Matthew 18:15-22

15 “If your brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If you are listened to, you have regained that one. 16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If that person refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

21 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Thank you for your feedback on our worship experiments!  

A couple of things that several of you told me is that:

1.  You have trouble hearing.  You have trouble hearing people when you can’t see their faces.  The Choir can’t hear anything when they’re up there.  Online folks can’t hear you when you let the mic drift down.  So I’m having DJ turn the sound up, and moving the choir down for the sermon.
2. Most of you like having a discussion time, but hearing is an issue, so we’re going to shift to a talk back with the mics turned up.
3. Several of you asked to try out some different Lord’s Prayers with requests for Native American versions – so we’ll be using the First Nations Version for the month of September.
4. There were some requests for a call to worship, which personally, I don’t understand, because I have a general dislike of group speaking, but it’s not all about me. Several folks also told me to speak the liturgy slower – so I’ll do my best to talk slower!
5. You also said that you really like this exegetical style of preaching where I show you how and why we interpret the Bible.  Which is easier for me to do than trying to choose what to preach on and create a more cohesive narrative structure, so I’m happy to give you what you want!
6. Keep the feedback coming!

As we talked about last week, Context matters!  So what comes before this passage is Jesus talking about the value of children, the importance of not causing children to sin, and one of my favorite passages as a feminist, where Jesus tells us that if itching fingers or wandering eyes causes a person to sin – they had better gouge their eyes out or cut off their hands, rather than claim that their body made them do it.  

Because it’s NEVER about what she was wearing!

But then Jesus pivots to grace and tells the parable of the lost sheep, where we are reminded that from God’s perspective, every single individual matters, no matter how far they have gone astray.

So the context of Matthew 18 is already a complex balance of God demanding justice for the vulnerable and yet holding Grace for those who wander.

Pick any random Jewish Rabbi throughout history and they would say, of course!  That’s just Tsadikah – which is a Hebrew word that means: Righteousness, that holds the complicated intersection of Justice and Mercy.  Because true justice requires compassion for both the victim and the perpetrator.

Afterall, without compassion for the victim, justice could look like consequences for the perpetrator that do not protect the victim from further harm.  And without compassion for the perpetrator justice could look consequences that leave no path forward.

For me, framing the first section of Matthew 18 as a discussion of the concept of righteousness, that is, Tsadikah, is a theological shortcut for naming the context of those seemingly unrelated teachings.

The context being Tsadikah – that is, Righteousness we enter into verse 15 where we find Jesus presenting us with a process for dealing with conflict.  And particularly a conflict where you’re the one who has experienced harm.

Right off the bat I want to name that it’s not fair that Jesus is telling the person who has been harmed to initiate reconciliation.  If life was fair, those who do us harm would be the ones coming to us to apologize for the harm they have done, right?  

I mean, that’s what I try to do.  I usually know when I’ve done harm and that I need to apologize.  And if I’ve done harm publicly, then I need to apologize publicly.

But life is not fair, and often people who do harm are either not very aware of the harm they have done, or they are not actually sorry for the harm they have done.  

So Jesus’ advice for conflict resolution still holds.

If those who have harmed us don’t do the right thing and apologize, as so often happens, then those of us who have been harmed, are left with the option of letting them get away with it, or seeking justice.

So this is Jesus giving us a process for seeking justice with righteousness, that is, Tsadikah.

In verse 15, the language “brother or sister” refers to our siblings in the community of faith.  So we are not being asked to follow this process with unsafe people who do not share our values of justice, grace, forgiveness, compassion and just generally Tsadikah.  This is a process for dealing with people who are our siblings in the Community of the Beloved, not a process for dealing with a Roman soldier who’s about to beat you into submission.  The Roman soldier will not respect the witnesses or the church, so there’s no point in following this process for conflict resolution with someone outside the faith community.

That is important to clarify, because, if for example, a church member is bullying another church member then having a one on one conversation, and then when that doesn’t work, having a conversation with witnesses present, then if that doesn’t work having a conversation with the leadership of the church…

Is very different from, if for example, a child is being bullied at school and expecting them to ask their bully to stop, which doesn’t work, then expecting that child to bringing another friend who is also a child into the conversation who has no power to protect themselves, and then bringing the conversation before the whole classroom full of children who have zero ability to hold the bully accountable.  That’s not righteousness.  That’s just horrible.

So this is an excellent process for use in a community where we have an expectation of Tsadikah – an expectation of both justice and mercy.

But not a recommended process when the community we are appealing to does not share the values of Tsadikah.

Verse 17b – What does it mean to treat someone like a gentile or a tax-collector?

The short answer is: with polite distrust.

Ironically, the Disciple, Matthew, for whom many assume this Gospel was named, was a former tax-collector.

However, the author of Matthew, never claims to be the disciple, Matthew, and the gospel was written after all the original disciples were dead, in about the early 90’s.    

Also, ironically, the Gospel of Matthew is deeply hostile towards “Jews,” (Borg, Evolution of the Word, 213ff)  so naming Gentiles – which just means non-jewish people, as an outgroup alongside of tax-collectors is an interesting choice for the author of Matthew, who frequently refers to “the Jews” as “them,” in a “those people,” kind of way.

Scholars think that the author of Matthew was a Jewish Christian.  So he was big mad at his fellow Jews who didn’t accept Jesus as the Messiah.

So the author of Matthew was basically saying, if people won’t stop doing harm, treat them like outsiders.  Treat them like untrustworthy tax-collectors and people who are ignorant of the Laws of Moses, like Gentiles.

So, treat them with polite distrust.

Verse 18 is super easy to misinterpret if you’re only reading it as literally translated.

The words for bind and loose are accurate, literal translations, but we are missing religious context.  Because those same words were used colloquially, much as we would use the phrase “tie the knot” in English, as a way of saying being bound together in marriage or unbinding the ties of marriage for a divorce. They would say, bind for married, and loose for divorced. (https://biblehub.com/interlinear/matthew/18-18.htm#google_vignette) 

But here’s the important context for this passage from New Testament scholar Mark Allen Powell:  

In order to maintain the careful balance between justice and mercy that Tsadikah requires, 

 “Jewish rabbis ‘bound’ the law when they determined that a commandment was applicable to a particular situation, and they ‘loosed’ the law when they determined that a word of scripture…was not applicable under certain specific circumstances.” 

Powell, Mark Allan. “Binding and Loosing: A Paradigm for Ethical Discernment from the Gospel of Matthew.” Currents in Theology and Mission, vol. 30, no. 6, Dec. 2003, pp. 438–445. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLA0001413618&authtype=cookie,custuid&custid=s1183243&site=eh ost-live&scope=site. 

Let me say that in a less academic way.  Rabbis used a stricter interpretation of the law – that is, they bound the law, when there was a clear violation of justice, and they loosened the law, that is interpreted the law with more flexibility, when more balance between mercy and justice was required.

The idea being that Tsadikah requires us to apply the rules with discernment.

So in verses 18-20 Jesus is instructing the Beloved Community to use discretion in following the Law of Moses.

Jesus demonstrated this loosening of the law when Jesus healed on the Sabbath in Mark 3:1-6 and explained it to the people in the Synagogue in verse 4:

4 Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?”

So basically, the next time some ultra-conservative Christian accuses you of not following the Law by choosing to prioritize Love over legalism – we can tell them that Jesus told us to use our best judgement of when to loosen the law and when to tighten the law, right here in Matthew 18:18-20.  Of course, people stuck in that legalistic mindset don’t usually listen to good theology, but they didn’t listen to Jesus either, so at least we can know that Jesus gave us permission to use discernment with the Law!   

