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Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, 7th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 11 (16) — Matthew 13:24-30 36-43

Photo © Jon Holland (cc-by-sa/2.0)

For the 7th Sunday after Pentecost in Year A, the Revised Common Lectionary assigns two portions of Matthew 13. We read Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 because these are two halves of the same story. Last week we had the parable of the sower and Jesus’ later explanation. This week we have the somewhat less famous parable of the wheat and the weeds and Jesus’ later explanation. 

They are the only two parables that Jesus stops to interpret in detail, which to my mind adds to their importance

The stuff we skip this week is wonderful, so thankfully we’ll see some of it next week.

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

The parable of the wheat and the weeds is darker than the parable of the sower. Instead of that radically generous farmer hurling seeds every which way, here the farmer plants the field in an ordinary way, but then, at night, his enemy sneaks in and plants nasty weeds.

You might have thought that weeds just grew up because… well, because weeds grow everywhere. They are a sign of the unwieldy superabundance of life. In real life, weeds are simultaneously amazing and infuriating in their omnipresence and persistence.

Not in this parable. In this story, the weeds are intentional. Somebody with wicked intent put them there to mess with the farmer’s plan.

Fortunately the farm hands are on the job. They spot the weeds. They ask if they can go pull them up. 

Then comes the twist:

The farmer, who started out with a field of healthy soil and a burgeoning crop of wheat, says

No!

The weeds must be allowed to stay. Pulling up the weeds is way too dangerous. Better to let wheat and weeds grow together, then separate them at harvest time.

And the story ends with that harvest, which sounds a bit scary: 

…at harvest time I will tell the reapers,
Collect the weeds first
and bind them in bundles
to be burned,…

Matthew 13:30 NRSV

No promise of outer darkness, or weeping and gnashing of teeth, at least not until Jesus explains it with an apocalyptic twist in verse 41-42. But we get the point. 

There are at least three ways to think about this passage. One comes from Jesus’ explanation, one comes from St. Augustine, and one comes from my own pondering.

Version 1: The World

We should definitely start with Jesus’ own explanation. It’s his parable, so he gets to decide. Right?

Once they leave the crowd and head into the house, Jesus tells his curious disciples that the parable is really an allegory. Like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, everything in the story is directly symbolic of something else. You need to read the “something elses” in the sequence of the story to get the meaning.

Farmer = Jesus.
Field = world. 
Seeds = “children of the kingdom” (Can we say “disciples”?)
Enemy weed planter = Devil.
Weeds = Devil’s children.
Farm hands = Angels
Harvest = “the end of the age”

One of the questions I often like to ask of a parable is “Where do I fit in here?” It isn’t always helpful, but here it really is.

In Jesus’ explanation, you and I are the seeds Jesus has planted, hoping we’ll grow up to be the mature wheat that he wants us to be.

This isn’t about us being judgmental about who is and isn’t a child of the kingdom or a child of the devil. That discussion is between the angels and God.

The emphasis here is on the course of life in the world, prior to the final judgment. Our job is to grow, despite any problematic weeds that make it difficult to thrive. But it isn’t really about us.

(Notice that this relates a bit to last week’s parable, where a bunch of the seed landed in inhospitable places. Though admittedly, the seed there was the word, and we were the soil. The parallels are not exact.) 

Maybe there is a sense where this story calls us to patience with the weeds, or perseverance in the midst of them. But mostly it is about giving us a bigger point of view, an insight into the dialogue between God and the angels.

Version 2: The Church

Though Jesus gave his clear and specific interpretation of his parable, Jesus’ understanding is not the one that has prevailed in the Church across the centuries.

The most famous interpreter of this parable was St. Augustine (d. 430), the theologically prolific and influential North African bishop.

One of the big controversies in the Church of Augustine’s day was known as “Donatism.” I’ll spare you the details, but after a notable time of persecution, the North African Church ended up with two lines of bishops leading separate flocks, each claiming to be the authentic Church.

During the persecution, some clergy had done things that seemed to compromise their faithfulness. Augustine and his colleagues were the heirs of the seemingly compromised clergy.

Others thought that a compromised clergy had lost their authority to do the Church’s work, so they set up separate and, at least relative to the persecution, purer line of clergy. These were the Donatists, named for one of their early leaders.

Augustine argued that the holiness of the Church depended on Christ, not on the objective purity of the clergy. Even a sinful priest or bishop could, in the name of Christ, offer the sacraments.

The Donatists were wrong to set up a separate Church and clergy based on the personal holiness of human beings. They were an unlawful schism in the “one holy catholic and apostolic Church.”

One important biblical component to Augustine’s arguments was this parable of the wheat and the weeds. Augustine understood the field to be the Church, and the weeds to be the problem people — 

all causes of sin and all evildoers

Matthew 13:41 NRSV

as Jesus put it in the explanation. The Church will always be a mixture of the personally holy and the personally sinful. We human beings are not to act as judge, jury, and executioner. We don’t get to pluck out the bad plants in our midst, and we don’t get to pick up ourselves and move to a better, purer field.

What do you make of Augustine doing this? He clearly left behind some elements of Jesus’ allegory. However, he faithfully did what we always need to do with Jesus’ parables: he made sense of it in light of it’s own elements and his own context.

This was enormously influential in the Western understanding of the Church. At least up until the rise of Protestantism, the Church maintained its unity amidst all kinds of diversity, and most of the time, in many ways, was patient with its sinners and problem people.

Notice I didn’t say “all of the time.” There were those pesky inquisitions and such. But for the ordinary Christian, the ordinary sinner, there was always grace to be found in the Church and its sacraments.

Notice I said “up until the rise of Protestantism.” We Protestants have quite forgotten Augustine’s lesson from the parable. We divide the Church for any old reason any old time, and often seem to think ourselves the better for it.

Personally, I think if we held to Augustine’s interpretation of this parable, we would be more prone to do the holy work of learning to truly be the Church, offering grace to sinners — like ourselves, and like those we disagree with or even despise.

Version 3: The Soul

I have gone on a bit long, but I don’t want to leave without suggesting a little imaginative exercise.

Let’s pretend that we weren’t a part of that conversation in the house where the disciples heard Jesus’ point-by-point interpretation.

Pretend instead that we were part of the crowd outside, hearing the story and nothing more. Maybe we remember the parable of the sower where the sense was that we were the soil, and the seeds were the Word.

So we drift away after our time listening to the great teacher. Jesus and his disciples go into his house, and we head home.

We roll the story around in our minds: 

We are soil, the field.

Jesus has sown the word in us. It’s going to do its good work and bear fruit. That’s great.

But there is someone else at work, with bad motives. The “enemy” has snuck in when we weren’t looking and planted something else.

The enemy’s plants are not the Word. The enemy’s plants will compete for the nourishing soil, the refreshing rain, and the warm light of the sun. The enemy’s plants will bear fruit too — rotten fruit maybe, or poisonous. 

