Readings for July 27, 2014
Pentecost 6, Proper 11A,

• Isaiah 44:6-8 
• Psalm 86:11-17  
• Romans 8:12-25  
• Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Wheat, Weeds and Empire, by Pastor Fred Kinsey
Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds, ask the servants in the parable?  Sounds like the right question to ask, doesn’t it?!

Some years ago, in my first parish, in Upper Michigan, I visited a parishioner in the hospital, who was gravely ill.  A concerned nephew, not from our congregation, was there sitting beside his bed, when I arrived. 

Hi, I’m Pastor Fred, I told him.  I’m so sorry about your uncle.  He’s been a long time member of Bethany Lutheran Church, and I hate to see him like this now.  How are you feeling?

Thank you, said the nephew.  And he told me a bit about where he was from, downstate Michigan, attending college, and how he was related to the family.  Then he told me, suddenly, that I should really be visiting his room-mate, because, you know –he began whispering to me – my uncle is fine, he’s been saved for 5 years now, after I talked to him about accepting JC as his personal savior.  You should really have a conversation with the gentleman in the other bed; I’m pretty sure he’s going to hell – you know, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and we don’t want that! 

I didn’t have a theological debate, at that time, and in that place, with this young man, about his fundamentalist beliefs.  But I did take him up on his offer to visit with my parishioner’s room-mate, and actually found out that he was surrounded by a loving family, and that, although he was not a regular church goer, he was baptized and led quite an exemplary life.  I had no intention of talking to him about a personal savior, because I didn’t actually believe that I, or anyone else, could issue him some kind of guaranteed ticket to heaven!  And, when I walked out of the door, later, and glanced back, and reflected on the two beds separated only by a thin curtain, I wondered if anyone could really distinguish which of the two patients were wheat or weeds?  Good or bad?  Saved or damned?  And even if that was the point!?

It did remind me, however, of a saying that a preaching professor from Luther Seminary, Karen Lewis, recently put on her Facebook page.  It said:  “When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed they are not it.”

In the parable of the Wheat and Weeds, an enemy comes in the dark of night to sow weeds in the field of a farmer.  The name of the weeds are, Darnel, or “false-wheat,” because they appear so similar in shape, size and color, to wheat.   And so, as the “children of the evil one” grew up alongside the “children of the kingdom,” it was sometimes impossible to tell them apart.  So, the Son of Man instructs the servants not to even try to pull up weeds right now, that is, in our lifetimes, but to wait till he returns for the harvest.  Then, when both the wheat and the weeds are pulled up, you’ll be able to sift one from the other. 

How can we know who is evil and who is good?  Aren’t we a bit more complex than that?  Who’s to say what secrets any of us keep from one another?  Or what the Son of Man will actually judge us on?

Martin Luther had a new theological perspective on this story, back in his day.  He coined the Latin phrase: simul justus et peccator, which means, simultaneously saint and sinner.  In other words, there is always both good and bad in each of us, we’re always, part wheat, and part weeds.  And it is Christ who redeems us, every day, making us whole by his faith and sacrifice, through the gift of baptism.  Or as Matthew says earlier in chapter five, “For God makes the sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to the righteous and the unrighteous.”

We do not get to be the ultimate judges.  The only thing that is clear, says Jesus, is the power of the empire, or kingdom of this world, the Roman empire, and every worldly empire, is pitting itself against the empire, or kingdom of heaven, which Jesus is bringing and revealing to us.  Jesus says, hold on, reflect if you need to, but we need to get some clarity on this first, listen if you have ears.  Sit with the tension, a bit.  This, is what our world is like: every day, at work or home, at school or the store, we are mixed up in a world of wheat and weeds, good and evil.  “Matthew’s parable this week is in one sense a warning,” Professor Lewis says.  “Lest we think we have it all figured out how to judge evil from good, moral from immoral, right from wrong, virtuous from unvirtuous, think again.  According to whom?  When?  In what contexts?  By what standards?”  “Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds?  That’s a dangerous practice, says Jesus, pulling up what you think looks like darnel, but might just turn out to be wheat. 

