How This Worked

Matthew 13 is dense. In a single chapter we get the Sower (which we sat with two weeks ago), the Wheat and the Weeds (last week), and then, in rapid succession this week: the Mustard Seed, the Yeast, the Treasure Hidden in a Field, and the Pearl of Great Price and then more talk of old and new treasure. That's a lot of Reign of God in one sitting.

Pete Rollins is an Irish philosopher and theologian whose book The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales (Paraclete Press) does something strange and valuable: it writes new parables in the spirit of Jesus. They're short. They're disorienting. They don't resolve neatly. They're designed to interrupt the way you thought you understood something. 

So this week, instead of me standing up and explaining what these parables mean or do, I chose four of Rollins' parables that pralleled the parables presented to us by Jesus in the Gospel reading for the day, broke into groups, asked each group to decide how to share their parable with the rest of the room, and then reflect on a couple brief questions to help them gather some noticings about what the parable might be highlighting for us today. While reporting back, I took some time to write some of their highlights down on our Altar. A Collective sermon, taking dimension, at our shared table.

Below: What each group worked with, and some of what emerged.

 
Group One: The Invisible Prophet and the Yeast 

Rollins' "Invisible Prophet" (No. 9 in *The Orthodox Heretic*) follows a prophet whose messenger and message is so beautiful that the hearers admire the beauty without actually receiving the message. The word is present. People are "drenched" in admiring it. Yet, it is simply not visible as word to people not yet prepared to hear it that way, and in the end people joyfully dance their way into destruction.

Jesus' Yeast parable places a small amount of leaven into an absurd quantity of flour. Matthew specifies three measures, which works out to roughly sixty pounds. Sixty pounds. This is not a dinner party. This is a transformation so large it becomes hard to picture.

What came out in the wash: The prophet's message alone won't do it. The yeast alone won't do it. What makes the Reign of God perceptible in both instances is the interdependence of what is small and hidden with what is large and ready to receive it. Rollins, in his commentary: "we hear the word by living it out, rather than merely rejoicing in its eloquence." The leaven has to meet the flour. The prophet has to be heard by people willing to be changed, not just moved. Otherwise you get sixty pounds of flour sitting there, admired, and unchanged. Or, people dancing to their destruction, joyfully, and utterly without the transformation that would provide abundant life.

Also notable: a couple of my members resonated with the challenges of being a woman in the workplace, and the struggles of how or whether you're beautiful, or beautiful enough. This is a whole other sermon I would have loved to have preached... ah, another day!

This group told us Rollins' parable via words, with a brief overview.

​Group Two: Translating the Word and the Mustard Seed

Rollins' "Translating the Word" (No. 3) follows Sophia, who received a vision and whose dream was to print literal copies of scripture for all. However, she does so much work raising money for this project and is, twice over, met with catastrophe. She chooses to spend the raised money on people in need, each time--materially providing relief, care, and sustenance to those around her. Finally, just before she dies, she manages to print hard copies of scripture. But, people say that the most beautiful versions of scripture all along were the first two. The theological move: the word is not transmitted through speech acts alone. It becomes visible only through transformation and relationship.

Jesus' Mustard Seed does something similar. A tiny seed, source of flavor, potentially medicinal in use, grows and transforms into many things over it's lifespan. The Reign of God visible, not through announcement, but through transformation, through interdependence and being many different things at different points in time.

What came out in the wash: ​what begins as an idea or an intuition has to become materially experienced to be real. Rollins writes: "it is impossible to affirm God's word apart from becoming that word." The mustard plant does not announce its sheltering capacity. It just grows, does what it do, and the people and birds find it useful. Is it useful if no one is using it? Manifesting the Reign of God is not a speech act or strict following of one singular idea. It is a participation, diversification, and again interdependence. 

This group told us the story as one member used physical movement via her own self to illustrate. It was quite engaging!

