1 Corinthians 13:1-7 & 13 NIV

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Hi, church family! This is my first sermon. But, don’t let the title of my sermon, “God is like a Christmas Tree,” deceive you. I am not using my first chance to preach to start the advent season early! I don’t have the audacity. But I’m just using that metaphor because it’s helped me view God in a healthier way. I want to share with you a snippet of my spiritual journey. I want to show that faith is nonlinear. That we can talk to God even when we’re not sure God’s there. Or even if we’re pretty sure God’s there, but we don’t know if God loves us, we can s:ll talk to God. And I want to share that God is like a Christmas tree, whose ornaments don’t always reflect God’s loving nature, but we can change them.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a perfectionist. And, as long as I can remember, adults hav scolded me to work harder, focus better, go faster, and be more e?cient. This is a lot to ask a five year-old who is cleaning up his room. I should run to put away my toys, set them nicely, and, think of the best way to do this? All at the same time? I was not a rebellious little kid. So, I took this perfectionism attitude to heart. It has followed me the rest of my life. I’ve seen everything through the lens of “do this better” or “you are not enough.” This means I thought I didn’t connect with God “correctly”…

For example, I was a preacher‘s kid, so I was raised in the church. Still, I must’ve prayed for Jesus to enter my heart five times just the age of 10. I guess I thought that one time wasn’t enough— that I might not have really meant it the first four times. Poor kid

From birth to age 7 I was raised in a Christian denomination called apostolic Lutheran. Don’t let the name trick you since this sect has nothing to do with the apostolic Church— nor is it associated with Lutheranism. Instead of going into the history of the name, I’ll explain some unique features of this belief system. They were into isolating from the world. Yes… they would often enroll their kids into public schools, but parents discourage their kids from playing sports or doing anything that would make themselves close with non-apps. By the way, we called it the A P church as shorthand, and we called ourselves APPs short for apolostolic lutheran. They also held the reactionary belief that society should go back to the way things were when “things were better” when men were manlier and women were more feminine, for example. This meant that my feminine side made me feel a lot of shame as a kid. Even if people weren’t overtly mean to me or shaming about it, I knew their ideals of men and women, and that I didn’t measure up.

Fast forward to moving from Michigan to Washington state when I was seven years old. This was due to a rift in my parents’ marriage. We left the Apostolic Lutheran Church, but joined another conservative church. This one was called non- denominational.

My young brain didn’t know how to process my parents telling me to throw away half of what I knew about church. One second, we were solemnly sitting in pews, singing hymns, and the next second I was supposed to ditch my button up shirt and dress pants for streetwear. And, I was supposed to stand up and wave my arms around to worship God?”

Same Christmas tree di?erent ornaments, I guess.

Much later in life, I decided that God is like a christmas. The ornaments WE put on it can change but God, the tree itself, is unchanging. The di?erent ways to worship could be seen as di?erent styles of ornaments. Just like the one’s I just experienced as a child: solemnly singing hymns, or dancing to Christian rock. Other ornaments could be beliefs about God or sacred rituals. But ultimately, God is love, so it’s best to have our ornaments reflect that.

But more on that later.

Within the first year of changing denominations, I dove into this new way of connecting with God. They prac:ced strange new worship methods. This meant speaking in tongues and falling to the floor spontaneously while praying. According to them, falling meant the Holy Spirit moved you deeply. The problem was this came with confusing and stressful expecta:ons. This new evangelical church stress that good actions aren’t as important as faith. You mostly just need a good relationship with Jesus, according to them.

I heard that God‘s presence was sometimes indicated by gettng goosebumps. Yes, literal hair-standing-up-on-your-arm goosebumps.

This did not go well for me. This made me obsessively chase God‘s presence. And I want to be gentle with this younger self—this perfectionist self. I know he was looking for order, love, and comfort during his parents divorce. I know he was seeking God in the best way he could with the education he received about God.

So I was desperately craving God’s love and presence. ‘Cause why wouldn’t God always be present with someone he loved? Why wouldn’t someone want to be close to God? I thought this meant only a bad, evil, ugly, awful person wouldn’t chase God‘s presence. Only a rotten person wouldn’t chase the goosebumps. And, IF I didn’t feelthem when I was in a worship service, this meant God was mad at me. Or, even worse, I thought deep down in my heart, I didn’t love God. I thought love was bait that lured God to you—like he was a dumb fish? God’s not a dumb fish. God is love and God loves everyone everywhere all the time.

