Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 12 July 26 2020

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 12 July 26 2020

Genesis 29:15-28, Psalm 105:1-11, 45b, Romans 8:26-39, Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

We need all the encouragement we can get, especially right now. Every time we go out of the house you wear your mask, every turn you take you need to wash your hands, and even though you don’t like it you keep your distance from each other, and you do it to love your neighbors so we can all get out of this pandemic. We need all the encouragement we can get to love our neighbors, all our neighbors, those who look like you and who don’t look like you, those who love like you and those who love differently than you, and those who hold values and beliefs differently than you. Even our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, in his recent remarks to the Executive Council reminded everyone to remember to encourage everybody: to be gentle with each other, to be kind and maybe a little extra kind even. Because everybody's a little bit on edge and everybody's tired and everybody's weary and for good or ill, we've only just begun. We're in this for a while.

So we’ve been reading through Matthew’s parables that have been confusing, harsh, and downright difficult. Today we hear a series of parables that set forth a message of encouragement and speak a word of promise. Each parable describes small beginnings, and great big endings. These parables help us to see that seemingly insignificant acts of work and witness by the followers of Jesus, those who first heard these, and you and I today, are of ultimate importance.

Sometimes we don’t believe that, do we. Sometimes we wonder what the little things we do, positive or negative, have to do with anything. Sometimes we count ourselves insignificant or even unworthy in the greater scheme of things. Sometimes we wonder if we have any impact on our community, our neighborhood, our world. But these parables show us otherwise. What does the kingdom of heaven look like? It looks like the smallest of seeds that has grown into the greatest of shrubs. It looks like the yeast that mixed in with the flour grows and grows and grows. It looks like the treasure buried in a field found by another. It looks like a pearl of great value. It looks like an empty fishing net that when thrown into the sea catches fish of every kind.

We follow Jesus, we walk the way of love, and what we do does matter. Jesus is present. And Jesus is present even if only two or three are gathered together in Jesus’ name sharing in those things that are provided, prayer, supper, serving others. And such small, seemingly insignificant beginnings can hardly appear to be signs of the glorious kingdom to come, but they are, and that is the promise. We have been given these gifts, these seemingly small and insignificant gifts, that grow into gifts of great value.

But we pause here for a moment to remind ourselves that their value is not in what they can be traded for, like money. Their value is not in their size, or their shininess. To the world, they seem like nothing, like Jesus. To the world, Jesus seemed like nothing, an itinerant rabble rouser, from a lowly village, who hung around with smelly fisher folk.

In the kingdom of heaven, the arc of God’s love bends toward growth, and transformation, and resurrection. In our world, on our screens and in our media, precious time is given over to images of opulence, visions of glamour, reflections of power, dreams of stardom. All this causes us to believe we want Hollywood, special effects, big productions, to be the way of our own lives. But this gospel, this good news, makes a claim on our whole lives, it calls us to be all in. These parables show us that money, fame, power, are not what garner joy, but instead, joy and love find us in the dirt, and in the messiness of seeds and dough, where growth can happen, treasure may be found, new life is possible.

Here is something I read this week from the gospel according to CS Lewis. “No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us: it is the very sign of His presence.” (Letters of CS Lewis in Readings for Meditation and Reflection, ed. Walter Hooper, 1992)

Muck and messiness, mud and manure, this is the very sign of God’s presence, and these are the things that give rise to new life. God’s encouragement and God’s promise in these stories is that growth will happen and treasure will be found and new life is possible. Rich dirt is comprised of all sorts of grimy gritty things, compost comprised of decayed organic matter. This is where God is present.

