knowing who it was that He originally gave this message to. This comes after the Missionary Discourse–the pep talk to the first disciples. And as is often the case Jesus follows up His didactic teachings by putting His words into action.

 

During the discourse Jesus directly addresses twelve men who have already accepted Him as their Messiah and leader. Now, with them sent off on their missions, He addresses a broader crowd of those not yet convinced of His Messiahship. And He addresses them with this short yet inscrutable parable–this whole generation is like two competing groups of wayward children in the marketplace. One group complains that they played flute but the others didn’t dance. And the non-dancing group retorts that they cried in grief, but their peers did not mourn. What’s that about?

 

Jesus actually has two specific rival communities in mind here. One being the traditional Jews who live in Jerusalem and worship at the temple, and the other being the wilder and more anti-institutional group led by John the Bapitist.

 

Now, it’s pretty commonplace for us when speaking of those in the city–the sects of Judaism that followed the Pharisees and Saducees–as being hardnosed and rigid. We’ve all heard hundreds of sermons about that. What we don’t hear often is that John the Baptist is every bit as hardnosed and rigid as they are.

 

He and his followers have withdrawn from Jerusalem into the wilderness to escape the influence of the sinful and debaucherous big city. He preaches a fiery message of a desperate need for everyone to return to a life of the straight and narrow in order to be ready for the coming fire. So the antagonism between these two groups is not about one being rigid and the other being lax. They just have different things that they’re being rigid about, and that’s what’s causing them to butt heads.

 

Jesus, on the other hand, presents a third way. While He weeps for the ways the city has gone astray, He also embraces the city with all of its sinfulness and all of its flaws. He doesn’t withdraw from the sinful. He is found among them, sometimes scandalously so. He brings the extra wine to their weddings and feasts alongside their outcast criminals. While He definitely holds certain ethical standards as important, ultimately His message is more one of redemption and hope for those who believe they are beyond saving.

 

If there are philosophical differences between John, the Pharisees, and, you know, God incarnate, then it shouldn’t be too hard for us to determine whose word we’re supposed to follow more closely. In many ways the handing of the baton from the lawkeepers and prophets to the long-awaited Messiah is a transformation from a theology of fire and brimstone to a theology of grace and joy.

 

But the generation to whom Jesus speaks directly fails to hear and embrace fully the message of either the prophet or the Savior. When John wailed about the misery of the fallen world and demanded repentance, nobody mourned with him. Instead they mistook his ardor for demonic possession and threw him in jail

 

When Jesus celebrated with tax collectors and pronounced God’s glorious blessings upon social wretches, nobody joined Him in joyful dance. Instead they dismissed Him as a glutton and a drunkard. 

 

So when Jesus compares the crowds of Capernaum to wayward children in search of direction it’s not just a moment of judgment. Don’t get me wrong, though, the judgment is definitely there. But He’s also got strong empathy and sadness for them. Just a minute ago He referred to them as “sheep without a shepherd.” Now He invites the lost sheep to take up the yoke of a new shepherd, so that their waywardness may cease.

 

Now remember, the purpose of a yoke is to take two individual animals who might otherwise literally be butting heads with one another and unite them to work for a single purpose that is bigger and more important than either of they are. It seems there could be a message here for these separate factions in ancient Jerusalem who both value the law and the prophets but can’t agree on a way to follow God together. And perhaps that message is still relevant today to a Church that seems to schism into tinier and tinier sects every time we have a minor disagreement. It seems God’s people from time immemorial have a way of letting our little philosophical differences keep us barred from relationship with one another. In doing so, we deny the yoke of Jesus that is made to unite us and to help us with the difficult task of spreading the Good News of salvation to a world full of people who are weary and carrying heavy burdens.

