The harvest festival of Pentecost.

Hey there.  Welcome.  Pull up a chair, and get comfy.

If you were paying any kind of attention on Sunday, what you may have learned is that Pentecost did not begin life as a Christian festival celebrating the arrival of the Holy Spirit.  It began life at a Hebrew harvest festival.  Now, if you know that, what I'm going to say next should come as no great surprise:  There is an awful lot of harvest imagery in the Scriptures. Jesus himself was not shy about talking on the subject, and for good reason.  This was a resource based economy, quite unlike the Roman empire, which was more of a legionary based economy.  But in agrarian Israel, known as the fertile crescent, a land overflowing with milk and honey, that could actually be planted and harvested.  Unlike the wilderness that the Israelites spent a whole bunch of time wandering around in the Pentateuch, the promised land, formerly Caanan, was fertile, was plantable, was a space in which you could harvest grain.  And lost of stuff was harvested and planted in that area.   dates and figs and leeks and onions and grain and all that was planted and harvested in Israel.  And as you saw in the story of Genesis and Exodus, if there was a famine in your land, it didn't matter what kind of life you'd built up for yourself there, you had to go.  You had to go where there was food.  Now, for us, we're never out of food.  Sure, there may be a time when kiwis are a little cheaper, but we're never out of food.  But the good people of Israel could run out of food.  They habitually did.  And it didn't matter if you were a farmer or a merchant, if your area was out of food, if the harvest failed, you had to go. So the people of Israel were keenly aware of the harvest, and of the role that God had to play in the harvest.

Way back, people knew that whatever other plans they'd made, they couldn't influence the weather.  You could plant your crop as vigorously as you wanted, but for goodness' sake, you had very little control over whether or not the crops actually grew.  That was up to God.  Knowing how reliant they were on God for good weather, for an abundance of crops, they understood how important it was to celebrate days like Pentecost, the harvest festival.

Perhaps that's why Jesus used the illustration that he did. Think for a moment of his parable of the sower of the seed, and how that went.

On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. ² And great multitudes were gathered to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat down; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

³ Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. ⁴ And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. ⁵ Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. ⁶ But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. ⁷ And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. ⁸ But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. ⁹ He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

                                                                                                -Matthew 13:1-9

Jesus told this parable for a reason.  He told this parable because people understood that the harvest, the crops, were important.  They understood that there were seeds that were scattered, and some would grow, and others not.  And Jesus is informing them that there will be growth, there will be an increase, there will be a harvest.  Which seeds will grow?  

¹⁸ Therefore, hear the parable of the sower: ¹⁹ When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. ²⁰ But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹ yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. ²² Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful, ²³ But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

Jesus says this, knowing that the people should get it.  But they will resist.  Who are those who hear the word and understand it?  Maybe not the people who thought they would.  The people listening, did they see themselves as the ones who were growing amongst thorns?  Did they see themselves as those growing up and getting snatched by birds?  Probably not.  But when the time comes for the Holy Spirit to come, who does it come to?  It comes to those who will hear it and understand it.  That's the whole point of Pentecost, that people can hear God's word for them, maybe for the first time.  And hearing, they can understand it.  

This is the harvest of the parable writ large.  The word of God actually being scattered far and wide, to all sorts of people.  You see the word of God being sown abroad, and you get to see the reaction that the people have to the word being preached.  Some mock, some are befuddled and confused, and others, well, others hear the word, and respond to it joyfully.  And as the disciples go on their way, as Pentecost people, that harvest continues, the harvest of the last of the grain to ripen. The harvest of the final flowers.  The gentiles, those who were hungry for God and his word.  That is who the harvest is now.

He who has ears, let him hear.  

Is the president stepping down?

No, not that president, obviously, but the president of our congregation.  I hope I gave many of you a scare on Sunday when I told you that our congregational president, Glenn Loewen, would be stepping down, and that we'd draw names out of a hat to take his place.  Of course, he isn't stepping down, but can you imagine?  And can you imagine if I'd gone one step further, and told you that Glenn Loewen had fallen headlong into a field and burst asunder. (warning:  Graphic content).  Now, imagine that Mr. Loewen had fallen headlong into a field, and we had to choose someone else to replace him.  On the spot.  Imagine that!

