Riddle Me This?

          The Sanhedrin was the authoritative governing council for the Jewish faith during the time of Jesus. It consisted of The Sadducees, the High Priests of the Temple in Jerusalem along with many of the Pharisees. Almost all of them considered Jesus to be a troublemaker. Much like the cartoon character of the “Riddler,” from the 1960’s television series, “Batman,” they considered Jesus’ ministry scandalous and at many times criminal breaking the Laws of Moses.

            Many Jews and Gentiles residing in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus’ ministry and later after his death and resurrection, and for that fact, most people throughout the Roman Empire until Christianity was made a legal religion in 313 CE by Emperor Constantine, would still consider Jesus an outlaw to their faith. And they would be correct. For Jesus was subversive. A sublimely subversive, fiercely independent young rabbi filled with the spirit of God, sent by God to change his world and ours.

            So how in just a little over 3 ½ years of ministry, preaching only in the Galilee and around Judea did he influence millions of people over these past two thousand years?

            The one aspect Jesus did share with “The Riddler” is how he expressed himself. “The Riddler” would baffle Batman, Robin the Boy Wonder, and Commissioner Gordon with inane, sometimes humorous riddles, that once solved would lead them to his attempted crimes.

Jesus riddled those listening to him with parables that spoke of God’s presence and how one should seek that presence. Some of the parables like that of the Mustard Seed can been found in all three of the synoptic gospels, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, as we read today in Matthew 13:31-32.

            So what is a parable and why and how did Jesus use them? Why do we follow this young rabbi from the back waters of the Galilee and not someone like “The Riddler”?

            Andrew S. Kulikovsky, writing in his treatise, The Interpretation of Parables, Allegories and Types, refers to parables as, “short stories that are told in order to get a point across and occur in both testaments of the Bible. There are many stories and saying of Jesus in the New Testament that are identified as parables, but not all of these are parables in the true sense. The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35) may be regarded as a true parable because it is a complete story with a beginning, ending and plot, but the Leaven in the Meal (as we read today) is a similitude, a simile, an imaginative comparison.

            A true parable then may be regarded as an extended simile. It is a story that resembles real-life natural situations and does not contain any mythical or supernatural elements.  These stories were told in order to catch the listener’s attention and provoke a response. Kulikovsky quotes C. H. Dodd defining a parable as: “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” They often embody a message that may not be communicated in any other way.”

            Jesus would convey his most important messages that of the ‘kingdom of God,’ as Rev. Hurst today likes to speak of it as ‘the commonwealth of God’, through parables.

Though his parables were not always discernable to the multitude who listened to him preach, Jesus intentionally used this form of storytelling, speaking in secular, common day language, about every day occurrences, such as, sowing a mustard seed, making bread, hiding a treasure, buying a pearl, and netting a huge catch of fish — all of these familiar actions that people of his time should be able to grasp and understand.

            However Jesus’ verbal illustrations of the reality of the ‘Kingdom of God’ were not meant to be ‘spoon-fed’ definitions, to be immediately understood and accepted. Many upon hearing Jesus preach, sometimes walked away confused. This was intentional on Jesus’ part for as I stated before, Jesus was a subversive. He spoke of the ‘kingdom of heaven’ eventually replacing the empire of Caesar. But he spoke this in parables to disguise his true intent.

            In fact, previously in Matthew 13:10-17, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ Jesus answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:

            “You will indeed listen, but never understand,             and you will indeed look, but never perceive. 

            For this people’s heart has grown dull,             and their ears are hard of hearing,             and they have shut their eyes;             so that they might not look with their eyes,             and listen with their ears,             and understand with their heart and turn — and I would heal them.”              But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

            Why is that? Why do people even today harden their hearing to the Word of God?

            Not long ago these pews as many others across America were filled with people listening to the Word of God. But what has happened? What has changed in our American culture that has emptied out our churches, synagogues, and even many of our mosques?

            I don’t think we can totally blame this erosion within our places of worship, our houses of organized religion on the deference or tone of our clergy or even our congregations. Something has happened within the mindset of many people, both within and outside our places of worship. Many people say they believe in God but don’t want to be involved with organized religion. They view church authority with mistrust and even irrelevance. What has happened? 

