“Attention to the Kingdom Already Present” (Matthew 14:13-21)

Sometimes I find it helpful, when working with a passage of scripture, to spend some time putting myself in the shoes of all the characters presented in the story.

Let’s do that this morning.

First let’s connect with the crowd.  We’re thirsty for something other than Rome and its oppressive spirit (the Roman agenda was divide and conquer) and empty religious practices.  If we’re a wealthy Roman we own a villa outside the city—away from the despair and the smell.  We adorn our lovely home with statues of the gods.  We observe religious rituals so that the gods will grant us prosperity—in other words, religion is about spirits and gods existing to promote my welfare, my family’s welfare, and my nation’s welfare.  Religion binds me to my family, to the emperor, and to my country—even if the emperor is blood thirsty and greedy. 

If we are poor, we live in town—in the middle of the despair and stench.  We may eat and we definitely work hard.  If we’re male we are head of our household, like the wealthy Romans.  If we’re female, we own nothing, and often leave our newborn babies in the streets to be adopted by wealthier families as slaves—because we cannot afford to feed our households.  We wonder, “Is this all that there is to life?  Is this as good as it gets? “

If we are Jewish, we understand that there is one God but the God we meet in the synagogue is heavy on ritual and purity and light on compassion—God will abandon you if you don’t perform every aspect of the law.  We hear that there is a man—God’s man—who is empowered to heal, to forgive sins, to raise the dead, to love, and to unite.  He is so different from the emperor and the local priests.  He’s not afraid, or worried, or selfish, or violent, or judgmental. We want to know more.

Second, let’s connect with the disciples.  Unlike the crowd that’s just catching on to this breath of fresh air called Jesus of Nazareth, we’re on the journey with him.  We’ve seen miracles and heard stories that wake us up to a new reality:  God is with us, and God is deeply concerned about our well-being and the well-being of our neighbors.  He’s an instrument of God’s goodness and invites us to discover this life for ourselves.  We are waking up to this new reality Jesus calls the Kingdom of God, “God with us.”  Will we take the risk and listen to God—instead of the emperor, and the priests?  Today we’re resistant.  All we can see is a lot of hungry people and our limited resources.  We don’t factor God into the situation and want to dismiss the crowd.   

Third, let’s connect with Jesus.  Before this WHOLE story takes place, Matthew records “When Jesus got the news (about the death of his cousin John the Baptist), he slipped away by boat to an out-of-the-way place by himself.” In the NRSV we heard, “He slipped away to a deserted place.” This is not the first time one of the gospel writers notes that Jesus spends time in solitude. 

“Solitude,” writes Lionel Fisher, “is a means to an end, not an end in itself.  It brings us things nobody else can give.”  UCC Pastor and Spiritual Director Jane Vennard observes, “Every summer for almost twenty years I have gone to a small house, high in the Rocky Mountains, for my annual five-day solitary retreat. I make this annual retreat to immerse myself in creation, learning what nature can teach me about stillness.  I enjoy talking to the animals---greeting the birds, telling the deer how beautiful they are. Sometimes a dream re-emerges with an important message.  Sometimes an old relationship that ended in grief needs to be revisited.  Solitude allows me to listen and see with the ears and the eyes of the heart.  I yield to another agenda in the world.”

Vennard’s last sentence describes the life of Jesus very well, don’t you think?   Jesus yielded to another agenda in the world—to another voice—to another spirit, the Holy Spirit of God.  Whereas a citizen of Rome might yield to the emperor, or a Jewish citizen might yield to religious law or rules, Jesus yielded to God’s very self.

As Richard Rohr writes in his book Falling Upward, “There is a deeper voice of God, which (you) must learn to hear and obey.”  Jesus says it this way, “The Spirit of God is upon me.”  What Jesus, and Rohr, are talking about is relationship—developing a relationship between God and yourself through prayer.  Prayer, as Jesus models it, is not just conversation, it also consists of solitude.  Jesus would empty himself of the day’s demands so that he could connect with the Spirit of God, with the energy of God which is life-giving and loving.  This relationship affected Jesus deeply; this relationship affects everyone deeply—when we pay attention to it.

