A New Name

I always wanted a nickname. Some would technically say that because my first name is John and I go by my middle name, then Seth is a nickname. I do not feel that way. When I first started playing sports I thought I would get a pseudonym, but no. In the 5^th grade Mr. Mac, the coolest of elementary school teachers, gave his entire class nicknames throughout the year. I was not in his class. Nicknames though are not something one can force. It has to just happen!

When I was in high school I finally got another name. My friends Brad, Trey, and I played together on the J.V. soccer team. One weekend when we had a lot of games we all spent the night at Brad’s house. Like most high school age kids we had a strong humorous side. We had even begun to create our own “secret” language. Really we just replaced all the vowels in words with an “A” sound. So, instead of being called Seth, they called me “Sarth”. I am unsure if this would have stuck as a nickname; however, Brad’s mom misheard what the others were calling me and she began calling me “Sarge”. After everyone stopped laughing at the mispronunciation of our made up language the nickname stuck. Of course, I had no ROTC experience, I was not all that connected to the military, and honestly felt a little odd about the whole thing, but I had my nickname.

Most of us, probably all of us, do not get to select our given names. Rarely do any of us get to choose our nicknames. For something so intimate and personal it is a bit odd that we have no say in the matter. In today’s Gospel lesson from John we hear the moment when Jesus gives to Simon a new name. Jesus nicknames him “Cephas” or “Peter”, which means “The Rock” or “Rocky”. Given how the story unfolds, this new name seems anything but fitting. So what can we learn from the story of Simon and his nickname Peter?

Throughout the Gospel accounts Simon-Peter oscillates from insightful disciple to denying devil. Simon-Peter acclaims that Jesus is the Messiah in one breath and in the next tries to manipulate Jesus’ mission. Simon-Peter humbly witnesses the Transfiguration, then attempts to hold onto the moment for forever by building booths. Perhaps the biggest swing in Simon-Peter’s life comes when he first denies Jesus three times before his teacher’s death only to affirm his love of Jesus after the Resurrection. So what do we learn from Jesus’ nicknaming this unsteady presence “The Rock”?

We learn that it is not Simon that makes himself steady, but instead it is the love of God that transforms him into the rock on which the Church is founded! On the beach at the end of John’s Gospel account Jesus asks Peter if he loves him three separate times. After Peter acknowledges his love each time Jesus invites the disciple to take care of the flock. Without the shaky missteps, the naïve questions, and the denial Simon would not have come to fully embrace the love of God, which made him Peter. God does not confine this transformation merely to Simon, nor did God stop doing this long ago, but rather all of us are invited to stop relying so much on getting our own way.

We will all surely make mistakes on our journeys. Trusting in God on a daily basis stands out as a particularly difficult task. And yet, what happens when we live in the love of God? We, like Simon, receive a new name. We are given new gifts. Even through our mess ups we find new skills and talents. As the old saying goes, “God does not call the qualified, God qualifies the called.” I do not know what your new name will be. Heck, I do not even know what God has in store for me. However, I trust that God calls each of us by name, maybe even a new name, and God yearns for each of us to be part of God’s story in this world. What is God’s nickname for you?

Wrestling with Parables

(This week's sermon is based on Genesis 28:10-19 and Matthew 13:24-30,36-43.)

In 11th grade math class, Algebra II, we received a new text book a few weeks into the school year. Mrs. Stevens, a young, energetic, and engaged Algebra teacher quickly learned that these text books made a big impact on her students’ homework grades. Overnight almost everyone was making near perfect scores. There was however a slight problem.

All of these paragon problem sets had no work out beside the answers. The sheets were clean except for the correct responses. Pretty quickly Mrs. Stevens asked us in class to give her one of our text books. She thumbed to the back of the hardcover, as the class sat breathlessly and anxiously watching.

“Of course,” she said almost under her breath, “the answers are in the back of your book.” Then turning to us, “Why didn’t any of you point that out?” Before anyone could respond to her question, she knew the answer. Her class wanted to get the right answer in whatever way we could. We did not care about doing the work, we were not interested in learning to solve algebraic equations, we just wanted to skip ahead and get the right answer.

This is the challenge that we face when we begin to read parables like the one from today’s gospel reading. We have the difficult word problem right in front of us, but all we want to do is skip ahead to the end. We want the correct answer without having to do the work. We want to know who is the sower, who are the servants, who are the weeds, and who is the wheat.

We can quickly thumb ahead in Matthew’s gospel account to read the answer key: the sower is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed/the wheat are the children of the kingdom, the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy is in fact the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Yet, in jumping ahead to hear what Jesus says to his disciples about this parable we miss the all-important middle step…doing the work.

Parables, like challenging math problems, require us to do work. I am not suggesting that we have to do work to get into heaven, this is after all the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, and we certainly believe that Christ Jesus’ redeeming work on the cross and his all-encompassing grace is the only thing that brings us into right relationship with God and into the Kingdom. No, the work I am referring to is interior work, work that opens us up to God’s calling, work that reveals our true selves in light of Christ. If we skip the middle step in these parables we miss this work.

Put another way, the moment we believe we know the meaning of a parable is the moment when it slips between our fingers, like squeezing Jell-O. Jesus’ answers at the end of today’s gospel give us a false confidence that we know what Jesus means in this parable. Now, it’s one thing to think I know what a parable is challenging me to do, but the trouble comes when I think that I know exactly what the parable is telling you to do also. It’s one thing to think we know what the parable means to us, but when we begin telling others what to do in light of this one text we wade into dangerous waters. We no longer listen to how God challenges us individually, and instead we have hijacked the gospel for our own ends.

So what do we do? Ignore the parables? Avoid them at all costs? Not engage these stories from Jesus? We might do better to be like the main character from today’s reading from Genesis.

Not too long after Jacob had his vision of the ladder, he spent an entire night wrestling with God or a messenger from God. At the end of this fight Jacob is left with a limp, a mark that reminds him of his struggle. He’s even given a new name, Israel, which means “He struggles with God.” This is how we can approach the parables, as wrestlers ready to engage, not as math students seeking easy solutions. So what happens when we wrestle with this parable?

What we hear when we listen is not practical farming advice. Like Evan said last week, Jesus would have been a terrible farmer. The weed in this parable, probably the bearded darnel weed, may look like wheat to the untrained eye, but to an experienced farmer the differences are easily seen. So if the weed could be detected by the servants, why not pluck it up? Jesus tells us about life in the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, not about how to keep a good garden.

In the Kingdom there are both weeds and wheat. They grow together. They aren’t separated. Good exists. Evil exists. We can look around and see someone who has all the right answers to the questions of life. Somehow this person got the right solutions in the back of the book of life. We can be so certain that they are wheat. We can see another who seems set on doing ill. We can, like the servants, be so sure that we know which the weed is, and which the wheat is. Yet, the Master urges us to wait.

The parable of the evil sower pushes us to think beyond practical farming practices into wondering not only how we define evil and good, but also how we live together as wheat and weed. We want so often to pluck out the evil ones, separate them from us, lock them away, so that they do not effect the good wheat. Yet, God lets the evil grow among the good. Why?
To test us? To make us angry? Because the devil put them there? I do not know why. What I do know is that our work is not to judge, not to fully comprehend the complexity of this parable, but to wrestle all the same with the Master.

We may want a simple answer to this parable. We might even think that we can skip ahead and find the key to unlocking this story, but that’s the thing about parables, right when we think we understand them they slip through our grasp. So do not skip ahead. Don’t rush to the back of the book. Don’t seek the easy answer. Instead wrestle with God and you like Jacob will be changed forever.