Who's Going to Pull the Weeds?

So last week we heard the story of the sower who went out to sow and who spread seed on every sort of soil – hard-packed soil, rocky soil, thorny soil and good soil. The sower, we decided, was a confident farmer, sure of a harvest. So confident that it didn’t matter where he threw those seeds, some of it was going to fall on good soil and produce a hundredfold.


What was that seed last week? The word of the kingdom. And what did we want to be? The fertile earth. Last week we were the soil. This week we are the seed.


It’s a little bit later in chapter 13 of Matthew now. Jesus is still telling parables – those confounding stories about everyday things that were clearly not about everyday things. And this time he is telling the story of the wheat and the tares.


Now, I call it that, the story of the wheat and the tares, but that’s because I grew up in a King James church where when you got to verse 25 it talked about tares. Does anyone have a King James Version? Verse 24 says: “Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field.” So Jesus is making a comparison here between the reign of God, which is unseen, and a man sowing good seed in his field, which you can see.

Then we read verse 25: “But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.” While men slept…(presumably women slept, too, but this is the King James Version and we’ll switch back in a minute)…while men slept, an enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. Tares! Oh, my goodness, what are tares? They’re what you use when you want to go up to the second floor of a building, right? You go up the tares. Or maybe you call them teps. I don’t know.

No, of course, I’m kidding. Tares are weeds. In fact, (I learned this yesterday), they are a specific kind of weed. They are probably darnel or vetches. And do you know what vetches are? They are people who don’t say ‘Thank you.’ Like when you hear someone called an ungrateful vetch. No, actually tares…vetches…are nitrogen-fixing leguminous plants that often appear in grain fields.*

So that’s how this parable got the name of the wheat and the tares. Some people these days want to call it the parable of the wheat and the weeds. But really, if we want to be scientific and politically correct about this, we should call it the parable of the wheat and the nitrogen-fixing leguminous plants.

Now this is a strange little story here. How many people remember hearing this parable before? Matthew is the only gospel that tells us this story. And, again, like in the other parable, the sower is a kind of strange farmer. He plants the field but he doesn’t want to de-vetch it. So what happens to your garden if you never go out and get rid of the tares? It gets overgrown in a hurry, right? So we weed our gardens, right?

Not this farmer. And worse yet, this farmer’s got enemies. And this is an enemy who keeps a bunch of vetch seeds in his shed so that he can sneak over to the neighbor’s garden in the middle of the night to sow the vetch in with the good seeds. Today, this would be the guy who sneaks over and TP’s your house. But back in the day, they sowed weeds.

So the servants see that there’s a problem in the fields. The farmer himself doesn’t seem to be too bothered about what’s going on out there. Hasn’t seen that there’s a vetch problem. But the slaves know and they go to the farmer and let’s see what they say. Look at verse 27. “Master, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? So where did the weeds come from?” Do you ever ask this question? I do. I go out and look at the tomatoes and I say, “Where did these weeds come from?” And right after that I ask, “Where did these mosquitoes come from?”

What’s the answer? Where did these weeds come from? “An enemy did this.” The farmer knows. He may not be watching the fields too closely, but he knows an enemy is out there. The enemy planted the weeds. The enemy sent the mosquitoes, too, I’m sure.

So what do the slaves want to do? They want to go pull them up. That’s a sensible thing. Get rid of the weeds that might be choking out the wheat. But what does the farmer say? In verse 30 he says, “No, let both grow together until the harvest and at the harvest time I will have the reapers collect the weeds first and burn them up while I gather the wheat into my storehouse.”

Now a couple of things here. First, the farmer. Why would he want to try this method? The text says that he’s concerned that pulling up the weeds would also uproot the wheat. So there’s an agricultural reason. But I think he’s also got the same attitude as the sower in the first parable. He’s confident. He knows there’s going to be enough grain at the harvest to take to the storehouse. There’s a plan for the weeds. They’re going to be taken care of. But meanwhile the enemy is not going to take up a minute of his time. The farmer knows what the end of the story is.

Secondly, the servants. What are they worried about? They want to know why the weeds are there and they want to know who’s going to get rid of it. So they are philosophers and then they’re pragmatists. Why is it here and who’s going to do something about it? But the farmer does not share their concern. He’s focused on the harvest which is, Jesus tells us, the kingdom of heaven.

Now let me tell you another story. It’s a true story. It happened 50 years ago. 1961. If you went around the South 50 years ago you would have seen a lot of signs that it was still a segregated society. Water fountains for whites and coloreds. Bathrooms for whites and coloreds. And bus stations with separate waiting rooms for whites and coloreds. That was the language and the practice of the day. But in 1960 the Supreme Court ruled that this was unconstitutional, at least for interstate transportation. You couldn’t have separate waiting rooms based on race. But the ruling was not being enforced.

So a group of 13 people – African-American and European-American – black and white – trained in non-violence -- decided to test the ruling by taking a bus ride from Washington D.C. to New Orleans. Together. They called them Freedom Riders.

So they left on May 4 and they went to Richmond and Petersburg and Farmville and Lynchburg. No problems. Then they went through North Carolina to Charlotte. Into South Carolina and at Rock Hill they ran into the first resistance. A group of people met the bus at the station and beat up the riders as they got off the bus.

They kept going. They went to Atlanta, Georgia and they got threats. They went to Anniston, Alabama and on the outskirts of town a mob attacked the bus. They slashed the tires. They threw a firebomb into the bus. They blocked the doors to keep them from getting out when the flames took hold. A gas tank exploded and the crowd moved back from the bus just long enough for the people to get out. The crowd moved back in to beat them up. An undercover police officer fired a gun into the air and the crowd dispersed.

A second bus of Freedom Riders kept going. They came into Birmingham and another mob was waiting. They beat the riders again, paralyzing one of the riders for life. The police finally came and they arrested the riders, putting them in jail for what they said was their own safety. Then they took them over the border into Tennessee and dumped them off.

