You Also

My first notion of a sermon or message or homily was a very simple one.  It seemed people had their favorites to me and just picked them to talk about.  Seemed a reasonable assumption to me.  So I had some ideas of favorites.  I could see myself preaching about todays scripture every week 

 

Might alternate with the woman at the well.  (John 4:)25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ—the Anointed); when that One comes, He will tell us everything [we need to know].” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you, am He (the Messiah).”  We are all outsiders of something so we relate easy to her it seems to me.

Today I am following the liturgical calendar as I have for the last several years.  One of the best things about writing a message is that it really can be on any topic.  This is also one of the main difficulties.  It is difficult to focus with all of creation before you.  Given a verse to start helps me accomplish the most formidable challenge for most everything: starting.

Today's story about workers being paid the same appealed to me as a child.  I had only just arrived really.  Everyone else had been around much longer it seemed to me.  This idea that I had not missed out on anything I think was the first one that appealed to me, but it is only one aspect of our story today. There is a sense for us as adults that these late arrivals could have arrived earlier.  The workers who arrived early believe this to be true.  While not against the late arrivals they simply assumed what they had done had more value and would be treated in some different way.

There are many reasons that we need work.  Really there is one main one we dance around.  On the application the most simple answer to why we want work we never give.  I worked ten plus years in employment and not one of my clients wrote that they needed money, but that is why they wanted the job I assure you.  Refugees new to the country they asked why they wanted the job.  Really.  Many were hired because they were not from here and people assumed they must work better.  Opportunity breeds success is what our society misses. 

Spoiler: the workers would not be treated differently because there is nothing less to give.  God doesn't have less to give.  Almost a constraint placed on the creator of the universe.  As for us: we can be in relationship to God or not.  More of God is pretty much equal to less of God if you want to look at the math. 

More of God = Less of God

As the calendars turn we come around here today to our scripture from Matthew 20:1-16.  My guess is I would pick this one each time to talk about, but I might not get asked to anymore.  We meet at different times in our life with different purpose.  Different meanings are infused in God's words to serve different people and different places.  It is not the bible that is contradictory, it is our civilization.  Basically in every era and location.  Double standards built upon double standards till they are ingrained.

What double standards I wouldn't want you to wonder.  What is the simplest?  Women are to be virtuous and men are to sow wild oats.  There is a constraint placed on this society.  Things will not end well until the foundations are replaced.  Jesus understood this well.  People may not like the Christ over turning our tables in the temple, but they can not ignore him.

Hear a simple story of Laborers in the Vineyard I read from the Amplified Bible:

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of an estate who went out in the morning at dawn to hire workmen for his vineyard. 2 When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And he went out about the third hour (9:00 a.m.) and saw others standing idle in the market place; 4 and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right (an appropriate wage).’ And they went. 5 He went out about the sixth hour (noon) and the ninth hour (3:00 p.m.), and did the same thing. 6 And about the eleventh hour (5:00 p.m.) he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day?’ 7 They answered him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He told them, ‘You go into the vineyard also.’

You also.  So this owner is like none we have ever known.  A job creator to be sure.  One with so much work.  But which owner of a large estate goes and finds people to work.  Quite a scene this man out about town calling people.  Jesus always over turning the foundations of our assumptions.  The greater the estate the more men to manage more men.  The kingdom of heaven is like none we have ever known.  All we can say is it will be different than we think it will be.  The owner of that great estate will be calling...you also.

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last [to be hired] and ending with the first [to be hired].’ 9 Those who had been hired at the eleventh hour (5:00 p.m.) came and received a denarius each [a day’s wage]. 

Here we are in the world we know and the expectations are no different somehow today.  It is really quite remarkable considering how many people claim to follow Jesus.  We all think we would get more being more hours.  What we seem to miss is maybe there isn't more.  Maybe God doesn't have less to give.

