Volunteer Corn
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For July 23, 2023:
Volunteer Corn
by Thomas Willadsen
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, Genesis 28:10-19a
I grew up in Central Illinois, corn country. Every spring the local television and radio ads were filled with names like Funk’s G Hybrids, Treflan, and Prowl. Products offered “cleaner beans and bigger yields.” The words of one jingle are burned into my brain as deeply as any Schoolhouse Rock! song:
Standard, broadcast, tank mix or piggyback
It’s the broadleaf control you’ve been looking for
Let Counter do it right.
One of the weeds these post-emergent broadleaf herbicides promised to eradicate was volunteer corn. Volunteer corn was just like regular corn, growing in a soybean field. By late July, volunteer corn was conspicuous, because corn grows much taller than soybeans. It would tower over the field and announce, “That farmer didn’t use Prowl, what a chump!” my judgmental, city-kid self would declare.
But last year, or next year, when the field would be returned to corn cultivation, that volunteer corn would neither be conspicuous, nor a weed. Weed status is determined by timing and location. Think about that, city-kid, preacher of this week’s parable.
In the Scriptures
Today’s parable is the rare one where Jesus explains very clearly what his point is. In the parable itself, the contrast between good and evil is set up explicitly: The owner of the field sowed good seed. Both the sower and his slaves know that good seed was sown. Clearly, the weeds could only have been sown by an enemy. Keep the big picture in mind: Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of Heaven. Maybe that’s also shorthand for the church of Matthew’s day. Either way, the good and the evil will be side-by-side. Just as Stevie Wonder sang with Paul McCartney, “There is good and bad in everyone,” [“Ebony and Ivory,” 1982.] Since there’s good and bad in each of us, it should be no surprise that there’s good and bad in the church, society, even the Kingdom of Heaven.
What’s a farmer or church leader to do? There’s evil right next to us!
Jesus points out three things as he explains the parable.
Jacob spends an interesting night there on the banks of the Jabbok. He’s all alone, on a quest for a wife, when he has a dream of a ladder, or ramp or ziggurat that goes between earth and heaven. (He’s not trying to buy it; we’ll leave that to Led Zeppelin.) When he awakens Jacob recognizes that God has been in that place all along, even though he did not recognize God’s presence. This happens so often. In looking to the past we discover God’s presence in moments when we were not aware of it. “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Søren Kierkegaard
In the News
It’s summer and if you’re taking the classic American vacation through the Midwest, you’ll see fields and fields and fields of corn. Yes, there is a drought affecting many states. But the amount of land given to cultivating corn is truly staggering, even in dry times. I used to joke that south of 138th Street in Chicago was one solid corn field, only broken up by the occasional state highway, soybean field and creek — which we pronounced “crick.” The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. It is a tribute to monoculture, land dedicated to growing one crop very, very intensely. Focus. Specialize. Surely that’s how to maximize yields and profit.
Unless we’re wrong.
There are huge advantages to monoculture. And these huge advantages are made possible by huge investments. Planting a single crop of corn or trees, for example, makes harvesting more efficient, since all the plants mature or ripen at the same time.
There are also enormous costs to monoculture:
Ultimately the negative impact of monocultures comes down to two things; loss of biodiversity and the use of pesticides. Healthy ecosystems and habitats are home to hundreds of plant, insect, and animal species. When big stretches of land are used for only one species, the entire balance is disturbed. Important environmental services that are normally provided by the many different species are now left undone. Lower levels of biodiversity on agricultural land also mean that certain insects are left with no natural predators, resulting in their population growing out of control. Monoculture - Wikipedia
“Such plants are ‘weeds’ only to those who make a business of selling and applying chemicals.” ― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
In general, diverse ecosystems are healthier. The pilgrims learned this in 1621, when Squanto’s Wampanoag tribe taught them “The Three Sisters method” of cultivation — corn, beans, and squash grown together. The beans fixed nitrogen in the soil; the corn offered support for the beans and the squash helped the sandy soil retain moisture. All three crops could grow separately, but they were much healthier together.
In a similar way, sociologists are discovering that more diverse teams are more productive. That is, when each team member is heard and taken seriously.
In the Sermon
“And weeds? I will never forget her terse observation: 'Back home, we don't have any weeds. We only have plants for which we have not yet found a use.” ― Peter Denton, Live Close to Home
“Pull out the weeds, or make peace with the dandelions.” ― Frank Sonnenberg, Listen to Your Conscience: That's Why You Have One
“A weed is but an unloved flower.” ― Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Every discussion of weeds has a note of implicit judgment. Those plants do not belong here. Or that plant should not be growing now. Like so many things in life, weed status comes down to timing and location. Jesus reminds us that the field we’re growing in is not ours. That the one who will reap the crop is not us. The moment of harvest is not now.
And given what we’re learning about the contrast between monoculture and polyculture, letting the weeds grow along with the good seed may even be better. We can only know at harvest time. And we’re not the reapers. Relax. Sit back. Listen to the corn grow. Even if it’s the only stalk in a field of soybeans.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Climbing the Stairway to Heaven
by Chris Keating
Genesis 28:10-19a
Shortly before Pentecost this year, the town of Gower, Missouri, was overtaken by throngs of pilgrims lining up to see the body of a nun who died four years ago.
Gower has never been a go-to destination for spiritual seekers. It’s not Mecca by a longshot, nor even Taize, France. Yet over Memorial Day weekend, the local sheriff estimated that 200 cars an hour were waiting to gain entrance to the abbey of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles. Sheriff Larry Fish estimated that a crowd of more than 15,000 people — roughly ten times the town’s population — had lined up to see the freshly exhumed body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster.
Part of the urgency, Catholic officials noted, was the ability to touch Sister Wilhelmina’s corpse. Lancaster, foundress of the religious order, died in 2019 at the age of 95. Her religious order removed her body from its grave intending to place it within a glass shrine. They expected to find a crumbling casket of deteriorating bones.
Instead, Sister Wilhelmina’s unembalmed body was nearly perfectly preserved. Much to everyone’s surprise, Sister Wilhelmina appeared to be completely intact, her neatly pressed habit unbothered by the elements. “The intent (of viewing her remains) was devotional,” the order notes on its website, intended for the privacy of its cloistered members. “Nevertheless, the discovery of what appeared to be an intact body and a perfectly preserved religious habit created an unexpected twist to our plans.” Following Pentecost, the plan was to move the nun’s body into a glass case.
To everyone’s surprise, it seemed as though God had shown up in Gower — a tiny town named after a long-forgotten Santa Fe railroad supervisor from the 1800s. It’s the sort of small town where kids mingle at the city pool during summer break and get excited waiting for the city’s annual Gower Days in July. It’s a place where a casual Facebook post invites families to stop by Rocky Road’s Ice Cream to “see Aidan and Anna tonight” for a special treat.
Like Jacob’s dreaming of the ladder to heaven at Bethel, it has become a symbol of the sacred mystery of God breaking into ordinary life. (Some skeptics point out that it is not unusual for some bodies to resist decomposition, especially after only a few years post-burial.)
Meanwhile, Gower is rising to its newfound status.
It’s fascinating that in a world where so many refugees have been forced out of their homes, pushed like Jacob into unfamiliar territories, that spiritual tourism is flourishing. Millions are on the run, while others are simply running toward the sacred.
As the Covid-19 pandemic receded, religious and spiritual tourism began picking up interest worldwide. India is reporting soaring numbers of foreign visitors engaging in pilgrimages. There are, of course, gobs of tour companies offering the more standard visits to European shrines and cathedrals, while new age enthusiasts are finding their way to North American sites like Sedona, Arizona. In Hawaii, for example, a tour boat operator made a splash of publicity in January after an encounter with a humpback whale that she called “an almost spiritual connection.”
Whales, dead nuns, ancient relics, spiritual waterways, and mountains are the places that evoke palpable awareness of God’s promise and presence. It’s a phenomenon that crosses all sorts of religious faiths and traditions. There are even incongruously named secular pilgrimages. That includes college-sponsored walking treks across the 500 mile Camino de Santiago in Spain. Some are calling the treks “prayercations.”
Without sounding grumpy and in need of vacation, I wonder how much capitalism has encroached on these spiritual journeys. It does not take long to imagine postcards and souvenir stands popping up on the roads leading to Gower. Beyond that, it does not do much for a pastor’s ego to imagine that a four-year-old corpse attracts more people than a well-exegeted sermon.
Lee Ann Marino, writing for Patheos, reflects on the stories she has heard over the years of people who paid visits to sites acclaimed for their sacred value. “Each went with the hope that their pilgrimage would render a special blessing…it seemed like everyone was looking for the sacred, looking to touch its concept in their ordinary lives.”
