Who Will You Listen To?

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Matthew 4:1-11 | Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
Fairfield Community Church
February 26 , 2023

Holy God, Listening is always easier said than done. We shuffle into this space and try to quiet our minds, but the list of distractions is long. We need your help to listen. So today we ask that you marinate us in your Word. Dust the cobwebs from our ears. Stir our souls awake. Crack open our hearts to make room for you. Scoop us up. Put us in your pocket. Carry us with you wherever you go. We want to hear you, really hear you, so speak to us now. With hope we pray, amen.

 

Who Will You Listen To?

 

Lent is the six-week season that leads up to Easter. The Lenten season is one of the most significant times of the year for many Christians around the world and it should be for us too. The Lenten season is a preparation for commemorating the death and  resurrection of Jesus at Easter. From its start date on Ash Wednesday until its conclusion on Easter Sunday, Lent has been a customary time for fasting, giving something up, or abstinence. Sometimes we add something to help us focus on our relationship with God – something we don’t normally do. Just as we thoughtfully prepare for events in our individual lives, such as weddings or birthdays, participating in Lent invites us to prepare our minds and hearts for glorifying Jesus’ life, death, and bodily resurrection. The purpose of Lent is to fully recognize our brokenness as humans and the need for a Savior. The time period of Lent allows us to reflect and open our hearts to Jesus. 

Christian author Kevin Nye says that, “In the gospels, Jesus is asked 187 questions.  He answers (maybe) eight of them.  He himself asks 307.  Maybe faith isn’t about certainty,” he says, “ but about learning to ask – and sit  in the complexity of good questions.[1]”

During this season of Lent, we are going to be seeking – seeking honest questions for a deeper faith.  We won’t always answer the questions.  Jesus didn’t. Being drawn toward a deeper faith, and toward God at its center, will naturally come with questions, big questions that dwarf our simplistic answers.[2]

Today we are asking the question “ Who do you listen to?”  Who do you listen to?  There are a lot of voices to choose from!  The internet where there is no limit of different people who would like us to read and believe and repeat their opinions.  There are movie stars and sports stars and journalists and authors and I could go on and on.  And of course there are family members and friends and co-workers who have something to say about things.  Even people in the lines at grocery stores have an opinion they would like to share with us.  Voices surround us everywhere we go.  Who do you listen to?

 In today’s scripture passages we find people who have a choice to make. Who do they choose to listen to? 

We know these stories.  The first takes place in the garden.  God has provided everything that Adam and Eve need.  The garden is a place of beauty and peace.  It’s creation the way God intended it to be.  The way He created it.  Adam and Eve have access to everything.  All the fruits and vegetables are available for them to eat and enjoy.  All the animals and birds and fish – available for their enjoyment.  There is only one thing that God said is not for them  One thing.  The tree in the middle of the garden.  God said,  “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

Life is good for Adam and Eve.  It’s easy. God has met every need.  They are content.  That is until the serpent comes along and tells Eve that she really is not as content as she thinks.  There is something missing in her life. His voice gets into Eve’s head.  “You will not die, ⁵ for God knows that when you eat of that tree, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,^[k] knowing good and evil.” ⁶says the serpent. 

This is the moment Eve has a choice of who to  listen to.  This moment.  Right now.  Before she does anything. She has a choice. Will she listen to God who has provided so lovingly for her and Adam?  Or will she listen to the serpent who entices her to eat of the one and only tree that God has told her is off limits? The serpent whom she just met and knows nothing about. Who will Eve listen to?

We know the answer to this question, don’t we? The answer changes the trajectory of her and Adam’s lives forever.  By the grace of God, they do not die.  God decides, out of love, to save them.  But He kicks them out of the beautiful garden that has met all their needs and life becomes harder than they knew it could be.  They have sinned and the punishment is harsh.  Their sin impacts humankind down through the generations to us. 

Immediately after his baptism, Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tested by the devil.  The same devil that tempted Eve.  Jesus must be prepared for his ministry – which will be difficult and full of tests.  First, Jesus fasts for forty days and forty nights.  Five weeks and five days.  Matthew tells us that “Jesus was famished.”  We can assume he was weak. 40 days.  That’s a long time to fast.  A long time to be alone.  A long time to go without food.  It’s a long time not to drink much.  Jesus is at his most vulnerable.

It is at this point that Satan appears. He understands who Jesus is.  The Son of God.  He knows that Jesus has the power to turn rocks into bread and Jesus is very hungry.  “IF you ARE the Son of God,” Satan says, “command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

Do you hear it?  Satan is not just tempting Jesus with access to food, knowing he is famished!  Satan is challenging his authority.  He’s challenging his very identity.  IF you ARE the Son of God.  Prove to me who you are by turning these stones into loaves of bread.

