Tag Archives: sermon

by | May 5, 2013 · 7:50 am

Sermon on Revelation 21/22 – An Excerpt

This will soon be delivered to Orting UMC! On Revelation 21:10, 22 – 22:5

But it really isn’t an artistic depiction of heaven that we are being called to, is it? It is the New Jerusalem that will descend from heaven, where God will dwell and where we will see God face-to-face.

Hmm, maybe this isn’t an artistic depiction of heaven, but a depiction of the state of our daily relationship with God and with the world. What if we said something like this, “Our love of God and of neighbor will descend from heaven and live in our hearts, minds, and bodies. And it is there that we will see God face-to-face in every encounter we have with our neighbors.”

That is the New Jerusalem—compassion begetting compassion. And that is achievable. It is within the grasp of each one of us here. However, this scripture has more to offer than just our one-on-one relationship with God.

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by | April 21, 2013 · 6:57 pm

Finding God at Mt. St. Helen: A Sermon

Preached today, 4/21/2013, at Rainier Beach UMC by Terri Stewart
Scripture: Genesis 1:1 – 2:3

Today I’m going to speak about creation. Tomorrow is International Earth Day and we wanted to take a moment and remember God’s creation, our role in creation, and a quick PSA to remember to recycle when you are here at the church!

I remember several years ago when I was in college at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, I went to my very first Earth Day event on campus. There was sun, crowds of young adults, and bands. All I could think of was the immense amount of litter that was being created. That seemed a bit ludicrous!

Earth Day began in 1970 and was primarily a response to a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. It was created by US Senator Nelson as a national “teach-in” day. Both Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban and rural residents, business leaders and labor leaders came together in agreement. And from this, the Environmental Protection Agency was created and the Clean Air, Clean Water act passed.

Earth Day has seen its ups and downs. It started out with massive demonstrations in every part of the US, then grew to become a global force. Yet by the year 2010, the community was in a bit of a conundrum. People were actively working against Earth Day. A loud minority was denying the fact of climate change, oil companies were lobbying congress for access to protected lands, and frankly, I think we are all tired of what seems to be constant crises coming from Washington DC. But even with these challenges, in 2010, Earth Day brought 225,000 people to Washington DC for a Climate Rally.

But, what I don’t see, are people in the streets now talking about protecting the earth, the creation.

In today’s scripture reading, we heard one of the creation stories in the Bible. This one is particularly beautiful as it poetically recounts God’s action in the cosmos bringing our world into existence. I love this story. When I recall it in my mind, I hear the phrase over and over, “God created…and it was good.” Then, on the sixth day, God surveys everything that was made and says, “It was very good.”

It is very good.

I think our approach to the environment and things like Earth Day depend entirely on our Image of God.  There are three primary ways of thinking about God.

  1. There is the God who created the universe and set it into motion and sits back and watches everything unfold. This is often called the “unmoved mover.”
  2. There is the God who created the universe and steps in to provide punishment and reward. God is often called “master God.”
  3. There is the God who works with us to create together a future that is dependent on our decisions. God is often called “co-creator God.”

I have a little chart that may help you think about these different kinds of images of God.

Images of God

Images of God

In the first image of God, God does not interact with humans. The earth was created and whatever happens is because of that first, initial act of creation. God just sits back and watches.  In the second image, God as Master, God steps in during the course of history and does things like causes earthquakes, bombings, wealth, and rewards. In the third image, God issues an invitation to humanity and the person has the choice whether to respond to God’s invitation or to ignore the invitation.  I want to give you five minutes to discuss what image of God you believe in.

Over the past week, I was on vacation, but I was also reading a book Seasoning the Soul. In this book, I ran across a description of God that I thought was quite beautiful. First, it said that in the Bible and in nature, we have everything we need to understand God. And that in nature, all of Jesus’ teachings are present. It then goes on with a poem that asks these questions: When a crimson-red Maple Leaf falls down to the ground off of a tree, is that not Christ’s reflection? When an Aspen tree sheds all his leaves in fall and then grows them back in the spring, is that not resurrection? Can we find the trinity in a leaf of clover?

Maybe it was the poetic quality of the writing that caught my imagination, or the fact that I was camping near the Cowlitz River facing the beauty of creation every day, but I can find the face of God in earth, in the cosmos, and within.

Nature tells Christ’s story if we would just listen! And the story we receive from Genesis 1 tells Christ’s story too! In the beginning…  Those words are found in Genesis 1, the very beginning of the Bible and in the Gospel of John. I have a quick chart showing how intimately tied together Genesis 1-creation and John 1-Christ are.

Slide3

First, we have the beginning, God, creates the heavens and the earth and the Word was there in the beginning with God and the Word was God. Second, We have wind which in Hebrew is ruach and could be translated spirit-another face of God. And in John, we have “him,” another face of God. Then in the last section, we see the mirroring of light, that the light is good, the light is for all people, and that the darkness will not overcome it.

A quick note about this word, Word. In Greek, it is Logos which means wisdom. In Proverbs 8, wisdom is described as being with God at the beginning of God’s work. Creation is intimately tied with Christ. And most important, the resurrection of Christ which saves humanity is witnessed day after day in the resurrection cycles of the earth.

Slide4

Last week, we went to Mt. St. Helen. What were you doing when Mt. St. Helen blew in 1980? Some of you weren’t born, but have you heard the stories? Even I remember when the mountain blew and I lived in North Carolina! Mt. St. Helen devastated the area. Molten lava mud snapped trees like matchsticks and the land was destroyed as devastation flowed down the Toutle and Cowlitz River. It simply picked up homes and carried them away.

Slide5

When people who lived there for their whole lives returned to the area, they couldn’t recognize anything. It was all gone.

Within three days, bunnies were returning to the land.

Slide6

Now, 30 years later, there are new lakes, new trees, new life. That is resurrection. God’s creative energy calling forth something new. Long ago, there was one primary lake, Spirit Lake, now there are four lakes. Spirit Lake that is entirely different, Silver Lake that is a beautiful wetlands area, Castle Lake, and Coldwater Lake.

Slide8

Without the devastation of the eruption, this new and beautiful creation would not have happened.

Slide7

So, the question is what do we do with the idea of creation intimately tied with Christ and intimately tied with each other? What saving action is God calling us to? How is Christ speaking to you through scripture when he says, “consider the lilies of the field…” or “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God…” or in the unfolding resurrection story we see evidenced in catastrophic events like Mt. St. Helen and in the simple rhythm of life such as the rebirth of the Aspen tree every spring?

Now, our image of God has everything to do with how we approach the question of earth care. If we have no freedom to affect creation because God has total control, we will make different choices than if we believe that we are creating our future by freely choosing and responding to God’s grace.

One final question: what will you do to honor and respond to God’s creation?

Slide9

In closing, I’d like to read you the poem I referenced questions from earlier:

Mother-Father God,
We ask the following questions
knowing full well that you have
already provided the answers:

When Sister Maple Leaf pirouettes down
Resplendent in her crimson gown
And then lies prostrate on the ground,
Is not that Christ’s Reflection?

And when Brother Aspen, tall and bold,
In autumn sheds his cloak of gold
Then in the Spring green leaves unfold
Is not that resurrection?

You see, all of the tales that the scriptures tell
Are told in nature just as well.
Here on earth are both heaven and hell.
It’s a story told over and over.

So, Mother-Father here is our plea:
May you bless this family
And help us each find the Trinity
In every leaf of clover.

Shalom and Amen.

Poem by David Garner as printed in Seasoning the Soul, a compilation edited by Eileen Knoff, D. Min. I took the liberty of changed the line “May you bless this family” from “May you bless Brigid’s family.”