            After World War II, starting in the early 1950’s our federal government and our Main Line Denominational churches started becoming very chummy. For nearly 200 years of unconscious separation of church and state, as reference by the 1^st Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, all of a sudden some Americans consciously decided to try to move the federal government and the American Church closer together.

            In 1942 Congress finally voted on, passed, and authorized The Pledge of Allegiance, though it was written by Francis Bellamy, a Socialist Christian Baptist back in 1892. The words “under God” were not added by Congress until 1954. A year earlier in 1953, the very first ‘National Prayer Breakfast’ with a sitting president happened during the Eisenhower administration.

            “In God we trust” was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956 as an alternative or replacement to the unofficial motto of E pluribus unum, which was adopted when the Great Seal of the United States was created and adopted in 1782. Though “In God we trust” first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864, it was not till 1957 that it appeared on paper currency. Some churches even started displaying the American flag upon their sanctuary chancels, and many still do. There are many Americans today who would gladly make this country a Christian Theocracy.

            So is it just coincidence that the lack of respect and participation within and for both, the federal government and our places of worship seem to be eroding at the same time — their authorities both being challenged simultaneously?

            It’s something to think about.

            People don’t seem to care to about voting or attend religious services now a days. Could it be possibly be that they are viewed by many as being joined at the hip so to speak? — this nation proclaiming to be ‘under God’?

            It’s something to think about.

            Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, trying to get them to grasp the idea that the ‘kingdom of Heaven,’ God’s Commonwealth is for all of us. It already surrounds us, only to be recognized and realized.

            Something to think about?

            Today Jesus continues to give us something to think about — something to riddle our minds.

The parable of the mustard seed tells us that the Realm of God, God’s Commonwealth here on Earth can grow from a tiny seed. Our friend Bill Green described the growth of this herb, first as a tiny seed that becomes a shrub and eventually grows into a mighty tree able to support many different birds and their nests. So it is true of God’s presence bringing all nature of people, from all nations, coming together with thoughts of hope, inclusion, and acceptance coming together in community.

            In the parable of the woman making the bread, the common food of the people, she hides the yeast within its folds, causing it to expand and multiply in size, just as the Word of God can transcend geography and cultures making it possible to feed the spiritual needs of all humanity.

            In the parable of the hidden treasure in the field we realize our own recognition of our belief in God. We hold it close so as not to have it taken away from us. We proudly proclaim it as our own and will do anything and everything to protect it and nourish it so as to possess that hope, our faith in God forever.

           We see the merchant seeking the finest pearl as we seek the ultimate wisdom and truth of our God to hold, admire in awe, and praise.

            The Fisher’s net catches EVERY kind of fish as Alix Morehouse said the other night at Bible study. God uses an inclusive net to bring all people together.

And in the end judgment comes from God alone. We are not to judge each other.

Jesus’ parables are as relevant today as they were almost two thousand years ago.

God has not stopped speaking to us.

Through the image of worried innocent children attempting to come into our country a hundred years ago and still even now, all desperately seeking a safe and loving existence —

to the absence of the sound of honey bees buzzing around our shrubs and flowers, to the sin of the few to possess the most but still have those with the least suffer the most and carry the heaviest burdens, God is still speaking and reminding us of the commonwealth we are supposed to share.

            Just as Jesus spoke against Roman tyranny with parables, stories using the language of everyday actions and events to describe the unimaginable reality of God before those people then, believers and unbelievers, God still speaks to all today desperately trying to awaken us from our cellular stupor.

            Jesus taught by speaking in parables, repositioning his faith away from the governing authorities of his land and also redefining his Jewish faith. Jesus said to his disciples, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

            Perhaps we should take his lead and do the same by preaching again today in parables, both old and new. I wonder what a 21st Century parable will look like.

            “Riddle me this…”  What has the capacity to extoll the entire knowledge of the world for the benefit of all, yet it’s most popular application is to reflect the image of its beholder?

     “Riddle me that.” Amen.