Not only do we desire after the special effects, the big production, but we also yearn for the perfect, the orderly, the antiseptic. In these days when we must cover our mouths and nose to protect our neighbors, it’s hard to remember the days of getting dirty. But just for a moment remember the floating bugs in the red juice at camp. Or the ash on the spatula that fell into the campfire while trying to turn the pancakes. Or the crunchies in the creamy peanut butter sandwiches eaten as a floating picnic in the canoe in the Boundary Waters. All affectionately lumped together as trail dust. How can God find us if we don’t play and dig in the dirt? How can God find us if we never come in contact with smelly, wiggly, compost? Because you see, we have learned over these last few weeks, it is the dirt that is the very sign of God’s presence.

And it is in the dirt that tiny seeds grow into great trees. It is in the dirt that treasures are found. In the dirt things happen. We get dirty, and we are broken.

Perfect is a very tenuous state, perfect is on the edge of broken. So much time, money, and attention is spent on perfect, spent on preventing broken, spent on sealing ourselves off from the muck and mess of living. In the striving for perfection, our veneer is so slick, Jesus has trouble finding us. Broken is not bad, broken is being human. And broken is where Jesus’ blood seeps into our very being, healing and bringing us to new life. The tiny seed must be broken apart in the ground, by all the wiggly things that are there with it, so that it may rise up as a mighty tree. If it remains a perfect seed, it always remains in that deep, dark ground, never to see daylight, never to feel the warmth, never to have new life, never to provide rest for the birds, never to offer mercy and compassion for all who come.

Brokenness is a place Jesus finds us. In the dirt, Jesus finds us. In our society, being broken seems to be a bad thing. But in the kingdom of heaven, there is no value judgment on brokenness. I have friends and family, you have friends and family who are broken, who have been broken. Mental illness, physical illness, addiction, these are things that just are. Not bad, not good. Fragmented relationships, priorities out of alignment, lives that need healing. Into these deep, dark places, Jesus seeps, bringing the nourishment, the compost, that heals our hearts. And all of that leaves scars. Because even healing isn’t perfect.

Healing shows the signs of the brokenness that opens us up to the treasure God has for us. The treasure that is found in the dirt, the treasure that is new life, and hope. The pearl that proves our lives are worth dying for.

Even Jesus, even Jesus is broken, broken for us. And we wear the scars of that brokenness. The scars of mercy, of compassion, of justice. We can offer encouragement, and mercy, compassion, justice, to others, because Jesus encourages us and offers us mercy, compassion, and justice. All of us, no exceptions.

In the kingdom of heaven, the arc of God’s love bends toward growth, and transformation, and resurrection. Resurrection and transformation, now, and not yet. The promise of the kingdom of heaven is the mustard seed that grows into a great tree. The leaven that grows the flour into bread. The treasure that is uncovered in a field. The new kingdom that Jesus begins. We are to live today as if the kingdom has already begun. I am encouraged to live this day, and every day in that promise. How about you?

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 11 July 19 2020

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Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 11 July 19 2020

Genesis 28:10-19a, Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23, Romans 8:12-25, Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

Scholar’s think that the second part of the parable we heard today, the interpretation, was a later addition. So this morning, this preacher is making a choice to preach on the first part, the parable excluding the interpretation.

Let’s take a look at this morning’s parable. The farm hands of the householder have discovered that someone has come out in the dark of night, and sowed weeds in the wheat, and they are beginning to grow alongside the wheat. The farm hands want to pull the weeds, but the householder tells them not to because pulling the weeds would destroy the wheat as well. The householder tells them to let the weeds and the wheat grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time collect the weeds first and burn them, and then gather the wheat.

Last week I told you briefly about my weed garden. Rick is the green thumb in our family, I can’t get anything to grow, except weeds. I have some beautiful huge dandelions, and clover, I really like the clover. If I had it my way, we’d all have native grass yards, that’s really code for “whatever weeds grow in our area.” You see, I’m really not very dedicated to weeding, I pull the ones I don’t think are pretty, that would make me quite judgmental I suppose.

