@EUCC Sermons

Today’s text offers us a window on an early Christian community’s struggle with grace and forgiveness. Just in case we don’t have forgiveness all figured out--or some of us have trouble remembering or acting like we know that we are forgiven.

The passage opens with Peter questioning Jesus about how many times one should forgive. The traditional rabbinic response was “three times.” Peter ventures a more generous proposal saying, “seven times.” Jesus’ response was grandiose by comparison. According to Matthew, Jesus tells Peter to forgive “seventy times seven.” The implication of Jesus’ response is that we have not truly forgiven another if we are keeping score.  

Jesus goes on to offer the following illustration: a royal official had accumulated an astronomical debt to his king. When the king demanded payment, the official begged for mercy, and was granted it. Later that day, the same official had an opportunity to relieve another man of a much smaller obligation amounting to 100 denarii.

Midian. Show of hands for those who were born and raised in Midian (Northwest Saudi Arabia) or who have visited or even touched down in a plane to refuel. Not so many, I suspect. My inlaws haven’t even been there. 

My cousin Bruce is the only person I know who has been to Saudi Arabia. Bruce was several years ahead of my sister and me in age, education, and life experience. He and his family spent all of our growing up years living overseas. 

Bruce’s dad, Richard, was an engineer and officer in the US Army. His orders were always about building or rebuilding water and sewer systems in third world countries, and places that had been profoundly damaged as a result of war or natural disasters. 

Like his dad, Bruce studied engineering and geology in college and then went on to work overseas. I was in college when Bruce landed his first big job in the Middle East. Shortly before he moved to Riyadh, he invited me to meet him for supper in a nearby city. His parents had retired to Milwaukee. My college was located about an hour away.  

Today’s gospel reading invites readers to explore two questions: who do we say that Jesus is, and what exactly is the Church? Jesus prompts the disciples to answer both. 

Jesus and his first followers have wandered to the northeastern edge of their homeland, to Caesarea Philippi, an Ancient Roman city situated about 25 miles north of Capernaum, near the modern borders of Israel and Syria. 

The city was primarily inhabited by Gentiles. The residents were dedicated to the Roman Emperor Caesar, as the city’s title suggests, and although there is archeological evidence that a synagogue existed there, the residents of Caesarea Philippi, were mostly Greeks who worshiped Pan, the Greek god of nature.

In borderlands like these, tradition and reputation do not necessarily follow a person, and the beliefs and practices of other peoples and places blend and bleed. So it is not surprising that Jesus was not particularly well known or that he and his followers might lose their sense of self and their cohesion as a community. 

The Gospel reading describes a meeting between Jesus and a Canaanite woman of Greek descent. The setting is the territory of Tyre and Sidon, located in the coastal area north of Galilee near the modern city of Beirut, a society of Arabs.(Megan McKenna, Not Counting Women and Children: Neglected Stories from the Bible. (Orbis: Maryknoll, NY, 1994) 121)

Jesus and the Canaanite woman appear to be different from each other. He was a man. She was a woman. He was single. She was a parent. He was a Jew. She was a pagan. He was a foreigner. She was a local. The list goes on. 

On first blush few would have noticed that they had anything in common. They were different in race, nationality, gender, religion, family form, political parties, and socio-economic class--just for starters. That was, at the beginning of the story. But by the end, those who are paying attention learn that they are more alike than different. 

Shocking, but true--your Senior Minister placed 3rd in the Northeast Iowa Future Farmers of America (FFA) Weed ID competition in the spring of 1978. Over 100 FFA members from all over Northeast Iowa participated in that event. The competition was hosted by the Manchester Chapter of the FFA, and held on a farm just outside of the city limits, which was owned by a family whose son was a member of that chapter.

This third place finish may not be my most notable accomplishment in life, but at the time it was a very meaningful win for me. Here’s why: my classmate Jan Mumm and I, who were registered for this competition, were never meant to be attending the event, much less competing in this contest. 