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by | July 2, 2012 · 9:10 am

Saul: Lamenting a Man of Promise

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27

We have just heard David’s out pouring of grief for Saul and for Jonathan.  He refers to them as “Saul and Jonathan—beloved and lovely!”  It could alternately be “Saul and Jonathan—dear friend and delightful companion!”  David loved them both.  But today, I want to focus on the love that David still has for Saul.  Saul, a man that tried more than one time to kill David and to drive him away.  What did David see in Saul that would still touch his heart after so many difficult and life threatening situations?  David saw that Saul was a man of promise and compassion.

When Saul was chosen to be king, he was a terrified young man.  Samuel anoints him and Saul goes back to his family and doesn’t tell anybody that he is the king.  He has this crazy ecstatic prophetic frenzy fall upon him and it frightens him so much, all he has to say is, “we were looking for donkeys.”

Samuel then goes on a “search” for the king and lo and behold!  It goes something like this…There are 12 tribes and I will cast lots to see which tribe holds the king!  And it was Saul’s tribe.  THEN, There are several families and I will cast lots to see which family holds the king!  And it was Saul’s family.  THEN, There were several people and Samuel says, “I will cast lots to see which person will be king!”  And it is, of course, Saul.  I am wondering if Samuel rigged his dice that day!

So Saul is chosen to be king.  And he is like every hero in the Bible…an imperfect, apparently weak, younger son.  He just is not the testosterony leader that everybody was expecting.  And then, right away, the Ammonite king is on the heals of the Israelites.  The Ammonite king wants to pluck out the right eye of every Israelite in the town of Jabesh-gilead.  When Saul hears this, the Spirit of God came upon Saul and he was furious.  He quickly formed a battle plan, implemented it, and won the war.  He then urged people to be compassionate with each other and especially those that didn’t believe he could be a leader.  Then Samuel drew all the people together with Saul and they went to Gilgal to renew the kingship—they made sacrifices of well-being and rejoiced together.  It was a time of promise.  Saul’s kingship, the system of justice, was grounded in righteousness and compassion.  Unfortunately, like so many of our systems, the promise of Saul’s reign of compassion soon turned to a reign of dread, especially for David, as Saul descended into madness and violence.

This story is all too common.  Somethings starts with promise and is corrupted and becomes death dealing.  That is what I encounter day after day in the juvenile detention system.  It is a continuous process of not living into the Kingdom of God.

I work at two detention centers, the King County Youth Detention Center and Echo Glen Children’s Home.  Both of these centers at one time were considered among the best in the nation.  King County Youth Detention Center was a beautiful facility complete with a gymnasium, a pool, and state of the art monitoring system.  Now, after a major flood, mildew, and the deterioration of about 35 years of wear and tear, the floors need replacing, the pool is a storage room, the monitoring system is an intercom system that requires raised voices and a special ear that can understand people speaking through static filled speakers.  A place of promise has deteriorated to become a place of madness.

At Echo Glen, a state facility in Snoqualmie, the outward beauty of the surroundings that makes it seem more like Camp Indianola than a detention center, is belied by the reality that this facility, created for the most vulnerable and youngest children in the system is aging.  And because of budget cutbacks, the staff to youth ratio is shrinking, the staff chaplains were fired, and recently, due to the closing of Maple Lane, a medium to max security center for violent, older youth and for youth that have serious mental illness, Echo Glen has now taken in the seriously mentally ill youth, altering the entire dynamic of a facility created to become a soft landing place for our more vulnerable youth.  A place of promise has deteriorated to become a place of madness.

And that is just the facilities!  I mentioned that Echo Glen fired its staff chaplains.  Now, in the state of Washington, there are no paid chaplains in juvenile facilities.  Everything is run by volunteers.  There was a time when chaplains were supported by state and county government and when the Church Council of Greater Seattle ran the chaplain’s program at these two institutions with grants from county government and donations from churches and individuals.  That institution, too, has fallen apart.  Over time, as the government cut back on its costs, the Church Council cut back on its support.  Within 10 years, a program that had an $80,000 budget became an entirely volunteer program.  That is a shame.  The Church Council could no longer financially support the organization and they gave the program to WorldVision.  WorldVision then failed to appear.  The chaplaincy fell into chaos as different theologies and churches struggled to gain control of a system run amuck.  A place of hope deteriorated to become a place of madness!

All of these stories of systems gone crazy are mere reflections of the stories the youth have to tell.

One of my favorite ways to sit with the youth in detention is to gather them in for a game of cards.  Over a card game, something happens to their mouths as their hands become busy and their spirits let go of tasks and schedules.  They begin to share and trust.

I remember one particular card game.  It was just after President Obama got elected.  I was playing cards with a group of 3 young men.  One of the youth was getting out of detention the next day.   This is important because one of the youth was African-American.  The election of Barack Obama gave the youth of color hope that their lives could be transformed.  I asked him, “What do you want when you leave here?”  His answer was heart breaking.  He said, “I want to go home to a normal family.”  This was not the answer that I expected.  I stayed quiet, and he went on to fill me in on his life’s story.  His mother was a crack addict and the courts were sending him back home to her.  As a crack addict, she likes people to do drugs with her.  And if he was at home, he told me, he would do drugs with her.  He said, “I don’t have the strength to say no to my mom.”

Inside my head, I was furious at a system that sends this young man back to such danger.  Especially after the detox work he had done inside detention.  I was furious at many things that day.

I asked him about his father.  He told me that his dad was a gang leader and his dad’s job was to run guns from Mexico to Kansas City.  If he went to his dad, he didn’t think he would be alive for very long.  He then turned to me in consternation and said, “when I was 3 years old, I wanted to be President of the United States.”  My heart broke again at the ruined promise and at the choices this young man was forced to make.  Addiction or death.  What a horrific choice for a 16 year old young man to make!  This was not even a choice of sanity or madness, but simply madness or greater madness.

I held all these revelations as they rolled into the conversation and we continued to play cards.  Then another boy opened up and started talking.

This other young man was from Somalia and lived with his aunt and uncle.  If you sat with him, you would notice that there was something seriously off.  I know that he could not write or read and that he was prone to irrational, sudden, violent outbursts.  This night, he started to tell us his story.  As a young person of 8 or so, he was living in Somalia.  There, during the never ending war that seems to be occurring, his parents were taken by the Somalian government.  They were brutally beaten, his mother was raped, and then they were killed.  In front of him.  Finally, everything fell into place for me.  The question is not why is this young man violent, but why not.  How do we expect a young person to survive this with no support or intervention and be normal?  His story was truly a decent into madness of epic proportions.

The third boy at the table that day chose to keep his stories to himself.  He quietly heard the stories and played the game.

I left the detention center that night feeling hopeless and wondering if there was any chance for these children of poverty, addiction, and illiteracy.  It weighed on my spirit like a heavy cloak.  I imagine, too, that your spirit is saddened just by hearing these stories.  I promise that there is good news.

I went home with this heavy cloak surrounding me and told my family they needed to stay away from me for a time while I processed some stories.  They gave me the space I needed to lament a system that has turned into total madness.  But I discovered something while I was lamenting.  I discovered that there is hope.  There is always hope.  And that hope is in the promise of resurrection.  We have the greatest story of all because we have Jesus who was transformed into something new at the resurrection.  And each of these stories can also be transformed into something new.  As difficult as it is to change systems or to change lives, resurrection and the promise that Jesus and God brings to us in abounding love and grace is the answer.  We may start at a place of violence, but we end in the peace and beauty of the Easter lily.

