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.

Matthew 28:16-20 NRSVUE

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This is one of the most selectively interpreted passages in the whole Bible.

You can pretty much identify what kind of Christian someone is by which parts of these 2 verses they emphasize.

There are the people who emphasize going to all nations, often white people, who think their job is to conquer the world with Western Christianity.  Colonialism has done a lot of harm in a lot of places.  Like it’s basically the fault of Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries that LGBTQ+ folks are demonized in colonized places, like much of Africa.  White missionaries taught that all of the indigenous religions were “Devil Worship and Demonic,” and since Queer folks are often drawn to religious life,  the Queer clergy of those indigenous religions became associated with “Devil worship,” so now in many colonized places, being LGBTQ+ is considered demonic.  Despite the fact that there have been Queer Clergy in Christianity since the beginning!  

But there’s also good things about going to all nations.  In places like Tonga, South Korea and Cambodia,  organizations like United Methodist Women introduced Feminism into those very patriarchal cultures.  Feminism being the very simple idea that women are equal in the eyes of God.

There are baptists, whose focus is on baptizing everyone.  “Getem’ wet and getem’ saved!”  To which I would annoyingly counter to my Lutheran friends, that if the goal is merely baptism, then why not create “Operation Baptismal Font.”

Load up a bunch of bomber aircraft with tanks of Holy Water and hose down the whole Earth while playing the baptismal liturgy on loudspeaker.  “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!  A-men!”

Of course, baptizing people without their consent is religious abuse, so I would never actually recommend “Operation Baptismal Font”…although infant baptism is, precisely, baptizing people without their consent.  We are substituting the parent’s consent for the child’s consent, which is why we follow it up with Confirmation, so that young people can make their own commitment when they are old enough to decide for themselves.

Baptizing people, with consent, and confirmation are a good thing, but it’s the beginning of our membership in the church, not the end all and be all of our faith.  Baptism is something, it isn’t everything.

And then there’s the names in which we Baptize people into the church.

We Methodists like all of orthodox, Appostolic, Christianity  are Trinitarians, so we baptize in the names of the Trinity. The World Council of Churches says that I MUST Baptize in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or they will kick us Methodists out of the Council of Churches.  But this kind of exclusively male language for God leaves out the rest of the Biblical Witness where God also describes Godself as, 

• El Shadai, which translates to – The Many Breasted One
• A Mother Hen who gathers her chicks under her wings
• And the Tetragammanon –  Yahweh – which is an abbreviation for 
• “I Am Who I Am”

Father was meant to convey a familial relationship, not to identify God’s gender as exclusively male.

God uses, male, female and ungendered descriptions for Godself, so I think the most accurate pronouns for God are They/Them or God/Godself, which is why we use “Our Creator” instead of “Our Father” in worship.  And I typically Baptize people in the name of Creator, Christ and Spirit.

But once again – which parts people emphasize or de-emphasize tells you a lot about what kind of Christian they are.

There are those who focus on teaching them to obey.  

We often see this in “high-control” forms of Christianity.  

Like Complementarianism – that’s the official term for versions of Christianity that believe that women are subservient to men.

They’re they ones who LOVE quoting Ephesians 5:22-24

22 Wives, obey your husbands as you obey the Lord.

23 The husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the church people. The church is his body and he saved it.

24 Wives should obey their husbands in everything, just as the church people obey Christ.

First of all, Paul was kinda dead when Ephesians was written in about 90 or 100 AD.  So the Paul who wrote letters to the women whom he left in charge of the Christ Communities that he founded, obviously didn’t write the book of Ephesians.  So this passage is quite different from the mutuality that the authentic Paul wrote about in Galatians 3:28 and 1 Corinthians 7.  

Ephesians chapters 5 and 6, including the instruction that slaves should obey their masters (Ep 6:5-8), are not the teachings of the authentic Paul, but the household codes of behavior in First Century Roman Culture.

These hierarchical teachings are the result of A beleaguered church deciding to “go along, to get along,” within Roman culture.  Showing us, that from the beginning, Christians sought ways to temper the radicalness of Jesus’ message in order to survive in the world.

