Recipe for the Church

Matthew 22:34-46 

Way back when Levi was a baby, I remember I had a particularly hard week. I seemed to be doing everything wrong. I’d apparently let my older kid use the wrong kind of hand soap, I’d been duped by and let the homeless walk all over me and con me into giving away five bucks that he’ll surely use on booze or drugs, and I’d let my youngest do irreparable damage to his cerebral cortex by letting him “cry it out.” I shopped at the cheap chain grocery store instead of the local organic co-op, and I forgot the reusable grocery bags. And I’d turned the heat on in the house and forgotten to close the bathroom window, and when we ran out of whole milk, I fed my kid heavy whipping cream. I remember that that week I was so tired and overwhelmed by that horrible “witching” hour between 4-6 pm, that hour when your kids are tired and hungry and freaking out and you are tired and hungry and freaking out, that I put my baby in the bathtub and forgot to take off his socks. 

It was one of those weeks when those inner voices are incredibly loud. Like the bass-thudding-in-the-giant-SUV-next-to-you-at-the-stoplight loud. You aren’t good enough. You can never do enough. And what you do do is flawed and broken. And it’s pledge week on public radio, so instead of donating another five bucks a month, you can’t, because you gave that five bucks to the drunk guy down the street, so you ignore the news and the pleas for donations and listen instead to the Jimmy Buffet cd you found under your driver’s seat with the coffee cups and the stale Cheerios. You feel like a failure every way you turn. Your five year old doesn’t know about the function of the silent e and can’t do basic algebra problems. He insisted on wearing sandals on a forty degree morning and you didn’t stop him. You gave your baby drinkable yogurt. The baby poured drinkable yogurt all over his car seat and all over himself, so when you brought him inside you just stripped him down to his diaper and let the dog lick out the drinkable yogurt from his pants, and then you let the baby wander around in just a diaper and socks all afternoon, all while he cried for more drinkable yogurt. Until it’s time for a bath and you take off his diaper and plunk him in the tub only to realize that you haven’t taken off his socks.

So. That day, I remember, I decided to bake some bread. Or try baking bread, rather. There’s this recipe in the New York Times for “no knead bread,” and it’s really simple, and Dan makes it all the time, so I thought, why not? Let’s try it.

But see, I am a terrible bread baker. It takes a certain touch and some patience and an amount of precision that I just don’t have. It’s a science. But there it was, this recipe for no-knead bread that seemed easy enough. So I tried it. 

3 cups of flour

1/4 teaspoon of yeast

1 1/4 teaspoons of salt

1 1/2 or so cups of warm water

a lot of patience.

that’s it. 

voila. Bread.

Four simple ingredients that, when they are what they are, when you let them do what they are meant to do, they work together and, Bread.

It didn’t turn out perfect. It wasn’t even particularly pretty. The crust was a little too hard. And there are a few hot spots in the pan that made dark circles on the bottom. And it didn’t rise like Dan’s does. It was a little too chewy. But there it was, bread.

And, also, a desire. For more bread. 

So I made another batch. I didn’t even clean out the bowl from the first batch. I just kept going. I added more flour and more yeast and salt and mixed in the water and I let it sit, once again. 

And life went on. The yeast multiplied and grew and bubbled and the gluten formed and the Facebook kept on hollering at me and the boys kept leaving their apple slices where the dog could get them and the husband kept leaving his boxers on the bathroom floor and I kept tripping over my own shoes that I leave lying around the front door. 

And the yeast kept rising.

Once in awhile I’d look over at the stove and peek through the plastic wrap and I’d see the dough rising, the gluten sticking, the simplicity of four ingredients simply doing what they were made to do, being what they were made to be — together, becoming bread.

The lawyers and the Pharisees and the people of power are back at it, in our reading today, back at trying to trap Jesus. To trick him. To let him know that “we are on to you, Jesus. You’re walking around like you’re the expert, that you know a better way, well, we’ve been at this our whole lives, not just your three measly years wandering around telling everybody about “love.” Tell us, Jesus, if you’re so smart: 

What is the most important commandment?

And like a master bread baker. Like an artist who makes landscapes out of three primary colors. Like the one who first discovered how to make and tend to fire. He gives us the simplest of ingredients. Just a couple of things, that, when combined, make bread, and art, and fire, and community, and forgiveness, and comfort, and peace.

Love God. 

And like it, Love each other.

That’s it.

Two ingredients that come together to make the body of Christ.

The lawyer asks Jesus, what’s the most important thing, the one thing that we need more than anything else? What’s the one thing?

And Jesus gives him two.

Sure. Flour is probably the most important ingredient when it comes to making bread, but if you don’t have yeast, and you don’t have water, then we’ll have nothing but powder in our mouths. What’s the point of having flour if you don’t have yeast? If you don’t have water? Or salt?

What’s the point of loving God with all that you have if you don’t love what God loves?

What are the things we need most in this world? To love God, and to love what God loves. 

We need to chew on more than dust. We need real bread. We need the whole recipe. 

How do we love what God loves?

One thing I learned about making bread is that you can definitely work the dough too hard.  If you mess with it too much, it becomes rubbery, tough, and the dough collapses.

On the other hand, If you rush it, the yeast doesn’t have time to grow, it doesn’t get to do what it was made to do, and you’ll get something more akin to bricks rather than bread.

