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“Heh-heh”, I chuckle cynically, “THAT’ll fix ’em!” when one of Those Awful People get their (deserved?) come-uppance. I sadly realize that this is about all the laughing I do. As an old curmudgeon, I’m full of intolerance and vindictiveness. Present world news and emerging cultural trends blend with never-released old grudges and childhood disappointments to become a demon which has banished my enjoyment. Over-serious and righteously indignant, I stand up with Don Quixote against daily windmills: who do I think I am?

The Lessons for the upcoming weekend are intended especially for me, but you can listen along if you’d like…. Genesis 50 finds the brothers of Joseph begging him for grain; he’s the Prime Minister of Egypt, and they’re in the midst of famine. The problem is that they sold him into slavery, a long time ago: will they find family reconciliation? or will they be hacked into pieces on the spot?? “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?” (v.15) Joseph coulda, but he didn’t. Declining retribution, he asked, “Am I in the place of God?”

The last part of Paul’s Letter to the Romans contains “rules” of behavior peculiar to Christian ethics. In Chapter 14 he writes, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?” (v.10) It seems that God’s People were squabbling about silly stuff–whether to eat meat, and when to eat it; or if the Sabbath were better than any other day. Calling these things “opinions” (and not theology) he asks, “Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another?” (v.4)

You probably know Jesus’ parable of the Two Indebted Servants (Matthew 18:21ff). One owed the king an astronomical amount, like unto the National Debt! When the king called him on the carpet, our man dissolved in tears, said he couldn’t pay it, and begged for mercy. Out of pity, the king forgave him the whole thing! BUT on the way out, this same guy met one who owed him some lunch-money. Forgetting how fortunate he was, he put the hammer on the second slave, and threw him into debtors’ prison! When the king learned about this, he rescinded his mercy and sent the errant slave likewise to debtors’ prison! “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” (v.33)

So do we act as if we were in the place of God? Thanks to the Southern Poverty Law Center, I took an online test to see if I had hidden biases. (tolerance.org/hiddenbias) I’m not really surprised to find how intolerant I am. I’ve always claimed to be a Liberal/Progressive; but now I find that I’m a bigot inside, despite my outer profession of Peace on Earth, Good Will to All… Maybe I can yet re-learn the joy of Laughing WITH, instead of Laughing AT! After all, am I in the place of God?

Henri Nouwen said that all evil can be traced to Greed and Anger. Perhaps that’s too simple–yet these two demons seem to lurk near the surface of our social injustice and discriminatory issues; and on the world scene, our pushing and shoving about borders and religious entitlements. The People of God are not immune: I confess my own misbehavior, whether actualized or merely fantasized. Readings for the coming weekend hint at such cosmic conflict.

Ezekiel’s oracle (33:7-11) first reminds the prophet of his/her responsibility to speak a warning to the errant community: “their blood I will require at your hand.” (brrrr!) And then a psychological insight, “Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them.” Even well-begun nations always waste away, as do individuals who’ve lost their expectations of holiness. The Church becomes prophetic by denouncing Greed and Anger.

We’ve been journeying, this Summer, with the Roman Believers as they’re growing the Church. Paul continues to spew gems of both behavior and attitude: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor.” (13:10) He takes religion and spirituality beyond the individual into the life of a practicing community. We learned in psychology that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. This works when we “live honorably…not in quarreling and jealousy.”(v.13)

How vindictively we misread Matthew 18:15-17!! Telling your neighbor about a real or imagined offense is making a positive opportunity to contain and resolve the problem! Even taking along a posse is a form of mediation: how much better this is than to fume to your cronies and engage in a whisper campaign! “The Church” to which this problem is told is the ideal community of forgiveness and toleration, a covenant group which values each member with love. ONLY THEN do you give up on a friendship, for reconciliation is better than divorce. Notice that it’s the aggrieved party who is supposed to take the initiative toward arbitration and resolution.

