In 2009 I sat on the window seat looking out at the grey sky, watching the birds busily make breakfast from the last of the seeds in the feeders. As I gazed out south toward an approaching storm, I wondered if it would be rain, snow, sleet, or hail? I had hoped for some snow.

Snow is so cheerful, so delicate to watch as it floats down from heaven to gently kiss the earth. Then, after flakes have accumulated for some time, the snow begins to soften all the rough edges, gently transforming the earth into one smooth white blanket.

Two nights ago I went to bed and couldn’t go to sleep right away because I was entranced by a heavy, wet snowfall illuminated by the street lamp just across from our bedroom window. Large flakes just kept coming down. As I watched them, a sense of peace filled me; a sense that I have been missing for some time. When the snow falls, it causes a transformation; it takes all things recognizable and by its very nature causes us to look at things in a new perspective, because things become altered even as we know that what lies under that mound over there is a bush now covered by snow, smoothing all the rough edges…

Isn’t that like Christ? He, who was born so many years ago and whose life fulfilled so many prophecies from Hebrew scriptures. He, who came to “make the rough places plain.” He, whose life has impacted entire civilizations with God’s message, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!” He, whose example of selfless giving and sacrifice has become a model for so many faithful seekers longing to live a meaningful life of compassion, mercy, justice, and love. He came to soften our rough edges, to save us from our world-roughened selves.

What rough edges have you gained this past year?

What would it take to smooth them out again?

In what way does Jesus make the rough places plain for you?

Do you find yourself in the role of transformer, transformed, or both?

Have you set any goals for your spiritual life for the new year?

As you reflect on these things, may the Almighty One give you the gentle arms and outstretched hands that you need to step forward into newness with faith.

~ Scott T. Crane

Home. Going home for the holidays. Many of you must have certain places that trigger in your memories all that is good, all that stands for the deepest yearnings toward earthly happiness that one can hope to achieve. Is it a quality of the air breathed in that place? Is it familiar landscape with a certain feel about it? Is it because of some moments of formation from the past that were particularly stirring? Is it a special friend or friends you see maybe once a year? Is it because it is that much more familiar as a sanctuary of solace? Or is it simply taking a break from the regular routine; mysteriously causing a shift of perspective to things more meaningful in life than the daily grind of work?

Beyond the simple physical, I think there is much more to going home than that. Home is a place that echoes to us of something more. It is a journey backwards, a pilgrimage to a time before this time. On the spiritual sense, going home is where the soul safely resides, the place where one is most complete. It is the heart of things that we long for. It is the authentic presence of the Other of which we are all a part. When one is home, it is as if for a moment that Other seems much nearer than before, almost as if we can reach out and bridge the gap between this time and the time before; this place and the place we’ve journeyed from.

Yet it is also an echo from the future. Going home is knowing there are open arms waiting to draw you close. Going home is knowing there is a place prepared just for you. For a faithful heart, going home is knowing that the soul will come to rest on a farther shore. Divine hospitality waits for those who travel on pilgrim feet, and it is my prayer for you this year that your path will bring you ever nearer to the bosom of God. After all, any expression of home that we find in this worlds-realm is upheld by a much brighter existence imprinted in the very heart of things, the heart of our ultimate and eventual Home.

May the Peace of Christmas be with you, now and forever.

Scott T. Crane

Camp buildings are closed up and the silence at night (in between occasional traffic on the country road) settles over everything now that the other school program staff have left for their holiday vacations. The snow lays like a white blanket upon the ground. I watch tiny intermittent flakes drift down from a gray sky, blown by an occasional wind. Snaking out into the lake like a ribbon is a small remnant of as yet unfrozen water. Across the lake bare branches outlined by snow stand in mute testimony while an occasional evergreen brings sharp contrast.

