20 Pentecost Yr A

We have been hearing about forgiveness and reconciliation in the gospel of Matthew, as well as in the Old Testament Exodus stories for quite a few weeks now. Today’s story from Matthew turns a bit however. What we hear today follows the movement in Matthew of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Jesus enters Jerusalem for the last time, and he asks the disciples to get him a donkey. He rides into Jerusalem on that donkey, and Jerusalem is in turmoil. The question being asked is who is this? And they were saying this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. Jesus then entered the temple, he tossed out all who were selling and buying and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers. He healed the lame and the blind, and the chief priests and scribes became angry, they said to him “Do you hear what these people are saying?” and Jesus replied yes, he knew what they were saying. Then Jesus went out to be by himself, but he came back to the temple, and there were the chief priests and elders again. Then comes the question, this all-important question. By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority? The chief priests and elders end up arguing with each other, and nothing really gets solved right here.

By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority? Even the tax collectors and the prostitutes know something about this authority. Following this question, comes a series of parables, parables, we know, are about describing the inbreaking kingdom of God; they are about showing people what this inbreaking kingdom looks like. We don’t know much, but what we do know is that it looks nothing like what anyone is used to. It is something absolutely new, something no one has any experience with, that’s why there are parables, they make us and the original hearers think in ways not before imagined. This new kingdom is nothing like what had come before.

The chief priests and elders were concerned, understandably so, because if they went along with Jesus, who is doing something – they’re not quite sure what - with an authority they can’t identify, the chief priests and elders also may be brought up on charges of sedition. They too may be tried for misaligned loyalty. They could be held liable for the damage Jesus has done in the temple throwing things around and turning the tables over.

By whose authority? By God’s authority, but this authority is new, it is not the same old story, it’s a new story, a new thing that God is doing in the life of God’s people. It is formed and shaped by the Exodus, by wandering in the wilderness, by the freedom that grows from wandering, but it is still a new thing, nothing anyone has seen, heard, smelled, previously. This new thing is the inbreaking kingdom, and we get a description of it in the gospels, we get a glimpse of it in our community of faith, and we are nourished by it in communion. We are made new ourselves by it in baptism. Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom before you, because they get it. They understand this kingdom, they understand it to be something they had never experienced, because they were never included at the table previously, and now they are, they are brought from the margins into community. Something entirely new is happening. What does that have to do with us?

The Great Emergence is the title of the lectures I was just at at the Seminary of the Southwest. And the Great Emergence describes what we are feeling right now, in this time and place, the feeling of unease for many, the brink of a new age of virtual living, of artificial intelligence. But the question being asked is the same question asked about every 500 years or so, by whose authority? And where does this authority come from?

Five hundred years ago, in the Great Reformation, that question was answered with Sola Scriptura, or as our Lutheran brothers and sisters learned, scripture alone. All authority rests in scripture, and up until the enlightenment, that was a commonly held belief. Then science and reason began to answer questions, which called into question, where is the authority? The Anglicans answered it with scripture, reason and tradition. Some continue to answer with sola scriptura, but as our world changes, and these are changes that are happening at warp speed, the question of authority is being asked again. The Great Emergence raises the question of authority, it is the same question that is asked in Matthew, and with it who are we, whose are we, and to whom are we related?

This is not just an academic question; it is not just the stuff of classrooms and theological debates. It is the stuff that you and I are immersed in every day. In a world where you can go to your computer and find whole other worlds, where you can create yourself anew, where you can make up anything you want, where you can interact on a screen with others who have created an alternative persona, avatars that are not connected to a physical place, how then do we continue to make sense of corporeal community? How do we continue to be in relationship that is all about the experience of body and blood, bread and wine, people that you can touch and feel, and in whom we profess lives the very divinity of our Lord? How do we continue to make sense of authority?

The question of authority is the fundamental question when we talk about the issues that are in front of us every day. I think it is why we sometimes feel so overwhelmed and confused, it is why some seem to be so absolutely sure, it is why others don’t seem to care, and why some seem perfectly happy living in the grey area with the questions. The question of authority is the question that forms and informs the abortion debate. It is the question that forms and informs our talk about homosexuality and what we say we believe about marriage. It is why we Christians find ourselves so divided over so much.

And in this particular place in which we find ourselves in human history, the question of authority is open for debate. I believe we Anglicans are postured in a good place for addressing the question of authority; we have something to say that is helpful and fruitful to the discussion. And what we have to say changes lives.