And yet, Ephesians also contains chapter 4 verse 12, my favorite Biblical basis for my job description as a Pastor – to “equip the saints for the work of ministry.”

So we don’t want to throw this baby epistle out with the bath water, but there’s a lot of bathwater in the book of Ephesians.

So those of us who question high control forms of Christianity, then ask, obey what?  A small group of insecure men?  No!

We are to obey EVERYTHING that Jesus (because Jesus is the one speaking in this passage!) …

We are to obey EVERYTHING that JESUS commanded us.

Which, If you were here last week, or the past few weeks, as I preached my way through the last part of the Gospel of John you might remember that Jesus said in John 13:34, “I give you a new commandment…that you LOVE one another.

Or as Jesus put it in Matthew 22 and Mark 12,  Love God and Love your neighbor – All the Law and the Prophets are summed up in these two commandments.

Which can be summed up in one word.  LOVE

We are supposed to disciple people into Jesus’ Way of Love.

And that’s hard.

Because, have you met people?

So some Christians put the emphasis on remembering that God is with us always.

As it says in Romans 8:38-39

38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

And on those days that are really no good, awful, kinds of days, Romans 8:38-39 is a wonderful verse to remember.

And there are Christians who put their focus on, “to the end of the age.”

The people who are eagerly awaiting the return of the Messiah.

This can be a fear inducing, harmful, cult of doomsday preppers.

The people who are preparing for the tribulation and the rapture – which are not  Biblical things!

Or this can be people who are focused on following Jesus with intensity.

People who are trying to live as if today is their last day and they may face God tomorrow.  So they do their best to love God and love their neighbors – which is Biblical.

But the reason that I titled this sermon, Everything, is because I think we need to read this passage as a whole and take everything in this passage seriously.

The Greek that gets translated as “go therefore” actually reads closer to

As you go about your life, disciple people.  

People of all nations, not just fellow Jews, not just fellow Americans, not just fellow middle class white people, not just bible studies for church people…

…we are called to disciple all the people.

We are also called to baptize the people we disciple into the family of God, the church, the Beloved Community, The Way.  Jesus called it The Way.  It doesn’t really matter what we call it – the idea is that Baptism is a right of initiation – a ritual where we consent to letting Spirit mess with our lives.

And we baptize in the names of the Triune God – none of which are expansive enough to fully contain the expansive identity of God!

And we are obligated to teach or disciple (same thing) teach those who have consented to join the movement to obey EVERYTHING that JESUS commanded us – which can pretty much be summed up as love.

And because loving one another, not just our favorite people, but all people is hard — I mean, you’ve met people.  Sometimes we are a delight and sometimes …not so much.

Because the rule of love is hard, 

We need to remember that the Great I Am is with us always, all the way to the end – whatever that means.

Because, seriously, any theologian who thinks they can tell you exactly what the end will be is trying to sell you something.

 And this is Methodism.

To fully embrace both the Great Commission – as people often refer to this verse, and the Great Commandment of Love.

Not to Cherry Pick which parts we like and which parts we don’t.

Because, let’s be real, us Progressive Methodists love to love our neighbors, but we are afraid, yes I said it, we are afraid, to make new disciples. 

But as we talked about last week – In Acts chapter 2:43-47,  “day by day, God added to their number those who were being saved,”  because day by day” the people gathered together with “glad and generous hearts,” to love their neighbors by sharing food and meeting people’s needs.

And friends – I am not kidding, when I say that every single time Haven Dinner meets to share food and share our joys and concerns, God is adding another new person!

We make disciples by obeying what Jesus commanded us to do – which is to love our neighbors.

There is no separation between the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.

The Great Commandment is right there in the Great Commission – in the part where Jesus tells us to obey everything that Jesus commanded us.

As the Mandalorian would say,  This is the Way.

Love is the Way.

So…

As you go about your life, wherever you are, whomever you are with, make disciples by obeying the commandment of love, whom we can then Baptize into the Way of God, and teach to obey what Jesus taught us – which is Love, and it’s not going to be easy, so remember, God is with us, always, to the very end.

