AfterWords: Parables - Shine!

 

Mark 4:21-23

Light. We crave light in our lives most of the time. And, we have a lot of light around us in 21^st Century North America. Our houses are lit, our offices are lit, our stores are lit. Our cars have lights, our streets have lights, and our sports fields have lights. In fact, we have so much light that many people have to install “blackout” curtains so they can sleep. Yeah, light is not something we’re running short on.

But in the 1^st Century AD, as Jesus walked the roads of Judea and talked with his disciples, the world was a very dark place. As soon as the sun went down, the world was dark. Yes, they had oil lamps, and they could build a fire outside, but that was nothing like the light we know today. When Jesus told this parable about lamps, his disciples knew immediately the foolishness of putting a lamp under a basket. The world was already dark enough, so why would anyone put a lamp under a basket?

So, let’s just think through all of this, shall we? First, if it’s dark out, and we put our lamp under a basket, the lamp is not doing what it needs to do, what it’s made to do: Give light to the room or the house (houses were much smaller back then). Then, if we light a lamp in the middle of the day—in daylight—it makes no difference...it’s kind of useless. But, if we are in darkness and light the lamp (and don’t cover it!), the lamp does what it’s supposed to do. I know—this is sort of common sense…but we have to remember that Jesus is not talking about just any lamp or just any light.

When we come to Jesus, when we say “yes!” to God, when we are baptized into the Church, God gives us his Spirit—effectively, God places his Light within us. We become lamps—the Flame of God burns within us. Yet, we tend to do just what Jesus talks about in his parable today—we hide our light, we put ourselves either under a basket…and we just hang out with other lamps.

When I taught at the John Wesley Methodist Seminary in Monterrey, Mexico, I asked my ministerial students about their non-Christian, pagan friends. They assured me they did not hang out with non-Christians. So, I asked them, “How do you share the faith if everyone you know is a Christian?” How do we shine any light if all we do is hang out with other lamps? Didn’t Jesus, the light of the world (John 1), spend his time in the darkness—with drunks, prostitutes, tax-collectors, and sinners?

Jesus calls us to be lamps in the darkness…so we better find our way into the darkness around us—into the lives of those who are wandering without purpose, those who are desperately looking for something solid and constant to hold on to, those who are feeling so alone. Let us look for ways we can step into the darkness of others lives…and there let us allow our light to shine…rather, let us allow God’s Light to shine through us. Shine!

Sunday, October 26, 2025
“Parables: Preparing the Soil”
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AfterWords: Parables - Preparing the Soil

 

Matthew 13:1-9

Jesus tells a parable in today’s reading that focuses on two things: 1) the seed—the message of the Kingdom, the Good News of the Kingdom of God…that message of God’s love and grace and 2) the soils of our lives. How is our the soil of our lives? Is it hard-packed soil of the path, the shallow rocky soil, the weedy and thorn-choked soil…or the good soil? From what little I know of farming and gardening, I do know that having the soil prepared is important. Whether it’s the soil of our gardens or the soil of our lives, we need to prepare the soil for whatever seeds may come—whether tomato seeds or the seeds of the Kingdom.

Sometimes our life soil becomes hard-packed…like a path. And, like a path, our lives become hard from people walking all over us, from people hurting us. We protect ourselves by becoming hard. Like the old Simon and Garfunkel song, we become “a rock, and island” to avoid the pain of life. We sacrifice something important when we become hard—we give up compassion, empathy, care and concern. Jesus says we can’t be hard-packed soil and have the Kingdom seeds grow within us. Like farmers and gardeners who use tools to break up the soil, we need God’s Spirit in us to help break up the soil of our lives.

Sometimes our life soil is thin and rocky. We have no depth and Kingdom seeds cannot grow in us. We put on a show for a Sunday morning…and forget God the rest of the week. When we’re challenged, when our faith is put to the test, we fold and fall away. Some of the rocks in our lives have been there since childhood…and we didn’t know they were there—family hatreds, family secrets, family disfunction. As we find the rocks in our life soil, we ask God’s Spirit to help us remove them.

