Lay Led Service with Raelene Falland
Forgiving From The Heart – Matthew 18: 21-35
C. S. Lewis once said, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” God's will is for us to forgive our enemies.
He wants us to put away all wrath and malice and bitterness. And it is for our good too. Someone said that resentment is like drinking poison hoping the other person dies. Unforgiveness puts us in a prison of suffering. It is a heavy burden for the soul. Unforgiveness is like blood-sucking leeches of your spiritual life. But how can I forgive? It's so hard!
The secret is in the gospel - how God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. You see, the gospel is not a message that cries out, "Pay God for your sins!" The gospel is the glorious news, "Jesus paid it all!"
And just as we have received this stunning love that we are fully forgiven of all our sins, we are now to bend this love and forgiveness outwards towards our enemies. Therefore, we must learn to linger at the cross and soak in the soothing bath of God's love in order that the leeches of unforgiveness can fall off our souls.
Sometimes we are hurt by others and sometimes we hurt others. These hurts may be fairly trivial or else they may be quite serious. They may be unintentional but hurtful all the same. What do we do with ‘hurts’ and insults? We can hang on to them and bear grudges and become bitter and knotted up inside or we can forgive the hurt. Some unresolved hurts can destroy relationships, temporarily or even permanently.
People always say, “Forgive and forget.”
But forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness is a voluntary, intentional choice to release someone from a debt they have to pay to you. You see when someone offends you, when someone despises you, when someone slanders you, you feel like there is a debt they have to pay. It's an emotional debt and you hold that person to that debt until he pays.
Forgiveness, however, is that voluntary intentional choice to say, “I release you from the debt. I'm not going to make you pay. I'm not going to make you suffer. I'm contented to absorb that injury.”
Unforgiveness also affects our relationship with God! In Chapter 18 of his Gospel, Matthew records some important aspects of living as members of the Kingdom of Heaven, as Christians living in a community of believers.
In our passage today, Matthew records an incident in which Peter came to Jesus and asked: Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times? We don’t know what lay behind Peter’s question. It is likely that he is referring to a ‘Christian’ brother or sister, another member of the fellowship of believers. We note that at least Peter has recognised that forgiveness is important. He’s learned from Jesus that retaliation and grudge-holding is not the answer. But how many times should he forgive the same brother or sister? Surely there must be a limit. Within the Jewish religion, it was held that forgiving 3 times was enough. Peter more than doubles that standard and opts for seven. Surely that would suffice!
For Jesus, forgiveness is wholehearted and constant. It is not Jesus’ way to calculate numbers of hurts or offences. So Jesus replies: I tell you, not seven times but seventy times seven. Jesus didn’t mean that you kept a score and that, when we reached the number, the next offence could go un-forgiven! He was saying that for Jesus’ followers, forgiveness is to be unlimited. Forgiveness was to be a way of life. Bearing in mind that God has forgiven them, they ought not to withhold forgiveness from others. Jesus then launched into a parable found only in Matthew’s Gospel. Different to some of Jesus’ other parables, this one has no mystery to it. It is straightforward and uncomplicated.
Again, he begins with the familiar preamble the Kingdom of Heaven is like. This time it is like a King, later described as a Master (or Lord) who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. There are three scenes in the parable. Scene 1 opens with the news that one by one his servants came before him to settle their accounts. One particular servant owed the King a huge amount of money, in our day equivalent perhaps to many Millions of dollars. He was brought before the King to whom he explained that he was unable to pay the debt. In response, the King ordered that the servant, his wife and children all be sold as slaves, in order to recover at least some of the huge debt. The servant owed a huge debt and now he must be punished by having to pay a huge penalty.
On hearing of this shocking punishment, the servant fell to his knees and begged: be patient with me and I will pay back everything. Although it was unlikely that he could ever repay the debt, he was ready to promise anything! In just a few words, the reaction of the King, now described as the servant’s master or Lord, is recorded: he took pity on him, cancelled his debt and let him go. The Master was a compassionate man and not only released him but forgave his debt! He was free to go! It was an act of pure grace.