What should a good and responsible soil do? Should we find some way to eject the weeds? Maybe call on those farm hands to help?

Or do I take it as an explanation of why I have such an odd mixture in my life? Some things shine with virtue like Christ’s own image. Other things in my life — well, they are frankly weedy, rotten, and poisonous. 

Maybe this parable explains God’s own patience with my mixed character and behavior. God doesn’t just yank out all the problematic stuff. God doesn’t want to damage me or what is growing so well. God is busily, patiently, growing the good stuff.

Maybe I just need to be the best and most patient soil I can be. I’ll accept the seed. I’ll accept the water and the sun. That is I’ll welcome the Word, listening and meditating on it, seeking to let it thrive and grow. But I’ll also realize that I’m not the farmer. My role is patient and receptive.

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The post Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, 7th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 11 (16) — Matthew 13:24-30 36-43 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, The Parable of the Sower

Sowing Seeds (Public Domain)

I think a children’s sermon on Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, the famous “parable of the sower” is a ton of fun. The image of God as this farmer… well I’ll show you what I mean in a minute.

For kids, the story’s the thing, more than the fairly specific and minute explanation that follows. Jesus left most of his parables unexplained — and really that is one of the lovely things about them. 

With a didactic point-by-point explanation, the stories actually become less evocative, less inviting to the imagination. 

In this case, the rare case where Jesus gives that explanation, it is important to notice that there are two specific contexts. 

There is the actual telling of the story, which happened with a large crowd of listeners.
Then there is the later explanation, in private, with just the disciples.

So I think telling the kids just the parable itself, and giving the storyteller in me a bit of leeway, is just fine. The explanation in the later scene is more like a Bible study after the fact.

I want the kids to hear the story, see and feel their way into it, and then let it bounce around inside themselves as they wonder about it.

The danger, of course, is people are not adept at metaphorical thinking when they are small. Chances are, complicated metaphors like those in the parable may be beyond a child’s understanding.

I wonder how we’ll get around that?

Feel free to use this children’s sermon in your worship service, or as a bedtime story with your own children. If you do, please drop me an email to let me know how it goes!

A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Jesus loved to tell his friends stories. I think his friends must have loved to hear his stories. Stories let us see things in our minds. And stories help us feel and think and wonder.

One of Jesus’ most famous stories went something like this:

Once upon a time there was a farmer. The farmer thought “Hey! If I’m going to gather a good harvest this year I’d better plant some seeds!”

So the farmer found a big burlap bag and filled it with seeds. He hung it around is shoulder. Then he went out all over the farm taking big handfuls of seeds and throwing them in the air.

“There you go, little seeds! Grow where you’re planted!” he said as he threw them. (The farmer liked to talk to his seeds and his plants.)

The farmer walked along the road toward the field, throwing seeds all along the way.

About then, Peter interrupted: “Um, Lord, that can’t be right. If the farmer threw the seeds before getting to the field they would be wasted.”

Jesus said: “I wonder. Let me tell you what happened.“

A lot of seeds did fall on the road. Of course they couldn’t put down roots. But a flock of little birds saw what was happening and the swooped down right away. They were so happy! Those birds ate up all the seeds.

Peter said, “But Lord, doesn’t the farmer want to grow a crop with those seeds?”

Jesus said: “I wonder. Let me tell you what happened next.”

The farmer stepped off the road where the soil was very rocky, and he kept throwing handfuls of seed. “Grow where you are planted, little seeds!”

Peter couldn’t keep himself still: “But Lord, how can the seeds grow in soil full of rocks?”

Jesus said: “I wonder. Let me tell you what happened next.”

It was rocky beside the road, but there was some soil there. So when the rains came the seeds began to grow, bursting with life. But since there were so many rocks the seeds couldn’t make deep roots, and the sun dried them up.

Peter said: “That’s so sad! All those plants died. All that seed was wasted.”

Jesus said, “I wonder.”

Peter said, “Is that the end of the story? Didn’t any of the seeds grow?”

Jesus said, “No Peter. That’s not the end. There’s more.”

As the farmer kept walking he passed beyond the road to where the field was marked off by a row of thorn bushes. He threw handfuls of seed that landed right in the bushes. “Grow where you are planted, little seeds!”

Peter butted in again: “How can the seeds grow when there are already thorn bushes there?”

Jesus said, “I wonder. Let me tell you want happened next.”

When the rain came, the seeds under the bushes were bursting with life and they put down roots. But the thorn bushes kept them in the shade, and the thorn bushes’ roots took most of the rain water from the soil. So the farmer’s seeds couldn’t grow.

Peter said, “I told you! What a waste.”

Jesus said, “I wonder.”

Well, then the farmer stepped into his field. He had already plowed the field. He had taken out the rocks. He had taken out the weeds. Lots and lots of seed fell in the good rich earth. 

“Grow where you are planted little seeds!” said the farmer. 

And they did. The rains came, and the sun shone, and they grew.

One of the seeds made thirty more seeds when it grew up.
One of the seeds made sixty more seeds when it grew up.
One of the seeds made a hundred more seeds when it grew up.
And the farmer planted thousands and thousands of seeds in the field!

But Peter was still wondering. “Lord, but what about all the seeds that were wasted?”

Jesus pulled Peter aside and he said, “Peter, my friend, let me tell you a secret. This is a story about me. I’m the farmer. I plant seeds when I tell people about the kingdom of heaven. 

“I have lots and lots of seeds. I plant my seeds everywhere. I give them to every kind of people — whether they have room to grow them or not. The seed is mine and love to give it away. 

“And I don’t think it is ever wasted.”

I wonder if some of the farmer’s seeds will land in your life and my life?
I wonder if you and I have soil ready for the seeds to grow in?
I wonder what the rocks and thorn bushes are that might keep the seeds from growing?
I wonder if there are things you and I can do to make our lives like the farmer’s healthy field?

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If you like this children’s sermon, feel free to use it, either in your worship service or as a bedtime story. And please do me a favor and share it, using the social media buttons below!

The post A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, The Parable of the Sower appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, 6th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 10 (15) — Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

“Sower” (Cherchell Mosaic, 2nd or 3rd century Algeria, public domain)

In Year A, the Revised Common Lectionary skips Matthew 12 entirely, then takes a three week journey through Matthew 13. 

This Sunday is the first of those three, giving us Matthew 13:1-9 18-23. It’s one of my favorite parables: The parable of the sower. Or the parable of the soils. You decide.

Matthew 13:1-9 18-23

Notice that the lectionary has us skipping a bit in the middle. We don’t get to hear Matthew 13:10-17, the odd passage where the disciples ask why Jesus teaches in parables. 

Why Parables?

He gives a surprising answer.