Jesus has a choice.  Right now.  Who will he listen to?  God his Father – his very identity, or his belly and Satan who is challenging who Jesus is?

 Satan doesn’t give up.  He can quote scripture too.  Never mind he takes it out of context.  But Jesus knows scripture better. He knows when it’s being used for good and when it’s being used for bad.  Jesus is prepared. Two more times Satan goes after Jesus and tempts him with power. Power to control.  Power to rule.  Oh, it’s tempting.  We want to be in control.  We want to be powerful.  We want to have authority.  Who does Jesus choose to listen to?

I think it’s a cop-out to say, well Jesus is God so of course he doesn’t succumb to Satan.  But Jesus was fully human.  And it is in his human state that Satan meets him in the wilderness. It is in his human state of hunger and thirst and vulnerability that Jesus is tested.  Jesus knows what we face.  Who does Jesus choose to listen to?  Who will we?

So many voices tell us what we should or shouldn’t do. What we should or shouldn’t believe.  What we should or shouldn’t want.  What we do or don’t need.  So many voices telling us that what they say is the truth; what they think is right.  How do we decide?  Who will we listen to?

What do these two stories; one at the beginning in the garden and one at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry teach us about listening and following?  What do they teach us about discerning what we hear and deciding what is truth and what is not?  What do they teach us we need in order to be able to tell the difference between who to listen to and who to walk away from?  It’s not always clear.  Remember, even Satan can quote scripture.  Amen.

 

 

 

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[1] Kevin Nye.
[2] Rev. Anna Strickland, Operations Support & Content Creator.  Santifiedart.com

Is This The Fast I Choose?

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Isaiah 58:1-12
Fairfield Community Church
February 22 , 2023 Ash Wednesday

God, We want to hear your voice. Shout loudly; don’t hold back. Move in our spirits the way you moved over the waters of creation. We are beginning a new season today, God, and we don’t want to begin anything without you. So speak to us today— through silence, through scripture, through song. Speak to us as you spoke to the Israelites so many moons ago. Speak to us like a gentle breeze or a loud trumpet. We don’t care how, we just long to hear your voice. So don’t hold back. We are here. We are listening.  Amen.

 

Is This The Fast I Choose?

 

With the beginning of Lent, it will be almost three years to the day when the world was thrust into a global pandemic.  Words don’t have the capacity to describe what we have all been through: death, loss, anger, isolation, sorrow, and confusion—but also discovery, introspection, adaptation, and hope.[1]

While it is tempting to try and find “silver linings” that have emerged from the pandemic, there has been far too much pain, suffering, and death to try and negate the suffering with comparatively minimal benefits to the world. 6,860,000 people in the world have died from Covid. One million One Hundred and Twenty of those in the United States. Think of the families, the loved ones, the children who have lost parents due to this disease.  

The pandemic has also revealed much about ourselves, our communities, and the world. The pandemic has revealed deep divides in the world.

Amidst the politicization of our global and national response, we confronted a racial reckoning, a growing economic divide, and what seems like a daily occurrence of hate: politicians inciting division, mass shootings, and the scapegoating of migrants.[2]

So this passage from Isaiah is fitting. It does not go easy on us, just like it did not go easy on the Israelites that Isaiah originally spoke these prophetic words to. The people are prepared to fast.  Just as they always have.  It’s a habit. Something they do for religious purposes.  But are their hearts in it?  Are they doing it for the right reasons?  It’s the question God poses to them. It’s the question posed to us.  Is this the fast you choose?

Are our Lenten practices merely something we do because it’s Lent, and we think we must do something?  Do we just do something extra to honor the season of Lent?  Clearly, God doesn’t want our accolades.  Not if we aren’t doing it for the right reason. Not if they don’t mean anything.  Not if our heart isn’t in it.  Isaiah says, “You serve your own interest on your fast day.”  God wants more.  A fast is something that results in humbling oneself. 

And then, in case we aren’t sure what God wants, Isaiah gives us very specific examples: 

Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them     
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
⁸ Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator^[b] shall go before you;
    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”

This, my friends, is the kind of fasting that God is looking for.  The kind that requires real sacrifice, real contribution, real heart, real action, and real change.  This scripture poses difficult possibilities and difficult questions that force each of us to dig deep and ask questions about ourselves and the communities where we live and participate. 

While it is easy to blame “them” for the problems of the world, we are being asked to explore how we may have played ambivalent witnesses or unintentional accomplices in creating the deep pain that has been brought to the surface of our world.[3]

And then, it forces us to ask what we are going to do about it.  What will we do to heal the pain, to bring about needed change?  To bring kindness back into our communities?