Acts 2: 1-4, 14-21, 43-47 NRSVUE

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Fellow Jews and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

17 ‘In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

    and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

    and your old men shall dream dreams.

18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

    in those days I will pour out my Spirit,

        and they shall prophesy.

19 And I will show portents in the heaven above

    and signs on the earth below,

        blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

20 The sun shall be turned to darkness

    and the moon to blood,

        before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

43 Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Happy Birthday, Church!  Today is Pentecost Sunday!

Pentecost is actually a Jewish holy day – a celebration of the 5 books of the Law – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – hence the Greek work for 5 – “Pente.”

Which is why Peter and the other disciples end up standing in the courtyard of the Temple and preaching to people in their own languages – they went to celebrate Pentecost and Spirit did a thing!

And it was a pretty spectacular thing!  Tongues of flame and a sound like a rushing wind and people speaking in languages that they didn’t know!

This is the event that Pentecostals – most of whom are descendants of the Methodist Movement through the holiness side of the Methodist family – take their name.  The foundational idea behind Pentecostalism being that Spirit is literally still speaking through people.

Pentecost has a very supernatural, spectacular feel to it, so in celebrating this holy day, we often pull out all the stops with bird, or fire, or wind, or butterfly themed decorations!  

Reading the scripture in multiple languages.

Children making flame hats out of construction paper and flame wands out of crepe paper streamers.

Turning on a BIG Fan to recreate a sound like a rushing wind.

I even did a balloon drop in one large church where I worked!

Red, orange and yellow balloons hoisted into the ceiling beams with ropes that when pulled, released the balloons onto people’s heads.

Because it’s fun.

Because we’re trying to teach the story.

But also because we seem to forget that the miraculous spectacle of the day is not the important part of the story.

I’m about to share with you an idea that totally changed how I read scripture.

Totally changed how I read scripture.

Are you ready?

In the pre-scientific era in which ALL of the Bible was written – miracles were used as proof that the teaching was legitimate.

For example in 1 Kings chapter 18, the Prophet Elijah wants King Ahab to listen to him talk about God instead of the prophets of Baal, talking about Baal, so he challenges the Priests of Baal to a miracle competition.  The challenge was:

Build an altar, 

put an animal sacrifice in it, and 

light the fire using only prayer!

It’s like a reality TV Survivor competition – make fire using no matches — using nothing but prayer!

Of course the priests of Baal fail to pray down fire, because science.

Then Elijah ups the game and has the whole thing drenched in water, says one little prayer and fire falls from heaven and burns the whole altar, even the stones, to ash.

Not science!

The Miracle proved that the message was worth listening to.

They accepted the message on faith because the miracle was convincing.

Then:  The Miracle validates the Message

Now:  The Message validates the Miracle

This is almost totally the opposite of how we think now.

We hear these stories of fire descending from heaven, or the Red Sea parting, or Jesus feeding the 5000, and we think —

The message is good, so I’m willing to listen to the miracle.

The Message proves that the miracle is worth considering.

Then, they accepted the message on faith because the miracle was convincing.

Now, we accept the miracle on faith because the message is convincing.

So if you’ve ever wondered why there are so many miracles in the Bible, which we find difficult to deal with today, this is why.

*Most* of humanity’s world view has done a complete 180 regarding miracles and messages.

But as Christians we are grounded in these stories that contain miracles, so we get caught up in trying to justify the miracles!

So we often spend Pentecost trying to re-enact miracles with crepe paper and balloons…which just makes the miracles seem even more ridiculous…

When what we should be doing is focusing on the message of Pentecost.

So we’re going to skip all the way down to verse 43!

43 Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 

Which says what I just explained in much fewer words!  People were impressed with the miracles so they were then willing to listen to the apostles.

And because the apostles taught the people what Jesus had taught them…

Look at verse 44

All these people who believed in what was being taught started sharing all things in common;  even selling their stuff and sharing the cash with everyone, so that everyone’s needs were met.

Woofff!  

Selling everything they had and giving it away to anyone who had needs!

Theologians have tried to explain this away 9 ways from Sunday.

Saying that was just a Pentecost thing.