How does the Spirit of God affect us?  The Apostle Paul is quick to offer his list of the “fruits”, or visible signs of the life of a Spirit at work in a person in the fifth chapter of Galatians:  ^22-23 But what happens when we live God’s way? God brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

What Paul invites the church at Galatia to understand is this…where we’d prefer life to be void of crisis so that we might be safe and comfortable…God prefers to equip us with the gifts we need to respond to the crisis so we aren’t overcome by change and challenge.   “Pay attention to the Spirit,” Paul often coached churches, “It will reveal God’s hopes and plans for you.  It will make you well.”

So often WE are focused on the day’s events, like the disciples in today’s story, afraid of what the events will cost us, convinced that what we see with our eyes is all that’s there. Unaware that God is somehow with us, and that THAT awareness changes everything—including how we will respond to a crisis.   In today’s story Jesus, attuned to God’s deeper voice and infused with the Spirit’s gifts:  charity, patience, generosity, responds differently to the hungry crowd.  Jesus is charitable.  What is charity?  Charity is self-giving love instead of self-seeking love.  Jesus is patient.  What is patience?  It’s long-suffering; Jesus can wait with hope.  Jesus is generous.  What is generosity?  It’s the daily offering to God of our meeting the concrete needs of others without wanting anything in return.  These qualities aren’t something we see operating in a person very often, and when we do, we marvel at it.   

We are still talking about Jesus…and Mother Teresa, and, well, who do you remember for being charitable, patient, and generous?  Who does the difficult work of loving?  This week the Billings Gazette told the story of the humble Roundup, Montana farmer who left $38,000,000.00 to our two hospitals.  How many people will benefit from his gift? 

To demonstrate that the Kingdom of God ISN’T far and away but accessible TODAY, Jesus desires to meet the needs of the crowd instead of dismiss them.  Isn’t he amazing?

How does this little story affect us today?  Hunger is everywhere.  It is a real crisis.  “Don’t dismiss the hungry, “Jesus says to us, “and forget about them.  Feed them.”  Do we have the joy, the meekness, the patience—the charity of Spirit?  Are we attentive to the Kingdom of God in our midst?  What place does solitude play in the life of our congregation—and in your life?

Let us pray:  Encourage us, Loving God, to create space for your Holy Spirit to infuse our lives with your precious energies:  charity, joy, peace, kindness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.  Your vitality in us saves our life, the life of our family, and our world.  Your vitality in us makes us amazing, like Jesus.  Amen. 

(This sermon was preached by Reverend Dana Keener at Central Christian Church, Billings, on August 3, 2014.)

“Think of Yourself As the Field” (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)

Question:  What if we lived our lives as if every grain of wheat was significant?

“You got some time” the young woman asked me, “I want to talk about God AGAIN.” 

“My favorite subject,” I responded, “Tell me when and where.”  “My place,” she said, “Before lunch.”

“So here’s my pain,” she began, “I have a friend who’s always thanking God for blessings, like her newborn baby, her new house, and her husband’s new job.   

But sometimes I wonder if God constantly meddles in the lives of people—reaches in and gives us this and that sometimes—suddenly throwing people something they want and then ignoring them at other times.  I also wonder if money really is a blessing.  I mean, the more I struggle with less the closer I live to God; depend on God.  The more I succeed, the less I focus on God and the more I focus on success.  Do you understand what I am asking?  Sometimes I find myself thinking that struggling financially is the blessing and that rolling in money isn’t the blessing, and that a smaller home is more in line with God than a large home.  Sometimes I can’t detect if the old job I left was “worse” than the new job I have now.  It’s so hard to understand God—how God works and what God wants—what’s God and what’s not.  Maybe it’s ALL God, and maybe God doesn’t think in terms of good and bad.  Perhaps God simply wants a relationship and for me to get involved in making the world a better place and all that I experience is simply keeps one foot in God and the other in the neighborhood; neither good nor bad.  Am I making any sense?”

Have you ever “wondered’ the same “wonder” that this young woman shared with me?