Certainly, there are times when an intentional journey to a holy space, either alone or with a group, becomes transformative. Sitting in the pews of Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist church, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was once pastor, was such a moment for me. Walking the hilly paths of the Montreat, NC Presbyterian Conference center was another. Others have recounted moments of discovering the church where ancestors were baptized or meditating quietly before a loved one’s grave. Backpacking through Yosemite, beholding the surf at Big Sur, or watching the sunrise over the Jersey Shore are experiences still others have held dear. These are moments when the lines between heaven and earth grow thin, and we know ourselves to be held deep within God’s astonishing grasp.
Jacob, however, did not book a coach tour toward Haran. We ignore this point too easily, removing the terror that drove him away. Do not domesticate this dream by singing endless choruses of “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” Remember that he is a man on the run, a guy more like Michael Corleone and less like Sister Wilhelmina. This is the OG spiritual experience: raw, terrifying, yet centered in the inscrutable knowledge of God’s presence and promise. “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you,” the Lord assures Jacob.
This was not exactly the experience Jacob had seen advertised in the brochure. The ladder to heaven was not included in the Google reviews. It is, however, the one experience with the power to both shatter him and heal him.
Perhaps this is an insight we might offer to those holy explorers and pray-cation tourists who join us on Sunday. Intentional pilgrimages are not bad, of course. They can certainly be an integral part to a church’s overall ministry. But Jacob’s encounter with God is different than packing a van full of church members and heading to Kansas City or Taize or wherever. It disrupts his life. It unfolds like a ladder that lifts him out of his brokenness. There will be other moments of mystery, too, but it all begins when he rests his head on a rock and looks out at the expanse of God’s firmament.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Biblical scholars allow that this parable may refer to the practice of exclusivity among early Jesus followers as they tried to create a “pure” community or church. Others insist that the parable applies to the church’s attitude regarding the world.
* * *
Racial Exclusivity in The Church
In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that during his student days he read the Gospels seriously and considered converting to Christianity. He believed that in the teachings of Jesus he could find the solution to the caste system that was dividing the people of India.
So one Sunday he decided to attend services at a nearby church and talk to the minister about becoming a Christian. When he entered the sanctuary, however, the usher refused to give him a seat and suggested that he go worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and never returned. “If Christians have caste differences also,” he said, “I might as well remain a Hindu.” That usher's prejudice not only betrayed Jesus but also turned a person away from trusting him as Savior.
* * *
Banned By The Grand
The Grand Ole Opry is one of the most honored and exclusive clubs in the world. Membership is one of the highest achievements within the country music community. From the first member in 1925, and first performer in house, fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson, through the hundreds of country legends that would follow over the decades — everyone from Minnie Pearl, Ernest Tubb, Chet Atkins, George Jones, Patsy Cline, The Everly Brothers, Willie Nelson, Tammy Wynette, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton, and into the present with newer inductees, including Trace Adkins, Blake Shelton, Kelsea Ballerini, Rascal Flatts and beyond — being welcomed into the house is a sign that you’ve arrived in Nashville, and in country music.
Given the elevated status of its members, it’s no surprise that some have been excluded, expelled, and even banned from membership in that particular high society.
Johnny Cash notoriously smashed the stage lights spraying glass into the front row audience, while Hank Williams lost his membership after failing to show up to his scheduled Opry shows. Dierks Bentley was also banned from the famed venue before he even had a chance to perform on the Opry stage. Here are brief versions of their stories, and a couple more.
1. Hank Williams — A notorious alcoholic, Williams became a member in 1949, but his membership was revoked in 1952 after missing several performances without explanation. It was never said but assumed by most that he was, in those cases, too drunk to play.
2. Johnny Cash — Alcohol also played a part in the “Man in Black” losing his Opry privileges. Inducted as a member in 1956, his membership was revoked in 1965 when, during a performance, an inebriated Cash dragged the microphone stand around, smashing out all footlights in front of the Opry stage. His membership was reinstated in 1968 and he remained an Opry member throughout the rest of his life. He died on Sept. 12, 2003, at the age of 71, just five months after June passed away.
3. Skeeter Davis — A member of the Opry since 1959, Davis took the Opry stage on Dec. 8, 1973, after days earlier witnessing the arrest of the leader of the Christian organization Christ Is the Answer Crusade, at a local shopping center for trespassing. She expressed her disdain at the police officer’s actions.
“This is really something that I should share,” said Davis to the Opry audience before performing “Amazing Grace.” “I didn’t ask our manager, but they’ve arrested 15 people just for telling people that Jesus loves them. And that really burdened my heart, so I thought I would sing you all this song.”
After sharing her opinion of the local Nashville police, Davis’ membership was suspended and she was banned from performing at the Opry. In 1974, the Opry welcomed Davis back, and she continued to perform there until her very last performance in 2002. Skeeter Davis remained an Opry member until her death in 2004 at the age of 72.
4. Jerry Lee Lewis — When he was asked to perform at the Opry on Jan. 20, 1973, he decided to break the house rules they gave him: no cursing and no playing rock songs.
Not only was Lewis foul-mouthed, but he also ignored the commercial breaks and performed a number of rock songs, including his hits “Great Balls of Fire,” “Whole Lotta Shakin Going On,” Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and more before closing on the more tender “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Lewis also broke another rule by playing a 40-minute set, when most artists were restricted to two or three songs.
Lewis never became an Opry member and was banned from performing there after his notorious ’73 appearance.
5. Dierks Bentley — Though Dierks Bentley was eventually welcomed into the Grand Ole Opry as a member in 2005, he was banned from the venue long before he even performed inside. Working as a researcher at a local TV station, The Nashville Network, which was located on the Opryland grounds, Bentley found a way to sneak backstage and hang out with the Opry performers on the weekends. When the Opry general manager, Pete Fisher, caught on to Bentley lurking about too often, according to Opry, he had his access to the venue limited.
After releasing his 2003 self-titled debut with his first No. 1 hit, “What Was I Thinkin'”— which was coincidentally inspired by a girl he met backstage at the Opry long before he was signed by a label — Bentley made his Grand Ole Opry debut that same year and was introduced by Ricky Skaggs. After releasing another hit album with the follow-up, “Modern Day Drifter,” Bentley was inducted into the Opry on October 1, 2005, and became the third-youngest member after Josh Turner and Carrie Underwood.
* * *
To The One Who Always Feels Left Out
Writing for theodysseyonline.com, psychologist Sydney Zatz says that new parent’s share a common nightmare that when they send their children off to school they will be treated badly or they will be lonely, shunted aside and rejected by their peers. Here are some reassurances you might be able to offer in the right place at the right time.
* * *
Speech That Excludes
In 2018 the The Scholarly Kitchen published a study about racism in academia, particularly in the field of scholarly publishing. The article included testimony from people of color who had been excluded from all manner of things in what is thought to be “liberal” academic settings because of their race. The testimonies were published anonymously to protect those who submitted them. Here are two examples:
* * *
Romans 8:12-25
As we have come to expect from the Apostle Paul, this passage tends to ramble about but the subjects he touches on — adoption, renewal, and independence vs. indebtedness to grace — are all instructive to the Christian and the Christian community.
* * *
I Know Who My Father Is
The television series “Designated Survivor,” is about the highly ethical but little-known Secretary of HUD who becomes President of the United States when a terrorist attack kills everyone in attendance at the State of the Union Address. President Kirkland, inexperienced in politics, faces all kinds of resistance including an attack on the integrity of his marriage and the legitimacy of his oldest child, a teenage son.
The First Lady’s old boyfriend from 17 years ago, now a convict in prison, claims that the boy is actually his child and not the President’s. President Kirkland, who knew there was some small chance that the child wasn’t his, never pursued it. He loved and raised the boy as his own. Now, though, he has a DNA test run to, once and for all, find out the answer.
In a dramatic scene, he gives the sealed and unopened letter holding the answer to his son and tells him that he deserves to know the truth. After thinking about it all night, the boy returns the envelope, unopened, to Kirkland. “I don’t need to read it,” he says. “I know who my father is.” And with those words, they fall into each other’s arms.
* * *
Even Adults Can Be Adopted
Usually, when a foster child turns 19, they are forced out of the system and left to take care of themselves. But according to a report on KTXM in Waco, Texas, that isn’t always the case.
As a teenager, 19-year-old Monyay spent years in state care and group homes, where she met her caseworker, Leah Paskalides. “She told me what she was going to be doing and helping me out with my case, and I didn’t like her,” says Monyay, “She’ll tell you that. ‘
But over five years, the two formed a special bond.
“She was very motivated and had aspirations for a future, and I wanted to help her continue to have that. So, I knew she just needed support,” Paskalides said. She gave Monyay all the support her job would allow. By the time the teen was a senior in high school, she was doing everything alone and realized she wished she had a mom to help her.
That’s when Paskalides stepped up. “She had always said, ‘I wish you could adopt me.’ I couldn’t because of the job, and then, I was watching a documentary where the person had been adopted as an adult. I had never really heard of it,” she said.