Or that’s an exaggeration.

Or they only shared things with members.

Probably the most theologically legitimate explanation for the Radical Share Economy of the post- Pentecost Church is that they all thought that Jesus was coming right back, so they thought that nobody really needed to work or own anything – but pretty soon they realized that sharing everything with everyone wasn’t practical because some people’s needs were being over-met and others were still in need…. Which is kind of true… They did think Jesus would be right back, and they did appoint Deacons to manage meeting people’s needs in a more organized and responsible way.

But I think the most overlooked theological point is that the Church at Pentecost enacted the Year of the Lord’s Favor – the Year of Jubilee as a grass roots action of radical generosity.

Where those who had more than enough sold their possessions and redistributed their wealth to those who didn’t have enough – they were doing what the government of Israel should have been doing every 50 years according to Leviticus chapter 25.

And this is such a radical teaching – just as radical then, as it is now – that this story needed a really spectacular miracle to validate the sheer audacity of choosing generosity in a world that is centered on greed.

The real message of the story of Pentecost.

The real good news of this miraculous story is not wind, and languages and tongues of flame.

The real good news is that day by day – this is in verse 46 – day by day, they broke bread in their homes and shared food together with glad and generous hearts. 

And, BECAUSE day by day, they gathered in homes and at the Temple with glad and generous hearts…they earned the goodwill of all the people.

And day by day, God added to their numbers, those who were finding healing and wholeness.

I say, healing and wholeness, because sozoh – the Greek work that is translated as “saved”  means healing and holistic wellness – in body, mind and spirit.  Having enough to pay the bills and put food on the table goes a long way towards physical healing and wholeness.

And day by day, God added to their numbers, those who were finding healing and wholeness.

Not because of wind and fire, but because of glad and generous hearts.

Church, in our Board meeting last Sunday, we discussed an article with some pretty serious statistics from Pacific Northwest Annual Conference, our neighbors to the North in the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area

In the past 10 years, PNW Annual Conference – that’s Washington State and Northern Idaho – 

• has shrunk from 236 churches to 187 churches – that’s a loss of 49 churches.
• The One Corporate Sized Church – that’s 500+ shrunk down to a Program size church – that’s 150- 500
• 13 churches shrunk from Program sized to Pastoral sized- that’s 50- 150 members
• There are about half as many Pastoral sized churches – that’s 50-150 in members
• And there are more Family sized churches, but only because about half the previously Pastoral sized churches now have 50 or less members.  
• Of those 119 family-sized congregations, 98 average fewer than 35 in worship 

And I share this not to say, Oh No!  The sky is falling! The Church is dying!

I share this to say, we are not alone.

Montavilla is not the only church who used to be Program sized, moved to Pastoral sized, and now is Family sized, with an average of fewer than 35 in worship.

We’re not alone.

We’re not less good at doing church than other churches.

We’re not “doing it wrong.”

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the midst of what historians call an Epochal Change.

Like we’re standing at the edge of the end of one Epic and the beginning of another age in history.

And so were the Disciples on Pentecost.

The Disciples didn’t know what they were doing!

Until the day of Pentecost, they were HIDING IN THE UPPER ROOM!

They were so scared and bewildered after Jesus’ death and resurrection that they had no idea what to do.

They were standing at the edge of the end of what Historians now call the End of Antiquity and the Beginning of the Common Era!

They didn’t know what they were doing, they just did what they knew.

They went to the Temple to celebrate the Festival of the 5 books of the Torah and Spirit showed up.

They didn’t know what to do next, so they just did what Jesus did with them.

They hung out, they ate, they talked about what it means to really follow God – then they went out and did it – by practicing neighbor love with glad and generous hearts.

They practiced Radical Hospitality, without any intention of being radical.

They were just doing with others what Jesus had done with them.

Church, this Pentecost, I believe we are standing at the edge of the end of the Common Era and the Beginning of… I don’t know what the Historians will call this!

And I don’t know what to do to save the institutional church.

I’m not actually convinced that we’re even supposed to save the institutional church.

Temple Judaism was holy and God let it come to an end, but the Jewish faith went on.

