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Date: July 31, 2016

Sermon Title: Christianity and Culture

Scripture: Romans 14:13-17

Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

The last time I visited Gordon Terrell was less than a week before his unexpected death in May. In that conversation, he referred to Narcissa Whitman and asked if I knew about her. I didn’t. Well, he told me, I should. This was near the beginning of our conversation that day. Before I left, he brought it up again. Made sure I had the name right so I could find out more about her. Whitman made a big impression on Gordon and he wanted me to know about her. So, now I know much more about her and soon you will, too.

Narcissa Whitman was born Narcissa Prentiss and lived with her large family in upstate New York in the early 1800’s. She and her mother and siblings went to the Presbyterian Church. It was the time of the Second Great Awakening and there were revivals and inspiring church services firing up believers. At one such service, Narcissa felt compelled to devote her life to God. Eventually she determined that the way she was to do this was by becoming a missionary. She read accounts of other missionaries, since her mother would not let her read novels, and she wanted a life of adventure and service. She made it known that this was her intent and she waited for the occasion to present itself. In the meantime, she was educated and worked as teacher.

As it turns out, one obstacle in her path was the lack of a husband. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, sponsored by the Presbyterian Church and the Congregational Church, only sent married couples out to the mission field. To be a missionary, Narcissa would have to be married, and to someone who shared her passion and calling.

About the same time, Marcus Whitman, a doctor in upstate New York, heard about the initiative to send missionaries to the western region of North America, and he decided that he wanted to pursue that calling. He applied to the mission board, but he was rejected due to health issues. He applied again when his health was stronger and he was an appealing candidate, but, alas, he had no wife. Marcus was told about Narcissa, so he went to meet with her and after two days they determined that they would marry and proceed to the west.

About a year after they met, they were married. At the close of the wedding ceremony, the congregation sang a hymn with the words, “My native land, I love thee, Can I leave thee, far in heathen lands to dwell. . . Glad I bid thee Native land! Farewell! Farewell!” And with that, the Whitmans were married and they left for the west the next day. [http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10088]

It was 1836, and the Whitmans traveled 3000 miles in 7 months, by boat, wagon, horseback and foot, over the prairies, deserts, and the mountains to the Oregon Territory. There was a group of missionaries that went in hopes of Christianizing and civilizing the West. Narcissa and her female companions were the first women of European descent to cross the Rocky Mountains. They survived on, yes, buffalo meat, and fed their fires with buffalo dung, both of which were still plenteous in those days.

While the trip began as a great adventure, by the end it had lost its romance. The trek was exhausting and uncomfortable especially since Narcissa had become pregnant along the way. En route, they encountered various Indians who had never seen white women before and found the women to be curiosities. The four couples that arrived in the Oregon Territory as missionaries decided that they would start 4 separate missions hundreds of miles apart. As Cassandra Tate puts it in her essay on the Whitmans, “The same strong-minded idealism that fired people with Christian zeal made it difficult for them to cooperate.” [http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10088] The Whitmans started their mission among the Cayuse Indians near what is today Walla Walla, Washington.

Shortly after their arrival, their first and only child was born – on Narcissa’s 29th birthday. The Indians were captivated by the white baby and considered her Cayuse since she was born in their territory. But sadly, the child drowned when she was 2. This left Narcissa bereft and eventually she took in foster children and adopted a number of children some of whom were of mixed race – white and Indian.

At the mission outpost, the Whitmans introduced worship services, religious ceremonies, told Bible stories, started a school, instructed the Indians in white domestic chores and customs, and Dr. Whitman practiced medicine. This combination of religion and medicine made Marcus Whitman seem like a medicine man to the Indians. But Narcissa found it difficult to communicate with the Indians since she never learned their language, Nez Perce. She did not feel that they were making sufficient inroads in Christianizing the Cayuse. The Indians did not adopt white customs. They continued to practice polygamy. They did not take to farming and gardening and other aspects of the lifestyle of white Euro-Americans. Narcissa installed venetian blinds in their home to keep the Indians from looking in the windows. She would only allow the Indians into one room of their home. To Narcissa the Indians continued to be dirty, lazy and sinful. They ignored the standards of privacy and cleanliness that Narcissa was trying to impart.

