Proper 22A, Pentecost 18

World Food Day/Harvest Home

Isaiah 45:1-7

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Matthew 22:15-22

Today, I'd like to talk to you about “gleaning.”

In Biblical times, “to glean” meant to go through the field after the harvesting was done, collecting up what was left behind. This was often done by widows, as seen in the story of Ruth and Naomi, or others who were, as we sometimes say today, “less fortunate.” Often women, these folks would go through the fields after the harvesters had done their work, and they would gather the wheat, or other crop, left behind, taking it home with them to be their food, as, for whatever reason, they could not buy food in the markets.

But gleaning was not just an act of those who came after the harvest: it was an act prepared for by the owners of the field. In fact, it was commanded, in several different places in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, that one should not harvest to the edges of the field, or go back and collect the gleanings (meaning the bits left behind), or even go back and get a sheaf of wheat if it was forgotten. Those parts, those leftovers, it is written, should be left for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the alien.

Theologically, much can be done with this image of gleaning: It is the opening phrase to images of caring and welcoming all, even those whom society shrugs away. Leaving leftovers in the field shows that all are valued, and all are to be fed. It is providing for those who society says to leave out. In our Gospel reading, before asking Jesus their question, the Pharisees praise Jesus, saying, “we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.” (pause) “You do not regard people with partiality.” None is higher than the other.

And indeed, here at this Table, we know that all are welcome. When we stand around the altar, receiving the Lord’s Supper, there is no head but Christ, there is no pecking order, no elbowing in to get the goods before they’re gone. All are welcome: the harvest feeds everyone.

(pause) We are all welcome at this table and certainly we can, should, and do wrap ourselves in the comfort of the assurance when our lives are battered by internal and external storms. But that doesn’t mean we shut out the needs of others. It doesn’t mean we start harvesting to the edges of the field, and leave nothing for those who already have nothing. When we allow others to go without, that comfort of welcome at the Table serves to remind us that we must respond. When we are fed here, can we take a moment to remind ourselves that there are those we are still unfed?

Here we can find practical application for that image of harvesting the fields, and making sure to provide for the Others among us. We cannot necessarily leave actual food in actual fields: for one thing, we are no longer, on the whole, a farming society. And for another, tractors, harvesters, and combines today are effective. To my knowledge, there is no “leave some behind for the widows and orphans” setting on the dial between “start harvesting stuff” and “stop harvesting stuff.” But are things we can do.

Today, in addition to being our celebration of Harvest Home, is World Food Day. All over, people are being educated about the issue of hunger: locally, nationally, and globally. Becoming educated is a part of the challenge of responding. And so I’ll tell you a bit: In 2009, in the Metropolitan areas of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, 17% reported food hardship. In Pennsylvania, that number was 16%, although, if you look just at households with children the number is 22%, or which is about 1 in 5. Across the whole of the United States, in 2010, that percentage was 15%, and in the entire world, 13%, or nearly 1 in 7 people are hungry. That’s 925 million people who are hungry. (pause) So there’s a bit of education there for you. There’s more to be done, of course, more to learn about the causes and possible solutions for hunger. There are books you can read, blogs you can follow, and if you need suggestions, let me know and I can point you in a starting direction.

Education: learning the scope and depth of the problem. What else? What can we do? Well, there is donating food to food banks, that’s a wonderful act and the bags we have here are welcome, precious gifts, as are financial and other donations and drives that happen, but there is still more. There are local and national advocacy groups which respond to the root causes of hunger and food insecurity. For example, Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania, LAMPa, is an ELCA public policy office in Harrisburg, working on many different fronts to advocate for “just, sound and compassionate state public policies.” LAMPa, as well as other advocacy groups, often have ways for people to get involved: be it through conversations, letter writing, or other opportunities.