Winter is a time of reflection, and I find myself ruminating on the dream that caused me to move from Anchorage, AK to Newaygo, MI. For years I have dreamed about working full-time at a camp, and now that I am here, what lesson have I learned? Hard it is to embrace a dream that has been reached, for then it is no longer a dream but a daily occurrence. Even as I take stock of what has been, I hold it up to the Light and find that shining through from the other side are yet still more illusive and unfulfilled dreams that march ahead of me into the mists. Some have been with me as long or longer than my camp dream.

One thing remains clear as snow once again begins to fall and obscure the far-seeing eye. Every moment of our lives, we are where we are supposed to be. Some lesson can be learned from each dream that dissolves into mist, each castle in the sand that we recreate from those same mists. Our task is to reach out and grasp at the meanings, to realize in our hearts what is most important, and to live a peaceable life accepting with humble grace the lessons we learn. “Look up, and laugh, and love and lift…”

It is not always that we know in the exact moment it happens the importance of any event in our life, or the importance of others in our life. But it is clear that we are given the chance to be thankful for our lessons learned and our friends gained. So I urge you to be thankful and lift up in prayer your lessons, friends, and family.

Peace of Christmas,

~Scott Crane

When you are faced with times in your life that mirror the longest nights of the year, how do you think about the light?  Is it a-far off in the distance, glimmering so wanly in the wintry sky?  Or, do you hold it close as a candle flame, cupping the small warmth in your hand and casting out around you in the dark, letting the small light kindle hope in a small sphere of influence all around you?

Let Christ offer you the gift of light this winter season.  May the candle flames of His vision and purpose lighten your dark days, bringing to your hearts the time and space you need to kindle your own inner embers back into the bright flame of hope that waits for the coming of the Light.

Season’s Greetings,

Scott T. Crane – scottrick.wordpress.com

God is Persuaded

Let us pray:  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

In the wee hours of the morning, rain was falling on the roof and I could hear trees outside being tossed by the wind.  I was writing when my son Timothy let out a piercing wail I heard all the way down stairs that let me know something wasn’t quite right, something beyond normal middle of the night hunger.  Just in case, on my way upstairs, I made a quick detour into the kitchen to fetch a bottle from the refrigerator.  When I arrived in the nursery, Timothy was standing in his crib holding onto the rail and crying out.  Putting his bottle down on the bookshelf, I took him in my arms and whispered, “There, there, it’s going to be all right, it’s alright my boy,” and I held him tightly.  He began to quiet down.

Then I proceeded to turn on the light and change his diaper.  His volume went back up a bit at that point.  I quickly finished changing him and picked him up and held him again as I eased over to the rocking chair, turned the light back out and groped for his bottle in the dark.  He began to quiet down even before I found his mouth and managed to get the bottle positioned just right.  He took a few swallows, and then turned his face away.  I put the bottle back down and rocked him, back and forth, back and forth in time to the ticking of the clock: tick  -  tock;  tick  -  tock.  I rocked him for a while, longer than I normally do.  One of our cats jumped up on my lap and joined us, purring.  Timothy slowly fell asleep in my arms.  As I listened to the rain beat on the roof and the trees outside being tossed by the wind, all slowly became quieter as the storm wore itself out.  Then, and only then, it slowly dawned on me that it hadn’t been about hunger.  It had been about comfort.

Moses was a man who, when he was first summoned out of Midian to return to Egypt on behalf of his people, argued against God’s call on him, saying, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant.  I am slow of speech and tongue.”  Before finally giving in and going down into Egypt to lead the Israelites out of slavery, Moses tried one last time to get out of it, saying, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”

In today’s passage, however, Moses speaks out with God, saying “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.”

The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

For Moses, that was not enough.  He goes on to argue most persuasively with God, “If your Presence does not got with us, do not send us up from here.  How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us?  What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

God is persuaded to listen to Moses and answers, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”  Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”

At first glance, it seems Moses came a long way from that first encounter at the burning bush when he trembles and falls face down on the ground to avoid looking at the Holy.  Now he demands to see God’s glory?  However, I wonder perhaps if Moses hasn’t actually come as far as we first think.  His conversation with God leads me to believe it is actually about something else. I think Moses was looking for the reassurance that comes from knowing he would not be alone.  “How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and your people unless you go with us?” Moses asks.  It was not about the hunger to see God’s glory.  It was about comfort.

