Our current worship series at The Well, “Sherlock’s Home: Observing God in the Everyday” is to point us toward finding God’s presence in what we typically might view as mundane, ordinary, and unimportant. Just yesterday I had the opportunity (some opportunity, right?) to mow our backyard. It is no secret that I love to do anything other than lawn care. To say that I am an outdoorsman would be a lie. When I muster the mood to mow I usually grab my phone and headphones and listen to Rage Against the Machine (it seems to help me push the mower just a bit more quickly). In thinking about observing God in the everyday, I left the headphones inside, and made a point of listening to the natural symphony God has already provided.
I found a profound moment. Now, the sounds I heard weren’t particularly beautiful. Some birds were chirping, the wind was rustling pine branches, and my children were yelling about something or other. The mower drowned out most of what I had hoped to hear from the woods beyond the backyard fence. It wasn’t that I left the backyard in awe of nature or that I had a moving experience that God was somehow directing in what order I mowed the overgrown grass; rather I paused to give thanks that I could hear anything at all.
Sometimes we overlook God’s gifts because they are always around us. We could live perfectly well without the ability to hear music or traffic or a baby’s coo (though if music ceased to be, I’m not sure why one would want to be alive). We don’t need to hear, but sound exists anyway. The same could be true of color. There is little point in being able to distinguish blue from purple, and yet the rainbow appears anyway, as far as our eyes can tell. The same could also be said of us. The earth would spin just fine without us, yet here we are!
The fact that we don’t have “to be,” and yet are, points us to God’s heart. We walk upon the earth among the sounds and colors and textures of the world because God desires for us to be. We are not here to serve God. We are here to love God and neighbor, and be loved by God and neighbor. Certainly service is one of the ways in which we express our love of God, but it is love that directs our actions, not a divine “to do list.” In what ways have you shared God’s love today? How have you seen God at work in the unexpected?
Who would have thought that mowing the lawn could be so profound?
“A Plea to my Centrist Friends,” posted on March 29, 2016, is a cry for those who rest in the center of the church’s debate on human sexuality to maintain the current United Methodist teachings on human sexuality found within the current United Methodist Book of Discipline. I believe the large umbrella of The United Methodist Church is large enough for both Peter and Paul to be in ministry, offering shade to those on opposite sides of this debate. My opposition to this article is not with the author’s stance; rather the argument itself is built on harmful assumptions which call for comment.
First, the assumption that centrists haven’t made a decision about the debate is naive. I am not a centrist because I haven’t made up my mind. I am a centrist because the center is where the bread and cup live. On one side you have Simon the Zealot who wants to overthrow the institution. On the other side you have Matthew the Tax Collector who benefits from the current structure. Both were at the table with Jesus when he offered the bread and the wine to be his body and blood. In other words, the center is not about compromise; The center is about communion.
Second, the author’s stance on “celibacy in singleness,” is certainly valid, and one I support, but upholding this teaching from the Discipline with one hand, and denying some the opportunity for marriage with the other, creates a catch-22. In essence, celibacy is the only acceptable form of sexual expression from the LGBTQ community, which unfairly leads the author quickly to jump from promiscuity to discussion about gay marriage. It’s like kicking someone out of school, and then later in life, blaming them for their own ignorance.
Assuming that relaxing the Discipline’s language for inclusive marriage leads to promiscuity is precisely the opposite result those supporting the change desire. Many of our homosexual brothers and sisters are begging for a Christ-centered, covenantal relationship built on fidelity, trust, and the uniting of wills. To deny them this opportunity, and then refer to their lifestyle as promiscuous is unfortunate and misses the mark.
Finally, marriage is an outward and visible sign of an inward spiritual grace, signifying to us the union between Christ and the Church. What saddens me in this debate is that many in the church are boiling marriage down to intimacy only. When I meet with a couple before their wedding, we talk about a host of topics: what does home feel like, how did your parents argue, what is your favorite way to spend time with the person you love, how do you spend money, and yes, we also talk about sex. In other words, many are quick to turn a couple away because of how they share intimacy, but do we turn away the workaholic because of the damage too many hours in the office can do to a relationship? Do we turn away a couple because one of them will be inheriting a massive amount of debt from the other? Do we turn them away because one wants to have children and the other isn’t sure? I’m assuming we don’t because we have faith that through their connection with the church, they will be able to compromise and learn to honor and love the other person sacrificially; they will learn how to commune daily with each other and with God. If we trust this about those in our churches, why does this article sound the alarm that the UMC is heading toward irreconcilable differences? If the sole purpose of the covenant is to have legitimate sex, then we need to rethink how we call marriage the symbol of how Christ is united to the church.