It takes work, though, to go from the madness of Saul to the promise of David.  And that work is beginning.  To tackle the madness of the chaplaincy system, I created the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition.  The Youth Chaplaincy Coalition is a group of like-minded individuals and churches that seek to provide services, in a faith-based context, to Youth Detention Centers.

The mission of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition is to provide quality, innovative, comprehensive services for the whole person, to youth and families affected by the justice system within a quality volunteer and work environment staffed by knowledgeable, ecumenical, and caring faith-based volunteers.  Our vision is:  While the justice system can treat the psychological and physical symptoms a youth in crisis has, chaplains have a unique opportunity to bring in the third leg of the stool, spirituality.  By bringing a holistic vision of the child, the possibility of healing the body, mind, and spirit becomes a reality.  Our work creates possibilities for transformation and integration.  The mission is attained by adherence to the values of listening and loving.

Listening and loving.  And a little bit of creativity provided by the Holy Spirit as she guides us to this new thing called the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition.  As I started ruminating over what was needed to bring at least one of these systems into stability and resurrection, God planted the idea that gathering people from the geography of the detention centers—the Central District in Seattle—and approaching their churches and congregations, was the way to go.  Now, the churches of the Central District are primarily traditional, independent African American churches.  So I started attending church with them.  I went to pentecostal, charismatic, Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal, Episcopal, churches and more!  I ended up at a Hispanic Roman Catholic Church on the day their bishop was there to visit and was splashed with the waters of baptism and participated in Eucharist.  They welcomed me in even though I had no clue what they were saying since the mass was primarily in Spanish.  This was the Holy Spirit moving.

Everywhere I went, people started gathering around and began to be excited about the detention center again.  It took two things to get to this point.  A call from God and the courage to walk through unfamiliar doors.  Now, gathered from these churches, we have the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition.  The members of the coalition are United Methodists, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Disciple of Christ, Independent Traditional African American, Church of God in Christ, and a Roman Catholic member.  This is a new thing.  A coming together for the resurrection of the chaplain’s office, the detention center, and for each youth that we encounter.  I am amazed at the work that has begun.  After the hopelessness of Friday, comes the resurrection.  God is making a new creation.

Saul embodies the very promise that each of the institutions I named and each child I encounter has at the beginning of their lives.  Then the world interferes.  Budgets take priority.  Children encounter death-dealing drugs and gangs. Ego takes over and it becomes about my version of God or their version of God.  We forget about Saul and that first battle he was in when he was a young man confronting injustice for the first time.  He steps into the fight because he is disturbed by the threat the Ammonites make.  He is a man of compassion confronting issues of injustice.  It is this man that David mourns.

We can all be that person.  The person who is compassionate and confronts issues of injustice where we see it.  John Wesley certainly was that person.  For some of us, the call is to create something new like the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition.  For others, it may be to feed the hungry, give drink to thirsty, clothe the naked, or heal the sick.  For others still, it may be to support people who are doing the work by offering spiritual, financial, and administrative assistance and I have a handout that shows how you can offer these gifts to the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition if you’re interested.  But there is one thing we can say with certitude, we are all called to act justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.  This allows us, like David, to grieve a broken system and to step forward into a new creation.

Shalom and Amen.

If you want to help:

Spiritual support.

Will you make a commitment to pray for the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition?  The Board Members?  The Volunteer Chaplains?  The Youth of the Detention Centers?  The Staff at the Detention Centers?   Would you want to volunteer at any of the detention centers?  Once a year?  Weekly? In a study? Life skills? Worship?

Financial support.

Could you make a commitment to making a donation to the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition? To being an ongoing donor?  Buying Bibles?  Purchasing study supplies?

Administrative support.

Would you like to help out by providing administrative support?  Finding grant opportunities?  Mailing out fundraising letters? Finding speaking opportunities?

How to help:

Contact Terri Stewart at  stewart6 @ seattleu.edu

Mail checks to (note Youth Chaplaincy on the memo line):

Bear Creek UMC
c/o Youth Chaplaincy Coalition
16530 Avondale Road NE
Woodinville, WA  98077

 

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by | May 22, 2012 · 6:53 am

Homily 1 John 5:1-5

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by | April 29, 2012 · 6:48 pm

Sermon on John 10: Beauty of the Sheepfold

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by | March 8, 2012 · 8:50 pm

Out and In, In and Out

Terri Stewart
A sermon on John 2:13-22

Dr. Suess is a great teacher.  My kids are 16 and 19 and we still have an entire shelf full of his books.  One of my favorite books is The Sneetches.  The Sneetches illustrates one of the worst traits of human nature—our desire to determine who’s in and who’s out.

Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars.
Those stars weren’t so big. They were really so small
you might think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.
But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches
would brag, “We’re the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.”
With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they’d snort
“We’ll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!”

Star-Belly Sneetches vs. Plain-Belly Sneetches.

The story goes on as an inventor comes to town that can put stars on bellies and remove stars from bellies.  Eventually, everything is confused as Sneetches try to out-do each other:

Through the machines they raced round and about again,
changing their stars every minute or two.
They kept paying money. They kept running through
until neither the Plain nor the Star-Bellies knew
whether this one was that one…
or that one was this one
or which one was what one…
or what one was who.

It was quite a muddle.  Nobody knew who was in and who was out.  Actually, the Johannine community could be thought of as sneetches.  A major concern expressed in the Gospel of John was bringing a shattered community together.  It was shattered because of two major events.  The first event was the destruction of the Temple.  When the Temple was destroyed, the community lost its place of worship.  Even though they identified as followers of Jesus, they were still Jewish and they still worshiped with their families and friends.  It cannot be overstated how devastating the loss of the Temple was to the Jewish community, their families, and their friends in the year 70 CE.  Burning the Temple burned down their access to the divine, to God.

Second, after this destruction, the community of Jews and Jesus-Jews struggled to find a new way of being Jewish in a world without the Temple.  Although the synagogue movement started before the Temple was destroyed, this cemented the synagogue system into being.  Jews were finding a new way in a new world.  However, the Jesus following Jews were having more difficulties.  As they struggled to find a place within the synagogue, they found that the openness they encountered prior to the destruction of the Temple was waning.  As Jews searched for a new self-definition, they discovered that acceptance of followers of the Way was not who they were any more.  I think it must have been wearying.  Trying to create a new way of being and having this group nagging you continuously, “but what about Jesus?”  The temptation to say, “enough already!” must have been keen!  Eventually, the Johannine community grew tired of the cold reception and began to turn inwards to find their own way in the complicated political and religious world of their time.  There was a very keen sense of who’s in and who’s out.  And John and this community were clearly out.

It is difficult to live life on the outside.  You wonder what it will take for acceptance.  What does acceptance look like anyway?  Do you even want to be accepted?  Or would a new way of being be the best route altogether?  And that’s if you’re on the outside!  Most of us, now, are on the inside of power.  We have the power.  But we ask similar questions.  What does acceptance of others look like?  What will it take to accept people that are on the other side of an issue or ideology?  Is there a new, creative third way that can be born that will include everybody?  Do I really have to lay down my power and give it to the powerless?

Easy questions.  Last night I was privileged to attend a Seattle School District School Board meeting.  It was tough, but a group of kids were going to the School District to ask for them to create safe spaces for gender-queer youth.  Gender queer youth have to wonder about acceptance and safety every day.  If they go to a public space like a restaurant or a mall, they have to wonder about using the bathroom.  If they go to a nurse, they have to wonder about having their biology and psychology treated.  If they talk to a teacher, they have to wonder if the teacher will use the correct pronouns.  We do not have to worry about pronouns.  It sounds so small, but it is huge in the way of creating a safe space.  And Colin, my son, and his friends testified to creating safe spaces.  It was broadcast on TV.  Even in advocating for himself, Colin’s was worried about the impact of being broadcast around the state of Washington and what that would do.  Would people recognize him?  If they did, would they just say he was a freak?

