Pentecost2

Isaiah 49:8-16a; Psalm 131; I Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34

May 25, 2008

I’ve been a bit worried lately.

A two-day trip to Tallahassee to visit my daughter this week

cost over $100 in gasoline.

I stand at the grocery store looking at the lemons-for a long time-

and fret over the price.

Shouldn’t we be able to make such a common weekly purchase as lemons

without such worry?

We hear about people and their worries in our scriptures today.

We hear from Isaiah who writes from Babylon

where the Jews have been in exile for many years.

Babylon’s King Cyrus has allowed the Jews to return home.

Isaiah the prophet announces a new exodus to freedom.

The Jews can now go back and reconstruct their city.

Reestablish their temple.

But they face a stark reality.

They are to leave the big city Babylon

and they have been given a poor tract of land - only 20 by 25 miles.

Their new state is barely large enough to support

the Jerusalem they had known.

They are free - to go home, to return to the practice of their religion,

to bring their children up in the sacred traditions.

But the frame of this freedom is too small.

It diminishes their image of what life should be like.

How will they have enough to re-establish temple worship

with all its priests and cultic practices?

It’s demands for offering and sacrifices?

How will they have enough to sustain the nobility and priests

with their long robes and expensive lifestyles?

On this little tract of land, far away from the mighty center of Babylon,

where will they buy the spices they’ve become accustomed to?

I stood in a store with my daughter and saw her eyes perusing

the newest styles of  Tiva and Reef and Croc sandals just arriving for the summer season.

After the $100 worth of gas gone down the pipes,

should I enjoy letting her enjoying this year’s newest version

by smiling and saying my usual line,

“Why don’t you pick out a pair, honey, they are so cute!”

How would the Jews handle being so far away

from the big city choices of Babylon?

Well, the newly freed Jews, we are told, quickly succumbed

to discouragement, greed, and, yes, even cruelty

when faced with the worries of their new situation.

Then it’s as though the prophet Isaiah looks toward Jerusalem

and sees a mother so long bereft of her children,

longing for them to come home,

and yet, knowing she will not have what they used to expect when they arrive.

And he sings a song of consolation to her.

Her children will return.

The Lord will say “Come out” to those who have been shut away in exile.

They Lord will say “Show yourselves” to those in hiding.

The prophet shows mother Jerusalem a vision of the people coming out of exile,

as she frets over whether they will find their way home

and what they will find when they get there.

Look, he says:

The barren land will be pasture.

Your children will be led past springs of water

sustaining them through scorching wind and sun.

The treacherous mountains will become a road that people from far away, from the north and from the west, and from distant lands

can emerge onto and find their way home.

But the mother, Zion, still mourns,

saying that God has forsaken her, forgotten her.

Then we hear one of the most touching expressions

of divine love in the entire bible.

To a mother who aches for her children, God asks this question:

‘Can a woman forget her nursing child

or show no compassion for the child of her womb?’

The most unconditional love we can imagination

is the love of a mother for her new child.

Yet, God assures, ‘Even a mother may forget her child,

yet I will not forget you.’

The people coming out of exile can see only poor land

and not nearly enough to reclaim their priorities in life.

God sees a bond of unconditional love that redefines all priorities,

that reshapes all reality.

They were at a crossroads on their way home.

One road was a well worn path of fret and worry,

of discouragement, greed, and even cruelty.

How will we live the life we are ‘supposed’ to live?

How will we have the things we need to live this life?

What will we have to do to get what we need?

The other road invited them into a place of trust,

An existence in which their sense of identity and provision

was totally changed and they first knew themselves foremost

as children of a loving and compassionate God.

And all else - land, temple, religious practices,

what to eat, what to drink, where to live, how to dress,

were safely held and their perceptions of their needs transformed.

The prophet Jeremiah said:

Stand at the crossroads, and look,

And ask for the ancient paths,

Ask where the good way lies; and walk in it,

And find rest for your souls. (6:16)

Jesus taught in the same way:

The temple of God is among you.

