Tzitzit

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

In the book of Numbers, God tells Moses to speak to the Israelites and tell them to make fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put a blue cord on the fringe at each corner.  This was so they would remember and do God’s commandments and doing God’s commandments would make them holy.  These are the fringes that the people begged to touch on Jesus’ robe in today’s Gospel.  The fringes were reminders of the Commandments… a physical, visible reminder that the path to healing, holiness and wholeness was paved with love of God and love of neighbor. 

What must it have been like to be one of the crowd reaching with all of their being for the fringe of Jesus’ robe in this story?  Over the last year and a half it has felt like we’ve been reaching with all of our being to make it through the pandemic.  Does our experience give us a clue how those people felt?  All of us have been clawing our way toward that one moment of hope, just like that crowd clawed towards theirs… toward the moment when the tips of our fingers met the fringe which meant healing, holiness and wholeness.  And as I wondered this week if their experience had any relation to ours, here’s what else I wondered… I wondered if when those people in the crowd finally got to touch the fringe of Jesus’ robe, did they get the healing they were expecting?  The text says they were healed and I believe it.  But did they get the healing they expected, or maybe did some of them get healed in ways they they did not expect, couldn’t immediately see, or even recognize, or embrace?  Did they get to that moment they had been reaching for and end up finding that things were not the way they expected them to be?

I wonder about that because over the past year and a half I have reached out with all my being… with every ounce of physical, emotional, and spiritual energy just KNOWING the whole time that the day the pandemic ended… the day I finally got to my version of touching the very fringe of Jesus’ robe, I… we… would experience the healing, holiness and wholeness we all so desperately needed.  And for a year and a half I’ve been certain of exactly what that healing moment would look like!  It would be a glorious festival celebration on our first Sunday back!  The pews would be filled to overflowing.  The passing of the peace would go on for an hour and coffee hour would stretch long into the afternoon!   As I fought and clawed and wrestled through the pandemic, in perhaps a similar way the crowd fought and clawed and wrestled to get to Jesus… I just KNEW that when I finally got there… when, like the people in that crowd, I finally managed to touch, even just the fringes of Jesus’ robe… and we made it to the end of the pandemic… THAT would be what it looked like.  Except… it didn’t.   

Instead, as it turns out, it looks and feels nothing like I expected.  I still trust the promise that I have been healed, but to be honest I haven’t yet been able to discover where that healing, holiness and wholeness is happening.  Coming out of this pandemic being so very different than I had imagined it would be has been really hard this last month and I know I’m not alone.  We’re all in one way or another still trying to figure out what this side looks like.  What should just stay on Zoom?  What works on live stream just as well as in person?  What can we do without having to get on an airplane to do it?  AND what are the things that just DEMAND a physical reaching out and touch... like the people did reaching for Jesus' blue cords… what simply can’t be replaced by anything other than seeing each other face to face and not through a screen.  What still absolutely demands a fully connected skin to skin handshake?  What can we get by with on line and what just can't be done by anything other than a loving embrace?  

That’s where I am these days.  We have made it to the other side.  We’ve stretched with every once we had, reached and finally... we've touched the fringe of Jesus’ robe.  We’ve been healed, made holy and made whole… AND it feels nothing like what I thought it would.  It's all much harder than I expected.  It’s made me sad, fearful about my future, and more depressed than I’ve been in a very long time.  Maybe some in that crowd felt that way after touching the fringe of Jesus’ robe when the healing they received was not as they had imagined it would be.   

There is no way to know how that crowd felt of course but I think it’s good for us to share with each other how we are feeling these days.  Broken?  Healed?  Somewhere in between?  Regardless of where you find yourself today after reaching for a year and a half through this pandemic toward healing, holiness, and wholeness, I think this lesson leaves us all with the same advise...  We are never done reaching for that thin blue cord on the fringe of Jesus’ robe.  We must keep reaching and walking and stretching toward the Promise of God’s Covenant… that it is in the actions we do in loving God and loving neighbor that we find the healing, holiness, and wholeness we've been given.  It is in the DOING of love that the healing we’ve already been Divinely given slowly becomes clear.  May we continue to care for one another, be gentle with one another, and hold each other up as each of us walks each day more deeply into the healing, holiness, and wholeness God has given us.  Amen. 

