I'll Never Leave You Alone

Text: Psalm 119:129-136
Other texts: 1 Kings 3:5-12

Young king Solomon prayed for wisdom.

I am only a little child, he prayed. I know nothing. I do not know how to go out or how to go in. Yet I am a man of great responsibility. How can I govern the people without wisdom? Where will that wisdom come from? Solomon prayed. God answers Solomon’s prayer. I do now, according to your request, give you wisdom and a mind that can discern one thing from another and to understand what is right to do.

There are two fundamental questions we ask of God in prayer. They have to do with the nature of our being and life on earth. Who am I? and What should I do?

We are nomads, wandering about in the time given to us on earth. We are blessed with a sense of possibilities and potential. We are aware of temptations. We remember mistakes and successes. We see choices; we long to make the right ones, for our sake and for the sake of others. What should I do? What should I do right this minute? What should I do with my life? We understand the psalmist, the writer of psalm 119, when he prays to God: I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments. What should I do?

The psalm, psalm 119, is 176 verses long. It is divided into 22 sections, and each section is eight verses long. The entire psalm is a song of praise for God’s commandments, or God’s instructions, or God’s guidance, or God’s teachings. The law, in other words. This psalm is an ode to God’s order.

Lutherans talk sometimes as if the law—with a capital “L”—of the Old Testament is a peculiar and onerous burden that Jesus freed everyone from. But that is not how Jesus described it, or Paul, who spoke so much about it. Or how the psalmist sings about it. The law makes sense of the world and our place in it. It is a sign of God’s interest in guiding us, helping us know what we should do.

If you drive from here to Denver, at some point you’ll have to cross Nebraska. Western Nebraska is very flat and not very populated. The highway to Denver, which is just flat pavement on the flat land, runs straight and true. At night there is nothing to distinguish the road from the land. Nothing except a long white line that the road department has graciously painted on each side of the road. That line cannot keep you from driving off the road into someone’s field. That line has no control over you. That line is there for your benefit only. That line is instruction, you might say, or guidance. Or you could even say the line is a commandment, which is in the form of a promise: if you pay attention to me, it might say, you will keep yourself alive.

When your word is opened, the psalm says, it gives light. The law is a gift. It is a commandment in the form of a promise. If you’d like to know how to keep yourself alive, it might say, pay attention.

God’s teachings free us. They free us from having to figure everything out for ourselves. Just like the white lines free us from having to figure out, mile after mile in the dark, where the edge of the road is.

That does not mean that the teachings, the law, is static, unchanging, or complete. Landscapes change, roads are widened or abandoned, lines fade. The law as the psalm praises it is not merely something written down forever. It is part of God’s ongoing guidance. The ongoing nature of the law means that God has not abandoned us to ourselves. Which is a good thing, since we are clearly no smarter now than our spiritual ancestors were.

The law does more than keep us on track. It can define the track. Cambridge is a city known to be friendly to bicycles (at least compared to most other cities). Cambridge paints lines on the roads just like Nebraska does. The lines that Cambridge paints define bike paths. The bike paths don’t really exist, in a way. They are creations of the law. The law creates new spaces out of old ones. Places of sanctuary, for example, like the sabbath, which is a day carved out by law from otherwise undifferentiated time. Or startling behaviors, like forgiving your enemies or giving all you have to the poor, which are habits separated from the ordinary.

Not everyone wishes to keep a day of sabbath, or to fight for justice for the poor and disenfranchised, or to forgive others. If the words of God are a gift, then not everyone will value them. Those who do value them, who consider them to be something worth obeying, or more likely even something worth attempting to obey, define themselves apart from others.

Jesus tells his disciples at one point: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples [Jn 13:34]. The disciples of Jesus are not the one who are theologically correct. They are the ones who do what Jesus says to do.