The lilies neither toil nor spin for their clothing.

The birds of the air neither sow nor reap.

And yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Worrying won’t add a day to your life or an acre to your land.

This is not a promise that discipleship will produce the necessities of life.

Not a promise from the evangelists, those prophets of prosperity we hear on TV.

But a call for a searching examination of our priorities.

Rather than give our worries priority,

to see life as an opportunity to live and love from a place of

such identity and belonging as children of God.

Where we are imaginative and industrious and generous and joyful

with what we have.

And now, today, with our new worries

about oil, and shipping, and prices, and lifestyle

our status quo is being challenged.

We’ve been conditioned to think of certain things as necessities.

And we worry as our foundation shakes beneath us.

Our familiar way of life is at a crossroads with our conscience.

And at that crossroads we are probably being given a wonderful opportunity

to practice being children of God.

How can we re-imagine the status quo?

How do we redefine our needs?

How can we dare to be more generous when we think we have less?

Perhaps we will find that we have more.

From 1^st century rabbi (Eliezer the Great) in touch with Xns quotes a saying of Jesus not found elsewhere:

“Whoever has a morsel of bread in a basket and says, ‘What shall I eat tomorrow?’ is one of those who have little faith.”

We must seek to be ingenuous in new ways

because the old ways are cracking apart.

Recently I read an article about The United Nations’ World Food Program.

It helps feed 1.8 million Cambodians

by providing rice to the ill, orphans, poor farmers, and hungry children.

This year price agreed upon from the suppliers was $390 a ton

for a total of 4,000 tons of rice.

But because of the current state of things, the suppliers defaulted.

When international rice brokers were contacted their price was now $620 a ton.

Standing at crossroads, having to look harder than before,

where does the good way lie?

Where will there be rest for the souls of the children of God?

I remember my mother’s voice calling to me

after everyone had finished dinner,

and I was left alone to labor over the uneaten food on my plate.

“Remember those children in China!”

My conscience cannot disregard her words these days.

There must be new ways to make a difference.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle -   by Barbara Kingsolver

Oily Food – by Steven Hopp

American put almost as much fossil fuel into our refrigerators as our cars. We’re consuming about 400 gallons of oil a year per citizen – about 17% of our nation’s energy use – for agriculture, a close second to our vehicular use. Tractors, combines, harvesters, irrigation, sprayers, tillers, balers and other equipment all use petroleum. Even bigger gas guzzlers on the farm are not machines, but so-called inputs. Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides use oil and natural gas as their starting materials, and in their manufacturing. More than a quarter of all farming energy goes into synthetic fertilizers.

But getting the crop from seed to harvest takes only 1/5 of the total oil used for our food. The lion’s share is consumed during the trip from the farm to your plate. Each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average 1500 miles. In addition to direct transport, other fuel-thirsty step include processing (drying, milling, cutting, sorting, baking) packging, warehousing and refrigeration. Energy calories consumed by production, packaging, and shipping far outweigh the energy calories we receive from the food.

A quick way to improve food-related fuel economy would be to buy a quart of motor oil and drink it. More palatable options are available. If every U.S. citizen ate just on emeal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That’s not gallons but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast.

Who says that the Jews returning to Jerusalem needed

a temple or long robes or the newest Croc sandals

in order to be who they were supposed to be?

We assume as we read their assumptions,

that a certain status quo is required.

The Lord God says to them through the prophet

that they are more precious to him than a newborn baby is to its mother.

That they will never be forgotten.

That it is - and always has been - and always will be

God’s desire to hold them, nourish them, protect them, love them.

And as we stand at new crossroads

where our conscience will test our status quo in new ways,

we must heed Jesus’ words.

We must strive not for the ‘kingdom of thingdoms’

and worry over the obviously impending changes in our life.

But rather we must strive with all the confidence of children

who are beloved and well-provided for

to love God and to live generously with our neighbors -

to seek the good way, to walk in it, to find rest for our souls.

And what’s a lemon or a pair of Crocs compared to that?