What Stories do we tell - Matthew 14, Genesis 32 - Proper 13A

What stories do we tell?

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Sermon based  upon Matthew 14: 13-21, Genesis 32: 22-31, Psalm 17

Opening prayer

The story of loaves and fish is a story that John uses as the basis for communion. The celebration of God among us and together in a meal that sustains beyond our mortal hungers and thirsts.

Thus, when Jesus blesses the bread and fish, there is something more that happens than just food sustenance. There is an opening of perspective with disciples and community who find direction. There is sharing, the is hunger and thirst quenched, there is question and people… and there is God. There is recognizing God in the moment. 

The story of wrestling with God is one of my favorites because it is a story that is for everyone (not just us wrestlers). We all experience this in our lives, and we all have to come to terms with something that needs our attention whether we like it or not - whether we like the delivery or not.

Sometimes, we come out broken and different as well as having a new or different perspective (even success). I have preached on Genesis 32 a couple times, but this time, let us look at a different perspective as well. 

Why do we tell these stories? Why do we read these lessons? What are we to do with the result?

When you or I tell a story, there is something that we remember and something we want to share with others. When I tell you about something that happened with my son or my spouse or an interaction on the bike trail, something invoked an emotion and sparked some insight - or just some other realization. 

Incidentally, I saw a snake on the bike trail (twice now), and I thought of all the ways that could have went horribly. Yet, I did not run over them and the snakes (maybe the same one laughing at me and taunting) did not hurt or maim me (just more than startled me). 

So why do I recall this event and tell you a story? It certainly doesn’t have to do with “good will” towards snakes. I don’t have much love for snakes - I guarantee. 

Yet the story of feeding thousands with little bread and fish or wrestling with God has something for you and I. Maybe, it has something to do with seeing adversity (whether it is seeing a crowd of hungry people with little food or coming to terms with all that we have done in life or just meeting a critter on the trail ) and in that adversity, something happened or someone happened. 

People like to tell stories and regale of all that has been and laugh about the funnies, like almost falling into the bushes, but if we look into our stories into our events of our lives, we might see that God has been a witness each time. 

Yes God is a witness to us and our lives. Yet, God does more than just witness. God is teaching, leading and guiding us. The question for us is what do we learn from what God teaches us. Do we put our own ego  and our own answer forward, or do we let God teach us in these moments? 

We might not like the delivery, and we might have a few scrapes on ourselves going through ordeals, but we come out with an understanding, a perspective that we share with others. It isn’t always perfect but it is perfectly God and perfectly meant for us and how we share. That is communion and that is community.  Sharing and specifically sharing the spirit!

Whether like Jacob, who wrestled with God or a crowd witnesses God serving a meal or God told me not to ride over the snake (I think). Maybe you can help me see what God was trying to teach me.

When we are looking for the answers, when we are fighting through another night of questions -that tossing and turning in bed, there we can turn to someone who can help us and will lead us - if we let the spirit work. 

Good thing is that spirit will work for you when you let it. 

Yet I, like many of you, forget to see God in the moment many times. We may even lift a prayer to God , wonder where and what God is doing while we suffer. Why is God doing this to us now? Who, here, has had these questions?

In the story of Jacob, God teaches someone in the middle of conflict. In the story of feeding thousands, God teaches a whole community how to handle conflict. In the story of the trail, both me and the snakes lived. 

In each of these, people in the moment didn’t recognize at first but eventually understood. God may not tell us everything, but God does reveal to us when we let the spirit work and let the spirit teach.

So think when you are telling a story, you are sharing a bit of your life and lives those around you, but you are also sharing a bit of God in those moments. When you break bread and have a meal with someone, look in that moment and find God with you and blessing you.  When you look at the lessons you have learned, look at how God was there guiding you and helping you the whole time. 

When you are riding, walking, wrestling or eating on the trail (the journey of life), there -> God is.

Yes share with God, let God witness you and witness God in your life.  There is the heart of communion, your story and the community.  

Go ahead tell your story, remember how your perspective changed, and how your story helps others change their perspectives. I submit to you to find God in that perspective, and you will see even more.

That Beloved is…

Thanks Be to God

What Do You Value - Matthew 13 - Proper 12

What Do You Value?

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Reflection based upon Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52, Psalm 105,Genesis 29:15-28

Opening Prayer

What do you value? 

When we read Matthew this week, we hear Jesus giving us a list of parables and metaphors for what the kingdom of Heaven is. In each of these, there are people who recognize value and do what it takes to get it. 

Similarly Jacob offers seven more years of service to get Rachel. (Never mind, the patriarchy that is evident here or what this must have made Leah feel like.)

What do you value? Maybe the question is really why do you value that?

In my life and in yours, we see things as worthy and also unworthy. We make judgements. Whether justified or not, we make these classifications of people, things, places and of God. 