After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. (John 19:28-29)
“Louisiana, they’re trying to wash us away…”
Randy Newman—“Louisiana 1927”
Good Old Boys
Water. You can’t live without it, but sometimes living with it can be devastating. On the sixth day of creation God offered humanity dominion over the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, but God never offered dominion over the sea itself. In God’s story, water first represents chaos. God’s spirit moved over the waters as if to remind the waves that it still must obey at least the wind. When we see water where it shouldn’t be, our sensibilities urge us to build levees, dig channels, fill sandbags, yet is we redirect the water entirely we would live only for a few days.
Throughout scripture water offers a complex picture of God’s world. It represents chaos, danger, and a barrier to the Promised Land, but it is never evil. Evil is easily defined. You know to avoid it, it profits nothing, and it is the enemy of the good. Water is much more ambiguous than evil. It sustains life, and drowns it away. It transports goods and knocks down walls. Water is neither evil, nor entirely good because water itself has no shape. It is so ambiguous that it takes Jesus himself to offer it new meaning. One day Jesus sat with a Samaritan woman at a well and said, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). Water takes the shape of the vessel in which it is carried, as Bruce Lee once said, “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” Jesus is saying that unless it is he who carries it, you will continue to be thirsty. You see, it is we who are the water in the story!
In the Gospels water begins to take on new meaning. It is categorically “more.” It becomes something through which we find rebirth. It is something transformed into wine. It becomes something living that is offered to the outcast in Samaria. It flows from Jesus’ side from the cross. This is what Jesus accomplishes. He takes a symbol of chaos and transforms it into something life-giving, something than can wash away the dirt life sometimes brings. And yet, from the cross, Jesus says, “I thirst.” How can this be? How can the one who offers living water now be thirsty? If we allow it, Jesus’ thirst bothers our souls even more than Jesus feeling forsaken. We know what being forgotten feels like. We know betrayal on one level or another. But have we really been thirsty to the point of death? Or imagine that when we open the tap that the water is not drinkable, or worse, that we are unaware that it is poison like the folks in Flint, Michigan have experienced. In essence they were told that offering them safe drinking water was just too expensive to maintain. To put it another way, your life doesn’t matter as much as tax breaks and the bottom line. Don’t think we are immune! Our state government is about to cut $800 million from our state budget, and I would hope that cutting infrastructure maintenance to our poorest brothers and sisters is not how the budget will be balanced.
When Jesus was near death he cried out, “I’m thirsty,” and what he received was a sour wine. It could be that Jesus was actually thirsty. Crucifixion quickly leads to dehydration, if the pain and suffocation doesn’t get you first, but because Jesus’ thirst is recorded only in John’s poetic and theologically symbolic Gospel, there is something more at work here. Jesus’ thirst goes beyond sustenance. Jesus thirsts for righteousness. Jesus thirsts for justice with mercy. Jesus thirsts for the kind of vessel in which living water would pool.
Diving even deeper into the story, wine plays a crucial role in John’s Gospel. Jesus’ first miracle was to turn water into wine at the wedding in Cana. He took the water stored in six stone jars, and transformed them into the best wine the steward had ever brought to his lips. These six stone jars were used for purification, which is kind of like John’s little “inside joke.” You see, six is the number for imperfection. It was the day humanity was created. It’s close to seven, the number for perfection, but it will never be. Using six stone jars of water for purification is like using muddy water in order to get clean. It just doesn’t work. Jesus takes this imperfection and transforms it! Jesus offers the best wine to humanity, and what he received in turn was a sour concoction meant to further his humiliation. And yet, Jesus accepts this disgrace and leaves it powerless when the tomb was empty on the third day.
Although the institution of the last supper is never mention in John’s Gospel, the wine at the beginning and ending of the story is a symbol of covenant, transformation, and resurrection. Jesus could have transformed the wedding cake into three tiers or switched out the DJ’s Spotify playlist to play only family friendly hits. He chose to transform the ordinary water into the extraordinary and best wine, just as Christ transforms us into his own body set for resurrection. We are the water in the story!