10 Now when the first [to be hired] came, they thought they would get more; but each of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they protested and grumbled at the owner of the estate, 12 saying, ‘These men who came last worked [only] one hour, and yet you have made them equal [in wages] to us who have carried [most of] the burden and [worked in] the scorching heat of the day.’

You or I in that situation might feel equally indignant that you even had to explain this to the owner.  More work is worth more is the simple math we do.  People for some reason don't like math.

When there is an adult and a child and relationship.  This is what I was reminded of as a child.  I didn't really understand work.  Best I could equate the boss or the owner to the old people in charge around me.  As a child I knew the adults did more work.  As an adult I do more work.  This seemed a good way for things to be.

I saw maybe those who were there earlier as older.  There is something ingrained in the world that it is necessary for the older people, those who have been around longer, even when they were working in the blazing sun to be bigger people.  And by bigger I mean to make themselves smaller.  This was more of a feeling I had than any thought really at the time, but it always seemed the most marketable aspect of our religion.  You were not going to get less when you came into relationship with God because there is nothing less about God.

Now I find myself on the other end and it is no longer a feeling but a job description.  Follower of Jesus I will take responsibility.  Why would anyone want to be big you don't get more, huh.

 13 But the owner of the estate replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no injustice. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go, but I choose to give to this last man [hired] the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not lawfully permitted to do what I choose with what is mine? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ 

This was a new foundation we seem as unsure to build upon.

College debt forgiveness was recently debated in the supreme court and continues to be a topic of interest.  The argument is essentially the same as the workers who arrived earlier.  It is not fair that someone should have what I have not had.

Well God doesn't have less to give.  As a child  I felt like I arrived late in the afternoon and was getting what everyone else was getting.  This seemed like a great deal.  Today it feels like I have been here longer.  The deal is not as attractive I will accept, but there is no other deal in town I like to point out.  There are no other estate owners out in the market place calling, "you also."  They are all calling,  "me first."  This all natural and what we expect, but natural has lost all its meaning in this world.  

16 So those who are last [in this world] shall be first [in the world to come], and those who are first, last.”

Remember where Jesus started:  “For the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of an estate who went out in the morning at dawn to hire workmen for his vineyard. 2 When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And he went out about the third hour (9:00 a.m.) and saw others standing idle in the market place; 4 and he said to them, ‘You also...

I once told a refugee to come at 3 o'clock.  He arrived at 9am.  Jesus understood.

Jesus is not talking about a world we know or choose to live in just yet.  What separates us from living?   Paul probes this in the opening of Philippians (1) 21 For to me, to live is Christ [He is my source of joy, my reason to live] and to die is gain [for I will be with Him in eternity]. 22 If, however, it is to be life here and I am to go on living, this will mean useful and productive service for me; so I do not know which to choose [if I am given that choice]. 23 But I am hard-pressed between the two. I have the desire to leave [this world] and be with Christ, for that is far, far better; 24 yet to remain in my body is more necessary and essential for your sake. 25 Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith...

So we live for others Paul suggests.  Pretty good way to start a religion.  You also.  You more necessary and essential for their sake.  Sounds like community.

Someone worked in the hot sun.  Someone will need to work in the hot sun.  Someone will always arrive in the cool of the afternoon because of the efforts of our creator out in this world calling, "You Also."  Good that it is not up to us as we would certainly give up on many people.  

Today and yesterday I feel a strong connection to this simple story.  I also feel that it was not the story that changed as I grew, it was the story that changed me.  So much of what is called contradiction is in truth simple apathy.  In a "me first" world "you also" makes no sense.  Thanks to our creator and the ministry of Jesus this is a Also You world.

Nothing needs to be done to get everything, this can be hard to accept.  It seems the people we would give up should do more, but in the end you need to understand there is only relationship with God and no relationship.  No less no More.

Let Us Pray

Creator of this world and the next

Help us to understand how to work smart in the hot sun

Send us out in the market place calling, "also you."

Let us help reveal the great work of the kingdom

Life has taught us many things.

