This week, I received an email from the Lancaster County Food Hub, which seemed like it fit in with our story.

The email included an account by a person named Ashley. That’s not her actual name, but that’s the name they gave her in the email.

Ashley is a 38 year-old woman who seemed to have it all. A successful career, a stylish wardrobe, and a luxury car. She appeared confident and thriving. But after losing her job through a company layoff, her world unraveled. Ashley’s unemployment benefits barely covered the cost of her rent. Finally, she faced the harsh reality of her dwindling resources.

Each day, she worried about how she was going to make it. and had growing anxiety about her future. Ashamed and overwhelmed, Ashley found herself trapped in silence, too embarrassed to ask for help. She felt like a failure for needing assistance, a far cry from the confident woman she used to be.

So, in a moment of desperation, Ashley walked into the Food Hub. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming, but she felt out of place and vulnerable in her time of need. She said, “I never would have thought that I needed help like this. Thank you for helping me.” This is what she told one of the client volunteers, her voice breaking with a mix of relief and sorrow.

As I focused on our scripture for today (Luke 10:25-37), what I realized is that many of us could be that one in need of help.

I was just part of a survey taken in our area around housing and the amount of people who are afraid that they are going to lose their housing. Losing housing right now is a terrible thing because there aren’t many available.

So you might think of Ashley and you might think, well, she could just give up that car. But, that’s her only means of transportation. She may not live on a bus line which will really limit her options. Giving up her apartment might be a wise financial choice. But can she find something that’s cheaper? That’s difficult in our community right now and I want to own that because many of us are proud people and we don’t like to let others know when we have problems, when we have issues that we need to talk through.

“Lean on Me” by Bill Withers was a perfect song for this week, because we don’t tend to share our problems. We try to keep them covered. I’m not suggesting that you stand up and broadcast to the entire congregation, but you might just find another person who’s willing to listen.

I want to specifically lift up right now our Compassion Team, because our Compassion Team has agreed to just listen to who you are and what you are going through. They’re not there to have answers or to fix anything, but they are there to listen. We do have some resources that we can direct you to as well. So, think about that. Think about if that’s something that would be helpful to you.

The thing about the person on the side of the road in the scripture that we read, it’s interesting that Luke makes the point of telling us that they were naked.

When you have a detail like that, you have to stop and say, what is the point? What is he trying to say by telling us that he is naked? They’re telling us that that person had no identity. Their identity was gone. So they are a nobody or they could be anybody. I think when we hear this scripture, we prefer to see ourselves as either the scholar asking the questions of Jesus or the Samaritan, because we would be the one who would do the right thing.

That’s what we want to believe. But Jesus’ initial audience would not have chosen to be the Samaritan. The Samaritan was the despised. They were seen as morally wrong, abhorrent, out of favor with God. Nobody wanted to be a Samaritan. Nobody wanted to associate with a Samaritan. How did they get to be the one who did it?

Jesus is making a strong point that we tend to judge people by what we see on the outside. Just like we may have judged Ashley based on how Ashley presents. We have to be very careful when people come to the church asking for help because it’s easy to look out and see what kind of car they drive and what kind of clothes they wear and we can be completely misreading them. It’s about listening to who they are, hearing their story. That’s how we connect.

It’s not about judging people, although I find it very interesting because the story almost sets us up to judge the priest and the Levite. When we read that they crossed over and walked on the other side of the road, we want to say, how could they? We wouldn’t do such a thing. We wouldn’t turn our back on someone in need. But we have to stop and wonder, why did they do that? The story does not tell us. The traditional answer has been they would have gotten blood on them and then they would have been unclean and they would have had to go through the whole process of cleansing themselves in order for them to do their jobs.

What if the reason was that that scene was too common?

One more body on the side of the road. This isn’t today, there weren’t ambulances running up and down. What if that scene was just too common? Like a person standing on a corner asking for money. How often do we look the other way?

In true Jesus fashion in this parable, he really doesn’t answer the question, does he? Who is my neighbor?

The scholar wants a clear answer. Just tell me who I’m supposed to like. You tell me who I’m supposed to like and I’ll follow that. But please make somebody that looks like me, talks like me, thinks like me. Has the same lifestyle I do. Don’t push me out of my comfort zone. Don’t make it a person from a different country, a different culture, a different gender, a different orientation. Don’t push me out of my comfort zone, God.

Can we open ourselves up to be pushed a little by God to stretch our thinking a little?

This week I received a text from a person who’s watching online, they are unchurched would be the word for them. They do not have any church affiliation and the person texted me and said in your sermon last week, you said that if we judge people, we cannot love them. I said, I don’t know if I used those words, but that was the message I was trying to get across because our judgments get in the way of our ability to love.

They said, I’m looking for a place that I can worship where my son can come with me and I’m afraid of people judging us and she sent me a picture. I had not seen her son in many, many years, but he has tattoo sleeves and he has piercings and he has gauges in his ears. She wanted to know if he would be welcome here.

I told her, I think that there is a large group here that would accept him. But I don’t know if everybody’s on that. But I would hope that if someone comes in here that is not just like us, that we would offer them grace and mercy, be kind and respectful. It’s our job to be listeners.

I want to give us an example of how people and how judgments affect how we act.

I don’t know about you, but when I was a child if I was given a glass of milk and if I had spilled that milk, I would have been labeled a milk spiller. I never would have been given a full glass of milk again because I’m a milk spiller. If you’re a milk spiller, then we’re not going to give you all that milk to just go spill it that we have to clean up. That label of a milk spiller stays with you.

I’m going to say that it stays with you, so when I pour milk for my children and now my grandchildren, nobody’s getting a full glass of milk because they might end up being milk spillers too and I don’t want to create milk spillers. So nobody gets a full glass of milk.

But, what’s the value of some spilled milk? A couple cents? Not even a buck. The whole half gallon costs $2.35.

Let’s not be those who judge people and who label people, but who accept people as they are and look for those opportunities.

It probably won’t be someone laying on the side of the road naked and bloody, but it could be someone that you’re standing in line with. It could be your next door neighbor who just needs someone to listen to what’s going on in their lives because our lives fall apart.

Life is full of joy and sorrow. So we can come together and support one another. We can lean on each other. Because that’s what builds the beloved community.

That’s who we are called to be. We are called to be the beloved community to one another and to every person that walks in the door. May it be so

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This story, often called the story of the Syrophoenician woman, is one of the many stories told in the Gospels, which are repeated in more than one Gospel.

In this case, we have a version in Mark 7:24-30, which is brief. There’s another version of this story in Matthew. Both Mark and Matthew put this story in a similar context.

But what is this story about? Is it a story of a casting out of a demon? Is it a story of a non-Jewish woman talking with the Jewish rabbi and coming away looking smart and victorious, where his disciples look like fools? Not right in that story, but in the larger context, they certainly do not seem terribly competent.

Is this a story about demons, children, bread, and dogs? Is this a story about a mother’s love for her daughter? Is this a story about faith? Matthew says so. Mark never uses the word. Is it about bread and leftovers? Is it about having a place at the table and greater sharing?

I think that it’s all of these things. And I think that it is also a cue for us not to take no as an answer, even when we’re talking with God. Also, it alerts us to seek God’s abundance wherever it may be found. I think of the words in the song “Oh, I Know the Lord’s Laid His Hands on Me”, some seek the Lord, but don’t seek him right.

This story is placed in a context, in both Matthew and Mark, between a feeding of 5,000 people with 12 baskets left over and a feeding of 4,000 people with seven baskets left over.

At the end of both Matthew’s version and Mark’s version, Jesus tweaks his disciples, saying, Don’t you understand? Didn’t you get this? We fed 5,000 people and had 12 baskets left over. We fed 4,000 people and had 7 baskets left over. Don’t you get it? First of all, it’s not about bread.

