Keep Our Steps - July 26, 2020

KEEP OUR STEPS... Psalm 119.129-136; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52

Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender

Many of us wear a FitBit, the brand name, or some similar device to keep track of our steps each day. Mine is designed to keep me on the move, with hints of Way To Go, almost there, you are in the zone! I can run and with its GPS it will produce a map of my route, my pace per mile, my heart rate and breath rate. I have a friend who goes rowing with hers. She forgot to turn it off and the map had her rowing all the way up Stoneway.

The American Heart Association recommends 10,000 steps a day as a goal for adults. It is based on a longitudinal study of Quaker Farmers in Ohio and Pennsylvania who are so heart-healthy, the medical establishment had to examine them. What they found is Quaker farmers keep moving all day long. Of course, they don’t drive a car, ride a bus or take an Uber. Not so hard for them to get that many steps. I have to admit, my Fitbit keeps me accountable. I get a weekly report on the app on my phone about steps, sleep, heart rate, breathing, etc. It compares to the previous week and files weekly reports I can examine for the last 6 months. If I wanted to, I could keep track of glasses of water each day, food log, weight loss or gain, and maybe even my mood swings! IT compares my data with other women my age so I can glow in my health and well-being. It’s quite something, this data driven device. Used to be I just went by how my clothes fit:)

I wonder if the Psalmist would enjoy a Torah Fitbit, some way to measure the steadiness of her steps as she pants after God’s commandments, her desire for obedience so powerful as to take her very breath away. In this paean to Torah, written in 22 parts, each section starts with a different Hebrew Letter: ours today is Pei, the 17th letter. It’s symbolic meaning is mouth.

At times, Torah has been reduced to the Holiness Code or just the 10 commandments by Christians. We are known to reject the God of the Old Testament as way too violent for our tender ears. We like sweet Jesus, who disrupts, but does it gently. We lose so much with this view: the beauty of the poetry of the Hebrew language, the knowledge and understanding of the whole of life, every single part of it is caught up in the law, teaching and instruction of Torah, even the powerful voice of Adonai, whom we name Lord, who speaks, directs and redeems ancient Israel. The Psalms have lots of words to identify this great gift God has given: precepts, decrees, words, promise, commandments, statutes. A rich vocabulary to define the eternal covenant first given to Israel, then fully realized in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A covenant still in place, we have to be reminded. KEEP OUR STEPS...

The scaffolding of faith and practice are built into this Torah Teaching before us today. There is no way to have ‘just a spirituality’ that only deals with what gets labeled ‘things of God’ without the full examination of the practices of this faith in our daily lives. You might hear some Christians say, “don’t be so political. Just stick to the Bible.” Well, the Bible is full of politics, communal relationships, intrigue, revenge, alliances. Its why our Psalmist cries out: Turn to me. I long for Your Commandments, I pant, like a dog on a hot summer afternoon, I want Your instruction so badly. Be gracious to me.” We know about how much we need God’s graciousness to come near. Otherwise we are barbaric toward one another. It is in the concrete actions of love toward God and love toward neighbor by which we are measured. It is the danger of iniquity, sin, that is ever before us. What Torah keeping does for us is to focus our whole being - mind, heart, soul and body, -in movement toward the nourishment of relationship with God in the unfolding of relationship with God’s precepts and God’s gathered people all over the world. We are under obligation to take up the burdens of others in our enacting love for our neighbors. Even if we don’t exactly understand their burdens. It is the realization of this fundamental truth: We love, because God first loved us and sent us Jesus Christ, the full embodiment of Torah. “Keep Our Steps...”

Jesus brings the whole realm of God into view as He goes about teaching, healing, confronting, challenging, disrupting, the religious and political status quo. “Hey, My kingdom is here. See the Mustard Seed? It’s like that. Starts out small, buried with the good seed, and then becomes this enormous bush that risks overtaking the good wheat. What do you think of that?” Or how about, “My kingdom is like leaven. I’m the woman who makes it from rotten bread left out to spoil, not too long or too short, takes just a small amount for 3 measures of flour, enough to make 100 loaves.” Common farming or household management is described here. Is this a predictable action by Dear Jesus? Is God’s reign just a keeping on, keeping on? Doin the same thing over and over?

Or might it be that our image of God is too diminutive?

What God is not: our personal assistant to make our life better. God is the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. This God does not grow weary or faint. He’s not turned His back on His precious creation. This Word is near. This is the power we must claim and proclaim, as we go about loving God and loving our neighbor.

Let me suggest a radical idea. God is in the midst of the building of Her Kingdom using the tools of rebellion, racial justice and Black Lives Matter. Makes us white Christians so uncomfortable, but thats exactly right! Look at the Mustard Seed! Look at the leaven for the bread! Totally disruptive. And we cannot even begin to imagine where its going to end. BUT, we have this Torah Promise of redemption and shalom, from the very beginning of Scripture, even as Israel waits with baited breath to enter the Promised Land. Moses says, “The Word is drawn near to you today.” This same Word came to the Psalmist, and then was fully embodied in Jesus. This Word is not dead. This Word is alive. Remember? Resurrection! This Word is still moving through our world and our lives to bring about a complete, in-depth, comprehensive, radical restructuring of life as the kingdom of heaven rather than a patriarchal white supremacist empire. It is what we pray for every week: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Do we mean it? We’re going to be uncomfortable for a long time. Maybe the rest of our lives. “Keep Our Steps...”

