The 13th Sunday after Pentecost - Forgiveness? Mercy?

On September 11, 2001, I had begun my day at North East Middle School.  I don't remember exactly what I was told when someone came to the classroom around 9:45, except that there was a crisis and I needed to return to my home school, Cherry Hill Middle, without delay.

As I drove quickly over the back roads between the two schools, I listened to my car radio and heard the tragic news.  By the time I arrived, the decision had been made by the school system to send students and then staff home.  After I arrived home, I finally saw the pictures of what had happened in Manhattan on our television. I watched for a long time trying to comprehend what had happened.  It seemed so unreal.  But, of course, it was very real.

I'm sure all of us here today can recall that morning in their lives with the same clarity I do. What would be somewhat different, I think, if we compared notes, were our emotional reactions.  What might even more divergent, I'm sure, would be our opinions concerning all the decisions made and actions taken by our government on our behalf in response to the 9-11 attacks.

As we remember our feelings and reflect on our opinions about this attack on our country and our country's response, we supply the context in which we hear our scripture readings this morning.  Although the usual ways I interpret scripture in my sermons would be valid to use today, I can't imagine doing so.  Rather, the 10^th anniversary of the four airliners being hijacked and used as weapons against thousands of ordinary people, must be the interpretive context used.

The themes of our three scriptures are these: judgment, mercy and forgiveness.  Choosing to act with mercy or to forgive helps us restrain our very human need to retaliate or take control of a situation through violence. All the scriptures refer to situations in which individuals have made or will make choices about how to respond to injury or offense by another.  In them, judgment—and action based on that judgment—are reserved for God.  In addition, the reading from Genesis claims that God can bring good out of the worst of situations.

Our readings make strong claims about judgment being God's and about Jesus' teaching that his followers should practice mercy and forgiveness when they have been wronged.  Do these hold up in the context of September 11, 2001?

To answer this question, I want to offer the testimony of two people.  The first comes from a military chaplain who was working at the Pentagon the morning 9-11; the second, from a 17 year-old young man whose mother died that morning in the Twin Towers.  When she died, he was just 7 years-old.

Navy Chaplain James Magness and other senior Armed Services chaplains were attending their annual meeting at the Pentagon.  After the plane struck the Pentagon, they all assisted with rescue efforts. Chaplain Magness experienced very strong anti-Muslim feelings as a result.

He recounted his feelings and how he dealt with them: “For days on end I contemplated how people of faith, people who affirmed the Abrahamic faith that Jews, Christians and Muslims embrace, could do such a horrible thing. I'm not necessarily naive about people who do bad things. After all, when I was younger I spent the better part of a year in Vietnam being best friends with an M-16 rifle and a 50 caliber machine gun. I learned plenty about the bad things people, me included, can and will do.

But somehow this was different. I wondered if maybe President Bush could be wrong, and we were in a religious war.

Something was happening in my psyche and in my soul. It was as though I was two persons: light and darkness. I was trapped in my own dualism where two competing opposites held me in tension. This was a type of dualism that had captured many Americans. Back in those days right after 9/11 the smart money was for the darkness to win.

Out of my darkness I wanted to get even. I wanted to make ‘those persons’ pay for the pain they had caused us. . . Instinctively, I knew that I had to break out of this dark funk. But how? I prayed the Daily Office of Morning Prayer from my Episcopal prayer book each morning. That didn't do it. I led and attended public worship services. That didn't do it. I talked with a therapist and with my closest friends. Even that didn't do it. What could I do?

Desperately, I needed a change of heart. Yet, I found that the change would not come easily or quickly. For months I grappled with what had by then become a spiritual dilemma in my life. Then, without warning, I got a jolt to my soul that awakened me to a new vista, a new way to move into a greater understanding and grasp of God.