Another group of Freedom Riders came. They took the bus to Montgomery and again they were met by a mob that beat them up. It looked like the rides were going have to end.

On the night of May 21, a large crowd gathered at the Black First Baptist Church where Martin Luther King, Jr. came to speak. Over a thousand people were in the church. Outside a few federal marshals had come in to surround the church, but there weren’t enough. As Dr. King preached the mob overturned cars and through rocks through the windows of the church. Tear gas started to seep into the church from outside where the police were trying to disperse the crowd. Dr. King told them that it wasn’t safe to leave the church, so they stayed in the church.

At 1 AM, Dr. King called Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General of the United States, from the basement of the church. Kennedy was upset with him for causing trouble. Kennedy thought the Freedom Riders were giving the country a bad image. King told Kennedy that the world was changing. That African-Americans were changing. “I am different from my father,” he said. “I feel the need of being free now.”**

Now here’s why I’m telling this story. If the Freedom Riders had not been fired by their faith. If they had not been trained in nonviolence. If they had not been continually hearing the message that what they were about was the civil rights of black people. If they had not had a sense of justice. If they had not had their eyes on the prize. If they hadn’t known that God’s kingdom was coming. If they hadn’t believed that goodness was stronger than evil. If they hadn’t believed all these things, they might have gotten sidetracked.

They might have started to become obsessed with the crowds outside. They might have returned violence for violence. They might have given up in despair. They might have gone back home. But no, they were going to New Orleans. The original group was gone, but new riders came to take their place.

So two days later, another group of 27 riders – white and black – left Montgomery and they were singing as they rode out of town:
I’m taking a ride on the Greyhound bus line.
I’m riding the front seat to Jackson this time.
Hallelujah, I’m travelling:
Hallelujah, ain’t it fine?
Hallelujah, I’m traveling down Freedom’s main line.


When they reached the Greyhound bus terminal in Jackson, Mississippi, there were no mobs. They were not beaten. They were ushered into the white waiting room of the bus terminal. And then they were ushered into paddy wagons that took them to jail. At their trial the next day the judge turned around in his chair and faced the wall when their lawyer spoke in their defense. They were sentenced to sixty days in Parchman, the state penitentiary. Some of them were housed in death row.


It seems like another world now. It seems like far more than 50 years have passed. But the Freedom Riders saw the goal. And they rode the Greyhound bus into something a little more like the kingdom of heaven.


So what did Jesus say about this parable? When the crowds had left and they went back into the house, he explains the parable to the disciples. What do they call the parable? Look in verse 36. They call it the parable of the weeds in the field. They are just like the servants. They go straight to the weeds.


But Jesus goes through the whole parable and he says the sower is who? The Son of Humanity. Jesus himself. The field is what? The world. And the good seed are who? The children of the Kingdom. And the vetch – who are they? The children of the evil one.


Now immediately we get the message and what’s the first thing we want to ask? Am I a good seed or a weed? We want to know where we stand with God because we see where this is headed. The weeds end up on the fire. And later Jesus will say that those who don’t measure up will be thrown into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. There is a judgment on the way. And we want to know are we vetch who gnash or are we the wheat in the storehouse -- those who will shine like the sun in the kingdom of God?


Scholars will tell you that the community of early Christians that Matthew was writing for was under a great deal of persecution from Jewish groups. In the midst of the conflict they would have heard this story as a word of hope. It might be bad now, Matthew seems to be saying, but in the end God will bring you home. In the meantime we must bear up in the struggles.


In our therapeutic culture we might say that there is wheat and tares in all of us. That’s even biblical. We are created with the all the potential of the good seed. But sin has entered the world and our lives, distorting us from what God intends us to be. So within each of us the struggle is ongoing and God has come to deal with the evil of the world and in us and to redeem our tarnished promise.


But let’s not make this too easy. There is much that God says an emphatic ‘no’ to in the world. It’s not always as overt as the mobs around the First Baptist Church in Montgomery. Sometimes the evil in the world slips in under cover of darkness. We need a purging fire to put to death all that keeps us from God. We need to come face to face with some things. We need to look in the mirror and see the callous heart that won’t let us love our neighbors. We need to see the fear that keeps us from doing what we know is right. We need to see the apathy that tells us the lie that we can’t make a difference. There’s a lot of things God says ‘no’ to.


John Wesley told his Methodist preachers that they should commit themselves to a disciplined lifestyle. That they should work diligently, teach the word, and never spend time triflingly. They should attend to their spiritual lives. They should read the scriptures. And they should do all these things, not for wrath, but for conscience’s sake. Not for fear of the fire, but for the integrity of their souls.


In the end, God knows the harvest will come. And God is not consumed with worry over where the evil in this world comes from or how it meets its end. What God is concerned about is the kingdom and what God wants is children who will not live their lives in fear of the fires of hell, but shining in the light of the kingdom that is to come. Not for wrath, but for conscience’s sake.


Keep your eyes on the prize, brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes on the prize. Thanks be to God.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tare_(leguminous_plant)
**Quoted in Harvard Sitkoff, King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop, [Hill & Wang: New York, 2008], p. 77.

In Search of Fertile Earth

There is a scene in the movie A Bug's Life when Flik, the rebellious, free-thinking ant, is trying to explain an important concept to Dot, one of the smaller ants in the colony. He picks up a rock and says, "Here, pretend - pretend that that's a seed."

"It's a rock," says Dot.

"Oh, I know it's a rock, I know. But let's just pretend for a minute that it's a seed, alright? We'll just use our imaginations. Now, now do you see our tree? Everything that made that giant tree is already contained inside this tiny little seed. All it needs is some time, a little bit of sunshine and rain, and voilá!"

"This rock will be a tree?"

