“Short Stories, Lasting Calls” Part 3: Jethro

July 9, 2023 — Ordinary Time

Exodus 18:1-27

Pastor Mike

Moses is an example of one of the Bible’s major characters. He is the main character of nearly all of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and tradition once credited him with writing all of those books as well as Genesis. Moses led God’s people during their escape from Egyptian slavery and their forty years of wilderness wandering. He went up into the dark cloud of Sinai to receive the law, and he came down the founder of the Jewish religion. And Moses didn’t just serve God – he knew God. God “would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks with a friend” (Exod. 33:11, NLT). Moses and his legacy changed the world forever.

But Moses was not always so powerful or confident. He nearly died as an infant because, in Egypt where he was born, Pharoah had ordered his people to murder all the newborn Israelite boys. In a last-ditch effort to save him, Moses’ mother had placed him in a basket in the reeds of the Nile River. When he was discovered by Pharoah’s daughter, she took pity on him, even though he was a Hebrew, and raised him as her own son in Pharoah’s house. Many years later, when Moses was an adult, he lost his temper and killed an Egyptian man who was beating an enslaved Hebrew. He buried the body but the news got out, and Pharoah tried to arrest him.

These two things biographical details are all we’re told of Moses’ origins: he was caught awkwardly between his people’s oppression and the privileged house in which he’d been raised, and he murdered someone. Moses attempted to get away from all this by fleeing to the land of Midian. When he got there, he met and married his wife Zipporah, became a solitary shepherd, and tried to forget about his pain.

I offer all this background about Moses because, to really understand Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, we have to understand that Jethro entered Moses’ life at a time when Moses had lost his way. He came to Midian as a fugitive, spiritually rattled and socially estranged. Who was he? What was his purpose? Moses had no clue. But, for the first time in his life, another man entered the picture who took Moses under his wing and gave him what he needed: exposure to a spiritual life, time and space to figure things out, steady work to do, and a family to belong to.

Jethro was a priest. No one knows which gods he served (likely several) but his spiritual sensitivity seems to have been authentic, because on multiple occasions he affirmed Moses’ experience of Yahweh and was proud of Moses’ religious path. I’m guessing here, because the Bible doesn’t say it outright, but I bet that in those silent, glossed over years that Moses spent in Midian, Moses learned some things from Jethro about prayer, ritual, and spiritual awareness. After all, it was while shepherding Jethro’s flocks that Moses had his burning bush encounter and met the God of his ancestors, the “I am who I am.” Who are we to say that Jethro wasn’t also attuned to something good and true in that God-touched wilderness?

By the eighteenth chapter of Exodus, which Lou has read for us, the plot has gone into overdrive and a lot of drama has unfolded. With Jethro’s blessing (Exod. 3:18-19), Moses responded to God’s call, went back to Egypt, assailed the Egyptians with plague after plague, led the Hebrew people out of slavery, crossed the Red Sea into the wilderness, and drowned Pharaoh’s army in the river. God had shown up for the people through miracle after miracle, but things were starting to cool off. The newly freed Israelites, brand new to the hardships of nomadic life, had started to complain about the discomforts of wilderness living. It’s now occurring to Moses that his job as the people’s leader is just getting started. He has to make sure they don’t starve or fall apart or lose focus. Meanwhile, back in Midian, Jethro hears about all this wild stuff that’s happened, and he sets off to reunite with Moses and get the story from the source.

Which brings us to the text at hand. Sometimes, a way toward interpreting a scripture is noticing words that get repeated. In this chapter, the Hebrew word shema shows up three times: in verse 1, verse 19, and verse 24. Shema is the verb for hearing, listening. But the Old Testament uses shema to describe the pivotal act which binds God and human beings in relationship, and it transcends physical hearing. Shema means taking what we hear to heart, letting God’s Word touch and transform us. There’s a verse in the New Testament book of James that calls Christians to not just be hearers but doers of the Word. That concept is derived from Christianity’s Jewish roots of shema. Shema is in the commandment that creates God’s people: “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today” (Deut. 6:4-6). When we receive a word with such intensity and sensitivity that it changes us, we shema.

So this is an important word to notice any time it appears, but especially here where it’s repeated three times, marking three distinct movements of the story.

In verse 1, Jethro “heard about everything God had done for Moses and his people.” Shema. Jethro left Midian and traveled to Moses in order to learn more about this God who had proved to be greater than all other gods. Even though Jethro was a seasoned priest, a man familiar with spirituality and religion, with more experience in these things than Moses, he was excited by this new revelation. He goes to Moses and listens to Moses’ story. Jethro is changed by what he hears: He celebrates with Moses, praises God, offers sacrifices, and holds a sacrificial meal “in Yahweh’s presence.” Jethro is the first to shema. He hears something new about God, something surprising about his son-in-law, something startling about what’s unfolding in a land not his own, and he allows what he hears to change him.

The next morning, after all the storytelling and celebrating, Moses re-enters the daily grind of his work as judge over the people’s disputes. (Poor Moses, agreeing to settle arguments only to realize that that job would take up every waking hour of his day. People are people no matter where they are, I suppose…) When Jethro sees how overwhelming this work is, how little Moses can actually lead the people or take care of himself because all his time is tied up in handling disputes, he realizes that Moses is headed for burnout fast. “Why are you trying to do all this alone?” he asks. “This is not good!” Now, here we go with the second shema. Jethro invites Moses to listen to him, to hear what he has to say and consider the counsel he has to offer. Jethro then lays out a plan for delegating work.