Time. And just the right attention. That’s what we need. Some practice. A willingness to “waste” a few pounds of flour. We need to be willing to get our hands dirty. To step in to the sticky, glutenous goo and interact with it, stretch it, roll it, fold it and press it.

Only the very skilled baker can handle bread in just the right way. Only the very experienced baker knows how the dough should feel in her hands when it’s just right, when it’s time to put it in the oven, or give it an egg wash, or when it needs a few more hours sitting over the pilot light.

But the ingredients, like the commandments, are pretty simple. 

It’s not really that hard, exactly. But it does take patience and a trained eye. It takes the ability to let go and let it sit and to trust that the flour and the yeast and the water and the salt are going to do what they were made to do. You just have to let the ingredients be. The baking of bread is almost too simple. That’s what makes it so complicated.

How do we love what God loves?

Well, we let the body of Christ be what it was made to be. Broken for us. Loaves of food for us. 

We heal the sick. We offer a word of hope. We eat together. 

We let it sit when it needs to sit.

Then we let it rise when it’s ready to rise.

We knead it and press it out and we let it rise again.

Jesus didn’t rush. He was a pretty poor multitasker. He didn’t juggle demands or question his worth. He was. He was here. He was present. He was. He is. He had his ingredients. He was confident in those ingredients. So he put them in the recipe and watched, was present for them. He made small batches. 

He gave it time.

He tended carefully.

We are still going to rush around sizing each other up, comparing parenting techniques, cussing each other out in traffic and putting our kids in the bath still wearing their socks. We are going to tell our kids that we’re listening to them while we are also trying to take the scissors away from the baby and turn off the TV and stir the mac and cheese that the kids have had for the third time that week. We are still going to collapse in our beds at night feeling as though we have failed. 

We are still going to think that the only way for a church to stay open or for our kids to grow up or for our marriages to survive is to do and do and do and do. 

Meanwhile, there’s a loaf of bread, baking in the oven.

Meanwhile, yeast is multiplying in a bath of warm water and salt and flour.

Meanwhile, God is loving and loving and loving, and we are invited to enter in.

We are invited to let go of the driving and the messaging and the emailing and the planning and sit and ferment. Sit and be. I know this doesn’t make sense. I know how hard this is. I know that we want to get up and do and fix and create and all the things. I know this doesn’t feel good when our own church clock feels like it’s running out. 

But.

We can be the Body of Christ. 

If we can stop trying and doing and manipulating the Body of Christ.

What would it look like if, instead of doing and doing and doing, if we could be?

What would The Church look like if we could Be The Church, instead of just doing church?

This is the most important question for us at Peters Creek. Whatever the next stage is for us, whether it’s transforming into something new, or closing our doors, or having a sudden, miraculous revival, we need to stay focused on this question: Can we give up “doing” church so that maybe we can focus on how to “be” the church?

We can be the church, whether we have six people in worship or six hundred. We can be the church, whether we have a full-time pastor, or a building, or an endowment, or a beautiful Steinway piano. The ingredients are the same, whether we’re bursting at the seams, whether our building is full, whether our coffers are overflowing, or if we have to one day shut these doors and leave this place into the hands of whomever comes next. No matter what happens, we can still be the Church. We just have to love God and love each other. That’s it. Those are the ingredients. That is what we are called to do, which is actually, to do nothing. That is what we are called to be.

If we did that, I don’t think it would matter if we “survived” as a church. We’d thrive as The Church. 

So let’s keep praying, yes. Let’s keep discerning and questioning and trying out new ideas. Let’s listen to the voice of God when God tells us what’s coming up next. But whether we do or don’t do, whether we get a whole new exciting thing started, or we gently say goodbye, no matter what, The Church will survive. The Church will still be The Church. We are loving God, and we are loving each other, in whatever big or little ways, in whatever personal or broad ways, whether we’re giving five bucks to the homeless guy or starting up a whole new homeless ministry. We are being the church, even when we are far away from each other, distanced by pandemic or political perspective or financial status. The heart of our mission will always stay the same because we have the essential ingredients: Love God, Love Each Other. 

If we did that, whether we were in a building or not, whether we were surrounded by hundreds of involved and active members, whether we had an endowment bursting at the seams and dozens of missions and committees and a thriving children’s ministry, if we did that, if we stuck to the most important ingredients, no matter what the scale,

I think maybe we’d have bread.

I think maybe we’d be fed.

And other hungry folks would come in and want to be fed too.

And maybe the bread wouldn’t be perfect. Maybe it’d have too thick a crust and the bottom would be burnt and it’d be lopsided and lumpy. Maybe we’d have little boys running around with soggy socks and dirt under their fingernails. Maybe we’d still question our own value and we’d still be tripping over our shoes and tripping over the dog who is still doing our laundry by licking the yogurt out of our baby’s pants. 

But it’d be good to eat. And it would nourish us. And it would be broken for us. And we’d share it. 

And we’d love God and we’d love our neighbor. 

And it’d be good. 

And we’d be The Church.

Thanks be to God. 

Step In It.