I certainly have.  When I was younger I used to think that I was progressing in some sort of organized fashion towards a goal that I’ll call the “right” relationship or the “right” job.  But I don’t think that way anymore.  Instead of climbing the fictional ladder of success what I am beginning to understand is that I’m caught up in a whirlwind, a vortex, a tornado that’s not good or bad, right or wrong, or up or down.  Instead the circular motion keeps introducing me to the same themes:

Honesty

Forgiveness

Patience

Grace

Faith in God to Act

 Compassion

Round and round I go.  I didn’t create the whirlwind—my job is to be aware of it and to listen to it.  In every relationship and through every work experience I am aware that God is desiring a willingness in me to let go of old patterns of responding to God and neighbor and to embrace whatever truth God is inviting me to understand in the moment.  Truth; wisdom.

For example, does forgiveness occupy a different space in your life NOW than when you were nine years old?  Does your neighbor?  Does God?

In his book Falling Upward, Father Richard Rohr reminds his reading audience that “We belong to a Mystery far grander than our little selves and our little time.  Great storytellers and spiritual teachers always know this.  Remember, the opposite of rational is not always irrational, but it can also be TRANSRATIONAL or bigger than the rational mind can process; things like love, death, suffering. The merely rational mind is invariably dualistic, and divides the field of almost every moment between what it can presently understand and what it deems “wrong” or “untrue.”  Because the rational mind cannot process love or suffering, for example, it tends to either avoid them, when in fact they are the greatest spiritual teachers of all, if we but allow them.”

As I sat with the young woman in her living room, and Richard Rohr’s words in his book Falling Upwards, I couldn’t help but think of Jesus’ Parable of the Weeds Among the Wheat—today’s scripture study.  Jesus is bringing his listening audience OUT of their rational mind, which occupies a small, tight, controlled space, and into the trans-rational mind—an open and larger perspective—so that the heart, soul, and mind are free to respond to God.  “Don’t uproot the weeds,” Jesus says to his listening audience, “the experiences in your life that are prickly, and cause you pain and sorrow.  Let both grow up together until the harvest when God will bundle and burn the weeds and gather the wheat unto God’s self.” 

What is Jesus talking about?  He is talking about the big picture of a human life, which he wants us to understand is like a field, and how, to quote Rohr, “love, death, and suffering are often better teachers of God’s intimacy and character and compassion.”  Where we’d prefer life of unlimited material wealth, comfort, and easy-peasy, God wisely refrains from such absurd indulgences and instead partners joy with sorrow or loss so that we can be found.” 

A friend who suffered from vertigo FOR YEARS and suddenly discovered she was at the mercy of God said to me with a wink, “I had to get crooked to get straight.”

The Apostle Paul has his own take on non-dualistic thinking in Romans 8:28 when we wrote, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

But Dana, you might be thinking, what do we do with Matthew 13:36-34.  What most scholarship knows is that Jesus didn’t interpret his own parables.  The point of a parable, after all, is to awaken the mind—to tease it into higher consciousness; God’s consciousness.  Matthew 13:36-42 was most likely the work of the early Christian community.  Its interpretation is dangerous if applied to persons as the wheat and the weeds, for it implies that people who count themselves as the wheat are to denounce the weeds—label them foul, unworthy, less-than.  Why would the Savior of Humanity, who spent the biggest part of his ministry elevating the lives of the foul, the unworthy, and the less-than, who DIDN’T see people in terms of better than and less than, suddenly separate persons into categories and invite the better to beat up on the worse?  It simply doesn’t add up.

What does add up is seeing our life as a field in which God, the Master Gardener, has planted a variety of experiences with at least two goals in mind:  devotion (listening, loving) to God and service to our neighbor.  We are not to judge our experiences, or label them.  We simply are to receive our whole lives as gift.  “At the end of your life,” Jesus teaches his listening audience, “God will burn or loose what is foul and collect unto God’s self what is worthy; good.  God sorts things out.” 

Is this Good News to you?  How does it change your participation in life?  Do you feel a shift in your tendency to focus on behavior instead of relationships?  Does this parable allow you to live more slowly and appreciate every experience and not just a few?   Does this parable awaken you to the skill of the Master Gardener?

