Do Not Stop Them

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Matthew 19:13-15:

As I’ve mentioned before, in our staff meeting each week, we read and talk about the scripture passage that is being preached on for that week. As we looked at this week, someone wondered if we were sort of getting a mention of an ordinary activity that has totally lost its context for us. I mean we’re certainly used to people coming to Jesus to seek healings, or to question him, or sometimes to challenge him, but in today’s passage we have something unique. We have people, presumably parents, bringing children to him so that, as it says “he might lay his hands on them and pray.” It seems like perhaps this is as an act of blessing, although that is not specifically stated. Now the laying on of hands is found throughout scripture, and there is a special meaning and purpose, and the person who does the laying on of hands is a person of significance. But it’s not done with children, but here it is. So, was there a tradition of bringing children to teachers or rabbis to receive special blessings? Perhaps. And again, that might be what we’re seeing and it was just sort of so ordinary that it’s not explained as to what’s happening, and so we’re not sure exactly what’s taking place. But, it is clear that the disciples seem to understand what’s going on, because they try to stop it, and speak “sternly” to those who are bringing the children.

I always imagine the disciples that Jesus doesn’t have the time to be wasting to do these blessings, he’s way too important for something so mundane, so please go away and leave him alone to focus on the critical things that occupy his time. And one more piece of information may be helpful to thinking about what’s taking place here, and that is the involvement of children in ancient Judaism, and that is there wasn’t much, if any. Our knowledge about what happened in first century synagogues is extremely limited, much more so than you might think. While we do know that there was some involvement of adult women in worship, boys did not participate in synagogue until after age 12 and girls and young women didn’t participate at all. And so,  with that in mind, perhaps the disciple’s response isn’t all that surprising, but Jesus’ response definitely is.

Do Not Sin

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 5:38-48:

As are making our way through the nots of Jesus, or the things Jesus told us not to do, and so far, we have looked at the injunction do not doubt, do not fear, do not judge and do not worry, I’m guessing, or really hoping, that as you are hearing the gospel passage that you’re listening for the not that we might be covered today. But while there are a lot of instructions on things we should do, like turn the other cheek and love our enemy and to pray for those who persecute us. But there is only one do not, which is do not resist an evildoer. And perhaps I should have addressed that as a not, and maybe in reconsidering this series for the future I might add that in. But that is not the do not we’re looking at today. Instead the injunction is do not sin. It’s an injunction that’s in there, but not directly, and that is Jesus telling us to be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect, and we’ll come back to why that’s the passage I chose in just a few moments.

And so, it’s not that Jesus never says do not sin, because he does, and some of you I know where that is. But it’s the story of the woman found caught in adultery in the 7th chapter of John. If you remember the story,  Jesus is in the Temple teaching when a woman who has been caught in adultery is brought before him. now the first question you should ask is where is the man who was also caught? But they don’t ask it, and he is not there. Instead the ask Jesus what should be done with her, and it’s Jesus response that makes this such a famous story because he says “let those without sin cast the first stone.” And with that statement, all those who brought her, and were expecting a stoning, go away leaving just the woman.  Jesus then tells her that, just as those who have left have not condemned her, neither will he condemn her, and then says “Go your way, and, from now on, do not sin again.” And so, we do have an injunction not to sin and for us as Methodists that injunction in inherently tied up with the injunction to be perfect as God is perfect.

Do Not Worry

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 6:25-34:

I want everyone to close their eyes, and don’t worry, nothings going to happen. And I want everyone, as we recently sang, to take a deep breath and relax your shoulders and neck, let the tension start to flow out, and I want you to picture a calm nature scene. It could be the beach, or the mountains, or a rain forest, or a desert, or the ocean. Picture something peaceful. Got that in your mind? Now, don’t think of an elephant. And now of course what just happened? And you can open your eyes. Most of you instantly thought of an elephant. And the same thing might happen, and does for some people, if you start a statement with “now, I have to tell you something, but don’t worry…” what do we instantly do? We start to worry, and so as we have been making our way through the things Jesus tells us not to do, today we move onto the injunction do not worry. Now my beautiful wife, the mother of our wonderful three daughters, asked me what I was going to be preaching on after Easter and I told her that we were going to be looking at things Jesus told us not to do. She then asked what I was going to do for Mother’s Day, and when I told her she said “you can’t do that. Worrying is what mothers do. It’s who we are and what we’re known for. Do you think that’s a good idea to tell mothers not to worry?” and I told her I did, and I’ve been worried about it ever since. And so, if you think that I have made a terrible mistake with this injunction for this morning, please tell Linda that she was right and you will have given her the best Mother’s Day gift she could receive.

Now when we think about this command so not worry, it’s just like we talked about last week when we looked at the injunction not to judge, we treat that as if there’s a period that follows it. But that’s not the case here. There’s not even a comma, like there was after do not judge, but instead the thought simply continues strait on. Three times the phrase do not worry is used in this passage and none of the times does it stand by itself. And, just like with the other nots we have looked at, Jesus is not actually saying not to worry about anything. There are some things we should probably worry about, as Jesus says in the last line, “today’s trouble is enough for today.” so, moms, please know that some worrying, or some anxiety is okay. Those things are not sins, as some preachers might lead you to believe. It’s a matter of what we are worrying about and why. I had a mother at one of the churches I serve whose son was an army officer who was trained in defusing bombs who told me that when he was sent to Afghanistan that she finally understood the Apostle Paul’s injunction to pray without ceasing. And so, she worried about him, a lot, which is completely understandable, and that is related to today because there is a strong anti-war background to the creation of Mother’s Day as a holiday.

