Sunday Sermon: October 2007 Archives

We know how it is - everyone ends up in Heaven or Hell for eternity. Heaven is beautiful, safe, everything good and right. Hell is eternal punishment - pain and burning and freezing and loneliness.

The trouble is, our visions of Heaven and Hell are substantially drawn from The Divine Comedy by Dante. Jesus actually offered life versus death. There is no eternal suffering in Jesus's ministry - the references to "unquenchable fire" are just that - a consuming fire that can't be stopped, not a fire in which things are burned but not consumed.

Jesus talks about those parts of humanity which are not desirable fruit being consumed in the fire. Whether those are individuals or aspects of individuals is less clear. However, I prefer to think of it as aspects.

In the parable of the wheat and the chaff, Jesus talks about the harvest and how the wheat will be threshed and the chaff is separated and burned. Chaff is the outside casing of wheat - the part that's not used.

So are we like wheat? Do we have good inside of us that would remain if the useless part is stripped away? I'd like to believe so. And I'd like to believe that what Jesus taught was how to maximize the grain - the seed of that which will live on after the useless chaff is gone.

Honestly, if the useless, undesirable parts of me are damned to the trashpile, or dungheap, or the unquenchable fire, that's fine with me. I'll be working on the seed to which Jesus promises eternal life.

If you prefer to believe in a God who punishes people with eternal suffering, that is your choice. I prefer to believe in a God who created us, loves us, and will help us to achieve  the best.  

When the day began to wear away, the twelve came and said to Him, "Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted place here." But He said to them, "You give them something to eat."

And they said, "We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people." For there were about five thousand men.

And He said to His disciples, "Make them sit down in groups of fifty."  And they did so, and made them all sit down. Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them. - Luke 9:12-17

This miracle is the only one reported in all of the gospels. It's too bad that, with all the hungry people in the world today, that we can't repeat it now.

Or can we?

At 8:30AM today, I'll be rehearsing with my church's praise band. At 10:30, we'll be part of the service at the Harvest Festival in Forrest Illinois.

Three churches will come together to celebrate the harvest to which we all contributed. Two urban churches - * Grace Lutheran Church & School of Forest Park, IL and Plainfield Congregational United Church of Christ - sponsored acres of land tilled by members of St. Paul's Lutheran Church of Forrest Illinois. The harvest of corn will be sold at market rate, and the money raised will be used in a growing project in Africa. The United States Agency for International Development will match the money raised. So from the modest contributions of two churches and the labor of a third, sustainable agriculture will be developed so that people can feed themselves.

This is the work of Foods Resource Bank. 15 Mainline Christian denominations participate in reproducing this miracle of feeding the multitude.

I'd go on, but I have a celebration to prepare for.

Jesus said to them:

"You give them something to eat."

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. - Galatians 3:28

Think about this.

We are all one.

There are no distinctions.

Imagine if we, as Christians, stopped making distinctions between people.

Imagine we stopped distinguishing between people based on color of skin or national origin or citizenship.

Imagine we stopped distinguishing between classes.

Imagine we stopped distinguishing between genders.

Imagine we valued each member of the body of Christ equally - both in and out of church activities.

Imagine we supported each member fully, and didn't distinguish based on where one came from, what kind of work one did, or what gender role(s) one fit.

Imagine we took this idea further and applied it to all of humanity.

Just imagine.