The guy's such a baseball pro he uses three bats!

Well, fortunately, not happening.  But that's the situation that the disciples were facing.  Yes yes, it's easy for us to, with perfect hindsight, look back and say that of course Judas would betray the son of man.  It's in his name.  But that's about as sensible as saying that Lou Gehrig should have known that he was going to die of Lou Gehrig's disease.  Simple enough for those of us who have come along since, but mind-blowing for the people who saw it happen.

We're used to the idea that Judas would be the betrayer, so used to it now, that it seems amazing that they'd let him into the group of disciples to begin with.  It should come as no surprise that the name Judas has become completely conflated with the very definition of a traitor.  It obviously wasn't back then, though.  I find it funny that people think that "Judas" in the scriptures was an anti-semitic fabrication designed to blame first-century Jews for everything, and to demonize them when:
a) all of the disciples were first-century Jews, and
b) if you'd payed attention to the reading from Sunday, you'd realize that in Acts 1:13, it mentions a "Judas, the son of James" who was perfectly faithful.  So there.

Anyway, we are used to the idea of Judas being the traitor, but we shouldn't be.  And we shouldn't be, precisely because his ideas apart from the whole betrayal of Jesus thing, weren't too foreign from our ideas.  Remember the bit where Judas is bent out of shape about how the perfume is being used?

12 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to 

Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised 

from the dead. ² Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. 

Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining 

at the table with him. ³ Then Mary took about a pint

of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet 

and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

⁴ But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was 

later to betray him, objected, ⁵ “Why wasn’t this perfume 

sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.”

 ⁶ He did not say this because he cared about the poor but 

because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to

 help himself to what was put into it.

⁷ “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she 

should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 

⁸ You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

John 12: 1-8

What is Judas saying that is so incendiary?  That expensive things that the church possesses should be sold and the proceeds given to the poor?  How reactionary!  Of course, this same conversation is being played out about a thousand times a day all over the world.  People everywhere are saying 'why doesn't the church, if it cares about the poor, sell all the buildings it has, sell the robes, sell the ornate fixtures, and give all that money to the poor?'  Why indeed.  An awful lot of people are saying that exact same thing right now, and we don't refer to them as traitors.  Ignore, for a moment, the narrator's comment about how Judas was a thief, and all of a sudden, his idea doesn't seem so strange, does it?  Instead of anointing Jesus, why not sell the perfume and give the proceeds to the poor?  

Well, it's easy for us, in hindsight, knowing everything there is to know, to say 'of course Judas would say that.  He was a thief, and a lover of money!'  Yes yes yes.  But we forget the most important thing that everyone involved in the passion forgot too.

a) Judas forgot that the disciples were all traitors, too.  And

b) the disciples forgot that the disciples were all traitors too.

Looking back on things, it's easy for us to point the finger at Judas and say 'for shame, Judas."  But the disciples just thought he was a regular guy.  And when the time came for the betrayal to happen, they were shocked, stunned, and betrayed.  They thought that nobody close to them, in that inner circle could possibly be a traitor.   And Judas thought the same thing. Thus, the suicide.  Thus the death in the field of blood, because he thought that he was the only one, and was therefore beyond forgiveness.  But what we contemplate, with the benefit of hindsight, is that the disciples were all a bunch of goofs.  They were all a collection of screwups.  They, like we, looked at Judas and tut-tutted at him.  As one does.  And Judas looked at himself, as compared with the rest of the disciples, and tut-tutted himself to death.