This is the context between these two stories about bread is a story, of all things, about bread, about demons, children, bread, dogs. This is a story about a feast. It’s a little bit disguised.

We have several words in this story about the Syrophoenician woman that point to banqueting. One is that the master’s table from which the crumbs slip down to the dogs. In Greek, that’s the very word that’s used of a banqueting table. It’s a specialty word in Greek. It refers to a banqueting table.

When the girl is recovered from the demon, she’s placed, in some translations, a bed, some say a couch, and the word in Greek is the word that’s used for the couch upon which people recline at a feast. What has happened is that at the end, the healing is not just that the demon has left, but that the daughter is placed reclining for the feast.

This story is also preceded in both Matthew and Mark by a curious debate.

Jesus is in Galilee, which is north of Israel. It’s in the modern country of Israel near to the border with Lebanon. Jerusalem is far south, but some elders and Pharisees have come out from Jerusalem to meet Jesus, specifically to grill him on the way that his disciples eat with, it’s often translated as, unclean or defiled hands.

Now, the word in Greek is “Koinon”, which means common or shared. The problem with the disciples is that they’re eating with just anybody. They’re not eating like good Jews are supposed to eat. Separating themselves from everybody else. Cleaning themselves of the common dirt of the world. Blessing the food at the beginning. Blessing the food at the end. Following a careful protocol. Jesus’ disciples don’t do that.

Now here’s Jesus in immediately the next little section of text. Meeting with a woman who is not a Jew. She’s a single woman. She’s a single mom. She’s got a problem. Her daughter has a demon. She comes to Jesus because she figures that he can help. He’s been helping all kinds of people with problems. So she comes to him. She doesn’t get someone as a middle person. She doesn’t have a male relative who comes to him. This means basically that she’s living on her own. She is isolated. Possibly by her daughter’s affliction.

She has a real problem. She has a real need. At first, Jesus response to her seems kind of strange. Because he says you don’t need help with the demon. There is no demon. He doesn’t dismiss her. He says it’s not right to give the children’s bread to the dogs.

It sounds like Jesus is being a little mean. I have heard in the past year, like four sermons on this, that really dwell on Jesus use of the word dogs. As though he is accusing this woman of being a dog. Which, maybe he is. But it’s also quite possible that just having come from this debate with the Pharisees about defilement and what makes one clean or unclean, which he says is what comes out of you and not what goes into you that makes you clean.

If you remember that from a couple of weeks ago, now he’s faced with this woman and he says this thing, and I think that we could interpret this as being a bit of irony. Matthew reports that Jesus is with his disciples and they play kind of gatekeeper role. But in Mark, it’s just the woman and Jesus. Still, I think that we can imagine that his disciples are with him when Jesus says it’s not right to throw the food of the children to the dogs. With maybe a little sly look at his disciples to see whether they got the message which is to share with everyone.

The woman at any rate does get it. She sees this as a riddle and she answers it in a riddle fashion. She says, even the dogs get crumbs. Just maybe, she understands what the disciples don’t. Which is that Jesus is talking about sharing and he is talking about food, but he’s also talking about bread in a cosmic sort of way, in a, you might say philosophic sense, that it is that which gives one life, and that is the abundance of God. Amen.

It is the property of God that God is abundant, but one of the things that is difficult to grasp is that God’s abundance is not everywhere and in all places at all times.

I think of one of those nature documentaries, you know with David Attenborough, maybe. Here, the fig tree has come into its full ripeness, and now the monkeys feast for the day. But, when the figs have all gone, the monkeys are left with nothing, and they must go to the next fig tree, which is ten kilometers away. And how do they find it? By the smell of it.

Well, what is the smell of it, but the wind, the breath, the spirit in the same way we need to be directed to God’s abundance wherever we can smell it out and be guided to it by the Holy Spirit reaching to us. If you ever remember those cartoons where the odor of the pie would come to the person and draw them away, we should be drawn by the Holy Spirit to God’s abundance.

This woman has recognized that, she gives a proper answer. If you are receiving the bread of life, what’s the difference between a big slice and a crumb? It’s infinite. It’s God’s eternity. You can’t break it down into pieces. The crumb will be enough.

Now, let me say that there is an abundance of riches in these five verses, which I am not plumbing here.

I would be delighted to discuss this at much greater length with anyone who was interested. But now, I want to come back to the basic point. We are called to change our minds. That’s the meaning of repentance.

It is, in Greek, it is “Metanoia”, to change the mind. We are called to change our mind. God’s rule is all around us. We do not need to fear scarcity. If we seek God’s abundance, we will find it. We must find ways to seek God’s abundance and support others in their search.

Those who have ears, let them hear.

This Sermon given by Mark Achtermann

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As I was thinking about our theme that love accepts, I thought about 1 Corinthians 13.

So, I started reading that in different versions of the Bible. The one I particularly liked, the version out of the Amplified Bible, I’d like to talk about it. 1 Corinthians 13 is often a scripture that we read at weddings because it defines love.

But you know, it was written for the church in Corinth, that couldn’t get along. It was written for a church that picked fights with itself and blamed each other for issues. Paul wrote this to remind them of who they were meant to be.

Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening]. 

– 1 Corinthians 13 (Amplified Bible)

What I liked about the amplified version is what it put in the parentheses, or brackets, it added text in brackets. I think that’s powerful. I think this leads us to important questions.

What happens if we accept all things as they are rather than judging them for what they are not?

Accepting all things doesn’t mean approving all things. You can accept, but is doesn’t mean you need to like it. It doesn’t mean you need to approve or condone it, but you can accept it and let it be what it is. Respect what it is, even if you don’t understand it. It does mean giving ourselves and others grace and accepting our own limitations because we may need to accept what is true about us.

Today’s scripture from Luke could be called a tale of two sisters.

First we have Martha. It just tells us that they’re sisters, but everybody has a perception that Martha is older. It’s very interesting. It sort of makes sense based on how the story plays out. Older sisters or firstborn have a tendency to be rule followers. They have a tendency to be very dutiful. They’re people pleasers. They understand the cultural expectations on them. Martha being a female in this culture understood that when 13 people show up at her house, without invitation, then she needs to provide hospitality.

Hospitality looks like having some kind of food and beverages, so somebody needs making start making pitas and somebody better grind up some hummus because we got 13 extra people at the table. That, I think, was Martha’s mindset.

Then there’s Mary. Mary is generally perceived as being younger, something about younger children or the baby of the family, they tend to be more playful. They tend to be a little bit more self involved or self interested. They’re going to make sure their needs are met. It’s not always true, I’m talking in generalizations, but the baby tends to behave differently in a situation.

So, here are these two sisters. Martha goes to work in the kitchen. She’s about feeding everybody. Mary sits down in the living room and decides to listen. Actually, what happens in this is perfect example of triangulation. Martha is mad at Mary, but instead of talking to Mary, she talks to Jesus.

But in this version by Vermeer, what I love is you can’t tell the differences in age. Vermeer has Jesus look at Martha and gesture to Mary as if he is trying to connect them. He hears Martha, but he acknowledges Mary. Like there’s not, there’s not a, a right and wrong. Somebody needs to make dinner, but somebody needs to listen to what Jesus has to say.

Both roles are important. There’s not a good versus bad. There’s not a victim perpetrator. They’re both appropriate. Jesus kind of tries to smooth that through. That’s what Vermeer is trying to show.

I also really like this picture because that is not what I think we expect Jesus to look like. First of all, he looks very Jewish, but he doesn’t look like a savior. He doesn’t look like the superstar. This isn’t a Jesus that you’re going to say, Oh, wow. I want to see that guy. I think that just challenges us a little bit about Jesus.

But I thought about this story in the larger context of Luke, and I thought it’d be very interesting, and I think it’s a good short study for us to compare this story with the parable of the Good Samaritan because this comes immediately after the parable.