The significance of the past few years forces us to face questions, not only about whether hate or love will have the last word, but about how we will be part of a different story for the future. This is where we are inviting one another to sit this Lenten season, in and with the questions, no matter where the answers may lead.

How could the kind of fasting that God might be calling us to, change the landscape of the world?  How might it answer the question of whether hate or love will have the last word? 

This Lent the sermon series will focus on seeking.  Seeking honest questions for a deeper faith.  Don’t expect the questions to always be answered!  We may just sit with them.  Tonight, we ask the first questions.  

What kind of fast will you choose and why?  What are you seeking? In this passage in Isaiah, what are the people seeking and what is God seeking? In your own life, where does your seeking overlap with God’s seeking? What areas of your life are conflict with what God seeks?

God’s words to the prophet Isaiah could also be translated as, “Day by day they are inquiring knowledge of me and delighting in my ways.” What would it look like for this to be your Lenten journey?[4]  Amen.

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[1] commentary on Isaiah 58:1-12 | by Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow
[2]commentary on Isaiah 58:1-12 | by Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow
[3] commentary on Isaiah 58:1-12 | by Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow
[4] commentary on Isaiah 58:1-12 | by Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow

A Sign of the Resurrection

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Matthew 17:1-13
Fairfield Community Church
February 19 , 2023

God of transfiguring light, show us your Word as we read the words of Scripture today, so that your will and way can illuminate our paths. Amen.

 

A Sign of the Resurrection

 

Jesus has just told his disciples that he has to go to Jerusalem, suffer at the hands of elders and chief priests and scribes. He told them that he will be killed but on the third day he will be raised from the dead. He will be resurrected.  They had no way of really understanding what he was telling them.  It was out of their realm of anything that had happened before. 

 

He also told them that “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶”  What in the world did Jesus mean, take up your cross?  Lose your life?  What was He asking of them? What is He asking of us?

 

Six days later, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John – the leaders of the disciples up a high mountain by themselves and he is transformed.  His appearance is different.  This passage is a bit of mystery.  It’s really outside of our understanding, isn’t it.  The dictionary says that transformed means “to change in outward appearance or form.  Or to change so as to glorify or exalt.”[1] Matthew tells us that Jesus’ face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light.  I’ve never seen anyone transform in that way.  Have you? 

 

To make the event even more astonishing, two of the greatest prophets – Elijah and Moses were standing there with Jesus.  Imagine!  Imagine witnessing Jesus’ standing with Elijah and Moses! 

 

If you remember the story of Elijah, he did not die as most people do.  God brought fire down from the sky and swept Elijah up.  Moses’ death is a little more “ordinary” if you will, but there is also a bit of a mystery to it.  Scripture tells us that God told Moses, “I have let you see the Promised Land with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it." And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said. God buried Moses in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.[2]  Hmm.

 

And here these two great prophets stand with Jesus’ in all his glory.  What a sight. No wonder Peter is star-struck.  He wants it to last.  Let me build  you three tents where you can stay, he says.  But God’s voice breaks through and stops Peter from saying anything more.  “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

 

It’s a reminder of Jesus’ baptism when Jesus rose from the waters of the Jordan and a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved.  With Him I am well pleased.”  But this time God adds, “Listen to him!” 

 

Listen to him.  Listen to what he has to say.  Listen to what he has to teach you.  Listen to what he has to say about the coming days.  Listen to  him tell you that he is going to suffer and die and then rise from the dead.  Listen to him say that if you are going to really follow him, you must deny yourself and pick up your cross.  You must lose your life.  Listen to him. 

 

 

I think it’s important to clarify what cross-bearing means. It is not a reference

to accepting suffering in our lives.  It is naming the crosses that are bearing down upon our lives and upon those around us — realities that oppress and disfigure our lives and that of the whole creation.  Things that defy God’s intentions for us. It means naming and resisting those forces. Jesus’ teaching on taking up the cross is calling us to name and resist the many crosses in our environment that defy God’s will for us all. In our current world, those crosses include racism, sexism, classism, and abuses of power, to name just a few. When Jesus calls us to take up crosses, he is calling us to face the tension and anxiety of naming and resisting them, fully aware that consequences may come our way as a result.[3]

 

But I wonder what our individual crosses might be in addition to the “big things” that we all struggle with.  What gets in the way of us as individuals of really following Jesus?  What gets in your way?  Of really following His teachings?  Of really living the way He calls us to live?  What are the crosses that get in the way of Fairfield Community Church really being the community of faith that Christ calls us to be?  Not being good enough?  Smart enough?  Too old?  Too small?  These are important questions for us to think about as we prepare to enter into this season of Lent.  Important questions for each of us as individuals and as a community of faith to wrestle with and figure out so we can fully live into our call as followers of Christ. 

