Hang Together or Hang Separately

 

Hang Together, or Hang Separately

 

Matthew 22:34-46

Loving God and neighbor 

 

22:34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,

 

22:35 and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him.

 

22:36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"

 

22:37 He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'

 

22:38 This is the greatest and first commandment.

 

22:39 And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

 

22:40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

 

When a lot of our church and family friends heard that Dara and I were moving to a United Methodist retirement community called “Wesbury,” they questioned why we were doing so. I’m 72, Dara is 75, and few people seem to believe we are that old, basing their beliefs on our physical appearance, overall health, and rather ambitious activity level. But we are that old, and unlike many of our friends, we have little family in the region, or at least family that could be part of a “caring network,” should the inevitable effects of aging finally start to come our way (our two adult children live in faraway places). Hence, we decided to put our names on the “waiting list” for a Wesbury “Villa,” which are basically stand-alone, single-story homes of varying sizes, grouped into a “village” Wesbury calls “Thoburn Village,” named after a late United Methodist Bishop. Wesbury is one of those “age in place” facilities, and should we need escalating levels of care, ranging from assisted living to acute care, and even memory care, they have it. Truth be told, Dara wanted to get on Wesbury’s waiting list immediately upon my retirement back in 2021, but I was the holdout. First of all, I liked the Pittsburgh area, and coveted a chance to enjoy our townhouse and its location when I wasn’t responsible for a busy church! Secondly, I must admit, I don’t like the idea of accepting that I AM getting older. Eventually, though, Dara’s better mind won out, and we went on the waiting list about midway through 2022. And after about three and a half years on it, a nice “Villa” came open, and we took it. So now, we are residents of Meadville, PA, just up the road a piece from Allegheny College.

 

Why am I telling you this story? It’s mostly to take yet another tack on fleshing out what is important about “community.” Hillary Clinton made quite a fuss a number of years ago, talking about how it “takes a village” to raise a child well. Well, I would suggest this is true of a good many things in life, including dealing with the “creep” of aging! We now have our “village.” Things at Wesbury are great. Our home is much more safe than a townhouse, which is basically STAIRS, held together by a random assortment of rooms. Thoburn Village has a number of beautiful, wide streets with next to NO car traffic (while not a “gated” community, Wesbury IS private), and ample places to take our daily walks, including a nice little “nature trail,” maintained by the Wesbury Auxiliary. Each month, a rather impressive “menu” of activities and local trips to restaurants and “places to see” is posted, and Thoburn residents can sign up. We do, and have been regulars on the Wesbury “bus” that picks us up at our door and shuttles us to some great venues. We are accompanied by our neighbors and new friends, all of whom share one important quality: they all made the decision to “invest” in being proactive about a place where they can “age in place,” alleviating most of the “fear of the future.” 

 

Our new community of friends is an interesting lot. Most of them were professionals of some sort—teachers, lawyers, clergy, engineers, physicians, bankers, and even a few military career folk. They are indeed an interesting lot, and each is willing to share her or his story, both for the interest of the group, and if something they have learned may be of value to someone else here. This IS a caring community, with an active prayer chain, and some good listening ears. Beyond that, Wesbury has a wonderful staff of activities people and management folk who legitimately care for its residents. We have a fantastic chaplain (an excellent preacher, too!), community rooms, monthly potluck dinners and “birthday bashes,” and rooms designated for various activities, such as an art room, which I frequent. We even have a clubhouse for various gatherings and events, which includes a small “workout” room we can use if the weather keeps us from our regular trips to the downtown YMCA. For us, it has become a kind of “Mecca,” providing spacious living quarters, great new friends, and a wide range of activities, all while giving us the freedom to do what we choose. I’m sure we will find its flaws, as even the best of human community has them, but overall, I have to say that it is “modeling” what a caring community can be. I have to ask myself how we can create more of these in our world. The church SHOULD be one, but obviously this isn’t always the case. And our nation and its geographical communities are so divided now, both politically and fiscally, that it is more true than ever what poet Robert Frost said: “Fences make good neighbors.”

 

Side story: I HAVE discovered one of the flaws of life in Thoburn Village. Each of our “Villas” has a series of fire and smoke sensors hard-wired to the Meadville Fire Department. Thanks to my love of cooking, which often involves stovetop stir-frying, I have had a man in a raincoat with an AX in my kitchen on two occasions, summoned up by overly sensitive electronics, rather than any actual fire or smoke! We’re working on that…

 

I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who, commenting on the Declaration of Independence and the firestorm it would precipitate, said: “Gentlemen, we must hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately.” While it is on the “dangerous” side of what it means to eschew togetherness and community, he made an important point. Not “hanging together” as a community drawn together by some common pursuit, belief, or practice, can mean something more benign, like loneliness, or just winding up with inadequate resources to meet any goals best tackled with others. America was born of a pioneer “spirit” often labeled “rugged individualism.” If there is a bogus “national religion,” this would be it. Read any history you like, and you will quickly see that what pushed the frontier Westward was “hanging together” with others—wagon trains, expeditionary parties, and the communities they built along the way. (Of course, the violence and injustice they also perpetrated against tribal peoples who already inhabited the land is another matter not to be addressed in this message, but it IS important to realize that in the settlers’ efforts to drive out the indigenous peoples, they had to “break” the Native American communities to do so, separating families, tribes, and eventually the horrendous “Trail of Tears.”) If there is anything that truly CAN be said to be the “secret” to American expansion and survival, it is that phrase, “hanging together.” We all know that world wars—especially World War II—brought people of all walks, religions, and philosophies together to function as one large community, in order to successfully sue for peace against oppressive foes. The striving for civil rights by persons of color in this country would have had a much tougher row to hoe, had leaders and people of the majority race not banded together, supported, and marched with Black leaders. (Unfortunately, too many members of the white majority race have in recent years voted in leaders who seem bent on revoking the hard-won human rights of this movement, so not all “hanging together” is productive, or even moral work.)

 

The fact is that whatever higher pursuits a people choose to engage in, coming together—“hanging together”—is an essential part of the effort. People must focus on the goal at hand, set aside the things that separate them, and work toward that goal. Franklin’s little play on words is actually quite profound. Had the signers of the Declaration of Independence immediately reverted to the differences that spurred so much deliberation in their body before the final declaration was agreed upon and signed, they would have eventually been “picked off” by the powerful British regime. However, by hanging together, they became a powerful ideological force that went on to breed a powerful citizenry bent on independence, and an even more powerful and effective military. Again, the secret to this latter factor in the war of independence was kept together and fought as one force by an historic “catalyst”—General George Washington, a man who famously set aside individual goals in favor of birthing a new nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all [men] are created equal,” a phrase later uttered by another great “catalyst.”

