Even in Hard Times (Matthew 13: 24-30)

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears

While we all sup sorrow with the poor:

There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

That’s the opening verse of the song “Hard Time Come Again No More,” a tune written by Stephen Foster in 1854 that has gone on to take a place in the Great American Songbook.

“Hard Times” has been performed and recorded by countless singers through the years–Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, and Bob Dylan to name a few. I got turned on to it years ago by a version sung by James Taylor with Yo Yo Ma on cello. Teatro Grattacielo performed it here at Asbury earlier this summer as part of their concert celebrating our nation’s 250th anniversary.

“Hard Times” is a song for those who have “gone through it” or have been “up against it,” who have survived their ordeal and don’t want to go back.

The chorus expresses this thought with a plea, almost a prayer, to keep trouble away.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

Of course, one of the reasons the song endures is that hard times have a way of not keeping their distance.

This is a sermon about hard times. More specifically, this is a sermon about finding the strength and the will to put one foot in front of the other and move forward even when you’re tempted to believe that if you just stay put, nothing else can go wrong.

In that way, this is a sermon about dealing with the hard times that settle in on us–the type of hardship that is the first thing we think of when we wake up, the last thing on our mind when we finally fall asleep, and the stuff that hovers over us every waking hour.

A parable told by Jesus about a pernicious weed will help us make this connection.

[Jesus said,] “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” (Matthew 13:24-30)

Commonly called The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, today’s lesson draws on the common experiences of the first generation of disciples to make an important point.

The thought that someone would sabotage his neighbor’s wheat harvest wasn’t unheard of in Jesus’ day. It was, in fact, judged to be enough of a problem that the practice was explicitly condemned in Roman law.

Jesus wasn’t talking about someone blowing dandelion spores into their neighbor’s yard. The weed in the parable is a ryegrass called darnel, and spreading it around was no joke.

Darnel is a nasty little plant. One of its ugly qualities is that in its earliest stages of development, it looks exactly like wheat. You could have a field invested with the stuff and not even know it.

Differences between the two plants don’t become obvious until late in the season, but by then their roots have intertwined and it is impossible to remove the weed without inflicting tremendous harm on the wheat.

Doing nothing about the darnel, however, is not an option because if you ultimately gather it, grind it, and bake it into bread, it can kill you—or at least mess you up in a bad way.

To that point, it’s modern scientific name translates as “drunken ryegrass,” an indication of the impact this stuff could have.

We might, therefore, call the crime of using darnel seeds to settle old scores germ warfare or terrorism and we can understand why the Romans passed laws against it. We can also understand why victimized farmers had to be very careful about how they handled an infested crop.

It seems that they had determined that the best way to separate the weed from the wheat is to pick both, then place all the grain in a fine sieve so it could be sifted. Because the grain from the darnel was smaller than wheat grain, it passed through the sieve allowing, at last, for one to be divided from the other. The preserved wheat could then be put to use, but the darnel, because of its harmful properties, was burned up, lest it be baked into someone’s lunch or fall into another unsuspecting farmer’s field.

The people who first heard this parable understood exactly what Jesus was talking about.

They had probably heard stories of mean people trying to sabotage their neighbor’s harvest with this weed. Maybe they even knew the dreaded feeling of being victimized themselves.

And perhaps as Jesus was speaking, they were already making connections to their own experiences.

“Well, no one has ever tried to poison my fields, but I can still relate to those people in the story who wanted to go pull up the weeds as fast as they could without thinking about the consequences. That sure sounds like something I’d do.”

What a helpless feeling it must be to spend the whole season watching the weed that will hurt you grow up alongside the wheat that will feed you?

Imagine waking up every morning just to look out over your fields and sighing to yourself, “What a mess!”

Or maybe you don’t need to imagine, because that’s exactly what going through hard times does to you.

Be it illness, or grief, or debt, a very real experience of injustice and oppression, a bad relationship, a bad job–hard times come in many shapes and sizes, but they always leave us wondering what went wrong, how did I get here, and how can I possibly get out of this.

I find three lessons in Jesus’ parable that speak to times like these.

First, in difficult seasons, you might not have all the time in the world, but you have the time to take a breath and think.

In the parable, we understand the impulse to start pulling weeds immediately, but the reality is that would’ve destroyed any possibility of a good harvest. Instead, the wise path forward began with a deep breath and the recognition that this thing that I didn’t want or ask for is happening, but now I have to deal with it.

And that leads to a second lesson–whatever you’re dealing with, someone else has dealt with it or is dealing with it, too, so go find them and talk to them.

Having a field filled with poison weeds was a big problem, but it wasn’t unheard of. It had happened before, and people had figured out how to overcome it.

But they needed to be asked, their counsel needed to be sought, and that meant–heaven forbid–someone might need to admit they need help.

How many lives and situations have gone sideways because someone refused to ask for or accept the help and wisdom that was available to them?

How many have suffered alone, when there was a friend, a community, a church, or an AA group willing to embrace them?

Whatever you’re dealing with, someone else has dealt with it or is dealing with it, too, so go find them and talk to them.