There’s very little in scripture about individuality in faith and salvation. Rather this is the story of the development of the People of God, a faith-community finding new horizons to practice from one generation to the next. Until Advent, we’ll be following Matthew’s account of the Gospel as Jesus is building his Church on the foundation of love and mutual encouragement, “not in quarreling and Jealousy”.

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King

When I was younger (so much younger than today), it seemed as if the proscribed lections for Summertime were blue skies and fluffy clouds.  We sang, “This Is My Father’s World” and “When Morning Gilds the Skies”.  Sermons were about gardens/harvests/growing things.  Lately, readings have become harsh with personal discipline and alternative ethics.  The unfolding Kingdom of God is seen as over-against, more than the fulfillment of natural cycles.  What makes things so serious?  Or have I changed that much…?!

Even as a kid, Jeremiah never lightened up.  If he were alive today, he woulda been the only kid in 10th Grade who finished “War & Peace”.  “Under the weight of your hand I sat alone, for you had filled me with indignation.  Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?” (Jeremiah 15:17-18)  And a holy answer came, “If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall serve as my mouth.  It is they who will turn to you, not you who will turn to them.” (v.19)  In the midst of all the fluff, how do I utter what is precious??

It’s best to savor Paul’s Letter to the Romans one sentence at a time.  This week, we have an entire treasure- chest of gems in chapter 12:9-21.  One that leaps out at me is verse 12: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.”  In keeping with the other threads, Paul speaks of his own tenacity and wishes his readers  also to hang in.   I imagine that Roman Believers often sat alone, apart from the arrogant cruelty which marked their culture.  We peculiar people ARE odd, not going along with popular moon-struck values which fade in the Light of Christ….

“From that time on,” Matthew says, “Jesus began to show his disciples that he MUST go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (16:21)  Peter (recently appointed as The Rock), speaking for me as always, points out how tough and impractical this would be — and gets reprimanded for missing Holy Direction.  Again.  Jesus goes on to say that there are greater values than our momentary cravings.  Our daily survival pales when compared to the Eternal Life of the Ultimate Community!

Sometimes I sit alone.  Even in a group, the talk sooner or later comes to issues of justice, equality and forbearance.  My advocacy for the poor & disenfranchised is uncomfortable to most, and friends drift away.  I’m seen as a Religious Nut.   Jeremiah-like, I’m sometimes angry to be burdened with a Greater Vision, especially when everyone else is playing games and not worrying about racial shootings and far-off tribal conflicts….   But THANKS BE TO GOD for the alternate community of the Church, a tangible Island of Holy Misfits who’ve glimpsed an Ideal Kingdom which shall prevail!!

God Bless Us, Every One                            Horace Brown King

I’ve been involved in a few church rebuilding programs, some larger, some smaller. Whatever the size, there’s a moment early in the procedures when the architect/builder gathers the committee and says, “Here’s what I think you want.” Then a document is unrolled which describes the dimensions and details of the planned structure. After a bit of tweaking, we all agree–pretty much–on a proposal to construct such an edifice. (No closets, please: they’re magnets for all sorts of debris!) What are the steps to discern the BEST way?

Isaiah of Babylon addresses the returning Exiles, poised on the doorstep of the Promised Land, concerning the reconstruction of a Holy Nation. “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug….For the Lord will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden(!), her desert like the garden of the Lord…” (51:1,3) Seems to be a matter of following GOD’s design more than the wisdom of the more temporal communities surrounding.

With that thought, we turn to Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God–what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (12:2) The House of God isn’t going to be made of ticky-tacky, indistinguishable from the rest of the development! We’re almost sure to conflict with the local Building Code. And the people who live here are a bit peculiar, too…

Matthew gleefully recounts the occasion where Jesus asks, “Who do they say that I am?” (16:13 ff.) “They” say that Jesus is a prophet or a healer or an activist, one of many. “But who do YOU say that I am?” And Simon Peter acknowledges that Jesus is authentically unique: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” How did he discern this?! “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven.” Aha, the SOURCE of valid discernment!