As an adult, I don’t know what to think of the goosebumps. Often, after praying in tongues with others I’d get the goosebumps. And, it felt amazing. Maybe, it was the close emotional connection I felt to others in these moments. Maybe, this caused my skin to tingle because these prayer sessions were passionate. Five people had their hands on me and were crying out to God to heal me. All five people loved me. You could hear it when they wailed for my pain, crying for God to end my su?ering. And with my parents’ marital problem? And with my hidden sexuality? I was su?ering. They didn’t know the specifics of my pain, but I felt them calling on God to take away my su?ering. I get tingles now just thinking of it of these intimate vulnerable moments.

Unfortunately, my perfectionist need to always win God‘s love left me burnt out on God as a 16 year- old. A 16 year-old who knows he’s gay. The hormones of puberty made THAT clear. And, I was told that God hates that I’m gay. Yet, God wouldn’t take my attraction to men away. Why not? This felt cruel.

Well, actually, not to spoil the ending, but God loves everyone, and God doesn’t need or want me to change my sexuality. The idea that he does is something I learned from humans—not God. God loves me and you the way we are. This was just a hurtful ornament someone else put on my christmas tree of God.

But at the time, I truly believed that I couldn’t be close to God and be gay. I even tried conversion therapy. But, God didn’t change me. I guess it was time for me to take a break from God. I never was an atheist nor even an agnostic. I always believed in the God of the Bible, but I stopped talking to God. I stopped talking because the image of God I was taught was downright abusive. A metaphor I use to explain this is I can still believe in a boyfriend, but break up with him because he is hurting me.

So, I broke up with God—or at least took a break from our relationship. Flash forward to 2020 and the Mental Health low point that came with it. I revisited this God idea. I felt so alone—so completely, utterly, and existentially alone. No one was there to comfort me the way my old God used to. So, I reopened the door to that God. But, I decided that God was like a Christmas tree. And, a Christmas tree can provide comfort in the cold months of winter. The problem was my former church put ugly ornaments on it, to put it lightly.

These ornaments were unhelpful at best—and homophobic at worst… In my Mental Health crisis caused by the pandemic, I realized something. To my surprise, these ornaments weren’t part of the ACTUAL tree. I really believed that an unconditionally loving God had to, and I mean, just HAD to hate gay people. But, to my delight. This was not true. I felt a purer love when I took o? these ugly ornaments. They don’t belong on my God tree. This was a truly life-saving revelation.

My God was never really abusive, but my perception of God hurt me deeply. I realize that I don’t know why sometimes God feels close and why sometimes he doesn’t seem to care about my life. But then I remember that God is goodness, joy, love, compassion, and many more virtues. I can pray to God about my joys and concerns. I can meditate on God’s perfect virtues. This reminds me that those virtues exist in this universe even when I’m feeling like only my misery exists. God is love. And in my mind God is like a Christmas tree. I ask you to check if your ornaments convey that God is Love. The ornaments symbolize your beliefs and worship practices. I’ve witnessed your love for me and others, so I know you all are working to make your ornaments loving and lovely to others. However, I want to take it a step further. I ask you to check if your ornaments are conveying God’s love for YOU. Remember my perfectionist anxie:es? My ornaments about needing to feel God’s presence always? I ask that you try to find and replace your own versions of these ornaments that cause anxiety. Because God is Love and that means he loves your community and that he loves you. God is alway with you. Amen

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

25 So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry but do not sin;[a] do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil. 28 Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. 29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up,[b] as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. 31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.[c]

5 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 

For me, sermon writing is a process. First comes research. In this case, what kind of place was Ephesus?  Who lived there?  What sort of commerce did they engage in?  What was the political and religious situation?  Who wrote the epistle?  Why did they do it?  What problems were they trying to address?  There are always a lot of questions, and some of the answers never appear in the finished sermon, but they’re important nonetheless. 

I learned things I didn’t know and some things I had forgotten. Did you know that Ephesus was founded in the 10th century BCE?  Did you know that before Greeks settled the area that the place had been inhabited for about 10,000 years?  Ephesus was on a major trade route and it was attacked frequently. A nearby river silted in the harbor and the city was moved several times in response. Today, the ruins are about 2 miles from the sea in part because of deforestation, and overgrazing that left the land vulnerable to washing away. 