In Scene 2 we find the recently forgiven and released servant grabbing and choking one of his fellow servants who happened to owe him a very small amount, perhaps in our day $50. In a threatening manner he said to him pay back what you owe me!
As he himself had done very recently, the other servant fell to his knees and begged to be patient with me and I will pay you back. Unlike the compassionate Master, the servant who had been forgiven much had his fellow servant thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. However, there were witnesses to this incident and the other servants, greatly distressed by what they saw, went and told the master everything that had happened.
Scene 3 opens with the Master calling the unforgiving servant in and berating him for his lack of mercy, referring to him as a wicked servant. In the light of him being forgiven by the Master for a huge debt, he should have forgiven his fellow servant for this much lesser debt.
Then the master angrily had the wicked servant handed over to be tortured until he could repay the original debt, all that he owed. It seemed that he would die in prison. Jesus then followed the parable with a brief and pointed statement, as though he was continuing the original conversation with Peter.
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. The lesson is clear: the followers of Jesus must each, without exception, forgive wholeheartedly, not grudgingly and not only seven times or even 70 X 7 times.
This echoes the statement Jesus made after he had taught the Disciples the Lord’s Prayer which includes the phrase forgive us our sins as we also have forgiven those who sin against us. At that time, Jesus said to them: for if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive them their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14)
A traveller was in Burma and as he crossed the river, leeches in the waters came up to his whole body and he was infested with blood sucking leeches. And we know that if that is allowed to carry on, he may just die like that. So in his natural instinct, he began to grab hold of the leeches, pull them out and throw them off. But the local people shouted to him, “Don't do that! Don't do that!” He said, “Why?” “Because if you forcefully pull them, some parts of the leeches may remain in your flesh and it may cause poison and toxins to rise. Don't do that.” “What should I do?” “Come,” they say.
So they brought him to this tub that they had made, they poured in some water, they threw in some herbs, some grass, some leaves, some flowers and told him, “Come, lie in there.” And so as he lowered himself into the tub, as he lay there, as he just relaxed there, and let all that water soak it caused him to be submerged. Then amazingly, one by one, the blood-sucking leeches begin to gently fall off his flesh. You see, we want to deal with unforgiveness forcefully. We want to pull these leeches out of our lives. But the only way is when one soaks in a tub of Gospel love when one comes to see that Jesus is so much for us. God has forgiven us so much that our lives will be so filled with that love that these leeches of unforgiveness can finally fall off.
Have you been forgiven by God for your sins? Is there unforgiveness towards a sister or brother in your heart today? Will you forgive? Remember, we need to take the words of the Lord seriously.
Raelene Falland –September 17, 2023
Service Lay Led with Karen Pietsch and Peter Steicke
The Theme is Unlocking The Potential In Others
What is the price of life? Matthew 16:21–28
Let us pray: Dear heavenly father, open our hearts & minds today as we reflect on your word. Fill us with your spirit. Amen.
Well, I suppose, that might depend on the context of the question. If you were asked by a life insurance salesman, what the price of life is, he would usually value it as the sum of your financial commitments, and the price of setting your loved ones up without those commitments; therefore, the price of life, will vary by age. For example, if you were 10 years old, you wouldn’t have any financial commitments, so, therefore, you wouldn’t need very much life insurance cover, if any at all.
But if you were 40 years old, with a mortgage and car loan, and have a spouse and two children, then your life insurance cover should be for at least these commitments, plus a very generous amount so that your family could live comfortably, without any need to take out any other loans, etc. Then again, if you were 70 years old, and no longer have any financial commitments or family to support, then your need for life insurance reduces again. So, what is the price of life, according to a life insurance salesman? It is the calculated cost of liabilities and perceived needs, to cover any loss of life. But what if a mother dies in an accident? What is the price of life then? How is it measured? Well, the family may receive a payment from a life insurance company, but no matter how much money they receive, it never makes up for the life of a wife and mother. The same could be said for the loss of a father, or the loss of a child. The price of life in this case, can’t be calculated financially. Money, property, or anything else, is almost useless and empty, of comfort and meaning.
