Immediate Word

For July 12, 2020:

• What Does Your Statue Look Like? by Ron Love — What does your statue — yes you standing in the pulpit — what does your statue look like? Should it come down or remain intact on the pedestal?
• Second Thoughts: Never Too Hungry, Never Too Tired Again by Bethany Peerbolte — The Spirit needs to be our focus because the Spirit knows the way.
• Sermon illustrations by Tom Willadsen, Dean Feldmeyer, and Mary Austin.
• Worship resources by George Reed that focus on putting people on pedestals; thinking about thinking.
• Children’s sermon: Trading for the Red Stuff! by Chris Keating — Like their grandparents, cousins and extended family members, Jacob and Esau always seem to be making poor choices, but still they are called by God.

What Does Your Statue Look Like?
by Ron Love
Genesis 25:19-34

When I was a Virginia State Trooper (badge 1199, my partner, badge 790) in the state police (in conversation you were always addressed by your badge number or last name, first names were never used) we stopped a waitress on her way to work. She was issued multiple tickets for an automobile that was unfit to be on the road. As you can imagine, her mouth expressed her displeasure. We then deliberately went to the restaurant where she worked and sat in a booth that was assigned to her. There we sat, and sat some more, and sat even more after that. We were not going to waited on. Eventually the manager intervened knowing that having two troopers sit in a booth without even a cup of coffee before them was not good for business. Correctly, he also knew that we new what car he drove, so he probably acted out of self-interest more than benevolence.

Now, in the simplicity of privilege, I would compare my sitting unserved to a black person sitting unserved at a lunch counter. How easy it is for us to parallel experiences that are light years apart. I did not sit in fear. In fact, with my badge I held formidable power over the situation. How can this be compared to a black person sitting at a lunch counter with genuine fear? A realistic fear.

With the death of George Floyd on Monday, May 25, 2020, Memorial Day, when he was suffocated by a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on his neck, there was a new awareness of systemic racism. It would seem that Floyd’s words “I can’t breathe” was a meaningless plea. The willful deafness of the officer, Derek Chauvin, is only compounded in that the three assisting officers were complacent, unable to hear, unable to comprehend, but more likely unable to care.

This set off a firestorm across our nation, actually across the globe, of a renewed understanding of systemic racism that permeates society. I have a master’s degree in history. As such, I predict this time in our history will be recorded in school textbooks. We, as a society, for the first time, have owned up to the systematic racism that plagues us.

With this realization it seems everyone is getting involved for change. Not just the politicians, but also college and professional sport franchises and businesses. Good-bye Mrs. Butterworth. Good-bye Aunt Jemima. Good-bye Uncle Ben. Though the image that has become most vivid to us are the protesters.

The statues are coming down!

What troubles me is that they are not coming down in debate, but in hysteria. A hysteria that has been unleashed from centuries of oppression. Though the real question is: How much evil must a person have done to overshadow the good they did for society?

Christopher Columbus statue must come down. He was not an explorer, but a man who wanted to find a sea route to India and avoid the expense of travelling the Silk Road. When he discovered the Americas, an unknown continent, he named the indigenousness people Indians because he thought he had landed in India. He held fast to this belief until he died, even though he was shown evidence that he was wrong. It is interesting to read his diaries. One of his earliest entries is a detailed description of the naked Indian women. He also took several Indians with him back to Spain. This was not to introduce a new culture, but present them as perfect slaves. This all took place while Queen Isabella of Spain mandated that all Jews be converted to Catholicism or be expelled from the country. Of the 80,000 Jews in the country, half converted and half endured expulsion.

Should the statue of Teddy Roosevelt come down in front of New York City’s American Museum of Natural History? He is known for his daring charge up San Juan Hill. He gave no credit to the black soldiers in his outfit, only to say that they were useless without white officers. Roosevelt maintained that the poor, the criminal, and “feeble-minded” individuals must be sterilized. The 26th President did expand the National Park System with 150 national forests, five national parks and 51 federal bird reserves. To do this, all Native Americans who occupied these lands had to be dispersed. Theodore Roosevelt’s statue must come down.

Thomas Jefferson statue must come down. It seems that the man who authored the Declaration of Independence did not live by his written words. In the document he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…” Except, of course, for African-Americans. The 3rd President had no problem fathering children by black slaves, then not claiming the child as his own. His unrecognized child became a member of the slave community. Jefferson is recognized for the Louisiana Purchase, but what goes unsaid is that Native Americans had to be expelled from this acquired territory. There is, in Jefferson, a disconnect between what he writes and what he does. I am not sure what we should do about his statue in the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. We could replace it with a statue of Donald Trump, who claims to have done more for African-Americans than any other president, including Abraham Lincoln. Knowing this, and to substantiate his boast, on a wide screen TV we can replay his tweeted video of a white man in a golf cart, pumping his fist in the air, as he screams “White Power! White Power!”

Perhaps the worst of the bunch is Andrew Jackson, who happens to be President Donald Trump’s most admired president, except of course for his self-assessment of himself. As our 45th President once said, “Nobody’s ever done a better job than I’m doing as president.” Jackson may be the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, but then, as our 7th President he is directly responsible for what has become to be called the “Trail of Tears.” An act that was so horrific that it is still hard to comprehend. Andrew Jackson’s statue must come down.

And where does the list end?

Ulysses S. Grant statue was torn down because he owned a slave, but not actually. He married into a slave owning family. The 18th President, as a general, was the first to drive the Union forces into the heart of the South, bringing defeat to the rogue nation. Grant was also instrumental in having the Civil Rights Act of 1875 passed and signed into law. His statue should stand.

