WHAT IS ENOUGH?

PROPER 13, Year A

Isaiah 55:1-5 Matthew 14:13-21

I made a terrible mistake this week. I looked at my past sermons on these texts before writing my sermon. And I liked the one from 1999 so well that I’m going to preach it again, with only minor modifications. . .

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

Isaiah’s question leaped off the page for me again this week. The question is one that I don’t remember asking myself when I was young.

I’ll bet that many of you grew up, like I did, fully immersed in the work ethic, haunted by the shadow or the real experience of the depression. I learned the value of hard work and sensible money management practically by osmosis – merely by living in the same house with my parents.

About the time I hit mid-life and started asking lots of questions about what I was doing and why, our society had become more and more a full-blown consumer society. I see this especially when I look at my son’s generation. They buy what they want now, now, whether they can afford it or not; they seem comfortable owing large sums of consumer debt. It seems that if they learned by osmosis, it was from TV rather than from their parents.

And yet, as I started to ask myself questions I found I had in fact also moved some distance from the lessons my parents taught. I too have been changed by the culture around me.

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

Why did I compete in the workplace for better jobs to have more money to buy more stuff? Why do I want things I don’t need? Why do I spend money on things that aren’t necessary, that don’t satisfy me, and that don’t enrich my life or the lives of others?

Two reasons spring to mind quickly. One is mindlessness; the other is an underlying fear of scarcity.

Mindlessness covers a multitude of sins. Mainly it means not paying attention, not planning ahead, not thinking. I’m strolling through a store, see T-shirts on sale, think, “What a good deal!” buy two and take them home. Maybe I’m so mindless that when I throw the two new ones on top of the pile I already own, I don’t even notice that there are enough there for three people.

Mindlessness is being so busy and distracted that I don’t even bother to ask, “What do I need?” We own so much stuff, and see so much more stuff in the stores, and are urged to buy more that we don’t even ask the question, “Do I have enough?” Maybe we don’t even know what is enough.

Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin wrote a book in 1992 called Your Money or Your Life. They had figured out how to live well on about $6,000 per year each, after giving up stressful, high paying jobs. They now work strictly in the non-profit sector doing things they feel good about without taking any pay.

The book lays out a process for others to do the same – not in the sense of making the same choices they did, but in the sense of freeing themselves from slavery to the need for money.

One of their chapters is entitled “How Much is Enough? The Nature of Fulfillment”. I wish I’d written it. Listen.

“What is fulfillment? Whether in the sense of accomplishing a goal or enjoying a moment of real contentment, fulfillment is that experience of deep satisfaction when you can say, Aaaahh…that was a delicious meal, a job well done, or a purchase worth the money. To find fulfillment, though, you need to know what you are looking for. It’s fairly easy to know what fulfillment is in terms of food or other temporary pleasures. But to have fulfillment in the larger sense, to have a fulfilled life, you need to have a sense of purpose, a dream of what a good life might be.”

In order to define purpose – the meaning you ascribe to actions, the authors tell this story:

“There were three stone cutters, each chipping away at a large block. A passerby approaches the first stonecutter and asks, “Excuse me, what are you doing?” The stonecutter replies rather gruffly, “I’m chipping away at this big hunk of stone. When asked the same question, the second stone cutter looks up with a mixture of pride and resignation and says, “Why, I’m earning a living to take care of my wife and children.” Moving to the third worker, our questioner asks, “And what are you doing?” The third stonecutter looks up, his face shining, and says with reverence, “I’m building a cathedral!”

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

The second answer I mentioned was a fear of scarcity. For folks who lived through the depression this may be a real fear based on experience, but what about people born after the 30’s?

· We learned this fear from our parents, who did live through the depression.

· Fear of scarcity is built into our advertising – even built into all aspects of society through competition, win/lose attitudes, hierarchical structures that allow only so much room at the top, etc.

· More significant, especially for Christians is that fear of scarcity is also built into some of our traditional theology.

Let me oversimplify for the sake of clarity. You know the old saw – that people can be divided into two groups, those who see the glass half-full, and those who see the glass half-empty. Well, Christians can be divided into two groups too – those who see the universe as abundant, full of good things for us to enjoy and for which we thank the creator unceasingly, and those who see it as a world full of sin, suffering, and scarcity, which by the way, we deserve.