God Places

God Places
SLIDE 3: HUMANS HAVE EXPERIENCED THE DIVINE PRESENCE
For as long as we have indications that human beings have consciously experienced the divine presence, we have evidence that suggests some places seem more holy than others. In the past fifteen years I have visited a number of classic holy places that have been considered sacred by many other human beings.
SLIDE 4: VARANASI
With the Birmingham 8 I visited the River Ganges in the sacred City of Varanasi, India, where we attended the fire offering to the river Ganga and observed Hindus from all over the world come to bath in the sacred river, and where they even come to die, so they might be cremated beside the waters and their ashes poured into the holy river.
SLIDE 5: SARNATH
Varanasi is also within a few miles of Sarnath, the site of the Buddha’s first sermon, and so is credited by some as the birthplace of Buddhism. While Buddhism flourished in others parts of Asia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, and Japan, it all but disappeared in India. So most of the spiritual tourists who visit Sarnath are Buddhist monks and adolescents from these other Asian countries.
SLIDE 6: GOLDEN TEMPLE
The Birmingham 8 also visited the Golden Temple of the Sikhs in Amritsar in the Punjab of India. The Temple is built around a much older place of spiritual focus that was a pond in the middle of a sacred forest, known as “the pool of the nectar of immortality,” and according to legend it possessed healing properties. Today the pond is part of a pool inside of the temple that surrounds the central shrine where the ritual reading of the Sikh scriptures are conducted. Ancient sacred trees grow at the east end of the lake and impart a blessing to those who bathe there.
SLIDE 7: MT. SINAI
Closer to our Judeo-Christian tradition I climbed Mt. Sinai with the Round Table Ice Group. We got up at 2 a.m. in order to be at the top of the mountain at dawn. I think I expected Mt. Sinai to be more inspirational. The place should have been infused with more holiness. But then maybe it was sharing the experience with the 4,000 other people who climbed the mountain that morning, or discovering Starbucks near the summit, or the lack of breakfast that detracted from the encounter. Somehow it would be my stomach that would get in the way of the divine.
SLIDE 8: HEBRON
On my last visit to Israel I finally had the opportunity to visit the City of Hebron and the Ibrahimi Mosque that is built over the Cave of Machpelah where according to tradition Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah are buried. The burial place of the Patriarchs is venerated by Muslims and Jews, but I was distracted by the Israeli soldiers and the separate entrances for each group as well as the bullet proof glass used to prevent the two sides from shooting at one another.
SLIDE 9: MT. OF BEATITUDES
In the Galilee I have experienced the Mount of Beatitudes as a place of energy and insight. The church there has the disadvantage of having been built by Mussolini, but it’s the view rather than the church that is important. From the Mt. of Beatitudes I can look down to the left and see Capernaum the headquarters for Jesus’ ministry. I look down to the right and I can see Tabgah the traditional site for the feeding of the multitude, the original Sharing Table. A little further away to the right is the Village of Magdala home of Mary Magdalene. Further to the left is Bethsaida the home of James and John and across the lake is Gamla, the headquarters of the zealot movement, and a little further on is Kursi, where Jesus healed the gentile demoniac and the swine ran down the bluff into the lake. From the Mt. of Beatitudes I understand how small was the world of the gospels, and feel the presence of Jesus still clinging to the mountainside.
SLIDE 10: BATHROOM QUEUE
Beth has been similarly affected by the Mt. of Beatitudes, but she reports an interesting encounter of another kind. She was waiting to use the women’s room standing in an orderly line with a number of Korean Christians, when a French woman walked past the line and into a stall that was being vacated. A very orderly Korean lady began to wrap on the door of the stall in protest. When the French woman came out of the stall the Korean lady pointed to the line and said, “There is a cue!”
With a wave of her hand the French woman replied, “You are stupid,” somehow I think missing Jesus’ point about sharing.
SLIDE 11: JERUSALEM
On several occasions I have visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where I have experienced a palpable energy perhaps from all of the prayers that have been offered in that place. On the steps of the southern entrance of the Temple I experienced an energy from walking in a place where undeniably Jesus had walked. And on our trip to Israel in 1998, during a relative thaw in Jewish Palestinian relations we were able to enter the Dome of the Rock. The exposed bedrock in the Dome according to legend is the place where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, where David placed the Ark of the Covenant, Solomon built the first Temple, and Muhammad reputedly made his night journey to heaven. According to tradition if there is any place where heaven is a local call the Temple Mount is it.
SLIDE 12: WHAT MAKES PLACES SACRED?