The writer of the psalm says: Your decrees are wonderful, therefore I obey them with all my heart. But in a sense he has it backward. His obedience to the decrees are what makes them wonderful. He has declared himself to be a decree-obeyer. And he thinks that is great. He is someone under the law, as Paul would later say. Following the law tells him who he is.

To follow Jesus is to take what he says seriously. To consider that for us, Jesus is the way to the answer to our questions of identity and behavior. That Jesus is our guidance, instruction, and illumination.

What make this psalm so powerful is the way the psalmist greets the law: with passion, trust, gratitude, and in the end, compassion for others. For followers of Christ, this greeting is for Jesus and his teachings. For wisdom and to discern one thing from another and to understand what is right to do, we turn to Jesus. Who we trust to teach us how to go out and how to go in.

This is the Place

Text: Genesis 28:10-22
Other texts: Psalm 139

Jacob was in trouble. He had not been a good brother to his twin brother Esau. Esau was out to get Jacob, and for good reason. Jacob had cheated Esau. Twice. First Jacob had cheated him of his birthright, the right as first born to inherit. Then Jacob cheated him of his father’s blessing. There was very little to like about Jacob and not much to like.

When we meet Jacob in the first reading today, he is on the run. Not a surprise, since Esau had promised himself that he would kill Jacob when the time was right. And as far as Esau was concerned, and as far as Jacob feared, the sooner the better.

Jacob is pretty sure how he stands with his brother at the moment. He is not so sure how he stands with God. Jacob is of the first family, so to speak. His father was Isaac and his grandfather was Abraham, the patriarchs. God was their God and they were his people, but Jacob wasn’t so sure he was in included in that deal, seeing as how he had been such a jerk to his family. Maybe he wondered whether he was on God’s side, and whether God was on his. Maybe he wondered whether God was his God, too, anymore.

So imagine his surprise when God comes to meet him and have a chat. Now, you might say, “God didn’t really come to meet him. That was just a dream.” But Jacob and everybody else up until recently would have known that a dream was a communication channel just as true as any. A dream was a way, among many other ways, for God to talk to Jacob.

God doesn’t wait for Jacob to introduce himself, or to apologize for his misdeeds, or in fact to open his mouth. God just flat out tells Jacob that the deal God made with Abraham and Isaac still stands. God is still going to make that little nomadic tribe a great people. They will still be God’s people, and they will be as many as the grains of dust on the earth, and they will spread to all lands. That was God’s promise and that still is God’s promise, God says. And furthermore—and this is the shocking part—it is all going to happen through Jacob. Old sleazy Jacob is going to be the man who will be the ancestor to all these people. Jacob was still God’s person.

God makes Jacob eight promises in this passage. Five of them are a reiteration of God original promise: “I will give you land and offspring.” And three of them have to do with God’s presence: “I will be with you.”

Wow! says Jacob. Awesome! This is the place.

Probably--I’m guessing here—-you didn’t cheat your brother out of his birthright or steal his blessing from your dad. But that doesn’t mean you have never regretted something you have done. Maybe even really regretted it. Maybe even have wondered whether you have done something cosmically bad. As, I think, Jacob wondered.

And still, God was with him. God was right there at his side. The promises God made to Jacob had nothing at all to do with Jacob saying he was sorry, or even being sorry. It had nothing to do with penance and confession and repentance. Jacob in this story did nothing. Just took a nap. God did all the work. Things that we mind a lot God doesn’t seem to care much about.

I will be with you, says God. I won’t leave you until I’ve done what I’ve promised, says God. Note that there is not much Jacob can do to affect God’s presence or not. God does not promise to hang around until Jacob has done such and such a thing. God is in for the long haul, it seems.

God hanging around with us can sometimes be a two-edged sword. There is a wonderful children’s book that some of you might know called “The Runaway Bunny” by Margaret Wise Brown.

In the story, a little bunny plans to run away from home. He tells his mother how he plans to escape. I will become a rock high on a mountain, he says. “If you become a rock on the mountain high above me,” said his mother, “I  will be a mountain climber, and I will climb to where you are.