So, the two filled out all the paperwork, and during Zoom meeting with the judge on April 27, 2021, Monyay gained a mother and Paskalides a daughter.
“I never thought I was getting adopted — never — especially not as an adult. So, my thing is don’t give up,” Monyay said.
* * *
Ambushed By Kittens
Follow this link to the YouTube story about the cleverest and cutest ambush and carjacking you’ve ever seen.
A man in Louisiana stops on the side of the road to rescue a stranded kitten. But as soon as he picks it up, a pack of at least 10 kittens come out of their hiding places and surround him, all meowing to be rescued as well. “Oh no!” he says. “We've got a kitten problem.”
“I can't take you all,” he says (famous last words). But their meows prove to be irresistible.
According to the YouTube page, he loaded the whole mob of kittens into his car and took them home, where they will stay until he can find each one a new family. “Hot-diggity dog!” he said, not seeming to mind one bit.
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:
Romans 8:12-25
Paul Was Right
Paul writes about hope as a necessary spiritual practice. Researcher Anthony Scioli has been studying hope, and his findings about the value of hope echo Paul’s words.
Scioli “consistently found that a high level of hope was the most powerful predictor of well-being — a finding that surprised even him. Scioli believes that hope ultimately reflects the depth of the mind-body connection. For example, he conducted a study of 12 thyroid cancer patients and found that the hopeful ones reported better health and less distress and worry about their health. Because the sample was small, Scioli added HIV-positive people to the study and got the same results: HIV-positive patients with high hope reported better health and less worry than those with low hope. Interestingly, they also exhibited less denial about their condition. He corroborated their claims by examining their immune cell count, as well as interviewing each individual’s case manager, as a check against the chicken-and-egg question (did the patients feel more hopeful because they were physically healthier or were they in better health because they had hope?). His findings strongly suggest that hope affects our immune systems and general health.”
“Hope represents an adaptive ‘middle ground’ between the over-activated ‘stress response’ and the disengaged ‘giving-up complex,” Scioli writes. Or, as Paul says, “In hope we were saved.”
* * *
Romans 8:12-25
Hope
Paul writes to the believers in Rome about the vital importance of hope, saying, “In hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Author and professor Kate Bowler says that hope is the answer to the Do-It-Yourself mentality of our culture. She highlights all that we can’t see, as Paul does, saying, “We feel our smallness when we consider the universe, unutterably vast, dark, and scattered. Whole swaths of space are empty while elsewhere galaxies drift through the void for eons of time before colliding with each other…We are but a speck. And so, we search for sense and fairness in the rubble of shattered bodies that we see on television or in our own homes. We assume that because our pain is so personal, it must be personally meant, that there must be some inherent significance to the suffering, some lesson the universe is trying to teach us.”
She adds that this “should make us kinder to each other. As temporary creatures made of the same perishable material we should see in each other as fellow pilgrims headed in the same direction, worthy of our concern, people with whom we should be more patient, slower to anger, quicker to help. How different are we really when we consider our lives and struggles and weaknesses?”
This is “where God sets a new horizon. A drama of ultimate importance is coming to a climax; there is a different kind of rent in the fabric of the universe and light will flash through the darkness to illuminate what everything was all about and what everything will come to mean. The light is coming. Our bodies are temporary, and so will be our suffering.” Paul agrees, reminding us that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.”
* * *
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Grow the Violets
In this parable, Jesus counsels a remarkable kind of patience. We don’t know how things will turn out.
Gretchen Schmelzer recalls a story about noted psychiatrist Milton Erikson. A client of his asked him to check on an aunt who was very depressed.
“Erikson took a psychiatry resident with him on this visit. The aunt was wheelchair bound. She had once been involved in her church and community, but now she rarely left the house. The house was cluttered and dark — except for one corner: there was a shelf of African Violets. Erickson and the student sat with this woman in the dark and Erickson talked with the woman about her experience.” It wasn’t really a clinical visit.
Still, as he was leaving, he gave the woman one prescription. “She should get the dates or information of all of the births, deaths, engagements — and other life events from her church community and on those occasions, she should give them one of her African violets. She should share her love of violets with other people and not keep them all to herself.”
The student was baffled by the visit. The great psychiatrist hadn’t asked about her symptoms at all. They had just talked about plants. The student was expecting a lot more, and wanted a lesson on how to treat depression. “To which Dr. Erikson is said to have replied: Sometimes you just have to grow the violets.”
Years later, Dr. Erikson received a newspaper obituary sent by the client about his aunt — a beloved woman who graced every occasion at her church with African violets and how dearly she would be missed. We never know until the end how things will turn out.
* * *
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Gardens
Poet and essayist Ross Gay is a delighted gardener, which is a tradition in his family. Seeds get passed down from family member to family member, and friend to friend. Jesus uses planting and harvesting as metaphors for the realm of God, and Ross Gay also finds spiritual virtues in the garden. He notes that his great-grandmother Biggie, “when she fled Port Gibson, Mississippi, for Youngstown, Ohio, in 1913, brought with her some seeds with which to create the garden she fed everyone from…People saved these seeds because they loved these seeds, and they thought we might love them, too, despite — and it’s crucial we remember this — those people, sometimes, having just barely survived a drought or a famine or being rounded up on a forced march or put into the hold of a ship to hell. Whoever saved the seed loved us before they knew us. And some of them loved us as their world was ending. Our gardens archive that love.” (from Inciting Joy: Essays)
Gardens are archives of love, and, as Jesus tells it, archives of hope, and evidence of God’s plans.
* * * * * *
From team member Elena Delhagan:
Genesis 28:10-19a
“Jacob’s ladder” is a commonly-used term, particularly in the West, that is derived from the passage in Genesis 28. The term is meant to describe a sort of bridge between Heaven and the earthly realm. The symbol of a ladder-as-a-bridge has unknown origins but appears in cultures from China to Scandinavia to ancient Mesopotamia.
Most biblical interpreters agree that in the case of the Genesis text, the entirety of the dream should be viewed as a symbol of YHWH’s favor toward the Israelite people. Yet the metaphor of the ladder has been used across culture and religion to describe everything from the soul’s journey after death to the ups and downs of life (virtue versus vices) to the “straight path” of Islam, the idealized way of life for devout Muslims.
Of particular interest concerning the ladder is that it is depicted in art and literature as having seven rungs. Biblically and within Jewish thought, seven is seen as the number of perfection. Yet in other faiths and cultures, seven is still a significant number. In the ancient Persian myth of Mithras, for example, it is said that, after death, the soul must rise by a ladder of seven rounds, pass through seven caverns of seven metals, governed by the sun, moon, and five planets. In ancient Brahaim mysteries, journeyers must pass through seven worlds, the first being Earth. In Hinduism and Buddhism, one’s life energy travels through seven chakras, from bottom to top of the body. The good news in all that is that humanity is not alone; the Divine is so close, as Jacob recognized, that we, regardless of our faith, can say: Surely God is in this place.
* * *
Genesis 28:10-19a, Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24
Want some fun Hebrew wordplay? The Hebrew word for ladder, used in this Genesis passage, is sulam. A little rearranging of the consonants (for Hebrew is a vowel-less language) reveals another Hebrew word, semel, which means “symbol.” Much can be said about the symbolism behind the ladder Jacob dreamed of, as indicated above!
There is an interesting midrash that attributes Psalm 139 to Adam, despite Masoretic text claiming it was written by King David. Just as Adam was a lump of formless clay before YHWH made him, so too does God knit our cells and organs together mysteriously in our mother’s wombs. The story goes that Adam spoke the words of the psalm upon receiving the vision of all his descendants to come, which explains his cry, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me!” (v.6).
(Fascinatingly, the Septuagint ascribes Psalm 139 to the prophet Zechariah, despite there being nothing in the Hebrew that points to such.)
* * *
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Some commentators have said the weeds in this parable of Jesus most likely would have been a plant called darnel, a type of “mimic weed” that so resembled wheat that, for a time, it was impossible to tell the two apart. Interestingly, however, weeds are not a garden’s worst enemy! In fact, there are numerous benefits weeds can bring to a garden or a yard, including acting as a fertilizer for the soil; repelling pests; increasing soil moisture; and attracting beneficial insects.
There is much to be explored here as one considers questions like: What are the things or people in our lives we’ve written off as harmful that might actually be beneficial to us? Or, conversely, what have we viewed as helpful that might actually be toxic?
* * *
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Parables — which are stories that sometimes can be as short as a sentence or two — were hallmarks of Jesus’ teachings. Jesus, a Jew from ancient Palestine, learned the power of the parable from Israelite scriptures, such as ones found in the book of Judges, and rabbinic texts. The very term “parable” comes from the Greek para (alongside or together with) and balo (to cast or to throw). Even these two terms form a sort of juxtaposition, illustrated in Jesus’ famous delivery of parables that began with, “You have heard it said, but I say to you.” These very words are reminders that no single meaning of any parable can ever be definitively determined; interpretation is the goal.