I expect Jesus to say,

Well guys, I teach in parables because stories are really ‘sticky.’ You’ll find out when you preach. You spend hours slaving over your exegesis, and all they remember is the story you tell about that trip to the Grand Canyon.

Or maybe he should say,

I teach in parables because they make concepts really clear. Nothing like a good story to get the point across to people, whatever their educational level.

Nope. Nothing like that.

Jesus, via Isaiah

Jesus said he taught in parables so that the meaning would be hidden and people wouldn’t understand and repent.

I’m serious. Here’s part of it in his own words:

For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not
look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart
and turn— and I would heal them.

Matthew 13:15 NRSV

Actually that’s just a part of what he says. It hinges on a quotation from Isaiah, who at his call was told 

Go and say to this people:
‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.’
Make the mind of this people dull,
and stop their ears,
and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.

Isaiah 6:9-10 NRSV

The disciples get to hear and learn more, while many will get nothing. Jesus gives the sobering promise that 

… to those who have, more will be given,
and they will have an abundance;
but from those who have nothing,
even what they have will be taken away.

Matthew 13:12 NRSV

(That last bit has become famous in scientific circles as “The Matthew Effect.” My wife even wrote a paper on it in the area of children’s vocabulary acquisition through reading. See Dawna Duff, Bruce J. Tomblin, and Hugh Catts, “The Influence of Reading on Vocabulary Growth: A Case for a Matthew Effect,” Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 2015 Jun; 58(3): 853–864.)

This whole omitted section is of a piece with the teachings of Jesus and Paul (and Augustine and Calvin) that the choice for salvation is essentially God’s, not ours, no matter how much the invitation is preached to all. 

The Apostles were clear enough that this was important. All four Gospels include it in one form or another (cf. Mark 4:10-12, Luke 8:9-10, John 12:37-40). Paul quotes it as well, at least according to Acts 28:25-27. So, counting the original prophesy in Isaiah, it occurs six times in Scripture

Taking in the Whole of the Story

I admit, it’s a very unpopular biblical theme in our era. We like to emphasize our free and bold choice to follow Jesus. We’re content to love because he first loved us, but the idea that God goes to work inside us to make us his own, whether we want to belong or not, just doesn’t sit right.

But it is emphatically biblical, eh? 

However, that’s not the point I want to argue. No. Instead, I want you to think about this, thou who lovest the Lectionary: not one of the five New Testament citations of this prophecy of Isaiah comes up in the three years of the Revised Common Lectionary. Only if you happen to include the optional extended portion of the Old Testament reading on Epiphany 5 of Year C will you hear Isaiah’s words.

So how about we try to take in the whole of Scripture’s teaching. Even if you aren’t preaching the part of this Gospel that the lectionary left out, give it an extra read this week, just for yourself.

Of Seeds and Soils

Looking at what the lectionary leaves in, we find the rare parable that includes the backstage discussion from after the show. I think it is only this parable of the sower and the somewhat less famous parable of the wheat and the weeds where Jesus actually explains to his friends what the parable means. He gives a symbol by symbol discussion of most of it.

Unlike Mark and Luke, Matthew doesn’t bother to tell us that the seed this farmer is sowing is the word.

Our hearts, the explanation reveals, are the various kinds of soils the word is sown in.

None of  them quite tell us who the sower is. I guess they figured even the disciples could make out who came spreading the Word of God.

Some seed falls on the road. The birds eat it up. Jesus explains that this is the devil snatching the word away.

Some seed falls amidst the rocks on the roadside. There’s not much room for roots between the rocks, so the plants get scorched before they can flourish. Jesus explains that this is what happens when someone accepts the faith but the word can’t put down deep roots. Times get tough, and it withers.

Some falls where other plants were growing first. The thorny bushes had a head start, so the poor little seeds were deprived of what they needed from sun and soil. Jesus explains that this refers to people who have other stuff taking priority — “the cares of the world and the lure of wealth” for instance. Those big tough plants throw shade on the word and suck away what could nourish it.

Some (thankfully!) falls in the field where it is supposed to be, where it can stay planted, put down roots, grow up tall, and bear a hearty crop. Jesus explains that this good soil refers to people who hear and understand. These are the ones where the word grows and bear fruit.

The Call to Nurture Ourselves as Soil

I wonder if there is implicitly a bit more to explore in the relations between the soils

By hearing and understanding maybe we put down roots, grow up past the existing thorns and weeds, soak up nourishment from sun and soil. 

If we compare with the Isaiah quotation in the verses the Lectionary omits, it would seem like this hearing and understanding doesn’t entirely depend on us. It seems like the disciples were chosen to hear and understand.

However, even while it seems kind of passive (how can you help what kind of soil you are?) it does seem like we are called to do something here. I hear this parable and I want to make sure that I’m the good kind of soil, ready to go deep, let the word sink down its roots, and grow up healthy and strong.

So like a good farmer, we have to take care of the soil. Till it. Break up the clods of clay. Pull out the rocks. Put in nourishing organic matter. Keep it a living thing.

I need to make sure I do whatever is in my power to listen and learn, to be the kind of soil that hears and understands.

If I’m to be good soil, I’ll need to tend my life so it is fresh and alive. Fill it with what is good and nourishing. Take out what presents obstacles.

The Issue of Targeting

There is one more very interesting thing in this passage, and I don’t think it is commonly noted. 

Think about that sower.

The sower goes out to sow. Presumably he’s hoping for a harvest after a few months. So you’d think he’d be careful.

I planted tomatoes this year.

I bought my seeds.
I watched a helpful YouTube video on how to plant them.
I put my soil in my little pots.
I poked little holes in the soil very carefully with my finger.
Then, per instruction, I dropped one tiny seed in each little hole. 

Okay, I wasn’t perfect: Some holes got two or three seeds. They stuck to my fingers. 

I’ll tell you what I didn’t do.

I didn’t open my seed packet and toss any of the contents on the road. 
Ditto with the rocky area beside the road.
Ditto with parts of the garden where thorny bushes had a head start.

But the sower in the parable?

Big bag of seeds.
Throws them wherever.
Doesn’t seem to care. 

Actually I love that. The sower is so generous that he throws the word everywhere, even where it can’t grow. Along the way he feeds the birds.

The Lord is overflowing with seed, hurling it out in a gracious abundance.

It makes a lovely counterbalance to the rather narrow-sounding message borrowed from Isaiah. 

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I’d love to send you my Monday Meditations, along with my other new articles and announcements. Scroll down to the black box with the orange button to subscribe, and they’ll arrive by email most Fridays.

The post Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, 6th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 10 (15) — Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, 5th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 9 (14) — Matthew 11:19-16, 25-30

CC by Basile Morin-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)

For the last three weeks the Revised Common Lectionary had us moving systematically through Matthew chapter 10. This week we hop and skip through Matthew 11. The text is Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30, including the lovely words about Jesus yoke being easy and his burden being light — which must have sounded good to anyone who carried water home from a village well.