The final shema shows up in verse 24, after Jethro’s speech, and the whole verse really captures the essence of shema. “Moses listened [shema] to his father-in-law’s advice and followed his suggestions.” He hears Jethro, trusts Jethro’s seasoned wisdom, and puts the advice into practice. Doing this saves Moses from burnout and bitterness. It sets him free to be the leader the people actually need, a man who has time to listen to God. It sets him on course to lead for for decades, not just for a brief flash. And let’s make sure we note, as Jethro noted, that delegating work in this way is good for long-term health of the people, too. A worn-out leader is unhealthy for the community.

Jethro heard. Then he asked to be heard. Then he was heard. Shema, shema, shema. It is as if we must really listen to others if we’d like them to listen to us.

I’d like to lay out three directions you might take this story of mutual listening, and in each of them there’s something helpful for thinking about God’s call on our lives.

You might take this story as a story about leadership. Jethro comes to Moses in the narrow gap between the exodus out of Egypt and the reception of the divine law on Mt. Sinai. Moses is pivoting from his role as liberator to his role as pastor. But all his waking moments are spent trying to get arguments settled. Jethro’s words are perfectly timed and perfectly direct: “You’re going to wear yourself out – and the people, too” (v. 17). Jethro is telling Moses that he will not make it if he keeps holding onto all the work and bearing all of the burden by himself. Moses was able to go up the mountain to talk with God because Jethro had helped him loosen his control over other affairs. But here’s the crucial piece: Jethro earned this right to give advice. Moses heard Jethro, because Jethro first heard Moses. Jethro was excited about Moses’ unfolding journey; Jethro knew that Moses was never coming back to Midian to watch his sheep. He laid all that aside and was able to receive Moses as Moses.

Maybe you’re called to act as a wise resource, a leader, for those of us in the daily grind of leadership. And if that’s you, you earn our trusting ear by taking our experiences of God and life seriously, with a spirit of celebration and excitement.

The second place we could apply Jethro’s story is to the perennially difficult nature of intergenerational relationships. Jethro, the older man, learns something about God from Moses. Moses, the younger man, learns something about life and leadership from Jethro. The order here matters. Can I tell you a secret: young people – whom I will boldly count myself among – do actually long for meaningful relationships with our elders. There are certain words that we need to hear spoken to us, certain words that we can and will in fact receive from those farther down the road. But a problem arises when the elders expect to be heard while having no interest in hearing the young. Remember, this is shema. It’s not just going through the motions of listening, but listening in a way that changes your life. Great power is unleashed when an older, wiser, more experienced person stays invested in the younger generation; when they hear first, and then ask to be heard.

If you’re of an older generation, Jethro reveals a wonderful dimension to your call no matter what the specifics of it are. You can be a voice of wisdom in the life of a young person who is just beginning to live out their purpose. The only condition is that you earn their trust by listening to their story and celebrating their unique experience of God.

The final thing we can learn from Jethro – also the broadest, simplest, and most important thing – is that none of us can live our calling alone. We are not meant to go through life by ourselves. We are not meant to forge our own way without the help of others. We will wither, like a leaf burned up in the hot summer sun. We need people ahead of us to set us straight, affirm our call, and guide us; we need people alongside us to share the load and remind us how to take care of ourselves as we go. Our callings, just like our lives, are not self-sustaining, and they cannot be carried alone. We’ll wear ourselves out, and we’ll do harm rather than good to the very people we are called to serve.

Every once and a while, the purpose God lays on us is to stand beside someone else and help them they live their purpose. Sometimes God calls us to become the reason one of our brothers or sisters is able to endure. As Jethro tells Moses, “They will help you carry the load” (v. 22).

We all need people to help us carry the load. Jethro is our example. He hears Moses. He sees Moses. He loves Moses. He helps Moses.

Then he returns to Midian, and we don’t ever hear from him again. But how different Moses’ ministry would have been, how inconceivable the whole existence of Judaism and Christianity, if Jethro had never pulled Moses aside and spoken, as father to son, the truth: “If you do this alone, you’ll never make it.”

Thanks be to God for Jethro. And thanks be to God for all who truly hear us, and, by hearing us, help us.

Amen.

“Short Stories, Lasting Calls” Part 2: Shiphrah & Puah

July 2, 2023 — Ordinary Time

Exodus 1:8-22

Pastor Mike

Last week, I began a preaching series titled Short Stories: Lasting Calls which is going to set us inside the stories of some of the lesser-known characters of the Bible, so that we can appreciate the many different ways that God calls people into God’s work, and then turn to God ourselves and say, with renewed earnestness, “Here I am, Lord. Send me.” Every single one of us is called according to God’s purpose (Rom 8:28). When we put all our trust in Christ and walk in his Way, God gives us work to do. And God tailors this work to our uniqueness as individuals, which is thrilling – but also scary. We can’t deny that we stand personally responsible before our living God. Jesus says in the Gospel of John, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit” (15:5).

The story of Shiphrah and Puah comes from the book of Exodus, the second book in the Old Testament. The Hebrews are living in Egypt because a prior generation sought refuge there during a famine in their own land of Canaan. They came to Egypt because they had an in with a man named Joseph, who was born an Israelite but came of age – and to power – in Egypt. At the beginning of Exodus, we learn that Joseph has died, and that a new Pharoah has come to power who did not know Joseph or respect Joseph’s people. This Pharoah sees that the Hebrew minority population is growing. He fears that if they get too numerous, they could turn against the Egyptians and instigate trouble inside the country. So he enslaves them, forces them into backbreaking labor, and then calls their midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, and gives the women an order: “When you are delivering Hebrew babies, kill the boys.”

Shiphrah and Puah’s story begins with the government telling maternity care providers how to do their job. I want to assure you that this is sermon about call, not a sermon about abortion rights. But the world of these midwives certainly resonates with our own world. They, and we, hear God’s call in the real world. Call is not just about understanding what God wants but feeling the urgency of what God wants, which means we have to hold call and context together. Pharoah has cast his shadow over the maternity care that Shiphrah and Puah offer.