What makes these places sacred? Some sites have special historical associations. Other environments are awe inspiring because of some natural wonder or beauty associated with them. It is hard to visit the Grand Canyon or even Little River Canyon right here in Alabama without experiencing awe and wonder. Walking along the ocean for me is also spiritually stirring. I relate to the line from the Country Western song, “I hope you still feel small, when you stand beside the ocean.” Moments when we understand our own place within creation, that it’s not all about us, are humbling and spiritually important God moments. What is really important for the experience of the divine presence is somehow finding the sacred place within us.
SLIDE 13: THE PLACE OF SILENCE
One of my favorite devotional writers, Frederick Bueckner, tried to express it this way. “What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought. I suspect that there is nothing more crucial to true spiritual comfort, as the huge monk in cloth of gold put it, than being able from time to time to stop that chatter including the chatter of spoken prayer. If we choose to seek the silence of the holy place, or to open ourselves to its seeking, I think there is no surer way than by keeping silent.
God knows I am no good at it, but I keep trying, and once or twice I have been lucky, graced. I have been conscious but not conscious of anything, not even of myself. I have been surrounded by the whiteness of snow. I have heard a stillness that encloses all sounds stilled the way whiteness encloses all colors stilled, the way wordlessness encloses all words stilled. I have sensed the presence of a presence. I have felt a promise promised.
SLIDE 14: THE HOLY PLACE WITHIN
This conscious but not conscious relates to Jacob’s aha moment: “Surely God was in this place and I, i did not know.” Surely I was aware of God in this moment, because I was no longer aware of self. Self was not in the way. Transcending our selves is the entry point to the Holy Place within, and we usually only become aware of our having visited the sacred experience after the fact – like Jacob after we wake up.
SLIDE 15: VISITING PLACES FROM THE PAST?
Is there any benefit to visiting the sacred places where we or others have experienced the divine? Can we touch holiness by visiting, the fire offering at the great river, the pool of immortal nectar at Golden Temple, the Western Wall, or the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem? Maybe. But since the true holy place is really somewhere inside of us maybe it makes more sense to try to visit the locations, where we have experienced the divine presence. I have considered the possibility of making a pilgrimage to the places where in the past I have encountered the divine: Seventy-eighth and Pacific Streets in Omaha, the Quadrangle at Trinity College, under the organ at the First Presbyterian Church in Plattsburgh, New York, the Indiana Dunes, St. Paul’s Cemetery, an ocean beach at night. But we have to be careful we do not indulge too much in nostalgia, trying to get back to somewhere in the past that no longer exists. Rather we need to learn to cultivate the silence within and the openness to wonder that allows us to transcend ourselves to become aware of the divine presence in the present moment. Always remembering that we will only be aware after the fact. Sort of like God’s mysterious instruction to Moses to hide himself in a crevice of the rock, so the divine presence might pass by him and then and only then the prophet might “see” God’s back – see God in hindsight. Or like Jacob in our scripture, surely God was in this place, but I, i did not know it at the time.
SLIDE 16: FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM
Of course some people report they have never had an encounter with a divine presence. And who am I to argue with their experience or non-experience? I would, however, point to an observation by Ron Buford, who was the original architect of United Church of Christ Still Speaking Campaign – remember the bouncers?
He wrote recently: “’Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.’ This biblical text is on my top ten list of Bible verses to remember. Here fear does not mean “to be afraid.” but something more akin to ‘be in awe.’
“At a meeting with La Selva Beach Community Church UCC, I met Dick Kanto, who designs some of astronomy’s newest and most sophisticated instruments. When asked what recent discovery excites him most, he said new instruments have just revealed that an area of space astronomers previously thought to be strangely dark, has turned out to be filled with stars.
SLIDE 17: DISCOVERING STARS IN PLACES DEVOID OF LIGHT
“These stars did not just appear. They were always there.
“Belief only in “the stuff” we see, atheism, fear of the unknown, are all sheer folly not only for science, but also for society and self. Through the lens of faith, possibility, and hypothesis, we become our best selves discovering stars in places seemingly devoid of light.
SLIDE 18: A NEW FAITH LENS
“(Theologian) Henri Nouwen compared God to an elegant trapeze artist, ‘The Great Catcher.’ So if you feel unloved, hopeless, overwhelmed, or like a failure, try a new faith lens. Catch the unbounded Light of a God breaking forth, grasping our lives, from despair, swinging them to new heights of possibility.
SLIDE 19: SURELY GOD WAS IN THIS PLACE
We might all try a new faith lens. Perhaps with that lens we will discover the sacred place within our selves, that place of quiet, silence, where we transcend the chatter even of whispered prayer. And then perhaps like Jacob we will discover God’s presence, where we never expected, and we will say, “Surely God was in this place and I, i did not know.”