But our culture, continues to send us these types of false-messages – putting the blame on individuals, and challenging our self-worth – messages like, our failure to get a job is our fault, that we should pick ourselves up by the bootstraps, and that we’re lazy; that evil is “individual” – and we’d better join the competition to beat out, or beat up, our neighbor. 

That evil!  Those messages, seeking to control our world, comes from a very deep place.  It invades systems and institutions, like a noxious weed, and an invasive species.  I know plenty of hard working people who have lost everything because of a bad economy, or an aloof uncaring health insurance system, or a for-profit prison-system.  The truth is, greed is pernicious and endemic, and has grown to monstrous proportions.  The evil of the military-industrial-complex, for example, or a mortgage crisis created by the big banks, is not an accident.  This is an evil that lies deep in our soil, and pervades cultures and societies world-wide. 

If we want to affect the harvest at the end of the age, and hope to find God’s justice, we need to understand why attacking one another, is the wrong battle!  The greedy and 1%, are happy to have us thinking suspiciously of our neighbor, like they’re the ugly weed, when the problem is so much deeper, and will continue to infect us with their false-narratives, their messages of low-self-esteem, and pitting us one against the other! 

When Peter tries to tempt Jesus away from having to go to the cross – his confrontation with the empire of this world – Jesus calls him out, “Get behind me, Satan!” It seems that Satan can be in anyone, even Peter, the leader of Christ’s apostles.

The Hebrew word “Satan,” interestingly enough, means adversary – the one who works in opposition to God.  And remember, the Devil was the one in the wilderness who tempted Jesus to live by his own self-will, rather than God’s will. 

And so we should remember that it is a power, or structure of evil – not a particular person – that is infecting our wheat field.   It’s “the spirit of conflict, that separates us from God and from one another, and even from ourselves,” as writer and theologian John McAteer has said.  “Any time you act out of conflict, you are doing the Devil’s work, just as any time you act out of love, you are doing God’s work, for God is love” 

In the benign picture of the wheat field, in the “normal” sunny and rainy days, until the harvest, there is a deeper battle going on in the soil below, the ground of our competing empires.  Our devilish adversaries are crystal clear they are willing to use every and any deception they can to tempt and trick us, with scripts that make us doubt we are God’s children, that aim to separate us, and pit us against each other – that we should be uprooting each other like we’re worthless weeds.  Because, they know, when we claim our power in the Spirit, and of the kingdom of God, love cannot be defeated. 

Where is that power today?  How will we gather in, and organize, the message of love and grace, to grow the empire of heaven, among us?  Let’s not get bogged down with identifying who the weeds are.  They might yet turn out to be wheat, says Jesus!  Our mission is to attack the root causes of evil, so that the light of heaven shines brightly, right here and now, from this place.  

Readings for 7/13/14
Pentecost 5A/Proper 10

• Isaiah 55:10-13  
• Psalm 65:(1-8), 9-13 
• Romans 8:1-11
• Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Who's Seed, Who's Soil, Pastor Kinsey
In a May 2008 Vanity Fair article, Donald L Barlett and James B Steele, discuss the state of modern farming.  Sowing seeds for planting is pretty much unrecognizable today, is the conclusion I came away with.  “For centuries—millennia,” the authors say, “farmers have saved seeds from season to season.  They planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring.”  It’s a beautiful, prudent, self-renewing system, economically advantageous, and ecologically sound.  So what’s different today?  Since 1980, one giant agro-business, “Monsanto, has turned this ancient practice on its head,” say Barlett and Steele.

34 years ago, the St. Louis, MO based Monsanto, took advantage of a new law, and for the first time in history, patented a living thing, the seeds’ farmer’s plant.  Now, under threat of lawsuit, every farmer, big or small, who uses Monsanto seed, must pay for all new seeds, every spring.  You’re not allowed to save the seeds from the fall harvest, and prepare them for planting the following spring, because Monsanto owns them, lock, stock and barrel. 