When writers put things like that together, it’s good to step back and say, are we supposed to learn something from this? Is there a deeper meaning in the fact that these are put together?

I’m not going to read the Good Samaritan story to us, but think back to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Does anybody remember what the problem was? What was the issue that needed to be addressed in the Good Samaritan? There was an injured man laying by the side of the road who needed help. What do the Levite and the priest do? Does anybody remember what they do? They walk away. They choose not to engage. Their attention is somewhere else. They say they crossed to the other side of the road and kept going.

It sounds like they saw it. There’s good reasons for a priest not to touch an injured body, especially if there’s blood obvious, because if he touches blood, then he is unclean. It’s like having COVID for a week, he has to seclude himself and do all of this ritual cleansing thing till he can go back to work. So it’s easier if he doesn’t get involved.

What does the Samaritan do? He takes him to a hotel. He takes care of the mans wounds and pays someone to continue to care for him for two days. He gives him two days wages to take care of them and says, if it costs you more than that, I’ll even pay that. So he provides all the care.

Now let’s go back to today’s story.

Where was Martha’s attention? Martha’s attention was in the kitchen. There was stuff to be done. I do know what I would do if 13 people showed up. That used to happen when the kids were little, right? Suddenly my yard is full of kids and guess what? Somebody’s hungry, which if somebody’s hungry, everybody’s hungry and everybody needs snack. That’s just what you do. You just start pulling out snacks and you bought them at BJ’s in bulk and here they are. Today’s snack is cheese doodles.

What’s Mary doing? Where’s Mary’s focus? Jesus. Mary’s focus is on the guest, right? Mary is also doing hospitality, but she is doing hospitality for the person. She’s not involved in all of the other things. She’s involved in listening. She knows that there is something to be learned here. It’s not really clear whether Mary and Martha knew Jesus and the disciples before they walked in, except that the way Martha talks to him, I don’t think you would get involved in that kind of a conversation unless you already knew the person. Mary may even be taking care of her own spiritual needs.

But for me, it’s the issues are Where Is Their Attention?

In the good Samaritan the Levite and the priest, their attention is on themselves. I feel like that’s Martha. Martha knows there’s food to be made. She’s gotta be in the kitchen taking care of stuff.

Whereas I put the Samaritan and Mary together because the Samaritan wants to care for the person and Mary. Is giving her attention to the guest, specifically Jesus. The attention is to the guest to listening to the guests, to making sure the guest feels welcomed in that respect. Probably knowing that she’s going to learn something there.

What about perceptions? What about the perception of the Levite and the priest? The perception of Martha? Does anybody see any ties there? How those could be similar in my mind? I’ll give you my logic again. They’re tied up with what has to be done with the doing. Whereas the Samaritan and Mary are about being. The Samaritan does do also, right? The Samaritan, because he helps, he bandages the wounds and he takes the guys. So there’s some doing in there. But I think there’s a difference in perception.

I think that it reminds us that we’re to look at how we can be accepting and maybe even let go of some of the perceptions that we have of other people.

The Levite and the priest may have had a perception of the person at the side of the road. They were beyond help or maybe that’s something they see all the time. It’s almost like another dead guy to walk around. Isn’t that sad? We don’t want to get to that point. We don’t want to get to the point where we look at something and go, “there they go again. That’s just them acting out again.”

We want to be able to actually look at people and care about them, see their need, see them for who they are, not for our perception of who they are.

Because our perceptions are all based on the stories we write in our minds. Our stories always agree with the judgments we have made. That’s why there are rationalizations. We can rationalize anything. All we need is a good story and our brain, our ego will supply it. But here’s the thing to remember about perceptions. Perceptions are usually or often wrong.

Mic drop. Our perceptions are usually wrong. They may be based on old wisdom. They may be based on bad information, inaccurate information that we have gotten along the way. So we need to pay attention and we need to recognize that we can choose to let go of those perceptions. That is a choice. That is a choice that is ours.

I hope that you can take some wisdom today from Simon and Garfunkel. Slow down. You move too fast. You got to make the morning last.

We have to slow ourselves down to see what’s around us. We have to stop to listen to the stories of others. Because then we might even learn something. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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This is the first Sunday in this series called Linked By Love, where we are going to be focusing on some gospel passages of Jesus so we can hear what Jesus says and some other passages out of the epistles that remind us of who we are to be.

I went down a rabbit hole in Google and I ran into The Barn, a congregation near Allentown that’s led by a UCC pastor.

I read their About Us Story and I want to read you the short version of their story. They write The Barn began as a place where a diverse group of people could come together in a sacred space that encouraged and welcomed questioning, exploration, creativity, loving relationships, open communication, various opinions and mutual respect. It was a purposeful invitation for people who were open to God to come into an exploration of God into a safe space where people could disagree in love, where all people were valued as a child of God, where perspectives and worldviews were viewed with mutual respect. Where everyone was encouraged to be a teacher and a learner and a place where all were encouraged to be genuine, creative, expressive, and active participants.

When I read that, I said to myself, “I want to be in that church!” Then, I said, “WE can be that church!”. That’s what our mission and vision lead us to. We can be that. We’re not there yet. But we can go in that direction. That can be our aspiration.

Today, we’re to talk about bearing with one another.

When I took Colossians 3:12-17 to the worship commission, I remember when we read this one, they were said “Well, the whole thing is good.” The whole thing is this is one of these feel good scriptures, right? That’s who we need to be. But I said, “Yeah, but what is the one verse that we need to focus on the most?” That is the scripture that’s on the top of your bulletin, way back in the beginning, it’s verse 13. “Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

We tend to talk about forgiveness a lot in the church. But here’s my concern. I’m not sure that we all know what that means or how that feels. I’m not sure that we really know what forgiveness is about. I question how many of us actually need to forgive ourselves because we can’t forgive others. If we have not forgiven ourselves, if we hold guilt and shame about something we have done, or use the old confessional language, something we have done or something we have left undone, then we have to clean up us first. We have to do our work.

The church, we just talk about needing to forgive others. It’s lofty and it sounds wonderful. It is wonderful because when we really experienced forgiveness, we will find a peace within ourselves that is like nothing else in the world. But we can’t have that or share that with anyone else until we find it ourselves. So the first thing we have to do is work on ourselves.

I’m going to use the words ‘Protestant Oppression’. What that means is that the Protestant church has taught to try to shut down emotions. Growing up, emotions were not allowed in my house unless it was joy. For you younger ones think of Inside Out. Think of the first Inside Out movie where joy has to be in charge. It has to be joy or nothing. That’s problematic because we do get angry, but we feel anger, we feel hurt, we feel pain, we feel shame and guilt and all of those things. But if we don’t do something with it, then it stays in us. If we don’t direct it correctly, it’ll come out sideways and embarrass us or hurt someone that we don’t want to hurt.

I’m also going to tell you today, that I want you, when you feel something hard, when you get hurt or when you realize you’ve hurt someone else or done something you wish you hadn’t done, I want you to go through that emotion.

What I mean, I want you to really feel it in your body. I was never taught, nor did I teach my children. They’re learning through their therapists as I am learning through mine, how to go through these emotions. But you know what? There is nothing that has ever been hurt by stomping your feet as hard as you can or laying on your bed and kicking your legs, or punching the pillow, or punching the mattress. You can even, for those of you that feel like that’s a bit too much, too much feeling too quick, if you clench every muscle in your body and then let go, you will get an immediate release.

That’s about letting go of these hard emotions. Letting go, because we have to, we have to get rid of those before we can start to feel the peace within ourselves. Here’s the next big thing. This is the key to everything.

Hurt People, Hurt Others.