In Cross-Shattered Christ, Stanley Hauerwas writes:
The work of the Son, the thirst of the Son through the Spirit, is nothing less than the Father’s thirst for us. God desires us to desire God. We were created to thirst for God (Psalm 42) in a “dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63). Such a desire is as “physical” or real as our thirst for water, our thirst for one another, and our desire for God. Surely that is why our most determinative response to those who ask how we can ever come to worship this Jesus is to simply ask, “Do you not need to eat and drink?” Our God, our thirsty God, is the One capable of saying to us: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37–38).” (page 52-53).
For what do you thirst? I hope when you come to the communion table you thirst for more than what is in the cup. I pray you thirst for what the cup represents and calls us to become—one body with one Lord, taking the sour divisiveness of humanity, and transforming it into reconciliation and peace. Water takes the shape of the vessel in which it is carried. We are the water in the story. Ambiguous, life-giving, sometimes destructive, helpful, chaotic—sometimes you can’t live with each other, but we can’t live without each other either. Jesus thirsts for us, so that we might be carried by him, and thus become a vessel of living water for others. The Well’s logo says, “Living Water for a Thirsty World.” Let us live into who we claim to be! In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!
There once was a young boy playing football outside in the street all afternoon in the summertime heat. The streetlights, which stood as end-zone markers, began to glow as the sunlight faded, signaling that it was time to announce, “Next score wins!” to the rag-tag bunch of neighborhood friends. To say that the evening was hot would be like saying chocolate chip cookies are “just ok,” with milk, or a trip to the DMV was just a short wait. It was balmy, and the air was thick. The child ran inside with a thirst that a child only realizes he has when the game is over. As we ran into the living room he saw a small, half-full glass of water with three ice cubes sitting next to an over-turned National Geographic magazine. It would be far too much work to go to the kitchen and pour his own glass of water. He was basically dying of thirst, at least it felt like if he didn’t gulp down the nearest beverage that his body would break apart like clay in a dried riverbed.
He grabbed the glass, threw it back, and in one gulp, he seemingly inhaled the ice-cold, life saving water, except…it wasn’t water at all. He failed to notice the bottle of Smirnoff Vodka on the kitchen counter. It felt like his insides were on fire. He couldn’t breathe or move or hardly think. He just stood there hoping that the poison he imbibed wouldn’t kill him before he was able to at least ask who would pull such a terrible trick. His father came into the room, saw the empty glass and the boy whose face was the combination of fear, disgust, and confusion. The father simply said, “It’s like watching natural selection happen right in front of me.”
It’s a shock to the system when you expect water, and discover that the glass is half-full of something else. Although no one was playing a prank on the young boy, it certainly felt as if someone was deliberately plotting an evil scheme just to see what the reaction might be. When Jesus was near death he cried out, “I’m thirsty,” and what he received was a sour wine. It could be that Jesus was actually thirsty. Crucifixion quickly leads to dehydration, if the pain and suffocation doesn’t get you first, but because Jesus’ thirst is recorded only in John’s poetic and theologically symbolic Gospel (John 19:28), there is something more at work here. Jesus’ thirst goes beyond sustenance. Jesus thirsts for righteousness. Jesus thirsts for justice with mercy. Jesus thirsts for the kind of transformation in which living water would pool.
Diving even deeper into the story, wine plays a crucial role in the story John is telling. Jesus’ first miracle was to turn water into wine at the wedding in Cana. He took the water stored in six stone jars, and transformed them into the best wine the steward had ever brought to his lips. Jesus offered the best wine to humanity, and what he received in turn was a sour concoction meant to further his humiliation. And yet, Jesus accepts this disgrace and leaves it powerless when the tomb was empty on the third day. Although the institution of the last supper is never mention in John’s Gospel, the wine at the beginning and ending of the story is a symbol of covenant, transformation, and resurrection. Jesus could have transformed the wedding cake into three tiers or switched out the DJ’s Spotify playlist to play only family friendly hits. He chose to transform the ordinary water into the extraordinary and best wine, just as Christ transforms us into his own body set for resurrection. For what do you thirst? I hope when you come to the communion table you thirst for more than what is in the cup. I pray you thirst for what the cup represents and calls us to become—one body with one Lord, taking the sour divisiveness of humanity, and transforming it into reconciliation and peace. So, yes, be careful what you drink, but moreover be careful of the drink you are sharing with a thirsty world.