What is it that we value that we would give up nearly everything in our lives to get it though? People riding RAGBRAI this week enjoy some time on bicycles for 500 miles. (I even bought a jersey for it.) What in 500 miles is exciting to have thousands journey to, and across, the state of Iowa?

I am going to guess it is something other than the 500 miles of riding. Along the way, people meet other people, friendships are gained, friendships are needed to help go that next mile even when the temperature is scorching and the legs are just tired.. 

That is when we find the camaraderie to be important. That is when we have to lean into each other because, by God, I want to dip my tires in both rivers. I don’t see many who do RAGBRAI alone.  Teams form and teams travel.  People might spread out the entire length of a day, but most that do this journey do with friends, spouses, or neighbors. 

Why because when the stuff around us is hot and icky and when are tired and worn out, we need something. We need important things. We need something more than whimsical materials. We need what we value the most. We need water! We need sustenance and cheers and we need love. 

For those that do not ride RAGBRAI can understand that too. When times are good, we can laugh and enjoy, but when times are tough, that is when we look to what we truly value. I personally am not going to care that I use my favorite mug, but when I am very thirsty, I want water. 

What truly fulfills those needs, that thirst, that hunger are not things we keep on the mantel or on the wall. What truly fulfills is something more than ourselves, which is incidentally one of the reasons I think RAGBRAI is so popular. 

Even when you ride alone, you don’t. There are thousands with you and experiencing the same. 

What is truly fulfilling is something more than tangible items, but life lived and there we can find God providing paths for us. There, we can find a slice of heaven right here in this existence, in this world, that we call ours. In that sip of water, the bread we break, and the very breath we breathe, we find God providing true sustenance for us. There is all that we need and all the peace of the world within our grasp.

That Beloved is truly remarkable when you think about it. When you are really tired, when you are searching for answers, when you are needing help, there you can find God within reach. You can find community and in that community you will find God working because it takes a village my friends.

God is not just there then but also when we are happy, joyful and at peace. There we can find God with us and sharing grace with us - and how wonderful that is. Yes Thank you, God, for the good times and thank you for being there for us during the rough times.

A 500 mile journey may help some realize that Heaven is all around us. (after all it is Iowa that we are talking about, just ask Kevin Costner!) 

Yet, we all have our own journeys (life journeys) with chances to realize that Heaven is around us - and that we play a part. Heaven doesn’t just exist for us after we stop breathing and die, but heaven is today, here and now, in the people around us, the community we live and the life we lead. 

We don’t do this alone because we have God and we have community. That means the people around us also experience Heaven too. That is the person in the pews with you today, on the bike path, on the corner with a sign, or in the hospital waiting for treatment. We can be the face of God to them, and they to us. That is what God wants. That is how we find what we truly value and what will sustain us. That is how we find God.

When you and I and our neighbors realize this, wars are not needed, thirst is quenched, children laugh, and people find homes, because we can all find a little heaven on Earth. Why?? God is already here welcoming you and loving you. 

So When you look for a cup of water and what you truly value, know that God welcomes you, loves you and calls you to find what you need is already here.

That Beloved is…

Thanks Be to God

Do You Hear What I Hear - Matthew 13 - Proper 10A

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Tony E Dillon Hansen 

Sermon based upon Matthew 13:1-9,18-23, Genesis 25:19-34, Psalm 65

Opening Prayer

What Jacob does to Esau is mischievous to say the least. Here, Esau has been working in the field and is thirsty and hungry.  Jacob uses the soup he has as bait “to trade” for Esau’s birthright - the privileges of being the first born. 

I often question Why didn’t Esau “like his birthright”? The Burden? Dislike of parental discord? Something else? 

What do we do when we are hungry and thirsty is maybe go get something out of the pantry or fridge. We go looking for it or order it even. Yet when we are hungry really physically hungry, we do things that lack reason.  Instead of the nutritious, we may reach for the snack cakes or bag of chips. (I am guilty of doing this too.)

So we can’t really knock Esau for doing this. When he comes back from the field, there is brother with a bowl of soup, and Esau fixes his eyes upon the food. He probably could have went to a different person and got something to eat without any trade. But right here, there is food and Jacob has it. 

Jacob, being the trickster, almost teasing, “Oh you want some of this…?” You can almost see Jacob whisking smells and maybe taking a spoonful “mmmm…”

I as a younger brother in my own family can see a bit of myself in Jacob, and you can probably tell.

With this moment, Esau’s eyes grow big. He becomes desperate and makes trade in his hunger. 

It is an awful predicament to be hungry and see someone with food. Think of that every time you pull up to a stoplight with person holding sign asking for food while in your car - coffee, sandwich or groceries. What privilege do we leverage in those moments to offer nothing to the hungry?