 

It’s time God’s people learn a new rhythm of walking together–of sharing our burdens with our neighbors even when that feels difficult and uncomfortable. This doesn’t mean we cannot be firm about the things we believe or that we can’t challenge each other. It means coming to a recognition that we ultimately have a singular purpose of bringing the light of Christ to the world, and of being the loving and self-sacrificial presence of Christ to everyone we encounter. When we accept that as a common purpose we can work together, learn to communicate with one another despite differing worldviews, and perhaps even learn to make sacrifices that help us all advance together.

 

In taking Christ’s yoke upon us and joining with Him on His earthly mission we get a little taste of the kind of unburdened life He invites us into. A life lived for the sake of others is a Christlike life. And it is one that, while initially countercultural and counterintuitive, adds purpose to our wayward existences. Taking up that yoke shows others the way to Christ, that their burdens and ours may be relieved.

 

Once again, hear these words which are sometimes comforting and sometimes discomforting.

 

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

 

Amen.

Text- Matthew 9:35-10:23

Last week I announced that I was going to start doing my Tuesday morning office hours at Fiona’s coffee shop downtown, and indeed I showed up there two days later and had a cup of coffee and a great little chat with Marge Rutherford and then I met there again later in the week with Bill and Jackie. It’s becoming my spot, I guess. I did not know when I initially made this my spot that I was making a highly contentious and maybe even politically motivated decision–for choosing Fiona’s means that I did not choose Arabica. Simply stated, I’ve learned there’s a history there. Oh well, the announcement is made and I’m not going to confuse people by switching it up. Fiona’s will be my go-to coffee place in Willoughby, albeit I’ll remain relatively uninformed about anything projected upon me by the good people of this town in making this decision.

 

And speaking of things projected upon me, both times I’ve been to Fiona’s I was wearing my collar. Most people here have never worn a clerical collar in public. Let me tell you, people stare. They are seeing a complete stranger and forming an image–good or bad, accurate or inaccurate–about what I believe, how I behave, my relative morality or immorality, how I vote, and all other aspects of my unique personhood based on whatever connotations they have about clergy and Christianity in general before ever seeing or meeting me. Oh well. 

 

There are a few reasons why I’m going to Fiona’s on Tuesday mornings, and none of them have to do with their rivalry with Arabica. First, I like coffee. Second, I want to get to know Willoughby and I can’t do that by hanging around my office all the time. I hope that over time people might get used to seeing the strange new guy in the collar–enough so to actually talk and get to know me a bit and maybe even have their preconceived notions about clergy either affirmed or challenged. And since I represent the Church at all times, but especially when I’m easily identified as a priest, this might even mean affirming or challenging their preconceived notions of the Church–an opportunity to bring our neighbors one step closer to their own encounters with the transforming love of Jesus. 

 

When I say that, “The transforming love of Jesus,” I mean a love that has the power to transform our lives when we accept it, and I mean a love that He commissions His disciples (that’s us! Disciples doesn’t just mean 12 guys from 2000 years ago), He commissions His disciples to share His love with their neighbors so that the whole world might be transformed.

 

If you were here last week you might remember that we spoke some about how the series of healing miracles recorded by Mattew are kind of a sequel to the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus pronounces His blessing upon the hungry, the poor, the sick, and others. In each case His blessing is based on a way in which a person might find themselves lacking, and every one of us can find ourselves somewhere on the list.

 

Last week we heard about Jesus descending from the lofty mount and putting His words into action. As He moves through the world encountering those people He blessed, He ministers to their needs by feeding the hungry, proclaiming good news to the poor, and healing the sick.

 

Today’s lesson, the commissioning of the disciples, is the final part of a trilogy. After preaching the values of God’s kingdom and then setting the example of how to bring that kingdom to a world crying out for healing, He sends twelve disciples out to follow His example; to extend His own ministries by  proclaiming the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ By healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers, and casting out demons.

 

So it is that we who are baptized into Christ’s body receive an ancient call from our teacher and our great healer to heal God’s creation that has been marked with the scars of human sinfulness.

 

This is a weighty assignment, and so it comes with a speech that is part instruction and part pep talk. In sending us out He uses a lot of animal imagery that is mostly pretty clear. “Sheep without a shepherd.”