* * * * * *
From team member Quantisha Mason-Doll:
Psalm 86:11-17
Teach me
The summer of 2023 has been the hottest on record. Death Valley, California hit record levels of 130 degrees Fahrenheit. In some respects, this is the coolest summer for the rest of our lives. Earth and all of creation are at their upper limits’ extremes. Without what feels like divine intervention we are en route for calamity. Humanity has lost sight of God’s command to provide care for creation. Yet if the word of the psalmist rings true the Lord our God knows only compassion and grace. Love and mercy abound if we only trust in the faithfulness of God. The Psalms were written for lamenting and rejoicing in the name of the Lord. There are lessons always to be found in these songs to God. What we must take from the Psalms is the willingness to learn from our own personal mistakes. God will be our comfort in these trying times if only we are willing to see that the foe we are attacking is our own sinful reflections. With faithfulness and action, we will be delivered from the dead.
* * *
Isaiah 44:6-8
American Idol
Many US citizens might struggle with answering the question: What is the supreme law of the Land? The answer to the question is the United States Constitution. Given the polarizing political landscape and the pandering of the ultra-right one would be remiss if they forsake the Constitution in favor of claiming the Christian God or dare, we say, guns. There are many among us that claim to know the will of God, when in fact they are forcing their own agenda under the guise of maintaining moral purity. For those who proclaim who the Lord is — Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty, the first and the last — must tread lightly. When idols are made of ideology, they who worship it will be struck down by the mighty hand of God.
* * *
Romans 8:12-25
The Cost of Empire
No power of friendship or deus ex machina will save us from the reality that, as a collective, we are facing a crisis. The Spirit has marked each of us that proclaims Jesus as Lord heirs to the kingdom of heaven. Romans does not shy from the fact that being an heir to the kingdom means our suffering is present and imminent. It is all for the glory of God. Our earthly suffering is only for a moment yet that does not mean we should take that pain out on creation. When we are in pain, we tend to lash out without thinking of the outcomes of our actions. Here is where our shortcomings lie. If we lay waste to ourselves and creation hoping for the glory of the kingdom, we neglect the groans of creation. Creation, which tells us it hurts to become something new and transformative. Creation and the way we treat it is a direct reflection of the kingdom we stand to inherit. In the words of Rhaenyra Targaryen, “I do not wish to rule over a kingdom of ash and bone.”
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: O God, you have searched us and known us.
All: You know when we sit down and when we rise up
One: You hem us in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon us.
All: Such knowledge is too wonderful for us.
One: Search us, O God, and know our hearts; test us and know our thoughts.
All: See if there is any wicked way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting.
OR
One: Teach us your way, O God, that we may walk in your truth.
All: Give us an undivided heart to revere your name.
One: We give thanks to you, O God our God, with our whole heart.
All: We will glorify your name forever.
One: You, O God, are a God merciful and gracious.
All: You are abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
OR
One: God calls us to be an abundant harvest of grain.
All: We seek God’s blessing as we grow in Christ.
One: God calls us to grow where we are planted.
All: We will seek God’s nurture that we may grow.
One: Trust in God to take care of the wheat and the weeds.
All: We will trust in God as we obey God’s word.
Hymns and Songs
All People That on Earth Do Dwell
UMH: 75
H82: 377/378
PH: 220/221
GTG: 385
NNBH: 36
NCH: 7
CH: 18
LBW: 245
ELW: 883
W&P: 661
AMEC: 73
STLT: 370
For the Fruits of This Creation
UMH: 97
H82: 424
PH: 553
GTG: 36
NCH: 425
CH: 714
LBW: 563
ELW: 679
W&P: 723
Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above
UMH: 126
H82: 408
PH: 483
GTG: 645
NCH: 6
CH: 6
W&P: 56
Renew: 52
I Sing the Mighty Power of God
UMH: 152
H82: 398
PH: 288
GTG: 32
NCH: 12
W&P: 31
Renew: 54
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
UMH: 384
H82: 657
PH: 376
GTG: 366
AAHH: 440
NNBH: 65
NCH: 43
CH: 517
LBW: 315
ELW: 631
W&P: 358
AMEC: 455
Renew: 196
Lord, Speak to Me
UMH: 463
PH: 426
GTG: 722
NCH: 531
ELW: 676
W&P: 593
Pass It On
UMH: 572
NNBH: 417
CH: 477
W&P: 557
Sois la Semilla (You Are the Seed)
UMH: 583
NCH: 528
CH: 478
This Little Light of Mine
UMH: 585
AAHH: 549
NNBH: 511
NCH: 524/525
ELW: 677
STLT: 118
O Splendor of God’s Glory Bright
UMH: 679
H82: 5
PH: 474
GTG: 666
NCH: 87
LBW: 271
ELW: 559
W&P: 144
Make Me a Servant
CCB: 90
We Are His Hands
CCB: 85
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who sends the rain on the good and the evil:
Grant us the wisdom to allow you to sort the wheat from the weeds
as we grow in your grace into wholesome grain for your harvest;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God who sends the rain on the good and the evil. Help us to trust you to sort the weeds from the wheat as we endeavor to grow into wholesome grain for your harvest. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our inclination to judge others.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. Jesus commanded us to not judge others and yet we do so time and time again. You call us to be the wheat that grows so that others may be fed but we prefer to be the farmer who judges between the grain and the weeds. We prefer to pluck out what we perceive as weeds among the wheat without really knowing which is which. Forgive us as we take our rightful place growing into your crop trusting you to determine the value of each plant. Amen.
One: God is the one who sows the seeds and brings in the harvest. Grow as God created you to grow and let God deal with the rest.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God who creates all of life. You are the one who created all things to be good.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. Jesus commanded us to not judge others and yet we do so time and time again. You call us to be the wheat that grows so that others may be fed but we prefer to be the farmer who judges between the grain and the weeds. We prefer to pluck out what we perceive as weeds among the wheat without really knowing which is which. Forgive us as we take our rightful place growing into your crop trusting you to determine the value of each plant.
We give you thanks for the wonders of creation and for the bounty that our earth provides. We thank you for the wonders of space and for the beauty that surrounds us. We thank you for the food we receive and for your grace. You have been generous beyond measure to your creatures.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children in the need. We pray for those who are rejected and regarded as useless weeds. We pray for those who struggle in this life and for those who have lost their way. We lift up to you today those who are on our hearts and minds. (Silent prayer or time for spoken prayers) Hear us as we pray for your children.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
God Has Access
by Katy Stenta
Genesis 28:10-19a
Object: Picture of land to clouds and a mountain, sticks to build a ladder.
Did you know that once upon a time, everyone believed that the only way to access your god was to go up on a mountain? That is why everyone is climbing mountains all of the time.
There are a lot of stories of Moses going up on mountains to talk to God.
Now, the Hebrew God, our God, was already special because it was already promised that God could be accessed on every mountain. Back in the day, gods belonged to certain cities, you would access Athena in Athens, and so forth, so when you switched where you lived, you would switch mountains and you would switch gods, but not our God. Our God could be accessed at any mountain.
But then Jacob has a dream and you know what happens? Something miraculous.
(Build the ladder.)
God shows that God has access to us, and therefore we have access to God, anywhere, not just on mountains.
God can reach us anytime, in any place. Our God is the God of ladders.
Our God is not just the God of high places but also the God of low places.
What do you think that might mean?
(God loves us wherever we are might be a good answer.)
I am so glad that our God is one of access.
Let’s pray...
Dear God
I’m so glad
that you reach us.
No matter
where you are,
and if we can’t reach you,
you build ladders
and remind us
You are there.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, July 23, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- Volunteer Corn by Tom Willadsen based on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, Genesis 28:10-19a.
- Second Thoughts: Climbing the Stairway to Heaven by Chris Keating. Jacob’s encounter with God is a moment of disruptive healing that lifts up a scoundrel and changes him into a man called by God.
- Sermon illustrations by Dean Feldmeyer, Mary Austin, Elena Delhagen, Quantisha Mason-Doll.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children’s Sermon: God Has Access by Katy Stenta based on Genesis 28:10-19a.
Volunteer Cornby Thomas Willadsen
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, Genesis 28:10-19a
I grew up in Central Illinois, corn country. Every spring the local television and radio ads were filled with names like Funk’s G Hybrids, Treflan, and Prowl. Products offered “cleaner beans and bigger yields.” The words of one jingle are burned into my brain as deeply as any Schoolhouse Rock! song:
Standard, broadcast, tank mix or piggyback
It’s the broadleaf control you’ve been looking for
Let Counter do it right.
One of the weeds these post-emergent broadleaf herbicides promised to eradicate was volunteer corn. Volunteer corn was just like regular corn, growing in a soybean field. By late July, volunteer corn was conspicuous, because corn grows much taller than soybeans. It would tower over the field and announce, “That farmer didn’t use Prowl, what a chump!” my judgmental, city-kid self would declare.