And that brings us to the third lesson.

Even more than the good wheat in the farmers field, you are worth saving.

You are worth the time and wisdom that it takes to get things right.

You are worth seeking a solution that works.

You are worth the love of Jesus Christ, they love that will never let you go—even when hard times come.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Loopholes, Limits, and Lordship (Matthew 10:40-42)

Do you know the Parable of the Good Samaritan?

That’s the story Jesus told about a traveler who was beaten and left for dead beside the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. Two members of the local religious leadership saw the man, but ignored him, but a Samaritan, a member of a group of people whom many of Jesus’ neighbors looked down upon, stopped, tended the man’s wounds, and made arrangements for him to get the care and rest he needed.

That’s the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Do you remember what prompted Jesus to tell it?

It was a conversation about looking for loopholes and setting limits on love.

Here’s how Luke describes that exchange.

An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25-29)

“Who is my neighbor?”

That’s the question that led Jesus to tell one of–if not his most famous parable–a parable about how we shouldn’t equate religious knowledge or standing with compassion, a parable about finding grace in unexpected places from unexpected people.

“Who is my neighbor?’ the expert asked Jesus.

“Let me ask you a different question,” said Jesus.

Which of these three, [the religious leaders or the Samaritan], do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 25:36-37)

So Jesus turned that man’s question on its head.

He wanted to know who his neighbor was, and by extension, who his neighbor wasn’t, but Jesus said, “Don’t go looking for loopholes and limits. Go and show mercy instead!”

I believe the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the circumstances surrounding its telling help us to faithfully unpack the scripture that’s before us this morning–the final verses of Matthew’s 10th chapter.

Matthew 10 recounts the pivotal moment in Jesus’ ministry at which he was sending out twelve of his disciples to serve, heal, and minister in the wider community.

We’ve read a little bit of that passage over the last few Sundays, so here’s a little refresher.

Jesus sent out [the group of twelve] with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff, for laborers deserve their food. (Mathew 10:5-10)

Lest the disciples start doubting their ability to carry out this mission, Jesus continued,

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-31)

The whole passage reads something like one of the countless ordination sermons or graduation speeches that was delivered this month—a combination of practical instructions and inspiration and wisdom.

On one hand, it’s fair to say that Jesus’ sermon had a very limited scope–the twelve people to whom he was speaking.

On the other hand, People of Faith in every age have always understood that this passage was of greater relevance to their present circumstances than just giving us some interesting historical background.

Jesus might’ve said these things to the Twelve, initially, and the specifics of what he said may or may not be unique to that moment or universally applicable, but, in every age, the Church has said these words are of contemporary relevance, that God still speaks through them today.

Now, of course, if we seized upon this passage as nothing more than fuel for the fire of our opinions about bags, tunics, and sandals, then I think it would be fair to say that we’ve lost the plot about what it means to be faithful disciples in our context.

But is there a lesson in Jesus’ words about grace, a lesson about depending on God to meet our needs, a lesson here about how materialistic priorities and pursuits can encumber and impede the Church’s mission?

Absolutely there is.

“To many modern Christians, this speech seems strange, even fanatical,” notes scholar Eugene Boring, “From another perspective, this chapter need not be alien at all. It reveals in concentrated form what the Christian life essentially is.” (p. 263)

In reading the words Jesus spoke to the Twelve, therefore, we should take on the same attitude and perspective that Jesus tried to cultivate when he told the parable to the legal expert.

We should be less concerned about whether Jesus was talking to us, or them, or those people over there, less concerned about finding loopholes and limits to his teachings, but more passionate about welcoming his wisdom into our hearts and minds, more passionate about discovering how Jesus’ lordship can lift us up and above the small ideas and parochial thinking that leave people broken, divided, and searching for real answers.

This brings us, at last, to Matthew 10:40-42.

Jesus said,

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

This is the ordination sermon’s conclusion, and, not surprising, it’s ripe to be picked over, to have its meaning parsed, to be neutered of all power.

I mean, sure, it seems to be calling for a level of love, hospitality, and welcome that would stretch each one of us into a new way of living, but, when we read what Jesus said closely, we can find plenty of excuses for our inaction.

It was given to the Twelve regarding their specific ministry, but the days of the Twelve Disciples are long gone.

And sure, we’d be happy to welcome the people Jesus mentions, but we don’t see many prophets walking among us, and welcoming a righteous person sounds fine, but how can we really know someone’s character or heart?

Isn’t it better just to keep to ourselves?

I mean, does Matthew 10 really have anything to say to us at all?

Yeah, I’m afraid it does.

If the Parable of the Good Samaritan was about our calling to be merciful and not, as some might’ve hoped, about identifying the people to whom we are excused from showing mercy, then the conclusion of Jesus’ ordination sermon was about undergirding the disciples’ ministry and their lives, in a culture of generosity, hospitality, and welcome.

And the same goes for you and me.