But part of Christianity, in addition to judging others, is the evaluation of the self. And once you've done that, then you may just realize that you're not as great as you could be.  But don't worry about that.  You're the same as everyone else.  It's easy to feel as though you're the only pretender in the pew, you're the only one who has a messed up life, and everyone else has it all together, but guess what:  If they had it all together, they wouldn't be in church.  If even the disciples, those closest to Jesus, were cowards and traitors and liars, what makes you think that those in the pew with you on Sunday morning aren't the same? You're a sinner.  And so are they.  You're all a bit of a mess. You all need Jesus.  That's why you're in church.  What drove Judas to despair, and the Christians of today to judgment over him, is that both sides forgot that they were sinners too, no better and no worse than the other.  If you're worried about someone's sin, have it be your own first.

H2O & C738H1166N812O203S2Fe

In our order for service for the baptism of infants, adults, and anything in between, there exists this enigmatic line:

"Baptism now saves you"

                                                          -1 Peter 3:21

Oh boy.  Not a huge fan of that.  The idea that something that we can do saves us is a little bit of a freakout, especially for us Lutherans.  Know why?  Because we are against works righteousness in every way.  Something you could possibly do saves you?  No thanks.  That's not what we're all about.

But the Bible is a tricky customer is she not?  On one hand, you have a whole lot of discussion about how the salvation of our sins is from Christ alone, and about how his atoning sacrifice was sufficient for everyone.  On the other hand, you have passages like this one, that talk about how there is something, some ritual that you can do, that will save you.  Of course, this tends to beg the question:  if baptism saves you, what about the people who were not baptized?

Naturally, this sort of stuff is all about context.  And I hate to be the guy that talks about context, mainly because I hear that all the time about certain verses in the Bible that ain't so nice.  You know the ones, about kids getting mauled by bears and all that.  Or perhaps that bit in the reading from acts that describes the suicide of Judas:

Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness, 

and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.

                                                              -Acts 1:18

Is that taken out of context?  I guess.  What is the context?  Judas was overcome with grief and remorse, and killed himself.  As a forum poster on hardcore Christian gamer once said "the Bible isn't all unicorns and rainbows, you know."  And he was right to say it.  Because it's true.  What good would our scriptures be if we lived in a real world in which people committed suicide through depression, or being overcome with grief, or what have you, and then when we looked at the scriptures, nobody behaved in that way? It wouldn't be much good at all.  Yes, rotten stuff happens in the Holy Bible.  Mainly because people are rotten, and they do rotten things to each other.  Context context context, obviously, and if you know what context is all about, you'll know that we see a lot of stuff in the Bible that is there not for us to emulate, but for us to see what happens, both for good and for ill.

Now, context is important, because the rest of this verse is like, vital stuff.  It says

In the ark, only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 

and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also - 

not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a good

conscience toward God.  It saves you by the resurrection of 

Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven, and is at God's right hand

with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him.

                                                                             -1 Peter 3:20-22.

Get that, playa.  Baptism saves you how?  By the resurrection of Jesus Christ!  I.e., through something that you don't do as a work for him!  Whew!  We can go back to being Lutheran now!  The idea is that we are 

baptized into Christ's death.  Were were therefore buried with him through

baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ

was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, 

we too may live a new life.  If we have been united with

him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his 

resurrection.  For we know that our old self was crucified with him

so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no

longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has 

died has been freed from sin.

                                                                     - Romans 6:3-7

Get that?  The water is not just the removal of dirt from the body, but you're being baptized into Christ. Into what part of Christ?  His death, and his resurrection.  The water and the blood.  These things are meaningless without each other.  That is, what many people seem to forget is that when you get your child baptized, it's not just a fun ceremony where your kid gets some water sprinkled on their heads.  It evokes powerful images, images that are vast and grand and so large that you almost can't see them.  Moses leading the children of Israel through the parted red sea, which all the while was threatening to crash down upon them.  Noah and his family in the ark, safe and secure while all around them the floodwaters rose.  The death of Christ on the cross and his burial, followed by being raised up from the tomb, leaving it empty.  All of that is happening in baptism.  What now saves you?  God saves you.  Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We are united with him in his death, and so too, in his resurrection.  

