Scripture Reading: Mark 4:3-20 TEV

“And Jesus concluded, “Listen, then if you have ears.” Mark 4:9

This phrase in chapter 4 of Mark’s gospel is at the conclusion of the parable of the sower.  That parable is one of the few that Jesus supposedly interprets for the Disciples.  The interpretation in Mark 4:13-20 seems to focus on the seeds and the consequence of their landing on various kinds of soil.  But, the interpretation actually begins with the words “The sower sows God’s message.  The key to understanding the parable of the sower is to recognize that it is not about the seed but rather about the sower.  Jesus’ final comment about hearing was his attempt to get them to focus on the real truth about the Kingdom of God that the parable reveals. The listeners should think about the sower and understand what he is saying about that person.

When we think of the audience who was listening, including the disciples, we know that these were the common folk of that time, not the rich and powerful.  These were those living on the edge of society, abused by the power structures of both the Jewish and Roman leaders.  Surely in that audience there was a preponderant sense of powerlessness and discouragement.  Yet Jesus was asking them to plant the seeds of the Kingdom, to embody through their own lives faith in the ultimate power of God in the world.

When I think of this parable in this context, I am faced with a challenge to live within the Kingdom despite the negative influences of the secular world, and I am given a message of absolute hope that some of the seeds I plant will bring forth great abundance.  I am also relieved of the burden of feeling totally responsible for the crop which results.  I am told simply to go out and keep sowing and God will bring forth the fruits.  At the same time I am told to accept the reality of this finite world, that a lot of seed will go to waste.  Jesus was the consummate realist.  He had no romantic illusions about the world.  He also knew that the Kingdom of God would ultimately prevail.  So he kept planting and asked his followers to keep at it as well and let the results lie with God.

The witness to this truth is found in the many examples of our own time.  The Civil Rights movement, the women’s movement, the LGBT movement, all have seen a lot of seed planting with various results, but ultimately the light of God’s presence begins to emerge with powerful and transforming consequences.  The parable of the sower is a message of hope to all who feel that their efforts to create a better world seem so fragile.  It’s a call to keep up our efforts believing that in the long run God’s will will be done. 

Scripture Reading: Matthew 4:1-11 TEV

“Then the Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted . . .”

Matthew 4:1

The early Church, struggling to understand who Jesus was, finally concluded he was “fully human, fully divine” and that view is expressed through the creeds that defined orthodox theology.  My experience with many Christians is that they tend to focus on the “divine” and ignore the significance of the “fully human”.  However, in this scripture from the Gospel of Matthew the author conveys one of the fundamental experiences of being human – temptation.

Since no one was in the wilderness with Jesus taking notes, the temptations described by Matthew are a brilliant exploration of the three essential temptations facing each of us in our spiritual journey.  And in his humanity Jesus confronts them and responds as we are called to respond as well.

First, while it may appear that the temptation Jesus faced was misuse of his miraculous powers, his response reveals quite a different temptation – one each of us faces constantly.  “Man cannot live on bread alone, but needs every word that God speaks.” V4:4  That is a temptation we face every day –being bombarded by the call to focus on and listen only to the demands of daily life.  We are exposed to a constant call of commercials, media, the internet, etc. to pay attention to everything but the “still small voice” that would reach and guide our souls.  Jesus knew this temptation as he was confronted continually by the demands of others, but took time alone each day to maintain his connection to God. 

Second, he is tempted to test God.  Each of us faces the same temptation when what we think God should be doing and what God is doing are not the same.  How often does God get blamed for things that are clearly the product of our own actions?  How often do we need to pause and revisit the concept that God is actively engaged in our world even when we don’t see it or understand it?  How often have we  heard the stories of someone who promised God “if only you will do X,  I’ll promise to do Y”.  To engage in a relationship with a “living God” is to trust the processes God is using.

Third, Jesus is tempted to think only of himself and what’s in his best interest.  Being essentially a narcissistic mammal, this is the natural tendency of all human beings.  Look at any infant’s behavior and you will see our original orientation to others and the world.  But fortunately we also have the capacity to chose not to stay focused on ourselves alone.  We have the ability to be compassionate and loving towards others, even those who are different from us in race, ethnicity, language, culture, social status, etc.  Like Jesus we can transcend our humanness and become an incarnation of the divine.

So today let us pause and consider where in our lives these temptations are still alive and well and once more face them with the faith that will lead us out of the wilderness of our surroundings.  Let us pray as Jesus taught us “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

Scripture Reading: Matthew 13: 31-3

“The Kingdom of God is like this.  A man takes a mustard seed

and sows it in his field.  It is the smallest of seeds,

 but when it grows up, it is the biggest of all plants.  It becomes a tree..

