Space for God

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
August 27, 2023

16 Proper A 

            Last Sunday, I had the joy of baptizing our youngest grandchild at Christ Church Cathedral in Cincinnati.  So when our vestry meeting on Tuesday began with the question “Where have you seen God this week?” I was ready with my answer.  Clearly the privilege of baptizing my granddaughter, watching her 4 year old sister hold the baptismal candle, and being surrounded by family at the font was a place where I saw and experienced God.  However, that is pretty much the revelation of the obvious.  I also saw God in the gracious hospitality of the Dean of the Cathedral who invited me to participate well beyond simply baptizing Sabrina.  He invited me to help distribute communion and to offer the blessing at the end of the service, which well exceeded the basic hospitality of allowing me to baptize my granddaughter.  The hospitality of the Cathedral included a marked bulletin with my name on it, a locker for my vestments, and a place at the table.  The Cathedral offered me the hospitality that we try to offer here, and that hospitality made space where I could see and experience God.

          If you think this is yet another of Charlotte’s sermons on hospitality, despite the odds being in your favor, you are wrong.  The Cathedral was using its gift of hospitality to make space for God to work, so people could see and experience God.  That is what I believe Shiphrah and Puah are doing in this morning’s reading from Exodus.  The two women are using their gifts of midwifery, birthing babies, to make room for God to work. And God does work, using the Hebrew midwives to subvert Pharoah’s evil plan to kill all the baby boys.  God was working through these women to advance the story of God’s people.  God continues to work in the space the midwives created when the Pharoah’s daughter finds the baby Moses crying in the basket his mother put him in, presumably hoping he would be found by the Pharoah’s daughter.  Our God is a crafty God as Moses’ mother winds up getting paid to nurse her own child. 

          When Jesus asks his disciples “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” they answer John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.  Then Jesus asks “But who do you say that I am?”  And Peter scores with the answer “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”  The disciples have followed Jesus as he taught, worked miracles, and taught them to pray.  Jesus has made space for God to work so the disciples can see and experience God.  This leads Peter to proclaim that Jesus is the Son of the living God.  As we will see next week, Peter does not have a clue what that means, but for now, Peter is the golden disciple who will become the bedrock on which the church will be built and he is given the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Those keys are not about power but about trust.  In Jesus, the kingdom of heaven has come near, breaking open in the disciples’ midst.  Jesus is entrusting the disciples and especially Peter to make space in their lives and in their work for God’s kingdom to continue to emerge in the midst of the people. 

          As followers of Jesus, we are inheritors both of those keys and of the trust Jesus placed in the disciples.  We are entrusted with making space for God to work, making space for the coming Kingdom of God to be a present reality that people can see and experience in our midst.  How on earth are we supposed to do that?  Lest we think that we have to do something grand and glorious to make space for God to work in our midst, like turn water into wine, or miraculously heal the sick and raise the dead, Shiphrah and Puah remind us that simply doing the work we have been given to do can make space for God to act.  Paul reminds us in the letter to the Romans that this will look different for each of us, as we are each given different gifts.  Paul lists prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhorting, giving, leading, compassion and cheerfulness as examples of gifts we have been given to make space for God to act in our midst.  And I will sneak hospitality in here as well as any number of other gifts for ministry that we use day in and day out, from making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, to using our building and grounds skills both here and at Habitat for Humanity, to sending cards and notes of encouragement, to teaching, singing and everything in between.  Much of this we probably do without even really thinking about the impact of what we are doing. 

          Shiphrah and Puah used their gifts as midwives to make space for God to act in their midst.  Their work and the space they made for God to work made a clear and profound statement about who God is.  Likewise, Jesus trusts his followers to use their everyday actions and God given gifts to make space for God to act.  What we do with our actions and how we make space for God to work matters.  The world is watching to see what followers of Jesus do and people form their understanding of God and Jesus based on those actions, good, bad, or indifferent.   Jesus certainly invites us to ponder our answer to his question “Who do you say that I am?”  But Jesus also invites us to ponder the answer to his first question “Who do the people around you say that I am?” and to think about how we might best be a place where people around us see and experience the living God.

                                                                             Amen.