Let your love heal us from these wrong and simple views

Let us see you we ask in the name of your Son Jesus

The great hope for every world

Amen

Benediction

Go out in the hot sun

Welcome those who arrive in the cool afternoon

God doesn't have less to give

If you hear the call repeat it: Also You

Nottingham UMC 9/24/2023

When I Get Divorced

It was yesterday to me
Twelve if you count the times around the sun since

We were just doing our thing

All there ever was except I guess before

He has always told me

How I knew he was my son

He then around the sun only five times took me aside

"When I get divorced..."

I stopped him right there already the funniest thing I ever heard

I said you got Sara

You got me

We will always talk nothing has to be

A childhood in one act

With one more trip around the sun

Future

Some times we are constrained.  Different shapes our travels take.  We can find ourselves in darkness.  The past can constrain but is hard to surprise you.  It is not supposed to.  I heard that tornado in Cleveland last week.  I've never personally known a tornado to be in Cleveland.  I didn't believe it

To be held within bounds  It is called life.  We often think we know the boundaries.  We knew you couldn't just shut a planet down in 2019 didn't we.  Our flight envelope hard to define.  That is a term I remember learning.  It was confounding, but the airplane is capable of certain things well defined in the flight envelope.  Engineers determine what the possibilities.  

What we might go through is not something we can determine.  I don't think it will take decades for another tornado to come to Cleveland.  On the east side of Cleveland the tornado took the roof off a house of worship.  Well we have a roof here by the grace of God.  It can always be worse.  No one is ever prepared for that.

I learned this lesson the hard way July 11 1995:

I had arrived in Bosnia in April and in my three months I hadn’t learned too much language, but I think I got my points across. It was the satellite receiver the head of mission couldn’t figure out anyways that got me started. The month MTV Europe was no longer free and Srebrenica was so ethnically cleansed. 

The war was almost over or so it had to be after so many years. Sarajevo was still closed and the communal koan of peace, the street car beat, was silent. How could it be imagined, who conceived who knew this Srebrenica to come? It was the only time I spent in Bosnia and understood fully I was not Bosnian. I was not from here. I had arrived to bare witness the end. We were all there from every nation on earth and they for the most part had been no where else. I processed Srebrenica as yet one case in point that the international peace mission, which I was apart jaron, was just what Helen Keller described as the “Tragic Apology for wrong conditions.” I was a volunteer and it was different for me. I had come for a bed. That is my story. They had survived for the end. That is their story, but as I watched their faces on that day twenty eight years ago, I didn’t see anyone. Everything could be worse…no one is prepared for that, and so I continue this journey today following the path which I have followed to exhaustion. How will it come out of me? It came out of them slowly as I watched the months roll by. So shall this from me. I keep in mind two things, the words of a man my 6th great-uncle crossed the Atlantic with so long ago:

“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” (Thomas Paine)

And that peace finally did arrive and the street cars sing Sarajevo peace today.

Getting ready to do something you know is hard.  Is different than doing something hard you don't know.  Unknown is where we always are.  Sometimes we feel different

Our scripture for today comes from Matthew 16:13-20 which I read from the Amplified Bible, Peter’s Confession of Christ

13 Now when Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they answered, “Some say John the Baptist; others, Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah, or [just] one of the prophets.”  15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Out of nowhere, it seemed, as they traveled along, Jesus asked his disciples a question of identity. “Who do you say that I am?” It’s a question we must answer again and again as we seek to become disciples of Jesus Christ.  There are things we can know about God next to thing we cannot know.

16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed), the Son of the living God.” 17 Then Jesus answered him, “Blessed [happy, spiritually secure, favored by God] are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood (mortal man) did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades (death) will not overpower it [by preventing the resurrection of the Christ]. 19 I will give you the keys (authority) of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind [forbid, declare to be improper and unlawful] on earth will have [already] been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose [permit, declare lawful] on earth will have [already] been loosed in heaven.”