These two views are sometimes called the Creation model and the Sin/Redemption model of Christianity. One grows out of the first story in Genesis, where God creates a beautiful and abundant universe, creates man and woman, and sees that it is all very good.

The other grows out of the second story in Genesis, where Adam and Eve are expelled from the abundance of the garden to eke out a living from the sweat of their labor.

Ever since the 5th Century, when Augustine formulated his interpretation of the Adam and Eve story into the doctrine of Original Sin, the Sin/Redemption model has dominated our tradition.

Matthew Fox brought this to public attention in the 80’s in a book called Original Blessing, where he articulates more fully the Creation model of Christianity and how threads of this view have always existed along with the dominant model. One of the tenets of the Creation model is that there is enough. There is enough food to feed the world, There is enough material for clothing. There’s enough love to go around. There’s enough of everything we need to live abundantly.

Why is it so hard for us to believe this? Think for a moment about which of your actions and choices might be different if you really, truly, believed that there’s enough of everything?

In his book, Conversations with God, Neal Donald Walsch says this: “The human consciousness of insufficiency – of “not enoughness” – is the root cause of all worry, all pressure, all competition, all jealousy, all anger, all conflict, and ultimately, all killing on your planet.”

I would add that this is also what allows politicians and demagogues to spread fear and hatred. If you consider the big debates in politics today, whether immigration, tax reform, or fights over the spending cuts and tax cuts, you will discover that a fear of scarcity and personal greed are driving factors.

The more I study the Gospels, the more I like the disciples. They’re just like us! O dear, O dear, they fret – how is this huge crowd going to get dinner? Let’s send them off to fend for themselves.

When Jesus tells them to feed the crowd, they are convinced that what they have is not enough. They are operating out of the scarcity model and this brings them worry and concern. Jesus, the Master, assumes that what they have will be enough. He gives thanks for what they have in blessing the food and gives it to the disciples for distribution. He has no worry.

Has anyone here been to a potluck where you actually ran out of food? If you’re the one in charge of a potluck next week, will you worry about running out? I would too, even though I know I shouldn’t.

While I’m much more often like the disciples than like Jesus, I have found that when I know what is enough for me, my needs are less than I’d thought. Does this make sense? If I pay attention and am mindful of what I really need, I discover I can live very well on less – less labor, less money, less food, less stuff, less worry.

The people gathered to hear Jesus teach were not focused on food for their bellies. They weren’t worried about their next meal – so all they ate was what they needed in order to stay in their places and listen to Jesus.

My purpose is not to explain away the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. Rather it’s to remind us that the miracle is available to us too. Try it and see. Cultivate mindfulness in the coming weeks by continually asking yourself two questions:

· What do I need for an abundant life?

· How much is enough?

When you have answered these questions fully, you can then ask the third: what in the world am I going to do with the 12 baskets full that are left over? AMEN

Lynn Naeckel +

PROPER 12, A, 7/24/11

Matthew13:31-33, 44-52

This Gospel reading has 6 parables in it, which is way too many to cover in one sermon. So I’m going to mainly talk about one. “The Kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

Baking bread is almost as old and primal as rocking a baby. It’s something we’re all familiar with to one extent or another, although the women may be more familiar with the details. Also, almost everyone agrees that this is an authentic saying of Jesus.

Notice that I changed the Kingdom of heaven to the Kingdom of God. This was intentional because the term heaven implies to most of us, something or somewhere that only happens after death. As John Crossan says, Jesus is not talking about someday, somewhere up in the sky, but is talking about the Kingdom being here . . . now.

These parables reinforce this notion because Jesus uses everyday things to attempt to describe it. No talk of golden streets or choirs of angels, but rather leaven, mustard seed, pearls, and fish. If we are people of the incarnation then we can understand that the divine is embodied not only in Jesus, but also in all of us and in things like yeast and mustard seeds.

The Kingdom of God is like yeast. So what does yeast do? When mixed with a small amount of flour and liquid, it transforms a small piece of dough into a large lump of dough. It transforms something small and heavy into something large and light. Think of the difference between bread made with yeast and bread that isn’t.

My grandmother taught me how to make bread many years ago. She was married in 1899 and seldom used a cook book or recipes. She cooked by touch and feel and smell. I had to follow her around the kitchen with pen and paper in hand writing down what she put in and what she did with it. She didn’t even use measuring spoons, so I had to guess (and later checked my quantities against several cook books – because I had to have a recipe!).