The Beatles sang the song, ‘Money can’t buy me love’, but it also can’t buy or replace life. It’s strange, that at the time of death, the value of life, suddenly crystallises: family is important, relationships are important and people are important. A lifetime chasing after money, property, fame or other worldly attractions, is suddenly put into perspective. None of these things are important when a life is lost. Any time spent chasing after these things is seen as time wasted.
What if a death was the result of an accident or a murder? Then the price of life will often change, and it becomes possible to calculate the price of life again. The price of life is justice or revenge. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life! If someone hurts us, then we want to hurt them back with interest. If someone takes away a loved one, then we want them to receive the same punishment, or worse, if possible!
But even if we were to have someone receive every punishment, we wished them to receive, would that really make things better? Would revenge bring our loved one back? Would we ever be truly happy with the payment? Would the price of revenge or justice, be payment enough for our loved one’s life? We often discover that even with revenge, the price of life still remains immeasurable. So, even though the cost of life for insurance is often calculated financially, and the cost of life, when someone has taken away a loved one, is often justice or revenge, the price of life often can’t be calculated.
Knowing the price of your life, can’t be estimated or valued by any earthly measurements, how much would your eternal life be worth? If you struggle, to name a large enough price for the life of your loved ones, who you have known for only a few years, then how on earth do you calculate the price for their eternal life, or even your own eternal life? If, at the time of death, you suddenly realise all things on earth are almost worthless when compared with the life of loved ones, then how much are you willing to pay or give up, to ensure you will receive that eternal life with Jesus, and your loved ones in faith? Your eternal life is beyond price. Even if you were to give up your whole life, and everything you have, it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing you say, think or do, will pay for or measure the cost of your eternal life. Even if you gave up everything you have, it still wouldn’t be enough. The price for your life, especially for your eternal life, is too high … at least for you.
But the price of your life, even your eternal life, has been measured. Your price is the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is how much your life is worth. It’s a price you can’t pay, yet Jesus has willingly paid the full price. The suffering and death of God’s own beloved Son is your price for life. It was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, to suffer many things, to die and rise again, so that your relationship with God would be restored. It was necessary he did these things because this is the price of your lives and the price for God’s justice.
Yet, what many people misunderstand, is that even though Jesus has paid the full price for their lives, there is a cost involved for us. The cost is your obedience, yet don’t think that the price you pay in your obedience, actually contributes or makes up for the suffering and death of Jesus, or that what you do, actually earns you ‘brownie’ points before God. Jesus has paid the full price for your eternal life. There is nothing more to pay. Your obedience doesn’t pay for your lives, or the lives of others in any way, shape or form, but there is a danger you can exchange, this undeserving gift, for other fleeting worldly things through your disobedience.
For example, if you try to deny Jesus, and what he has done for you by living according to the world’s thinking, then you will forfeit your eternal life. You can’t gain eternal life by your obedience, but you can lose it by your disobedience because your disobedience shows your rejection of Christ and the life price he paid for you. You can live as if worldly things are more important and more valuable, or you can live as if your eternal life is more important and more valuable. There is no in-between.
If you lose your life for Jesus’ sake, dedicate yourselves to following him, deny the deceptive advice of this world, follow God’s guiding word, and obey his instructions for life, then you will enjoy the blessings of eternal life in heaven. Since the payment for your life involved sacrifice on the cross, your own life of following Jesus also involves a cross. The crosses you bear as you follow Jesus, are the crosses of sacrifice and suffering, on account of your following Jesus.