Group Three: Mansions and the Treasure Hidden in a Field

Rollins' "Mansions" (No. 27) catches the disciples dreaming about the beautiful rooms promised in the Father's house. Most are oriented toward those rooms, dreaming about them. But, one person on the outer edges wonders whether there's room for them in this scene. They ask Jesus, quietly, about this- stating tha they dont need or particularly care about mansions. This person discovers that there is space, in fact the space that's there for them is right alongside Jesus. Everyone else missed this, busy seeking and dreaming of their various mansion rooms.

Jesus' Treasure in a Field is the parable I find most confrontational in this set. A man finds treasure buried in a field, reburies it, sells everything he has, and buys the field. He is not divesting for the sake of the poor. He is divesting to acquire new treasure, hopefully more valuable than what he had prior. And this new treasure is literally buried in the ground. Seemingly, he's interested in keeping it for himself, as he doesnt tell the land owner what he's found- he just purchases the land with the intention of personally benefitting. The whole operation is possession-oriented, with no opportunity for those inchoate bits of the Reign of God to take off beyond this individual owner.

What came out in the wash: Particularly noticeable was the sense of being the one on the outside. We fall so easily into what you might call a poverty of affluence, a kind of loneliness that comes not from having too little but from spending all our energy acquiring and possessing. The disciples in Rollins' story, asleep and dreaming of their rooms, miss the simple and enormous thing: there is room for you, and that is where Jesus is. Not in the room you've acquired. In the room that has already been made. But being that one on the outside, with Jesus or no, is also tough.

This group drew pictures to illustrate Rollins' story.

Group Four: Pearl and the Pearl of Great Price

Rollins' "Pearl" (No. 6) gives us a Jesus telling the story of the merchant who acquires the pearl of great price by selling everything to purchase this pearl. A woman listening in the back of the crowd, notes that this is a pradox. Once the pearl is aquired, the purchaser has removed themselves from the entire economy in which the pearl has value. No resources for any food, housing, etc. It's all been spent on aquiring the pearl. The merchant is holding something beautiful and useless.  They can either have the pearl, or have all these other things by continuing to engage in this economy, but they can't have both at the same time. So. they've (intentionally? unintentionally?) divested themselves from the whole entire existing economy, in favor of one pearl being simply enough.

Jesus' version does something similar. The merchant sells everything for one pearl. But a pearl only has value if you sell it. This merchant is done selling. Which means they have walked out of the entire market. The treasure is not the next best asset. The treasure is the transformation that happens when you pursue it with everything you have.

What came out in the wash: Possession does not make someone wealthy. Possession has the power to transform what wealth even means, if what you end up holding is something that disrupts your participation the whole economy you were operating in as a merchant. The group also spoke of whether or not this pearl is shared among many, versus kept for oneself. Rollins wrote: "poverty is not the first step toward the Reign of God. It is the very place where we find God." Not intentional deprivation, mind you, and not manufactured scarcity, but the kind of poverty that comes from voluntarily divesting from economies built on the accumulation and ownership of other people, other lands, other lives (all of which are also built on variations of oppression).

This group gave us the story via overview. It was the closest to the original parable, so they didn't have to work too hard to get everyone to know the trajectory of the plot. ;) 

What All Four Had in Common

As the groups reported back, I wrote key words and phrases on paper as each one shared. That paper was covering the altar. I want to come back to that in a moment.

But first, here is what I noticed across all four stories:

• Something is embodied but not automatically heard or seen. The leaven is there. The prophet is speaking. More is required for the inchoate Reign of God to take form and transform.
• Something becomes visible only through transformation, growth, and interdependence. The mustard seed. Sophia's dream of making scripture available to people. Aiming for one singular goal only and ignoring the whole of the world in the process does not allow for the Reign of God to take shape.
• Something keeps many locked in a holding pattern of possession and valuation, dreaming about rooms in the sky while missing the person right in front of us. It's the person who's never possessed or experienced that level of possession who questions whether there's room, and discovers that room is right beside Jesus.
• And something disrupts the kind of possession focus, not by taking things away, but by replacing the whole existing method of engaging with the economy with something that, once purchased, has no value without re-engaging in the selling (and therefore losing the thing). So, the purchaser stays out of the game if they choose to keep the pearl.