This! Matthew 22:15-22

 I feel like I should have worn some canvas overalls to church today. And some rubber boots. I need an old flannel shirt and a mesh John Deere cap and a red bandana. Heh. At least, that’s what this city slicker imagines folks wear to muck out the stables or stir the compost. And I need a shovel. Maybe a piece of straw to hang out the side of my mouth. Anyway. We are going out into the pasture. We are going out into the fields. And we are going to step in it. Slimy, warm, stinking, swarming with flies. Or dried and cracked, crumbled and disintegrating. No matter its condition, no matter the state, no matter how far out we go or if we’re still following close to the fence line, we’re going to step in it today. So let’s just start with that assumption, shall we? Let’s just get ourselves ready. Let’s prepare ourselves to at least not be surprised when we step in it. It’s gonna stink. We’re going to track some into the house, even though we’ve left our boots on the porch. The smell will cling to our clothes and on our fingers no matter how many times we wash. It’s just the nature of the beast. We are going to step in it.

There’s just no delicate way to talk about faith and politics. There’s no way to both speak the truth and avoid the landmines. Because there are landmines everywhere. And everyone thinks they have a hold on what the truth is. And we have this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad habit of shaming anyone who doesn’t think the same way we do. And shame has never gotten anybody anywhere. Shame is just a shovel we use to try to dig ourselves out of a deep hole. The more we use this tool, the deeper we’re getting. 

So I was super hesitant to put out my yard sign during this election season. Now, I have a pretty strong conviction about who I think should be in office, about what I think the role of government should be, and about how we should interpret and apply the Constitution. So, it’s not that I don’t have opinions, I sure do; it’s just that I’m not so sure what a sign in my yard or a quote on my Facebook page is going to do to change people’s minds into thinking the way I do. So I left my signs bouncing around in my trunk for quite a few days. And then my kids saw them, took them out, and jammed them into the ground in both the front and the back yards. They’d made the decision for me. We were going to refuse to be shy about who we supported, about who we think will lead us closer, or at least not even further away, from justice, from peace, from unity, or from, what I call, the Kingdom of God. The kids needed us to take a public stand, to “step in it” so to speak, even though it might make our lives a little messy, it might divide us from others, it might offend. Our kids, I think, needed that assurance that no matter what, we were going to stand up for what we believed in, we were going to stand up for justice and decency and equality and freedom for all. 

This passage today has so often been used as an excuse for us as Christians to stay out of politics. Christians did it during the time of slavery. Christians did it during the Second World War. Christians did it during the Civil Rights Movement. Of course, there have been exceptions, but that’s exactly what they are, exceptions. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” we say. Pay your taxes, follow the rules, obey the laws, toe the line. Stick to the status quo. It’s not our place as Christians to question authority. Now, I’m all for the separation of Church and State. We need laws and rules to protect each other from imposing our faith upon those who do not share it. Things get dangerously scary when we blur those lines. But I do think that we should not, in fact, we cannot, separate our faith from politics. Because our faith is an embodied, communal faith, and that means that our faith is, by definition, political. That’s what got Jesus killed after all. He was pissing off the political elite. He was threatening their power. And they needed to put a stop to it and make an example out of him. 

And they can feel it. They know it. In our passage today they are trying to trap him, so they have their minions pair up with their political buddies and decide that they are going to trip Jesus up. They’re going to make him step in it. There’s no right answer to their question. “Should we pay taxes to the emperor?” They ask, knowing that if he says “no,” then he’s in big trouble with the government and accused of sedition. If he says “yes,” then he not only angers the crowd that feels the weight of the oppression of these taxes, but also defies the law of God simply because he has to pay it with a denarius (or many denarii as the case may be…), a coin that carried the image of Caesar and the inscription that he is the son of God. If he says, “no, don’t pay the taxes,” then he has a date with the executioner. If he says, “yes, do pay the taxes,” then he has a date with a riotous crowd, and is condemned a blasphemer by the religious authorities. There’s no way for Jesus to maneuver himself out of this mess. 

Well, lots of scholars think that Jesus jumps, hops and skips right over these landmines. Through his deft and wily ways, he’s able to sidestep and weave his way out of this predicament. And I suppose, whatever he does, it successfully buys him some time. But I don’t think he does this by finding a clever way around the argument. Jesus is more than a brilliant defense attorney or skilled debater. Jesus steps in it. He goes all the way in it. He enters in. He goes through it. He names what they’re doing for exactly what it is, and then responds directly. This is no political pandering. He is not dodging the question. “Show me the coin used for the tax,” he says. Now this is awkward. Because they’re in the temple. They’re in the temple of God and they’re holding a coin with an image, an image of Caesar, and under this image is the inscription, “Tiberius Caesar, Son of God.” Oops. Now what are they going to do? He’s just unveiled their hypocrisy. He’s just pulled back the curtain to show the true “great and powerful Oz.” He’s revealed that it’s all smoke and mirrors. It’s all posturing and pontificating, and fighting over power. And suddenly, once the hypocrisy is revealed, it loses its power. It doesn’t really matter anymore. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he says. Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor. And what is the emperor’s? These coins that, in reality, mean, nothing. They’re simply a representation of wealth, but only because we assign that to them. They’re simply a symbol, a tool, an object that we assign value to. Like gold or diamonds or the one dollar bill I have in my wallet, they’re only worth something because we, as a society, have decided it to be so. Give the emperor the things that really, in reality, in real life, in the kingdom of God, have no value. Sure. He can have all the denarii in the world. Let him have it, because it doesn’t really matter. It’s not a real thing. It’s just a round piece of metal that we’ve all decided has meaning, but if we wanted to, we could decide right now that it’s worthless, we could decide right now that it is no longer our currency. We are not defined by our ability to produce more symbols which will then support the powers and principalities of our world. We are defined by something much greater, much more powerful. 