We fly right over Matthew 11:1-15, presumably because we already heard most of it in Advent. That’s John the Baptist’s soulful, if not depressed, question from prison (“Are you the one who is to come? Or shall we look for another?”), and Jesus’ praise of John the Baptist before the crowd.

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

The text we get is Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30, two pieces of a longer scene. 

Between the two sections we take one giant step past something I think is rather interesting: Jesus’ condemnation of the “cities” (villages really) of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum,

in which most of his deeds of power had been done.”

Matthew 11:20 NRSV

Isn’t there a world of meditation to be done on the fact that the places Jesus did most of his miracles didn’t repent to his satisfaction?

Shouldn’t we ponder what this says about what motivates people to repent? Maybe even if we had miraculous gifts it wouldn’t convince those around us to turn and live in harmony with Christ.

Hey, it didn’t work that way for Jesus, so why should it work that way for us?

If we don’t have miraculous gifts, maybe we should not expect that our acts of kindness and our labors for justice will convince anyone to turn and live in harmony with Christ either.

Maybe what really motivates people to change their minds and turn toward Jesus is actually the Holy Spirit. That’s what Jesus seems to indicate from time to time.

Then maybe we should ponder what this says about why Jesus did miracles. If it wasn’t going to help him build his organization, why spend so much effort on healing the sick, casting out demons, feeding the hungry, and so on? 

Maybe it was because of love. 

Maybe Jesus looked at people in love and wanted to help, regardless of whether they turned, believed, changed, joined up, or followed. 

Love, after all, is who he is.

So maybe for us, feeding the hungry, and tending to the sick, and welcoming the refugee, and working for justice should not be an evangelistic strategy. Maybe, if we belong to Jesus, if we are connected to him like branches on the Vine, like parts of his Body, then love should just be what we do. 

More and more, love should be who we are, too.

But the lectionary skips that bit.

Fickleness

The first part of the reading (Matthew 11:16-19) grows out of Jesus’ discussion of John the Baptist.

He complains to his listeners about the way the people as a whole have responded to the two of them. He makes them sound awfully fickle. 

For John came neither eating nor drinking,
and they say,
‘He has a demon’;
the Son of Man came eating and drinking,
and they say,
‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard,
a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

Matthew 11:18-19 NRSV

I suppose any leader would have the same complaint from time to time. This week I was reading St. John Chrysostom’s treatise Six Books on the Priesthood, (I highly recommend it) and he was kvetching about how everybody is happy to judge the pastor, whether because of who he visits or who he doesn’t visit, who he jokes around casually with and who he treats formally. 

You can’t actually please all the people — and the ones who are displeased will be most likely to speak up. 

Jesus may have been talking about different sets of people, right? 

Some really liked John’s asceticism — while others might call it peculiarity, what with living in the desert, the camel’s hair jacket out in the hot sun, and his insect-forward cuisine. 

The ones who like John might have thought Jesus was too worldly, what with living in town, feasting both with respectable Pharisees and with riff-raff like tax-collectors. He drank wine — and if there wasn’t any on hand he made it himself. He was willing to socialize with foreigners, and women, and even women foreigners.

And of course some people really liked Jesus’ counter-cultural worldliness. They felt welcome, relaxed, able to be themselves. Suddenly being created in the image of God was enough to be accepted. 

When you are trying to figure out what you, someone who belongs to Jesus, ought to do, trying to keep everybody happy isn’t going to keep you sane.

Better to know who you are, as both John the Baptist and Jesus did, and live truly.

Some people won’t like it. Whatever.

Of Yokes and Burdens

In the second section of the reading (Matthew 11:25-30) Jesus begins by tying together both the stuff our reading included (the fickleness of people’s responses) and the stuff we skipped (the woes on the towns for not repenting).

Behind all of our human wavering and inadequate responses to Jesus, our half-hearted repentance and our on-again/off-again faith, is… God. God who chooses to reveal himself to whomever he chooses for whatever inscrutable reason he has.

At that time Jesus said,
‘I thank you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth,
because you have hidden these things
from the wise and the intelligent
and have revealed them to infants;
yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father;
and no one knows the Son except the Father,
and no one knows the Father except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’”

Matthew 11:25-27 NRSV

Paul, and Augustine, and Calvin had a special word for this issue of God’s choice in revealing to some but not to others. You know what it is. I’m not going to mention it because if I do you’ll probably click away from my post in a huff. 

But let’s just say that for Jesus it was good news that God decided who would hear the Good News, know God and his amazing grace, change their way of thinking, and follow in faith.

And to you and me it is good news too: you wouldn’t be pondering the question if you hadn’t been given that bit of revelation, that inner knowledge of Jesus and his love. 

Really this question is always something we ask from inside the life of faith:

How did I possibly get such a gift? Why on earth was I ever allowed to know this Jesus, this God, who gives me new life?

Well, the God of grace decided to give you this gift, to let you know, to invite you in, and to hold you close.

His gift. His reasons.

Don’t squander it. Live in gratitude.

The passage closes with some of Jesus’ most beautiful words.

Come to me,
all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;
for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy,
and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30 NRSV

Has he just switched topics? It seems like a non-sequitur at first glance.

And at second glance it seems far from the truth. Jesus’ yoke was a cross, his burden the sin of the world. He bore that yoke and burden on the journey to his death.

But really he hasn’t changed topics. When we look at Jesus from inside the life of faith, as branches on his vine, members of his own Body, we find him gentle. We find his burden light, even when life is heavy. 

We draw close, giving up the tattered rags we thought were so stylish, and find him clothing us in his own glorious robes.

We give up going to worldly wells to pull up one more bucket of water, and find that he gives us living water springing up from within.

It is of a piece with his paradoxical teaching a few chapters later,

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

Matthew 16:25 NRSV

May it be so for you, my friend, in this hard pandemic days.

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The post Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, 5th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 9 (14) — Matthew 11:19-16, 25-30 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 10:40-42

CC by Charity: water – SA 3.0

Writing a children’s sermon on Matthew 10:40-42 (which comes up the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost in “Year A” of the Revised Common Lectionary) is kind of challenging. 

First, the text is really short. Just three verses!

Second, it has no narrative action.

Stories are far easier than non-narrative texts as a base for a children’s sermon. You can retell a story, and kids will be drawn to listen. 

And you can expand and embellish, creating a kid-friendly context from a biblical story — which I find quite natural, since biblical stories tend to be very lean on details. 

Fleshing the story out with details, dialogue, and feelings, allows you to make a particular point from the story stand out much more than if you simply read the biblical text to the kids.

With kids, I’d say it is more effective to make the point stand out in the story you tell than to direct their attention to the point with explanations and exposition. 

So what to do with Matthew 10:40-42? Sometimes it helps to turn a lengthy speech by Jesus into a bit of dialogue with the disciples.

