15th Sunday after Pentecost -- Fathers and Sons

The first reading and the gospel reading last Sunday both dealt with issues of fathers and son.  Two sons who were less than model sons, and three generations of men.  In that latter tale in Ezekiel, God makes it clear each person is judged on his or her own merit not on what family they are born into.  Righteousness trumps inheritance. 

An excerpt:

You see, back in the Ten Commandments, when God declares the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods,” God also says, “I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.”  For much of the history of Israel, it was understood that to follow the Torah, or not, was to have consequences not just for the one who kept the Law, or not, but for later generations as well.  As people who belong to a culture that is almost exclusively centered on the individual, we might find the notion that subsequent generations pay for the sins of former sins incredibly offensive.  Nonetheless there is the reality that there are ways that sin is communal.  Precisely as fathers form their children, sin can be formed in successive generations.  We know that there are genetic patterns that can be passed down from father to child in things like addictions.  Destructive and abusive behaviors can be passed down just through repeated behavior.  But also, we see that some things that are begun decades before can have devastating consequences for later generations.  When we understand ourselves to be part of a community extended through time, this perspective is not all that difficult.

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Pastoral Duties to the Deceased

A friend of mine recently wrote a blog titled "When Do You Cease Being Someone's Pastor?"  This question has nothing to do with people and voting membership or when they cease attending worship.  Charlie deals with the question of pastoral duties at the time of death. 

Very often I think folks generally think that the pastor is there for the living, not the one who has died.  It is true that it is holy ground to speak the gospel in those times surrounding the death of loved ones.  Charlie also raises the issue that as pastors we have duties to those who have died as well. He writes:

What I'm saying is that I still have certain duties to a member of my congregation after they die.  I am to comfort those who loved them with the word of the Gospel.  I am to pray (along with the deceased!) for the welfare and eternal salvation of those who survive.  Finally, I am to give Christian burial to the deceased.  I am to proclaim what Jesus did for them in their earthly life.  I am to proclaim what is still coming.  I am to lay to rest the person's body... the body baptized into Christ's death and resurrection.

I am the person's pastor until they are in the ground.  That's when my duties to them cease... not before.

 If we only think of the pastor as necessary to speak to the living with no duties to the deceased, then we are likely to not care who officiates at funerals.  Now I admit, I have more flexibility with ecumenical partnership than my LCMS friend.  However, the notion that any pastor will do, or other eulogies can supplant the place of the pastor's sermon is a great misunderstanding of the role of the pastor and the pastor's place in the community of faith.  Charlie gives several good examples of these sorts of situations.

Thankfully nothing like this has happened to me.  But Charlie's question is important in many ways.

Lesser Lament For the Lectionary

I love the lectionary.  Really I do. To have a three-year cycle of readings that leave me with a plethora of preaching opportunities is pure gold as far as I am concerned.  I simply do not know what I would do if I were part of a tradition that did not take advantage of the lectionary.  Trying to come up with sermons week after week where I needed to pick the texts would likely result in me preaching on my favorite topics. I love that by using the lectionary, I am forced to address texts that I might otherwise avoid.  And by using those texts, week after week, year after year (I am now in my third trip round the lectionary preaching weekly with almost eight years under my belt as a pastor), I have come to love those texts that force me to wrestle with law and gospel, our situation and God's good news in Jesus.

14th Sunday after Pentecost -- Jonah

After finally arriving at Nineveh, Jonah reluctantly delivers the judgment against that great city.  But when God shows mercy on Nineveh, Jonah is angry enough to die.  God's mercy can be scandalous when it gets extended even to our enemies.