"Seed to tree. You've gotta work with me, here. Alright? Okay. Now, y-you might not feel like you can do much now, but that's just because, well, you're not a tree yet. You just have to give yourself some time. You're still a seed."

"But it's a rock," Dot says.

"I know it's a rock!" Flik shouts. "Don't you think I know a rock when I see a rock? I've spent a lot of time around rocks!"

Dot responds, "You're weird, but I like you."*

Flik learned the dangers of using metaphors to explain deep philosophical concepts. But he stands in a long line of teachers. What you may not realize is that Flik was talking about Aristotle there in that conversation with Dot. He was trying to get Dot to see that the seed was a bundle of potential - that she was a bundle of potential. And even though she couldn't see it now, just like that seed, the makings of a great tree were right there inside her. I know, it was a rock.

Aristotle said roughly the same thing. The great Greek philosopher said that we know the reality of things, not by what we can see at the moment, but by what will become of them. Things, events, people, have a purpose, an end and we are being drawn toward that end. The ultimate reality of a seed is the fully-formed tree that will emerge from it. The ultimate reality of a person is the unfolding of all that potential that we all contain.

But you didn't come here today to hear about Aristotle. You came to hear about Jesus. And, lo, and behold, Jesus is telling a story about seeds.

Now it's not just a story, it's a parable, which is a story-like way of getting at a spiritual truth. It's the kind of thing that frustrated Jesus' followers to no end. I can relate to this because, you know, I'm kind of a storytelling preacher myself and some people do not like that way of preaching. They want to hear a point.

When I was growing up that was the dominant style of preaching - three points and poem. Just tick those points off. Maybe put a clever title on them. Make them rhyme or something. But I think I've successfully eliminated that style of preaching from my bag of tricks. No three point sermons here. Some people say I've got no points. I must be doing something right.

But Jesus was not a 3-points and a poem preacher either. He spoke in stories, parables. And his disciples questioned him about it. In fact if you look at verse 10 in chapter 13 of Matthew, (this is in the section we left out of the reading today), if you look there you will see the disciples taking Jesus aside and asking, "Why do you talk to the crowds in parables?"

Jesus answers in a kind of cryptic way, too. He talks about the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven and how they are not just revealed to anybody. But what he really seems to be doing is challenging the disciples and anybody else that might listen to work for a blessing - to work for the message. Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah who had that great vision of God filling the Temple and then being called to serve a people with unclean lips and then receiving this cryptic saying - "Listen and listen, but never understand! Look and look, but never perceive!"

In that passage it's almost like God is saying, "I don't want you to know what I'm saying. I don't know want you to understand what I'm doing." But Jesus is saying something a little bit different. In verse 15 he says, "This people's heart has grown coarse, their ears dulled, they have shut their eyes to see, their ears to hear, their heart to understand." What he has come to do is to open their ears and their eyes and their hearts. And Jesus appreciates a good student who will work to understand.

But what's unusual about this parable that Jesus tells is that this is one of those rare stories where he interprets what has been said. Usually he leaves it to the listener and on the second hearing, the third hearing, the sixty-second hearing you are still seeing new things in the passage. Actually I think that's true here, too.

A sower went out to sow. Who is this sower, by the way? Who do you think it is?

What's unusual about the way this sower goes about his planting?

He's broadcasting the seeds. He's throwing them here and there - on the path, on the rocks, in the weeds. Now what little I know about agriculture in Jesus' time tells me that it was not all that unusual for a farmer to just throw seeds on the ground. They did do some plowing. But they also would scatter seed. But I'm thinking that it would be pretty unusual not to try to get the seed at least onto the ground where it was likely to grow.

This sower is either very careless or very confident that he will get the harvest he wants, even if he scatters seed like a prodigal. I'm guessing that he is confident. He knows this seed is powerful. He knows what it can do.

By the way, what is this seed? What do we think it is?

Verse 19 calls it the "word of the kingdom." This is what Jesus came to spread - the news of the kingdom. Now is the kingdom of God dependent on whether or not we are faithful? No, the kingdom is coming no matter what. The kingdom is promised. The kingdom is assured. When Jesus begins his ministry, what does he say? Somebody read Matthew 4:17. The first thing Jesus says in his public ministry is, "Repent, because the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand."

So what this tells me is that God is not concerned that if the people don't respond the kingdom can't come. The kingdom is coming. What God wants is for people to respond and to live their lives differently because the kingdom of heaven is here.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're still talking about seeds. So a sower, (who just might be God), goes out to sow seed, (which just might be the word of the kingdom), and where does the first batch of seed fall? On the edge of the path.

What's that? What is the path? Why wouldn't we want seed to fall there?

It's hard ground. It's unreceptive. It's a place where birds can come get it easily.

What is the path in us? Ever been in such a state that you couldn't even begin to hear God talking to you? What's that like? You get so engrained in your habits, so engrossed in yourself that you can't even hear. Can't even respond to God. Or maybe you get so used to thinking about the world in categories that have no regard to God that you can't hear any other kind of truth. There's that path. And the word comes and it never has a chance to grow in you.

But this sower is not concerned. The sower knows there's going to be a harvest. So he keeps sowing. And where does the seed fall next?

On patches of rock. Now I know they don't have such things here, but in other parts of the world they do have these things called rocks and they are persistent. I used to follow my dad around the garden every spring in that orange clay soil around Orange, Virginia when he would till and all these big rocks would come out of the ground. We swore they grew a new crop every year.

If you go up hiking in the mountains sometimes you'll come across a scraggly tree growing out of a big rock outcropping and if you look close there will be a little bit of soil - just enough for the tree to grow, but not enough for it grow big. Certainly not enough for a forest.

So what are the rocky places in our lives?

So when we don't have depth, when we don't ground ourselves in God. When we just live from moment to moment and never seek to do the work of prayer and listening for God. When we get excited on Sunday morning but forget about it all by Sunday afternoon. That's when the seed is falling in rocky ground.