Paul’s letter to the Romans gives us an example of what this means. He says hate what is evil; hold onto what is good; be patient in your troubles; pray at all times; share your belongings with needy believers; open your homes to strangers; bless those who persecute you; weep with those who weep; don’t be proud, but accept humble duties; don’t pay back wrong for wrong; don’t take revenge; and so on.
Following Jesus into eternal life is not easy and glorious. It often means, living in a way that is different from others around you. It means being obedient to God’s word, even if you don’t fully understand the reasons for his instructions. It means giving up precious time on earth, to listen to Jesus speak to you. It means giving up your need to satisfy yourselves with money, possessions, fame and other wants. It means giving up living the way you want to for your own pleasure, and trying to live Jesus’ way of service and sacrifice.
Following Jesus, also means you will be persecuted and insulted for living according to Jesus’ way, and not the world’s. You will not always ‘fit in’. The world will try to set the agenda as to what is acceptable and right, but this will not be the same as what Jesus says. The people of this world will continue to gain a name or a profit for themselves, but you will live unselfishly and in humbleness as you follow Jesus. You must obey God and not the world; after all, the things of the world will not last, and will actually lead you away from Jesus and the life he has gained for you.
What is the price of life? The suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The price for your life has been measured and paid in full. Even though you do not measure up, Jesus willingly allowed himself to suffer and die for you. Jesus paid the price of your disobedience by his obedience. He remained sinless to save those who are sinful. In other words, he suffered and died for your life. Your own journey as you follow Jesus will also involve suffering and dying for your own selfish desires, but it will also lead to eternal life with Jesus and all others who follow in faith. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Service led by Nevin Nitschke and with guest speaker Peter Steicke
Worship Service with Holy Communion led by Ken Pfitzner
A special welcome and thank you to guest speaker Pastor Joyce Graue for delivering the following to both services yesterday, Sunday 16/7. Pastor Graue talked about her experiences in missionary work around the world and also her ministry.
Called and sent by God, We are sowers, all of us, it is true. Sowers of seeds generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere. We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag of God’s kingdom.
As I pondered our reading for today in the Gospel of Matthew, I wondered, and I invite you also to wonder, how quick you and I are to jump ahead to the explanation of this story which is the second part of today’s reading. We are quick, are we not, to zero in on the types of soil that the seeds fall on and in doing so, we shift our focus from sower to the soil and thinking that we are the soil and our lives are all about being good soil.
Unfortunately, that becomes a trap because to be good soil we surely have to be good and if it’s all about being good, then it is no longer about grace, God’s undeserved love.
The other trap when we think that we are meant to be the soil and our lives are all about being good soil is that it doesn’t take long and we start to wonder and then judge what kind of soil everyone else is. Surely we are good soil because we are here in worship, right? And when we go to Bible study, when we donate food, when we donate money to Australian Lutheran World Service when we help out our neighbor next door, surely we are good soil - aren’t we? And, it would seem to logically follow that those who don’t do as we do, are not good soil.
All those who have prioritized other things at this hour on Sunday morning, be truthful, you never judge them as not being as good of soil as you are - do you? And those who have not darkened the door of this church or any other in years, and those who grew up in this congregation and who have not brought their own children to be baptized, what kind of soil are they? What do you think?
And in the Lutheran Church at this time with the possibility of after October 2024 there being two practices of ordination, it’s easy for those who are in favor as well as those who are not, to judge the soil quality - and usually not very favorably - of those who are on the other side. True?
As soon as we shift our focus from sower to soil, we slip into judgment mode. And that’s usually not pretty and there’s often too much name-calling and rarely any speaking well of others or explaining the actions of others in the kindest light - and so we break the 8th commandment.
(Remember Luther’s Small Catechism?)
So I do wonder if we wouldn’t be wiser to shift our focus away from soil to the sower and to wonder more about Jesus’ story about a sower. Of course, when Jesus told this story, even his disciples had no idea what this story was about, and even after they got up their courage to ask even with an explanation, I bet they were still scratching their heads.
