Subversive

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 26, 2020

12 Proper A

If we are lucky, once in a while a great teacher will come into our lives.  Sometimes that person is a professional teacher.  Sometimes the teacher is an informal mentor or even a child. In my experience, a great teacher is someone who can make difficult concepts come alive, help us find gifts we did not know we had, and find different ways to explain a teaching until there is a way for everyone to understand.  My 6th grade teacher was such a person.  Jimmie Nell Johnson brought out the best in each student and worked tirelessly to make sure everyone understood what she was trying to explain.  This was back in the day when penmanship was taught in school and we got graded on our handwriting.  One student in our class, a boy named Chuck, had dreadful handwriting and there was nothing Mrs. Johnson could do to help him learn to write legibly.  So, she taught him how to type-this was before babies were born knowing how to work an iPad- and she made Chuck feel special in the process.  Mrs. Johnson would simply not give up on a student, even when sometimes we wished she would give up on us.

Jesus seems to be that kind of teacher this morning as he teaches about the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is a difficult concept to grasp, especially once we realize that Jesus is not talking about where we go when we die, but how we live here on earth.  Good rabbi that Jesus is, we get 5 parables rather than one to explain the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven.  If gardening and the parable of the mustard seed make no sense to us, then perhaps a baking metaphor and thinking about the Kingdom of God as yeast will make more sense.  Or if we need something that will appeal to our sense of adventure, perhaps the idea of buried treasure will make the Kingdom of Heaven come alive for us.  Or if going to garage sales or going fishing is our passion, then we have the merchant in search of fine pearls or the net cast into the sea.  Surely one of those parables will bring the Kingdom of heaven alive for us and help us understand the presence of God in our midst.

However, the Good Rabbi is not giving us a buffet of parables from which to choose.  Instead, Jesus gives us a 5 course meal of parables.  The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, and yeast, and buried treasure, and a merchant, and a fish net.  All at the same time.   Jesus calls us to look at all of these parables together to understand something of the kingdom of heaven.  While taking in all five parables at once can feel a bit like trying to sip from a fire hydrant, what these 5 little parables have in common will help us understand the Kingdom of Heaven.

          First, they all involve something small and hidden. The mustard seed is small and hidden in the ground.  Yeast is small and hidden in flour.  The buried treasure is small enough to be buried in the ground.  A pearl is small and hidden among other pearls of lesser value.  The net is not small, but the web pretty much disappears when thrown into the sea to catch fish.

Secondly, each parable involves work.  Someone sowed the mustard seed into the field.  The woman took the yeast and mixed it in with the flour.  Someone had to dig up a field to find the buried treasure.  The merchant had to search for the pearls, and someone had to throw that net into the sea.

        Lastly, in each parable, that which started off small and hidden becomes large and visible.  The mustard seed grows into the greatest of shrubs.  The yeast does it work and creates an enormous amount of dough.  When the treasure is found, the man sells all that he has and buys the whole field so that the treasure is his.  The merchant sells everything he owns to buy the one pearl.  And the net catches fish of every kind.

So, from these parables, we learn that the kingdom of God starts off small, and with work grows into the full stature of the Kingdom of God.

However, the explanation of Jesus' parables is rarely that obvious.  Pretty much anything we undertake starts small and with work matures into full potential. As we have noted before, Jesus rarely dispenses common sense.  When we dig a little deeper, we see that each parable is a bit subversive.  Mustard is actually a weed but in this parable the mustard seed is compared with the greatest of all kingdoms, the kingdom of heaven.  Yeast is a symbol of corruption and impurity in Scripture and is cleaned from homes in preparation for Passover.  Someone who finds buried treasure in someone else's field then buys the field to own the treasure without telling the owner is a thief, and merchants rated right up there with tax collectors and other cheats.  But this cheat sells everything to buy the great pearl, which made it impossible for him to do further business.