And so, with that, Jesus steps even further in. He gets himself even deeper into the muck and dung and messiness of humanity, because then he says, “Give to God what is God’s.” He throws the coin back at them, the coin that shows to whom it belongs because it has his image. The coin belongs to Caesar because his face is on it. So, he says, whatever has God’s face on it belongs to God. Give to God the things that are God’s. And what belongs to God? WE are the coins upon which God’s face is inscribed. We are the currency that must be returned to God. We are the imago Dei, the image of God. We, all of humanity, all of creation, are created in the image of God. The image of God is tattooed on our skin, etched in our bones, carved upon our souls. We belong to God. And well, we’re messy, contradictory, confusing people.

Politics comes from the Greek word “politika,” meaning “affairs of the cities.” The word is connected to “polites”, which mean “citizens” and “polis”, which means city. Politics isn’t just about accumulating power; it’s about how we figure out how we live together, how we create a just and civil society of people of all kinds of backgrounds and beliefs and convictions that can support each other and live and thrive together. It’s not just about accumulating as many coins with our faces on it. Sure. Whatever. Give Caesar what he wants. That coin with his face on it does not define who you are. But the community of God, the kin-dom of God, that’s super important; that’s what defines who and what we are. Jesus is doing a both/and here. Politics are just about giving the guy in power the worthless tokens of his power. AND politics are about who we are and what we’re made of. It’s about the work we have to do, as a community, to promote justice and peace and hospitality and forgiveness so that we can live as the body of Christ. 

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But give to God what is God’s.”

See, with this brief reply, Jesus says that politics and humanity have nothing to do with each other. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Who cares about worldly power and wealth and the random tools we use to accumulate such wealth? AND he says that politics and humanity have everything to do with each other. Give to God what is God’s. True power, real wealth, the thing itself, not just the symbol, belongs to God. Politics is about what we, as a community, place our value in. Caesar’s politics don’t mean a whole hell of a lot. But God’s politics mean everything. 

Do you feel a little bit stuck in it right now? Does it feel a little messy and unclear and uncertain.  Can you hear the flies buzzing around? We’ve walked straight in to it. We’ve stepped on the landmines. We’re hearing the squish and gluck and sludge of trying to pull our boots out of the muck. Because we need Caesar and we need these symbols and we need some kind of law and order and taxes in order to keep our streets safe and our highways smooth and our libraries stocked. I mean, sort of. It’s the structure we’ve decided to function under. But more importantly, we need to realize that this has its limitations. The government is not going to bring about the kingdom of God because the government is not made in the image of God. We are. We can be part of the government, we can bring the image of God into politics simply by participating, by demanding justice and equality and respect for science and fighting for the rights of others. But we are not at the mercy of Caesar. We are not at the mercy of our government. We aren’t just coins with the president’s face branded into our backs. WE are made of greater stuff than that. 

And that means we need to step in. We need to step in to the muck and the mess of civilly disagreeing with each other. We need to step in to relationship. We need to step in to the stink of community, because that is what makes the ground fertile. We need to go further than the yard signs and the Facebook memes. We need to start getting to know each other’s perspectives. Because we all, Trump or Biden supporter, Democrat or Republican, climate activist or flat earther, we are all made in the image of God. And that is where our true value lies.

No matter who wins this contentious, tedious, and ugly election, the justice work must still go on. Nothing is going to be miraculously fixed once your preferred Caesar enters office. The work of the people must go on, because we are the ones who carry the imprint and image of God. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But give to God what belongs to God. We do that by entering in. We do that by stepping in it. By making mistakes. By making messes. By hurting feelings, and saying the wrong things, and asking for forgiveness and trying again. We do that by seeing the image of God in the Other, in the guy waving the wrong flag or listening to the wrong talk radio. We do that by both taking a stand and making room for one another. Justice, real justice, has never come from shame. Real justice has never come from finger pointing and name calling. And real justice has never come from sitting on the sidelines, trying to avoid the mess.

There’s so much at stake this election. And I’m scared for the ones in our country whose humanity is not fully acknowledged and respected. I’m scared for the ones who are terrified for their lives depending upon how this election turns out. But shame isn’t going to change people’s minds. Only love can. Only by acknowledging the imago Dei in the guy with the tiki torch or the riot gear or the pockets full of Caesar’s coins, only then, will their hearts and minds ever change.

So yes, absolutely, put up your political sign. Slap that bumper sticker on the trunk of your car. Make phone calls and help people get to the polls. Vote on November 3rd. It matters. It’s important. We are voting to give them power. But remember, it’s Caesar’s power, not God’s power. Yup, that’s scary, that’ a lot of power, but only because we’ve decided so, only because we’ve decided to value the currency that they offer. We have to remember that we are God’s ultimate currency. We are God’s most valuable. 

As hard as it is to say sometimes, the guys running for President are both also made in the image of God. But they’re just guys. We HAVE to remember that they’re not the kingdom. No matter who wins, there is still work to do. And WE must do it. No matter who wins, we must still fight, tooth and nail, to give back to God what belongs to God. We must continue to step in it, step right in it, to take the risk, to see the face of God in the one who completely and vehemently and even violently disagrees with us. This is how we will help them to see the image of God in others, by showing them the image of God in themselves. That’s how Jesus did it. That’s what Jesus does.

Thanks be to God.