At St. Andrew’s in Rapid City, my friend Harold Oberlander is a wheat farmer. I asked him about growing wheat, it seems to me to be an incredibly hard crop to grow, too much rain, not enough rain, late snow, early snow, and hail will kill it all. Everyone calls him Obie, and I asked him about the weeds and the wheat. He told me you can’t pull the weeds, because pulling the weeds pulls up the wheat as well. Who knew?

In the end, I think this parable from Matthew is about two things. It is about our patience, and it reminds us that God is God, and we are not.

You see, the wheat and the weeds grow up together. If we were wheat farmers, we would know that to remove the weeds is to kill the wheat. These are a particular kind of weed. The weed, or tare, in our gospel parable is a specific plant—darnel—a grass that grows in the same zones where wheat is produced. Darnel looks very much like wheat when it is immature; its roots intertwine with those of the wheat and its toxic grains are loosely attached to the stem. The problem of what to do with an infested field does not have a simple solution—pull up the shoots and you pull up the wheat; wait until the harvest and you poison the grain and contaminate next year’s crop with failing seeds.

You just can’t pull the weeds too early, you must be patient and find the right time for pulling.

In the parable it is reported that the one who is responsible for the weeds is an enemy. But instead of attacking the enemy who put the weeds there, the householder let the weeds and the wheat live together until harvest. If the householder is like God, the field hands are disciples like you and me, the weeds are those who we may consider bad, or evildoers, or even merely those with whom we disagree, and the wheat is those who we may consider good, right thinking, or merely those with whom we agree. At this time in Jewish practice, two different things were never to touch each other, that resulted in impurity, and purity along with holiness were the two most important concepts in Jewish life. But Jesus brings this new thing into the world, new life, new love. I think the point is that Jesus’ disciples, you and me are to let the wheat and the weeds grow side by side and leave judgment to God.

Now, that is shocking. Judgment? is up to God? Not up to you or me. God’s judgment, God’s righteousness, God’s perfection is perfect love and mercy. Blessings of sun and rain fall upon the righteous and unrighteous alike. This is truly a story that reminds us that God is God and we are not.

What has happened here is that Jesus has removed the burden of judgment from our shoulders. Jesus went to the cross and absorbed and contained the evil of the world, the evil of his tormenters. Jesus has freed us to give into love. Don’t be afraid of those weeds, don’t give in to fear. We are not called to serve as judge, judging will only make us more anxious as we try to maintain constant vigilance, always eyeing our neighbor to try to pick out the enemy.

Our vocation is to love, as God first loved us. Jesus is the merciful judge; we don’t have to worry about how to do his job. Jesus is the merciful judge, and so we have access to an unshakable hope, the blessed assurance that we will be judged with the same infinite mercy, as will our enemies.

The wheat and the tare are intertwined; to pull the weeds to early is to kill the plant. It’s a desperate situation. But we know from this side of the story that Jesus is in a desperate situation. We know that his life leads him to suffering and death on the cross, and we also know that ultimately God inaugurates the new creation in Jesus’ resurrection, but not without the suffering that precedes it. Another way to experience this parable of the wheat and the tare is to let it teach us about death and resurrection, about heartache and hope. Maybe the householder is wise in letting the wheat and the tare grow up together because the householder knows something about suffering and death. Because that is the truth, isn’t it? The householder, who is God in this parable, knows something about heartache and hope. Jesus walks in the midst of the weeds and the wheat and embraces us all.