So far we have education, donation, and advocacy. I’d like to point to one more way we can share what is in our fields with those who do not have. And this may be a different idea than you have heard before:

(pause) Know yourself. You are the field. You have been given the gifts, the passions, to do God’s work in the world. Part of this means that you should make sure you are caring for yourself: don’t harvest all you have to the point where you have nothing left to give. And part of this means finding your passion, your gifts. Maybe it’s not hunger. Maybe, your passion is literacy, or fair wages, or fair trade, or working with the disabled, or web design, or teaching, or... anything. Find your passion, plant the crop that will flourish in your field. Know yourself, care for yourself, and find ways to share your harvest with others: it doesn’t have to be hours and hours of time: a half hour, fifteen minutes: what is left in your field? And if you need help finding ways to do that or want to brainstorm ideas, call us: we can help you find ways to plug in, to share your harvest. And be attentive in the next few months as various ways to serve and be involved are lifted up and announced.

(small pause) After all, all we have comes from God. And as Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel reading, we are to “give to God what is God’s.” What we have, what we are, is God’s. And yes, God loves us no matter what, and we are welcome at this Table no matter what. In turn we can say “Soli Deo Gloria,” which means, “To God alone be glory.” In response to God’s harvest reaching us all, we share our harvests with all. Soli Deo Gloria. Amen.

Proper 13A, Pentecost 7

Isaiah 55:1-5

Psalm 145:8-9, 15-22

Romans 9:1-5

Matthew 14:13-21

HOD: Break Now the Bread of Life, LBW 235

Have you ever seen a small child as they try to get something just out of their reach? The sippy cup on the side table, the cookie jar on the counter… whatever it is, it’s just too far to grab. They stand on their toes, their arms outstretched as far as can go, their little fingers wiggling, trying to grow just that one extra inch…

I love this image because it shows so clearly how we reach for things in the rest of our lives. If we’re not children reaching for a sippy cup, we’re teenagers trying to fit in, or out, we’re reaching for better grades, then a job, then a better job. We reach for perfection in relationships, we reach for perfection in sports, in music, in technology. We are a people who always reach for the new, the next, the good, better, best. Then when we aren’t bombarded by external pressure, we start feeling like we should be “better people” (whatever that means).

Perhaps the disciples were only trying to be “better people” when they suggested sending the people away in our Gospel reading today? It had been a long day of teaching and healing for Jesus, and he’d originally been trying, again, to get away for some self-care. And the people needed food, and rest, and the disciples certainly didn’t have enough to feed them. Best to send them on their way now, before it gets impossibly late, so they can go to the villages, have dinner, and rest. Sounds like a reasonable suggestion… doesn’t it?

But no, Jesus tells the disciples, no they don’t need to go away. Bring me what we have, he tells them. And Christ takes the 5 loaves of bread and the two fish and blesses them, and feeds the people. And God is revealed in this moment, where there is not enough. When the disciples are shown up in their attempt to care for the crowd by Jesus’ own caring act, when there just isn’t enough, there are twelve baskets of leftovers, and God has been revealed.

We live in a world where it often seems like there isn’t enough. There isn’t enough compassion, and so we hear about one man who kills nearly 80 people in Norway. There isn’t enough medicine, there aren’t enough volunteers to respond to need in places like Haiti. There aren’t enough solutions when the economy is affecting real lives. There isn’t enough hope when domestic violence seems the safer option to some, than life alone.

We live in a broken world where there isn’t enough. And when we look at the world and don’t see “enough,” or when our daily lives do not seem “enough” to make us deserving of God’s great love, we too can feel like that small child, wiggling our fingers, wishing to be just enough taller, just enough…

But God doesn’t ask that of us. We worship a God who is more than enough. We worship a God who turns five loaves and two fish into a meal to feed thousands.

In fact, God often reveals God’s self to us in the very places where we may not expect God to be, like those “not enough” places. Or in the mundane acts of our daily lives, which may not seem like “enough,” but to God are everything. Or in the breaking of ordinary bread, the sharing of a simple cup. In water. In the death of God’s Son. In the gruesome, ugly death of one condemned as a criminal, even in that “not enough,” worldly moment, God is revealed.

So then why not in our lives? Why not in the daily tasks of washing dishes and doing laundry? Why not in the conversations at the gas station, the smiles at the Purple Cow, the passing glances at the grocery store, or any of the other moments in our lives when we are doing whatever it is we do, as children of God, whether or not we think we are “enough.”