I just learned this on Monday, while researching this passage!  Which makes me wonder if this teaching has been buried because of anti-Semitism.  

The Lectionary Committee ends this reading at verse 20, but I decided to extend it 2 more verses, because I like Peter.  

I relate to Peter in the gospel of Matthew, because Peter is always asking good questions even when they’re stupid questions.  You know what I mean?  

I like to think that if I was alive back then that I would be one of the cool disciples, like John or Mary Magdalene, but reality is that I’m totally a Peter!   If there is an awkward thing to say, I’m going to say it.

And Peter’s question in verse 21 is totally awkward… and totally important.

In theory, every conflict can be resolved with good communication, right?  If we just have an honest conversation the person who has done harm will recognize their mistake and apologize and not do it again, Right?  Right???

It was an awkward thing to say while everybody was talking about the importance of Tsadikah – the importance of justice and mercy working together, but Peter was just speaking the uncomfortable truth.

People don’t always stop doing harm just because we have held them accountable.

Even people who share our faith.

Even people who claim to believe in justice and mercy.

Even people who are members of our local church.

Peter’s got a point.

So how many times do I have to forgive this person for doing harm?

Seven times?

Here’s where we run into another interpretive issue of cultural context.

In Jewish culture, the number 7 has a double meaning.

First of all, the 7th day of creation is the day on which God rested because creation was completed.

So the number 7 has a connotation of completeness.

So I’m not so sure that Peter was saying, should I forgive 7 times.  Perhaps, as  Jewish person, Peter was asking, do I keep forgiving until the conflict is completed or resolved?

So, perhaps Peter was asking: do we just keep doing this Matthew 18 process until the person stops doing harm?  However long that takes???

Jesus response gets us into the second cultural interpretation of the word 7 which is similar to the first.  That 7 was a sacred number of completion, so 7 doesn’t just mean 7 times 70 in the mathematical sense of 490 times.  70 times 7, or 77 times, depending on the translation means we keep forgiving for as long as it takes for forgiveness to be complete.

Which was totally confusing, so the next passage after this is a parable about a person who owes a lot of money, asks for mercy in paying it back and then shows no mercy to others.  So the person who shows no mercy doesn’t get mercy from his creditors either.

Once again bringing us back to the concept of Tsadikah – where justice and mercy must always go together.

So do we forgive people?

Yes, that is merciful.

Do we also hold boundaries with people who do harm?

Yes, that is justice.

Forgiveness does not require us to trust people who harm us repeatedly.

Forgiveness requires us to have compassion for our fellow humans who also make mistakes.

Matthew 16:21-28

21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

27 “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

We’re continuing our worship experiment for one more week.

Please keep the feedback coming!

We will not be breaking into small groups or forcing anyone to talk!

But we will be offering time for discussion.

It’s perfectly OK for you to just listen and hang back during the discussion time – and online folks – you are welcome to just unmute yourselves and chime in at any time!

This is one of those sections of scripture that has so much going on that as a preacher, I usually choose just one thing to focus on.  But since we’re doing a discussion, I’m going to unpack this whole passage piece by piece and let you decide what you want to discuss.

You may want to have your bulletin out to follow along!

Choosing where a passage begins, where it ends and how much of it to use or skip is an interpretive act.  When the Committee who updates the Revised Common Lectionary decided when this passage began and where it ends they made choices about how much context we have for this story.  So a good preacher is always going to look up the passage in the Bible and see what comes before it and what comes after it – rather than just accepting the passage as presented.

So what comes right before this passage is Jesus renaming Simon, to Peter – The Rock upon which the Church will be built, “and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” (Mt 16:18)

So imagine with me for a moment if the Lectionary Committee had chosen Matthew 16:13-23.  The story becomes about Peter having whiplash, the way one minute Jesus is calling him the Rock and the next, Jesus is calling Peter “Satan.”

What Peter isn’t seeing is that Peter being the Leader of the Church only happens after Jesus dies, resurrects, and ascends into Heaven.  Because, how would Peter know that???  It hasn’t happened yet.

So Peter takes Jesus aside and tries to tell Jesus to stop talking nonsense about Jesus being killed.  Because if Jesus wants Peter to be a leader in the Church, then Peter is going to try his best to be a good second in command and that means telling your boss when they’re saying something stupid, right?

But Jesus understands the situation in a way that Peter can’t.

No matter what Jesus says, Peter cannot imagine Jesus not being here, actively leading the movement.  Peter did not sign up for the position of Pope!  And yet, the previous passage, Matthew 16:13-20 is exactly the scripture that the Roman Catholic Church uses to define and defend the role of Pope.  

Which makes total sense if you don’t pair that story with verses 21-23, where Jesus calls Peter, “Satan.”

The word Satan is a borrowed word from the language, Chaldee.  And this word only appears in Greek versions of this text, not in Aramaic versions of this text!  It’s a word that shows up several times in Gospels written in Greek and it means what you think it means.  Some sort of deceptive spiritual being who is an enemy of God.  

But in Aramaic, “Get behind me Satan”  is ‘labasatari satana’

Which was a common phrase used by parents to their sons when their sons were talking like a fool – that is- sharing misinformation because they didn’t know better. https://www.chaimbentorah.com/2023/09/aramaic-word-study-get-thee-behind-me-labasatari/ 

Labesatari which is translated as get behind me – is based on the root word satar, which means to conceal or hide, and satana literally translates as “decever” 

So to translate ‘labasatari satana” into today’s English, Jesus was saying to Peter – “Hide your ignorance, deceiver!”

Or 

Don’t talk like a fool in front of everyone!  Not when I just made you the Leader!!!!

Then Jesus turns back to the whole gathering of the Disciples and addresses the elephant in the room.

Following Jesus is not easy.

Accepting the cross is not easy.

Verse 24: Following Jesus means saying no to doing things the easy way and shouldering the cross of our calling.  Jesus did not take the easy way out.

Verse 25:  If we spend all of our effort trying to preserve our preferred lifestyle it’s not going to work anyway, but if we surrender ourselves to God, we’ll discover a whole new way of living.

Jesus did not try to preserve his life.

Verse 26: It’s really about a choice between the ways of this world and The WAY that leads to Life.

Jesus is explaining to them that 

trying to save his life 

or 

save the nation of Israel 

or 

save their own lifestyles

Is not what matters.

What matters is our praxin – which is the Greek word in the phrase, “repay everyone for what they have praxin,” in verse 27.

“repay everyone for what they have practiced,”

Praxin or Praxis – a word that English borrowed from Greek and that we  pronounce – Practice.

It’s all about the life we chose to practice.

Verse 28 – caused a lot of trouble in the early church, because they thought it meant that Jesus would return within the lifetime of at least some of the Disciples who were there.  Which, of course, Jesus didn’t.

But the next story in the text of Matthew is the story of the Transfiguration – where Peter, James and John get to see Jesus, Moses and Elijah looking all white and shiny in a Mountain top experience.  

Almost as if the author of the gospel of Matthew was hinting that they saw the glory of the Kingdom of God at the Transfiguration, so Jesus wasn’t lying about the disciples being alive for the second coming.  You see,  Matthew was written after all the original disciples were dead…and Jesus still hadn’t come back.

For this reading.  Context and translation matter a lot!

Discussion Questions:

1.  What stood out for you?
2. What mechanism of self-defense do you employ when you are faced with a hard truth you aren’t ready to receive?  Peter’s was to try to stop Jesus from talking about it – so avoidance, what’s yours.
3. Looking at this  from Jesus’ perspective:  Have you ever felt abandoned by your community while doing the right thing? Have you ever abandoned someone else who was doing the right thing?