The Reign of God, in all four of these stories, becomes perceptible through embodied participation and interdependent relationship. Economies of possession and spectacle easily obscure what is already present. Divesting from possessive economies is not the path to the Reign of God, as Rollins points out: It is the Reign of God. Or, to put it differently: words of God or Jesus are just words, lovely as they can be. It's the three-dimensionality of living them that makes them uniquely life-giving.

The Sermon Was Already Happening

Back to that paper on the altar.
It wasn't a facilitation trick. It became the sermon, hidden right there in the flesh of the room, made in real time, requiring all of us and this particular morning together to exist. You could try to take it home. You could try to own it. But without all of us and our various particularities, without the specific presence of that room on that morning, it would quickly lose whatever made it matter. (It does, for sure- it's sitting in my office now as I write this...and...without having been there Sunday morning it's near impossible for it to seem meaningful).

That is what the parables keep insisting on: the Reign of God is visible only through participation, real only through interdependence, and it cannot be possessed without opting to remove oneself from many different systems that establish what is or is not valuable.

There are a hundred potential takeaways from a Sunday like this. As I said to the community gathered on Sunday, I am going to let you pick the one you need this week. At the center of all of them, though, is this: the Reign of God is not just an intellectual proposition. It is something bodily, participatory, and already underway. Inchoate in all, and waiting for three dimensionality to grow. And we are invited to notice it, and join in.

with joy,
​Pr. Sam

The Rule That Started It
A couple of years ago, I heard an interview with two women, one Muslim and one Jewish, both working for peace in Israel and Palestine, amid borders that are sites of grief, memory, danger, and a whole lot of contested questions about rightness and wrongness. At one point in the conversation, they turned to justice. And one of the women said something that really stuck with me:

Work toward goodness. But don't try to enact God's judgment. I think that isn't too far from what we received in today's parable.

The Efficient Solution Nobody Gets to Try
A field, planted with good seeds. Some enemy comes in the night and scatters weeds among the wheat. The plants begin to grow, the workers notice what's happened, and they want to do what seems like the entirely reasonable thing: fix it. Get the weeds out before they ruin the wheat. And there are layers on that impulse worth naming:

Protect what we've worked for. Make our work easier. Weeds slow everything down. Use resources only for the right plants, the deserving ones. Weeds will benefit from everything we're pouring into the wheat, and they haven't earned that.

{Smirk.}

This is logic that sounds a lot like market efficiency, doesn't it? The field owner has a different idea: let the weeds grow. Tend all of it.

Why? Because if you go ripping out weeds, you'll destroy the wheat too.

That's practically wise, yes. Protect the crop. But notice what the workers are actually being asked to do: continue tending a field where they no longer get to decide who receives the conditions for growth. They don't get to reserve nourishment only for what they've already deemed useful.

And let's be clear: this owner is not going for neutrality. "Let them grow" is not permission to abandon the vulnerable, ignore harm, or wait passively for someone else (read: God) to show up and handle it. There is still work to do in this field. The difference is between continuing to work toward good fruit and appointing ourselves the final judges of what is and isn't wheat.

Because here's the brutal part: we aren't always right about what we think we're seeing. Sometimes, we are very wrong. Sometimes, our weed is someone else's wheat.

The Plant That Looked Just Like the Other Plant Gets To Grow
Scholars believe the weeds Jesus is referring to in this parable were darnel, a plant that looks almost identical to wheat when it's young. And the challenge with darnel isn't just visual. Its roots can become entangled with whatever is growing around it. Pull one, you pull the other.

That desire to fix a problem the moment you spot it isn't unreasonable. In our modern world, we actually applaud it. Not wasting time on blame, quickly identifying paths to solutions. That's admirable. It keeps us productive. It keeps the market moving.

But this landowner says: no. Pulling up the weeds is not the way to handle this. Because you might pull up the wheat. You might destroy something that is still in the process of becoming.

You might look at a person in one moment of their life and decide that that moment tells you everything about them. You'd be wrong. The seemingly good may turn out not good at all. And the seemingly hopeless may turn out utterly beautiful.

That's what I find most remarkable about this parable. We are being told that rather than swinging down with swift judgment as fast as possible, we get to grow. We get to keep growing. We are not frozen into a singular moment or place in time.