At several stages in the process she’d say, “Now Lynn, put your hands in this. Feel what it’s like? That’s how it’s supposed to feel.” I’ll never forget the amazement I felt when I watched and felt a lump of sticky dough be transformed into something smooth and elastic just by being kneaded. Who discovered that? I still wonder. . . Or the amazement when she uncovered the bowl where we stashed a small piece of dough only to discover the bowl was full to the top. Or the fun of punching that dough down again and rolling it out or shaping it into loaves.

The action of yeast in this process is a kind of miracle. In the Kingdom of God such a miracle is commonplace. When we follow the teachings of Jesus, or even just try to follow them, amazing things begin to happen. We are transformed by the experience of trying to let go of ego, greed, and selfishness. When we try to live our lives in love and peace, when we try to work for justice and equality, we find our burdens lighter. We find ourselves happier and more joyful. We find ourselves more useful. We walk lighter upon the earth. That’s why the Kingdom of God is like yeast.

But there’s more to this parable than that. Did you know that in the time Jesus lived, leaven was not actually yeast? In order to make leavened bread, old bread was left to spoil. If it wasn’t left long enough it wouldn’t work. If it was left too long it could also ruin the bread and might even result in food poisoning. Leaven can be fatal and only a small amount is needed. The three measures of flour mentioned in the parable is enough to feed a wedding feast.

Because leaven was created from something spoiled, it was considered unclean, and even somehow evil. It was related to the way corruption bloats dead bodies. At Passover, Jewish homes were not only cleaned, but all leaven was thrown out. This was not just to remember the Exodus, when the Jews had no time to bake regular bread for their journey and so took unleavened bread. It was also because leaven was considered unclean.

What must the listeners to Jesus have thought of this parable then? The Kingdom of God is like leaven? Once again, Jesus is subverting the common understanding of things to make a point. This is true with the mustard seed as well, because mustard was a weed, and no farmer in his right mind would willingly sow it in a field. Any such plants would be pulled up and destroyed at first sight.

Like so many other instances, Jesus is turning the world around. He takes something considered unclean and uses it to describe a new concept. As one commentator says, “These parables elevate convention-subverting persons and items to describe discipleship in the empire of God. Whatever else they mean, these parables hint that God’s empire, and therefore good citizenship in God’s realm – is fundamentally different from Rome’s.”

In a society that reflects the values of the Kingdom of God, the church and the society would work together. However, if a society resembles the empire of Rome, “expressing in its policies and budget the values of social inequality and redemptive violence, then helping people to adjust to this sick society is not the work of the Gospel.” Warren Carter writes in commenting on the parable of the yeast, “if a person is well adjusted in a sick society, corrupting is the only path to wholeness.” In other words, people who are comfortable in a corrupt society need to be corrupted in order to access the Kingdom of God. So the leaven is seen as necessary to transform not just people but also the society in which they live. Jesus uses this image of corruption and impurity to suggest a new reality, and that is the possibility of new life in the Kingdom of God, an alternative to their old life in the Empire.

The tradition of the church as most of us received it, is to use unleavened bread for communion bread. I always understood that this was because it was also to remind us of the Exodus. In the church today, it is often maintained because unleavened bread is much more neat and tidy than leavened bread. Those tasty wafers do not make crumbs to fall on the floor or to fall into the wine.

Today, however, we will use leavened bread, to remind us of this parable. If crumbs fall on the ground it is OK because it will be food for the birds. Also it should taste more like bread – like what we imagine when we talk about the bread of life. I hope you will also think of all those generations who cooked by feel, who fed their families with bread from the oven, and all those generations who also harvested and ground the grain to make the bread. Remember your roots in the land and give thanks for the harvest.

There’s an old comment about “being the Gospel” in other people’s lives – or that your life may be the only Gospel some people get to read. As disciples in the Kingdom of God we are also called to be yeast, to be leaven, to transform not only ourselves but our communities. And we don’t have to be perfect to do that! Thanks be to God!

Lynn Naeckel +

Proper 10, Year A Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

July 10, 2011

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER

Today, for the first time, I’m going to ask you to ignore the second half of the Gospel lesson you just heard. The lesson includes the parable of the sower followed by an explanation Jesus gave only to the disciples, not to the crowd. To accept the explanation is to limit our understanding of the parable, and besides, most scholars agree that the explanation was added to the text at a later time.

