A sermon preached by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The Third Sunday after Pentecost - June 21, 2009
This is the second in a summer series addressing questions people in the congregation want to hear a sermon on; this sermon responds to the question, What is more important - salvation or justice?
One of the first things law school students learn is, Don't ask anyone in the witness stand a question without knowing how they're going to answer. Clearly that pearl of wisdom is not part of a pastor's training. This is the second summer I've asked you, What would you like to hear a sermon about? And it's the second summer I haven't known how you'd answer. Looking at the topics you've given me, you're obviously concerned that I might fritter away the summer sipping cold beverages and reading mindless novels. Your concern deeply touches me. I don't quite know how to thank you . . .
What is more important - salvation or justice?
This is a complicated topic. So right from the start I want to let you know where we're headed. First, I'm going to talk about why many Christians see salvation and justice as being in conflict with each other. Why do churches seem to emphasize one or the other? Second, I'll talk about what I see as the biblical view of salvation. I will argue that in the Bible, salvation and justice have the same goal: to rebuild shattered community and restore people to communities of love. And third, I will use a familiar Bible story to reinforce the point that God's dream is that all of creation belong to communities of love. And God calls us to be rebuilders of shattered community and restorers of communities of love.
The word salvation literally means wholeness or healing. It comes from the same root as salve, which is something that heals. But when we hear the word salvation, I don't think that's what most people think of. I think most people think about personal salvation. If someone asks, Are you saved?, they usually mean, Are you confident you're going to heaven when you die? Salvation often has been about the next life more than this one.
Seeing salvation in this way, for many years more conservative Christians have committed themselves to saving souls from hell through missionary work and conversion. While more liberal Christians have emphasized the need to save victims of injustice while they're still in this world. In recent years, this wide divide between the salvation and justice camps has been narrowing. Groups like World Vision, which are deeply rooted in the evangelical Christian tradition, are healing thousands of desperate, dying people while they are still in this world. And Christians who have never focused on salvation because it seemed a distraction from justice are changing as well. The unparalleled violence in the 20th century has made it painfully clear that progress in education, science, and technology does not make people more just. As one observer bluntly states: "The smarter we get, the more prosperous we are, the more murderous we become" (Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way, Eerdmans, 2007, p. 34). Liberal Christians are starting to realize if they want to build a more just and peaceful world, they need God. They need to feel God is close and real and in love with them. Just like their conservative sisters and brothers have been doing all along. Finally it seems like salvation and justice are starting to get to know each other a bit. Instead of pointing judgmental, angry fingers at one other. Or ignoring each other all together.
How does the Bible talk about salvation? In the Hebrew Bible, salvation has little to do with where someone goes after they die. Because Jews didn't even start to believe in life after death until around 165 B.C. There are 1432 pages in this version of the Hebrew Bible. How many of those pages were written after Jews started believing in heaven and hell? At most, 11. Five chapters of the book of Daniel. The question of where we go when we die didn't keep the writers of the Hebrew Bible up at night.
How does the Hebrew Bible talk about salvation? The two most important stories in the Hebrew Bible show us. Through Moses, God leads the Hebrew people from slavery to freedom, and forms them into a community. Salvation is liberation. Salvation is being made into and belonging to a community. In the other major story in the Hebrew Bible, God calls the leaders of Jerusalem back from their exile in Babylon. Salvation is homecoming. Salvation is being restored to community that has been shattered.
What about Jesus' view of salvation? Jesus didn't spend much time talking about where we're going after we die. Jesus said what he was doing and how he was living was building the Kingdom of God. He called people to repent. Which didn't mean, "If you don't believe in me, you're bound for hell." The Greek word for repent literally means "to go beyond the mind that you have" (Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, Harper San Francisco, 2003, p. 180). Into a society where government, religion, and culture declared people clean or unclean, worthy or unworthy, Jesus came with the subtlety of a typhoon. Everything he said and did shouted, Go beyond the mind that you have. He cried out, at times in the deepest anguish, Imagine the Kingdom of God, where all are welcome, all are sacred, all are at home. What kind of Kingdom was Jesus building? He was creating a new community for God. To restore shattered community. And rebuild communities of love. He and everybody who followed him were restoring and rebuilding the only way it could work: by walking together on the way.
Linda and the choir are going to sing, "Break My Heart". The words are in the bulletin. As this song washes over you, ask yourself, Where in this song has community been shattered? How is shattered community being restored? Listen for a word from God.
"Break My Heart"
by Jennifer Martin
Not that you need this invitation, not that you wait for my permission,
still, this is my humble contrition: Please break my heart, O God,
with what breaks your heart, O God. Please break my heart.
Refrain: For the sick, for the poor,
for the ones who need more tenderness and justice, break my heart.
For the lost, for the lame, for those suff'ring in pain,
help me see you in each face through a broken heart.
2. Not just some empty repetition, no, this is my sincere confession:
that I need so much more compassion . Please break . . .
3. Lord, lift the veil that clouds my vision, loose ev'ry chain and inhibition.
More than a prayer it's my decision - Please break. . .
This song proclaims the good news that salvation and justice belong together. The lost, the lame, and the suffering, those who know they need more compassion, those whose vision is clouded and who are held by chains they cannot free themselves from: what do they need? They need salvation. And they need justice. They need wholeness and healing. The wholeness and healing that come from feeling God is close and real and in love with them. The wholeness and healing that come from having companions who walk beside them to change unjust laws. The people this song sings about need the salvation and justice that come from communities that welcome and celebrate them. Communities that challenge them not to see themselves as powerless victims but as children of God. Communities that treat them with compassion, so they become more compassionate. The broken and beautiful people in this song need communities that will help free them from actual chains - like Brianna's school is doing with people in slavery. And they need communities that will help them know and love the Jesus Christ whose perfect love casts out fear, hatred, and despair.
Salvation and justice are about healing and wholeness. Salvation and justice are about rebuilding shattered community and restoring all creation to communities of love.
Why do I say that healed, whole, rebuilt, restored community is God's dream for us?
Listen for a Word from God.