They are midwives. They are women encountering other women in their most vulnerable moments, when bodily instinct has overridden everything else, and all has become a blur of pain and joy and, sometimes, panic. Shiphrah and Puah are women helping new life to enter the world – messy, screaming, glorious life. Loren, my oldest, was born at a midwife practice in North Carolina, and even though I was there for all of it, I’d have been lost without the midwives – their skill, their wisdom and experience, the way they could comfort and challenge in the same word. At the moment of birth, everything was surrendered into their hands. I trusted them to bring Loren and Sus across the finish line safely.

A midwife’s vocation is so close to her identity that the Hebrew language builds the word for the job out of a verb that means to “bear or bring forth.” The midwives, the m’yalledoth are, literally translated, “those who cause (or help) to bring forth.” Pharoah has commanded Shiphrah and Puah to distort the very essence of their work so that it harms rather than helps. Again, as midwives, they step with power and sacred trust into moments when others have completely surrendered. Pharoah has ordered them to misuse their unique role in “helping to bring forth,” to abuse their special access to the vulnerability of others.

If you’re a note taker, here’s the first element of Shiphrah and Puah’s call to put down. Their purpose emerges as Pharoah orders them to distort and corrupt their work so that it accomplishes his agenda. Sometimes God’s call hits us where we work.

Shiphrah and Puah stand among all of you who love your vocation, who have helping professions, and who, because of your job, get to be with people at vulnerable points in their growth and development, in their moments and seasons of bringing forth. Midwives, teachers, pastors, lawyers, counselors, nurses, doctors, and others – there’s you and the people who come to you because they desire or need what you have to offer, and then there’s Pharoah, calling you into his office, pulling you aside in the hall, passing a piece of legislation, whipping up antagonism in your community, so that he can press his will, his way, his fear, his anger into the spaces and lives that your vocation gives you access to. Pharoah is not going to dirty his own hands at the birthing stool – that’s too far beneath him – but he is going to try and pull the strings of your hands.

Shiphrah and Puah refuse to let him. And that’s the second element of their call: they disobey. Sometimes God calls us to disobey.

There’s a way that Shiphrah and Puah could’ve refused which would have been less risky than what they did. They could’ve just ended their midwife practice, quit their jobs: “Well, Pharoah, if that’s how it’s going to be, here are our credentials.” But they did not do that. If they had, they would have surrendered their mediating place between the wiles of Pharoah and the vulnerability of the women and children. It’s one thing to leave so that you don’t do harm. It’s another thing to stay so that you can continue to help. Rather than leave, and rather than blatantly disobey, they take another tack. They put their heads down and continue to do their job with integrity. When Pharoah brings them before him a second and asks why they aren’t killing the boys, Shiphrah and Puah lie.

Yes, they lie. They deceive him. They tell Pharoah that Israelite women are more vigorous than Egyptian women; by the time they get to the birth stool to assist, those babies are already born and safely nestled in their mothers’ arms. It’s an absurd lie, of course, but Pharoah goes for it. It hinges on Pharoah’s unfamiliarity with birthing. Their deception works. As one modern Jewish commentator, Nahum Sarna, has written, “Here we have history’s first recorded case of civil disobedience in defense of a moral cause.”[1]

Shiphrah and Puah discern that God has call them to stay in the middle, between those in power and those in need. They continue to occupy that middle space. They stand in the gap. They block for their birthing mothers and newborn boys, just as you, perhaps, have blocked for your patients, clients, students. Just as you have continued your work in creative defiance of the systems or policies that loom over you. To do this, Shiphrah and Puah can’t be showy or public in their disobedience, their refusal. They must be sly, deceptive, strategic, under the radar. The important thing for them is to keep their access to the birthstool, so that the boys can live.

How did they know to do this? How did Shiphrah and Puah know that this was their God-given work to do? At this point, their story is very different than Ananias’s story from last week. Ananias saw a vision; Ananias heard the voice of God’; Ananias was given specific instructions. Shiphrah and Puah get none of that. They do not experience an explicit call. They do not receive visions or hear God’s voice. As far as we can tell, there is no conversation between them and God. That same commentator, Nahum Sarna, sums it up: In the opening chapter of Exodus, “God is not said to have intervened.”[2]

Shiphrah and Puah just knew that what Pharoah was ordering was wrong. They had an innate moral objection to the command to kill instead of bring forth. It was incompatible with the God of life, love, hope, and joy.

Sometimes we wait around to hear God’s voice, to get clear and explicit instructions for moving forward, when deep down at the level of feeling we know the right path to take. Not everyone sees visions; not everyone hears voices; not everyone receives a blueprint. For some of us, the work of living for God is in learning to trust our gut, our instinct. That’s the third element of this call story. The call comes to midwives from within, not from beyond.

In the original Hebrew language, it is unclear if Shiphrah and Puah are ethnically Egyptian or Hebrew. The grammar construction can be read both ways: “Hebrew midwives” and “midwives of the Hebrew women.”[3] Isn’t that curious? It’s entirely possible that these women creatively disobeying and deceiving Pharoah were Pharoah’s people, Egyptians who knew that it was wrong to abuse their power and harm anyone in this way. What if God’s call is not exclusive to God’s people? What if God’s call, especially the call to “help to bring forth,”  transcends God’s people – it’s something we share with others. No one needs to be told that it is wrong to tear down in spaces and moments of helping to bring forth.

In our hyper-politicized culture, we can be deceived into believing that it is our immediate neighbors who are our enemies, and we are conditioned to treat one another with suspicion, fear, and anger. But it is the powers and principalities who are pulling strings that aren’t theirs to pull. The systems and the Pharaohs find it advantageous to their purposes to set neighbor against neighbor because it obscures the origins of the fear.