From this parable, then, we learn that Jesus can use weeds, thieves and cheats to make the Kingdom of Heaven come alive.  Scripture is full of stories about the way God uses thieves, cheats, and weeds.  Our reading from Genesis this morning is evidence of this as Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Leah before he can marry Rachel.  The tables have been turned on Jacob, since Jacob tricked his father to steal his brother's birth right. This is the family through whom God will bless all the families of the earth!  King David was hardly a paragon of virtue yet God used David to create a great nation, and even Noah had some serious character flaws.

In the reading from Romans this morning, Paul tells us that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God. Jesus is saying essentially the same thing with his parables this morning.  When we cannot see the kingdom, when it looks like the powers of evil have done their worst, when no rational person would believe that the kingdom is present, when all we can see is sickness, conflict, and fear, Jesus calls us to believe that we are in the midst of the Kingdom of heaven.  The message of the gospel is that the Kingdom of heaven is present not only when our lives and the world are full of peace and good health.  The gospel message is that even in the hardest of times and the scariest of places, the seeds of the kingdom of heaven are present.  Jesus the great teacher uses five parables to help us engage the gospel promise that the Kingdom of Heaven will be grown by the least likely people and found in the least likely places.  The Kingdom of heaven is like a great surprise waiting to be discovered by those who dare to look in the most unpredictable places.

                                                                                        Amen.

Wilderness

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 19, 2020

11 Proper A

          When I was a child, our grandparents spent their summers living in a real log-cabin in the mountains of North Carolina.  We could see daylight between the logs and the house had a damp mildew musty smell even with the doors and windows wide open.  Shabby chic would not even begin to describe the house, which was probably built in the 1930’s and not much had been done since then.  The house had a huge porch off to one side which served as the dining room. The tiny kitchen was barely functional.  In terms of creature comforts, there was nothing much beyond basic indoor plumbing.  And yet, the cabin was holy ground for my brother, sister, and myself when we were growing up and we loved going there.  What made the cabin holy was not the appeal of the house itself, or the furnishings, or anything else about the structure, I assure you.  What made the house holy ground were the experiences we had there, the family gatherings and time with our grandparents, the love we experienced there, and the freedom to explore the woods around the house.  All three of us hold those memories near and dear to our hearts.

          This morning, Jacob is on the run from his brother Esau, having cheated Esau out of his birthright as we heard last week.  Night is falling and Jacob is tired, so he stops for the night in the wilderness, takes a stone for a pillow, and falls asleep.  While he is asleep, he has a powerful dream in which he hears God repeat God’s promise to Abraham except this time God promises Jacob that God will give Jacob the land on which he sleeps and descendants like the dust of the earth.  God then says “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”  If there was ever any doubt that Jacob would be the heir of the promise to Abraham, that doubt has been removed.  When Jacob wakes up, he realizes that he is in a holy place, a place made holy, I would suggest, by a powerful experience of the presence of God. 

          We also hear the parable of the wheat and the weeds this morning.  In this parable, the servants want to tear the weeds out of the field so the wheat can grow, which makes good sense.  But the householder will not allow them to do so for fear that the servants will tear out the wheat along with the weeds.  Jesus explains that the good seed are the children of the Kingdom, and the weeds are the children of the evil one.  At the end of the age, the wheat and the weeds will be sorted out, and, because this is Matthew’s gospel, the weeds will be thrown into the furnace of fire and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.   Matthew’s gospel is the gospel most concerned with the separation of the righteous and the unrighteous and is the gospel most taken with the furnace of fire and the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

          In our lectionary readings this summer, we are reading sequentially from Genesis and soon Exodus, and from Matthew’s gospel.  So, in one sense it is utter coincidence that we hear the parable of the wheat and the weeds on the same Sunday we hear God confer the promise to Abraham onto Abraham’s grandson Jacob, who has already proven himself to be more weed than wheat.  Jacob perhaps becomes Exhibit A for not judging for ourselves who is wheat and who is weed, who will shine like the sun and who will experience weeping and gnashing of teeth in the furnace of fire. 