I think we all have experiences of being in and being out.  Most of us spend our time on the inside, though.  I’d like everybody to break into groups of 2-3 people and talk to each other about your experience of being on the outside or being on the inside.  Some questions to start your conversation are:  Can you remember a time when you felt excluded or on the outside?  What was it like? What did you feel? What did you do?  Were you able to get to the inside?  What about a time you were an insider and had to make room for an outsider?  Did you make room?  Did you make the choice to not make room?

Ready?  Go!

…

Today’s gospel story is very familiar to most of us.  We see it in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That got me to wondering, “Why did the writer of John include it here?”  What is its purpose?”  “Where is it different?”

There were two immediate differences that caught my attention:

  1. Instead of saying, as it says in all three synoptic gospels, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers,” Jesus says “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”  That is a totally unique saying to this gospel.

and

  1. Following the episode, Jesus is challenged to produce a sign.  Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  And then the writer tells us, “but he was speaking of the temple of his body and his disciples remembered he said this and they believed.  They believed.

John brilliantly ties Jesus, God, the Temple, signs, and belief together in one short story.  I think the crux of the matter is the co-identification of the Temple with Jesus.  Jesus was destroyed.  The Temple was destroyed.  But what was raised from the dead?  Jesus was.  Jesus is not only the Temple, but he is better because he transcends destruction.  The Johannine community needs to hear these words because the Temple was destroyed, they lost their place of worship and because they have also lost their community of family and friends.  It is very tempting for them to turn away from the Followers of the Way and to return to synagogue worship with their families and friends.

Further, the Jews speaking with Jesus ask him for a sign.  There is no bigger sign in the Gospel of John than the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  These signs or miracles are the conveyance of faith to the community.  New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright says “The whole point of signs is that they are moments when heaven and earth intersect with each other. (That’s what the Jews believed happened in the Temple.) The point is not that they are stories which couldn’t have happened in real life, but which point away from earth to a heavenly reality.”

I think the entire reason for the existence of this gospel is in John 20:31:  “But these (signs) are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  They believed.  So, through this struggle of defining who they were, who is in, and who is out, the ultimate response is, they believed.  And through believing, they found life.

Returning to our Sneetches who were so hung up on defining in and out, we find that in the end, it didn’t matter.

Then, when every last cent of their money was spent,
the Fix-It-Up Chappie packed up and he went.
And he laughed as he drove in his car up the beach,
“They never will learn. No. You can’t teach a Sneetch!”
But McBean was quite wrong. I’m quite happy to say
that the Sneetches got really quite smart on that day,
the day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches
and no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches.
That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars
and whether they had one, or not, upon thars.

They found full life when they stopped worrying about who was in and who was out.

So, as we go forward into the night, comfortable in our believing and our life, I challenge you with three questions:

  1. Who is your other?  The person or thing that is out not in?
  2. How can you bring them in?
  3. Why aren’t you doing it?

Shalom and Amen.

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by | October 9, 2011 · 1:53 pm

Invitation and Response

Note:  This sermon was delivered in a non-traditional format using interactive discussions.  It was quite fun and Parkland UMC’ers were fabulously participatory. 

Terri Stewart
Sermon:  Matt 22:1-14
Parkland UMC
October 9, 2011

Invitation and Response

I have been stirring this scripture in my head all week long.  For me, it seems that one of my processes is simply letting things percolate.  It is surprising, sometimes, what comes out.  The two things that kept flowing through my mind were the idea of invitation and the idea of responding to an invitation.

Just this last Friday, I was having an event at my home to help a friend out.  Up where I live, in the Northshore School District, we are having elections of the school board.  One of my friends and a fellow PTA mom is running for election.  I love her, so told her we could have a gathering at my home for her to meet folks.  The easiest way for me to issue invitations is on Facebook.  There you can create an event and invite people and they can RSVP automatically online.  And since I have a zillion Facebook friends, it was an easy way to reach a wide audience.  I was pleased with the results of the invitation.  I was heading towards having about 15 folks in my home and I thought that would be full enough to make it a worthwhile event, yet small enough that my friend could actually talk with everybody.  Then the day of the event came.  That’s where things go awry.  It was rainy, it was timed to coincide with the local high school dismissing their students so traffic was bad, it was Friday….things like that.  The turn-out was actually much lower than the amount of people who originally said ‘yes.’  And in reality, only one person showed up who didn’t know Dawn already.  There were other folks there, but we were all friends.  I kind of felt bad because my invitation process clearly did not inspire people to keep their commitment to come and meet my friend.

I keep bouncing this invitation and response process up against this scripture.  Jesus says, “The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.”  OK.  Generally, what we know about kings and the hierarchy in that structure is if a king is having a wedding banquet, everybody comes.  The earls and dukes and lords and ladies all come to be seen and photographed.  What do you think could happen that would cause the people that owe their loyalty to the king to not respond to the invitation?

Now I’m going to ask you to do something you may not be comfortable with.  I hope you will be gracious and grant me some leeway today.  Turn to your neighbor or neighbors and talk about invitations you have received.  Talk about why you respond with yes and why you respond with no.  And even why you ignored the invitation.  Then, see if you can come up with a reason that people would not respond to the king’s invitation.  I’m going to give you just “this much time.”

…discussion…

OK.  Do you mind sharing some of the reasons for not responding to the king’s invitation?

The invitation came at a time when there was work to do
The invitation was unclear
The invitation came at a difficult time for the family

The truth is, we could probably come up with a host of reasons why people ignore invitations.  And I’m sure, that some of the people who were initially invited by the king thought they were doing the right thing at the time.  At least one was returning to his farm.  Feeding the hungry is important.  But responding to the king has an even higher value.

Later in the story, we hear that the king’s servants went back out and invited everybody!  Good and bad, saint and sinner.  They came into the wedding hall.  Traditionally, in Ancient Israelite customs, when someone comes to a wedding feast, the host of the event was to provide a robe for each person attending the feast.  So the ‘good and bad’ folks are all sitting in the hall and the host, the king, arrives.  He looks around and sees someone without a robe on.  And when he approaches that person and asks him what he’s doing here, the guy was speechless.  And the king throws him out.  I keep wondering, what if he had not been speechless?  What if he had given a response to the king outlining why he was there without a wedding robe on?  Is the reason he was thrown out because he wasn’t dressed properly?  Or is it because he could not respond to the king?

I suppose you can see my bias.  If the kingdom of heaven is like this parable, then this story has to hinge on the response that people have to the king.  In the beginning, people ignored the invitation and had no response.  And here, later, there is another person who is speechless at the request.

I know in my life that the cost of discipleship, of responding to God, can seem extremely high.  I pay my seminary bills!  But there are the more subtle invitations to respond to God that we receive on a daily basis.  And it is these invitations and our responses that allow the Kingdom of Heaven to break through to the here and now.  But it isn’t so easy.  If it was easy, we would see the Kingdom of God on every street corner and in every person’s heart.  But we don’t see that yet.  Not quite.  Because not enough of us are responding day-in and day-out with a yes.  Most of the time, the invitation is not like a dramatic, beautiful wedding invitation.  It might be more like  a generic Facebook invitation.  Or, even more likely, it could be the small, still voice inside us.