I do wonder whether it was not much, much later like after Jesus’ death, after his resurrection, after his last words before he ascended - when he told his disciples to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations by baptizing them, teaching them and that he would be with them, day after day after day, always and forever and after they had gone out from Jerusalem after that power from on high had come upon them and they did as Jesus told them to do, when they then remembered this story Jesus had told about the sower, I wonder if they thought, ”Aha! I think I get it.
Jesus was preparing us for what we would experience: that some will become lifelong followers of him; others, not so much; some will not get it at all; others will get it and then lose interest; some will get it and then other priorities will take precedence.” Because this was exactly what they experienced; this was what they saw happen. Me, I would have expected Jesus to have sent his disciples out to look for people who would be good soil, to try and find those most willing to listen. I would have expected that Jesus would have told his disciples to be good sowers and to be careful with where they “threw seeds”.
But Jesus did not. He called for his followers to be sowers and to be generous with the good news seeds of God’s love and scatter them haphazardly, near and far, everywhere and whether a seed grows or it does not, just like whether it rains or it does not, is in God’s hands, not theirs, just as it is not in ours.
Called and sent by God, We are sowers, all of us, it is true Sowers of seeds. Generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere. We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag of God’s kingdom.
So what does being a sower look like? It will look different for each one of us. While we were missionaries in Papua New Guinea and later in the Central African Republic, every 2 or 3 years we would return to the US and we would visit congregations. Quite often after a presentation, someone would say, “I could never do what you are doing.” But they weren’t called to! Ian and I were using the gifts God had given us and responding to where God had called and sent us, and those who said, “I could never do what you are doing”. They had their own gifts to use in service where they had been called by God as teachers and posties and nurses and mechanics and the list goes on and on.
Since Jesus told stories like this one about the sower let me share with you some stories about other hands, hands that sow, and hands that receive what is sown.
In 1996 in a small village in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, where white people had never visited our family came and stayed for several days. The village was the home of one of our seminary students. Many of the villagers had seen white adults and children in town, 90 minutes away by vehicle, a day and a half on foot, But they had never touched a white person. They welcomed us warmly into their village. The school teacher gave us his hut to sleep in. Mattresses were on the floor, and beds were made up for our family of five. We were shown the track leading to the toilet, a hole in the ground surrounded by woven grass walls, and no roof. Another track led to the river and our hosts showed us where we could put some milk in the water to keep it cold. We were shown another track, it led further downstream, and there we could bathe in this same river which just upstream was keeping milk more than adequately cold. Think about that...
After unpacking and eating tea the first night, we sat around the fire in the cookhouse of our hosts. We had brought along the game “Uno”. It was something that we could share and explain how to play using our then-basic Tok Pisin language skills. Our hosts caught onto the game quickly, young and old, and we played it over and over and over. And then as laughter and fun had done their work of lowering the barrier between our different cultures, our hosts lowered it still further. Their hands reached out to our children who were sitting very close to us in this unfamiliar place. And our children, bless the younger two, they went without protest from lap to lap of these Papua New Guineans. Looks of surprise filled the eyes of these, our hosts. Discovering that white skin felt like their own. Their own children soon became courageous and reached out, hesitant, but curious as well touching our children, then looking at their own hands to see if the white-ness had rubbed off.
Called and sent by God, We are sowers, all of us, it is true Sowers of seeds generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere. We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag of God’s kingdom.
In Lae, home to Martin Luther Seminary where we taught and lived, sometimes we worshipped in a small congregation in an out-of-the-way neighborhood where homes were constructed of whatever could be found. There was no electricity, no running water. There was one pot-holed dirt road, not maintained, leading into this neighborhood.