An Epistolary Sermon: Matthew 22:1-15

READ MEEEEEEEE! Matthew 22:1-15 

An Epistolary Sermon

Dear God, 

Well. Here I am. Again. The parable this week is a doozy. And it’s already Saturday. And I’ve thrown out all of my sermon work from this week because none of it is right, and I didn’t turn in a reflection paper for my class on time, a class that’s supposed to be about listening and discernment, and we decided to get a puppy and we pick her up tomorrow at two, and my son “needs” my computer right now so he can make a video for his YouTube channel, and there’s this incessant clicking in my right ear that I can’t seem to shake or ignore, so I’m Googling “Covid-19 and ear clicking,” and there’s an election coming up and people are scared and freaking out and being ridiculous, and my friends are dealing with a second hurricane in the span of six weeks, and everything in the Northwest is on fire, and I have this horrible tendency to focus on how hard my life is when really it’s a life of comfort and privilege, and here’s this story that is supposedly about you and your followers that turns in to contradiction and murder and chaos and threats of hell. Everything feels like it’s on fire right now, God. And it’s not the good Holy Spirit fire. Or maybe it is. I don’t know. I just don’t want to be on fire anymore.

Here’s this story about a king who is supposed to be you, right, God? At least that’s what all the commentators say. That’s what all the smart white men in our two thousand years of Christian history who know all the Greek and who’ve studied the scriptures and written all the books and decided all the heresies are saying.  The king is you, the invitees are Israel, the servants who are abused and killed are your prophets, and the city you burn down is Jerusalem, or maybe it’s just the temple, we’re not sure, and the people you invite to your party are the Gentiles. There. The kingdom of heaven. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

But God, this story is crazy. This story is nuts. Everybody is freaking out in this story. The whole city is on fire. Nobody’s being rational, except, maybe, the poor guy who gets kicked out of the party for not wearing the right clothes. And his response to all this chaos? He’s speechless. He is without words. So here I am, God, full of a whole bunch of words that are really coming to nothing. Here I am, God, feeling a little bit speechless. I mean, What the hell, God?

So. Yeah. 

Amen.

Dear Jenn - 

You know that I am just a figment of your imagination and probably not really God, but anyway, you’re imagining some kind of a response from some kind of benevolent being, so here goes:

You don’t know a whole lot about me, so listen to those white guys, they’ve thought long and hard and they know all the Greek and they’ve written all the books and historical criticism is important and so is the history of interpretation and they’re also all a part of that “Great Cloud of Witnesses” you like so much, so maybe read a little bit about what they have to say. You  know, the parts about how we don’t really want to be about “cheap grace.” The parts about how this parable does, in fact, tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like, where everybody is invited, and how grace is free, but how it also requires a response of us, a right action, and that being a Christian does mean that we change what we wear, what we’re “clothed” in, you know, in a metaphorical sense. There’s some good stuff there. Good stuff.

And hey, I’m sorry about the whole ear-clicking thing. That happened to me, once. It totally sucked.

And also, you probably should have asked what I thought about getting that puppy. You know she’s going to wake you up in the middle of the night to pee. Are you prepared for that? Are you sure you’ve thought this through?

Also, don’t let a bunch of old white guys tell you what to think about me. They’re not the boss of me.

Well, good luck tomorrow. You’ll do great.

God.

Dear God - 

Yeah, that response wasn’t really what I was looking for. I need an answer of some kind, you know something hopeful and good and true about who you are and what you have to teach us. I need to be able to offer these folks something, something they can hold on to to give them hope and solid ground to stand on during these troubling times. Maybe that’s why the history of interpretation is just not helpful here. Seems like they all have the same decoder ring they got from the same brand of breakfast cereal and they’re applying it to this passage and it’s all just so obvious. This is a story about you and the Israelites and how they rejected you even though you gave them a special invitation to join the party, and they responded by killing your prophets and then you responded by tearing down their temple and inviting the Gentiles in to the party. Except some Gentiles don’t have what it takes, so they get kicked out when they’re not wearing the right clothes for this particular occasion. There. Done. The Moral of the Story: don’t reject God’s invitation, and always keep your wedding robe somewhere handy, and preferably, fireproof. 

It’s like they’ve ignored all the violence and destruction of this parable. I mean, I have questions. Why wouldn’t those invited to the party not want to come? If the champagne is flowing and the filet mignon is being served with a wine reduction sauce and the five tiered cake has a raspberry cream filling, who wouldn’t want to be a part of that? Seems like something went wrong in that relationship between the king and the folks he’s invited, otherwise, they’d be excited to come, otherwise they’d drop everything to get all fancy, drink too much, and jump on to the dance floor when the DJ spins out the electric slide. So what happened? Why don’t they want to come anymore? And then when the king asks them to come a second time, they beat up and kill his messengers. I mean, why the crazy response? Seems way out of proportion if you ask me.  And the king responds in kind, as if that’s going to solve the problem. He sends his troops in, destroys the murderers and burns down the whole dang city. Then, while his city is still in an uproar, while people are fleeing their houses with whatever they can grab, their arms full of babies and pots and pans and photographs and family heirlooms, the king still insists on his silly wedding banquet, and so the slaves go out, grab anyone they can find, and bring them in for a little champagne and filet mignon. Did these guests even have a choice in the matter? I mean, they’re fleeing from their city, their houses are burning to the ground, and the last guy who rejected the king’s offer was killed. So. What choice do they have, really? Do they all rush back to their burning houses and dig their formalwear out of the mothballs in the back of their closets? But then, but then, when they do come, when they do respond to the king’s invitation, they watch as some poor sot gets kicked out, tied hand and foot, thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth simply because he wasn’t wearing the right outfit. I mean, that’s crazy, right? What am I supposed to do with this story?