An excerpt from my sermon:

Then again the Lord tells Jonah to go to Nineveh.  This time he goes.  And when he gets to Nineveh, Jonah walks most of the way to the center of the city and preaches the shortest sermon on record.  Eight words “Eight days more and Nineveh will be overthrown.”  It is lacking on so many levels.  While many might rejoice if I gave a sermon of eight words, Jonah does the bare minimum, living by the letter of the law and certainly not the spirit.  He does exactly what God wants him to do and tell Nineveh that God is going to destroy them because of their wickedness.  Well he doesn’t tell Nineveh exactly that GOD will do it… he just says that it will be overthrown.  And now having fulfilled his duty he goes outside the city to sit and wait and watch the fireworks begin.

Except that they don’t.  because somehow someone heard him and his weak proclamation… and the story tells us that “the people of Nineveh believed God.”  This proclamation goes viral.  The people start talking and spreading the news.  They consecrate a fast.  Soon the king himself issues a decree that people should repent… that even the animals should repent.   And God sees that people have turned from their evil ways and God relents from punishing.  God extends not justice but mercy upon Nineveh.  And this has Jonah really angry now.  After all, THIS is Nineveh.  These aren’t God’s people.  They aren’t special.  They are not the ones that the Lord has made a covenant with.  These are the enemies of that people.  Jonah is so angry, because God is “slow to anger and abounding in love.”  “Mine first!” he objects.  

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13th Sunday after Pentecost -- 9-11 and Forgiveness?

Not having preached over a few previous Sundays, I lost track of posting my sermon to both my podcast and blog.  Finally I am getting a round to posting it.

The gospel text, Matthew 18:21-35 is the classic text of Peter asking Jesus how often he should forgive a brother or sister who sins against him.  Jesus turns everything over and gives us the parable of the Unforgiving Servant, which requires us when talking about forgiveness to refocus our understanding.  We are not primarily the one sinned against, and can therefore dole out forgiveness as we choose.  We are first and foremost the one forgiven.  That is the primary lens with which we should view forgiveness. The stakes are ratcheted up a little higher on this day when we also remember the 10th anniversary of 9-11.

Here is an excerpt:

And I fear that with this parable there are those who are looking at the attacks and speaking about a forgiveness that lets attackers off scot free.  This is not, by the way, me calling out for vengeance, but justice.  I refused to rejoice when bin Laden was taken down.  But the question of forgiveness implies repentance and transformation.  We cannot simply throw out some blanket statement of forgiveness without doing some work first. 
Forgiveness is hard work.  We have to pray for it after all.  We have various notions about forgiveness that are in fact wrong.  Forgiveness is not just about forgetting and letting things go.  Forgiveness is not about hearing the words “I’m sorry” and replying with “Oh, it’s okay.”  We have tried those approaches in other heinous acts and they did not work out so well. 

Read the whole thing here.


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The Postmodern Pat Robertson

Maybe in an attempt to gain traction with a younger audience, Pat Robertson, it seems, has gone postmodern on us.  Evidently on a Q&A session on the "700 Club" Pat told a caller that divorce in the case of a spouse having Alzheimer's is just fine.  After all, Alzheimer's is "a kind of death." (read one report here)

Seriously, who would have thought that Pat Robertson would end up here?  He focused on the phrase in wedding vows "until death do us part."  Robertson redefines Alzheimer's from a subjective standpoint.  Alzheimer's is in fact NOT a kind of death, but a tragic illness.  The portion of the marriage vows that he should have turned to was about promising to be faithful "in sickness and in health."  That's appropriate. 


I suspect Pat will start catching flack, and come out and try to make some explanation or such, and it will all pass away quietly.  I can only hope that this will be the final move making Robertson irrelevant as a voice for Christianity in the United States. 

I cannot help but think of one woman in my congregation who faithfully stood by her ailing husband for years, getting help from the congregation until he did in fact, truly die.  Her example of faithfulness is an example of the gracious faithfulness of God who stands by us all even when we are not the most loveable.  When we are in fact sinful.  That same woman continues to this day, a number of years after the death of her husband, to advocate for spousal caregivers of Alzheimer's patients.  She perseveres for those who are still engaged in the struggle and need support to remain faithful to their mariage vows.  Thank God that she did not listen to Pat Robertson.