God does not look at the worst we have done, the cruelest we have been, the moments when fear took the wheel, and declare that nothing new can ever grow here. We get to continue becoming. And in turn, we are expected to extend that same grace well beyond ourselves.

(And yes, I know. Exerting judgment all over ourselves is an excellent warm-up for doing the very same to others.)

What the Christian Church Has Done With Judgement
The Christian church has caused enormous harm every time it has ruled itself and the world with overly heavy judgment, imagining itself capable of sorting these fields. We've named some people wheat. Some people weeds.

We've tried to uproot queer folks and their bodies. So thoroughly. So violently, that now we find ourselves scrambling to say "actually, this is okay." Which is, when you sit with it, a deeply strange thing to have to say. If anything, the 180 we owe isn't "we've decided this is acceptable now." The 180 we owe is a simple, clear and plain: "We were wrong from the beginning. Very, very, very wrong."

We've tried to uproot Indigenous practices. Disabled bodies. Neurodivergent thinking patterns. A whole host of religious differences and theological disagreements. Again and again, laying down our judgments in clever costumes we call things like "justice," "communal wellbeing," "God's will." "fairness."

Claiming to defend God's field has resulted in the destruction of living wheat so many times. And so Jesus gives us a rule of thumb that echoes that interview I heard years ago: work for what is good. Protect people from harm. Tell the truth about injustice. But do not mistake your judgment for God's justice.

The Uncomfortable Question For All Of Us
​I could tie this up here. A gentle close: leave room for your neighbor's growth, even when you'd rather not count them as a neighbor. Because the field still belongs to God, and thank goodness, God is not finished growing anything just yet.

But, as scholar Amy-Jill Levine will gladly remind us, one of the hallmarks of a Jesus parable is that it's supposed to leave every single one of us a little uncomfortable. And in this case, here's one aspect of what we're being asked to sit with:

Look at how generous this field owner is. Resources are not being withheld from the weeds. Whatever their final status may turn out to be, the workers are not permitted to use their own judgment to decide who receives what's needed for growth. Both weeds and wheat will be allowed to grow. The field owner trusts that in the end, things will be sorted as necessary. As things stand now, all receive care.

That command to let the field grow is not permission to sit comfortably by while people suffer. It is, however, a reminder to pay very close attention to what it is we think we're doing, and what we might be camouflaging as we go about it.

So if that's the case:
Where are you and I prepared to uproot, or to refuse the conditions for growth, in the name of righteousness? In the name of judgment dressed up as justice? In the name of our more modern word, *fairness*?

Fairness by whose standards, when the field owner says: we all get to grow?

with joy,
Rev. Sam

I am so tired of waiting.
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two--
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.

The Artist Who Listened for Something More

There's a story my teacher John Flaherty used to tell about a large church event held in an arena.
It was a big event. More than 500 people.

A couple commissioners had ordered new custom communion ware for the event. They met with an artist and explained exactly what they wanted: cups, a chalice, everything needed for communion in this enormous arena setting. The artist listened to all of their requests. Listened. Nodded.

Then, as the date got closer, they kept contacting the artist. Are they ready yet? No. Not yet. Finally, in the eleventh hour, the artist said the pieces were ready, come and get them.

The commissioners went to pick them up and discovered that the cups and chalice were nothing like what they had requested.

Instead of a chalice, the artist had made a collection of small bowls. And when they used them for communion, they discovered that the bowls could not simply be passed from one person to another by the rim or handed over at a polite distance. Hands had to touch hands. People had to move closer to one another. The way those bowls were made transformed this huge arena into an intimate experience of Jesus at table, into hands remaining open for receiving (rather than grasping at the stem of a chalice, despite the enormity of the room.

The artist had listened to the commissioners. But apparently, the artist had also listened, and noticed the need for something more—like what mattered most for the greater field of people involved in this communion celebration. And those two things were not asking for the same thing. The artist noticed something the commissioners had missed. The commissioners knew what they wanted. The artist was paying attention to what was needed.