The Holy Roman Empire was… a thing, and God let it come to an end, but our faith went on in new forms..

Mid-century-modern Institutional Church is coming to an end, but our faith – Christianity is moving on to new forms.

But at the center of all these movements are the teachings of God.

The practice of hospitality.

The practice of compassion and care.

The practice of neighbor-love.

The practice of day by day, gathering in homes and churches with glad and generous hearts, and day by day, God added to their numbers.

So that’s what we’re doing, and it’s working.

I know that it doesn’t look like it’s working on Sunday, but day by day, as we gather with Haven Dinner on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays, God is adding new people to Haven every single month!

Since last summer God has added 9 more people to Haven Dinner, and we’ve got our biggest group ever heading to Camp Magruder Adult Renewal Retreat the first weekend in June, and we’re picking up a completely random person who registered for camp and needs a ride!

Since last summer, God has added new people to the Sewists Collective every month — they now have 3 gatherings a month – a day time gathering, an evening gathering and a knitting circle.  There’s even a young man who’s a committed Sewist!

Day by day – I see you bringing donations to the Haven Dinner pantry, gathering household items for people who need something, and dropping stuff off for Rahab’s Sisters with glad and generous hearts.

And day by day, even in our old fashioned mid-century-modern Sunday worship, God is adding to our numbers.  Thanks be to God, we’ve got some new friends.

So happy birthday, Church!

I don’t know what we’re going to look like next year, much less 100 years from now, but I do know this.

The future begins with glad and generous hearts.

We know how to do that!

John 14:5-21 NRSVUE

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

 

18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

For the Past 3 weeks we’ve been working our way through readings from the gospel of John learning that:

• When the Gospel of John blames “the Jews” – this is not an endorsement of anti-semitism — it’s an argument between Jewish Christians and Jews – an argument between siblings
• Creator, Christ and Spirit all have the same personality – so there is no Angry Father God.

If you want to read those sermons they’re on the church website Montavillaumchurch.org 

Today we’re dealing with one more horrible interpretation of the gospel of John.  The idea that love equals obedience.

The idea that love equals obedience, has been used to justify the oppression of many people by the church.

It was used to justify the oppression of people who were enslaved.

It has been used to justify harsh parenting.

It is still used in certain sects of conservative Christianity to justify the oppression of women.

The idea being that if we are “good Christians” who love God, then we must be obedient to all the commandments of God.  Which is fine 

 But in fundamentalist branches of the faith, what those commandments are is interpreted by people who love power not God.

Those advocating for slavery said that if you love God you will obey your earthly masters.

Those advocating for child abuse say that if you love God you will obey your parents – and if you don’t then we’re required to discipline you harshly to save your soul.

Those advocating for the subjugation of women say that if you love God you will obey your husband, your Pastor and all other male authorities…

And when clergywomen and other Progressive clergy say, that’s not biblical they will say:

But It’s right there in verse 15:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Yes….but this passage is part of a whole conversation that starts in chapter 13 at the footwashing and last supper of Maundy Thursday and the only commandment that Jesus gave them was John 13:34-35:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. 

The Commandment is LOVE.

And you might, reasonably, ask – but it says commandments, plural, not commandment, singular.

Absolutely!  

And in Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus says that all the Law and the Prophets come down to LOVE – Love God and love your neighbor.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

Love is obedience to the commandments.

Oppression is not love.

Slavery is not loving our neighbors or loving God – whether we are talking about America’s original sin of the generational enslavement of African Americans, or the modern slavery that still happens today in the forms of the new Jim Crow, sexual trafficking and labor trafficking… ask any United Woman in Faith and she’ll explain modern slavery to you!

Child abuse is not loving our neighbors or loving God – whether we are talking about high control parenting that is advocated for by ultra-conservative Christian groups, or just plan assault pretending to be discipline- that’s not compatible with the Christian teaching of love.

Oppression of women is not love – trying to remove our voting rights, our reproductive rights, silencing the voices of victims of assault, unequal pay for equal work, and the idea so prevalent in some ultra-conservative Christian spaces that women are to be subservient to men – that’s not love.