An Evening with My Wife and "The Guys"

The other night my wife and I had an adult evening together.  I would call it a date but it didn't end the way all of our official dates end, with a stop at the supermarket.  Nonetheless, we had an evening together with dinner out, followed by a staged reading of the play "The Guys" by Anne Nelson.  The play was put on by the Vintage Theater Company, directed by Jason Young and starring the two-member cast of John and Linda O'Connor.  John is a professor of theater at Fairmont State and Linda does some costuming there as well.  In addition, Jason Young is a Fairmont State alum.  The Fairmont State connection is important since my wife is a professor there as well.  If there had been no Fairmont State connection, we likely would not have gone at all, and I would have been poorer for it. 

Happy are they who...

well.... don't seek happiness.

Not that folks should be unhappy, but happiness is as one's primary goal in life is misdirected.  I finally got around to reading my July/August issue of The Atlantic Monthly and found the article "How to Land Your Kid in Therapy" to speak to our situation.  As a parent I fear often that I am too hard on my kids.  And while this article is not a call to become parental tyrants, the idea that we as parents have to make our children happy all the time might be devastating to them in the long run.

There are plenty of things that we do in our lives that bring us happiness.  But happiness is not the primary goal of such activity.  Trying to provide for our child's happiness by constant praise, or navigating the troubled waters our children find themselves in, might even have more to do with the parents not wanting to let go than anything else. One notion that was raised as a possibility for parents not wanting to let go was the nature of community and most people's removal from it.

“There’s a difference between being loved and being constantly monitored,” Dan Kindlon told me. And yet, he admitted, even he struggles. “I’m about to become an empty-nester,” he said, “and sometimes I feel like I’d burn my kids’ college applications just to have somebody to hang around with. We have less community nowadays—we’re more isolated as adults, more people are divorced—and we genuinely like spending time with our kids. We hope they’ll think of us as their best friends, which is different from parents who wanted their kids to appreciate them, but didn’t need them to be their pals. But many of us text with our kids several times a day, and would miss it if it didn’t happen. So instead of being peeved that they ask for help with the minutiae of their days, we encourage it.” 

 This article was a very sobering look at a number of issues that face not just the world but the church as well, particularly as wee seek to teach virtues that have nothing to do with common conceptions of happiness and instead have much to do with suffering and discipleship.  Yet throughout the history of the church many have found happiness precisely in those endeavors.  Happiness perhaps resides in the wrestling and the overcoming. 

10th Sunday after Pentecost -- Sacrifice

After laying a theological foundation that re-orients the identity of God's people, Paul turns to the living out of that identity.  Paul uses the language of sacrifice but turns it so that it is rooted in the life of Christ rather than death.

An excerpt from the sermon:

But why do we Christians so easily accept notions of sacrifice?  For Christianity the final sacrifice of death was that of Jesus.  In the midst of the sacrificial system set up in Israel, Jesus was raised up to be God’s final answer to sin and death.  God did not make the hard decision  of having another pay, but chose to put himself on the line in the person of Jesus, his Son.  And Paul makes much of this clear in Romans.  Paul begins with the complete power of sin in the world.  Sin holds everyone captive.  Jew, Gentile, everyone both inside and outside of God’s chosen people.  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he writes in chapter 3.  But that also means that all are placed in right relationship with God (that is, God undoes the power of sin) in Jesus, whom God has put forward as the sacrifice once and for all. 

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Barna Group and the State of the Church

Recently, George Barna's research group put out a report that looked over the past twenty years and marked some significant changes.  Relating to six key religious behaviors, they found:

• Bible reading undertaken during the course of a typical week, other than passages read while attending church events, has declined by five percentage points. Currently an estimated 40% of adults read the Bible during a typical week.
  
• Church volunteerism has dropped by eight percentage points since 1991. Presently, slightly less than one out of every five adults (19%) donates some of their time in a typical week to serving at a church.
  