What we have to say is that transformation is found in the truth of the story that God comes into our world to live and love, to suffer and die as one of us. The truth is in the story of creation, of blessing, of sin, of our creator God loving us so much that God is willing to live this life as one of us, of forgiveness and reconciliation. The truth is found in the story of death and resurrection, your story of death and resurrection. We know this story is true, because each and every one of us attests to it; each and every one of us lives death and resurrection all the time. The truth is found in the story that reminds us that we are God’s beloved, the delight of God’s life.

We gather together to experience the awesomeness of this God in the bread and the wine, the mystery that makes us whole. We gather together to experience the awesomeness of this God in the midst of our humanity; in the forgiveness of the hurt we’ve caused ourselves and others.

By whose authority? By the author’s authority. The one whose love calls us into being and blesses us. The one whose Word lives among us, in us, and through us. The one whose love forgives us when we are greedy and full of ourselves. The one whose story reminds us that we are all related, and we are related to the earth from which we are born and to which we shall return.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.

19 Pentecost Yr A

So your teenager walks into the house after school, or after football practice, or band rehearsal, or just takes a break from homework, or even about an hour after dinner, and looks through the cupboards, opens the refrigerator door, and says, "Mom! There's nothin to eat." Just like the Israelites in this part of the Exodus. Whining, whining, whining, "God, we have nothing to eat, and what’s more, we don't like what you’ve given us to eat." But I do think that if I were wandering in the wilderness with Moses and Aaron for 40 years, I might be a little whinny too. “God, we’re tired, we’re hungry, we may as well have stayed in Egypt for all this gets us.” And they are reminded that in Egypt they were slaves, at least in the desert they are free.

This is a great story. In the verses that follow these we just heard God instructs them to gather up what they need for themselves and their families. Each family got just what they needed, no more, no less. Then Moses instructed them not to save any of it, don’t leave any until morning he told them. Well, some didn’t listen to Moses, and hoarded the food that God had provided for them, and it got wormy and smelled bad. So not only do they not seem to want what God has provided for them, they go ahead and eat it anyway, and then save some up for later, only for it to go bad on them.

Lord, lord, lord, give us something to eat, give us something better to eat, we don’t like what you’ve given us, but even though we don’t like it we’ll save it for later and risk losing what is right here in front of us.

God provides, God provides enough. Even when it doesn’t look good. It’s all God’s anyway.

Matthew’s gospel is paired with this story from Exodus and it carries the theme even farther. Matthew’s story always seems so topsy-turvy. The day laborers that show up at the end of the day get paid the same as those who showed up early to work, and work or no work, everyone gets paid the same. The kingdom is not business as usual. Remember, kingdom parables serve to show us that God is doing this absolutely new thing, there is no business as usual. In this kingdom everything is re-ordered. It’s not even as simple as the last will be first, and the first shall be last. God coming into our midst, living, loving, suffering, dieing, and being raised from the dead makes this absolutely new.

So this kingdom parable didn’t sit well with those who heard it centuries ago, and it doesn’t sit well with us.

We are trained to believe there is a reward. The simplest statement of that is if we live a good life, we’ll get our reward in heaven. That’s not biblical. This parable refutes that conventional wisdom. Our wages are paid at the baptismal font, not at the grave. The new life that God has affected is available from the beginning. We live our whole lives loved by God, the delight of God’s life. The Christian life is not about earning our wage, our reward in heaven. The Christian life is about responding to God’s amazing and abundant love, about receiving God’s grace, right here, right now.

The Christian life is about the fruit of our baptism; the Christian life is about responding to the joys and challenges of our lives in ways that show forth the grace that God has given us. The Christian life is not easy nor is it clear, it is not about finding Jesus, it’s about being found by God’s love. The Christian life is about grace and forgiveness, the grace and forgiveness that God offers us, and the grace and forgiveness that we offer one another as we love our neighbors as ourselves.

So when did we get so greedy? When did we begin to hoard what we have? These stories we hear today remind or maybe even teach us that we’ve got all we need, and there’s enough for everyone.

This past week when we had our pastor’s bible study, we had the executive director from Habitat for Humanity come and study with us. He also told us about the possibility of an Apostles build, twelve churches getting together to build a house, I hope we are one of those churches by the way. We were reflecting on these readings, and on the reality of the mortgage problems, and we learned an amazing piece of information. Habitat for Humanity is one of the top mortgage lenders in the world, and now possibly one of the top five, and Habitat for Humanity does not charge interest. Habitat for Humanity is about providing the opportunity for people to have what they need, no more, no less.