You're a Vehicle, Baby

Psalm 85:8-13

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.

Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.

Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.

In my car the speedometer is on the right.  On the left there’s a gauge I’ve never had in a car before.  It shows how much power is either going out of the battery or going back into the battery.  The people who created my all-electric car wanted to let drivers know what sort of driving used the most power and what sort of driving recovered the most power.  With that information the driver could learn the best ways to drive to get the most out of their car.  

Without that feedback from that gauge, given to me by the people who know it best (because they designed and built it), I would really have no idea how to use this car to the fullness of what the designer’s intended.  With that gauge I do.  Do I always drive it for maximum efficiency?  No.  Do I sometimes go 0-60 faster than a mid 80’s Corvette just because I can?  Perhaps.  But do I have to GUESS how to drive to get the most out of my car.  Not at all!    

And that, believe it or not, leads us back into today’s Psalm.  In this Psalm, God, the designer and builder of the vehicle we call a human life, shares with us how to get the most out of this thing called life.  God is going to “speak peace” to God’s people.  God is telling us how to get real WHOLENESS out of this life we’ve been given.  How to maximize LIFE in the body styles and model years that we’re each currently driving.  

In this Psalm, God’s “salvation” is the very best advise on how to maximize the life you have been given straight from the designer and manufacturer.  That advice is RIGHT there at our fingertips for those who “fear” God.  This is not meant to be understood as the“fear” of a God who's just waiting to jump out and GETCHA.  Here, fear is meant to describe the feeling of AWE at suddenly encountering the One who has designed each one of us from the atoms up!  THIS “fear” is not being afraid, but instead how it feels to find ourselves in gobsmacking wonder as we hear first hand from the One who put each one of us together piece by piece!  It is meant to describe the wide eyed, speechless, cavernous jaw drop we experience as we hear God tell us to our faces that each one of us has been wonderfully made!

Which is all the dramatic the way this Psalm chooses to give us a heads up and say, “Pay attention!  THIS next bit is directly from the ONE who really knows!”  And the ONE who really knows… KNOWS that it is in STEADFAST LOVE that we meet with FAITHFULNESS.  It is in RIGHTEOUSNESS that we will find ourselves filled with the WHOLENESS of life.  God knows… KNOWS better than ANY OTHER… that when we pass on God’s loving kindness to our neighbors and the world around us... THAT is the most faithful way to drive this life we’ve been given.  Living this life as a vehicle to spread God’s loving kindness to the world is what following our manufacturer’s design for living looks like!  And when you drive your life in THAT way, you'll see abundant life, for yourself, for others, and for the world just seeming to spring up from the ground, meet you in the street, and pour down on you from the skies!  

God has given us these directions for living, not like some sort of sadistic sociopath who delights in tripping us up and sending us to hell.  If that’s your god, then I’ve got to tell you, you’ve got a terrible god and that isn’t the God of Scripture, it isn’t the God of the Psalms, it isn’t the God of Jesus and it’s not the God of the Gospel.  The real God...OUR God is the ONE who loved us into being and the ONE who wants us, more than anything else, to follow our manufacturer’s design recommendations… NOT to “GET US” when we don’t, but because the more we LIVE as we were designed to live, the MORE we get out of this thing called life we’ve been given!  THAT’S the God we have!  We have a God who freely shares with us how we were designed and made because our God WANTS us to live every second of our lives from starting line to finish with our gauge for abundant life completely maxed out the whole time!  

THAT is what God wants for us and that is why God shows us, here in the Psalm and in countless other places, that the way to live our lives maxed out on abundance is to drive our lives on this road called "loving kindness", doing what is in the other’s best interest, having what the world would call “too much grace” for others, showing compassion, kindness, generosity and love to people along the way.  Even to those who don't deserve it... Especially to those who don't deserve it!  THAT is the road God wants us to drive.  Not to “get us if we don’t” but so that we will know at the end of the road that we’ve really lived the life, God created us to live.  Amen.   