Hebrews 13:2

2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.

 

Genesis 18:1-5; 10a

The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed down to the ground. 3 He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. 5 Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.”

 

10 Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”

 

Thank you all for your feedback so far!

We will not be breaking into small groups or forcing anyone to talk!

It’s perfectly OK for you to just listen and hang back during the talk back time – and online folks – you are welcome to just unmute yourselves and chime in at any time!

I’m going to start with a story, move into some Bible study, and then we will discuss.

This isn’t my story, so I’m changing the names and story a bit to protect the privacy of the innocent.  This is a true story, and it happened about 30 years ago.

Kay,  I’m going to call her Kay, was being abused by her grandfather whom she and her mother lived with because her mother didn’t make enough to afford their own place.  Kay was 16 years old and had a job at the mall and had been thinking a lot about running away, because she was tired of being abused and tired of her mom not listening, and was tired of worrying about being pregnant — because it was that kind of abuse.

One day on Kay’s lunch break, Kay went outside to eat her sandwich and a stranger – another teenaged girl asked her for money.

Kay didn’t have any more money, but she had bought herself a footlong sandwich, planning on saving the other half for dinner, so she offered the strange girl the other half of her sub sandwich, so the girl sat down to eat it next to her.

And the girl began to talk.  

The girl talked about her own abusive family.

The girl talked about running away and ending up on the streets of Portland as a sex worker. 

Kay told the girl about her own life – her abusive grandfather and Kay’s own thoughts about running away.

And the girl looked her right in the eyes, licked the mayo out of the corner of her mouth and said to Kay, 

“Don’t do what I did.  It’s not better on the streets.  Stay at home, just try not to be there much.  Stay in school.  Graduate, then you can get student loans to help you live.”

Kay told me that she looked for that girl the next day and every time she was at the mall for the next several months, but she never saw her again.  When Kay told me her story, years later, Kay said she had come to think of that girl as an angel sent by God to help her.

Before we step into some discussion, I’d like to give you a little bit of Bible study stuff to consider.

The Greek word ???????? (angelous) in Hebrews 13:2 literally translates as “messangers” – but with a contextual flavor of “spiritual messangers”

And the original Greek does not contain the word “strangers” at all.

Here’s Hebrews 13:2 in its original Greek in an interlinear Bible format:

The English translation is in orange, the Kionia Greek is in black, and the blue links are to the word  study of each word.  Personally, I won’t buy interlinear Bible’s anymore, because it’s so much easier to use the free online ones!  Just google:  the scripture address and interlinear and you get this!  So easy!

Hebrews probably wasn’t written by the apostle Paul.  Origen, who lived in the 200’s said that the author of Hebrews “was known only to God.”  But whomever wrote it did have a thorough grounding in the Hebrew Bible and excellent Greek grammar – better than Paul’s!

I took this verse out of context, which I don’t usually do, because it was written into a “laundry list” of instructions for believers – a whole bunch of pretty much unrelated do’s and don’t, so the context of the verses around it isn’t particularly helpful to understanding this verse.

I instead chose to give you the foundational Jewish context of the understanding of hospitality – the story of Abraham welcoming the strangers who turned out to be messengers from God.  

The English translation in the bulletin pretty carefully follows the original Hebrew text, except in the original Hebrew it reads that YHWH appeared to Abram rather than the LORD – which is the usual translation, because Jewish people do not pronounce the name of the LORD out of respect for God.  So there is no mention of angels, messengers or strangers in Genesis – and yet we know from the Rabbinical tradition that this story is considered the Biblical roots for the requirement of hospitality towards strangers, that is then reinforced in the time of Moses in 

33 ‘And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. 34 The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

I had to use the New King James Version to get the word stranger in this passage, because every other translation – including NIV, which is a very conservative translation  translates garim, hager, ger and all of the other grammatical forms of this word “stranger”  as 

Alien

Foreigner 

or

Sojourner

Wycliff used the old English term, “comeling” which means newcomer

But the general idea is that the concept of welcoming strangers isn’t  just about people you don’t know, but people who are from a different place or from a different country – because God asked the Israelites to remember that they way the Egyptians treated the Jews while they were refugees from famine in Egypt, was not OK.

Let me say that in a less complicated way.

The Jews didn’t have a lot of fun in Egypt, so God said, don’t do to your neighbor, what you don’t want your neighbor to do to you!

Or treat strangers in your land the way you would want to be treated if you were a stranger in a strange land.

Because, when we show hospitality to strangers, sometimes we encounter a message from God.

But hospitality is complicated when we are afraid all the time!

Like when that unhoused person came into the side door of the sanctuary on the 9th, during worship just as we were talking about fear and faith!

Is that literally God interrupting our worship to challenge us to practice our faith through hospitality or was that person a threat?

Questions:

1. So what stands out for you in today’s readings, story and Biblical exegesis?  What would you like to talk about?
2. How is hospitality here and now, different than hospitality was there and then?  What factors go into how we practice hospitality differently now?
3. Have you ever encountered a stranger who said what you needed to hear?

Matthew 14:22-32

22Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.

23And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.  25And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.

26But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear.

27But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

28Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

29He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.

30But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”

31Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

32When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.  33And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Barbara Brown Taylor writes of this moment, “What if Peter had not sunk? What if he had jumped out of the boat with perfect confidence, landed splat with both feet flat on the water and smiled across the waves at Jesus, gliding toward him without a moment’s hesitation? What if the other disciples had followed suit, piling out of the boats after him…It would be a different story. It might even be a better story, but it would not be a story about us.”  

I like this quote because Rev Brown Taylor is pointing out that real people like us are not perfect.  Tom and I went canoeing and swimming in Estacada lake last weekend, and you should have seen me trying to wade out across the slimy rocks to where it was deep enough to swim.  I was all shaky, and sliding, and making all kinds of undignified noises and then there were crawdads in the water, right in front of my toes.  My Toes were naked and afraid!  

Friends – I can barely walk through ankle deep water.  

I totally would have sunk faster than Peter!

And yet, I was taught in Sunday School, and my Sunday school teachers before me and their Sunday School teachers before them — because I promise, I did not have the world’s worst Sunday School teachers!  They just didn’t know better and neither did I until I learned!

But I was taught that Peter was a failure because he sunk.

That Peter’s faith was pathetic.

That Peter was always getting things wrong because Peter was some kind of no-faith Nelly.

But Jesus did not actually say to Peter that his faith was too small.

What Jesus actually said was that Peter’s faith was undeveloped.

Warren Carter, in his commentary, “Matthew and the Margins,” notes that Jesus’ words, “you of little faith” is used a few times in Matthew and “indicates not the absence of any faith, but” an out of shape faith.  A faith that needs exercise, as if courage is a muscle and us as individuals, and as a church community, need to exercise our faith in order to grow it.

Jesus was not telling Peter that he was a failure!

Jesus was telling Peter that his faith needed exercise.

Peter needed to keep climbing out of the boat, again and again and let God show him just how much God can do.

We are living in a time that calls all of us courage. To be intentional about the risks we take. To make sure we are working towards those first steps, 

knowing and accepting we will sink. 

We will fail.

Things will not go as planned.

We will sink.

And, God will catch us.

And what we didn’t plan just might be better.

bell hooks writes of courage and fear in cultures like ours: 

“Cultures of domination rely on the cultivation of fear as a way to ensure obedience. In our society we make much of love and say little about fear. Yet we are all terribly afraid most of the time. As a culture we are obsessed with the notion of safety. Yet we do not question why we live in states of extreme anxiety and dread. Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination.”