In my role as a leader of Navy chaplains, I visited the military chaplains assigned to our new Joint Task Force detention facility at the Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Ever since the facility opened, we had assigned a Muslim military chaplain to be on staff and work with the detainees, suspected terrorists whom almost all embraced the Muslim faith. Upon arrival I was told that there was significant conflict between the commander of the detention facility and my Muslim chaplain. Though to this day I am still not clear about precisely what caused the conflict, I was very aware that in the end a significant part of the problem was based in the commander's distrust of a Muslim chaplain. On my second day I ended up standing between, quite literally, the commander and my chaplain. Instinctively, I knew that as a leader I had to stand up for the person for whom I was responsible. Well, that was it! At that moment the darkness in my life began to ebb away, the light began to shine.

But why? How? The change began when I was able and willing to sacrifice some of my own safety and security and stand up for a chaplain for whom I was responsible but with whom I had religious differences. That day God had led me to the point at which I had the opportunity to sacrifice my comfortable, condescending and divisive views about all Muslims. I learned that day that once I could affirm my chaplain, my Muslim chaplain, that I could begin to be transformed so that in my soul I could see more light than darkness.”

Seven year-old Nicolas Lanza had lived with his mother in New York when she was killed on 9-11.  Then he went to live with his father in Virginia.  As you might imagine, he had significant adjustment problems. Here is what he wrote:  “I can recall days then the sun would be up but all I could see was darkness. . . I thought for the longest time what happened on 9/11 was my fault.  I could not forgive myself.  I could not forgive the man who caused me the most harm: Osama bin Laden.  I didn't know how to handle the burden of being a 9/11 victim. I told some people who I was, they told others, and pretty soon everybody at my school . . . found out, as did members of the church I attended. But my issues still didn't change.  My inner demons kept on attacking. The summer before high school, I went to a church camp.  It turns out that it was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.  You see I was still carrying the one thing that was wearing me down and leaving me broken. I was still carrying my mother. . . But then during one service, one of my good preacher friends and a few other ministers gathered around me, and they began to pray for me. 

My preacher friend told me that it was time to let everything go. . . For a moment . . .all I could see was this blinding white light. A voice began to say, 'You belong to me my child.  You shall no longer be burdened with these chains that you wear about you.  You are free.'

It was then that I realized I was . . . bound by the thick iron chains of depression, wrath, unforgiveness, and—the thickest and strongest of all chains—my own mother. . . Then words came into my head. . . as though they had been there all this time: I love you.  Now go and tell others the same.”

Nicholas said he had a strong desire to tell Osama bin Laden that he forgave him for “the hideous crime he committed again me.  He reflected on his new understanding:  “Forgiveness is essential to really moving on from any tragic happening. I came to learn this through studying the word of God, prayer and real-life experience.”

An awareness of the importance of forgiveness came for both Chaplain Magness and Nicholas Lanza came as a sudden burst of insight.  It can come more gradually as well.  It comes, I believe, when we accept the connection we share with ALL people through God, our creator.  St. Paul explained this connection with these words: “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then whether we live or we die, we are the Lord's.” And in the end, God will both judge all humankind and show mercy as God sees fit.

“Sprituality forged in smoke and fire,” by James Magness, Episcopal News Service Online, September 7, 2011.  OR http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_129692_ENG_HTM.htm

“Finding Nicholas” by Nicholas Lanza, Newsweek, September 12, 2011, pp. 32-33.

The 12th Sunday after Pentecost - Why have you come?

One of the first tasks in a classroom at this time of the year happens as the teacher and the students decide how their class will function.  The two essential parts of this task are rules and routines.   Sometimes the teacher has these posted on a bulletin board for the students to see as they enter.  Other teachers spend time in the first few days engaging the students in the development of rules.  Routines often follow from the teacher's style of instruction.  But students, through their restlessness or their cooperation, often influence the routines the teacher uses.

Rules and routines help us order our lives.  If they are imposed on us by others, we may resist.  If we create our own, they become our habits—comfortable, if not always good for us or folks around us.  If we are in a family or any group that lives or works together, conflict happens when my view about what the rules and routines should be disagrees with your view in these matters.  How will it get resolved?  Is there a right way that decisions should be made?  Especially in the body of Christ, the church, does scripture lead us into good ways to order our life together?

Were I a person who had no experience in a church community and showed up this morning to find out more about “church,” what would I think as I listened to the reading from St, Paul's epistle to the Romans and the reading of Jesus' teaching from Matthew?  (I might just not come back!) On the other hand, we who have been  members of this Christian community (or any Christian community for a while), how will we react Paul's teaching and Jesus' instruction?