Sometimes our life soil is choked by weeds and thorns of worry or a false confidence in wealth. If we worry, we are not trusting God, God’s goodness, God’s power, God’s Word. When worry hits us—and it will—we must stop and ask God’s Spirit to help us weed out the worry and to trust. At other times, we think that if we have enough money (or power) everything in life will be fine. Yet, we cannot trust in money or wealth. We trust God, and allow God’s Kingdom to be rooted in our lives. Again, we ask God’s Spirit to help us trust in God rather than riches.

The “good soil” receives the Kingdom seed and God’s love and grace grows well there. Thankfully, God is a sower of seed who comes often and sows liberally, throwing seed all over the place. We have time to prepare the soil of our lives. We have the Spirit of God to help us prepare the soil. We will be ready next time the seeds of the Kingdom fall into our lives. The seeds will fall in good soil, sink in deeply, germinate, send roots down, and sprout and grow within us. And the Kingdom of God will spill out of our lives through words and actions of grace and hope and peace and loving-kindness. Let’s tend to our soil and be ready for the Kingdom seeds.

Sunday, October 19, 2025
“Parables: Preparing the Soil”
Watch/Listen: HERE

AfterWords: Parables--Patches & Wineskins

 

Luke 5:36-39

As we begin this series looking at parables of Jesus, we do well to remember that parables tend to leave “the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” That’s what C.H. Dodd says about parables, and we do come to Jesus’ parables first with an “Oh, yeah…” and then quite quickly with a “Wait…what?”

As with most parables, today’s comes as a response to a question or challenge. In this case, the Pharisees are getting on to Jesus for not being “rabbi-y” enough and the disciples not being “disciple-y” enough. Jesus and his band are breaking all the rules. And the Pharisees are calling Jesus on this. So, Jesus tells them a parable.

This parable about “patches & wineskins” is about old and new, and we find that the Pharisees are not real big on embracing “new.” In fact, most of us kind of wince at the idea of change—good or bad change. We—like the Pharisees—become very comfortable in how we do things, in what we have. But, Jesus is bringing about something new, something fresh.

The Pharisees should not be surprised. Some 600 years before this time, Jeremiah the Prophet had already tipped God’s hand—God was going to do something new. These Pharisees should have been on the lookout for it: “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah” (Jer. 31:31). A new covenant, a new promise, a new deal was coming…and it comes through Jesus. Most of us are reminded of this each time we take Communion, when we hear those words of Jesus: “…after the supper [Jesus] took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you’” (Luke 22:20). “New covenant…”

With all of this talk of new and change, we do need to remember that the Good News of God in Christ Jesus is unchanging, the call of Jesus’ to love God and neighbor is unchanging. The truth does not change, but how we share, express, live out the truth does change. One of the most amazing and most beautiful aspects of the Christian faith is its ability to adapt to any culture, any language, any people, any time, any “style” and not lose the message of God’s love for us or Jesus’ call to us be a people of faith, hope, and agape love.

So, the parable of “patches & wineskins” is really the parable of “new garments & new wine.” Jesus doesn’t want to be a patch on a small, ripped piece of our lives; Jesus wants us to put on a whole new garment—Jesus himself. Jesus doesn’t want to try to pour his way of thinking and doing into a dried out, rigid old wineskin; Jesus wants to pour his new wine—his way of thinking and doing—into our renewed, flexible lives. Jesus knows we’re comfortable with the old; Jesus wants us to try out and embrace the new. Jesus offers to bring newness to our lives…renewal, refreshing. This is good news for us!

Sunday, October 12, 2025
“Parables: Patches & Wineskins”
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AfterWords: Stories that Shape Our Lives—God Provides

 

Exodus 16:1-5,13-18

We come back to these stories of the ancient Israelites again and again because these stories serve as a mirror—we find ourselves in these stories.

