Monthly Archives: August 2023

Caring for You!

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“Caring for You!”

1 Thessalonians 2:6-10 – August 27, 2023

            Anyone here familiar with any religious leaders who are puffed up? Proud beyond measure? Strutting their stuff? I mean, lording it over their congregations and everyone else? Some preachers and evangelists can be like that. Don’t bother the extra special holy person!

It doesn’t seem like those puffed-up preachers or evangelists care about anyone! Not any common, ordinary folk from their congregations, anyway.

That kind of self-centered, self-satisfied attitude is the problem with certain people, and this is not exclusive to preachers or evangelists. Lots of people can have really skewed priorities and end up ignoring people who hurt, or those who are sad or depressed, or people who grieve all manner of losses. Or even worse, these blinded, entitled people are aware of those who cry out for help, but simply shut the door in their faces.

            I’d like us to focus on several verses from this reading today. They come from the apostle Paul’s letter to the believers in Thessalonica. Starting at verse 6: “We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. 7 Instead, we were like young children among you. Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, 8 so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.”

            What does Paul make a point of saying here? Paul and his friends did not want to be treated like something super special! They were not hungry for praise, or seeking strokes and adulation from their fellow believers in town. Certainly, Paul and his friends were in what is known today as a teacher or mentor position among their friends, but not high on a pedestal. And especially not puffed up.

Paul points out, “We proved to be gentle among you.” Like young children!

 “This is another example of positive and gracious leadership. Paul was not a like a dictator to the Thessalonians. Instead, he chooses one of the most tender images in all of nature, a nursing mother. Some of us here may be inclined toward “tough love.” We might say, ‘my way or the highway.’” [1] But, not Paul! He purposely meant to come alongside his Thessalonian friends gently, and he demonstrated that his co-workers were, too.

            This nurturing, maternal reading is not common within the apostle Paul’s letters, since he was more likely to use strong, masculine word-pictures or metaphors. However, using these words of maternal love and affection here show us the loving heart of Paul, and how much he cared for these believers. And not only that, Paul and his friends were ready and eager to share all that they had with the Thessalonians.

Commentator F.F. Bruce makes the connection that “No other attitude would befit the preachers of a gospel which proclaimed as Lord and Savior one who ‘emptied himself’ (Phil 2:7) for the enrichment of others.” [2]  We can see our Lord Jesus showing the ultimate in loving, caring affection in Philippians 2, as He emptied Himself of all Godly prerogatives and attitudes, and set all his Godhood aside. Our Lord Jesus became a human being so He could communicate on the same level, and more easily and directly with us fellow human beings.

            Similar to what Paul just said in this letter to the Thessalonians, Jesus did not throw His weight around! No, Jesus was not on a pedestal or puffing up His chest because He was so high and mighty. Can you possibly imagine Jesus doing things like that? Absolutely not!

            Just so, Paul imitates his Lord Jesus by showing that he and his companions are not hungry for praise, or seeking strokes and adulation from their fellow believers in Thessalonica.

Paul specifically says he and his friends tenderly care for their Thessalonian friends in the church. The Greek word he uses here is thalpo, “to warm, cherish, nourish.” How nurturing is that! This is the same word used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures for a Scripture reading we examined earlier this summer: Deuteronomy 22:6, where mother birds cover her young or her eggs with their feathers. 

That is not all! This Greek word thalpo, “to warm, cherish, nourish,” is used again by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:29. Here he describes our risen Lord Jesus Christ and His care for the church universal. How wonderful that the Lord Jesus Christ continues the same caring, nurturing activity He regularly displayed during His time here on Earth as a human being. Commentator F.F. Bruce adds, Paul’s words “’For her own children’ would stress the personal involvement and concern. A mother who is nursing her children does not and cannot turn the care of her child over to someone else. She feeds, loves, and protects her child.” [3]

Helping people to grow in the Lord, as with growing children, takes time and requires patience, just as much today as 2000 years ago. Sometimes it causes pain and grief, and priorities need to be set in our relationships. We don’t raise children overnight, You and I can’t raise them without growing pains for both parent and child alike. [4]

            If we recognize our deep need for nurture, protection and caring from all that would harm us, we can also watch out for one another! Jesus urges us to nurture, protect, and care for one another, too. As our loving, caring Lord Jesus always does for us. Without fail.