Separated by 6000 years or so, it is still the same question Timothy was asking me with his wordless cry in the wee hours of the morning:  “Daddy, are you there?  Will you keep me safe?  I’m scared.  I don’t want to be alone.”

“And the Lord said [to Moses], ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.  I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.  You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.  I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.  Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

That is a powerful reassurance for Moses in his time of need, and indeed, as the Common Lectionary takes us further through Exodus we see how

God is indeed with Moses and with the Israelites through all their desert experiences and on into their promised land.

That is not the only story we are given for today.  I must confess I was intrigued how the collaborators for the Common Lectionary made a connection between this story with Moses and today’s New Testament passage in the Gospel of Matthew.

What connection did the Lectionary writers see? As I read them over and over, some central questions from each text began to emerge for me; and they may give us a clue. As we have already heard, Moses demands of God, “How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us?  What will distinguish [us]?”

The New Testament passage seems to point to a completely different question: “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

You can imagine how perplexing it was for me to unravel the connection between these two passages, until I began to ask myself, “Is the the central question about taxes?”  As I reflected on the answer Jesus gave to them, I suspect there was a much deeper question, one that was not even recorded or spoken aloud, but Jesus, who sees straight into the hearts of all, answered instead that deeper question.

For Moses, the deeper issue was one of comfort and identity: “Are you going to go with us?” “I don’t want to be left alone.”  “Will you keep us safe?” “How will we be distinguished from all the other people on the face of the Earth?”

In the Gospel story, we may have to dig a little deeper to discover the unspoken question Jesus answers.  The Pharisees, who were ardent Israel nationalists opposed to Roman rule, and the Herodians, who were ardent supporters of the Roman Empire, were normally in direct conflict.  In this instance a rare collaboration occurs to trap Jesus in his own words.  Why?  These very different groups, usually on opposite ends of any issue, come to Jesus with flattering words and ask, “Tell us, then, what is your opinion?  Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

Here’s what the Pharisees and Herodians think they were about to do: they thought they would entrap Jesus by forcing him into a black and white answer.  Either the “yes” or “no” answer would have been beneficial to these two groups; for both wanted Jesus silenced.  According to both the laws of the land (Roman) and the laws of the religious (Pharisees) this is what would have happened:

If Jesus had said, “No,” the Herodians would have reported him to the Roman governor and he would have been executed for treason; for not paying taxes is in effect saying, “you have no jurisdiction over me and I defy your sovereignty.”  If he had said, “Yes,” the Pharisees would have denounced him to his fellow Israelites as disloyal to his own people and thus be liable for the highest punishment due violators of the Jewish law, understood by the Pharisees to be handed down from the time of Moses.  Either way, Jesus is removed from the scene and the Herodians and Pharisees can go about their own business secure in their two-party conflict.

Let’s reexamine these central questions, and direct them instead to ourselves, in our context today.  In the words of Moses, how would anyone know that God is pleased with you?  Especially for Christians this question has real relevance.  Faced with our modern reality where mainline Reformed churches are shrinking, what distinguishes us; you, me, or anyone who loves and follows the Lord?  How will we know that God is with us?  Those are the first questions.

For the second questions, we may need a little bit more background on the Gospel of Matthew before we can discern for what purpose did Matthew include this story about giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.

Biblical scholars tell us that the community for which Matthew was written was caught somewhere in the transitional process from Jewish sect to Christian religion.  Some of the pressing issues continually addressed in this Gospel center around wrestling with the validity of Jewish law – that is, the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament as we know it – and its traditions and the fulfillment of its scriptures for a new age.