We Catch A Glimmer... - July 12, 2020

WE SEE A GLIMMER... Isaiah 55:1, 10-13; Psalm 65; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender

As you know, #WPCSTRONG! Meets on Wednesdays at noon for a chit-chat, a bit of Scripture and prayer. It’s another way to connect via Zoom and you are all welcomed to join us! This past Wednesday, 5 of the 7 people on line are part of the gardening team this summer. We got to talking, again, about the disappointing yield of our beds so far. Robin, Cay’s husband, built beautiful new additions to the bed frames this spring and we got new soil from a different place to build up the beds. You know, we probably should be having this service outside around our garden beds. I could take the laptop and microphone out there and show you what we are talking about. They are pathetic. Especially in light of last summer’s bumper crop of 250 lbs given to Familyworks. Something is very wrong with the soil this year. We are desperately adding fish fertilizer every week, with a low nitrogen level, Mike C. Suggests steer manure in the fall before we put the cover crop down, Cay is tearing her hair out trying to figure out what is wrong with the ph factor in our dirt. I got a very good chuckle when I said to the group, guess what the Gospel lesson is for this Sunday? The Sower! Let’s hear it.

But this is the important lesson for all of us. There is some good news in the gospel and in our garden and in our lives. Dirt can change. Dirt can change. And more importantly, The Sower is profligate in her casting of seed. Extravagant. There is no other word for this Sower. Its like She’s throwing pixie dust! Scatters the seed everywhere, the rich lush soil, the rocky ground, amongst the thorny blackberry bushes threatening everything, even along the front walk where nothing ever grows because kids are always running through it. (slow down) She plants new seeds everywhere! Including in our own lives. This high-risk Sower is not acting in Her own best interest to gain the highest yield. Soil can change. How do we know this? The Sower spends the next 15 chapters of Matthew’s gospel throwing seeds everywhere--to the broken, the blind, the bleeding, the Gentiles, the Pharisees, the Religious Leaders, the women, the prostitutes, the fishermen, the tax collectors, the sinners. Everywhere, on everyone, like pixie dust. But that’s not all She does. She is not only a planter. She is a Master Gardener, nurturing the little shoots of growth wherever they appear. She does not give up on any plant, any soil, any seed. We know this because We Catch A Glimmer...

It is Isaiah’s clarion call: For the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return until they’ve watered the earth. So shall My Word be that goes out from My Mouth; iIT SHALL NOT RETURN EMPTY. Capitalize those words in your mind, write them on the lintels of your doorposts. Speak about them when you lie down and when you rise up. God’s Word shall not return empty. The Sower is still sowing. Listen to how Thomas W. Blair says it, “Spring does not just arrive because the earth’s axis tilts toward the sun. The warmth of God’s Presence arrives because God turns toward us in love. Forgiveness arrives because of the Wideness of God’s mercy. Joy arrives because we see a glimmer of our new in God in our own.” Unquote. I don’t know about you, but I need to hold these words close. I get all tangled up in me, me, me; my wants, my needs, my demands. Yet, God’s warmth has turned toward me in love, forgiveness, mercy and joy. I catch a glimmer...

This week it was in a 2 day argument with our friend, Josh, who is houseless. He’s back on the streets again after a 7 month hiatus in a motel up on Aurora. We give him breakfast most days and sometimes a cup of coffee in the evening. But he arrived back on the streets on a Monday and every day for the next 10 he was on our porch, except when I asked him to leave so Jeff and I could enjoy it. As you can imagine He makes a big mess. I give him the broom to sweep but it is not to my standards. He arrives early in the morning and because he is a smoker he coughs a blue streak, wakes me up. I ask hm not to show up so early and we get into it. I have to be reminded of Josh’s mental health as well as my own demanding ways. On the 2nd day of disagreement, I went inside to make him breakfast, came back out with it, and he said, “Am I still welcomed here?” I said, “Of course you are. Just not all day every day. I want to enjoy the beauty of my porch.” He said, with a sweet sad smile on his face, “It’s really comfortable, Tiare. That’s why I like to sit here.” In that moment I caught a glimmer of glory... And The Sower’s Command to share what I’ve been given. We Catch A Glimmer...

I want you to think about this question: Has God withdrawn Her Word to the World? Has it returned to Her null and void, empty, without completion? (Pause). Which leads me to ask, What is God’s purpose? The Psalmist doesn’t think so. ‘By awesome deeds You answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation; You are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. The River of God is full of water.” Provision written all over these words. You know where the river of God first appears in Scripture? The second story of creation, Genesis 2. “A River flows out of Eden to water the garden and from there it divides and becomes four branches.” You know where the river of God last shows up in Scripture? Revelation 22, last chapter. “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the trees of life...the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.” Jesus says in John 4, “Everyone who drinks of this water from the well will be thirsty again. But those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water I will give will become IN THEM a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

We are haunted by this glimmer of another world. It is a sight line that makes us head out into the streets in protest of another Black Person’s killing by militarized police. A catch phrase I learned from Rev. Willie Dwayne Francois III in New Jersey calls it the ministry of erosion, against the organized sin of white supremacy, within our country, communities, church and our own brains. It is us taking action to dismantle patriarchy that supports the continued oppression of women and people of color. We want to work with the great Sower to plant new seeds of hope, justice, mercy, generosity, empathy, and enough for all - especially economically. We have to address the white advantage in building wealth over time, which includes looking deeply at our own denomination’s history and practices, for we’ve been here since 1789. Rev. John Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence, an ordained Presbyterian Minister, 6th president of Princeton University. And a slave owner who argued against abolition. This is going to cost us something and it should. For we are people baptized in the River of God! Jesus didn’t go to the cross for nothing! It is Jesus’ redemption that makes it possible to open up our imaginations to dream new ways, new structures of thinking and being and doing. We Catch A Glimmer...of Glory! Amen