Enough Faith

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
August 13, 2023

14 Proper A

          Don’s and my 16-month-old grandson is quite the daredevil.  When Banks was crawling, he would crawl off the edge of anything if not caught and he earned the nickname “Nosedive.”  If Banks had his way, he would nosedive himself into the bathtub, down the stairs, off his changing table, out of his chair, or wherever else he wanted to go.  The child has no sense of gravity and complete trust either than someone will catch him or that nothing painful will happen. 

          Given the chance, I am sure that Banks would jump out of the boat and into the water to walk toward Jesus just as impulsively as Peter did this morning.  In fact, today’s gospel lesson lends itself to what might be called Nosedive theology.  If we just have enough faith in Jesus we can get out of the boat and walk on water, or roll off the changing table, out of the chair, down the stairs, or whatever and not be harmed.  No one wants to hear Jesus say to them “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Yet on the other hand, most of us have figured out that gravity always wins.  So what are we to do with Jesus this morning? 

          What we are going to do is dig a little deeper into the story.  Jesus has just fed 5000 men, plus at least as many women and children when Jesus has the disciples get in a boat and head to the other side of the lake.  The disciples are in the middle of the lake, with the wind against them, fighting their way to the other side, when they see what they believe to be a ghost.  Peter wants proof that this ghost is really Jesus so, at Jesus’ invitation, Peter climbs out of the boat and attempts to walk on the water to Jesus.  When he sees the strong wind, Peter becomes frightened and begins to sink.  Jesus saves him with a reprimand: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

There are two problems with thinking that if Peter just had enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus.  First, throughout scripture, control over the water belongs to God, not humans.  God caused the great flood that wiped out all living things not on Noah’s ark, and God caused the rains to stop.  God parted the Red Sea, so that Moses could lead the Hebrew people across the water and away from the Egyptians.  In the book of Jonah, “the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up.”  And in the book of Job, God asks “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?” with the implied answer that it was God, not Job, who did that.  The list goes on and on.  The ability to control the sea belongs to God and God alone.

Secondly, Peter’s problem when he begins to sink is identified as fear.  But when Jesus rescues Peter, he says “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  What Peter and the disciples doubted was the identity of Jesus.  First, the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost.  And, at 3am in the pitch dark in the middle of the water in a boat being battered by waves, a ghost makes a lot more sense than thinking that Jesus has strolled out on the water to check on them.  Then Peter says “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  Peter is testing the identity of their visitor.  When Peter begins to sink and Jesus says “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?” the only thing Peter has doubted is the identity of Jesus.  The point of the story is to prove that Jesus is God, not to make the disciples feel badly because they cannot walk on water.  And at the end of the story, the point has been made, as the disciples say “Truly you are the son of God.”

          Jesus does not call us to believe that if we have enough faith we can walk on water.  What Jesus does call us to believe is that Jesus can walk on water and that Jesus can walk on water because he is God.  What this story calls us to believe is that Jesus is present in our boat with us, whatever storm we may find ourselves in, and that Jesus’ presence with us matters because Jesus is God.  In this very same gospel, Jesus is given the name Emmanuel, which means “God with us.”

          This morning, we will baptize Jordan Repko.  As much as we might like to believe that baptism will prevent any bad thing from happening to us, we all know that is not true.  In baptism, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  Baptism is a matter of our identity.  In baptism, we promise to live as people who are marked as Christ’s own forever.  We promise to be faithful in worship, to turn from evil, to seek and serve Christ in all people, to work for justice and peace, and to use our words and our actions to proclaim the good news of God in Christ.  Some days, walking on water may sound like an easier option!  But Jesus doesn’t call us to walk on water.  Jesus calls us to claim our identity as people who believe that Jesus is in the boat with us, who live as people who believe that there is nothing we must face alone, and who have the courage and the will to persevere in the midst of any storm because we have been marked as Christ’s own forever. 

                                                                             Amen.