• Adult Sunday school attendance has also diminished by eight percentage points over the past two decades. On any given Sunday, about 15% of adults can be expected to show up in a Sunday school class.
  
• The most carefully watched church-related statistic is adult attendance. Since 1991, attendance has receded by nine percentage points, dropping from 49% in 1991 to 40% in 2011.
  
• The most prolific change in religious behavior among those measured has been the increase in the percentage of adults categorized as unchurched. The Barna Group definition includes all adults who have not attended any religious events at a church, other than special ceremonies such as a wedding or funeral, during the prior six month period. In 1991, just one-quarter of adults (24%) were unchurched. That figure has ballooned by more than 50%, to 37% today.

Barna also continues on in a six-part series that outlines the State of the Church, which covers many differences including generation, gender, racial, ethnic and so on.  It is interesting and raises some issues for mission.

Begin with Part One of The State of the Church here.

9th Sunday after Pentecost -- Table Manners

Jesus encounters a Canaanite woman who won't take "No!" for an answer.  Jesus ignores and insults.  He abuses theology.  Jesus' behavior is difficult to stomach here.  But his behavior is, seemingly, for the benefit of his disciples who simply want him to send her away.  Yet the woman is persistent, enlarging the picture of Jesus' mission for his disciples.

An excerpt:

When Jesus sends us away, he sends us away from the realm of sin and death.  Too often our choice is to keep people there.  We ignore or insult or abuse scripture to keep from extending the grace shown to us by Jesus.  Grace is not a commodity that will run out.  It flows out of Jesus’ identity as the messiah, the one who comes to humanity to set us free.  He becomes sin so that we might become righteousness.

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Hauerwas, America's God, and the Church

I saw that Brian McLaren had a quote by Stanley Hauerwas over on his blog.  That quote had a link to a longer column over at ABC's religion page titled "The Death of America's God."

In typical fashion, Hauerwas points to the reality that the faith most Americans have is deeply shaped more by our political notions,  than who Jesus is.  Hauerwas wrote:

Protestantism became identified with the republican presumption in liberty as an end in itself. This presumption was then reinforced by an unassailable belief in the commonsense of the individual. As a result, Protestant churches in America lost the ability to maintain those disciplines that are necessary to sustain a truly free people - people who are capable of being a genuine alternative to the rest of the world.

For those who are familiar with Hauerwas, this sort of writing is nothing new.  I did find however his discussion about marriage to be interesting.  He begins writing about how the notion of liberty plays itself out.  Human beings are presumed to be rational creatures with the ability to make "free choices."  The problem as Hauerwas sees it, is when accountability is brought into the equation.  We want accountability and responsibility, but at the same we demand that we know what we "know what we are doing." He says that most Americans do not think someone should be held accountable for something if they do it when they do not know what they are doing.  And here is where marriage becomes problematic, he says. He writes:

But the problem with such an account of responsibility is that it makes marriage, among other things, completely unintelligible. How could you ever know what you were doing when you promised life-long monogamous fidelity? That is why the church insists that your vows be witnessed by the church, because the church believes it has the duty to hold you responsible to promises you made when you did not know what you were doing.

I am not sure I agree with Hauerwas' suppositions. I think most Americans want to hold others accountable for things even if they did not know what they were doing.  But if we ask individuals if they should be held accountable when they did not know what they themselves were doing, then maybe. But his discussion rings true as I consider some friends who just could not see themselves ever getting married.  One discussed it with me after a break up with his long-time live-in girlfriend.  He could not ever see committing to one woman because he just didn't know what else was out there.  In other words, he wanted to know what he was doing before he made a decision where didn't know what he was doing.  I am fairly certain that my friend will never marry... or he might once he realizes the hopelessness of his situation. 