Word reached the Whitmans that the mission board was going to discontinue supporting the efforts in the Oregon Territory due to lack of results. On behalf of the mission to the Cayuse, and the other 3 missions that had been established, Marcus Whitman went to Washington, D.C. to try to get the board to change its mind. When this was unsuccessful, Whitman returned to the mission with 800 white emigrants in tow. He and Narcissa proceeded to open a hotel and trading post. The next year 1500 more settlers arrived. And the pattern continued. Buildings went up, fences were installed, fields were plowed, walls were built, and the Cayuse looked on in alarm. The tribal leaders tried to express their dismay. They asked the settlers to leave. Their way of life was being destroyed and their land was being taken. Tensions mounted.

By the fall of 1847, over 10 years after the arrival of the Whitmans, there were 4,000 white emigrants living in Cayuse territory. And then there was an outbreak of measles. Dr. Whitman treated the victims, the whites and the Indians. But while half of the Indians died, including most of the children, most of the white children survived due to differences in their immune systems. The Indians felt this was calculated in some way. Why hadn’t their children been cured as the white children were? Had they been poisoned?

Finally, on November 29, 1847, things came to a head and several Cayuse attacked the Whitman outpost. Marcus and Narcissa were killed along with 12 others. 49 people were kept as hostages for a month. The situation escalated into a war between the Cayuse and the white settlers. Eventually, 5 Indians surrendered and were executed. At the execution the chief declared, “Did not your missionaries teach us that Christ died to save his people? So we die to save our people.” [http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/whitman.htm]

So, why should we know about this story? Certainly the Whitmans are an inspiration in their devotion and sacrifice. They were well intentioned.   But the story brings up the complex interplay between Christianity and culture. This has been an issue since the first century and will continue to be an issue well beyond the twenty-first century. Where does faith end and culture begin? What is culture and what is Christian?

When I heard the story of Narcissa Whitman, I heard a story of the clash of cultures and a story of imposed colonization. I heard a story of power struggle and domination. To me, there didn’t seem to be much Christianity in the story. Yet the Whitmans were undoubtedly motivated by their faith and devotion to God. Narcissa Whitman was devout. She committed to giving her life to God. She faced peril and hardship to do so. She lived out of faith not fear. Her intentions were good and pure. But she really did not know how to separate faith and culture. To her, the Christian faith involved installing venetian blinds and keeping the Indians out of her home. It meant putting a fence around her house to keep her distance. It meant giving things to white people but not to Indians. It meant running a school for white children that Indians were not allowed to attend. Narcissa could not see that colonization was fraught with injustice and arrogance that is at odds with the message of the gospel. As a good Christian, she would have found the idea of stealing anathema. But she could not see how to the Indians, what the white people were doing was stealing their land and life. Her immersion in her cultural context made her blind to how her behavior was perceived by others and how she was betraying the very gospel she had given her life to.

Jesus was imbued with his culture AND his religious tradition. He was not outside of culture or beyond culture. In fact, what we see in Jesus is how to apply eternal spiritual truths and values within culture. We look at Jesus and see how he takes the theoretical concept of, say, universal love, and puts it into action within his cultural setting. Then we are inspired to think about how we are called to put universal love into action in our cultural setting. How does Jesus honor the image of God, the divine, within each and every person in his cultural context? We see the conflicts, the challenges, the consequences of that. This helps inform our understanding of what it means for us to honor the image of God in each and every person in our context. And it may very well be that when we are involved with someone of a different religion or culture than our own, we need to be even more thoughtful about what we say and our behavior so that we don’t undermine our own intent and betray our faith. There is no place in Christianity for arrogance, disdain, superiority, or condescension toward another person or culture or religion. Each and every person is to be treated as a manifestation of the image of God.

We see this message in the verses that we heard today from Romans. The writer is talking to this new faith community about how to deal with the cultural diversity around them and within their faith community. The writer advises don’t be judgmental. In other words, try to understand those who are different. Don’t assume the worst. Don’t put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of new believers. The message is don’t let culture get in the way of the gospel. In those days, the Jews were very concerned about food that was clean and unclean according to the dictates of the Torah. This created problems when Jesus followers from the Jewish tradition blended with Jesus followers who were not of Jewish heritage because the non-Jews did not have the same dietary guidelines. So what can and cannot be eaten? Paul tells the Christians in Rome that no food is bad, sinful, or immoral, in and of itself. To make things clear, Paul says that if what you are doing is injurious to someone else, then you are not walking in love. The gospel should bring peace and be mutually up-building. Well, we don’t see the Whitmans adhering to the teachings of Paul that we heard today because they were blinded by their cultural context. They were not able to separate out what was Christianity and what was culture, and to approach the Indians without judgment, in love, seeking peace and mutual up-building.