And the artist was willing to take on some disruption and conflict to do it. And the room was willing to be interrupted into a new experience. And in the end- well, people enjoyed being at table with Jesus.

So what did the artist notice that everyone else had missed?

What Forms Us
My area of study — Affect Theory — asks a deceptively simple question: *What forms us?* Not just ideas, but relationships, environments, habits, institutions, the spaces we inhabit and design, intentional or unintentional.

Everything is forming us in one way or another. And we are also forming all the things. This is not necessarily an equal playing field — but it *is* an ecological field, and we, and all of our systems and concepts and creation, are all players.

For example: I came across a thinker recently who said, "Capitalism turns autonomy into isolation, then tells us that consent is the only thing that matters."

And if we accept that as an accurate statement, that thinker is saying that capitalism is forming us. It does not just sell us things. It trains us to see our whole ecology, our entire relational field, as a market. It teaches us to ask: What works? What succeeds? What produces the best return? What can I choose? What can I control? What can I buy, once the relationships and support systems that might inhibit my autonomy have been stripped away?

This kind of affective setting, this market-shaped way of seeing and being, can take the story about the artist and turn it into a story of rugged individualism. *The artist heard the muse's call and responded!*

It can take Hughes' poem and turn it into the story of the bleeding-heart poet, continuously wounded by an inherently imperfect world full of pain, willing to wound the world further just to try to understand.
Poor chap.*

This kind of autonomous, isolated setting, where we prize individual choice and then purchase what markets tell us matters, forms us — making it nearly impossible to recognize the inner workings of stories like the one about the artist, or Hughes' poem, or Jesus' rather difficult parables.

Wrong Question, Wrong Gospel
So. This difficult, paradoxical story from Jesus in Matthew.

In a market-driven setting, we lean into the idea that obviously we just need to focus on what kind of soil we need to be, right? Because it's about optimal conditions. And that explanation is literally handed to us in scripture! (Gee thanks, Matthew—though many scholars think this explanation reflects Matthew's community more than Jesus' original telling.)

Or another take: what kind of soil we should cultivate, right? Another obvious recipe for a successful church. Again, optimal conditions.

Or-here's a creative take-skip the soil! What kind of gardener are we?! Again, recipe for a successful church or community. Lots of control and autonomy. Lots of concern about where our efforts will produce the greatest returns.

But here's the thing: Notice the concepts every one of those interpretations is quietly holding onto:
Who deserves?
Who is good?
Where will investment yield?
...They're all centering around an economy of scarcity.

There's not much participation in the ecological field of becoming together with the seemingly frivolous sower of seeds, when you're operating under a scarcity model where we quickly label things and try to predict outcomes. There isn't much attention given to sensing what that sower is actually up to in this economy. What we have, instead, is scarcity and pre-programmed labeling and categorizing as ways of living.

When was the last time you were in an environment where you were told there isn't enough to go around, and there was lots of labeling and categorizing of people, and it *really* helped everyone—you included— generously grow and explore?

...

Yeah. Same for me. That's about what I thought.
Not really productive for any of us. And since Jesus says he's here for abundant life for all, I say all those interpretations are (while historically very present, and apparently important at one point in time) keeping us in servitude to systems that won't set or keep us free, today.

We Are All of It
So then what is this about? Why the artist story and the Hughes poem and the Affect Theory concept on top of the Gospel text?

I think today, we're presented with a field of relationality situation.

Not relativism, mind you, but an issue of faithful, living discipleship that must be open to interruption. Or, in Hughes' words, curiously looking to "see what worms are eating at the rind" —and willingly opting to respond with unanticipated generous disruption, right along with that ridiculously generous Sower throwing seeds all over the place with no concern for potential returns.

Because if we're willing to be honest with ourselves:
We're all the different kinds of soils.
We're also all the birds and creatures picking away at those seeds sown.
And we're all the different seeds — even (maybe often) the ones who gave up when the going got rough.

None of these is a permanent identity. Yet, we have all played every role in this story, and all of it-- the roles we've been told about, the interpretations we carry, the ways we label ourselves-- this whole big interdependent relational field of us and everything else? All of it is forming us. All of it is shaping how we think and act and go about being in the world. We may not even be noticing. We may even be formed to not notice in more than a few cases.