This is “Marimari” Lutheran Church, “marimari” meaning grace. And grace-filled the people were, welcoming Ian and I and our children Sunday after Sunday, not only us, but we often arrived with seminary students who needed a congregation in which to practice preaching or we came with students who needed practice leading worship. The people in this congregation came to worship with their Bibles if they owned one. And if they had a Bible to bring, it wasn’t nice and still new looking, but corners were bent, covers were faded, pages had thickened from the tropical humidity so that the front and back covers when the Bible was closed, were far from parallel to each other. And the Bibles smelled of mold like just about everything soon does in the tropics and they smelled of smoke from nightly family worship and prayers around wood fires, the only light many have in the darkness. Their Bibles were worn and weary, in need of replacement from use. It’s the only place that I have seen Bibles literally falling apart from being read and re-read and studied in the hands of their owners What a witness!
Called and sent by God, We are sowers, all of us, it is true Sowers of seeds Generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere, We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag of God’s kingdom
The Lutheran Church in Papua New Guinea does not ordain women, so though called “Pastor Joyce” by my Greek and Hebrew students, I respected local church polity and I had no ministry of word or sacrament.
In our next call in the very heart of Africa, in the Central African Republic, there were two Central African women, ordained, accepted, and treasured by that church and though the focus of my call was to support and accompany the women’s organization in the church, There I could preach and celebrate the sacraments. I celebrated my first Holy Communion three months after we arrived. In the local language, I was still learning as I spoke them and lifted the bread with my hands and then the cup. But I could see the hands of the people, eagerly waiting as I slowly spoke the words of the institution, multi-tasking as I prayed that I got the spoken tones of the local language right.
One year just before Christmas the invitation came from the catechist of a mission congregation. Would we worship with them on Christmas Day? Would I celebrate communion? Would I baptise children and youth and an adult as well? 3 infants still in arms, 5 toddlers, 2 teenagers, and 1 adult. Yes, of course, I would be there. The Communion liturgy I no longer needed to practice, but the Baptism liturgy, I had never done in the local language. On that Christmas morning, over 13 ½ years since I had last baptised anyone because of our 10 years in Papua New Guinea, with my pale white hand, I poured water over black heads - Na iri ti Baba, na ti molengue ti lo, na ti yingo vuru ti lo. And the little mud brick church was hot as the hour neared mid-day that Christmas and sweat trickled and ran down my face, my back, and my legs as I dipped my hand in the dented stainless steel bowl held by the catechist in the water which drowns and which gives life. And then I traced the cross on the foreheads making these my sisters and my brothers, your sisters, and your brothers too. All of us, are part of God’s forever family.
Called and sent by God, We are sowers, all of us, it is true Sowers of seeds Generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere, We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag of God’s kingdom
One Sunday there were 120 pairs of hands, putting all they could into the offering that morning and it came to less than the equivalent of $4.00 but they need $5.00 to buy communion wine. So the pastor received no salary that week and the catechist received the same. For the visible signs of God’s grace, bread and wine, are not cheap in the heart of Africa, in a land-locked country. Hands-breaking cookies, bought from a street vendor, this is the body of Christ. Hands blessing not wine, but a cup of diluted Coca-cola, this is the blood of Christ diluted and diluted until all have communed.
Called and sent by God, We are sowers, all of us, it is true Sowers of seeds Generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere, We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag of God’s kingdom
We would come home from worship and make a bee-line for the bathroom. The first thing always when arriving home was to “Wash off the peace” for our hands had touched many other hands before, during, and after Sunday worship. In greeting, in sharing the peace, in prayer. Hands that had no money to buy soap, and, if washed at all, were washed in contaminated water, by people with no toilet paper. Who put money carried in their shoes in the offering with fingers having been run through the hair with lice or which had wiped the number “11” running out of a child’s nose.