Recently, I was in a parking lot in Seattle.  I was going to my car to leave at the end of a long day.  When I was just about ready to get into the car, a woman approached me.  She was frantic.  A story tumbled out of her…her car had been broken into, her law school books stolen, glass was everywhere, her kids had to take the bus and she needed to take a cab home to let her kids in.  At first I was confused.  I wondered if she needed a parking pass so nobody would tow her car on top of everything.  Then it became clear…she needed money for a cab ride.  I rarely carry cash, but that day I had made sure I had bus money for myself.  So I emptied everything I had into her hands.  It was about $4 in quarters.  That was the easy response to the invitation.  The harder one was when I felt the urge to reach out and hug her and provide a human touch.  That is not the normal thing to do in our society.  Strangers don’t hug.  But I did.  And she responded.  Such a small invitation to treat each other as beloved children of God.  And we both responded to the human touch with a sigh of relief.
Now, if you don’t mind participating in my experiment again, would you gather back together and discuss how you respond to invitations in general and how you respond to God’s invitation.  You might even want to talk about times you ignored invitations and times you easily said yes.

…discussion…

What are some of God’s invitations you have responded to?

And here’s the tough one.  What are some of God’s invitations you have ignored?

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of Moses.  He’s awesome for showing how a messed up human can respond to God’s invitation.  Perhaps I have an over-active imagination, but I often wonder what would have happened if Moses had not murdered the Egyptian guard.  Here was the perfect set-up for Moses, an Israelite, to be in a position of power in Pharaoh’s family.  Talk about the ability to create change from within!  But he blew it.  I often wonder if that was a missed invitation.  Could Moses have leaned into God and responded to the abuse in a different way that could have resulted in a safe and violence-free liberation of the Israelites?  Maybe.  But what we do know is that God continued to issue invitations to Moses and God continues to issue invitations to us, even when we have ignored God.  What a gracious gift.

Our task is to recognize the gift, begin to receive the invitations that can come as a burning bush or as a small, still voice within, and to respond to God, over and over again, to create the inbreaking of the Kingdom of Heaven here and now.

Shalom and Amen.

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by | September 25, 2011 · 6:18 pm

Riddler Jesus

Terri Stewart
September 25, 2011
Tibbett’s UMC
Matthew 21:23-32

Solve My Riddle

When I first read today’s scripture lesson, the first thing that popped into my mind was, “Jesus is up to his old tricks again!  Answering questions with more questions…riddles with riddles.”  It reminded me of the story in JRR Tolkien’s Hobbit where Bilbo Baggins is trying to get around the creature Gollum—who, by the way, wanted to eat Bilbo.  In this scene, Gollum and Bilbo enter a riddle contest.

Gollum launches the contest with:

What has roots as nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?

Do you remember the answer?  Mountains.

Bilbo replies and they go back and forth with each answering the other’s riddle until Gollum’s final riddle:

This thing all things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers

Gnaws iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to meal,

Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down!

Bilbo thinks and thinks.  He becomes frightened and nervous.  Gollum started coming toward him seeking lunch.  Bilbo wanted to scream out, “I need more time!”  But all that came out was a croaked, “Time.”  Which of course, is the answer to the riddle?  Time.  This allows Bilbo one last riddle.  Bilbo, not even meaning to ask a riddle, reaches down and feels a lump in his pocket, feels the ring, and forgetting he had picked up the ring, ponders aloud, “What have I got in my pocket?”  And that was that.  Gollum thought it was another riddle and is defeated.  Bilbo goes free.

Jesus has a similar encounter with the chief priests and the elders.  The chief priests and elders were in a sticky situation.  They have to work with the Roman authorities, the other Jewish leadership, and with the people of Jerusalem.  Trying to hold all these factions together, made them wary of people coming forward with new and revolutionary faith claims.  They had a special agreement with the Romans that they could continue to worship their God and not be sucked into the Roman religion.  This was an uneasy truce because it set the Jews outside the Roman structure but at the same time within it.  Under this system, there were two places that authority could be received.  From the Roman government or from the Jewish religious establishment.  Jesus seemed to be coming from a third place altogether and the Jewish leadership was extremely cautious of anything that might upset the political apple cart.  So they went to Jesus hoping to put an end to the challenge Jesus represented to the current, uneasy, political alliance.  Almost any answer Jesus could give could be a threat to Jesus’ freedom.  Part of Jesus’ brilliance was to start a riddle contest. 

They start off with a riddle…“By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

Jesus says he will enter into the game if they answer his riddle first.  He says to them, “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”

Of course, they did not know what to answer.  The text doesn’t say what they actually think the true answer is.  It simply says that if they choose answer A, “from heaven,” Jesus will be annoyed and if they choose answer B, “from humanity,” the people will be annoyed.  So they took the easy way out and confessed to not knowing.  For them, it was better and safer to not have the answer.

Have you ever been in a situation where it was better to not have the answer?  I know that I have been in situations where I simply didn’t have the answer!

Recently, I was meeting with a young woman in the King County Youth Detention Center.  She was using our time to vent her anger and frustration at her situation.  One of the girls in her hall had taken a dislike to her.  And the other girl was not doing anything overtly problematic, but was covertly taking every chance she could to make the young woman lose her cool.  She would call her names, but not so the staff could hear.  Her cell was directly over the young woman’s cell and during the middle of the night, when they were supposed to be sleeping; she would stomp on the floor keeping her awake.  It was a relentless campaign.  Any one of these things could easily have been handled, but the cumulative effect over days of this behavior was one where the young woman was ready to snap.  And that was the thing she feared most.  Losing her temper, losing her control, and then the consequences which would be more time, more incarceration.

She dumped all this stuff out and I had no answer.  She had tried talking to the staff, the supervisor, and to the other girl and everything had failed.  In a system where nobody cares, nobody was going to provide relief.  What do I do with that?  I don’t have an answer?  Do you?  The only thing I could do was listen, knowing that if I sided with her against the authorities that would forever damage my relationship with the detention center and potentially end any good work I might be able to do there.  And if I sided with the authorities against the youth that could potentially further antagonize her to the point that she lost control.  There was no good answer.  The only thing I could do is suggest that she focus on herself and figure out what it is she needs to keep control.

Sure, I could make recommendations like prayer, leaning on God, confiding in a friend if she has one, talking to staff, but really, there was no answer.  No solution.

Have you been there?  I think this is why Rabbi Kushner wrote the book, “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.”  There are no easy answers.  And Jesus knows this.  That is why he answers the authorities with his own riddle knowing that they will be stumped.  They cannot turn to Roman laws or Jewish laws for an easy answer.  There is no easy answer that will allow them to maintain the uneasy alliance they have in their current political structure.
I think we have all been there!  When I read the headlines in the newspaper, it looks like we are all there every day.  Especially our political leaders.  They make choices knowing someone is going to be annoyed no matter what they do.  But for them as for the authorities in Matthew’s story, the answer seems to be governed by political expediency.  Annoying, but true.  So perhaps we should take pity on the authorities presented in this story.  They are just like us, finding no easy answer in a situation that could mean the end of their livelihoods.

This leads directly to the parable of today’s scripture reading:  The parable of the two sons that are working for their father.  The father owns a vineyard that the two sons work at.  The father was suggesting to his children that it was time to go and do their work.  In my house, it would go something like this…

“Son, go unload the dishwasher.”

This would be followed by complete silence.  Like crickets chirping loudly.  Then after issuing the command again, I might get a response.  Often the answer is, “I’ll do it in just a minute when I’m done with what I’m doing right now.”  I think that’s fair.  Finish what you’re doing and then do your chores.  However, in practice, like the second son, this ends up being a promise to go and complete his chores but with no follow through.  The dishwasher remains loaded.  Annoying.