One historian, Michael Schaubs, assesses the Whitman mission this way:

The Whitmans early on made the mistake of being unable to separate the differences between faith and culture.  They quickly defined many tribal customs and traditions as “sins” and barriers to salvation.  The Indians must give up their songs, dances, gambling, horse racing, and everything else that Indian people found enjoyable.  The Indians felt that they were being told that to avoid Hell in the afterlife, they must exist in a living Hell in the here and now.  This message was not well received.

In 1843 he [Marcus] wrote Narcissa’s parents ‘It does not concern me so much what is to become of any particular set of Indians, as to give them the offer of salvation… I have no doubt our greatest work is to aid the white settlement of this country.’  Although doubtless Marcus never expressed this to the Cayuse, the fact that provisions, goods and services were freely supplied to emigrants as gifts, and the white travelers were openly invited into the home of the missionaries (a place which was generally off limits to the Indians), the Cayuse could only have interpreted to show that the Whitmans were working to displace them from their own country.  [http://www.mman.us/whitmanmassacre.htm]

The Whitmans simply were not aware of the clash between Christianity and culture in what they were doing. They could not see how their behavior was perceived by the Cayuse. We do not want to ignore culture or discount culture. It is part of our identity as human beings. It is part of the grand diversity of our species. What we need to do is be aware of culture. Of our own culture. The messages and rituals and assumptions and behaviors that form and shape us. We need to be very conscious of our cultural milieu. It can seem invisible, like the air we breathe, and yet we know it is there. We need to be aware of that. Examining and acknowledging our culture. And we need to be aware of our faith. We need to understand the values and commitments that are part of the Christian path. We need to study the example of Jesus. Reflect on the stories we have from his teachings. And look for the deeper meanings. Then we need to have that awareness be in conversation with our awareness of our cultural context. Where are the conflicts? Where are the consistencies? Where is the influence flowing from faith to culture? When is the influence flowing from culture to faith? How are our choices and behaviors influenced by culture? How are they shaped by faith? This kind of examination is an ongoing process. It is how we figure out how to live our faith in a way that is constructive and healing for us and for the world.

The story of the Whitmans reveals a toxic mix of Christianity and culture. And this is a common occurrence. We know the human propensity to use religion to further economic, political, and social goals. We can see it in the European colonization of the Americas.   We can see it in ISIS and the other expressions of extremist Islamic fundamentalism. We can see it in the Lord’s Resistance Army in Congo. It happens again and again.

But can we see it in our own culture and in our own religion? There are those who defend the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States that protects the right to bear arms as Christian. They see the Constitution as divinely ordained. So the right to bear arms takes on authority akin to the 10 Commandments. And this becomes a way of saying that God wants people in the United States to have guns. They are needed to defend our families and communities and churches. This is God’s way of protecting his own.   I say ‘his’ because this expression of God is always and exclusively male. So churches hire armed guards and offer training classes in how to use guns. And all this is seen as consistent with, even inspired by, the Christian faith.

Where does that leave the teachings of Jesus – Love your enemy. Do good to those who persecute you. The one who lives by the sword dies by the sword. Turn the other cheek. Well, that was for that time. That was for those circumstances. That was so that nothing would interfere with Jesus being killed by the authorities because that was God’s plan. Those teachings were for that cultural context, not ours, so the thinking goes.

Now, I specifically picked an example that most of us would find glaring and clear cut. But there are plenty of examples of things that you and I, who are probably not gun owners, do each and every day that are at odds with the values of Christianity but fully accepted in our culture.

We look back at Narcissa, we look at the second amendment defenders, not to point the finger at them, but so that they help us point the finger at our own inconsistencies. We examine the interplay of faith and culture so that we can learn to be more discerning about our lives and our choices. We look at the context of culture and Christianity so that we can critically examine how our culture, our economy, our fossil fuel dependent life-style, our diet, and our politics and all the rest stack up against the teachings of Jesus. The political conventions of the last two weeks and the election at hand give us plenty of food for thought.