Lighting Wet Wood

Mark 6:1-13

Jesus left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Jesus had thought he would do his teaching, healing, casting out demons thing for his own home town.  But for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit, had not yet lit a fire in Jesus’ own home town.  So, in a move that is meant to be a lesson for you and me, Jesus didn’t keep trying to set fire to the soaking wet wood pile called Nazareth he THOUGHT should be on fire, but instead moved on and found where the Spirit HAD already lit a fire and went to work fueling THAT fire, in THAT place instead. 

When I was in Maine I hooked up with some Episcopalians and soon it was clear those five churches were in the same boat as my one Lutheran church… all struggling… all needing some "deeds of power.”  The fire I THOUGHT the Spirit should light was in these churches!  Together they would have the people and resources to do the deeds of power our town needed!  And Augusta needed some serious deeds of power to be sure!  Manufacturing jobs shipped off shore, one of only a couple of places in the state where people with mental and developmental difficulties could find services AND on top of all that, it was quickly and unexpectedly becoming a place for refugees from Syria and Iraq to settle as well.  MY plan for Augusta made complete and total sense, just like Jesus’ plan for Nazareth… and just like for Jesus… it was NOT AT ALL where the Holy Spirit had chosen to light a fire!  Instead the Spirit had lit lots of little, very different looking fires, among unexpected people… all in places we couldn’t immediately see.

   

One of the Episcopal churches had a little fire going.  The rest were soaking wet for that moment.  Instead we found little fires in the local synagogue, with the neighborhood Catholic priest and in the leadership of the growing Muslim community.  Not at all what was expected… but then, what Jesus and the disciples found in Nazareth wasn’t what they expected either! 

For Jesus and the disciples they did what little they could and then just moved on.  In Maine, we did the same thing, although it took us a lot longer than the couple of paragraphs it took Jesus!  In Maine those strange little fires were eventually found and then slowly grown into something called The Capital Area New Mainers Project.  It all started with tiny, little fires set by the Spirit in unexpected places coming together, growing bigger and bigger, and eventually it was a fire burning wider and brighter than anything any of us could have imagined at the start.  

Fast forward now a half dozen years or so to about a month ago.  One of those other Episcopal churches never did dry out and catch fire.  They held their final services and closed.  Sad, but not unexpected.  Much less expected was the announcement that The Capital Area New Mainers Project had been given their property by the the diocese.  This week they were already at work renovating the fellowship hall to create an apartment for a newly arriving Syrian family of nine.

Do you see?  God’s deeds of power get done!  Healing from the horrors and scars of war were being done AND they got done right in the middle of the soaking wet pile of wood in which we couldn’t even strike a spark!  The demons of religious and ethnic bigotry and xenophobia were being cast out as Christians, Jews, and Muslims came together to love one another and grow a new Augusta!  Seeing God’s powerful deeds being done… not in my time or in the way I had envisioned them…  but in God’s time and with God’s much more expansive vision… seeing all that come together six or so years later has finally, I think, worked this particular lesson through the very big cracks in my very thick skull… at least for today.  

My prayer is that we all canlearn this lesson… to look up from the fires we try to start in wet piles of wood, and instead see the unexpected fires that the Spirit has already started all around us.  Learn to trust God’s timetable for doing deeds of power, more like Jesus learned it… in just a couple of paragraphs… rather than the way I learned it… over a half dozen years, and that we would remember this lesson as we walk into our future here.  So remember:  the Holy Spirit is always lighting fires.  Those fires are almost never in the places or in the people or on the time table WE think they should be.  And remember it’s better to fuel the fires that the Spirit’s started, than trying to set fire to a pile of soaking wet wood that just isn’t yet ready to burn. Amen. 

A Grande Fromage Parable Sandwich

 Mark 5:21-43

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”  So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.

Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

The Leader of the Synagogue, the “Grande Fromage” of the town, as J-A would say, was waiting for Jesus.  His daughter was dying, so Jesus made a beeline for this little girl.  It was urgent.  Time was scarce.  No time for distractions or interruptions… but then, along the way, Jesus felt it… power going out of him… someone had been healed.  He stopped.  He took time he didn’t have.  He asked who touched him.  A woman came forward and confessed what had happened and then Jesus said “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in Peace.  BE IN SHALOM.  BE WHOLE.  And almost as an afterthought… be healed of your disease.”

You see, to Jesus, the bleeding was a big deal, but not the whole story.  Under the surface there was so much more.  The exhaustion, the worry of a medical issue that would not… could not be resolved… the anxiety of being bankrupt from medical bills, the torment of being separated from her community… sent into exile until this unclean bleeding thing had stopped… except that it never stopped.  But NOW… NOW she was made SHALOM… WHOLE in body, mind, spirit, and community once again. 

Jesus chose to stop for this interruption and bring wholeness to this woman’s life… but in our world of limits and scarcity, choices like that have consequences.  The interruption had taken too long.  The little girl was dead, and dead was dead.  Jesus said, “Don’t be afraid.  Come with me.  Trust me.” 

This is how it goes in Mark’s Gospel and how it goes for us as well.  Jesus shows us over and over again that he has power over the winds and the sea, over sickness and disease and even over death itself!  But no matter how many times he shows it, no matter how many times we hear it, we never really embrace it fully, do we?  Then and now we stubbornly cling to the notion that there is only a limited amount of everything… time, money, resources, healing, wholeness, life… so choices must be made…things must be either this or that and there will always be winners and losers, those who live and those who die. 

This sandwich of parables sets us all up to agonize about that sort of impossible choice once again by pitting a sick little girl and the daughter of someone rich and important against a poor, exiled, no-name woman.  The world demands we make a choice.  Will it be the no-named woman or the little girl with powerful connections?  There simply isn’t enough time or healing or life for both.  One must win and the other one loose.  One must be healed and the other one left to languish.  One must live and the other one die.  We MUST choose!  

For those with deep compassion for the poor you might choose the woman.  She is the lost, the last, and the least.  Others would choose the child.  Innocent and vulnerable, with so much life ahead of her.  Still others would choose the leader of the Synagogue as an investment in the power he possessed and the potential he had to be able to do more in the community in the future.  How would you answer?  Which one is the right choice?  Who lives?  Who dies?  Who writes the story?  This parable demands we choose!  The world demands we choose! 

But Jesus… Jesus chooses both.  Jesus chooses the woman AND the little girl!  Where we see only scarcity, Jesus finds abundance.  Where we see either/or, Jesus finds both/and.  Where we see only brokenness and exile, Jesus shows us wholeness and shalom.  Where we see only death, Jesus shows us life... and as people who are the Body of Christ, Jesus shows us that we are not limited by the world’s harsh rules of scarcity either!  In Christ we are shown there is a NEW creation with an overflowing abundance of possibilities!  

Having trouble embracing Jesus’ seemingly unbelievable truth of all that?  You’re in good company.  The disciples back then had trouble too.  I’m no better than the disciples 2000 years later.  The world’s ways are very loud and INSIST there is only so much to go around!  It is easy to get beaten down and give in.  To hear the quiet truth of God’s abundance is much, much, much harder.  

I have found that I am only able to hear the quiet truth of God’s abundance when you all help me hear it.  When we gather together, you take me by the shoulders and turn me so I can hear the truth the world has drown out.  That is the incredible power of this Christian Community we call Christ Trinity Church.  When we show up here for one another… it’s even MORE than the 80% of success Woody Allen claimed it is!  Because we all need help to hear the truth that we can never hear on our own…  that there really is a beautiful, Divine, wholeness to the world.  Alone we only hear the shattering brokenness.  Together we point out God’s abundance to one another.  Alone we only see scarcity.  Together we have the strength to walk one another toward life.  Alone we so easily spiral into the darkness of death.  

On this side of the pandemic may we recommit to coming together in this place to gently turn each other every week so that we might hear the truth, that in Christ there is more than enough healing and wholeness and life for all of creation.  Amen.  