          But here is the question these readings raise for me: Can the wilderness of Covid-19, like Jacob’s wilderness, be made holy?

          These days, we can all too easily slip into labeling people as wheat or weeds in the midst of our disagreements over how to curb the spread of Covid-19, how to strengthen the economy, how to talk about race, and on and on.  The list of ways we are divided only grows by the day.  And we so easily move from “I disagree with you” or even “Your view is wrong” to “off to the furnace of fire with you!” labeling some people wheat and other people weeds.

          Jesus reminds us this morning that we cannot always tell the wheat from the weeds, and that if we seek to eliminate the weeds we may well kill off the wheat.  The reading from Genesis reminds us that 1) what may look for all the world like a weed, in this case Jacob, can actually be transformed by God into wheat and 2) that places are made holy by what happens in them.  If a place can be made holy by what happens there, and if wheat and weeds are to live together because a) they cannot always be told apart and b) if the weeds are uprooted, the wheat may be damaged and the whole crop lost, then perhaps humankind is called to be a community rooted in something other than judgement and division.  Perhaps humankind is being called to be a community rooted in love.  What does this look like?  For us as Episcopalians who renew our baptismal covenant every time we have a baptism, this looks like seeking and serving Christ in all people, respecting the dignity of every human being, working for justice and peace, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  In other words, being a community rooted in love means treating every human being as precious wheat despite our differences.  Is the easy?  Absolutely not, which is why we answer every question in the baptismal covenant with “I will, with God’s help.”  But if, with God’s help, we can live as people rooted in love, then perhaps, just perhaps this wilderness we find ourselves in can be make holy.  Perhaps this wilderness called Covid-19 can be transformed by love into a place where we experience God’s presence in new ways through our love for each other.  We will still be in the wilderness.  But a wilderness in which we are transformed by the experience of God and practicing God’s abundant and inclusive love loses the power to destroy us.

                                                                             Amen.

Faithful Sowing

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 12, 2020

10 Proper A

          For many years while I was in the Diocese of Southern Ohio, I served on the Commission on Congregational Life.  The commission was tasked with nurturing congregations that were struggling either with numbers, budgets, or relationships and helping those congregations become healthy and strong whatever their size.  The other work of the commission was to plant new churches.  We would study demographics, find places where an Episcopal Church was most likely to succeed, recruit a church planter, and do the work of growing a church from the ground up.  Some church plants were spectacularly successful, and some lasted only a few years and were closed.  But in those that succeeded, new people were reached with the good news of Jesus and a gospel difference was made in the communities around them.

          Those church plants that succeeded seem to be exactly what Jesus is talking about this morning when he says that seed planted on good soil would bring forth grain many times over.  Jesus is talking to a great crowd of people that has gathered when he says “A sower went out to sow” and gives us the parable known as the parable of the sower, or the parable of the good soil.  As Jesus told the parable, describing seed that was scattered on a path, on rocky ground, among thorns, and on good soil, I wonder what the crowds were thinking.  Were the people wondering what kind of soil they were? What kind of soil their neighbor might be?  Then Jesus explains the parable.  The seed is the word of the Kingdom of God.  When sown, some will not understand, and some will have an initial burst of enthusiasm which will soon die away for lack of deep root.  Some will receive the Word but that Word will be choked out by the thorns of the cares of the world.  And others will hear the word and understand it, bearing an abundant harvest of fruit.

          This parable probably made a lot of sense to those listening.  Those who were not engaged in the business of fishing were likely engaged in agriculture and knew quite well the need to plant in good soil.  Those listening probably wondered how their lives could be good soil so that Jesus’ message could grow in them and bear fruit.  The parable makes sense.

          The problem is that this understanding of the parable is common sense and Jesus is not a common sense savior.  Whenever Jesus seems to be offering common sense advice, we are called to listen more deeply.  In fact, Jesus himself calls us to listen more deeply when he says “Let anyone with ears listen.”  This is our clue that perhaps the parable does not mean what one might think.