Future perfect passive.  Will have [already] been.  The who not as important as the what.  We find not only a proclamation of faith, but a foundation upon which the Church was built.  Here, Jesus plays on words, using the name "Peter," which means "rock." He designates Peter as the foundation, the rock of faith upon which the Church would be established.  Peter became the rock upon which the Church was built, our faith serves as the bedrock of our spiritual lives. When we build our lives on the truth of Christ, we establish a strong foundation that can withstand even when everything is worse.

The most radical interpretation of Peter's confession involves viewing it as a statement not only about Jesus' divinity but also as a revolutionary call to challenge established religious and political systems. This interpretation focuses on the idea that Peter's confession was not just a declaration of faith but a subversive act that called for a complete reimagining of societal norms.

Peter and the disciples lived under Roman rule, enduring not only political subjugation but also a religious hierarchy that often aligned with those in power. In this context, Peter's confession can be perceived as a radical act of defiance.  By proclaiming Jesus as the Son of the living God, Peter implicitly rejected the divine authority claimed by the emperors and the religious elite.

While the traditional understanding of Peter's confession as a proclamation of faith remains crucial, this radical interpretation encourages us to view it through a lens of social revolution. Let us be inspired by Peter's boldness to challenge the powers that be and to work towards a world where justice, compassion, and equity prevail. In doing so, we embrace our role as agents of transformation and disciples of a revolutionary Christ.

The confession of Peter is a significant event recorded in multiple Gospels, specifically in Matthew 16:13-20, Mark 8:27-30, and Luke 9:18-21. While the core of the confession remains consistent across the Gospels, there are some differences in how each Gospel writer presents the event. Here are the main differences

Luke's account follows a similar pattern. Jesus asks, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter responds, "The Christ of God."  In Luke's version, there's no command to keep the revelation a secret

.

Mark's account is concise, focusing on Peter's response to Jesus' question, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answers, "You are the Christ."  Jesus then commands the disciples not to tell anyone about him, referred to as the "Messianic Secret."

20 Then He gave the disciples strict orders to tell no one that He was the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed).

Timing is everything with the revolution of Jesus.  Jesus' hidden messiahship was not about concealing his identity but subverting conventional expectations. By commanding silence about his miracles, he challenged people to look beyond the traditional understanding of the Messiah as a political or military leader.

Jesus aimed to shift the focus from himself to the Kingdom of God. He sought to highlight that the Kingdom was not about power in a worldly sense but about transformation, justice, and spiritual renewal. By revealing his identity too soon, he might have distracted from the essential message.

As we reflect on this radical interpretation of the Messianic Secret, let us remember that the Gospels hold layers of meaning that challenge our assumptions and inspire new perspectives. If we see Jesus' concealment not as a mere secrecy but as a deliberate invitation to seek a deeper, personal understanding of his messiahship, we unlock profound insights for our faith journey. Let us be seekers of truth, embracing the challenge to go beyond the surface and discover the radical transformation that Christ offers to those who truly seek. In this pursuit, we unveil the heart of the Messianic Secret - an invitation to a transformative encounter with the Messiah and his Kingdom.

You [believers], like living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5 Amplified Bible)

.

In Isaiah 51 again from the Amplified Bible we find:

51 “Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness (right standing with God),

Who seek and inquire of the Lord:

Look to the rock from which you were cut

And to the excavation of the quarry from which you were dug.

Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I don’t remember. Sometimes I have no idea. How was it that I lived that way?  It seems like I am always going to Bosnia. I have a story to tell you. This indefinable you. I start here, as there is nowhere else. I have no idea what I shall write. Is it my story? Is it there story? Is it their story? This debit I owe. This task I undertake.  So patient as if it never needed to be done. I remember this night twenty eight years ago in Zenica more than I did then alone in a strange and far off land.

4 

“Listen carefully to Me [says the Lord], O My people,

And hear Me, O My nation;

For a [divine] law will go forth from Me,

And I will quickly establish My justice as a light to the peoples.

5 

“My righteousness (justice) is near, My salvation has gone forth,

And My arms will judge the peoples;

The islands and coastlands will wait for Me,

And they will wait with hope and confident expectation for My arm.