We need to remember that about us. When we’re hurt, we have the potential to do damage to others. When we are hurt by someone, we need to remember this, because that’s where we’ll find our compassion. I believe that very much. I think that’s at the heart of this. Jesus was about compassion and love. Which again, is like forgiveness. It sounds lovely, and it’s high ideals. But to help us get there, this is the key. I’d like you to write it down, because I want you to remember it. I actually heard it as, “Hurt People, Hurt People.” But I’m going to say “Hurt People, Hurt Others” because I’ve seen dogs hurt and I’ve seen other things hurt.

We have to be healthy and we have to remember that those who do damage are hurt. I thought about this this morning as I was getting ready. I thought, what am I missing? Am I missing anything that was in the news that I should be addressing?

Two shootings, school shootings.

I need a moment of compassion before I speak. A hurting person in Kentucky firing at the interstate randomly. We have to remember “Hurting People, Hurt Others.” That’s where we’ll find our compassion.

All that being said, now I’m going to say, forgiveness is not forgetting. That is a bad cliche that is done more hurt than anything. Forgiveness is not about forgetting. People have to be held accountable for what they have done. For the hurt they have caused. But we have to remember as we hold them accountable that there is a reason that we may not know yet. We may never know. They may not know if they’re not self aware of what’s going on inside of them.

Not the sermon you expected to find today, was it? But I need to remember, when I encounter people that are hurt, or people that are hurting others, I need to remember this. Because that’s where I’m gonna find the love. Because this bearing with one another, means “When you hurt me, I have to still love you because we’re together.”

This is the work of the gospel, and it needs to not just be in our heads. It needs to be lived.

We need to do this in our lives, with our lives, with the people in our lives. I looked up this scripture in the message. Cause I love the way Eugene Peterson kind of cuts to the chase on something. The one verse that I loved is Colossians 3:15. He made none of this going off and doing your own thing. It’s not about I’m mad, so I’m going to take my toys and go home. That’s not the work of the gospel. The work of the gospel is, “Wow, you hurt me and we need to figure out how we’re going to go forward together in a relationship.”

That kind of stuff I think happens in marriages a lot. We’ve got to figure it out. We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to live together. Through it all, the other important verse is Colossians 3:14. So once you’ve dealt with the emotions, close yourself with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

That’s who Christ wants us to be. We know, and God knows. God knows that we are not perfect. This Bible, sometimes we just look at this and we talk about all the wonderful things God tells us in it, but it also is full of people, not just Peter, because I do like to pick on Peter, but it is full of people who hurt others. Who made mistakes, big ones. Jonah jumped in the sea to get away from God. God laughed, had him swallowed and spit him out on the shore where he needed to be. It’s full of those. We got to remember that this is the good news.

God doesn’t get mad at us when we make mistakes. God doesn’t get mad at us when we fail, because all of our mistakes and failures are meant to help us grow. What God hopes for us is that we will grow into mature disciples. We can’t just stick with what we heard in Sunday School and Kindergarten. We got to take this and take it seriously and go deeper with it.

So the question is, is there something that you need to forgive yourself for?

Because if there is, you need to find someone you can trust and tell them you need to confess it. Has to be somebody you trust. It has to be somebody you know isn’t going to use it against you. Isn’t going to tell the rest of the community. Isn’t going to make a show of it. But you need to tell them. Because you need someone who’s going to hold you accountable. So you don’t do it again.

To redeem mistakes, we have to name it. We have to learn from it. And we have to protect it. Not do it again. That’s redemption. That’s forgiveness. That is love. May it be so

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As I was sitting down to think about this sermon, the words that came to me were,

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was the epic of belief. It was the epic of incredulity. It was the season of light. It was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope. It was the winter of despair.” Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens opening line to the tale of two cities. There’s a truth that is in that that, for most of us, we can find ourselves somewhere in there. When I read the whole piece, it reminded me of the words of Ecclesiastes chapter 3, there is a time for every season under heaven.

I invite you today To think about where you are, what kind of season are you in? Are you in a season of hope? The spring of hope? Are you in the winter of despair? Are you in the best of times? Are you in the worst of times? How is it with your soul?

We just sang “It is well with my soul”, but how is it with your soul? Where are you right now?

As I was was thinking about this scripture and just reflecting on my life, I had a realization this past week that I am my own worst enemy. I am so good at looking at a situation, thinking about how something was going to go and figuring out how it can go wrong in all so many ways and how I’m going to either disappoint myself or someone else.

My brain is so good at creating all of those stories for me that I sometimes fail to act. But what I have found recently is if I can take those stories and set them to the side and choose to move forward anyway. What happened was beyond what I ever imagined. It was better than any of the best scenarios I could have considered because it probably wasn’t my idea to begin with. It was probably that little nudging from the spirit in my brain saying this is what you need to do. But I’m good at figuring out reasons I shouldn’t.

I share that with you because in our gospel reading for today, I think the disciples should be our heroes.

That’s not usually the way we depict the disciples. But the disciples in all of the gospel writings showed us our true humanity and all of the ways we can muck things up.

They did it in the presence of Jesus. So, if they were forgiven, surely we are forgiven. That’s my logic for it. So let’s look at this scene that I just read about from the gospel of Mark.

This is the fourth chapter in Mark, just to set the scene. Remember, mark does not have a birth narrative. Mark’s gospel doesn’t start until Jesus is baptized. It starts with the baptism and goes right into Mark’s ministry. It’s the baptism, it’s the time in the wilderness, he calls his disciples and he gets moving. That’s the thing about Mark’s gospel, Jesus is on the move.

One could even say that he knew he had a short amount of time to get his work done and he was going to be about it. His job was to reach as many people as possible who had been turned away from the faith, who had a different experience, had a different understanding, or let’s be honest, were outright told by the religious people, that they were not welcome within the community of believers.

After that, Jesus was out teaching and healing. In fact, the rest of chapter four is all parables.

Until we hit Mark 4:35-41 and I even sat with it, is this a parable? Is there a parable within this story too? And I think there is.

So I’m going to let you sit with that till I get there. See if you can figure out the parable in this story. Or what I think might be a parable.

But during the night, and that’s a clue. That’s like saying if you were reading a novel that the hero or the main character was going into the deep woods at night. What do you think is going to happen? Something bad. Because that’s what happens in dark places. It gets scary in the middle of the night. When you go out on the water in the middle of the night and it’s dark, you can expect that something is going to happen.

So they go out, but Jesus is like, no, we have to get to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. So, they go and they meet this storm, not unexpected. But in the middle of this storm that comes up, Jesus is asleep.

Here’s where I even thought this morning, even the way I perceived this, when I read this and whether it was just my own reading or whether I was taught to read it this way by anybody else, the disciples sound like they’re helpless when they wake Jesus up. to me. My first reading was, well, the disciples are being helpless and asking, don’t you care? You’ve got to help us.

Well, maybe they weren’t completely helpless because they were fishermen. They’ve been on boats before. They have handled rough seas before. They know how to maneuver a boat in the middle of the storm. When the waves get big. Right? There’s a way to do that. They would have known how to do that.

So maybe they’re not being really helpless and asking what do we do? But more of a, Hey, you know, wake up. We’ve been bailing here for an hour and you’re sitting there sleeping. Come on, we need help here. We can’t tell which version may be closer to what Mark intended.

Let’s also remember that this story is in all three of the synoptic Gospels. So we read them all. So they kind of become one story, even though they’re not. But anyway, they wake Jesus up. They want his help. And he does it, he stops the storm. But that must not have been what they expected him to do because they are frightened.

This version said fear. Some versions say awe, and they think it’s more, “Oh my gosh”, because then they say, Who is this?

Now, they’ve watched this man heal all kinds of people, and he has even given them the power to cast out demons. But, now they’re surprised because he can still the storm.

