There's Room for Every Story

 Rev. Debbie Cato
Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 1:1-17
Fairfield Community Church
November 27, 2022

God of the ages, in scripture we hear stories of people like us— ordinary people, people who longed to know you, people who longed to follow you, people who made mistakes, people who tried to grow— old, young, native, immigrant, new to the faith, lifelong believer. In scripture we hear stories of people like us, so just as you walked with them, help us to hear and remember all the ways that you walk with us. We are listening. We are grateful. We are yours. Amen.

 

 

There’s Room for Every Story

 

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, this season of waiting.  We are waiting for the birth of the Christ child. I love this season of the liturgical calendar.  This season of anticipation.  This season of  wonder and hope.

This year our Advent theme is “From Generation to Generation.”  The root word of “generation” is “gen” meaning “origin” or “birth.” This theme is also a call to action: what are we being called to generate or bring forth? What have your ancestors and those who have come before you passed on for you to continue? Who are the spiritual elders in our community who planted the seeds for the things that are now blooming? What seeds are you planting for the future?[1]  What seeds are we, Fairfield Community Church planting for the future?  These are questions for us to think about; to ponder as we enter into these four weeks of Advent; these four weeks of waiting.

I loved going to my Grandma Potter’s house – for many reasons, really.  But one of the reasons was she had a chest full of old pictures up in her attic and she would go through the pictures with me and tell me stories about my ancestors, her parents and grandparents and other family members that I had never met. She would tell me stories about her childhood, growing up so  many years before me.  She would pull out a picture and I could tell she disappeared into her history, and she would begin to talk.  I loved those times with Grandma.  Learning about her story which was part of my story.

Who is Jesus Christ?  We don’t ever really get a complete answer to that question, do we? Matthew’s Gospel begins not with a beautiful manger scene like Luke, but with an attempt to articulate a comprehensive answer to who Jesus was.  Matthew’s definition of who Jesus is begins with a genealogy.  No other Gospel author thought it helpful to begin the story in this way, but Matthew begins with Jesus’ family background going back over forty generations.   Family history was important in historical times.

Matthew’s intention is clear:  “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”  Abraham was called by God to be the father of God’s descendants and David was the legitimate ruler of God’s people.  Jesus is the descendent of both and Jesus as the Messiah is the successor of King David over the Jews.

It is also interesting who is included in the genealogy.  It is not just men.  There are five women listed – extremely unusual since women were inconsequential in those times. Yet we find five women in the genealogy of Jesus. Not just one or two, but five.

First is Tamar.  Tamar had a lot of trauma and grief in her life.  She was married to two different sons of Judah; both men treated her so badly that God had them killed.  Judah thought Tamar killed them and he had her banned from society, unable to marry and therefore bear children.  Tamar tricked Judah, her father-in-law, into sleeping with her.  She becomes pregnant and gives birth to two boys; Perez and Zerah – both listed in the genealogy of Jesus. Tamar is in the genealogy because she is considered righteous.

Rahab is listed in the genealogy.  Before the Israelites cross the Jordan, on their journey to the Promised Land, Joshua sends men to scout out the land. Arriving in Jericho, they decide to spend the night at the house of the prostitute Rahab. When Jericho’s ruler tries to apprehend them, Rahab hides them and then helps them escape through the window, saving their lives. In return, she and her household are spared the destruction of Jericho and become part of the people of Israel.  In spite of her past as a prostitute, Rahab is included in the genealogy of Jesus.  

Perhaps you know the story of Ruth.  There is an Old Testament Book named after her.  Ruth was a Moabite woman who married an Israelite.  Moabites were enemies of Israel. After the death of all the male members of her family (her husband, her father-in-law, and her brother-in-law), she stays with her mother-in-law, Naomi, and moves to Judah with her, where Ruth wins the love and protection of a wealthy relative, Boaz, through her kindness.  Ruth gave birth to Obed who fathered Jesse, who fathered King David.  And though Ruth was a Moabite and not an Israelite, she is included in the genealogy of Jesus.

 Then there’s Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah.  Uriah was a soldier in King David’s army.  One day while the army was out fighting, King David saw Bathsheba bathing.  She was naked and very beautiful and rather than looking away, David watched her bathe.  He lusted after her and had Uriah killed in battle so he could take Bathsheba as his own.  Bathsheba is included in the genealogy of Jesus, listed not with King David, but as the wife of Uriah.