But the sower is confident. The sower knows that this seed is powerful. He knows there's going to be a harvest. So he keeps sowing and now where does the seed fall?

In the thorns. In the weeds. In the place where it has to fight for what it needs to grow. What are the thorny patches in your life?

I don't know about you but I often feel like I'm in a thorny patch. We live in such a culture of distraction that is very easy to find ourselves flitting from one thing to another, never focused on God, never focused on the thing that makes for life. What are some of the names of the thorns in our life?

But the sower is confident. The sower knows there's going to be a harvest. And at last, where does the seed fall?

On fertile ground. Eastern Shore land. And from the seed comes an incredible harvest. A hundredfold even. And who is the fertile earth?

Jesus tells us in verse 23 of chapter 13 that it is the person who hears the word and understands. You are the fertile earth when you hear the word and let it grow in you.

So what have we learned in this story? That the kingdom of heaven is a persistent thing. It does not depend on the health of our spiritual lives. It does not depend on our efforts on its behalf. It can be despised, ignored, competed with, or tuned out, but it will still yield a harvest. The good news of Jesus is that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And God is so confident of this that God does not parcel out the word of the kingdom like a scarce commodity. God spends it out like a drunken sailor.

But here's the question - the kingdom is at hand, but will you be its soil? Will you be receptive to the seed? Will you make space for it to take root in your life? Will you nurture that word within you? Will you repent and believe the good news of the kingdom?

It may seem that the world is godforsaken. It may seem that the work of God is small and irrelevant and decreasing. But that is only our perception - and Lord knows we see through a glass darkly. There is a life of fullness and richness and fertility and abundance all around us. Don't be deceived by the evening news. We are present at a feast. So why do we persist in the things that bring us only death? Why don't we let go of our small-mindedness and receive what God has to give? Thanks be to God.


*http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120623/quotes

A Love Song For All That Will Not Die

A Love Song for All That Will Not Die
June 18, 2011
Virginia United Methodist Annual Conference

I went to the Eastern Shore in 2005 as a result of three things:
a mission trip with college students from the Wesley Foundation at UVA during a freakishly cold Spring Break
the appointment system
and my own big mouth, because it was on that mission trip, as I was sitting down to dinner at Camp Occohannock on the Bay with the then-District Superintendent Jim Hewitt, that I found myself saying, "If you have any openings here, I'd like to be considered."
Two weeks later the move was underway.

Like most things in my life in the Virginia Annual Conference, (and I've got a long history here), I didn't know what I was doing when I got into it. I had no clue what the move was going to involve for my family or for me. I didn't even really know what the Eastern Shore was like. Sometimes it doesn't even show up on maps. People think of it as the end of the earth. Starbucks hasn't even discovered this place yet and they are everywhere. When colleagues heard that the bishop was sending me there they said, "What did you do?"

But friends, let me tell you something, and as Christians you should know this. When somebody tells you that something is dead, be careful. When somebody tells you that that there is no life in this place, be careful because there might be an empty tomb. When somebody tells you that there's a valley of dry bones and a voice says, "Mortal, can these dry bones live?", be careful. When there's a people locked in slavery and a man by a burning bush says, "I can't take that word of freedom back to Egypt," be careful. When there's a promise with no heirs, don't laugh like Sarah behind the tent flap when the promise is repeated. Be careful because this God we proclaim is in the resurrection business.

A few months ago - on Groundhog Day to be exact - I was going back to the Shore across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel - that 17 mile link between Virginia Beach and the Shore. I had been visiting in the hospital across the bay. ("Across the bay" is a peculiar Shore expression. It's applied very loosely. From the perspective of the Shore, everything is "across the bay." Virginia Beach. Across the bay. Norfolk. Across the bay. California. Across the bay.)

At any rate, I had been across the bay and I rolled down the window to pay the toll attendant. That's when it hit me. It had been a long, cold winter. You remember those days? A long, cold winter and Groundhog Day was unusually warm. And when I put the window down it all came flooding in to me. There in the air were memories.

Somewhere in the air were camellias and I was immediately back in my grandmother's garden. Somewhere in the air was the salt breeze of an ocean that was shedding its winter coat. Somewhere in the air were creaking swing sets where I pushed our children on a spring day. Somewhere, I swear, there was rain evaporating from a car's hot engine hood. Somewhere in the air were spring days when I would get into my friend Billy Mack's green Datsun pick-up truck and we would skip school to go...well, there were a lot of things in that air. I could smell it.

With all of that rushing in, I suddenly felt glad to be the age that I was. All of that stuff was in the air for me because of my memory, because of the opportunity I had to live life in this creation for this long. And I wrote a poem, because that's what we do on the Eastern Shore. We are all poets. And the end of the poem said:
When at last
I replaced the glass between memory and me
I sighed a lament
for youth
Not that it was lost
but that the young
should be so immune to what was in the air
With no capacity to resurrect moments that have not yet been
they skim the surface of a shallow sea
It is for those with age to know
what ledges and depths these waters conceal
And to be occasionally
assaulted and affirmed
by all that will not die.

I have been a part of the Virginia Annual Conference for a long time. All of my life. For most of that time I have heard laments and moans, cries of panic and accusation, exhortation and recrimination - all because the United Methodist Church was dying. The United Methodist Church is dying. And I have seen the Revealing Christ campaign and Vision 2000 and All Things New and the Call to Action, all of them born out of the same sense that something fundamental is broken in our witness in the world and something fundamental needs to change because the United Methodist Church is dying.

I don't come tonight to challenge that. Something fundamental does need to change. God will call forth the people. God will continue to set the captive free. If we want to be part of that movement of God's Spirit in the world, we surely must make the United Methodist Church a willing and able instrument. I don't come to challenge the notion that we must change else we die. I come to sing a love song for all that will not die.