The question posed to Jesus certainly points to a wrestling of conscious about Jewish law – versus Roman law.

Matthew was written in Greek, so it’s original readers and hearers were Greek-speaking.  However, Biblical scholars tell us they also seem to have been Jews, as there are elements throughout the Gospel that point this out.  Some examples include Matthew’s concern with fulfillment of Old Testament passages: tracing the decent of Jesus from the Jewish patriarch Abraham, use of Jewish terminology such as “Kingdom of Heaven,” which points to the Jewish hesitancy to use God’s name when reading or speaking, the emphasis on Jesus as the Son of David, linking him to the Golden Age of Ancient Israel when both church and state were linked inextricably together and David expanded the Kingdom almost to its furthest reach.

Yet here we are, in the midst of the Roman Empire, with the Israel people subjugated, no longer an independent nation, and faced with all the obligations of Roman citizenship whether they want it or not.

In the midst of all these specific Jewish references to Matthew’s community, Matthew also includes intriguing examples of a universal religious outlook, stretching the claim of Jesus Christ as Lord and Messiah to those outside the fold of the Jewish flock; something never before considered. For example, the coming of the Magi.  They are most definitely not Jewish, yet they come to worship the infant Jesus, King of the Jews.  Also woven into Matthew’s account is the view that Jesus saw the harvest as the entire world, not just a harvest of Israelites.  Matthew’s full statement of the Great Commission makes this abundantly clear:

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. (Mt. 28:19-20).

In today’s passage, Matthew brilliantly records what Jesus says in answer to the question about paying the tax: “Show me the coin used for paying the tax.  Whose portrait is this?  And whose inscription?”

“Caesar’s” they reply.  Then he said to them,

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

(Hold up one hand) In the words of Moses, “How will anyone know that you are pleased with [us] unless you go with us?  What will distinguish [us]?”

(Hold up the other hand) Jesus says, “Give to Caesar what is Caesars, and give to God what is God’s.”

Again, for our own context, (Hold up one hand) How do we know that God is with us?

And again for our context, (Hold up the other hand) “Give to God what is God’s.”

I submit this is the central question of our New Testament passage for today: Are we giving to God what is God’s?  Are we giving ourselves wholly over to the Lord and to the work of the kingdom of heaven?  And, like Moses, how do we know if we are giving of our whole selves to God and to God’s purposes for us in this community and in this place and time?

God, are you there?  Will you keep us safe?  We may be scared and uncertain of our future, but like Moses and Timothy, we don’t want to be left alone.  We long for the very near comfort of God as we move forward into the unknown.

Friends, be at peace, for even as a coin inscribed with an image of Caesar tells all that it is Caesar’s, inscribed on our very deepest and inner-most selves, we are made in God’s image, male and female, created in God’s likeness.  Friends, there is no doubt, God is with us.

The challenge remains: with these God-shaped hands in these limited and imperfect bodies, it is ours to enact the love of God in this place and time, reaching out with the arms of Jesus, the grace of God, and the life of the kingdom of heaven.  This is no easy task, but remember, God, who is inscribed on our very beings, is with us every step of the way.

May the glory that is God’s shine for all to see, and may the One who lived, died, and rose again for us, even Him who is the Christ, show us the Way.  Amen.

It’s interesting that when ministers are asked what their most formative Christian spiritual experience was that led to their choice of vocation that something like half of them say, “Summer church camp!”  In our comments section there has been some interest in exploring what “Earth Church” might look like.   A highly successful Jewish spiritual community in Boulder, CO is centered around activities where people experience God in nature.  Check out their website at www.adventurerabbi.org.  There has also been a resurgence in exploring Celtic Christianity and nature-based spiritualities.

I think there is something to this cultural yearning we are having about returning to nature.  I am not sure what the full message is yet.  But, I do wonder if our traditions have lost touch with our connection to nature as we moved to the cities and our religious traditions became more rooted in buildings and social networks.  I do know that today I felt like God and I were playfully teasing each other in a way that I often don’t get in my church experience.