And then of course there is Mary.  A poor, humble 13-year-old teenager who gave birth to the Christ child.  A girl from Nazareth where scripture tells us, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” is included in the genealogy of Jesus because she was obedient to the Holy Spirit, and though she didn’t understand how it could be possible, she became pregnant while a virgin and gave birth to the Messiah.

 All of these women have stories.  None of them brilliant or note-worthy.  Some of them even shameful; trauma-filled.  Yet their stories are woven into the history of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth whom we call Christ, the Savior of the World.

And then there’s the men.  Abraham got tired of waiting for God to fulfill his promise and so he had sex with his Sarah’s maid and had a son with her.  Then when Sarah got jealous, he sent her away with his son – banishing her. 

We’ve already talked about David – who had one of his soldiers murdered so that he could take his wife as his own.

And Joseph, the human father of Jesus.  Like Mary, Joseph was from humble means from Bethlehem, a small village similar to Nazareth.  Joseph was a carpenter, most likely like his father before him.  As a carpenter, he made furniture or maybe even farming implements.  He was not a man of great wealth or stature.  He was engaged to Mary who became impregnated by the Holy Spirit.  Explained in a dream about the pregnancy, Joseph went ahead and married Mary and raised Jesus as his earthly son.  And because of Joseph’s righteousness, all God’s prophesies in the Old Testament came true about the Messiah.

I could go on and on through this genealogy.  Each person has a story – each generation a story of trauma and shame; of good and bad; of redemption by God.  Each person included in the genealogy of Christ because there’s room for their story in God’s story. Each person quite ordinary.

 We each have a story.  Most of our stories are probably pretty ordinary.  Mine is.  It includes trauma and shame. It includes indescribable joy and happiness. It includes things I’m proud of and things I’m not.  But all the pieces, the pretty and the ugly, the fun and the sad are all part of my story – part of who I am – Debbie Cato, a beloved child of God.  It’s hard for me to believe – that I’m beloved.  But I am.  Covered with God’s grace. Forgiven for my sins and called beloved.

And so are you.  Whatever your story is – the good and the bad.  The proud moments and the not so proud.  The trauma, the shame, the celebrations – all of it.  It’s who you are.  And you too are a beloved child of God.  Loved beyond your imagination.  You are part of God’s story.  We are all part of God’s story. 

There is room for every story. Every one of ours. God has a way of taking our stories and turning them into his.  He has a calling on our lives just like he did on Tamar and Rahab and Ruth and Bathsheba and Mary.  Like he did on Abraham and David and Joseph.  Every one of us has a place in God’s story. 

We may not even know what that place is.  I don’t think that Tamar or Rahab or Ruth or Bathsheba or even Mary or Joseph understood their roles so why would we?  But our stories are bigger and better than we realize.  We have a purpose, bigger than us. We, each and every one of us, and all of us together, we are part of God’s story.  May we each live for the glory of God.  Amen.

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[1]Sanctified Art.  Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman, Director of Branding, Founding Creative Partner 

Together in Paradise

Rev. Debbie Cato
Luke 23:33-43
Fairfield Community Church
November 20, 2022

Savior God, guide us into and through your Word, that we might be shaped by your Spirit’s message to us today and transformed for service in your world. Amen.

 

Together in Paradise

 

“Truly, I tell you, today  you will be with me in Paradise.” (verse 43).  For a dying man, a convicted and confessed thief, these words uttered by the crucified Christ must have caused sheer, unspeakable joy.[1] 

I imagine he was filthy, his hair matted with sweat clinging to his forward and neck, this thief.  His beard unsightly from bodily fluids.  Dried blood clinging to his arms and legs; his muscles tense and strained trying to hold himself up against the cross he was nailed to.  His face strained from the pain of the crucifixion.  He knew he was guilty.  He was a thief.  He had been for a long time and now he was paying the price. 

But this man hanging next to him seemed different.  Honorable.  They say he is the Christ.  Jesus from Nazareth.  He had heard of him – heard of his teaching and ministry.  He had heard the stories, heard about the miracles, heard about his kindness and love.  Now he was hanging next to him.  Dare he speak?  “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  Was that too bold?

But then Jesus replied, “Truly, I tell you, today  you will be with me in Paradise.”  His whole body tingled.  No one had ever talked to him like that before.  Surely, he was the Messiah; the Christ. 