Or, if I ask one of my kids to do a chore that is not on the assigned list of normal chores, then I will get a “no way, it is not my job.”  Then we have to discuss family participation and what it means to be part of a family that works together to get things done.  Sometimes the answer is still “no.”  But, sometimes the outward sign is “no” but the action or follow through becomes “yes.”  Of course, this usually requires threats of consequences like taking away the car, but it sometimes turns into a “yes.”  This is also annoying.  The job does get done and I’m grateful, but the wrangling to get there makes me a little crazy.

So the question is, “which child did the will of the Parent?  Who delved fully into earning their livelihood?”  The authorities answer that the child who said no but did the job anyway did the will of the Parent.

Jesus tells them that they are the willfull, disobedient child because they did not heed the message from John the Baptist.  What is that message?

John the Baptist, according to Matthew, had a very focused message:  repent and believe that someone is coming who is going to make a new thing.  We know the story.  The tax collectors and prostitutes repented and believed and those in authority did not.  Why would this be?

It is exactly as Jesus described.  The people that had the outward signs of saying ‘no’ to God…the tax collectors and prostitutes, eventually did the will of the Parent.  The people that had the outward signs of saying ‘yes’ to God…the religious authorities, did not do the will of the Parent.  Why is it so much easier to turn to God and repent and believe if you have the outward signs of saying no to God’s grace?  And why is it so much more difficult if we are living a life that looks successful and has the outward signs of charity and love to realize that we too, need to repent and believe?

And, I have to add, in our current religious environment, to say the phrase “repent and believe” triggers all kinds of junk for me.  It reminds of the preachers that stand on street corners threatening people with damnation or of the folks that think that all we need is to say a confessional phrase.  This brings up a lot of baggage for me because I went to a church like that when I was a teenager.  A church that believed the confession is what saves you.  That experience nearly drove me away from church in its entirety.  I don’t like to hear the word repent.  But we have to tackle it if we are to read Christian Scriptures.

I was surprised when I realized that when John says “repent,” in the Greek, repent is plural.  John is not calling the authorities to individual repentance one at a time, but is saying all of y’all need to repent!  Repentance is plural.  John is representing prophets well.  Time and time again, prophets of Hebrew Scriptures call the people to repent and to prepare for a new way.  John specifically references Isaiah.  Typically, the reason people are being called to repentance is not because they did not believe or because they did not confess God as Lord, it was because they were not taking care of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger among us.  It comes up again and again.  We can extrapolate that the religious authorities that Jesus is talking to are neglecting these vulnerable populations.  And Jesus is calling them to repentance by referencing John who references Isaiah.

This is further strengthened by just a few short chapters later when Jesus, in Matthew 25, tells us that the righteous are those that feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, take care of the sick, and visit the imprisoned.

Well then.  That upsets my comfortable apple cart.  Nowhere on this list do I see write a check.  Not that you shouldn’t donate to worthy causes or tithe—please don’t tell Joanne I said that check writing is not important!  But there is more.  There is simply more to be done.

Do you remember what Golem’s last riddle was?

This thing all things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers

Gnaws iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to meal,

Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down!

The answer was time.  And that is the answer for us.  In the complicated way that God works, God can create the Kingdom of God, through us, here and now.  It is often referenced as eternal life.  The Greek root of eternal being time.  Another way to say it and perhaps a more faithful translation may be the life of the time to come.  So we can hold this tension of the time to come and the time right now by repenting and being called back to the care of the orphan, the widow, and the stranger among us.  And each time one of us does this, it creates just a little piece of the Kingdom of God, right here, and right now.

Shalom and Amen.

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by | July 29, 2011 · 7:26 am

On the Importance of Boundaries

Terri Stewart
July 29, 2011 

Boundaries and the Samaritan Woman: 
A Sermon on Learning from John 4:7-42 

When I was a young adult, I lived in the Bible-belt of North Carolina in a small town outside of Charlotte.  One of the interesting things about the area I lived in was the presence of Heritage U.S.A.Theme Park, the home of PTL ministries run by Jim and Tammy Bakker.  Everybody in the area knew about Heritage.  At Christmas time, they had the most fantastic light display and going there was almost as good as going to Carowinds, the local amusement park.

Then, in March of 1987,[1] Jim Bakker resigned in a sexual scandal.  He was accused of paying off Jessica Hahn to prevent her from revealing that she had been drugged and raped by Jim Bakker and another minister.  In 1989, Bakker was convicted of eight counts of mail fraud, 15 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy.  He was never convicted of anything regarding Jessica Hahn and still denies that anything wrong, other than adultery, happened. 

I think that is stunningly short-sighted.  Jim Bakker was a multi-millionaire pastor and Jessica Hahn was a 21-year-old secretary.  Bakker was twice her age and had the power to totally financial control Jessica Hahn’s life.  Even if there was no physical coercion, Bakker crossed the line of acceptable behavior.  But, Bakker says, “it was consensual.”  Really.  He violated a boundary that he should never have even gotten close to.  It was a tragedy.

However, we should not rest comfortably thinking this type of conduct ‘is in the past’ or belongs to some other church.  In the United Methodist Church, between 140 and 500 incidents of clergy sexual misconduct occurs every year.[2]  That is up to 500 cases every single year.  Our own clergy are violating boundaries.  This has got to stop and it is up to each of us to prepare ourselves and our churches to make sure that it ends.  And of course, we have the ultimate example of Jesus who negotiates boundaries continuously, to guide us in our behavior.

There are at least three different types of boundaries:  geographical, social, and personal.  Geographical boundaries are fairly easy to negotiate.  The boundary between the U.S. and Canada is apparent and you simply need the right paperwork and you’re good.  Social boundaries are generally the acceptable behaviors of a group.  This can be more difficult as we move from group to group.  For example, in Seattle, rarely do strangers speak to each other on the bus no matter how closely they are crowded together.  However, in North Carolina, there is no such thing as not talking to someone.  Everyone gets greeted or smiled at.  Personal boundaries are those limits that protect our own selves.  In the context of potential misconduct, it would be limits that are placed that protect the vulnerable person from the powerful person.[3]  Like between a patient and his doctor.  Or a pastor and his secretary.

In our gospel story today, we are presented with Jesus and the Samaritan woman.  This story is one big boundary crossing demonstration.  It is important to realize that crossing boundaries is not always a bad thing.  Instead of thinking of a boundary as a cliff of hard rock that is impossible to cross, boundaries are more like the ocean that washes up onto the beach.[4]  The water is not at one spot.  It ebbs and flows depending on the weather and the lunar cycle.  There is a continuous negotiation of space that we would call the boundary between the sea and the land.  That is more reflective of reality.  Especially with different people.  I have different personal boundaries with my best friend than with the kids that I teach during Sunday School than with my kids than with my husband.  It is a negotiation.  We take the risk and go through this negotiation because ultimately, as people, we have a need to be vulnerable.  It is in our vulnerability that we become known and being known is a precious gift.

In Samaria, Jesus negotiates all three types of boundaries.  First, he negotiates a geographical boundary and enters Samaria.  In doing so, he also negotiates social boundaries.  Jews did not enter Samaria.  The Samaritans and Jews had long standing enmity for each other and generally, Jews would travel around Samaria rather than cross into it.  Jesus also negotiates the boundary between men and women by speaking with the Samaritan woman.  Men of this time period did not generally intiate conversations with women, especially women they did not know, and especially Jewish men and Samaritan women.  Third, Jesus negotiates a new way of interacting with the Samaritan woman.  Jesus asks her for a drink.  Sharing life-giving water at the well is a negotiation of new personal boundaries between Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

 Looking at the story of Jim Bakker and his boundary violations and the story of Jesus and his story of boundary negotiation, you must be wondering what they have to do with each other.  They are both examples of negotiating borders. One was life-giving and one was spiritually death-dealing.   In fact, I think Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman was more than life-giving, I am convinced that Jesus healed her in that moment at the well.