Jesus expects and empowers those who would follow him–from the first Twelve to you and me–to be generous and kind, to build relationships with those who are committed to doing good in this world, and to approach every conversation, engagement, charitable act done by us, and act of mercy shared with us as a potential encounter with God.

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,” said Jesus, “and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” (Matthew 10:40)

To be less concerned about finding loopholes and limits to Jesus’ teachings, and more passionate about welcoming his wisdom into our hearts and minds, more passionate about discovering how Jesus’ lordship can lift us up and above the small ideas and parochial thinking that leave people broken, divided, and searching for real answers—this is our mission, our duty, our purpose.

May we be found faithful, then, to the vision Jesus sets before us.

May we be merciful, generous, and welcoming.

And may we know the reward of all who go where Jesus sends them to love, serve, and minister in his name.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: Anonymous. Jesus Welcomes All, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57406

The Missionary and the Socialite (Matthew 10:34-39)

Jesus had decided that the time was right to send out his twelve disciples to do ministry on their own.

In giving the Twelve their orders, he said,

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword. 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, and one's foes will be members of one's own household. "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, and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:34-39)

This is a difficult passage to unpack, appearing, as it does, to raise more questions than give answers.

What did Jesus mean when he said he didn’t come to bring peace?

Aren’t there other instances in his ministry when he said the exact opposite thing?

And what about what he says about families? What did Mary and Joseph ever do to him?

And a sword wielding Prince of Peace?

Are Christian Nationalists right when they quote these words to justify violence in Jesus’ name?

I hope it doesn’t surprise you that a faithful reading of this passage will disappoint those who are intent on causing harm and sowing division. This isn’t the loophole that absolves us from having to pay attention to all that stuff Jesus said about peace, love, unity, and forgiveness.

But Matthew 10 does have something to tell us about keeping our wits about us when doing the right thing leads to conflict and turmoil and it definitely reveals the sharp contrast between the holy and holistic way of Jesus and competing claims and authorities that diminish and degrade humanity’s God-given potential.

So, to help us hear what Jesus is saying, I want to begin by telling you a love story.

Freeborn Garrettson was one of the leaders of early American Methodism. Remembered as the movement’s first great American born preacher—“Methodism’s Paul Revere” took the Gospel and Methodist ideas deep into New England’s northern frontier and to Canada. He had an especially influential ministry in Nova Scotia.

However, in 1788, Francis Asbury appointed Rev. Garrettson to New York City and during that season, the prolific preacher took a trip up the Hudson River where he met a woman named Catherine.

Catherine Livingston was a daughter in one of the wealthiest, most prominent, most powerful families in this country.

The Livingston’s owned almost a million acres of land in the Hudson Valley.

Catherine’s brother helped write the Declaration of Independence and, later, administered the oath of office to President Washington, who was a friend of the family.

As a young woman, Catherine attended parties with the likes of the Schuyler sisters and Alexander Hamilton and the family estate, Clermont, still stands in Columbia County as a New York State Historic Site.

Within this context, Catherine’s heart and life underwent a dramatic change when she was in her mid-30s. First, she experienced a spiritual awakening, then became active in a Methodist circle in Rhinebeck, New York.

Catherine met Rev. Garrettson when he visited that group.

In short order, the missionary and the socialite fell in love and were engaged to be married.

And then came the troubles.

Catherine’s mother refused to give the couple her blessing.

It was one thing for a child of privilege to associate with an enthusiastic religious movement, but allowing her daughter to marry a Methodist preacher was a bridge too far for Mother Livingston.

In this way, Catherine’s mother shared a deep concern about the Methodists with many of her peers in our young nation’s aristocracy.

Methodists simply did not respect the social order or the way things were and brought together in their services and meetings a wide diversity of people without regard to their station in life.

Historian Dee Andrews describes Methodism’s counter-cultural ways,

[Methodist preachers] pressed their followers–rich, middling, and poor; white and black; men and women–to listen to Christ first…While the movement was often embraced by the members of one family, it also overturned conventional family discipline and order and led to at times violent family conflict, especially between parents and children, and husbands and wives (Andrews, p. 107)

Caught between her class-defying religious commitments and her mother’s intransigence, Catherine chose faith and her engagement to the preacher. Her mother chose to throw her out.

Catherine confessed her grief about this development in a letter to one of her sisters,

“I have continual sorrow from without, and from within…I have been cast from my Mother’s affections, and house, and have now no other home than such I derive from the bounty of a kind sister, upon whom I have been thrown.”

Poked, prodded, and pierced by her family, grieving Catherine, nevertheless, understood that these were but the pangs of her liberation. Cut loose, she had no regrets.

“I declare to you,” she exclaimed to her sister, “I would not be what I once was, if every other thing which the world can bestow or enjoy were at my free choice.” (Andrews, 108-109)

On June 30, 1793, Catherine and Freeborn married.

Soon after their wedding, the groom took the time to reflect on the moment and to memorialize his dreams for his life with Catherine in his journal.