 

It is of great importance to note that this week’s text is Jesus’ great concatenation of the Ten Commandments into two easy to remember: love God; love your neighbor. I suppose that one could argue that these are also “nested” commandments—we demonstrate our love of God BY loving our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus says something remarkable about these two commandments—"On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” How often do we miss seeing the foundational things that much greater structures “hang” on! The whole of the United States as a nation “hangs” on the words of the Declaration of Independence that created it, and the constitution that became our “operating rules,” and that which guards human freedoms. For Jesus to say that everything his followers had previously believed in could “hang” from these two commandments was truly revolutionary. And we keep forgetting both the simplicity and the profundity of his assertion. Our human tendency is to keep adding rules and defining how and to whom these additional rules apply. This is what weakens any faith system—setting too-restrictive boundaries on what the resulting community should “look like” and how it should function. Eventually, the community is either split or destroyed, when a separate faction that disagrees reaches a plurality level and begins to wreck things or “takes it ball and bat and goes home,” as they say. As the American revolutionaries found out, “hanging together” is hard work. And as we Christians have discovered, “loving God and neighbor” isn’t easy, either. But if you want to build a strong, empathetic, and edifying community, the work must be engaged. Dissent can indeed be a helpful corrective element of a “hanging together” community, but only if it is SEEN as a corrective, and only if the ones raising it have building up the community in mind. Likewise, those who start advancing tighter restrictions on the community might have altruistic aims in mind, but too often they can’t see how this may also choak off the community, if done unchecked. “Majority votes” may be one of the worst things to happen to struggling communities.

 

Dara and I watched an interesting documentary on the Statue of Liberty the other night. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was the French sculptor who created this inspirational work of art, but it never would have been erected without an internal “strut,” an engineering marvel in itself, designed by Gustave Eiffel, who would later do a little tower building of his own. You don’t see Eiffel’s strut when you gaze upon Lady Liberty, but it is there, hanging everything together against the elements, keeping her strong. Even as it took two geniuses and a host of fabricators and financiers to bring her to life, so it is with the church and any vital human endeavor.

 

The two “simple” commandments Jesus gave us are like Eiffel’s strut. When they work, they are “behind the scenes.” What we see is the outer “work of art”—the loving, supportive, and edifying community they create, in the church, and in the world. Franklin was certainly right: We either hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately. Jesus’ words are much “softer,” but they mean exactly the same thing. Amen.

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Send In the Clones!

 

Send in the Clones

 

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Thanksgiving for the church at Thessalonica 

 

1:1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.

 

1:2 We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly

 

1:3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

1:4 For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you,

 

1:5 because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake.

 

1:6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired from the Holy Spirit,

 

1:7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

 

1:8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it.

 

1:9 For they report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God,

 

1:10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

 

Who remembers Dolly, the sheep? What was special about her? Yeah, she was the first successfully CLONED mammal. That happened in Scotland, back in 1996, and Dolly lived a relatively normal life, dying in 2003. After Dolly, many other animals have been cloned successfully. Cloning involves using the DNA from a donor cell and putting it into an ovum of the species. The resulting animal is genetically identical to the animal from which this somatic cell is used in the cloning process. As far as anyone knows, no human has been cloned, despite shady “reports” that this has been tried in China. If you want to see a humorous movie scene involving cloning, watch Woody Allen’s “Sleeper.” He and Diane Keaton are dissidents in a future totalitarian society, masquerading as cloning scientists, and they are charged with cloning a dictator from his nose, the only part of him found after he was assassinated by a bomb. They have no idea what they are doing, and while trying to fool the authorities, they lay out a suit of clothes from the late dictator’s wardrobe, place the nose where the face should be, and tell the gathered political operatives that they will attempt to “clone him into his clothes.” 

 

While cloning may never be the most popular way to replicate life, it is part of the latest generation of disease-fighting drugs called “monoclonal antibodies,” which are cloned from a single white blood cell, and produced to attack specific diseases such as types of cancer, in a specific patient. Years ago, in the early days of monoclonal antibodies, I had a young parishioner who was experimentally treated for juvenile-onset rheumatoid arthritis with them, and the results left her to live a mostly normal life, after an early fear of debilitation. 

 

So we know a little about cloning, now, but what does this have to do with our Bible passage this weekend? We’ll get there; be patient.

 

How do we make disciples in the church, today? This is an important question, especially for United Methodist Christians, as we are charged with “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” First of all, I have to confess that, while I strongly affirmed the “vision” of making disciples of Jesus Christ, for this IS what Jesus told us to do, I have always balked at the phrase added years ago by the bishops, “for the transformation of the world.” While we Christ followers DO believe that becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ may help bring about a new and better world, especially if we live according to the teachings of Jesus, this particular phrase, “for the transformation of the world” sounds crusading, to me. It has the potential for leaning toward exclusivism—might we believe that ONLY disciples of Jesus Christ can participate in bringing about a better world? I sincerely hope not. And what are we “transforming the world” into? A “Christian” world? Things can be “transformed” but not always in a positive way. It is safe to say that Vladimer Lenin “transformed” Russia and Mao Tse-Tung “transformed” China, but not necessarily in ways we are happy about. The designated hitter rule has “transformed” Major League Baseball, but again, not all of us are happy about that, either. You see what I mean? One has to read a lot more verbiage from the United Methodist Church to get a picture of just how we would like to see the world “transformed,” and not all of us see that the same, either. A whole pile of people and churches opted out because THEY didn’t like our view of transformation, and the two resulting factions may be working against each other, thanks to these divergent views. But, back to disciple-making.

 

How DO we make disciples? Some would say through preaching, Christian education, Bible study, etc., which have been the standard Modus Operandi of the Christian church for millennia. While I wouldn’t argue against this formula, it is clear that we are now in an age when more people eschew attending a church (or a church-related class) than DO attend, so these methods aren’t effective unless someone parks it in the pew. Oh, I realize that COVID opened the floodgates to “streaming” our services to the masses, but again, if someone isn’t already acclimated to the “church scene,” they probably aren’t going to sit through your worship service on YouTube or Facebook. Some churches have been effective with iterations of the “The Church has Left the Building” campaigns, enlisting people—including some “unchurched folk”—into acts of Christian mission or charity, and thereby exposing them to the values of discipleship. Even this, though, has had a limited effect, and rather quickly became somewhat trite, as for many in the “target” audience, the whole idea of “church” continues to be a non-starter, whether it is in the building or OUT of it. I’m not saying that the church is out of the picture when it comes to making disciples, but it should see itself as the “training ground” for disciple-makers, and as a “vehicle” for facilitating this process. 