Jesus’ last words to another human being before his death and resurrection were words of forgiveness consistent with the ministry of his three short years.  Jesus had spent his life teaching about the kingdom of God, preaching liberation to the captives, and healing those who were sick and lame.  Jesus’ miracles and teaching baffled the status quo of the elders, priests, and politicians so much that he was considered a threat to their religion and their way of life.  Jesus challenged the unjust treatment of women, preached the need for patience with children, and accused the Pharisees and Sadducees of lacking good faith.  His ministry had been controversial, powerful, and world altering, to the point that those whom he threatened had condemned him to death by crucifixion.[2]

Who among us is really worthy of grace?  I’d like to think I am.  But honestly, I’m not.  I screw up each and every day. I know better.  But every day I fall short and yet every day, I am gifted with God’s grace.  Are you worthy?  Are you?  If we are honest with ourselves, we are more like the thieves who hung next to Jesus than we are like Jesus. 

We do not know what happened to the thief who hung on the other side of Jesus’ cross – the one who, rather than asking for mercy, spoke scalding words, challenging Jesus to show his might and power by saving himself and the criminals who surrounded him.  Yet the grace of God as revealed in Jesus is a word of forgiveness and deep, abiding love.  In spite of the pain he was in, Jesus’ character never changed.  It’s hard for us to believe in the gracious God, in the forgiving God, in the God who would love us even when we disappoint and sin.[3]

Jesus’ stories of forgiveness are legendary.  He spent much of his ministry describing the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven as having different rules and different expectations from the rules and laws and penalties of humanity.  Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like the love freely given when a foolish son asks his father for his inheritance before his father dies.  He takes it, goes to a foreign land, and squanders it.  He loses every penny.  Then, when the son comes to his senses and returns home, hoping his father will forgive him and take him in as one of his servants, he is met with celebration, rejoicing, and jubilation because of the father’s great love and ability to forgive.

Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God is like a shepherd who cares so deeply for each one of his sheep that when one of them is lost, the shepherd goes out in search of the one lost sheep and does not give up until he finds the sheep. 

And Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like a rich man who gives a huge party and when all his rich friends are too busy to come to his party, the rich man opens up the invitation and invites the poor, the blind, and the lame to the feast.

Jesus spent more time talking about the Kingdom of God than any other topic.  Jesus’ act of forgiveness while dying on the cross is exactly what he taught during his ministry – that forgiveness is given to everyone who repents and believes, even condemned thieves during their own executions.[4] 

That can be hard to swallow. This kind of forgiveness is a challenging concept for many of us.  Part of our inability to believe and trust the forgiving power of God’s grace and mercy is our inability to believe that other people deserve mercy.  That other people deserve God’s forgiveness.  We want to judge those God forgives.  Those God pours his grace over.

Many of us are more comfortable not knowing what happened to the thief who scoffed at Jesus than knowing that an undeserving thief was let into paradise.  We would rather have had Jesus say that God loves the people we like and the people we say we are like, and that God does not love the people we do not like and the people we say are not like us.  We would prefer if God did not love the crackheads and addicts, the adulterers, the thieves, the prostitutes, the rebellious teenagers, the disgruntled employees, the murderers.  We would prefer it if paradise were exclusively for the nice people, the clean people, the polite people, the well-behaved people, the “right” people.[5]

We have a way of seeing our sins as less grievous than the sins of others, yet God sees it all the same.  A hard pill to swallow.  It’s easier for us to point our finger at others than it is to look at ourselves, but when we point our finger at others there are 3 fingers pointing back at us. 

We pray a prayer of confession every time we worship together because we need it and because the grace of God is sufficient for all of us.  There is grace for us and for the people we do not like.  God will hear and forgive our sins and their sins too.  Our salvation is not dependent upon the preacher, the bishop, or each other, but on the loving, grace-giving God we worship.  We confess because God’s saving grace will heal, restore, redeem, and forgive those whom God has created and whom God loves fiercely.  All have sinned and fallen short; all have angered, frustrated, and disappointed God.  God so loved the entire world that whosoever believes shall get all the grace that God has to give.  Thank God that God gives grace and that we do not.[6]

Jesus spent his entire ministry teaching and preaching about the Kingdom of God.  One of Jesus’ last forgiving acts on earth was to proclaim that a repentant sinner hanging on a cross would be with him that day in paradise. That sinner hanging on the cross could just as well be me.  Or you.   Praise Be to God!  Amen.