What you and I are beginning to understand that when it comes to life it’s about the journey and the destination; the both/and and not the either/or—and that it’s all God, all good.

Let us pray:  Gracious God, help us to embrace the both/and of your life in us.  Help us trust your Holy Spirit as she enlarges our understanding about the amazing journey called “a life,” and about your amazing love for us.  We truly are your workshop. Amen.

(Preached by Reverend Dana Keener on Sunday, July 27, 2014 at Central Christian Church in Billings, Montana.) 

"Out of the Depth of Nothing" (Matthew 14:13-21)

The problem is not believing the miracle . . . the problem is living the miracle.  We know that the people are going to be fed.  We have all been to potluck dinners where it looked as if the people out numbered the food by a three-to-one ratio.  We looked over that spread of food and thought that there was no way; but when all the plates were removed and the dishes were washed there were plenty of leftovers for another.  Everyone had their fill, and if anyone left the table hungry . . . well, it was his or her own fault.  I have never been to a potluck when the masses haven't been fed.  It always happens, and I believe it always will. 

But, it is difficult to believe when you have nothing.  After a day of preaching and teaching everyone was hungry . . . the gathered crowd, the disciples and--I imagine, Jesus too. Of course, Jesus being the hospitable guy that he was, told the disciples to feed the masses--we're talking a couple of thousand folks bellying up to the table.  The disciples looked around and didn't see a Pizza Hut or Kentucky Fried Chicken anywhere around, and besides none of them had the money to pay someone to cater the meal in the first place--they were broke and empty handed. How in the world were they going to so many hungry people?

A child offers to them a couple of fish and loaves of bread--hardly enough to even feed the disciples, let alone thousands. This was the best that they could come up with when they approach Jesus with the news.  Of course this was good enough for Jesus. He told the disciples to while he blessed the food and then told them to get up and feed the people.  Despite not truly believing they did as they were told . . . they proceeded to feed the people . . . all the people. And, they were all fed . . . each and every one of them. At the completion of the meal there were many baskets if leftovers much to the astonishment of the disciples. Out of nothing came something . . . something of abundance.

It is not that the disciples didn't want to believe, because they really did; but in looking at the reality of their situation and the resources which they had--which was nothing, it was hard to believe.  Which brings us to the crux of the problem--how to believe from the depth of nothing.  How does one believe when he or she looks around and there is nothing . . . absolutely nothing . . . no resources, no help, no support, nothing . . . when it seems as there is nothing left to give or do.  How does one continue to believe?

Well, as strange as it sounds, it is out of the depth of nothing that belief is born. Janis Joplin sang in Me and Bobby McGee . . . "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose."  This was something that the early Christian mystics learn long ago . . . to let go and let God.  In other words they learned--often the hard way, that it is only out of nothingness that God creates something.  They put it all in the hands of God.  God provides . . . God fills the nothing with something . . . God takes care of business.

Out of the depth of nothing, what do any of us have to offer to God . . . when we feel as if we are nothing, what do we give to God?  We offer to God what we have . . . which is nothing . . . nothing but ourselves . . . and, we believe. We believe in the gracious love of God.  We believe in the miracle.  And, we embrace the gift that comes from nothing.

We have to believe.  We have to believe because we are the children of God. We are created in the image of God . . . each and every one of are a chip off the ol' block. And, we were all created to be what and who God created us to be.  We have to let go of the world and society's ideas and views are . . . to let go and let God take care of business.

As ridiculous as it seemed, the disciples went out to feed the multitude of thousands with a couple of fish and loaves of bread.  Jesus took what seemed like nothing, blessed it, and offered it to God.  God did the rest.  Out of nothing came something . . . abundance.

So it will be for us if we offer ourselves and our lives to God. God will come through and we will discover the gift.  Out of nothing will come something . . . but that will not be the miracle.  No, the miracle will be when we can believe enough to let go and allow God's will to be. Thus it is that out of the depth of nothing there is something.  You've gotta believe!  Amen!