Matthew 13:31-32a

In the movie, “Boyhood”, there is a scene in which a mother is talking to a young Hispanic man who is working on removing some drainage tile from her backyard.  Almost as an afterthought as she starts to leave, she suggests to him that he is a very intelligent man who ought to consider going to college.  She even suggests starting at the local community school as it is less expensive.  Later in the movie, and some years from this scene, she and the family are eating in a restaurant when the young man comes up to the table and thanks her for the guidance.  He has gotten his Associate degree and is working on his Bachelors and has become the manager of the restaurant.

It is worth noting that every day we are influencing others around us, planting the seeds of our attitude, our behavior, and thoughts.  Most often we do so without consideration of the impact on the people we encounter.  Yet, like the woman in the movie, we may be planting a seed that sprouts into a major life change for someone.  At a minimum we can impact how they experience that day as we affirm and support them, actions that blossom into a larger result than we might imagine.

I have a friend who makes it an action to thank people for their smile, be it a waiter/waitress, bank teller, or sales clerk he encounters that day.  I have watched how much this seems to make a difference with their own attitude in that moment.  It is a small seed that yet may transform someone’s entire day.  I know a woman who composes and sends thoughtful cards to people facing either challenging circumstances such as illness, or celebrations for an outstanding achievement, and I have heard from those people how much that meant.  Small seeds that blossom into major impacts.

So, let us today reflect on how we might plant some positive seeds of life and love, that which is the Kingdom of God, in the life of others.

Today’s Reading: Mark 2:1-12  TEV

“Seeing how much faith they had, Jesus said to the

paralyzed man, “My son,  your sins are forgiven”

Mark 2:5

Most people reading today’s scripture focus on Jesus’s response to the teachers of the law who question his right to announce to the paralytic that his sins are forgiven.  But there is another lesson here for us around the relationship of the four men who brought their paralyzed friend before Jesus to be healed.  Because of the crowded conditions in the house where they were bringing their friend, they are forced to climb onto the roof to use one of the access points common to the houses of that time.  Through that opening they drop their friend before Jesus who notes, not the faith of the paralytic but rather the faith of these four friends of his and in that response he teaches us something of great importance about friendship.

We live in a culture that has lost the meaning of the word friend.  Facebook announces that many of us have hundreds of friends, the majority of whom have little interaction with our daily lives.  The friends of the paralytic, however, were people willing to go to any action necessary to get him into the presence of Jesus, whom they believed could offer him the help he needed.  Their faith combined with their commitment to their friend defines what constitutes true friendship.  True friendship is a commitment to be with others as we see their needs both in the good times and the bad.

I recently saw this illustrated by a man who, at his own expense, traveled over a thousand miles to be at the bedside of his friend who was in a critical condition and later died.  His presence at his friend’s bedside was a time of prayer and tears as they concluded some 35 years of friendship. And he knew that if it had been him in that hospital bed, his friend would have been there for him as well.  The scripture leaves us assuming that the bond between the four men and the paralytic was probably a reciprocal one.

All of which asks us to consider who are the real friends in our lives.  We are fortunate if there are even a few who come to mind.  Then we are challenged to consider what kind of friend we are to each of them.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 22:34-40 TEV

“Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,

and with all your mind”  Matthew 22:37 TEV

When Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment in the Law, he gives the familiar response found in this scripture passage.  The message is clear; one cannot be half hearted in your faith  You must be completely committed to walking through life in a relationship of loving faith in and with God.

At the same time I wonder how many of us have paused to consider what it means to “love God with all your mind.”  The human mind is an emergent property of the brain, an organ that functions in many different ways as we seek to discover and live faithfully to what is true. For example the left hemisphere of our brains uses logic and reason to test various hypotheses of what is real.  The right hemisphere of our brains searches for reality and truth using intuition and the power of creativity.

Our love of God with the whole of our minds requires us to acknowledge and use the full range of our mental capacities as we live our lives in relationship to Almighty God.  Our faith must be examined both rationally and intuitively as our faith matures.  Faith, in that sense, is not blind, but an ever expanding understanding of God and what God seeks for our lives as we go on our spiritual journey.  As Paul reminds us, “When I was a child, …I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man I gave up childish ways.” I Corinthians 13:11 RSV. While some of us may use one pathway more than the other, e.g. the pathway of mysticism or the journey of the philosopher or scientist, loving God with all our mind means using all the mental resources God has given us to continue to develop a mature faith.  Only as we do so can we continue to deepen our relationship with God, and live ever more faithfully.