 

Individual witnessing has been, for the longest time, the preferred method of the evangelical community for “bringing people to Christ.” Unfortunately, unlike the original twelve disciples—and most especially Andrew, who was good at literally bringing people TO Jesus—“soul-winning” became a kind of pelt-collecting enterprise. Some “technique,” be it the infamous “Four Spiritual Laws” of Campus Crusade for Christ, or the tasteless, scary theology of the little, cartoon “witnessing” tracts by evangelical author/artist Jack Chick, was used to “break the ice” to talk to a friend, family member, or even a total stranger, “about Jesus.” Questions like “Do you know Christ as your personal Savior?” or “If you were to die tonight, are you sure you would go to heaven?” were the openers, any variation of which reduced a complicated understanding of the “eternal soul” to a punchline. The “goal” was to get the targeted individual to “confess” that they “needed” Jesus, and to say the “sinner’s prayer,” after which their soul was believed to be “saved,” and the witnessing individual could check them off the list of the damned. An effort may or may not be made to “connect” the “saved” individual to any kind of supportive, spiritual community, and often, no conversation about the individual’s religious history was even broached. Now, let me say that there is NOTHING WRONG with witnessing one’s faith in Christ to another person, provided it is done in love of God and this “neighbor,” and not just as a “technique” or as a bragging rite. I always told my congregations that one of the best witnesses (other than just being a loving neighbor and doing kind, caring, “acts of mercy” as Mr. Wesley would call them) a person could do was to offer to pray for a person going through some ordeal, and ask if it would be OK to put them on our church’s prayer list, so that others may pray for them, too. Most all folk will acquiesce to this, and when some positive change happens in their situation, they will “seek you out,” and will often want to hear more about a person and a church that would pray for someone they didn’t even know. I would tell my parishioners that it is much easier to witness to your faith when you are on the other end of such an “interview,” than it is to use some scary line to “cold call” a witness, such as the “Four Spiritual Laws” types might do. “Scary” is an important word here, as often the “cold call” witness uses fear (of sin, death, hell) to “sell” the target on “meeting Jesus.” Faith that begins with such a fear often is lived out in fear, rather than in the “perfect love” that the Bible tells us should “cast out” all fear. It is also unfortunate that so many folk left in our churches today, began their faith journey with such fear, and have been quasi-paralyzed by it, since. If our church “smells” of this kind of fearful language and theology in its effort to “bring people to Jesus,” most modern folk—especially the younger ones—will not apply. 

 

Now, on to the main point of this meandering sermon…in this text from First Thessalonians, the Pauline author introduces one of the major themes in Paul’s teachings. Paul’s idea of “witnessing” or leading people to faith in Jesus Christ is to CLONE them! Read verse 6: “you became imitators of us and of the Lord...” Throughout the teachings of Paul, as reflected in the writings reflecting them, Paul basically tells his audiences, “If you want to know how to follow Jesus, FOLLOW ME,” or “Do what I do.” He often literally says “imitate me,” or “imitate US,” as he does in this passage. You see, Paul had developed his faith into something he was CONFIDENT was truly a “discipling” and genuine faith, and he believed that if a prospective disciple were to “do as I do,” this person would join Paul and other Christians on the path of discipleship. One of the important phrases that comes out of the Alcoholics Anonymous “rooms” is this: “If you don’t have faith, act as if you DO have faith, and faith will be imparted to you,” otherwise known by AA folk as “Fake it until you make it.” DO what is necessary to “look” like a disciple, and you will be formed INTO one. This is precisely what Paul is saying here! He wasn’t concerned with “saving souls,” as he believed that if a person was to join others on the Christian faith journey, they would be embraced by the “exceeding abundant” grace of God (saved) AND would be embraced by other Christians in the community of faith, leading to both healthy nurture and effective Christian mission and service, both of which would “build up” the Body of Christ, and partner with God in unfolding the Kingdom of God on earth. Paul’s idea was so much more “organic” than either the evangelical “button-holing” witness OR the various “systems” the church had manufactured over the centuries to “make disciples.” 

 

I have seen this Holy Spirit-based “cloning” work on multiple levels. I have witnessed church folk inviting non-churched folk on mission projects such as Habitat for Humanity-type building restorations in poor communities, to assembling cleaning buckets for UMCOR, to helping at a food pantry. The invitee gets to do something that makes them “feel good” about themselves, and that witnesses to an “authentic” manifestation of human (and even divine?) compassion. Relationships are formed, and trust is built. Often, at some point, the invited individual begins to ask about the kind of FAITH that leads one to DO these things, not just out of curiosity, but out of a real interest in trying such a faith on for size, personally. By being invited to join in the work, and in seeing genuine Christianity in practice, they “build their own theological bridge” to belief. They have been “cloned” by others, led only by a legitimate love for them, and a desire to expand the circle of caring, support, and service.

 

Here’s a story I heard from a colleague years ago. She was assigned to a rural charge of a couple tiny, struggling churches that were “hand-wringing” over the fact that they were sort of dying off, and that their own “children” were no longer interested in attending worship. This new pastor asked them, “What are you good at doing?” After the typical moments of awkward silence in the wake of a question such as this, one person said, “We make REALLY GREAT funeral dinners, or so we have been told.” The pastor suggested that they might consider offering themselves out to MAKE funeral dinners for other local churches, for when they had funerals. They decided to give that a try, and the small “team” began to get a few funeral gigs. As their efforts were warmly received and appreciated (and unexpectedly had become effective fund-raisers!), they needed more people to help fix and serve the dinners, so they invited their “kids” to help, as well as other friends beyond their small church. These agreed, not only to help with a noble cause, but because they also heard they were having a lot of fun DOING it together. Soon, the funeral dinner team was asked if they might serve the “commitment dinner” for a much larger church that was embarking on a building program, and so they did, but this required even more volunteers. Sunday mornings became a time to “celebrate” the work they were doing for others, AND to plan the upcoming dinners. Sunday mornings had become both FUN and purposeful again, and guess what? The churches grew, and many of their “kids” were back! They cloned themselves through compassionate service and witness. Very “Pauline” of them!

 

John Wesley, the “father” of Methodism, did believe not only in “systems” of spiritual formation and discipleship, but also in Paul’s “do as I do” philosophy, as well. If you were raised in the Methodist/United Methodist tradition, you know about the “Holy Club” at Oxford and the “bands” or “class meetings” that Wesley had his people engaged in. Each group was a “discipling” group wherein participants were accountable to one another as well as to God, for their spiritual development, prayer life, attention to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and acts of mercy to those in need. Holy Club members gave of themselves financially, even to the point of sacrifice, to fund the work they did for the poor, the destitute, and the incarcerated. This was all part of Wesley’s system. However, his overall goal was to raise up OTHER disciples by having his adherents “live out” the Gospel in such a way that others would “see” Christ alive in them, and in their acts of mercy and grace, and would want to align their own lives with these others; in short, they would want to “clone themselves” to be the good and caring people they saw in Methodists. It certainly worked in John Wesley’s day, and personally, I believe this iteration of Paul’s “If you want to follow Christ, follow me” idea will work again in our time. So many are skeptical of the wide swath of people and philosophies that are labeled “Christian” in our day. In the name of Christ, some are endorsing a form of autocratic government that is squeezing the life out of people, especially the marginalized. In the name of Christ, others are baptizing (or at least looking the other way) as refugees and immigrants are being rounded up, separated from family members, incarcerated in “centers” that sure look like the internment camps utilized against Asians during the Second World War, or are being exiled to countries far from the ones they came from. In the name of Christ, some have so robbed women of their reproductive rights that they are being relegated to second-class citizens, or are made to feel they are the “possessions” of their male counterparts. Still others preach doctrines and dogmas that exclude people whom God loves, or that so tightly defines who is “in” and who is “out” in the Kingdom of God that reasonable people are choosing to stay away from their “brand.” The term “Christian” has become a derogatory term in much of our American society, due to these excesses and abuses. 