Friends, in the midst of the chaos in which we are living, this parable speaks so much truth. This chaos, all this disruption, is beyond what our normal practices can fix. We want to weed the garden and the gardener is saying, “Wait. Watch. Be patient.” We can hardly tell which is the weeds and which is the wheat, for all the mudslinging name calling and one upsmanship of offense, I’m offended, no I’m offended more! We must listen closely to what the spirit is saying to us, normal is no longer. God is calling us to do it differently. God is calling us to patiently love one another. God is calling us to live together as the beloved community, wheat or weeds, if we try to destroy one, we destroy the whole thing. God is calling us to build one another up, so

It is so hard to be patient isn’t it. We want so desperately to be normal again, when we’ll never be normal. Going back to the way it always was is like pulling the weeds before the wheat is ready. It only does damage. We have to be patient and wait for the newness God has in store for us. The newness that can only come to fruition through patience, and tending, listening, letting go. We are being called to a new thing, and love is the way. And thank God the weeds and the wheat get to grow up together, because really and truly, I’m thankful for the weeds. Amen.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 10 Yr A July 12 2020

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Sixth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 10 Yr A July 12 2020

Genesis 25:19-34, Psalm 119:105-112, Romans 8:1-11, Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

These are all really hard readings today. Each on it own deserves study and reflection and consideration. The Friday morning Bible study group is reading Brian McLaren’s book We make the road by walking. This week McLaren teaches us about the development of God’s relationship with God’s people in the Trinity. McLaren teaches us that our understanding of the trinity leads us beyond violent understandings of God. That violent understanding of God is evident in many Old Testament stories, and in pursuing more deeply todays Genesis story we see that as well. The idea of a violent God comes from ancient Greek and Roman tradition, and doesn’t really serve us well today. I’m not saying that none of the Old Testament serves us well, there are many Old Testament stories that show us exactly who we are. McLaren writes, “the many Greek and Roman gods of ancient tradition were, truth be told, a gang of overgrown adolescents who had more power than moral maturity. They were competitive and egotistical projections of human nature, glorious and gracious one minute, vindictive and cruel the next. But now, imagine the shift when we understand our source and destiny not as a rivalrous gang but as a loving, nonviolent community.”

What we have before us this morning are some hard readings, and as we ask the question about what the kingdom of God looks like, the question we ask specifically of parables as in Matthew, and a question we may ask of all of scripture, accompanied by the other important question, what is God calling us to, a pattern of relationship emerges, a pattern that reveals the possibility of loving, nonviolent community. And that, indeed, is what God calls us to be, a loving community. In which each of God’s beloveds is an active participant in the ongoing growth of the beloved community.  

Matthew’s story is all about the dirt. Gardening metaphors tend to be out of my reach. I am not much of a gardener, so finding myself in K and W Greenery a few days ago caused me to feel inadequate about my gardening skills all over again. But I was there with a purpose. I’ve got rodents digging tunnels in my yard, and it was time to do something about it, or lose my yard. Willie was with me, and we ended up buying 80 lbs of mushroom compost to fill in the holes and tunnels the rodents have made. It had just rained, K and W keeps those bags outside their doors, so each 40 lb bag weighed quite a bit more than 40 lbs. We got those heavy bags home and used every pound of dirt to fill those holes. Well, this has just caused me to think some about dirt. Good dirt, the kind of dirt you can grow stuff in.

So back to the dirt in Matthew’s story. I’ve often said Jesus comes to us in the muck and the mess of life, and here you have it, it’s all about the dirt. The kingdom of heaven is all about the dirt. This parable in Matthew not only includes the good dirt, but some other sketchy dirt as well. Dirt that has been walked over, time and time again, throughout years, and has become packed down and hard enough to be like rock, even if you could dig so that you could plant seeds, they wouldn’t grow. And then there’s the rocky soil, soil filled with thorns and hiding places, no room for seeds to take hold and grow.

What does the kingdom of heaven look like? Matthew, different from Mark and Luke, uses these words, kingdom of heaven, Mark and Luke give us kingdom of God, not too much different. But what Matthew may be imagining is a reality that God has begun and sustains, and that is already present, and it is also still to come. We are summoned to respond to God’s activity in our lives, and God in our midst, Jesus, by lives of profound and active righteousness, conduct focused in acts of mercy and hospitality, by being the beloved community of God’s dream. When we do, we enter into the kingdom of heaven, as it is present now and as it takes shape in the future.