Today’s reading has the Israelites “starving to death.” Not really, but they think they are, and they’ve already managed to forget everything God has done for them. They have forgotten the miraculous plagues that led to their freedom (frogs, flies, locusts, and more), they have forgotten that they were able to simply walk out of Egypt to begin their journey to the Promised Land, and they have forgotten that God has just recently saved them from the Egyptian army as they walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. Do they really think that the God who brought through all of that would let them die now?

This spiritual amnesia is rather common among God’s people. We today forget about God’s provision and care just as our spiritual ancestors over 3000 years ago did. Even the people who walked with Jesus lost sight of God’s provision and care. Jesus sat them down and taught them again:

“…I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? … So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ … But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. (Matthew 6:25-34)

Jesus’ message for them and for us is simple: 1) Get your eyes off of yourself; look to God and look to others as you strive to live the Kingdom life. And, 2) Trust God—trust the God who made this world, who made and cares for the birds and the flowers; trust that the One who created you will sustain you. Trust is the opposite of worry. So, when we feel ‘worry’ creeping up on us, we need to stop, take a breath, and determine to trust God—in everything! After all, when has worry ever helped us effectively deal with any issue of our lives?

Let us set our sights on God and God’s Kingdom…and let us trust the One who made us to sustain us. Yes, that’s a better way of living.

Sunday, October 5, 2025
“God Provides”
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AfterWords: Stories the Shape Our Lives—Finding Holy Ground

 

Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-12

“Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Besides the many and amazing benefits of taking off our shoes and standing on God’s earth, we find here the idea of “holy ground.”

Barefoot enthusiasts call the act of walking unshod on the earth “grounding,” and if there is anything we crave today, it’s grounding. Everything seems so unstable, constantly changing. Theologian Paul Tillich gave us the understanding of God as the “ground of being,” that underneath all that exists is God. If we’re looking for grounding, what better place to ground ourselves than in God?

In today’s reading, Moses finds his grounding in God. As Moses stands on “holy ground,” God calls Moses to a life-changing work, God reveals himself to Moses, and God poured his own strength into Moses’ life. Everything changed for Moses. What is holy ground?

Wouldn’t we love to find holy ground? Can we find that holy ground? Since many of the examples in Scripture find this kind of holy encounter in the wilderness, the desert, or somewhere far away from our human-made constructs, do we have go far away in order to encounter God on holy ground? Well, first we need to understand that holy ground is any place we remember who God is, who we are, and where we ground ourselves in the faith.

So, thankfully, we can stand on holy ground today—right where we are. Unlike other events and places in the Old Testament, holy ground is not limited by geography or time. Jesus gives us a hint at this in the “Sermon on the Mount” wherein he tells us to find a place of escape, silence, a place apart to pray (Matt. 6:6). Jesus—the barrier breaker—removes forever the suggestion that holy ground is only for special people in special places.

Whenever we have a chance to shut out the noise of culture, the ding-ping-ring of our cell phones, the shouts of people around us, and we can focus on God and God’s word enough to remember who God is, who we are, and re-ground ourselves in the faith—that is when and where we get to stand on holy ground.

For some, holy ground is a bedroom, a living room, a front porch, a rear deck, a gym, a drive to work, or a morning walk. Wherever and whenever we can shut out the world, we can be on holy ground. When we take time to ground ourselves in God, God has the opportunity then to call us to life-giving tasks as he did Moses. God can reveal himself to us as he did Moses. God can replace our fear with his strength as face the challenges of our days as he did Moses. Holy ground—the gift of divine encounter God offers to all. May we find holy ground today and every day. Amen.

Sunday, September 28, 2025

“Finding Holy Ground”

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AfterWords: Stories that Shape our Lives—Scoundrels & Saints

 

Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23

Reading parts of Genesis is like reading a soap-opera! Jacob, grandson of Abraham, shows a different side in today’s reading. Abraham is the faithful, God-fearing man who walks away from everything in Ur to live into God’s call and promise. Jacob, son of promise, is not the one to write home about. He bargains to win his twin brother’s (Esau) birth-right, he steals Esau’s blessing from their father Isaac, and then he swindles his uncle for a thousand goats and sheep. Sheesh! This guy really lives into his name: Jacob… “deceiver.”