“If you become a mountain climber,” said the little bunny, “ I will be a crocus in a hidden garden.” “If you become a crocus in a hidden garden,” said his mother, “I will be a gardener. And I will find you.”

“If you are a gardener and find me,” said the little bunny, “ I will be a bird and fly away from you.” “If you become a bird and fly away from me,” said his mother, “I will be a tree that you come home to.”

This sounds to me a lot like Psalm 139.

O LORD, you have searched me and known me. … Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in the underworld, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

There is no place we can go in which God is not present. No place we can go in which God is unable to find us. No place we can go in which God will lose track of us. Lose interest in us. Nothing we can become that will convince God to give up the search.

When I hear this psalm, I am grateful for God’s presence among us. I’m grateful that God will be with me no matter what. But there is another way to look at this psalm. And in that way, God sticks to us whether we like it or not, whether or not we want God to. I find this psalm comforting. But a colleague of mine finds it oppressive.

I will never leave you alone, says God. Meaning in one way: God will never abandon us. Or meaning in the second way: God will never free us. In one way, we will never have to walk alone. In the other way, we will never be allowed to walk alone. To be parental: does God protect us or confine us? This is not a new question.

God with us. God’s presence is not something inert, like a mist or a spell that surrounds us. Not like a shield or an aura. God’s presence is something that demands our attention. It is an invitation. In the story of Jacob, God’s presence moved Jacob to awe and praise, and God’s promise moved Jacob to promise in return.

Sometimes like the bunny, and like Jacob, and like lots of other people in the Bible, we are of two minds about God. But the bunny, and Jacob, can only be of two minds because they know that they are not alone. In the bunny’s case, his mom is faithful. The bunny can flee because he knows that his mother will always and without fail come to find him. In Jacobs, and ours, God is faithful. No matter what Jacob, or we, do to flee God, God will always and without fail come to find us.

Wrestling with God has a long tradition, one that Jacob also is part of. The relationship between us and God does not always go smoothly, for one reason or another. Sometimes we resent God’s interference and bossiness. And sometimes we welcome God’s comfort and guidance. And sometimes we are shy with God, or embarrassed. And sometimes confident and easy going.

But fighting with God or embracing God are not opposites. The opposite of both fighting and embracing God is no God at all. An aloof or uninterested or departed God. What Jacob fears is that God is gone forever. That God is no longer his God. That he will never embrace nor wrestle with God.

But what he finds, what we find, what God promises Jacob and promise us, is that God is with us. God is our God. We are God’s people. God is around wherever we are. Everyplace is an awesome place.

It doesn’t matter whether you are in the desert or at home, with pillow of rock or of feathers, in anguish or in joy, in a snit or in gratitude, in confidence or in disarray, in faith or in doubt. God is here.

Parables are Weird

Text: Matthew 13:1-0

The Bible is authoritative.

When you start thinking about theology, which you might call philosophy about God, the first thing you do is establish what you consider authoritative. That is, if you want to settle an argument, to whom can you turn? Who has the final say? What is the source of information that is at the foundation of what you say? One common source of authority is tradition, which is a jargon word meaning what the church has taught for centuries. Another source might be your own experience, such as things that have happened to you or maybe revelations you have had. Perhaps you have heard God speaking to you. Another source might be expert witnesses, which could be pastors or the Pope or other theologians.

For Lutherans, and for most of the churches that came from the Reformation—that is, most Protestants—the only authoritative voice is the Bible. Sola scriptura is the Latin motto. Only scripture, or scripture alone. The other sources of information might be useful and interesting and thought-provoking, but when it comes down to it, the only real recognized authority is the Bible. This is the ground on which Martin Luther stood, saying to the church in essence: I don’t really care what you are teaching, if I can’t find it supported in the Bible, I won’t consider it to be true.