6 

“Lift up your eyes to the heavens,

Then look to the earth beneath;

For the heavens will be torn to pieces and vanish like smoke,

And the earth will wear out like a garment

And its inhabitants will die in like manner.

But My salvation will be forever,

And My righteousness (justice) [and faithfully fulfilled promise] will not be broken.

Interpretation is important throughout the Bible. It is interpretation that distinguishes between the ethical and trivial in biblical laws. By interpretation we see the biblical characters in proper perspective, and we see when we should follow their example and when we ought to be warned by their faults. When we claim to take the Bible "just as it is written", we are following the "common sense interpretation", that does not include thought and study. Let us be very hesitant in using the phrase, "the Bible says",---it takes careful and prayerful study to interpret correctly the message of the Bible.

And having read, studied, and interpreted the Bible----remember "it is better to be a sermon than to preach one."

       Let us pray......

Our dear Heavenly Father---  Father of all creation, whose being is from the beginning of time, speak to us.  Raise us above the storms of our generation and above the barriers with which we seek to surround ourselves.  Fill us with the love and understanding that embraces all people and is not bound by nation, race, or creed.  Forgive us our little goals and narrow visions.  Lead us to dedicate ourselves to the work of thy kingdom.  Make us willing to be disciples of Jesus Christ.  Though our minds cannot fully grasp His Call to us give us the will to follow Him,  accepting Him as the Savior of man and the hope of the world.

Amen......

Now may the Grace of our Lord Jesus, the Love of God, the communion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you now and remain with you always.

                                                     Amen.

           .........Nottingham Methodist July 1962

8/27/2023 Nottingham UMC

Future

Some times we are constrained

Different shapes our travels take

The past can constrain but is hard to surprise you

It is not supposed to

To be held within bounds

It is called life

Getting ready to do something you know is hard

Is different than doing something hard you don't know

Unknown is where we always are

Sometimes we feel different

Place of Color

We are forever making things clean.  Many of our activities are about putting things back in order.  We often believe that things can not be clean enough.  We talk about them being sacred even.  I am not here to tell you not to clean I am afraid, but I want you to think about this in the proper context.

The first thing to understand is there can be too much of a good thing.  As a child of the seventies it is rather funny to know that my favorite food of the time is extinct.  I loved the bananas then more than anything.  My birthday cake had to have them, but over the years the cakes would never be the same.  They got very good at growing bananas.

We got so good at growing bananas we created new types of nations: the banana republic.  This phrase people like to throw around, but it really is tied to the extinction of my banana.  This wonderful system they had relied on clones for one thing.  They would take parts of the banana plant and replant and make new plants.  Well actually they would make identical copies.  A fungus came along and found one plant it liked and it found it liked all the plants around.  Monoculture was the problem.

There were many lessons learned from this experience yet what they did was find another banana and do the same thing.  That banana we eat today may change again soon.  How does this relate to cleaning?  They tried to clear away everything from their field that they thought would not make them money.  They wanted more and more of what made them money.  Good was good so more would be great.

There are reasons that this is not true.  There are pros and cons.  Yield maximization, easier to manage, and higher revenue vs higher pesticide use, soil degradation and fertility loss, higher use of fertilizers, high water use, decrease in biodiversity and impact on pollinators, economic risks,.  So monoculture is super popular.

In most subsistence farming practices, crops are grown and harvested to feed a family or local community. In monoculture agriculture, however, the crop is produced for commercial purposes, which gives an oppressive aspect to the whole process of using farmlands to grow monoculture crops. 

Once the harvest is reaped, it will be transported long distances to a large number of destinations.