Love looks like justice.

Love looks like fairness.

Love looks like compassion.

Love looks like safety.

Love looks like respect.

Love looks like being listened to.

Love looks like the free will that God created us to have.

What else does love look like to you?

As a part of the United Women in Faith Mother’s Day celebration, we’ve collected some thoughts on the women in our lives who showed us love.  

John 14:1-14 NRSVUE

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

You can follow along in your bulletin…

Verse 1 – “Do not let your hearts be troubled”

I’m already troubled, but I believe in God and Jesus and Spirit, so here I am… But I’m troubled about the Gospel of John.

As I mentioned last week – the Gospel of John is not my favorite Gospel because of the way it has been used to justify anti-semitism, and certain very narrow, exclusionary interpretations of Christianity.

But what Jesus was telling the Disciples to not be troubled about was his crucifixion.  

In John chapter 13, right before today’s passage in chapter 14, it’s Maundy Thursday.  We call it Maundy, in Christian tradition, because in John 13:24 Jesus says, “I give you a new mandatum – mandatum is Latin for Commandment… “I give you a new mandatum, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Maundy Thursday is a nick-name for Mandatum Thursday – Commandment Thursday.  And the commandment is LOVE.

So why are they disturbed?

Love is a good thing, right?

Well, Jesus is giving them last instructions after telling them that he’s about to be arrested and crucified, betrayed and denied.  So they’re a little shook.  Here’s what happened.

Jesus washed their feet and Peter got very dramatic about the whole thing.

Then, Jesus told them that one of them was going to betray him.

Which would get him killed.

So Jesus gave them a new mandatum – a new command to love one another.

After which Peter is like, wait, no, you’re going where?  I’m coming with you!

And Jesus is like – bruh – you’re not going to follow me, you’re going to deny me 3 times before the roosters wake up.

So, justifiably so, they were feeling more than a little troubled!

So Jesus tells them, in verse 1, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.  Just Believe in God and believe in me.

And since Jesus has just told everyone that they can’t go where Jesus is going, Jesus reassures them that there will be a place for them in the house of God.

By this time the disciples are sooo confused.

Like, where is Jesus going?

Why can’t we come?

What house?

What do you mean not even Peter can come? 

So Thomas, 

I like Thomas, he’s not afraid to ask the questions that everyone is thinking.

So Thomas, asks in verse 5, So… where are you going, so we can catch up to you?

And maybe because the authors of John are kinda extra, or maybe because Jesus is definitely extra, Jesus responds in verse 6 and 7:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

And Philip decides to be a good friend and back Thomas up, because this is making less and less sense to them because they’re just trying to figure out where Jesus is going, like *geographically,* so that they can meet up later, and now Jesus is talking about being one with the Father….

Soooo will we be meeting up with the Father too?

Really the Disciples are just so confused at this point because the idea that Jesus was going to be executed by Rome was just not comprehensible to them.

So that’s what’s going on in the story.

What troubles me about this passage in the gospel of John is the way some Pastors have interpreted verse 6 while ignoring verses 7- 11.

What troubles me is an understanding of how salvation works, called Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

This is a relatively new understanding of how salvation works – it only dates back to the 19th century.

The idea being that no one can come to the Father except through Jesus, which is what verse 6 says, in part….sort of.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement – or PSA goes like this:

Father God is angry because He (it’s always He in PSA!)

He is angry because He made a perfect creation and we screwed it up with all our sinning.

Then, they take Romans 6:23 completely out of context by reducing Paul’s, long explanation of why we should try not to sin anymore after we decide to follow Jesus, down to just, “the wages of sin is death.”

Then they take “the wages of sin is death,” and interpret that to mean that sin must be paid for with death.  Rather than the obvious meaning that is in alignment with the rest of Romans 6 that sin doesn’t end well.

Maybe you’ve seen the PSA diagram where:

God is here                                                            sinful humanity is here

                       And Jesus is a bridge between us 

The logic of PSA being that God *REQUIRES DEATH* to pay for sin, and since the plan of flooding the whole earth and Noah’s arc thing didn’t put a stop to sin,  The Father decided to have his son killed for our sin.  Jesus’ death becomes the substitute for our punishment.