Love is my religion

Life's funny sometimes, isn't it?  Upon getting to Church on Sunday morning, I checked my twitter feed on my phone (@revjimmah.  Follow me).  What should I happen to see, but a tweet that someone had posted saying "<3 is my religion."  How interesting, since, of course, my sermon on Sunday morning was all about 1 John 4:7-11.

God Is Love

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Now, as you may have heard on Sunday, and even if you didn't, this is one of the readings that Kari and I chose for our wedding.  And we stood up in front of God and the assembled crowd of three hundred people, and listened to those words.  And we thought that it was all very nice.  But in the case of love being someone's religion, and God being love, what does all that mean?  Because if you scratch the surface, it's not all that clear what it means to say that love is your religion.  Because you probably don't know what love is.  What is love?  That joke needed a little more mileage.

So, what is love?  Well, in the case of 1 John, it's the sort of agape love.  It's one of the verbs for love that occurs in the New Testament in Greek, the sort of thing that doesn't really translate real well over into english.  But there it is, large as life, telling us that we are supposed to love one another.  We picked that reading for our wedding, but it doesn't limit the issue to married couples.  It talks about how we who are Christians, who will be known by our love, how we ought to love one another.  For God is love.  And his love was shown in this way: That he laid down his life for us.  

The New Testament, in the book of John, records Jesus saying in chapter fifteen:

"Greater love has no one than this: That he lay down his life

for his friends."

That is love.  That you sacrifice yourself for others.  Your friends, your family, your spouse, other people who happen to be around, whatever.  When it says that we should love each other, this is what it means, laying down your life for your friends.  Now, many of us may meditate on this issue and say 'okay, I will lay down my life for my friends if the issue comes up.  If the time comes for me to lay down my life, I will be prepared to.'  My answer is, and always has been, 'really?'

Another classic wedding passage is from first Corinthians:  

13 If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

If this is your religion, I have some bad news for you.  You don't do it very well.  It's just another religion of the law.  It's just another religion that tells you a code of ethics to do, and that's that.  It tells you that if your love be sincere, it will be patient, and kind and bear all things, and always trust and always hope.  Looking at my own relationship, I'm a pretty cool guy.  But I'm also a pill.  I love my wife, but I'm not always patient and kind, I'm not always sweet and nice, and I'm not always ready to bear all things and endure all things.  Sometimes, I'm a bit of a pill, who doesn't like to be told what to do.  And if that's my religion, and I'm honest with myself, then all it'll do is tell me how I fail.

But love isn't my religion.  Or maybe it is.  If God is love, then maybe love is my religion.  If the greatest love of all is for someone to lay down their lives for their friends, then I can either think about how I don't do it, and don't plan to really sincerely start, or I can pretend I do that on a regular basis, or, or, I can be thankful that this was exactly the sort of love that Jesus showed to me, and to everyone else.  The thing I'm bad at doing, both in my marriage and everywhere else, is what Jesus did for me.  And curiously enough, that makes me a better husband, and a better father.  And it strengthens my relationships.  How?  Because built into the whole system is the idea that you will fail at your ideals.  You will miss the mark that you set for yourself.  And in this, we have the wonderful glue that holds the marriage, the relationship, the friendships, the everything together.  Forgiveness.  You will fail, you can be forgiven.  It's the getting of this into your head that is both difficult, and also rewarding.  Greater love has no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friends.  We, imperfect though we are, are friends of Christ, part of his body, forgiven and redeemed children of God.  So beloved, let us love one another.  

The Great Shepherd of the Sheep

I wanted desperately to show these images on Sunday morning, but I couldn't figure out how to get it done.  Technical difficulties and all that.  But when I get to talking about the great shepherd of the sheep, I get to thinking about sheep, shepherds and wolves.  And the issue of camouflage.

Now, I think it's kind of funny when my useless housecat decides that he wants to be a big bad hunter.  He's dreadful.  He's a real mamma's boy. He's a cuddler, a lover not a fighter. But when he sees birds through the window, it brings out the animal within.  He gets all low to the ground, and his pupils get all big, and he backs up, and, like, wiggles his little kitten butt before charging.  And that's the way he hunts. And I used to think that it was a terrible method of hunting.  How are you ever going to catch anything, particularly anything as fast moving as a bird, by doing the ol' back up butt wiggle?