One nice thing about the Bible is that it is a book. That means it is written down and you can go look things up in it. It is a book, but it is not really much like a handbook or a reference book. It is not a book of doctrine. You can’t look in the index, for example, under “grace” and expect to find all the teachings about grace. Or love. Or judgment. Or prayer. Grace and love and judgment and prayer are in the book, but they are in the whole book, they are common themes in the book, not found in little treatises or bullet points.

The Bible is a book, but it would be better to think of it as a library of books. No one sat down and wrote the Bible from cover to cover. The Bible is a collection of writings, written, recorded, gathered, and assembled over a long time.

Most of the writings in the Bible are stories. The Bible is mostly a story book. There are lots of stories from lots of different periods and about lots of different people. But all the stories have one point. The point of every story is God and God’s relationship with people. Scary stories, nice stories, weird stories, they are all about the same thing. God and people together. And it is a love story, mostly.

There are other writings in the Bible, and they too are about the same thing: God and people. There are prophetic writings, like the book of Isaiah, from which we heard this morning. Prophecy is a kind of commentary, sort of a cross between political analysis and rhetoric. In the Bible also are teachings. The ones we are most familiar with are the teachings of Jesus. The teachings of Jesus are in the form of sermons (like the sermon on the mount), or in long talks or discussions called discourses. And they are also in the form of parables. Like the parable we just heard, sometimes called the Parable of the Sower.

The Bible is a book in print. The words are there on the page. But the meaning of those words depends a lot on what the reader brings to them. It is not always clear what the Bible is saying to you. Or sometimes what is clear to you is not at all the same as what is equally clear to someone else. Wars, alas, have been fought over different readings of the Bible. And many lesser battles.

The Bible demands interpretation. Not only because it is open to interpretation, but because we want to get something out of the Bible. We come to the Bible because we want to know God. So when we hear or read something from the Bible, there is always this question lurking in the back of our brains: what does this tell me about God? Parables especially bring that question to the foreground, because parables are weird.

Parables are strange stories that are disturbing. That is the point of them. To shake up the listeners’ thoughts. To jar people out of an accustomed way of thinking. To make people question things that seem to “go without saying.”

Nonetheless, there is a long tradition of interpreting parables as allegories, in which things in the parable stand for other things in our world. Mostly the goal of that tradition is to domesticate the parables, to blunt their edges a bit, to make them seem not weird but simple illustrations of our own standard and acceptable way of looking at things. One of the first in this tradition was Matthew, of the book of Matthew, writer of today’s Gospel passage.

Matthew explains the parable. His explanation would have been sort of the official interpretation of this parable. The early church needed to explain why some people responded to Jesus and others did not. You could consider this explanation as Matthew reporting a common interpretation of the time. Matthew as Fox News. In Matthew’s presentation, the problem was the devil, shallow-minded people, and the cares of the world. Maybe Matthew is right about these causes, but he is misusing the parable. Sort of like pounding in a nail using a wrench. It might work, but it is not the best tool for the job.

A parable has a meaning, but it is not easily expressed by explaining it in words. In that sense, it is like a painting or a piece of music. To explain a parable as Matthew does is like an artist explaining his or her work. What good is that? The work itself is the thing. So it is with parables.

Jesus tells parables, he says, so that people might understand things (that is, to know God, the constant topic of the Bible). The parable itself is a way for people to know God. Just as, for example, in worship we sing, hear organ or piano music, see images, participate in rituals. These are all ways to know God. They are not illustrations of some other, verbal or intellectual, understanding. We stick them all in our worship because we need lots of ways to know God, each of us in different ways and at different times.

It is easy to hear in this parable of the seeds and the sower a call to action. That is, it is easy to think this parable is about us. Perhaps we feel we are called to be like the sower, to spread our faith to all people, the ones who listen eagerly as well as the ones who seem like they couldn’t care less. Or perhaps we are called instead to be good soil. To listen well to God’s word, to observe Christian practices, to turn our backs on distraction and evil temptation. Or perhaps we are called to be the gardener, the one who tends the crops, to help others grow in faith, to teach and to clarify our understanding of Jesus, and to serve others. We might in truth be called to do any and all of these things, but not by this parable.