Called and sent by God, We are sowers, all of us, it is true Sowers of seeds Generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere, We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag of God’s kingdom
A woman came to our gate, carrying carrots from her garden outstretched hands presenting them to me. She came because she needed money for food. My hands searched for coins in the oatmeal tin in our kitchen to overpay what market value would dictate. Another woman arrived in the almost daily procession. She came with a story and a child & I listened, I touched the child’s skin and the mother was right, he was hot. I reached out to take the child’s medical notebook and my fingers searched for the last time someone examined this child. My eyes read reports of being tested malaria, positive; typhoid, positive urine, positive for infection. Page after page, the results were the same. My fingers kept turning the pages and I noted all prescriptions written and never filled. Another woman came with her three children, & I recognized her from Sunday worship. A piece of fabric hung over one shoulder covering what was left of her right arm. Rebels had chopped it off just above the elbow using her own machete. They had caught and killed her husband and then after catching her and raping her chopped off her arm to guarantee her silence. This all took place less than a kilometer from where we were living while she was working in her garden on the edge of town. She was hungry and so were her children. I lifted the fabric covering the stump and the site of the crude amputation was an angry red. I went to see what coins remained in the oatmeal tin.
Called and sent by God, We are sowers, all of us, it is true Sowers of seeds Generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere, We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag of God’s kingdom
A neighbor died so hands beat drums and voices were raised heaven-ward for three nights, three days of non-stop mourning. Another day I walked for 50 minutes with women friends, my hands sticky from covering my face, arms, and neck with sunblock. Downhill and uphill and down and up again crossing the town built on a granite outcrop. I went to extend my sympathy to a sister in Christ whose husband had just died, in the mid-40s, dead from an abscessed tooth, untreated in a country without dentists and almost no medical care. The hands of the widow grabbed mine in silence, we embraced, then I reached down and slipped off my shoes, entered the family’s mud-brick home, and sat on a mat on the ground for the next two hours beside her, her hand squeezing mine. I could feel my legs tingling and going to sleep.
Later black hands at the ends of long thin black arms reached down to help me stand again. Outside, relatives and neighbors prepared coffee and food for those who came to express their sympathy and then stayed on until the funeral as was tradition. Hands pounded cassava into flour with large wood pestles in wood mortars while other hands added the cassava flour to hot water, stirring, stirring, stirring boule de manioc. Other hands silently fanned the air with palm branches to keep the flies off the body lying in a hastily handmade wood coffin, placed on a bed frame under a mango tree for shade, coffin lid leaning nearby, like a soldier at ease.
Called and sent by God, We are sowers, all of us, it is true Sowers of seeds Generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere, We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag of God’s kingdom.
I served a congregation in the US for the last 10 ½ years before I retired. From time to time I’d purchase some large coloring posters, some of them as large as 1 m by 1.5 meters on the Advent themes of hope, love, joy, and peace or some appropriate for Christmas or Easter or based on bible stories, and I’d send them home with different families to color and then the posters would be hung in the sanctuary.
At the end of my ministry rather than leave the extra ones behind they came to Australia with us and when there’s a Saturday evening gathering at St Stephen’s in Adelaide and families are expected to be present. I have brought one of the posters along to be colored.
A couple of months ago, there were not too many families who came, but a father and his two children sat down to color. The children are perhaps Year 3 and Year 6 or 7, old enough certainly to color well and by well, I mean, staying in the lines. Well, the younger of the two was going back and forth with her crayon in one area, completely disregarding any lines. And I’ll admit, I was more than a little disappointed because the other posters that had been carefully colored are hanging in the fellowship hall for all to enjoy and now this one was looking, well, it was looking like a pre-schooler had sat down to color with the one area being all one color only and no lines respected. And I found myself to be judging what makes a colored page or poster look nice and that is staying in the lines.
Later, as I thought more about it, I realized that I’d forgotten: Called and sent by God, We are sowers, all of us, it is true Sowers of seeds Generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere, We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag of God’s kingdom We are called to sow and leave the growth to God. We are called to sow and keep sowing and to not be concerned with the soil OR with the lines. We are called to sow and sow and sow, Scattering the seeds of the Kingdom.
Whether the seeds grow and bear fruit, you and I rarely know, and yet sometimes...