We will come back to Esau in a moment so we can look at our lesson from Matthew.

Here, Jesus doles out the parable of the sower where Jesus describes how seeds tossed in the wrong places fail to grow into what they could be. Every seed has a chance to be something but we have to tend them to be something. 

Of course on first listen, most people don’t quite get the connection, so Jesus goes further and tells us what each the seeds represents - so you don’t have to be confused as to what Jesus meant.

Now it is “Christmas in July” with Prime Day safely behind us and many channels showing “holiday” films to celebrate.  Thus it feels appropriate to ask “Do you hear what I hear?”

This is a valid question because that is what Jesus does here. 

What do you hear when you hear the Gospel? What do you do when you hear or read these words? Do you meet it with joy but set no roots in it? Do we let material wealth, greed and status choke out the meaning of God’s peace, love and grace for all so there is no place or welcome for others in our hearts? Do you hear the words but leave God’s work to someone else. After all, aren’t we so busy with our own lives that we have no time for anything else? How privileged that must be.

So in this parable Jesus uses the story to pose questions for us. What do you hear? What do you do? What do we do as people of God, as a community of God, because many do not understand even though they hear and read? Many will hear and read these words and do nothing.

The words that I say are mere words, but feel them rooted in the Spirit. Do you let the Spirit work in you? Do you let God speak to you, open you, and lift you? As one commentator suggests, having experienced the grace and spirit do you become grace filled? Do you demonstrate that love, that grace, that Spirit, to others? Or is it something else?

What do you hear from the Gospel that lifts you and inspires you to be more than yourself - to be community? When you get that inspiration, what prevents you from letting that Gospel bear fruit in you? What does the words of Jesus yield in your heart? What do you share of that Gospel with others around you ? 

No we don’t want to keep it all to ourselves for that is greedy and gluttonous. We don’t want to despise what is so great of God in our lives and give away the blessing that God has given to us.

Maybe, you are Jacob and only offer what you have for a trade? What transaction are you needing to do embody the Spirit in your lives? Yet Jacob recognizes the blessing and desires to experience it. Jacob uses the opportunity to get that in his life. It took time, but he gets to experience the blessing.

Thing is that seeds take time to grow. What are you doing to let that growth happen in you?

Maybe, that is what Esau should have remembered - is that despite hunger, we can let God take the reins and deliver for us. What we get right now is just the beginning of something that God has planned for us. 

The garden takes time and effort so that the seed has a chance to bear fruit. Thus, do we give time for God to work our souls and our spirits?

Beloved, do you hear what I hear? Do you feel that Spirit and that blessing of God upon you? What are you going to do with it? 

Beloved, No tricks here because you can experience God right now. Yes, God wants that for you and for the community.

That is

Thanks Be to God

When I cry to the Lord- Genesis 21 - Proper7A

When I Cry to the Lord

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Reflection based upon Genesis 21:8-22, Psalm 86, Matthew 10: 24-39

Opening prayer

The story of Hagar and Ishmael is a story heard through the ages of how people (mistresses, princesses or slaves) can be thrown out on a whim. This is simply how people can be cruel to each other.

What was it that caused Sarah to feel so threatened by Hagar and her son? Why couldn’t she be one with peace, love and welcome? No, instead, she allows ego to rule. She is the purveyor of injustice and insists on them leaving. So Abraham, gets a thing of water and some bread with not so much as a pat on the back and sends them out… 

They are sent away into the bush. No “thank you”, no “nice to meet you” no “let us know how it goes” even. Just away with you. This interpretation (midrash) reading aligns with Wilda C. Gafney's Womanist Midrash

Then, suddenly like that, life is flipped for these two.There is no place to call home and no shelter to take. What did they do to deserve this? 

In this cruelty, when the water has run out, and it feels like no place to go and no one to help, It is there that Hagar does something. She cries and the cry is heard.

God in great response says, "be not afraid for your son is to lead a nation..." Not bad, but what about now. They still are out of water which makes worse the stress of being thrown out by Abraham and Sarah

Ishmael is to become the head of a nation called the Ishmaelites. This is generally where Arabs and Islam find roots.Yes, they are nation rooted in God as well. The place where Hagar and Ishmael go and find a well of water, according to the Quran, is Mecca.

When Ishmael cries and when Hagar cries to the Lord, despite all that has transpired, the Lord answers.

This is a reminder and why we pray Psalms like 86 because in the moments when we just can’t take anymore, when we have had enough, or we just don’t know what next to do. Those moments are when we can cry to the Lord, and the ears will perk up, and the Lord will respond.

We are not left alone. Hagar learns this, you know it.  Life with God isn’t always easy, but you are worthy.  Cry to the Lord this day and be heard.

That Beloved is…

Thanks Be to God