            Praise God, God has been loving, caring and full of nurture for us all. God is our nurturing Parent, and that’s a blessed fact. Alleluia, amen. 

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

(I would like to thank the website www.bible.org for their commentary and bible study on today’s New Testament reading, https://bible.org/seriespage/4-compelling-example-ministry-1-thess-21-12. I got several excellent ideas and quotes for this sermon from this excellent article.)

[1] https://studyandobey.com/inductive-bible-study/thessalonians-studies/1thessalonians2-1-9/

[2] https://bible.org/seriespage/4-compelling-example-ministry-1-thess-21-12

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

Searching Until Found!

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“Searching Until Found!”

Luke 15:8-10 – August 20, 2023

            Can anyone relate to this scenario? You are using a pen – perhaps it’s your favorite pen – and you put it down. Just for a moment! And when you go back to write something down, you can’t find that pen! Or perhaps you are using a tool, and something distracts you. Or, the phone rings. And when you go back to pick up that tool, it’s gone!

            Can you relate to the woman in our parable? She just had that silver coin just five minutes ago! Where did it go? Did she accidentally drop it on the floor? Did it slip down between the table and the wall? Where, oh, where did that coin go?

            The unnamed woman in our parable is featured in a series of three parables in Luke chapter 15: the chapter of the Lost Things. We see the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. The Rabbi Jesus takes the unusual tack to highlight a woman in one of His parables. Unusual, and so relatable! Yet, here we see that is exactly what Jesus does!

            Think about the Good Shepherd. Exactly what Jesus calls Himself in the Gospel of John. Today’s reading is from chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke. But, so much the same Shepherd metaphor! As Jesus tells the first parable, He is describing a Good Shepherd who diligently searches for the one lost sheep, until that sheep is found! Then, the Shepherd – the Good Shepherd – calls together his friends and neighbors and says, “Rejoice! Rejoice with me!”

            In the third parable, we have the extended parable of the Lost Son, also known as the Prodigal Son. Running off to the far country, going far astray, getting hopelessly lost until he hits bottom and comes to himself. And, we also see the Loving Father, watching and waiting for his son to return. When the son is still far off, the father runs down the main street of town to meet his boy, publicly welcoming his lost son home.

Can you hear him calling, “rejoice with me! My child was lost, and now is found!”

            Let’s focus on this second parable, which features a woman, keeping house. It’s probably a small house, and this woman is not well-to-do. She loses one out of her ten coins, and this is a lot of money – to her! Actually, in the original language, Greek, the coin is worth one days’ wage. We see a woman who is bound and determined to find that coin! She takes the initiative and searches high and low for that coin until she finds it.

            Let me read the verse again: “Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’”  

            The lost coin was a passive participant in this whole operation. As commentator Stephen Cole says, “the only reason it was found is that the woman initiated a diligent search for it.” [1] What is more, in our case, God took the initiative. The Lord has great love and compassion, indeed. There was and is no way that we can take the initiative in saving ourselves. As the apostle Paul says in Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God launched the search for each of us!  

            One of my favorite commentators, Dr. Daivd Lose, tells about his son Jack, years ago at an amusement park in Minnesota. His son was small, four years old. Right by David’s side all the time – until he wasn’t. David frantically looked for his son Jack all over the place, and recruited the security guards. Thankfully, three minutes after Jack’s description was called in, one of the guards found him at the next ride in the park.

            David Lose said, “I was just relieved and, even more, joyful. My son, who had been lost, was found. Safe and sound. Back with me. It was pure joy. And that’s how God feels anytime anyone is drawn back into relationship with God, or chooses life, or lives into his or her potential, or helps out another, and in all these ways is found. Joy. Pure joy.” [2]

            In these parables, Jesus highlights three representations of God. Jesus says that the woman did not give up until she found that missing coin. It’s the same with the lost sheep. The Good Shepherd goes after every lost sheep, no matter what the weather is like. No matter whether it’s a dark and stormy night or the middle of a scorching hot day with the sun beating down. We will all be found and brought safely into the Shepherd’s care, into God’s care.