All of the statues of the leaders of the Confederacy should come down. It is only now that we are wiling to admit that they were traitors who wanted to form a new nation. In fact, they wanted to secure a military alliance with either France or England. This is why Robert E. Lee invaded the North twice. A decisive victory on Northern soil would secure the sought-after alliance.

George Washington is another “hero” in dispute. He secured our independence from Britain during the Revolutionary War. He set the precedent that a president should only serve two terms in office, which stood until Franklin Roosevelt served four terms. (The Republicans were appalled by this and passed the Twenty-Second Amendment that says a person can only be elected to be president two times for a total of eight years. This was a short-lived Republican victory when they realized that one of their own, Dwight Eisenhower, was popular enough to serve multiple terms.) He did not want the President to look like royalty. After many salutations that sounded too kingly, he agreed to being addressed as “Mr. President.” He did own slaves, which is why protesters are toppling his statue. Washington understood bondage. In his will he wrote that all of his slaves should be freed after the death of himself and his wife Martha. George died first. It didn’t take Martha long to realize that her good health would only remain good health if she freed all of the slaves, preventing her premature death. George Washington’s statue should remain because the good he did does overshadow the bad.

Then the question becomes, can any statue be left standing?

Well perhaps the only statue that would remain is the one of Fred Rogers sitting in a listening posture along North Shore Drive in Pittsburgh. When black children were not allowed to swim in Pittsburgh’s public pools, Rogers protested. His protest was on his show with he and a black policeman, Officer Clemmons, sitting side-by-side, bare feet touching in a wading pool. Officer Clemmons was played by the actor François Clemmons. But then… When Rogers found out that Clemmons was homosexual, he demanded him not to visit any gay bars. Rogers also forced Clemmons to marry a black woman. It was a marriage of very short duration. After Rogers’ death, Clemmons became a leader for gay rights. So, I guess, in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, the members of the LGBTQ community are not welcome. Though Rogers’ statue should remain, because despite his homophobia, the Presbyterian minister did a lot to enrich the lives of children.

So, this brings me to our lectionary reading for this Sunday. It is the Genesis story of Jacob stealing the birthright from his older brother Esau. As I read the story Esau was at the point of starvation. Serving as a chaplain in the Army I have experienced hunger, but never to the point of starvation. Esau wanted to live. The compassionate thing for Jacob to do was to feed his older brother, but instead he used this situation for his own selfish gain. Jacob wanted power, and a starving Esau became his opportunity. Esau, as we know, traded his birthright in order to eat, and in my opinion, to live. There shouldn’t be a statue to Jacob, even though he is considered a patriarch of Judaism: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

I would say the same for David. No statue. Despite the reverence in which he is held in the scriptures, David with premeditation had Uriah, the husband of his lover Bathsheba, murdered. I am sorry, but I can never think of David without filtering it through this act of treachery.

I would also include Sarah in this list of no statue of honor. Sarah was married to Abraham, but was unable to have a child. She enlisted her handmaiden Hagar to sleep with Abraham, which she did, and she gave birth to Ishmael. Soon after that Sarah had her own child by Abraham, Isaac. Jealous of Hagar and wanting no competition between the two siblings Sarah sent Hagar away, without apology or a word of thanks. Hagar and Ishmael then settled in Northern Africa. What Sarah didn’t realize with her vindictive attitude is that Ishmael is identified as the father of the Arabs, and an ancestor of Prophet Muhammad.

But there would many individuals in the Bible that we could erect a statue to, with Moses leading the list.

I now come to the purpose of this discussion — your sermon. In your sermon discuss why some statues must come down, but others can remain standing. Then we move to the clincher, what does your statue, yes you standing in the pulpit, what does your statue look like? Should it come down or remain intact on the pedestal? The same challenge must also be directed to those sitting in the pews before you.

And you must be bold!

I would have a very impressive statue. State Trooper. Army chaplain. United Methodist minister. Scholar, with six academic degrees. But my statue has come tumbling down because I am an alcoholic. It began when I was forced to leave the ministry for behavioral problems. What was not known then by the church hierarchy, and was unknown to me, is that I have the birth defect of Asperger’s which is on the autism spectrum. If having Asperger’s isn’t bad enough, the name is a reminder of persecution. It was first discovered by a Nazi physician, Dr. Hans Asperger, who participated in the Nazi genocide program of exterminating people like me. I would like a new name — a new statue — for my illness. Anyway, I lost my identity. I lost my purpose. I lost my place in life. Being autistic, I lacked the social skills to reestablish myself. I began to drink. For a quarter century I drank. It created a rough road for me, perhaps most devastating is the interpersonal relationships that I ruined. I am now, and have been for a short time, a sober alcoholic. I have regained my identity, purpose and meaning as a writer. So, if a new statue of me would be put up you would see my right foot crushing a can of Budweiser, and my left hand holding an olive branch of reconciliation. Ah, but my statue cannot go up until I am certain that I am stepping on the can and not holding it in my right hand.

As the preacher you need to be bold, as I just was, in sharing your struggle, in sharing why your statue has come down. Only if you are bold will your congregation take you seriously and be bold themselves. Don’t hide behind the piety of your clerical collar. Don’t allow the pulpit to give you permission to be self-righteous. Don’t share with the congregation a whimsical struggle, they will know the falsity of it. Share with the congregation a deep, gut-wrenching struggle. In your transformation share what your new statue will look like.

Then guide your congregation to be serious — to be bold — to be honest — to be reflective — in evaluating why their statue must come down and what the new one — the statue of the transformed individual — will look like.