Harper Lee never enjoyed being in the spotlight. It’s not because she shied away from telling a powerful story, but because it’s hard to be the focus of the spotlight while focusing the light itself. “To Kill a Mockingbird,” is more than the greatest American Novel; it is an unassuming vessel in which the Gospel walks around in our own skin. It’s one thing to hear the parable of the good Samaritan from the pulpit or bible study, and know that we should be a neighbor to all, but inviting my Deep South neighbor into a familiar Maycomb courtroom so that our holy imaginations can expand beyond our cultural assumptions, changes the very images we see when we close our eyes and think of the “other.”
Lee taught us how to tell our own story through Scout’s adventures, to meet violence with a lamp, rocking chair, and a newspaper, to question our assumptions that we just know are true, and to never fear reaching out to the graceful and mysterious Boo Radleys of the world. A book is a funny thing. The words on the page are bound together with spine and covers, but the idea within it is as timeless and unbound as Lee herself is as she now rests in the heart of God. Lee suggested that a mockingbird simply sings a song for all to enjoy, but the song she sang continues to disrupt our neat Maycomb lines in which we want everything to fit and know its place. Harper Lee will be missed, but her story will continue to focus an incarnational light shining toward justice.
Jesus tells the disciples a story about a man who will be going away on a journey near the end of his ministry (Matthew 25:14-30). This man shares his wealth with his servants before departing, offering them no explanation as to what they are supposed to do with this entrusted property. The amount of wealth he entrusts to his servants is a huge sum. To the first he offers five talents, to the second, two, and to the third, one. A talent is just short of an annual salary for a day laborer, so this amount entrusted to the servants is more money than they’ve ever possessed at one time.
The first and the second servants invest their master’s property, and the sum doubles with each. The third returns the master’s investment neither gaining or losing any value saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” This third servant is called “lazy,” and “wicked,” and he is thrown out in the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Yikes!
This parable is about money, but then again it isn’t. Sharing our wealth is an important spiritual discipline. In the early church the disciples shared all of their possessions with each other (going well above the typical tithe!) so that all might be filled (Acts 2:45). We also share our wealth as a statement of faith, trusting that God will produce a kingdom from our earthly gifts in much the same way that simple bread is transformed into the body of Christ during Holy Communion. In other words, if we alone control our wealth, we will only produce what the earth will allow; however if we offer our gifts to God, transformation of the earth is the fruit the Kingdom will yield.
But the parable isn’t so much about money as it is about God’s abundance and how much God shares with us. We each have been given talents to share in the body of Christ. A friend of mine adopted this parable as a means of church growth. Everyone who comes to his church is asked three questions: 1. What do you to do well enough that you could teach someone else to do it? 2. What do you want to learn? 3. Other than God, who is walking with you on your journey? In other words, what talent has God offered to you, and how can you invest that talent within the community? What would you like to learn from other talented people? With whom do you chose to walk on this one wild adventure we call life?
The Christmas season is in full swing (It’s twelve days, after all…) though it seems that the world has moved on. I saw King Cakes in Walmart yesterday, but eating a slice of its gooey, frosted goodness is just a sin before January 6th. Beginning this Sunday my congregation will begin a new worship series called, “The Way,” which explores the commitment we make when joining a faith community. When a new member comes forward I ask them the traditional United Methodist question: “Will you support The Well with your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and your witness.”
As you reflect on 2015 coming to a close, I wonder how you spent your prayer time last year? For what or whom did you most often pray? Were you in need of healing or maybe a change of venue? Did you pray for a friend? An enemy? Did you sit in silence just spending time with God?
Where was your presence most deeply felt in 2015? If the walls of your home could talk, what would they say? Did you volunteer at the church or at Helping Hands or with a civic group? Maybe it’s your office that saw you most often. Maybe that book you got last year is still sitting on the shelf waiting for you to dream that next adventure from the pages to your imagination?
How did you share your gifts in 2015? Did you discover a new talent, and you’re just waiting for the right audience? If you take a peek at your checkbook would you find it to be an adequate reflection of your values? Was this last year really difficult for meeting your family’s needs? Maybe your wealth only went to insurance or the doctor’s office? Are you celebrating because you are finally out of debt!?