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on in all of them. But what caught me when I put Job 38:1-11 as our reading, was that he was faithful to God and he lost everything. He loses his family, his business, his reputation. He becomes an outcast. Nobody wants to be near Job. I think he even ends up with skin conditions. Job’s got everything going wrong. And most of Job’s is his friends telling him it’s his fault. He’s done something wrong to make God mad, and him saying, but I didn’t.

Finally, Job goes to God and essentially says the question that is always on our lips when life goes wrong. He says, why me, God?

I hear that so often when, when life comes at us hard and fast, we too say, but why me? What we heard today was God’s response. Where were you when I laid the cornerstone? Where were you when I founded the earth?

What struck me in both of these situations was we have humans asking the divine a question, sort of like, you know, where are you God? Are you going to wake up and help us? Are you going to allow us to perish? Or why is this happening to me, God?

In both cases, the divine answers with a question, not an answer. I mean, you could say the stilling of the storms was an answer, but they come back with a question. Jesus says, are you still afraid? Do you still not trust? Do you not have enough faith? The actual words were, why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? According to this version.

Because at the end of the day, this all boils down to how much do we trust God? How much do we trust the mystery that is the three in one Father, Son and Holy Spirit? How much do we trust them to be there? And this is big, Right? This is really big. But I wonder if it is that we don’t trust that they are there because they all ask questions.

But we don’t want them to just be there, we want them to fix it and we want them to fix it the way we want it to be fixed. That’s where the rub comes because we don’t get what we want. There’s some of you in here that are going to know this line because you don’t always get what you want, but you always get what you need. God will be there. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. That’s where I think the story from the gospel is a parable. Because the storms of life do come at us and we may feel like we are drowning. But God is with us. We will not perish, or maybe we will physically perish. But if we physically perish, we will be united with our God.

All will be well.

I want to leave you with the words of Julian of Norwich. Her wisdom says this.

“God did not say you will not be assailed. You will not be belabored. You will not be disquieted. But he said, you will not be overcome.” – Julian of Norwich

There’s a little bit more to this quote. God wants us to pay attention to God’s words. Always to be strong in our certainty in well being. For God loves us and delights in us. God wishes that we would love God and delight in God and trust greatly in God and all will be well.

All matter of things will be well. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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When I approach scripture, I usually look for what is it that catches my eye, or what draws my attention.

That phrase, catching people, was the phrase that stood out for me. I want you to think about, if I ask you to catch a person, think about what your body would do.

Would you be like the rugby player on the left, where you come in like this and take them down? Or are you going to catch them with open arms like the right? Because to me, that is drastically different.

This is my struggle with evangelism because when we talk about evangelism, when I think about evangelism, my experience of evangelicals is it’s the rugby takedown. They’re coming for me and they’re going to grab me and take me down. They remind me that I need to say that prayer or I’m not.

There was a trust exercise that I learned many years ago, I have no idea how many, so we won’t count. But where you stood in front someone with your arms crossed and you were to fall into their arms. It was with open arms that you were caught, not taken down. Can you feel the difference?

This is the grace of love, right?

To me it is. I think that is who we are called to be. We’re called to be people who catch people with open arms. We catch people who are falling, who are struggling, who need a soft lane. We can come in and help them, help them to find, not even just a lane, we can find life, new life, the life giving water that is available through Jesus Christ.

This story is actually the calling of the disciples, even though it comes out of the fifth chapter of Luke.

You think, wow, by this time we ought to be somewhere further along in the story. But, you have got to remember that Luke is the one that gives us the large birth narrative. So the first two chapters are all about his birth. Then the third chapter is getting started in the baptism and the wilderness. The fourth chapter, he starts his ministry.

Luke is different in that respect. In Luke, he is already teaching and healing people before he calls the disciples. So he’s already active in the community. In fact, he’s already been to Simon’s house. He goes to Simon’s house because Simon’s mother-in-law is ill. You might remember that story because it’s also in Mark. But here, he doesn’t know Simon. He goes because the mother-in-law is ill and he heals her. And I guess he gets to know Simon a little bit.

Then he meets him again at the lakeshore. where Simon’s coming in. This Simon is Simon Peter, or who we know better as just Peter. This is the good news for us. We should love Peter because Peter makes all of the mistakes that we would make. He does it for us. And Jesus never once shames him or blames him. He accepts Peter for who Peter is and loves him just the same. Continues to have him right by his side, teaching him.

So here in this moment, they go out deep. Jesus does this wonderful teaching. Out in the boat, Jesus looks at Peter and says, go out into the deep water and put down your nets. This is where, if this was contemporary, at least in my head, I heard Peter saying, they’ve done that, don’t need to do it again. Right now I’m headed in for a good meal, a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow’s another day. Tomorrow will be good. Tomorrow we’ll catch. Are you kidding me? But that’s not it for Jesus. Yes, that’s not actually written in the book. The author is quite kinder to Peter. I hear more of Peter’s staff than the writer did, but they go out again. Peter says, all right, if you say so, but they go to deep water. That means they go to someplace they haven’t gone before. They go and try fishing in a different spot, not their local hole, favorite fishing hole, which brought them nothing. They’re going to go to deeper water. They’re going to go where Jesus wants them to go rather than where they’re comfortable going.

This is a metaphor, people. I want you to be thinking about the fact that that means that we will be called to go where we may not be comfortable.

Instead of going to all the comfortable places, the places that we like to go, because that’s where the fish, the people are. That’s why I chose this picture, that you got to be fishing somewhere deep to find a fish that big. Right? Look how he’s holding the fish.

Yes, I think about all these things when I take pictures, right? He’s holding it with open arms. He’s not just holding it up. That fish has some weight to it, right? Like this will be a strong man pose, but he’s not trying. He’s not even trying a strong man pose. He’s supporting that fish. I don’t know if that fish is gonna become dinner or not. I don’t know what kind of fish it is. That’s my ignorance. Maybe it’s a fish that you would rather put back into the water. But it’s that support.

That’s where I think Paul’s message (1 Corinthians 15:1-11) comes in too. That it’s not about being perfect. In fact, Paul’s story is that he was the worst. Paul is clear, “I was the worst sinner.” Paul specifically attacked the people who believed in Jesus. He was a Pharisee who went after the people who believed in Jesus and harassed them. Even almost to the point of death. He was a horrible person to the Christians, and Christ came even to him and invited him in to know the love and grace, the forgiveness that was available to even him.

I think that we are called to be those who are out catching people, catching people in that supported way.

But I’m afraid that we get caught up thinking about ourselves and what do we need? What’s wrong with our lives when there are others who are struggling? And need us to turn our attention out to them and maybe to look in places we haven’t looked before. Because friends, there are those among us in our community who are unsure of their housing, who are unsure of where their next meal is going to come from, who are unsure if they’re going to pay the rent or the doctor.

Those people need our support. They need the hope that we have based on our faith. They need to know that someone actually cares about them.

There’s also those with the hidden issues that we don’t see. Maybe their sitting down like this person, we might have a clue that there’s issues. They may have experienced a great loss. They may be struggling with how to move forward in life. They may feel like life is just crumbling around them. They don’t have that support system, and that is who I think we are called to be as we catch people and help them have a safe landing.

So I want you this week to pray about this. I want you to pray about who it is that God wants you to help.

Because when we call on God, when we put ourselves out there for Christ, the spirit will show up and you may be surprised by who it is that needs help. Maybe they won’t be in that deep of a water or that far out of their comfort zone because you may find out that someone’s hiding issues because we’re very good at that.

All of our German ancestry helps us to say, that’s my dirty laundry and I’ll keep it to myself. We come in here strong and proud, and sometimes the world’s falling apart. We need somebody to help us, to hear us, to affirm us. To encourage us to remind us that God still loves us.