Tonight we gather to remember. As we read the names of the faithful servants of the church who have died in the last year, with each name, for some of us in this arena, a flood of memories will come back. These are people, ordinary people just like us, who gave themselves in service through the United Methodist Church because they believed that in doing so they were answering the call of God. As we recall them our minds will be drawn to their personalities, their quirks, their unique habits of dress or speech. We remember moments when we encountered them in very personal ways. The tables where we shared meals. The church meetings where we labored together. The worship services where we sang together. And through it all a grace that made them transparent - even in the flesh, even behind the frailties and the failings - they were sometimes transparent so that the love of God could shine through.

As the names are called I will remember. I will remember William A. Wright, Jr. as a man who never failed to ask me as a youth about how things were going at Trinity:Orange, my home church, which was one of his charges as Charlottesville District Superintendent. Carl Ulrich, who made such a huge transition in his life going from being a lawyer to a pastor - don't tell me God can't perform miracles - and who did it with such a deep thoughtfulness and concern for the church. Joseph T. Carson, Jr. who taught me that any challenge in ministry can be called an opportunity.

And I will remember Elmer A. Thompson, who was so unassuming. So quietly dedicated. So deeply self-aware. And who nurtured a generation of young people though the Youth Engaged in Service program, which produced so many great leaders in the church. When I was in the YES program working with children and seniors in the Highland Park area of Richmond, the letters and visits from Elmer put the Apostle Paul to shame. When I remember Elmer I know there are things that will not die as long as I live.

So many others. And each of them spent most of their ministry in service to a denomination that was told continually that it was becoming culturally irrelevant, that it was not what it used to be, not what it should be, that its future was imperiled and its present was a sign of failure. These servants spent most of their lives hearing this message.

And yet. And yet. These people, clergy and lay, touched lives. They called people to new life in Christ and people responded. They were the environment I grew up in. They instilled in others a sense that the roots of the Methodist movement still had vibrancy and vitality. They held up a vision of what the United Methodist Church could be. They created programs that helped new generations see the possibilities of a life that combines works of piety and works of mercy, spirituality and social justice, open hearts, open minds and open doors. They were not mired in a message of death. Oh, some days maybe. We all have them. But we are here today because they carried something from our past to this day.

When I see young people responding to the call. When I see new faith communities springing up in the unlikeliest of places. When I hear the gospel in the tongues of many different lands. When I see the United Methodist Church still alive in the imaginations of people, I know that God used these people to do something that will not die.

Let's return to the Gospel word from Matthew. What must Jesus' followers have heard when he sat down to teach on the mountain? He shared such strange things with them. Things that must have made no sense to them. Happy are those who mourn? What sort of beatitude is that in the face of death? Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. The world does not work like that, Jesus. Forgive those who sin against you. On and on this Sermon on the Mount goes with one incredible command following another.

Then, just as they must have been wondering, as once they did, "Who then can be saved?"...just as we begin to wonder, "Who then can do this following Jesus thing?"...Jesus begins a little section on the birds of the air and the lilies of the field interlaced with warnings about anxiety. It's like Bobby McFerrin shows up on the mountainside and begins to sing "Don't worry, be happy." Only there is something more going on here.

"Do not be worried about your life - what you will eat or what you will drink. Don't be worried about what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds, who do not sow. Who do not reap. Who do not gather crops into barns. (Those lazy birds.) And yet God feeds them.

"And look at the lilies. They don't work. They don't spin fabric. (Those lazy flowers.) And yet God clothes them like Solomon in all his glory.

"If God feeds birds. If God adorns the grass of the field which is alive today and is gone tomorrow. What are you worried about?"

It's not a call to laziness. It's not a call to be idle or detached from the world. It's not a call to blissful ignorance. It's a call to let go of the thing that kills. It's a call to let go of our fear.

Fear that God might not mean all those promises about the reign of God among us. Fear that maybe salvation, for myself and for the world, is really not about grace and faith but maybe it really does depend on my artfully-planned and well-executed program. Fear of failure. Doubt of self. Lack of trust. Suspicion of the stranger's knock at the door. Denial of hope. Dark thoughts that maybe death really does have the last word. As if the cross and empty tomb mean nothing to a world come of age, to use Dietrich Bonhoeffer's phrase.

"Forget how incredible it all sounds," Jesus says. "Disengage your disbelief and seek ye first the Kingdom of God and God's righteousness and...you know the rest...all these things shall be added unto you. And don't worry about tomorrow...because tomorrow will care for itself."

I once heard the author and poet Mary Karr talk about her journey into writing. Karr came to her faith later in life through a very gritty path. She has won much acclaim and a National Book Award for her memoirs. Mary Karr said that a turning point for her in finding her voice was when she was talking to a priest. She was struggling with her writing. Struggling to know what to write. And the priest asked her, "Mary, what would you write if you weren't afraid?" What would you write if you weren't afraid? For Karr it was the beginning of becoming who she needed to become as a writer.

What would you do if you weren't afraid? What would our church do if we weren't afraid? How would we face down death if we were not afraid but seeking God?

I don't come tonight to deny the realities of this world that is captivated by death. But I do deny that those realities have the capacity to win the day. I learned that through the witness of so many faithful clergy and lay people who sought God and loved the world and passed it on. Some of them we are remembering tonight. And for all those family members who are here: we share in your grief but also in your gratitude for all that God has done in the lives of your loved ones.

We also share in a confidence that the love for God and the love of God that we knew through these servants is something that does not perish. The word they proclaimed in innumerable sermons. The moments when grace pervaded the space between them and another person. The hands we held. The prayers they prayed. The witness they gave in confronting the evil powers of this world. The tears they shed and the laughter. These things do not perish because they grow out of love and, as Song of Songs tells us, "Love is stronger than death; passion fierce as the grave. Many waters cannot quench love."