Cultivating Good Soil

Cultivating Good Soil
SLIDE 3: WHY DO SOME RESPOND AND OTHERS TURN AWAY?
Our scripture this morning was worked and re-worked by the early church, but it still retains the seed of the authentic teaching of Jesus. The early church was terribly disappointed that more Jews did not hear and respond to the way of Jesus. Within a hundred years after the death of Jesus the church had become primarily a gentile institution. The church and the synagogue were casting mutual curses at each other and Judaism and Christianity became estranged from one another. While our parable in its present form carries the marks of the concerns of the early church, we can also see in these words a genuine question that was asked of Jesus. “How come some people hear the word about the Common Wealth of God and they respond in faith, while other people hear the preaching of the Good News, and they either reject it or they initially respond with enthusiasm but then wither away?”
SLIDE 4: GRACE IS A MYSTERY
Grace is a mystery. Why do some people seem to “get it,” while others remain blind? Someone, either Jesus or the early church, perhaps the author of Matthew recognized people had been wondering about that very question since the time of Isaiah the prophet Chapter 6:
SLIDE 5: EYES WIDE SHUT
Your ears are open but you don’t hear a thing.
Your eyes are awake but you don’t see a thing.
The people are blockheads!
They stick their fingers in their ears
so they won’t have to listen;
They screw their eyes shut
so they won’t have to look,
so they won’t have to deal with me face-to-face
and let me heal them.
SLIDE 6: WHAT WE WORSHIP DETERMINES THE KINDS OF LIVES WE WILL LIVE
What we worship determines the kinds of lives we will live. If power, wealth, physical beauty and pleasures are most important in our lives, then we will devote ourselves to those worldly goals. Of course, we don’t make physical idols anymore. We don’t carve images of stone or wood, or cast figurines of silver or gold. But look around our environment and take in the images that capture our attention. Consider the objects or the pass times we spend so much of our time and labor to possess and maintain. After all we are only 49 days until kick-off. We seldom allow ourselves to become conscious of the things we worship most.
SLIDE 7: REST OF THE WORLD CRAZY ABOUT FUTBOL
Actually the World Cup about to be completed in Rio has helped to give some perspective to our American obsession with sports. The rest of the world is as crazy about soccer or what they call futbol as we are about American football. And there is a joke about Satan and St. Peter organizing a soccer match between heaven and hell.
The match was to be played on neutral ground between the select team from the heavenly host and the forces of darkness. “Very well,” said the gatekeeper of Heaven. “But you realize, I hope, that we’ve got all the good players and the best coaches.”
“I know, and that’s all right,” Satan answered unperturbed. “We’ve got all the referees.”
SLIDE 8: JUDGED BY HOW WE USE OUR TIME AND MONEY?
If you and I were to be judged by how we use our time and money, what might an observer from another planet or another culture conclude are the gods we worship: our jobs, trying to look good, sports, recreation, collectibles, our homes, lawns, gardens, food, film, television, Youtube, politics, the internet? I know I’m getting close to meddling, but what captures your time, attention, or budget? We all have to earn a living, and it’s not that enjoying life and activities are bad, but our challenge is perspective – keeping our eyes wide open, so we can occasionally see ourselves through God’s eyes. Matt Fitzgerald offered us a good Still Speaking Devotional this week about keeping our eyes wide open.
SLIDE 9: FRIEND WHOSE HOUSE LOOKS OUT ON AN ISLAND
Matt wrote: “I have a friend whose house looks out on an island. He said, ‘I don’t need to go to church. I already know how to look at the island.’ Maybe he knows how to be awestruck, even grateful. So why go to church?
“Well, church teaches us to see more than beauty. It teaches us to see ourselves.