What is one thing you are afraid of right now?
What are you doing with that fear”When are you most likely to mistake someone as a threat, a ‘ghost’ coming your way, when they are actually a companion or a spiritual teacher?
What makes the difference between believing God can empower us and work through us and having an over-inflated sense of self or a savior complex?

Matthew 14:13-21

13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

16Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”

17They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”

18And he said, “Bring them here to me.”

19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.

21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Sometimes even I am shocked at how political Jesus was.

When I saw that loaves and fishes was our gospel for today, my first thought was, didn’t I just preach on this?  But no, I in fact have not preached on this text in a little while, it’s just a very familiar story of our faith.

Starting in verse 13 – what Jesus had just heard, is that his cousin John the Baptist had just been beheaded by Herod – not Herod the Great who was king at Jesus’ birth, but the next Herod, who was an even more insecure bully of a leader.

The people of Judea were not happy with the Herod family.  

First of all, the Herod’s weren’t even Jewish, they converted to Judaism in order to take power and then they conspired with Rome to overthrow the last Maccabeans – There’s a couple of books in the appendix of some Bibles called first and second Maccabees that tell the story of Hanukkah – where Judea briefly won home rule after the Persians were defeated by the Greeks.  So that’s the geopolitical context of this story!

So most Judeans were really annoyed that the Herods turned over their country to Roman occupation in order to take power.

It was a custom of the Roman Empire to calm unrest and maintain support of the Emperor by handing out the cura annonae – also known as daily bread – a ration of heavily subsidized or free grain or bread that was given to poor male citizens of Rome (not women or children, just men) – mostly those who lived in the City of Rome and other large cities.  The Emperors also built amphitheaters and colosseums to provide entertainment to keep the people happy.

The Poet Juvenal, sarcastically called this practice, “bread and circuses,” used to distract the common people from the injustice and corruption of the Empire.

Here’s where Bread and Circuses connects with the story of the loaves and fishes…

You might think that the Roman Governor of the area would be providing Bread and Circuses to quell the unrest in Judea, but that wasn’t the case.

Partially because there were not many Roman Citizens in Judea, but also because the whole system of Daily Bread was based on Rome moving agricultural land and fishing rights out of the hands of local people and into the cura annonae – which literally translates to “care of the grain” – cura annonae was a giant logistics system that procured food from the provinces of Rome, like Egypt and Judea and shipped it to the big cities, like Rome and Pompeii.  The cura annonae then taxed and tariffed the local foods in the provinces to pay for the system.  Forcing local fishermen to pay for a Roman license to fish the Sea of Galilee and forcing local farmers to sell out to Roman agribusiness.

Sounds rather familiar doesn’t it… 

So bulk of the grain and fish produced in Judea went not to feed the Judeans who fished and farmed it, but was put on Galleys and shipped to Rome.

So here’s Jesus, out in some rural area whose Daily Bread is being exported to Rome so that poor, lower class, Roman men will blame their problems on non-citizens instead of the Emperor…

Here’s Jesus with a bunch of non-citizen farm workers and fishermen and Jesus decides to feed them fish and bread.

The very food that the Emperor is taking from them.

Daaaaaang, Jesus was more political than I thought!

I was Monday years old, when I learned this by reading a commentary by Nichola Torbett and then going farther down the rabbit hole researching cura annonae.

And there’s a part of me that is deeply annoyed that nobody taught me this before.  Not in Sunday School, not in another Pastor’s sermon, not even in Seminary.

But also, 

it totally makes sense that most people have never heard about the context of cura annonae and how it affected Judea’s fish and bread supply.  

And how this connects to Jesus responding to the hungry crowd of rural folks by giving back to them, their bread and fish, out of God’s Abundance — replacing what Rome had taken from them.  Because it is God who provides us with our daily bread, not Empire.

Which causes me to read that line from the Lord’s Prayer – give us this day our daily bread – in a whole new way!

I can see why most people have never heard of this radical political context for the miracle of the loaves and fishes!

Because these kinds of logistics systems have been going on for a long time and are still happening today.

Where the rich resources of colonized places are being systematically redirected into the hands of the rich and powerful without any semblance of fair compensation.

Did you know that the World Bank and World Trade Organization has currently licensed most of the fishing rights in Africa to European food Processors?

https://qz.com/africa/2092998/who-benefits-from-africas-24-billion-marine-fisheries-industry 

https://story.futureoffood.org/beacons/south-africa/ 

https://www.emerald.com/jitlp/article/24/3/290/1277032 

This is why there are Somali Pirates, like the ones portrayed in the 2013 Tom Hanks movie Captain Phillips.

Because the cura annonae didn’t end with the fall of Rome – now it’s being used to steal fishing rights in Somalia – which turns former fishermen into pirates.

So we don’t hear about Jesus’ stance on the cura annonae in church because those with wealth and power who own these distribution systems don’t like it when the Church starts talking about justice for the poor.

Because it’s hard to become a Billionaire without exploiting workers and creating poverty.

So let’s just pretend that God only cares about sex, gender and a personal relationship with Jesus.

Because if the church awakens to the fact that God has called us to love our neighbors as ourselves – and that our neighbors – our farm worker neighbors, our Somali fisherman neighbors, our Congoleese neighbors – whose wealth of rare metals that are used to make our cell phones are not being fairly compensated for their labor much less the extraction of their natural resources.

If the church awakens to the fact that it is God’s will that all people should have Daily Bread – that, in fact, God has already provided for all people, including the poorest people in the world – it’s just that Billionaries are stealing the food of the poor.

What trouble might the church cause for these Billionaires? 

I’m going to freely admit that I am still processing this new theological understanding.

I don’t have a nice tidy, because Jesus did this, we should do that, answer for you.

I mean, obviously, Jesus fed people in need and so should we.  

And we do.  

I am so grateful to be a part of a church who just decided to create a food pantry for Haven Dinner while I was on vacation.

I am so grateful that y’all have been active in supporting Family Promise, because that is helping to give housing back to people that the housing cura annonae has purposefully made unaffordable for the sake of hedge fund profits.

I’m so proud and grateful that every single one of you has been working on and praying for and sharing about our Affordable Housing project that is taking our small offering of one, old, falling apart, church building and turning it into about 72-ish units of housing and space for Rahab’s Sisters and ourselves to keep doing life-changing ministry in our community.

So please don’t hear this, new to me, theological discovery and think that we are not doing enough to fight the systems of Bread and Circuses that are purposefully designed to distract people from all the injustices of this world — because I think that we are doing A LOT ALREADY!

My point in sharing this with you now is that I wish somebody would have had the courage to share it with me before now.

And I think that the average church goer is smart enough and courageous enough to wrestle with some pretty challenging theology.  And I think that y’all are pretty above average.

So, perhaps you will be better than I am at figuring out what to do with this new idea.  

So here’s what I learned about God this week.

Let’s see where Spirit takes us!

Matthew 13:31-33; 44-46

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

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

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

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

I was raised in an ambitious family, maybe some of you can relate.

My father was a high school science teacher, so he had to take continuing education classes to keep his teaching license current, as many of us do in professional careers, so he quietly earned a Masters Degree over the course of several years of continuing education.  My grandmother was thrilled that he got his masters degree! She really was!  But she immediately started encouraging him to get his PHD.  

My grandmother was very proud of my father.  She herself only had a high school diploma, and the fact that her son went to college at all was something she was soooo proud of, but she was always striving for the next bigger thing.

