Our Living, Lasting, Loving Legacy

How can a Hebrew Bible story of Mother-to-be, Hannah, (who promises to give back her child to serve God in the Temple if only God will grant her the joy of becoming pregnant after so many fruitless years of being barren) have any relevance to our lives today?  No mother I've ever encountered weaned her child and then took him to the priest to live in the church.  There must be something more to the story of 1 Samuel 1: 4-20
The bigger context of this story is that the tribes of Israel (until now loosely confederated) are moving into a time of becoming a kingdom.  Born to Hannah in response to her pleading and praying to God for a child, Samuel grows to become the powerful priest who select King Saul and begins the transition to an Israel united under the King David dynasty that genealogically results in the birth of Jesus many many generations later.
All Hannah has to do is to keep her vow to God and give back her precious son to God!  As disciples of Jesus, we too are called to give back to God - something perhaps as precious as our children.  In response to God's gifts of blessings and shalom, we respond with gratitude by offering our time to serve, our talents to witness the love of Christ for us, and our resources for the benefit of the kingdom, which is being established here and now.  In giving back, we continue a living, loving, lasting legacy of Christian faith which is our privilege and our thanksgiving.

A Little Bit Seedy

Cinderella, King David, and Jesus walk into a bar, each carrying a bag of mustard seeds…sorry, I don’t actually have a punchline for this made-up joke. But the Scriptures this week speak to all elements in that joke – unlikely selections, surprises of grace, seeds - and the Scriptures themselves are full of humor this week.

Read 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 and Mark 4:26-34.

Cinderella, a servant, becomes a princess and finds her true love. David, the runt of the litter, is chosen over all his brothers to be anointed as the next King of Israel. A tiny mustard seed, a bushy garden herb, is declared to be the greatest tree of all, representing the kingdom of God – instead of a majestic, noble cedar or a long-living oak tree. Growing up, I always wondered: what made Cinderella so special that she gets a fairy godmother? Where’s my fairy godmother? Likewise, I bet David’s brothers wondered if Samuel had finally gotten too old, if he had finally lost his marbles – what was he thinking, picking the youngest, the smelly one who worked with the animals? And I can only imagine the disciples’ faces as Jesus explained to them the common mustard seed shrub was actually really great, in fact the best of them all.

Listen to the laughter in the stories, and think about in your own life: where have you had surprises? Where have you been unexpectedly lifted up? Or unexpectedly passed over, after you had worked so hard for that promotion? Where have you seen a passing comment, something tiny, change someone’s life? Where have you felt that you have received undeserved blessings – or jealous that someone else seemed to get all the good luck?

This is what Jesus tried and tried to explain to his disciples – he even took them aside in private to unpack the parables. Grace – overwhelming grace – abundant grace – overflowing grace. Grace – it really is that simple. And this message comes from Jesus, a commoner born in a smelly stable, overcomes sin and death as the Messiah and King of us all. We don’t deserve Jesus as our Savior – and yet we, like the mustard seed, like the runt of the litter, are transformed into sisters and brothers of the living Christ. And if the church is a mustard shrub instead of a great tree, then we can more easily embrace our sisters and brothers who are in need of grace, our sisters and brothers who are on the outskirts of society, who have been rejected and excluded.

Maybe that is the punchline – Cinderella, King David, and Jesus walk into a bar, each carrying a bag of mustard seeds. The bouncer kicks them all out, declaring that they are just too seedy for the establishment. And all three gained their happily ever after on the margins of society.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Kate