We also share confidence that tomorrow is not worth our fear because tomorrow is assured. God has already been to tomorrow. The cross and the tomb show us the character of tomorrow. Jesus invites us toward tomorrow without anxiety because Jesus knows that the last word is not death.

So we stand - and we do stand - on tomorrow. It's in the air, just like all those memories. Tomorrow is in the air. It smells like camellias and it sounds like creaking children's swings. It is filled with the presence of God and with the voices of all those saints who sing God's praise. Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't face it with fear. Your desire, your truest desire, is for God. And God is faithful.

I come tonight to sing a love song. A love song for this church which, despite itself sometimes, has sustained the faith and hope of people like you and me. A love song for these human servants who, despite themselves sometimes, embodied that faith and hope for people like you and me. I come tonight to sing a love song for all that will not die. Thanks be to God.

Does God Accept My Questions?

I have really been resisting it, but I think I have to join every other person in the known world and talk about the most important media event in the history of history. I'm talking, of course, about Charlie Sheen. I've tried not to pay attention to this, and I haven't seen any of the interviews or You Tube clips, but it has been impossible. Libya may be in crisis. Japan is in crisis. But we seem to be transfixed by a television star having a major meltdown.

Just to recap this sad story - Sheen is the primary actor on CBS television's highest rated show. In recent years he has been involved in a string of incidents involving domestic violence, substance abuse and general instability. Finally, CBS decided to fire Sheen and end the show. It's all too common a story in Hollywood but what makes Charlie Sheen's story unusual is that he is actually talking about his breakdown to every media outlet he can. And not only talking about his troubles, but glorying in them.

Now, a couple of things. First, why are these networks giving Sheen so much air time? It should be obvious to any interviewer worth her or his salt after the first few minutes that the man is going through a major crisis and his incoherence is a sign that he ought to be in treatment, not on our television screens. Stop the cameras and get out of there. This is not news. I know. I know. Ratings. The same reason that car wrecks and crime stories lead the local news. But I want to go on record, as a former journalist, to say that it is immoral to make money off the misfortunes of others.

Secondly, why do we care? What is it about Charlie Sheen's breakdown that fascinates us? Maybe it's the same thing that causes us to slow down when we pass a car wreck or to turn on the evening news to see them. But here's what interests me - Charlie Sheen let's us see what happens when we let our magical thinking get out of control.

What is magical thinking? It's the kind of thinking that let's us look at the facts of the world around us and yet believe things that are not true. Like "I can buy this new car even though I have no realistic way to pay for it." Or "I'm sorry to hear that you have that you have cancer, but that will never happen to me." Or, on a larger scale, "This war is a war to end all wars." "This agreement with Hitler will mean peace in our time." "The fall of the Soviet Union is the end of history." "8-track tapes will be the most advanced music technology ever." Magical thinking.

So when Charlie Sheen says that he is tired of pretending that he is not a total rock god from Mars, it's only an extreme example of what happens all the time among us humans. We are an optimistic race, always believing that the world can be and that we can be something other than we are. We have a hard time being realistic.

Which brings me to Jesus. You might have noticed the change in colors up front today. The church year is going into the season known as Lent. Purple reflects the themes of royalty and what it means that Jesus is king, but also the theme of reflection on his journey to the cross and what his suffering reveals about how God works in the world. During Lent we are invited to walk with Jesus on this journey and to deepen our connection to him. We are invited to explore our questions about who we are in the light of God.

Lent begins every year with the reading of Jesus going out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. When you think about it, this is a really strange story. I mean, just who did the devil think Jesus was that he thought he could tempt him? And why did Jesus go out into the desert in the first place to fast, of all things? He was God. Did he really need to prepare?

There is a purpose to all this, though. Matthew tells us that Jesus "was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil" (v. 1). The temptation was not a sideshow taking place alongside the main event of Jesus fasting - it was the reason for the trip in the first place. Some important confrontation is happening out there.

It may help to know where Jesus is coming from, though. He has just been baptized by John in the Jordan River, which is also a really strange thing. It was so strange that John tried to prevent it from happening. "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" he asks (3:14). The sight of the Son of God coming to a man who was baptizing people for the forgiveness of sins was bound to raise eyebrows.

Here's the thing, though. This Son of God was also fully human. And by going under the water he symbolically enters into the sin of the world. Jesus came into the world in order to confront just this problem - a problem as old as Adam and Eve. We know that the we are living in a misshapen, fallen world. Sin is the condition that keeps us from living out our true destiny. We've known it since the first moment. Adam and Eve go, in the course of 8 verses, from being naked and unashamed, to being naked and ashamed. Something evil has entered this world. Something beyond our power is here. And Jesus has come to take on the sin of the world. To be one of us and yet still God.

So he goes out into the wilderness, a place with a lot of symbolism for the people of God. The wilderness is where the great prophet Elijah went for 40 days to fast. The wilderness is where the people of Israel wandered for 40 years as they prepared to enter the Holy Land. But it wasn't just a place. Karl Barth, the great theologian, tells us that "the wilderness was a place which, like the sea, had a close affinity with the underworld, a place which belonged in a particular sense to demons." How many of us watched those images of the sea rising up to swallow whole towns in Japan and didn't wonder at its awesome power? Who could stand in the face of such a thing? That's what Jesus was doing by going out there. As Barth says, Jesus was showing that "his way will never be at a safe distance from the kingdom of darkness but will always be along its frontier and finally within that kingdom."* Jesus, in other words, is taking the fight to the enemy.

So there he is in the desert. 40 days he goes without food and, just so we get the point, the Bible tells us that after those 40 days he was famished. That's when the tempter shows up.

