Divine Possibility

 Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 30, 2020

17 Proper A 

          In a week that has seen wildfires in California destroy almost 400,000 acres of land and livelihood, hurricane Laura leave a wake of devastation destroying homes and whole communities, racial violence and protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, political strife and turmoil as we approach a political election, on a Sunday when we ask God’s blessing on our teachers and students for a school year like no other, we hear the story of Moses and the burning bush.  Moses is out beyond the wilderness, keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, when he has an encounter with God in the form of a burning bush that is not consumed by the fire.  In the face of all that challenges us, about which there seems to be precious little we can do to make a difference, a respite out beyond the wilderness, away from the problems of the world, where we could tend sheep, metaphorically at least, and perhaps encounter the Divine along the way sounds pretty good.

          Moses, however, is not just out enjoying a nice pastoral respite.  When we last saw Moses, he was a baby.  Last Sunday, we heard the story of his birth and how he was hidden from Pharaoh until he was three months old, because Pharaoh wanted to kill all the Israelite male babies.  When his mother put him in a basket in the river, one of Pharaoh’s daughters found him, took him as her own, and hired Moses’ own mother to nurse him.  Now, Moses is grown, married, and working for his father-in-law. That’s a lot of growing up in a week!  And between last Sunday and today, Moses has killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew and fled for his life.  So, when we find Moses out beyond the wilderness this morning, he is in hiding from the Pharaoh who is ready to exact revenge for the murder of an Egyptian.  Moses’ plan for his life is to stay out of harm’s way, work for his father-in-law and put the past behind him.

          God has other ideas, however.  God has heard the cry of God’s people, who are enslaved in Egypt.  God knows their suffering and God has a plan.  God’s plan is for Moses, a fugitive on the run, to return to the scene of the crime and ask the person who most wants his life, Pharaoh, if he can please release the Israelite people, who we know Pharaoh fears losing because that is why he enslaved and oppressed the Israelites to begin with.  No wonder Moses protests “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”  What part of God’s plan makes any sense at all?

            Jesus has a plan this morning that makes no sense whatsoever to Peter.  Last week we heard Jesus ask the disciples “Who do you say that I am?”  And we heard Peter reply “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  This week, Jesus predicts his own suffering, death, and resurrection.  Jesus’ words do not fit with Peter’s plan for Jesus at all.  When Peter responds “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!”, Jesus’ rebuke cuts to the bone.  “Get behind me Satan.  You are a stumbling block to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  Peter, who last week was given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, is now being called Satan.

          Moses and Peter have two things in common.  Both are flawed people who are asked to do big things by God.  Moses killed someone and Peter is so totally wrong about who Jesus is that Jesus calls him Satan. Yet God still intends for Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, and Peter still holds the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Secondly, both are setting their minds on human things rather than divine ones.  Moses cannot wrap his head around the idea that he should be the one to lead the people out of Egypt, not understanding the power of God to work through him.  Peter cannot imagine that the Son of the Living God would suffer and die, not understanding what God will accomplish through Jesus’ suffering and death.  Both are focused on human limitations rather than divine possibility.

          In the midst of all that is going on in the world today, Jesus calls us to set our mind on divine possibility, not human limitations.  In the face of natural disasters, disease, racial unrest, political turmoil, and decisions we never thought we would have to make for our children, what could Jesus possibly mean?

          I believe at least a piece of the answer is found in the reading from Romans.  “Let love be genuine….hold fast to what is good…outdo one another in showing honor…contribute to the needs of the saints…extend hospitality to strangers…do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  Setting our mind on divine possibility rather than human limitation is to focus on what God can do through us, not what we cannot do alone.  What amazing work can God do through us when we love, hold fast to what is good, contribute to the needs of the world, or offer hospitality to strangers, whether people we do not know or people with whom we disagree.  What can God do through us when we rejoice in hope, practice patience in suffering, and persevere in prayer?  When we believe that there is precious little we can do in the face of so many challenges, we are setting our minds on human limitation.  Jesus calls us to set our minds on divine possibility and ask what God, working through us, can accomplish.  God working through Moses will liberate God’s people from Egypt.  In Jesus, Peter will see God triumph over death.  What might God accomplish through us in these challenging times when we set our minds not on human limitation but on divine possibility?                                                                       

                                                                        Amen.