God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our
nature. . . .God created human beings, created them godlike, reflecting God's nature. God created them male and female. God blessed them.
. . . After the man and woman ate the fruit from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil, their eyes were opened, and they saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and Woman hid in the trees of the garden. They hid from God.
God called to the Man: "Where are you?"
He said, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. I hid."
God said, "Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from the tree I told you not to eat from?"
The Man said, "The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it."
God said to the Woman, "What is this that you've done?"
"The serpent seduced me," she said, "and I ate."
God told the serpent, "Because you've done this, you're cursed, cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals. Cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life. I'm declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. Her offspring will wound your head, you'll wound their heels."
God told the Woman, "I'll multiply your pains in childbirth; you'll give birth to your babies in pain. You'll want to please your husband, but he'll lord it over you.
God told the Man, "Because you . . . ate from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from, . . . the very ground is cursed because of you. Getting food from the ground will be as painful as having babies is for your wife. You'll be working in pain all your life long. The ground will sprout thorns and weeds. You'll get your food the hard way: planting and tilling and harvesting, sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried. You started as dirt; you'll end up as dirt." (Genesis 1.26a-27; 3.7-10, 14-19, adapted from The Message ©1993-96, 2000-2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group)
An evangelical Christian religion professor from British Columbia has opened my eyes to see what this story is really about (Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, Eerdmans Press, 1994, pp. 187-88). I'd read it loads of times. But he shows me something that is so obvious but that I never saw before: after the Woman and the Man eat the fruit, every single community in the Garden is shattered.
Right after they eat, the Woman and Man suddenly feel ashamed of their nakedness. The community between themselves and their bodies is shattered. Instead of seeing their bodies as sacred, they view them with shame.
And the community between the Man and the Woman is shattered by the poison of shame.
Next the Woman and Man hide from God. God made them out of God's uncontainable love. And now they hide from God. More shame. Add to that the poison of guilt and fear. Now they are terrified of the One whose love made them. The community between God and God's beloved daughter and son is shattered.
After the Man blames the Woman and the Woman blames the snake, God has had it.
God curses the snake and says from now on snakes and humans will be the bitterest of enemies. The community between humans and animals is shattered.
Then God curses the Woman so easy community with her children is shattered. And the equal relationship God intended between the Woman and the Man is shattered.
God curses the Man to a lifetime of back-breaking struggle to make the ground produce food. The community between God and the earth itself is shattered.
Finally, in what may be the most painful part of this story, God tells the Woman and the Man that they will die. They will return to the dust they came from. Which seems to suggest that nothing of them will be left. So the community God hoped to share with them for eternity is shattered.
In the Garden, where God's dream was fully alive, all of creation was part of communities of love. Then the Woman and the Man decide they can do whatever they want to God's creation. And all of creation's communities of love are shattered. And the rest of the Bible is filled with stories of the God who calls to us, reaches out to us, and looks for us. God calls out to, reaches out to, looks for companions who will catch a glimpse of God's dream. And be captured by it. To rebuild shattered community. And restore all creation to communities of love. It is a dream of all who are passionate about salvation and justice. It is a way we follow Jesus. Amen.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Faith is a Verb
(Mark 9.14-32)
A sermon preached by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The 2nd Sunday after Pentecost: June 14, 2009
The first is a summer preaching series on topics people in the church have asked to hear a sermon about.
Today's question: What does it mean that we are a church with a covenant instead of a creed?
When Jesus, Peter, James, and John came down the mountain to the other disciples, they saw a huge crowd around them, and the religion scholars cross-examining them. As soon as the people in the crowd saw Jesus, admiring excitement stirred them. They ran and greeted him.
He asked, "What's going on? What's all the commotion?"
A man out of the crowd answered, "Teacher, I brought my mute son, made speechless by a demon, to you. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and goes stiff as a board. I told your disciples, hoping they could deliver him, but they couldn't."
Jesus said, "What a generation! No sense of God! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring the boy here."
They brought him. When the demon saw Jesus, it threw the boy into a seizure, causing him to writhe on the ground and foam at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has this been going on?"
"Ever since he was a little boy. Many times it pitches him into the fire or the river to do away with him. If you can do anything, do it. Have a heart and help us!"
Jesus said, "If? There are no 'ifs' among believers. Anything can happen."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the father cried, "Then I believe. . . Help me with my doubts!"
Seeing that the crowd was forming fast, Jesus gave the vile spirit its marching orders: "Dumb and deaf spirit, I command you – Out of him, and stay out!" Screaming, and with much thrashing about, it left. The boy was pale as a corpse, so people started saying, "He's dead." But Jesus, taking his hand, raised him. The boy stood up.
After arriving back home, his disciples cornered Jesus and asked, "Why couldn't we throw the demon out?"
He answered, "There is no way to get rid of this kind of demon except by prayer."
Leaving there, they went through Galilee. He didn't want anyone to know their whereabouts, for he wanted to teach his disciples. He told them, "The Son of Man is about to be betrayed to some people who want nothing to do with God. They will murder him. Three days after his murder, he will rise, alive." They didn't know what he was talking about, but were afraid to ask him about it (Scripture taken from The Message © 1993-1996, 2000-2002. Used by permission from NavPress Publishing Group).
"I believe . . . . Help me with my doubts!"
This story is about faith and doubt (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, Orbis Press, 1988, p. 255).
When I was in eighth grade, I took confirmation. Confirmation was the five-month every Sunday night class for kids my age that was supposed to prepare us to join the church. I took the class under protest. I knew I wasn't going to join the church because I didn't believe in God. I didn't believe a lot of the other things we had to say we believed if we wanted to join the church. People joining the Presbyterian church I grew up in had to answer all these faith questions that are based on the Apostles' Creed. The Apostles' Creed developed between the third and seventh centuries. The Roman Catholic church uses this creed and the Nicene Creed. Both creeds reflect what early Christian leaders thought Christians should believe.