But last year, or next year, when the field would be returned to corn cultivation, that volunteer corn would neither be conspicuous, nor a weed. Weed status is determined by timing and location. Think about that, city-kid, preacher of this week’s parable.
In the Scriptures
Today’s parable is the rare one where Jesus explains very clearly what his point is. In the parable itself, the contrast between good and evil is set up explicitly: The owner of the field sowed good seed. Both the sower and his slaves know that good seed was sown. Clearly, the weeds could only have been sown by an enemy. Keep the big picture in mind: Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of Heaven. Maybe that’s also shorthand for the church of Matthew’s day. Either way, the good and the evil will be side-by-side. Just as Stevie Wonder sang with Paul McCartney, “There is good and bad in everyone,” [“Ebony and Ivory,” 1982.] Since there’s good and bad in each of us, it should be no surprise that there’s good and bad in the church, society, even the Kingdom of Heaven.
What’s a farmer or church leader to do? There’s evil right next to us!
Jesus points out three things as he explains the parable.
- Timing is everything. Rooting out evil the instant it emerges is premature and damaging to the crop/faithful.
- The faithful/planted crop will be disturbed, maybe destroyed along with the weeds/evil that are the intended target of the weeder’s hoe.
- It’s God’s job to do the sorting/reaping anyway.
Jacob spends an interesting night there on the banks of the Jabbok. He’s all alone, on a quest for a wife, when he has a dream of a ladder, or ramp or ziggurat that goes between earth and heaven. (He’s not trying to buy it; we’ll leave that to Led Zeppelin.) When he awakens Jacob recognizes that God has been in that place all along, even though he did not recognize God’s presence. This happens so often. In looking to the past we discover God’s presence in moments when we were not aware of it. “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Søren Kierkegaard
In the News
It’s summer and if you’re taking the classic American vacation through the Midwest, you’ll see fields and fields and fields of corn. Yes, there is a drought affecting many states. But the amount of land given to cultivating corn is truly staggering, even in dry times. I used to joke that south of 138th Street in Chicago was one solid corn field, only broken up by the occasional state highway, soybean field and creek — which we pronounced “crick.” The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. It is a tribute to monoculture, land dedicated to growing one crop very, very intensely. Focus. Specialize. Surely that’s how to maximize yields and profit.
Unless we’re wrong.
There are huge advantages to monoculture. And these huge advantages are made possible by huge investments. Planting a single crop of corn or trees, for example, makes harvesting more efficient, since all the plants mature or ripen at the same time.
There are also enormous costs to monoculture:
Ultimately the negative impact of monocultures comes down to two things; loss of biodiversity and the use of pesticides. Healthy ecosystems and habitats are home to hundreds of plant, insect, and animal species. When big stretches of land are used for only one species, the entire balance is disturbed. Important environmental services that are normally provided by the many different species are now left undone. Lower levels of biodiversity on agricultural land also mean that certain insects are left with no natural predators, resulting in their population growing out of control. Monoculture - Wikipedia
“Such plants are ‘weeds’ only to those who make a business of selling and applying chemicals.” ― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
In general, diverse ecosystems are healthier. The pilgrims learned this in 1621, when Squanto’s Wampanoag tribe taught them “The Three Sisters method” of cultivation — corn, beans, and squash grown together. The beans fixed nitrogen in the soil; the corn offered support for the beans and the squash helped the sandy soil retain moisture. All three crops could grow separately, but they were much healthier together.
In a similar way, sociologists are discovering that more diverse teams are more productive. That is, when each team member is heard and taken seriously.
In the Sermon
“And weeds? I will never forget her terse observation: 'Back home, we don't have any weeds. We only have plants for which we have not yet found a use.” ― Peter Denton, Live Close to Home
“Pull out the weeds, or make peace with the dandelions.” ― Frank Sonnenberg, Listen to Your Conscience: That's Why You Have One
“A weed is but an unloved flower.” ― Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Every discussion of weeds has a note of implicit judgment. Those plants do not belong here. Or that plant should not be growing now. Like so many things in life, weed status comes down to timing and location. Jesus reminds us that the field we’re growing in is not ours. That the one who will reap the crop is not us. The moment of harvest is not now.
And given what we’re learning about the contrast between monoculture and polyculture, letting the weeds grow along with the good seed may even be better. We can only know at harvest time. And we’re not the reapers. Relax. Sit back. Listen to the corn grow. Even if it’s the only stalk in a field of soybeans.
SECOND THOUGHTSClimbing the Stairway to Heaven
by Chris Keating
Genesis 28:10-19a
Shortly before Pentecost this year, the town of Gower, Missouri, was overtaken by throngs of pilgrims lining up to see the body of a nun who died four years ago.
Gower has never been a go-to destination for spiritual seekers. It’s not Mecca by a longshot, nor even Taize, France. Yet over Memorial Day weekend, the local sheriff estimated that 200 cars an hour were waiting to gain entrance to the abbey of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles. Sheriff Larry Fish estimated that a crowd of more than 15,000 people — roughly ten times the town’s population — had lined up to see the freshly exhumed body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster.
Part of the urgency, Catholic officials noted, was the ability to touch Sister Wilhelmina’s corpse. Lancaster, foundress of the religious order, died in 2019 at the age of 95. Her religious order removed her body from its grave intending to place it within a glass shrine. They expected to find a crumbling casket of deteriorating bones.
Instead, Sister Wilhelmina’s unembalmed body was nearly perfectly preserved. Much to everyone’s surprise, Sister Wilhelmina appeared to be completely intact, her neatly pressed habit unbothered by the elements. “The intent (of viewing her remains) was devotional,” the order notes on its website, intended for the privacy of its cloistered members. “Nevertheless, the discovery of what appeared to be an intact body and a perfectly preserved religious habit created an unexpected twist to our plans.” Following Pentecost, the plan was to move the nun’s body into a glass case.
To everyone’s surprise, it seemed as though God had shown up in Gower — a tiny town named after a long-forgotten Santa Fe railroad supervisor from the 1800s. It’s the sort of small town where kids mingle at the city pool during summer break and get excited waiting for the city’s annual Gower Days in July. It’s a place where a casual Facebook post invites families to stop by Rocky Road’s Ice Cream to “see Aidan and Anna tonight” for a special treat.
Like Jacob’s dreaming of the ladder to heaven at Bethel, it has become a symbol of the sacred mystery of God breaking into ordinary life. (Some skeptics point out that it is not unusual for some bodies to resist decomposition, especially after only a few years post-burial.)
Meanwhile, Gower is rising to its newfound status.
It’s fascinating that in a world where so many refugees have been forced out of their homes, pushed like Jacob into unfamiliar territories, that spiritual tourism is flourishing. Millions are on the run, while others are simply running toward the sacred.
As the Covid-19 pandemic receded, religious and spiritual tourism began picking up interest worldwide. India is reporting soaring numbers of foreign visitors engaging in pilgrimages. There are, of course, gobs of tour companies offering the more standard visits to European shrines and cathedrals, while new age enthusiasts are finding their way to North American sites like Sedona, Arizona. In Hawaii, for example, a tour boat operator made a splash of publicity in January after an encounter with a humpback whale that she called “an almost spiritual connection.”
Whales, dead nuns, ancient relics, spiritual waterways, and mountains are the places that evoke palpable awareness of God’s promise and presence. It’s a phenomenon that crosses all sorts of religious faiths and traditions. There are even incongruously named secular pilgrimages. That includes college-sponsored walking treks across the 500 mile Camino de Santiago in Spain. Some are calling the treks “prayercations.”
Without sounding grumpy and in need of vacation, I wonder how much capitalism has encroached on these spiritual journeys. It does not take long to imagine postcards and souvenir stands popping up on the roads leading to Gower. Beyond that, it does not do much for a pastor’s ego to imagine that a four-year-old corpse attracts more people than a well-exegeted sermon.
Lee Ann Marino, writing for Patheos, reflects on the stories she has heard over the years of people who paid visits to sites acclaimed for their sacred value. “Each went with the hope that their pilgrimage would render a special blessing…it seemed like everyone was looking for the sacred, looking to touch its concept in their ordinary lives.”
Certainly, there are times when an intentional journey to a holy space, either alone or with a group, becomes transformative. Sitting in the pews of Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist church, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was once pastor, was such a moment for me. Walking the hilly paths of the Montreat, NC Presbyterian Conference center was another. Others have recounted moments of discovering the church where ancestors were baptized or meditating quietly before a loved one’s grave. Backpacking through Yosemite, beholding the surf at Big Sur, or watching the sunrise over the Jersey Shore are experiences still others have held dear. These are moments when the lines between heaven and earth grow thin, and we know ourselves to be held deep within God’s astonishing grasp.