And even before releasing the seeds for the first time, Monsanto genetically engineered the seeds, so that, conveniently, they would be the only things that were immune from their own herbicide, called Roundup, recently found in laboratories to kill human cells, and is the most widely used herbicide on farms, and lawns, in the U.S.  And so, what they pitch to farmers is, buy our seed and herbicide together, and you’ll be assured of a bounteous, pest-free crop.  Only now, after enough years have passed, farmers increasingly don’t want them.  In point of fact, the thorny weeds have learned to become immune to the Roundup, and the Monsanto mono-cropped harvests, are actually less productive even, than organic seed farms. 

But if, say, you want to move now to organic, or just something moderately more diversified, and Monsanto finds just one of their seeds has sprouted on your farm, they can sue you for not paying for their seed!  Ya!  Even if you didn’t want their seed in your field, they can sue you for not paying for what you didn’t want in the first place!  And roughly 50% of all American farms have some of Monsanto’s GMO (genetically modified organisms) seeds in their fields, even when they’ve never grown them, because, of course, no one can control the wind or the birds, who scatter and disperse seed, across every human-made boundary. 

“Listen,” said Jesus! “Let anyone with ears listen!”  A sower went out to sow their seed, which they had carefully collected from last year’s crop, and sowed it everywhere, scattered it liberally, and it fell on all types of soil. 

It may be hard for us to imagine, coming from the city, why this simple parable would be part of Jesus’ teaching, living in this concrete jungle that we do, where no farming occurs, except for the occasional rooftop, of course.  But in Galilee, in northern Israel, where Jesus sat beside the Sea of Galilee, farming was everything.  In an agrarian economy, the planting of crops is central to the survival of the whole society.  And so the role of the sower was an essential part of their everyday lives.

In the scriptures, the sower was popular as an image for Israel, and its covenant with God.  God sowed seed within God’s people, and blessed it when they stayed within the covenant boundaries, or cursed it when they strayed away.  And seed planting was restricted by Levitical Law, but only for the purpose of protecting the land – and so in the seventh year, provision was made for it to lie fallow, a practice used to this day, to give it a rest, just like humans are to rest on the 7th day, for the purpose of renewal. 

And so the Parable of the Sower Jesus told, would have been immediately familiar to those who heard it.  “Let anyone with ears listen,” said Jesus, to his disciples and followers – not only then, but now.  Jesus continues to speak to us today.  The Word of God that Jesus sows, is dynamic and alive.  What do we hear?  Where are we, in the Parable of the Sower?  Are we the seed that falls on the path?  On rocky soil?  Or on the thorn infested ground?  Or are we the seed that falls on good Soil, and produces 100, 60, or 30 fold? 

Much can get in the way of hearing God, suggests Jesus.  An old familiar path we always take, may be ground that can easily be picked clean by an enemy!  Rocky ground can mean we are not rooted – we get excited about the latest new trend, and then, just as quickly lose interest. And, ground that has thorns, can choke out our good intentions, with the lure of wealth and the many distractions of the big city. 

And yet, the Sower – both Jesus and us – sows the dormant, organic seed liberally, wildly, far and wide, on all types of soil, not knowing exactly where it will take hold, and who will receive it!  The Sower does not control the seed once it is scattered.  We hear the Word, the message of God, and receive it, or not, according to each listeners’ freedom to respond.  The Sower does not control the profits of the seeds for him, or herself.  The Sower does not restrict the scattering of the seed for the next planting season, and the year after that.  God’s word grows where it will, organically, blown by the Spirit, across boundaries we cannot completely control. 

Even the thorns, God does not poison with pesticides, at the expense of the earth, and future generations that depend on it, but God allows evil and temptation to exist in the world, to magnify the greatness of the Gospel, and its message of life, abundant life, which is all the sweeter when we finally learn to receive it as a gift of grace.  And so those who listen, who finally begin to catch on to it, grow exponentially, thirty, sixty and a hundred times more!  How great is that?!

The farmer and poet, activist and Christian, Wendell Barry, writes beautifully about reverence for the soil:  The soil, he said, “is enriched by all things that die and enter into it.  It keeps the past, not as history or as memory, but as richness, new possibility. Its fertility is always building up out of death into promise.”

