This week’s news headlines have left me deeply troubled. The ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, the attack on Malaysian airlines flight 17, the severe weather faced by so many across the country...as we’d say in Adult Education where we’ve been praying the news, “help”. When we are faced with this kind of overwhelming grief and trouble, sometimes it’s easy to stand back and determine who’s “good” and who’s “bad”, who needs help and who deserves punishment. But these aren’t ultimately our judgments to make. So given the events of the week, the gospel lesson for today has been a bit difficult for me; it can't be tidied up. I can't package it and present it nicely. It leaves me with too many unresolved questions. And if I wanted to be really honest, the gospel lesson makes it easy for me to stand in a place of self-righteous judgment and look at the world events through the lense of “I’m the wheat and they’re the weeds”. But I think it might be best to leave the sorting to God. Let’s start with the reading from Genesis--the story of Jacob's ladder. This has become one of those beloved Old Testament stories, but I'm not sure most people know why other than we get this great visual of angels going up and down the escalator to heaven. But really this story challenges us because I think that from time to time many of us are like Jacob. We are smart folks who look out for our best interests...which isn't necessarily a bad thing, except when it means exploiting others. And that's what Jacob has done. He talked his hungry brother into giving over his birthright (inheritance) for a cup of lentil stew. No wonder Esau was angry! And so Jacob is a man on the run from his brother. He is fearful that his devious actions will catch up with him. And along his journey back to his mother's homeland, he stops to rest for the evening and has the most wonderful dream. In his dream, God says to him, "Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go...for I will not leave you". That is incredibly reassuring. When we hear this, we take comfort in knowing that God is with all of us...even if we're not perfect, even if we sometimes do bad things, even if we feel unworthy. This dream is also a step in the right direction for Jacob. His spiritual journey to becoming a keeper of the covenant with God begins with this dream. He didn't know that God was present with him, and when he discovered this relationship, he gives thanks. It would be easy to stop there and ask "when is God present and how do we know it" or "how do we give thanks for God's presence with us". And my sermon would be neat and tidy, and we could all go home feeling good about ourselves. But no. We're confronted by Jesus and his parable about the weeds and the wheat. To the original audience, this was a good news parable. But for us, I'm just not sure what to make of it. So let's take a look at the original audience. Who were they---they were the outcasts, the marginalized, the prostitutes, beggars and tax collectors. In their world, they would have been considered the weeds in a world of pious, law abiding Pharisees (the wheat). And yet, because Jesus teaches that the world is upside down, he puts his followers into the category of wheat and tells them that yes, because sometimes we can't differentiate between weeds and wheat, that we grow up together, and that it is up to God (the harvester) to pick out the weeds at the time of Judgment. And in this world, Jesus' followers would have been encouraged to persevere, knowing that one day they would be redeemed, and overcome their persecutions. And if I thought that we could honestly stand back and see ourselves as wheat, we would sing "We shall overcome" and go home feeling good about ourselves. But I just don't think it's that easy. First of all, I think we’ve all had moments where we’ve acted like Jacob. In other words, I think that because we are the majority (let's face it---we're white, middle class Americans living in one of the most expensive communities in Oregon), we sometimes forget that the way we live our lives can be at the expense of others. Where does our food come from? Well, for some of us, we try to live organically and locally, but if you enjoy a good Reese's peanut butter cup like I do, well, you're participating in the slave labor of children in another country who make those candies. Where do your clothes come from? Are they made here in the US or in a sweatshop somewhere? Or what about your bottled water? Not only is it wasteful to not recycle, but by buying bottled water, you are contributing to corporations who take control of public water resources and turn the profits over to their stakeholders and executives, instead of contributing to the communities they are in. The list can go on and on. And sometimes when we are faced with these and other issues, we'd rather think it's not really our problem, or that the problem is too big to tackle. And so we go on about our business as usual. In other words, we don't pay attention to the dreams when God appears and says "I am with you and will not leave you...but you've got to make some changes in your life". Even when we hear the parable of the weeds and the wheat, we think, "well, there's redemption for us all...even if I'm a weed, I could become wheat later". But that's not what Jesus says! Jesus says that in the end, the weeds will be separated from the wheat and thrown into the fire. Now I don't know about you, but I don't want that to be how the judgment ends up for me! So what do we do? Well, I think we have to be intentional about the way we live in relationship with one another. It wasn't so long ago that this country was overtaken by weeds, and we were able to persevere through the Civil Rights movement, acknowledging the humanity and dignity of all our brothers and sisters. And we're still going through these types of weedy moments in our local communities and in the larger, global community. Sometimes we're the weeds perpetrating the injustice, and sometimes, we’re the wheat that has to persevere. Either way, we have to do better, stand taller, and trust that God knows us and is present to us. As the psalmist says, God knows our comings in and goings out. God is here all the time. And it is through God's grace that we are able to say "Search me out, O God, and know my heart...Look well whether there be any wickedness in me and lead me in the way that is everlasting". Amen.
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AuthorI don't know what the future of the church is, but I know that we will continue to be a place of sanctuary and hope, working towards healing in the world. Archives
October 2017
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