When Isaiah says, “let all who are thirsty come to the water,” he doesn’t say, “let all who are thirsty and have done thirty push-ups,” or “let all who are thirsty and have been good people,” or “let all who are thirsty come to the water, as long as they have the right theology, read their scriptures every day, and haven’t ever broken God’s law.” No. Isaiah says, “everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.”

Our God is not an “if… then…” God, a God who counts up “enoughs” in a little ledger, with a shake of the head when the numbers don’t add up. Our God is God who is found in the most unexpected, “not enoughest” of places. Our God is not a God who waits for us to be able to reach the sippy cup ourselves, but a God who pushes it towards us, who picks it up, and brings it to us, cradling us in God’s arms while we drink. This is God who brings life everlasting through God’s Son, sent to us, who brings blessing and promise in the waters of baptism: plain water! Who brings healing and forgiveness in the bread and wine on this table: two simple foods. This isn’t a god of bacon-wrapped water chestnuts and triple mocha macchiatos. This is the God of bread, and wine. This isn’t a god who waits for us to be good enough, strong enough, kind enough, smart enough, rich enough, poor enough, happy enough, sad enough, or any other kind of enough. In fact, it is in our very not having enough…whatever… that God reveals God's awesome self and life-giving grace and glory. Whether it’s 5 loaves and 2 fish trying to feed the multitude, or our own shortcomings, failures, and flounderings… it is all more than bridged by God’s love and grace through Jesus Christ.

It doesn’t matter how far we think we have to go, it doesn’t matter if we are barely in reach of the cup, or if we haven’t even gotten in the same room. We can’t reach it ourselves no matter what we do. We’re human, mortal, sinful, and we always fall short, no matter how we wiggle our fingers and stand on our tippy-tippy-tippy toes. But if with 5 loaves and 2 fish, Christ makes a meal to fill the multitudes, AND have leftovers, then just imagine what God is doing with a messy world like ours, with messy people like us.

And while you’re imagining, come to the table. Come to the simple table of bread and wine, the table of forgiveness, of wholeness, of love. Come and know that you are loved, no matter who you are or how you are. Come to the table. Amen.

Sermon Easter 4A

Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10

The first full weekend in May, I attended the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival. This is a yearly festival, one of the largest of its kind in the US, and I’ve been going with my mom for as long as I can remember, at least the years I’ve been close enough. There are vendors of all kinds: wool, yarn, needles, spinning wheels, […]. There are animals being shown: sheep, sheep, lambs, some more sheep. And there are, of course, competitions. The “sheep to shawl” contest takes relay teams who start by sheering the sheep, then clean, spin, and dye the wool, and finally weave a shawl, all over the course of the weekend, being judged at each stage. My favorite, though, is the sheepdog competition. which tests the training of the sheepdog and the communication between shepherd and sheepdog.

During my day at the festival this year, I was reflecting on our gospel reading for today and thinking about my experiences of sheep. We as church tend to take the images of sheep and shepherd in the gospels and we make pretty pictures out of them. I’m sure we’ve all seen it: Jesus as shepherd, clean white robe, maybe with a nice shepherd’s crook, standing with a tight little group of well-groomed sheep, who are all standing still right next to him.

Well… sheep don’t behave like that, or look like that, usually, and, after a day of working, neither do most shepherds. The pastoral care professor at the seminary, having spent some time as a shepherdess herself, does a discussion-lecture on this very topic, looking at our images of shepherd, and explaining how sheep are, actually yes, animals, who get dirty and messy and by the end of the day running around after them, so too is the shepherd dirty and messy. (Also, that shepherd’s crook? It’s not crooked so you can tell it from your other walking sticks. It helps with the herding.) Sheep and shepherding are images that we have sanitized and they have become almost fairy-tale-like in their serenity and the way it’s exotic to us. It’s certainly not an image you see walking in downtown Philly.

But the images in our readings today are real. Jesus describes the gate and gatekeeper situation as it was, and still is in some places. Thieves don’t enter by the gate. Sheep really do know their shepherd’s voice, usually by a particular song or whistle. The words we hear in scripture are real.

