Thanksgiving in the Weeds

How do you give thanks when your life isn't perfect? What do you do when your life is not full of flowers, but full of weeds? This sermon considers just that. If your life is full of weeds (I know mine is), then it may have something to say to you!

I don’t need to tell you anything about weeds, do I? We’re all familiar with them. They creep into our gardens, spring up in our fields, and cause us no end of inconvenience! Jesus’ disciples knew about weeds, too; so when he told them this parable (Matthew 13:24-30), they knew exactly what he was talking about. The field of the landowner in this parable is full of weeds; and not just a few. Weeds had sprung up everywhere, weeds that had been put there intentionally by someone who was out to ruin the harvest.

What did all those weeds in this parable represent when Jesus told it? If we read on a little farther in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that they represent people. Biblical scholars think that those “weeds” might even have been church members! After all, the early church was made up of a very mixed bag of Christians. Some were certainly devoted followers of Jesus; but others might have been there simply to get a handout. Some might even have been spies, put there by the Roman authorities who were hoping to find a reason to arrest members of this new sect.

Today, we aren’t worried about Roman spies sitting in our church pews. No, today the weeds in the wheat field have other meanings to us. For me, these weeds have always represented the troubles that pop up so quickly in our lives. We’re going along minding our own business, when an uninvited event pops up like one of those pesky weeds. It might be a very little weed, one that we can pull out rather easily. The water pump goes out on the car, for example. We may have to dip into our savings to fix it, but we can handle it. Other weeds aren’t so small, though. Maybe we lose the job that we’ve held for years. We can’t get rid of that weed quite so easily. And some weeds are so tall that they overshadow everything else in our lives. The illness of a family member means that we have to become caregivers; or we become ill ourselves, and learn to cope with continuing medical treatments. Yes, there are plenty of weeds in our lives, and they come in all shapes and sizes. And now we’re approaching Thanksgiving. What do we do with those weeds on Thanksgiving, anyway? We can’t get rid of them; and Jesus even hints that trying to do that might not be the best idea. Do we make the best of them? Do we curse them? Do we try to ignore them?

It’s worth remembering that the Pilgrims who were the first to celebrate Thanksgiving lived among their own weeds. Those first settlers arrived on our shores late in the year, just as winter was setting in. The supplies that they had brought from Europe weren’t adequate to get them through that year’s harsh winter. Many were already ill with scurvy after the long overseas voyage. Others became ill from cold and hunger. Some starved to death. Of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower, over half died during that first terrible winter. Oh, their weeds were plentiful. When Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving Day in 1863 by executive order, things weren’t much better. Our country was split apart by civil war. The Battle of Gettysburg had stopped the advance of General Lee’s troops into the north, but at a terrible cost – almost 50,000 troops killed or wounded in just three days of battle. During the Civil War, the weeds overshadowed almost everything else. But even in the shadow of all those weeds, both the Pilgrims and President Lincoln gave thanks. They gave thanks for loved ones who survived cold, hunger, illnesses, and battle. They gave thanks for friends who supported them when they were certain that they could not get through another day. They gave thanks to God whose presence went with them whether their days were good or bad. Surely we, too, can give thanks despite all the weeds that are in our lives!

During this past month, several people who are Facebook friends of mine have posted each day what they are thankful for. Now, I know these folks; and I know that they all have weeds in their lives. They are thankful nonetheless. Here are some of their posts (adapted in some cases so that the posters can remain anonymous).

I am thankful for co-workers who care enough about me to phone me when they hear there's a huge accident that would keep me from getting home safely.

·      I am thankful for the songbirds in our yard.

·      I am thankful for my spouse. It’s not always easy, but it is completely worth it.

·      I am thankful for warm jammies.

·      I am thankful for books. I love to read!

·      I am thankful for coming home to a clean house and dinner on the stove.

·      I am thankful for conveniences – a washer, a dryer, and a dishwasher.

·      I am thankful to spend time with my family.

·      I am thankful for the opportunity to learn. Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to get a good education.

·      I am thankful for laughter.

·      I am thankful for life.