The reading for this week focuses on the “blessing” Esau was to receive and Jacob steals. What is this idea of “blessing?” In the Old Testament, when a father confers blessing on his first-born son, he is effectively transferring all his goods and authority to that son. All other sons and all daughters are left out of this. So, if you were not the first-born male of your family, there was no inheritance for you…unless your oldest brother wanted to pass along something to you.

Blessing—while off balance in the Old Testament culture—is not a bad thing. I mean, who wouldn’t want to receive blessing? And, who wouldn’t want to receive blessing from God whom Jesus calls our “Heavenly Father”? His blessing would be the best, right?

Part of the Good News is that we can receive God’s blessing—anyone and everyone. Jesus teaches us in Matthew 5 about how to get in on the blessing—on the “goods and authority” that God has and wants to pass on to us:

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
⁵ Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5)

These blessings are for us—kingdom, comfort, the land, satiety, mercy, glimpses of God, divine family. All ours, all conferred on us as we embrace attitudes and actions of poverty, brokenness, meekness, hunger, mercy, purity, peace, and just persecution. These are the counter-cultural ways of walking in the Jesus way.

The story of Jacob, thankfully, ends well. Jacob is changed as God gives him a new name: Israel. He is reunited with his brother…and his brother not only forgives him but welcomes him home. We find in this story the truism: Every saint has a past. We also find in our study today a new truism: Every scoundrel can have a future. God’s way and God’s blessing can change our lives. This is good news for us.

Sunday, September 21, 2025
“Scoundrels & Saints”
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AfterWords: Stories that Shape our Lives—Letting Go

 

Genesis 22:1-14

This significant event from the life of Abraham opens with the words, “Some time later God tested Abraham….” These words leave us a bit unsettled. God tested Abraham? Will God test me? And the test? Well, that involves Abraham sacrificing his only son, Isaac, the son we find promised at the beginning of Genesis 12.

These words shake us because—if we’ve been in the faith for a while—we have seen in the New Testament these words: “Nobody being tested should say, “It’s God that’s testing me,” for God cannot be tested by evil, and he himself tests nobody” (James 1:13, NTFE). So how do we reconcile this? Is this an OT vs. NT issue?

Translation is the problem. The Hebrew word nasah can be translated as ‘test,’ but a better translation is ‘proof’ or ‘prove’: “Some time later, God proved Abraham.” And this makes sense when we realize that Abraham has been in the “school of trust” ever since his call in Genesis 12. So, what we really find here is God proving Abraham…or letting Abraham prove his trust in God.

God asks Abraham to take his son into the hills and sacrifice him. For the next seven verses, Abraham is silent. He goes through the motions—gathers kindling, secures fire, gets rope, takes his knife…and travels with Isaac. But, in verse eight, we find that Abraham proves his faith, his trust God who has called him and in God’s promise. Abraham knows his son will not die, and in response to his son’s question about a lamb for sacrifice, he is able to answer with confidence: “‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ And the two of them went on together” (Genesis 22:8). They go on together because Abraham wants his son, too, to see God’s provision. And God does provide. Abraham is able to “let go” of his son because he trusts God.

A similar “proof” happens in the Gospels when a rich young man comes to Jesus in his pursuit of “eternal life.” After the young man affirms his commandment-keeping, Jesus tells him, “‘One thing you lack…go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Mark 10:21-22). Here we find someone who is unable to let go, not yet ready to trust. And he walks away from the promises and blessings of God.

Too often we hold on to possessions, to ideas, to dreams, to self-perceptions, to any number of things we think we must have, we think we can’t live without. Like Abraham, we must be truly willing to let go of those things in order to know and live into the promises and blessings of God. If we insist on holding on, we, too, will go away sad. Today, we can decide to trust, we can take that step of trust by truly letting go of whatever it is we have held onto. Let go…and live into the promises and blessing of God.

Sunday, September 14, 2025
“Letting Go”
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