 

In the Transfiguration story, we recognize that the way of God in Jesus is the way of the cross. The story anticipates the transformation of disciples into the image of God in Christ as we listen to Jesus. That transformation is not instantaneous. For us, just as for the first disciples, it takes place over time as we lean into God’s future, by resisting and naming the crosses we detect in our world that disfigure human lives and the life of the whole creation. This will surely bring us into conflict with the status quo, as we witness to God’s power to bring life out of death.[4]

 

One of the reasons that Matthew writes his Gospel is because some in his

congregation are losing confidence in the coming of the kingdom of God. It’s taking too long. Some are drifting away.  It’s been 80-90 years since Jesus was resurrected and ascended to be with God. It’s a long time to wait for Jesus to return. Matthew shapes the narrative of the first gospel to encourage them to remain faithful even in the midst of the restlessness of their moment in history.[5] 

 

In this context, Matthew offers the story of the transfiguration as a word of assurance. Although the gospel writer portrays only three people present —Peter, James and John, in many ways the executive committee of the twelve, Matthew intends the  message for the whole community.[6]

 

The key to the meaning of the event is the transfiguration itself. God reveals Jesus to the three disciples and to the readers of the gospel in the body Jesus will have when God resurrects him. For Matthew, the power of the resurrected Jesus continues to operate in the world but the final and full coming of the kingdom will not occur until Jesus. At the transfiguration, God gives the Matthean church a vision of the future: Jesus as he will be on the day when he returns to complete the work of replacing the old world with the new. 

 

The resurrection is the conclusive sign that the path of transformation; the path of change towards the new age is already underway. Matthew wants the church to believe that participation in the kingdom is worth suffering through the restlessness they are experiencing with the synagogue down the street and within their own community. Matthew reinforces this theme through the words, “Listen to him,” that is, “Pay attention to what Jesus has just told you.

 

Jesus was faithful even when rejected, and God resurrected him and will return him. If we persevere, God will be just as faithful to us – to you and to me. You will be resurrected and will be part of the new world.”[7]  That is a truth we can hold onto.  Amen.

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[1]Dictionary.com
[2] Deuteronomy 34.
3] Presbyterian Outlook.  Rev. Roger Gench.  February 19, 2023.
[4] Presbyterian Outlook.  Rev. Roger Gench.  February 19, 2023.
[5] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-171-9-6
[6] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-171-9-6
[7] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-171-9-6

It Means More Than You Think!

Rev. Debbie Cato
Matthew 5:21-37
Fairfield Community Church
February 12 , 2023

O God, what the world says and what you say are often at odds. Set before us now your truth as we hear your Word and as we respond in faithful trust. Amen.

 

It Means More Than You Think!

 

These are the kind of passages that a preacher would like to skip over!  I wanted to look and see what else could I preach on this week rather than these tidbits that Matthew has put together here in the middle of Chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mount.

Murder, adultery, divorce, and oaths.   Besides being topics I’d rather avoid, these are probably topics you may not feel very relevant to you or our congregation.  After all, I don’t know that we have a lot of murderers in our midst. I don’t know the status of adultery in our community, and honestly, I probably don’t want to! Views on divorce have changed in the last 2,000 years.  And oaths, well how we finalize contracts and business deals have changed dramatically since Biblical times.  But if you listen, you will learn that these passages mean more than you think!  As usual, Jesus is teaching more than what appears on the surface. And they apply to us today as much as they did to Jesus’ original hearers.

We know that murder is wrong. I can say that without worrying about any backlash. The sixth commandment says, “Thou shall not kill.”  None of us would dispute that.  But Jesus takes it further in his teaching here.  He says, “I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister,^[a] you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult^[b] a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council, and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell^[c] of fire.” 

That stops me in my tracks.  Who of us does not get angry!  Who of us has not insulted someone!  Jesus is speaking to us, my friends.

You see the problem with anger is it spreads.  Look what is happening with our political system. Our elected officials fight amongst themselves/ between the parties and are not accomplishing what we elect them to do.  Then we fight amongst ourselves over politics and our beliefs. We get angry enough that we cut people out of our life that believe differently than we do because anger has taken over our ability to have reasonable conversations and disagree amicably. These disagreements bleed into our families and our dinner conversations and we become angry all the time just because we are so upset about one aspect of our life.  We feel like we are tense and stressed all the time. Our public anger has infiltrated all aspects of our life and we have lost valuable relationships in the process. 