And so the New Jerusalem is built, remembering the pleasantness of the Lord’s Garden, also warning those who would come in that this place is different from the rest of the world. The language is justice, faith and inclusion. The “mansions” are prepared and maintained by the Risen Christ–but those who would reside here are admonished that their ethics will be misunderstood and mocked by many. Pray for discernment, brothers and sisters, andf be transformed as God works in you!

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King

A group of 8-10 well-read adults gathers on Sunday mornings before worship at the Lutheran Church where I often preach. Their discussion of the Morning Lessons is deep and passionate: I always learn something for my sermon. Last Sunday the conversation dealt with an Old Question, “Can we/I fall from Grace?” Folk religion worries this concept to tatters, bringing guilt-trips about past moral or ethical lapses, real or magnified by time. A deeper question may well be, “How much am I worth? Will an angry God discard me as irredeemable?” I once met a jail inmate whose tattoo identified his own self-worthlessness — “Child of Hell”.

Into this paranoia the Church introduces an alternate concept. Isaiah 56 addresses a despondent remnant of Israel, wearily picking up the pieces after 70 years of Exile in Babylon. “Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.” (v.1) He urges the welcome of “foreigners” who have joined themselves to the faith-community: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples….I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.” (vv.7,8) So there must be Others created and loved by God!

Paul’s Letter to the Romans is so full of gems! In Chapter 11 he still agonizes that the traditional Jews are disdaining others who are beloved by God — especially Jesus, the Christ. He speaks of disobedience overcome by mercy, and that what has been called Good should not be profaned. “for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (v.29) This verse is easily memorized, not so easily remembered; may it comfort you in hours of despair!

Matthew’s Gospel was addressed to those whose lives revolved around Jewish propriety. You may hear the “parable” of Jesus which tells that what goes into a person’s mouth doesn’t defile that person nearly as much as that which comes out. This then is contrasted with the story directly following, that of Jesus in Phoenicia being confronted by a woman of that place whose daughter was demonized. The Galilee crowd soon found out that even these foreigners were created holy, loved by God….

As almost always, the inspiration is both individual AND communal. As individuals, we gain confidence that God Always Loves Us, despite our daily screw-ups. And as a community of Believers, we’re to recognize the Divinity in the Stranger, and to affirm their holy worth beyond their neighborhood of origin.

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King

The post-midnight dark was terrifying! As a little kid, if I woke and the night-light was out, I KNEW that monsters and vampires were in the corner! Straining toward the grayness of the window, it occurred to me that I was blind! Maybe I was prematurely buried! Maybe there wasn’t anyone else in the whole world! MOM!!

Just in case there are other scared folks, our Sunday readings discuss how near God really is. The Hebrew Bible lends us the familiar story of Elijah on the lam from Queen Jezebel, found in I Kings 19. Discouraged and alone, he ran off to Mt. Sinai to talk to the Chief face-to-face. “What are you doing HERE?” asked Yahweh. Elijah replied, “The Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left (sigh), and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” (v.10 & 14) A wind, an earthquake, a fire! And the Sound of Silence… There were yet seven thousand faithful–so get on with it, Elijah!

Paul assures the Roman Christians of a generous Lord of all: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13) Paul moves us away from individual angst to a world-community of both Jew & Greek. Today’s disciples need to hear this often, especially dealing with immigration and ethnic mistrust. Can red-states and blue leave our regional cultural deities for a greater allegiance? Our bumper sticker says that Jesus loves the 99%…AND those 1%ers?

Jesus finally got an opportunity to go up the mountain by himself. In his absence, the Twelve managed to get themselves in trouble again, this time in one of those sudden windstorms on the Sea of Galilee. (Matthew 14:22-33) Already frightened by the dark and the high waves, they really freaked when they saw Jesus WALKING ON THE WATER! Peter, speaking for the rest of us, quavered, “Lord, IF IT IS YOU, command me to come to you on the water.” “Come on, then.” This called Peter’s bluff; what could he do to save face but get out of the boat? Sinking, he called, “Lord, save me!” And Jesus did, of course.