I knew that most of the 13 epistles in the New Testament weren’t written by Paul. In fact, only 5 were his authorship.  Ephesians wasn’t one of them. It was written probably 10-15 years after Paul’s death in Rome. I had forgotten that. 

All of this is to say that I take the preparation part of sermon writing seriously. The problem with this preparation is that I’m easily led down one rabbit hole after another. It’s all interesting stuff, at least to me, but it isn’t helpful in addressing the subject at hand. 

In this case, there’s a very large elephant in the room contained in the center of this passage.    

   Be angry, but do not sin

   Thieves, stop thieving and get a job

   Quit gossiping

In my family of origin, anger wasn’t allowed. We weren’t allowed to even have anger, much less express it. It was well into adulthood that I learned to get angry and not explode like a volcano when the pressure got to be too much. Anger scares me. It means the end of relationships. The reality is, however, that anger is normal. When someone does you wrong, it’s ok to be angry and it’s ok to express that anger. But what about the “do not sin” part?

To answer that, first we have to understand what sin is. We tend to think sin is something that we do—lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery. What all these disparate things have in common is relationships. If I lie to you, I’ve damaged our relationship. If I’ve cheated you, I’ve damaged our relationship. You can say the same for everything on that list. Doing any of them will damage your relationship with the one to whom you’ve done harm, moreover, you have damaged your relationship with yourself. In some respects, damage to your relationship with yourself is more of a problem than damage to relationships with others. If we are to be whole, happy people, we have to be able to express our feelings in such a way as not to do damage to our relationships. 

It all comes down to this:  Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself. 

So be angry if that’s how you feel, but speak the truth in love. 

If you are stealing—by that I don’t necessarily mean robbing banks or convenience stores or picking pockets or embezzling from you employer or any other overt criminal activity. Maybe you think it’s smart not to pay taxes or you think it’s ok to to finagle a bit so you pay less than the going rate for something, or borrowing without paying it back. In any of these examples, and many more, you are stealing. Many people do things like this and think nothing of it. The point here is that is you are doing anything that takes from the community or the people within the community, you are stealing. The writer of Ephesians says stop doing that and give back to the community. 

It all comes down to this:  Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself. 

And then there’s gossip. This is another place I’m easily sucked in. You know, did you know that Chris and Tony are getting divorced?  I hear that Chris did X Y Z and Tony is devastated. I know you’ve heard and participated in such conversations. The question is does this sort of conversation lead to community uplift?  Is it helpful?  Is it loving?  Or is it a way for you or me to feel like we’re better than others because we know something the others don’t—even if we don’t actually know anything at all. 

These are 3 large elephants and we can’t ignore them, nor can we ignore any of the other elephants this passage mentions. If we are to be the Body of Christ, we have to build loving relationships, empathetic relationships, real relationships where we can authentically be who we are. 

Some time ago, Bishop Karen Oliveto posted something that stuck with me. She quoted Sheryl Strayed saying,

How do you build empathy?  You risk vulnerability. Tell the truth about yourself as often as possible. We have to revise the ways we think about the soft things like empathy and vulnerability and love if we’re going to create a more compassionate world. 

Hold others in unconditional positive regards. Say I accept you for who you are. I’m going to hear your story compassionately. I’m not going to try to assess whether I think you’re good or bad. I’m    going to decide that I like you, I believe you, and I find you worthy of love. 

That can be hard work, to be vulnerable, to tell the truth about ourselves, or to simply tell the truth rather than glossing over something to make it easier. It’s hard, necessary work if we are to live peacefully in community with each other.  

In the end, it all comes down to this:  Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself. 

When I was five years old, I started first grade. The first six weeks were di?cult and I professed being ill every Monday morning — too ill, in fact, to go to school. On a Monday morning, six weeks into this cycle, my mother came into the living room and sat beside me on the sofa. “Is there something wrong at school?” she asked. Of course I hesitated before whispering “Yes.”

“What is wrong?”

Again, I hesitated before finding the courage to say, “I’m afraid of making mistakes.”

“Honey, that’s why you go to school. You go to learn from your mistakes!”

She sounded so sure.

“But,” I said, “if I make too many mistakes, I won’t get into the college of my choice.”

She did not laugh. And I went to school the next Monday.