How did you serve your neighbor last year? Were you at a friend’s side when they were recovering? Did you go ahead and mow the neighbor’s lawn? Maybe you were helping the pastor fix a leaky roof at The Wesley, or maybe you are repairing the lock on the door while the pastor is quickly writing this article (you know you are, you beautiful people, you!)? Is your body sore from helping load the moving van for a friend who you hope to see again one day? Did you serve with the poor rather than for the poor?
What story did you tell in 2015? We are always telling a story through our thoughts, words, and actions. Were your words in line with the grace God offers? Maybe all of your prayers ended with a question mark? Would you be embarrassed to repost your Facebook posts from a year ago? Maybe your words were full of peace and well wishes. Was your story simply and invitation to hear someone else’s?
Well, 2015 will soon be in the record books. How will you support God’s kingdom through your prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness in 2016?
The nativity story is a play in three acts revealing to us God’s essence. In the first act Luke sets the story squarely in a real place and time. “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.” Luke starts at the top with Caesar because in those days the world was his. “This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.” He then moves down the chain of command to Quirinius, someone of less significance, but someone with enough authority to govern the land. Augustus and Quirinius get things done. Everyone is going to his or her homeland to register with occupying Rome so that they might pay the appropriate tax, have their whereabouts recorded with the authorities, and just to remind them who is in charge. Mary and Joseph travel from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea because Joseph is from the house of David. Little does Caesar know that in executing his earthy authority, prophecy about the Messiah is coming true.
Mary and Joseph find no room in the inn, so Mary gives birth to Jesus outdoors among the animals. It’s almost as if we are hearing a new creation story. In the beginning when the earth was a void, God’s spirit hovered over the waters, and now through the waters of the womb, a child conceived by that same Spirit inhales the Spirit for his first life-giving breath. God first created light and now this light is alive, “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate Deity,” as Charles Wesley reminds us in “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” This first act is about the Incarnation, the second part of the Trinity, how God put on flesh to dwell among us so that we might see God.
Then the scene changes. Interestingly, Jesus’ birth is not announced in the palace. Luke continues descending the economic ladder so that the audience is swept away into the fields with shepherds. On the one hand this is terrible storytelling. You’ve already introduced Caesar and his authority. It makes perfect sense to take the audience back to where the play started, and announce to Caesar the birth of God’s own Son. But this is not penned to make sense; rather the Gospel is remembered in order to turn the world upside down. An angel appears before shepherds in the field, the third shift workers, those with little political value and even less economic strength. The angel announces, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” In other words, in those days this was Caesar’s world, but on this day, God is turning everything upside down for all of the right reasons. Then a host of angels praise God saying, “Glory to God in the highest!” Here is a child born in the lowliest place on earth, literally 856 feet below sea level, and yet the angels tell about God’s glory reaching up to the heavens. In other words, Christ assumes all of creation. Christ fulfills Psalm 139 when the Psalmist says, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens you are there. If I make my bed in the depths you are there.” This second act is about how God, our creator, the first person of the Trinity, is beginning to recreate and redeem creation itself.
The scene changes again. The shepherds run with haste to see the child wrapped in bands of cloth lying in a manger. When they arrive they tell Mary and Joseph everything the angels said, all who heard it were amazed, and Mary treasured and pondered their words in her heart. In other words, they began to tell the story. They began to share their experience. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, which rested among the disciples on the day of Pentecost, is already moving among humanity to share the great joy and profound love of God. This is more than a birthday story. This is more than a midnight hustling to get last minute stocking stuffers. This is more than mistletoe and eggnog and semester breaks and red cups This is the day when the fullness of God was pleased to dwell upon the earth, when the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of life, the Idea, the Word, and the Inspiration of God covered all of creation so that we might know love, so that we might trust in hope, so that we might have the faith to move the mountains and palaces of the world, so that we might know how to live and how to die, so that we might live again with God. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!
The girls are home from school this week as we get ready for the Christmas holiday. As I started to write my Christmas Eve sermon I invited the girls to help me. I read them the Christmas story from Luke’s gospel, and I invited them to ask me questions about the story or to tell me what images from the story they could see in their imagination. It wasn’t long before they started asking questions. Annaleigh interrupted asking, “Why did you say ‘David?’ I thought this story was about Jesus?” Well, Luke tells us that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which was where King David was born (1 Samuel 16:4). The Hebrew scriptures tells us that it was from Bethlehem that God would raise up a savior (Micah 5:2).