Oh, and the ear is still clicking, we could use some help with the puppy, and also I’ve got this whole hormonal acne thing going on that would be great if it could get cleared up somehow. Maybe by tomorrow would be great. Oh yeah, and the fires and the hurricanes and the political situation in our country. And the wars. And the hungry kids. And the trashed planet. And systemic racism. But mostly, what am I going to tell these folks tomorrow?

Amen. 

Dear Jenn - 

Once, I was stripped of my clothes and accused of being the King of the Jews. I’d spent a lot of time hanging out with the tax collectors and the sex workers and the sick and rejected and I healed some people and told them to eat and drink for the kingdom of God is at hand. I guess that made folks nervous. I just stood there. Said nothing.

Anyway, I know what you’re asking for. And that’s just not how I work. Imma just gonna let you sit here, in this mess of a story. Maybe you’re looking for answers where there aren’t any. Maybe, you know, my grace is sufficient for you and all that. Maybe you’re just supposed to read the story again. Then go for a walk. Go to Starbucks. Come home and take a nap. Eat some frozen pizza. Decide on what you’re going to name your puppy. Oh and drink some water. Have you had enough water today?

God.

Dear God -

Ok. So I read the story again. And again. And one more time. I drank some water. The ear is still clicking. We’ve decided to name the puppy Eliza. Or maybe Luna. Or Sunny. 

But God. You just can’t be the king. You just can’t. The king is…scary. He’s hotheaded and impatient. He has unreasonable expectations. He kills and destroys. He does this horrible bait and switch thing where he invites everyone to his banquet but then punishes the guy who isn’t wearing the right clothes. He calls him “friend,” and then throws him into hell! Everything I’ve come to know and trust and love about you, God, gets undone if you are the king. How can you be the king? 

But all the smart white guys say that you’re the king. They say that we need to be sanctified as well as justified. They say that we need to say yes to the invitation, but also work to be worthy of that invitation. They say this is a story about the eschaton, the end of times, when you will gather everybody to yourself and determine who’s in and who’s out. You’ll decide who’s worthy and who’s not. And how can they be wrong? It’s right there, right in the Bible. Jesus says, “The kingdom of Heaven is like this.” Can it really be true? Is the kingdom of heaven really like a tyrannical king and like some folks who reject his invitation and like a burning city and like the good and the bad all being gathered together for a party until the king finds the really bad guy, the one who isn’t playing his part, and kicks him into the outer reaches of hell?

Because if these old church fathers have it right, then I think maybe I’m out. I think maybe I don’t want to go to your party. I think maybe I’d rather hang out with the folks who show up just as they are, who don’t hide their unworthiness behind wedding robes or righteousness or perfect choices. I’m not really interested in the ones who are hiding their singed and blistered skin behind a fancy wedding robe.

I’ve tried to be the one who dresses herself up for the party. Even while everything all around me burned, I tried to get myself together, tried to wear the right clothes, tried to say the right things and believe the right beliefs. I’ve tried to show up worthy. And because I stopped just a second longer to check my lipstick in the hallway mirror, because I took that extra moment to iron my robe and straighten my collar and put my hair in place, because I was so worried about what I looked like and what grades I got and if I was recycling right, I didn’t notice the flames creeping closer up my ankles, I didn’t notice that sure, I’d made it to the party, I was wearing all the right clothes, but I was also on fire. 

And God, I keep thinking about that guy who gets kicked out of the party. I want to hang out with him. He’s the only one in the story who is being his true self, the only one in the story who shows up when he’s called, just as he is, with all that he has. He shows up. But he doesn’t dress himself up. He just comes. He stays. And when he’s questioned, when he’s asked, “Who do you think you are? How’d you get in here? What have you to say to these charges” he just stands there, silent before his accusers. And he gets kicked out of the party, through really, no fault of his own. He’s bound, hand and foot. He’s thrown into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. He enters in to the pain and stays there. He goes where the hurt is. He participates in the hurt himself.

And then what happens to him? Is he crucified, dead and buried? Does he descend into hell? Is he raised again on the third day? I want to belong to that guy. I want to go to his party. I want to sit around his campfire and hear the stories of his descent into hell, and then hear how he fought his way back out. 

God, I know I’m wrong. I know I’m not supposed to hang out with that guy. He’s probably a bad influence. He probably smokes joints behind the stadium and does donuts in the parking lot with his balding tires. He probably shows up at prom in torn jeans and a leather jacket. He lives hard and with no regrets. Or maybe he’s just the guy who refused to go back to his burning house to grab his wedding robe. He refused to burn himself just get dressed up and please the king.

But God, if you’re the king, you can keep the robes and the filet mignon, you can have the champagne fountain all to yourself while the city burns. If I come to your party, I’ll come broken and bruised with nothing to say for myself. I’ll come hungry and tired and dying from smoke inhalation, but decidedly NOT on fire. I’m not going back for my wedding robe. I’m not going to burn for that. I’ll burn to rescue the kitten caught in the third floor attic, or to help Mary and her six kids get out of the house. But I won’t burn for that. If that’s not good enough, then kick me out too. If I need to be my best self in order to stay at your party, then I just quit now. I’ll never be enough. Let me join the others who are struggling and hurting and trying to survive. Let me join the guy who said yes to you but still didn’t quite fit, who got kicked out of the party anyway. 