Yesterday we had the first of our Sonshine Saturdays. It was fabulous. Dave told the story of Moses, and we got as far as the ten commandments, but not all the way to the promised land. Moses relayed those ten commandments to the Hebrews as they wandered in the wilderness. “God spoke all these words: I am God, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a life of slavery. No other gods, only me.” No other gods, only me, the Hebrew people, like us, had so much trouble accepting God’s gift of enough. God asks us for our undivided attention, and God gives us all we need. The Hebrew people couldn’t accept God’s gift of enough, and instead made their own god out of the gold they had and found. They got greedy.

We get greedy, and we are encouraged in our greediness by a culture that constantly encourages us to buy more, and bigger, regardless of our ability to do so, regardless of need.

Now, as much as the Hebrew people needed to hear “no other gods, only me,” and as much as the Jews of the first century needed to hear the inbreaking of God’s kingdom re-orders all that they knew to be true, we, in the 21st century need to hear this message that we are sought and we are found. Our wages are paid at the baptismal font, we are new creations.

This is good news indeed. Good news in a world that needs good news. Good news that this life isn’t just about you, but it is about how you, and me, and every one of us is loved, and how you in turn love one another. It is about how you are the delight of God’s life, and about how you pay that forward. It is about how God transformed the world with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and how God continues to transform us and the world as each of us goes out into the world to do the work we are called to do, to love and serve God as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.

Alleluia! The mercy of the Lord is everlasting: Come let us adore him. Alleluia!

18 Pentecost Yr A

I imagine Peter having an argument with one of the other disciples. Who knows over what, where they should sit at the table, what they should eat for dinner, who they should invite over for dinner, whether they should get circumcised or just tattooed or pierced. Anyway, my very good friend Peter once again shows his true colors. He’s thinking about all this, and he says, Jesus, how many times do I have to forgive? Obviously figuring there’s got to be an end to forgiveness, Peter is astounded by Jesus’ response. There’s never an end to forgiveness, never, ever. Not seven times but seventy times seven. And since Peter is a good Jew, he knows what Jesus means. Seventy times seven represents infinity, it is limitless, and unfathomable. That’s how many times Peter must forgive, that’s how many times we must forgive.

Forgiveness and reconciliation have been the themes of the gospel reading from Matthew for the last few weeks. But this one stretches us further than any other. You must continue to forgive until you think you have forgiven all, and then you must forgive some more. It seems impossible.

This is our life in Christ. The fruit of forgiveness is joy, the fruit of forgiveness is freedom. The other is a tortured, bitter and resentful heart. Why do we choose not to forgive? We do so because we believe it is more important to be right than to forgive. It seems so simple, and yet so impossible. Needing to be right has resulted in loping off heads and burning at the stake. At least we don’t do that anymore. Now we just throw out insults, call each other names, leave churches and families and stop talking to one another.

In our families we hold on to resentment and bitterness until it eats us up, and then our brother or sister, mother or father dies, and we never were reconciled. Not forgiving holds us captive, forgiving sets us free. I often wonder why we do this, why we hold on so tightly to not forgiving, why we hold on so tightly to our bitterness and resentment.

I just finished a book, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. It’s a story about a young girl who must learn to forgive. As the young girl gets up the courage to tell her story and let herself be loved, she thinks, “In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provided me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional.”

I wonder if that’s why we hang on to our bitterness and resentment, and even anger, and not even know that we are doing it. Because we come to believe that we’re exceptional, that we’re somehow different from others, or better than others, or right, because everyone else most definitely must be wrong. Maybe we come to believe that our personal pain is unique, a pain unlike any other. A pain that no one can understand, a pain that causes our heart to turn to stone. Our personal pain may be ours, but it is not exceptional, and it is not isolated. Our personal pain is not an excuse to not forgive, and it is not an excuse not to ask for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a gift that we have been given, it is the grace that goes with not being perfect. It is the grace that goes with being human. It is the grace that goes with this God who loves us so much and who is willing to be in our midst to feel the same pain that you and I feel. It is the grace that goes with being chosen and marked by God’s love, being the delight of God’s life.

The reality of forgiveness is that we don’t do it just once and then are done with it. The young girl in the story as she thinks about her mother says, “I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.”

