N OT TOO LONG AGO, I came across a website (I can’t exactly remember what search criteria I was using) that brought up a website called “Annoying Christians.” I was intrigued and somewhat offended by the title, wondering what it was about.
I know it is a little dangerous to open websites that you don’t really know about but I threw caution to the wind and let curiosity get the best of me and looked at the website. It is basically a website that lists funny Christian sayings.
Two of my favorites:
■ “Eternity … smoking or non?”
■ “Have you found Jesus?” Of course, my natural response is one you’ve heard before:
I didn’t know he was missing.
† † †
THE SITE WAS ACTUALLY pretty humorous and wasn’t belittling Christianity but poking fun at some of the silly sayings we hear. What this site was really trying to say was to warn against allowing Christianity to be boiled down to trite sayings that have no significance. Empty words and sayings that seem to do very little than to make people roll their eyes or simply smile and walk away.
It was reminding Christians that following Christ is a thoughtful and sometimes difficult calling.
† † †
IN THE READING FROM LUKE this morning, the Pharisees are finding it very hard to simply walk away…. Jesus was irritating them with both word and deed. Jesus is absolutely driving them crazy. The reading this morning from Luke begins with Jesus healing on the Sabbath, effectively breaking the law. The Pharisees and temple leaders had gone to great lengths to create strict laws and they are irritated by this Jesus, who clearly knows the laws and the scriptures, this Jesus who has proved himself knowledgeable, acts so irresponsibly with regard to the law.
Can’t you see them, their eyes wide with disbelief, their anger beginning to seethe within them? What is he doing? Come on, Jesus, you know better than this — there are six days to heal but this is the Sabbath; this isn’t the time. In this passage they are absolutely confounded by his flagrant disregard for their carefully crafted laws that created order.
† † †
JESUS, THOUGH — that pesky Jesus, who is always causing problems — shoots it right back at them, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? Ironically, they’re elaborate laws had created some problems for which they had to create more laws to correct. Watering and feeding animals was one of these problems for the animals had to be feed and watered every day. So, they had to make a law that allowed for this as long as the animals were untied by only one hand. Jesus makes them even angrier when he picks on this sore spot in the law and throws this right back in their faces.
Then he continues to irritate them by sharing with them two parables about the mustard seed and the yeast in three measures that seem to just be stuck in there for no reason. But the parables serve a purpose.
† † †
I DID A LITTLE EXPERIMENT this week and asked a few friends to read the parables and share their interpretations with me. I have to tell you I really enjoyed hearing their interpretations and email it to me.
One of young people who used to be in a youth group I led wrote, “Jesus is saying that the kingdom of God is a place where at the people who follow him can go and rest like bird that rest in the trees. God's Kingdom is where Christians rest safely.”
That seems to be fitting in light of this week’s events, a place we can rest in safety.
Another wrote, “My interpretation of the mustard seed parable is it is an analogy for the spread of Christianity. It started small with Jesus and the Apostles (the tiny mustard seed), tended by man, and grew into a global religion (the enormous mustard ‘tree’) that serves as a refuge for all comers (the nesting birds).”
† † †
I THINK ONE OF THE STRENGTHS of parables is that they can be interpreted in such different ways; they are multi-valiant and open to a variety of meanings.
Consider this, though, in our interpretations of these parables. A mustard seed in Jesus’ time was most likely a black mustard seed, nothing more than a tiny speck. The hearers of Jesus’ saying would have been confused by the suggestion of planting it in a garden and letting it grow. Even though mustard had both medicinal and culinary purposes, you wouldn’t have planted it in your garden because much like kudzu, mustard plants were weeds.
They were weeds to be beaten back and pulled back by any respectable gardener. If they were left to grow they would grow deep, strong roots to support a large, tall plant. They would have infiltrated a garden, killing all the other plants.
† † †
THEN THERE IS THE SAYING about yeast being mixed with “three measures of flour” and this would have been both familiar and unusual. There is only one other time when “three measures of flour” is used and that is in the story in Genesis of Sara being told she will have a baby and she welcomes the strangers with an extreme gesture of hospitality.
One commentator said that “three measures of flour” mixed with years would have made over 50 loaves of bread, way more than would be needed for three strangers. An extreme gesture of hospitality mixed with yeast, yeast was usually not a good thing in their culture for it could spoil.
But yeast also suggests growth and movement. To mix three measure of flour with yeast would have produced even more bread, it would have produced baskets full.