Jenn.

Dear Jenn - 

It’s enough. 

Go to sleep.

I was serious about that water thing.

God.

Thanks be to God.

Choose Your Own Adventure: Matthew 21:33-46

Read this! Matthew 21:33-46

 There are problems with this parable. The whole economic and social structure that is the landowner/tenant farmer/ slave/ day worker system is severely problematic, especially to our individualistic, upward mobility, freedom-loving minds. In First Century Palestine, you were born into a place in life, and that’s where you stayed, that was your lot in life, you played the cards you were dealt as best you could, but there really weren’t a lot of choices to be had. You were what your father or your mother was before you. You had to decide, would you have bread and fish for dinner, or fish and bread? You were stuck where you started. The landowners certainly benefited from this unjust social structure. They had good reasons to keep this social structure in tact. Because it didn’t matter how hard you worked, if you weren’t incredibly, ridiculously, overwhelmingly rich, you survived hand-to-mouth, if you survived at all. The closest thing they had to a “middle class” was the tenant farmer — the one put in charge of tending to the landowner’s land, responsible for its fruitful success, responsible for its fruitless failures, at the mercy of floods and droughts and locusts and weeds. After tending the land, paying the landlord rent, giving the landlord a section of the profits, after buying seed for next year, feeding the animals, paying the taxes, and donating to the temple, there was very little to survive on, if the weather cooperated, maybe just enough to feed your family, maybe enough for a new pair of shoes that the little one keeps outgrowing. This whole parable is based upon an unequal, unfair, unjust social and economic system. In fact, this whole parable is based upon…real life, how things are for most people, even in our modern world. If Jesus were telling this story to a group of real tenant farmers, or a gaggle of slaves, or a crowd of day workers, if he had been telling this story to a collection of people who were victims of this societal structure, what we’d have here is an absentee landlord, an unjust system, and a set of reasonable, or at least understandable actions on the part of the tenant farmers. They’ve had it. It’s a revolt. It’s the American Revolution. They’re throwing tea into the harbor and refusing to pay taxes and practicing guerrilla warfare, and finally saying we have had enough. It’s the Civil Rights Movement. It’s the Rebellion. 

But Jesus isn’t talking to the oppressed. This story is not for them. This story is directed towards the Temple priests and scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees, the guys who are tasked with creating and maintaining this social structure. This story is told to the gatekeepers, the ones who are in charge of drawing the line between who is in and who is out. And this makes all the difference. Jesus tells this story to a people who just assume that this societal structure is how things should be, they don’t question the system at all. It’s just a matter of course that the landlord leaves, that the tenants care for the land, that the landlord comes back, usually by proxy, to collect what is due.

I listened to this wonderful podcast yesterday. I highly recommend it. Brene Brown was interviewing Sonia Renee Taylor. Sonia Renee Taylor is an author, civil rights activist, poet and mental health advocate who wrote a book called, “The Body Is Not an Apology.” She argues that we have built an entire system based upon the bodies, and worthiness of those bodies, of others. This system externalizes our values: the ones on “top” are the ones who are best able to support the structure. She calls it “the ladder” - this hierarchy of value which rewards people who fit into the societal mold, and punishes those who don’t quite fit. Our aim, in this structure, is to get to the “top” - to accumulate the most stuff, to be determined as the most successful, the be the smartest and richest and most revered. But the system is rigged against most of us, she says. For most of us, because of our gender, our race, our socioeconomic status, our education, or our genes, and all of those things that are actually out of our control, we simply can’t get to the top, we can’t win the game. But it’s the only game in town, so we play it. And if we can’t win the game, then at least we can beat the pants off the poor guy beneath us. None of us can be at the top, so we create structures, rules, hierarchies, and values so that we can at least be better than whomever is below us. It’s a ladder, she says, and each person climbs the ladder by stepping on the backs of someone else. It’s a ladder that says that the vineyard is ours, that we earned the vineyard, and that we deserve what we have. Even if that’s not at all true. But we don’t have any other way to measure our worth. The ladder is our chosen measuring stick, even when the ladder is always telling us that somebody is “better” and “worthier” than we are. It’s a ladder based upon scarcity, and we will commit violence to anyone who tries to disrupt this ladder.   This is the heart of systemic injustice.

She argues that for the sake of the world, for the sake of ourselves and those we love, for the sake of humanity in general, we need to divest from the ladder, or, if nothing else, we need to stop worshipping it, stop polishing it, stop passing it on to our children as if it is the only way to live. In fact, she argues, the ladder is imaginary. The ladder is a construct. Once we divest from the ladder, this system of saying who is in and who is out, this way of discrediting each other so that we can at least be one rung ahead, the structure itself falls apart, it’s no longer structurally sound, it all falls down. Once we divest from the ladder, we’re free, free to write our own stories, free to live by a different set of codes, free to embrace the things that our soul loves.

Jesus is talking to the guys at the top of the ladder. “God put you in charge of all the things,” he says. And God expected you to take care of it. To be stewards of it. To nurture it and grow it and love it into its truest self. And when God sent God’s prophets to “collect” on God’s investment, you beat and tortured and killed them. When God sent God’s own Son to reset the societal structure, you killed him, too. What the landowner, what God, is doing in this parable is upending the societal structure that the tenants have created for themselves. God reminds them that none of this is theirs, none of this belongs to them. They are just stewards, caretakers, inviters and supporters of what God is doing in the world. God has sent God’s people to remind the tenants that the ladder they have constructed is a construct, it’s imaginary, it’s not real, or helpful, or just. And the prophets and their message of dismantling the ladder is met with violence. It rarely ends well for a prophet. Rejection, exile, assassination is usually how it goes for them.