How remarkable that such a playful interchange can still be felt in the midst of life-endangering weather.  I am awed at the ability to view his experience in this way.  But I am also craving for my own journey the ability to view all life experiences-and nature is ranked up on my highest favorites list-as an interchange between God and my own little self.  How amazing it would be if we could just turn over in our mind and see God teasing and laughing with us in life.

Common Lectionary for Sunday, August 11, 2011

Genesis 45:1-15

Matthew 15: 21-28

Let us Pray.  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts together be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

Several years ago, the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators used the term Sankofa as the theme for their annual national convention.  Sankofa is an African word meaning “flying forward, reaching back.”  In essence, it is the art of moving in a forward direction while recognizing and claiming the past.  It helps us understand who we are, and why and how we came to be.  It also gives us a foundation for growing into who and/or what we will become.

Joseph, in today’s Old Testament lesson, interprets the time his brothers abducted him and sold him into slavery in a much broader scope than their heated actions of the moment about 10 years before.  He looks back and sees what they did out of jealousy and anger.  He sees it as a life-defining moment that prepared him to later preserve their life during a 7-year famine.  Here’s what happened:

Since the time they sold him, he experienced trials and tribulations through allegations of adultery and prison time.  Even in prison God was with him, interpreting dreams for his fellow prisoners.  Finally, through God’s gift of dream interpretation for Pharaoh himself, Joseph ends up in the second highest seat of power in Egypt.

With God’s grace he leads brilliantly, putting in place a program of saving a portion- or tithe- of food each harvest for 7 years of plenty and then providing a positive revenue stream for Pharaoh through the selling of those very same foodstuffs during the 7 years of famine that follow.  When his brothers arrive, two years into the famine looking to buy food for their small tribe, Joseph interprets all that happened to him in the past in light of what he can now do to serve his family into the future.  Flying Forward, Reaching Back.

When Joseph first reveals himself to his brothers, they are terrified and can only look back at their earlier actions.  They stand before him mute and trembling.  Surely Joseph will punish them for their actions, as he would have every right to do.  God, however, propels all of them forward into a strange future together; one that will bring five more years of drought to the land, but one in which Joseph, Benjamin, the rest of his brothers and even their father Israel, all arrive from their homeland in Canaan to settle in Goshen, Egypt where Joseph the younger brother provides for them all.

In our New Testament lesson today, we have Jesus himself learning to take a broader look at things.  The Canaanite woman comes and asks for a miracle, and Jesus, being the dutiful Son of God, claims he is has only been sent to the lost sheep if the house of Israel, meaning the twelve tribes, or the families of the descendents of Jacob-who if you recall God renamed Israel- and of which Joseph was the head of one of those tribes.

The Canaanite woman persists with unassailable logic and in the end wins Jesus over to her cause, Gentile that she is.   With this story, Matthew deftly interprets the grace of God as being extended to all people—not just the Jews, who are the descendents of the 12 tribes of Israel—Matthew universalizes the grace of God for all—even Gentiles!  This, my friends, is a foretaste of the Great Commission that is to come 13 chapters later in Matthew’s Gospel account; the Great Commission that we ourselves are bound to even down to this present day and in this present congregation.  Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Why do you suppose I remind you of our calling and this passage now?  Because, I tell you truly, today we—all of us—are at the cusp of a new age.  Some questions that come to mind are, “Is Jesus still with us?”  “Is he relevant?”  “What is the Good News today and how do we live as witnesses of it?”

In the broader Church today, the societal upheavals that affect us include a major generational shift, a major technological shift, a major shift in ways of communication and in forming relationships one with another.  Less attention has been given to personal interaction and more attention seems focused on remote social networking.

Perhaps Sankofa, this “flying forward, reaching back,” is precisely what we need to provide framing for our faith journey; not only for our denomination, but also for this particular community of faith in the transition period you now face.