Are you thankful for some of those things? I know that you are – and for many others that I didn’t mention. So this year, I invite you to give thanks despite the weeds in your life, no matter how many of them there are and how big they are. I invite you to hang on to God’s promise that those weeds won’t last forever, and that one day, they will all be thrown into the fire! I invite you to join the Pilgrims, and Abraham Lincoln, and all the saints throughout the ages in giving thanks to God in a great chorus of praise that will one day be echoed by all creation! Thanks be to God!

Looking Ahead

This past Sunday, we looked ahead to the eventual return and reign of Christ the King over all creation. The theme of my sermon was just that -- looking ahead. Sometimes we get so stuck in the here-and-now that we forget to anticipate what is to come!

We can never move ahead if we concentrate only on where we are right now. Did you ever think about that? Focusing on what we’re doing in the moment is certainly necessary, but if we do it too much, we can get stuck. I was reminded of that recently as I was taking a riding lesson on my horse. I was practicing a very basic movement, but one that I couldn’t seem to master. The harder I tried to ride correctly, the less my horse seemed to understand what I wanted him to do. I adjusted and readjusted the reins… no luck. I repositioned my legs… nothing. I moved my position in the saddle… useless. Finally, in exasperation, my instructor yelled, “Look ahead! Don’t concentrate on where you are; look at where you’re going!” That was an “Aha!” moment. When I lifted my head, my back straightened, my shoulders relaxed, my hands moved down into the correct position, and I’m sure that my horse heaved a huge sigh of relief. Simply looking ahead helped to get me out of the rut that I had been in, and I was able to ride the movement correctly. I’m sure that it must be the same with other sports – soccer, tennis, even football. You don’t focus on where the ball is at any given time, but on where you want it to go!

Practicing our faith is very much like that. It is tempting to focus our faith on where our lives are right now, and never to look ahead to the future. We don’t tend to anticipate what Jesus has promised us will take place in the future. But if we never look ahead, we get stuck in all the problems that we face in living day-to-day. And we all know that those problems can be very sticky, indeed.

No less a person than Job reminds us of our need to keep looking ahead, even as we recognize the troubles and sorrows that we are dealing with right now. And if anybody had problems, it was Job. You remember Job. Job was a completely righteous man. Even God said so. But Job lost everything – all his flocks, all his herds, even all his children – in a series of terrible, unanticipated disasters. And Job complained about it. Oh, my, did Job complain about it! He complained that he didn’t deserve any of it. He complained that God was unfair. He even called for God to come down out of heaven and meet him fair and square in a court of law. Job was pretty sure that any jury in this world or the next would find that he had been treated unfairly by God. Job focused on his problems, all right. But Job also looked ahead. And in one of the most striking statements of faith in all of scripture, he shared his confidence in God’s promises. “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh will I see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes!” (Job 19:23-27)

Now, that is a powerful statement of faith! But to get the full effect of Job’s statement, we have to unpack the language a little bit. We especially need to examine the word “redeemer.” In Hebrew, that word is “go’el,” and it has a very particular meaning. A “go’el” is someone who buys back family property that has been sold to pay off debts. Chapter 25 in the book of Leviticus talks about the duties of a “go’el.” Verse 25 states, “If one of you becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his kinsman has sold.” A “go’el” can even buy back a family member who has been sold into slavery! The instructions are in verses 47 & 48. “If a foreigner among you becomes rich and one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells himself to the foreigner living among you, one of his relatives may redeem him.” That’s who Job was looking for, a “go’el.” But Job didn’t need to be bought back from human slavery. He needed someone who would rescue him from the evil that had him in its grasp. Job believed that somewhere there was a “go’el” who had the power do just that. Somewhere, someone existed who could get Job out of the mess that he was in!

Christians have traditionally interpreted Job’s statement of faith as referring to Jesus Christ. We may not be literal slaves to people who force us to work for them day and night, but we are slaves nevertheless. We are slaves to sin, whether we admit it or not. Because of the culture we live in, because of our particular circumstances in life, even because of the way we are born, we are not the people that we want to be! Paul put it this way in his letter to the Romans (7:18, 19, 24): “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out; and what I keep doing is the evil that I don’t want to do! What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul’s answer is that no one but Jesus Christ can redeem us from that kind of slavery! No one but Jesus Christ can be our “go’el.”