And I felt this growing up.

My father passed this sense of pressure on to me.

That doing my best was never enough.

The expectation is excellence and anything less may as well be nothing at all.

It wasn’t until I was in Seminary that I heard the phrase, “C’s get degrees,”

and this was a whole new concept for me!

Maybe you totally understand the phrase, “C’s get degrees,” but for me that phrase was mind bending!

I mean, I once got a talking to for getting one A- instead of all straight A’s!

So, in case you also grew up in an ambitious home the concept behind “C’s get degrees” is this:

Once you have your degree, nobody actually looks at your grades.  The requirement for the job is the degree, not the grade point average.  So especially if you are an adult college student with a full time job and a family, your goal is to balance your priorities –  your family, your work, your home, your health, and your degree.  So it’s better to get C’s than to miss out on your children’s childhoods in the pursuit of straight A’s.

Because C’s get degrees and in the end, the degree is the goal, not the grade point average.

I’m still processing this idea that C’s get degrees.  

It’s very new to me.

So I settled for grades in the low 90’s, rather than making sure I did perfect work for the MBA program I’m doing to help us build affordable housing.

Baby steps, for this recovering perfectionist!

Because I’m trying see the value in balance and imperfection reading these parables hit differently for me this week.

I’ve always read these parables of small things –

-A seed,

-The even smaller micro-organism of yeast

-A pearl 

-Buying a whole field to get what is buried in just one small part of it.

I’ve always read these parables of small things with the idea that God can turn something small into something big.

The mustard seed turns into a decent sized bush.

Yeast micro-organisms multiply to make many loaves of sourdough bread.

It’s worth it to sacrifice everything for something greater than ourselves – that is, the pearl and the treasure.

And I think those perspectives are still true.

But this week I’m seeing another side to these parables.

The idea that small things matter.

The idea that sometimes all we have to give is, not much.

Sometimes we feel powerless to help the people we love and all we can do is plant one seed, one mustard grain of hope into their hurting heart and hope that it will take root.

And by the way, mustard seeds are not the smallest seeds out there!

And mustard bushes do not grow into trees.  

There is no mythical middle eastern mustard tree!

Jesus was speaking metaphorically and using exaggeration.

This week I’m seeing in Jesus’ metaphorical exaggeration the idea that a small-ish seed of hope can grow into something that not only saves the life of our loved one, but also grows into our loved one being able to save the lives of others — that other birds can find shelter in what has grown from that seed of hope.

This week, I’m thinking of yeast as one small voice who shouts a message of justice into the void, and one by one other small voices take up the shouts until the halls of power can no longer afford to not listen – because the message of justice has spread like yeast through bread dough of popular thought.

That first voice often feels lost and alone and too small to make a difference for quite some time before the call for justice reaches critical mass.

Sometimes we feel like we have given everything, absolutely everything we have, for a dream that turns out to be mostly dirt.  

Sometimes we feel like we have nothing left to give and we don’t even remember where that so-called treasure is buried.  But it’s still there.  And often, what we thought was the treasure, is really just seed money for what we will do with the field.

And sometimes what matters most is not the whole pearl company.

Sometimes what matters most is one small precious thing.

One person.

One relationship.

One life changed.

One life saved, and restored to wholeness.

Yes.  God can do Great Big Things with whatever small things we have to offer.

But sometimes we need to be reminded that the value of small things is not just in their ability to become bigger.

The small things matter for their own sake.

You matter for your own sake.

God loves us like a mother loves her newborn baby.

Not because the baby is perfect – although all babies are perfect, no matter what.

The mother loves the baby because the baby is hers.

God loves us because we are God’s.

God loves us just because.

Numbers 27:1-11

Then the daughters of Zelophehad came forward. Zelophehad was son of Hepher son of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh, of the clans of Manasseh, son of Joseph. The names of his daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. 2 They stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders, and all the congregation, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, saying, 3 “Our father died in the wilderness; he was not among the congregation of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the congregation of Korah but died for his own sin, and he had no sons. 4 Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers.”

5 Moses brought their case before the Lord. 6 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 7 “The daughters of Zelophehad are right in what they are saying; you shall indeed let them possess an inheritance among their father’s brothers and pass the inheritance of their father on to them. 8 You shall also speak to the Israelites, saying: If a man dies and has no son, then you shall pass his inheritance on to his daughter. 9 If he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. 10 If he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father’s brothers. 11 And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsman of his clan, and he shall possess it. It shall be for the Israelites a statute and ordinance, as the Lord commanded Moses.”

The story we just read, about the daughters of Zelophehad is not one I have preached on before.  It’s a story that is a part of the Camp curriculum at our Methodist camps this year.

A story meant to help students understand that God is with us when we need to advocate for our own justice.  The daughters of Zelophehad advocated for their inheritance and God let Moses know the daughters were right.  So we teach our campers that they should also advocate for themselves because God is a God of justice.

But it’s also a story that has a whole lot of Biblical, theological and Cultural Context!

What happened before this story is that there was a rebellion against Moses that was called “the Congregation of Korah.” So after the rebellion was put down, the families of the rebels were disinherited and cast out from the people of Israel.

Zelophehad was related to Korah, but Zelophehad died in the wilderness before the whole rebellion thing, so his daughters were fighting not just for their inheritance, but for their place in the Israelite community.  As 4 women, where would they go?  Where would their children go?

Back to Egypt?  

And as women they had no right of inheritance under the usual rules of the time,  so if they were cast out, they would be cast out with nothing.  No sheep, no tent, no cart, no clothes but what was in their backs.

Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah were fighting for their lives, their family, and their citizenship.

That’s what’s going on in the story.

There’s also some Biblical context you need to understand – Biblical, as in, understanding how the Bible was written.

Only one part of the Bible was carved in stone by the hand of God.  Any guesses as to what that part is?

The 10 commandments.

Everything else in the Bible was written and edited and edited and copied and copied and translated and translated again and again by people.

The Bible is mostly, except for the 10 commandments, humans talking about their experience of God – what we call oral tradition, then other people writing about what those humans talked about, often several generations later.  There was no eye witnesses news following Moses around!

Nobody was writing this story down as it happened.  Especially stories that are this old.  So think of this like a story told by your Great Aunt about her Grandmother.  It’s mostly true but told from your Auntie’s perspective, not her Great Grandmother’s perspective.

There’s also a theological context in play here.

Then as now people’s religious beliefs and theology are shaped by our culture and the religious beliefs of the surrounding cultures.

A common belief in many religions and cultures at the time was that if something bad happened to you God was probably punishing you.

We see this belief in divine punishment in this story in verse 3 where the daughters are basing their claim to their inheritance on their father having “died for his own sin.”

This is why it is important for us to take the Bible seriously, not literally.

Here’s how I explained this to the kids at camp:

There are things in the Bible that are not correct theology.

We know they are not correct theology because Jesus talked about a lot of these wrong ideas when He was here on earth.

The disciples asked Jesus this question in the gospel of John chapter 9 verse 3, when they saw a blind man.  They asked,

“Who sinned this man or his parents?”

Jesus responded, “neither this man nor his parents sinned.”

Because we believe that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are One God, with one personality, what Jesus says is what God says.

So the idea that Zelophehad “died for his own sin,” is not God’s opinion.  It’s the common belief of the culture they lived in at the time.

This actually happens a lot in the Bible.  Like when Abraham was convinced that God wanted Abraham to sacrifice his son Issac.  Most of the religions in the area practiced child sacrifice and Abraham’s relationship with God was kinda new, so Abraham assumed that God was like all the other gods.  So God has to substitute a ram to talk Abraham out of sacrificing his son.