These lessons indicate that the life in a Christian community is important to its members and to God.  Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” St. Paul noted that Christians should “owe no one anything, except to love one another.”  How important is this community for each of us?  Why is it important?  What do with gain by being part of this community?  What, if anything, do we give up by making a commitment to our church?  Each of us came this morning with an answer to these questions—even though we may not be aware of exactly what our answers are.

Might your answer be like St. Paul's?  This community should be a place where I can learn about and practice self-giving love—agape. I should find moral behavior honored, especially the mandate not to harm others by self-centered and violent behavior.  I would expect this community to focus on salvation through the light of God in Jesus Christ and reject behavior that pulls a person away from what is good and wholesome.

Then there's a possible answer in the reading from Matthew’s gospel.  Did you come this morning expecting to find a place where folks take responsibility for keeping the community safe by working to help others recognize when they have been engaging in self-centered behavior that wounds others.  Matthew reported that Jesus recommended steps to keep the community “safe” by dealing with conflicts between disciples. What sorts of behavior will be allowed in the community?  Although Matthew's putting the word “church” in Jesus' mouth may be a bit premature, the issue is the same for any group committed to holy living and decision making for the greater good.

Douglas Webster, a Presbyterian pastor, comments on the irony in this passage: “Jesus' spiritual direction on confrontation compels us to distinguish between definable overt sins and the chronic friction we inflict on one another.  We are habitual sinners—troublemakers at the core.  If we confronted one another over every issue that bothers us, we would spend all our time scheduling appointments.”  Webster explains he derives comfort in Jesus' parable of the wheat and the weeds.  In this parable, Jesus “[cuts us] some slack, allowing some things to take their course. [In the parable] he's telling us to leave the 'weeding' and the judging to God.”

My guess is that the answer to the question, “Why did you come this morning?” is found in neither passage.  Mine certainly isn't.  I'm really not looking for someone to take me aside and tell me how I have offended them—nor do I come to planning on taking someone else aside for conversation about how they have missed the mark.  In addition, I don't actually feel holy enough to measure up to the standards St. Paul sets for “putting on the armor of light” and eagerly anticipating salvation.

Rather I come—and indeed I came all those years before I was paid to show up on Sunday with a sermon in hand—I come because I believe that it is in Christian community generally and in our community of St. Nicholas' at this moment that I will encounter God's blessing, God's love and God's grace.  I count on blessing, love and grace from God coming through the power of the Holy Spirit to infuse our liturgy, our fellowship and even (God help me) my preaching.  We need to receive what God has prepared for us today.  We need to receive it in the company of others who long for exactly the same things.  Why?  So all of us may get through the week ahead with whatever life places on our path.  And more—we will be strengthened to share the forgiveness and peace we have received.  We will be empowered to work for the relief of folks in need.  We will be emboldened to share the good news of salvation with all whom God loves—which is everybody.

So it's not some rule, nor even my routines that bring me here this morning.  It is my hope, my hope in God, that brought me here.  How about you?

The 11th Sunday after Pentecost - Living in the Tension

First an earthquake shook us, and then a hurricane came.  When I was talking with the Bishop this past week, I said I thought I would start praying for some time in which nothing much happens—at least in my world.  I tend to minimize what weather reports tell me.  I slept through the storm that toppled a large oak tree in our backyard.  (It fell away from our house and narrowly missed our back yard neighbors by landing in between two houses.)

But on Thursday one of the backyard neighbors called me to ask if she and her husband—and their two cats—could take shelter in our house if the storm was too bad.  Evidently, at that point Newark had not designated any shelter areas, and she wanted to be prepared.  I didn't tell her that my basement in the dark might be scarier than any storm!

Then my children's aunt from Florida called to make sure I knew how to prepare for a hurricane.  I had done most of the things she suggested—but not in preparation for the storm.  I've just been trying to stay organized because of the extra duties I have had during Fred's convalescence.  We even have extra ice frozen in 16 oz. bottles to use in the ice machine for his knee!