The churches which use creeds as the basis for church membership are called creedal churches. Creedal churches include the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Christian Reformed, and Methodist churches. When you join one of these churches, you're usually asked to say yes to questions that come out of that creed. That's why these churches are called creedal churches. Creed comes from the Latin verb credo, which means I believe. If you grew up in a creedal church, you probably know the creed by heart: I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and so forth. To join my Presbyterian church, you had to say "yes" to questions like, "Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth?" and, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord, who was conceived . . . ?" I knew I didn't believe these things that Christian faith said were true. And I knew I didn't want to stand up in front of all these people who'd known me since I was born and lie. So I knew I wasn't going to join the church.
The first night of class, I don't know what came over me. I had planned just to sit there and not talk the whole five months. My wonderfully self-righteous way to protest having to be there in the first place. But that first Sunday night, I violated this well thought-out plan. The pastor must have said something about God being all-powerful and all-loving, and how marvelous that was. Like a reflex response, my hand shot into the air. The pastor looked at me through his thick glasses that made his eyes really, really huge. "Yes, Dave?" he asked. I plunged in. "How can you talk about God being so loving and so powerful when I saw kids my age starving to death in India?" Silence in the room. Then he looked at me and said, "That's a matter of faith. You can't question that." End of the discussion. Over the next five months, neither he nor I brought up the topic again. I didn't join the church.
At that time in my life, I needed this pastor to ask me the question I first heard the Jesus scholar Marcus Borg ask. Borg teaches at Oregon State University. He says after the first religion class of the semester, at least one student comes up to him and says, "I don't believe in God." And instead of telling him to go home and read the Apostles' Creed, or telling him he can't question God's existence, Borg says to the student, "Tell me about the God you don't believe in." Then the student would talk about a God who uses typhoons and tornadoes and cancer to punish people, and sends non-Christians and gays and all sorts of other questionable folks to hell. And Borg responds, "I don't believe in that God either." Which leaves the student kind of speechless. Because the student assumed all Christians believe in that kind of God.
At that time in my life, and even today, I need a congregation who is willing to ask questions. I needed and need a congregation who talks openly about their doubts, and about the God they don't believe in. I think that's what we try to do in the United Church of Christ. I'm not saying creedal churches don't do this. Marcus Borg is an Episcopalian, and he freely shares his doubts and questions. The United Church of Christ is not a creedal church. We belong to the group of churches that are called covenantal churches. Besides the UCC, covenantal denominations include the Disciples of Christ, the Society of Friends or Quakers, the Mennonite Church, the Church of the Brethren, and the various Baptist churches.
To join covenantal churches, you don't have to say yes to a lot of questions about what you believe. Instead, you say yes to questions that talk about how you want to live. Instead of saying yes to a whole lot of nouns, people who join covenantal churches say yes to a lot of verbs.
If you open your hymnal to p. 45 (The New Century Hymnal, The Pilgrim Press, 1995), you'll see the questions the nine people who joined this church last summer said yes to. People were asked if they could say Jesus Christ was their Lord and Savior. We talked a lot in the inquirers' class about what Lord and Savior can mean. Then they were asked to say yes to a whole lot of verbs: "Do you promise, by the grace of God, to be Christ's disciple, to follow in the way of our Savior, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, and to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best you are able?" And then, "Do you promise, according to the grace given you, to grow in the Christian faith and to be a faithful member of the church of Jesus Christ, celebrating Christ's presence and furthering Christ's mission in all the world." Only after saying yes to these ways they were promising how they were going to live, did we go back to a few basic nouns for joining a Christian church: Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? Nothing specific about those members of the Trinity.
Here, in this covenantal church, we see faith as a verb. Faith changes because we change and our world changes. Experiences we have change us, and our faith changes along with us. So we don't ask people to state specifics about what they believe as if what they believe is constant. We not only encourage people to be honest about their questions and their doubts, we expect it. We feel free to express our honest faith and doubts because we have made a covenant with each other to show up. I can't do what I promised to try to do without you. And you can't live up to your covenant promises without me. We need to show each other how to resist evil and be Jesus' disciple and show love and justice. We promise each other to show up. So we can count on each other to be there. So I won't scare you off with my questions and doubts. I can admit that ten months into this job search, God doesn't feel very powerful or very loving these days. You can ask, if Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I wish he would save me and my family from this painful time when it feels like we're drifting away from each other?
At those times when we are filled with doubts, we don't just withdraw. We don't just disappear. Being in covenant with each other means we believe God has called us together to be church. God has called each one of us here. We make a covenant with each other that says as long as this is our church home, we will show up. When there's someone here who drives us crazy, or someone who's hurt us, we keep showing up. When we're depressed and can't stop crying, we keep showing up. When we keep getting better offer on Sunday mornings, we keep showing up.
We keep showing up because the covenant God has called us to make with each other and with God matters. So you help me resist the oppressive demons in me that have convinced me I'm no good for anybody. Someone helps another person re-imagine how to love the partner who has betrayed their trust. Another person becomes the loving presence of God for someone who hasn't felt God's love for a very long time, and is starting to believe God has abandoned them. In covenant, we walk beside each other.
Just like Jesus' disciples walked beside him. Those disciples who keep getting it all wrong. The disciples who couldn't heal this deeply disturbed boy. Jesus had given them the power to heal. But it seems like they tried to do it all by themselves. They forgot they had to call upon God's presence and power in order to heal. They thought it was all about them. So Jesus explodes with anger and frustration: "How much longer, Lord, must I be with these people?!"
And after the healing, he takes them aside to teach them. He has told them twice that people who want nothing to do with God will murder him, and three days later he will rise, alive. But they don't understand. Following a murdered Messiah wasn't one of the faith questions they said yes to when they joined their local synagogue. A murdered Messiah who will later rise from the dead, alive, doesn't fit with any creed they have.
But when Jesus called them to follow, he didn't ask them to say yes to a lot of questions about God. He doesn't ask them what they believed about evolution or abortion or sex. He just looked into their eyes, and said, "Follow me".
And he sings the same song to us.
Jesus, you have looked into my eyes, kindly smiling, you've called out my name.