Sometimes I wonder what all this really has to do with our lives as we live out there in the world, out at our jobs, and in our schools, in the grocery line, or while waiting to fill our tanks with gas. What does God in Jesus Christ have to do with all that? Forgiveness is at the heart of who we are as we go about the minute to minute living of our lives. Forgiveness is the quintessential not about me thing. It is about my pain, or your pain not being exceptional. Forgiveness I think is impossible without the reality of God coming into our lives. Why would I forgive otherwise? Why would I not just hold on to the hardness of heart, the bitterness, the resentment, and let that power take hold of me. Why would I admit my own imperfection, my own shortcomings, if I didn’t think there was some greater love that enfolds me. It is God’s love that transforms me, that melts my heart, that bears my bitterness and resentment and imperfection no matter what.

It is God’s love that holds us when we cry, that never rejects or abandons us, and that gives us another chance. It is when we feel like the end is near, when we are in the midst of suffering and death, loneliness and alienation, like there is no hope, like we could lay down and die, that God transforms our life into something absolutely new.

Alleluia! The mercy of the Lord is everlasting: Come let us adore him. Alleluia!

17 Pentecost Yr A

Just about every other year since I was in junior high, the Monson family has gathered together to renew our bonds and tell our stories. I heard over and over the story of my ancestors coming to America. I know the story well.
My family lived in a valley on the inland point of the Nordfjord, in a place called Stryn. Once upon a time in the Nesdahl valley there was a great avalanche that collapsed the sod hut in which the family lived. Marta died in that avalanche, and later, Jacob, my great great grandfather, decided to come to America. He came and settled in Adams, North Dakota. He married Anna, and they had 11 children, Nelbert, my grandfather was the oldest.
Nelbert married Inga, and eventually they settled near Glenwood, Minnesota. Nelbert and Inga had five children, including my father, Juel. One of those children died in an accident as a teenager, and Inga died when my father was a small child. Nelbert married again, and he and Lucille had three daughters together, and Nelbert was killed in a farm accident. Lucille married Guy, and together they had one daughter. This all resulted in many children that I call cousins.

When I was 23 years old, I went on an European adventure, part of that adventure was to visit my Norwegian relatives. I arrived in Stryn, Norway, after having taken a ship across the North Sea from England, a steamer up the shoreline of Norway, and a bus inland along the Nordfjord, to Stryn.
I arrived on a very rainy day, without exact directions or even contact phone numbers. Unsure of what to do next, after getting off the bus, I went into the business that was right there, it was like a AAA, some sort of travel store. I must have looked like something the cat dragged in, and I asked the young woman across the counter for help, in English of course, as far as I had gotten with my Norwegian was “tussen tak.” She answered me, in beautiful English of course, and I told her my story. She just happened to be neighbors to the relatives I was looking for, so we got in her car and went straight to the family farm. She ended up being my interpreter for the time I spent with my uncle and aunt.

My uncle took me on an excursion through the countryside, and in the best English he could muster, he told me the very same story I had heard over and over at each of our family reunions for all those years.

The point of all this is that this story, of course there are many more details I’ve skipped over in this telling, contitutues us as a family, it tells us who we are. Over the years it has been added to as we have learned more about our grandfather Nelbert, and as all these cousins have had families of our own. It is a story of heartache, of survival, and of tragedy, and it is our story. And yet it is not unlike many stories of Scandinavian immigrants.

The story of the Exodus that we have been hearing, and that we will continue to hear is like my story. It is a story that contitutes Israel as a people, and it is a story that remembers who they are. Today’s portion of the story almost reads like a recipe, and yet it is a call to remembrance. It says this is who we are and what we do together, and who we worship. It calls Israel to remember. It too is a story of survival, of tragedy, of heartache, and of hope. It says, if we can hang together, we can make it. In the gospel of Matthew today our family story tells us about how we are to be Christians together. The writer of this gospel couldn’t have known that a church would be founded around his rabbi, Jesus, so we can’t say that these are instructions for the church. But what we do have is some very practical advice on forgiveness and reconciliation.

You see, as Christians we believe Christ is reconciling the whole world and each of us in it to God and to one another. In the teachings in our prayer book, on page 855, it says that the mission of the church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. Reconciliation is all about making whole what is broken. Reconciliation is about being transformed by God’s amazing and abundant love.

When Christians take conflict as an opportunity to practice reconciliation, what they do can stand as a visible sign for the whole world of what we believe Christ is doing in the world. An outward and visible sign of a grace that we believe is happening in a broader and more mysterious way in the world. And that is the definition of sacrament, handling conflict well can be sacramental, the way we handle conflict can be a sign to the world that Christ is in fact working in our world.

Conflict is a reality in our lives and in our church and in our families. In fact, when we meet someone who is really difficult, inside and outside our families, we can rejoice and be glad in that day, because we get to love them, and in the process we get a sense of how much God loves each and every one of us. When folks look at you and see that you handle conflict in this sacramental way, they’ll see that you mean what you say.