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[1] Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 4.  Season After Pentecost 2.  Luke 23:33-43.  Pastoral Perspective.  Nancy Lynne Westfield.  P. 332.
[2] Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 4.  Season After Pentecost 2.  Luke 23:33-43.  Pastoral Perspective.  Nancy Lynne Westfield.  P. 332
[3] Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 4.  Season After Pentecost 2.  Luke 23:33-43.  Pastoral Perspective.  Nancy Lynne Westfield.  P. 334
[4] Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 4.  Season After Pentecost 2.  Luke 23:33-43.  Pastoral Perspective.  Nancy Lynne Westfield.  P. 334
[5] Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 4.  Season After Pentecost 2.  Luke 23:33-43.  Pastoral Perspective.  Nancy Lynne Westfield.  P. 334 & 336.
[6] Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 4.  Season After Pentecost 2.  Luke 23:33-43.  Pastoral Perspective.  Nancy Lynne Westfield.  P.  336.

 

Prove It, Jesus!

Rev. Debbie Cato
Deuteronomy 25:5-10 and Luke 20:27-38
Fairfield Community Church
November 6, 2022 

Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the scriptures are read and your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us this day.  Silence in us any voice but your own, that, hearing, we may be obedient to your will.  Help us to live always for your glory, through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.   Amen.

 

 

Prove It, Jesus!

 

This is one of Jesus’ teachings that isn’t so easy to understand.  In fact, if you just read it through, you might even say it just plain doesn’t make sense.  I think it’s actually an interesting twist that this teaching is confusing to us because the Sadducees ask their question to try to trap Jesus.  They were trying to embarrass him in front of the large crowd gathered in the temple listening to him teach.  They come up with this story about the widow and her seven husbands.  It’s a good story – a bit of a “yarn” as we used to call exaggerated tales.

Jesus is in Jerusalem.  He has arrived at his destination.  Jerusalem is full of Jews from all the nations. They are there to prepare for the Passover Feast – the Holy Days.  For the last couple of days, Jesus has been at the temple, teaching.  The Son of God is in The Temple of God.  The chief priests and teachers of the law periodically interrupt him with questions, hoping to trick him and catch him speaking falsely about God.  But they are unsuccessful.  They can’t trap him. 

And now the Sadducees come to Jesus with their own question.  We haven’t heard a lot from the Sadducees because they don’t hang out in Galilee. They live in Jerusalem. They are responsible for the maintenance of the Temple so they stick close to home.  The Sadducees are what you might call the “Establishment” of Jesus’ day. 

The Pharisees and Sadducees, although both leaders of the Jewish faith, disagreed on doctrines or beliefs of their faith – I suppose we could almost compare them to different denominations of Christianity today.  For instance, Sadducees believed that only the Pentateuch – the Torah or the Books of Moses were Sacred Scripture.  The Pentateuch are the first five Books of what we call The Old Testament:  Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. – often referred to as The Books of the Law.  The Pharisees and most other Jews, accepted all of what we now call the Old Testament Scriptures.  Of course then, it was all scrolls.

The other fundamental difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees is that the Sadducees did not believe in a doctrine of resurrection of the dead and they did not believe in an afterlife. Death was the end. They believed that if there really were a resurrection, then God would have told Moses and Moses would have put it in the Pentateuch.   Since Moses didn’t put a doctrine of resurrection into the Pentateuch, there could not be a resurrection.  

But for the Sadducees, there was even more evidence that there was no such thing as a resurrection.  There’s a law in Deuteronomy I read this morning.  Now, Deuteronomy is part of the Torah, the Book of the Laws which the Sadduccees follow.  If a married man dies without children, then it falls to his brother to take that man’s widow as his wife to produce a child for his late brother to assure him posterity.  This law existed because the only way of bluffing past the universal reign of death was by having children.  The only way to have a blessing in the land of the living is by having children; descendants that live after your death.  It’s because of this that the man who dies without children needs his brother to get him the share in posterity that he couldn’t get for himself.  If there’s no resurrection; no afterlife, you need children to keep your lifeline alive long after you have died.

So, sticking to the letter of the law, the Sadducees see if they can trap Jesus; embarrass him in front of the crowd.  They get creative.  

