October 28, 2007: REFORMATION SUNDAY
Joel 2:23-32; Psalm 65
Eileen Parfrey -- Springwater Presbyterian Church

This Joel text cracks me up. It was the text for a practice sermon during seminary which I dutifully translated from Hebrew, discovering that, like Greenlanders who have 30 names for snow, the Israelites have at least 4 names for locusts. We don't. To us, locusts are "bugs that fly and hop," but Israel's relationship with locusts was more nuanced and needed more ways to name them. What surprised me was that my classmates' first critique of the sermon was that no one wants to know about the different names for locusts. In deference to my classmates, then, I will spare you the locusts to talk about something we know a thing or two about. Rain.

Oregonians really get the rain thing in Joel. When the ground is hard as concrete, we get an antsy feeling, knowing the abundance of our land depends on plants and trees storing up the winter rain. Israel had three rainy seasons, which coincided with three separate growing seasons. Rain was more than "weather" to them. It had religious significance, was a barometer of their relationship with God. That rain falls on Israel is shorthand for a bundle of religious information, boiling down to, "God is in favor of you." It usually cinched the reality of Israel's rescue from the bad guys.

So it should surprise us that the promise of abundance coming with Joel's rain talk also comes with news of apocalypse. You remember apocalypse-judgment, the end of the world as we know it, the completion of God's plan. We often read this part of Joel on Pentecost to celebrate the outpouring of God's spirit on the Church. For Jews present that day, they understood the outpouring of God's Spirit had always been shorthand for empowering for a particular job or task. What was so different at Pentecost-and in Joel's prophecy-was that the Spirit-pouring wasn't empowerment for a job but to empowerment for a relationship. We live in those times. But then Joel gives us portents-blood and fire and columns of smoke, the sun to darkness and the moon to blood. Classic apocalyptic portents, terrifying images. It's no wonder people are calling on the name of the Lord! At this point, a different sermon might move to scare you with hellfire and damnation, but we've been talking about abundance all fall, and these portents are in the context of abundance-rain and harvest. So I'm drawn to the hinge, to Joel's admonition to "call on the name of the Lord."

It's all about "You know what to do." With that simple "call on the name of the Lord," Joel tells his listeners, "Remember to whom you belong. You know this! The cost is paid, abundance is promised." Then he adds a caution, saying, "Avoid judgment by receiving the gift that you are God's own beloved!" Apocalypse is to let us know the consequences of avoiding God's gift of abundance.

My current book on tape is The Education of Little Tree, the memoir of a Cherokee boy raised by his grandparents in a remote mountain cabin. Little Tree remembers one conversation with a peddler who teaches him the difference between "stingy" and "thrifty." This is during the Depression, when everyone was in the same financial boat, so the difference isn't about what they "have" but what they do with it. A stingy person hangs onto what little he's got, and makes money into a god just as much as a powerful, rich person would. A thrifty person is careful, but is able to spend and even be generous about what is important. That's where education comes in. Education, the peddler says, has two parts. The technical part moves you ahead in your trade, helps you in the modern world. The other part of education is valuing, which is about things you stick to and don't change. Things like being honest and thrifty, doing your best for others. To increase your technical education runs the risk of increasing your valuing education results in using the technical destructively. What Little Tree calls valuing education is what in Biblish we call discipleship. By Little Tree's understanding, God is not stingy, but neither is God thrifty, since God is not a careful spender. Throwing good grace after bad, God cuts us slack time after time, reflecting a valuing of us that ignores good economics. That's abundance. And such abundance on God's part calls for a response on our part.

Joel suggests that response is "to call on the name of the Lord." Hebrew scholars say Joel's "call on the name of the Lord" is discipleship, a continuous "calling" that dedicates one's whole heart and life to God. So the salvation from apocalypse that results is not a last-minute, skin-of-your-teeth deathbed conversion. In fact, Joel's talk of portent begins with a "then afterward." After the promised abundance, then God's spirit is poured out. We experience the blessing of God's presence and then the calling on the name of the Lord results in salvation. I'm not talking heaven-after-you-die. Salvation for Joel is a knowing (and living like we know) that we are already God's beloved.

Simple. Simple, in fact, as a child. Earlier this fall I spoke about the life of a Christian as being "light as a feather, flexible as water, simple as a child, active as a ball." Christian living-discipleship--is not hard. Even a child can do it. You know what to do. When I ask the kids about discipleship practices, they know enough to say "pray, read the Bible, come to church, treat other people well, give generously." Why do we think discipleship is complicated? No one is grading us on our performance. I've spent a lifetime of embarrassment because my prayers are so plain. I can't make them flowery or include scripture and poetry. But God doesn't care-even when I repeat myself and stutter and rage and blubber. At least we're on speaking terms, and that's what interests God. Reading the Bible doesn't require a master's degree. In fact, scholarship usually gets in the way of the message (how many words for "locust"?). Coming to church doesn't cost anything, but it does take time. And commitment. Being kind to other people-likewise. Generosity is being thrifty. Stingy people cannot live in abundance; thrifty people do.

You know what you need to know about discipleship. And I say this with love in my heart. All you need to do is make it a practice. That's the operant word-practice. As in repeated habit. As in developing the skill. As in improving and carrying it out and pursuing it. This practice is part of a "valuing" education, not a technical one. Talk with God! Talk with other people. See what their experience has been. Your pastor is dying to talk discipleship with you! Don't grade yourself. You already know what to do. When Joel speaks on God's behalf, he promises abundance, the outpouring of God's Spirit. According to Pentecost, we are living in that time. We are living in the "then afterward" time, when calling on the name of the Lord bears the result of salvation. But our practice must reflect our valuing. If you are like most Americans these days, time is more precious than money. How does your calendar reflect your valuing? Are you stingy or thrifty, and does that include your time with God? What doesn't make it to your calendar? What is so important, so ordinary and regular that it never even shows up as an appointment? Does it reflect discipleship? You know what you need to know. Even a child knows. Pray, read the Bible, come to worship, be good to others, give generously to God. Because God has already been abundant with you. Because you are God's beloved.