But we are witnesses to the rhetoric of revenge often on our nightly news and in our newspapers. The news reports about folks whose loved one has been terribly hurt or died at the hands of a monster. The family member calls for revenge, for more blood. Reconciliation, unity with Christ, and forgiveness are not at all what any one of them wants to hear. But maybe it is what is called for.

We are at a place in our politics that calls for reconciliation. The divisiveness of our political parties, the hatefulness in our language when we address one another, the lack of civility in our public conversation result only in a breakdown of public discourse. If we were to approach one another like Matthew exhorts us to approach one another, if we can point to ways in which our own behavior has contributed negatively to the situation, if we approach one another with the goal of reconciliation, real conversation can take place.

And we are at a place in the greater church that calls for reconciliation, a place where the family story must be remembered and told again, to remind us who we are and who we are related to. What we really have to do is stand as a visible sign for the whole world of what we believe Christ is doing in the world. We need to be that outward and visible sign of grace that we believe is happening in a broader and more mysterious way in the world.

As we enact forgiveness and reconciliation we are the agents of new life and resurrection that God calls us to be. We become the carriers of grace and God’s abundant and amazing love. We remember who and whose we are, we tell the story of God’s activity in the life’s of God’s people, we tell the story of God who loves us so much that God came and continues to come into this world, we tell the story of how that love suffered and died, and rose again, and hope is made real.

Alleluia! The mercy of the Lord is everlasting:
Come let us adore him. Alleluia!

15 Pentecost Yr A

Last week we heard the story about Peter, who boldly got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. And then, as Peter realized what was happening he lost courage, and foundered in the water. Upon calling to Jesus, Jesus reached out to Peter and pulled him out of the drink. We heard that it is staying in the relationship that draws out faithfulness. Today, we meet Peter again, to whom Jesus says, who do you say I am? And Peter responds, you are Messiah, the Son of the living God. When Peter uses Messiah, he means the future King of Israel, from the Davidic line, who will rule the united tribes of Israel. Messiah literally means “the anointed King.”

Jesus affirms Peter’s recognition, but I don’t think Jesus affirms the conventional meaning or understanding of King or kingship. The gospel shows us that Jesus is not the kind of King that was hoped for, not the King who comes with power to hold it over people, but the King who comes with power to empower people. Jesus is a King whose sovereignty rests in giving life to the people, in raising up those who are at the bottom, in bringing to the center those who are on the margins. Jesus is a self-sacrificing King, whose kingship only has meaning as it gives its life for the people.

We know this is the kind of King Jesus is because the gospel writer Matthew shows us how citizens of this kingdom can really live. Jesus’ teaching is to love your enemies, to come before God in prayer in worship, to forgive one another, and that Jesus’ life will be given for ours. This is the kingship in which the God who created the heavens and the earth inaugurates this new creation. And even the ancient story of Moses shows us that what we do matters to God.

Who do you say that Jesus is? This question is more important than any answer and it presupposes that what we believe about Jesus matters. It matters to you and to me, it matters to our church, and most importantly it matters to the world. It also assumes a relationship; there is no way to begin to say who Jesus is without the relationship. And in this relationship with Jesus, we learn who we really are. In response to Peter’s naming Jesus, Jesus tells Peter who he really is.
You are Peter, a rock. In this relationship, Jesus knows who we really are, we are named and marked as Christ’s own forever, you are my beloved, the delight of God’s life.

I think this is the most important part of this story. Not the right answer to the question who do you say that Jesus is, but the relationship the question presupposes, you are the delight of God’s life. We can’t answer the question with words, but we can begin to show the world that Jesus matters, that this relationship with Jesus matters.

That brings us to the image that is presented in Romans, we, who are many, are one body in Christ. This is an amazingly counter cultural image,
one body, with different graceful gifts. This new creation that God inaugurates in Jesus is all about a completely new way to live on this earth. We live not for ourselves, but for the greater good of God’s creation. Do not be conformed to this world, but transformed by the amazing and abundant love that God has for you.

How do we live in the world as the body of Christ? How do we live in the world as the delight of God’s life? How do we live in the world as people to whom Jesus matters? How do we live in the world as agents of new creation? How do we live in the world as a people transformed by God’s love? I think we do that by showing forth love not only for those it is easy to love, but for our enemies as well. I think we do that by empowering those without power. I think we do that by showing forgiveness and reconciliation. I think we do that by caring for God’s creation.