And yet, this kingdom of heaven as Matthew calls it, is not the kingdoms of the world. Those who belong to the kingdom of heaven are likely to find themselves in tension with the kingdoms of the world. While the reference to heaven clearly establishes this kingdom as the realm of God, it is described in the Gospel not so much as a place as a state of being expressed by loyalty to and trust in God, and in God’s child, Jesus, through whom the kingdom of heaven draws near.

So what does this kingdom of heaven, this beloved community look like? Matthew says it belongs to the poor in spirit and the persecuted, and it is governed by humility. And that brings us right back to the dirt. And I really have a lot more questions, so that you might work out some of the answers. What does it mean to be good dirt, prepared to receive the word of the kingdom? How do we assess what kind of shape our dirt is in? What do we need to do for the seed to be able to take root in our bodies and souls? How will we know if this is happening? And how might we nurture good dirt in those around us?

So what does my dirt and Matthew’s dirt have to do with being the beloved community, the kingdom of heaven? Well, everything. I think we are called to spread that good, fertile dirt all over the place, so that the seeds God sows can take root and flourish. We need to be the soil and spread the soil so that God’s beloved community can take hold and grow. We do live in the muck and the mess of this live, don’t we? It seems that in this time of adversity and challenge, rather than uniting toward a common goal of health, physical health, spiritual health, community health, we see division that may well lead us to dissolution, when what we need is transformation. I know that some of feel like we are dry and barren soil right now, just dirt, from which nothing can arise with new life.

We are not without hope. It is true that seeds landing on hard or rocky ground stand less of a chance of gaining root and thriving but it does, sometimes, happen. There are remarkable pictures of trees growing out of rocks and flowers that push up through the pavement. These tenacious plants offer signs that the word of the kingdom will continue to find a way to grow even on the days when we feel beaten down, or overcome by thorns, or at our rockiest.

But always remember, God is the sower, God sows good seed. Whether you are feeling like barren ground, rocky soil, or fertile dirt, God accomplishes the miracle that makes a lowly seed dropped into the dirt into a lovely new living thing. I can’t grow anything, but God can, and I have a lot of what some may call weeds in my former tomato patch, put I think they’re beautiful. We are the beloved community, and love wins.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 9 July 5 2020

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Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 9 July 5 2020

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67, Psalm 45: 11-18, Romans 7:15-25a, Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

We have heard these words from the gospel of Matthew so many times, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” We’ve heard Jesus call the disciples, Andrew and Simon the fisher folk, and Matthew the tax collector. They dropped everything and immediately followed Jesus. But this passage extends that call, it is an expansive invitation from Jesus to all who can hear, including you and me, to follow. When these words fall upon my ears, I listen, but I am not sure that following Jesus is easy, and the burden is light. Sometimes, like you, I think this is really hard. It’s hard to step to a different drummer, when conforming to the values and morals of our culture seems like it would be so much easier. It’s really hard to be the voice in the wilderness that says, resist, resist all that would demean and destroy God’s creation, resist all that would raise the rich and the powerful over and above those who are poor and outcast. Resist the easy fix and the easy answers. When you do, Jesus promises, I will give you rest.

You can do hard things.

Let’s step back just a bit and see what has happened to get us to this place in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew’s story begins with reporting the glorious works of God being done in Israel, and at this point shifts to focus on Israel’s failure to respond to those works. At the beginning of this chapter 11, Jesus was speaking to the crowds concerning John, the one we call Baptizer. Jesus was singing John’s praises, at the very moment John was in prison awaiting his fate. At the same time, Jesus is railing against those who hold power, and against the common people, all who he compares to stubborn children who would not play well with others. In a passage that was left out of our lectionary reading, Jesus castigates the people for being inhospitable and lacking repentance.

And then Jesus does something I think we’ve all done, he stops what’s he’s doing and saying, and he prays. Jesus prayer at this point reveals the intimacy between God and Jesus. I think Jesus shows us that prayer, being present with God, is necessary when we are called to do hard things. It is what equips us to do hard things.