As we begin this Lenten season, let us use it as a time for thinking about our faith and how we are seeking to maintain a full commitment to loving God; body, mind and spirit.

Scripture reading for today: Matthew 2:13-23 TEV

“Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and left during the night for Egypt.”

Matthew 2:14

All of the birth narratives in Matthew are filled with tension.  Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph’s response, the warning to the Wise Men after their meeting with Herod, and finally the story of Herod’s vicious response to the news of Jesus’ birth.  These are dark stories which we seldom share during the Christmas season when we would rather celebrate “good news” rather than yet another example of humanity’s darker side.  But they also point out a truth about our spiritual life that is extremely important: namely the need to respond in faith to all the circumstances we face.  Faith provides the power to respond to whatever we are encountering.

Our lives do not always go smoothly any more than they did for the family of Jesus.  There are joys and sorrows.  There are good times and challenging times that call upon us to respond with all the faith we have.  Joseph is a model of how faith can help a person adapt to life’s many challenging experiences.  Trusting in God’s guidance, he acts accordingly, not out of consideration of himself, but rather as a steward of God’s presence in life.  As we come to the final week of Advent, let us recall the power of faith in God to enable us to meet any and all of life’s challenges.

Scripture reading for today: Luke 2:8-20 TEV

“…. “don’t be afraid!  I am here with good news for you.  This very day

in David’s town your Savior was born – Christ the Lord” Luke 2 10-11

We live in an age when it appears there is very little “Good News”.  Each day we are confronted  by gun violence, the power of a pandemic, and the political conflicts and violence created by extremists.  What we might pause to recall in this passage is that the life of the shepherds isn’t much different from ours in that there wasn’t much good news then either.  Roman dominance and control over Israel at that time was such that the average Jew simply tried to keep their head down and survive. 

So the angel’s declaration was indeed “Good News, news of a hope for their future to be different from the daily survival they struggled with each day.  However,  I would suggest that it is their response to this news that offers a guideline for us today.  Immediately they go to confirm what they have been told and to share their experience with others.  Then they go back to their lives celebrating what they have found.  That might well serve as a model for us.

We are a people who know the Good News revealed in the Christ.  When we hear good news today, acts of compassion and caring during the Christmas season, or acts of heroism from people who risk their own lives to save others, we know the source of that as God’s continued actions through people.  So we need to both spread the stories and celebrate them.  Sharing good news on social media that might otherwise not be known is a powerful rebuttal to the sad news we get though public newscasts.  And celebrating a piece of good news by making a supportive comment is yet another way we can combat the sense of depression and powerlessness that so much “news” generates.  Let us become  contemporary “angels” proclaiming “good news. which will bring great joy”, and a hope for a future where good news predominates over the bad.  ”  In so doing we affirm the meaning of Christ’s birth, that through faith in him, God is still leading good people to live the life he demonstrated for his followers. 

Scripture reading for today: Matthew 2:1-12 RSV

“And being warned in a dream not return to Herod,

they departed to their own country by another way.  Matthew 2:12

As a preacher’s kid, I heard this story many many times as a child sitting in Church during Advent.  What I was hearing then was the Revised Standard version of the Bible, and some of the  phrases still sound in my mind whenever I hear the last line of the story of the Wise Men.  “they departed …by another way.”

For some reason these words never struck me as a geographical statement as much as they did a theological one.  The Gospels are filled with encounters between people and Jesus, and in every instance they certainly went home “by another way”.  Sometimes it was the way they thought about something as with the rich man who is asked to give everything away to follow Jesus.  Sometimes it was the way they saw themselves as when Jesus confronted the Gerasene Demoniac.  Or the way they understood their behavior as with the paralytic at the pool at Bethsaide.  Indeed, the message is clear that whenever we encounter the Spirit of Christ, we will go home different from when we arrived.  For the story of the Wise men it may have appeared only to be a change in highways, but surely they also went home with a different mindset from when they arrived, for they had seen the Messiah, and they knew all history was changed accordingly.  So let us today consider the many different ways our lives are reshaped by our faith in Jesus as the Christ.

Scripture Reading for today: Luke 2:4-7 TEV

“She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in cloths

and laid him in a manger – there was no room to stay in the inn.” Luke2:7

It’s a scene from every movie depicting Jesus’ birth.  It is illustrated in every creche.  We have Mary and Joseph in a stable with the baby Jesus in a manger because  there was no room for them in the inn. 