Hauerwas' column is not as clear as it could be and he likely preaches to the choir.  But he is on to something here.  Watching the incommensurability of political discourse in America today, it is clear that the three antithetical threads he names in America are beginning to fray.  An April survey by Public Religion Research Institute showed that most Americans believed Christianity and capitalism to be at odds with one another.  Several prominent Congressmen and Congresswomen who claim to be Christian also espouse Ayn Rand's atheist philosophy.  Hauerwas is clearly on the right track.

8th Sunday after Pentecost -- In the Boat

Jesus walks on water and draws a deep resonance with things that God the Father has done.  This text clearly shows that what God does, Jesus does and highlights Jesus' relationship with God.  Thus when Jesus calls us out of our relative safety we can trust that all is well and we will be looked after no matter what might happen.

Here is an excerpt from my sermon yesterday.

While it seems daunting, uncertainty for the church is nothing new.  Routinely the church has had to face fear and uncertainty.  Even with Jesus around the disciples found themselves fearful.  Not only do Jesus’ disciples have to fear authorities, both political and religious, but at times it even seems like Jesus placed them in a position to be fearful.  Today’s gospel reading has the disciples being forced into a boat to go across the sea.  The NRSV says that Jesus “made the disciples” get into the boat.  The word is incredibly forceful.  Forced or compelled work perhaps better.  Jesus feeds the multitude, then ships his disciples off and he goes away to pray. 

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Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread...

I saw a friend on Facebook share an article from the StarTribune about truckers. The author of the article had a great opening.

Let me tell you a little about the truck driver you just flipped off because he was passing another truck, and you had to cancel the cruise control and slow down until he completed the pass and moved back over.

His truck is governed to 68 miles an hour, because the company he leases it from believes it keeps him and the public and the equipment safer.

The truck he passed was probably running under 65 mph to conserve fuel. You see, the best these trucks do for fuel economy is about 8 miles per gallon. With fuel at almost $4 per gallon -- well, you do the math. And, yes, that driver pays for his own fuel.

The author Dan Hanson writes incredibly well about this particular driver, Harold, and his situation. Read the whole article here. The article is a great reminder about the reality of truck drivers' lives... and our own self-centeredness.

And it is a great illustration for the daily bread petition of the Lord's prayer. When Luther explains in the Small Catechism what is meant by daily bread, he says:

Everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body, such as meat, drink, clothing, shoes, house, homestead, field, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious servants, pious and faithful magistrates, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

I always take the opportunity to explain to my confirmands that this means we are praying for the migrant farm workers, the stock boys in the supermarket and yes, even the truck drivers who are hauling goods all over the country. This article is just one more piece of evidence that supports my position. The men and women who are engaged in trucking are not just obstacles in our path, but human beings with real lives who are engaged in providing our daily bread.

Pastor Dad and the Eucharist... Again

This past Sunday, after the service as I was greeting people, two visitors introduced themselves to me. One of the visitors was a pastor and the other a pastor’s wife. The pastor’s wife had commented on watching my wife with our three kids. I commented as usual that my wife bore a great burden on Sunday morning. The pastor’s wife though was one of the first who mentioned my burden in having to push them out of my mind at times. And this is certainly true. A couple of weeks ago though I could not perform such a separation and I needed to reflect quickly on my feet.

The practice at our congregation is that people come forward to the rail and kneel to receive the sacrament. Our oldest chose the pew the rest of them sit in as I am up front. He chose for them the front row immediately under the pulpit, whichhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif means that my family is the first in the congregation to receive the sacrament since I start on that side. For the longest time, he has been the first in line to receive the sacrament. But my middle child, my five-year old son (whom I wrote about last year here), has started the struggle with his older brother as to who will be first. If I had chosen to name the boys Jacob and Esau, it would have been appropriate. I have seen near wrestling matches recently as they strove to be the first.

I have tried to explain to them that there is no “first” at God’s table. But a couple of weeks ago I nearly lost it. They had been pushing my buttons all morning, starting with getting ready in the morning to misbehaving during the children’s sermon to antagonizing each other in the pew during my sermon (which of course was directly below me since they sit directly beneath me in the pulpit). So when the wrestling match began, the pastor in me was not what responded. Rather the dad reacted.