We deal with this issue today, because people assume that 

our culture is God’s culture,

our values are God’s values, 

our laws are God’s laws.

So just as the people of the Exodus assumed that women could not inherit and Zelophehad died for his sins, 

We also assume that God shares our social norms.

But God’s Mercy and God’s Justice are often much more inclusive and expansive than we are.

God made sure that Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah’s names were remembered, not just Zelophehad’s name.

God convinced Moses that these women mattered at a time when women didn’t matter.

And God made sure that Moses knew the value of women because Moses owed his life to his sister, his mother, her midwives and Pharaoh’s daughter who adopted him.

We were using this story at Camp to teach the campers to be brave and speak out for justice even when it’s not popular and even when people tell you that justice is against the rules.

And I witnessed many beautiful examples of students advocating for one another and for themselves at camp.

One of our autistic campers was really frustrated by the speed at which we were learning the music for the production we put in at the end of the week and shouted,

I don’t know where the *fork* I am in this music!

She didn’t say “fork”

And this is where it’s important to realize that sometimes we play the part of Moses.

Sara, the choir director, who is school choir director and is very good at her job,

Sara didn’t discipline that camper for saying “fork”

Sara instead took a deep breath, and consulted with Spirit – because it’s easy to feel insecure when someone is demanding justice from you.

Because, If they have to demand justice from you, then maybe you did something wrong.  And it doesn’t feel good to have to admit that you might have done harm.

A lot of people would just tell that camper to be quiet and keep rehearsing and they will get it soon enough.

But Sara did a Moses.

Sara consulted with God and then she asked if others were struggling with the song, and a lot of us raised our hands, including me.

So Sara changed her plan of teaching.  Like Moses changed the rules.

Because sometimes we are in the position of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah and we need to advocate for our own justice.

And sometimes we are in the position of Moses and we need to remember that God’s grace also applies to us when we are being unjust.

A deep breath, a pause, a hasty prayer of “Help me Jesus,” is sometimes all we need to ground ourselves in God’s grace.  

God’s grace for the person seeking justice and God’s grace for ourselves when we have made a mistake.

Amos 5:21-24 NRSVUE

I hate, I despise your festivals,

    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

    I will not accept them,

and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals

    I will not look upon.

23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;

    I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

24 But let justice roll down like water

    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

I’ve been telling people lately that I’ve entered my Amos Era.

And I’m using the word “Era” in the same way that Tailor Swift uses the word “Era.”  As a label for the seasons of one’s creative life.

Because Church has always been a creative endeavor for me.

There’s a lot of art in the mid-century-modern-institutional era of Church that has been my whole experience of Church.

The art of architecture.

The art of stained glass.

The art of banner making and worship decorating.

And of course, the art of music.

The line and curve of melody.

The thickness or nakedness of chord structure.

Rhythms that mimic or subvert the spoken word.

And the way you can feel the base line of an organ all the way through your bones when the organist pulls out all the stops on Easter morning.

I worked for 23 years as a Church musician.  

Trying to coax people into letting down their guard enough to listen to God.

And my younger years were in the midst of the Worship Wars.

So churches would hire me to create a “contemporary” service.

To bring in the “younger people.”

I worked hard to create “excellent worship experiences” in both traditional and contemporary styles of worship.

And I typically produced an 11% increase in worship attendance within the first year…but that was usually due to members attending more frequently because worship was better.

But excellent worship does not grow the church if the members don’t invite anyone.

And excellent worship does not retain young families when the children’s and youth ministries are… not good.

And excellent worship does not disciple people into being followers of Jesus.  

In fact, excellent worship runs the risk of creating fans of Jesus who perceive the church as a membership organization that they belong to in order to receive services – like membership in a yacht club.

And when people start to think that the Church exists to provide for their preferences.

They can lose sight of Jesus’ teachings that the Church is a Community of the Beloved whose calling is to love our neighbors as our selves.

So people tried to fix that problem with “Discipleship Systems,”  with catchy names like Alpha, or the Purpose Driven Life.

The idea being that if you require people to take these classes in order to be a member and receive all the “benefits” of membership, then we can turn “consumers” into disciples.  And the church will continue to grow in excellence as well as depth.

There’s even a church growth book called, “Deep and Wide,” purporting to teach you how to attract the masses while also making disciples.

But the problem with ALL of this, is that it reduces individual people – beloved children of God into nickels and noses.

It reduces real lives into numbers on a spread sheet that defines the professional self-worth of a Pastor.

And soon enough preserving those numbers becomes more important than having hard conversations.

Preserving those numbers provokes pastors, who should know better, to preach messages that are more popular than prophetic.

Preserving those numbers creates a power dynamic where the opinions of  those who are rich in this world start to matter more than caring for the “Least of These,” as Jesus described those most in need of care in Matthew 25: 31-46.

The worship wars were never about worship.

The worship wars were about whose preferences should be centered on Sunday morning.

The worship wars were about trying to keep those numbers up.

The worship wars had nothing to do with the practice of neighbor-love.

The worship wars were all about nickels and noses.

It was all about attendance as a measure of success.

But what does it profit the mid-century-modern-institutional-church to have packed 400 people into the church on Sundays in the 1960’s, 

but to have lost the next 2 generations of our children… 

because we prioritized GOING to Church on Sundays, 

instead of BEING the church every day of the week.

What younger people say to me, especially those who were raised in conservative churches who embraced “contemporary” worship,

 is that they associate that style of worship with their church trauma.

Or that they loved the music, because there aren’t many places where people gather to make music together in our culture.

What they have told me is that they turned away from the church because the people who taught them to love their neighbors also told them not to love their gay neighbors their homeless neighbors. Their immigrant neighbors. Their divorced neighbors, their neighbors of color. Basically love your neighbor with a great, big huge asterisk for all the exceptions of people who didn’t deserve to be loved according to them. 

So they stopped going to church because churches were more concerned about the quality of our worship than the quality of our love.

Essentially I  hear young people say:

I hate, I despise your festivals,

    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;

    I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

Because you talk about justice in your churches, but you don’t practice justice.

Which was hard to hear.

So hard to hear.

Because I spent decades of my life crafting worship and discipleship  programs and next gen ministries.

But while the ring of truth can be hard to hear,

 it’s even harder to ignore.

So something began to shift inside of me.

Spirit whispered to me about how I spend my time. 

And excellent worship design takes time and resources and the skills of other people and evaluation to see how the community experienced the experience…

And Spirit began to whisper that maybe my time was better spent working to turn on the faucets of justice than working on creating festival worship and hiring harpists.

But streaming righteousness is not showy work.

Streaming righteousness looks like months of conversations with various departments within Portland Police Department to finally, hopefully help our local police understand that we want them to move our local drug dealers slash pimps out of the Montavilla neighborhood because they are victimizing both unhoused and housed folks in our neighborhood!

Streaming Righteousness looks like our Board sitting down with Nathan and listening to his real experience dealing with unhoused folks on our property and reassuring him that we would rather come to church and see a mess in the parking lot, than put him in harms way by expecting him to evict people from our porch by himself.

Streaming Righteousness looks like y’all deciding to start a food pantry for Haven Dinner folks and any other members of our church who are struggling with the price of groceries right now.

Streaming Righteousness looks like combing through mountains of paperwork line by line by line so that we get this affordable housing project right.

Keeping the rivers of justice and the streams of righteousness flowing all week long means that we are extra grateful to Barton and David and Clarice for keeping worship organized because we need our Sunday gatherings to be a pit stop for our busy weeks full of ministry!