We humans are a strange bunch. Constantly threatened by “fightings and fears without, within” amplified by assorted things that go Bump in the night, we often have enough sense to call on God for assurance and a Way Out. Our night-terrors are not to be scoffed at, but rather to be experienced within a greater faith-community where many will admit to the same alarms, if we’re honest. Thanks for these stories!

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King

An old saying goes, “There’s no free lunch”. I guess that this means that there’s a price to pay for everything, whether in cash or in psychic energy. We capitalists relish the idea that we’re self-sufficient, and that we pay for all we receive. Is there a virtue in being seemingly debt-free? Sunday’s readings can be shockingly counter- cultural!

Into the noisy bazaar of our daily lives comes the shout of yet another vendor: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1) What can this mean? Another gimmick of some kind? Or is this a prophetic voice of an alternative to our scrabbling in the dust for meaning and sustenance?? A Divine Question: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (v.2)

After the towering poetry of Romans 8 which we’ve been reading for the last several weeks, Chapter 9 seems almost introspective. We hear St. Paul bemoaning the slowness of the Jewish establishment to accept the gift of Christ bestowed upon them: “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.” (v.2) For all his spiritual progress, Paul yet honors the tradition of law, worship and promises. Why can’t they receive the free gift of Jesus, the Messiah?

Jesus, wracked by the execution of John the Baptizer, went off to get his bearings. But a large and desperate crowd followed him. (Matthew 14:13-21) “He had compassion for them and cured their sick”(v.14), and eventually provided dinner. None of these had much, but the disciples scraped up a few loaves and fish–which turned out to be enough! (Another one of God’s free lunches!) There was even enough left over to take to the rest of the world: 12 baskets, one for each tribe!

The miracle is not only that there’s enough to go ’round, but also that Grace becomes measurable when it’s passed on. When the rest of the world sends the hungry away to fend for themselves, the People of God issue an invitation to receive an endless supply of what is good, what is filling. A New World will abolish monetary values and turn to the human worth of all God’s sons and daughters.

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King

What sustains you when so much of The Old Dream grows moss? On our overnight trip yesterday & today we drove through attractive towns of mid-America apparently populated by comfortable citizens who owned and maintained and shopped in mid-America stores. We ate too well with other seniors who didn’t need to consume that much. The crops of wheat and corn are prospering, this year… We also drove down some one-way courts where houses were shabby, with kids playing on the street since they had no yards. Rusty roofs abounded, as did derelict porches and rutty & muddy driveways… I’ve trained myself to say, “Yeah, that’s how it is.” But thorns of need-amidst-plenty still prick at my soul.

Sunday’s scriptures contain A Word I/We Need to Hear. In I Kings we’re told of young Solomon surprisingly ascending the throne, and honestly telling God that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. “I do not know how to go out or come in.” (3:7) He asks The Lord for discernment between righteousness and evil, to find the redeemable within the tawdry. “Good call,” says the Lord. “It’s done!”

The Eighth Chapter of Romans concludes with the powerful words which sustain ME when I ask if God’s on vacation: “I am CONVINCED that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor ANYTHING ELSE in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (38-39) At my daily funeral service for humanity, this phrase rushes at me and tells me that a wobbly Creation hasn’t yet been consigned to the rubbish…

What to do with Jesus’ parables? (Matthew 13) If there’s a common thread, it’s that of anticipation, of waiting. The mustard seed needs time to mature into a sheltering tree; we wait. The yeast is mixed with flour, but the loaf continues to rise; we wait. The trespasser who stumbles upon hidden treasure has to wait through legal processes. The pearl-merchant has to liquidate his stock to raise the cash he needs; he also waits. What’s good to hear and to tell is that seeds and yeast DO hold life, that there IS treasure, that there IS the pearl of my dreams!