SLIDE 10: HOMELESS SHOP FOR FREE
“Each year at the end of my congregation’s rummage sale homeless men and women shop ‘for free.’ My job is to guard the door while they assemble. Last summer there were about eighty people waiting and more than thirty minutes to wait. The crowd was restless. I folded my arms and tried to look stern. I felt scared.
“The first man in line was rough, long ponytail, torn leather jacket. Tough as nails. We stood two feet from each other in dead silence. At least five minutes passed.
“Then he spoke up. ‘You want to see a picture of my kids?’ They were beautiful, of course. Twins. Two-year-old girls. He had about a dozen photos. ‘I’m here to get them beds. I’d wait all day.’ He smiled.
SLIDE 11: BROKENNESS INSIDE OF US
“And when he did I saw him for who he truly was. And I saw my fear for what it truly was and I felt myself indicted and enlightened, both at once. That’s what church can do. It can help us see the beauty all around us – and the brokenness inside us.”
SLIDE 12: GOD LOVES US CARES FOR US
We can go out in nature and see evidence of our Creator. On a really dark night like when the power was off after the tornados we can look up in the sky and become lost in the wonder of the stars. We can sit down to a table of fresh produce from the garden and experience thankfulness. But to see ourselves through God’s eyes maybe we do need the church. For just when we become angry and judgmental about someone else’s behavior in church, God pulls us up short and reminds us how far we fall short in following the way of Jesus. It’s not my purpose to guilt trip people, and God knows people don’t want to come to church to feel bad about themselves. Most of us are good enough at beating up on ourselves without the church’s help. And I hope I repeat often enough the important message that God loves us, God cares for us, and we are all precious children of God.
SLIDE 13: WORSHIP SOMETHING OTHER THAN OURSELVES
Occasionally, however, like Matt Fitzgerald we need our brothers and sisters in the community of faith to help us to see the beauty around us and to experience the brokenness inside us. We are all precious children of God, and we are all in need of God’s healing. That is why we come together to worship. To worship something other than ourselves, our stuff, our addictions, and our obsessions. To remind ourselves that we are not self-made people, and we belong to a love that will not let us go even beyond death.
SLIDE 14: OUR ENSLAVEMENT
The false gods we worship demand sacrifice. Our prayer of confession this morning expresses our enslavement. From slavery to schedules, lists and deadlines, from the tyranny of cell phones and the rule of wristwatches, from bondage to busyness to all things that simply must be done before we stop to think or feel or care – good Lord deliver us. From the domination of our moods the gnawing of worry, the pang of guilt, the lead weight of depression and despair, our worship of a mediocre yet comfortable way of life, our fear of failing, hurting, dying. Good Lord, deliver us, and make us free to lose and find ourselves in caring for each other and for the redemption of the whole world.
SLIDE 15: COME HERE TO WORSHIP OUR CREATOR
That is why we come here with good spiritual friends to worship our creator. As Jesus said last week, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This is a God that does not demand sacrifice. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” When we finally turn away from our false gods, the gods of sacrifice, we find our way home. We find rest, peace, the Sabbath of the heart.
SLIDE 16: GOD’S SHALOM
The miracle of grace is that once we let go of the false gods of sacrifice the spirit grows within us all on its own: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The good soil of faith produces first the blade, then the ear, and finally the full grain appears in the harvest of the Commonwealth of God. Everyone then is invited to the table and everyone shares and eats together. And God’s Shalom comes to earth and everything and everyone is healed.

