Just What You Need

Exodus 16:2-15 

Matthew 20:1-16        

We have a bad habit of reading the Bible in all the wrong ways. We read stories as if they were instruction manuals when perhaps we should be seeing in them masterful paintings of what the world is like, what life is like. We read the epistles looking for universal truths instead of examples of how one particular community found a way to deal with their particular problem. We read the gospels looking for prescriptions for healing – take two of these and call me in the morning…but we come away feeling like our particular ailment can’t be found in the book. Or that the prescription just doesn’t work for us.

We have a bad habit of looking for gifts in the Bible that God never even intended to give us. And so we say things like, “God helps those who help themselves. And you know God never gives you more than you can handle. Cheer up; for your good deeds, you will be rewarded. Alas, the Lord works in mysterious ways, and this too shall pass. But remember, ask and you shall receive – if you have faith the size of a mustard seed.”

So, what’s the matter? Maybe you just need a little more faith. Maybe you need to try harder.

And so you do. You work a little harder. You give yourself little pep talks. You step carefully around all the cracks. You avoid questions that you fear might have no answers. And you keep digging, looking for a verse – just a verse, that’s all you want – to find that something that is just the right recipe, that is just what you need.

Sometimes you second-guess yourself. Maybe you shouldn’t have moved and taken that new job. Should you go back? Maybe you should have called her. Maybe you tried to do too much. Maybe you didn’t try hard enough.

The weight gets to feeling so heavy. Every day can feel so hard – when things don’t seem right, when heaven seems so far away. When the people you love are suffering. When you are suffering. When everyone around you is suffering. What are we doing wrong? or, what are they doing wrong?

There are moments, days, weeks, even long years, when you just feel lost…severed from all that matters. All that gives you meaning.

So what do you do? You call the doctor. You try a new exercise program. You scour the self-help section of the bookstore. You read your Daily Bread and Upper Room devotionals looking to decode the magical message written on the pages. There must be a solution. There must be a way for me to fix it.

There must be, because we know that we are on our own here. We have to do this ourselves. No one else knows, no one else will. No one else even cares to hear about your troubles. What is that thing we all say when anyone asks how we’re doing? We say we can’t complain. No one wants to hear it.

We all know we are the only ones who are responsible for our situations. We know it’s all up to us. We learned it at a young age – everyone needs to learn to take care of themselves. Every man, woman, and dog for themselves. So pull yourself up by your bootstraps; you want it?  earn it.

You have said these things to yourself. You have probably said some of these things to someone else. You have told your children to grow up. If you are as bad as me, you might have said that to your three-year-old.

Because, face it: it’s a dog-eat-dog world and like Naomi in the Old Testament story of Ruth, there are days when I want to say, “Call me bitter, for that’s who I am now.”

And then somebody looks at me and really sees me. Someone offers me a cup of coffee. Or takes a walk with me. Somebody actually wants to listen to my lament; defying the conventional wisdom that no one cares, somebody cares. Somebody shows me they do care. Someone is willing to be there. Not trying to fix it. Not trying to contradict it or deny it. just being there. That’s when I see that glimmer of hope.

Just when you think it’s all lost, God tells you, I’ve got just what you need today. Enough for today. Every day.

And if you can remember that, it’s all you need. You don’t need all the other words I have said. 

But, just for good measure…just in case…I offer you these words from the poet Wendell Berry, who can say anything so much better than I can:

So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.

Love the Lord. Love the world.  Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

…

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Expect the end of the world.

Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable.

Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.

 

Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts. Because the fact is, today and every day, God’s got just what you need. 

*Wendell Berry quote excerpted from  "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front"

Operating Instructions

 

Psalm 149

Matthew 18:15-20      

This past week I was reading an article in Christianity Today about things that are going on in the Southern Baptist Convention. A few years ago, you may remember, there was a lot of news about acts of abuse by pastors that had taken place in Southern Baptist churches. The victims of abuse were speaking out and the denomination as a whole was forced to confront it. Last year at their annual meeting they voted for reforms that would make them more effective in addressing, and hopefully preventing, cases of abuse. That was a good move.

But it turned out the move was controversial in its own right. Some protested that it was unfair, that it was inappropriate, that it was too expensive, or that it was suspect in some way. It grew into a messy conflict-ridden problem. And this year at their annual meeting, it was almost as though they had decided to forget all about the matter. This year they were all about reasserting the commitment to male eldership, as they call it. Which means enforcing rules against women in leadership roles. They even removed certain congregations from their denomination – they call it disfellowshipping – because these churches have women leaders.

To use a term that session has been playing with lately, I would call that a squirrel: something that snatches our attention away from the task at hand. Maybe even a distraction that we intentionally create for the purpose of avoiding the real problem. The problem of abuse in the church was something they found very difficult, understandably. So they dug up an old favorite, dusted it off, and decided it was the most important issue of the day.

There is much more I could say about these issues, but today I only want to raise the point that we are very good at distractions, and we are not very good at dealing with conflicts. It’s true for Southern Baptists, it’s true for Presbyterians, it’s true for people, as a rule. We don’t know how to deal with conflict.

Our denomination has a book of rules, it’s a part of our constitution. We call it the Book of Order. It covers all kinds of things: how we govern ourselves, how we worship, how we handle membership, and what we do when a pastor or an elder crosses a line and harms someone or the church as a whole.

Or, in the words of Jesus in this passage, when a member sins against you.

This episode in Matthew is the only place we see Jesus speak about the church. And, actually, “church” is not the word that Jesus would have used because there was not yet a church. That came years later when the followers of Jesus moved outside the realm of Judaism. Whatever word he used when he spoke of these matters, what is most important is that he was talking about how communities manage conflict.