            Just as our woman from the parable says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ So we can rejoice as the Rabbi Jesus tells us! “10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

We know it is not because we were seeking God and actively trying our hardest to earn our salvation. In the parable, you and I are found by the woman, by the shepherd, by the loving Father because God sought after each of us. God kept diligently seeking, as the woman did by sweeping and searching all night long, until she found that coin she valued so, so much!

            Some in Jesus’s audience were Pharisees, scribes and other Jewish leaders. They just didn’t get the blessed fact that God is primarily about love, rather than rules. God wants to be about joy, not filled with anger or fear or impatience. God wants abundant joy for all of us! [3] God wants to rejoice, with all of the angels in heaven, because of each of us precious ones!

More than that, “when you think how ordinary were the persons representing God – a shepherd who stands at the very bottom of the socio-economic ladder in first-century Palestine, a woman with only ten silver coins to her name – you realize that maybe these aren’t just metaphors, but rather that they are reminders that God often works through ordinary people to do the extraordinary work of helping to find someone.” [4]

Each one of us once was lost, and now is found. Praise God! Jesus welcomes you, and He welcomes me, too. We can all rejoice with that very Good News. Alleluia, amen.

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

[1] https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-71-god%E2%80%99s-lost-and-found-luke-151-10

[2] https://www.davidlose.net/2016/09/pentecost-17-c-joy/

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

Gathered under God’s Wings!

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“Gathered under God’s Wings!”

Matthew 23:37-39 – August 13, 2023

            Growing up in Chicago, I never had the opportunity to see chickens. I mean, live chickens, in a barnyard or roosting in a henhouse. Lately, I still have never gotten up close and personal with a chicken. I may have read the story of “The Little Red Hen” to my young children, years ago, but haven’t had too much more contact with chickens than that.  

            I am certain that this image of a hen and her chicks was much more familiar to the people the Rabbi Jesus spoke to. It was much more common to have chickens in your yard, or at least down the street, in the first century. Remember the reading? Here’s the verse we are focusing on, where Jesus refers to Jerusalem: “I have often wanted to gather your people, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you wouldn’t let me.”

Our Lord Jesus made this serious and sad statement, when He was warning Jerusalem and the people of Israel. This lovely word-picture is so touching and tender! A mother hen fluffs herself up and gathers her chicks under her wings, keeping them safe and warm. Protecting them from harm, too. Jesus often used familiar images and common metaphors in His teaching and preaching. Except – one thing stood out about this particular image Jesus used.

“Jesus, let us note, employs a feminine image for himself and, to the degree that we confess Jesus reveals the essential character and disposition of the One who sent him, also for God.” [1] Those were not my words. Instead, they are the words of a well-respected Bible commentator, Dr. David Lose. (One of my favorite commentators, I may add!) It is not often that the Bible uses feminine or maternal images to describe God, but here is one of them!

I know I have been preaching this summer sermon series about Re-Imaging God for two months now. Many of the examples and Scripture references I’ve been using come from the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet, right here we have an important one, used by our Lord Jesus! At a critical time in His ministry, too. Jesus was in Jerusalem, during the Passion Week, face to face with the Jewish leaders and members of the Sanhedrin. And, what does He do here? Jesus compares Himself to a mother hen, wanting to gather her chicks protectively under her wings.

Just as I have done during this sermon series, David Lose makes the very good point that “if Jesus can describe himself and God as a mother hen, can we not also employ a variety of images to describe God? Scripture, after all, is replete with a variety of images for God, both male and female.” [2] I must say, that most of the images and metaphors used for God in the Bible are masculine and male. However, this week we highlight this important maternal image, given by our Lord Jesus at a critical time of His work here on earth. Shortly before the Passion and Crucifixion.