Sankofa: Flying Forward, Reaching Back.  What does this look like for you?  You are about to embark on a new journey.  An interim pastor will be with you for anywhere from 18 months to two years, defining your common call to ministry for this new age.   I imagine this is both an exciting time and a frightening time for your community.  As with all transitions, I imagine there may be some fear and trembling among you.   After your previous pastoral relationship, you may be experiencing feelings of loss, anger, or grief.  You may be seeing the edge of new hopes and dreams.  Both of the are, and you are not alone.  Yes, you will have choices to make in your mission together when new leadership arrives.  You will need to look at your past, claim what is your own history and unique witness as a community of faith, and decide what aspects of that shall remain as you forage ahead into a new chapter of your life together in witness to Jesus Christ as Lord.  Amidst the fear of change, there will be opportunities for new directions, and there will be new means for ministry provided for you.

To assist you in this journey, let us reach back and remind ourselves who we are as Christians.  We are followers of Christ.  We are called to be connected to God and to one another.  We are called to go and make disciples of all nations.  That is our mission.  We are called by God to build a community of believers.  This community is covenantal in nature, and intentional in practice.  In this community, we worship together, study scripture together, pray together, and reflect on the community’s experiences in light of God’s Word, and hopefully grow in our journey of faith.  Inviting others outside this community to join us in our journey is necessary for our own witness and for our growth.  We love them, we pray for them, we visit them and we even feed and clothe them if necessary; in short, we live Christ’s example for them because God first loved us.  They in turn become Christ for us.  Remember Jesus says, “Whenever you do this to the least of these, you do it to me.”

These practices, then, define how we, instructed by the Holy Spirit, serve.  For Christians, Jesus Christ, the love of God, and communion with the Holy Spirit enables all ministries among us to be.  At our best we are a missional expression of the Kingdom of Heaven.

You are now in the midst of a transitional period in the life of your community.  This is often a painful time, but also a time to renew your life and ministry together.  Now is the time in which to focus on the unique gifts this church family has in service to the community, corporately as well as collectively and individually.  Now is a time to remember, to identify, to commit, and to expand those gifts into a missional movement.

Now is your defining moment to determine how you might best act out the love of God into your next chapters together.  Bringing new staff to your church does not mean that your ministry will just naturally unfold and the paid staff will take care of it.  You must apply yourselves to doing ministry, enacting a missional, even prophetic, movement.  Both within this community and in the community outside the comfortable walls of your church.  It will be challenging, yes—especially in the context of this contemporary culture.  But you—we—must act, because that is our calling as the body of Christ.  As the process unfolds, it will continue to become clear what kind of leadership you can demand of staff, and what kind of leadership you yourselves need to take upon your own shoulders.  Together, in partnership, with a solid team, you can carry out the ongoing and future ministry of this community successfully.

In all of this, the good news of Jesus Christ is this: You are not alone. The Apostle Paul reminds us that God is for us and not against us. You are one member in a family of churches all with the same goal in mind: to live out Christ’s Love, the Kingdom of Heaven, to make known the love of God, the reign of Christ on earth, and to share in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

To God be the glory, now and forever more, and may each of us, you and I, live out our lives in honor of the One who lived, who died, and who rose again, even Him who is the Christ.

Let us pray:  Now is the time, O Lord that we each need to reach deep into the well of your Eternal Springs.  Fill us to do your work; in our homes, in our workplaces, in this church, and in our own hearts.  In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.

Amen.

Benediction:

Deep Peace be with you, Light Eternal shine upon you.

Like clear flowing springs within you,

May the Breath of the Wind stir your soul.

May Love hold you, May Spirit guide you,

All the days of your life.

~ stc

Let us pray:  Almighty God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts on your Word be acceptable to you, our Rock, our Redeemer, our Sower and Friend, Amen.