He wrote,

"I am now happy in the society of my dear friend…I hope always to live as God would have me both for time and eternity. I am happy, and hope to be more and more so. Lord, we are thine. Thou hast united our spirits to thyself and to each other. Do with us as seemeth thee good, only let us be wholly thine: let us live to thy glory, and grant that our union may be for the furtherance of each other in the way to the kingdom of heaven." (The Life of Freeborn Garrettson, p. 22)

And so it came to pass that Freeborn Garrettson and Catherine Livington lived out their true romance. They were married for more than thirty years, until his death, and all the while, the home they created–Wildercliff on the Hudson–remained a haven of blessing and peace for all who entered, including a daughter and countless traveling preachers.

This is one of my favorite stories from church history.

It’s a powerful love story in its own right, isn’t it–like Romeo and Juliet, except the couple defies the odds and lives a happy life together.

As a bit of history, it also reminds us that, at our best, the Methodist movement, specifically, and Christian faith, in general, should give us tools and examples that help us overcome the world’s stratified hierarchies and rigid social structures.

Freeborn and Catherine’s story invites us to celebrate the ties that bind us together, not to give into the pressures and strictures that keep us apart.

And that’s what brings us back to those challenging words of Jesus.

When Jesus told his disciples that he brought a sword, not peace, he wasn’t calling for violence.

I don’t even think he was telling his disciples to be unnecessarily provocative.

But he was saying that following him—living a God-centered life like him, loving the unloveable like him, embracing the outcast and forgotten ones among us like him, regarding no one with contempt or as one’s inferior—this would naturally put the faithful in conflict with the people, systems, and institutions invested in holding people down and keeping them in their place.

Saint Paul would later call such things the “principalities and powers,” and the Garrettsons’ story reminds us that high society, the Patriarchy, even one’s own family can at time be counted among them.

That’s why Jesus spoke so pointedly.

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth,” said Jesus. In doing so, he tells his disciples to reject a go-along to get-along ethic, to push back against indifference to suffering and its causes, to seek liberty from one’s complicity with one’s own bonadage and the bondage of others.

“I have not come to bring peace but a sword,” said the Lord, the sword of God’s Word to protect your heart and cut you loose from all the things that hold you back.

Living in the light of this truth, Catherine was inspired to declare, “I would not be what I once was, if every other thing which the world can bestow or enjoy were at my free choice.”

Living in the light of this truth, Freeborn placed his future with his beloved in God’s hands.

“Let us live to thy glory,” he prayed, “and grant that our union may be for the furtherance of each other in the way to the kingdom of heaven.”

Living in the light of this truth, you and I catch a glimpse of what our lives and what church can be, too—gathered around Jesus, steadfast, free, filled with love, and committed to the way of grace that brings down divisions and leads us to one another.

When Jesus said, “I have not come to bring peace but a sword,” he was saying something about keeping our wits about us when doing the right thing leads to conflict and turmoil. He was revealing the sharp contrast between his holy and holistic way and competing claims and authorities that diminish and degrade humanity’s God-given potential.

He was giving us the gift of himself and his word, and that will always be enough “for the furtherance of each other in the way to the kingdom of heaven.”

Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.

Image: Rev. Freeborn and Mrs. Catherine Linvingston Garrettson

Cast No Shadow: A Sermon for Pride (John 8:12)

“Is the dress black and blue or white and gold?”

That’s the question asked by one of the internet’s viral sensations of 2015, “The Dress.”

Do you remember?

It all started when a woman named Cecilia went dress shopping.

She was looking for something to wear to her daughter’s upcoming wedding, and the soon-to-be mother of the bride found it in a lovely blue number with black stripes from the retailer Roman Originals.

Cecilia bought the dress and sent a picture of it to her daughter, Grace.

And Grace looked at the picture and thought, “Mom just bought a white dress with gold stripes.”

But Cecilia knew that she had just purchased a blue dress with black stripes.

And that’s where things got weird.

Grace showed the picture to her friends.

Some saw black and blue.

Some white and gold.

That trend continued when she put the picture on Facebook.

Even at the wedding, where mom was clearly wearing a black and blue dress, many guests couldn’t believe that it was the same dress in the photo.

Not long after the ceremony, one of Grace’s friends posted the picture on her blog.

The when “The Dress” became a phenomenon.

I know it seems like a quaint memory from the distant past, but there once was a time when the internet could make us laugh and smile about silly things rather than filling our lives with rage bait, pseudo-science, and AI generated nonsense.

That’s what happened when “The Dress” went viral.

At its peak, the friend’s blog “was receiving 14,000 views a second.”

An online poll about “The Dress” set a record with more than 670,000 people viewing it at the same time.

And on Twitter, debate about the dress inspired competing hashtags—"#whiteandgold", "#blueandblack"—and was ultimately “the subject of 4.4 million tweets within 24 hours.”

More than ten years later, “The Dress” remains something of an enigma. Scientific studies have found connections between the viewer’s age, gender, even the time at which they usually wake up and the colors they saw, but there’s no consensus explanation for why people perceive the colors of the dress differently.

So “The Dress” lives on in our culture’s memory like something of an optical illusion, a trick of the mind, another example of light’s fascinating movements and properties.