Our religious identity always exists in a cultural context that should and does influence our practice of our religion. There is interplay, there is cohesion, there is consistency and there is conflict.   There has always been the allure of ignoring the tension. Some Christians have convinced themselves that they are purely Christian and that they are abstaining from participation in the culture. They think they have immersed themselves fully in the Christian life, in the church, and that there is no cultural influence. They go to Christian schools, Christian movies, Christian gyms, listen to Christian music, play on sports teams with Christians, etc. etc. etc. They think they have successfully eliminated the influence of culture and that they are living a purely Christian life. This also happens with other religions and it is not exclusive to the US.

Another way of dealing with the fraught interplay of religion and culture is to decide that your culture is reflective of your religion. You see the culture you are living in as Christian, or Islamic, or Jewish, or whatever religion you subscribe to. So, you believe that your religion and culture are fully in sync and so there is no conflict or compromise. Some people choose to believe that the US is a Christian country meaning that our culture is consistent with the teachings of Christianity. When there is something that seems amiss, the solution is to implement a Christian policy or solution. This seems simple but what version of Christianity is applied? What expression of Christianity has authority? What teachings of Jesus hold sway? Who decides?

What happens with both of these scenarios is that the heart of the religion, the deep teaching, the power of the spiritual path is compromised. Christianity at its most faithful is always in dialogue with culture. The way of Jesus always presents challenges because it confronts our innate sinful self-aggrandizing tendencies with pure goodness and love, honestly, without deception. Which is why it is a religion of love, forgiveness and grace.   To experience that love, healing, and grace, we need to be honest in our examination of the relationship between our faith and our cultural context.

Gordon Terrell, a wise elder of this congregation, thought that we should know something about Narcissa Whitman and I think he is right. We should know about Narcissa Whitman. Her story helps us to understand the intricate complexity of the relationship between Christianity and culture.

In one of her rare moments of self-reflection, Narcissa Whitman, who was a prolific writer and has left many letters and diaries, revealed to her family that she questioned her own motives for becoming a missionary. Had she done it “with a single eye for the glory of God or from some selfish principle”? She insisted she didn’t regret the decision to come to Oregon, but added: “I find one of my most difficult studies is to know my own heart.” (October 6, 1841). [A biographical article about Narcissa Prentiss Whitman by Cassandra Tate, April 13, 2012, http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10088

] I think the same can be said for us and for our country. One of our most difficult studies is to know our own heart. May we invite Jesus to show us our hearts and then to heal them. Amen.

The following sources about Narcissa Whitman were used in the preparation of this sermon:

Whitman, Narcissa Prentiss (1808-1847) by Cassandra Tate, April 13, 2012 at http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10088

Marcus Whitman (1802-1847)

Narcissa Whitman (1808-1847)

at http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/whitman.htm

Mountain Men and Life in the Rocky Mountain West, Malachite’s Big Hole, The Whitman Massacre at http://www.mman.us/whitmanmassacre.htm

A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.

 

 

 

 

Date: July 24, 2016
Sermon Title: Intelligent Life
Scripture: Luke 10: 25-37
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

Are plants intelligent? Are they an intelligent form of life? There is an active, intense debate going on about this issue among biologists, botanists, and others that work with plants. This debate necessitates defining “intelligent life.” One of the factors that is considered in defining intelligent life is communication. That is considered a feature of intelligent life. As it turns out, it has been determined that plants actually do communicate with each other. They share information about various things like the presence of threatening insects. They do this by emitting chemical signals that other plants detect and react to. It has also been discovered that plants share information about water and nutrients in the soil. One plant will convey to another plant where to get the sustenance it needs.

An experiment documenting this process is outlined in the article, “The Intelligent Plant,” by Michael Pollan, in The New Yorker, Dec. 2013. Pollan discusses a study done by Suzanne Simard, a forest ecologist at the University of British Columbia and her colleagues. Simard’s research documents how “trees in a forest organize themselves into far-flung networks using the underground web of mycorrhizal fungi which connects their roots to exchange information and even goods.” Here is a description of one of the experiments Simard and her co-workers carried out:

. . . They injected fir trees with radioactive carbon isotopes, then followed the spread of the isotopes through the forest community using a variety of sensing methods, including a Geiger counter. Within a few days, stores of radioactive carbon had been routed from tree to tree. Every tree in a plot thirty meters square was connected to the network; the oldest trees functioned as hubs, some with as many as forty-seven connections. The diagram of the network resembled an airline route map.