On the sand, I have abandoned my small boat. Now, with you, I will seek other seas.
(Cesárea Gabarain, translation Madeleine Forrell Marshall, The New Century Hymnal, The Pilgrim Press, 1995, Hymn #173)
Side-by-side with our sisters and brothers in covenant, we step out. Guided by a clear purpose, led by a bold vision, we step out together with Jesus. And we follow. Amen.
A sermon preached by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The 2nd Sunday after Pentecost: June 14, 2009
The first is a summer preaching series on topics people in the church have asked to hear a sermon about.
Today's question: What does it mean that we are a church with a covenant instead of a creed?
When Jesus, Peter, James, and John came down the mountain to the other disciples, they saw a huge crowd around them, and the religion scholars cross-examining them. As soon as the people in the crowd saw Jesus, admiring excitement stirred them. They ran and greeted him.
He asked, "What's going on? What's all the commotion?"
A man out of the crowd answered, "Teacher, I brought my mute son, made speechless by a demon, to you. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and goes stiff as a board. I told your disciples, hoping they could deliver him, but they couldn't."
Jesus said, "What a generation! No sense of God! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring the boy here."
They brought him. When the demon saw Jesus, it threw the boy into a seizure, causing him to writhe on the ground and foam at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has this been going on?"
"Ever since he was a little boy. Many times it pitches him into the fire or the river to do away with him. If you can do anything, do it. Have a heart and help us!"
Jesus said, "If? There are no 'ifs' among believers. Anything can happen."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the father cried, "Then I believe. . . Help me with my doubts!"
Seeing that the crowd was forming fast, Jesus gave the vile spirit its marching orders: "Dumb and deaf spirit, I command you – Out of him, and stay out!" Screaming, and with much thrashing about, it left. The boy was pale as a corpse, so people started saying, "He's dead." But Jesus, taking his hand, raised him. The boy stood up.
After arriving back home, his disciples cornered Jesus and asked, "Why couldn't we throw the demon out?"
He answered, "There is no way to get rid of this kind of demon except by prayer."
Leaving there, they went through Galilee. He didn't want anyone to know their whereabouts, for he wanted to teach his disciples. He told them, "The Son of Man is about to be betrayed to some people who want nothing to do with God. They will murder him. Three days after his murder, he will rise, alive." They didn't know what he was talking about, but were afraid to ask him about it (Scripture taken from The Message © 1993-1996, 2000-2002. Used by permission from NavPress Publishing Group).
"I believe . . . . Help me with my doubts!"
This story is about faith and doubt (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, Orbis Press, 1988, p. 255).
When I was in eighth grade, I took confirmation. Confirmation was the five-month every Sunday night class for kids my age that was supposed to prepare us to join the church. I took the class under protest. I knew I wasn't going to join the church because I didn't believe in God. I didn't believe a lot of the other things we had to say we believed if we wanted to join the church. People joining the Presbyterian church I grew up in had to answer all these faith questions that are based on the Apostles' Creed. The Apostles' Creed developed between the third and seventh centuries. The Roman Catholic church uses this creed and the Nicene Creed. Both creeds reflect what early Christian leaders thought Christians should believe.
The churches which use creeds as the basis for church membership are called creedal churches. Creedal churches include the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Christian Reformed, and Methodist churches. When you join one of these churches, you're usually asked to say yes to questions that come out of that creed. That's why these churches are called creedal churches. Creed comes from the Latin verb credo, which means I believe. If you grew up in a creedal church, you probably know the creed by heart: I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and so forth. To join my Presbyterian church, you had to say "yes" to questions like, "Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth?" and, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord, who was conceived . . . ?" I knew I didn't believe these things that Christian faith said were true. And I knew I didn't want to stand up in front of all these people who'd known me since I was born and lie. So I knew I wasn't going to join the church.
The first night of class, I don't know what came over me. I had planned just to sit there and not talk the whole five months. My wonderfully self-righteous way to protest having to be there in the first place. But that first Sunday night, I violated this well thought-out plan. The pastor must have said something about God being all-powerful and all-loving, and how marvelous that was. Like a reflex response, my hand shot into the air. The pastor looked at me through his thick glasses that made his eyes really, really huge. "Yes, Dave?" he asked. I plunged in. "How can you talk about God being so loving and so powerful when I saw kids my age starving to death in India?" Silence in the room. Then he looked at me and said, "That's a matter of faith. You can't question that." End of the discussion. Over the next five months, neither he nor I brought up the topic again. I didn't join the church.
At that time in my life, I needed this pastor to ask me the question I first heard the Jesus scholar Marcus Borg ask. Borg teaches at Oregon State University. He says after the first religion class of the semester, at least one student comes up to him and says, "I don't believe in God." And instead of telling him to go home and read the Apostles' Creed, or telling him he can't question God's existence, Borg says to the student, "Tell me about the God you don't believe in." Then the student would talk about a God who uses typhoons and tornadoes and cancer to punish people, and sends non-Christians and gays and all sorts of other questionable folks to hell. And Borg responds, "I don't believe in that God either." Which leaves the student kind of speechless. Because the student assumed all Christians believe in that kind of God.
At that time in my life, and even today, I need a congregation who is willing to ask questions. I needed and need a congregation who talks openly about their doubts, and about the God they don't believe in. I think that's what we try to do in the United Church of Christ. I'm not saying creedal churches don't do this. Marcus Borg is an Episcopalian, and he freely shares his doubts and questions. The United Church of Christ is not a creedal church. We belong to the group of churches that are called covenantal churches. Besides the UCC, covenantal denominations include the Disciples of Christ, the Society of Friends or Quakers, the Mennonite Church, the Church of the Brethren, and the various Baptist churches.
To join covenantal churches, you don't have to say yes to a lot of questions about what you believe. Instead, you say yes to questions that talk about how you want to live. Instead of saying yes to a whole lot of nouns, people who join covenantal churches say yes to a lot of verbs.