In the face of that (overwhelming, honestly) reality, what is this environment doing to faithful discipleship? How might we be the faithful disciples we proclaim we intend to be?

It's a sticky situation. Just think again about that list of interpretations we looked at. Every one of them is rooted in an economy of scarcity. Winner/loser. Every one carries some variation of more life for some than others based on more correctness or less, more profitability, or less, more attractiveness, or less. All of which lines up beautifully with the logic of markets. But it does not line up with this wildly generous, even somewhat embarrassingly irresponsible seed-sower who disruptively, frankly, tosses their seeds all over the place and lets what happens happen.

The sower refuses to calculate who or what is deserving. The sower refuses to limit possibilities. The sower doesn't look for ideal market trends. The sower seems to know that simply scattering the seeds will have its effects on that relational field, and so the sower goes along, ridiculously tossing out plenty of seeds all over the place with abandon.

The point here isn't self-classification and a confirming pat on the back, or a needling until we can back-pat ourselves for following the ideal rules and achieving the ideal labels (like we could, anyway, in this context?).

The point is attention: "Let those who have ears hear"

Attention to what is actually happening in the relational field we're living in. Attention to what we are receiving. Attention to what we are choking out. Attention to what we are picking up and devouring before it even takes root. Attention to the wildly generous Sower's scattering, everywhere.

Everything is forming us. Faithfulness is choosing the kind of attention that allows us to join God's absurd, disruptive generosity—attention to what draws us out of isolation, attention to what deepens communion, attention until we notice all the little changes and interruptions and disruptions rippling throughout this relational field we live in, welcome and unwelcome. And then choosing to generously join in.

Generous Disruption, Rippling Outward
I think so often of that artist who defied all the requests made of them and changed a whole arena's worth of people's experience of Jesus in the process.

Attention to what was needed, what mattered, to the disruption the Sower was sowing resulted in generous disruption further down the line, right alongside the Holy Spirit, via simple bowls with (consecrated) liquid in them, passed between human hands.

That artist changed my teacher John (who was one of the commissioners, and told me the story), and me through John telling me the story. I can't even tell you how many more, considering how often John —and now I— have retold it.

The artist paid attention to the commissioners and the whole relational field they were situated in. They were attentive to the needs, and they noticed the opportunity for disruptive generosity, and were themselves willing to take on that chance of engaging in more generous disruption. And then that little generous disruption became an even more generous disruption, rippling outward—for the sake of deeper communion that changed people.

We need this. This world *needs* this.

I would say this world is even begging for this kind of faithful discipleship. Discipleship that is not only willingly interrupted by what matters, but then willingly responds with (admittedly costly) generous disruption right along with that ridiculously generous Sower who doesn't seem to give a damn about the rules of wisdom concerning where we will get the best returns, or where it would be most wise to plant the seeds. The sower who keeps tossing the seeds out there all over the place, refusing calculation because they seem to trust that generosity and relational fields are far more fertile than what a market can predict.

God is scattering possibilities throughout the whole entire field of relationality that we're living in. We can't even escape it if we want to.

So perhaps faithful discipleship begins with refusing to wait passively for the right soil and optimal conditions. And instead, faithful discipleship begins with embracing the disruptions God is already throwing our way — responding with generous disruption right along with that absurdly frivolous seed-Sower.

As for me? In the ever-wise, and truly inspired, words of Langston Hughes:

A Stranger Walks In
So, as those who were with us and using the worship aids noticed, we received our new printer this past Tuesday. This is huge. I am thrilled to be able to print better worship aids that allow everyone to see more clearly! 

The installation went pretty smoothly. I gave our old Ricoh a genuine goodbye gesture that made the folks doing the install awkwardly chuckle, and then I left them to their work as I handled some other things in the office.

Somewhere in there, someone came in—phone blaring some kind of talk radio—and headed straight for the bathroom. I didn't see the face. I assumed it must be someone who knows us somehow.