I thank God for those of you who, in our troubled times, have felt the call to remain in the middle between the powers and the people, so that life can be brought forth in those who are vulnerable. The God of Shiphrah and Puah is on your side.

 And let us affirm and encourage those outside the Church who are responding faithfully to the same moral call. Let us acknowledge and bless God’s hand working in all who labor with some creative disobedience simply because it is the right thing to do.

After all, it’s Shiphrah and Puah; it’s the midwives, always in the plural.

Amen.

[1] Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus: The Heritage of Biblical Israel (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), 25.

[2] Sarna, Exploring Exodus, 27.

[3] Sarna, Exploring Exodus, 25.

“Short Stories, Lasting Calls” Part 1: Ananias of Damascus

June 25, 2023 — Ordinary Time

Acts 9:1-19

Pastor Mike

Well, friends, it’s officially summertime. In my typical preaching rhythm, I like to take summers and go deep into a long storyline from the Bible. Give a section of scripture some sustained attention. Something off the beaten path, maybe, something fun. In summers past, I’ve preached through the book of Acts, the life of Abraham, the early chapters of Mark’s Gospel. Last year, some of you may remember, we camped out in the story of Noah, which, let’s be honest, ended up pretty far afield from most of our ideas of fun.

When I travelled to Annual Conference two weeks ago, I still wasn’t sure what I’d start preaching when I got home, so I asked God to stir something up in me while I was away. On the final morning of Conference, there’s always a service of commissioning and ordination. During that service, the bishop anoints people who’ve made their way through the long process toward membership in the Conference as either elders or deacons. Those services always move me. It’s powerful to see folks who’ve been following God’s call for years finally reach that threshold moment, surrounded by their family, friends, colleagues, and bishop, and have hands laid upon them as they are ordained for service in the Church. The broader liturgy of the service is also inspiring. It reminds the whole gathered community that every Christian is called by God to be a witness to the way of Christ in the world – loving, forgiving, making peace, resisting evil, and offering people hope.

Some are called to be clergy in the Church, but most of us – most of you – are called to be laity. And that is a calling. Or it’s a condition – fertile ground, receptive space – for many different kinds of callings to manifest. A theological term for this is “the priesthood of all believers,” which means every one of us has a part to play in the great unfolding drama of God’s relationship with the world.

After this year’s ordination service, an idea came to me. How about a series of sermons which explore some of the many ways that people in the Bible experience and respond to the call of God on their lives.

As I sat with that idea, it seemed to hold a lot of promise for where we are as a congregation. Even as we are maturing in our public congregational witness through becoming a Reconciling Church, each of us is still called to stand before God personally, listening for God to call us out onto our own unique paths of discipleship. Discipleship is central to the story of the New Testament – Jesus calls and gathers many disciples to follow him and learn from him – and it is central to our own United Methodist mission: “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” Being a disciple means committing to follow the prompting or luring of God wherever it leads us, and going with an open mind and a tender heart, committed to lifelong learning. Discipleship is a journey. We’re never done maturing in the ways of the Spirit.

So, I decided, let’s do it. Let’s go and meet many different kinds of people in the scriptures this summer: midwives, craftsmen, prostitutes, PR experts, exiled intellectuals, soldiers, wealthy businesswomen, teachers… None of them got a lot of playtime compared to the Noah’s of the Bible, but that doesn’t seem to bother them, and it shouldn’t bother us. I doubt if any of us is called to singlehandedly save the world from universal destruction, but all of us are called to partner with Christ in loving the world alive. I am excited for us to enter the eclectic, dramatic, hilarious, bizarre, sometimes cringe-worthy world of the Bible to encounter people not all that different from us. I think it’ll be satisfying for both Bible nerds and those of us coming to the Bible with intention for the first time. More than anything, I am praying that these stories will shine light on your own. For you are, as the Bible says, “fearfully and wonderfully made,” “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ps. 139:14; Eph. 2:10).

What has God prepared in advance for you – in your wonderfully unique personhood – to do?

We begin today with the story of Ananias of Damascus. His story comes from the book of Acts, which is in the New Testament following the four Gospel stories of Jesus, and was written by the same person who wrote Luke’s Gospel. Its opening chapters report Jesus’ ascension into heaven and his sending of the Holy Spirit to the disciples on Pentecost. From there, the book branches out and chronicles the missionary activities of the first Christians, especially those of Peter and Paul, also known as Saul. We will pick up this story in chapter 9, verses 1-19. Even though Saul seems to take center stage, I challenge you to hear this as the story of Ananias.   

[Read Acts 9:1-19]

To me, this is one of the most profound stories in the whole New Testament. We tend to remember this story one-dimensionally as the story of Saul’s conversion, which it certainly is. But within that story – actually, the reasons that story exists at all – is the story of Ananias’s faithfulness.

How many of you have ever envied the clarity, the passion, the certainty of people who have dramatic conversion stories, who can point to a clear moment in their life when God changed everything, when all was revealed, and their life took a radical, irrevocable turn toward something new? Those are Saul stories. Stories of being knocked down on the road – stories with bright lights and heavenly voices. Some of us are blessed with that kind of story. But not all of us. Many of us come into our power and our purpose along the way, after we’ve been living with Jesus for a while. We grow as disciples gradually – perhaps without much outward drama but certainly with lots of inner drama – until God’s invitation to a specific purpose becomes clear. These are Ananias stories. All Luke tells us about Ananias is that he was “a disciple in Damascus” (9:10) who had grown familiar with the voice of God: “Here I am, Lord.” Nothing about his backstory. Nothing about his conversion. We meet Ananias in the middle. The drama’s not back there somewhere, still unfolding. It’s up ahead, about to be revealed.