A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 10:40-42

Do you remember how two weeks ago I told you about the time when Jesus was getting ready to send his friends out on a mission trip? 

He told them what they should do.
He told them what they should bring along.
He told them what they should leave behind.
He told them how to find friendly people to stay with.

Well, he went on telling them about the upcoming mission trip for a long time — for a whole chapter of the Bible!

As he got near the end, they realized it was getting close to time to leave for their mission trip. Then, they started to worry.

“Jesus?” asked Peter, “What if we go into a town and nobody wants us? That’s gonna feel really bad.”

Jesus looked gently at Peter with his big brown eyes. “Well, Peter,” he said gently, “sometimes that will happen. Some people won’t want you to come to their towns. Some won’t want to hear you talk about the kingdom of Heaven. Some won’t want to let you pray for them and heal them. But can I tell you a secret?”

“Okay,” said Peter, “what it it?”

“They won’t always be mean to you. Sometimes people will open their arms wide and welcome you. They’ll let you stay in their houses. They’ll feed you meals. They’ll listen to you when you teach. They’ll want you to pray for them so God can heal them.”

“Wow,” said Peter. “That will feel really good.”

“Yeah,” said John. “That’s really generous. Should we, like, maybe do something to thank them?”

“That’s a good idea, John,” said Jesus. “It’s always helpful to say thank you when someone does something kind for you. You can also give them a message from me.”

“What is the message?” John asked. 

“Tell them that when they welcome you, I feel like they are actually welcoming me. And when they welcome me, my Father feels like they are actually welcoming him.”

“So let me get this straight,” said Thomas. “When we go out into the world, if people listen to us or give us a meal they are actually doing something nice to God?”

“That’s right, Thomas,” said Jesus. “And when you do something kind, God feels like you do it to him. Just imagine how great God feels when people do kind things to him!”

“Yeah,” said Thomas, “but that’s only when people do really big things — right?”

“Nope,” said Jesus. “Even really little things. If someone gives you even a glass of cold water on a hot summer day, my Father and I will reward them just as if they gave it to us.”

Thomas thought about that for a minute. Then he said, “Lord, you have officially blown my mind.”

I wonder if someone has ever offered you a warm welcome, or given you something good to drink when you were thirsty.
I wonder if you’ve ever welcomed someone who was new in your school or your neighborhood.
I wonder if you’ve ever brought someone some food or a glass of water?
I wonder how big a smile God had on his face when you welcomed someone or someone welcomed you!

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If you like this children’s sermon, feel free to use it, either in your worship service or as a bedtime story. And please do me a favor and share it, using the social media buttons below!

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Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, 4th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 8 (13) — Matthew 10:40-42

On the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, in Year A of the lectionary, we finish our three-week journey through Matthew 10. It started out with Jesus preparing his disciples for a mission trip. His lessons morphed into warnings of much later persecutions. And now we get this tiny reading which is ostensibly the conclusion of the same speech.

Matthew 10:40-42

In content Matthew 10:40-42 could either be a return to Jesus’ advice about the mission trip, or a somewhat cheerier continuation of his warnings about future ministry and persecution.

He starts with the welcome the disciples hope for in their ministry, then riffs rather poetically about people who welcome prophets and the righteous, and finally the kind of practical care one might offer to a child or any old disciple.

At three verses it’s as short a Gospel reading as you are likely to find in the lectionary. Perhaps my meditations will be similarly brief.

Welcome

The three verses have a rhythmic structure, repeating and echoing clauses like stanzas of a poem.

Whoever welcomes you…

Whoever welcomes a prophet…

Whoever welcomes a righteous person

The theme is easy to pick up on. Being welcomed, and welcoming others, hospitality — it really matters.

For the moment let’s focus on the context.

The disciples are going out in mission. They don’t know who they will stay with as they travel. Earlier he told them how they will have to depend on the hospitality of strangers. Practically, they must take no extra supplies. Instead they are to find someone “worthy” and “greet” the person’s house, and let their “peace” rest upon it — or not, if they are not offered a “welcome.” (See Matthew 10:9–15.)

So now, at the end of the speech, he returns to the topic. They go in his service, and the welcome they are offered is credited as welcoming him. And of course welcoming him is credited as welcoming his Father who sent him.

It echoes forward to the parable of the last judgment in Matthew 25, when any compassionate action done to someone in need is credited as being done to Christ — and likewise, the lack of compassionate action is credited as being undone to Christ. (See Matthew 25:31-46.)

Ah, so welcoming others really is important. Hmm… And it isn’t just welcoming those who are just like you. They might be prophets, or righteous people. Maybe they are just strangers, people in need.

Roles

The emphasis on welcoming a traveling apostle or prophet, a righteous person or a disciple, brings back memories of recent readings. In my online reading group (comment or email if curious) we worked through four texts that provided windows into the worship life of Christians in the early centuries — works like the “Didache” and the “Apostolic Tradition.”

In some of these, especially the earliest, there were explicit instructions on how to treat traveling apostles and prophets. These remained active categories of folks in itinerant ministry for some time. The church had to develop policies making sure they were properly welcomed.

Then they needed policies to make sure they were properly sent packing again after a few days. There was, it seems, some temptation among itinerant ministers to take advantage of the community’s hospitality.

Water

But what does it mean to “welcome” someone? That’s what I think Jesus was getting at in the last verse of our reading. The first three stanzas had simply called for us to “welcome” people. That might seem like a hearty handshake, or a bow if that’s culturally appropriate (or a lame elbow bump if you happen to find yourself in a pandemic).

You know: Smile, give a hearty greeting and a slap on the back. You’re done.

But the final stanza is more pragmatic:

…and whoever gives even a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones
in the name of a disciple—
truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.

Matthew 10:42 NRSV

It’s a bit enigmatic. What’s perfectly clear is that the welcome offered is practical help, providing what is really needed.

However:

When he says “little ones” is he pointing to a kid in the crowd? That’s what seems to be happening in other texts with similar phrasing.
Or does he mean “anyone,” or “anyone in need” like “the least of these” in chapter 25?
When he says to give the water “in the name of a disciple,” does he mean “because the person you give water to bears the name ‘disciple’?”
Or does he mean “give it because you who give the water bear the name ‘disciple’?”

There may be some way to figure that out with confidence, but I’m not going hunting for perfection today.

Instead I’ll offer you the slightly expansive paraphrase:

Whichever of you gives a cup of cold water
to anyone in need, the least of these members of my family,
Because you are called my disciple
You won’t lose your reward!

It starts with water for the thirsty. Not because the thirsty are like us, or because they happen to be especially worthy, or because they have a particular right to water that others might not have. Rather we are to give them water because they are human beings and because they are thirsty.

In recent memory, in my country, people have been punished for trying to provide water for thirsty refugees traveling through desert wastes to ask asylum. May they not lose their reward.