Normal

 

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 23, 2020

16 Proper A 

          “When will life go back to normal?”  As we move further and further away from February and more and more into pandemic life, I both hear and ask this question more and more.  Anyone on the Christ Church staff will tell you that I am not immune to longing for life to get back to normal. I think most of us wish for the time when we could come and go as we please-without a second thought about whether we have a mask on hand, a time when we could worship in our comfortable and familiar ways, when decisions about how to educate our children did not involve a life threatening virus, and we could see family and friends, plan vacations, and do so many other things that have been interrupted by this virus.  “Normal” is defined as the way life was back in February and we ask “When will life get back to normal?”

          I imagine that the Israelite people were wondering the same thing as they toiled away in the hot Egyptian sun.  The Israelite people had a good relationship with the Egyptians when Joseph was alive as Joseph was the one who kept the Egyptian people from starving during the famine.  But now there is a king who never knew Joseph, nor the story of Joseph’s people.  Because the Israelites were so numerous and strong, the Egyptian king was afraid.  Fear caused the Egyptian king to force the Israelites into hard labor.  But the more the Israelites were oppressed, the more they multiplied, which created greater fear among the Egyptians who demanded harder service from the Israelites.  The Israelite people must have wondered when life would get back to normal.

          When Joseph’s people have been pushed to work harder than humanly possible and were still multiplying, the king of Egypt ordered all of the Hebrew baby boys to be killed at birth.  Rather than getting back to normal, life is getting unimaginably wretched. 

          Enter Shiphrah and Puah, two Hebrew midwives who refuse to obey the King’s command.   These two women were unlikely candidates to stand up to power.  They were not politicians, royalty, or military leaders.  The two midwives are two ordinary women going about the work they have been called to do, delivering babies.  In the course of that very normal work, they are given the opportunity to make a difference, and they do.  And their work moves the story of God’s people forward as the baby Moses is not killed, ends up being raised in Pharaoh’s house thanks to the shrewdness of Moses’ sister, and eventually-to jump way ahead in the story-leads the Hebrew people out of Egypt.

          Shiphrah and Puah do not move the story of God’s people backward to the “normal” the people knew when Joseph was ruler of Egypt.  The two women push the story forward as they find creative, even subversive ways to thwart Pharaoh’s plan.   In answer to the question “When will life go back to normal,” God’s response is to call the people forward into new ways of being God’s people.  I believe the same is true for us.  Getting back to normal is to look only backwards rather than live into the new story God is creating.

          In the reading from Romans, Paul says “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  In good times and even more so in challenging times, God calls us to allow ourselves to be transformed, to be changed, so that we can discern the will of God.  Shiphrah and Puah refused to be conformed to the world and discerned that the will of God was not in killing the baby boys of the Hebrew mothers.  The daughter of the Pharaoh, the very man who ordered the killing of the babies, was not conformed to the world as she took a Hebrew baby boy as her own son, having discerned what was good and acceptable and perfect. The world calls us to look back and set our sights on what has gone before.  God calls us to be transformed and look forward to being the people God is calling us to be.

          This morning, Jesus asks the disciples “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  The disciples reply “Some say John the Baptist, but others say Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  The disciples report that the people are looking back to figure out who Jesus is.  Jesus then asks “But who do you say that I am?”  And Simon’s response is “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  Simon is transformed in that moment, as he looks not backwards, but forward to see what God is doing.  As a symbol of that transformation, Jesus gives Simon a new name and the disciple is known by the name Peter from that point forward.  As we will hear next week, Peter is not immune to looking backwards as he misunderstands what it means to be the Son of God, but Peter does know that Jesus is not someone from the past.

          Jesus asks us “Who do you say that I am?”  If we answer with Peter, and claim that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, that answer means that we are willing and ready to move forward with Jesus into new life.  If we answer with Peter, we, like Shiphrah and Puah, are offering our gifts for use in creative, and perhaps subversive ways, to move the story of God and God’s people forward.  If we answer with Peter, we are allowing ourselves to be transformed, not held to the values of the world, but willing to discern the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect-and look with excitement to the future.   

                                                                                      Amen.