So on Friday with my denial shattered, I purchased a good stopper for the bathtub—so I could fill it with water—and two shrink-wrapped cases of bottled water.   Then I moved the large and the small Weber grills into the garage, along with the grilling paraphernalia that was strewn around our patio.  Despite doing all this, I wondered—or maybe worried—whether I really was prepared.

What I was doing on Thursday and Friday was living in “the tension.”  This tension—between what is and what might be—or what should be—describes much of our lives, doesn't it?  Living in the tension occurs when the stakes are high—an important decision must be made, a critical situation faced.  But we also may find our selves living in the tension of competing demands in our lives—what is easy or what is expedient or what is right.

We see both these types of situations in our scripture readings this morning.  In the story of the bush that burned, but was not consumed, God called Moses to the role of a prophetic leader for the Israelites. Moses did not want God's call—the more familiar job of tending the flocks of his father-in-law was working well for him.  But God called him to live in the tension between security and freedom—in this case the freedom of his people.

The Gospel of Matthew depicts Peter as being pushed by Jesus to live in the tension between what Peter had believed about the Messiah and Jesus' teaching about a suffering Messiah.  In the portion of Chapter 16 we heard last week, Peter boldly declared that he believed Jesus to be the “Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”  This was good, for he expected the Messiah would break the oppression by political leaders just as Moses had.  And Jesus called Peter “blessed” for having received this revelation from God.  But there was more to the story—and Peter could not accept the idea of a suffering Messiah.  Matthew said Jesus pushed the point:  “If any want to be my disciples, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

We know that Peter did not live very gracefully in this tension between following the Messiah he—and most Jews—hoped for and the suffering Messiah that Jesus became.  Matthew tells us Peter fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane after Jesus asked him to watch with him as he prayed for a reprieve. By tradition, Peter was the disciple who drew a sword on one of the men arresting Jesus. And finally, in the courtyard of the High Priest, he denied he was one of Jesus' disciples.

And, yes, there was St. Paul, who always seemed to be living in the tension between preaching the gospel and dealing with dysfunction of one sort or another in various early Christian communities.  In the passage from Romans we heard this morning, Paul wasn't issuing platitudes about being nice.  He was addressing real difficulties the members of the Christian community in Rome experienced with each other.  He wanted the members of the community to show “genuine love,” that is, humility, caring concern, and peaceful behavior towards one another and towards their “enemies!”  The Oxford study edition of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible labels this section: “Marks of a True Christian.”  So Paul's preaching called the Roman Christians to live in the tension between the sinfulness of their human nature and the transformed nature that came (or should have come) from following Jesus Christ.

Where does this leave us?  What tension are we living in?  We could well find ourselves in the same one the Roman Christians lived in.  What marks us as true Christians when we find ourselves tempted to pride or anger or vengefulness?  From personal experience, Paul knew how difficult it was to follow the directives he gave to the Romans.  In the 7^th chapter of Romans he writes, “. . . but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

Knowing about his own human nature, Paul still preached the good news to the Romans—and through his writing to us.  Paul proclaimed that through our faith in following Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are no longer trapped in the tension between sin and goodness.  The grace of Christ and God's love frees us from sin to choose what is good.  Of course, we know sometimes we will be overcome by evil and fall into sin.  But God's grace continues to bless us and give us another chance and then a third, and a fourth and a fifth . . . .and on and on . . .as many as we need.  So with God's help, let us act with genuine love toward others, including those we call our enemies.  And may we always seek to overcome evil with good!

The 8th Sunday after Pentecost - Beautiful Feet & A Clown Nose

“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”  Beautiful feet—what an odd image St. Paul used to describe believers who would be sent to proclaim the Good News.  Paul drew this image from the words of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 52:  “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns.”  The salvation promised by Isaiah's prophecy was political freedom for God's people from the nations who have oppressed them.

The salvation Paul promises comes through faith in Jesus Christ.  This salvation breaks the oppression brought about by our inability to fully trust God's promises—no matter how hard we try. We see this truth given dramatic form in Matthew's account of that Jesus walking toward the disciples in a boat.  He appears to be walking on the water in the morning after a stormy night.  But they are not sure who this is approaching them.  Fear prevents them from believing that Jesus has come to them.  The always outspoken Peter challenges Jesus:  “Lord, if it is you . . .”