*

The scripture shared today comes from the 12th chapter of 2 Corinthians. At this time in Paul’s ministry Corinth is a “new city”:

• It was founded by order of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE;

• It was an ethnic mix of Syrians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews;

• It was a prosperous seaport city, the capital of the province which included the city of Athens.

• It was a judicial seat; and

• Every two years, Corinth hosted the Isthmian Games in a stadium that held 15,000.

Paul’s Ministry in Corinth:

• Probably began in 50 CE when he took lodging with the husband-wife team, Aquila and Priscilla, both Jews and tent-makers.

• He preached in the synagogue every Sabbath but when some of the members opposed his preaching, Paul withdrew and preached in a private home.

• An interesting note: The President of that synagogue later converted to Christianity.

• Paul probably spent 18 months on this first visit before leaving the city.

• In his absence new converts were confused and sought Paul’s advice on issues including marriage, food sacrificed to idols, spiritual gifts, etc.

• Therefore, Paul’s letters to the Corinthians are instructive as he shares his thoughts on what it meant to be a new “being in Christ.” The social and ethical implications were numerous, for example the sharing with the have-nots at the communal meal.

Like First Corinthians, a compilation of letters previously sent to Corinth, 2 Corinthians is a compilation of at least three letters:

• The Scripture read today from the 12th Chapter of 2 Corinthians is thought to have been in the first letter. This means that the previous chapters in 2 Corinthians make up the second and third letters.

• Today’s scripture from Chapter 12 is about Paul. Even when he writes, “I know a man in Christ,” he is talking about himself. And even though he has had visions and “heard inexpressible things,” he had been “given a thorn in the flesh” that he sought to have God remove. But when that torment remained, Paul heard God say, “My grace is su?cient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul believed that God, like a lever, could move all things, could make all things possible in spite of our weaknesses. But God did not remove that thorn and by not removing it, Paul saw himself at the mercy of a God whose “spirit was su?cient.”

• Paul is defending himself against the teachers who have come to Corinth and have undermined him and his message. Paul calls these individuals “super apostles” because they are “false apostles, deceitful workers”. They are “masquerading as apostles of Christ.” Therefore, Paul is quite combative.

• In contrast to the lack of adversity these “false apostles” had endured, Paul itemizes the a?ictions he has su?ered as an apostle. This is called “Apostolic A?iction”. As an apostle, Paul has been imprisoned, flogged, stoned, shipwrecked and he has faced bandits, swollen rivers, hunger, thirst, cold, and exhaustion.

Let’s bring Montavilla UMC into this sermon. I think Paul would have commended you.

• He would have commended how you take care of each other, how you practice “neighbor-love”, how you share food and space and ministry with those whom society does not treat well, and how you try new arrangements and seek meaningful ministries.

• For example, In realizing that our budget figures were in “the red” and our church building was under-utilized, you sought renters who could compensate for our deficiencies. The building now cares for those who are immigrants and worship here, are houseless, are poor, and are critically judged by many.

• You have acknowledged your weaknesses when deciding that the congregation was too small to care for a building this size, that we do not have members who can repair the heating system, paint the steeple, or install new windows.

• You have chosen not to spend down the Endowment Fund to repair this aging building.

• Our weaknesses are working with others to build a new building that will not only provide housing but safety and hope. And at the ground level of Las Rosas Nuevas, will be the worshipping center for this congregation whose delight in their weaknesses and their belief in God whose “spirit is su?cient” made the housing project possible. Paul would commend you.

About these weaknesses:

• When we recognize our weaknesses, we are saying that we are not perfect. No surprise there! Both Paul and John Wesley would agree with that appraisal. Together we “aim for perfection.” But, a lack of perfection, or imperfection, —can strengthen relationships as well as allow God’s Spirit to move through us.

• When we share our weaknesses with each other, we become vulnerable.

• Dr. Brené Brown in her book THE GIFTS OF IMPERFECTION, explains that this honesty takes courage — a word that comes from the Latin cor which means “heart”.

• Courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” To be honest is to be vulnerable. In this community that professes to be Christian, admitting imperfections and being vulnerable are essential; both testify to our need for each other and for Christ’s redemptive power. It helps to remember that each of Jesus’ apostles had a weakness.

• Our community has built Connection which Dr. Brown says “is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued. Being vulnerable and feeling valued lead to a connection that can be honest about its strengths and its shortcomings. We are a connection. In comparison to a mega-church, it is a small connection, a humble one. And the reality that we are forging ahead, in spite of our weaknesses, confirms Paul’s exclamation, “I delight in weaknesses.”