SECOND THOUGHTS
Never Too Hungry, Never Too Tired Again
by Bethany Peerbolte
Genesis 25:19-34, Romans 8:1-11

Esau and Jacob start their heated sibling rivalry from the start. They race their way into the world and Jacob’s personality is cemented in his very name. Jacob is the one who grasps the heel, a Hebrew euphemism for deceptive behavior. Their parents do not seem to be interested in fostering an even playing field either. Esau is Issacs’s favorite and they go hunting together. Jacob is Rebekah’s favorite — they share cooking and learning about the world together. This week we are asked to look at what happens after one of Esau’s solo hunting excursions. Esau comes home starving. He is so hungry he is easily convinced to give his birthright to Jacob in exchange for a bowl of stew.

This is unfathomable. Esau is giving up not just money but his status within the family and community. Jacob’s word will now be the final word on all family matters and in any dispute with outsiders after Isaac dies. Jacob is not only receiving a better cut of the inheritance — he is going to get double — and Esau is cutting his inheritance in half. I have had my fair share of stew in my life and none would make this trade seem reasonable. Esau must have been very hungry to think this deal was desirable.

Most of us have thankfully never experienced true starvation, but I am going to assume neither has Esau. He is the firstborn son of a well-off family and hunting usually was only a one-day ordeal. The scripture does not describe a severe situation in which Esau had been gone for days. It seems to be a normal working day for all involved — which forces us to wonder what made Esau give up so much for a bowl of stew. Some suggest this shows he was not cut out to uphold the legacy of the family because Esau does not value the birthright any higher than one bowl of stem. However, Jacob’s conniving does not seem worthy of the family either. Esau falls for a thinly veiled trick and the future of the family is changed.

We can sit on our couches and armchairs and yell at Esau for being so naïve, but we have fallen for similarly veiled realities. Most recently the veil has been ripped away from covering our country’s issue of racism. In the past, we, meaning white people, have fallen for the ruse that a black president meant racism was over, as well as believing the police in our area are all good and would never take aggressive action without reason. We thought the videos of white people calling the cops or pulling guns out on people of color could never star one of our friends. We convinced ourselves those jokes Uncle so-and-so makes are not rooted in a real belief of white superiority. We have fallen for it all. We have taken the stew over the birthright.

The podcast Code Switch asked “Why Now, White People” in a recent episode. They asked white people to explain why after all the years and after all the reports, why are they now joining the cause. Three threads of commonality were found in the stories told. The first common thread was white people were influencing other white people. More conversations were happening in white circles and more people were choosing to speak publicly or use their social media to back the Black Lives Matter movement. This shift caused silence to become more noticeable and less acceptable. The second thread was a disgust with the rhetoric and actions of President Trump. One white commentator felt like it became apparent that the responsibility to make change was theirs and no one else was going to step in if they did not take action first.

The third common thread was the pandemic. Riots are a very human response to lockdowns and pandemic. The podcast talks about multiple historic rebellions that happened after lockdowns or similar government restrictions. It seems that when our busy schedules and social calendars are taken away from us we have more time to assess reality. We can berate Esau all we want and ask “how hungry could you have possible been?” But what is our excuse? After a 40-hour work week, sports events, driving kids to activities, socializing with friends, curating our Instagram, and whatever else we did before Covid, maybe we were too tired to engage with the reality of racism. But…how tired could we have possibly been to give up so much?!

Esau gave up his birthright while hungry. We have given up on the lives of our siblings of color while tired. Esau, how could you….how could we?

It is unclear what will happen next. For Esau this exchange was the beginning of his decline into obscurity. He could have been included with the greats — “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Esau” — instead he is the chump who was too hungry to care about his future. We have been fooled for too long. Tricked out of our birthright by ignoring a portion of God’s image. We will need to reset our thinking if we are going to correct our course.

Romans 8 urges us to focus on the Spirit not on the flesh. The flesh will tell us we are tired. The flesh will say that it’s too hot to protest today. The flesh will tell us we could be hurt if we walk into that neighborhood to meet new people. The flesh will tell us we are too uncomfortable or not well enough versed to engage with this person. The flesh is going to betray us and convince us to sell our birthright again and again for the thing what will give us immediate satisfaction.

The Spirit needs to be our focus because the Spirit knows the way out. She knows how to unite and challenge the status quo. These passages from Romans remind us that what we spend time thinking about is what ultimately guides our actions. When we were concerned with climbing the social or professional ladders that is all we could care about. Now that those ladders are gone, we have realized they were never taking us to a place worth inhabiting. We have seen the trick for what it is. Unfortunately, those ladders will be put back and it will be up to us to strive for the leadership of the Spirit and leave the concerns of the flesh behind. Let’s not fall for the next one. Let’s not get too busy again. Let’s never be too tired to march, and listen, and stand with, and vote, and speak out. Let’s follow the Spirit down a new path.


ILLUSTRATIONS

From team member Tom Willadsen:

Genesis 25:19-34
300 years ago, Roger Williams wrote of the exchange between Esau and Jacob: “What are all the contentions and wars of the world about, generally, but for greater dishes and bowls of porridge, of which, if we believe God’s Spirit in Scripture, Esau and Jacob were types? Esau will part with the heavenly birthright for his supping, after his hunting, for god belly; and Jacob will part with porridge for an eternal inheritance.”

* * *

Genesis 25:19-34
There’s a lot happening around the names Esau and Jacob. שעיר may be the root of the name Esau. It can be rendered into English as “hairy,” shaggy,” “furry” or “hirsute.” It implies a certain virility and coarseness, especially when compared with Jacob, who is described as “mild” in the Union of American Hebrew Congregations’ translation of The Torah. The name “Jacob” יעקב is a play on words with the Hebrew עקב which means “heel” as a noun or “overreach” as a verb. Jacob did both; he grabbed his brother’s heel at birth, foreshadowing his overreaching when he would trick his brother out of his birthright.