One of the things that is very important to me as your rector here at St. Andrew’s, is that in the community we be a witness to the diversity of the body of Christ. What that means is that we stay in the conversation, we stay at the table with people who hold very different views about God than we do. This is not to say that everyone here at St. Andrew’s has the same view and understanding about God, in fact it is to say that here at St. Andrew’s we may have very different views, and that is exactly who we are. We witness the diversity of the body of Christ.

So by staying in the conversation, staying at the table, even when that is challenging, difficult, and sometimes infuriating, the whole body shows forth. And by staying in the conversation, the whole body is transformed. We all begin to see with transformed eyes and hear with transformed ears, and love with transformed hearts. We are better able to respect the dignity of every human being; we are able to show forth the love that God has for us.

An example of this is our involvement in Hills Alive. Hills Alive is the Christian music concert put on by the Christian music radio station each July. Hills Alive is outside of the box for many of us, but for us to stay away from Hills Alive because it is not our cup of tea, is to silence us, it is to lose our voice, it is to go hungry because we have removed ourselves from the table. It is also to lessen the body of Christ in this community, because the wholeness of the body is not represented. Those from St. Andrew’s who have chosen to be involved in Hills Alive have not necessarily found it easy, but they have found bridges to be built, relationships that cause everyone to expand how they may answer the question, who do you say I am?

The same is true on the congregational level. We stay in the relationship, we stay around the table, no matter our disagreements, because we are the body of Christ, and the body is lessened when we don’t show up. The question then, who do you say I am, may be answered by our presence, by our showing up at the table, by our showing up for the conversation, by our showing that we love one another because we are all of God’s creations.

Peter is the rock. Peter is in this relationship with Jesus and is named, he is called the rock. You and I are in this relationship with Jesus and we are named also. We are named beloved, delight of God’s life. We are named forgiven.

Who do you say that Jesus is?

Alleluia. The Spirit of the Lord renews the face of the earth:
Come let us adore him. Alleluia.

14 Pentecost Yr A

This week we have two stories that challenge the status quo and move us to forgiveness and acceptance. By all rights, after having been thrown in a pit
and then sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph should be looking for revenge. Instead, he welcomes and celebrates the arrival of his brothers and offers healing and hospitality. And in Matthew’s gospel, a Canaanite mother, an outsider, brought to Jesus her brokenness and imperfection, and challenged Jesus to embrace and honor all. In our call to be healed and to offer healing, we must reach out as God has reached out to us, no exceptions.

Last week we heard how Joseph’s brothers conspired to kill him, but Rueben spoke up and suggested that rather than killing him, they just throw him in a pit. Joseph was rescued from the pit, only to be sold by his brothers into slavery. And as the story continues, Joseph meets up with his brothers, and not only shows his brothers mercy, but seems happy and excited to see them. Through it all, Joseph remains in relationship with God, in fact Joseph attributes to God his ability to preserve life, to help people remain faithful through this famine. It seems that Joseph would have good reason to turn from God, everyone he knew turned against him, and yet, he remains in relationship with God, and even with his brothers.

And then the gospel story presents us with this Canaanite woman. Let’s see if we can see this scene. Maybe a bystander sees it this way.

It had gotten worse, her daughter couldn’t be taken out in the public square, she screamed and squirmed, it was obvious something or someone had taken hold of her mind, body and spirit. But on this day, when the one they called Jesus was coming through the village, she decided to take her daughter out. We were all embarrassed, but his time it wasn’t her daughter that was possessed. It was her, she was the one screaming and shouting, she was hysterical. She yelled at Jesus, have mercy on me, heal my daughter. Who did she think she was? He ignored her as long as he could. Jesus had no business talking to her, he was a Jew. But she kept shouting. His friends told him just to leave, but he shouted back at her that he wasn’t interested in her kind. That just made her even more hysterical. She threw herself down on that nasty ground in front of him, confirming her shamefulness, and said, Lord, help me. Jesus could have picked his words a little more kindly, but instead he really dug deep, he said she wasn’t worthy even of the children’s food. But then we couldn’t believe what she did. She should have just crawled off at that point, but no, she kept at him, and told him that even the dogs like her get the crumbs that fall off their master’s table. We had never witnessed any thing so bold, so courageous. He changed his tune. He healed her daughter.