Girls weren’t supposed to enroll in ag classes or join FFA--at least not prior to the passage of Title 9 in 1972, in many people’s minds. And, even though the year of this Weed ID competition was 1978, it took most educational institutions more than a hot minute to implement Title 9 practices. As an example, Jan and I were the first two girls in the 100 year history of Reinbeck High School to enroll in Vocational Agriculture classes and the first two to join our local FFA chapter. Laws were passed and Educational Codes were changed in 1972, but attitudes about the inclusion of girls in so-called “boy’s activities” were slow to evolve. 

The 11 boys in Voc Ag I treated us decently, but Jan and I were the talk of the town among adults that year. Some went so far as to opine that our involvement in these so-called “boys activities” were further evidence of the breakdown of traditional gender roles and the devolution of American society. (Yes, we were very powerful teenagers.)

As we crack open today’s gospel reading, we find Jesus on a national evangelism tour. Much like candidates running for political office, we find Jesus hitting all the major venues where crowds are gathering, e.g., state fairs, holiday celebrations, and large family reunions. Unlike modern political candidates, though, he did not travel in private jets or luxury tour buses, and he didn’t tell people what they wanted to hear. He migrated on foot, and described the cost of discipleship. Who would vote for him? Who would volunteer for his campaign?

Answer: not many. Jesus invited listeners to share the yoke of ministry with him—by feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and welcoming the stranger. His vision was profound, and his invitation compelling, but very few enlisted. Why?

For starters, Jesus’ lifestyle was what you might call “counter cultural.” He lived in a society that determined identity and status by what, when, and with whom one ate. John the Baptist and Jesus presented themselves as conspicuously unacceptable.

Today’s gospel reading is a reminder that Jesus and his most faithful disciples were not in the marketing business. If they had ever taken a marketing class, they would have flunked it. Amen? 

No one with ambition sets out to launch a marketing campaign for their new product or service with publicity like the messaging Jesus shares in Matthew chapter 10.

Given pronouncements like this, I’ve always found it amazing that Christianity survived beyond the first century AD. 

My former colleague, Jim Crawfod, at the Old South Church in Boston, used to scoff at UCC evangelism campaigns that borrowed heavily from Madison Avenue. “The Gospel was never intended to be popular,” Jim would say, when he would see a flier promoting the latest so-called evangelism campaigns, which he saw as being designed more for the purpose of putting butts in pews than follow the example and teachings of Christ. 

Psalm 116 is a psalm of praise. The author and singers are praising God for listening to them. In particular, they are praising God for hearing and responding to their prayers for healing. In verses 1 and 2, we hear them singing:

I love God because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because she inclined her ear to me,…I will call on her as long as I live.

Clearly the psalmist is pleased to have recovered from illness, but that is not all. The psalmist is deeply grateful that God has heard their voice, and their supplications--their pleas for healing.

Have you ever prayed for something so fervently that you would describe your prayers as supplications? More importantly, have you felt that those prayers were heard by God, or by anyone?

The primary text for today’s sermon is taken from the book of Psalms, chapter 8. The book of Psalms was Israel’s hymnal. It was a collection of our ancient ancestors' 150 favorite hymns that survived through the aural tradition, earthquake, wind, fire, flood, foreign invasion, and several general editors’ chopping blocks.

If you open your pew Bible to the exact center, you will find Psalm 100. If you thumb through the Psalms, you’ll notice that only the lyrics are provided for the songs. There are no notes for keyboard or woodwind instruments, and no cords for stringed instruments.

This lyrics-only version of the Psalms is similar to the slide versions of the hymns that Pastor Pepper prepares for Sunday worship and that Dawn Coburn makes magically appear at just the right time during the service.

The Easter narrative culminates in the Acts of the Apostles with Jesus explaining that we followers of him are the ones we’ve been waiting for, and that today is the day to restore the kin-dom of God on earth. 

His message is just that simple, and just that challenging. It’s easy to psych ourselves out by doubting our power and denying our ability or authority to change the things that can be changed. But every once in a while, we get our acts together and show up like the modern day apostles that we are capable of being. . .