* * *

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
What’s up with this? Jesus told a parable — we should be used to that — but, then he explained it! He doesn’t do that very often, and when he does, the disciples are usually still utterly clueless. In the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ,” Willem Dafoe, as Jesus, gets exasperated with the disciples and says, “I’m da farmuh,” the Brooklyn accent never made sense to me. One potential take-away for the disciples, is that their success at spreading the seed of God’s word doesn’t depend on them; the quality of the soil on which their words/seed falls has a far greater impact on the crop’s yield than their efforts.

* * *

Psalm 119:105-112
This is quite the psalm. It is easily the longest chapter in the Bible; 22 strophes of eight lines each. The strophes are arranged alphabetically, each begun by a letter in the Hebrew alphabet. (Think “A, you’re adorable, B, you’re so beautiful…” if you’re of a certain age.) The Lord is mentioned in every one of the 176 verses; “the law” or a near synonym, appears in all but seven verses! Today’s reading includes the familiar, “thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” which often is used prior to the reading of the lesson in Protestant worship. In just that snippet of the psalm, the Hebrew style of repetition, a restating of the original idea with a slight variation to reinforce the meaning is evident, as lamp and light appear in consecutive phrases.

* * *

Romans 8:1-11
Now
Paul is writing to the Christians in Rome, informing them that they dwell in a new age, a new era. Condemnation was part of the old system, their lives before the Spirit of Christ came into them. It is not that they stopped sinning, that they have been made perfect. No, the new reality is that they are no longer condemned by/for their sins because something new is already in place. Paul makes a similar point, with a greater rhetorical energy in 2 Corinthians 6:2b, “See, now is the acceptable time, see now is the day of salvation!”


* * * * * *

From team member Mary Austin:

Genesis 25:19-34
Inheritance
Sometimes, like Esau, we’re not ready for our inheritance. We don’t know what to do with our birthright. Ben Goldhirsh found himself in an Esau-like position when his father, a serial entrepreneur who never spent any money, fell ill. He wasn’t ready to take over his father’s business empire.

“Ben’s father, Bernard Goldhirsh, was an earner. He grew up in a tiny, crowded Brooklyn apartment. When he took off for MIT, it was the first time he had left the five boroughs. After he graduated, he worked as a scientist, first at Polaroid, then engineering ballistic missile guidance systems. In his free time, he started a sailing newsletter, which turned into Sail magazine and a new career. He sold the magazine in 1980 for about $10 million, and invested most of that in a new magazine, Inc., which later sold for a reported $200 million.” Ben recalls that his famously thrifty father never wanted him to grow up with money. “My dad was frustrated, seeing me grow up in a privileged environment. Worse, he felt guilty for creating it. So he did what he could. I never had any money,” Ben laughs.”

When his father fell ill, “he began to tell Ben about his failed investments, and why they failed. He made his son tag along when he met with his lawyers and financial advisors… It was the start of a difficult conversation. Ben, his sister, Elizabeth, then a divinity student at Harvard, and their father spent hours together in the hospital, trying to decide what to do with the family’s money. Ben’s father considered giving it all away.” Ben and his father realized that Ben wasn’t ready for his inheritance, in any typical form. He, like Esau, would only squander it.

“Eventually, his father endowed a new philanthropic organization, the Goldhirsh Foundation. He gave $20 million from the sale of Inc. to his employees and made Ben listen to every stunned, grateful voicemail. Then he put most of his son’s inheritance in a trust that would pay out in installments over the next few decades. Ben could get the cash early, but only to make investments or start companies, and then he would have to make a pitch to a board of his father’s close friends and financial advisors.”

Ben now runs the foundation, and is still weighing when and how to give away his inherited money for the most impact in the world. Sometimes we have to grow into our birthright.

* * *

Genesis 25:19-34
Inheritance
Esau turns up his nose at his rightful inheritance, ignoring the wealth that could be his. Author Bruce Feiler says that we do the same, not realizing the inheritance we all have as descendants of Abraham, in common with our Jewish and Muslim cousins. Feiler, author of Walking the Bible, says, “the Bible’s not an abstraction, that book gathering dust. It is a living, breathing entity, intimately connected to those places and to all of us. And in some ways to my surprise — but maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised — that’s the story of Abraham, is that there is this figure in the past — or is there a figure in the past? — and then every generation for 2,000 years has chosen an Abraham for itself.” The events of 9/11 prompted him to wonder why all the descendants of Abraham have such difficulty getting along. After 9/11, he says, “we began to hear: Who are they? Why do they hate us? Can the religions get along? And I do think that one name echoes behind those conversations. One man is at the heart of the religions that suddenly seem to be at war: Abraham. Abraham. Abraham.”

He started thinking about Abraham and realized the inheritance is more complex than we see. “I believed at the time I was looking for one Abraham. I was looking for this figure who sort of was out in the desert somewhere or some sort of great oasis that I could unveil to the world and we could all hold hands and dance Kumbaya around the campfire. What happened, the big surprise of this journey, was I wasn’t looking for one Abraham. Turns out I was looking for 250 different Abrahams…each of the religions essentially just chucked out the initial story and proceeded to make up its own Abraham. And therein lies this great tension, because the story in Genesis is this universal story. God blesses Abraham; he blesses both of his children. Ishmael — even after Ishmael’s kicked out into the desert — and Isaac, both are blessed by God.”

Esau’s inheritance is our birthright, too. Feiler notes, “And in one of the most haunting and overlooked passages in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 25:9, his sons Ishmael and Isaac, rivals since before they were born, estranged since childhood, leaders of opposing nations, come, stand side by side, and bury their father. Abraham achieves in death what he could never achieve in life, this moment of reconciliation. A hopeful side-by-side flicker of possibility when they’re not rivals or warriors; Jews, Christians, or Muslims. They are brothers.” This is our inheritance, too.