In the Page Turn

Mark 4:35-41

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

Give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good!  God’s mercy endures forever!  We’re back!  We’re back from the storm! We’re back from being tossed high on the waves of the Covid chaos!  Waves that mounted up to the heavens and descended to the depths as the Psalmist said. We’re back from having those waves beat into us trying to swamp our boat.  Back from the depths of grief where our souls melted away in peril… where we wondered if the Teacher even cared that we were perishing by hundreds of thousands… while God seemed to be asleep… in the stern… oblivious… on a cushion!  

So here we are.  The storm has finally calmed… but just like in this Gospel lesson… we’re not quite all the way back to shore yet, are we?  I think we had all imagined in this last year and a half that when this day finally came we’d be right back on shore in the same place we left.  But now that the day is here…  a lot of us… I know me for sure!… a lot of us find ourselves still a bit out to sea.  The sea is calm, and that’s certainly much better than things were last Spring with the storm fully raging… but we really aren’t fully back to shore yet either.  We’re like those disciples… we’re here… after the storm… in a sailboat… with no wind… bobbing around and a bit disoriented.

We’re no longer in the heart of the storm, for which I am eternally thankful, but we're also not back at the dock either.  This spot has left me sort of stunned and a little anxious to be honest.  Will actual people really come back?  Will they come back more than just today?  What will it be like preaching in a church to actual people again?   Will people who followed us online come and see what we’re like in person?  Will they still like us in person?  Do people want me to come and visit them?  Is that okay or does that idea make them anxious?  What if some variant pops up and we have to do this all over again?  Could we bear it?  Could I bear it? 

The raging - we’re pretty sure we’re all going to die - part of the storm really is over AND… at the same time the honest truth is that we’re not yet back to where we started this little boat ride either.  So we really ARE like those disciples in their sailboat, stuck in between the deadly raging storm that has just passed and an unknown shore in an unexpected windless calm, looking all around and wondering, “Now what?” 

I think our answer to that deeply theological question of “Now what?” will be found in the same place those original disciples found their answer.  For those disciples, the question of “Now What?” was the end of Fourth Chapter in Mark.  The answer came only when they turned the page, and began the next chapter…“They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes.”  There at the beginning of the new chapter, Jesus stepped out of the boat, the disciples followed, and together they began to do all the things they had done before… cast out the demons that separated people from one another… care for the least and the lost and the last… love God and love neighbor… walk in the footsteps of Jesus and nudge the world one little bit at a time ever closer toward the Kingdom of God.  The new chapter began when they began doing all of the old love and healing and compassion, with a new twist for a new time and a new place.  

I am sure that before we know it, we too will find ourselves climbing out of the boat, following on the coattails of Jesus and joining him in nudging the world toward the dream God has for the world once again in this new chapter that is a new beginning for all of us!  But for today… we’re not quite there just yet.  For today we’re still in the middle of the page turn.  Done with chapter four but not yet quite focused on the first word of chapter five.  And that’s okay.  After all, the disciples and Jesus himself were once in the middle of this exact sort of page turn themselves!

We’ll turn our page soon enough.  I suspect sooner than we could ever imagine!  We’ll be back to work soon enough out in the open and out of our masks, instead of having to work behind closed doors and masks like we have for so long.  We’ve already climbed over the boat seats and done a concert.  Next week we'll be clambering over the gunnels to host Pride and soon we’ll be in full stride, walking in Jesus’ footsteps out in the world once again!  But for today… it’s good to linger for a moment in this page turn and follow the lead of the Psalmist.  To take a moment and give thanks for the calm after the storm.  Sing alleluia… together… in person… in doors… in the assembly today!  Because before you know it, we’ll all be off with Jesus into our next chapter.  Amen.  