There is no doubt that fertility building up out of death into promise, is something Jesus had in mind when he told the Parable of the Sower.  “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  Jesus is looking for some good soil in us, those who will listen and understand, or at least, understand enough to take a leap of faith.  Not everyone’s soil is able to sustain the new birth in baptism that can produce fruitfully, every time.  And ironically, lives that die, can!  Because they make rich fertilizer for new life. 

I wonder what Jesus would have said about Monsanto’s treatment of the soil, and farmers who plant the seeds?  Would he take away their GMO seeds and ask them to start over?  Would he scatter more seed their way, and see if they would take hold?  Would he ask them to take a year off, a seventh year, and lie fallow, and give everyone a chance to reflect and the soil to be renewed? 

The soil, “is enriched by all things that die and enter into it.  It keeps the past, not as history or as memory, but as richness, new possibility.  Its fertility is always building up out of death into promise.”  We are called to be good soil – and to make all soil, rich for planting, that the harvest may be plentiful, for our children, and our children’s children.  Come, let us eat of Christ’s body, a rich building up out of death into promise, broken and given for you. 

Readings for Peter and Paul, Apostles
June 29, 2014

Acts 12:1–11
Psalm 87:1–3, 5–7
1 Corinthians 3:16–23
John 21:15–19

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul, Pastor Kinsey
Today we celebrate the two most influential disciples of Jesus in the early church – Peter and Paul, Apostles. They didn’t always share this same Commemoration Day.  Like every Saint, they had their own day of celebration originally, until the church realized, they’re worth much more together, then individually.  So, no more Robbing Peter to pay Paul, you might say! 

I remember as a teenager, robbing my brother’s Piggy Bank.  I thought of it as borrowing, at the time, because I intended to pay him back ASAP.  And I knew he’d loan it to me if I asked.  But the problem was, he wasn’t around – so I just took it!  I needed it because, my friend Kurt and I had hatched this business scheme.  All we had to do was to purchase advance sale tickets to Milwaukee’s Summerfest, at reduced prices, and resell them at full cost, and we’d simply pocket the difference.  “No waiting in line,” we promised, hawking them a block away from the front gate.  I was so nervous we wouldn’t make our money back, but it was great, we managed to sell them all, on opening day, and now we were rich! 

When I went home to repay my brother, I slipped the money back in his savings jar, making sure it looked untouched.  No one would be the wiser, right?!  The problem was, he already knew it was gone!  He was planning to use the money on a date, the night before!  And when I confessed it was me, he was livid!  What right did I have to take his money?  Did I know what kind of embarrassment that caused him?  What was I thinking? 

So, that was the first time I learned what happens, when you Rob Peter to pay Paul.  Someone always loses, and it’s usually hard, if not impossible, to fix. 

Of course, it happens all the time.  We all know how the State of Illinois has been robbing Peter to pay Paul, for a decade or more now, taking from the state worker’s Pension Fund, robbing it, to balance the state budget and pay for everything else, like schools and human services.  Not only is it self-serving and cowardly, it also turns out it’s unconstitutional!  More recently, as everyone is catching on, the legislature has been using some creative, but dubious, accounting methods, trying to show taxpayers that, it’s not as bad as it looks.  But Robbing Peter to pay Paul, has consequences! 

Who’s responsible?  All of us, as voters, to some extent.  Also, Politicians who have used, and misused, our tax money to feather their nests and garner greater power, enhancing their political careers, instead of working for us, who elected them.  And then there’s big money and corporations, who have successfully lobbied for unjust tax breaks.  2/3’s of Illinois corporations pay Zero, no taxes!  Is there a one of us who has a deal like that when April 15th rolls around? 

In our gospel reading today, the three-fold question Jesus puts to Peter, is Peter’s chance to pay his Lord back – without robbing himself!  Peter was the disciple who denied that he knew Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times, on the night of his arrest, even as Jesus was being condemned to die on the cross.  Jesus had even predicted Peter would do it when they were eating the Passover meal at the Last Supper, and Peter denied that too. 

It was Peter’s greatest embarrassment and most unpardonable mistake.  I will never deny you, Peter had said.  But when the time came, Peter was caught with his hand in the cookie jar – he lied to save his skin!  He stole from Jesus’ reputation, in fear of his own future.  And he nearly destroyed the mission of the disciples and the birth of the church.