Hence the term substitutionary.

The main problem with Penal Substitutionary Atonement is that PSA ignores one of the foundational ideas of Apostolic Christianity:  Trinitarianism.

Look at verses 9- 11, starting in the middle verse 9

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, 

Trinitarianism is only complicated if you’re trying to figure out how it mechanically works.  Do I know precisely how Jesus, God and Spirit are one and yet separate – no.  Nobody does – it’s what we call a mystery of the faith.  Don’t worry about it.  We’ll understand it better by and by!

However, Trinitarianism is very simple to understand in how God functions as Trinity.

Creator, Christ and Spirit are all the same personality.

If you’ve met Jesus, you’ve met the Father, and you’ve met the Spirit.

If you’ve met Spirit, which is more common these days, you’ve met Jesus and the Mothering God who gave us birth.

Jesus has the same personality as the Father and 

Creator has the same personality as Jesus.

If, as believers in Penal Substitutionary Atonement argue,  Father God cannot bear to be close to sin, then how could Jesus stand to be around all those sinners?  

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

It makes no sense for “Father God” to be an angry, abusive father who kills his son because He can’t stand His sinful creation and for Jesus to be a loving, forgiving savior who wants to be with us always if Father, Son and Spirit ALL HAVE THE SAME PERSONALITY!

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

Penal Substitutionary Atonement, and the way it misuses scripture, troubles me.

But I believe in God, and I believe that Jesus is God.

I believe that God decided to come down here Godself, not out of anger, but out of love.

To command us to love one another, just as God loves us.

I believe that it is not Jesus’ death that saves us from an angry Father.

I believe that Jesus rose from the dead to prove that it is love that saves us – and love cannot be killed.

There is no Angry Father God.

You know who was angry?

Zeus.

Zeus, the King of the Roman gods, was an angry old man sitting on a cloud ready to strike people down with a bolt of lightning for annoying him.

Zeus, made half-deity sons with unwilling human women, who sometimes intervened on behalf of their human mothers and siblings.

I think that the old religion of the Roman Empire bled into the new religion of the Holy Roman Empire, such that the personality of Zeus was substituted for the personality of Yahweh, which is the personality of Jesus.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

There is no Angry Father God and gentle Jesus – there is only One God.

Does God get mad?

Absolutely!

Jesus got mad at the money changers in the Temple and at the bad Pharisees, not all Pharisees, just the bad ones,  in the Pharisee movement who spread bad theology.

God got mad at the Kings of Israel for failing to care for widows and orphans, overtaxing the poor, treating Bathsheba the way David did,  and allowing the worship of other gods like Molach who demanded child sacrifice.  Ewww.

Scripture shows us that God is capable of anger… 

at injustice, mercilessness, and oppression.

Scripture does not show us a God who sits on a cloud with a bolt of lighting in his hand, waiting to smite you for walking into a church!

God loves you.  No ifs, ands or lighting bolts!

Let’s continue into verse 12.

12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, 

Not only does God love us  – Creator, Christ and Spirit loves us –

God empowers us.

God empowers us to do even more than Jesus did while on this earth.

That sounds a little crazy right?

Like, I can’t raise the dead, or feed 10,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish!

But hasn’t the church fed multitudes more since Jesus fed the 5,000+ people?

Jesus was able to heal people with a word or a touch, but haven’t the hospitals founded by the Church healed Billions more in the last 2000 years?

Jesus taught many people, but haven’t the schools, Universities, and Seminaries the Church has founded taught Billions more?

Because since Jesus went to the Father, followers of Jesus have asked God to help us love one another as God loves us.

God isn’t waiting for us to screw up so They can hit us with lightning.

God is waiting for us to ask Them for anything in the name of Jesus.

Well, not just anything, God isn’t a convenience store in the sky!

Anything that is in alignment with the teachings of Jesus.

So, I’m going to ask God to get our housing project moving again.

To get it built soon enough for us all to see it finished.

For us to be the church for the people who live there.

Because Jesus said, in verses 13 and 14:

13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.