I am very thankful for this Canaanite woman. I think she makes it possible for me, and for you, to step boldly into Jesus’ presence, to offer the reality of who we are, to be in this relationship with God, and to be forgiven and healed. This Canaanite woman could so easily have not approached Jesus at all. Or she could have turned away when Jesus ignored her. But she didn’t. She persisted, she was bold and she was courageous. And she was far from perfect. She brought all that she was, all her sinfulness, all her goodness; she dropped to her knees and offered it up.

The very hard part of this story is that she was ignored. And there is something we need to hear from her. She did not turn away from Jesus, that would have been easy. She could have said, see, he only wants perfect people, he only wants the people who are the right kind of people, but she kept at him, and because she stayed in relationship with him, he changed. Because of her, he saw that his work was for all people, not just the Jews, but everyone. The healing and reconciliation that takes place in this story is not one sided. Her staying in relationship with Jesus affects her own healing and her daughter’s healing, as well as reconciliation of a whole host of people.

What’s in these stories for us? The most powerful thing I think is twofold. First, that we come to Jesus and offer our whole selves, and second when we feel like it’s not going well, we don’t turn away to worship something else; we stay in the relationship with Jesus. And then we offer the same sort of healing and reconciliation that Joseph offered, and that the woman and her daughter received, to all we encounter.

You are worthy of God’s love. There is nothing you’ve done that puts you outside of God’s love. You may be sitting there thinking, but if she really knew me, she wouldn’t say that. I’m really not good enough to be loved like that. The thing is that I’m not the judge; none of us are the judge. And this story shows us that there is nothing we are or nothing we can do that would keep us outside of God’s love. What this story shows us is that we need to enter the relationship with God, we need to drop to our knees and say, this is me, all that I am, with all that I have done or left undone, with all of my faults, all of my insecurities, all of my control issues, all of my goodness, all of my love, all of quirkiness, everything that I am, I’m yours.

And then we need to stay in. We can’t get up and leave. We need to stay in that relationship with God. We can’t turn and say, well that was interesting, but now I think I’ll go find something better, or more fun, or more entertaining, or more prosperous, more risky, more exciting. All of those things seem better than this relationship with God. They seem better because they are valued by many around us, by our culture. We see it and we do it all the time. We worship that which looks and seems good and great, but those things cannot make us whole, they cannot heal us. And they cannot connect us to one another in the way that we are meant to be connected.

And lastly of course this is not just about you. It is about Jesus, and that because of this encounter, you and I are included in the Kingdom that God is building. The woman challenged Jesus to see the true scope of his ministry. She challenged him to see that God’s amazing and abundant love is available to all, not just to the ones who are in, or who say the right words, or look the right way, God’s amazing and abundant love is available to all, even her and her daughter. Jesus realized in this encounter that all are welcome, Jew and Greek, slave and free, man and woman. In Jesus God inaugurates the new creation that God promised, in this encounter, that new creation includes everyone.

So now, you and I, who continue to do what this woman does, we drop to our knees and ask for forgiveness, for healing and for reconciliation, do the same for others. We invite others into this relationship with God, we invite everyone to be part of the amazing and abundant love that God has for them. You and I are agents of this new creation that God begins in Jesus. We have a role to play in the kind of healing and reconciliation that Joseph offered to his brothers, and that this woman asked from Jesus. Everyone is included, no one is excluded, even you.

Alleluia. The Spirit of the Lord renews the face of the earth:
Come let us adore him. Alleluia.

13 Pentecost Yr A

A priest, a rabbi and a minister were all in a boat out in the middle of a lake. The Minister says, "I’m thirsty. I’m going to shore and get something to drink." So she gets out of the boat walks across the water to shore, gets a drink, walks back across the water, and gets back in the boat. The minister says, "I’m thirsty also. I’m going to shore and get something to drink." So he gets out of the boat, walks across the water to shore, gets a drink, walks back across the water, and gets back in the boat. The rabbi thinks to himself "pretty cool. I’m trying it." So he says, "I’m thirsty also. I’m going to shore to get something to drink." He gets out of the boat and falls in the water and sputters around. Then the priest said to the minister, "Do you think we should have told him where the rocks were?"

The walking on water story goes like this in Eugene Peterson’s translation in the Message. Jesus came toward them walking on the water. They were scared out of their wits. “A ghost!” they said, crying out in terror. But Jesus was quick to comfort them. “Courage, it’s me. Don’t be afraid.” Peter, suddenly bold, said, “Master, if it’s really you, call me to come to you on the water.” Jesus said, “Come ahead.” Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus. But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, Master, save me! Jesus didn’t hesitate. He reached down and grabbed Peter’s hand. Then Jesus said, “Faint heart, what got into you?”