* * *

Romans 8:1-11
Set Your Mind
The Apostle Paul commends certain ways of thinking to the early Christians. Seeing the power of the mind to shape our lives, he wites, “those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Celebrated author Alice Walker says she has become something that surprises her. Following this principle, she notes that in her later years, she has become “an unbridled optimist who sees the glass as always full of something.” Over the years, she suffered periodic deep depressions, and she says, “I am the youngest of eight siblings. Five of us have died. I share losses, health concerns, and other challenges common to the human condition, especially in these times of war, poverty, environmental devastation, and greed that are quite beyond the most creative imagination. Sometimes it all feels a bit too much to bear.”

Still, the life of the Spirit has come to her in an interesting way. As she says, “I have learned to dance.” She adds, “It isn’t that I didn’t know how to dance before; everyone in my community knew how to dance, even those with several left feet. I just didn’t know how basic it is for maintaining balance. That Africans are always dancing (in their ceremonies and rituals) shows an awareness of this. It struck me one day, while dancing, that the marvelous moves African Americans are famous for on the dance floor came about because the dancers, especially in the old days, were contorting away various knots of stress. Some of the lower-back movements handed down to us that have seemed merely sensual were no doubt created after a day’s work bending over a plow or hoe on a slave driver’s plantation.”

One day, “Wishing to honor the role of dance in the healing of families, communities, and nations, I hired a local hall and a local band and invited friends and family from near and far to come together, on Thanksgiving, to dance our sorrows away, or at least to integrate them more smoothly into our daily existence. The next generation of my family, mourning the recent death of a mother, my sister-in-law, created a spirited line dance that assured me that, though we have all encountered our share of grief and troubles, we can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat — no small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one. Hard times require furious dancing.” The Spirit is alive as we attend to it.

* * *

Romans 8:1-11
Returning to the Spirit
We are surrounded by stresses that draw us away from “living according to the Spirit,” as Paul instructs us to do. We have a calling, as Christians, to keep returning to practices that set our minds on the things of the Spirit. Patricia Adams Farmer invites the weary to a practice with an odd name, but that resonates with Paul’s letter. She calls it Spirit Bathing, immersing ourselves again in God’s Spirit. “Spirit resides not only in formal religious rituals and spiritual practices, but in everyday life — nature, a cat’s eyes, a beautiful painting, a colorful salad, a lover’s embrace, a new place. This means that I can Spirit Bathe anywhere, anytime. I can be in my kitchen or kneeling over a flowerbed. I can be at a rock concert for that matter or on top of a grassy hill gazing down at a meadow filled with wildflowers in a riot of colors…a Spirit Bath can have two meanings: one refers to my own spirit that needs renewal, and one refers to that larger sense of Spirit — bathing in God’s presence and the good news that God is in every nook and cranny of the world. Spirit Bathing, then, is the practice of daily re-connection to that deep gladness, a reassurance of the divine presence in the world.”

She has always loved baking, and a recent health challenge meant giving up carbs and sugar. It felt like a terrible loss until she saw that “if I just shift ingredients, I can still enjoy all my baked goods without all the carbs and sugar and be perfectly happy. In fact, the challenge has become a hobby — the creation of ironically low-carb treats. What fun to defy despair! When I enter my kitchen for a baking session, I feel like a mad scientist entering a laboratory. I put on my white coat (in this case, a stained and tattered apron). I lay out an array of ingredient possibilities and begin experimenting over and over — trial and error, tasting, throwing out, starting over — until I find what works. When I open the oven and take out a delicious batch of coconut flour chocolate chip cookies (sweetened with monk fruit), I am immersed in defiant joy, warm and deeply spiritual, but also earthy and delicious. Creative play in my kitchen means leaving behind a wildly messed up counter of broken eggshells and spilled vanilla and a cat licking the butter. Stubborn gladness takes many forms.”

We can re-immerse ourselves in God’s Spirit whenever we choose to. “So, whether it’s soaking my soul among trees or playing with alternative flours and alternative sugars and alternative universes, I bathe myself in soothing delights as part of my daily practice of soul care. When I emerge from the “tub” of letting go, I can take on the world again. But this time, the world won’t take me. Soaking in the waters of gladness on a regular basis is a fragrant reminder of the Goodness that never forsakes us. It reminds us why we resist and what our values are. It assures us that we live in a world not only filled with violence and hate, but also stubbornly infused with divine surprise, delicious moments, and a flow of freshness that can sustain us through the worst of times — times just like these.”

* * *

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
The Mystery of Seeds
As Jesus tells the parable of the sower, and the seeds that fall to the ground in different places, he points his listeners to the mystery of planting and growth. Angela Fischer, echoing the mystery of Jesus’ parable, says, “Every seed carries a secret.” She recalls, “When I was a young child, my mother gave me a seed of a bean. She showed me how to plant it into a pot filled with black soil and how to keep it warm and moist. And then I had to wait. For a young child this took a very long time. Every morning I would visit my seed, invisible in the darkness of the soil, and because I could not see anything, I remember that instead I tried to hear something. It was around the same time that my mother was pregnant, and I used to put my ear to her belly to communicate with the baby I could not see or touch. So I did the same with the invisible seed: I put my ears close to the soil and listened. I do not remember if I ever heard something, but I remember the listening. It was like an intimate conversation, though silent and unheard by anyone else.”

In this parable, Jesus is evoking a deep mystery, one that all gardeners and farmers know. “The seed is a symbol for the deepest mystery of creation, and at the same time it is the mystery. For thousands of years farmers have known how to listen to these mysteries, and so found ways how to grow and to harvest, how to preserve the seeds, how to provide for them the best circumstances, considering the conditions of the earth, the soil, and the weather, and considering how much they connect us with the past and the future, our ancestors and our grandchildren.”