A Great Surprise

 Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
July 30, 2023

12 Proper A 

          When I was a child, every Christmas my uncle would send us a huge box of assorted chocolates. There was a chart on the inside of the top of the box telling us which confection was in each of the little plastic cups.  Every night, we would get to choose one chocolate from the box, and because there were only three children in the family, two pounds of chocolate lasted a very long time.  This is where I learned to avoid chocolate covered cherries and this is the beginning of my relationship with chocolate covered cashews.  There was something for everyone in that box and we each got to pick what we liked.

          Jesus’ parables this morning are a bit like that box of chocolates.  There is something to help everyone understand the Kingdom of Heaven.  If you are a gardener, perhaps the parable of the mustard seed is helpful.  Or for bakers, there is the parable of the yeast.  For entrepreneurs, the parable of the hidden treasure might be helpful.  For those in sales, we have the parable of the pearl of great value and for those who like to fish, Jesus offers the parable of the fishing net.  Jesus’ buffet of parables apparently worked for the disciples since at the end of the passage Jesus askes them “Have you understood all this?” and they all answer “yes.” 

          However, Jesus is not offering the disciples or us a buffet from which to pick and choose which parable works for us in understanding the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus is offering us a five course meal of parables and all of them, taken together, are needed to understand the kingdom of heaven.  And understanding the kingdom is important since Jesus taught us to pray “thy kingdom come.”  We should probably know what we are requesting of God.  What do we learn from these five little parables, taken together?

          First, all five parables involve something small and hidden. The mustard seed is small and hidden in the ground.  Yeast is small and hidden in flour.  The buried treasure is small enough to be buried in the ground.  A pearl is small and hidden among other pearls of lesser value.  The net is not small, but the web pretty much disappears when thrown into the sea to catch fish.

Secondly, each parable involves work.  Someone sowed the mustard seed into the field.  The woman took the yeast and mixed it in with the flour.  Someone had to dig up a field to find the buried treasure.  The merchant had to search for the pearls, and someone had to throw that net into the sea.

Lastly, in each parable, that which started off small and hidden becomes large and visible.  The mustard seed grows into the greatest of shrubs.  The yeast does it work and creates an enormous amount of dough.  When the treasure is found, the man sells all that he has and buys the whole field so that the treasure is his.  The merchant sells everything he owns to buy the one pearl.  And the net catches fish of every kind.

So, from these parables, we learn that the kingdom of God starts off small, and with work grows into the full stature of the Kingdom of God.

However, the explanation of Jesus' parables is rarely that obvious.  Pretty much anything we undertake starts small and with work matures into full potential. As we have noted before, Jesus rarely dispenses common sense.  But when we dig a little deeper, we see that each parable is a bit subversive.  The mustard in the parable is actually a weed but in this parable the mustard seed is compared with the greatest of all kingdoms, the kingdom of heaven.  Yeast is a symbol of corruption and impurity in Scripture and is cleaned from homes in preparation for Passover.  Someone who finds buried treasure in someone else's field then buys the field to own the treasure without telling the owner is a thief, and merchants rated right up there with tax collectors and other cheats.  But this cheat sells everything to buy the great pearl, which made it impossible for him to do further business so he likely goes broke.

From these parables, then, we learn that Jesus can use weeds, thieves and cheats to make the Kingdom of Heaven come alive.  Scripture is full of stories about the way God uses thieves, cheats, and weeds.  Our reading from Genesis this morning is evidence of this as Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Leah before he can marry Rachel.  The tables have been turned on Jacob, since Jacob tricked his father to steal his brother's birth right. This is the family through whom God will bless all the families of the earth.  King David was hardly a paragon of virtue yet God used David to create a great nation, and even Noah had some serious character flaws.

Jesus is telling us that when we cannot see the kingdom, when it looks like the powers of evil are winning, when all we can see is sickness, conflict, metaphorical weeds and real thieves and cheats, when no rational person would believe that the kingdom is present, Jesus calls us to believe that we are in the midst of the emerging kingdom.  Jesus calls us to believe that God continually answers our prayer “Thy kingdom come,” that the kingdom is growing in our midst despite all evidence to the contrary, and that God might even be using weeds, cheats, and thieves to make that happen.  The message of the gospel is not that the Kingdom of heaven is present only when our lives and the world are full of peace, love, and chocolate.  The gospel message is that even in the hardest of times and the scariest of places, the seeds of the kingdom of heaven are present and make a gospel difference.  Of course the Kingdom is present in my grandchildren’s hugs, in the energy of our worship and fellowship, and in the good things we try to do for the world around us.  But the kingdom is especially present when we come together at Christ Church to have a funeral and reception for grieving people most of us do not know, or when people of vastly different viewpoints on many things maintain friendships and work together for the common good, or when we do the hard work of listening to those with whom we disagree.  The kingdom for which Jesus taught us to pray is like a great surprise waiting to be discovered by those who dare to look in the most unpredictable places.