And it is fascinating, this science of light—how white sunlight becomes a rainbow, how we see the stars in our nighttime sky as they existed thousands of years ago, how two people can see the same object in different colors.

I thought about light often this week in preparation for this service–the science of light, but also the various meanings we ascribe to it.

From the familiar lights of the places we call home to candles lit in memory of a loved one, we look to light for comfort, clarity, and direction.

Literally and figuratively, light helps us understand our surroundings and shows us where to go.

Light plays a prominent role in our faith tradition, too, as there are numerous scriptures that describe light as embodying the qualities, character, and even the presence of God.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation;” confessed the writer of Psalm 27, “whom shall I fear?” (Psalm 27:1)

Or, in Psalm 119, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105)

Or, in the Prologue to John’s Gospel, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:4)

Then there’s Jesus, and what he had to say about light.

Again Jesus spoke to them saying,“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

This is the passage that’s at the heart of our worship today because there’s an essential link between what Jesus said, what we understand about light, and Pride Sunday.

You see, when all the colors of the rainbow are together and unified, like on a sunny day—when their wavelengths are unimpeded–when the colors are, if you will, free—then light is clear and we have our best opportunity to accurately assess our surroundings, what we’re looking at, and where we’re going.

But when colors are filtered or blocked, when the wavelengths of colors are manipulated, our perceptions are less about the object before us and more about whatever is filtering the light.

Now when we go to a show on Broadway, a good lighting designer can block and filter colors to create a mood or atmosphere that enhances the overall production, but just ask my costume designing wife what bad lighting can do to beautiful clothes.

In bad light, that which is bright and colorful becomes shadowed and altered. Bad lighting can even make something disappear altogether.

So when Jesus says that he is the light, I understand that, on one hand, he is taking upon himself the hopes and dreams of people like the Psalmists and other faithful hearts. He is declaring himself to be a source of wisdom and clarity, comfort, hope, and so much more.

But on the other hand, when Jesus says “I am the light,” he is also telling us something about how he expects us to look at the world and our neighbors.

He is empowering us to reject and set aside all the filters and barriers with which we try to manipulate our surroundings and turn people into something that they are not.

If bad lighting can ruin a good costume design, then God knows that casting our neighbors in an unflattering light is a threat to the ties that bind us together, the common good, and dreams of Beloved Community.

I mean let’s be honest, the filter of homophobia cast a shadow over almost everything in the United Methodist Church for fifty years, a shadow that twisted reality, tried to make us believe all sorts of pernicious things about LGBT individuals, and, in the end, made most of our global gatherings feel like we were lost in the dark rather than walking in the light.

What Pride Sunday offers us, however, is an invitation to be centered in the grace and truth that makes for genuine community.

No shadows.

No filters.

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body,” said Saint Paul, “so it is with Christ.” (1 Cor. 12:12)

“If we walk in the light,” said Saint John, “as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

Or as our call to worship reminded us, “The colors of the rainbow are distinct, but they all shine together to make one light.”

Friends, we can’t walk in the light of God when we’re throwing shade at others.

That’s true about homophobia, racism, classism, or anything that makes us believe that we are inherently superior to anybody else.

Those are light blocking filters that play tricks with our minds.

That’s the kind of stuff Jesus tells us to get rid of if we want to see others as he sees us.

This week I found something really interesting in our church’s archives. It was an announcement for a community Lenten service that would take place here at Asbury on March 11, 1960. The guest preacher was Rev. Martin Niemoeller.

That caught my attention because Niemoller is remembered as one of the prominent voices of Christian resistance to the Nazis in Hitler’s Germany. He even spent several years in a concentration camp for running afoul of the regime that he once supported.

What he is most well known for today, though, is a quote that, for me, illustrates what happens when we allow the sahdows of our prejudices and self-centeredness to block God’s light and obscure the worth and dignity of others.

About the Nazis, Niemoeller said,

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Niemoeller learned that those who cast shadows on their neighbors will end up in the dark.

We can’t walk in the light of God when we’re throwing shade at others.

But Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

May we always walk in the light.

Amen.

Significant Simplicity (Luke 24:48-53)

My father worked in highway construction for fifty years. Beginning when he was a teenager and continuing until he was almost seventy, Dad helped build roads all over the state of Indiana.

He loved his job.

Dad’s love for what he did helped me appreciate that roads are so much more than a way to get from Point A to Point B.

Roads are storytellers.

Sometimes the stories are about how the road was made–the slopes, the drainage, the width of the shoulder—but take a ride with my dad anywhere south in Indianapolis and you’re most likely to hear the road tell tales of hidden sinkholes and springs that slowed a project’s progress, engineering challenges that had to be met, long lost historic sites that required roads to be rerouted, and memorable work site shenanigans.

You’ll also hear about the colorful cast of characters Dad met on the road. Co-workers, gas station owners, nice old farmers, mean old farmers, criminals, crime victims, law enforcement, hitchhikers, and stranded drivers—when I was growing up, Dad seemed to know just about everyone who passed through, broke down in, or from Southern Indiana.