Jacob, however, did not book a coach tour toward Haran. We ignore this point too easily, removing the terror that drove him away. Do not domesticate this dream by singing endless choruses of “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” Remember that he is a man on the run, a guy more like Michael Corleone and less like Sister Wilhelmina. This is the OG spiritual experience: raw, terrifying, yet centered in the inscrutable knowledge of God’s presence and promise. “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you,” the Lord assures Jacob.
This was not exactly the experience Jacob had seen advertised in the brochure. The ladder to heaven was not included in the Google reviews. It is, however, the one experience with the power to both shatter him and heal him.
Perhaps this is an insight we might offer to those holy explorers and pray-cation tourists who join us on Sunday. Intentional pilgrimages are not bad, of course. They can certainly be an integral part to a church’s overall ministry. But Jacob’s encounter with God is different than packing a van full of church members and heading to Kansas City or Taize or wherever. It disrupts his life. It unfolds like a ladder that lifts him out of his brokenness. There will be other moments of mystery, too, but it all begins when he rests his head on a rock and looks out at the expanse of God’s firmament.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Biblical scholars allow that this parable may refer to the practice of exclusivity among early Jesus followers as they tried to create a “pure” community or church. Others insist that the parable applies to the church’s attitude regarding the world.
* * *
Racial Exclusivity in The Church
In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that during his student days he read the Gospels seriously and considered converting to Christianity. He believed that in the teachings of Jesus he could find the solution to the caste system that was dividing the people of India.
So one Sunday he decided to attend services at a nearby church and talk to the minister about becoming a Christian. When he entered the sanctuary, however, the usher refused to give him a seat and suggested that he go worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and never returned. “If Christians have caste differences also,” he said, “I might as well remain a Hindu.” That usher's prejudice not only betrayed Jesus but also turned a person away from trusting him as Savior.
* * *
Banned By The Grand
The Grand Ole Opry is one of the most honored and exclusive clubs in the world. Membership is one of the highest achievements within the country music community. From the first member in 1925, and first performer in house, fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson, through the hundreds of country legends that would follow over the decades — everyone from Minnie Pearl, Ernest Tubb, Chet Atkins, George Jones, Patsy Cline, The Everly Brothers, Willie Nelson, Tammy Wynette, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton, and into the present with newer inductees, including Trace Adkins, Blake Shelton, Kelsea Ballerini, Rascal Flatts and beyond — being welcomed into the house is a sign that you’ve arrived in Nashville, and in country music.
Given the elevated status of its members, it’s no surprise that some have been excluded, expelled, and even banned from membership in that particular high society.
Johnny Cash notoriously smashed the stage lights spraying glass into the front row audience, while Hank Williams lost his membership after failing to show up to his scheduled Opry shows. Dierks Bentley was also banned from the famed venue before he even had a chance to perform on the Opry stage. Here are brief versions of their stories, and a couple more.
1. Hank Williams — A notorious alcoholic, Williams became a member in 1949, but his membership was revoked in 1952 after missing several performances without explanation. It was never said but assumed by most that he was, in those cases, too drunk to play.
2. Johnny Cash — Alcohol also played a part in the “Man in Black” losing his Opry privileges. Inducted as a member in 1956, his membership was revoked in 1965 when, during a performance, an inebriated Cash dragged the microphone stand around, smashing out all footlights in front of the Opry stage. His membership was reinstated in 1968 and he remained an Opry member throughout the rest of his life. He died on Sept. 12, 2003, at the age of 71, just five months after June passed away.
3. Skeeter Davis — A member of the Opry since 1959, Davis took the Opry stage on Dec. 8, 1973, after days earlier witnessing the arrest of the leader of the Christian organization Christ Is the Answer Crusade, at a local shopping center for trespassing. She expressed her disdain at the police officer’s actions.
“This is really something that I should share,” said Davis to the Opry audience before performing “Amazing Grace.” “I didn’t ask our manager, but they’ve arrested 15 people just for telling people that Jesus loves them. And that really burdened my heart, so I thought I would sing you all this song.”
After sharing her opinion of the local Nashville police, Davis’ membership was suspended and she was banned from performing at the Opry. In 1974, the Opry welcomed Davis back, and she continued to perform there until her very last performance in 2002. Skeeter Davis remained an Opry member until her death in 2004 at the age of 72.
4. Jerry Lee Lewis — When he was asked to perform at the Opry on Jan. 20, 1973, he decided to break the house rules they gave him: no cursing and no playing rock songs.
Not only was Lewis foul-mouthed, but he also ignored the commercial breaks and performed a number of rock songs, including his hits “Great Balls of Fire,” “Whole Lotta Shakin Going On,” Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and more before closing on the more tender “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Lewis also broke another rule by playing a 40-minute set, when most artists were restricted to two or three songs.
Lewis never became an Opry member and was banned from performing there after his notorious ’73 appearance.
5. Dierks Bentley — Though Dierks Bentley was eventually welcomed into the Grand Ole Opry as a member in 2005, he was banned from the venue long before he even performed inside. Working as a researcher at a local TV station, The Nashville Network, which was located on the Opryland grounds, Bentley found a way to sneak backstage and hang out with the Opry performers on the weekends. When the Opry general manager, Pete Fisher, caught on to Bentley lurking about too often, according to Opry, he had his access to the venue limited.
After releasing his 2003 self-titled debut with his first No. 1 hit, “What Was I Thinkin'”— which was coincidentally inspired by a girl he met backstage at the Opry long before he was signed by a label — Bentley made his Grand Ole Opry debut that same year and was introduced by Ricky Skaggs. After releasing another hit album with the follow-up, “Modern Day Drifter,” Bentley was inducted into the Opry on October 1, 2005, and became the third-youngest member after Josh Turner and Carrie Underwood.
* * *
To The One Who Always Feels Left Out
Writing for theodysseyonline.com, psychologist Sydney Zatz says that new parent’s share a common nightmare that when they send their children off to school they will be treated badly or they will be lonely, shunted aside and rejected by their peers. Here are some reassurances you might be able to offer in the right place at the right time.
- People care and value you. Just because some friend doesn't see the value you have doesn't mean no one cares. There are people out there who care and value you and what you can bring to a friendship. You just need to go out and find them.
- You are so valuable and special. Don't let friends who don't appreciate you rain on your parade, or put you down. Learn to let go, and to go out and spread your wings to find the people that will treat you the way you deserve to be treated. Sometimes, we stay with those that hurt us a little too long because we're afraid to let go.
- We're afraid that we'll forever be lonely. Not so! If you keep searching, you'll find those people that will make you feel special and valued. Don't sweat the little things. Just let go and keep on going. Make those who treated you badly realize how great of a friend they had. Don't be someone you're not, just to fit in.
- Speak up and do what's best for you. One day you won't be left out. You'll be ok, and remember that just because those friends don't want to be with you, or they treat you badly,” doesn't mean someone else doesn't long for your presence. You'll find your people, that's a promise.
* * *
Speech That Excludes
In 2018 the The Scholarly Kitchen published a study about racism in academia, particularly in the field of scholarly publishing. The article included testimony from people of color who had been excluded from all manner of things in what is thought to be “liberal” academic settings because of their race. The testimonies were published anonymously to protect those who submitted them. Here are two examples:
- Years ago, during my then press’s annual Thanksgiving celebration, one entirely white department came in to great fanfare dressed as “Native-Americans” for “fun.” Obviously, I can’t speak to how all of my other colleagues felt, though some were clearly amused and delighted by it, but I do remember that I and the one other person of color on staff immediately made eye contact with each other with a look of total dismay.
- I was the only person of color in my department. When I asked the administration why they didn’t do outreach to more students of color or promote people of color, the answer from the HR rep was, “We can never find any black students who are qualified or are able to pass our proofreading tests. You were our first and we were really surprised when you passed. Usually people like you don’t make it past the first round. And since there are so few to begin with, there aren’t any to promote.” I left six months later.
* * *
Romans 8:12-25
As we have come to expect from the Apostle Paul, this passage tends to ramble about but the subjects he touches on — adoption, renewal, and independence vs. indebtedness to grace — are all instructive to the Christian and the Christian community.
* * *
I Know Who My Father Is
The television series “Designated Survivor,” is about the highly ethical but little-known Secretary of HUD who becomes President of the United States when a terrorist attack kills everyone in attendance at the State of the Union Address. President Kirkland, inexperienced in politics, faces all kinds of resistance including an attack on the integrity of his marriage and the legitimacy of his oldest child, a teenage son.
The First Lady’s old boyfriend from 17 years ago, now a convict in prison, claims that the boy is actually his child and not the President’s. President Kirkland, who knew there was some small chance that the child wasn’t his, never pursued it. He loved and raised the boy as his own. Now, though, he has a DNA test run to, once and for all, find out the answer.