In our first reading, from Acts, we have a description of how the earliest Christians lived and worshipped together. In 1 Peter, we hear a response to a real issue that Christians were having: how to deal with suffering as the church, while being persecuted for following their faith, persecuted in ways that we cannot imagine. And back in the gospel reading, when Jesus interprets the parable to his disciples, we have reality. Not just a nice little story and image, but a truth about who Jesus is in relationship to us, in relationship to those who came before him, and in relationship to his mission. Jesus is the gate, and whoever comes in by the gate will be saved.

Sheep do wander. As 1 Peter reads, “For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” We go astray, like sheep. We wander, we lose our way, we take care of our own needs, with our heads to the ground: I’ll eat this grass, and now this grass, and – oh! – this grass looks tasty, and I see some grass in the shade over there, and the next thing you know we’re miles from the herd, which, made up of sheep like ourselves, probably doesn’t resemble a tight group of well-groomed fuzzballs anymore.

When I was working on this sermon earlier this week, with my apartment windows wide open to bring in the beautiful spring air, I turned to Handel, and I listened to the section from the Messiah called “All we like sheep.” If you’re not familiar with this piece, it has runs in all directions: up, down, soprano, alto, bass, tenor, notes sliding all over the place, emulating the scattered movements and bleating of straying sheep… and while I was listening to this, I realized that I was also hearing sirens go by on Germantown Ave and at first I could not hear the difference. The baaing of Handel’s choir piece, the baaing of the world around us, blended into one. Our world has gone astray, we have turned everyone to their own way.

Can you hear the bleating? In war-torn places like Libya and Gaza: baa. In the Mississippi River basin, where farms are flooded to save cities because there’s nowhere for the water to go: baa. In homes where violence lurks: baa. In churches, especially in the news here in Philadelphia recently, where clergy abuse their positions and lies are networked to cover it up: baa. In the greed hearts of those who allow others to go hungry: baa. In governments where the next election is more important than care for the people: baa. In our own hearts, in our own lives, we have turned, everyone to their own way. Baah!

It’s true. It’s true that we aren’t pretty clean little fuzzy balls of jumping peace in a serene green field. But we are sheep. We're messy, rolling-in-the-mud, faces in the dirt, animals who without guidance would hide in the thickets tending our own needs until… forever. And it’s easy to turn the bleating “baa” of the sheep into the “bah” of frustration, the “bah” of giving up and looking around at God’s scattered flock with agony and despair. But that’s not our decision to make. We’re just the sheep.

And we do have a shepherd, who does not give up on us. We have God who indeed calls us by name in the waters of baptism
And we have Jesus Christ, who here today has proclaimed himself as the gate through whom the shepherd, the gatekeeper calls us, Christ the gate through whom we are saved.
And we have a sheepdog, who would win any competition, wily and messy and disordered and scattered as we are: the Holy Spirit who runs down into the thickets and herds us back into the fold with a bark that is the Word of God.
And then we are brought, herded, to the table where we eat the true food and are loved for being sheep. No matter how far we have strayed. No matter if we come as a part of a (church) family, or if we wander alone in confusion of heart. No matter if we are poor, or rich, or whether we suffer daily in body, or mind, or spirit, or whether we don’t claim our suffering at all. No matter if we are covered in dirt, shaking from exhaustion of our wandering, wool matted so thick we barely recognize ourselves. Our shepherd calls us, the gate has been made open, and the Word of God is at our heels: we come and eat, and are made whole again.

(But don’t just take my word for it, let’s turn to our hymn of the day, in your green hymnal number 476, “Have no fear little flock,” and let’s sing together of how we are chosen, loved, gathered, and restored…

Lent 5A

(Links are to the passages on oremus, NRSV)
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:1-11
John 11:1-45

I’d like you to picture the scene with me, as if from a movie, but not a specific one: the young couple who have finally fallen in love are walking down a path under trees. The camera pans up through one green budding tree to the sky, and we see a formation of geese. The camera pans down and the leaves have changed and are falling. We follow one leaf on its downward journey, it lands on a snowman and we see the couple, older now, perhaps with children playing in the snow. It’s the classic was for movies to show passage of time: show change of seasons. Even if the time passing is much greater than just a few months of seasonal change.