I paused in my head-long rush out the door a few evenings ago and watched a hummingbird in its flight.  It came quite close and drank from nectar lovingly prepared, hanging suspended in its glass offering.  As the hummingbird also hung suspended, it’s wings whirring in that soft and unmistakable music that only they can make, its 30 second meal was taken on-the-fly, so-to-speak, right before my eyes; and then, in a blink, it was gone.  I know he’ll be back, though.  Can you believe a hummingbird drinks on average 8-10 thirty – second to sixty second meals an hour?  And each time, it drinks deeply so that it gets enough to burn the energy it needs to keep going.  An apt spiritual lesson for us in this day, no?

Now, I don’t know about you, but I happen to be quite fond of eating.  I know my figure doesn’t show it all that much, but I especially am fond of sweets.  One of my favorites is ice cream, and another is cookies.  In fact, at Menucha Retreat and Conference Center, where I work, I am affectionately dubbed the local Cookie Monster because of my near addiction to those delicious cookies we make from scratch in the Menucha kitchen.

But that’s not my worst habit.  When it comes to a sit-down meal, unfortunately I am an extremely fast eater.  Fifteen minutes into the meal I’ll be looking around the table with my plate all cleaned up wondering where the desert is while everyone else is only on their fourth or fifth bites.  While I’m not quite as fast as a hummingbird; for human standards, as my wife will attest, I eat much too quickly to really enjoy a sit-down meal.

This leads me to my first set of questions for all of us today.  How often do we take our sustenance “on-the-fly?”  Are we drive-through eaters or are we sit-down eaters?  Do we participate in the slow food movement or are we completely sold over to the fast food establishments of our day?  Do our eating habits affect our spiritual habits?  To put it bluntly, do we fly into church on Sunday to hear a bit of good news only to fly out again in an hour or so to get on with our lives, or do we take time to stop, slowly drink in the Word of God throughout the day, and find deeper meaning to life?  And finally, and this is a hard one, does Christianity even offer any relevant sustenance in today’s contemporary culture?

I think all these questions can be addressed with careful attention to our reading from the Gospel of Matthew and the central question it seems to be asking, which is: What kind of soil are you?

First, let us take a quick, hummingbird’s eye view of the Gospel of Matthew and the community for which it was written.  The Gospel of Matthew is a study in contrasts.  It was written in Greek, so it’s original readers and hearers were Greek-speaking.  However, Biblical scholars tell us they also seem to have been Jews, as there are elements throughout the Gospel that point this out.  Some examples include Matthew’s concern with fulfillment of Old Testament passages, his tracing the decent of Jesus from the Jewish patriarch Abraham, his use of Jewish terminology such as “Kingdom of Heaven,” which points to the Jewish hesitancy to use God’s name when reading or speaking.  Then there is Matthew’s emphasis on Jesus as the Son of David, linking him to the Golden Age of Ancient Israel when both church and state were linked inextricably together and David expanded the Kingdom almost to its furthest reach.

However, Matthew also includes intriguing examples of a universal outlook, stretching the claim of Jesus Christ as Lord and Messiah to those outside the fold of the Jewish flock; for example, the coming of the Magi.  They are most definitely not Jewish, yet come to worship the infant Jesus, King of the Jews.  Also woven into Matthew’s account is the view that Jesus saw the harvest as the entire world, not just a harvest of Israelites.  Matthew’s full statement of the Great Commission makes this abundantly clear:

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. (Mt. 28:19-20).

Finally, all these clues paint an intriguing picture, and Biblical scholars agree, that Matthew and his community are caught somewhere in the transitional process from Jewish sect to Christian religion.  Some of the pressing issues continually addressed center around wrestling with the validity of Jewish law and its traditions and the fulfillment of scriptures for a new age.  Hmmm, sound familiar?  Could it be possible that these stories from 2000 years ago have relevance to us in today’s contemporary culture after all?  Now that we’ve been given the hummingbird’s eye overview of the Gospel of Matthew, let’s hover for a moment over today’s scripture passage.