What is shocking about this parable is not what happens to the plants. What is shocking is the way the sower sows. He spreads the seeds everywhere. The sower violates our usual ideas about being frugal, about wasting things, about saving. The sower violates our usual ideas about being effective, about applying resources to their best use, about eliminating slack and sloppiness. The sower violates our ideas about being good stewards, about being careful, about planning ahead.

The sower sows the seeds any old which way. Some on the fertile soil, and some on the rocks, and some on the path, and some in the weeds. We assume that most of the seeds went into the soil, and the rest somehow accidently spilled over into less fertile areas. We assume that because that’s how we would do it. But the text says nothing like that.

This is a parable in the Bible, and thus about God. Jesus reveals God to us in this parable. The sower sows everywhere. He sows wastefully. He sows ineffectively. He sows without discriminating between one kind of ground and the other. He sows without evaluating the expected return. He sows without careful consideration. We would never sow this way. No farmer would. But God does.

What Jesus teaches us in this parable is not how we should behave but how God does behave. God sends abundance. God brings life. God is extravagant. From God comes all that is good. We are not commanded in this parable to plant more carefully. Nor to plant less carefully. We are not commanded to be like God or to do God’s work. We are not commanded at all.

Jesus guides through the parable to know God better. And in the face of that, we need only to stand in praise, and awe, and wonder, and gratitude. To know we are blessed, and to be thankful.

Lighten Up

Text: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Jesus offers lots of guidance, most of which we don’t follow. Jesus makes lots of suggestions, most of which we don’t take. Jesus gives us a few commandments, most of which we don’t honor. Jesus makes lots of promises, most of which we decline to accept.

This is not something we need to be ashamed about. We say that Jesus’ teachings are teachings of grace. That means they are offers without strings or judgment. They are not promises that end with “or else,” as in “do this, or else.” Rather, they are promises of “and then.” Do this, and then see what good things will happen. So when we don’t do what Jesus teaches us to do, it is not something to be ashamed or guilty about.

But it is something to ponder. If Jesus is making us offers, and if the offers seem to us to be good, why do we so often refuse them?

It is not like we couldn’t use a little help with things. We have a lot on our minds and a lot on our shoulders. Burdens, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel passage. We are weary, as he says. We are weary, often to the point of exhaustion, and we are worried. We are worried about whether we will prosper. Whether we’ll be able to provide for ourselves and our families. Whether we will be safe. We are worried about what the world is coming to.

Our deepest urge and longing is to be happy and be useful. We worry that we haven’t been, that we are not now, that we might never be.

We are burdened with responsibilities to others, with apprehension about what the future holds. We are burdened with doubts about our own abilities to be the person we want to be and do what we want to do. We are burdened with anger and regrets. Jesus is right. All this is exhausting.

Come to me, all of you, Jesus offers. All you, who are weary and carrying heavy burdens. Come to me, all of you, who are trying to cope. All of you, who are working so hard. Come to me, all of you, Jesus offers, and I will give you rest.

What a great offer. What a welcome offer. I will give you rest. It sounds wonderful. It brings to mind pleasant images. Green pastures. Still waters. Wide white beaches. Quiet streams and sunny glades. Open meadows. Or large, cool, quiet rooms full of light. The word Jesus uses means relief and refreshment. I hear in this passage his sympathy and concern for us, his brothers and sisters. You will find rest for your souls, he says. He uses a word here that means your deepest self, your complete self.

We ask: How can we accept this offer? How can we get this rest? Jesus answers: learn from me. And he teaches us. His teaching is this: Take my yoke, he says. I am gentle, he says, I am humble. Be like me in that regard. These are strong words, these words of seeming weakness. Gentle implies meek, accepting. Humble implies submission. A yoke is a device the farmer uses to control oxen.

