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Sermon of the Week:
More Than They Ask For

An online sermon preached with The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on June 21, 2020.

The third of a four part sermon series: Do Unto Others–Being Good Neighbors in a Pandemic

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Third Sunday after Pentecost

Keywords: Be Perfect, Sermon on Mount, Break the Cycle, Go the Extra Mile, Revenge, Patrick Hutchinson. #pcusa

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
and Matthew 5:38-48

Is following Jesus supposed to be easy, or kinda hard?
That’s not meant to be a trick question,
but I admit, it’s not an easy one to answer.

On the one hand, Jesus himself, somewhere in the Gospel according to Matthew, says
come to me, all you who are weary
all who are carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest….
my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

That’s the comforting side of Jesus,
the one who gets you, you know,
who knows that life has been tough these days,
tough for all of us,
and depending on what’s going on with us,
maybe particularly tough…

This is the Jesus that stands where the hurting people stand
with the comfort of solidarity, and promise.
The Jesus who refuses to let our failures be the last word
as he told the woman rendered guilty by those who would judge her
and cast stones at her.
The Jesus who gives the hungry food to eat
and tells the children to join him, even when others give disapproving looks.
The Jesus who declares God’s blessing
for the poor in spirit, the peacemaker, the one who is reviled.

The Jesus who tells frazzled disciples:
peace, I leave with you; my peace, I give to you…

That Jesus seems kind of easy to follow.
I am excited about following Jesus there.
The promise that I can do it, with Jesus’ help,
is profoundly comforting.

I mean, with Jesus’ help,
Peter walked on water, became a great advocate for the way of Jesus
even though he denied Jesus three times.
With Jesus’ help, Mary became a witness to the resurrection.
With Jesus help, the Apostle Paul
started a new kind of movement
bridging Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female.

If Jesus can do that,
Imagine what he can do with me.
Sign me up.

But then there’s the Jesus
who shows us how challenging the realm of God is
for all of us, at least when all we know is this realm, this world,
with its challenges and clashes and conflicts.

Easier to shove a camel through the eye of a needle, says Jesus,
than it is for someone-in-love-with-his-money to get into heaven.

Who is my neighbor, Jesus?
Well, let me tell you a story,
about a priest, a Levite, and the guy-you-revile,
those three,
and the guy you revile is going to do the right thing at the end,
the noble thing, the good thing,
and then I’m going to ask you to give him credit for that
and to see him as fully human too. Ouch.

And then there’s this,
the reading we have today:
you have heard it said—
an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth…
But I say,
if someone strikes you on your cheek,
turn, and offer the other also;
someone wants to sue you, and take your coat,
well, give them your cloak as well;
if a soldier, one of those occupiers from Rome,
makes you carry his pack a whole mile
don’t stop there…go a second mile,
love your enemies,
pray for your persecutors,
and then if that isn’t enough:
be perfect, as God is perfect.

None of that is even a little bit easy, truth be told.

There are days where
I’d gladly give away all my money to push that camel through that needle
if it meant I didn’t have to acknowledge the-guy-I-revile has some good qualities in him…
and I’d even rather do THAT
than turn the other cheek, give in to the guy suing me,
carry that blasted Soldier’s backpack 10 feet, much less a mile, or two.

It is far easier to nurse our grievances
to separate the world into friends and enemies
to see everything as confrontational
than it is to sign up for Jesus’ challenging way of looking at the world
where everyone is loved
where everyone has responsibilities
where I might be part of the problem, just as much as I’m asked to be part of a solution,
where justice and peace is what God intends for all.

So the question isn’t at all simple:
is following Jesus easy, or is it hard?

I’d rather just linger with that easy Jesus…wouldn’t you?

///
I think that’s why so many of us
don’t know what to do with texts like this one
from the Sermon on the Mount. [Read more…]

Sermon of the Week:
I Really Want that Cheeseburger

An online sermon preached with The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on June 14, 2020.

