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.