The Samaritan woman presents as a trauma victim.  We know a few things about her…she was at the well during the mid-day, she had five previous husbands, and that the man she was currently with was not her husband.  Why are these things unique?  First, women did not go to the well during mid-day and they did not go alone.  But the Samaritan woman did.  Common practice would be that the women generally went to the well together during the early part of the day.  The Samaritan woman was at a minimum an outsider to the accepted social group.  As for her husbands, it is likely that she had married once and her husband died.  This would result in her being passed down, like property, to her husband’s brother.  For a woman to have 5 husbands, that would be several deaths.  And finally, she was with a man who was not her husband.  What would be the psychological result of being forced to be the wife of a series of brothers and then the trauma of their deaths?  What would be the psychological result of having no way to survive other than to live with a man who was not her husband?  If we consider the positions of power, the Samaritan woman was powerless while the men in her life held all the power.  And she was treated like property and then like less than property.  Her body and her life were at the mercy of these men.  The Samaritan woman was a trauma victim.

Judith Herman, author of Trauma and Recovery, tells us of the phases that bring healing to those who have been traumatized.  The phases are (1) empowering the survivor, (2) remembrance and mourning, and (3) reconnection. Jesus, in a masterful way, brings the Samaritan woman through each of these phases.  First, Jesus empowers the Samaritan woman to make her own choice.  He asks for a cup of water.  This gives her the opportunity to negotiate her own personal boundary in relation to a Jewish man, by a well, in the middle of Samaria.  There is a lot of stuff in there from a social boundary perspective and potential danger for her.  She has the strength of character to question Jesus about this social barrier between them.  His Jewishness and her Samaritan-ness.  He offers her God in return and she wants what Jesus has.

Second, Jesus walks her through remembrance of her trauma of 5 husbands and the 1 man.  We know that this remembrance is healing because when she goes back to the Samaritan people, she tells them, “He told me everything I have ever done.”[5]  Jesus saw her for who she was.  He saw her gifts and her pain.  He helped her remember and move past the memory into action.

And the action is the third step of healing.  The action of reconnection.  By passing the Word[6] to the Samaritan woman, Jesus enables the Samaritan woman to reconnect to her people.  She goes to them and tells them of the healing power of Jesus.  They listen to her and believe because of her.  Then they go to Jesus and develop a direct relationship with Jesus.  Significantly, the Samaritans return to the woman, pleased that now, not only because of her Word, they believe because they have met Jesus.  She becomes the spiritual mother of the Samaritans.  Not only does she reconnect, she is empowered to become a carrier of the Word, and she becomes a leader in the community.  Jesus and the Samaritan woman perfectly model how healthy and even how healing boundaries are negotiated.  This is far from our initial story of Jim Bakker.

Now, in our immediate sphere, we rarely encounter stories of such magnitude as that of Jim Bakker and Jessica Hahn.  However, there are thousands of ways that boundaries are violated that do not go to this extreme.  In the early history of my home church, a pastor violated boundaries.  He did this not in a sexually aggressive way, but in a way that caused people to be wounded.  He was bossy and insensitive.  Arrogant and directive.  It caused worship wars in the church and split the fledgling congregation.  He ended up leaving the ministry all together.  This was because he did not honor personal boundaries.  The result of this early trauma to the birth of my home church was a long, 15-year simmer of distrust and resentment among the founders and leaders.  Most telling, when new people come into the church, they were happy until they reached the level of leadership and encountered an environment where people did harm to each other.  Then, they would leave.  For the past several years, we have been working diligently on the culture at the church to change the way people treat each other.  Finally, the church is experiencing hope and new growth.  By teaching people in leadership how to talk to each other and to respect each other’s boundaries, people are beginning to reconnect with each other and to find a future that includes living water for each other.

This is really a cautionary tale.  It took 15 years for my home congregation to begin to start the healing process over boundary violations that seem fairly benign at first glance.  Jim Bakker’s ministry was annihilated.  I would hazard that you would rather not have either possibility occur.  Healthy ministerial boundaries are vital to the growth of the church.  Boundaries[7] help us maintain clear relationships and honor one another.  Having clear boundaries actually frees us to do the work of our ministry.  Boundaries are signals to other people that we are trustworthy.  And let’s face it, in this day and age, church people are viewed with suspicion.  We need every boost we can get!

There are two questions we can ask ourselves in our quest for negotiating appropriate boundaries.[8]  They are:

  • “Is this in the best interests of the other person?”
  • “Would I be comfortable if all my acquaintances knew I was doing this?”
  • “Does it satisfy only my needs?”

If you can answer the first two questions with a confident “yes” and the last with a “no,” you are probably on your way towards negotiating a healthy, life-giving boundary.  If Jim Bakker had approached his ministry with the best interest of others and with full transparency in mind, he never would have violated Jessica Hahn and he would not have embezzled money to cover it up.  If my home church’s previous pastor had approached his ministry in this manner, the church would not have split and he probably would not have left the ministry. 

My challenge to you is for you to go forward in your own ministries as Sunday School teachers, treasurer, committee leaders, music team members, and all the other roles we fill here at church and hold the best interests of the other person as inviolable.  Let us walk with each other and create boundaries that are as refreshing as life-giving water.

Shalom and Amen.

[2] http://www.umc-gbcs.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=frLJK2PKLqF&b=4909851&ct=8799947; The reason it varies so widely is that there is no formal reporting system in the United Methodist Church and many incidents are handled informally rather than go through the appropriate channels.

[3] Marilyn R. Peterson, At Personal Risk:  Boundary Violations in Professional-Client Relationships, (NY: Norton, 1992), p. 3-4.

[4] ”Healthy Boundaries for Clergy and Spiritual Teachers:  Participant’s Workbook,” (Seattle: FaithTrust Institute, 2008), p. 5.

[5] John 4:39

[6] John 4:30 – properly translated ‘the Word (logos) of the woman testifying’

[7] ”Healthy Boundaries for Clergy and Spiritual Teachers:  Participant’s Workbook,” (Seattle: FaithTrust Institute, 2008), p. 7.

[8] Ibid.

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by | July 17, 2011 · 11:15 am

Be Seedy Not Weedy

Terri Stewart
BCUMC
July 17, 2011
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

When I was between the ages of 10 and 14, we lived in Colorado.  We lived on a dirt road in a small, close-knit community.  We were also surrounded by fields.  They were filled with sugar beats and corn.  We had fun in the field.  We would run in them when they were empty.  Play hide and seek in the corn when it was tall.  And a couple particular memories include a hot air balloon making an emergency landing in the field north of our house and a particular wind storm that blew everybody’s patio furniture into the fields.  Not just patio furniture, but anything that was outside.  Walking through the fields collecting our furniture and pool toys was an experience.

I used to walk across one of the fields to visit a friend’s house.  It was a pretty long walk…perhaps we would call it a “country mile.”  The short cut was through the field rather than up over and down which would have been a country three miles.  Growing in this particular field was sugar beats.  But there was always other stuff mixed in.  Particularly, there were stalks of wheat around the edges from past plantings.  I am sure the farmer would consider these stalks “weeds.”  I thought they were great for picking and sneaking up behind people and tickling them with the soft end of the wheat stalk!  Perspective is everything.

When I was reading today’s scripture, there was one thing that jumped out to me.  I’ll read it again.  From verses 24 and 25:

“The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away.”

I noticed that Jesus was talking about the Kingdom of Heaven.  There were seeds and weeds sown in the Kingdom of Heaven.  I find that astonishing.  What was God doing while somebody snuck into heaven and planted weeds?  Maybe that isn’t what Jesus meant at all.