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From team member Dean Feldmeyer:

What the frogs wrought (How our thoughts control our lives)
The Masterpiece Theater television series, “Poldark,” is really just a soap opera set in England in the early 1800s. The two nemeses of the series are Ross Poldark, a veteran who was critically wounded fighting in the American Revolution and recovered to come home and set about rebuilding the family estate that his father had lost through bad investments.

Poldark’s nemesis is George Warleggan, the foppish son of a blacksmith who has, through shrewdness and ethically questionable business practices, become wealthy and wants nothing more than to be accepted into English society, a goal that constantly eludes him.

George hates Ross with an obsession that borders on the psychotic and nearly drives him to insanity. He wants nothing more than to see Poldark failing and suffering and, throughout the series, he pursues that goal relentlessly, regardless of the cost. It isn’t until the third season of the series that we discover why his hatred is so all consuming and obsessive. The reason: when they were school children, Ross put a frog down George’s pants.

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Sowing in the soil of fear                               
On June 23, Abigail Marsh, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Georgetown University and the author of the book The Fear Factor, wrote in The Washington Post, how, in a time of pandemic, how to keep our fears in check, appropriate but not obsessive.

The most common and most dysfunctional method for overcoming fear is denial. Simply deny that the threat exists. Denial, though it sometimes looks like courage, is just the opposite. If you deny that a dog will bite you, you are the only one in danger of being bit. If you deny that a virus is contagious, you risk infecting dozens, even hundreds of people. Denial, in that case, carries “strong moral implications.”

She suggests that there are two ingredients required to keep fear in check, especially during a pandemic like the one we are experiencing: (1.) good information, and (2.) sensible exposure to the threat.

For good information, keep abreast of scientifically vetted recommendations from the World Health Organization and other reliable sources. Yes, these recommendations change sometimes, but this is because scientists are gathering and analyzing data and updating their knowledge at unprecedented rates.

Sensible exposure to the threat is that kind of exposure that we experience when we wear a mask and maintain social distancing. The more we venture back into the world, the more mundane mask-wearing, hand-sanitizing and social distancing will seem. Complete avoidance of risk will not be possible but reasonable precautions can put the odds in our favor.

True courage is not denial of risk; it is mastery of fear when risk must be judiciously confronted to serve a higher (usually unselfish) goal.

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Benevolent obsessions?
Malcolm Gladwell, in his book, Outliers, offers what has become the often misinterpreted rule of 10,000.

According to Gladwell, studies show that to move from good to expert in an endeavor requires 10,000 hours or repetitions or practice. It also requires talent and, sometimes, genetic gifts but, if you don’t practice, a lot, you’ll be good but never great, no matter how talented or gifted you are.

People who are outliers, so great at what they do that they stand far outside the norm, tend to develop what might be called benevolent obsessions.

These are not the clinical sort of obsessions, fixations with an object, person, or activity, that are abnormal because they impair our capacity to love and work.

These are the non-clinical obsessions, a disproportionate or unusual focus on something wherein people simply pay more attention or spend more time on it than other people, even those who are interested in it. In fact, says Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, in Psychology Today,” it may very well be that nobody who has ever achieved anything impressive or made an outstanding contribution to anything has managed to do so without a certain level of obsessiveness.

Three personality traits are required to master this kind of benevolent obsessiveness:

1. Openness to Experience, a trait related to preference for novel and intellectually stimulating experiences and the main marker of intellectual curiosity. This trait characterizes people who are flexible and open-minded, and therefore open to change. A related trait is psychological flexibility, because it makes dealing with unpleasant thoughts less traumatic.

2. Emotional Stability, the ability to realize and accept that what you are doing is working without inappropriate self-doubt.

3. Agreeableness or Inter-Personal Sensitivity, the ability to get feedback from others and take others' views into account — the secret path to empathy and having a warm connection with other people.

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Metacognition: thinking about thinking
In his letter to the Romans (8:1-11) Paul admonishes the early church to have a care after what they set their minds to — things of the flesh or things of the Spirit. Paul didn’t realize it at the time, but what he was talking about was what psychologists, today, refer to as “metacognition,” the practice of thinking about what we are thinking about and how we are thinking about it. 

It was John Flavell who originally coined the word “metacognition” in the early 1970’s and defined it as “cognition about cognitive phenomenon,” or basically thinking about thinking.

Since he first drew our attention to the phenomenon, about fifty years ago, metacognition has become an important part of education theory, especially that involving in-depth thinking in which cognitive processes involved in learning are actively controlled. This includes planning how to accomplish a given learning task, monitoring understanding, and estimating progress toward the completion of a task.

It is believed that students have greater ability to control goals, dispositions, and attention when they are more aware of their thinking processes as they learn. This means that self-regulation is a result of self-awareness.

For instance, when a student is aware of his lack of commitment to write his thesis, and bears the knowledge that he is procrastinating, delaying, and allowing himself to be distracted by other less important things, then he could take action to get started on doing the task. This is possible only if the student becomes aware of his procrastination and takes control in planning on how to approach his thesis completion.

By teaching students metacognitive strategies, we enable them to self-enable their own learning.

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Tilling the soil of creativity
Rumi, as he is affectionately called among his many followers, was a 13th-century Persian poet, faqih, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic. 

Rumi is famous for teaching with poems and metaphors. One of his oft quoted lessons using a soil metaphor: “If you don’t plow the earth, it’s going to get so hard nothing grows in it. You must plow the earth of yourself. You just get moving. And even don’t ask exactly what’s going to happen. You allow yourself to move around, and then you will see the benefit.”    

He believed that the human creative imagination did not function at its best when it was static or unmoving. It was, he said, like an unplowed field that had to be churned up, plowed and tilled, prepared to receive the seeds of ideas. This plowing and tilling was best achieved, he said, through physical movement.