 

It is time to hear Paul’s words, and to begin “cloning” again, but this will require those of us who care to “re-enlist” as serious disciples who will sacrifice personal “rights” and privileges in order to become the “somatic cells” necessary for the process. Many years ago, I heard a wise preacher say, “YOU may be the only Bible some people read.” If the Christ we represent by our lifestyle and our priorities is not one true to the Jesus Christ of the Bible, or is so distorted by human-derived rules and practices that scare others away, then we are doing a disservice to God. There’s a famous quote attributed to Ghandi that goes like this: “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” Ghandi didn’t say it, of course; it was actually written by a more modern newspaper columnist, but it does carry some of Ghandi’s philosophy, namely that people will see in us what they will see. If what they see is not what we WANT them to see, then WE must change. Hence, if we DO want people to see our lives as a reflection of Jesus Christ, we must act more like Jesus and live into his teachings, especially those of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew five and following. 

 

It is important to note that this personal transformation project is meant by Paul to be a JOYOUS one, and not a chore. Paul tells the folks in the church at Thessalonica that even though they are under strong persecution, the “joy of the Lord” and the Holy Spirit will keep their spirits buoyant and celebratory. Following Jesus is a loving, joyful thing, not like “boot camp” or a “war.” After all, who on the outside looking in would want to pattern their lives after a people who are always wailing, weeping, and “gnashing” their teeth? Or who are marked more by their drudgery to “duty” than to celebrating their redemption? 

 

From Paul’s and Wesley’s perspectives, the way the church can AGAIN become relevant in today’s world is to “Send OUT the clones!” It’s time we begin to again “mirror” Jesus more than we mirror the world. Amen.

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Get These Farm Animals on a LEASH!

Get These Farm Animals on a LEASH!

 

Exodus 32:1-14

The golden calf 

 

32:1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, "Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."

 

32:2 Aaron said to them, "Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me."

 

32:3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.

32:4He took these from them, formed them in a mold, and cast an image of a calf, and they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!"

 

32:5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD."

 

32:6 They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to revel.

 

32:7 The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;

 

32:8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'"

 

32:9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.

 

32:10 Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation."

 

32:11 But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, "O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

 

32:12 Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.

 

32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, 'I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"

 

32:14 And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

 

In case you’re wondering, today’s sermon title is a paraphrase of a line actor/comedian Jon Lovitz screams out in his character of Ernie Capadino, in the popular film, “A League of Their Own”: “Get these FARM ANIMALS on a LEASH!” The city kid recruiting the first players of an all-girls baseball team for Branch Rickey out in the rural lands of America, almost trips over some free-range chickens, prompting the humorous line. Why do I bring it up here? Well, first of all because I love this film, its humor, and its history. But most of all, because it gives us a clue what Satan might have said to God numerous times throughout human history about US! A leash, indeed. 

 

Are we “farm animals?” Think of how we anthropomorphize most animals, giving them human attributes, naming them with human names, and believing they understand everything we tell them. Kitties, doggies, and even hamsters get treated like children, pampered, overfed, and deeply mourned when they “cross the rainbow bridge.”? I’m guessing that better than half the most-watched YouTube clips and Facebook Reels are about the hijinks of animals, and the humans who love them. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. We DO like to superimpose many of our higher hopes and ambitions upon our animals. Now that I’m living in a more rural town, I’m back to going to county fairs again, and watching the hard transformation that 4-H kids have to experience as they put their beloved cattle and pigs up for auction, knowing that most of them will wind up as a main course. You do have to wonder if God has put God’s own best hopes on US, kind of like we do our pets? Please don’t take this line of thought too far, as it will break down in a hurry, but remember that leash part, too. Maybe there is something to that.

 

Turning to our text for today, which is one of my favorites in the whole Bible, I might add, we hear a word that NONE of us likes to hear, and one that has, from time to time, brought the world a whole load of trouble: DELAY. Moses is delayed, coming down from the mountain and his little tete a tete with God. We do not like delays, of any kind. Road construction causes all manner of unexpected delays, even when we know full well it is happening. Don’t you hate it when some special item you have ordered online is delayed in shipping? A vivid memory I have as a young teen is the time when I sublet a friend’s newspaper route for the Summer, did some painting for my uncle, and picked up a number of other odd jobs to raise enough money to mail order myself a significant camera for my budding photography hobby. After I ordered it, I waited every single day for the UPS truck to bring it to my house, akin to the famous “Wells Fargo Wagon” scene in “The Music Man.” Day after day, I watched for that stupid truck, and disappointment after disappointment when it either didn’t come, or it DID, but with no package for me. Finally, FINALLY, it stopped in front of our house, and the driver handed me my precious package. Upon opening it, I found that the camera’s lens had been broken in shipment, and had to go back. I was so bummed that the wait the second time around seems much shorter, and my high expectations had been rather dampened. Even when the replacement camera arrived undamaged and pristine, I felt more relief than euphoria. Delays can sure rain on our parade, or at least dampen our spirits. In Moses’ case, one almost precipitated an apocalypse.

 

Israel’s response to the tardy Moses was to manufacture their own god, which is rarely a good idea. In this case, they called upon their religious leader—Aaron—to design one for them, using the two things most precious to them, gold and bovine. Hardly any culture in history eschewed the love of gold, and in the case of the Jews under Moses’ care, a cow was most precious. Why? Well, Jews weren’t allowed to fool with pigs at all, and cows gave milk, made for good grilling, and served as sacrifices. So, a cow it was, only in this case a calf, which required less gold to make. The good thing about false gods is that we maintain full control over them, unlike the real one, and if we tire of them, there is always the gold to recover, (or the money from our stocks, or the trade-in value of our Mercades). Many a man, upon hearing that his house was possibly on fire, made sure the wife and kids got out safely, but went back in for the golf clubs. We pooh-pooh Israel when we read this famous story out of Exodus, but believe me, we can make our own gods even better than they did, and unfortunately, we DO have some religious leaders who will help design them for us. (Think “prosperity gospel,” or even that wonderful idol of “biblical authority.” Yes, we like to make the Bible our idol, as this way we can control it, instead of being transformed by it, so many times.)

 

So, Israel makes a farm animal into a god. Who SHOULD have been on a leash, in this story? And why in the world did a man like Aaron go along with this scheme? Was he too timid to “speak the truth” to Israel for fear of being pilloried himself? Was he beginning to believe that Moses might be much more than “delayed” on the mountain, and was tempted to carve out his own niche as Israel’s “supreme leader”? We may never know, but it was not looked upon by Yahweh as a nice thing, and to quote another old movie line, “Death stalked the mountains.”

 

In the midst of their conversation, according to the text, God tips Moses off as to what is going on down in the “barnyard.” God further suggests to Moses that maybe God will just have a little wrath tantrum and start over with Moses’ as breeding stock. Unlike the lily-livered politicians of our day, Moses wasn’t afraid of speaking truth to power, in this case, THE power behind everything! Moses debates God over this starting over plan, and WINS. I don’t know how you understand the verse that says that God “changed God’s mind” over the “disaster” God was thinking about bringing upon Israel, but that’s something! Moses should have some kind of trophy for that little bit of forensics. It was time to get Israel on a leash, not only to get them back in line with the God who loved them and who had truly delivered them, but to keep them from straying yet again. 