      ²⁸ “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies
          and  leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow 
          and raise up offspring for his brother. ²⁹ Now there were seven brothers.
          The first one married a woman and  died childless. ³⁰ The second ³¹ and
          then the third married her, and in the same way  the seven died, leaving
          no children. ³² Finally, the woman died too. ³³ Now then, at the                  
          resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

 I can see them standing together, slapping each other on the back, laughing and saying, “Imagine!  This old woman gets to Jesus’ heaven and there sit her seven husbands.  Resurrection indeed!  We got him now, boys!”

All laughing aside, we need to understand that these are deeply religious men.  They love God and follow the Holy Scriptures – the Law of Moses.  they try to be faithful to their beliefs.  Their Scriptures say nothing about a resurrection.  Nothing about an afterlife.

Jesus doesn’t take their question as a personal attack.  He doesn’t get defensive. Jesus doesn’t tell them their question; their example is outrageous.  He uses it as a teachable moment about the nature of heaven; an opportunity to teach about the love and mercy of God.  Jesus says,         

“Heaven and earth are not the same!  The ways of God are not the ways of humanity.  God’s judgments are not our judgments.  Things do not work in heaven the way they work on earth!”  I don’t know about you, but I think that’s good news!

In heaven, even the lowliest of society are considered “like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection” - even someone like this woman who is passed from brother to brother like a used car. 

You see, there was no place in the law asking the widow if she wanted to marry the brother.  Wives were about producing children for the sake of descendants for their husbands.  Women were property back in the patriarchal days of Abraham and Isaac and Moses.  Women belonged to their husbands and had no rights.  In some places, they still are.  But, that’s the way of the world, Jesus says.  In heaven things are different.  In heaven, the widow, passed down from brother to brother – seven times,  is like an angel, a child of God.  She is precious.

This is  a radical statement of the gospel!  It is radical that in heaven there are no sociopolitical divisions!  This is good news – not only to Jesus’ audience in the Jerusalem temple that day but to each of us today! 

The mystery of the resurrection revealed by Jesus is that heaven is a place where those of us who have been dehumanized will be restored; those of us who have been oppressed will be set free; and those of us who have been treated as inferior will be raised up and called beloved.  In heaven, those who are children of the resurrection will know the joy and peace that was kept from us on earth.

Jesus’ message to the Sadducees and the people in the temple that day is his message to us today as well.  Oppression on earth does not dictate the rewards of heaven.  The bondage and slavery of human life does not foresee how life will be in heaven.  Persons who are victims of the dehumanizing systems of poverty, racism, sexism, classism, and all the other “isms” of the world will be freed from their earthly oppression and suffering.  God is the God of the living – the God of newness, forgiveness, and liberation. 

Jesus was in the temple in Jerusalem teaching the people when the Sadducees asked him about the resurrection.  It was just a few days before this, people cheered and welcomed Jesus into their city.  They welcomed him as their messiah.  They thought he was a military king who was going to save them from the Roman political powerhouse.  But Jesus understood his role very differently.  He knew his arrival in Jerusalem was going to save the people, but not the way they expected he would.  Jesus was well aware that what lie ahead for him was unimaginable and far from the kind of victory the people in Jerusalem wanted.

How ironic it must have been for Jesus to be faced with unbelief about the resurrection – the very way God was about to save the world.   But can we blame them?  The resurrection doesn’t make sense.  The resurrection is absolutely unreasonable.   Life after death doesn’t seem possible.  It can't be supported by reason or by experience. All we have are the New Testament stories.   

But we have a choice.  We have a choice to say yes or to say no.  We can choose to trust those stories in scripture.  We can choose to trust God.   We can choose to believe.  That’s what faith is – believing what we cannot see; what we cannot fully understand.  We have to claim it as our truth.  Jesus rose from the dead. I choose to believe.

This episode with the Sadducees gives us enough hope to live and enough hope to face death.  Death is not the end.  Death does not win.  Death is the end of many things, but it is not the end of everything.  Our death is not the end of God who is the God of life; the God of children of the resurrection.

Jesus does not answer all our questions, though one of our greatest hopes is that he should.  What he does do is point us to a God whose faithfulness is immeasurable and inexhaustible, and in that faithfulness we find enough to endure all that life and death will ask of us. 

On Easter Sunday, we say with tremendous joy, “Jesus is risen!  He has risen, indeed!”  Friends, Jesus is the first, and by faith we will be raised too! Thanks Be to God!  Amen.