Many will attest that it is while moving that we have some of our best inspirations. Walking, jogging, riding a bicycle, rowing, working out on the elliptical machine – all help us plow the soil of imagination.

It is also in moving, physically, that we encounter other people, other cultures, other practices and traditions that can stir our creativity.

Compare Rumi’s use of soil as a metaphor with how Jesus uses it in the parable of the sower and the soils.

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The seed metaphor
In the parable of the sewer and the soils, Jesus uses the different soils as his teaching metaphor, but the metaphor would fall flat and empty if not for the seeds.

The Buddhist tradition also uses seeds to convey teachings. The first line of the Dhammapada states, “Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think.” The idea is that thoughts are the seeds that give rise to actions, habits, and character. The seeds of unskillful or harmful behaviors lie in the mind. With awareness and practice, we can begin to dig up undesirable seeds (jealousy, anger, ignorance), and can even begin to plant new seeds for a happier future (by practicing the six paramita: generosity, ethics, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and wisdom).

A mature, authentic, Christian faith is like a seed in the ground. Spiritual practices (meditation, contemplation & prayer), Christian fellowship, loving and caring for others, are the things that help that seed germinate, grow, blossom and, eventually, produce fruit.

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Seeds & soils: the garden as metaphor for life
In her blog, “Daring to Live Fully,” lawyer and entrepreneur, Marelisa Fabrega offers gardening as a metaphor for life with these ten quick observations.

1. Have a Vision for Your Garden
When you’re going to plant a garden you have to create a vision for it. You don’t just grab whatever seeds you can get your hands on, throw them around willy-nilly, and hope for the best.

2. You Need to Prioritize
When you’re planning your garden you can start by creating a wish list of everything you want to grow there but eventually, space, climate, and your own needs and desires, require to trim down you list.

3. You Need Good Soil.
Whatever it is that you decide to plant in your garden, it won’t grow well unless you have healthy soil. A gardener spends a lot of time, energy, and expense to improve the soil of their garden and create a strong, rich, durable soil.

4. You Reap What You Sow
Gardeners know that they reap what they sow. If they want tomatoes, they plant tomato seeds. They don’t plant hemlock seeds and then wonder why there’s a poisonous plant growing in their garden instead of delicious, bright red tomatoes.

5. Assess Your Garden’s Conditions
Different plants need different environments to thrive. How well a plant will do in your garden and how well you will do in life, depends on many different factors. Know what those factors are.

6. Build a Fence Around Your Garden
If you want a pest-free garden, you need to build a fence around it. That is, set boundaries.

7. A Garden Needs Constant Tending
After you’ve prepared your soil and planted your seeds, there’s still lots of work to do in your garden. A garden requires constant care and attention as do goals of any kind.

8. Have Patience and Trust the Process
Create the best possible conditions in your garden, plant the right seeds, and give those seeds the care and attention they need. Then, trust that nature will take care of the rest.

9. Learn to Deal with Things Outside of Your Control
The weather does what the weather does and there’s nothing you can do about it.

10. Reap Your Harvest
Enjoy the rewards of your labor.



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WORSHIP
by George Reed

Call to Worship:
Leader: God’s word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
People: We have sworn an oath to observe God’s righteous ordinances.
Leader: Accept our offerings of praise, O God.
People: Teach us your ordinances so we do not forget your law.
Leader: God’s decrees are our heritage forever; the joy of our hearts.
People: We incline our hearts to perform God’s statutes forever.

OR

Leader: Let us worship our God who is without image or form.
People: We praise God who is in, through, and beyond creation.
Leader: God is love and is found in relationship, not images.
People: We seek to know God and to know God’s children.
Leader: When we love God, we find ourselves loving others.
People: When we truly love others, we find God.

 

Hymns and Songs:
Break Thou the Bread of Life
UMH: 599
PH: 329
AAHH: 334
NNBH: 295
NCH: 321
CH: 321
LBW: 235
ELW: 515
W&P: 665
AMEC: 209

O Word of God Incarnate
UMH: 598
PH: 327
NNBH: 296
NCH: 315
CH: 322
LBW: 231
ELW: 514
W&P: 670
Renew: 97

Thy Word Is a Lamp
UMH: 601
CH: 326
W&P: 664
Renew: 94

Wonderful Words of Life
UMH: 600
AAHH: 332
NNBH: 293
NCH: 319
CH: 323
W&P: 668
AMEC: 207

Be Thou My Vision
UMH: 451
H82: 488
PH: 339
NCH: 451
CH: 595
ELW: 793
W&P: 502
AMEC: 281
STLT: 20
Renew: 151

Let There Be Peace on Earth
UMH: 431
CH: 677
W&P: 614

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
UMH: 400
H82: 686
PH: 356
AAHH: 175
NNBH: 166
NCH: 459
CH: 16
LBW: 499
ELW: 807
W&P: 68
AMEC: 77
STLT: 126

I Need Thee Every Hour
UMH: 397
AAHH: 451
NNBH: 303
NCH: 517
CH: 578
W&P: 476
AMEC: 327

Forgive Our Sins as We Forgive
UMH: 390
H82: 674
PH: 347
LBW: 307
ELW: 605
W&P: 382:
Renew: 184

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
UMH: 384
H82: 657
PH: 376
AAHH: 440
NNBH: 65
NCH: 43
CH: 517
LBW: 315
ELW: 631
W&P: 358
AMEC: 455
Renew: 196

Humble Yourself in the Sight of the Lord
CCB : 72
Renew: 188

His Name Is Wonderful
CCB : 32
Renew: 94

Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB : Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship

Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who is beyond any image
Grant your children wisdom to look to you
instead of to images of one another
so that we may hear the words of life;
through Jesus Christ our Savior.  Amen.