It is our practice to withhold whatever is the currency that holds sway. If we have to take away television, computer or handheld games, we do. Sometimes if the offense is egregious enough, they might lose all three. That morning I told them I had had enough. My oldest tried arguing with me, but I wanted none of that at the altar rail. And I was about to tell them that they lost the sacrament. Something stopped me. Just before I levied that discipline, which I would have felt obliged to keep if I said it, I paused. Was this offense worth excommunicating my kids?

Now let me be clear, I do think there is a place for withholding the sacrament. Public, egregious and unrepentant sins have no place in the community. We do not sin so that grace may abound. Excommunication is meant to be a evangelical tool to bring about repentance and amendment of life. It is not shunning and exclusion, but a means to reach out anew with the proclamation of the gospel. But I would think about it in connection with something severe like abuse or extra-marital affairs. Two brothers elbow jockeying? Hardly. Not without warning and conversation first at least.

So I pulled back from the brink. I told them to stop and that if they kept it up they would get served last. They stopped. I communed them, after I communed their mother and sister. This past Sunday, after a week off since we were on vacation, I called them to me before we left the house. I reminded them of the respectful behavior we should exhibit when taking the sacrament. And THIS time, I did tell them, that if there was a problem there would be no sacrament for them. The middle child still misbehaved during the children’s sermon, acting out and making loud noise seeking attention. But when we celebrated the Eucharist, all was quiet. All was still. Jesus’ presence calmed the boys, and the dad. A mystery to be sure.

Motorcycle Ride to Orlando

y colleague in Morgantown, the chaplain at the Lutheran campus ministry at West Virginia University is riding his motorcycle to the 2011 churchwide assembly in Orlando. He is also using the trip down to help raise funds for the campus ministry. The proposed budget cuts funding to campus ministry nearly forty percent. Synodical funding is growing ever tighter.

Together we put together this video as a promo piece. The ministry of word and sacrament is vital to the college community. Please watch the video and pledge for the 1000 mile trip. You can find the link to pledge on the campus ministry's website: http://lutheranmountaineer.org/

Michele Bachmann, Politics, the Anti-Christ, and the 8th Commandment

Last week a parishioner emailed me a link to an article that talked about presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann leaving her Lutheran church because of its anti-Catholic stance. My parishioner thought it might be important to point out what kind of Lutheran Bachmann was. Around here (in West Virginia, that is) Lutherans are a tiny minority, but in that group they are overwhelmingly ELCA Lutherans, with a handful of LCMS congregations scattered throughout the area. Being the sole Lutheran congregation in Morgantown, I am accustomed to Lutherans of various traditions walking through the door, including some from WELS, the denomination that Bachmann has recently left. Some folks come from these traditions and stay. Some come, abide with us for a while but ultimately move on to something else because of various pressures. Still, few people know the variety of Lutherans that are out there.

I have puzzled over the Bachmann migration. I am in personal agreement with the position that pope is not the anti-Christ. But I cringe at the thought that perhaps this migration is motivated more by political reckoning. After all, it is reported that Bachmann and her family has been worshipping on and off at a local evangelical church over the past two years. I doubt that their stance toward the Pope is significantly more charitable. Maybe it is, but even if not, it is simply not an official public stance.

Clint Schnekloth offers a very nice analysis of Bachmann from a Lutheran standpoint over at Lutheran Confessions. He upholds the spirit of the eighth commandment. Despite some apparent political disagreements hinted at in his post, he sets those aside for a reflection that seeks the best possible interpretation both of Bachmann and her former denomination. It is a refreshing moment in a blogosphere full of snarkiness and vitriol, fueled only by politicians' and other public figures' own nastiness in an attempt to gain power and influence.