† † †
SO, IS JESUS SUGGESTING that the kingdom of God is to be full of rule-breakers who are like weeds and a something that spoils? Well, I don’t think that is exactly what he is saying. But maybe he is saying just that if we have the ability to think of rule-breakers, weeds and yeast in a little different way and how they help to grow the kingdom of God.
† † †
IN ATLANTA, THERE USED TO BE a well-known ministry called the Open Door Community. Sadly, it closed several years ago because they couldn’t afford repairs to their decaying building. But for many, many years, it was a Christian community that did nothing but serve the poor, homeless and hungry in Atlanta. It offered free foot clinics, fed homeless friends lunch several days a week, allowed homeless friends to sleep in their yard.
It was an important ministry for many years. But it was also a weed. Its founder Ed Loring, a Presbyterian minister, has dedicated his entire life to standing up for the homeless in Atlanta.
But he was a weed — he was a weed to me as he would enjoy stopping by Columbia seminary on Saturdays at the way-too-early hour of 6:30 and stand in the middle of campus loudly inviting all the students to wake up and serve God. I personally am not sure if God really is awake before 7 a.m. on a Saturday.
But he has been a weed in the lives of many public officials as he feels his calling as a Christian is to support the homeless. The ministry was a rule-breaker because it allowed homeless people in a rather prominent community to sleep in their yard.
It was a nuisance because it would not stop serving God and others even though, much like the yeast it was accused of spoiling the community by allowing the homeless to be there.
† † †
I THINK THESE PASSAGES in Luke are linked together to help us both understand Jesus’ prophetic message regarding the law and to reveal a little bit about how the kingdom of God works. Jesus breaks the law by healing on the Sabbath. Why? Because it is the compassionate thing to do; it was the just action to take; it was gracious and it was hospitable. All things that we are called to be like in the Kingdom of God and as followers of Christ.
Haven’t we all had those experiences where we are forced to make a decision between what the rule says and what compassion dictates?
† † †
IN SEMINARY, I SERVED as a student chaplain at Grady Memorial Hospital. On one of my floors, there was a young girl of about 20 who had been come to the hospital in labor. During the course of preparing the young girl for delivery it was detected that the baby had a birth defect and would live only a short while. The young girl was understandably distraught and called for a chaplain.
Since it was on my floor, I got the page and went to see about the situation. When I arrived the woman and her mother were both crying and upset. I sat with them and listened to their cries, we prayed some and I stayed with them for some time. As the time came for her to deliver the baby, the woman asked me if I could do something for her. Would I please baptize the baby when she was born?
Knowing the baby would only live a short time, this had to be done very quickly. Now, this was a problem for me because I was only a student and not authorized to baptize.
What would you have done?
Fortunately, I was able to quickly find my supervisor who was a “real” chaplain and she agreed to do the baptism. But I tell you, that I know in my heart, despite the rule, I would have done it if I hadn’t been able to get a chaplain; I would have done what I felt was compassionate and would have represented Jesus’ own compassion and I would have baptized that baby.
† † †
I HAVE A FRIEND WHO SAYS that rules make life more interesting. I don’t really know that I think that is true but the Pharisees must have because they put so many in place. Jesus doesn’t heal the woman because he disregards their laws; he heals because it is the compassionate thing to do.
He shares the parables not to confuse people but to reveal Kingdom workings. I think we sometimes forget that Jesus is priest and king but he is also prophet and like most other prophets — people don’t often like what they have to say.
Prophets bring messages of truth, calling us to repent and to re-examine our actions and relationship with God. Jesus is a prophet, sharing with all who will listen a greater understanding of God’s kind of compassion and justice.
Prophets can be irritating because they speak an unpleasant truth. Jesus is doing just that and he reveals to us a pesky Christianity.
† † †
PESKY CHRISTIANITY GETS IN THE WAY of what the world says is right and calls us to consider some things, calls us to consider what is kind compassionate like healing on the Sabbath; to stand up for what is just like the mustard seed that invades our world and grows strong becoming a place of welcome; to be grossly hospitable like the yeast and 3 measures of flour yielding baskets of bread to be shared.
Much like Jesus who freed the woman from pain, he is sharing with his followers he also frees them understand what the kingdom of God is like and to act that way, sometimes in spite of the rules. So friends, as we leave worship today, go out into the world to be pesky Christians, weeds and yeast, looking to the things that are just, compassionate and terribly, terribly hospitable in a very hurting world.
To God be all power and wisdom and might on this day and forever.
Amen.
— Rachael B. Knoll