And may each of us start by providing water and other basic needs for people who need the help, not because they are in our group, but because they are made in God’s image.

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I’d love to send you my Monday Meditations, along with my other new articles and announcements. Scroll down to the black box with the orange button to subscribe, and they’ll arrive by email most Fridays.

The post Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, 4th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 8 (13) — Matthew 10:40-42 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 9:35-10:8

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On the Second Sunday after Pentecost in Year A, the Gospel reading has two options: one short, one long. I’m sticking with the short one, so this will be a children’s sermon on Matthew 9:35-10:8.

I make that choice primarily because it is a tighter, more coherent story. The short version is about Jesus sending his disciples on a mission trip. In the long version, Jesus shifts to things the disciples would only encounter years later after his Resurrection.

You are, of course, welcome to use this in a worship service or as a bedtime story. If you do, please let me know how it goes!

A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 9:35-10:8

For a long time, Jesus’ disciples followed him around and learned from him.

They watched, as he taught people about the kingdom of heaven.
They watched, as he healed people who were sick, in their bodies and their minds.
They watched, as he fed people who were hungry.
They watched, as he welcomed people nobody else wanted around.

Sometimes when Jesus looked at the crowds of people who wanted his help he sighed.

“Whew!” he would say. “These people need a lot of help! Their lives must be so hard. They’re like sheep with no shepherd!”

One day, Jesus said to his disciples, “You really ought to pray that God will send people out to help all the people who are hurting, and sick, and sad, and hungry.”

Then Jesus did a kind of funny thing: He answered his own prayer.

“I know!” he said. “I’ll send you on a mission trip! YOU can go out and help the people!”

They just sort of stared at him.

“Um, Jesus,” asked Thomas, “what are we supposed to do exactly?”

“Well, Thomas,” asked Jesus, “what kinds of things have you seen me doing?”

“You teach people about the kingdom of heaven!” said John.

“And you heal people who are sick!” said Andrew.

“And sometimes you feed people who are hungry!” said James.

“And sometimes you welcome people who nobody else wants to be around,” said Matthew. Matthew knew all about that. He used to be a tax collector, and most people really didn’t like tax collectors.

“That’s right,” said Jesus. “You’ve got it. Go do those things.”

“But wait,” said Thomas. “You expect us to do all the amazing things that YOU have been doing? That’s impossible.”

“You know, Thomas,” said Jesus, “this is why I wanted you to be my disciples. So you can learn to do the things I do. The world has lots of people who need to hear about the kingdom of heaven, and lots of people who are sick, and hungry, and lonely. Helping them is a big mission. I need all of you to help.”

“But I’m afraid,” said Andrew. “What if I’m not very good at this?”

“You’ll have each other,” said Jesus. “I’m not sending any of you alone. Andrew, you’ll go with your brother Peter. James, you’ll go with your brother John. Matthew and Thomas, you guys go together. The rest of you pair up. You need to help each other every day!”

And they went out, two by two, to do the same kind of work they had seen Jesus doing.

Then afterward they came back and told Jesus all the wonderful things that had happened.

I wonder what the disciples felt when they watched Jesus do all the wonderful things he did to help people?
I wonder how the disciples felt when Jesus said he was sending them out to do the very same kinds of things?
I wonder how it felt when they actually did those things on their mission trip?
I wonder if you’ll go do the kinds of things Jesus did some day?
I wonder which parts will be scary?
I wonder which parts will be fun?
I wonder who you’ll go with?

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I’d love to send you all my children’s sermons, along with my other new articles and announcements. Scroll down to the black box with the orange button to subscribe, and they’ll arrive by email most Fridays.

The post A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 9:35-10:8 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, 2nd Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 6 (11) — Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)

The Appointment and Mission of the Twelve (public domain)

In Year A, the Gospel text for the Second Sunday after Pentecost is Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23) — that is, the core is 9:35-10:8, and 10:9-23 is optional. I can see why they give the preacher the opportunity to cut it off partway. The text sort of morphs in the middle, subtly shifting topics.

Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)

9:35-38 Jesus is in ministry, and talking with his disciples about the need of the people.
10:1-8 Jesus sends his disciples out on a mission trip to address that need, telling them how to focus their labors.

Then there is a transition away from the actual work. Instructions on where to stay lead to warnings that are increasingly apocalyptic:

10:9-14 Jesus adds specifics about where to stay and not to stay while on the trip.
10:15 Jesus gives a warning about how rotten it will be on Judgment Day for towns that reject the disciples.
10:16 Jesus says how he’s sending them into danger.
10:17-20 Jesus predicts that they’ll be arrested and have to testify for him, but the Spirit will provide.
10:21-22 Jesus predicts that families will be divided over him, and they’ll have to endure through being hatred.
10:23 Jesus tells them to flee persecution, and keep preaching as they go, which won’t be done “before the Son of Man comes.”

There is a real shift here.

At first Jesus is talking to the twelve about what they are going to do over the next chapter or so. (Matthew is not at all clear about when they came back. Mark is much tidier about such narrative details.) There is no indication that on this mission trip they faced opposition, arrest, or hatred.

By the end, Jesus is talking about things that go on between the end of his earthly ministry and his return at the end of the age — things like opposition, arrest, and hatred.

The dire and gloomy speech will continue through the rest of the chapter, and we’ll hear it in coming weeks.

Matthew 9:35-10:8

There’s plenty of good stuff to focus on in the shorter version of the reading. It stays with a coherent narrative, and that makes it easier to focus on. I’ll comment on a couple of things I find most moving or evocative as I meditate on this story.

Compassion on the Crowd

I am most struck by a passing reference in verse 36. Jesus had been doing all his usual (and frankly amazing) work: teaching, preaching, and healing. As we see more vividly in Mark, his wisdom and his generosity with grace have won him popularity. A crowd has gathered.

Pause briefly, and think about how we would be likely to respond today if a crowd gathered in response to our work.

Hey! This ministry stuff finally working!

Wow! I’m popular! This is so cool!

We need to build for the future! I think we have the makings of a megachurch here…

Or maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, compare Jesus’ response when people came out in droves:

When he saw the crowds,
he had compassion for them,
because they were harassed and helpless,
like sheep without a shepherd.”

Matthew 9:36 NRSV

What might happen if compassion drove all parts of our work?

Praying for Laborers

And what was Jesus compassionate response to these sheep without a shepherd? It was a call to prayer.

I always like that.

Notice that Jesus calls us disciples to pray on a particular topic:

The harvest is plentiful,
but the laborers are few;
therefore ask the Lord of the harvest
to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Matthew 9:37-38 NRSV

We are supposed to pray, asking God to send more people into his service, helping gather God’s harvest.

I suspect I’m not alone in spending rather little time praying on that topic.