In today’s text, Matthew records that Jesus offers an interpretation and explanation for one of his parables, something Jesus is not known for doing very often.  Why then, do we find this explanation included?

First, perhaps we should ask, “What, exactly, is a parable, and why does Jesus keep using them?”  That, I can tell you: a parable is a brief comparison story drawn from nature or everyday life.  It is designed to tease the imagination, challenge accepted values, or illustrate a point.  Why does Jesus keep using them?  We can make an educated guess: because any of us who experience real life (and I’m guessing–or at least hoping–that’s all of us!) learn new concepts best if they first relate to something we already know and understand.  Jesus masterfully draws his hearers in by relating stories of real life experiences they know and understand, then making a connection to something new that he wants them to learn, in this case about the Kingdom of Heaven and what Kingdom of Heaven experiences should look like.

So why do we get this rare look into how Jesus himself interpreted one of his own parables?  I submit to you perhaps the reason we get this rare glimpse is to give the original hearers, and Matthew’s original readers, a chance to ask the very same question we have before us today: “What kind of soil are you?”

With this in mind, listen again to what the parable of the sower means:

¹⁹When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. ²⁰ The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.²¹ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. ²² The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²³ But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

This leads me to my second set of questions for you today.  What kind of soil are you corporately, in your community of faith?  In your particular local mission field, if you will, what is the crop your seeds are supposed to produce?  In the bigger picture of the life of your community of faith, what factors were in place at the time when you produced your best crop?  Is that time today or was it some Golden Age in yester-years of yore?  At what time have you been least fruitful, and why?  Have you, or are you, learning from that?  Today, what is the most likely “thorn of worry” for your ongoing work as representatives of the Kingdom of Heaven?  What steps can you take to improve the condition of the soil of your spiritual lives and that of your larger community?  Have you opened your eyes to see and opened your ears to hear the opportunities in this day and age that are all around you in your community?  What have you seen and heard?

Thomas Merton, a prolific Christian writer from last century, wrote,

“Every moment and every event of every person’s life on earth plants something in her or his soul.  For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men and women.  Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love.”

United Methodist pastor Carl Gregg has an interesting  reflecting on this quote. He writes,

“Merton is inviting us to see that Jesus’ Parable of the Sower is not about the occasional moment when God or a human evangelist sows a seed about God. Rather, everything at every moment of every part of our lives is a seed suffused with life-giving spiritual import. This claim is not to say that everything that happens is good or controlled by God; instead it is to say that the sort of soil that we are — good or bad, rock-filled or thorn-infested — in each arising present moment effects how we receive the seeds of experience that are always being sown around us and within us.”

Again I ask, what kind of soil is your community of faith?  The only answer to that question will ultimately come from within yourselves as you work out your salvation with fear and trembling, seeing and hearing, envisioning and engaging the ministry that is set before you.

My advice for you is this; when your vision is clear, put your hand to the plow, gaze unwaveringly into the future, and walk.  Then, like the hummingbird, pause often in your daily toil to drink deeply from the Well of Eternal Life.

May all glory be unto the One who came, lived among us, and died only to rise again to live among us so that whenever two or more are gathered in His name, He is there; yes, even Him who is the Christ.  Amen?  May it be so.

When you watch it together, sit down and really discuss how you and your faith community, you and your family, or you and your company can be a beneficial force for the goodness of all mankind, and the goodness of all Creation.  You can make a difference.  Lead the way into the paths of your eternity with gifts of grace strewn along the path behind you.  Amen.

Stop and remember that to keep going at the pace set by this amazing little bird, they have to refuel very often.  Hummingbirds will feed 5 to 8 times every hour for 30 to 60 seconds at a time.  For us to take to heart this lesson from our little sisters, perhaps we ought to try praying in the same pattern.

Or, if that is too much to keep track of, simply offer a wordless prayer of thanksgiving to God each time you see a hummingbird.

Shalom,

Scottrick