And later on in the scripture, the servants are wondering about these weeds that are suddenly being found in the harvest.  Folks want to yank out the weeds and destroy them right there.  But the master reminds them in verse 29,

“in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.”

The roots of the weeds and the wheat have become intertwined.  I don’t know if you have ever walked by a weed and just yanked it out .. or tried to yank it out.  You pull and it doesn’t budge.  You pull harder.  And harder.  Finally it comes out with a mess of roots and dirt in a root ball the size of a softball.  All the stuff that came out was not just the weed.  I probably pulled up a miniature eco-system.  There was no way to easily separate the weed from everything else that came up with it.

Nowadays, some of us have a different approach to weeding.  Instead of pulling weeds, we use Round-Up and kill it.  Now, Round-Up is made by Mansanto.  Mansanto also genetically modifies seeds so that they are Round-Up resistant.  For example, they make a soybean that cannot be killed by Round-Up.  That way farmers can plant the soybeans and use the Round-Up to kill all the weeds.  However, there is a price to pay for using the soybean seeds that Mansanto engineers.  Farmers must commit to a laundry list of demands by Mansanto and they cannot use any seeds gleaned from the plants they grow.  This sets up a circle.  Farmers buy their seeds and their Round-Up.  Then either the farmer has to buy more seeds from Mansanto, or they need to switch to other seeds that are not Round-Up resistant.  There is a third option.  Farmers glean seeds from the Mansanto plants and plant new crops.  Illegally.  Well, it isn’t breaking the law, but it does break a legal contract.  Over the years, Mansanto has made $15 million dollars suing farmers for illegally planting their crops from gleaned seeds.

It seems very easy to get outraged over this company and their treatment of farmers.  But it is a difficult issue.  First, I know a lot of folks are avidly organic in their food choice.  I think that is a great choice if you can afford it.  I have a friend, Lisa, who volunteers in the detention center with me.  She tells me that she loves organic food and that is all she buys, but when she goes into the prisons and sees what the kids are eating, she is well aware how privileged she is to be agle to make the choice.  It is companies like Mansanto that allow people who cannot afford organic food, to eat.  Without the seeds that they have genetically engineered and the weed killer that allows the seeds to grow, it would be much more difficult for many people to get food.  Mansanto does indeed do some good.

What I would really like to say is that Mansanto represents both the weeds and the seeds of human nature.  There is no way of untwining the good we see from the bad.  Sometimes I think they cross the line, but I am well aware that they have spent a lot of time, effort, and money developing products that make food more available and less expensive.  But this is business!  Not the Kingdom of Heaven.  I expect that in business, there are always moral and ethical situations to be faced.  It seems that in the Kingdom of Heaven, it should always be easy to separate the weed and the seed.  The moral and amoral.  But perhaps it isn’t this easy.

In Jesus’ teaching today, he tells us that he is the farmer, the field is the world, the good seeds are the children of the kingdom, the weeds are the children of “the evil one.”

And, although Jesus does not restate it, I would like to add that the entirety of what Jesus just described is in the Kingdom of Heaven.  The Kingdom of Heaven is not limited to the world, but the world is part of the Kingdom of Heaven.

There are so many things that can be discussed deeply in Jesus’ teaching.  But the main question I would like to ponder is, how do we separate the weeds from the seeds, the good from the evil, when it is all within us?  Each one of us has impulses towards good and impulses towards evil.  Not one of us is perfect.  Us, the children of the kingdom, we are the children of “the evil one.” The roots of the weeds and the seeds are intertwined in us.

Remember Jesus saying to Peter, “Get behind me Satan?”  At that point in time, Peter let his impulses rule the moment.  If you will recall, Jesus was telling his disciples that he was going to suffer and die.  Peter declared, “no!”  He did not want to watch someone he loved and cherished die and suffer.  Peter demonstrates a very natural response.

And we do to0.  We often respond naturally to things we don’t understand.  It is these moments that our weediness and seediness is tested.  So, I suppose, we need to define what the test is in order to know whether we are acting weedy or seedy.  And that is seedy like seeds from plants not seedy like shabby or dingy.  The test that I have in my mind is the “simple” question, “what response or action will bring the most spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual freedom to those among us who are the lost, the least, and the lonely.”

I would like to read it again, “what response or action will bring the most spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual freedom to those among us who are the lost, the least, and the lonely.”

Peter’s denial of the plan that Jesus was revealing was a denial of the salvific action that Jesus was in the process of acting out on behalf of the entire world.  Peter wanted to save the pain of his own heartache and sacrifice the world.  That does not bring the most freedom.

And this is where I think that Mansanto crosses the line sometimes.  By favoring corporate profit over what brings the most freedom to those who are treated the worst, they often sue farmers who can not afford to battle against a corporate giant.  But that is what a business is supposed to do!  Favor profit over freedom.  Sure.  If this were the kingdom of Mansanto.  But it is not.  We are living in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Our job is to make the hard decisions and to influence others to make hard decisions that bring spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual freedom.  Our job is to be seedy not weedy.  All too often, though, we fall down on our job and make choices that favor our own comfort.  We all do that.  And sometimes, the decision comes back to haunt us.

For example, we know that food is good.  And then sometimes we choose gluttony.  Or financial comfort is good, and sometimes we choose greed.   

Our saving grace, is well, grace.  We see it in Psalm 139.  God is with us all the time.  God knows our thoughts.  God knows our own weeds and our own seeds.  God will lead us in the way everlasting, if we allow it.

This is the everlasting way of grace.  God gives us the freedom to respond.  That is why freedom is so important.  If we did not have freedom, we would not have God’s call to us.  It would be more like a demand than a call. Grace calls to the seed growing in our heart, not the weed.  That helps us respond to God’s call out of the freedom.  God is there with us, calling us, loving us.  Even when we don’t hear God’s call or even when we respond to God’s call in a rebellious or “weedy” way, God is with us.

We are very blessed that God knows that we will have times when we are the weeds. 

At the end of today’s scripture, there is the phrase “Let anyone with ears, listen.” This phrase is used repeatedly in scripture.  Mark, Matthew, and Luke use it as well as the Book of the Revelation.  What I found out doing some research was that it could be a reference to a phrase from Isaiah 6.  Isaiah is sent out to the people to ask them to listen.  However, it is used in an upside-down way.  God does that upside-down thing sometimes.  Isaiah is saying,

“Keep listening, but do not comprehend.” and a couple phrases later “so they may not look with their eyes and listen with their ears and comprehend with their minds.”

It is possible that Jesus uses the phrase “Let anyone with ears, listen” as scriptural shorthand to let people know that he knows that we are very weedy.  That we won’t always comprehend. 

The comfort is that God sent this message.  OK.  Maybe that isn’t so comforting.  God is sending a message that we won’t comprehend?  So, let’s reframe it.  God is sending a message that we won’t always get it right.  We will continue to be seedy and weedy in our lives.  And God loves us through it. 

Like Peter, like Mansanto, we will continue to make decisions out of our personal need.  But we don’t need to rest in that.  Because like Peter and like Mansanto, we can make decisions that change the world.

The question becomes, in the comfort of our seedy weediness, how are we going to hear and respond to the call of God?  How are we going to create a space of spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual freedom so that we can begin to comprehend?  How are we going to make decisions that bring the greatest possibility of freedom for people who are the least, the lost, and the lonely?  What will be the cost of discipleship for each of us?  If we are willing to pay this cost, relying on God, we will truly begin to live up to the motto of the United Methodist Church and begin the deep work it takes to become and create disciples that transform the world. 

Shalom & Amen.

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