                                                                                        Amen.

Christmas in July

Christ Church Episcopal
Christmas in July
July 23, 2023

11 Proper A

Camel: “I heard the Christmas music and came as fast as I could.  What are you doing?

Charlotte: We are celebrating Christmas in July.

Camel: Right.  And I’m the Easter bunny.

Charlotte: Seriously.  In December we celebrate the birth of Jesus when we have had lots of time to prepare.  In July we celebrate Christmas to remind ourselves that the Christ Child came at a really inconvenient time for Joseph and Mary and the shepherds and the Christ Child is born in our midst at all kinds of times and places.

Camel: So Jesus gets two birthdays?

Charlotte: Sort of.  In December, we celebrate Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem while Mary and Joseph were there to be counted for the census.  We prepare in a way similar to the way we prepare for any baby to be born.  We decorate, we buy presents, we cook, we anticipate the baby’s arrival.  Christmas in December is predictable.  We have our traditions that tell us about Jesus’ birth.  We plan.  Christmas in July disrupts our summer like the angels disrupted the shepherds as we sing the Christmas hymns and we are reminded that the Christ Child’s birth among us is a surprise and unpredictable so that we really understand that God is with us always. 

Camel: So how come you don’t tell the Christmas story on Christmas in July? 

Charlotte: Because lots of scripture points us to God’s amazing presence in our midst.  In the reading from Genesis, God says to Jacob “Know that I am with you and will keep you where ever you go.”  And after the dream, Jacob says “Surely the Lord was in this place and I did not know it.”  Even in the Hebrew scriptures, God has a way of showing up unexpectedly and the people only realize that in hindsight.  And Emmanuel, the name given to Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, means “God with us.”  The Psalmist asks “Where can I go from your Spirit; where can I flee from your presence?”  The answer is nowhere.  God is with us always. 

Camel: okay.  But what about the bit about the weeds and the wheat?  What does that have to do with Jesus being born?

Charlotte: Excellent question.  Jesus’ parable is clear that we can’t always tell the difference between weeds and wheat.  Sometimes what looks like a weed is really wheat.  We can’t always tell when the Christ Child is born in our midst.  We have to assume everyone we meet could be the Christ Child being born in our midst.  That’s why at every baptism, we promise to seek and serve Christ in all people.  The gospel reading today reminds us of that truth. 

Camel: So you’re saying that we’re not in charge of Christmas?

Charlotte: Correct!  Jesus is born on God’s time not ours, which calls us to always be on the lookout for the Christ Child and know that God is always, always with us, sometimes in surprising and unexpected ways.  Do camels always have this many questions?

Camel: Where does this go (holds up some mustard) and what do mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, ranch dressing, and pickle relish have to do with Christmas?   (Sam produces mustard which Charlotte takes)

Charlotte: We always have an outreach project for Christmas in July to remind us that we serve the Christ Child in all people.  Just like we make 300 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches each month for homeless people in Akron, or bring laundry detergent for people for whom there is more month than money, mustard and mayo seem like little things, but those little things make life much better and are hopefully a way that the people at Family Promise can experience a taste of God’s love.

Camel: Just one more question.  Does your bishop know you are doing this?

Charlotte: Yes, Bishop Anne knows. We had a lovely conversation in fact about the way God becoming human in the person of Jesus is very strange, even jarring and outrageous.  We feel that when we sing the Christmas hymns out of context.  Christmas in July reminds us how shocking the birth of Jesus is and how utterly astonishing the love of God really is.  Anything else???

Camel: Yes, could you at least give me some advance notice next time?