OR

We worship you, O God, because you are beyond any image we can imagine. Help us to be wise enough to look to you so that we are not distracted to images we make of each other. Help us to hear you words of life, instead. Amen.

Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our offering up monuments and images that distract us from serving you with all of heart, mind, soul, and heart. 

People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have warned us of the dangers of lifting up images and we have ignored that warning. We have set up mortals like ourselves on pedestals and we seem surprised when we discover they are not divine. We look to flawed people like ourselves for our inspiration and guidance instead of looking to you and to your words of instruction. Open us to the reality that you are the only true guidance for us and bring us back to the way that leads to life.  Amen.  

Leader: God desires that we have life and have it abundantly. When we are willing God is always ready to guide us and help us. Receive God’s love and grace and live as the Spirit directs.

Prayers of the People
Praise and glory are yours, O God, because you are the true fount of all creation. From you and your love all has sprung forth. We, your children, offer you our praise. 

(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)

We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have warned us of the dangers of lifting up images and we have ignored that warning. We have set up mortals like ourselves on pedestals and we seem surprised when we discover they are not divine. We look to flawed people like ourselves for our inspiration and guidance instead of looking to you and to your words of instruction. Open us to the reality that you are the only true guidance for us and bring us back to the way that leads to life.

We thank you for the wonders of creation that reflect your presence and beauty among us. We thank you for your Spirit that dwells deep within our very selves. We thank you for your guidance and direction that leads us to life eternal. 

(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)

We pray for all your children in their need. We pray for those who have been pushed away from your love by the hatred and violence around them. We pray for those who are deprived on enjoying the necessities of life that your creation was made to be shared with them. We pray for all who have lost sight of the love with which you created us.  

(Other intercessions may be offered.)

All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:

Our Father....Amen.

(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)

All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity.  Amen.

Children’s Sermon Starter
Share with the children some trip you took. Tell how you found out how to get there either by GPS, map, asking directions, or some combination of these. Show them the map app on your phone or unfold a map and show them the route. These are great ways to learn how to get where we want to go. But we can’t put God into our GPS or look God up on a map to get to know the way to go. For that we have the Bible. This is how we learn the right way to go whether we read it directly or learn from our teachers and pastors.



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CHILDREN'S SERMON
Trading for the Red Stuff!
by Chris Keating
Genesis 25:19-34

Esau could smell the “Red Stuff” bubbling over in the kitchen. He decided he would do anything to get a bowl — even if that meant making a very poor choice.

Genesis 25’s exploration of the rivalry between Jacob and Esau will resonated with many children and families. Kids will enjoy hearing a story about two brothers who have been fighting since they were born. Parents of siblings who have been navigating a socially-distanced summer with restricted activities will also resonate with this family’s dilemma. Like their grandparents, cousins and extended family members, Jacob and Esau always seem to be making poor choices, but still they are called by God.

This is an important point that may be hard to remember in an otherwise convoluted story of jealousy and rivalry.

Plan ahead by gathering a handful of play money to use in telling the story of these brothers. Retell the story of Isaac and Rebekah and use the animals to illustrate all the things Isaac owned. In Biblical times, the oldest child would get twice as much of the father’s property than the younger children when their father died. (Sadly, girls were not included at all.) Illustrate this by taking half of the money and giving it to one child and dividing the rest among everyone else.

Sometimes we trade with our friends. They may have something we want, and we figure they might trade us for something we have. We might trade something in our lunch, or sometimes trade for things like books or toys. But trading for really big things — like bicycles, or even our houses, would be hard to imagine.

Esau had something Jacob really wanted. Although they were twins, Esau was born first. That meant he would get more of the inheritance than his brother. Sometimes they did not act like brothers who loved each other. Jacob thought he should have the larger part of the inheritance and so he thought up a plan to trick his brother. He waited until his brother was gone hunting all day.

Because Jacob knew Esau would be really, really hungry, he spent the day cooking Esau’s favorite dish. The Bible even gives it a name: “Red stuff!” Esau loved “Red stuff.” It was his all-time favorite dish. When Esau walked in the door, all he could smell was that red stuff bubbling in the oven. He knew exactly what it was, and his mouth began to water. He’d been working outside all day, and all he could think about was having a wonderful dinner.

“Bring me some stew!” Esau tells his brother. “I want that Red Stuff!”

“Not so fast,” says Jacob. “You can have some when you do something for me.”

“Argh!” says Esau. “I’m so hungry that I could eat an entire pot of stew! If I don’t eat I am going to die! What is it that you want me to do? I’ll give you anything for some of that Red Stuff!”

“Esau,” says Jacob, “I tell you what. I’ll trade you. You can have Red Stuff if you give me your inheritance.”

That wasn’t necessarily the best choice. It would mean that Esau would be giving up a lot, including money, privileges, and power. But Esau was not thinking clearly. Because he is hungry, he wanted food and he wanted it right away.

Sometimes we make choices the same way, acting on impulses instead of thinking clearly.

This is a complicated story because we know that somehow God is working through Jacob’s deceit. For today, focus on how both brothers make poor choices. Jacob did not respect his brother. Esau was willing to give up something important just to get a bowl of stew. This caused them to become enemies, something that would take years and years to fix. Things get so bad that Jacob has to leave town.

We know that God wants families to live in peace. Eventually the two brothers reconciled. That is the message included in Isaiah 55, which speaks of God reaching out to people who had lost their position. Likewise, Romans 8 reminds us that the Spirit leads us to live in new ways that restore broken relationships — even when we have argued about the “Red stuff.”

Close with a prayer asking God to guide our families as we spend time together this summer so that we might live with our siblings in peace and joy.


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The Immediate Word, July 12, 2020 issue.

Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.

All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.