My Yoke Is Light

My Yoke Is Light
SLIDE 7: THE JESUS SEMINAR
In the 1980’s and 1990’s a group of scholars got together and called themselves “the Jesus Seminar.” Their goal was to try to establish what elements of the Gospels represented the historical words and deeds of Jesus as opposed to the words the early church later put in his mouth, and the exaggerated stories that grew up around the early church’s memories of Jesus, but were not grounded in historical fact. So how did the Jesus Seminar establish what they believed were the elements of the Gospel that were authentically Jesus? They voted! After study and discussion the participants would vote on each passage using a system of colored beads.
SLIDE 8: THE AUTHENTIC WORDS OF JESUS
A red bead indicated the voter believed Jesus did say the passage quoted, or something very much like the passage. A pink bead indicated the voter believed Jesus probably said something like the passage, but not exactly. A grey bead indicated the voter believed Jesus did not say the passage, but it contained some of Jesus’ ideas. A black bead indicated the voter believed Jesus did not say the passage — it came from later admirers or a different tradition. Of course this system of voting has been questioned and critiqued. Many critics have questioned the credentials of the voters. Others have suggested that the Seminar began with a series of liberal biases that flawed the work from the beginning. Another line of criticism has asked, how can you establish the truth by voting? And of course fundamentalists have attacked the work of the Seminar, because according to them every word of the King James translation is the inspired word of God.
Actually very few verses in the gospels received a “red rating” – the actual words of Jesus. And almost nothing in the Gospel of John was rated as authentically the words of Jesus.
SLIDE 9: MY YOKE IS EASY, AND MY BURDEN IS LIGHT
I don’t feel called upon to attack or defend the work of the Jesus Seminar but for our purpose this morning I would like to note that almost every scholar involved in the study voted with a red bead for the quotation: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” because these were the genuine words of a First Century Carpenter. One of the most important objects carved by a rural carpenter was a yoke for oxen. The yoke had to be strong enough to withstand the stresses and strains of pulling a plow through the soil, and it had to be light enough so the oxen were not exhausted by carrying the weight of the yoke. “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” might have been a slogan, an advertisement for a rural carpenter.
SLIDE 10: SPIRITUAL FAITHFULNESS DOES NOT CONSIST IN OFFERING SACRIFICES
So what did Jesus mean, when he utilized this slogan in his preaching and teaching? First, Jesus was assuring his listeners that spiritual faithfulness does not consist in the offering of sacrifices. Judaism as practiced in the Temple in Jerusalem was a complicated set of offerings: burnt offerings, cereal offerings, offerings of expensive incense. The Temple Tax was another burden over and above the taxes levied by the Romans and the Herods. The peasants to whom Jesus was preaching in the countryside were being pushed off of their land by the tariffs and assessments of their overlords. The poor landless day laborers of the countryside barely had enough to eat much less a goat, or a lamb, or an ox to sacrifice.
SLIDE 11: LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD
Remember Jesus parable of the “Laborer’s in the Vineyard?” The people to whom Jesus was ministering knew the frustration of showing up in the market place and waiting all day for some land owner to hire them for a day’s labor. How getting paid or not paid at the end of the day was the difference between eating and going to bed hungry.
SLIDE 12: SKILLED BUT LANDLESS WORKERS
We know Jesus own family were poor. The prescribed offering in the Temple for a first born son was a lamb, but all Mary and Joseph could afford were two turtle doves, and even that was stretching the family resources. We think of carpenters as skilled laborers, who can make a good living. But in First Century Palestine carpenters were skilled but landless workers, who were only just above the status of day laborers.
SLIDE 13: OCCUPY THE TEMPLE
Jesus was also painfully aware that the records of debt were kept in the Temple and so the priestly families were implicated in the foreclosure on peasant holdings and the consolidation of large estates. When Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers in the Temple, he was attacking not just the exchange of secular money for Temple money, he was also targeting the lending of money that was at the heart of the movement to push small peasants off of their land. In comparison to the Priests and the money lenders Jesus’ yoke was light. There were parallels between Jesus and Occupy Wall Street.
SLIDE 14: NO MIXING MEAT AND DAIRY