Stories

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
July 16, 2023

10 Proper A

My former parish sat on the edge of the poorest neighborhood in the city.  The neighborhood was not the most crime ridden, although there was certainly plenty of crime, nor was it the most drug infested, although there was certainly an abundance available.  But the neighborhood was the poorest in town.  So every year the church would throw an epic neighborhood fair with free games, prizes, a rummage giveaway, a mobile food pantry, and food.  Lots and lots of food.  Hot dogs, walking tacos, ice cream, cookies, and all sorts of fair food was free for the taking and folks could have as much as they could eat, no questions asked.  The church wanted to be a good neighbor and to create good will in the neighborhood.  While we expected nothing in return, we knew that when the neighbors felt like we cared about them, they cared about us, and the neighborhood was a much better place to be.  And because we engaged the neighbors in conversation and sometimes even in prayer, we were often moved by stories of deep faith in the midst of circumstances more trying and more complex than any of us could imagine. 

I think about the neighborhood fair when I read about the extravagance of the sower this morning.  The sower is just flinging seed around like we were flinging hot dogs and walking tacos, with no thought to whether the ground deserved the seed or not.  The sowers job is simply to sow. 

Jesus’ explanation of the parable is interesting, for the explanation is without judgement.  If someone hears the word and does not understand it, which could be any of us from time to time, the evil one comes and snatches away what is in the heart.  If the word is sown on rocky ground, it does not take root.  If the word is sown among thorns, the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word.  But if the word is sown on good soil, the seed grows and bears fruit.  There is no judgement; just an explanation for why the seed does not grow.

Jesus’ gardening tips, however, are common sense.  Even I, with my 10 green thumbs, know that if you plant seed on rocky ground, or among thorns, or on hard soil, not much will happen.  But rather than tell us to only throw seed on the good soil, the parable tells us to scatter seed everywhere, regardless of what common sense tells us. 

Jesus’ gardening advice is completely consistent with Jesus’ ministry.  Jesus hung out with tax collectors and sinners, and not too many folks of his time would have thought of those people as good soil.  In the passage from Genesis, we hear the story in which Jacob, the younger twin of Esau, cheats Esau out of his birthright as the eldest son.  This cheat is the one through whom God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah will be carried.  We do not get to decide which ground is good and which ground is not good because our ways are not God’s ways.  Perhaps God is a bit skeptical about our ability to discern God’s thoughts about which ground is good and which is not, so God would prefer that we just scatter seed and let God do the rest.  And, of course, the parable calls us to think about what kind of soil we are as individuals and as a church.  Do we have deep roots that get us through hard times, or shallow roots that leave us with little endurance?  Do the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke out our faith or are we soil that bears much fruit? 

          However, I think there is more going on in this parable.  The sower throws seed all over the place with no thought to where it lands, and Jesus never criticizes the sower for doing so.  But I wonder, and this is a wonder, why the ground is so hard that the seed will not take, or why there are so many thorns, or where all those rocks came from.  I wonder if the parable calls us to think about what we can do to loosen the dirt, or pull up the thorns, or remove the rocks so that the seed can take root.  I wonder if Jesus is also calling us to prepare the ground as extravagantly as we are to sow seed so that more of the seed does take.

Our first thought can easily be to serve those in need, that by providing people with food, clothing, shelter, education, and health care, we can improve the soil.  While those things are extremely important, I know from serving in a very poor neighborhood that many people who live in poverty already have very deep faith.  The people I met at the neighborhood fair year after year know that they have not much other than God to rely on and their faith is humbling to those of us who have plenty.  I know of their faith because they shared their stories with me in ways that moved my heart and strengthened my own faith.  I wonder if the way we prepare soil, the way we break up hard ground, pull thorns, and move rocks is to be willing to tell our own stories, to share our own faith in ways that others can hear.  Perhaps the seeds we are called to spread so extravagantly without thought to where they land are the words of our own stories of how our faith has gotten us through hard times, or shaped our values, or made a difference in our own lives in other ways.  Stories change lives.  Jesus tells us that the seed is the word of the kingdom, which is a story.  Jesus calls us to be like the sower, spread seed and tell the story with extravagance, and see what happens.