Do Not Judge

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 7:1-5:

Of all of the injunctions of things that Jesus tells us not to do, which is what we are currently spending our time doing, today’s injunction “do not judge,” is probably the most famous. And it’s well known not just amongst Christians, and we’re going to get to some more obscure injunctions in a few weeks, but it’s also well known amongst non-Christians as well. They might not know who said it, or where it’s found in the Bible, but the definitely know that Christians are not supposed to judge. and so, as rebuttals go, it might be one of the most popular to get thrown back to the church, or at Christians, and often, in my opinion, quite rightfully so. And we deserve it much of the time, and what often makes it worse then is how some respond to that accusation. I remember one public scandal in which that accusation was made, and a prominent religious leader of the time said, and I roughly quote, “What Jesus was saying was that we all judge, and we will all be judged, and so it’s okay to judge.” and I hope that your jaw hits the floor hearing that, as mine did when it was said, because that is not at all what Jesus was saying. And so, the way that Christians and non-Christians alike tend to use this passage shows that people don’t really understand what Jesus was saying here, or in Luke where it also appears as part of what is known there as the Sermon on the plain. So, what does Jesus mean when he tells us “Do not judge.”

Now as I have said many times before, the entirety of the New Testament is written in Greek, while the Hebrew Bible is written in Hebrew. But in the Greek not only do all the words run together, and thus translators have to make decisions about what words are actually there. but there is also no punctuation and so they also have to make decisions about what punctuation to put in, and that matters here. Because we here this statement as do not judge period. Or even we could say exclamation point. And we could take that as the absolute, as we have done with do not be afraid or do not doubt. But that’s not what we actually have here. Instead, it says, do not doubt comma, which symbolizes a break or a pause, really, it’s where we take a breath when we are saying it out loud, and then it continues with some qualifiers. Do not judge, comma, so that you may not be judged. Now we could argue whether that comma is appropriate or not, although every translation I looked up had a comma so there seems to be consensus on it, and it makes sense within the context of what comes next. Because Jesus continues, “for with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”  That means if you judge, which really is when you judge since we all do it to some degree, and we’ll come back to that, then God will use that same standard against you. And others can to as well. And so, just for a wild example, a hypothetical if you will, if you were to say make fun of the Boston Red Sox for being in last place in your division, but then your team starts playing terribly and they end up in last place, then what’s going to happen? Then they are going to make fun of you, and that’s only fair. Or we might say what goes around comes around, or that the chickens will come home to roost. So how we judge others is how others will then judge us, or could judge or, perhaps, should judge us. But even more importantly it’s how we will be judged by God as well.

Do Not Fear

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 14:22-33:

One of my earliest memories comes from when I was probably around 4. I was spending the day with my grandmother and we had gone to the store, and one the way back home we decided to stop at a tasty-freeze for some ice cream. I was sitting in the backseat of my grandparents 1966 Ford Galaxy 500, which was an aircraft carrier, especially when the top was down, but we had placed our order and I looked down and on my left arm was a tarantula. Now in my memory it was huge, although I don’t know if that is because I was small or because of the trauma, but I screamed and my grandmother turned around, saw it and swatted it off my arm. And this I definitely remember, but it then jumped onto the front seat, ran down it, then jumped onto the dashboard and squeezed into one of the air conditioning vents and disappeared. My grandmother used to comment that she never saw it again. And we drove off before we got our order. I happened to be wearing a bright yellow shirt that day, which had a puffy lion on the front, and at the top of the grocery bag was a bunch of bananas, and so best guess is it came out of the bananas saw more yellow and was coming over to check it out. But the moral of this story is that FDR was wrong in his first inaugural address when he said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but that we should fear fear itself and also spiders. We should fear spiders, although while I still can’t deal with tarantulas or any big spiders, I have gotten much better about regular spiders as I’ve aged.

And so, with that we move on in our series on the nots of Jesus, or the things that Jesus tells us not to do, by moving onto the injunction: “Do not be afraid.” Of the things we are not to do, and the things that cause us to get ourselves all into knots, this may be one of the harder ones because fear is hardwired into us. And living entirely without fear is not only unhealthy it can be downright dangerous. There is a reason why we have fear of snakes and spiders and tigers, because they can be life threatening. Fear is a primal urge that comes to us from the most primitive part of the brain known as the amygdala, and located close to the base of the brain at the spine. It’s what trigger the fight, flight or freeze response when we sense danger. And it’s played an important role in keeping us alive and uninjured over time, both as people and as a species. Fear in proper doses, or natural occurrences is healthy and productive. It teaches us to not touch hot stoves, to not play in traffic and to avoid spiders. And so fearing things is not a sin, and in fact not fearing, or living without fear, could just be plain and simple stupidity. And so, we start with that reality because I don’t think that’s what Jesus is talking about when he tells us not to be afraid. But it’s about the what and the why.