If you open your hymnal to p. 45 (The New Century Hymnal, The Pilgrim Press, 1995), you'll see the questions the nine people who joined this church last summer said yes to. People were asked if they could say Jesus Christ was their Lord and Savior. We talked a lot in the inquirers' class about what Lord and Savior can mean. Then they were asked to say yes to a whole lot of verbs: "Do you promise, by the grace of God, to be Christ's disciple, to follow in the way of our Savior, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, and to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best you are able?" And then, "Do you promise, according to the grace given you, to grow in the Christian faith and to be a faithful member of the church of Jesus Christ, celebrating Christ's presence and furthering Christ's mission in all the world." Only after saying yes to these ways they were promising how they were going to live, did we go back to a few basic nouns for joining a Christian church: Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? Nothing specific about those members of the Trinity.
Here, in this covenantal church, we see faith as a verb. Faith changes because we change and our world changes. Experiences we have change us, and our faith changes along with us. So we don't ask people to state specifics about what they believe as if what they believe is constant. We not only encourage people to be honest about their questions and their doubts, we expect it. We feel free to express our honest faith and doubts because we have made a covenant with each other to show up. I can't do what I promised to try to do without you. And you can't live up to your covenant promises without me. We need to show each other how to resist evil and be Jesus' disciple and show love and justice. We promise each other to show up. So we can count on each other to be there. So I won't scare you off with my questions and doubts. I can admit that ten months into this job search, God doesn't feel very powerful or very loving these days. You can ask, if Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I wish he would save me and my family from this painful time when it feels like we're drifting away from each other?
At those times when we are filled with doubts, we don't just withdraw. We don't just disappear. Being in covenant with each other means we believe God has called us together to be church. God has called each one of us here. We make a covenant with each other that says as long as this is our church home, we will show up. When there's someone here who drives us crazy, or someone who's hurt us, we keep showing up. When we're depressed and can't stop crying, we keep showing up. When we keep getting better offer on Sunday mornings, we keep showing up.
We keep showing up because the covenant God has called us to make with each other and with God matters. So you help me resist the oppressive demons in me that have convinced me I'm no good for anybody. Someone helps another person re-imagine how to love the partner who has betrayed their trust. Another person becomes the loving presence of God for someone who hasn't felt God's love for a very long time, and is starting to believe God has abandoned them. In covenant, we walk beside each other.
Just like Jesus' disciples walked beside him. Those disciples who keep getting it all wrong. The disciples who couldn't heal this deeply disturbed boy. Jesus had given them the power to heal. But it seems like they tried to do it all by themselves. They forgot they had to call upon God's presence and power in order to heal. They thought it was all about them. So Jesus explodes with anger and frustration: "How much longer, Lord, must I be with these people?!"
And after the healing, he takes them aside to teach them. He has told them twice that people who want nothing to do with God will murder him, and three days later he will rise, alive. But they don't understand. Following a murdered Messiah wasn't one of the faith questions they said yes to when they joined their local synagogue. A murdered Messiah who will later rise from the dead, alive, doesn't fit with any creed they have.
But when Jesus called them to follow, he didn't ask them to say yes to a lot of questions about God. He doesn't ask them what they believed about evolution or abortion or sex. He just looked into their eyes, and said, "Follow me".
And he sings the same song to us.
Jesus, you have looked into my eyes, kindly smiling, you've called out my name.
On the sand, I have abandoned my small boat. Now, with you, I will seek other seas.
(Cesárea Gabarain, translation Madeleine Forrell Marshall, The New Century Hymnal, The Pilgrim Press, 1995, Hymn #173)
Side-by-side with our sisters and brothers in covenant, we step out. Guided by a clear purpose, led by a bold vision, we step out together with Jesus. And we follow. Amen.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
How do we know?
HOW DO WE KNOW HOW?
(Mark 4.24-29)
A sermon preached by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The First Sunday after Pentecost: June 7, 2009
I'm dividing the Gospel reading this morning into two parts, starting with the first paragraph in your bulletin.
Listen for a word from God.
Jesus said to the crowd, "Listen carefully to what you hear. The amount you measure out is the amount you will receive – and more besides. To those who have, more will be given; from those who have not, what little they have will be taken away" (The Inclusive New Testament © 1994 Priests for Equality).
May God help us hear and live this word.
In lots of churches, after the Bible passage is read, the reader says, "The Word of the Lord." And the congregation dutifully responds, "Thanks be to God." Sometimes I wonder if anyone is listening. If they were, why would they say "Thanks be to God" after hearing something there seems to be no reason to be thankful for?
This is one of those passages. After Nan read it, she prayed for us, "May God help us hear and live this word." And I'm left with the question, "How do we know how?" Or, to expand that just a bit, "How do we know how to hear this word? How do we know how to live this word?" When this word seems to reinforce injustice – the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer and that's just how things are?
The only way I know how to hear and live this word is to do serious Bible study. I want to take you along on that trip with me. So we can try to figure out how we know how to hear and live this word.
When it comes to people who've written about the Gospel of Mark and about the parables of Jesus, I have three "conversation partners": a former Roman Catholic turned United Church of Christ member, a Presbyterian, and a bishop in the Anglican Church, otherwise known as the Church of England. I also have "live" conversation partners. I talk with Peter a lot. And every other week, I spend a couple of hours with a good friend. He's the pastor of the English language congregation of the Seattle Taiwanese Christian Church. He's half Anglo and half Venezuelan. We didn't meet this past week, so my conversation partners with the people who can't talk back to me.
The Presbyterian and the Anglican have a lot to say about this passage. And what they say Jesus meant has almost nothing in common. When there's no consensus among scholars about what Jesus is saying, how do we know how to hear and live this word?
The Anglican bishop takes Jesus' words at face value. He doesn't think Jesus is talking economics when he says those who have will get more and those who don't will have even the little they have taken away. The Anglican says Jesus is talking about faith. Imagine each of us has a seed of faith within us. He says if we ignore that seed, then it's likely that little bit of faith will wither. If we have no real commitment to living as Jesus teaches, even the small commitment will fade. Our faith will have no power in our lives (Tom Wright, Mark for Everyone, SPCK, 2001, p. 46).