God can lay a purpose upon us anytime – at the beginning, middle, or end of our journeys. But no matter where we are on the journey, following Jesus means developing an openness and receptivity to his Spirit. When we are present to God in prayer, we are able to be moved by God. Jesus knew he could reach Ananias for this urgent work because Ananias was a person of prayer and of faith. You and I must always be tilling our inner ground, maintaining the space and the silence through which God can reach us.

Now, it’s one thing to receive some direction. It’s another thing to do what’s being asked. What if what we hear seems crazy? Like, try this on: “Get up, and go find the man who has been actively trying to imprison and kill you, whose got all the authority of the religious and political systems vested in him, and when you find him in a very vulnerable condition, put your hands on him and heal him.”

Right? It’s crazy. And Ananias knew it was crazy.

Ananias wasn’t some machine following its programming. He was a person who felt some things about what God asked him to do. He had some very reasonable reservations: Go – by myself, unprotected – to my enemy? Go into a stranger’s house without asking and lay healing hands on my persecutor? You’re telling me, Lord, that the enemy of Jesus is right now, at this very moment, praying to Jesus? Hold up. Let’s get on the same page about Saul and make sure we are working from the same pieces of information. Haven’t you heard what I’ve heard about him?

God seems to know that it’s crazy, too. So God levels with Ananias and tells him that Saul has been divinely chosen as an evangelist, and, importantly, that Saul will suffer plenty, but to leave his suffering up to God. God responds to Ananias’ honest with gentleness, kindness, and candor. Honest communication always leads to deeper relationships.

When we begin to lean into our call, it’s good to get our reservations out into the open early. There’s nothing worse than keeping secrets and harboring discontents or what-ifs, because it ends up souring our journey with bitterness and anxiety.  We might think that the proper religious thing to do is stuff those things down and soldier one, but actually the humble, human thing to do is put our cards on the table.

The Bible is full of people who initially balk at God’s call. Abraham – I’m too old. Sarah – I’m too old. Jacob – I’m not appreciated enough. Moses – I’m not eloquent enough. Naomi – I’ve suffered too much. Isaiah – I’m a sinner. Jeremiah – I’m too young. Zechariah – I’m too old. Mary – I’m too young. Nathaniel – Nothing good comes out of Nazareth. Ananias – This guy’s been trying to kill me! Each of them told God how things seemed from their perspective. Part of why this is healthy is because it places the onus on God to prove to us that he is with us as he has promised to be, that he will give us the power to make the impossible possible so that we can live our callings

The final thing I want to say about Ananias is that he actively participates in shaping his story. Compare what God says to him with what he says to Saul.

God tells Ananias the street to walk on, the house to go to, the person to find; God tells Ananias that he’ll be expected, and that he’s to heal Saul through the laying on of hands; God tells Ananias that Saul is a divinely chosen instrument, and that he will suffer because of it.

Now here’s what Ananias says to Saul, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to your on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

I’m not sure how far Ananias had to walk to get from his house to Saul’s house, but he certainly did some thinking on the way: Hmmm. If God has chosen Saul to be his messenger, and I’m God’s messenger too, then there’s no other way around it: Saul must be my brother. And if he is going to do this job and endure all the sufferings it will bring him, then he’s going to need more than just physical healing; he’s going to need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, just as I have been filled with the Holy Spirit!

You see it, don’t you? Ananias gave Saul a greater blessing than the one God asked him to give.

In his going, Ananias prayed, pondered, and connected some dots. He let God’s love expand in his heart. He added his own creativity and thoughtfulness to his calling, and because of it Saul was given a proper welcome into the family of God. Ananias could’ve run in, done the healing (the only thing God really told him to do), and gotten out fast for fear of this former enemy.  Instead, he went above and beyond,  calling Saul by name, calling him his brother, and calling down the Holy Spirit to fill him for ministry. Ananias and God collaborated, and their synergy birthed something bigger than what was asked or expected. Ananias, we might say, was converted in his going – transformed, sanctified.

If what we’re doing this summer is creating a kind of mosaic of discipleship, placing diversely colored and shaped pieces into a picture of how God can work in our lives, then let’s think of Ananias’ story as the foundation, the surface on which that mosaic will be laid, because it gets to the heart of the journey.

God can lay a purpose upon us at any time in our lives, so our task is to be receptive. God’s purposes can be crazy and risky, pushing us beyond our comfort zones, so our task it to be honest about what we’re experiencing, to speak our reservations out into the open. And when we’re called, we become coworkers, cocreators, collaborators with God. Only we can live our callings because it is through our individuality that they take on their fullest and most beautiful expressions. We get to come alive, too, as we go.

In closing, receive these words from the Apostle Paul and consider from whom he might’ve learned them:

“Now to God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever” (Eph. 3:20-21). Amen.

“Living in the Lord’s Harvest”

June 18, 2023 — Ordinary Time

Matthew 9:35—10:8

John Gribas

Good morning. I am so glad to be here with all of you this morning, on this day. This Father’s Day.

For me, Father’s Day is a reminder of blessing. I was blessed in so many ways by my own father. The opportunity to be a father for my two sons, Adam and Levi, has been an even more powerful blessing—a blessing beyond anything I could have imagined back in my pre-parent days.

So happy Father’s Day to all who have been blessed to be fathers, and to all who have been blessed by their father or by someone who has been for them a good father-figure.

And I hope we all can appreciate this day in light of the endless blessings coming to us from our heavenly father. But not only father. I’ve been reminded over the last number of weeks through what Mike and others have shared here that “father” is but one manifestation of the divine. God is also “mother.” In Jesus, God is “with us” as “companion” and “friend.” Then there is God as Holy Spirit—“spirit” meaning “breath.”