5th Sunday after Pentecost -- Schrödinger's Weeds

Jesus tells the parable of the wheat and the weeds as part of his discourse of parables. In this parable Jesus addresses the question of evil in the world and God's patient response. The promise is that God will indeed judge the world. But God's judgment is not like ours. God's judgment brings mercy and transformation in Christ.

An excerpt:

We want to bring about justice. We want to say perhaps that a woman who clearly showed horrible judgment in lying to the police about the death of her young daughter but was not convicted by an earthly court, should somehow pay. We are so certain of her guilt because of what we have been shown by the media and certain personalities. It seems wrong. And yet, God will say, “wait.” The reality is, God will judge every single person. Every single one of us will face God’s judgment of our lives. Like every single one of us might want to do to some other person about something or other, God will speak the word “guilty” to every single one of us. Our lives are weedy. In moments of brutal honesty, we know that. We are not what we could be. We do not do the things that lead to life. We choose the path of slavery and death, again and again. And yet, despite knowing that we all will hear the verdict “guilty,” God waits.

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Sowing Among Weeds and Thorns

This past Sunday, we heard the parable of the sower from Matthew 13. My sermon touched upon the strangeness of the sower, who doesn’t seem to care where the seed is cast. It is extravagant and wasteful to our eyes. Why not focus efforts to where they will receive a higher rate of return. I used the image of a picture I took on a hike, of a tree growing out of a granite boulder. God sows the seed of the gospel in ways that seem foolish. Most importantly God sows the seed of the gospel in the life and death of Jesus. Couldn’t a more effective method have been devised? Evidently not… at least not to God. God loves the world so deeply and passionately, that he used the greatest and fullest expression he could find so that we might know that love, even if it causes us to ponder greatly this mystery.

Now having preached this message about God’s love for all, after the service I was approached by two people who needed assistance. Well, I had been approached by one of the people, Pete, a local homeless man, before the service, but after a brief conversation I asked him to wait until after so I could attend to the things that needed to be cared for. The other person was a woman, Mary with her young daughter Jasmine. (Note: I have changed their names here.) Two further pictures could not have been painted. Pete looked every part of a person living homeless. Unshaven, dirty pants, poor speech, couldn’t sit still. Mary on the other hand sat there with her daughter through the whole service. Brought Jasmine up for the children’s sermon, and came forward for Communion. I merely thought she was a visitor. She was but she needed help.

I was thoroughly impressed by the way the congregation responded to both of them. People welcomed and greeted both. They reached out and engaged them in conversation. I had numerous people tell me about these folks who needed help. One of our teenagers had even approached Pete, although she didn’t know what to do when he told her to stay away. Nonetheless I was pleased that the reaction from many was one of welcome and hospitality.

I talked with each one in turn. I had to spend a little more time with Mary first, since I knew part of Pete’s story already from our brief encounter prior to worship. Mary had come to town from out west about a week before, following a man. When she realized things weren’t going to be any better here than they were out there she knew she had to go home, but she lacked resources. Pete was looking to get to North Carolina because his uncle had died. Of course, he had no way to get there.

Pete told me of people he knew in town, one other pastor, Pastor Mike, in particular, and he gave me the name and number of his brother in North Carolina so I could call them. I called them both. I knew the other pastor and I figured I knew who this guy was since Pastor Mike and I had spent a good deal of time talking as we waited for our kids to be dismissed from the same primary school. I was right. Pastor Mike had reached the end of his rope in dealing with Pete. Pete’s family, when I got through to them, wanted nothing to do with him due to drugs, theft and violence. Pete was no saint. And yet here he was… a patch of rocky ground. How would I sow the seed of the gospel there?