The pattern of nutrient traffic showed how ‘mother trees’ were using the network to nourish shaded seedlings, including their offspring – which the trees can apparently recognize as kin – until they’re tall enough to reach the light. And, in a striking example of interspecies cooperation, Simard found that fir trees were using the fungal web to trade nutrients with paper-bark birch trees over the course of the season. The evergreen species will tide over the deciduous ones when it has sugars to spare, and then call in the debt later in the season. For the forest community, the value of this cooperative underground economy appears to be better over-all health, more total photosynthesis, and greater resilience in the face of disturbance. [The New Yorker, Dec. 23 and 30, 2013]

What this research tells us is that the fir trees take care of their own, and then they reach out and take care of other species of trees in their vicinity. It sounds pretty intelligent to me. Imagine how much better things would be in the world if the human species were able to master the same skills! Take care of our own, especially our offspring, and then reach out to others and beyond our own kind.

This morning we listened to a story that is very familiar to people of faith. It is a story about someone who is in desperate need of assistance after being a victim of a crime. The people we would expect to help, religious people, responsible people, community leaders, they walk by and do not help. Then a person who is considered “other,” enemy, sees the victim and helps. Maybe we can think about a young black male helping an older white woman who has been left under a bush after being mugged. Or an illegal, non-English speaking Mexican helping an old gent who was beat up waiting for a bus. And what about those we may think of as decent, white middle class working people who walked on by? The story is edgy. But it begins with the basics. A religious seeker is asking what to do be faithful, to be part of the life of God in the world. He already knows: Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, love your neighbor as yourself. But this seeker still yearns for some pearl of religious wisdom from this esteemed teacher. So, we are given the story of the Good Samaritan, defining neighbor as anyone in need – no exceptions. And there is the twist that the one who shows the proper understanding of neighbor is an outcast, an alien, an enemy. But the heart of the matter is very simple: Love God, love yourself, and love everyone else. You don’t need a big rule book, a degree, a large bank account, or access to the Internet to do this. To be part of the life of God in the world love God and love your neighbor as yourself. No creed, no doctrine, no dogma required.

When we think about this story, we may tend to see the extreme. My neighbor is anyone on the planet, so I need to be concerned about the people on the other side of the world. And yes, we do want to feel empathy for the situation of someone on the other side of the globe, like the people in Beijing that are dealing with the terrible condition of the air and the effect it has on children and lifestyle and health. But the person who helps in the story just happens to be going down the road and sees the person who needs medical care. What about our neighbors, our neighborhoods? What about the person down the street? Who needs to get to the doctor. Or who doesn’t have enough food. Or who is struggling with an addiction. Or who hasn’t spoken to their son in 10 years. What about these neighbors right here on our path?

And then there are our family and friends. We have so many people who come to the church for help who have no family and no friends to turn to for help. That can happen when those relationships are abused. And some do not want their family and friends to know that they are in desperate circumstances. It is so sad. What if we were taking care of our family and friends? This loving your neighbor as yourself can start with our own households, our families, our friends, neighbors and communities.

Some years ago, the church sponsored a mission trip to Miami to do volunteer work for a week. Someone from the church asked me why we were going to Miami when there was plenty of need right here in Pinellas County. Why raise money for this trip when we could do mission work and stay right here at home and give all the money where it is needed? These are good questions. A mission trip has focus and other distractions are eliminated. We can be open to new experiences and growth when we are out of our normal context. There is a sense of community that develops among those who go away together. Bonds are strengthened. And sometimes seeing the need elsewhere can open your eyes to the needs in our own context.

But fundamentally, I think the person who questioned the Miami trip has a point and is further along the spiritual path than some of us. Think about it. What would the world be like, or let’s just say the United States be like, if every family and close circle of friends looked out for each other, helped each other, took care of each other, and supported one another? What if this extended to neighborhoods, schools, and faith communities? People helping each other. Encouraging each other. Listening to each other. Working together for the common good. Just this, seemingly simple as it is, would make a vast difference in our society. It would drastically reduce poverty, disadvantage, and suffering. It would also dramatically decrease violence, crime, anti social behavior, and fear. And as we learn to live this way close to home, I believe it increases our empathy toward others further away – either literally further away geographically or figuratively further away separated from us by race, class, ethnicity, sexual identity, nationality, or other differences. As the saying goes, charity begins at home but it doesn’t stay there.