I kept reading, and when I arrived at the angel’s pronouncement to the shepherds, the girls joined in almost word for word. I asked them how they new what the angels say to the shepherds. Isabelle admitted she had been trying to memorize the audio from our Linus ornament on the Christmas tree. “Lights, please…That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” Sometimes I forget that children are always listening, always watching what we grown-ups do. I was both thankful that they had committed scripture to their memory, but a bit troubled with their ability to memorize what they see and experience.
Christmas is a hurried time, and frankly over the last few days I was not setting the best example. Of course there’s the stress in making sure the Christmas lists had been filled, the cookies baked, the house cleaned, and end of the year business all tidied up with a bow. Maybe their hyperactivity is just a reflection of my own restlessness? Thankfully, there’s good old Linus to offer them a moment of beautiful respite.
So, there’s still hope. Maybe the gifts, cookies, and business are not nearly as important as sitting around the tree in thanksgiving, actually spending some holy time around the quickly-hung ornaments. A quick survey of our tree revealed Linus on stage, Tiny Tim on Scrooge’s shoulder, kindergarten school projects on red construction paper, a blue glass TARDIS (surprised?), an Italian leg lamp (I know it’s Italian because it said “Fragile” on the box), an ornament remembering our wedding anniversary, an angel topper from generations ago, and many more. Our tree tells a beautiful story, and it is a story I can do a better job telling.
What is your Christmas story? Is it remembered through ornaments on a tree? Is it shared through reading scripture with your friends and family? Do you tell your story through service and generosity? Linus’ “Lights please…” is such a simple and beautiful reminder of God’s light in the person of Jesus in a dark world. If you could call for the spotlight, what story would you tell?
13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Matthew 2:13
‘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. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” 28He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” 29But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ Matthew 13:24-30
The problem with violence is not that it is senseless—it’s that it makes too much sense for far too many. After a group of Daesh[1] (ISIS or ISIL) terrorists murdered 129 people in Paris (not to overshadow the indiscriminant violence happening in every village and hamlet) the world quickly changed it’s profile picture to a vertical translucent red, white, and blue. Not long after many stood in solidarity with France, news broke that one of the murders was carrying a Syrian passport. Hastily, Governors across America petitioned President Obama to close the American border to Syrian refugees, locking out those trying to escape extremism out of fear that a Friday night in Paris might become the next tragedy in America.
Is the fear warranted? Probably. American leaders should be cautious in order to ensure the safety of the people within their charge. Should caution supersede compassion? Probably not. At least, let’s take a moment to think. It’s a fair assumption that extremists are aware of the thousands who have left their home behind. It’s also a fair assumption that the Daesh knew the Paris attack would put world leaders on high alert. Closing borders to those fleeing Syria is a clever way to ensure that those whom you were oppressing are left to be oppressed by someone else’s hand. It’s an eerie reminder of the 20,000 Jews who were turned away at the Swiss border between 1939-1941.[2] Knowing that refugees are in transit, and knowing the power of fear, the attack in Paris is a clever genocide against those fleeing from your power.
Let us lament the loss of innocence. Let us pray for wisdom and compassion. Let us be quick to listen and slow to speak. “Should we cut down the weeds?” the workers asked in Jesus’ parable. “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.” Could it be that closing borders is precisely what the enemy who sows weeds among the wheat is hoping will happen? Could it be that their hope is in fear’s motivation to accomplish what they could not? You know . . . a closed border is closed both ways. Lord have mercy….
13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 14Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’ Matthew 2:13-15
Notes:
I need to give a shout out to Lori Jones, the best editor on the planet, for helping me get the words from my brain to the screen. Now for the footnotes…
Our current worship series at The Well, “Sherlock’s Home: Observing God in the Everyday” is to point us toward finding God’s presence in what we typically might view as mundane, ordinary, and unimportant. Just yesterday I had the opportunity (some opportunity, right?) to mow our backyard. It is no secret that I love to do anything other than lawn care. To say that I am an outdoorsman would be a lie. When I muster the mood to mow I usually grab my phone and headphones and listen to Rage Against the Machine (it seems to help me push the mower just a bit more quickly). In thinking about observing God in the everyday, I left the headphones inside, and made a point of listening to the natural symphony God has already provided.