Our scripture today comes from two sections of Mathew 13 and it paints a clear and difficult picture.  Despite all our efforts when we try to do too much we create worse damage.  As we read this scripture we are going to think deep about the words weeds and good seed.  I will read Matthew 13:24-30 from the Amplified Bible: Weeds among Wheat

24 Jesus gave them another parable [to consider], saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.

We have a story here of practical application.  We begin with judgement.  There is good seed and there is something else.  The confounding thing is they produce things that resemble each other.  Well the assumption we make is the seed that is not good is simply of no use.  The good seed is so defined by what it is eventually used.  If it fills the belly of a warrior.  If it fills the belly of a widow.  If it fills the belly of a king.  If it falls as a scrap and fills the beggars belly.  These are not closed stories Jesus is telling, but like this life they are confusing.

Back in verse 13 Mathew informs us why Jesus is talking in parables.

13 This is the reason I speak to the crowds in parables: because while [having the power of] seeing they do not see, and while [having the power of] hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand and grasp [spiritual things]. 14 In them the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

‘You will hear and keep on hearing, but never understand;

And you will look and keep on looking, but never comprehend;

15 

For this nation’s heart has grown hard,

And with their ears they hardly hear,

And they have [tightly] closed their eyes,

Otherwise they would see with their eyes,

And hear with their ears,

And understand with their heart, and turn [to Me]

And I would heal them [spiritually].’

Already a sad story.  Our scripture continues:

 25 But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds [resembling wheat] among the wheat, and went away. 26 So when the plants sprouted and formed grain, the weeds appeared also. 27 The servants of the owner came to him and said, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Then how does it have weeds in it?’ 28 He replied to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants asked him, ‘Then do you want us to go and pull them out?’ 29 But he said, ‘No; because as you pull out the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First gather the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

There is a political question here for the church about who planted the weeds.  They are talking about a specific plant that looks like wheat but has no value.  We often think of weeds as plants we don't like.  Here we have something more.  A mimic almost a parasite.  There is also a practical question here that I find more relevant today.  The church has long wrestled with interpretation.  Many churches don't speak to each other much..

It is a mixed bag.  There are so many that resemble each other.  It is an odd word to use but there is an evolution of religion.  In the past you can be assured there were more types.  In the future there will be less.  It was so with us.  Where ever we look in the past we find similar things.   There have been many types of people.  If you look into tradition there are more types than can be counted.  If we look with a scientific eye we find new continuously.  We learn about the future and the past if you think about it.  We are currently looking at early galaxies that seem too complex and wonder if the universe might be twice as old as we think.  

Would explain the stars that seem to be older than the universe for one thing.  The Catholic church once said time started October 22, 4004 BC.  Today the same institution now speaks of the big bang 13.7 or perhaps 26.3 billion years ago.  Nobody seems to really care anymore what they think.

The way to respond to problems is usually to do something, but for practical purposes there really is nothing we can do in certain cases.  To the people who heard only half our scripture today this  would almost be a depressing message.  There is nothing to be done.  Good when sown will grow but it would seem also will evil.  This scripture almost foreshadows the entire darker side to the churches history.  Often people have tried to rip up whole types of people.  What they found at the roots was they were too intertwined to take apart.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 And though one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Matthew 19:6 Amplified Bible: 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Mathew takes us deeper with the disciples in 13:36-43 again from the Amplified Bible

The Weeds Explained

36 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him saying, “Explain [clearly] to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” 

What a blessing to be able to ask the great teacher a question and what a blessing to have this response here:

37 He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, 38 and the field is the world; and [as for] the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the weeds are the sons of the evil one; 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. 40 So just as the weeds are gathered up and burned in the fire, so will it be at the end of the age.

Again to the practical first we see these sons resemble each other.  Even if we could tell them apart we would not be able to separate ourselves from the great battle of our time.  Of every time.  As we actively work to make the world better there are people who actively work to make the world worse.  Why they do is less relevant than they do.  In the end all they have to do is change, but for us there will be no shortage of work.

 41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend [those things by which people are led into sin], and all who practice evil [leading others into sin], 42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping [over sorrow and pain] and grinding of teeth [over distress and anger]. 