Now, after the resurrection, when Peter is back in his fishing boat, contemplating all this, Jesus appears on the lakeshore, and cooks breakfast for Peter and the other disciples.  Waiting till after they broke bread together, Jesus asks Peter three times, “do you love me?”  Peter says yes, of course I do, you know I do, you know that I love you!  “Then, feed and tend my sheep,” says Jesus, a clear sign that he not only forgives Peter, but expects him to do something about it – to go out and be a leader of the church.  To love and care for the sheep of this world, just as Jesus did. 

Jesus’ love and forgiveness heals the brokenness of our relationships that always wants to, Rob Peter to pay Paul.  Peter was brought back into the sheep fold, restored, to use his best gifts for the life of the world. 

This month, June of 2014, we begin to pay back, same sex couples, after robbing them of the chance to be married for so long.  We rejoiced just a week ago, that Sascha and Robert were married here, as naturally and entitled as every other opposite sex, man and woman couple, have been married here, for over a hundred years. 

Starting this month, there will be no more Robbing Peter to pay Paul in the laws governing marriage in Illinois.  No more stealing the dignity, the healthcare and estate rights of gay and lesbian couples who desire to make their love public.  No more taking away from, and stigmatizing those whom God loves, and turning around and rewarding, paying in effect, those who would claim they know better.  [Hold up coin]  Today, on this Pride Sunday, we have been given about 50 coins from the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches, that say, “2014, Blessing on Illinois Equal Marriage!”  These coins, which will also be passed out to the churches marching in the parade, are a symbol of beginning to pay Peter back – pay back what was robbed from LGBT people in the past. 

We cannot right the wrongs for those who have lost their loved ones, or those couples, known and unknown, who have gone before us in the faith, in the long history of discrimination.  But we can begin now to get our fiscal house in order, so to speak, and end the practice of Robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

Historically, Peter and Paul actually had a pretty stormy relationship.  One of their more famous disagreements was not over money, but over a much deeper issue at the time – the issue on which the church would decide to open up, and admit the Gentiles, or not.  Peter lived and ministered with the Jerusalem conservatives, who were happy with the status quo, as we know from Paul’s letters.  But in the book of Acts, it is Peter, actually, who stands up for Paul.  Sounding just like Paul, Peter rises to address the Jerusalem Church, recalling how God first made him the one to welcome a Gentile family, at the house of Cornelius.  And so, if the Holy Spirit could come to them, and they were baptized, Peter argues to all the Jerusalem leaders, why should any Gentile have to submit to a yoke that has been so hard for us and our ancestors to bear– aren’t we all saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, says Peter! 

With this major shift in policy comes a turning point in the story of Acts, for Peter and Paul, Apostles:  Before this, Peter has been the lead Apostle at the center of the story, and now, after this important Jerusalem Council, the focus of the church will fall on Paul, the apostle who takes us on mission trips, far past Jerusalem, into the Gentile world, to Africa, Asia and Europe. 

The two most influential Apostles, Peter and Paul, were as stubborn and passionate about the gospel of Christ Jesus, as any two could be!  They no doubt had ego’s that were way too big for them to work together.  But the history of the church has seen to it that we celebrate them together, because together, they represent equally essential aspects of the church of Jesus Christ.  They teach us what Christ first taught them, how we must find unity in our diversity.  How we must continually look to the Holy Spirit, to remain healthy and continue to grow.  How we must find humility amidst each individual’s passion for the truth.  And how together, we must reflect the justice and peace of Christ, for the good of all. 

Robbing Peter to pay Paul, only creates injustice, which leads to divisions, and away from peace, it leads to lies not truth, and to inequality not sharing.  It’s time to end the robbing of the dignity and livelihood of anyone, not only of our lgbt brothers and sisters, but for women, and people of color, and every group we stigmatize, who are thereby, robbed of God’s blessings. 

In the Meal that Christ instituted for us, everyone receives a blessing, of love and forgiveness, that is not just spiritual, but fleshly and incarnational.  Like Peter and Paul, we are forgiven, and we are Sent – because our actions, stem from our faith.  Let us break bread together – for at the Table, we find our unity!