As I was reading this passage again this year, I was struck by the thought that this could well be a metaphor for spirituality in our secular age.  In the book, “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” , the author makes the point that there is an endless demand for our attention today.  From endless emails, to text messages, to the seduction of the internet, we are constantly bombarded with a call to give our attention to something.  As I was rereading the Luke narrative, and thinking about the insight of this writer concerning how we have all these demands for our attention, I thought about whether or not we have any room in our lives for spiritual practice and development.

How easy is it for days to go by without meditation or prayer, or at best, a brief one expressed without any time for listening for “that still small voice” to offer guidance in our lives.  Is there room in our inner lives for the Christ to live in Spirit?  As we begin Advent we would do well to think about our lives, and whether we are allowing sufficient time in them for our spiritual growth and development as followers of that man who started out in a manger because there was no room elsewhere.

What Is Freedom?

Some months ago I was driving around Washington DC when I passed the group of truckers who were protesting, among other things, mask mandates.  On each of the trucks was posted a sign that said that this mandate violated their “freedom”.  As I thought about this I wondered how they defined “freedom”.  I concluded that they were using the term to mean the ability to do whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want with no outside constraints.  This is indeed one of the definitions of “free” in the dictionary.  However, is it an adequate definition for human society?  Is this view of freedom actually limiting us in some significant ways?  Is it missing an important ingredient?

Let’s begin our reflection by noting that any definition of freedom is predicated on the capacity of each of us to make choices about our behavior.  The ability to make choices resides in the brain where two distinctly different regions determine our power to chose our behavior.  Actually in some instances they limit our power to make “free choices”.  There are many situations in which our brain makes a choice for us without conscious consideration.

The first of these regions is the limbic system, the oldest part of our brain, and the arena where we generate our immediate emotional responses without any input from our self awareness.  This region generates four basic emotions: fear, anger, want, and lust.  It is the source of our “fight or flight” response to a situation   In the world of our most ancient ancestors this was critical to survival.   That striped animal with the huge teeth was dangerous and fleeing was mandated without “thinking” about it.  Today this still serves us in certain situations such as running from the gunman on the subway or in the mall.  In those instances we are not making reflective choices, i.e. we are not “free” to decide our actions, – rather our limbic system is instigating survival behavior without thinking, that is without self-aware deliberation.

Unfortunately this primitive response also happens when there is no real immediate danger.  Think of the last time you got angry at the driver in your lane on the interstate who was going too slow or the one who cut you off in the parking lot from the slot you were going to park in.  Road rage, even if it is limited to honking the horn and cussing out that person rather than shooting them [which has happened in recent weeks], is the limbic system at work and it is only when we override it with the other region of our brain that allows us to make deliberate choices where we are aware that we have done so.

This region is the prefrontal cortex, the part in the front of our brains above our eyes and it is the “executive” function of our capacity to make choices.  We can get upset with the driver and yet choose to remain calm and not shoot them or run them off the road because we can deliberately decide how we will respond.  For example we may have compassion for the elderly person who is going slow on the road because we understand that they are dealing with limitations of aging, and that there is where we may be someday.  Thus we simply wait for the break that allows us to pass them.

Yet even this region makes decisions for us from time to time without any deliberation on our part.  This is due to the fact that this region of our brain can act based on what we believe subconsciously about things.  For centuries people didn’t sail far on the oceans because they believed the earth was flat and they could sail over the edge and die.  And even when the Roman church was faced with the truth offered by Copernicus that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa, their beliefs were so strong they sentenced him to house arrest.  Their decision was hardly based of “free” rational thought. 

Thus it is my opinion that for us to truly be “free” to chose our behavior we need two ingredients that are missing in the more popular view of “freedom”.  First we must be exercising our ability to consciously undertake critical thinking about our choice.  We must be willing to submit our beliefs about something to rational, logical criticism in order to have the best understanding we can have upon which to act.  Second, we need to submit our consideration to a set of moral values in order to make certain that our actions are ethical rather than hedonistic.

So is freedom simply the ability to do whatever we want, whenever, we want, wherever we want or is true freedom the ability to make self aware, rational, moral decisions about our behavior and act accordingly?  We are a social animal, despite our overemphasis on individuality, and consideration of others is necessary for us to survive as a social order.  I would suggest that we cannot define freedom from an individualistic perspective alone but must do so in the context of our relationships to others using rationality and moral principles as the guides to our behavior.  Only when we do so are our actions truly “free”.