At the Maundy Thursday service a year ago at Tuggeranong Uniting in Canberra, a woman looked familiar in this congregation where I had served as pastor over 30 years ago. There were maybe 40 of us at worship that evening. The chairs were in a large circle and spread in the center, there was a large labyrinth rug that nearly reached our feet. The worshippers were invited to walk the labyrinth, if they chose, during the service which consisted of readings and music. A couple of times an older person got up to walk the labyrinth and because the lighting in the worship space was intentionally low, encouraging us to be reflective, there were still a few creases in this large unfolded labyrinth in the center of where we sat. It was not easy in all places to see the path to walk. When someone stopped and was unsure, this woman quietly got up from her seat, came beside that person, gently took them by the arm or elbow, and walked beside them a short distance until they had their bearings, and then she went back to her seat.
This happened several times during the service. I loved her unassuming helpfulness and the gentle guidance she offered and she looked so familiar. After worship, I saw her. I went over to the small group she was standing with and to my surprise, she knew me and called me by name! She told me her name and that she was now a retired Uniting Church pastor and that the years I served as her pastor at Tuggeranong were important in her faith and her journey to become a pastor. She left it at that. Later that evening I was given a copy of “Faith Stories from Women in the Pews” by the couple with whom we were staying. It was a few weeks before I finally opened the book, a collection of personal stories written by women in that congregation. I immediately recognized about ¾ of the names. Margaret was the writer of the last of these 21 stories of faith. She wrote about being pregnant when she married, having two boys, and then the marriage failed. Her faith had always given her a sense of belonging and purpose but somehow she had the idea that being a faithful Christian meant you had to always be good and not make mistakes like divorce. The danger of straying off the narrow path was eternal damnation. She had learned well about the righteousness and judgment of God but somehow, the good news of unconditional love, the grace of God, had not reached her. With nowhere to go, she and her two little boys went to her parents who were not condemning, only caring and loving. Her mother encouraged her to return to church, which she writes, and she finally nervously did. She loved music and joined the church choir. There she met someone, they married, and they had a daughter. A few years later they had a little boy. They moved once, twice and yet again. She kept busy with relief teaching and managing the family, with no time for worship on Sunday. Then there was another move and with that a nudge to return to church and they became members of Tuggeranong Uniting where I was pastor.
She writes and I quote: “At that time there were three distinctly different morning worship services and there were a few more surprises in my journey. First came a rethink of my understanding of Scripture. The catalyst was the vital ministry of Joyce Scheitel. The problem for me, strange as it may seem, was a theological one. Joyce was a female minister! Her ministry was fruitful, and she was much loved. But doesn’t the Bible say that women should be silent in church? It seems incredible to me now that I should have held such a view of the Bible given my education, experiences and serious reflection over the years.”
In the years that followed, Margaret found herself being nudged to be a pastor and the call would not go away. In 2000 she was ordained. I tell you this story because I had no idea about Margaret’s story. I had no idea that she struggled with my ministry as a pastor and that a few years later she would be struck by the irony that she herself was being called by God to be a pastor. I did not know. I was called there to sow seeds of the kingdom and whether the seeds grew or they didn’t, that was up to God.
Jesus sent out his disciples to sow and you and I too are sowers, all of us, it is true Sowers of seeds, Generously and haphazardly scattered, near and far, everywhere, Day after Day, wherever we are. We are called to keep reaching into the seed bag Of God’s kingdom, leaving the harvest and there will be one! and everything else to our gracious, loving God.
Let us pray.
You call all of us, O God, to sow
To sow and be your love within the world
You call us to sow
To love all
For in them are you
And you are in us
And we are one
Sisters and brothers all
And when we feel like calling it quits, Lord,
Because sowing your kingdom can be hard work
And we very, very rarely see
the fruit of what we say and do…
Tell us again that you are with us,
Day after day after day, always and forever,
…and that all we have to do is keep sowing
and you will take care of everything else.
Let it be so. Amen.