Throughout my life, I’ve known people who are into cars, or travel, or even kitschy roadside attractions, but I’ve never known anyone who was into the roads themselves like my dad.

Dad’s influence must’ve predisposed me to connect with the idea that the spiritual life is a journey, a roadtrip even, because I’ve always found that to be a meaningful and useful way to talk about Faith.

In fact, of all the quotations, lines, and lyrics rattling around in my head, several of those that resonate with me the most speak of the spiritual path we travel throughout our lives. There are the opening lines of Dante’s Inferno, for example.

Midway along the journey of our life

I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

for I had wandered off from the straight path. (I.1-3)

There’s Robert Frost’s preferred path.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference. (The Road Not Taken)

And there’s the way the hymn “Marching to Zion” compares God’s grace to the bounty and beauty of a lush and verdant landscape.

The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets,

before we reach the heavenly fields,

or walk the golden street.

My affinity for talking and thinking about the spiritual life in ways like these, with images likes these, leads me to receive the choir’s anthem for this service with open arms.

“The Road Home” is a piece composed by Scott Paulus with lyrics written by Michael Dennis Browne that speak “eloquently about "returning" and "coming home" after being lost or wandering.

Accordingly, the song’s first verse brings to mind the times in our own lives when, either because of choices we made or the impact of circumstances upon us, we lost our way.

Tell me, where is the road

I can call my own,

That I left, that I lost,

So long ago?

All these years I have wandered,

Oh, when will I know

There's a way, there's a road

That will lead me home?

Browne recalls that he was thinking about his sister–who was ill–and his home country– which he had not visited in some time–when we wrote these words, but a sign of the song’s power is that it’s accessible to listeners from numerous emotional paths, not just those that mirror the writer’s own.

He notes,

What I was looking for was a significant simplicity, something memorable and resonant and patterned, but not as complex as poems can often be, need to be; I wanted something immediate. Little by little, the words came. I thought of the speaker as a persona rather than myself, though of course there needed to be a “personal vibration” to it…. I was also trying to suggest the consolation that can come to someone of faith, in times of great stress, as a result of prayer and an abiding belief in divine mercy.

Verse three speaks about that consolation and expresses the promise of divine mercy that helps us make the connection between “The Road Home” and the story of Jesus’ Ascension.

This is how Michael Dennis Browne concludes the song.

Rise up, follow me,

Come away, is the call,

With the love in your heart

As the only song;

There is no such beauty

As where you belong:

Rise up, follow me,

I will lead you home.

While the scripture depicts the Ascension of Jesus as a miracle–as something literally out of this world–it shares “a significant simplicity” with “The Road Home.”

In the forty days following his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples on numerous occasions. He broke bread with them. He spoke with them. He taught them many things about the Kingdom of God. And then one day, he ascended to Heaven.

In the words of our opening hymn, “Christ, awhile to mortals given, reascends his native heaven.”

Both books in the New Testament written by Saint Luke describe the Ascension. It was such an important moment for Luke that it actually connects the two.

Luke’s Gospel ends with the Ascension and the Book of Acts begins with it.

We read the Gospel account this morning.

[Jesus said,] You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God. (Luke 24:48-53)

The account in Acts is very similar, with one notable addition.

It’s there that Luke tells how the moment so overwhelmed the disciples, that two angels had to give them a little nudge to get moving again. (Acts 1:9-11)

And I think that’s great, because in both accounts, Luke lets us know that while this amazing, incredible, holy thing happened, the practical importance of the Ascension was that the disciples could still count on God’s love and gracious presence to guide them in the ways that they should go.

The power of the story before us today, you see, isn’t merely that this amazing, incredible, holy thing happened to Jesus.

The power of the Ascension story is that because this amazing, incredible, holy thing happened, we, as his followers, can live our lives with greater clarity regarding what’s important, what matters most, and where we are going.

Luke tells us that Jesus led the disciples to Bethany and blessed them there, and in that blessing their next step became clear. That day they joyfully went back to Jerusalem where, in time, the Holy Spirit moved upon them, their next step became clear, and the Church was born. That’s the Pentecost story. We’ll talk about that next week.

And other steps followed, steps that took them to new places where they met new people, yet steps that were centered in the same love and grace they always experienced in Jesus’ presence.

Even when the road they travelled was tough, the conditions fierce, and enemies seemed to be waiting in ambush, the Lord’s promises held true.

“My grace is sufficient for you,” said the Lord. (2 Corinthians 12:9).

And it still is.

Rise up, follow me,

Come away, is the call,

With the love in your heart

As the only song;

There is no such beauty

As where you belong:

Rise up, follow me,

I will lead you home.

Many paths have brought us to this place, many more will lead us from here, and at this moment, we have a lot of feelings about the next steps we need to take.

It’s graduation season and the school year is starting to wind down, so there’s a nervous excitement in the air as some of us and the people we love make steps into new beginnings in new places.