 

Let’s look at this text as a kind of parable meant to teach us something, instead of an historical account of what surely must sound a bit preposterous. Israel is clearly an analog for all humans who, when their hopes for safety, security, and wealth are “delayed,” too often take matters into their own hands. Aaron is a metaphor for those who “guide” us when the chips are down, especially religious leaders either trying to sooth the savage beast in us all, OR who decide it’s a great time to stir up the flock in an attempt to “grow the church” or add to its coffers. Just this week, Jim Bakker, the scandalous TV evangelist, passed away at 86. He and his late wife Tammy Fay, started out as puppet-wielding “soul-winners,” but got a glimpse of fame and fortune, and it went to their heads, and their pocketbooks. Aaron was likewise a “good guy,” but it didn’t take much of a “delay” to open a dark door for him to step through, and step he did. I’d hate to think that there are many religious leaders who fall prey to such temptations, but history tells a sadder tale. Let’s imagine Moses as a metaphor for God, in this “parable.” The little “court case” in the story between God and Moses is kind of like the cartoon image of a character being tempted by the little devil on one shoulder and a guardian angel on the other. I’m sure there were MANY times when God vacillated between allowing us to go “free range,” and wanting to put us on a tight leash. Jesus came to offer humanity pardon and reconciliation, once and for all, kind of like Moses “winning” his debate with the Almighty.

 

If the modern Christian church is to redeem ourselves as the “Aaron” in the story, we must find better ways to connect with our audience, and make God’s “leash” a harbinger of safety, security, and guidance, rather than just a tool of control. Dara and I have been attending the Edinboro United Methodist Church since retiring to Meadville, PA. That church is learning how to live out its theme of welcoming “Doubters, Dreamers, and Disciples” into its fold. Any church that can’t welcome the “doubters” will simply not survive this millennium. Without the “dreamers,” we will perish, too, even as we read in the book of Proverbs. And “disciples”? These are the folk who mature in the faith and gladly put on the “yoke” of service, obedience, and mission—indeed, a self-donned “leash.” All healthy, vital churches will be places where the “doubters, dreamers, and disciples” can find acceptance, cast visions, and thrive through doing justice and loving others via service. Going back to our animal metaphor, a leash may either limit an animal’s movement by tethering it to an anchor point, or it may lovingly guide it along as it walks with its “master,” thus keeping it on course and secure.

 

Interestingly, one of the other lectionary texts for this week is the 23^rd Psalm, another human/animal metaphor! We are God’s “sheep,” and God is our “good shepherd.” In this parable, it is the recognized voice and the protecting “rod” of the shepherd that brings prosperity to the sheep. It’s a much more soothing image than the potential pyrotechnics of the Exodus passage, and there is no scavenger hunt for gold involved. If I’m going to be a “farm animal” of any sort in these biblical metaphors, I’ll go with the sheep, as the only leash involved is a close relationship with the shepherd. What we can surely learn from the Exodus account, though, is that our best purely “human” efforts to build the Kingdom of God will not result in either restoring, nor promoting, a better relationship with our Creator. And that story reminds us that Jesus Christ has served as eternity’s “Moses,” forever “winning the debate” over how to deal with a bunch of rebellious “farm animals.” I’ll finish with this paraphrase of John 8:36: “Whom the Son has set free is FREE RANGE!” Amen!

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God Told Me to Tell You

  

God Told Me to Tell You

 

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

The commandments at Sinai 

 

20:1 Then God spoke all these words,

 

20:2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;

 

20:3 you shall have no other gods before me.

 

20:4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

 

20:7 "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

 

20:8 "Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.

 

20:9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

 

20:12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

 

20:13 "You shall not murder.

 

20:14 "You shall not commit adultery.

 

20:15"You shall not steal.

20:16 "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

 

20:17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

 

20:18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance

 

20:19 and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die."

 

20:20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid, for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin."

 

I don’t know about you, but coming face-to-face with even a small sample of the profound presence of God Almighty is a scary thing. Not because God is “scary” or tends to bully one when suddenly in God’s presence, not at all, but because a direct “audience” with God changes us. When God manifests Godself one-on-one with a person, the message imparted is always life-changing. Always. If it is a “correction” message, the subject of the communication is immediately compelled to “fix” their error, whatever it may be. If a sinful activity, the repentance is swift and powerful, on the part of the one receiving the direct message. I have heard more testimonies of persons who had one of these divine “visits” in the midst of either an errant behavior or a poorly chosen life direction, and each one ends with a change of direction. Immediately. Many years ago, I met a man who was in jail for a variety of small offenses that had added up to an open-ended sentence in the county lockup until a trial could be mustered. In jail, the man “came to himself,” to use biblical parlance, and began to read the Bible given to him when he was incarcerated. One night, as he felt his life was slipping away under the weight of his feeling of meaninglessness, he petitioned God for help. Suddenly, he “felt the presence” right there in the cell with him, and he began a heart-to-heart with what he understood to be God, Godself. He told God that if God could get him out of jail, he would truly turn over a new leaf, and would immediately seek out Christian community. His story was that he “heard” God give him the thumbs up on his proposition, and he immediately feel into a deep sleep. He was awakened in the early evening by two jail guards and a representative from the District Attorney’s office who told him that a decision had been made to release him on his own recognizance, if he signed a form agreeing to attend a hearing. He was shocked—actually beyond shocked. (It actually got better, down the road, as at the subsequent hearing, all charges against him were dropped!). The young man walked out of the jail with the Bible he had been reading, and saw a man walking by whom he knew. Making good on his promise to God, he asked the man if he knew of any Christian fellowship meeting that evening. The man directed him to the home of a couple who opened their home each Monday night to a group of young people for prayer, Bible study, and Christian fellowship, and “Jim” walked across town and presented himself and his remarkable story to a surprised group of young adults in that fellowship. I was among them. (This was long before I answered my own call to ministry, and the couple whose home we met in would one day become my in-laws.) “Jim” stayed true to his word, and the promises he made before God that night in jail were kept for the remainder of his days. 

 

No matter the outcome, it IS a scary thing to find oneself in the presence of the living God. I had my own “first meeting” in college one night in my dorm room. I experienced that “presence,” and found myself engaging in my own dialogue with God. As it turned out, it was God’s way to begin the “calling process” that would come to fruition just shy of a decade later, when I and my family sold our home and moved to seminary. The scary part for me was the massive change in direction my little “visit” with God brought to my life. The loving part of it, though, was that God offered me the same promise God gave Israel, and my friend, Jim: “I will be with you.” And indeed, God has, and IS!

 

As a pastor, I counseled many folk who were “disappointed” that they had never had such a direct encounter with God, nor had they ever felt they had “heard God’s voice.” I offered them a few suggestions as to how they could prepare themselves to be better “listeners” to God, but I always also warned them that if they were successful in their pursuit, they should be ready to have their lives diverted, changed, or otherwise conscripted to move in a new direction, at God’s behest. A few had this experience, including a handful who wound up in some full-time manifestation of Christian ministry, ranging from media, to scholarly pursuits, to the pulpit. One does not hear God’s voice just as an “accessory” or a simple “encouragement” in life. God’s presence, God’s voice, and God’s empowerment usually comes with a contract for “work.”