I was in a hospital room this week and I said, remember, God is here with you. The person shook their head and said, “I don’t know.” I said, well, I’m here to tell you that I think God is here. Maybe you don’t feel that right now, and maybe this illness is in the way, but God still loves you. It doesn’t mean, poof, you’re cured. Doesn’t work that way. It means you will not be alone through whatever you are going through. You will not be alone.

We are called to come together, to be building the community of Christ, to be helping others know that they are not alone because right now life is hard.

I was in a conversation this morning where thinking about the pressures of the world and how they try to run our lives and we have to stand up for ourselves and determine what’s the priority.

Those are the decisions that we make each day, and God wants to be one of those priorities. Right up there with family.

We come together to remind ourselves of that. So that we can go out into the world and invite others to know that love and support that we have found here because Christ comes to bring new life to all by catching all those fish. They brought new life to the fishermen, to the community. It meant People were going to eat. Bills were going to be paid.

We trust and rely on each other. That is how we live. Sometimes our world and our country has us thinking about other priorities, but the reality is we will live and thrive when we are community and we help others in our community.

We need to think about what is the impact that we’re going to make. May it be so.

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In the past two weeks we have had the opportunity to see some of the strongest, fastest and athletes who are at their best as we watch the Olympics. As the culture of our world is sort of on edge. I mean, it’s the culture of the U. S. But I think it’s all over the world. Everyone is anxious. There were some disagreements. There were some heated moments and some judging calls that they didn’t like. But overall, the Olympics reminded us of how community can work, where people who are from different countries can encourage each other, congratulate each other, work together for a common good, for the best in their sport.

There was kindness, there was civility, there was even honor. For me, one of the best moments was when the Brazilian won gold in the gymnastics. Simone Biles and Jordan Childs bowed to her because she fought hard and they fought hard to beat her in the other competitions. But in floor exercise, she won gold. They acknowledged her greatness.

That’s who we’re to be. We’re to be people who see the gifts in others.

Yes, we do our best, but we also want to lift up others because it is together that we rise. Not when we’re separated.

Today, we have this story from Joshua. My guess is that you probably don’t know a lot about Joshua.

We don’t talk about Joshua very often. For our Jewish brothers and sisters, he’s a major prophet. This whole book of Joshua is part of the larger history of how Israel came to be. It was not written as it was happening, it was written centuries or maybe even thousands of years later as the story of the people. It’s a reminder, just like the Exodus story, about how God continues to be present with people. How God keeps promises to God’s people.

So in this one, we have Joshua taking over for Moses. Moses did all of those wonderful things, but Moses doesn’t get to take the people to the promised land. That’s Joshua’s role. So, Joshua comes along, and the first thing Joshua gets to do is here in chapter three, they’re going to cross the River Jordan without getting their feet wet, just like they crossed the Red Sea.

I talked about that last week, that probably when I talk about the Exodus story of Moses you see Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments with the water going up and him standing there with his arms raised and the people crossing the river. Well, it sort of happens again. We don’t talk about the fact that it happens again when they enter the promised land. It’s not the sea. The water’s probably not as big, but they still send the Ark of the Covenant with the priests into the water. The water recedes, and the people walk across, safely, into the promised land.

That’s a great story. Then it gets messy. Because in the scripture that I read, it said, Joshua tells the people, God will drive out.

There are people that are in this promised land. They’ve been in this promised land. They’re living there. The promised land is Palestine, and we can’t ignore that today. So, what God had said was that God is going to move the people, and the first place that they go is Jericho, and you might know the story of Jericho, or maybe you know the song Joshua fought the battle of Jericho. That might ring a bell.

In that story, they’re able to overwhelm Jericho without any violence. All they do is walk around the castle, the fort. But then, I’m going to say, the human side takes over. The rest of the book is quite a bloody mess. Literally, it is about how they killed the people and burned them out, burned out the villages. All for the sake of the Israelites having the promised land.

It leaves us to struggle. Is this the God that we believe in? Do we believe in a God who would kill a group of people so that his people could have the land?

I don’t think that’s who God is. That doesn’t align with the rest of what I know about God in the Bible. What I see in God is one who is present with us. Who encourages us to work out our differences and to build the beloved community.

That’s what I see. That’s what I hear God doing. That’s what I see in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus doesn’t come in and he doesn’t kill the Pharisees. He doesn’t attack Rome. He builds community. He heals differences. And even the epistles. Paul doesn’t attack anyone. He tries to build groups of people who can work together and live together. Work through their differences. There’s several epistles written on that.

How do we work through the differences we have? Because we will have differences. But differences don’t need to end in violence.

What God said at the end of Joshua 1:1-9, I think is the heart to me of who God is. God says to us, “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go” – Joshua 1:9.

But as humans, we get scared. When we’re scared we tend to operate under our wisdom, rather than God’s wisdom.

When I think of the people that Joshua would have been leading, they were people who were probably born in the wilderness, raised in the wilderness, with stories of what Egypt was like, and Egypt was a place of cruelty and violence. You either did what the taskmaster said, or you were beaten, maybe even killed.

So, that was the the framework that they had to work from. Going into this promised land, they weren’t people who had been trained to farm the land. or to raise cattle or sheep or goats. They didn’t have that kind of mentality anymore. Because when they were in the wilderness, they were constantly moving.

All they knew is that is the man from heaven, which ends up stopping once during the promised land. Then they have to figure it out.

They could have worked with the people who were there.

Just as Israel could have chosen to look at the Palestinians when the State of Israel was formed and said, “How can we work with these people?” Rather than the choices they made. Even with the West Bank, when the lines were drawn, the West Bank was formed for the Palestinians. Instead of saying, “that’s theirs”, the Israeli government said, “but it’s supposed to be ours.” I haven’t heard that in the news, but they have the ability to say, and this story says, “this is ours. This land belongs to us. Despite what deeds you may have, despite how long your family may have lived there, thousands of years ago, God gave us this earth, this land.”

Instead of trying to work out a compromise, Israel came in with the bulldozers, eliminated the houses. The people had to flea with nothing and we wonder why there’s tension. We wouldn’t be where we are now if other decisions had been made, if other choices had been made, but they weren’t. So here we are.

How do we move forward being strong and creative? Not being frightened or dismayed.

The thing about fear is that when we’re in fear mode, all of the other possibilities go away. We go back to what we knew worked at some point along the way. The psychologist would say, go back to your reptilian brain. You’re not using your higher functions. You’re not using your best thinking. You go back and you become instinctual and it’s about surviving. It’s not about building the beloved community anymore. So how can we stop ourselves from going back in that fear?

The point is we have to trust God. We have to trust that God is in the midst of this, that God is in the midst of the Israel, Palestine, Palestinian, Hamas, Hezbollah situation.

I don’t know about you, but it’s not happening in my country. And I want to cry out to God about that. Let’s go, God. Enough people have died. Enough people have suffered. Make this right. But it’s not my call. It’s God’s. And I have to trust God enough to let go of what I want.

I struggled with this sermon, probably because it was something I didn’t want to hear.

That’s an interesting piece about it. Sermons. The ones you struggle with are the ones that you need the most. And when I think about what I experienced in the last couple days, over and over, the message was, let go and trust.

Whether it was Elsa, trying to control everything in Frozen with my grandson or Dr. Strange trying to come under a circle. You have to let go and trust that God is there. That God will bring us through this. That a way will become known. Even if we don’t know what it is now. We move forward and we work towards whatever builds community.

Because that’s where the love and the peace and the joy of God are. It’s not in the fear. It’s not in the violence, the cruelty, the hate. It’s in the love. We have to lead from our hearts. Because that’s where the love is. May it be so. Amen.

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This is probably one of those stories that almost everyone, whether they’re in church or not, has heard of.

A lot of you may even have that image of Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments movie. Or you may have seen Sight and Sound’s version of it with the walls of water. Quite something to experience.