But, if we go deeper into the faith we've already been given, we will receive more faith. If we keep going deeper, if Jesus becomes a true friend and not just an intellectual companion, then we'll receive more faith. To those who have more, more will be given (p, 46).
Say you used to run cross country. You practiced with the team and practiced on your own. You ate well. You kept yourself in shape. And then you stopped running and stopped eating well. Other things became priorities. Years go by. If you haven't kept practicing, you can't expect to wake up 20 years after your last race and decide that morning you're going to run a 10k. You stopped nurturing and growing the gift you had. You might be able to get it back again in some way. But after 20 years, cross country isn't very important to you. It has no power to shape how you live. It's the same with faith.
The Anglican says we hear this word as a call from Jesus to 'practice' our faith. We live this word by committing ourselves to go deeper and deeper into what strengthens our faith: prayer, mission, active participation in a faith community, building an honest and open relationship with the living God. So our faith can become alive and so it shapes everything we say and do.
What does the Presbyterian say? The opposite of his Anglican colleague. He says there's no way we can take these words of Jesus at their face value. This is where serious Bible study gets fun. When bright, competent scholars totally disagree with each other. The Presbyterian bases his conclusion on the first word Jesus says in this passage: Blepete. It's a great word. It's a Greek word that means "beware" or, in our translation, "listen carefully". What this Presbyterian says is that when Jesus begins a teaching with blepete, what follows will be something he totally disagrees with (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, Orbis, 1988/2000, p. 178). Jesus says blepete – Beware! Listen carefully! – seven times in Mark's Gospel. Each time he does, it's like he's saying, "I'm about to say something that the powerful defenders of the status quo want you to accept without question. I'm telling you to question it. Reject it. Defy it. It's got nothing to do with God's dreams for this world."
According to the Presbyterian, how do we know how to hear this word? Not at face value. We hear this word as Jesus' warning never to believe that life is just unfair, so we just have to accept that as God's will (p. 178). And how does this scholar say we can live this word?
For that, we need to hear what Jesus says next.
Jesus said further, "The reign of God is like this: a sower scatters seed on the ground, then goes to bed at night and gets up day after day. Through it all the seed sprouts and grows without the sower knowing how it happens. The soil produces a crop by itself – first the blade, then the ear, and finally the ripe wheat in the ear. When the crop is ready, the sower wields the sickle, for the time is ripe for the harvest."
That clears everything up nicely, doesn't it? This shows why when we try to read the Bible on our own, we often give up in despair or frustration or boredom. What in the world does this parable about a seed have to do with what we've just been looking at? It's very confusing.
So I need to go back to my conversation partners.
The Anglican focuses on the word our version translates as "sprouts": Through it all the seed sprouts. It is also the word for arise – like the sower arose or got up every morning. And it's one of the common Greek words used to talk about resurrection. So in this parable, the writer hears Jesus talking about resurrection. Most of the Jews at the time would hear any talk of resurrection as the promise that soon Israel would be freed from the tyranny of the Rome Empire (p. 49). Most Jews in Jesus' day thought that liberation from Rome would take place through violence. This was not how Jesus understood resurrection. He knew a new freedom for all people would come with his resurrection, but violence would play no part in that freedom. To connect this with the first part of our reading this morning, perhaps if Jesus' listeners worked at deepening their faith like Jesus called them to do, they'd realize this different way to understand resurrection. So according to the Anglican, how do we live this word? Just like the people Jesus was talking to didn't understand what he meant by resurrection, so too we can never be sure we have a monopoly on religious truth. We can never assume we understand it all. We must always open ourselves to the new and the different. Always open ourselves to what the Spirit want to have rise up and sprout within us.
This story of the farmer and the seed is where the Catholic turned UCC guy makes an appearance. If the Anglican focused on the word for "sprout" or "rise", the UCC guy spends a lot of energy on a different Greek word. It's the word in this passage that's defined as "by itself": The soil produces a crop by itself (4.28). The Greek word is automate, from which we get the English word . . . automatic (Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then the Parable, Fortress Press, 1989, p. 368). Automate is used to describe times when something just seems to happen, without any visible cause. In the book of Joshua, the walls of Jericho fall down by themselves when Joshua blows a horn (Joshua 6.5). In the Book of Acts, doors open by themselves when an angel leads Peter out of prison before Herod can kill him (Acts 12.10) (Scott: p. 368). By itself means God is at work and mystery abounds.
And the UCC guy goes further. It shows how doing this kind of Bible study is like being a private detective. His research shows him that automate goes back to Hebrew Bible laws about the Sabbath. Especially when they talk about the practice of giving a Sabbath to the land. The book of Leviticus says, "Six years you shall sow your field, . . . and six years . . . gather in their yield' but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land. . . . [Y]ou shall not sow your
field. . . .What grows by itself (automata) in your harvest you shall not reap" (Lev. 25.4). As anyone who has a vegetable garden knows, even if you don't plant any seeds after you've been planting them for a while, something always will spring up out of the ground. Automate. By itself. But why can't they pick the food that grows by itself in their own field? The book of Exodus gives the answer: "[T]he seventh year you shall let [the land] rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard and your olive orchard" (Exodus 23.10-11).
So where does all this automate talk get us? The UCC guys says all this by itself language makes this a parable about grace. What happens by itself is God's grace at work. God's love, God's compassion, God's justice. God's dreams.
According to the UCC guy, how do we know how to live this word? He says Jesus is telling us God's grace rains down upon us all. We go to bed and we get up. We see signs of life all around us which we've done nothing to create or nurture. We see signs of love around us, and we have no clue where it all came from. It's like it just happened. In this seventh year Sabbath for the land, we scatter no see in the field. Yet food grows out of the ground anyway. Automate. By itself. To feed the poor and the wild animals. From the bounty of God's grace. Trust this grace. Be thankful for this grace. Become people of grace. That's how we live this word.