We get that immediately. Too many people on creation feel directionless, and like they lack the kind of surehanded guidance through the valley of death that God offers.

 

Here’s another easy one: “I’m sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves.” We’re going into a world where many may be hostile to us and where we’ll need to call upon our faith to see us through.

 

There’s an element to this metaphor, though, that can easily be overlooked. In telling us what the impending reign of God will look like, Isaiah prophesies that “the wolf will lie down with the lamb.” Bitter enemies–enemies who hunt and kill one another or who run in fear of one another–will share God’s creation in peace. When Jesus sends us like sheep in the midst of wolves He’s sending us to engage, as He did, with our enemies. You might even say with our wolves. The healing of reconciliation He calls us to demands us to confront our fears and our prejudices of the other, for as long as barriers of relationship exist between sheep and wolves there can be no real peace.

 

And there is a third animal metaphor that’s also a bit tricky. “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” I’ve read through many scholarly analyses of those first two metaphors, and don’t get me wrong some of them are quite enlightening, but I have only ever come across one theologian who really digs into what it means to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. That theologian was perhaps the greatest example of discipleship in the last century–The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

I wonder how many times during the thousands of Juneteenth celebrations later this week that his name will be invoked without the word “Rev.” It does feel like as a society we’ve forgotten that his ordination was a core part of his identity. And that’s sad, because it means we’ve also forgotten that the movement he spearheaded was a religiously motivated one.

 

It’s my goto answer for when people attempt to trap me by saying that nothing good has ever been done by the Church–and trust me, when you’re wearing a collar in public complete strangers really do just walk up to you and say things like that. I always have to force myself to find a kinder, more Christlike way of saying, “Really? The American Civil Rights Movement? You don’t think that was a good thing?”

 

In my studies into the Rev. Dr. King’s life, the main thing I find is a man who really did the hard work of modeling himself on the example of Jesus, and you can see some of where he took example in this trilogy of readings. He was also someone who preached powerful messages about what he dreamed the world could be like, who lived out his preaching through his own actions, and who taught and empowered others to continue his work.

 

Referring again to last week’s lesson and sermon, Jesus blesses a despised group of people–the tax collectors–by sharing a meal with them. Just as He sees that the sin of treating an entire group of people as inferior by nature of their vocations was also harmful to the Pharisees, Rev. Dr. King understood that all people who lived in a society with policies marked by the sin of racism were negatively affected by it, be they people of color or not. This is a sin which builds unnecessary barriers of relationship between fellow children of God, and which drives up people’s resentment and hate toward their neighbors. And this is a sin that King sought to invoke the healing power of Christ into.

 

Also like Jesus, King prepared those he sent out to go into a world that would be hostile to them “like sheep in the midst of wolves.” And like Jesus he became an unfortunate example of how hostile this world can be to those who seek to expose societal sinfulness and work to heal it.

 

In his sermon on this text, King finds that when Jesus says, “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” He is calling His disciples to have “a tough mind and a tender heart.” A mind that is tough as the serpent is a mind “characterized by incisive thinking, realistic appraisal, and decisive judgment.” This is a mind that can sift through what it is presented with to sort the truths from the fictions. This is also a mind that is not resistant to change, and regularly brings its own values to question as new facts arise to challenge existing beliefs.

 

But without a heart as tender as a dove, a tough mind is “cold and detached.” Tender hearts are moved by compassion when they witness the damage that social sinfulness wreaks upon the children of God. As Jesus weeps at the grave of Lazarus and laments the wayward ways of Jerusalem, so the tenderhearted disciple weeps and laments when faced with the hard truths of human injustice and is moved to bring Christ’s healing.

 

I think we all have to agree that wolves and sheep are not yet lying down together. Local rivalries over coffee shops is a petty and inconsequential example, but it still illustrates some kind of basic human desire to choose a team, demand that our team is best, and cut ourselves off from those we deem our enemies. 