Eventually, this person came out of the restroom, and he asked whether the tech and I knew the story of Joseph. (Yes, Joseph as in, the amazing technicolor Dreamcoat Joseph.)  This person continued on, explaining to us how Joseph was "promoted" because he was a Strong Man who Refused Pharaoh's Wife's Advances (that evil whore, you know—God rewards manly strength, and punishes the wicked and all). I was nodding and listening.

Then, our new friend moves forward into talking about how Joseph is the ONLY person in the bible held captive, AND promoted. He continues on, making a connection between Joseph's dreams and the book of Daniel, and then makes some connections to the book of Revelation.

I was standing there listening. Nodding. He was regularly saying to me: "You know what I am talking about, right? I mean, this is very simple."

For a brief moment, as he was speaking, I wondered whether I should introduce myself and let him know I'm the pastor here. I had the sense that might bother him, so I just didn't do it. By this point, he was telling me about how he so wants the scrolls of Revelation to be broken open because he wants the world to be filled with good, righteous, Godly people. His desire was genuine. He clearly wanted to see the earth filled with goodness and was pained at the wickedness he's experienced all around him.

He asks me once again whether I'm getting what he's saying, and reminds me once again it's very simple, what he's saying. I take my opportunity here to interject: "You know — for many of us, Revelation isn't about predicting the end of the world. It's about helping us find strength in remaining faithful, even when the world feels like it's ending."

He responded, telling me that he knows what Revelation is about.

So I interjected one more time and said, "We may have some theological differences here. For many of us, the goal is not the end of the world — it's to help God's world flourish—"

He let me know that he could already tell by the "colored" flags outside that this is not a true house of worship, that we're clearly intentionally misleading people—we're part of the wicked problem, because you know what Jesus said about... And before he could finish, the anger in me finally bubbled over, and I spoke right over him, telling him we don't tolerate that kind of speech here, questions are okay, hateful statements are not, and I'm going to have to ask him to leave the property.

As I'm sure you can imagine, our friend did not appreciate what I had to say. He did however respect me enough to head out the door, doing so while telling me what "Jesus had to say about the gays." At that point I wasn't about to shut up, so I stubbornly said, "Uh, not according to anything we've currently got to look at, he didn't"—and then he told me I needed to read the book of Matthew.

I guess he doesn't know it's liturgical Year A, and Matthew is what we're reading almost every Sunday. :) 

Two Jobs At Once
You know, I have replayed that whole scenario over and over in my mind this week. It's been eating at me. Partially because I wanted to do two things at the same time. I wanted to love this guy, that's my job. And simultaneously, I wanted to love the other people in the room. That is ALSO my job.

The two don't play well together in this circumstance.

I was looking for a "third way" —one where this guy could be seen and heard while the other people in the room could still feel pretty secure, and maybe everyone could learn something or experience the Holy Spirit between us.

In the end, like Paul, I did what I do not want to do. I cut him off and asked him to leave.
Ever had that happen? 

That excerpt we heard from Romans today is an example of Paul noticing exactly this in his own experiences.

Paul at 2 am...
Paul has noticed something downright embarrassing. We don't always become the people we know we want to be, the people we're pretty sure we can be. Anyone who's ever replayed a conversation at two in the morning knows exactly what he's talking about.

The struggle, of course, as Paul points out (though brutally full of horrific mind-body dualism that is a product of his time and continues to do harm in some theological traditions to this day) is not that we are evil, nor is it that our bodies are evil, but at the core of things he's saying that we're unfinished. And thanks be to God that's the case, because it seems all of humanity has this significant problem between what we want to do and what actually happens.

Nobody Danced
Jesus, today, began with a critique not too far from what Paul's griping about: "We played the flute, no one danced. We sang the funeral song, no one mourned."

In other words, what he's saying in there is: John the Baptist arrives in his camel hair coat and locust-honey meals—everyone thinks that's gross. Ew. Then Jesus arrives, eating, drinking, chilling with all the people, polar opposite of John in behavior. Everyone thinks that's gross too. Ew. He eats and drinks with the bad people we don't like and don't support because they do bad things.

You see the pattern? John arrives at one end of the spectrum: rejected. Jesus arrives at another: also rejected. The children bring God into the scene —singing, flutes, dancing, mourning— also entirely rejected, no appropriate responses.