The good news that Jesus could not be overcome by the chaos of the storm did not register in their fearful minds.  Perhaps Peter had a glimmer of what sort of faith would overcome his fear, but he could not keep focused on Jesus long enough to become steady and secure.  Fear caused him to begin to sink and he screamed, “Lord, save me!

Isn't that our cry so often—O God, save me, help me—or when we are crying out for others—O God, save my friend, my child, my parent, my husband or my wife?  With fear in our hearts we long for the strong hand of Jesus to reach for us, as he did for Peter that morning.

And just how can Jesus manage to do this for us today? 

Susan Sparks, a Baptist minister in New York City, tells this story about how Jesus reached out a saving hand to a fearful little girl through the ministry of a clown: 

"A woman . . . had been a clown for many years (her clown name was Shoolu, and they called her Shoo for short) . . .[She went to visit] a little girl named Belinda, who was in the final stages of leukemia."

"The day I met Belinda," Shoo said, "I came into her room in full clown regalia.  Belinda smiled and reached out and poked at my nose and said, "Why do you wear that?"

"I can't take it off," Shoo said. "I'm a clown, it's who I am, it's how God made me."

Belinda was quiet for a moment, then looked up with a rather sad expression and said, "When I die, what happens?"

"You'll go to heaven," said Shoo.

After a moment, Belinda smiled and said, "Well, then where are you going?"

Shoo said, "I laughed and said, 'Well, clown heaven, of course!'"

Belinda just lit up at that point. "Where's that?" she said excitedly.

"Well," said Shoo, "you know when you let a balloon go and it disappears into the sky? Clown heaven is where balloons go."

"Oh, I wanna go there!" said Belinda with a huge smile. "How do I get to clown heaven?"

Shoo paused and reached in her bag and pulled out a little red nose and put it on Belinda and said, "It's pretty simple, Belinda; all you have to do is go out with your nose on.”

Several days later, the nurse called Shoo and said, "I'm so sorry, but we lost Belinda. However, Shoo, you should know...that she went out with her nose on."

Pastor Sparks offers this opinion:  “Being a Christian is about deciding to go out with our nose on, to live what we believe to our very last breath.”

To live what we believe as followers of Jesus Christ means that fear cannot keep us in its grip.  If we realize we have become afraid, we must call out to God to save us from our fear.  We can look to see how God's care and love are reaching out to us.  And we can reach back—so whomever Jesus sends will be able to pull us out of the fear that threatens to drown us.  We can accept the gift Christ's saving power—as Belinda accepted the little red nose.

“How beautiful are that feet are those who bring good news,” wrote Paul.  No matter what Shoolu's feet actually looked like, they were beautiful feet.  Jesus' feet, as he walked toward the disciples in the boat, were beautiful feet.  In your life, who have been the people with beautiful gospel feet?  Let us give thanks to God for those folks who have come to us with a saving hand when we have been nearly drowning in fear.  May we, in turn, reach out to others as they have need.

[The story about Shoolu and Melinda came from this site: http://day1.org/3044-so_youre_a_christian_whattaya_gonna_do_about_it]

The 7th Sunday after Pentecost - Healing

The Vestry voted a while back to have healing services on the fifth Sundays, which means they come four times a year.  Sometimes the readings for the day and the time in the life of this congregation does not lead me to preach about healing, but today both of these things lead me in that direction.

To say I've been in hospital and rehab settings quite a bit in the last couple of months would be a fair statement.  And our lesson from the book of Genesis speaks about an incident involving an unusual healing.

But before I talk about them, let me clarify something that we all know, but need to think about occasionally, whenever we pray for healing for others or for ourselves.  To be healed is one thing; to be cured is something else.

One type of cure results from a diagnosis of a disease or dysfunction followed by treatment to get rid of the disease.  Modern medical care can do amazing things to cure us from various serious diseases.  Miraculous cures happen when a person with a disease that can't be treated by medical means is cured anyway, by means that science or medicine cannot explain.  These may have happened to people you know—maybe even to you.  These are what we desperately pray for when doctors tell us there is nothing more to be done for someone we love.