Scripture is full of ways to talk and think about God: Fountain of life. The potter who forms us as clay. Shepherd. Light of the world. Our rock and fortress. What an abundant and rich variety of metaphors offered to us as ways to grasp the divine!

Speaking of abundance, variety, and metaphors, let’s turn our attention to the piece of scripture from Matthew I just read. Here we see yet another manifestation of God. That is…the Lord of the harvest.

When you hear “harvest,” what comes to mind?

Standing here and looking out to all of you, one thing that comes to mind for me is…us. This place. In my relatively brief time as part of this community of faith, I have witnessed what might be called a substantial harvest.

For some time, COVID obviously played a big part in keeping down the number of people willing and able to safely show up on a Sunday. But it seems clear that more has happened here recently than the waning of the pandemic. There are new faces. We have seen multiple baptisms and church membership commitments. Consider the various individuals who are now actively involved in greeting, serving as ushers, singing in the choir, participating in studies, facilitating worship, preaching.

And I see beautiful variety in this increasing abundance. The recent overwhelming approval of this community’s commitment as a reconciling church reflects that variety—and, keeping with the harvest metaphor, it likely tills the soil for even greater and richer variety over time.

Look around. Would you say that “the Lord of the harvest” has been generous here?

If you would say, “Yes,” I would not disagree. The expansion and diversification of this or any other faith family is a blessing. At the same time, and in light of these verses from Matthew, I would also say…let’s be careful.

Jesus’ reference to the “harvest” is a metaphor. And metaphors are tricky things. Beautiful and wonderful things, for sure. Necessary things for finite creatures like us—bound in our world of language—who are trying to grasp God who is infinite, unlimited, and eternal.

Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest, internationally recognized teacher, author, Christian mystic, and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation. In his book, The Divine Dance, Rohr reflects on the limits of language and the role of metaphors for those seeking God.

His point seems to be that there is something about the divine that defies being captured by words, and that things like silence and humility are needed to help us avoid the pitfalls inherent in our tools of language. He also argues that all words are essentially metaphors.

As a university professor whose teaching and scholarship has focused on the nature and power of metaphor, I agree. I have spent a lot of time over the last 30+ years thinking about metaphor, and I’ll say it again: metaphors are tricky things.

Here’s why.

Most people understand metaphor as the use of language whereby we bring understanding to one thing by referring to something else—usually something quite different. If we say that someone is a “diamond in the rough,” we are likely drawing attention to that person’s hidden and valuable potential, despite appearances that may suggest otherwise.

But, in actuality, when we apply metaphor, we are not simply using one thing to bring understanding to another thing. Instead, it would be better to suggest that we are using one conceptual world to bring understanding to another conceptual world. You can probably imagine that bringing two conceptual worlds together is rather tricky business.

Consider how common it is in modern organizations to refer to work groups as “teams.” When we do, we are metaphorically drawing on certain aspects of our understanding of the world of competitive athletic teams to emphasize corresponding things in non-athletic organizational settings—things like working together for a clear goal. Or like recognizing that everyone has a unique and important role to play. Or like giving it your all and setting aside personal interests for the good of the whole team.

But you can’t easily limit the “connections” to just these things. There are many, many other aspects of competitive athletic teams that can be metaphorically connected to the work group, and at least some of those potential connections could be really problematic.

For example, some team “leaders” embrace the idea of being the “coach.” And if one is drawing on a football coach as the conceptual model, that can justify extremely top-down, fully autocratic leadership since football coaches typically call every play and expect absolute obedience and compliance, and they are in their right to pull players who aren’t performing as expected and to substitute those players with backups who will. It certainly isn’t inevitable, but the team metaphor can justify pretty high levels of leader abuse. Speaking of leader abuse, here is an extension of a leader metaphor I have heard…from a pastor. Actually, I’ve heard slightly different versions of this from two separate pastors—serving in completely different churches and denominations. Just for clarification—not in this church, and not by Mike.

I have been reminded by these two church leaders that, as pastors, they are “shepherds.” That sounds like a nice, biblical metaphor. But, I have been informed, ancient shepherds really weren’t the gentle and kind bucolic souls I might have imagined—guiding and protecting their fluffy flock. Nope. You know the “comforting rod and staff” from Psalm 23? Sure, they could be used for tender nudging or for fighting off predators. But, I have now been told by two church leaders, those shepherd tools often had to be used for some “tough love” on the sheep, who, don’t you know, tend to be stupid and disobedient, not knowing what is really good for them—maybe straying one time too often and, for its own protection, needing the shepherd to use the rod or staff, not to offer comfort, but to break the naughty sheep’s leg. Then the shepherd would carry that sheep over his shoulders while the leg healed, and the sheep learned an important lesson.

That famous painting of Jesus carrying a sheep on his shoulders. Yep.

At least, that is what I was told. I can’t begin to express how saddened I am that individuals who I believe to be sincere men of God somehow twisted this metaphor in such a dangerous way.

Tricky things, those metaphors.

So, what about Matthew 9 and 10, and the reference to the harvest?

I don’t know about you, but my experience with harvests is pretty much as a spectator. I grew up with an immense wheat field just on the other side of the alley behind my back yard and stretching to the western horizon. I saw plenty of harvests. Or at least I saw the results.

Mainly, I know the outcome of the harvest. The bread and fruit and vegetables that have ended up on my table. When I hear harvest, my mind tends to go to something like a painting of a cornucopia, overflowing with good things that were sown, grown, and gathered from a field, garden, or orchard.

It is pretty natural for me, when I read about the Lord’s harvest, to immediately think about the result. And perhaps it is also my history with faith traditions that identify as “evangelical” that leads me to look around at the kind of expansion and diversification I have been seeing here in this faith community and think, “Nice harvest!”