Because there is so much at stake for these tenants. They want the inheritance. They want all the goods and all the power and all the prestige and all the things for themselves. They want the vineyard for themselves.  They’re willing to commit repeated acts of violence in order to make this so. They’ll do anything to keep their place on the ladder, and to make sure that there are plenty of people hanging on for dear life below them.

See, after stealing a donkey, sneaking in to Jerusalem, turning the tables and inviting outcasts into the temple, after physically dismantling the ladder and causing an uproar in the city, Jesus knows he can’t just make a mess on the outside. Jesus knows that he has to scramble us up on the inside. To dismantle the ladder inside of ourselves is the only way to dismantle the ladder as a whole. Now, Jesus is telling the ones at the top rungs of the ladder that the ladder isn’t real. Jesus has come to tear down the ladder. To tear down the temple. And to rebuild it into something new. 

Jesus is that cornerstone to what will be rebuilt. 

And the builders reject him. Just like the tenants reject the landowner’s son. 

“They said to themselves, ‘This is the heir!’ - do you hear it? This is the guy at the top of the ladder. If we overtake him, then we can take over his place in the hierarchy. If we get rid of him, then we’re the top dog, we get all the things, we will have the power, we’ll be number one. ‘Come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ If we get rid of the guy above us, we will move on up, we will get what he has, we will get “where” he “is.” 

And here is the turning point of the whole parable. For us, and for the leaders of the Temple. Jesus asks them, and he asks us, a question. And how we answer that question will determine our fates. “Now, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” Do you hear it? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Jesus is asking them, “by what construct are you going to live?” What’s your cornerstone? What’s that thing that you are going to stake your life upon? Is it the ladder? Or is it something else, something that maybe hasn’t even been built yet, but something that is distinctively-not-the-ladder? And without even thinking, without even questioning it, because it is simply the air that they breathe, the guys with power choose the ladder. They choose the hierarchy. They choose to end the story with a framework that they are comfortable and familiar with, even if it means their own destruction. Even if it means that they will trip over and lose their own freedom, their own well being, their own beloved-ness, even if it means that they will be crushed by their own hypocrisy and greed and by the very structure upon which they have based their whole lives, they can’t let go of the ladder. They can’t let go of the construct. They can’t lose it all, because the ladder is all they have. 

So they answer him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at harvest time.” Those tenants will get what is coming to them. They will get justice. They will be forced to pay for what they’ve done. Because that’s what we would do. Because that is the structure that we live by. That’s the story that we know. That’s the ladder that we climb. 

And how does Jesus respond? He doesn’t tell them that they’re exactly right. He doesn’t tell them that they’ve chosen wisely. He doesn’t say, “yup, this is exactly what God is going to do to you, you wicked tenants of the temple!” Instead, he asks them another question. He points them back to their own narrative. And he places himself in their story. “Haven’t you read the scriptures? How “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?” Haven’t you read that the thing upon which you should build your lives is the thing that has been rejected, the thing that disrupts the hierarchy, the thing that dismantles the ladder and builds something new in its place? This dismantling and rebuilding, this redefining and restructuring, this tearing down and building back up is the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes. 

And they get it. They understand exactly what he is telling them. But the ironic thing is that these chief priests and Pharisees are so ingrained in their structure, they’ve so much at stake in its rising or falling, they have their identities wrapped so completely around the formation and survival of this ladder, they do the exact thing the parable warns them not to do. They realize that he is speaking about them, that Jesus is requiring a complete transformation of the foundations upon which they have built their lives, and they can’t handle it.

Because they actually get the answer wrong. This isn’t what God does at all. God doesn’t come down to us to smite us and give us our just desserts for supporting the status quo. God sends God’s son. And we kill him. But God doesn’t put us to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give God the produce at harvest time.” We kill God’s son, and what does God do? God raises him on the third day. And then God keeps sending him back to the vineyard, again and again and again, and even gets killed again and again and again, in all the tiny and major ways that we betray each other and trash our earth and reject our stories and fortify that gosh darn ladder. But God doesn’t do what the Pharisees and the scribes and the church leaders think God will do. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. And the people who reject that cornerstone are given opportunity after opportunity to dismantle that ladder. They’re given the opportunity to try again. They’re given chance after chance to produce the fruits of the kingdom. God is dismantling the ladder simply by giving us chance after chance after chance. God is destroying our constructs with grace.  You don’t have to live this way. You can choose to end the parable differently. You can choose to reject the ladder. You don’t have to live with all the rules and the imaginary constructs and the societal structures that have been built for you. You can go a different way. You can choose a different path. 

As we at Peters Creek think about what we want to be, about who we want to be, about what the church should be, as we struggle to redefine our purpose and transform our ministry and foster the kingdom of God in what little ways we can, let’s think about that ladder. Let’s think about how we don’t have to live according to that paradigm anymore. Let’s think about how we can be a place where all people can get a break from the pressures and the falseness and the distractions of the ladder. We have a different cornerstone. We can choose to end the parable differently. 

How will we choose to end the parable? 

Thanks be to God.