And what of the Presbyterian who talked about blepete being the sign Jesus was about to disagree with what came next? He says if Jesus' parables are about showing us a picture of the kingdom of God, then this parable of the seed that grows by itself is a picture of "the revolutionary patience and hope of" God's reign (Myers: p. 179). This farmer plants some seeds. Then kind of hangs out. And when the time is right, the seed bears fruit by itself. And then the farmer takes the sickle and harvest the crop. God and us are partners in creating the harvest. We each do our part. What happens by itself is a mystery. It is God's invisible work. God's work produces the harvest. We plant the seeds. Which is very important. Because what the Presbyterian is saying is that we don't dutifully accept the status quo's definition of how the world works. We don't buy for one minute the lie that it's God's will that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. No. Followers of Jesus plant seeds. We plant seeds that bring our faith alive by making God and Jesus and the Spirit real and alive for us. We plant seeds of justice. And mercy. We plant seeds that may bear the fruit of homes for street people. Dignity for the forgotten. Belonging for the excluded. We plant the seeds. But the harvest is God's work. As all people who work for justice know, to avoid burning out takes "revolutionary patience and hope". And that's what my Presbyterianterian conversation partner says this parable is about. It's what he says God's dream for us is. To do our part. And then, with revolutionary patience and hope, look for signs of God's grace-filled response. So we might plant more seeds . . . and be patient and hopeful again.
How do we know how? How do we know how to hear these words of Jesus? How do we know how to live them? It depends on who we listen to? The Anglican, the Presbyterianterian, or the Catholic-turned UCC? Or a combination of any of them?
As followers of Jesus, the way we plant the seeds is to keep the conversation going. With people we agree with and people we don't. To keep reading these stories of Jesus. To keep engaging with conversation partners, both on paper and alive. To keep trying to do what's faithful. We plant some seeds. And we listen and watch for new life to spring forth. We listen and watch. For signs of a harvest. That new life that springs forth by itself. By the amazing grace of God.
Amen.
(Mark 4.24-29)
A sermon preached by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The First Sunday after Pentecost: June 7, 2009
I'm dividing the Gospel reading this morning into two parts, starting with the first paragraph in your bulletin.
Listen for a word from God.
Jesus said to the crowd, "Listen carefully to what you hear. The amount you measure out is the amount you will receive – and more besides. To those who have, more will be given; from those who have not, what little they have will be taken away" (The Inclusive New Testament © 1994 Priests for Equality).
May God help us hear and live this word.
In lots of churches, after the Bible passage is read, the reader says, "The Word of the Lord." And the congregation dutifully responds, "Thanks be to God." Sometimes I wonder if anyone is listening. If they were, why would they say "Thanks be to God" after hearing something there seems to be no reason to be thankful for?
This is one of those passages. After Nan read it, she prayed for us, "May God help us hear and live this word." And I'm left with the question, "How do we know how?" Or, to expand that just a bit, "How do we know how to hear this word? How do we know how to live this word?" When this word seems to reinforce injustice – the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer and that's just how things are?
The only way I know how to hear and live this word is to do serious Bible study. I want to take you along on that trip with me. So we can try to figure out how we know how to hear and live this word.
When it comes to people who've written about the Gospel of Mark and about the parables of Jesus, I have three "conversation partners": a former Roman Catholic turned United Church of Christ member, a Presbyterian, and a bishop in the Anglican Church, otherwise known as the Church of England. I also have "live" conversation partners. I talk with Peter a lot. And every other week, I spend a couple of hours with a good friend. He's the pastor of the English language congregation of the Seattle Taiwanese Christian Church. He's half Anglo and half Venezuelan. We didn't meet this past week, so my conversation partners with the people who can't talk back to me.
The Presbyterian and the Anglican have a lot to say about this passage. And what they say Jesus meant has almost nothing in common. When there's no consensus among scholars about what Jesus is saying, how do we know how to hear and live this word?
The Anglican bishop takes Jesus' words at face value. He doesn't think Jesus is talking economics when he says those who have will get more and those who don't will have even the little they have taken away. The Anglican says Jesus is talking about faith. Imagine each of us has a seed of faith within us. He says if we ignore that seed, then it's likely that little bit of faith will wither. If we have no real commitment to living as Jesus teaches, even the small commitment will fade. Our faith will have no power in our lives (Tom Wright, Mark for Everyone, SPCK, 2001, p. 46).
But, if we go deeper into the faith we've already been given, we will receive more faith. If we keep going deeper, if Jesus becomes a true friend and not just an intellectual companion, then we'll receive more faith. To those who have more, more will be given (p, 46).
Say you used to run cross country. You practiced with the team and practiced on your own. You ate well. You kept yourself in shape. And then you stopped running and stopped eating well. Other things became priorities. Years go by. If you haven't kept practicing, you can't expect to wake up 20 years after your last race and decide that morning you're going to run a 10k. You stopped nurturing and growing the gift you had. You might be able to get it back again in some way. But after 20 years, cross country isn't very important to you. It has no power to shape how you live. It's the same with faith.
The Anglican says we hear this word as a call from Jesus to 'practice' our faith. We live this word by committing ourselves to go deeper and deeper into what strengthens our faith: prayer, mission, active participation in a faith community, building an honest and open relationship with the living God. So our faith can become alive and so it shapes everything we say and do.
What does the Presbyterian say? The opposite of his Anglican colleague. He says there's no way we can take these words of Jesus at their face value. This is where serious Bible study gets fun. When bright, competent scholars totally disagree with each other. The Presbyterian bases his conclusion on the first word Jesus says in this passage: Blepete. It's a great word. It's a Greek word that means "beware" or, in our translation, "listen carefully". What this Presbyterian says is that when Jesus begins a teaching with blepete, what follows will be something he totally disagrees with (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, Orbis, 1988/2000, p. 178). Jesus says blepete – Beware! Listen carefully! – seven times in Mark's Gospel. Each time he does, it's like he's saying, "I'm about to say something that the powerful defenders of the status quo want you to accept without question. I'm telling you to question it. Reject it. Defy it. It's got nothing to do with God's dreams for this world."