Mary seemed more like a plant being choked by weeds and thorns. After telling me her needs, when I was ready to move on helping her, providing her with gas money to get back home, she abruptly blurted out, “How do I find happiness?” If Mary was putting on a con, it was the most convincing con job ever. Never in all of my time here have I had any person who needed help wonder about this. She spoke of her bad decisions, and the way she kept making them. Her unhappiness was compounded by the poor relationship with her pastor since he had excluded her from the sacrament, telling her she was not forgiven for having a child out of wedlock. That she asked about happiness is no surprise. All of her relationships were ruptured and falling apart. Her question might seem like a dream for some pastors, seeing themselves as gurus with the opportunity to impart some gem of wisdom and pull her from despair. It terrified me. I had nothing. Nothing, except of course, Jesus. I replied, “I have no easy solution Mary. The best I can tell you is that happiness has to do with life with Jesus.” Upon further reflection, I realize part of my fear. I did not have, and would never have since she was leaving, any long-term relationship where we could discuss and discern where happiness was coming from in her life. Happiness comes from relationship with God and neighbor.

Pete was more difficult. He was demanding and ruffled my feathers. Nevertheless my own words from my own sermon echoed in my ears. It was Sunday and I could not help him get a bus ticket right then. He asked about a hotel room for the night. I told him I could not do both. He wanted a room. Of course the first hotel we stopped at was booked. The second had one. I gave him a gift card for a local restaurant so he could get some food before he was allowed to get into his room. Throughout the night he called the church about a dozen times. At eleven o’clock at night he called me on my cell phone from a nearby drug store where he wanted to get some food. He had the cashier call me to vouch for him, to say I would pay. I did not and I was none too pleased. On Monday the saga with Pete continued and culminated in the police being called to warn him about trespassing and harassment. Very rocky ground indeed.

Yet one thing that I told Mary holds true in both cases. Mary felt terrible that she had to ask for help and wondered how she might be able to pay us back. Pete thought if he did some tiny odd jobs around the church or for parishioners he could earn the help we might provide. I told Mary that it was not necessary for her to repay us. I said, “We help others so that they might have a concrete grasp of the way God loves them.” For Mary, this brought her to tears. I don’t know if Pete would ever understand. Before Mary left, she gave me a hug as we stood beside the gas pump. Pete left the following day by cursing at us.

Yet as I said in my sermon, we sow the seed of the gospel as an act of faith. We trust that God will not let it come back empty, that our labor will not be in vain. As such it means we must take the long view. When we share the gospel with others, we should not expect grand conversion stories to spring out of them. We plant seeds and it might take a while to germinate… and maybe it never does, but we continue on, sometimes appearing wasteful and foolish using resources on the likes of Pete and Mary. Oftentimes we might think we are being hustled and conned and we should have some sort of guard in place to protect the resources we have. But we share with others not because they look like good investments, but because God loves them no less than he loves us. And our actions help make that love known… hopefully, sooner or later. I pray we all might sow God’s love so extravagantly as the sower.

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This post also served as my newsletter columm for my congregation's August newsletter. We have been focusing on the spreading of the gospel. We do so in many ways.

4th Sunday after Pentecost -- A Tree Grows in Granite

The parable of the sower takes a common image of farming and gives a strange twist. The sower casts seed about seemingly wastefully. The sower gives an image of God's abundance when it comes to spreading the gospel and our act of faith when doing so, trusting that the seed will not return empty.

Speaking of a photo I took on a hike, of a tree growing out of the middle of a granite boulder, I wrote:

Imagine if trees were a little more discriminating at where they dumped their seeds… it would keep us from having to deal with the unnatural sight. Trees aren’t supposed to grow out of rocks. The parent tree should know that. After all, we don’t see farmers scattering their seed all over the place with no thought as to where the seed might fall. No, they take great care to plant only in well-prepared places. Well, most farmers do… not the one Jesus was talking about today though. Jesus opens his “day of parables” in the 13th chapter of Matthew with the parable of the sower. The picture Jesus paints with his parable is of a sower who casts about his seed even more inefficiently than the parent tree in New Hampshire did. This sower makes no distinction about where he casts his seed. The path. Rocky ground. Among thorns… and finally on good soil. It doesn’t matter to him. This sower is just casting it all around.

Or read the whole sermon here.

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