Jesus preaches in parables all the time and does not explain them. The technique is meant to pique the interest, engage the curiosity, and require some thought and consideration on the part of the audience. John Crossan talks about the parables as “lures” to be used by a fisher of people. As such they are liable to multiple interpretations, they are meant to keep people thinking, and to open their eyes to new possibilities.

To then state what each element means works against the whole technique by locking in only one understanding. So forget the explanation and let’s just consider the parable.

This parable is about a man who is sowing seed, but it is not about sensible farming practice. Please note that a good farmer would sow seeds only on good ground that’s been plowed and prepared. But this sower flings it everywhere, without regard for cost or for whether it is likely to grow or not.

Just this part is a wonderful image of God’s abundance, isn’t it? It could be an image of God’s love or grace, freely given to all, no matter in what condition, no matter how they live.

The parable goes on to say that the seeds that fell on the path were eaten by birds. I’m sure his audience knew as well as we do what happens to seeds that birds eat. They are deposited elsewhere, only God knows where, and fertilized in place.

Other seeds fell on rocky ground and could not take root. But anyone who lives in this granite country knows that a tiny seed that falls into a crack may in fact take root and in time may grow large enough to crack the rock. Such seeds are part of what transforms rocks into good soil!

Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew and choked them out. But who knows how many seeds may survive in spite of that and even one seed that survives can generate 50 seeds to return to the ground, because it will not be harvested. And over time who can say that the thorn patch will not be transformed into a wheat patch?

Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Now this would be a harvest beyond the imagining of any of Jesus’ hearers. According to Talitha Arnold, a commentator on this passage, a sevenfold harvest would be a good harvest in 1st century Palestine. Tenfold would mean abundance. Thirtyfold would feed a village for a year and a hundredfold would let the farmer retire to a villa by the Sea of Galilee!

So is this a miracle? Does it represent what can happen when God is involved in what we’re doing? However we may interpret it, once again we’re overwhelmed by the abundance it suggests.

I have long been aware of the amazing way that Christianity spread around the western world and beyond. I remember many of the reasons that historians give for this reality. But no matter how much history I read, it still seems slightly miraculous – that a small group of peasants in a remote corner of the Roman Empire could create and spread a new religion so far and wide that in a mere 300 years it became the official religion of that same empire.

Part of that miracle can be found in this parable, and I do believe that Jesus was intentionally teaching his followers a specific lesson about spreading the good news. Fling it everywhere. Don’t worry about whether the ground is good or not. Our job is to fling the seed. Let God worry about whether it works or not. Trust that the Holy Spirit is present in the flinging and in what happens after, but what happens is not under our control. We do not have to be perfect to fling the seed, nor do we have to do it perfectly. Just fling it!

I’ve learned this lesson on Sundays when I’ve preached something I thought was mediocre at best, only to discover that it was just what two or three people really needed to hear. While I mumble something like, “Thanks for telling me,” to the person who commented on the sermon, my internal voice is hollering, “That doesn’t make sense! What was there in this sermon that worked for them?” And of course the truth is that I haven’t a clue. What a great reminder that I am not in control! Nor do I need to be.

So what about you? Where have you learned this lesson? Oh, do not think that just because you don’t preach, you are off the hook. Any follower of Jesus is supposed to be a sower, a spreader of the good news. You may do that by example, by being the Good News in other people’s lives. You may do it by working to bring the Kingdom of God into life by serving others at the food shelf or the Clothes Closet or any other ministry of service: by visiting the sick or those in prison, by cooking meals for families in crisis, by knitting mittens for children in need, or providing mosquito nets for people in Africa.

None of this is work that guarantees salvation. Any more than baptism does. This is work that flows from our baptismal vows and from our desire to follow Jesus by loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves. This work does not make us perfect, but it helps us show forth the light of Christ in the world.

When we baptize Conner today we will light a candle for him as well. This represents one more person in the world who is committed to letting their light shine on others, their light that is a part of or a reflection of Christ’s light. Conner will be one more little light that pushes the darkness away, and he will become a sower too, a spreader of light and love and the good news to everyone.

Let that be our hope and our prayer for all of us, that we may all be spreaders of light and love and the good news to everyone. AMEN

Lynn Naeckel +

Preached at the Rainy Lake Visitor’s Center Picnic Grounds of Voyageurs National Park