The 4th Sunday after Pentecost
God is still on the move in this world
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
It does not happen often, but this past week leaders of Christian and Jewish and Muslim faith groups, conservative and liberal alike, from Franklin Graham to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and just about every other major faith group, as well as many leaders in both the Republican and Democratic parties have joined in condemning the new policy of the US Attorney General and the US Department of Justice which separates immigrant children from their parents when they enter the USA illegally, calling such a policy “cruel, inhumane, and unjust.” And, the attempt by Attorney General Sessions to cloak his actions in the Bible has brought nearly universal condemnation. Heresy and blasphemy are words that have been used by faith leaders from Evangelical to Roman Catholic.
The Bible has been used in the past to justify slavery and child abuse and is often still used to justify racism and sexism, but care for the refugee, immigrant and alien is central to faith for Jews and Christians. The Bible is clear: “the alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” So says the Old Testament.
And the New Testament is even clearer in Romans 10, despite the Attorney General’s misuse of that chapter, “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Love does no wrong to a neighbor.”
And, as I have shared with you previously, no other faith has care for the refugee and immigrant more central to faith than we Lutherans do. It is part of our DNA as Lutheran Christians.
It is imperative that people of faith, people of all faiths, take strong action to change these policies.
I know these issues seem to be beyond us, but here are four things we can do:
• Pray that our leaders change this immoral policy
• Contact administration leaders and members of Congress, asking them to take leadership in changing this policy
• Contribute to our Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, lirs.org, as they seek to serve these children and their parents.
• During July and August we will be collecting needed items for Lutheran Border Concerns Ministries, a group which works with immigrants on both sides of the California/Mexico border.
I stand with our ELCA Presiding Bishop, the Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, who joined with many other faith leaders this week to say “Tearing children away from parents who have made a dangerous journey to provide a safe and sufficient life for them is unnecessarily cruel and detrimental to the well-being of parents and children.”
And, believe it or not, this all relates to today’s Gospel lesson from St. Mark’s Gospel, or, at least, today’s Gospel helps us get through such troublesome times.
It is easy to be pessimistic these days. In addition to the federal government concern I have already shared, let’s look at the Christian church. Membership and worship attendances continue to decline in Christian churches throughout the USA, no matter if those congregations are progressive or conservative, Protestant or Roman Catholic.
Several weeks ago I was with a long time pastor friend who is an assistant to the bishop in the Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod, one of the historic centers of the Lutheran population in this country. My friend told me that they have about 280 congregations and that he expected that ten years from now that number would be 140, about half what they have now.
And these statistics could be duplicated across the USA and across denominations whether they be Lutheran or Baptist or Assemblies of God or whatever. Even the mighty Roman Catholic Church, if it were not for the recent influx of Spanish speaking believers, even the Roman Catholic Church would be shrinking even faster than many Protestant churches.
These trends are often “blamed” on younger people who have lost interest in the church, but, truthfully, interest in the Christian church has fallen ever since we baby boomers reached adulthood.
And almost daily I get emails from entrepreneurial pastors and others who promise me the answer to these problems. If I just purchase their new program, my congregation will grow! And they guarantee it! One just arrived in the mail on Saturday, promising me “Success” if I just purchased their program.
Now, Mt. Olive has been blessed to be growing in spite of what is happening at other congregations, but we are, sadly, not the norm, but the exception.
Lots of people feel pessimistic generally about the future, certainly one of the factors in the growing suicide rate in our nation. Environmental degradation, terrorism, homelessness, unaffordable housing and health care – that list could go on and on. There is a lot to be upset about, to be depressed about.
Faced with all of this, I believe the two short parables Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson can be helpful for us.
The two parables in today’s Gospel lesson, scattering seed and the mustard seed, are good examples of Jesus’ way of talking about the reign of God, the kingdom of God on this earth. In them Jesus speaks of the interesting and even exciting “now and not yet” dimension of God’s kingdom on this earth.
As seeds will grow without our effort, so also God will bring about God’s kingdom. It is not up to us. We cannot make it happen. Nor can we prevent it. God is ultimately responsible for bringing God’s rule and reign to bear.
Thus, Jesus’ first short parable today is a parable of promise. And, as we have seen in the Gospel lessons these last few weeks, God’s promise, as Jesus explains it in this parable, God’s promise is not just for us, it is a promise for everyone, even for those who look or believe or think differently that we do. We ourselves cannot bring in God’s reign of redemptive and surprising love and grace. And we also cannot control or moderate or domesticate God’s love. And we definitely cannot stop it.
Which brings us to the Jesus’ second short parable, about the mustard seed, a weed which grows from a very small seed, a weed which grows and spreads out of control. Like God’s love, the mustard seem cannot be contained, even if we might want to contain its growth and spread.
The mustard seed grows whether or not we want it to grow. In this way, Jesus is telling us that God will bring about God’s kingdom no matter what we do or do not do. It is not up to us. We cannot make it happen. God is ultimately responsible for bringing God’s rule and reign to bear.
Do we really want God’s kingdom to come here on earth? We pray that desire every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, but, if you are at all like me, you probably do not think about those words very much.
What we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, what Jesus tells in today’s two short parables is that God is on the move in our lives, in our community, in the world, and that God will finish what God has started. In the meantime, we are invited to help enact God’s reign in all that we do, wherever we are, acting in the confidence that God’s promises are true.
This means that when things are going well, we can take delight in being more aligned with God’s will and ways. And, it also means that when life is difficult, when we meet resistance, or when life falls short of our hopes, we can take comfort in the fact that God is still at work and has not given up on us or this world.
And that, my friends, is our Christian response to any and all pessimism in this time and all times. Whatever is happening in the church, in our nation, in this world, God is still at work in the world.
This promise can give us the confidence to take joy in our efforts to do God’s will in this world, whether or not these efforts seem to be successful. They are still God’s efforts and we believe that God’s efforts will still ultimately prevail.
There is an old saying, “Work like it is all up to you and pray like it is all up to God.” Throw yourself into the opportunities and challenges that we all face in this life with delight and resolve, knowing that God is with us and for us.
And, knowing that no work done in love is ever lost. God will, in time, God will draw all things together for good.
These parables lead us again to the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, words I still believe with all my heart, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Thus, we continue to “Work like it is all up to us and pray like it is all up to God.” For it is all up to God and our God will in time draw all things together for good.
Amen.
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sunday, June 16 & 17, 2018