Now, much of the time, it doesn’t look like Jesus is doing his job very well. The effects of sin are everywhere! You see them every time you open a newspaper or turn on a radio or watch the evening news. If we don’t want to get stuck in the pit of despair, we need to look ahead to Jesus’ promise for the future. Our redeemer does live, and will live eternally! He is risen from the dead; and one day we will see him with our own eyes standing on this earth. One day, all sin will be erased, and all people will be washed clean. One day, everyone will be perfected by the one who gave his life for us. Job’s confession of faith is our confession, too. “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh will I see God.” We just have to look ahead to catch a glimpse of it.

 

Fear Not!

It seems to me that our world is full of fear -- all kinds of fear! So that's what I chose to preach about on this past Sunday -- fear. You may not be afraid of the things that I mention in my sermon, but I'll bet you're afraid of something. If that is the case, I hope that this sermon is helpful.

I have a tough question for you this morning. What are you afraid of? Now, I’m not talking about little things like spiders or heights or horror movies. We can easily take care of those things. We can call an exterminator, hire someone to work on the roof, and avoid any movie that includes the word “scream” or “saw” or “nightmare.” No, I’m asking you what you’re really afraid of. What gnaws at your gut whenever you think about it? What keeps you awake at night with worry? What gives you nightmares?

While you’re pondering the answer to that question, let me tell you what the psalmist was afraid of. He tells us in Psalm 46, if we read between the lines. The psalmist was afraid that everything he knows – all the traditions that he grew up with, all the values that he holds dear, all the dreams that he cherishes – that all those things will be swept away, and that he will be left with nothing. Now, the psalmist doesn’t say that directly. No, he begins by describing an earthquake, with the earth giving way under his feet and the mountains collapsing into the abyss. In the psalmist’s day, the mountains were considered to be the pillars of creation, the physical structure on which everything else rested. If they collapsed, so did everything else. When the earth shook, he saw creation itself coming apart at the seams. Then the psalmist describes a city. It seems to be secure enough: God himself lives in its midst. But the confession that “God will help her at break of day” is ominous. In the time of the psalmist, armies usually attacked at dawn. Is this city under siege by an enemy army? When the psalmist looks out of his window, does he glimpse the sun reflecting off foreign swords and shields, and catch a whiff of smoke from enemy campfires? Victory by an invading force would sweep away his world just as surely as any natural disaster.

Earthquakes and war… that’s frightening stuff. We are sometimes afraid of those very same things. Most of us remember the panic that we felt in the days following 9/11. When we heard the drone of an aircraft overhead, we looked up with a pang of fear. Had another airliner been hijacked? Was another terrorist attack about to begin? I imagine that most of us no longer have that response; and natural disasters are few and far between here in Ohio. Sure, tornadoes hit close to home now and then. Just a few weeks ago, Vandalia was the target of a small one; but it didn’t really do much damage. Few people lose sleep worrying about earthquakes or tornadoes or hurricanes… at least, not around here. No, we are afraid of other things… and those things do keep us awake at night. Let me tell you what people are afraid of these days.

Younger folks – the ones who are in college or have recently graduated – worry that they’ll never find a decent job. We baby boomers aren’t retiring very quickly, and work is hard to find. One of my close friends who is in his his early thirties recently told me with considerable anger that my generation had lied to him. We assured him that if he did well in college, he’d have no trouble getting a good job. Ten years after graduating from a good school, he is still trying to make ends meet on a job that is less than full time. Middle-agers – folks in their 40s, 50s, and even 60s – are worried that they'll never be able to retire. Social security isn’t secure itself; and every time the economy burps, we recalculate our pension funds – if we are fortunate enough to have any. What happened to our dream of retirement? Will we need to work forever just to make ends meet? And older folks have their own nightmares. As bodies wear out and minds lose the sharpness that they once had, terrifying fears creep in. Will I be able to take care of myself? What if I can’t continue to do the things that have given me joy in life? Even worse, what if I become a burden to my family? Fears of spiders and heights and even Freddie Krueger are nothing compared to fears like these. When we get right down to it, our deepest fear is the very same fear that the psalmist had. We are afraid that all the traditions that we grew up with, all the values that we hold dear, and all the dreams that we cherish will crumble into dust, and that we will end up with nothing.