According to the Presbyterian, how do we know how to hear this word? Not at face value. We hear this word as Jesus' warning never to believe that life is just unfair, so we just have to accept that as God's will (p. 178). And how does this scholar say we can live this word?
For that, we need to hear what Jesus says next.
Jesus said further, "The reign of God is like this: a sower scatters seed on the ground, then goes to bed at night and gets up day after day. Through it all the seed sprouts and grows without the sower knowing how it happens. The soil produces a crop by itself – first the blade, then the ear, and finally the ripe wheat in the ear. When the crop is ready, the sower wields the sickle, for the time is ripe for the harvest."
That clears everything up nicely, doesn't it? This shows why when we try to read the Bible on our own, we often give up in despair or frustration or boredom. What in the world does this parable about a seed have to do with what we've just been looking at? It's very confusing.
So I need to go back to my conversation partners.
The Anglican focuses on the word our version translates as "sprouts": Through it all the seed sprouts. It is also the word for arise – like the sower arose or got up every morning. And it's one of the common Greek words used to talk about resurrection. So in this parable, the writer hears Jesus talking about resurrection. Most of the Jews at the time would hear any talk of resurrection as the promise that soon Israel would be freed from the tyranny of the Rome Empire (p. 49). Most Jews in Jesus' day thought that liberation from Rome would take place through violence. This was not how Jesus understood resurrection. He knew a new freedom for all people would come with his resurrection, but violence would play no part in that freedom. To connect this with the first part of our reading this morning, perhaps if Jesus' listeners worked at deepening their faith like Jesus called them to do, they'd realize this different way to understand resurrection. So according to the Anglican, how do we live this word? Just like the people Jesus was talking to didn't understand what he meant by resurrection, so too we can never be sure we have a monopoly on religious truth. We can never assume we understand it all. We must always open ourselves to the new and the different. Always open ourselves to what the Spirit want to have rise up and sprout within us.
This story of the farmer and the seed is where the Catholic turned UCC guy makes an appearance. If the Anglican focused on the word for "sprout" or "rise", the UCC guy spends a lot of energy on a different Greek word. It's the word in this passage that's defined as "by itself": The soil produces a crop by itself (4.28). The Greek word is automate, from which we get the English word . . . automatic (Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then the Parable, Fortress Press, 1989, p. 368). Automate is used to describe times when something just seems to happen, without any visible cause. In the book of Joshua, the walls of Jericho fall down by themselves when Joshua blows a horn (Joshua 6.5). In the Book of Acts, doors open by themselves when an angel leads Peter out of prison before Herod can kill him (Acts 12.10) (Scott: p. 368). By itself means God is at work and mystery abounds.
And the UCC guy goes further. It shows how doing this kind of Bible study is like being a private detective. His research shows him that automate goes back to Hebrew Bible laws about the Sabbath. Especially when they talk about the practice of giving a Sabbath to the land. The book of Leviticus says, "Six years you shall sow your field, . . . and six years . . . gather in their yield' but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land. . . . [Y]ou shall not sow your
field. . . .What grows by itself (automata) in your harvest you shall not reap" (Lev. 25.4). As anyone who has a vegetable garden knows, even if you don't plant any seeds after you've been planting them for a while, something always will spring up out of the ground. Automate. By itself. But why can't they pick the food that grows by itself in their own field? The book of Exodus gives the answer: "[T]he seventh year you shall let [the land] rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard and your olive orchard" (Exodus 23.10-11).
So where does all this automate talk get us? The UCC guys says all this by itself language makes this a parable about grace. What happens by itself is God's grace at work. God's love, God's compassion, God's justice. God's dreams.
According to the UCC guy, how do we know how to live this word? He says Jesus is telling us God's grace rains down upon us all. We go to bed and we get up. We see signs of life all around us which we've done nothing to create or nurture. We see signs of love around us, and we have no clue where it all came from. It's like it just happened. In this seventh year Sabbath for the land, we scatter no see in the field. Yet food grows out of the ground anyway. Automate. By itself. To feed the poor and the wild animals. From the bounty of God's grace. Trust this grace. Be thankful for this grace. Become people of grace. That's how we live this word.
And what of the Presbyterian who talked about blepete being the sign Jesus was about to disagree with what came next? He says if Jesus' parables are about showing us a picture of the kingdom of God, then this parable of the seed that grows by itself is a picture of "the revolutionary patience and hope of" God's reign (Myers: p. 179). This farmer plants some seeds. Then kind of hangs out. And when the time is right, the seed bears fruit by itself. And then the farmer takes the sickle and harvest the crop. God and us are partners in creating the harvest. We each do our part. What happens by itself is a mystery. It is God's invisible work. God's work produces the harvest. We plant the seeds. Which is very important. Because what the Presbyterian is saying is that we don't dutifully accept the status quo's definition of how the world works. We don't buy for one minute the lie that it's God's will that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. No. Followers of Jesus plant seeds. We plant seeds that bring our faith alive by making God and Jesus and the Spirit real and alive for us. We plant seeds of justice. And mercy. We plant seeds that may bear the fruit of homes for street people. Dignity for the forgotten. Belonging for the excluded. We plant the seeds. But the harvest is God's work. As all people who work for justice know, to avoid burning out takes "revolutionary patience and hope". And that's what my Presbyterianterian conversation partner says this parable is about. It's what he says God's dream for us is. To do our part. And then, with revolutionary patience and hope, look for signs of God's grace-filled response. So we might plant more seeds . . . and be patient and hopeful again.
How do we know how? How do we know how to hear these words of Jesus? How do we know how to live them? It depends on who we listen to? The Anglican, the Presbyterianterian, or the Catholic-turned UCC? Or a combination of any of them?
As followers of Jesus, the way we plant the seeds is to keep the conversation going. With people we agree with and people we don't. To keep reading these stories of Jesus. To keep engaging with conversation partners, both on paper and alive. To keep trying to do what's faithful. We plant some seeds. And we listen and watch for new life to spring forth. We listen and watch. For signs of a harvest. That new life that springs forth by itself. By the amazing grace of God.
Amen.
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