Think about the case of the Good Samaritan. The person needing help was right in the path of the Samaritan. He didn’t go out of his way to find the injured traveler. But the others who passed by did go out of their way, crossed the road, to avoid helping the man. They felt they had valid religious and social reasons for doing so. They would stand by their excuses and their choices. But Jesus sees things a different way. He sees religion drawing forth compassion and help regardless of separation. He sees religion as a bond cementing our common humanity regardless of the religion of the “other.” We can move in this direction by starting close to home.

I know that many of you have read the telling best seller, Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The title comes from James Baldwin’s book, The Fire Next Time, which was written in 1962. While I was waiting to get Between the World and Me from the library, I read the copy of The Fire Next Time that I had inherited from my parents. In my opinion, Baldwin, too, should be on the best seller list. Not only does Baldwin address race relations but he talks about the evil that white people perpetrate against each other, citing, as an example, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. That was “white on white.” We can cite many other horrors that are white on white. White people do not reserve their hatred and evil only for people who have skin of another color. There is plenty of white on white abuse, oppression, and violence. And so, Baldwin observes, “White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this – which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never – the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.”

To me, this observation echoes the words we heard this morning, – love your neighbor as yourself. When we learn to love ourselves and our neighbors, the person next door and down the block, when we teach ourselves to truly love, to look out for the well-being of ourselves and those around us, we will be solving the race problem and many other problems facing humanity.

If we truly learn to love ourselves and our neighbor, then we will not only see that there is access to health care, and a safe place to live, we will also want to have clean air to breath, and a healthy environment to live in. So we will eliminate the use of fossil fuels, we will embrace conservation and environmentalism whole-heartedly. We will not only have great schools but convenient, affordable, pollution neutral public transport for all ages. The lifestyle we are living now is ultimately harming us, our children, and our neighbors near and far. We are not providing a sustainable future for the next generations. We are not loving our neighbors, near or far, or ourselves, when we continue to destroy the ecology of the planet.

So, this loving your neighbor as yourself is accessible to all of us, right here at home, in our own context whatever it may be, and you don’t have to be a philanthropist to do it. We don’t have to go out and look for a foreigner who is in need of attention. The glaring needs of our communities and of the earth itself are right on our doorstep. And we have the capacity to embody divine love for ourselves and for our neighbors. Right here. Right now. Not in some other reality, some altered consciousness, some heightened state of enlightenment.

Science tells us of plants networking to help each other. First the mother fir trees help their offspring, then the other fir trees around them, but they do not stop there. They go on to send life-sustaining messages to the birch trees around them. They extend their network beyond their own kind. This impulse to reach out and connect to help is part of their genetic imprint. They are created with this ability and they use it. Is that intelligent life? We, too, have the capacity to support each other and promote the health of the community especially the next generations. Certainly we consider humanity to be a form of intelligent life. May we put our intelligence to use. Amen.

A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.

Date: Sunday July 17, 2016
Scripture: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Sermon: The Harvest
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

I grew up in Minnesota and though I lived in an urban setting I had friends, through church camp, that lived on the farm. In the summer I would go to visit them. It was eye-opening. Basically what I took from the experience was that the farm controlled the family. Livestock HAD to be cared for daily – there was no, I’m too busy, I have to see my boyfriend, I have an assignment due for school, I have play practice, I’ll be at volleyball. And when there was other work that needed to be done, everyone was expected to pitch in. Period. This was especially true at harvest time. And when would that be? Well, it depended on the weather, the growing conditions, and many other factors. But when the crop was ready, it was harvested. There was no postponing or delaying. To harvest too early could mean the crop was not fully ready and then would sell for less. Waiting could mean risking rot, or past peak produce, or ruining rains, or bird or insect infestation. The timing was very tricky with everything hanging in the balance. To lose a crop could mean extremely lean times for a family or worse yet, bankruptcy. This harvesting business was life or death. For my teen friends, things like going to the Twin Cities for the holidays, a new prom dress, a car, and much more that was important to them, were at risk – all depending on the harvest.