And then this invitation, come to me, follow me, take my yoke upon you. Jesus knows this is hard, probably the hardest thing we ever do. Jesus is asking the people he encountered, and loved and cared about, to exchange the “yoke” they lived under, which is the control of the empire of Rome, for the “yoke” that Jesus offered, the yoke of love, the yoke of reconciliation, the yoke of forgiveness.

Again, I need to stop and consider these words. We don’t use the word yoke much anymore. In fact, some of you probably can’t picture a yoke in your heads. It’s a device for joining together a pair of animals to do the farm work of making rows to plant the seeds, in the days farming was done without big machines. The yoke was a piece that went across the shoulders of two large animals, usually oxen, each enclosing the heads of the animals. The yoke was heavy, it kept the animals doing the job the farmer wanted them to do.

When we imagine that yoke, the image becomes clear. Jesus says, leave the heavy burden that is keeping you hostage, and take on a new yoke, the yoke of love, the yoke of reconciliation, the yoke of forgiveness. Jesus was asking the people of his time to do something very hard. Jesus was asking them to risk everything, their lives and their livelihood, to be free of the empire of Rome. Jesus promises that when we exchange the yoke of the powerful for the yoke of the one who will be crucified, we will find rest.

I think we live in very similar times today. The burdens are huge and heavy. Can we even do that hard thing that Jesus asks? We are shown by our leaders that power over people is much more desirable than working with each other to come to the common good. We see and hear those who are in power that the goal is to make as much money as possible for oneself. There is fear that our way of life, both our secular way of life and our church way of life, is under attack by those who want us to be and do something that we are not. We live at a time and place where we are increasingly taught to believe that true joy, deep satisfaction, and the realization of what we were created for comes through watching out only for ourselves. And all this at the very time we need to be in this together. In this pandemic together, wearing our masks, staying physically distant, not congregating in large or close groups. It is hard, and we are growing impatient. We need to be reminded that being in relationship with, and bearing the burdens of those around us, and staying apart is a good and right way to live for now. But I am preaching to the choir!

But Is the hard thing really laying the burden down? Or is the really hard thing believing Jesus, who says, come to me and I will give you rest, my burden is easy, and my burden is light. You see, Jesus doesn’t simply call the picture of the way the way we think the world works into question. Jesus doesn’t simply call our expectations into question. Jesus gives us a different picture. God is the one who bears our burdens. God is the one who shows up in our need. God is the one who comes along side of us. Nothing demonstrates this more than the cross – God’s willingness to embrace all of our life, even to the point of death, in Jesus, to demonstrate God’s profound love and commitment, love and commitment that will not be deterred…by anything.

It’s not necessarily what we want. We often would prefer a God who takes away our problems rather than helps us cope with them, who eliminates challenges rather than equips us for them. It’s not usually what we want, but pretty much exactly what we need. That’s the rest Jesus is talking about. It’s not an easy rest, it’s not usually what we want, but it’s exactly what we need.

And we are reminded that God always shows up where we least expect God to be: in the need of our neighbor. We are reminded that God shows up in the violence and the protest: demanding that we face the truth that all people are truly created in God’s image.

In our estimation growth and change are not easy. Seeing the world in a new and different way is not easy. But ease is not what Jesus asks of us. Jesus asks us to exchange the burden of the world for the relationship Jesus offers. It is hard, and we can do hard things. And it is what following Jesus looks like. But as we undertake this new yoke, we discover God in Jesus is already there. Waiting for us, encouraging us, forgiving us, bearing us, loving us. Which is what makes the burden light, the yoke not just easy but joyful. Pick up the yoke that Jesus offers, the yoke of love, the yoke of reconciliation, the yoke of forgiveness.

It is hard, but we can do hard things. It is joyful, and love does win. Amen.