These weaknesses include not-so-serious imperfections like leaving a day’s worth of dirty plates in the sink or not finishing the latest Debbie McComber book. Imperfection has gradients. At one end, the not-so-seriousimperfections can be idiosyncratic, occasional, and relaxing; they don’t derail us but restore our spirits and relax us.

At the other end are torments. Between these two fall the thoughts and feelings that disconnect us from others, such as resentments, regrets, anger, shame, compulsions, disappointments, and anxiety. These imperfections demand courage to address and a healthy dose of love-filled guidance. Such guidance led a 5-year old anxious first grader who was afraid of making mistakes to becoming a college instructor forty-three years later.

Our courage and connection most likely will lead to Las Rosas Nuevas. But let’s say that a disappointment intervenes and the housing project does not develop and we retain this building. Of course, we would pray and appeal to God to lift this setback and/or to point us toward a new way. In that circumstance, Paul’s words could reassure us.“For when I am weak, then I am strong.” When we are weak, we are strong because “God’s grace is su?cient for us.” God will always work with our weaknesses, and for this assurance we can shout Alleluia.

Matthew 20:1-16

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

Tuesday I met with some city staff and police to talk about the issues that are happening on our church grounds, and I was offered a choice.  The police are willing to help trespass everyone or no one. 

Quite frankly, that’s not fair.

According to repeated research, about 70% of our unhoused neighbors are doing their very best to get off the streets.  Most of our unhoused neighbors are working or on disability and will be back into housing within 6 months time.  Only 30% of our unhoused neighbors are what some people call, resistant to services.  People whose addiction disorder or other mental illness has completely taken over their minds, or whose criminal history has left them permanantly outside of civilized society. 

So because we are dealing with problems caused by 2-5 people who are a part of the 30% of people who are hard to help, the police told me that the requirement for trespassing these 2-5 people is trespassing everyone.  

I have to be willing to trespass the person who is sheltering under our porch on their first night of being unhoused, and the person who is too mentally ill to recieve help, but is otherwise harmless, in order to stop the problem people who are making threats and doing harm.

It’s not fair.

But life isn’t fair.

So I made the decision.

So often in this world unfairness comes in the form of the innocent bearing the consequences of bad actor’s behaviors, doesn’t it.

Its like being in gradeschool and the teacher keeps the whole class in from recess because 2 students were talking during the lesson.

We’re used to unfairness resulting in increased suffering.

We’re not used to unfairness that results in increased benefit.

In today’s scripture reading Jesus shares another parable – so not a true story – a teaching story.

A teaching story about the unfairness of God’s Grace.

We just read the story, and honestly, there’s no complicated linguistic or cultural issues in this story for me to exegete, so instead I’m going to reframe this story, using a picture of my son Aelric.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a manager in a tech company who needs a team to complete a very important project by the end of the day.  So the manager goes into the cubicles first thing in the morning and finds my son, Aelric, who is a firmware engineer 2, ready to work and Aelric gets to work right away debugging the code.  

The manager doesn’t really understand computer engineering, so he just keeps adding people to the team as they come in.  The manager brings in someone from the cafeteria to keep the team fed and hydrated for as long as the project takes.  The manager, accidentally brings in a couple software folks because this manager  doesn’t even know the difference between software and firmware!  The manager just keeps grabbing random people throughout the day, all day long, even up to the last hour of the day and adding to the team anybody the manager thinks might be helpful!  Even people from hardware, marketing, sales and custodial!  

At the end of the day, right on the dot of 7pm the project is finished and the manager rewards the team with a $10,000 bonus for every single member of the team, even the custodian who was added in the very last hour to manage the mess so the rest of the team could keep working.

Now when the first few engineers who did the majority of the work and had been working non-stop all day saw that everyone on the team, even the people who joined the team in the very last hour, got the same $10,000 bonus that they did, they were a little upset and went to the manager to complain.

Look, we’ve been here all day and we did the lion’s share of the work.

It’s not that we don’t appreciate the help, especially from the kitchen and custodial, but why should people who barely worked on this project get the same bonus as those of us who really made the project work?

Then the Manager responded,

 ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree to do this work before you even knew there was a bonus? 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last person the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to spend the personel budget for a rush job as I see fit? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Which makes you more upset?