In the story we heard this morning from the gospel of Luke, we are told that Jesus senses that the time is right for the harvest. It is time to reap. So he sends his followers out in twos, to villages and towns, to spread the gospel. There were 12 disciples to account for the gospel being shared with the 12 tribes of Israel. Now Jesus sends out 70. Seventy represents the multitude of nations beyond Israel. Jesus sends these followers out to share the good news of God’s love and peace with the whole world. No one is to be left out. With no provisions, demonstrating their dependence on God, without distraction, these pairs head out into the world bringing God’s peace to those who were ready to receive it. Jesus senses that the time is ripe – people are ready, hungry, for the realm of God.

It was hard work, this harvest, as is any harvest. My high school friends had to work long days at harvest time; from before sun up to well after sundown, day after day. And the daylight hours are long that far north. Harvest takes everything you have and more. Jesus sends these pairs out on what he knows is a difficult mission. They are to take little with them. They are not to move around among households, looking for better quarters. They are to accept what they are given to eat, whatever it may be, kosher or not in this case. They are to stay focussed. And they are to expect rejection along the way. If you are not welcome, shake the dust off of your feet and leave. “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves.” That is pretty telling. But the harvest is of absolute importance. It is consuming. Everything depends on the harvest. Jesus knows this. So he must send his friends. The life of the world depends on it.

We look at the world around us, and we see many signs. I’m almost afraid to go out in the morning and pick up the newspaper off of the driveway fearing another calamity has occurred since I went to bed the night before. Falcon Heights. Baton Rouge. Dallas. Nice. Baghdad. The attacks, the murders, the social upheaval and strife are fearsome. There are racial tensions. Ethnic tensions. Religious tensions. We hear less about it, but there is also the simmering of economic inequity and labor abuse in this country and around the world. And there are environmental issues that are boiling slowly creating tension and conflict. The world seems to be seething with conflicts and animosities and stresses. We live in a culture of fear. I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to hear the president deliver another eulogy.

Some want to dial back the clock – to when things were “better.” But when were they really better? Maybe better for some. But certainly not better for many. Today the targets may be Muslims and Mexicans. It wasn’t long ago that the targets were Irish and Italian. Some of us, speaking as a woman of Italian descent, are not so much for going back.

But what we see around us is a world that is ripe, ready, prime for harvest. The world is desperately longing for peace, for reconciliation, for a way forward that is based on compassion not conflict. And in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we have what the world is longing for. The time is ripe for us to be spreading the gospel just as we heard about the 70 who went out to share the good news. The world is desperate to receive peace, to witness universal love and to feel the realm of God come close. The world needs what the church has to offer.

Now, I know that in the UCC we don’t talk much about evangelism because that has connotations that we aren’t keen on. Historically the church is known for evangelism that includes convincing people they are sinners and that Jesus died for their sins, and by accepting him, they will be forgiven and given eternal life in heaven after they die. The church is known for “selling” a belief system about a first century Palestinian Jewish rabbi being the son of God sent to die for our sins.

But let’s think about the story we heard this morning. Jesus sends the 70 out with a message. That message is not Jesus is the son of God come to die for your sins so that you can go to heaven. No. These followers are sent out into the world offering peace. Embodying peace. Demonstrating peace by their behavior – material simplicity, acceptance, sharing, working together. By embodying peace, justice, respect, compassion, and generosity they are showing people what the realm of God is like. They are offering people a new world view. A way to be in right relationship with others, even those considered enemy. Even under Roman occupation. Even in times of desperation and fear. They are demonstrating reverence for God, for nature, and for all of humankind. They are staying on with the people and helping them to create communities bonded by this vision of life as God intends it. They are bringing peace to the world at a time when it is desperately needed.

This is what the world needs from the church today. We need to be bringing peace to the world. We need to be flagrantly exhibiting our commitment to the realm of God where all people are sisters and brothers, sharing the light of one sun and one moon. One human family. With one home – planet Earth. People need to hear and see that there are ways for us to come back from the brink; that we can be guided by a different vision. We can move forward not with might but with mutual respect and understanding. We can show that success lies in service not in self-interest. Some people will see this as deranged. But just as evil is getting louder in this world good must come out from behind the rock and stand up and be counted. The time is ripe. We must not wait. The stakes are too high.