This story is the story that has given rise to the expression “oh ye of little faith.” But I’m not convinced it’s a story about a lack of faith, as much as it is a story about having a little faith. Peter actually has a little faith in this story, what he needs is courage after he steps out to keep on going. I think Peter is the quintessential human being. Peter is just like me. There are days I have a little faith, and days I need a lot of courage. Peter gives me hope.

Let’s check this out. We heard the mustard seed story just two weeks ago. Jesus says in a version of that story, “if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” Now we know that a mustard seed is a mighty tiny seed, so having faith the size of a mustard seed is a little faith. But these are stories not about what faith is lacking, and it is not about not having enough faith, it is about the faith that Peter has that causes him to courageously step out of the boat. And it is about you and me, who, on most days, like Peter, have a little faith.

So how much faith do you need to make a difference, to change the world, to move mountains, and, like the rest of the disciples in the boat that day, to know that Jesus is lord? You need a little faith. Faith is not about having enough, faith is not about knowing for absolute sure, faith is not about clarity or certainty. Faith isn’t about shouting most loudly about knowing exactly what God’s specific plans for everyone are, faith isn’t about knowing the future.

Well then, what is faith about? Faith is a willingness to risk. Faith is about the courage to take that step out of the boat, to respond to Jesus when he says “come ahead,” and to do it whether you think you’ll sink or skate. And faith proceeds from love, the kind of love that makes a person willing to be the first to say “I love you”, not because of a certain expectation of a particular reply, but because of the possibilities that saying “I love you” opens.

Faith doesn’t connote belief in a particular outcome, and it isn’t an intellectual assent to a particular proposition. It does suggest trust in and allegiance to a person. But believing in Jesus does not mean believing that we’ll be successful in a particular enterprise that Jesus is calling us to. Having faith in Jesus means a willingness to follow Jesus, not because we believe that we’ve already got the rest of the story plotted out once we’ve made that decision, but because we take seriously that Jesus is Lord.

So faith is the courage to risk, faith opens up the possibilities, and faith is taking seriously that Jesus is Lord. This faith opens up the possibility that we are fully capable of loving one another, that we are fully capable of respecting the dignity of every person, and the possibility that we must die in order to live again. This kind of faith also opens up the possibility that we may fall, and that we may wallow in the mess. And when that happens, we can look to resurrection and hope, and know that Jesus is right there with us in that mess.

Faith is not certainty and it is not security in a right future. Faith is living each day knowing that Jesus lived each day. Faith is the courage to risk. Jesus loved, Jesus was hurt, Jesus even hurt others, Jesus risked everything, Jesus died and Jesus rose from the dead. Faith is responding to Jesus’ invitation, “come ahead, have courage,” and being transformed by the relationship.

Faith is risking it all and being together in the mess. Peter wasn’t alone in that boat. All the disciples were there with him. Faith is finding love and hope here in the body of Christ. Because this risky business of faith is not to be undertaken by yourself. It is to be undertaken together, it is to be undertaken in the body of Christ. We do this together, no one is out there alone undertaking this risky business of faith, it’s too important, it’s too dangerous, it’s too perilous. Every one of us needs a support team.

The body of Christ, the community of faith, is our support team in this risky venture of faith. I could not be your priest without all of your prayers and words of encouragement. I depend on your prayers, as you depend on my prayers and the prayers of all of us gathered. Not one of us can accomplish the risky work of faith out in the world without the support team that is our community of faith. I go to Sr. Margaret at St. Martin’s monastery once a month for spiritual direction, and I know I am in the daily prayers of the sisters there, they are our support team.

My favorite author, Madeleine L’engle once said during her recovery after a horrible accident she was in, that she could no longer pray, but that she knew that there were people who were praying on her behalf. That is the body of Christ, the community of faith doing its work.

I believe faith is not one sided. Faith is not just about us. I believe that God has faith in me, and in us. Imagine the risk God takes at the creation of each and every child, each and every planet, each and every star. Will it be all that God intends for it to be? Will it be creative, will it be life-giving, will it fulfill all the hope in its creation. God is faithful. God risks everything with each and every one of us. If we have little faith, the size of a mustard seed, God has humungous faith, the size of millions of universes.

It is God’s huge faith in me that enables me to have little faith in Jesus. Little faith is enough to make a difference, little faith is enough to bring Light into the mess, little faith is enough to move mountains, and little faith is enough to find the rocks in the water so that we can make it to the other side.

Alleluia. The Spirit of the Lord renews the face of the earth:
Come let us adore him. Alleluia.