I’m sure Christ is delighted at what he sees happening here. But I don’t think Jesus’ call to “ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” is a call for me to hang out in the barn, admiring the crop. I don’t even think it is a call to go gather the crop and bring it into the barn. Those understandings are, at least in some ways, metaphorically consistent. But I don’t think they accurately reflect what Jesus seems to be doing with the metaphor.

If we look at Matthew 9 and 10, Jesus instructs his followers to ask the Lord to send “laborers into his harvest.” Into. Harvest, here, seems to be a place rather than an outcome. And Jesus’ reference to the harvest sets up his call for his followers to “go.” And they do go.

Matthew doesn’t offer anything specific about what happens when they come back. However, in Luke’s version of this story, he reports in chapter 9, verse 10 that “On 7 their return the apostles told Jesus all they had done.” It doesn’t say that they came back with the fruits of their harvest. They didn’t come back with a bunch of new disciples and followers of the way. They came back with reports indicating that, out there in that harvest, a lot was done.

There are plenty of other places in the gospels that, in fact, do draw attention to increases in the numbers of those joining the Christ-follower community. That is clearly a good thing. A blessing. But my caution here is that we not allow the blessing of a certain kind of growth to cause us to miss something in Jesus’ use of the harvest metaphor here in Matthew 9 and 10.

If Jesus’ words here are an invitation to us to join in the harvest, then the invitation is to “go.”

Go where? Wherever people are harassed and helpless. Wherever people are experiencing sickness and disease and death. Wherever people are hungry to hear the good news that heaven is near.

The thought of “going” can be a little scary, especially when we have such a nice barn with a such lovely crop to appreciate right here where we are. But, if you will allow it, let me play a little with this gospel story and metaphor, because I think there is a lot of comfort and good news here for the willing harvest worker.

First, for almost the entirety of Matthew 8 and 9, leading up to this call to go, we see example after example of Jesus engaged in harvest work. Miracle followed by miracle, healing after healing. Jesus leads the way and provides the model and example for us to follow. And, according to Matthew 10, verse 1, “Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.”

Jesus not only leads the way to the harvest and provides an example, he also provides the gifts and resources we need to do the harvest work. And did you notice that right in the middle of this scripture story, we suddenly shift to a listing of the twelve apostles’ names? In terms of narrative structure, that seems a bit odd. But what I see suggested by the gospel author here is that Jesus isn’t just making a blanket call for harvest workers. He is calling these individuals. By name. This suggests to me that the Lord of the harvest, too, knows us and calls us as unique individuals—and provides the particular gifts and resources each one of us needs.

Second, if Jesus is to be our harvest work example, then consider what motivated him. Was it a sense of duty? Responsibility? Obedience? No, it was “compassion.” Chapter 9, verse 36: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

If you wonder what harvest work you are being called to, I suggest you follow Jesus and be guided by your compassion. And I don’t think we should assume that joining the harvest necessarily means going to strange or foreign or distant places. I can’t imagine that Jesus’ instruction to go “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” reflected a prejudice or disregard for gentiles or Samaritans. Instead, here I see Jesus sending his followers into the world they know best—perhaps the place where their compassion would most naturally be prompted.

Third, and to conclude, the thought of harvest work may seem daunting. But, in truth, we are simply being asked to freely give what we have already freely been given. Chapter 10, verse 8: “You received without payment; give without payment.”

And what we have been given is the good news—the recognition that the kingdom of heaven has come near. The marvelous kingdom that Kay so aptly reflected on and illuminated for us last week. I think if you look around you right here, right now, you will see that it is most certainly true—the kingdom of heaven has come near.

Let us take this good news that we have been given, and that we experience here with each other, and bring it with us to share as we go as laborers in the Lord’s harvest.

Amen.

“Weakness and With-ness”

June 4, 2023 — Trinity Sunday

Matthew 28:16-20

Pastor Mike

This famous last scene in Matthew’s Gospel is commonly referred to as the Great Commission. It’s called that because it’s the moment when Jesus gave his disciples final instructions about who they were to be in the world and what they were to do. “Go,” he says. “And make more disciples by baptizing and teaching the nations.” Those commands – going, discipling, baptizing, teaching – they’ve have shaped the Church’s sense of itself. Our own denomination’s mission statement, for example (which you are reminded of every Sunday at the top of your bulletin), is “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” That language come right from these verses. From the time of the disciples until now, this ‘Great Commission’ has offered direction and meaning to God’s people. It’s a wonderful thing to live inside your purpose.

But wait a minute, let’s pump the breaks. Did I hear Matthew correctly? Did he say eleven doubting disciples? Yea, that’s what I thought. Eleven doubting disciples. They were the ‘Church’ who received that Great Commission.

Eleven doubting disciples. They started with twelve, but then they went down a man. And here they are doubting, even as they worship. Even as they experience the resurrected Jesus, they are not fully convinced that they can trust what they’re seeing. It’s one thing for Jesus to claim to possess all authority in heaven and on earth, and it’s one thing for him to give  his people a sense of purpose, but is this really the group he’s going to stick by and keep calling? These eleven doubting disciples? I suppose so! He neither seems fazed by their weakness, nor deterred by their doubt.

I’m personally drawn to anything the Bible has to say about doubt, because I find time and time again that, even as a pastor, I live with more questions than I do answers. So, I looked up this word for doubting and discovered something extremely helpful. This word only appears in one another place in the whole New Testament, and it happens to be at the center point of Matthew’s Gospel, the very Gospel we’re in this morning. It shows up in a story with lots of parallels to this one, the story of Jesus and Peter walking on water. I want to read that for us now:

Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.

“Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning, to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’ (Matt. 14:22-33, NRSVUE)

There are many rabbit trails we could take comparing these two stories: they both mention mountains; they both involve water either explicitly or implicitly; they both begin with the disciples being separated from Jesus yet obedient to his command; they both resolve with Jesus reuniting with them or promising to be with them always. But I want to point out one major parallel: that faith and doubt can be held together when Jesus is present in his power. Presumably this was the moment when at least Peter participated in the power of God most profoundly – walking on water, for crying out loud – and he both believed and doubted at the same time. According to his faith, he found himself held up by the elements. According to his doubt, he found himself caught, held, and carried by Jesus. A doubting disciple.

Sometimes we doubt. Sometimes we think that our doubt disqualifies us from living in the power of our purpose. Sometimes we’re weaker than we’d like to be. Down a man, as it were – some part of us is not at full capacity. Sometimes, like Peter, we get going and then we notice the winds of the storm; we fell that there’s some resistance to what Jesus has called us to, and we start to sink. These are inescapable, human experiences: doubt, weakness, distress. Yet for some reason we get to thinking that we have to hold those experiences apart from our discipleship, apart from Jesus, apart from the with-ness of God, and figure them out before getting back into the game.

I wonder if Jesus has ever called you to something that you’ve held yourself back from because you had some doubts about who Jesus is in the first place, or you weren’t sure you were strong enough, or you knew there’d be some bumps in the road, some high-velocity winds. I wonder if Jesus once gave you a purpose, and you lived it for a while until the doubt or the weakness or the obstacle appeared, and you felt like you’d disqualified yourself from serving. I even wonder if any of you have had your purpose sabotaged by someone else, someone who told you that you needed to be better than you were before you could say Yes to Jesus. When we give up on ourselves or allow other voices to tell us what we’re worthy of, we forget that Jesus gave the Great Commission to a beleaguered, doubting Church. We forget that Peter did walk on water, and that Jesus’ question about his faith was asked in the moment of embrace.

Here's a question it’s always good for us to ask ourselves: What difference does the resurrection make in our lives? What difference does it make that Jesus rose from the dead? I ask because, when you hold up these two stories next to each other – one pre-resurrection and one post-resurrection, stories where the disciples are arguably experiencing Jesus at his most powerful, there’s still doubting, there’s still weakness, there are storms that assail the call. It sure doesn’t seem like the resurrection removes our doubt; it sure doesn’t seem like the resurrection replaces our weakness with superhuman strength; it doesn’t seem like the resurrection promises smooth sailing through the world. So what difference does it make?

Why does it matter that Jesus was more than a good teacher and more than a compelling prophet? Why does it matter that his rising is more than a symbol or even a story. Why does the Church confess that his resurrection was an event in the very body and life of Jesus of Nazareth? It’s a hard question, not easily answered. I know that when I ask it, I become painfully aware of my own doubts and weaknesses and all the obstacles I face to being a person of this kind of faith.

But let me suggest one possibility, gleaned from the story of Peter walking on the water. The resurrection matters because the very terrain has been transformed. What is the one certainty, the one unbreakable rule of biological life? Once born, it dies. What is the one political certainty of killing someone on the cross? That they are humiliated, and their power is extinguished. But Jesus broke these basic rules of life. He rose and is exalted, the Creator and Re-Creator. He changed the terms.

Death is the end of life, right? Wrong. Betrayal, executions, payoffs, and schemes can squash movements for love, right? Wrong. You step on water, and you sink, right? Wrong. You only have a handful of food so there’s no way you can feed the crowd, right? Wrong. Women can’t be credible witnesses, right? Wrong. I can’t be a true worshipper and a doubter, right? Wrong. I can’t live out my purpose from inside my weakness, right? Wrong.

The terrain has been transformed. Life with Jesus is like looking through a kaleidoscope; we think the pieces stack up one way, but he turns the dial and all of a sudden, they line of differently; new things are possible, and old rules are bent, broken, or transgressed. What Peter got to experience for a moment on the Sea was the new way of being in the world that Jesus achieved for all of us, for all time, through his rising. That’s the difference the resurrection makes. We may doubt, but Jesus is sure, so we can move forward through his confidence. We may be weak, but he is strong, so we can move forward through his strength. We may run up against winds and waves that scare us, but he is the Creator of heaven and earth.

When we give up ourselves or abandon our purpose, we are telling ourselves a story about our unworthiness. But with Jesus, the question is not are you or are you not worthy to live life in the abundance and joy of God’s mission, the question is rather, will you step out in faith?

Because here’s the thing: the only way to experience that the terrain has been transformed, the only way to experience the difference that the resurrection makes, the only way to discover that doubt and weakness are simply part of the greater story is to actually get out of the boat and start walking. It is in the going, the risking, the trusting, the baptizing, and the teaching, that all these mysteries become real to us. If you have ever put down a call until you’re surer and stronger, you won’t be at peace until you pick it back up again. It’s time to reclaim your call. It’s time to let the risen Christ take care of the certainty, the strength, and the way through the circumstances.

It’s the only condition for living in our purpose and taking up Jesus’ ‘Great Commission’: we must take that first step. Having not seen him yet, “the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them…” and all the rest fell into place from there. Peter got out of the boat and felt that something in him or in the water was different than it had been.

You know, we sometimes speak of the ‘Great Commission” as if it was a Ra-Ra locker-room pump-up talk. But I hear it now as a kind of plea: When we baptize and teach, we get to share with others the mystery that the rules of living and loving have been overhauled by the one risen from the dead. We get to be the ones who remind one another that we can all do things we never thought we could do, go places we never thought we would go, love people we never thought we’d love. We get to be people out in the world who live as if all things are possible, because Christ is with us. We get to help others pick up their abandoned dreams.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.