I do better on the topics summarized in the Lord’s Prayer, and the all-embracing cry for help embodied in the Jesus Prayer.

The Psalms lead me through a lot of topics, as do corporate prayers in worship. These remind me of many things that New Testament texts say we should pray for: enemies, rulers, and so on.

But it seems I’m rather lax in obeying the call for God to send more Christians into ministry.

I totally see the need. I’ve seen churches languish for lack of leadership, and I’ve seen people who ought not be leaders volunteer for the role. Neither is a recipe for a healthy and effective church.

We need God to be doing the deep work within people that equips them to serve well, and we need God to be nudging those prepared people to move toward service.

So let’s pray about that. I mean it.

Answered Prayer

One thing I love about this particular text is what happens next.

First Jesus calls his disciples to pray for laborers.

Then, in the next verse, he goes ahead and answers the prayer right away.

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples
and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out,
and to cure every disease and every sickness… …These twelve Jesus sent out…

Matthew 10:1 & 5 NRSV

That’s efficient.

And why not? He’s God. Answering prayers is what he does.

Doing Christ’s Mission

So what, really, did Jesus want them to do on this first short term mission trip?

He wanted them to do exactly what he had been doing for the first nine chapters of the Gospel.

Here’s Jesus in action:

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages,
teaching in their synagogues,
and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom,
and curing every disease and every sickness .”

Matthew 9:35 NRSV

Here again is what Jesus equipped them to do:

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples
and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out,
and to cure every disease and every sickness .”

Matthew 10:1 NRSV

Notice that in terms of the healing ministry, their empowerment is both audacious and exactly what Jesus himself did.

I’ve noted before that Jesus’ healing ministry is portrayed as a single-person universal health care plan.

Now we see that Jesus’ followers were likewise set up to provide universal health care coverage.

(That seems like it ought to still be a priority for Christians, eh? Even if we can’t do it by miracle, couldn’t we throw our support behind making sure every disease and sickness is tended to competently? And no, I’m not digressing.)

Now let’s turn to the imperatives Jesus gave the twelve as he sent them out. It was focused: Just a short tour within the Jewish community. But the mandate should sound familiar:

As you go,
proclaim the good news,
‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’
Cure the sick,
raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers,
cast out demons.
You received without payment;
give without payment.”

Matthew 10:7-8 NRSV

By golly, it is a description of Jesus’ own work in the previous pages of the Gospel. In fact it is what is described in the first verse of this week’s reading.

Nice of him to give them a reminder that they are supposed to do all this teaching, and preaching, and healing for free.

He’s not against giving people in ministry material support — he says as much in 10:9. But he emphasized generous service, giving freely what we ourselves have received.

So what should our mission be? Do we choose between preaching the Gospel and tangible acts of compassion, like providing health care?

No. Jesus did both and so should his disciples—and now.

What’s our mission? His mission.

What does it look like? Look at what he did.

Sharing Christ’s Result

Then comes that last part of the reading, the optional, and increasingly apocalyptic bit.

I think the connection is that if we do engage in Christ’s mission, we’re going to share in the result he experienced. He was betrayed, accused, hated, and killed. He says these things will happen to his followers too.

Obviously not all the time.

Some seem to be overzealous in assuming that these things happen all the time — Listen to my fellow Americans, free to worship and serve Christ’s purposes, complaining that they feel persecuted because we no longer have quite the dominant voice in the culture that we once did.

But you know, if you go out there as a Christian saying the Gospel teaches you to support universal health care, given generously to all, somebody’s gonna want your head on a platter.

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I’d love to send you my Monday Meditations, along with my other new articles and announcements. Just scroll down to the black box with the orange button to subscribe, and they’ll come most Fridays by email.

The post Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, 2nd Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 6 (11) — Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23) appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, Trinity, Matthew 28:16-20

CC by Lyricmac-SA 3.0

The Sunday after Pentecost is called “Trinity Sunday” in the West.

If you frequent Orthodox churches you will know that pretty much every Sunday (really every single service in the year) is about the Holy Trinity.

In the West we tend to need the annual reminder of the nature of the God we worship — the God known from the call of Abraham and Sarah, incarnate in Jesus Christ, and now vividly present in the Holy Spirit.

We worship one and only one God, but our one God is eternally three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In terms of math it seems confusing.
In terms of the God revealed in the Bible it makes sense of a lot of things.
And in terms of the theological understanding of our salvation, it actually is quite necessary.

As the great arguments of the Ecumenical Councils show, any other view of God embodies hidden problems that undercut the very possibility of salvation.

Matthew 28:16-20

In Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary, the Gospel for Trinity Sunday takes one giant step backward, going before Pentecost to Easter day. In Matthew’s description Easter started with the Empty Tomb, followed by Mary and Mary encountering the risen Christ, and finally the eleven Apostles meeting with him on a mountain in Galilee.

The reason for the choice of this text on Trinity Sunday is clearly one line of the text. In the heart of the Great Commission we are told to baptize,

… in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”

This is the text where Jesus himself named the Persons of the Trinity for us.

It happens in an important context, wouldn’t you say? Jesus’ last recorded words in the Gospel and his summary instructions to his disciples.

The Great Commission—in Two Parts

This scene is most famous for that “The Great Commission.” Each of the four evangelists has his own summary of Jesus’ final instructions to his followers, sending them forth in mission. However, it is Matthew’s that has stuck with us, especially in American Protestantism.

It is the larger part of this Sunday’s text. Let’s take a look at the whole of it:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them
to obey everything that I have commanded you.
And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

(Matthew 20:18-20 NRSV)

The whole commission is grounded in Jesus claim of full and total authority—something no true Christian will ever cede to any earthly ruler.

But what I want to talk about is the imperatives of the commission. Once we move out from under Caesar’s authority and into Christ’s kingdom, Jesus has some things for us to attend to.

First Imperative: Make Disciples

I am struck by the fact that the fact that the commission is really two instructions, not one.

We tend to only think about the first of these:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…”

That’s crucial, of course. It had to be surprising to the Apostles. It took them a good bit of the book of Acts to become genuinely convinced that when Jesus said their mission was to “all nations”, he didn’t mean just the Jews.

And we Christians have been a tad spotty about following up ever since. We’ve been rather complacent, sometimes for centuries, working only at Christianizing our own societies and forgetting that, as the hymn says, “We’ve a story to tell to the nations…”

(Lord knows we need to do a lot more here at home to behave as genuine Christians, where many claiming Christ’s name turn a deaf ear to the cries of the oppressed who happen to have a different skin color, where Christians support withholding food stamps from the poor, where followers of Jesus are in favor of turning away refugees at the border…but I digress.)

Second Imperative: Remember, I am with you

But what I’ve not heard emphasized is the second imperative of the commission:

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We are called to remember Christ’s presence among is, here and now.

Some find it easier to remember that Jesus will come again, in the future, at the end of the age.