          What farmer is actually going to waste good seed on ground that will obviously produce nothing?  No farmer is going to deliberately sow seed on rocky ground, on packed dirt, or among thorns.  That would be wasteful.  But this sower does.  And Jesus never criticizes the sower for doing so.  In the gospel economy, what looks wasteful is actually God’s extravagance. So, in God’s economy, the Word of the Kingdom, which is the message of God’s extravagant love, is to be sown without regard for where the seed might land, whether the seed will grow there or produce much fruit.  God’s economy is about abundance and there is no need to be picky about where we sow the seeds of gospel love or make assumptions about whether our sowing will do any good or not.  But Jesus is telling us that the seeds of the gospel are not going to grow everywhere.  That is just a fact.  But we don’t get to decide where the good soil is.  The good soil will be revealed by the fruit that is produced.

          In the reading from Genesis, we hear of the birth of twins to Isaac and Rebekah.  Esau and Jacob are as different as they can be.  Esau is a skillful hunter and Jacob is a quiet man living in tents.  Esau is the elder by mere moments and thus holds the birthright of the eldest son.  Jacob is jealous of Esau’s birthright and so he takes advantage of Esau’s hunger when Esau comes in from a day of hunting and is famished.  Jacob buys Esau’s birthright from him then serves him some bread and lentil stew.  Jacob becomes the heir of Isaac, which means not only does Jacob inherit his father’s property, but Jacob is also the heir to the promise to Abraham that his descendants will number the stars of the sky.  So, basically, a jealous brother who is a thief and a cheat is the person God will use to move the story of God’s extravagant love forward.  Is that where one would think to sow the seed that is the story of the salvation of God’s people?  Probably not.  Jacob looks to the naked eye more like thorns or rocky ground.  But in God’s economy, Jacob becomes good soil that bears fruit many times over. 

          The parable of the sower is a parable about extravagantly flinging the abundant seed of gospel love as far and wide and covering as much territory as possible, not worrying about whether the seed falls on good ground or not.  We may be very surprised where the seed takes root and where the seed does not.  We sow the seeds of gospel love in all kinds of ways.   Thanking the weary cashier at the grocery store by name may just give her the energy to be kind and gracious to the grumpy shopper who follows, who may go home  less grumpy.  We know that anonymous acts of kindness and generosity encourage the generosity of others.   Words of encouragement in this stressful time help others give encouragement.  A phone call, email or note to someone who might be feeling isolated may help that person reach out to others. And sharing how our faith and our church matter to us in this difficult time could help another person find faith.  The list of possible ways to sow is endless.  The parable of the sower is about faithful sowing even when we know that not all seeds will bear fruit.  The parable of the sower calls us to spread the abundant seeds of gospel love lavishly and let ourselves be surprised where the fruit grows.

                                                                             Amen.

Freedom

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 5, 2020

9 Proper A

When my sister Sarah and I were little girls, our aunt lived in a house with a small apartment in the back.  Every summer, we would go visit our aunt and our grandmother in Headland, Alabama, and if no one was living in the apartment at the time, which was usually the case, my sister and I had a full scale play house. We would spend hours imagining everything we could do if we actually lived there, on our own, at the tender young ages of 8 and 9. We could come and go as we pleased, do what we wanted, when we wanted, and in general live what we considered, at that age, to be a life of perfect freedom.  Never mind that, in Headland, Alabama in the 1960's, everyone knew everyone else and their business, so there was really no such thing as perfect freedom. Never mind that we had no visible means of support or that, short of making the bed, we had no domestic skills beyond opening a package of Oreos.  We just wanted the freedom we thought grown ups had and we were utterly oblivious to any cost or obligation that came with independence.