And you don’t have to raise your hands.

Just listen to your gut reaction –

Which makes you more upset?

Innocent unhoused people being tresspassed along with guilty ones?

Or

A custodian and a couple of folks from sales getting a $10,000 bonus for work they didn’t really do?

Our whole culture has taught us to:

 accept injustice towards those who didn’t earn the consequences

 and 

to resent generosity towards those who didn’t earn the rewards

This isn’t something that we decide to do or we think about.  

It’s what we have been taught to accept since we were children.

Only one person getting the reward, but everybody gets the punishment

Is not any more fair than 

everyone getting the reward and only the guilty being punished.

And yet, we have been enculturated – socially conditioned, and taught, that it is acceptable to share punishment, but not to share success.

So here’s Jesus

 questioning that viewpoint.

Here’s Jesus using a story to say, in the Kingdom of God, everyone shares in God’s abundance.

This is a teaching that shows up in many places in the Bible from the year of Jubilee in Leviticus to the book of James, and yet, it is so opposite of the way the world has always worked that it feels unfair.

Evangelicals struggle with the question:

What? Do you mean the person who confesses Christ on their deathbed will go to heaven, no matter what horrible things they have done?

Mainline Denominational church members struggle with the question:

What?  Do you mean the person who just joined the church gets the same care and consideration from the Pastor as I do when my family has contributed to this church for 4 generations?

White Christian Nationalists struggle with the question:

What?  Do you mean that some immigrant burger flipper should get paid the same living wage that I get paid at the factory?

Even though we all know that God is abundantly generous, we all struggle in one way or another with the radical unfairness of God’s Grace.

Friends, don’t be too hard on yourselves.

Even the original Christians who met Jesus in the flesh struggled with the radicalness of God’s Grace.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 11 Paul, and we do think it was the authentic Apostle Paul, reprimands the believers for how they practiced communion

21 For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper (that is your own potluck dish), and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. 22 What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?  (1Cor 11:21-22a)

The first Christians weren’t better than us and we aren’t better than them.  We’re all just people living in an unfair world.

So as we come to the table of Grace, let us be reminded that God’s Grace is not fair.

Thanks be to God!

God’s Grace is abundantly unfair!

In the Kingdom of God, those who haven’t put in the work.

Those who just got here.

Those who have nothing to offer.

And those who have given everything they have.

Everyone 

shares in the benefits of the Body of Christ.

Everyone matters.

Everyone is worthy of daily bread.

The Kingdom of God is totally unfair in the best way.

23 For (Paul) received from the Lord what I also (share with) you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Matthew 18:21-35

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.

23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, 25 and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. 26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

As we talked about last week, the context of chapter 18 is Tsadikah. Tsadikah- is a Hebrew word that is usually translated: Righteousness, but really refers to the complicated intersection of Justice and Mercy.  

The Lectionary Committee ended last week’s reading at verse 20, but I decided to extend it 2 more verses, so this week we are picking up at verse 21, even though we looked at it last week, because verses 21 and 22 are the question that the parable is meant to answer.

To review – Peter’s question in verse 21 is a reflection of the reality that even when we communicate really, really well, sometimes people don’t choose to do the right thing.  And sometimes, even though we have come to a resolution, forgiveness takes time.  The bigger the hurt and the longer the duration of the harm, the longer it’s going to take for forgiveness to come to completion.  Completion being the spiritual meaning of the number 7 in Hebrew thought, because on the 7th day creation was complete.

But of course, Jesus never just answers the question. Jesus had this really frustrating habit of turning the question around.

Starting with verse 23 Jesus explains that what he is about to say is a parable, not a true story.  Note where Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven MAY BE COMPARED to.

But also, the word translated as “king” actually means, “lord.”  In the first century, “lord” was a common title for any kind of person in authority, from a landowner, to the title of a Caesar – “Our Lord and Savior.”  Calling Jesus Lord, was a very political statement for the first century – akin to the Barmen Declaration of 1934, where a bunch of German clergy stated that Jesus is our Führer and no one else.

The author of Matthew choosing the word “lord,” is a pretty spicy start to this parable, so I wonder if the interpreters chose King to soften this or to set it in a more European monarchy style of speaking?