At the same time, in this era when the unprecedented has become commonplace, many of us feel that the conditions on the road we’re travelling are changing so quickly that we’re struggling to see where we’re going at all and paths that once seemed clear and secure now seem a bit more treacherous.

And then, among us, around us, and even within us, there are places when the journey has taken its toll and we are scared to death about what’s around the next corner.

Tell me, where is the road

I can call my own,

That I left, that I lost,

So long ago?

All these years I have wandered,

Oh, when will I know

There's a way, there's a road

That will lead me home?

Wherever you are today, you need to hear the significant simplicity of this promise.

“My grace is sufficient for you,” says the Lord, and there's a way, there's a road, that will lead you home.

Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.

Image: Photo by Sitraka at https://unsplash.com/photos/grey-concrete-road-Imm-26ExCTs. Free to use under the Unsplash License

Living Stones and Sentence Diagrams (1 Peter 2:2-10)

Note: Most of my preached sermons stick close to what I've written and posted here. I added enough to this in the pulpit that I thought it made sense to include the live version here. It starts just before the 25 minute mark in the video above.

During this Easter season, we’ve heard several passages from the Book of First Peter. This morning, we read what I believe is the most famous one–verses from the book’s second chapter that compare the Risen Christ and his followers to a most unusual kind of rock.

Come to him, a living stone though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter: 2:4-5)

Now, let’s be clear. There’s no evidence that Peter was thinking about some naturally occurring phenomenon here.

The living stones he describes aren’t anything like the trolls in Frozen.

Rather, he seems to be deliberately stretching his audience’s imagination a little bit—using contrast and even humor to get them thinking about their relationship with Jesus in a new way.

Talk of living stones brings to mind images of growth, movement, and vitality–not the sort of things one usually looks for in building materials, but qualities Christians have associated with discipleship since the Church’s inception.

Reading the passage, I also can’t help but think about the role idols and temples played in the Roman Empire. That is, after all, the cultural background for this scripture.

Written in Rome and delivered to Christians who were facing hardships because of their beliefs in another part of the Empire, the author and audience were surrounded by statues and structures dedicated to the pantheon of Roman gods and goddesses.

Today, we call the remains of those statues and structures archaeological treasures, but to many of our spiritual ancestors they were symbols of an Imperial cult built on forced obedience and their oppression.

According to Peter, they were really just rocks.

Instead, he wanted the people to think about their relationship with Christ not as one thinks about a shrine to which they bring an offering or a temple that they visit, but as a force of life and energy to which they are intimately connected.

Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:2-3)

Because of their connection with that force, the people take on its characteristics, too.

Peter reminds the Church that things that detract from and destroy relationships must find no room in their hearts.

Things like malice, guile, insincerity, envy, and slander–you don’t build God’s spiritual house with junk like that.

Living stones, on the other hand, are holy, chosen, and set apart for awesome work.

Peter wrote,

You [Church] are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,

but now you are God’s people;

once you had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10)

As my friends and I discussed these verses at our preacher’s Bible Study this week we noted the generous use of adjectives in the passage.

If you grew up diagramming sentences in English class, this passage might give you flashbacks, because it seems as though almost every noun has a modifier connected to it.

Of course, sometimes writing like that comes across as pedantic or ostentatious, and sometimes it reflects a student’s desperate attempt to reach the minimum word court for their assignment.

But here, it reads as excitement, like this is really wonderful, important, life changing news that the apostle is almost straining to put it into words.

Just listen again to some of the adjectives he uses—newborn, pure, spiritual, living, chosen, precious, holy, royal, marvellous—and all those words either describe the people or the Church’s mission.

What beautiful and evocative descriptions of who we are and what the Church is all about.

Come to him, a living stone though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter: 2:4-5)

I suppose another way to say all this is that Jesus is on the move and we’re called to go, too.

To go with him to those who are hurting with grace that brings healing.

To go with him to those who have been pushed aside and forgotten with grace that welcomes and restores.

To go with Christ to those who are buried under lifeless stones with grace that sets free and gives life.

As Peter wrote in the letter’s opening chapter,

Prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed….[Do] not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct, for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:13-16)

You and I, the people of Asbury Church, have been through and, even now, are going through a lot.

There’s heartbreak in our stories, grief in our stories, screw ups and losses and mistakes and troubles in our stories, but, thanks be to God, God isn’t done with our stories just yet.

The message of First Peter is that God’s love is still at work within and among us–speaking hope into our hearts, helping us to bear one another’s burdens, and building us into something beautiful–a real, vibrant, and living community centered in Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.

The Shepherd's Voice (John 10:1-10)

From numerous scriptures to countless hymns and sacred songs, “The Good Shepherd” is one of our Faith’s most comforting and enduring images, but did you know that bad shepherds play an important part in our story, too?

When Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd” he wasn’t merely being clever. He was claiming as his own a title of rich historical significance.

Biblical authors often used the image of a good shepherd to make their points.

So, for example, when David wanted to sing of God’s goodness and mercy, he turned to this image.

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. (Psalm 23)

Likewise, when the writer of Psalm 78 wanted to recall fond memories of King David’s reign, they, again, turned to this image.