The issue at hand isn't that God is absent for us (oops — I mean, *them*). The issue is that many have already decided what God is "supposed" to sound like and act like and look like. Which means sometimes God could be singing right in front of us, and we wouldn't recognize the melody. Wouldn't even notice its effects.

Which brings me back to the scene during our printer installation.

What Songs Were Present
I didn't mention it super clearly earlier, but there were two other witnesses to the whole scene on Tuesday. I wasn't there by myself. Two techs were quietly watching and listening from the new printer. And while I was wondering how to love one person well, these two were probably wondering something totally different: would this church do what that line of progress pride flags outside seems to say it will do?

It wasn't until days later that I realized there were several melodies present in that situation: One tune was total certainty. Another was exclusion. One felt very secure in knowing exactly who and what God is and demands of us. And another insisted that vulnerable people—people historically ostracized by so many mainstream Christian groups—are also made in the image of God, entitled to safety and dignity, without question.

After I set the boundary, the atmosphere in the office changed. Two strangers who were just trying to do their jobs, while someone shows up with increasingly hateful rhetoric didn't experience theological brilliance, but they did experience brave space, and safety.

The room probably didn't need another argument or theological talking point. Maybe all that it needed was someone to amplify a particular melody. And that one went something like an assertive: No. Not here.

I did what I do not want to do, and in the aftermath I likely made us a bit of an enemy on Tuesday.* But two new friends were also made. Those techs exhaled audibly, and new camaraderie was found in the aftermath of the whole scene.

Not What They Mean by Freedom
Yesterday, the US celebrated 250 years of independence. And we've all heard the phrase: freedom isn't free. That's a true statement. Just, maybe not in the way we've sometimes been taught.

By the witness of our scripture, Jesus never once suggested that freedom can be purchased or claimed via armies and governments and empires. Rather, he seems clear: freedom costs. It costs us comfort. Freedom costs us certainty. Sometimes, freedom costs us relationships. I think Jesus and Paul were deeply aware of the pains of that cost and still committed their lives to freedom for all.

Which Song to Sing?
So real freedom, for us Christians—involves learning which song or melody shapes our lives, knowing it by heart, even when every other melody around us seems like it would be easier.

And this song can be a tricky thing to learn. It seems to skip beats and do all kinds of wild, unanticipated stuff. But at the core, we're asked to keep listening carefully for it in the midst of the noise, while we're simultaneously already singing, dancing, and playing along. Not an easy combination. And you know, that's the thing about "My yoke is easy, my burden is light" being placed right after Paul's "Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ the One Who Frees!"

Sometimes our voices fail and our dancing falls out of rhythm. Sometimes we find only silence where the flutes should be. Sometimes all we have is grief, and we miss the lament completely. Sometimes we realize, with a jolt, that we've been singing the wrong song all along. And sometimes, others are carrying the melody for us until we can find our way back in.

Maybe that's what Jesus means. His yoke isn't easy because discipleship is easy. A yoke is a burden of its own. Perhaps the way he might say this today would be: *my* yoke is easier, and *my* burden lighter — because we're yoked together, never carrying it alone, always doing the costly work of more freedom for all together.

Learning this freedom song also means learning how the song asks to be sung.

Sometimes quietly — a lullaby.
Sometimes through tears, a lament.
Sometimes with joy, full celebration.
Sometimes with righteous anger, a protest.
Sometimes with simple, assertive strength: boundary-setting.

And sometimes at the top of our lungs, because the world is so noisy and cruel that anything softer simply disappears into the machinery of fear, and we are called to throw up heartfelt cries for the sake of the restoration of all, no exclusions based on categories we humans make up.

And, thanks be to God—even when we're getting it wrong, the song never dies. The Spirit never stops singing. The invitation is always there for us to pick that freedom song back up, once again.

with joy,
Rev. Sam

*A note of genuine gratitude to the unexpected visitor who stopped by on Tuesday. I hope the road is kind to you, and that you find not only what you're looking for, but what you need—even if we'd likely disagree about what those things may be.