 

It’s no wonder that Israel asked Moses to be their intermediary with God, not wanting to subject themselves to God’s “scary” presence. In verse 19 of today’s passage, they tell Moses: “You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” They had witnessed what had happened to Moses since the burning bush days, and they weren’t up for the same kind of life-changing marching orders. Basically they said, “You tell us what God wants to tell us, and we’ll listen.” Honestly, while this “God told me to tell you” tactic provides some insulation from the direct presence of God, it’s not really a good idea. In the earliest days of the Christian charismatic renewal (back in the late 1960s and into the earliest years of the 70s), there was a lot of that going around. On several occasions, during my own foray into the “Jesus Movement” as a young adult, I had several very “spiritual” friends caught up in the “gifts of the Spirit” approach me and say, “God told me to tell you [thus and so].” I guess I had enough of that “Moses spirit” in me to resist this second-hand messaging. If God wanted to tell me something, I fully expected God to “say” it through God’s Word as I studied the Bible myself, or God would pipe up. Seriously, there was a lot of that “God told me to tell you” stuff going on back then, and frankly it often was a manipulative tactic on the part of the “messenger.” It sometimes got ridiculous. Male “leaders” in the movement were using the “God told me to tell you” line to get a girl to go out with them, and one situation to which I was privy, a man I knew used this line to “propose” to a female peer. There were a lot of good things that came out of the Jesus Movement, including some good Christian music, a variety of decent Christian books that aided in my own faith development, and even a few well-regarded translations of the Bible. The “personalization” of one’s practice of the presence of God wasn’t all bad, as before this emphasis of the charismatic renewal, the “standard” spiritual practice was going to church on Sundays and listening to sermons, or maybe attending a curriculum-based Sunday School class. Home “sharing groups” and Bible studies enriched many during this era, and eventually even the church got on board with new ways to nurture their “flocks.”

 

You are probably surprised that I approached this particular passage without focusing on the Ten Commandments, which really are pretty important. The first halfg of them reminds Israel how important it is that “God is with us,” and how to BE “with God,” which was the one common factor that kept them drawn together as a living, thriving, community of faith. The second half of the “Top Ten” gave them the basics of how to live together in mutual respect and harmony. Think of the wonderful summary Jesus gave us to make TWO out of TEN: “Love God; Love Neighbor.” There you have it, and without any “God told me to tell yous.” 

 

Friends, the kind of intimacy Moses had with God led him from herding sheep to delivering the whole people of God in his day, and the writings of his—and their—exploits still inform and inspire us today. Still, each of us must find our way to nurture our faith in such a way that we provide fertile ground—and tuned ears—to hear what God’s Holy Spirit is “saying” to us, even if the Spirit’s enduring presence IS the abiding presence of God with us in the post-Resurrection era. God IS still with God’s people, and through the agency of the Holy Spirit, leads, guides, instructs, imparts wisdom, and empowers God’s people with the gifts and grace necessary to participate in the continual unfolding of the Kingdom of God in our world. Still, I miss the inspiring experiences of the Jesus Movement days, and the charismatic renewal, flawed and sometimes misdirected as they were. My prayer today is that the schism my own denomination just experienced will ignite a new “fire” in the people called United Methodists, and that our church will experience a new age of renewal, not by harkening back to some previous “safe harbor” or by re-embracing dogmas and doctrines that restrict and exclude, but by sampling the newness of what God is doing through the Holy Spirit that will move us FORWARD into a new day, together. And may our inclusiveness and our willingness to follow the leading of the Spirit TOGETHER, in both humility and peace, transform us all. In the name of Jesus, the “author and finisher” of our faith. God’s WORD told me to tell you! Amen.

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Occam's razor

 

Occam’s Razor

 

Matthew 21:23-32

A parable of doing God's will 

 

21:23 When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?"

 

21:24 Jesus said to them, "I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things.

 

21:25 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" And they argued with one another, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say to us, 'Why, then, did you not believe him?'

 

21:26 But if we say, 'Of human origin,' we are afraid of the crowd, for all regard John as a prophet."

 

21:27 So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

 

21:28 "What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.'

 

21:29 He answered, 'I will not,' but later he changed his mind and went.

 

21:30 The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, 'I go, sir,' but he did not go.

 

21:31 Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.

 

21:32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

 

Choices can be a trap. My wife, who tips the Enneagram scale at “One,” regularly says she can be paralyzed by “too many choices.” Now that we are living in a bit more “rural” of an area, I often turn to Amazon Shopping to look for some gadget I “need,” and am absolutely mesmerized by the plethora of choices that confront me. I can get my widget in any color, size, or price I may want, and then can choose how fast it gets here, and by whom, in many cases. Our grocery stores paralyze us with ten different “styles” of yogurt, an entire aisle-full of breads and rolls, and at least seventy-five types of breakfast cereal. Have you shopped for a good bottle of wine, recently? (I’m also amazed that, in spite of the HUGE offering of differing beers available, including enticing craft brews, the most popular one is “Coors Light.” If anything summarizes the intelligence malaise we are in as a nation, this fact might.) Most “guests” to America from other countries are stupefied by our wide variety of choices, at the supermarket, on the boob tube, and even at the carwash. When it comes to having to choose, we are a decadent people.

 

While my personal concern (shared by many with more than three synapses firing) regarding our national governance is the current administration’s tendency to apply overly simplistic “solutions” to the highly complex problems facing our nation and the world, the average American faces an almost opposite challenge. The explosion of choices facing us when it comes to buying snacks or sneakers takes a simple problem and turns it into a complex, confounding, and often constricting array of options. I need a new pair of size 12 (yeah, I know, a five-foot-eight man with giant feet; at least I’m steady in high winds) sneakers to wear on my daily walks, and I’d be quite satisfied to find a pair that fits nicely in a simple color like black or white, but NO, I am entranced by a menu of fifty-thousand shoes, manufacturers, styles, treads, and ways to keep them on your feet. My wife actually just got a pair that mimic the shape of your toes! (Maybe if we had just stayed at the “ape” stage of evolution, things would be easier? We could even take the present crop of politicians back with us, for they would rule a race of simians just as effectively, I’m sure.)

 

We are far from the days when it was said about Henry Ford’s boast: “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” Some psychologists have indeed suggested that they see patients so confounded by the explosion of choices surrounding us that they have turned pathological about it. When we turn to the scriptures, we get a very different picture of what choices may govern our lives at a critical level beyond our palates or our piggies. Remember Joshua telling his people, “Choose this day whom you will serve,” contrasting the worship of Yahweh with the “shopping list” of foreign gods that had become popular among many of the folk? Contrary to some popular streams of theological thought that suggest that God is fully “in charge” and “pre-ordains” the outcome of human events, the Bible makes clear we humans DO have choices to make. Deuteronomy 30:19, Moses, speaking for God, urges Israel to “choose life.” This seems like an obvious choice, but not a day goes by that we don’t witness persons—even collections of them—denying this choice. How very sad.