In a dramatic scene, he gives the sealed and unopened letter holding the answer to his son and tells him that he deserves to know the truth. After thinking about it all night, the boy returns the envelope, unopened, to Kirkland. “I don’t need to read it,” he says. “I know who my father is.” And with those words, they fall into each other’s arms.
* * *
Even Adults Can Be Adopted
Usually, when a foster child turns 19, they are forced out of the system and left to take care of themselves. But according to a report on KTXM in Waco, Texas, that isn’t always the case.
As a teenager, 19-year-old Monyay spent years in state care and group homes, where she met her caseworker, Leah Paskalides. “She told me what she was going to be doing and helping me out with my case, and I didn’t like her,” says Monyay, “She’ll tell you that. ‘
But over five years, the two formed a special bond.
“She was very motivated and had aspirations for a future, and I wanted to help her continue to have that. So, I knew she just needed support,” Paskalides said. She gave Monyay all the support her job would allow. By the time the teen was a senior in high school, she was doing everything alone and realized she wished she had a mom to help her.
That’s when Paskalides stepped up. “She had always said, ‘I wish you could adopt me.’ I couldn’t because of the job, and then, I was watching a documentary where the person had been adopted as an adult. I had never really heard of it,” she said.
So, the two filled out all the paperwork, and during Zoom meeting with the judge on April 27, 2021, Monyay gained a mother and Paskalides a daughter.
“I never thought I was getting adopted — never — especially not as an adult. So, my thing is don’t give up,” Monyay said.
* * *
Ambushed By Kittens
Follow this link to the YouTube story about the cleverest and cutest ambush and carjacking you’ve ever seen.
A man in Louisiana stops on the side of the road to rescue a stranded kitten. But as soon as he picks it up, a pack of at least 10 kittens come out of their hiding places and surround him, all meowing to be rescued as well. “Oh no!” he says. “We've got a kitten problem.”
“I can't take you all,” he says (famous last words). But their meows prove to be irresistible.
According to the YouTube page, he loaded the whole mob of kittens into his car and took them home, where they will stay until he can find each one a new family. “Hot-diggity dog!” he said, not seeming to mind one bit.
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From team member Mary Austin:Romans 8:12-25
Paul Was Right
Paul writes about hope as a necessary spiritual practice. Researcher Anthony Scioli has been studying hope, and his findings about the value of hope echo Paul’s words.
Scioli “consistently found that a high level of hope was the most powerful predictor of well-being — a finding that surprised even him. Scioli believes that hope ultimately reflects the depth of the mind-body connection. For example, he conducted a study of 12 thyroid cancer patients and found that the hopeful ones reported better health and less distress and worry about their health. Because the sample was small, Scioli added HIV-positive people to the study and got the same results: HIV-positive patients with high hope reported better health and less worry than those with low hope. Interestingly, they also exhibited less denial about their condition. He corroborated their claims by examining their immune cell count, as well as interviewing each individual’s case manager, as a check against the chicken-and-egg question (did the patients feel more hopeful because they were physically healthier or were they in better health because they had hope?). His findings strongly suggest that hope affects our immune systems and general health.”
“Hope represents an adaptive ‘middle ground’ between the over-activated ‘stress response’ and the disengaged ‘giving-up complex,” Scioli writes. Or, as Paul says, “In hope we were saved.”
* * *
Romans 8:12-25
Hope
Paul writes to the believers in Rome about the vital importance of hope, saying, “In hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Author and professor Kate Bowler says that hope is the answer to the Do-It-Yourself mentality of our culture. She highlights all that we can’t see, as Paul does, saying, “We feel our smallness when we consider the universe, unutterably vast, dark, and scattered. Whole swaths of space are empty while elsewhere galaxies drift through the void for eons of time before colliding with each other…We are but a speck. And so, we search for sense and fairness in the rubble of shattered bodies that we see on television or in our own homes. We assume that because our pain is so personal, it must be personally meant, that there must be some inherent significance to the suffering, some lesson the universe is trying to teach us.”
She adds that this “should make us kinder to each other. As temporary creatures made of the same perishable material we should see in each other as fellow pilgrims headed in the same direction, worthy of our concern, people with whom we should be more patient, slower to anger, quicker to help. How different are we really when we consider our lives and struggles and weaknesses?”
This is “where God sets a new horizon. A drama of ultimate importance is coming to a climax; there is a different kind of rent in the fabric of the universe and light will flash through the darkness to illuminate what everything was all about and what everything will come to mean. The light is coming. Our bodies are temporary, and so will be our suffering.” Paul agrees, reminding us that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.”
* * *
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Grow the Violets
In this parable, Jesus counsels a remarkable kind of patience. We don’t know how things will turn out.
Gretchen Schmelzer recalls a story about noted psychiatrist Milton Erikson. A client of his asked him to check on an aunt who was very depressed.
“Erikson took a psychiatry resident with him on this visit. The aunt was wheelchair bound. She had once been involved in her church and community, but now she rarely left the house. The house was cluttered and dark — except for one corner: there was a shelf of African Violets. Erickson and the student sat with this woman in the dark and Erickson talked with the woman about her experience.” It wasn’t really a clinical visit.
Still, as he was leaving, he gave the woman one prescription. “She should get the dates or information of all of the births, deaths, engagements — and other life events from her church community and on those occasions, she should give them one of her African violets. She should share her love of violets with other people and not keep them all to herself.”
The student was baffled by the visit. The great psychiatrist hadn’t asked about her symptoms at all. They had just talked about plants. The student was expecting a lot more, and wanted a lesson on how to treat depression. “To which Dr. Erikson is said to have replied: Sometimes you just have to grow the violets.”
Years later, Dr. Erikson received a newspaper obituary sent by the client about his aunt — a beloved woman who graced every occasion at her church with African violets and how dearly she would be missed. We never know until the end how things will turn out.
* * *
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Gardens
Poet and essayist Ross Gay is a delighted gardener, which is a tradition in his family. Seeds get passed down from family member to family member, and friend to friend. Jesus uses planting and harvesting as metaphors for the realm of God, and Ross Gay also finds spiritual virtues in the garden. He notes that his great-grandmother Biggie, “when she fled Port Gibson, Mississippi, for Youngstown, Ohio, in 1913, brought with her some seeds with which to create the garden she fed everyone from…People saved these seeds because they loved these seeds, and they thought we might love them, too, despite — and it’s crucial we remember this — those people, sometimes, having just barely survived a drought or a famine or being rounded up on a forced march or put into the hold of a ship to hell. Whoever saved the seed loved us before they knew us. And some of them loved us as their world was ending. Our gardens archive that love.” (from Inciting Joy: Essays)
Gardens are archives of love, and, as Jesus tells it, archives of hope, and evidence of God’s plans.
* * * * * *
From team member Elena Delhagan:Genesis 28:10-19a
“Jacob’s ladder” is a commonly-used term, particularly in the West, that is derived from the passage in Genesis 28. The term is meant to describe a sort of bridge between Heaven and the earthly realm. The symbol of a ladder-as-a-bridge has unknown origins but appears in cultures from China to Scandinavia to ancient Mesopotamia.
Most biblical interpreters agree that in the case of the Genesis text, the entirety of the dream should be viewed as a symbol of YHWH’s favor toward the Israelite people. Yet the metaphor of the ladder has been used across culture and religion to describe everything from the soul’s journey after death to the ups and downs of life (virtue versus vices) to the “straight path” of Islam, the idealized way of life for devout Muslims.
Of particular interest concerning the ladder is that it is depicted in art and literature as having seven rungs. Biblically and within Jewish thought, seven is seen as the number of perfection. Yet in other faiths and cultures, seven is still a significant number. In the ancient Persian myth of Mithras, for example, it is said that, after death, the soul must rise by a ladder of seven rounds, pass through seven caverns of seven metals, governed by the sun, moon, and five planets. In ancient Brahaim mysteries, journeyers must pass through seven worlds, the first being Earth. In Hinduism and Buddhism, one’s life energy travels through seven chakras, from bottom to top of the body. The good news in all that is that humanity is not alone; the Divine is so close, as Jacob recognized, that we, regardless of our faith, can say: Surely God is in this place.
* * *
Genesis 28:10-19a, Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24
Want some fun Hebrew wordplay? The Hebrew word for ladder, used in this Genesis passage, is sulam. A little rearranging of the consonants (for Hebrew is a vowel-less language) reveals another Hebrew word, semel, which means “symbol.” Much can be said about the symbolism behind the ladder Jacob dreamed of, as indicated above!
There is an interesting midrash that attributes Psalm 139 to Adam, despite Masoretic text claiming it was written by King David. Just as Adam was a lump of formless clay before YHWH made him, so too does God knit our cells and organs together mysteriously in our mother’s wombs. The story goes that Adam spoke the words of the psalm upon receiving the vision of all his descendants to come, which explains his cry, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me!” (v.6).