Which brings us to the following question: who was Jesus talking to? Yes, the Jewish leaders were listening to Him, but in this reading, Jesus addresses Jerusalem. That’s the historic capital of the land of Israel. We see Jesus saying that He has been reaching out to Jerusalem, and the Jewish people, and they have not listened. They have not heard the invitation of Jesus.

We turn to the next question: where do you and I come in? Sure, it breaks my heart to see Jesus offering His powerful, protective love to those He was sent to serve and to save. Yes, that is the people of Israel, but couldn’t it be us, too? Jesus has His arms open wide to us. Are we not hearing? Not listening to Jesus? Or even worse, just like the Jewish people, are we rejecting His love and caring, where He offers to be like a protective mother hen with her chicks?

As the Rev. Janet Hunt says, we are, indeed, “that brood of chicks who are scattered, distracted, unable, somehow, to comprehend the very real danger which is threatening. Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem is also over you and me and this world which all too often still refuses the gifts Jesus would so freely give.” [3] 

This loving image, this metaphor for Jesus is so perfect for all of us, today. Can you see how Jesus as a mother hen would comfort the one who grieves? What about the weary ones who are fearful or anxious? What about protecting the safety for those in the care of Jesus? What about those gathered under His protective love, today?

Today’s Gospel reading does not give instruction, or commands. It does not prescribe something for the followers of Jesus to do or to say. Instead, this reading is descriptive. This description of the loving, caring mother hen – Jesus! – has His wings open wide to us all!

As Pastor Janet says, “we do not hear directly that we are to be or do anything as a result of Jesus’ words today. And yet, how might the world be changed if all of us” stopped to think of the consequences, both for those who wage war and those who suffer as a result. Or, for those who struggle to contain or direct our frustration, our anger and take it out on innocent ones. [4]

            Yes, these words were written almost 2000 years ago, but they resonate so deeply within. I don’t know about other people’s understanding, but these words and this image of the Lord Jesus speaks directly to the heart. Going to some deep, elemental place within, inviting you and me to turn to the One who would draw us close, our Lord Jesus.

If we recognize our deep need for nurture, protection and caring from all that would harm us, we can also watch out for one another! Jesus urges us to nurture, protect, and care for one another, too. As our loving, caring Lord Jesus always does for us. Without fail.

Join me in bringing thanks to our Lord for the loving, everlasting care and nurture of Jesus.  Praise God! Alleluia, amen.

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

(I would like to thank the Rev. Janet Hunt for her commentary on today’s Gospel reading, https://dancingwiththeword.com/mining-the-metaphor-jesus-as-a-mother-hen/. I got several excellent ideas and phrases for this sermon from this excellent article.)

[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/re-imagining-god

[2] Ibid.

[3] https://dancingwiththeword.com/mining-the-metaphor-jesus-as-a-mother-hen/

[4] Ibid.

God Baking Bread!

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“God Baking Bread!”

Matthew 13:33 – August 6, 2023

            Has anyone here baked bread, from scratch? I have, although it’s been a number of years since I baked white bread and wheat bread. Now, I more often bake sweet breads – banana, zucchini, apple, and other types. Homemade bread is such good bread!

            In our short Scripture passage today, we have our Lord Jesus, telling another one of His parables. This one is in chapter 13, which has a number of parables or short stories, all about the kingdom of God. These metaphors and word-pictures are meant to help Jesus’s listeners get a little bit better understanding of this huge concept Jesus taught about!

            The topics Jesus used for His parables are down to earth, from real life. For example, Jesus talks about a farmer and his field, and the weeds that grow. Typical of so many in that time, and relatable to so many of His listeners! Remember, we are looking at Bible readings that help us Re-Image God, in a nurturing, feminine way. The parable we highlight today features a woman. Yes, and something typically known as women’s work, in the home.

An unusual topic for a Rabbi to talk about! I am sure there were (and are) men who traditionally and habitually bake bread, but in Palestine as in many other rural-based cultures, but women often did many of the tasks involved with housework and home-making. Including the regular baking of bread. And, in a typical Palestinian house, a lot of bread needed to be baked each week. In the first century of the Common Era, you couldn’t run out to the local grocery store and get a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs and a gallon of milk, after all.