Now, we have not talked about this so far. You may be saying to yourself, "Do we really believe in the devil?" Maybe you've never seen the devil. Maybe you're expecting that if he did show up he would look like the devil that shows up in cartoons with red skin and a pointy tail. Our imaginations are not good enough to get a handle on what the Bible means when it talks about the tempter, the devil, Satan. (He's called all three in this passage.) Our temptation is to make this figure out to be more powerful than he is. He is a fallen angel with no ultimate power and no existence like you and I know existence. What power he has comes from his ability to deceive and mislead us. As another theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, says, "The devil's only viable mode of operation is to 'tempt.' The devil can be only a parasite, which means that the devil is only as strong as the one he tempts."** Even so - this parasite has caused a lot of trouble. But to answer the question - do we believe in the devil? No, we believe in God but we talk about the devil because the Bible does and because we know how evil creeps into every life making the devil seem all too real.

The devil comes to Jesus and tempts him the first time. "If you're the Son of God..." You know, the Bible doesn't say that the snake in the garden of Eden was the devil, but they certainly sound similar don't they? The serpent says to Eve, "Did God really say, 'Don't eat of the tree'?" Inviting her to doubt what she knows to be true. Now the devil says, "If you're the Son of God," as if that were an open question. "If you're the Son of God, and I know you're hungry, turn these stones into bread."

Jesus is the Son of God and he will do miracles to feed the five thousand and the four thousand. Surely he can do what the devil says. But what would happen if he did? Who's to know the difference? Barth says, "What would it have meant if Jesus had yielded? He would have used the power of God which He undoubtedly had like a technical instrument placed at his disposal to save and maintain His own life."*** He could have done it, but at what cost? He would no longer be the one who came to trust God fully and to give his life for the world. What he asked of his disciples was just what he did himself. "Those who love their life in this world will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it to eternal life" (John 12:26).

So when the devil tempts him with bread, Jesus quotes Scripture. He knows his Bible. He quotes Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 3 in a section where Moses was telling the people of Israel that God had tested them in the wilderness by giving them manna so that they would understand that "one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."

The devil tries again. "Jesus, come with me." And he takes Jesus up to Jerusalem. How? We don't know. He puts Jesus on the highest point of the temple and says, "If you are the Son of God..." Still trying to put a seed of doubt there. Or maybe he's just trying to get Jesus riled up. "If you are the Son of God, jump off, because the Scripture says...(the devil knows his Bible, too)...the Scripture says angels will come to prevent you stubbing your toe."

A small temptation. Let's have a little show. Let's have you jump off in a death-defying leap and save your life. Again - what's at stake? What would it hurt? The text doesn't even say that anyone was around to watch it, so it might not even be a public thing at all. But if Jesus had done it, he would have been putting God's grace to the test to save himself. When the time comes Jesus will take that leap. He will put himself at risk of death. And he will do it not for himself, but for us. And he will not be spared a stubbed toe. He will be crucified and he will die. For you and for me.

Again he quotes Deuteronomy. Chapter 6 verse 16 if you want a reference. "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

A third time the devil tempts him. (All good stories have their threes.) This time they go up to a very high mountain. Usually biblical characters go up a high mountain to meet God. Moses. Elijah. Jesus and the disciples at the Transfiguration. But this time, the devil takes Jesus up a mountain so high that all the kingdoms of the earth stretch out before them. And all the wonders of the earth, the riches of human wealth, are laid out. "These are yours," the devil says. (This time he doesn't bother to say, "If you are the Son of God," because that's been established. This is what it's all about.) "These are yours," he says, "if you will just worship me."

And what if he had? What would it have hurt? A little nod to the devil and he could rule the world. He was a good man. The best. What a ruler he would be! No one would have to know that had gotten his position by worshipping the devil. But if he had, then his mission would have been over before he began. He may have done good, but he would not have done what it is that he came to do -- to overtrow he evil powers of this world and reverse the curse brought by sin. And to do it all, not by taking over the position of the powerful, but by emptying himself of all power and submitting to the worst the world could do to him.

"Away with you, Satan!" he said. "It is written," (Deuteronomy 6, verse 13), "Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him." With that, the devil left him, until, Luke tells us, "an opportune time" [Luke 4:13].

So what's the magical thinking the devil tempts you with? I'm guessing most of you don't really believe that you have tiger blood or that you are a rock star from Mars. But you might be tempted to think that there is some shortcut around the sufferings of this world. You might be tempted to think that if God really loves me, God will give me the winning lottery ticket or even just a raise. You might be tempted to think that those bad things you've done are not really that bad. Given the circumstances you're living with they're understandable. With the right lawyer, no jury in the land would convict you. So really, why would God? You might be tempted to believe that the rules don't always apply to you so why not give in to your impulses, no matter how destructive you've seen them be for others?

You might be tempted...but then the problems come. The doctor comes back with a diagnosis that doesn't look good. Your bad habits turn into addictions. Your benign neglect of your spouse turns into divorce. The earth shakes and the waters rise and you wonder where is this God I have taken for granted? And you are tempted to despair.

When the magical thinking breaks down and we are left with the realities of life in a broken world, all the little justifications of our lives turn into questions. Does God accept our questions? That's the title of this sermon, by the way. Does God accept our questions? What else is there that God would accept from us? Our answers are always going to be partial and insufficient. So it is our questions that lead us to God.

It's a strange little thing we're doing here in Lent. We began it on Wednesday by putting ashes on our forehead to mark the inescapable reality that we are mortal. No magical thinking can get us beyond that fact. We are human beings. We came from the dust and to dust we shall return. Our journey through Lent begins with ashes and it ends with the cross. But just beyond the cross is an empty tomb that tells us that being human is not the same thing as being hopeless. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. His righteousness. Let's walk this Lenten journey together, following Jesus' footsteps home.

Thanks be to Jesus who has gone through into the wilderness before us - out to where the demons live - and who has risen victorious so that we can live, too. Thanks be to God.

*Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, trans. by G.W. Bromiley, [T&T Clark: Edinburgh, 1956], p. 260. Referred to hereafter as Barth.

**Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew [Brazos: Grand Rapids, MI, 2006], p. 51.

***Barth, p. 261.

The Changing Face of Happiness

Jesus says, “Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” You know that’s another way to translate the Beatitudes. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit can also be ‘happy are the poor in spirit.’ But what is happiness?

I know a place full of happy people. “Animal Crossing.” It was a big hit in my house for awhile. In this video game you are a little guy or girl wandering about a town populated by animals who live in stylish little cabins and who seem to have an endless supply of errands that need to be run. There is a post office where you can mail notes to your new friends or other players. There is a stream where you can fish, a museum where you can take treasures you’ve found, and a train station where you can ride the rails to the next town, which looks just like the one you left.

The major task of your life in Animal Crossing, however, is to collect things and decorate your own stylish little cabin (which can quickly grow to a substantial house if you’re good at the game). To do this you earn bells, which are the currency of the land, and take them to Tom Nook’s store to buy things like carpet and wall coverings and furniture and knick-knacks. In Tom Nook’s store you can even buy the “executive’s toy,” that thing which consists of five steel balls suspended from strings and when you take one and bang it into the end of the others physics takes hold and merriment ensues.

There is something empty about the happy world of Animal Crossing, though. Is this what the good life is all about? Or does the game only mimic the worst trivialities of the real world? In a land with no culture, no churches, and no schools, what do people do? They busy themselves by filling up space with manufactured knick-knacks! The world will not end in fire or ice, it will end in an overstuffed chair watching an “executive’s toy” click-clack away the last fading seconds of our pitiful lives.

My house in the game, by the way, was always a wreck since I don’t have the patience to organize it correctly. Otherwise, though, it was sweet.

Why do I bring up Animal Crossing? Because I think we may be finding it hard to know when we’re happy these days. We comfort ourselves with diversions and devices but maybe you, like me, fear that something essential about ourselves is being neglected, that we are somehow disconnected from something more meaningful and more substantial. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever wondered if the ideals of the world or of your working life were tissue thin and ultimately deceptive?

The Sermon on the Mount begins with the Beatitudes, that series of blessings which we just read. Here Jesus takes his disciples up a hillside away from the crowds who could easily have deluded the disciples into believing that what they were called to be a part of us was a mass, popular crusade. When they looked at the people they could say, “This is not some sideshow. This is a movement! Look at all the people. We must be doing something right. We must be saying something that makes sense. You go, Jesus!”

But Jesus takes them aside and says, “No, it’s not like that. You think this makes us successful. Let me tell you a little bit about God’s standards. It’s not about feeling full, it’s about feeling empty. It’s about meekness and mourning. It’s about poverty of spirit and purity of heart. It’s about hungering and thirsting after righteousness. It’s about mercy and peace. And for you, even for you, it’s about persecution because when you really hear what I’m saying, you will not have crowds coming to celebrate your name. You will have nations who do not understand and powers that do not want to listen.”

With the beatitudes Jesus seems to say that we have lived too long in the bright lights of the city. We have become seduced by values that now seem wise and rational. We can call ‘war’ peace and no one will flinch. We can call ‘oppression’ freedom. We can call ‘neglect’ charity. We can leave a whole generation of children behind and say that we lost none.

It is no different in the depths of our souls. We can say we care for others, but can’t get over ourselves. We can say we’ve got it all together when inside we’re falling apart. We can say we don’t care about making a fortune, but we wouldn’t mind. We can say that sin is an old-fashioned word when our own limitations and delusions stare us right in the face every morning.

What Jesus says in the Beatitudes is that if you are frustrated in figuring out how to make it into this equation…if you can’t find yourself in one of these blessed categories, “poor in spirit, mourning, meek, peacemaker, persecuted,” then perhaps you are still too seduced. These words are not meant to be comforting. They are meant to be disturbing. They are not meant to be a pat on the back, they are meant to be a kick in the rear. God is not waiting in the world we have created for ourselves. If God were there we would have already found her. God is waiting in the world and home we have left behind…in the world which operates according to standards that make no sense unless we live with them every day. Jesus gives us these strange little notions of happiness (Happy are those who mourn? Really?) because we need to be tripped up to pay attention again.

Martin Buber, was a twentieth-century Jewish thinker who felt that God could be discovered in dialogue. His most famous writing was “I and Thou” and in it he talks about how our normal interaction with the world is instrumental. I see the world as a collection of “its” - things which I can more or less comprehend and which I don’t have to interact with as if they have a claim on me. I can pick up my spoon at breakfast and it usually doesn’t talk back. I don’t think about my spoon very often. We can even start to treat other people that way. This is the bank teller, that’s the bus driver. Even in our most comfortable relationships we fall into a pattern.

But when we call something “Thou” we say something more intimate. A “Thou” has an impact on me. It troubles my easy definitions. When I have a long talk with a person I thought I knew, what I thought I knew about them and about me changes. They rise above the level of my previous understandings. They become a “Thou” and it is no accident that this is also the most common reference to God in old translations of the Bible. “Thou hast made us.” In the true encounter with others and the world we sense the eternal source of others and the world. We sense God. But we have to get our understandings messed up first. We have to hear how upside down God’s values are when compared to the world’s.

So my message today is to pay attention. Being happy in this world does not consist of comfort and riches. Happiness is about being God-directed. It’s about letting God come disturb us. It’s about listening to the deep hunger within us for righteousness. It’s about looking for God in our poverty of spirit and in our mourning. It’s about the humility that knows we don’t know it all, but which trusts with a purity of heart that God does.

Happiness is knowing that the world is God’s. The world is shot through with God. And God leaves no place untouched or unredeemed. Thanks be to God.

Matthew 5:1-12 [NRSV]

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”