Scripture has an answer for us when that kind of fear threatens to flood over us. We hear it over and over and over again. We hear it in Old Testament stories and in the letters of the New Testament and in the Gospels. We hear it from prophets and angels and from Jesus himself. We hear the reassurance, “Fear not!” There is nothing on earth or in heaven that we need to be afraid of; because God is God and he’s got everything covered. Psalm 96 puts it this way: “God is our refuge and our strength; an ever-present help in trouble. The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our security.” Whatever we fear, God knows about it. Whatever we fear, God is holding it in his hand. Whatever we fear, God is way, way bigger than it is. God is God, and God is here to help us.

Some folks object that “Fear not” doesn’t offer any answers to our fears. It doesn’t give any instructions for dealing with whatever we’re afraid of. But fears aren’t “one size fits all.” Besides, doesn’t a parent give a child the same kind of answer? “I’m afraid of the dark, Mommy,” cries the child. “You don’t need to be afraid,” replies the mother. “I’m right here.” Now, does that answer mean that the dark will never hold any terrors? No. Any number of things might happen in the dark: a destructive storm, a home invader, even a house fire. But if one of those things happens, the parent will be right there, protecting and helping the child to deal with the situation. How much more is God with us, protecting us and helping us cope with the fears that keep us awake at night?

Fear, after all, is a terrible thing to live with. It takes its toll on the human body. Continual fear leads to stress; and stress causes all kinds of physical problems: high blood pressure, heart attacks, even strokes. But worse than that, fear paralyzes us. It turns us into “deer in the headlights,” unable to respond to changing circumstances until we’re in serious trouble. Fear keeps us from living the kind of life that God wants us to live. Why, fear even keeps us from seeing God working in our lives! After all, God doesn’t show up with a neon sign that gives us detailed instructions for coping with our problems. God works like an undercover spy, quietly poking here and secretly prodding there. If we are paralyzed by fear, we miss the signs of God’s presence with us. We ignore possibilities. We overlook opportunities. We miss the solution that is standing right in front of us! God is indeed our refuge and strength, but it’s a good thing if we’re able to recognize God when he shows up to help us!

“Fear not” is not just a religious cliché that preachers use to calm down their parishioners when times get tough. It’s one of God’s instructions for living through difficult times. When we can control our fears, we can solve our problems more effectively, and we can enjoy our lives as fully as possible. So the next time that you feel fear start to get the best of you, why not listen to Psalm 96: “Be still and know that I am God. I make wars cease to the ends of the earth. I break the bow, shatter the spear, and burn the chariots with fire. I will be exalted in the earth!” That’s some God! That’s the God who has promised to be with us. That’s our God! Fear not!

 

In My Father's House

What is heaven like? None of us can answer that question; and Jesus didn't tell us much. What he did tell us, however, should be more than enough. This All Saints' Day sermon encourages us to focus on what we do know about heaven, instead of being concerned about what we don't know.

All children learn sooner or later that things aren’t done the same way in all homes. I learned that lesson early on, when I went to the home of a friend to play. Her mother expected her to help wax their bathroom floor after we finished with our playtime. I didn’t even know that bathroom floors needed to be waxed! Her chores in her home and my chores in my home were very different, indeed. I’m sure that every one of you had a similar experience at one time or another. Maybe your family always sat down at the dinner table and passed the food dishes; while the first time you went to dinner at a friend’s home, the members of his family served themselves from the sideboard buffet style. The differences are frequently small; but they signify that customs vary from home to home. You can never assume that what happens in your home also happens in every other home.