This story is meant to help us understand something about God, about who God is. God is one who hears the cries of God’s people. God liberated the Israelites because he heard them cry out in their slavery. God is one who is present with us. In our hard times and throughout our lives, and God is one who sends us freedom, who wants freedom from slavery for us.

I think we have taken this story and we have turned it into a hero story because we like hero stories.

God as a hero, that’s a good thing in and of itself, except when we think that God has to do all the work. God will be with us and God will help us. But when we think that we can’t do anything until God does it all, and I think we’ve missed the point.

That’s where I think God sent Jesus to help us understand that God wasn’t just going to come back and vanquish the Roman Empire. God wasn’t going to take them out of their own type of slavery with Jesus. But again, God intervened. Not in this way that was vanquishing armies, but in this quiet way that was calling us to be about new life, to be about freedom, to let go of the things that have enslaved us.

I’m going to try and make a turn here with you. I want you to think of this as a metaphor. I want you to think of this story metaphorically, and I want us to think about what are the things that enslave us now.

The Exodus story is about liberation, is about freedom. God wants us to be free. God wants us to be able to enjoy this wonderful life that God gave us.

But we are tied to sin and to greed, to power, and to control.

What are the things that are enslaving you?

That’s what I want you to think about. then I want you to think about what it is about the water. The water is significant in this. Yes, the Israelites walked on dry land. The water was moved out of their way. They had to go through the water. Even when they come back from the wilderness, 40 years later, they have to cross the Jordan. You have to go through the water to experience the freedom.

So what does the water of baptism mean to you? These are big things, heavy things. important things. But for me, the water of baptism is the gift of life. It is the gift of forgiveness. The drops of mercy raining down on us.

I don’t think I have ever been as happy to see rain as I was on Friday. I enjoyed it yesterday too. But Friday, I just stopped and went out and sat on the porch and watched it rain. Because we were parched. If you weren’t parched, our earth was parched.

My garden is parched. The corn, the leaves are folded and growing up almost like it’s a yucca plant. They’re pointed instead of being open. Because it’s starved for nourishment, for a drink. Just like we need a drink. We need the water. This is the water of life, water of salvation.

It’s not a surprise that we talk about baptism as a death and then a resurrection. What do you need to be resurrected from?

Or what chains do you need to break? What baggage do you need to let go of?

Our defenses are like the armor and the chariots of the Egyptians. They weigh us down and they get us caught in the mud. Those defenses that have may have worked really well for us at times in our lives, getting in the way of us experiencing true freedom.

Each of us is different. Only you know your path and only you know your burdens. I’ve said it many times that we come to church to lay our roots at the cross. That’s what Jesus wants us to do. And we tend to do that during worship. Then when we worship, we say, “It’s okay, God, I’m all right. I’ll just take it with me,” because we want to trust our own power.

But today we also have the beauty of communion where we are offered the bread of life. We don’t have to go into the water, but we can come to the table and we can remember that this simple loaf becomes more than a simple loaf. This becomes the way forward into real life. It can break the bonds of our slavery.

It can take away all that has us stuck, but we have to let our defenses down when we come to the table.

So the question is yours. What will you do? What are you willing to let go of? What baggage are you willing to leave here? What bonds do you want to break that are no longer healthy for you?

Thank you, gracious God, for all the ways that you come to us to bring a new life, to bring nourishment, to bring encouragement, to bring freedom and justice. May it be so.

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Last fall, we affirmed our vision and mission, and one of the pieces of that is environmental advocacy.

We have taken this summer season to focus on some environmental issues, and we have aligned ourselves with the children’s faith formation class that’s meeting in Rader Park. We’re using the scriptures from their curriculum as our guide for this.

Interestingly, that makes July a lot about famine.

It is the theme that runs through most of the scriptures in July. I put this picture up for you, um, to show you where within the world famine exists. The places that are colored blue is where famine exists. You can see that the continent of Africa is not in good shape.

But there are other places, one of those places is Palestine. The number one cause of the famine is conflict. I’m going to say conflict, but it’s more than conflict, right? It’s violence. It’s violence that is hurting people. The second reason is the climate crisis. The third reason for famine is the rising costs of food.

So famine is a shortage of food. Which leaves people literally hungering. That causes people to migrate and that is what plays in to our story for today.

Today, we’re gonna look at Joseph. Joseph is a major character in Genesis. In fact, to read his story starts in chapter 37. It’s chapter 37 then it goes to 39, and it’s 39 to 45. You can read all of that and I’m going to try and tell you that in two minutes. Six chapters in two minutes. How’s that? But Joseph’s story is laden with conflict.

It begins when he’s a young boy and he has this dream that he is going to be great. He is one of twelve children to Jacob, the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob becomes Israel. His name becomes Israel. They are the twelve tribes of Israel, if that rings a bell with you at all. Joseph, he is also his father’s favorite son. He is the firstborn to his father’s favorite wife. Yes, he had two wives. Remember, we can get way down in the weeds, and I’m gonna try not to go in the weeds today. But he is the favored son.

You may have heard of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. That was a musical. Joseph gets an ornamental robe. In the King James version of the Bible, it was described as a coat of many colors, which is where Andrew Lloyd Webber ran with the Technicolor Dreamcoat. But his brothers, all of his brothers envy him and decide they need to get rid of him. They need to be done with this troublesome brother. So, they take him out and they end up selling him into slavery. Interestingly, if you look at the backstory, he’s sold to the Ishmaelites, and I’ll let you track that rabbit trail yourself. But he ends up in Egypt at Potiphar’s house, and that doesn’t go well either, and he ends up in prison.

In prison, God continues to be with him. This ability that God has given him to interpret dreams comes in handy. Because they tell the Pharaoh who’s been having these dreams. This is where our scripture that we read today is focused. Where I think we can get caught in the weeds and we can see something amazing about God. When you read this story, it’s especially the scripture we read you can get caught with the lean cows and the dried corn, but what’s really happening if we back out of that detail, what’s really happening there is God is talking to Pharaoh and Pharaoh is listening.

I want you to stop and think about that for a minute. Pharaoh does not worship our God, does not worship the God of Israel, does not worship Joseph’s God. He may have heard of it, but he worships the Egyptian gods. Those are the gods of his people. But suddenly, he’s getting messages from another god. What we would call the one true god, who obviously doesn’t mind, or doesn’t have an issue talking to someone who doesn’t really believe in them, or listen to them, or think about them. That’s the God that we worship. A God who constantly reaches out, even to those who would be in opposition to God’s people.

God chose to talk to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh chose to listen. Think about that. That’s God working in all of that. We haven’t gotten to the Moses story yet, but we’ll hear about how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. That’s a line from the story, from the Exodus story.

But here, God is softening Pharaoh’s heart because it will put Joseph as second in command of Egypt.

Why is that important? There’s going to be a famine in the land. What’s going to happen? Joseph’s family, the 12 tribes of Israel, are going to come to Egypt because they’re starving and they need food. Joseph is in the right place to help them. So all the conflicts of Joseph’s life, the sibling rivalry and the conflict with Potiphar’s wife that lands him in prison. All of that, God works through all of that to bring Joseph to a place where he can be reconciled, where this family can come back together and be God’s people. That’s how I want you to look at the story.

I had a very hard time finding a picture of Pharaoh. I use the Vanderbilt Christian library and they’ve got thousands of pictures, but not of Pharaoh. Pharaoh is the character in the right bottom corner. This is a picture from the Tuskegee Chapel that was done by the lambs. It’s their singing window and the majority of the characters are African, and it has words of the spirituals on there.

But, I can’t emphasize enough, I want us to think about what that says about who our God is.