We human beings are mortal. Our life spans can be very short or very long or somewhere in between.  We may deny our mortality—most of us do at some point or another—but our mortality need not prevent us from receiving healing.

Prayer for healing does not take the place of medical treatment; the two work together. Being healed through prayer means being given the power to live life as fully and abundantly as possible, no matter what our physical or emotional circumstances.  Healing can occur over and over again as our circumstances change, because we need help from our Creator to live fully in those new circumstances. Yet sometimes we find what ails us (or someone we love) is stronger than our bodies and our minds can handle.  Then healing must take place in the loving arms of God—for we believe that our lives will continue after our earthly ones.  Now let us examine the reading from Genesis to see what it tells us about healing.

Jacob had much to be anxious about.  About 20 years before, he had cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright.  He had manipulated his father-in-law, Laban, to allow him to leave and return to Canaan with his wives, his children and a goodly portion of Laban's flocks, herds and camels. Now he was afraid as Esau came toward him with 400 men.  He had taken measures to protect his family and property by sending them away from him.  As night fell, Jacob was alone.  He encountered a man whom he understood to be a divine being.  The two wrestled and Jacob's opponent dislocated Jacob's hip.  Holding on to his opponent and refusing to allow him to depart, Jacob demanded healing though a blessing.  He received that blessing and a new name to signify what had happened:  “ Israel. . . you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”  Esau and Jacob were reconciled, and Jacob continued to prosper.  Yet in his old age he and his family had to face more difficulties.  We will hear about these in the coming weeks.

Jacob's story reassures us that our healing does not depend on our worthiness.  His healing appeared to depend on his desire to live fully in a relationship with God—even when that relationship involved struggle.  We may expect connection with the Holy One to be easy, because we know we are beloved by God.  Yet Jacob's experience may be more typical than we would like to think.  Of all the words I might use to describe my eight days of retreat this month at the Jesuit Center, “easy” would not be one of them.  “Struggle” would be more accurate. However, by the end—although I don't think it's complete—I could describe my time there as a healing time.  Our healing by God may, indeed, take our entire lives and, as I said earlier, even our lives to come.

Some folks will come forward this morning to the altar rail to be anointed and to receive prayer for healing—for themselves or for someone else.  Some will remain in their places where they will be praying for themselves and for others to be healed.  Some may simply pray without words—in effect asking the Holy Spirit to pray in their stead “with sighs too deep for words.”  This time may be a time of peace for you, or it may be a time of struggle.  In whatever state your find yourself, offer it to God.  The Holy One became present to Jacob when Jacob needed even more than he even knew how to ask for.  The Holy One met Jacob where he was, as he was.  The Holy One will become present to you, will heal you, and will give you wholeness and life more abundant.  Just ask, as you are—and then receive!

The 6th Sunday after Pentecost - Do What for God's Kingdom??

“I want to tell you about something wonderful.  Well, it's kinda like a weed—you go to plant some good seed and you didn't realize that mustard seed was mixed in with it—but when things start growing that mustard plant, that weed—well it's more like a tree it's so big—so big even the birds can nest in it.  What d'ya think?

Well, it really is wonderful.  Well, it's kinda like when a person makes bread.  What if she was making about 100 loaves for a great feast, how much of that yeasty starter do you think she'd need.  I know it looks yucky—but she only has to take just a tiny bit makes all that bread rise perfectly.  Don't you think I'm telling you about something wonderful?

It's so wonderful that I'll bet you'd sell your house and your car and your hi-fi system and your computer—make that both your computers and both your cars—to get enough money to buy it.

And by the way, those who don't get on board with my fabulous offer—it's gonna be just too bad for those jokers!  They will be so angry—they might even cuss you out—when the time comes and they see what you have is so much more wonderful than anything they could ever hope to have.  You will be livin' well.  They'll be suffering!

Do you understand?  Are you with me? This will be so wonderful—so wonderful—it's like brand new—but still as wonderful as what you've always liked, but even better.  Are you with me here?”