Walls of Corn

 Mark 4:26-34

Jesus also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

The operator answered, “911, state your emergency.”  On the other end of the phone a couple was terrified.  They and their infant daughter were horribly lost, deep in the torturous depths… of a corn maze.  Mosquitos, darkness, a poopy diaper and who knows what else was closing in.  They could see the lights of the farm, but in their panic, the only way they could think of to get out was to solve the maze and they had been trying to do that for over an hour!  They were so worked up they couldn’t stop and ask the question, “Is this wall between us and the farm a real wall, or is it just corn?” 

In today’s two parables, Jesus is trying to get the disciples then (and us disciples now) to stop running around in the darkness and really SEE the truth.  In both of the parables, Jesus is telling us that the Kingdom of God happens mysteriously, surprisingly and overwhelmingly and it all happens IN SPITE OF US!  In happens… like a seed.  In the first parable the seed isn’t planted or sown.  THROWN is the best translation.  THROWN with abandon... THROWN everywhere in the EARTH.  Jesus reminds us that God’s Kingdom is everywhere… in all the EARTH... in every square inch of all of creation.  There aren’t holy spots here and unholy spots there… ALL of creation is holy ground!  On top of that, check out WHEN God’s Kingdom grows!  It grows while you and I do the deeply theological work of simply falling asleep and waking up again!  These parables remind us it is not OUR job to either plant or grow the Kingdom of God... God plants it and the Kingdom grows regardless of what we do!  Instead, these parables are asking us, “DO WE SEE IT?”

Do you see it?  Are you able to look through the pandemic and politics, and panic of a rapidly changing world… and church?  Have pandemic, politics and panic blinded you with anxiety about what’s next?  Certainly no clergy would have worries… oh, like… Have we lost people over the pandemic?  We sure could use ten new families!  How about just one?  Where are we with pledging units and fund raisers and building bird houses?  Arrrrrrrrgh!  We NEED to GROW God’s Kingdom!  

These two parables remind ALL of us, regardless of the sort of shirt we wear, in the midst of all of that… of the truth.  God’s Kingdom already IS growing.  The REAL question is CAN WE SEE IT growing, because it might be growing in ways we’ve never seen it grow before?  Like a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle scattered on the floor, are we blinded by the chaos and hopelessness or can we stop… and look… and really SEE that those pieces are coming together to form a beautiful picture right before our eyes?  Can we see that the walls of the maze we feel trapped inside aren’t actually solid?  Can we stop, take a deep breath, look around and then simply walk toward the light through walls that the world insists are solid but turn out to be only made of corn?

The Kingdom of God is literally growing all around us.  The Kingdom of God keeps growing… while we’re sleeping or awake, locked down or opened up, whether we notice it or not.  These parables remind us to take time... PARTICULARLY when we find ourselves feeling trapped in our panicked, frantic, no time to even think world and really look… and not just look… but take the extra time on top of that to actually SEE!  Did you see how the Kingdom grew through the Feeding Sheffield program even while the world was locked behind closed doors?  Did you see how the Kingdom grew online when we had to go to streaming worship?  Did you see the Kingdom of God growing at the concert yesterday while we simply sat still and listened to the music?  Don’t just look… take the time to let the truth of God’s always growing creative abundance really soak in and SEE it working all around you and through you!

A hundred years ago I saw a Far Side cartoon of a kid pushing with all his might on the door to the Midvale School for the Gifted.  He was pushing with all his might right on the part of the door with a sign that read, “PULL.”  So much of our world is stuck just like that.  Stuck pushing on a door that says “Pull.”  Stuck in a maze unable to see the walls are only made of corn.  

These parables are for us in times like that.  Reminders that the seed grows with or without our help.  The tree really is big enough for every bird, the door says PULL and the walls are only made of corn.  So stop.  Look and SEE it.  Then put your arm around your neighbor’s shoulders and help them to see it too.  Amen.

Are You Nuts!?

 Mark 3:20-35

The crowd came together again, so that Jesus and the disciples could not even eat. When Jesus’s family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

In 1847 Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis ran two hospitals in Vienna.  One was the fancy, expensive teaching hospital with doctors and students (all male of course).  That’s where the rich went.  The other was a maternity clinic for... you know... the common folk.  The maternity clinic had no doctors… only midwives (all female of course).  But here’s the thing, in the fancy, high priced hospital, the women who went there to have their babies died from fever... A LOT… while over at the low-rent clinic things were MUCH better.  This statistic was SO well known in Vienna that all women, regardless of means or social status, BEGGED to go to the hospital with the midwives.  