Jesus is calling us back to be the light of the world.  How can anger be defused and prevented from spilling out into volatile behavior that impacts others lives and our own life in the process?[1]

It all begins with smoldering anger against someone.  Your anger may not result in murder, but the point in the commandment against murder is that you should never get near to the point where you wish someone dead.  When we close someone out of our life because we are angry with them, they are as good as dead to us.  Every time we allow our anger to smolder against someone, we become a little less human.  Eventually, our anger will take over and we will become an angry person who always sees the negative, who always sees fire, who is always ready for the fight. 

Jesus is asking us to be a reconciler.  To get off the pedestal we put ourselves on when we think we are always right, abandon our position of superiority over the person we are angry with. Jesus is challenging us to let it go. It’s a costly decision.  It’s hard to do. Very hard. But if we are genuine, we belong on the ground; on the same level as everyone else – not on a pedestal where we are always right.[2]

Just like murder, Jesus teaches that it isn’t enough not to actually commit adultery.  You must not commit it in your heart or your mind.  It’s natural to look at someone attractive and think, “Wow, he’s really good looking.”  But if you go further and think about what you would like to do with that good looking person, then that’s lust and it is the same as if you were committing adultery.  We must deal ruthlessly with the first signs of lust because that’s what leads to further sin.  Jesus warns us to avoid allowing our imaginations to go unchecked.  And even more, he teaches us how important it is to be truthful and tell a spouse or significant other about our feelings.  Honesty gets those thoughts and images out of the darkness of our mind into the open.  This is how we can be the salt of the earth and the light of the world!

From adultery, Jesus moves to the topic of divorce.  The topic of divorce was a particularly fraught one in Jesus’ time. Remember, women had no rights in Biblical times.  Without marriage, they were almost always destitute – they owned no property and had no rights. It was men who could divorce women.  Women could not divorce their husbands. Two of the leading teachers of Jesus’ time, Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai, were famously divided over the issue of divorce. The school of Hillel favored a more permissive approach to divorce that allowed a man to  divorce his wife even if she ruined her husband’s meal. The school of Shammai, however, upheld a much stricter view that only permitted divorce in the most extreme cases. In other words, the conflict over this particular issue was especially heated in Jesus’ time.[3]

Although there is no exact parallel in modern religious settings for how the issue of divorce functioned for Jesus and his contemporaries, any number of hot button issues today might compare: abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, or the church’s position in relation to other political issues. Jesus ultimately upholds the values of trust and compassion within human community. In this case, by encouraging the continuity of marriage, except in those cases where trust has already been broken through infidelity. Jesus underscores the need for trust and compassion within human relations.[4]

Finally, Jesus talks about oaths, a topic we don’t encounter very often.  But, when set within an ancient context where most dealings occurred orally rather than in writing it makes a lot of sense.  A person’s word would have carried the same weight as our signature on an affidavit or contract today. It seems nearly unimaginable to be able to engage in business today without signature, contracts, and piles of paperwork.  But in Jesus’ day, business practices would have been nearly incomprehensible without the presence of verbal vows. A person’s word was everything. It was all that was needed.

Jesus says,  let your “yes” be “yes”.  It is essentially an encouragement to ensure that spoken word is so authentic and so in line with our intentions that it is already above question just on its own, even without an additional strengthener. Jesus is calling for his audience to demonstrate the highest possible level of trustworthiness and integrity.[5]

Murder, anger, adultery, lust, divorce, oath-keeping – these may seem like unrelated topics.  Yet Jesus has a way of weaving them together.  For him, they are all about relationships and community and cultivating trust and compassion.  They are about protecting the most vulnerable in our relationships and upholding our commitments.  They are about being genuine when we say we will do something and being as honest and true in our hearts and minds as we are in our actions.  It’s about being the salt of the earth and the light of the world in all that we do and all that we are.  It's hard stuff.  It’s stuff we are going to fail at some point in our walk – honestly, at many points.  But we get back up and we start walking again, in community with other believers who understand what it’s all about. And we remember that the encouragement to cultivate trust and compassion in community never goes out of style.  Because these teachings of Jesus, well, they mean more than we think.  Amen.

 

 

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[1][1] Matthew for Everyone, Part I.   N.T. Wright.  West Minster John Knox Press.  2002/2004.  P. 43
[2] Matthew for Everyone, Part I.   N.T. Wright.  West Minster John Knox Press.  2002/2004.  P. 43 - 44
[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-after-epiphany/commentary-on-matthew-521-37-5
[4] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-after-epiphany/commentary-on-matthew-521-37-5
[5] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-after-epiphany/commentary-on-matthew-521-37-5