Either way, it’s important to recognize that this is a parable, that is, a metaphor for how the Kingdom of Heaven works, not a literal description of how the Kingdom of God works – and yes, Kingdom of God and Kingdom of Heaven  mean exactly the same thing!

Jesus was using an example of how things worked in the first century, where enslaving people was common and enslaved persons often found themselves in the position of having to borrow money to pay their bills.

I do not believe that Jesus is endorsing the kind of unjust economic structures that causes crippling debt, nor do I think that Jesus is endorsing slavery.  As Rev Dr. Wilda C. Gafney writes in her commentary, A Woman’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, “While the parable is about mercy and forgiveness, it also speaks to social and economic inequity.” (p231) 

Jesus is not endorsing slavery and economic injustice, Jesus is using this all too familiar situation as a simile for how forgiveness works in the Reign of God.

Verse 24 – Talent is a measurement of weight.  Kind of like the British pound used to mean a pound of silver.  One talent is basically the amount of gold or silver that a common person could earn with 16-20 years of full time labor.             

So Jesus was employing hyperbole right off the bat in saying that the enslaved person owed 10 thousand talents because at an average wage of say, 18 years of labor per talent, 10,000 talents of debt would equal 180,000 years of labor.  

Putting that into today’s terms, with the average median income in Oregon being around $70,000 a year that would mean a person owing 180,000 years of labor would owe 12 billion, 600 million dollars.

Jesus often started his parables with some kind of outrageous situation, both to get people’s attention and to point out the impossibleness of the real life situations of the average working class poor person.  

So there’s this enslaved person who owes an impossible amount of money, so the lord is going to sell him and his family.  Being sold was a terrifying prospect, because you didn’t know how your next enslaver was going to treat you or your family.  

What if the next enslaver invalidates your marriage?  

What if the next enslaver decides to do something awful to your children?

I’m using the terms, “enslaved” and “enslaver” because Black theologians, like Rev Dr Gaffney have asked us to use this language, because calling someone a slave makes it sound like it’s just a state of being, not the horrible violation of human rights that enslaving a human being really is.  I am happy to talk more about this later if you’re curious.

So the enslaved husband and father falls on his knees and begs for time.

Which is the right thing to do.  

This is one of the most common pieces of advice I give to people who come to me who are behind on their rent.  Tell your landlord, right now, today, I will even sit with you while you make the call!  Tell your landlord that you don’t have the money to pay the full amount as soon as possible.  Usually, even if you don’t have the full amount,  if you offer to make a partial payment, your landlord might be willing to accept a partial payment and set up a payment plan where you pay an additional $100 a month until the back rent is paid in full. 

A tale as old as time!

So, in this case, the enslaver has pity on the man and look at verse 27 – what did the enslaver do?

The lord forgave his debt.

No payment plan.

180,000 years of work worth of debt canceled.

That’s some serious Grace!

I see the character of God in that kind of Grace.

So the man’s debt is forgiven.

That means that this man now owes nothing.

He owes nothing!

Which is why it is so horrible that this man walks out with his debt completely forgiven and then proceeds to shake down his fellow enslaved coworker and has NO MERCY.

His enslaved coworker says the exact same thing to the man that the man said to the lord, and the man shows them no mercy.

Verse 31: The other enslaved workers see this and complain to the lord, because it’s awful.  And because that fellow enslaved person was the lord’s property, so the man had basically stolen the lord’s property by throwing his enslaved coworker into prison.

Verse 32 and 33:   The Lord is disgusted with the enslaved man for his lack of mercy.  Because why would he need to shake down his fellow enslaved person, when his full debt was forgiven?

Why?  Anxiety.

When we have been harmed, we are often afraid to forgive.

We are afraid that if we forgive the person who harmed us that they will just harm us again because of how we define forgiveness.

We tend to mis-define forgiveness as letting it go.

Forgive and forget basically means to pretend that no harm was done.

Which is fine, when somebody ate the last piece of cheesecake in the fridge that you were saving for an after work snack, but I didn’t even bother to label it as mine.  Just for example.

But forgiving and forgetting — pretending that no harm was done, does not work when serious harm has been done.

Serious harm, like when vows are betrayed.

Serious harm like when trust has been broken.

Serious harm like when the harm has been repeated again and again and again.

As I mentioned last week during our talk back, forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing.

One of my favorite definitions of forgiveness is from the novel, Christy, by Catherine Marshall.

“Real forgiveness includes total acceptance.”