Another way Jesus’ yoke was easy was in contrast to the conservative Pharisees who were multiplying rules and regulations for the “keeping of the law.” In Deuteronomy 14:21 the Torah reads: “Do not eat road kill. You may give it to the foreigner residing in any of your towns, and they may eat it, or you may sell it to the illegal alien. But you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.” The Rabbis were in the process of concluding from that one simple phrase tacked onto the end of the verse, about not cooking a young goat in its mother’s milk, that Jews were not allowed to mix meat and dairy. Not only did that eliminate chicken fried steak with milk gravy and cheese burgers, but you weren’t allow to have meat and milk or cheese at the same meal. So there goes the milk shake with the simple hamburger. Also pretty soon the Rabbis ruled that everybody had to have two sets of dishes, one for meat meals and one for dairy meals. And the Pharisees also multiplied the regulations for keeping the Sabbath. So if you were hungry and you had no food, you didn’t dare harvest a few grains of wheat on the Sabbath to satisfy your hunger.
SLIDE 15: THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN NOT MAN FOR THE SABBATH
Mark 2:23-24 “One Sabbath day Jesus was walking through a field of ripe grain. As his disciples made a path, they pulled off heads of grain to eat. The Pharisees told on them to Jesus: “Look, your disciples are breaking Sabbath rules!”
The simple peasants to whom Jesus was ministering didn’t have enough to eat much less two sets of dishes. Many of them were so desperately poor they might even be tempted to try to eat road kill. Sayings like, “It’s not the food you put in your mouth that defiles you, it is the lying, slander, gossip and curses that come out of your mouth that defile you,” or “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” were intended to lighten the burden of the poor.
SLIDE 16: EVERYONE INVITED TO GOD’S TABLE
Jesus was trying to make the spiritual benefits of Judaism accessible to everyone – rich, poor, Republican, Democrat, socialite, outcaste. God loves you, and God invites you to the Sharing Table, where everyone can be fed. Jesus’ practice of open commensality, in other words he would eat with anyone, was a symbol of his way of love – do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God. My yoke is easy, my burden is light.
SLIDE 17: FORGIVING ENEMIES, WELCOMING STRANGERS PRETTY ONEROUS BURDEN
Of course, many of us balk at the burdens of following the way of Jesus – all of that loving and sharing stuff. Do we really have to love everyone? Even people of other races or cultures or religions or social classes? We want to be able to choose who may come to our Sharing Table, where we will be seated – or at least who is going to sit next to us! Forgiving enemies and welcoming strangers, and people we don’t like can seem like a pretty onerous burden.
SLIDE 18: I AIN’T A GOIN’
I’ve heard people told that they better get used to associating with some race of people or social group, because they are going to be in heaven. And hearing people respond, “Well if those people are going to be in heaven, then I ain’t a goin!”
A week ago in a Still Speaking Devotional entitled “Today on the Church’s Court,” John Edgerton gave us some perspective about Jesus’ admonitions about forgiveness.
SLIDE 19: PEOPLE’S COURT
Back in the ’90s, I used to watch a ton of The People’s Court with Ed Koch.   I don’t know who managed to convince the former mayor of New York to take that gig but I wanted to shake their hand.  Two people would come before the court and dig in their heels, fully convinced they were in the right. In the end, truth would come out and Mayor Koch would bring the hammer down—the wrongdoer would have to pay.  I ate it up!  
As a young man who loved The People’s Court, I would read Jesus’ words—you must forgive—and hear in them a grave injustice.  “But . . . but . . . if they’re in the wrong, they should have to pay.  Fair is fair!”  I couldn’t stop wrestling with Jesus’ command, turning it over and over in my mind as if by abundance of thought I could wear the Word down to nothing. Which, of course, I could not.
SLIDE 20: THE CHURCH’S COURT — FORGIVE
 Although I read Jesus’ words in the Bible, I learned to live them in the church. When I was in conflict with another member, I would have to see them every week.  I would pray the Lord’s Prayer with my voice in unison with theirs or else I would have to stand among God’s people silent and alone.  I would eat from the same bread of life as they did or else I would have to go hungry for grace.   I had to forgive.   “Today on The Church’s Court, right relationship is restored when two imperfect people speak honestly with one another and strive to be their best selves.” It probably wouldn’t make for good daytime TV, but it absolutely does make for a good life.
SLIDE 21: MY YOKE IS EASY, MY BURDEN IS LIGHT
Jesus does ask us to love one another, to share, to forgive. Is it really so much to ask in exchange for the love and forgiveness of God and peace with ourselves and our neighbors? “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” You want rest and peace? Come to Jesus!