[The LORD] chose his servant David, and took him from the sheepfolds; from tending the nursing ewes he brought him to be the shepherd of his people…With upright heart he tended them, and guided them with skillful hand.

The connection between shepherding and kingship is, in fact, very strong, and it’s not unique to the Bible, either.

Ancient cultures from Mesopotamia to Egypt and beyond used the vocabulary and images of tending livestock to describe how well those in power lead, guided, and protected their people.

And just as there were good shepherds and skilled and benevolent kings, there were also fools who had no business leading a flock of animals, much less a nation.

Bad Shepherds show up all over the Old Testament, particularly in the books of the prophets.

Lamenting how the nation’s leaders had become indifferent to the people’s suffering, the prophet Zechariah remarked, “Their own shepherds have no pity on them.” (Zechariah 11:5)

The prophet Jeremiah expressed similar concerns when he preached, “[The LORD says,] “It is you [shepherds] who have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you.” (Jeremiah 23:2)

And then there’s Ezekiel.

Ezekiel’s condemnation of bad shepherds is the most expansive in the Bible, and it’s really quite telling.

His words read like a performance review that’s gone horribly wrong.

To the shepherds—thus says the Lord God: Woe, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat; you clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatted calves, but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak; you have not healed the sick; you have not bound up the injured; you have not brought back the strays; you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.

“You had one job,” the Lord God seemed to say, “and you failed miserably.”

Ezekiel continues,

So [the sheep] were scattered because there was no shepherd, and scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them. (Ezekiel 34:1-6)

On a day like this, a day on which we focus on what it means to call Jesus the Good Shepherd, I find Ezekiel’s indictment of poor leadership to be particularly useful.

It’s useful because by so vividly describing what poor leadership looks like, he helps us understand more clearly what the goals of good leadership are in the first place.

To enrich oneself, to satisfy selfish cravings, to regard those being led as rubes to exploit or roadblocks that just get in the way—these are anathema to Spirit-inspired leaders.

Unmoored from God’s love, absent God’s grace, these shepherds lead scattered flocks and build fractured communities.

“If Ezekiel were among us now,” wrote theologian Walter Bruggemann, “he might well conclude that the emergence of the "99%" is a scourge from God that intends to expose and bring down social policies, practices, and institutions that are out of sync with God's will for shalom.” (ON Scripture, 11.16.11)

Less we hear Bruggemann’s words through the lens of toxic partisanship, it’s worth noting that he made that observation during the Occupy Wall Street protests fifteen years ago, a reminder that God’s desire for how we order our lives is so much more than the promises of our political parties and economic theories.

Bruggemann continued,

The promissory nature of Ezekiel's oracles articulates what good leadership looks like...in government, in corporations, all through the private sector. That rule consists in,

Seeking the lost,

Bring back the strayed,

Binding up the injured,

Strengthening the weak,

Feeding the hungry.

In a word, good leadership consists in the restoration of the common good so that all members of the community, strong and weak, rich and poor, may live together in a common shalom of shared resources…What is envisioned (and required) is the formation of a different leadership that has in purview all members of the community. Ezekiel knew that is the only way to have a future that does not replicate the failed past.

Ezekiel’s vision is just as relevant to our understanding of Jesus as the Good Shepherd as the more pastoral images that we find in the Psalms because the One who takes us to green pastures and leads us beside still waters doesn’t take us there alone.

Rather, the prophet knew the truth that Jesus would embody–that we are members of the shepherd’s flock, part of God’s community, and the gracious blessings imparted to each one of us must fundamentally transform how we relate to, look out for, and live with one another.

Sitting this week with how the Bible talks about shepherds, I’m struck that despite the need for good shepherding, the marketplace for bad shepherds continues to be vast and growing.

We give our time and energy to online platforms that have a vested interest in keeping us angry, then wonder why we’re so mad.

We open our minds to unserious and unvetted sources, then suffer the consequences of lacking understanding.

We make peace with violence and accept that scarcity leads to prosperity, then wonder why no one trusts anybody and why people are so lonely.

We surround ourselves with clowns, then act surprised to find ourselves living in a circus.

The voices of bad shepherds are as loud as they’ve ever been.

[But the good shepherd] calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." (John 10:3-5)

The voices of bad shepherds are as loud as they’ve ever been, but Jesus says we don’t have to listen to them and we certainly don’t have to go where they would lead us.

The Good News is that Jesus is the Good Shepherd of our souls and our lives, and through the lessons and example of his life, death, and resurrection he is teaching us how to tend to one another….

To seek the lost,

Bring back the strayed,

Bind up the injured,

Strengthen the weak,

And feed the hungry.

May we be found attentive to his voice and faithful to our calling.

The One who takes us to green pastures and leads us beside still waters doesn’t take us there alone, but makes us members of the shepherd’s flock, part of God’s community, where we find blessings that transform how we relate to, look out for, and live with one another.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: Latimore, Kelly. Good Shepherd, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Original source: Kelly Latimore Icons, https://kellylatimoreicons.com/.