That Pharaoh was so moved by God and these dreams that he ignored the ethnicities. He ignored the fact that Joseph was an Israelite. He ignored the different religions, that he didn’t follow the Egyptian gods. He ignored the social classes, because Joseph was a slave. In fact, when Pharaoh chooses him, Joseph is in prison accused of rape. How many people in prison accused of rape would get exonerated and made second in command of a country? Just think about that. We’re talking about a major shift that God brought about for God’s purposes.

Joseph’s interpretation really was not really all that remarkable. In your abundant years, save it. Because there’s going to be lean years. That’s just good economic wisdom, right? Yet, it reminds the people to have a longer vision. Don’t just worry about today and what feels good for today and waste, but look at the longer vision.

Our church is going through lean years and we are trying to take that longer vision.

We’re relying on the abundance that has been part of our heritage. Literally, we say we’re standing on the shoulders of the saints who came before us and their generosity. Because we are in lean years right now. You can be part of making that sustainable through your sustaining gifts. You can be part of continuing that ministry. A ministry of reconciliation within our community, within those whose lives we touch. In ways that we support and advocate for God’s creation. In ways that we welcome all people as children of God and offer inclusive refuge.

So, I have a hard question for you to consider. When, like Pharaoh, do we let go of our need to be right? To be in charge and listen to the wisdom of the one that we perceive as less than us. Because that’s where God’s working through. God’s working through the children, through the youth, through those who have not walked through the doors yet.

I’m also wondering, what are the famines of our lives? For what are you hungry? What are you starving for? What are the situations that can lead us to listen to the wisdom of another?

When we wrote The Mission and Vision, these statements came with the core values. We believe that God’s love is stronger than fear. We value social justice and inclusion. We are called to care for our environment as God’s creation. May these be words of wisdom for us. May they encourage our faith in God who loves and works in the world in ways that we do not understand, and with people that may surprise us.

May they remind us of God’s abundance that we do not have to fear. Thanks be to God, Amen.

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I first want to revisit a moment that we had last week when Jonathan was ordained. Because this is a moment that we really need to celebrate.

I want you to feel how important you were in this journey of his to this moment. It’s quite an honor when one of our own reaches that point where they are ordained. It was a great celebration for us.

I took this picture right after Lucy had put the stole on him. That is one of those once in a lifetime moments. You only get your first stole put on you once. That’s why it was so important. I coached Lucy so she knew what she was doing. She was really nervous about it, but it was so important for that to happen for them.

I want to lift up Jonathan, because Jonathan was like the farmer, who, while he was with us, was planting seeds. He planted seeds of love and joy with this entire congregation. With each person he met. As he had events that he was running, he empowered people. He planted seeds with people to take ownership of it and to grow it and to carry it out. He supported them in doing that and he lifted them up. He equipped them for the ministry. He was a seed planter among us. Even if that’s not how you saw him, I just want to name that that is what he was.

Last year, I preached on the parable of the sower, and I used this image, and Jonathan was really struck by this image.

I bring it up again, because we are transitioning to not having Jonathan around anymore. That is bittersweet. We are so happy for him and wish him the best in Connecticut. But I want to name that we also miss him.

But in this picture, the farmer is just frivolously planting seed, just throwing it out with abandonment. That’s not the way most of us who farm or raise gardens plant seed. We don’t just walk and throw seed. Because we want it to produce a crop.

This has been a very frustrating year for me as a farmer. Because we planted three rows of corn and three ears came up. In my first planting three rows, I got three stalks. So we planted again. Now, I’ve got about a row and a half.

A lot of it has to do with rain. We look for just the right soil. We get in there, and we pull all those weeds out and we churn up that soil. I admit, we have a rototiller, so before I plant, I make David go through it at least once so that that ground is really ready. We want to have that good soil.

But that’s not what God does. God just doesn’t do that. Plants everywhere. To see what happens. What I want us to talk about is, what does that tell us about who God is?

A lot of us know the Parable of the Sower. We know where it’s heading. I bet you could tell me where it’s heading. But what if we focus on what it tells us about God? Right?

The normal way to explain this, which, if you keep reading in Mark, Jesus goes on to tell us how we’re supposed to understand it. That we’re supposed to look at the different types of soil as our lives. It sort of leaves us with this, so clean up your life.

You clean up your life so that you’re ready for the seeds that God’s scattering.

If God is scattering this seed everywhere, I just want you to stop and think, does God really care that your life is already cleaned up and the perfect soil before God scatters seeds with you? When I think about that question, my answer comes down to, God accepts all the conditions of our lives.

Whether we’ve got it all together and we are the best soil waiting for God’s seeds or whether our lives are a mess. Some of us, our lives are a mess. Some days are better than others. Right? I think God accepts us and loves us and throws seed our way, whether we’re together or not.

So for those of us who’ve been felt like you were told by the church that you’ve got to get your life together so that you’re acceptable to God, I want to tell you, you’re worthy for God just as you are.

If your life is such that there are circumstances that are beyond your control, whether it has to do with health or situations that have happened that put you in a place that you wish you weren’t. God understands all of that. God loves us in whatever condition our lives are.

But if you’re doing really well, and you think that you’re running your life, well then, maybe we do need to look at our lives. Maybe we do need to look and see if we are allowing others to run our lives. To come in and choke out the good ideas and the good works and the Word of God that God is trying to plant in our lives.

Maybe we need to be more vigilant at paying attention to our lives.

Who are we listening to? Are we listening to people that are feeding us lies? That are just trying to divide us and make us angry? Or are we listening to words that move us to offer God our praise, to work towards love, hope, joy and peace?

Is there evil that is talking to us, that is trying to get our attention? If you prefer evil, evil personified then is Satan, I’m not fond of that, but is Satan trying to lure you away from God, from your relationship with Jesus?

A lot is happening right now about Christianity being conflated with our patriotism. So, I wonder if you believe that only real Americans are Christians, Do you look at the world and see the beauty of the diversities God has created? Or are you afraid that as white Americans, Christians, we’re losing something? Because they’re two very different postures.

If we’re afraid, there are people that will take advantage of the fact that we are afraid and they will make us more afraid. It’s what they will do so that they can run our lives. Or we can make sure that we are open to God’s love, joy, and peace and that we are peacekeepers. That we are the ones who are sharing love, who are helping groups come together, helping people come together.

Are we building communities, or are we dividing communities? Are we inviting people in, or are we pushing people out? Those are the things that we need to think about in our lives. Are we making our world smaller, or are we trying to expand? Because, I believe that we worship an expanding God. This God of Abundance.

This was a picture of my garden and some sweet peas that were not weeded. You know, God didn’t care that I didn’t weed that patch. Right? God would have seeded it anyway. Sometimes we’re even the seed. As I talked about Jonathan spreading seeds, sometimes, we’re the seed to take the word. Sometimes we need to be the farmer that’s sharing the word of God with others. Those that we share it with don’t have to be perfect. We can love everyone just as they are.

So the question is, what seedlings will we nurture?

Our mission and vision statement that we voted on last fall was that we believe that God is calling us to be inclusive and generous, to be a safe space for those who feel powerless and afraid. So, are we trying to nurture the little seedlings among us, those who are struggling with what to believe and how to follow Jesus? Or, are we judging people to make sure that they are the right soil? Whatever that might mean.

I think in those phrases, we are naming that we are not afraid. It’s the most repeated phrase in the Bible, do not be afraid. Our mission and vision statement implies that we are not afraid. That we want to live out our calling by God to love others. That we welcome those who are looking to learn about Jesus without requiring them to change.

Jesus reached out and invited people to know another way of living. That is what we are to do, to invite others to know the love we have found. To invite another to find the support we have found. To invite another to experience Christ’s grace and peace, and invite another to find community here.

It’s time to put our faith into action. By living in God’s abundance, rather than being trapped in a mindset of scarcity, we have many gifts to share. Let us be about it. Amen.

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