Evidently there is a connection between rest and humility, rest and gentleness. Between rest and being led around by something or someone else, not yourself.

This is not a welcome answer. This is not what we hoped to hear. It sounds a lot like giving up and giving in. It sounds a lot like losing mastery of our own fates. What about standing up for ourselves? What about planning? What about taking control of our lives? What about fighting the good fight? What about saving and making lists and goals and vision statements and proposals? What about keeping our eye on the ball, our shoulder to the wheel, our nose to the grindstone?

Jesus says to be gentle and to be humble. We can hear this as a betrayal of our selves, a loss of our souls. Weaknesses. Or we can hear this as a simple acknowledgement of the way things are. We spend a lot of time trying to control things. We try to control the present. We worry about the future. We regret the past. I can, I should, I should have. These are mottos of control.

But the truth is we do not have control over much. And if we insist that we do, we’ll end up disappointed. It is simply not possible to control everything about us and around us. If we try, we’ll end up tired and sad. We’ll end up weary and we’ll end up carrying heavy burdens. We are so used to figuring everything out that we forget that most things can’t be figured out.

When Jesus tells us we should be humble and gentle, he is telling us to let go. When he tells us that we should put on his yoke, he is asking us to agree to let someone else—to let God—guide us. That does not mean that we are not going anywhere. But it does mean that we might end up in places unforeseen. It does not mean that we have no goals. But it does mean that we have no expectations. It does not mean that we have no plans. But it does mean that we have no worries. A yoke is a device of action. A yoke augments and concentrates the force of the animal who wears it. Jesus doesn’t say his yoke is weightless. He says it is easy. He doesn’t say we’ll have no burden. He does say our burden will be lighter than the one we are carrying now.

Jesus makes us this offer. He says: If you are humble and gentle you will be happier and more useful. And mostly, we don’t accept this offer.

We don’t for two reasons. The first reason is tactical and minor. We don’t accept his offer because we are not quite sure how to do it. We are not quite sure how to be humble and gentle. We aren’t taught how. We don’t have classes in humility and gentleness. But we do have a textbook, which is the Bible. Jesus says “I am humble and gentle.” So we can look to what Jesus does and how he behaves and what he says about living in the world. We can see what he pays attention to and what he ignores. We are Jesus’ disciples, a word that means student or learner. Jesus is our teacher.

But the second reason is strategic. And more serious. The second reason we don’t accept Jesus’ offer is, I suspect, that often we don’t believe him. Even though we call him Lord, we are uncomfortable following him. If we are humble, if we are gentle to the point of meekness, what will happen to us? And we think the real answer to that question is not Jesus’ answer. Jesus says we’ll be happy. But we think we’ll be sad. And poor, beat up, exploited, and scared. We can believe in our teacher, but it seems harder to believe him. So we act like the people in the first part of the Gospel reading, pretending not to hear Jesus. We act like children with our hands over our ears saying “la la la.”

We want to be in control because we are fearful. We are fearful because we are creatures. Experience teaches us that people who are humble and gentle finish last. And culture teaches us that people who finish last are losers. And finishing last is a fate nearly as bad as death.

To follow Christ is to live against that fear. It takes a huge amount of courage to be humble in the face of fear. It takes courage to let go. It takes courage to trust God. It takes courage to drop our burdens and worries on God. We are already in God’s hands, but it takes courage to live as if that were so.

But we would not be here today it we did not suspect that Jesus is correct about a thing or two. Though we as creatures live in fear, we trust Jesus when he says that worry and sadness are not our destiny. The current way of doing things doesn’t seem to be working too well. We follow Jesus because we want to know the better way.

We are drawn by the promises, and offers, and commandments of Jesus. Do this, he says, and then see what good things will happen.