I'm not sure Jesus' descriptions of the “kingdom of heaven” really worked to convince his listeners they should sign on.  He's comparing it to a weed and to yeast which people considered necessary, but “unclean.”  And would you be ready to give up everything you have to be part of the kingdom?  If not, he ends with a bit of a warning.  The righteous ones will be included in the kingdom where they will have both tradition and something new as well.  Unlike today, back in New Testament times, new ways were not automatically considered better.

Perhaps Jesus wanted to bring up short those who chose to follow his call and be his disciples. Perhaps he wanted them to think about what being his disciple meant for their lives.  The people for whom Matthew was writing certainly had to decide whether believing in the Good News Jesus taught and died for was worth the risk.  Was believing that God had done something entirely new and wonderful in Jesus worth enduring persecution and possibly death?  Jesus' resurrection and his teaching meant that nothing could ever be the same for those who believed that Jesus was the Messiah.  It meant that believers should live as though the world could end tomorrow.  The writer Annie Dillard says we should be wearing crash helmets in church when we pray for God's kingdom to come, as we do every single Sunday!

The world hasn't come to the end of time yet.  Most of us don't expect that it will anytime soon. And we live in a country where we will not be arrested and killed for our Christian faith. Nevertheless, these parables still have a message for us in the 21^st century in our relatively safe and relatively prosperous environment.

How do these images in these kingdom parables speak to us?  What challenge do they offer us?

We have to begin by thinking about what Jesus meant by the kingdom of heaven and then we have to decide whether we can commit ourselves to working for the spread of God's kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is not something that will only come when the world ends.  From the evidence in all four Gospels we believe that the reign of God in the world began with Jesus' being born as a human being and was confirmed by his resurrection.  To most of the world it was barely noticeable, like the mustard seed of the parable, but it had begun.  Jesus taught about the nature of the reign of God in his preaching and his teaching. In the gospel of Matthew we can hear it most clearly in what we call the Sermon on the Mount, reported by Matthew in Chapters 5, 6 and 7 and in Jesus' teaching about the righteous life in the last part of Chapter 25.

In these passages Matthew showed Jesus as encouraging his listeners to love peace, to be merciful, to care for the poor and downtrodden, to go beyond the moral behavior prescribed by the Ten Commandments, obeying the spirit of them as well.  He taught to give without desiring recognition and to practice our piety with humility as well.  He gave what we call “The Lord's Prayer” as the prayer all disciples should not only say, but also live by.  We should pray for the coming of God's kingdom.  We should practice forgiveness, in the same way God has forgiven us.  The need for God's forgiveness rings true, because we will fall short of the mark as we try to live as Jesus taught.

Is this way of life such a treasure for us that we commit all that we have and all that we are to the work of the God's kingdom?  Some folks did decide to do so and lived in a way that we honor and admire today.  We call them, “Holy Women, Holy Men,” and we are encouraged to remember their lives on their special days.

But what about our lives today here in Brookside and Newark and Bear and Glasgow and Wilmington?  What about our lives as we live in our Christian community called St. Nicholas?  The legends about our patron—and legends are all we have because neither he nor a contemporary wrote about his life—emphasize his generosity and his concern for the poor.  I believe we as a church do respond when we have events like our auction, our soup sale and our yard sale to raise money for worthy causes in our community. Our contributions of food and volunteer work in our food pantry show our commitment to the spread of God's kingdom as well.  As individuals and families, we also give our time, talent and treasure to support works of mercy in the communities where we live.

These parables commend these choices, but they also challenge us to continue.  For indeed we are to be like the “scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus compares that scribe to a householder who will bring out new treasure for the kingdom.  Let us continue to act in ways that offer new treasure, something we have not offered before—something that we may not have realized was needed—to support the spread of God’s kingdom.  

The 4th Sunday after Pentecost - Blessing & Fruitful Soil

The gospel reading we heard this morning is often called the Parable of the Sower, but it could be called the Parable of the Four Soils or the Parable of the Miraculous Yields as well.  For many folks it lends itself to an allegorical interpretation, for example:  the sower is God, the seeds are God's Word, humanity contains different conditions for responding to the Good News preached by Jesus, and we'd better work to be good soil—if possible the highest yielding soil.