(Fascinatingly, the Septuagint ascribes Psalm 139 to the prophet Zechariah, despite there being nothing in the Hebrew that points to such.)
* * *
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Some commentators have said the weeds in this parable of Jesus most likely would have been a plant called darnel, a type of “mimic weed” that so resembled wheat that, for a time, it was impossible to tell the two apart. Interestingly, however, weeds are not a garden’s worst enemy! In fact, there are numerous benefits weeds can bring to a garden or a yard, including acting as a fertilizer for the soil; repelling pests; increasing soil moisture; and attracting beneficial insects.
There is much to be explored here as one considers questions like: What are the things or people in our lives we’ve written off as harmful that might actually be beneficial to us? Or, conversely, what have we viewed as helpful that might actually be toxic?
* * *
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Parables — which are stories that sometimes can be as short as a sentence or two — were hallmarks of Jesus’ teachings. Jesus, a Jew from ancient Palestine, learned the power of the parable from Israelite scriptures, such as ones found in the book of Judges, and rabbinic texts. The very term “parable” comes from the Greek para (alongside or together with) and balo (to cast or to throw). Even these two terms form a sort of juxtaposition, illustrated in Jesus’ famous delivery of parables that began with, “You have heard it said, but I say to you.” These very words are reminders that no single meaning of any parable can ever be definitively determined; interpretation is the goal.
* * * * * *
From team member Quantisha Mason-Doll:Psalm 86:11-17
Teach me
The summer of 2023 has been the hottest on record. Death Valley, California hit record levels of 130 degrees Fahrenheit. In some respects, this is the coolest summer for the rest of our lives. Earth and all of creation are at their upper limits’ extremes. Without what feels like divine intervention we are en route for calamity. Humanity has lost sight of God’s command to provide care for creation. Yet if the word of the psalmist rings true the Lord our God knows only compassion and grace. Love and mercy abound if we only trust in the faithfulness of God. The Psalms were written for lamenting and rejoicing in the name of the Lord. There are lessons always to be found in these songs to God. What we must take from the Psalms is the willingness to learn from our own personal mistakes. God will be our comfort in these trying times if only we are willing to see that the foe we are attacking is our own sinful reflections. With faithfulness and action, we will be delivered from the dead.
* * *
Isaiah 44:6-8
American Idol
Many US citizens might struggle with answering the question: What is the supreme law of the Land? The answer to the question is the United States Constitution. Given the polarizing political landscape and the pandering of the ultra-right one would be remiss if they forsake the Constitution in favor of claiming the Christian God or dare, we say, guns. There are many among us that claim to know the will of God, when in fact they are forcing their own agenda under the guise of maintaining moral purity. For those who proclaim who the Lord is — Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty, the first and the last — must tread lightly. When idols are made of ideology, they who worship it will be struck down by the mighty hand of God.
* * *
Romans 8:12-25
The Cost of Empire
No power of friendship or deus ex machina will save us from the reality that, as a collective, we are facing a crisis. The Spirit has marked each of us that proclaims Jesus as Lord heirs to the kingdom of heaven. Romans does not shy from the fact that being an heir to the kingdom means our suffering is present and imminent. It is all for the glory of God. Our earthly suffering is only for a moment yet that does not mean we should take that pain out on creation. When we are in pain, we tend to lash out without thinking of the outcomes of our actions. Here is where our shortcomings lie. If we lay waste to ourselves and creation hoping for the glory of the kingdom, we neglect the groans of creation. Creation, which tells us it hurts to become something new and transformative. Creation and the way we treat it is a direct reflection of the kingdom we stand to inherit. In the words of Rhaenyra Targaryen, “I do not wish to rule over a kingdom of ash and bone.”
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: O God, you have searched us and known us.
All: You know when we sit down and when we rise up
One: You hem us in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon us.
All: Such knowledge is too wonderful for us.
One: Search us, O God, and know our hearts; test us and know our thoughts.
All: See if there is any wicked way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting.
OR
One: Teach us your way, O God, that we may walk in your truth.
All: Give us an undivided heart to revere your name.
One: We give thanks to you, O God our God, with our whole heart.
All: We will glorify your name forever.
One: You, O God, are a God merciful and gracious.
All: You are abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
OR
One: God calls us to be an abundant harvest of grain.
All: We seek God’s blessing as we grow in Christ.
One: God calls us to grow where we are planted.
All: We will seek God’s nurture that we may grow.
One: Trust in God to take care of the wheat and the weeds.
All: We will trust in God as we obey God’s word.
Hymns and Songs
All People That on Earth Do Dwell
UMH: 75
H82: 377/378
PH: 220/221
GTG: 385
NNBH: 36
NCH: 7
CH: 18
LBW: 245
ELW: 883
W&P: 661
AMEC: 73
STLT: 370
For the Fruits of This Creation
UMH: 97
H82: 424
PH: 553
GTG: 36
NCH: 425
CH: 714
LBW: 563
ELW: 679
W&P: 723
Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above
UMH: 126
H82: 408
PH: 483
GTG: 645
NCH: 6
CH: 6
W&P: 56
Renew: 52
I Sing the Mighty Power of God
UMH: 152
H82: 398
PH: 288
GTG: 32
NCH: 12
W&P: 31
Renew: 54
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
UMH: 384
H82: 657
PH: 376
GTG: 366
AAHH: 440
NNBH: 65
NCH: 43
CH: 517
LBW: 315
ELW: 631
W&P: 358
AMEC: 455
Renew: 196
Lord, Speak to Me
UMH: 463
PH: 426
GTG: 722
NCH: 531
ELW: 676
W&P: 593
Pass It On
UMH: 572
NNBH: 417
CH: 477
W&P: 557
Sois la Semilla (You Are the Seed)
UMH: 583
NCH: 528
CH: 478
This Little Light of Mine
UMH: 585
AAHH: 549
NNBH: 511
NCH: 524/525
ELW: 677
STLT: 118
O Splendor of God’s Glory Bright
UMH: 679
H82: 5
PH: 474
GTG: 666
NCH: 87
LBW: 271
ELW: 559
W&P: 144
Make Me a Servant
CCB: 90
We Are His Hands
CCB: 85
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who sends the rain on the good and the evil:
Grant us the wisdom to allow you to sort the wheat from the weeds
as we grow in your grace into wholesome grain for your harvest;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God who sends the rain on the good and the evil. Help us to trust you to sort the weeds from the wheat as we endeavor to grow into wholesome grain for your harvest. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our inclination to judge others.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. Jesus commanded us to not judge others and yet we do so time and time again. You call us to be the wheat that grows so that others may be fed but we prefer to be the farmer who judges between the grain and the weeds. We prefer to pluck out what we perceive as weeds among the wheat without really knowing which is which. Forgive us as we take our rightful place growing into your crop trusting you to determine the value of each plant. Amen.
One: God is the one who sows the seeds and brings in the harvest. Grow as God created you to grow and let God deal with the rest.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God who creates all of life. You are the one who created all things to be good.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. Jesus commanded us to not judge others and yet we do so time and time again. You call us to be the wheat that grows so that others may be fed but we prefer to be the farmer who judges between the grain and the weeds. We prefer to pluck out what we perceive as weeds among the wheat without really knowing which is which. Forgive us as we take our rightful place growing into your crop trusting you to determine the value of each plant.
We give you thanks for the wonders of creation and for the bounty that our earth provides. We thank you for the wonders of space and for the beauty that surrounds us. We thank you for the food we receive and for your grace. You have been generous beyond measure to your creatures.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children in the need. We pray for those who are rejected and regarded as useless weeds. We pray for those who struggle in this life and for those who have lost their way. We lift up to you today those who are on our hearts and minds. (Silent prayer or time for spoken prayers) Hear us as we pray for your children.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMONGod Has Access
by Katy Stenta
Genesis 28:10-19a
Object: Picture of land to clouds and a mountain, sticks to build a ladder.
Did you know that once upon a time, everyone believed that the only way to access your god was to go up on a mountain? That is why everyone is climbing mountains all of the time.
There are a lot of stories of Moses going up on mountains to talk to God.
Now, the Hebrew God, our God, was already special because it was already promised that God could be accessed on every mountain. Back in the day, gods belonged to certain cities, you would access Athena in Athens, and so forth, so when you switched where you lived, you would switch mountains and you would switch gods, but not our God. Our God could be accessed at any mountain.
But then Jacob has a dream and you know what happens? Something miraculous.
(Build the ladder.)
God shows that God has access to us, and therefore we have access to God, anywhere, not just on mountains.
God can reach us anytime, in any place. Our God is the God of ladders.
Our God is not just the God of high places but also the God of low places.
What do you think that might mean?
(God loves us wherever we are might be a good answer.)
I am so glad that our God is one of access.
Let’s pray...
Dear God
I’m so glad
that you reach us.
No matter
where you are,
and if we can’t reach you,
you build ladders
and remind us
You are there.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, July 23, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