This parable of the yeast is one where our Lord Jesus focuses on work done by a woman. Sometimes, when the Bible mentions yeast in connection with spiritual things, yeast has a negative connotation. Not here! Jesus did something unexpected! He turned the tables on a typical understanding of yeast, or leaven. This parable is unusual and unexpected! In a matter-of-fact way, Jesus lifts up this work of baking, and the work of women, too. And without specifically naming it, Jesus compares God’s work to women’s work.

One of my favorite commentators is the Rev. Janet Hunt, a Lutheran pastor in De Kalb, a couple of dozen miles to the west of us, near Northern Illinois University. She loves to bake bread, and talks about her baking at length in her article about this particular parable. Pastor Janet’s mother used to bake bread, too. According to Pastor Janet, she was told “that our mother’s mother also baked as her mother did before her in a time and place where doing so was not an occasional practice or a hobby as it is with me, but was a necessary part of one’s weekly tasks, for bread was an everyday staple and it was not yet sold in stores.” [1]

Even today, in some rural areas and small towns, baking bread at home is much more common than it is in urban areas. The woman in this parable took a lot of flour – over a bushel of flour! She probably ground that flour with a hand-cranked little mill, too. And then, baked some bread. Jesus said that she mixed the yeast into the flour until it had leavened the whole big batch of flour! In case you are not familiar with the process of leavening, the introduction of the yeast causes a transformation of the dough.  

Before the adding of the yeast, before its mixing and incorporating into the whole batch of dough, what do we have? A big pile of flour, and some water to moisten it. Perhaps a bit of sweetener like honey, perhaps not. But, imagine the working and mixing of the flour, water and yeast! As this unnamed woman mixes and kneads the dough, the yeast gets incorporated throughout the whole. As the dough rises, the yeast does its work unseen, quietly.

The woman of Jesus’ parable “would not have had a finely tuned gas or electric oven in which to bake her bread. It would likely have been done in a clay oven over hot coals. And while she certainly could have turned her attention to other things while the bread rose or the coals came to the right temperature, baking the bread would have required her to stay nearby all day long so as to be ready for the next step. For in fact, it is possible to let bread rise too long, making the final product less appealing. And coals need to be at a certain temperature to make the baking optimal.” [2]

I hope I am making the baking of bread sound like a challenging activity, because it was, and is! Let us take a step back, and consider again this short parable of Jesus. He compares the kingdom of heaven to yeast. Could it be that our Lord is saying that “Kingdom work” takes time, energy and attention, just as the work of yeast and baking takes time, energy and attention? That it sometimes requires patience as we wait for ‘yeast’ to rise?    

Time after time, I have heard stories and read accounts of the slow or hidden or pain-staking work of the kingdom of heaven finally showing fruitfulness. Finally, good dough baking and bringing forth good, homemade bread, as we recognize the kingdom of heaven at work in our lives or in the lives of those near and dear to us! We can take common things, everyday materials, and have them transformed by God.

God loves to take things as simple as bottles of water given out for free at a farmer’s market, or boxes of cereal or feminine hygiene products brought to a local food pantry to be a part of God’s kingdom. Because, they are! Something as simple and as straight-forward as common, everyday activities or items can be used and transformed into God’s purposes – God’s work – God’s kingdom.

Remembering this parable of the yeast, we can see how God works quietly, confidently, sometimes over a long time. Today, we come before God to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, that meal of common things that our Lord Jesus transformed into a sacrament. We come to meet God in a special way at God’s table, doing what Jesus commanded us to do. As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we celebrate our Lord until He comes again in glory.

Doing Kingdom work as Jesus told us to do from this parable, we can bring glory to our God in common ways, using everyday things. We don’t have to be extraordinary ministers or missionaries, or God’s adventurers. As Jesus told us? We can use ordinary things, everyday items, common ways. And, this will indeed bring glory to God. Let us take these words to heart, and go and do them. Amen, alleluia!

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

[1] https://dancingwiththeword.com/a-one-sentence-parable-which-opens-up-the-world/

[2] Ibid.