It is easy to see why the apostles wanted to believe this would all happen in their generation.  In the ways that are important it happened during their generation: they fought the great fight.  In the ways that are important it is happening in our generation and your generation and my generation: we fight the great fight.

43 Then the righteous [those who seek the will of God] will shine forth [radiating the new life] like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears [to hear], let him hear and heed My words.

The good seed in the end in not in danger.  The righteous seek the will of God.  There is something over simplified as if the world was back and white.  We like to believe that so much our intuition tells us more good is all we need, but when we look at the context again we see a more complex picture.  Where we manage to create black and white like those banana fields it always takes oppression.  Along with the comical aspects of the banana republic the foundations are truly dark.

Reality has more color and most of the world reflects this fact.  I have this sense when people talk about the third world this is what they are really talking about.  This need to make the world black and white.  To rip out the color is not to understand what is white light: all the colors together.  There used to be a first and second and third world.  The second one was this two camp theory of the world and included all the communist countries on alternate development paths.  Poland in 1963 is a pretty fair example of a second world country.

So you see there really no longer is a second world yet people still talk about the third world.  There is something in common that is not easy to name, but when I look around the world I see these places of color.  Practical difficulties created by the great fight.  Where people separate themselves there is this oppression involved.  There is really no way around.  A place of white that wants to separate itself out.  The flaw in white supremacy is that all the colors are present in itself.

When we go out in the field we must understand there is going to be some confusion.  We can equally understand that there is good reason.  People working towards different ends resemble each other.  God would not lose one.  There are people working towards our extinction.  The great battle is happening in every generation so yeah I am sure they don't feel wrong.

Let Us pray

Creator of All

We seek your will

We find ourselves confused

Your son told us we would be 

We glorify the one who uses even our confusion 

We ask your help in all we do

Continue to guide us we ask in the name of your son Jesus Christ

Amen

Benediction

In your community you will find confusion

This another sign to glorify our Father in Heaven

Rejoice in your confusion and know you are not alone

Go be community

Nottingham UMC 7/23/2023

Place of Color

 Reality has more color and most of the world reflects this fact.  I have this sense when people talk about the third world this is what they are really talking about.  This need to make the world black and white.  To rip out the color is not to understand what is white light: all the colors together.  There used to be a first and second and third world.  The second one was this two camp theory of the world and included all the communist countries on alternate development path.  Poland in 1963 is a pretty fair example of a second world country.

So you see there really no longer is a second world yet people still talk about the third world.  After spending several weeks in Mexico I find we need new words.  There is something in common that is not easy to name, but when I look around the world I see these places of color.  Practical difficulties created by the great fight.  Where people separate themselves there is this oppression involved.  There is really no way around.  A place of white that wants to separate itself out.  The flaw in white supremacy is that all the colors are present.

Mexico

I fall in love easy
Did you ever meet someone you were sure you already knew

My how life taking trips was always to see someone

There are cooks and artists in the kitchens

Artists bring you back

They don't seem to recognize each other

The heat is what I miss the most

No concern for the weather

Not a topic of any concern

Where I come from it is almost all we talk about

If you don't like the weather it will change

The heat not interested

No bad days in Sayulita

The heat grabs hold of you

Olympic epic sweating

Everywhere I go here is cold

I miss the heat being held

Every single interaction positive

Showered down and cleansed my soul

Was never one much for heat

First to say it is easier to get warm

Traveling light I could have travelled lighter still

Not a single forecast other than for the waves

Never really knew the temperature but not below 80 18 days

Brought little rain with me

Absent seven months

It is a special type of life that thrives here

Despite every obstacle and speed bump

Love speed bumps in Mexico wave motif I guess

There is a rhythm to cross the road

Not a first time feel something words fail to describe

A place of color

A place that feels like home

A place of white such a contrast

A place better organized

A place that feels like a fortress

Whatever was going on I felt warm

With other foreigners in the combi the AC engaged

Without the window open

Was a long time for me not to drive

Hunted by waves from Singapore in Mexico

I miss the heat