 

In today’s text from Matthew, Jesus himself brings “choice” to the fore, employing a kind of “Occam’s Razor” thinking to a question asked of him by the chief priests and elders. Also known as the “law of parsimony,” Occam’s Razor says that if two competing theories explain an event or what happened, the simplest explanation is most likely the best. Otherwise, “keep it simple, stupid,” as we said in my earlier days. Now, we know that simple is not ALWAYS best, and in the case of more complex problems, there often IS no simple solution. However, Occam’s Razor suggests that simple explanations should be investigated first, as adding too many layers early on may multiply what may already be a complex scenario. In the case of today’s text, these chief priests and elders who are already plotting to “trap” Jesus to an answer to their inquiries that will be self-indicting, throw this one out to him: “By what authority are you doing these things?” (miracles, healings, and attracting hundreds to hear his teachings), and “Who gave you the authority?” I’m sure these ecclesiastical geniuses figured that they “had” him, regardless of how he answered. If he said it was “his father, God” who gave him the authority, they would nail him as a blasphemer. If he said he did it on his own authority, they would brand him either a crackpot or a sorcerer, if not both. They saw their inquiry as a “win-win” for them. Their “trap” reminds me of what was called “yellow journalism,” when I studied communications in college. The “yellow journalist” would structure questions to “trap” a public figure into giving an answer worthy of a headline. “Have you stopped beating your wife yet, Senator?” is an example of this heinous form of inquiry. It’s unanswerable, without “stepping in it,” as they say. Obviously, crafty yellow journalists could form more nuanced questions than that, but their aim was to garner a headline, not a truthful report. The chief priests and elders in today’s text were yellow journalists, indeed, but were after far more than an “above the fold” headline.

 

Jesus, in possibly one of the earliest examples of the Occam’s Razor principle, turns it around on them with a simple challenge: I’ll ask YOU a question, and if you answer it correctly, I’ll tell you by whose authority I do these things. And then he drops a simple interrogatory bomb on them: “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" Seems like a simple question, but hiding in it is the same self-indicting flaw their question to Jesus had. They recognize this, arguing among themselves. If they said “from heaven,” Jesus might say, “Then why didn’t you believe him?” If they said of human origin, they feared how the crowd might react, as they saw John as a prophet. Suddenly, Occam’s Razor had painted THEM into the corner they had designed for Jesus. Now, normally the answer, “I don’t know,” is an honest one, and should be employed by more people than is currently the case. There are so many things we just don’t know, especially when we are being questioned randomly. We pastors are wise, when asked complicated theological or biblical questions by a parishioner, to be honest, when we don’t know. “Let me look into that and get back to you,” is a legitimate answer by someone who understands her or his position as a spiritual leader with a working brain. To try to fake one’s way through such questions, especially if it is just to look “learned,” is never a good approach. However, in the case of the chief priests and elders here, their “We don’t know” answer is a copout, and Jesus calls their bluff and tells them he will not answer THEIR question of him regarding authority. 

 

That’s not the end of it, though. Jesus tests them again with the little “two sons” story. It’s easy to miss what is going on here. The first son tells the father he will not go to work in the vineyard, but later acquiesces, and goes. The second son says he WILL go to work, but never does. Jesus asks the chief priests and elders which son did the will of the father, and when they answer correctly that it was the FIRST son, Jesus indicts THEM for knowing the answer to such a simple moral question, but missing the importance of the ministry of John the Baptist. Some have been confused by this narrative, thinking that Jesus believed they answered wrongly that it was the first son who did the will of the father, but that is not the case. Again, Jesus is using a simple question to shut down a plot to trap HIM, and instead, traps the chief priests and elders in front of the crowd, in order to demonstrate that their religious leaders were “straining gnats and swallowing camels,” so to speak. They missed the prophetic word that John the Baptist, and now the Son of God, were trying to bring to them.

 

As a pastor, I confess to often missing something “simple” the Holy Spirit of God was trying to do right in front of me. While I laud my theological studies as giving me great depth and breadth of understanding of serious biblical studies, theological reflection, ethics, pastoral care, and relevant preaching, it also often caused me to miss the simple stuff God was either doing or was trying to do, especially when it was bubbling up through a parishioner who had little to no theological sophistication. I worked so hard to combat this tendency, as I have always loved and respected the people God called me to serve, but many of us are prone to a kind of premature elitism born of academic proficiency. Thankfully, God has a way of cutting to the quick and disarming this usually temporary pomposity on the part of us modern religious leaders. God takes the Occam’s Razor approach, and the wisest of us admits our stunting faults. The Holy Spirit is the great equalizer in the Kingdom of God, indeed.

 

Let me suggest one more way that the Occam’s Razor principle can be helpful to you in nourishing your faith journey, especially when it comes to understanding the Bible. Believe me, the Bible is a wonderful book—the story of God and humanity, inspired by the Spirit, but filtered through human experience and recollection, both of which can be flawed. When we read it, it is best to keep things simple, but this does NOT mean “taking it literally” or coming to the belief that it needs “no interpretation.” Taking a simple approach means asking these questions: “Why is this [story, text, rule, command] here? What is God trying to tell us?” This investigation may unlock more meaning than taking the text at face value. Such was Jesus’ question to the religious leaders about which son did the will of the father in his little parable. The “right answer” was not as revealing as the fact that the leaders demonstrated that they could GET the right answer, all the while missing the “big picture” God was trying to give them through John and Jesus, himself. We fall prey to the same error, Dear Ones. 

 

The moral of this sermon is that we should keep Occam’s Razor handy, if it can help us get the profound, simple truths that nurture our Spirit, and “cut out” the chaff and crap we couch in empty doctrines, rules, and “scriptural authority.” The authority of scripture needs no more defining and defending that what the Holy Spirit is already doing with it in the church and in the “simple” lives of the people we serve. Occam’s Razor can be a wonderful scalpel in the hands of the Great Surgeon, instead of producing a “close shave” when wielded by someone looking for a “winning” answer. Amen.

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Editorial Cartoons

 

 

Jonah 3:10-4:11

God's concern for Ninevah 

 

3:10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.

 

4:1 But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.

 

4:2 He prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.

 

4:3 And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."

 

4:4 And the LORD said, "Is it right for you to be angry?"

 

4:5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

 

4:6 The LORD God appointed a bush and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort, so Jonah was very happy about the bush.

 

4:7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered.

 

4:8 When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live."

 

4:9 But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die." 

 

4:10 Then the LORD said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night.

 

4:11 And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals?"

 

 

I wrote a major paper in seminary on the topic of “editorial cartoons,” suggesting that much of the prophetic voice of contemporary society had passed on to the best of those who drew and syndicated editorial cartoons that lampooned politicians, public officials, and pretty much all elected bodies, when they either fumbled their public duty, scandalized themselves or their office, or otherwise used it as a pathway to corruption that benefitted them, personally. The first major editorial cartoonist was Thomas Nast, who is credited with creating (or at least cementing in place) the Republican Elephant and the Democratic Donkey as symbols for America’s two major political parties. His submissions to “Harper’s Weekly” helped bring down Tammany Hall’s Boss Tweed. Pat Oliphant was one of my favorite editorial cartoonists, but I confess to being particularly informed and entertained by the two best “Pittsburghers” in the list: Tim Menees, and Rob Rogers. A good editorial cartoonist can in one panel capture what should be the object of public outrage, when a typical politician is being a typical politician, but they may also express in that same single panel the grief or fear of a nation in time of war, or during an horrendous event like the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Some even employ a few extra panels and some superior humor to ridicule bureaucrats and policy wonks alike, such as what Berkeley Breathed has done for decades in “Bloom County.” One of the very earliest editorial cartoons is the one pictured in my image with this sermon posting—the woodcut of a snake cut into eighths, with each segment labeled with the initials of one of the American colonies or regions. This cartoon first appeared in Benjamin Franklin’s “Pennsylvania Gazette” in May of 1754, and became a symbol of the need for organized action against the threat posed by the French and their native allies during the Seven Years’ War. Cartoons, while usually thought of as a form of child’s literature or a short piece of entertainment, can say a lot, when employed by skilled commentators and communicators. They may even be prophetic, especially when they develop a wide audience.