We need to sing together.

To pray together.

To re-ground ourselves in the Word together.

To take communion together.

To drink coffee and eat cookies together.

Because keeping the waters of compassion flowing is hard work.

So I’m in my Amos Era.

Not because I think that worship doesn’t matter for the people of God.

But because worship doesn’t matter the most to God.

Because I don’t think God cares how beautiful our music is.

I think God cares how beautiful our love is.

Music and worship are God’s gifts to us.

Not our gifts to God.

Our gift to God is our whole lives spent trying to love our neighbors.

Worship is God reminding us that we are loved.

And we don’t need harps 

or 200 person audition only choirs, 

or fantastic decor.

Mostly, we need someone who is happy to see us every time we’re here.

Because belonging to a community where you are loved and accepted is the beginning of justice.

Matthew 10:26-39 NRSVUE

26 “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered and nothing secret that will not become known. 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. 28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell (gehenna). 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 And even the hairs of your head are all counted. 31 So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

 

32 “Everyone, therefore, who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

 

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword.

 

35 For I have come to set a man against his father,

and a daughter against her mother,

and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law,

36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

 

37 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

 I told you last Sunday that I only know one thing about being a Christian right now.  That everything I’ve learned about being a Pastor and leading churches for the last 30 years no longer works since COVID.   

If you want to read the whole sermon, it’s on the Church website.

The only one thing that I know is:

My neighbor is the person who needs me to be a neighbor to them.

The person who is lonely, hungry, hopeless and harassed.

Because Jesus  “had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Mt 9:36)

Christ compels me to be a neighbor to the people who need me.

Clearly I cannot be a neighbor in the Biblical sense… in the tale of the Good Samaritan sense, where Jesus asks the young lawyer, who was a neighbor to the man who was left beaten by the roadside.

Quite frankly, there are too many people being left by the roadside right now, for one Pastor, one person, one church to help them all.  

I mean, the last point in time count I saw for SE Portland counted 2000 unhoused folks here in SE.

We can’t help them all.  But we can help the people whom God places in our path.   

And we do.  There’s a reason that I’m willing to go down to part time to stay here at Montavilla United Methodist. Church – you are good neighbors… in the Biblical sense!

But a funny thing happens when you decide to become a good neighbor.

Especially when you decide to become a good neighbor to “the hopeless and the harassed,” as Jesus described them.

The people who are doing the harassing, or benefiting from their hopelessness get mad.  And it’s not fun.

This is what Jesus is talking about in today’s reading.

So last week,  our reading was the story of Jesus sending the Apostles out 2 by 2 on their first mission without Jesus being right there with them.  They don’t know it yet, but Jesus is training them to be the Church without his physical presence.

After the initial directions from last week’s reading, Jesus just keeps talking, and talking, and talking.  And Jesus is STILL talking, still giving them directions… it’s a miracle that they remembered all those directions!  He goes on and on and on…  And Jesus is STILL talking when our reading for today starts with the instruction to have no fear.

And the reason Jesus says to have no fear is because in the previous 2 paragraphs… Jesus really talked A LOT!

…in the previous 2 paragraphs, in Verses 16 through 25, Jesus is telling them that helping the harassed and the hopeless is going to make people MAD.

Big mad.

Family members will turn on one another.

People will get arrested for speaking up for what’s right.

Some people will even be killed…

They’re going to call you names… like “Woke,” or “Demon-crat,” or “fake Christians.”

My Congresswoman, Maxine Dexter, who has attracted attention for trying to exercise her right as a member of congress to inspect ICE detention facilities.  The most common insult that I see for her, is that they call her a “man,” because she’s too busy trying to help people to wear makeup and skirts.

In verse 25 Jesus says, and I’m paraphrasing here…

Jesus says, “They called me Beelzebul, they’re going to call you worse names.”

So, have no fear of them.

Have no fear of them, Jesus?

So Jesus.  

You’re telling me, in Matthew 10, verses 21 and 22, that:

21 Sibling will betray sibling to death and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. (Matt 10:21-22)

So, have no fear.

Now, I have a lot of faith.

But times like these scare me.

I don’t enjoy being called names, but I can handle it.

I’ve got my big girl pants on!

I don’t want to be arrested or killed, but I can’t live with myself, as a person of German ancestry, if I don’t stand up for those being kidnapped off the streets and placed in camps.

So have no fear… that’s a tall order, Jesus.

I can show up afraid.

I can speak up even when my voice shakes.

We’re willing to do things that we don’t know how to do yet, like build affordable housing!  Even though it’s scary.

But having no fear is next level stuff.

And honestly, I think what we fear the most is not arrest or knowing what to do or to say, or even death.

I think what we fear the most is loss of relationships.

I think what we fear the most is being perceived as mean or divisive.

*divisive* is a big word right now.

Because we Methodists are nice!

I used to say in my community organizing work,  “We’re Methodists, we play nice with everybody!”

And we are nice.

We’re nice enough to be kind and compassionate towards those who are harassed and hopeless.

But when we choose to be nice to those who are harassed and hopeless, the people who are doing the harassing, or benefiting from their hopelessness, or think that they will benefit, get mad.  

Even though nobody really benefits from oppression, not even the oppressors, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” as Jesus said in Mark 8:36.

And that brings us to verse 34 of today’s reading.  It’s in the middle of the reading in your bulletin.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.” (Mt 10:34)

But Jesus, we totally think that you came to bring peace on earth and good will towards men!  We sing about that in Christmas carols!

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.” (Mt 10:34)

35 For I have come to set a man against his father,

and a daughter against her mother,

and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law,

36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

I think that this is what we are most afraid of.

This is what we are most afraid of.

Pastors are far more afraid that their congregations will hate them, then we are of being arrested.

Family members are far more afraid of ruining Christmas than we are of being turned in to Department of Homeland Security by our brother-in-law.

We want to keep the peace, because we want peace for ourselves.

We want peace in our families, peace in our neighborhoods, peace in our churches, peace in our country.

But peace that is bought at the cost of turning a blind eye to suffering is not peace.

Protecting our lives and our lifestyle at the cost of the lives and living conditions of the very people whom Jesus commanded us to care for – the least of these – the immigrant (because the word translated as stranger means a person not of your country),  The least of these whom Jesus says we are to care for as if they are HIM are:

• The hungry and thirsty
• Immigrants
• Those in need of clothing
• The sick
• And the imprisoned.

According to Matthew 25:35-36

And the intent of that list is obviously that the Least of These are whomever is harassed and hopeless under whatever administration happens to be in power at the time.

So Christ also calls us to care about:

• Autistic people
• Trans people
• Pregnant people
• Farmers
• Unhoused people

And the list of those suffering right now goes on and on

And as I’ve said several times already.

When we care.  When we do something to help.

When we follow Jesus.

The people doing the harassing or who think they benefit from the hopelessness of the Least of These, get mad.

And the opinions of some of those people matter to us.  A lot.

Take a look at verse 37 – 39.

37 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

This is hard folks.

This teaching is just plain hard.

But Jesus calls us to be divisive.

But, not out of hate for those whom we disagree with.

Jesus calls us to be divisive out of love for those who are harassed and hopeless.

Jesus calls us to love God and love whatever neighbors God puts in front of us to love, even when people call us names.

But don’t be distracted by their hate.

And when we get distracted, because we will get distracted, because it sucks when people we love, who claim to be fellow Christians, are calling us names.

Remember that the cross that Jesus asks us to take up is love.