Jesus tries to make it simple, breaking it down into three easy steps. First, approach the one who has caused offense. Let them know how they have caused harm. And if that works, great. Problem solved.

But if it does not, go to step 2: bring a couple of other people with you to be witnesses. Sometimes that will work in bringing an offender to repentance. But if it doesn’t, go to step 3, which is basically to take it to the authorities. Let the church deal with this person.

Nowhere do Jesus’ instructions say: take it out to the parking lot. Nowhere does he say: go home and yell at the kids, kick the dog, have a few drinks – you’ll feel better. Jesus clearly tells us: when you have a problem? Deal with it.

He has to tell us this, because most of the time we are so bad at it. Most of the time we avoid directly dealing with a conflict as if it were electrified. Most of the time we would rather put our head in the sand or find a squirrel.

Someone once told me that if a church says they don’t have any conflicts, that means they have conflict all the time. Because if they aren’t dealing with it, it’s always just under the surface.

I think maybe we avoid conflict so religiously because we are afraid of the harm that could come from facing it. Explosions, fights, grenades. But then perhaps we are failing to understand the Jesus method for conflict management. Which is something that involves patience and love, forgiveness and repentance and reconciliation.

And if you get to step 3 in Jesus’ operating instructions, and the offender still doesn’t budge, then he says “treat that one like a Gentile or a tax collector.”

And don’t forget that Jesus built his church out of Gentiles and tax collectors.

The steps may be simple but that doesn’t make it easy. The good news is that Jesus is right by our side through it all. For when two or three are gathered in my name, he says, I am with them.

Thanks be to God.

Squirrel! Photo by Maddie Franz: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-squirrel-on-gray-tree-trunk-1571117/

Together

 

Psalm 105

Romans 12:9-21

During the years I was serving as a campus minister there were a variety of different Christian student groups, and I got to know some of the young adults who were active in the others. Our ministry focused primarily on learning and worship and fellowship. But there were other groups that focused on evangelizing. One of the students who was very active in one of those groups shared with me some stories about his evangelizing. He and another student went door to door in the dorms to invite others to join them for Bible study.

They didn’t get a lot of yeses. In fact, they faced a lot of angry people who would say things like, “You Christians are such hypocrites! You say one thing and do another.” That wasn’t unusual. But what was unusual was the way these two young men responded to it. They’d say, “yes, you are right. We say one thing and do another. We don’t live up to our hopes and expectations. We sin and fall short of the glory of God. We know that. We’re just trying to do better. And we want to invite you to join us in trying to do better.”

These guys were responding to the skeptics in unexpected ways. They were, essentially, confessing their sin to them.

It’s not unlike another story I heard about Christian students at a college in Oregon. Finding themselves in a distinct minority on a campus that was largely hostile toward Christianity, they decided to set up a confession booth during a college festival. But it was the opposite of what was expected. The Christian students invited others to sit down and hear the Christians confessing the sins of the church. They were saying to the non-Christians “I’m sorry” for the ways you have been hurt by the church.

It’s a little disarming, isn’t it?

And it is much like what Paul is exhorting the Roman Christians to do.

Unlike most of his other churches Paul wrote to, the church in Rome was not one that he had founded. In fact, Paul had probably never even visited Rome. But he knew this church and the problems they were facing simply because they were very human problems: the biggest challenge to peace and harmony is the fact of other people. If it weren’t for other people, we all could get along just fine.

Have you ever met someone who didn’t have tensions with other people now and then? If you actually have known someone like that, you probably thought they were really weird. When I think of the most angelic human I have ever known, someone whom everyone thought of as a saint, I remember the time she sat down with me and let me know how angry she felt at people who didn’t understand her ministry of serving the poor in our community. This saint, she would get really angry sometimes. Because she was human.

Like churches everywhere, the church in Rome was facing great challenges learning to live together in peace. Paul was concerned, because he loved them. But also because he knew if these tensions could not be addressed there would be great harm to the further growth and health of the church. How could they move outward and invite new people into the family if there was so much trouble within the family?

And so Paul wrote to the church attempting to counsel them without judging. Without taking sides. Showing love and honor to all the members. And here we see he is asking them to do the same.

Hate what is evil, he says, but let love be genuine. Love one another. Give. Bless. Honor. Rejoice. Overcome evil with good. There is no telling who he thought was perpetrating evil in the community, but it is likely everyone had their share in it.

It is a constant struggle the church faces, to live the way Paul encourages, the way Jesus teaches. But if we stop struggling…if we let these words become empty phrases, platitudes, that’s when we hear others say, “You Christians; you’re such hypocrites.”

The problems of the Roman church are no different, really, from the problems of the church anywhere. Sometimes it is hard to get along. Hard to show love. Hard to  avoid judging. Hard to be humble.

But do these things, Paul says, and you will heap burning coals on their heads. Not literally, of course, because he has just forbidden them to engage in any kind of retribution. What he is saying is something like “kill them with kindness.”

Again, not literally killing them, of course. Just a little humor to help the medicine go down.

Because it is not easy to follow Christ’s teachings. It is not easy to be Christlike. It is not easy to be the church. But it is good, and as many times as we fail, we must try and try again.

And so we do the kinds of things that we have going on today. We baptize children into the family of Christ, and we make promises to love them and care for them, guide them toward Jesus. And we send our children out into the world with our prayers and our blessings, and our tokens meant to remind them always that they are never alone, that we are all in this together with them. And we take the time to meet as a body and elect and ordain new leaders in our congregation with our gratitude and our prayers.

And may we never let the words we say be empty promises.

In everything we do, if we follow Christ’s way, we seek to live peaceably, to love one another, to respond to hate with love. We will never claim that it is easy or that we have it all under control – because it isn’t, and we don’t. We will never get it just right, but if we keep on working toward authentic love, we will be blessed with blessings enough to share.