Dr. Semmelweis eventually figured out that the reason for the huge difference in outcomes was because the midwives all WASHED THEIR HANDS.  In the fancy hospital, the doctors would just go from an autopsy to a surgery to a birth never washing their hands.  It just wasn’t done that way!  He proved that when they washed their hands infant mortality dropped... from 20% to less than 1 %!  It made him a hero, right?  Nope!  The doctors were outraged by being questioned about their cleanliness.  So offended that even the doctors who had been washing their hands before, stopped in protest!  The death rate tripled.  So THAT must have changed their minds, right?  Nope. 

Dr. Semmelweis fought for years, but eventually the fight broke him and he began to drink... A LOT.  He was committed to an insane asylum by his family where he was beaten, left in a dark cell, and died of... you guessed it... a fever.  Twenty years later, a man named Louis Pasteur proposed the idea of “germ theory” and hand washing took off around the world. 

The Scribes and Pharisees thought Jesus was insane like the other doctors thought Dr. Semmelweis was insane.  Jesus’s family thought he was insane as well… sad and to be pitied and in need of being quietly spirited away.  The thing is... from those outside, experienced points of view... he was!  Jesus was bonkers!  Jesus wasn’t AT ALL normal.  Jesus did things and said things that went against what everyone KNEW was true.  Who in their right mind would TOUCH a leper after all!  What sort of rational human being would take on the entire Roman Empire?  Who would do that?  Who would suggest that if someone asks you for a coat, you give them the rest of your clothes leaving you naked in the street?  Blessed are the poor?  Really!?  Have you BEEN poor?  It’s not that much of a blessing!  ALL of that sort of thinking was... WELL... CRAZY! 

Whether it was hand washing with Dr. Semelweiss, turning the other cheek with Jesus, or figuring out how to emerge from quarantine today, changing the way the world’s always done things… or even the way things have been done for the last  14 months… is really, really hard.  And frankly, trying to change those sorts of things will often look to your colleagues, to your family, to the authorities, and sometimes to the entire world, like you’re completely insane.  So how on earth do we do that?  How do we change the world, because that’s exactly what God is calling us to do!

Frederick Buechner wrote, “A Christian is one who is on ‘The Way’, though not necessarily very far along it.”  The way we change anything is to set one foot upon The WAY.  To do that it really helps to be part of a caring community who will keep reminding you that the “WAY” is not a destination, but a journey.  It’s a journey that may very well churn for years and years, even long after the people who began it are gone.  That’s how it was for Dr. Semilweiss.  That’s how it’s been for those trying to change sexism and systemic racism in our country.  That’s how it’s been for the LGBTQIA+ community and that’s how it’s been for the last 14 months trying to help people understand how science, masks, vaccines, and HAND WASHING works!  HAND WASHING!  Over 170 years after Dr. Semmelweis began trying to change the way things had always been done, we’re still working on it!

Changing the world to the Jesus Way of doing things is that sort of marathon, walking one step at a time toward racial justice, radical inclusion of everyone without regard to gender identity or sexual orientation and even toward hand washing!  It is a step by step journey on a life long path with each step taking with compassion, generosity and self-sacrificial love.

For those of us walking that path, it really is best to walk that path together.  To help each other not get discouraged.  To remember that each step, no matter how seemingly small is a milestone… that each step really does make a difference… that each step taken in compassion, generosity and love is a step of faithfulness.  

The world... ?  It’s nuts out there!  But to be fair, they all think we’re nuts in here too!  They think that because the Way we walk is as Robert Frost wrote, “the Road Not Taken”… it’s a poet’s road, a prophet’s road, an artist’s and a dreamer’s road and I am thankful every day that it is also the road we all share together and I'm so looking forward to walking it with all of you again in person very soon! Amen.