This interpretation might lead us to believe that being a good person, or a good church, will make THE difference in the arrival of God's reign.  That, of course, would not square with the faith expressed in the Nicene Creed: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ . . . For us and our salvation he came down from heaven . . . He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”  It does not square with St. Paul's understanding of God's acting to save us from the bondage of sin and death.  In the passage we heard from the eighth chapter of Romans, Paul said:  “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death.”  God has acted through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to create fertile soil in the human heart—to free us and to save us.  All we must do is open our ears, our eyes and our hearts to receive God's gift of grace.

Perhaps a descriptive interpretation would lead to a more “fruitful” understanding. Is Matthew simply reporting Jesus' words as describing the world as it is or the human heart as it is?  Perhaps God's word will take root and with some people in some places, but not in other people or in other places.  Perhaps the different types of soil are all contained within each of us at different times in our lives. Some people live lives that could be described as downtrodden or rocky or full of weeds or thorns.  At different times in our times we may have felt that God has allowed life to become too difficult, so our faith begins to waver or almost dies. Someone as saintly as Mother Teresa wrote that she felt God had abandoned her spiritually.  At other times we feel blessed and close to God, touched by God's love and grace. In those moments we feel ready to be God's heart and hands in the world, acting mercifully, showing compassion, witnessing to our faith in God.

Yet even this approach does not do justice to the complexity of this parable and the complexity of our lives in Christ.  Matthew reported that Jesus first spoke the parable to a great crowd, but later addressed the disciples privately when they asked him why he spoke in parables. This section of chapter thirteen is never read on Sunday, so we never get to hear Jesus tell his disciples:  “To you it has been given to know the secrets [sometimes translated “mysteries”] of the kingdom of heaven . . .blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.”  Then Jesus gives the disciples the explanation of the parable we heard in the second part of the reading from Matthew.

Jesus' interpretation of his parable is allegorical, but he does not prescribe what our response should be.  In fact, the way he interprets the parable appears to encourage us to ponder the mystery of the kingdom, the mystery of God's coming reign: “ . . .blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.”  Your eyes . . . your ears.  Is Jesus asking the disciples to take the risk of trusting their own experience of God—their experience of God revealing God's self through the teaching of Jesus?

My experience of this passage today can be “blessed” by its asking me to marvel at God's work of salvation in me and in each of you.  It may be “blessed” by my learning to place more trust in what God is doing here at St. Nicholas' and less in my own efforts to be your pastor.

Let me say how grateful I am for the support of each person at St. Nicholas’ today.  This community is blessed by you.  I am also grateful for those who worship here regularly, but who are not with us today.  They are away on vacation—or they’re taking care a family matter—or some other important reason draws them away.  We are blessed by them.

Let me say how grateful I am that this community is a haven for folks who show up to worship and are welcomed, some for a season and some simply passing through. We are blessed by their presence.  Then, let me say how grateful I am for the support we give each other every Sunday, so we can go back to our everyday lives with renewed strength and hope through Jesus Christ our Lord.  We are blessed by each other.

Indeed this parable forces me to ponder the mystery of how God is working here.  Were I to make a suggestion to God, I would suggest that our chairs be filled a little more every year.  I am not praying for explosive growth.  I am praying that gradually more and more people would come to know Jesus through our community here at St. Nicholas'. I pray that we who belong to this community would become so fired up in the Spirit that we can hardly bear to miss Sunday worship here—50 Average Sunday Attendance becomes 52 then becomes 54 and so on.  Right now I have faith God is working out God's purpose for us here at St. Nicholas.'  Yet I find this process mysterious.  Do you?

What should we pray for then?  We should pray that our eyes, our ears and our hearts will be both opened and blessed by our experience with Jesus Christ in this community.  May God scatter the seed of God's word among us.  May God enrich the soil of our hearts and minds right here, right now.  May we ponder the mystery of this parable and then trust in the fullness and fruitfulness of God's grace to lead us as we live into the promised kingdom, the reign of God.