The Sadducees had an experience very much like that when they tried to catch Jesus in a theological trap. The Sadducees were a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They were trying to discredit Jesus by making him look foolish Luke tells us that they lifted a law out of the Old Testament and tried to apply it to the afterlife. Specifically, they used a law about a practice called “levirate marriage.” (If you’re curious about it, you can find it in verses 5 & 6 of Deuteronomy 25.) It was considered shameful for a man to die without fathering a son; so much so that if a man died without a male heir, the law instructed his brother to marry the widow and produce that son. Levirate marriage also served a social purpose. A widow without a son had no one to care for her. Levirate marriage not only carried on the family name, it made sure that widows were not left in poverty without a means of support.

This scenario about levirate marriage that the Sadducees put before Jesus… well, it was absurd! “What if there were seven brothers,” they asked, “and the oldest one died childless. The second brother married the widow, but he died childless, too; and so on until all seven brothers had married her. Please tell us – when the resurrection of the dead takes place, whose wife will she be?” Can’t you just see them snickering behind their hands, like a bunch of teenage boys telling a dirty joke? They were all ready for Jesus to confess that he really didn’t know the answer to their question; and then, the Sadducees could tell everyone that Jesus wasn’t as smart as they thought he was!

But that wasn’t what happened. No, Jesus simply said, in effect, “We don’t do things that way in my father’s house. In your house, maybe; but not in mine.” That really set the Sadducees back on their heels. it slowly dawned on them that their question – the question that they thought was so clever – wasn’t clever at all. In fact, their question about the law was as irrelevant as an umbrella on a bright sunshiny day. In heaven, there isn’t any need for all the laws that are useful here on earth. God’s house is different. Well, of course things will be done differently in heaven than they are here on earth! The Sadducees should have known better. If you listen, you can almost hear the prophet Isaiah whisper, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, says the Lord, and my ways are not your ways.”

That’s not a bad thing to remember on this All Saints’ Sunday. All Saints’ Day calls up all kinds of memories of loved ones who now live eternally in God’s house. Some have died recently, while others have been dead many years. And while we know in our hearts that they are still with us, our human logic argues otherwise. We look at their graves, and we think, “They’re gone. We’ve lost them.” And, in a physical sense, they are gone. They don’t live in our house any more. But lost? They’re not lost. Jesus was very clear about that in his response to the Sadducees. “God is not God of the dead,” he said, “but of the living!” God has never once said, “Well, once upon a time long ago, I used to be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; but now they are dead and gone, so I guess that all we can do is to remember them.” No; in God, all of the saints are eternally alive! They are with us still, as that great cloud of witnesses that the book of Hebrews talks about. And today, on All Saints’ Day, we celebrate that fact.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. We don’t know everything that there is to know about life after death. In fact, we know hardly anything! All of us have serious questions about death and about the afterlife; and those questions present an terrible problem to some people. These folks refuse to believe in the afterlife unless they know everything about it. They ask questions like, “Where is heaven? What is eternity like? Is God going to make me rub elbows with people I don’t like? And what about my personality? Does it somehow stay together even if my body is gone?” Some folks could go on for hours asking questions! They’re like the Sadducees who pestered Jesus with their riddles. In the end, these folks will never believe in an afterlife because they’ll never know all the details about it.

But, you see, we don’t have to know all the details. Jesus has told us everything we need to know. He told us, first, that in God, the dead are alive forevermore. We don’t have a clue how that works – but God does. And I figure that God has that all worked out. Jesus also told us that the dead are like angels. I don’t know exactly what that means; but I’m pretty sure that it means that we will be changed into something other than what we are now. At least, that’s how Paul understood it. He described it this way: “The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, and we shall be changed. For this mortal body must put on immortality.” It’s like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. And even though I don’t know all the details, that makes sense to me. And then, Jesus told us that we will be children of God: one family through Christ. That family will lack nothing and will never be parted from one another. And those family ties start here and now, before we go to live in our Father’s house eternally.

Do we really need to know any more than that? The saints, though they may be physically dead, are eternally alive… they’re like the angels… they’re a part of the one family in Christ that includes us, too. I don’t know about you, but that’s enough for me. I don’t need to know all the details about life after death. I trust that God has prepared a home for me, and that Jesus has my back, and that the Spirit will guide me home. That’s all I need to know! And that’s not something to puzzle over. That’s something to celebrate!