Spokane Friends Meeting

One author said that Genesis is bad science and bad history but great theology. Of course the fact is that the early chapters of Genesis isn’t history at all, it is pre-history. Untold thousands of years of human development are conflated into a few chapters which begin in a garden and conclude with human industry, ingenuity and depravity — and divine disillusionment. From a human point of view the high point is the Tower of Babel incident. The period closes with a segue story, the story of Noah where God starts all over again. God created a garden, planted it with the best God could imagine and entrusted it to humanity for its nurture and care – and so ripe was God’s disappointment in the outcome that God wiped the slate clean and started all over.

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It has only been in recent decades that we’ve come to speak of vocation in a secular way – like vocational schools or the job we take to pay the bills. We treat it like a synonym for occupation with all connections of partnership with God stripped away. From New Testament times one’s vocation was about being addressed by God, called by God, to a partnership with God. Whatever place or station in life, every person can be in partnership with God that entails service to God, to our neighbor and to our companions in creation.

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It seems like an uncanny coincidence that a parable about radical forgiveness is our lectionary text for today, this the tenth anniversary of the attack by terrorists on the Pentegon and the World Trade Center. We all might prefer a different text, like an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But, no, we get this parable of the unforgiving servant.

Matthew 18²¹Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”²²Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

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Matthew 15 and Isaiah 56, each in their own way, have a similar message. The story in Matthew makes me celebrate what a great student of the Torah and the Prophets Jesus actually was.  It also reminds me how much he was like you and me. But before getting into the New Testament story, it may be better to get some Old Testament background.

Isaiah is a complex book. It covers nearly 250 years of Israel’s political turmoil. Through the formula “Thus saith the Lord” the prophets declared judgment on Israel, declared the destruction of the instrument of judgment on Israel, and pronounced the end of their exile. When God spoke, you could be sure that the prophet wouldn’t say something like: ‘Well I think…” No, he would say “Thus saith the Lord” and that changed what had gone before.

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Three of the Gospels tell this story. Each however has a much different conclusion. Mark’s version in chapter 6 gives us this ghostly impression of Jesus coming out of the fog in the early morning hours, which terrified the disciples. According to Mark they are trying to wrap their minds about what had happened with the loaves and fish still don’t have a clue. Mark concludes: ‘Their minds were closed.” John’s version, in chapter 6, has the disciples some four miles out on the water. In the early morning hours, when they see Jesus coming toward the boat walking on the sea they are terrified. He reassures them that it is he and as they prepare to take him onto the boat, miraculously they are at their destination. Matthew’s version ends with those in the boat proclaiming of Jesus: “Truly you are the Son of God”.   Another distinction is that only Matthew tells us of Peter’s attempt to walk on the water.

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Here’s a challenge for you – some game day during basketball season, take five loaves and two  fish to the Kennel at Gonzaga and offer to feed all the people in the stands.   That’s our mind stretching Gospel story for today.  Jesus’ disciples feed five thousand men plus women and children and have twelve baskets of leftovers.  It is a story that all four of the gospel writers share.   I haven’t been able to duplicate Jesus’ miracle.  How about you? Does it bother you that, despite your best efforts, all the resources you can muster will never be adequate to meet the needs of others?

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If we are to model our own sowing after the sower in Jesus parable we will share the message of God’s kingdom extravagantly and indiscriminately, not judging which people and places are worthy of them and which are not.

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When you take in this whole passage of scripture you can’t miss the startling turn around in Jesus’ demenor. It is hard to pin down the exact emotions Jesus expresses as this passage begins, but they are exquisitly human feelings to be sure! These emotions are so much part of the human experience that I can follow and serve a God who has experienced them as well. Jesus not only confronts his listeners, he also condemns them. Listen to this:  “Woe to you Chorazin! Woe to you Bethsaida!…”  Jesus is really ticked off! And then suddenly his whole approach changes.

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In the first part of the story, the prophet seemingly overlooks the fact that God had taken away his clairvoyance so he was unaware of the woman’s situation. In the second part, when he sends his staff with his servant to resuscitate the boy, he learns that he no longer possesses magical powers that can be used by remote control. He learns that to retain his place as a Man of God –in everything he does he must appeal directly to God.

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 Quakers believe that perfection was possible for the person in whom Christ dwelled and it was a perfection that allowed for continued maturation, a perfection that was proportional to a person’s challenges, a perfection that permitted her or him to do what God required. Yes, but I would be derelict to fail to remind us all that it requires diligence in attending to God in one’s heart. Maintaining that relationship with Christ isn’t necessarily permanent. It can slip away.

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