But a disciple fulfilling the Great Commission must be constantly aware that Jesus is here now.

I commend the practice of prayer, especially modes that shift your focus to contemplation, as a way to obey this call.

To take just one, consider the Orthodox practice of repeating the “Jesus Prayer” unceasingly.

Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God,
have mercy on me.”

Remember who Jesus is. Remember he is here, listening. Remember to ask for what you need.

Fulfilling the Great Commission is not some brave and bold labor we do, of our own power and courage, showing our heroic qualities as our discipleship.

No. The Great Commission is what you do side by side with Jesus, remembering that he is with you now, and ever, and even to the end of the age — and he’s going to lead you to make disciples.

I suspect that a Christian who remembers that Jesus is present is more likely to make disciples who are like Jesus.

Within the First Imperative

Inside that call to make disciples, it is worth noting in passing that the process has two parts.

Baptize — and in a particular way.
Teach — and with a particular agenda.

The act of baptism, as a primary portion of the task of making disciples, should not be underrated. To baptize someone, you need to get them to agree to live as a disciple, or in the case of a baby, to get the parents to agree to raise the child as a disciple.

Back in the early centuries, they took that really seriously: you would have three years of preparation and study prior to receiving baptism. And if you engaged in notable sin afterward, you might find yourself on the outside of the community and needing to sort of start over.

These words on how to baptize are also important. In this era many, especially in Protestantism, want to rethink the terms used for the Persons of the Trinity, and could be tempted to baptize in those rethought or revised names.

Jesus says here to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit — and at least in denominations like mine, you have to use those words for the baptism to be considered valid. That certainly has consequences when joining a church when you move, and spiritually would seem to be important as one considers whether one has actually begun the journey.

But we are not to stop with baptism. We are to teach the new disciple to obey all that Jesus commanded.

It seems to me that many churches would be challenged to hear that they need to teach at all. Actually teaching Jesus’ curriculum in full is a higher bar.

It isn’t enough to just have a Sunday school for the kiddos and a Bible study for the few interested grown-ups.

So let’s start. Let’s teach everyone, every age of disciple, Jesus’ full curriculum.

The Call to Doubters

I’ll close by noting my favorite line in this great text:

When they saw him,
they worshiped him;
but some doubted.”

Matthew 28:17 NRSV

All worshipped, it seems, even though some of the worshippers, some of the Apostles, mind you, doubted.

That’s a good word. Keep worshipping, whether you have a confident faith or a wavering one. If you are planning or leading worship, know that some are doubting — and they are still welcome. They need to be encouraged, built up, and taught.

Maybe more to the point, Jesus gave his Great Commission to both those with fully devoted hearts and those who doubted.

“Go!” in mission, says Jesus, even if you doubt.

“Make disciples!” says Jesus, even if you doubt.

“Remember, I am with you!” says Jesus, even if you doubt.

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I’d love to send you all my Monday Meditations, along with my other new articles and announcements. Just scroll down to the black box with the orange button to subscribe, and they’ll come most Fridays by email.

The post Monday Meditation: RCL Year A, Trinity, Matthew 28:16-20 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

Pentecost: A Children’s Sermon on Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost, Duccio di Buoninsegna (public domain)

The story of the first Christian Pentecost is full of evocative details, just waiting for a storyteller to draw them out.

If you want the children to hear only what is explicitly on the page, better than a Children’s Sermon on Acts 2:1-21, you might want to read the text to them. I think, however, it is more fun and more effective to let the biblical details spark my imagination and the imaginations of the kids.

You are, of course, welcome to make use of this in worship as a children’s sermon, or at home as a bedtime story for your kids. If you do, though, please let me know how it goes. (I’m serious. I love to hear from readers, either in the comments section below, or by email through the contact form in the top menu.)

A Children’s Sermon on Acts 2:1-21

It was fifty days since Jesus had risen from the dead on Easter morning. That day was also fifty days after the Jewish celebration of Passover. For the Jewish people, this was another big holiday, called Pentecost. People had come to Jerusalem from many different countries to celebrate the holiday.

Jesus’ disciples were not celebrating. They were sad. They were worried. They were confused.

You remember that on Easter and afterward, Jesus had appeared to show his friends that he was alive again.

But ten days before Pentecost, Jesus appeared one last time, and then he left to be with God in heaven.

Now Jesus’ disciples were on their own. They knew Jesus had given them a job to do. They were supposed to keep doing Jesus’ work in the world.

But they also knew that when Jesus did all the wonderful things he did in the world, people arrested him and killed him.

The disciples were afraid to go outside. They didn’t want to get arrested. They didn’t want people to hurt them.

The best thing they could think of was to stay together. They had a big room where they could hang out.

Sometimes they prayed. Sometimes they sang songs. Sometimes they talked about what they should do.

“I think we should go out!” said Peter.

“But I’m scared!” said James.

“Let’s just stay in here,” said Mary Magdalene. “We’ll think of something.”

But then, while they waited, things got a little weird.

“Hey!” said Mary Magdalene, “Peter! You’re hair’s on fire!”

“Quelle horreur!” said Peter, flapping his hands on his head to put out the flames.

“¿Qué dijiste?” asked James. He was totally confused.

“I said ‘How horrible!’ but I said it in French,” said Peter. “What did you say?”

“I said ‘What did you say?’” said James, “but I said it in Spanish.”

“Hey you guys,” asked Mary, “Woher kennst du diese Sprachen?”

“What did you say?” asked James.

“I said ‘How do you know how to speak those languages?’“ said Mary. “But I said it in German.”

“Au fait,” said Peter, “vos cheveux sont en feu!”

“What was that?” Mary asked.

“I said ‘By the way, your hair is on fire!’”

And Mary started flapping her hands on her head to put out the flames.

Well that was just the beginning. As they looked around, everybody in the room had flames above their heads.

I’ll tell you something: their hair was not on fire. The flames they saw were a sign that the Holy Spirit had come to give them strength and courage and new skills to do what Jesus asked them to do.

“Hey, I know!” said Mary Magdalene. “Now that we speak new languages, let’s go out and tell the people about Jesus! There are people in town for Pentecost from all over the world!”

And so that is what they did. They explained to the people outside that long ago, the prophet Joel had promised that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on all the people. They explained the prophet’s promise that everyone who called on God for help would be saved. And then they explained about Jesus and invited the people to become his disciples.

And a whole lot of people started to follow Jesus that day.

I wonder if you’ve ever felt so afraid and confused that you didn’t want to go outside.
I wonder if when you are afraid if you like to be together with other people — or if you’d rather be alone.
I wonder what it felt like to suddenly see flames of fire on everybody’s heads!
I wonder what it felt like to suddenly have the ability to talk other languages.
I wonder when the Holy Spirit gives you confidence and abilities, what part of Jesus’ work you might do.

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