The second of a four part sermon series: Do Unto Others–Being Good Neighbors in a Pandemic

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Second Sunday after Pentecost

Keywords: Food Insecurity, Concern for Others, Somebody Feed Phil, Racial Wealth Gap, Black Lives Matter, Wear a Mask, Christian Freedom #pcusa

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Matthew 5:1-12
and Romans 14:13-22

Most of the time, I don’t think much about food.
Food, for me, is often a luxury.

I enjoy food.

I love watching people who love food.
One of my favorite shows to download and watch when I travel,
back in the days when I would travel, when we could travel,
is Somebody Feed Phil,
which is something of a mix between a travel show and a food show.
Have you seen it? It’s on Netflix.
The host, Phillip Rosenthal, travels somewhere—
Chicago, Mexico City, Venice, Bangkok, the most recent episode was to Marrakesh,
and Phil…who is a goofy, oddball sort of guy with not an ounce of guile in him
gushes over the local delicacies
and the people serving and sharing it with him.

I love watching someone who loves food
and who reflects carefully about the way that relationships are nurtured
around the sharing of food, you know? At its best, food does that—brings us together.
I felt that way about Anthony Bourdain’s show, Parts Unknown,
which had a similar, but more edgy, vibe to Somebody Feed Phil,
part travel show and part food documentary.

Whenever I watch these shows,
and see how people all over the world approach meal preparation and consumption
I learn so much about regional differences.

This place might be heavy on the olive oil and the wine,
because there are fantastic olive trees and vineyards in that part of the world
and they pair so well with fresh bread and pasta.

That place might be known for its stockyards,
where cattle wranglers sold steer and a famous barbeque tradition emerged.
Yes. if Phil came to Kansas City, he’d surely make a stop at Arthur Bryants.

Or then again, what about some other place
maybe in a culture where most people abstain from alcohol,
or maybe they don’t eat certain things—maybe no pork, or no meat at all,
or maybe they keep kosher, among other things not mixing milk and meat at the same meal.

It is sort of fascinating to absorb all these differences,
and to appreciate the commitments behind them.

And I’m reminded as I watch that they’re not my commitments.
“They” might not eat something that I love.

I didn’t grow up in a family that restricted what we ate in any particular way.
Well, my family tried to limit my soda consumption as a kid
they didn’t buy me any sugar cereals for our pantry, not that that’s a lingering sore spot or anything
but that’s not what I’m talking about.
We ate meat, for instance.
A lot, it seems, as I think about it.
Growing up, once a week or so my Dad would grill burgers or, if we were lucky, steaks on the grill.
He preferred the kind with the charcoal biscuits and the lighter fluid,
and he would always sauté up some mushrooms on the stovetop for himself,
because he liked them on top of his steak or his burger.
I grew to love a good cheeseburger. Still do, to this day.

I never have known a particular set of dietary restrictions,
limits on the kinds of things we would eat because of a value or a commitment.

Sure, there are things I don’t particularly like.
I can pass on the coconut, thank you very much.
I’m not a fan of wiggly desserts, like flan.
The two things that stand out the most about my mom’s mom
was, one, that she had a wild and beautiful garden in her backyard
broccoli and lettuce and strawberries and green beans, which I loved,
and, two, I remember that she used to love eating liver and onions,
something I never could bring myself to try.

But none of this was because of conviction.
I didn’t avoid something because of a value system.

I just liked something, or didn’t.

And I’m still pretty much like that, to this day.
And that means I don’t have to think much about food,
other than does it look appealing, or does it not,
and maybe how I need to balance all of that with a bunch of healthy, power-food choices too.

///
There’s something here that might help us understand
something really important about what the Apostle Paul was trying to get at
when he wrote that enigmatic fourteenth chapter in his letter to the Romans.

We’ll get to that, in a second,
but I need to digress for a bit
because we would be remiss if we didn’t note how strange it feels,
during this chaotic moment, today, for us to be talking about food.

I admit, it seems out of place, at least to me,
because food is not the locus, not the catalyst
for our collective discord these days.
Our conflict stems from racism and from a global pandemic,
along with the breakdown of relating to one another in healthy, productive, faithful ways. [Read more…]

Sermon: More Than They Ask For

Sermon: I Really Want that Cheeseburger