 

Jesus never promises that the call to discipleship will be easy or safe. What He does promise us is that now we have a shepherd. We do not go into the midst of wolves alone without our guide and protector. The assurance of mercy and salvation go with us.

 

Nor is healing the wounds of the world our work to do alone. We may sow the seeds of the Gospel as we seek relationship and community with our neighbors, but it’s Christ who does the hard work of tending seeds, transforming souls, and bringing about the flourishing of God’s eternal reign.

 

Friends, in a few moments we will consume the Holy Sacrament. Our bodies will again become carriers of Christ’s presence and we will be sent from this church in peace to love and serve the Lord. For the mission that Christ calls us to let us pray that God may give to all disciples a strong mind and a tender heart, and hold the faith that in time the pains and sufferings of the world will be healed by Christ’s saving grace. 

 

Amen.

Last month my kids finished up their last days of school and it all ended with that time honored tradition known as field day. They eschewed their classrooms to spend the entire day outside playing a variety of games like the potato sack race and the water balloon toss.

 

It all reminded me of my own field days as an elementary schooler and the event that was both the most frustrating and the most fun: the three-legged race. Most of us did it as kids. You’d tie one of your legs to the leg of one of your classmates and race against other pairs. The first time any of us did it we probably fell flat on our face and took our partner with us. To be successful the two of us had to acknowledge that we weren’t operating as individuals but as a single three-legged entity. If we insisted that our way was the only way that would work, we would probably eat dirt again. We had to communicate in ways we weren’t used to, and we had to swallow some of our “I’m right, you’re wrong” pride and make some sacrifice. We had to find a new way and a new rhythm of walking together. 

 

This is the image that came to my mind earlier this week when I read again about taking Jesus’s yoke.

 

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

 

Anyone who regularly prays the Compline service is no doubt overly familiar with these words. As part of that bedtime liturgy, we are invited to lay aside the stresses and the spiritual and emotional burdens of the day and rest peacefully in the wisdom that Christ shoulders part of our load for us so that we may know a peaceful rest that enables us to greet the next day renewed.

 

This quote is often called “The comforting words,” and one level they do come across as comforting in times when we are feeling weary. But we do a disservice to these words if we only see them this way. These are words that can at one time bring great comfort and at other times challenge us beyond our comfort zones to explore new rhythms of walking in community with the other oxen we’re being yoked to.

 

A yoke, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a wooden device that attaches to two beasts of burden and connects them to a plow or some other piece of farming equipment. There are different types of yokes that work for different kinds and sizes of animals as well as for different machines. A farmer can actually cause a lot of distress to both their animals and their machinery if they use an ill-fitted yoke, but done right it can make labor easier on animals in two ways. One is that the standard setup is two animals yoked to a single machine to lessen the weight, but also a well-fitted yoke disperses the weight evenly across the animals’ shoulders so they can work longer and stay in working condition much later into life.

 

Jesus, as a member of the Godhead, knows our prayers before we ask. He knows even better than we do all the burdens that are on both our shoulders and our hearts–be they financial, emotional, professional, or spiritual. As a carpenter, He’s fashioned for each of us a well fitted yoke, and He invites us to take the yoke he’s made specially for us to help ease the burdens life presents us with.

 

We can understand His message better by knowing who it was that He originally gave this message to. This comes after the Missionary Discourse–the pep talk to the first disciples. And as is often the case Jesus follows up His didactic teachings by putting His words into action.

 

During the discourse Jesus directly addresses twelve men who have already accepted Him as their Messiah and leader. Now, with them sent off on their missions, He addresses a broader crowd of those not yet convinced of His Messiahship. And He addresses them with this short yet inscrutable parable–this whole generation is like two competing groups of wayward children in the marketplace. One group complains that they played flute but the others didn’t dance. And the non-dancing group retorts that they cried in grief, but their peers did not mourn. What’s that about?

 

Jesus actually has two specific rival communities in mind here. One being the traditional Jews who live in Jerusalem and worship at the temple, and the other being the wilder and more anti-institutional group led by John the Bapitist.