But it works.  I mean, not in the case of our kitten, but cats obviously catch birds, even though I think they're obvious.  They're sneaky, those kittens, don't you know.  They sneak around, and like to catch stuff.  And they manage to do it.  But how do they manage to do it?  How do they piece things together so that they can catch birds who presumably could see them the whole time?  And that's the secret that lurks at the heart of this illustration of sheep and wolves.

This is how you picture a wolf, right?  Insanity wolf over here?  All black against a white background, snarling, drooling, getting angry and getting visible.  And if you were to see this in anything like your general vicinity, you'd either run as fast as you can, perhaps climbing a tree, or getting back into your car as quickly as possible.  Or, you might try to stick around and fight the wolf by killing it with a bow and arrow.  But you probably wouldn't stick around, and figure that the wolf really didn't pose much of a threat.

But here's how wolves typically look. They blend in, they make it difficult to be seen.  They don't want to be seen.  And they certainly don't want to be seen as a threat.  They're also pack hunters, so if you manage to see a wolf wandering around, and you're keeping your eye on it, then there's a really good chance there are others who are interested in getting a piece of you.  They obviously don't want to be seen until it's too late for you.  But when we think of the devil prowling around, we think of him being like the first wolf, all freaking out and snarling, and less like the second, camouflaged and sneaking around.  And believe it or not, that's exactly what he'd want.

Which of these is more like how you actually perceive the devil?  Probably the one on the left, right?  All teeth and horns and tail, with red skin, stirring a cooking pot and laughing maniacally?  Sure you do.  We've had that image for a long time.  But if that is the image of the devil, looking like the first wolf, we'd never let him get anywhere near us.  He's scary!  He's mean!  He's, um, stock!  But the devil in the second picture (standing, dressed in red), that's the devil as seen in Milton's paradise lost.  And the devil, as seen in Paradise Lost, has a way of coming off like a rebellious hero.  He has a way of coming across like he does in the perception of the vast majority of people, as a wounded but noble anti-hero, standing up for his rights in the face of a cruel and capricious God.  It's an idea that lots and lots of people have, sympathy for the devil.  We find it easy to sympathize with him because it's how we see ourselves.  God always telling us what to do and constantly busting in on our good times.  We don't especially like God trying to level the ten commandments against us, and telling us how to live.  Forget you, we say, let us live our lives free of your interference.

Well, sure.  I suppose.  But what Satan ran into in the garden was that he was actually not God's equal. And neither are we.  We think that we are, because we think that we're not sheep.  We think that we're independent rational beings who make great decisions.  But we remain sheep.  And as sheep, the wolves are happy for us to get out of the pen, away from the shepherd, and out into their clutches.  But in this interplay between shepherd and wolf, the shepherd wants to be seen.  He wants the fences to be seen, he wants the limits to be known, and he wants his authority to be clear.  The wolf, he doesn't want to be seen in the slightest.  So too often, we know what we're running away from, but have no idea what we're running towards.  Not until it's too late.

So, what to do?  Well, as usual, Lutheran style, we want it to be clear that it's not what we do, it's what God does.  And in this case, because he's obvious, and because he pursues us, pretty much all we have to do is to quit running all the time.  Jesus spent his entire earthy ministry pursuing the lost sheep, of Israel, and of other sheep who were not of that flock.  And that's what he does now.  He seeks and finds.  We just spend a whole lot of time running away from him, to our detriment.  Those fences are there to guide us, the shepherd, the Good Shepherd, is the one who lays down his life for the sheep, to protect us.  You wouldn't think it would be that simple, as simple as no longer running, but it is.  All Jesus really wants to do is to bring you back, not waiting for you to come to him, but going out and eagerly seeking you.

19 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. ² A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. ³ He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. ⁴ So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

⁵ When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” ⁶ So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
⁷ All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
⁸ But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
⁹ Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”