I’ve gotta lighten up and stop telling God how to run the world. But how to move past “weak resignation to the evils we deplore”? Become blind of eye and hard of heart? No. But if I really make Paul’s conviction my own, I can see this as a promise to humanity…and maybe cast my meager energy into announcing this to the Poor…

God Bless Us! Every One… Horace Brown King

I didn’t buy any tomato plants, this year. In past years, birds have dropped seeds in strange places so that I may grow my own. True to form, while weeding the broccoli, I discovered three very tiny tomato plants cowering under the leaves of their bigger partners. I transplanted them to a sunnier spot, and told them how wonderful they would someday become. Tim, my gardening friend, is doubtful that they’ll mature enough before frost to yield ripe tomatoes…but I have hope!

Sunday’s scriptures deal with who we are between seed-time and frost. The passage by Second Isaiah speaks of the uniqueness of God, “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.” (44:6) Implicit here are directions to live boldly and hopefully, accepting a position of Good Creation. “Do not fear, or be afraid….You are my witnesses!” (v.8)

Don’t be afraid of Paul’s Letter to the Romans just because of its weighty sentences. We read in Chapter 8 that it’s really OK to bet the farm on that new Kingdom which we believe is even now unfolding. Paul affirms that it’s God’s Good Pleasure to include us as beloved children, even “heirs” of future glory! Again, we live boldly: “For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (8:24-25)

Do be careful, though, with the Gospel, for it could be and often has been used to abuse and bully. Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 is the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. The self-righteous can have a field-day (!) chanting, “We’re WHEAT! You’re WEEDS!” (And we’ll sing,”God Will Take Care of YOU!”) Are some really pre-destined to be Good, some to be Evil? Or is the field ME, growing all sorts of tawdry vines amidst the planned Image of God in which I’m created? I have hope that Some Day an angelic intervention will clean me up…

So gardening fits my theology. Each growing season is a small cosmic story of maturation and nurture. Seed-time is an exercise in hope: though there are no guarantees, I have high expectations — and I really believe that someday this late summer I WILL have ripe tomatoes!

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King*

* – I confessed to my study group that I dislike thinning turnips, because who made ME God of the Turnips? They suggested that my sermon title should be, “No Turnip Left Behind”… Do with that as you will…

Nestled in the corner where the back porch meets the kitchen wall is an immense rose-bush. Who knows how long it’s been there? It’s main stem is two inches thick, and it bears literally hundreds of deep-red blossoms in June and September. We try to prune it back, but each Spring this bush produces a marvelous cascade of red & green! Did I tell you that the thorns are miserably sharp? Someone, Mark Twain I suppose, said that roses without thorns are like daytime kisses without hope of concealing night…

Readings for Sunday are about Grace. Isaiah of Babylon ties up his encouragement to the Exiles, “for you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace”. (55:12) From wherever you’ve wandered, from wherever you’ve been taken! The night may be stormy, we may feel like aliens, yet God comes for us. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle.” (v.13) It’s never too late, it’s never too hopeless. I need to hear this again and again.

Paul is more plainspoken than usual: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” (Romans 8:1-2) Is it too late to reprise Independence Day? Much time could be spent debating Paul’s concept of two laws, perhaps more salient to Jewish hearers than to contemporary Protestants. But that’s a rabbit track. The core of this Good News is that there is indeed a way out: remember Liberation Theology?

Matthew’s Gospel remembrance is from the long list of parables, that of The Sower. (13:1-9, 18-23) Our study-group disagreed on whether God Himself or an Apostle was the sower; but we honored the allegory of the seed being the Word of God, liberally scattered on both the deserving and those less so. Can we change what kind of soil we are? Doubtful; yet The Master Gardener will. It is the Sower’s intent that ALL the seed will take root and prosper, without arguing for or against predestination.

Thorns & briers threaten every day. What flowers and fruit come our way often get overcome by “the cares of the world and the lure of wealth”. The news this week told of one of my colleagues from Texas who set himself on fire–literally–to call attention to the brokenness surrounding…immigration distrust, intimidation with side-arms, constant complaining about the Federal government, inequitable attitudes toward women and the LGBT community… I can relate to that, although I’m too chicken to do so myself. BUT in all of it, God brings humanity a holy way out, back to the integrity in which I believe we were created.

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King