                                                                                      Amen.

Yoked

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
July 10, 2023

9 Proper A 

          What drew me to the Episcopal Church as a young teenager, in addition to adults who took an interest in me and the chance to sing in a wonderful youth choir, was the clear message that we humans are made in the image of God, redeemed in Christ, and are, therefore, inherently good.  This was music to young ears who heard a consistent message from the world around me that a person could not be too thin, too smart, too popular, or too athletic, and I was none of those things.  But at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Little Rock, all of the youth were valued equally as children of God.  In the Episcopal Church, at every baptism we promise to seek and serve Christ in all people.  In each and every person, we believe that we can find Christ, which makes each and every person inherently good.

          So when I read the passage from Romans this morning, my heart does not exactly sing with joy.  Val’s music, the hymns this morning, Liz and Heather’s voices, (this lovely garden, the sound of the fountain, the quiet of the early morning), and you make my heart sing this morning, but not Paul’s words to the Romans.  “Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  Ugh.

          However, I have to admit that on one level Paul’s words do resonate.  Certainly I have experienced times when I want to do right, but do wrong, sometimes on a daily basis.  I would guess that this is true of most of us.  However, does that mean that nothing good dwells within me?  Is the sin that Paul says dwells in me to blame or my own inability to self-correct?  Not only does Paul seem to put blame on the sin that dwells within us, he has us captive to “the law of sin that dwells in our members.”  What are we do to with Paul’s words this morning, other than to find a different reading to preach on….which was the advice of some of my colleagues this week!

          Since, at the end of the gospel reading, we have Jesus’ beloved words “Come to me all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest….for my yoke is easy and my burden is light,”  perhaps Jesus can shed some light this morning on how we are to understand Paul’s words.  Jesus hung out with sinners and ate with tax collectors to the extent that some people saw him as a glutton and a drunkard, two notorious sins.  So, Jesus knows something about sin, even if he never partook.

          Jesus seems to express a bit of frustration in this passage.  To the crowds that were gathered, Jesus says “John came neither eating or drinking and they say ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”  There is no pleasing whoever Jesus is talking about, which is not clear in the reading.  Yet, Jesus says, Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds, not by popular opinion.

          Then Jesus says “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden this things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”  Admittedly, I love any time Jesus talks about babies!  But, how do infants know they are loved?  By the actions of those around them.  They know that they are fed, held, rocked, cuddled, and they know they are loved by the sound of our voices not what our words say. They know they are loved by our actions.  And that is true for all of us, regardless of our age.  We know when someone’s actions do not match their words.  We can wax eloquent about “God loves you, no exceptions” or promise to seek and serve Christ in all people until we are blue in the face, but if our actions do not match our words, the words are meaningless.

          In the baptismal covenant, when we promise to do outrageously hard things, like seek and serve the Christ we know is in every person, or resist evil, or proclaim by word AND example the good news of God in Christ, or even be faithful in worship, our answer is “I will with God’s help.”  This work is so hard that we cannot do it alone.  We do that work together with each other and with God.  Jesus says something similar in that beloved verse at the end of the passage.  “Come to me all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, and there you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  In baptism, we are yoked with Jesus so that we never do the work we are called to do alone, and we are defined not by our success or failure at that work, but by the one with whom we are yoked.

          Both Jesus and Paul agree that our actions, our work, matters.  Our work shows the world who we are and what we believe.  Sometimes we succeed in showing the world the love of God with our lives, and sometimes we want to do that, but we fail.  At the end of the day, despite Paul’s claim to be a wretched man, captive in a body of death, I think both Paul and Jesus agree that we are not defined by the sum of our successes minus our failures, much less our failures alone.  After asking “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”, Paul says “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  Our worth is defined by Jesus.  Jesus says “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.”  Learn from Jesus that all people, including ourselves, are infinitely loved by God.  Learn from both Paul and Jesus that our actions matter.  What we do shows the world the love of God, whether we are in the mood to be God’s vessels that day or not.  But good day or bad, at the end of the day, we are still made in the image of God and yoked with Jesus. 

                                                                                      Amen.