Independence and freedom are the theme song of the 4th of July.  In the secular world, freedom and independence tend to be primarily individual values, whether those of an individual person or an individual nation.  We value individual freedom to make choices and to live with consequences.  We think of an independent person as someone who has to rely on no one, an independent nation as one that is neither dependent on any other nation nor subject to any foreign power.  We think of freedom as the right to do what we want, when we want, to worship when and where we want, to spend our hard earned money however we want.  We admire the person who has pulled him or herself up by the bootstraps, so to speak, and lived the American dream, rising from poverty to great success.  And rightly so.  These are all admirable qualities.  On the 4th of July, we celebrate our freedom and independence as a nation.  We give thanks for the men and women who have given their lives on behalf of that freedom and independence, and we are called to work on behalf of those for whom the American dream has not yet come true: those on the margins of society in need of nutritious food, safe shelter, meaningful employment, quality education, and guaranteed access to medical care, those who cannot pull themselves us by their bootstraps because they have no boots, metaphorical or real.

Given the emphasis of this holiday weekend on freedom and independence, I find it evidence of God's great sense of humor that our gospel lesson is about a yoke.  A yoke, no matter how easy or light, gentle or humble, is still a yoke that, by definition, binds someone or something to someone or something else.  The most common definition of a yoke is "A crossbar with two U-shaped pieces that encircle the necks of a pair of oxen or other draft animals working together."  According to that definition, a yoke is clearly a symbol of bondage, not freedom, and we recoil from that image when applied in any way to any human being.  So, what kind of yoke could Jesus be talking about?

          When Rebekah left her family and her home to marry Isaac, without ever having met the man, this hardly looks like freedom to our 21st century eyes, even though Rebekah agreed to the marriage.  She is binding herself to an unknown person in an unknown land for an unknown life.  Yet in an odd sort of way, her marriage to Isaac frees her to be a part of God's ancient promise to Abraham that he will be the ancestor of a great nation and his descendants will number the stars in the sky.  In the upside down, inside out world of the gospel, where the outsiders are insiders and the insiders are outsiders, where the last shall be first and the first shall be last, and where the poor shall be rich and the rich will be poor, the binding yoke Jesus offers is actually the yoke of radical freedom.  Jesus' yoke frees us from having to make our way in the world, or into heaven for that matter, all by ourselves.  Jesus' yoke frees us from having to right all the injustices of society single handedly.  Jesus' yoke frees us from having to figure out how to faithfully follow him all by ourselves.   Jesus' yoke is a double yoke, so that we never carry our burdens alone.  Jesus and the whole body of Christ carry those burdens with us.  In Paul's letter to the Galatians, from which we unfortunately do not hear this morning, the apostle tells us to "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ" and the first letter to the Corinthians tells us that when one member of the body suffers, all suffer with it.  Likewise when one member of the body is honored, all rejoice.  The paradox of the gospel is that Jesus' yoke offers radical freedom as it binds us both to Jesus and to one another, freeing us from having to save ourselves and freeing us to both bear one another's burdens and to work together for the good of the whole human family.

In this time of pandemic, we are more aware than ever that what we do affects other people as the number of Covid-19 cases soars largely uncontained.  This is a burden we must bear together in order to survive, putting aside some of our own wishes and dreams to help keep others safe.  As we celebrate both the independence of our country and our freedom in Christ, Jesus reminds us that true freedom joins us together rather than separates us.  In this time of civil unrest as we face the ugly truth of systemic racism, we are called to come together as one human family, to listen deeply to our brothers and sisters of color, and to work for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being as we promise to do at every baptism.  True freedom is not just the freedom to come and go as we please and do what we want when we want to as my sister and I longed to do all those years ago.  True freedom is the freedom to be the people God created us to be, to live as people connected to each other and the whole human family, and to do the work God has given us to do ensuring that  no human being is denied a life of justice and peace.  The message of the gospel is that the yoke of Jesus gives us true freedom as there is no burden anyone must carry alone.

                                                                                       Amen.