 

Now, it’s pretty commonplace for us when speaking of those in the city–the sects of Judaism that followed the Pharisees and Saducees–as being hardnosed and rigid. We’ve all heard hundreds of sermons about that. What we don’t hear often is that John the Baptist is every bit as hardnosed and rigid as they are.

 

He and his followers have withdrawn from Jerusalem into the wilderness to escape the influence of the sinful and debaucherous big city. He preaches a fiery message of a desperate need for everyone to return to a life of the straight and narrow in order to be ready for the coming fire. So the antagonism between these two groups is not about one being rigid and the other being lax. They just have different things that they’re being rigid about, and that’s what’s causing them to butt heads.

 

Jesus, on the other hand, presents a third way. While He weeps for the ways the city has gone astray, He also embraces the city with all of its sinfulness and all of its flaws. He doesn’t withdraw from the sinful. He is found among them, sometimes scandalously so. He brings the extra wine to their weddings and feasts alongside their outcast criminals. While He definitely holds certain ethical standards as important, ultimately His message is more one of redemption and hope for those who believe they are beyond saving.

 

If there are philosophical differences between John, the Pharisees, and, you know, God incarnate, then it shouldn’t be too hard for us to determine whose word we’re supposed to follow more closely. In many ways the handing of the baton from the lawkeepers and prophets to the long-awaited Messiah is a transformation from a theology of fire and brimstone to a theology of grace and joy.

 

But the generation to whom Jesus speaks directly fails to hear and embrace fully the message of either the prophet or the Savior. When John wailed about the misery of the fallen world and demanded repentance, nobody mourned with him. Instead they mistook his ardor for demonic possession and threw him in jail

 

When Jesus celebrated with tax collectors and pronounced God’s glorious blessings upon social wretches, nobody joined Him in joyful dance. Instead they dismissed Him as a glutton and a drunkard. 

 

So when Jesus compares the crowds of Capernaum to wayward children in search of direction it’s not just a moment of judgment. Don’t get me wrong, though, the judgment is definitely there. But He’s also got strong empathy and sadness for them. Just a minute ago He referred to them as “sheep without a shepherd.” Now He invites the lost sheep to take up the yoke of a new shepherd, so that their waywardness may cease.

 

Now remember, the purpose of a yoke is to take two individual animals who might otherwise literally be butting heads with one another and unite them to work for a single purpose that is bigger and more important than either of they are. It seems there could be a message here for these separate factions in ancient Jerusalem who both value the law and the prophets but can’t agree on a way to follow God together. And perhaps that message is still relevant today to a Church that seems to schism into tinier and tinier sects every time we have a minor disagreement. It seems God’s people from time immemorial have a way of letting our little philosophical differences keep us barred from relationship with one another. In doing so, we deny the yoke of Jesus that is made to unite us and to help us with the difficult task of spreading the Good News of salvation to a world full of people who are weary and carrying heavy burdens.

 

It’s time God’s people learn a new rhythm of walking together–of sharing our burdens with our neighbors even when that feels difficult and uncomfortable. This doesn’t mean we cannot be firm about the things we believe or that we can’t challenge each other. It means coming to a recognition that we ultimately have a singular purpose of bringing the light of Christ to the world, and of being the loving and self-sacrificial presence of Christ to everyone we encounter. When we accept that as a common purpose we can work together, learn to communicate with one another despite differing worldviews, and perhaps even learn to make sacrifices that help us all advance together.

 

In taking Christ’s yoke upon us and joining with Him on His earthly mission we get a little taste of the kind of unburdened life He invites us into. A life lived for the sake of others is a Christlike life. And it is one that, while initially countercultural and counterintuitive, adds purpose to our wayward existences. Taking up that yoke shows others the way to Christ, that their burdens and ours may be relieved.

 

Once again, hear these words which are sometimes comforting and sometimes discomforting.

 

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

 

Amen.