What it means is that in order to really forgive someone you need to accept that what they did was actually as bad as it was.  

Tutu and Tutu address this in The Book of Forgiving, as well.  They break the process of Forgiveness into the Fourfold path:

Forgiving:Granting Forgiveness

Thank you to Rev Jenny Smith for this slide:

Anxiety can cause us to take the typical route of the Revenge Cycle:

• We experience hurt, harm or loss,
• Which causes us pain,
• Which makes us want to harm the person who harmed us – because hurt people hurt people
• But in order to justify hurting another human we must reject their shared humanity as a fellow Beloved Child of God
• Once we’ve justified ourselves we do the revenge, retaliation or payback
• Which is an act of violence or cruelty
• Which causes hurt, harm or loss

You will notice that Pain is the decision point

In our pain, do we choose to accept our own vulnerability or do we choose to show “them” that we aren’t vulnerable.

Anxiety tells us that if we choose to accept our vulnerability then others will take advantage of us.

Anxiety tells us that if we don’t show them who’s got the power, then they will think they have the power and hurt us again.

And we have a whole culture telling us not to show vulnerability.

A whole culture to tells us that if we are behind on the rent that its our fault, not the fault of an unjust economic system where according to the Labor Department:

 corporate profits have risen 45% since 2020, 

while wages have only risen 12% since 2020

And:

Groceries have gone up 35%

Rent is up 40%

And utilities have gone up 28%

Wages rose 12% and and bills grew 35%

That’s not laziness or a failure to budget on the part of the worker.

That’s an economic system that is designed to extract wealth from the poor and funnel it to the Billionaire class.

Anxiety isn’t lying about our vulnerability!

Anxiety wasn’t lying about the vulnerability of the enslaved man who owed 180,000 years worth of wages in debt.

The problem is, that vengeance gets us nowhere.

And that, just like the enslaved man in the parable, because we are so ridiculously vulnerable in the hands of the Billionaire class – the Lord’s who own the system we live within, we often take out our anxiety on our fellow workers.

We mis-direct our pain at our fellow enslaved workers who are just as caught in the system as we are.

Like the man in the parable, we can’t go after the system of economic injustice that allowed the Lord to enslave the man in the first place, so we go after the person who owes us, and make their life worse.

Then we’re so busy fighting each other, that no one holds the people who make the rules accountable.

The Four Fold Path sets us on the path to real change.

If we choose to heal then we:

1. One, tell the story of what really happened.
   1. The enslaved man was so deeply in debt from just trying to survive that he was never going to get out of it.  So out of his anxiety he had his co-worker put in prison for debt, even though the Lord had forgiven the debt
2. Two, Name the Hurt
   1. The enslaved coworker was in prison which left his family without his support
3. Grant Forgiveness
   1. The coworker accepts the reality of the hurt and chooses to forgive to set himself free from the anger.
4. Renew or Release the Relationship
   1. The question of whether to renew or release the relationship is dependent upon the behavior of the enslaved man going forward which we don’t see in the parable.

What we see in the parable in verse 35, is that God expects us to choose vulnerability instead of anxiety.

Imagine with me that the enslaved man had encountered his co-worker in verse 28 and chose to be vulnerable.

What if the man had grasped his co-worker’s hands and shouted, my whole debt has been forgiven!!!  

Since I don’t owe him, you don’t owe me!

Let’s get our families together and celebrate!

The co-worker was not the one who did harm to the enslaved man, anymore than a person who can’t pay their rent has done harm to me.

And the Lord, or the Landlord who is willing to forgive the debt has not done harm either.

The harm was done by the unjust economic system that is held together by the anxiety of those who cannot imagine the world working in a different way.

This is why Grace matters.

Grace and Forgiveness, instead of Anxiety and Blame, opens up new ways of thinking and being.

Grace and Forgiveness creates a path forward in relationship where our shared vulnerability helps us to imagine a more just world.

But when somebody is so invested in propping up systems of injustice that they can’t participate in the vulnerability of telling the story, naming the harm, and doing the work of Reconciliation by changing how they think and act…

Then we can forgive them, but we can’t reconcile with them.

We can be kind to them, but we can’t trust them.

We can protect our peace, not by forgetting the harm, but by naming the hurt for what it is.

Hurt people hurt people.

And hurt people don’t heal until they choose to.

…until we choose to

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!