There are other things besides weather and trees in our lives which signify change of seasons, the passage of time, even if we don't consciously register them: Candy moves from red and green wrapping, to red and pink, to pink and yellow; snow shovels and winter boots are traded for gardening tools and sandals; beach balls take up store fronts, then school supplies.

In the church, we have other signs: paraments change from green to blue to white to green to purple to white to red; our hymns focus differently depending on what season we are in. All these are signs of the passage of time, the fact that our lives are not stagnant pools of monotony.

In our readings today, we have examples of passage of time as well, but in more literary ways. In Ezekiel, there are dry bones. I picture the stereotypical desert scene: tumbleweeds, hot, dry wind, and the sun-bleached, dry bones, scattered across the valley. Dry bones are not freshly dead bones. In John, the passage of time is four days. Lazarus is not just “mostly dead,” but “all dead.” The crowd is even worry about the smell. He is, to quote, “really, most sincerely dead.”

But in both these stories, for all the passage of time leading to the bleakness and hopelessness of dry bones and a man dead for four days, hope abounds.

In the valley of dry bones, of long-lasting death, Ezekiel is brought. Ezekiel is brought here and told to prophesy. To prophesy, in the land of death, to prophesy the living God.
And there begins a rattling. And bone comes to bone and sinews, ligaments, tendons, and skin appear. And he is told to prophesy again, and breath comes into death and life blooms.

Then we hear again, of a man who has died, and the grief of friends and family, and though even Jesus weeps, there is hope here as well. Approaching the tomb, Jesus calls for the stone to be removed, and calls Lazarus to come out. And he comes out, and goes on his way.

There is more than just physical life and death at stake in these readings.
Ezekiel lived during the time of exile. The whole people of Israel, his nation, had been swept apart, taken from their homelands, taken from their communities, and scattered, like so many dry bones. The house of Israel is not physically dead, but their connections to each other, their sinews, have fallen off so long ago they are like dry bones, brittle, weak, dead.

We see this in our world today, too. In Libya, in Syria, in Egypt: people being wracked by the forces of life which tear them from each other, which put neighbors fighting against each other. On less international scales, we see it here: governments who are supposed to be working together becoming so divided that senators hide out in other states to avoid voting, or we see division so great that shutdown of the government is only avoided by moments. In our schools, in our workplaces, with our friends, our families, and ourselves, we are dry bones. We may not be in physical exile, but we separate ourselves from God, each other, and our own hearts.
And we do this to ourselves. As we confess in one form or another at the beginning of service each week, we “captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” We human mortals, who age and will all eventually die, are not able to do any thing else. We cannot come out of the valley or out of the tomb ourselves.

But again, there is hope.

Because there is one who can and does bring us out. In a few moments we will encounter this one in the meal at the table: the Table where our bones are fed and watered, where we are joined as one body with all the other dry bones into the body of him who loves us even as we sin. At this Table, all are welcome, all are called out of the valley into relationship and life with Christ. We are not called because we deserve it, because we don’t. And none are turned away: there is nothing that you can do to be turned away. Here at this table we are one again, one whole body, ligaments, sinews, and all, in Christ.

We are human people. Time passes, we age, we make mistakes, we learn, or do not learn from those mistakes. Hey, we don't just make mistakes; we flat out make the exact wrong choices. Doesn't matter what the season, doesn't matter if it's summer or spring, or Lent, we mess up. We're human, there's no denying it. Doing won’t make it better. Praying won’t make it better. Going to church, giving up sweets for Lent, voting a certain way, acting a certain way… won’t make it better. We were told on Ash Wednesday at the start of this season that we are dust and to dust we shall return. We are dry bones.

And yet, we have the certainty that Christ grieves over our dead bodies, these merely bodies we have, which lead us into sin so plainly, these bodies which die. But Christ died for those bodies, for our sinful selves, and it is not anything that we do or do not do that raises us, but Christ's voice calling to us to “come out!” of our valleys and tombs. As Paul said in our reading from Romans, “though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life… he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” No strings attached. Amen