 

So what does this have to do with the story of Jonah in today’s lectionary passage from the scriptures? Lots. The Bible is filled with myths and stories that capture complex, social, spiritual, and even political issues in a small collection of words. The first few chapters of Genesis give us images of the creation that aren’t meant to be history, but intend to communicate that we and our world are not accidents of the cosmos. Stories like the literary masterpiece we call “Job,” and the truly “editorial cartoon” of Jonah and Ninevah, offer us truths too deep for a mere historical telling of them. As I profiled in another recent sermon, a Bible “myth” has nothing to do with whether the account is of a “real event,” or not. A Bible myth imparts a truth that is not contingent on the historicity of the story. Think of the parables of Jesus. The “Good Samaritan” is no less powerful as a lesson in ethics and compassion if we understand it as a fable. Is it any less impactful if there never was a specific “Samaritan” who encountered a robbery victim along a road? The “Prodigal Son” (or more appropriately, the “Loving Father”) and its lesson about wise choices, paternal love and forgiveness, and compassion for another’s tragedy, is no less “true” whether or not there ever was a real father, a rebellious son, and a jealous, bitter “older brother.” I confess to having an obviously stupefied look on my face when I have encountered persons who claim that if these stories had “not actually happened,” then they wouldn’t be in the Bible. What makes them “true,” friends, are the lessons and/or insights they impart, and what makes them BIGGER than life is the fact that they are not meant to be actual historical accounts of persons who experienced these things. The “editorial cartoon” nature of these Bible myths is what makes them universal and timeless.

 

The whole of Jonah is this kind of biblical “cartoon” that quickly captures and exposes one of our most basic human failings, as well as a universal truth of the Divine. Whether there ever was a “real” Jonah who was sent by God to offer a saving and prophetic word to people of a region known as “Ninevah” is, at best, ancillary to the story. Were this an historical account by the author of a “real” event, it’s lesson to the rest of us would be no more amplified, than if it were a kind of parable. If you can get this, you have the beginning of an understanding of the power of the biblical myth. Some anchor their faith in the belief that God must be a God of specific, historical happenings wherein God and humans have built a lesson on a kind of “trial and error” basis. Those of us who understand God more as a “first cause” of great stories and narratives that shine a light on the best and worst of the human heart, are not only comfortable with “myths,” but prefer them, as one doesn’t have to “defend” some “date and time” when they occurred, or seek to prove that they did. The near “constant” search for Noah’s Ark is good example of this. For some, if the Noah’s Ark story can’t be proved as “real,” then maybe God isn’t “real,” either, nor should we trust the rest of the Bible. But what if the “true” truth is that stories like Noah’s Ark are just God’s way of getting us to clean up our act, and to realize how hard it might be to create a just world? Or to understand how destructive selfish, human greed and lecherous behavior can be to a people who will best thrive in a caring, shared community? Even as editorial cartoons strive to imagine a “just” society where the values of equality and freedom prevail for all persons, so the biblical myths such as this Jonah story prophetically challenge us to “think out of the box” when it comes to judgmental behavior vs. mercy and forgiveness, God’s desire for the attributes of the Kingdom of God, which is trying so hard to break into our human existence. 

 

In the Jonah text today, God sees that even with Jonah’s less-than-enthusiastic preaching of the prophetic “warning” to the people of Ninevah, these people DID “turn from their evil ways,” and God decides to honor God’s promise of forgiveness and reconciliation toward them. Jonah, who had hated the people of Ninevah for probably some of the very same reasons we “hate” people today who are of differing nations, faith, ethnic groups, or politics, or because we don’t “approve” of their behavior, was not at all happy that God was actually going to redeem them. Jonah is so torqued that he pretty much admits that he “ran” from the initial assignment of preaching the word of repentance to Ninevah, mostly because he “knew” God WAS a God who was willing to forgive and redeem. This is an important admission, as so many of Yahweh’s adherents today won’t admit that it is this characteristic of God—especially as demonstrated in Jesus Christ—that angers them. How many times have you heard someone say, “If I were God…” before pronouncing a word of judgment upon someone they believe is “evil.” (I confess that I, too—the preacher—has felt this way about some of the shenanigans and goings on in the political realm, today, and I’m still not bending much toward God’s “way” of forgiving and praying for a redeeming balm upon those perpetrating it.) So, how does God reach Jonah…and US?

 

Interestingly, this text contains a “parable” within the myth! We have this story of a bush that grows up and provides shade and comfort to Jonah, but when God “punishes” the bush by sending the worm, Jonah loses his mind. In this text, Jonah is akin to the “elder son” in the Prodigal Son story, angered by the Father’s forgiveness and reconciliation with the younger, “undeserving” son. When Jonah shows more compassion for a measly bush, while hoping for Ninevah to “get what’s coming to them,” God calls him on it. God writes his own little “editorial cartoon” to spring on the stubborn, selfish Jonah. And we should not forget that the larger corpus of the Jonah story includes that mythical “whale ride” to “nudge” him to comply with God’s call! Who, in his right mind, would be the victim of such an adventure, only to turn and reject such a clever and fantastic example of “divine intervention”? Jonah does. We can, and often do. Is there a whale ride in OUR future? MY future? I guess I had better clean up my act. How about you?

 

When we call these wonderful stories “myths,” we are not at ALL degrading neither their value, nor their truth. Likewise, masters of the editorial cartoon use that one panel as a kind of “myth bearer” to jar us into seeing a truth we have been missing, or taking a glance into a clearer mirror to see ourselves as we truly are. Sometimes the “cartoon” is a well-turned and pregnant phrase. Think of Benjamin Franklin telling the signers of the Declaration of Independence, “We must hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately!” Or Nathan, after telling his own “editorial cartoon” story to King David about his sin with Bathsheba, and his unjust “murder” of her husband, Uriah, ending with that climactic line, “YOU are the man!” So often in the Bible, and in the history of our faith, “less is more.” 

 

If you are one of those folk who like to read the Bible from Genesis to maps once a year, how about trying this one as a new tact in your reading: rather than assuming that everything you read is “fact,” pretend that it is there to teach you something about yourself, humanity, the creation, and God. Focus on the “gotcha” of the narrative, rather than reading it like it is an historical account. Imagine the whole Bible as a giant parable—an “editorial cartoon” in one panel, meant to make you think, to ponder, and to act upon the insights you receive. You might find it more transformational than professing a belief in the “infallibility” or “authority” of scripture. Just go for its truth, instead. You get the picture. Amen.

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