This week I heard about a local meeting of ministers in which one of the clergy present used a derogatory epithet for gay people. This person is a prominent, prestigious minister in the community. Apparently this was considered normal and accepted. Except that there was a new guy there. And he called this patriarch out. Let him know that that language and that attitude had no place among a group of Christian clergy, thank you very much. That new pastor is busy with the harvest.

We heard the story of the missionaries going out into the world for the harvest, but let’s attend to their return. Do they come back discouraged, defeated, and depressed? No! We are told that they return to Jesus filled with JOY. They are amazed at the harvest! And it’s interesting that we aren’t told that the people they visited all became so good, so loving, so generous, and so compassionate. We are told, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” Then Jesus comments, “ . . . See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. . .” So the joy, the victory, the accomplishment, is in confronting evil. Think about it. If we see a scorpion or a snake we try to get away from it. We avoid it. We go around it or back off from it. But what we hear in this story is not avoid evil, but confront it. Address it head on. Don’t back off. This is important for us to hear. We can seem silly talking about peace, love, dove in today’s scary world. But this story reminds us that our commitment to God’s way of love involves calling out evil, wrong, and injustice in a spirit of love.

We don’t want to be put off by the language about demons. Of course, we don’t believe in little creatures taking people over and making them evil. But we see the evidence of evil around us – we see the demonic effects of greed, revenge, racism, self interest, privilege, violence, ecocide, fear, and arrogance. We see the power of these forces that destroy human community and subvert God’s purposes for creation. It’s not enough to just tell people to be good and do the right thing. To share God’s vision, to convey the reality of the realm of God, we also need to call out the behaviors and systems and assumptions and actions and attitudes that are undermining the realm of God. We need to convey the realm of God as a decided alternative to the current reality.

I heard a discussion about student debt on “On Point” with Tom Ashcroft this week. There was information about the enormity of student debt but Ashcroft also asked why we have this system that requires so many people to go so deeply into debt to get an education. And part of the answer is that public higher education is really becoming privatized, and there are people making millions of dollars on that education and on those student loans. Education debt is making some people rich. So, the bottom line is really greed. People don’t want to fully fund education through taxes, and some in higher education and the finance industry are making a killing on the loans. So, there it is. Greed. A demon to be confronted. Called out. And disempowered.

Taking the realm of God to the world, working on the desperately needed harvest, is more than raking in the good, spreading positive values, and being kind. It is also being bold in our analysis of the powers that are undermining the realm of God and confronting those forces. We say that love conquers all. We are being called to put love to work; to use love to defeat evil. Those teams in Luke were most impressed with how they were able to confront and disarm evil. We need to take that to heart even though some of us don’t like to be negative or condemnatory or critical.

Traditionally, the church has thought of the harvest as bringing people in, into the church, to maintain the church, to prosper the institution. In this story we see the faithful taking the gospel out. When others are attracted by who we are and how we live and what we do and what we say, we can tell them about our Christian commitment and invite them to experience a taste of heaven in the church. To experience the realm of God in the faith community.

I spoke with someone recently who said that in my job, I was lucky, I got to see miracles, positive transformation, and the good in people, on a regular basis, because I was part of the church. I told her, it’s not just clergy that have that experience. It’s everyone in our church. And she could come to church, too, if she wanted more of that in her life. The realm of God come close. It is here for all of us.

When you are part of a faith community, taking the gospel out into the world and coming back, you experience the joy. Not from your own power and accomplishments but because you feel you are partnering with God, with the Divine intention for the world, in lessening the destructive forces at work in the world and fostering the good. We are part of something far greater than ourselves and we are not alone.

The world desperately needs peace. In every city and town. In every land and country. In every culture and climate. Peace. As followers of Jesus, we are being sent out to meet this need. We are being called to the harvest. There is the sense of urgency. The critical moment that requires us to focus turning away from distractions and making this our priority. No postponing or delaying. The world is waiting; ripe for this ministry. The world is hungry for the way of life, not death, violence, and destruction. We are being called to bring peace to the world just like the 70 in the story. Today. As we are. No elaborate preparations necessary. Go and bring peace. Call out evil. Let people know that there is another way. The realm of God has come near. Is at hand. We will not return empty for the power of God is at work in us. God’s work may be strenuous and demanding but it is ultimately meaningful and satisfying.

Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore reminds us of the reward:

I slept and dreamt life was joy.
I awoke and saw life was service.
I acted and behold service was joy.

The harvest is ready. May our joy be full. Amen.

A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.