Laugh!

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
June 18, 2023

6 Proper A 

          When our children and grandchildren are coming for the holidays, I know well in advance and I cook for what seems like days.  Between planning menus that work for everyone, multiple trips to the grocery store, cooking the foods our family enjoys and baking the desserts we love, the process is lengthy even though my bread comes from the bakery and my meat comes from the butcher.  And when we throw a party at Christ Church, like our Celebration Sunday, the process takes even longer.  The food may have been catered, but there were decorations to plan, a configuration of tables to consider so we could seat everyone, various dietary needs to provide for, and a whole host of other logistics to figure out.  Great hospitality may be a lot of fun, but great hospitality also requires a lot of time and effort. 

          And so, when I hear the story from Genesis this morning in which Abraham greets three strangers and invites them to dinner, asking Sarah to make ready quickly three measures of flour, knead it, and make cakes, then takes a calf and gives it to his servants to prepare, I have to laugh.  Granted they are only preparing food for three people, but this is a lot of food to prepare on short notice!   The time it takes to turn three measures of flour into cake is considerable, to say nothing of their location in the desert and access to any way to bake cakes.  And I know nothing about butchering cattle, but I think it takes a while to get from the herd to the platter.  Yet this meal seems to be produced instantly.  Whatever Abraham’s motive for throwing such a feast might have been, the timeline for this meal is nothing short of comical.

          Given the absurdity of meal preparation in the story, that we next hear a repeat of the promise that Sarah shall bear a son just seems to fit right in.  Sarah is now roughly 90, having aged another 15 years since last week’s story.  So Sarah laughs at the idea that she will have a child.  Sarah had long since given up on the idea that she would bear a child, having given her maid Hagar to Abraham so that at least he could have an offspring.  Just for the record, one chapter previously, when God tells Abraham, who is now 100 years old, that Sarah, who is 90, will bear a child, Abraham falls on his face and laughs.  Literally.  But despite the absurdity of the promise, we hear that Sarah does, indeed, bear a son, to whom Abraham gives the name Isaac which means “laugher” or “he will laugh.”  In the end, Sarah laughs because God has brought her great joy and has fulfilled a most preposterous promise.

          While we hear no laughter in the gospel reading, there is plenty of outrageousness in what Jesus asks of his disciples.  Jesus has gone about proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness.  Well and good, but then Jesus expects the disciples to go and do likewise.  He gives them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.  They are to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.  That would be a daunting job description for mature, experienced disciples and Jesus has what are basically baby disciples.   If we read further on, the situation only gets worse.  Not everyone will welcome the disciples or listen to their words.  What’s more, Jesus is sending the disciples out like sheep amidst the wolves, and they will be persecuted for their faith.  I don’t know what the disciples thought they were signing up for, but I am quite sure they had something more pleasant in mind!  I think the disciples just might have laughed at the ludicrousness of what Jesus was asking.

          Like Abraham and Sarah, the disciples are going to have to believe in what God can do.  God shows up over and over again for Abraham and Sarah through out the journey God set them on, making good on God’s promise to make of Abraham and Sarah a great nation with descendants that number the stars in the sky.  Matthew’s gospel begins with Emmanuel, God with us and ends with Jesus saying “And lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.  While God is not likely to ask us to give birth at the age of 90, or cure every disease and every sickness, God does ask us to do all sorts of things for which we may feel like we are not equipped, or we do not have time, or are out of our comfort zone.  The request may be so far fetched that our only response is to laugh.  This weekend our nation celebrates Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.   There is still much God calls us to do in the work for racial reconciliation.  June is Pride Month.  What is God calling us to do to let the LGBTQ community know that they are welcome here and will be fully included?  In some places, June is Gun Violence Awareness month.   In a conflicted and divided time, how is God calling us to be a place that can have healthy conversations about difficult topics like gun violence?  These can all feel like overwhelming and preposterous asks on God’s part and our initial reaction may be to laugh.  Sometimes our objections are valid but most of the time God is calling us to stretch ourselves and to trust what God can do through us.  And laugh, for there is nothing is too wonderful or too far-fetched for God!

                                                                   Amen.