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  (Matt 11:28-30)

That’s in the next chapter.

So we’ll stop here for today.

Matthew 9:35 – 10:8 NRSVUE

35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

 

10 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

 

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

I heard y’all had a wonderful service led by United Women in Faith last week!  I was at Adult Renewal Retreat at Camp Magruder with 13 people from Haven Dinner!  The first year we had 5, last year we had 9, this year 13, and there are 8 other people who are regularly involved in Haven Dinner who weren’t at the retreat and one of the people we met at camp wants to join us, so  Haven has grown from about 5 to about 22 people in 3 years.

In a time when most churches are declining, we can say the harvest is plentiful in Haven Dinner.  But the harvest doesn’t look like it used to.

On Saturday night at camp, while watching the sun set, Troy, the Camp Manager, and I were talking about our common problem as church leaders.

We do what we do because Jesus has inspired in us compassion for the crowds because people are harassed and helpless.  People are in need of a community where they are safe and accepted.  A community they can turn to when they need a friend.  A community that gives them the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than themselves, where they can do some good while experiencing belonging.

If only there were some kind of group… 

a group of people who gather on a regular basis… 

Like some kind of…. Church…

The problem, as Troy and I discussed, is not that we need to create these communities from scratch, or build sacred places set aside for the intentional practice of Beloved Community in nature… some kind of Church Camp, maybe….

The Problem is not that we don’t have good Churches and Good Church Camps.

The problem is that people don’t know that our Churches and Church camps are good.

And by good, I do not mean that we are perfect, or that we never do harm.  I mean that we are intentionally trying to do no harm and do all the good we can.

People don’t know that our churches and camps are good because other churches and even our past selves have done harm.

I asked permission to share this story.

This is a true story.  This is Torben’s story.

Torben was raised in a conservative branch of the church.

And Torben is autistic.  

Not the, I’m a little socially awkward kind of autistic.  

The, it took a long time to learn how to talk kind of autism.

The, very literal thinking kind of autism.

There are good things about growing up in the conservative church.

Like there are very clear directions on what you are allowed to do and what you are not allowed to do and clarity is kindness when you’re autistic!

And you belong to a community who is required to be nice to you, even when you’re a little different.

And there are bad things.

Like punishing teenagers with 2 days in isolation at camp because they kissed another teen.

Torben felt shunned and rejected for the rest of the week at camp after those 2 days.

But the main event of that camp was the dramatic enactment of the end times. 

The kids were told that in the end times, which they were taught were coming soon, so they needed to be prepared!

In the end times, it would become illegal to be Christian so they needed to practice hiding from the government.

So the church paid some police friends of theirs to come at night, wearing their uniforms and tactical gear, and bang on the doors and shine their flashlights in the windows and pretend to be searching for Christians.

Riding right past that ethics violation…

The camp leaders had taught the children to hide and be silent while being searched for by the government during the Tribulation part of the end times.

Also, riding right past the fact that there is no prophecy of a Tribulation of the end times in the Bible.

This was what church was like for young Torben.

A place where you were told that you were a part of the right group and everyone else was evil.

Torben thought this whole thing didn’t seem right, but, if they said anything they’d end up in solitary confinement again, so they didn’t say anything.

And the church told them again and again, and again, that if they ever left the church the devil was coming for them.

So when Torben left the church in their teen years,  everyone they knew turned their back on them.  Their church friends weren’t their friends anymore.

Friendless, and with time on their hands, Torben was recruited to be a drug mule.  Torben didn’t know they were a drug mule.  They just knew that a guy paid them really good money to deliver packages across town.  When the FBI picked them up in a drug sting, Torben genuinely didn’t know they were doing anything wrong, because they were autistic and just following directions.  So the FBI told them to not go back to work right before the big drug bust.

So Torben concluded that everything the church told them was right.  Torben had left the church and therefore Satan had gotten them into drug running.  And now they were evil and there was no help for it.

Which led to substance abuse and some more bad situations.  But God placed some helpers in Torben’s path.  I would say God, because I believe in prevenient grace, but that’s not quite how Torben would say it.  Torben would say that they got long COVID which permanently damaged their heart, and in the process of getting the help they needed to be physically healthier,Torben also got emotionally healthier, and learned how to be a peer support person.

And one of those helpers, invited Torben to Haven Dinner.

And we all encouraged Torben to go to camp with us.

And at the end of the week, Torben shared in the gratitude circle that they hadn’t needed to take their short acting anti-anxiety medications all weekend and they were shocked because they didn’t realize that church camp could be a safe place.   

Before Haven Dinner, before Montavilla United Methodist,

They didn’t realize that a church could be a safe place.

The harvest is plentiful!

But the workers don’t know what to do!

Because, as Troy put it,  everything we were taught about how to run a camp or a church doesn’t work anymore.

Not since COVID. 

I’ve read the church growth books.  How to organize your systems and volunteers and staff and overcome the problems created by fast growth.

I’ve designed successful children’s and youth ministries that had children dragging their parents to church because they didn’t want to miss Sunday school.

Back when I was a church musician, I could confidently state that I would increase worship attendance by 11% in my first year, because I did that in every church I worked in.

Now, I only know one thing.

My neighbor is the person who needs me to be a neighbor to them.

The person who is lonely, hungry, hopeless and harassed.

Look at our scripture for today – the last paragraph, starting with verse 5.

Jesus tells them to start easy by starting with their own neighborhoods.

Jesus tells them, don’t try to talk to the people you already know don’t want to talk to you.  Don’t talk to the gentiles — which meant the non-Jewish people – the Greeks and the Romans or the Samaritans who were the former Northern Israelites.  Jesus went north and talked with the Samaritans and the Syrophoenician woman.  God likes to save the hard jobs for Godself!  Then later, God sent Paul.

Verse 7 – and as you go proclaim the good news.  And help people. For free.

 Now, I don’t usually begin Haven Dinner by saying, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

I’m also not a doctor and to my knowledge I have not cast out any demons or raised the dead…. Lately.

But I can tell you this.

Several months ago we had a bunch of Havenites who were out of work so we had a lot of resume writing and job applying sessions.  And the Mission Team shelled out less than $100 so that several people could take the online bartending class and exam for $11 each.

Now everyone has a job who was a part of that group.

Only one of them is bartending – as a side gig in the evenings.

But you choosing to believe in them made a difference.

You, Choosing to invest in them made a difference.

Knowing that they have a community – a church – who cares about them enough to take an $11 risk on them in an economy where a good burrito costs $12.

That *shows* them that the Kingdom of Heaven is here.

That you allow the camp scholarships that you created in days in plenty to be used to pay for them to experience the goodness of Camp Magruder.

That shows them that the Kingdom of Heaven is here.

That in a time when this church is struggling financially – we’ll talk about that more in next week’s Town Hall meeting – that you are still choosing to prioritize Haven Dinner and Family Promise and the Sewists Collective – ministries that bring in no money – yet you are choosing to prioritize them, because these ministries are changing lives.

Did you know that 16 people attend the sewists gatherings?

This is why we are experiencing an unusual harvest.

An unusual harvest that doesn’t look like church used to look –

An unusual harvest that doesn’t fill the pews on Sunday morning.

An unusual harvest that proclaims that the Kingdom of God is here 

with more than words.

The harvest is plentiful,

And there aren’t a whole lot of us, and we don’t really know what we’re doing.

But we are bringing in an unusual harvest of crafters and Queers… the kind of outcasts and oddballs that Jesus hung out with.

The kingdom of God is here.

And we’re a part of it.

Amen.