Presence

 

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 9, 2020

14 Proper A 

          My brother has spent a great deal of time working on our family tree.  He has used websites, cemeteries, books, and countless online sources to trace the family back well into the 1800’s and some lines even further.  On paper, the tree is a nicely organized piece of work.  Some lines are sparse and others are quite full.  But each line represents a story, most of which we don’t know, but some of which we do.  Some stories are romantic.  My mother’s parents eloped in 1928 because my grandmother was a home economics teacher and teachers were not allowed to be married then. So they eloped and told no one about their marriage for quite a while.  Some stories are hard-people who died too young, or couldn’t marry their true love because of race or religion, or lives interrupted by war.  And most of the lines are of people who simply worked hard, raised a family, and tried to do good in the world.  But behind every name on the family tree there is a story, known or unknown.

          For weeks now, we have been hearing about the family tree that God has chosen to be a blessing to the world.  Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel and Leah, and now Joseph.  On paper, this family tree looks pretty well thought out and organized.  But scripture does not hide the stories behind the family tree.  Abraham nearly sacrifices his son Isaac, and the two never speak again.  Jacob, the younger son, tricked his father, Isaac, into giving Jacob the birthright of the eldest son Esau.  Then Jacob was tricked into marrying Rachel’s older sister, Leah, before he could also marry Rachel.  Today we hear about two additional wives of Jacob, Bilhah and Zilpah, handmaids of Rachel and Leah who Jacob also married, and the tension between the 12 sons of these various wives.  Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob because he was the first-born son of Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife.  Now we hear that Joseph is a tattle tale and his brothers hate him.  In an act of extreme sibling rivalry, the 11 brothers plotted Joseph’s demise.  They threw Joseph into a pit, then sold him to some Midianite traders who took Joseph to Egypt.  If this sounds like a huge, hot mess to you, you are hearing correctly.  On paper, we have a nice lineage from Abraham and Sarah down to Joseph.  But the story behind the family tree has twists and turns that boggle the mind.

Jesus’ disciples are in a different sort of hot mess this morning.  After feeding 5000 men, plus women and children, Jesus had the disciples get in a boat and head to the other side of the lake.  They are in the middle of the lake, with the wind against them, fighting their way to the other side, when they see what they believe to be a ghost.  Peter wants proof that this ghost is really Jesus so, at Jesus’ invitation, Peter climbs out of the boat and attempts to walk on the water to Jesus.  When he sees the strong wind, Peter becomes frightened and begins to sink.  Jesus saves him with a reprimand: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

This story leads us to believe that if Peter just had enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus.  But there are two problems with this line of thinking.  First, throughout scripture, control over the seas belongs to God, not humans.  God caused the great flood that wiped out all living things not on Noah’s ark, and God caused the rains to stop.  God parted the Red Sea, so that Moses could lead the Hebrew people across the water and away from the Egyptians.  In the book of Jonah, “the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up.”  The list goes on and on.  The ability to control the sea belongs to God, not humans.

Secondly, Peter’s problem when he begins to sink is identified as fear.  But when Jesus rescues Peter, he says “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  What Peter and the disciples doubted was the identity of Jesus.  First, the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost.  And, at 3am in the pitch dark in the middle of the water in a boat being battered by waves, a ghost makes much more sense than thinking that Jesus has strolled out on the water to check on them.  Then Peter says “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  Peter is testing the identity of their visitor.  When Peter begins to sink and Jesus says “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?” the only thing Peter has doubted is the identity of Jesus.  The point of the story is to prove that Jesus is God, not to make the disciples feel badly because they cannot walk on water.  And at the end of the story, the point has been made, as the disciples say “Truly you are the son of God.”

In the Hebrew Scriptures, God identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  In other words, God identifies himself as the God of the whole complicated mess of a story that we find in the book of Genesis.  God does not give up on the Hebrew people, no matter how much they doubt, how much trouble they get into, or how far they stray.  God is their God and they are God’s people for the long haul.  In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us.  By having power over the stormy seas, Jesus demonstrates that he is God.  By coming out to the disciples in the boat, Jesus demonstrates that he is with them.  The story about Jesus walking on the water is not a story designed to make us feel inadequate because we do not have the faith to walk on water.  We are humans.  We are not called to walk on water.  When times are fearful and our boat is being battered by waves and is far from land, or when we feel like we’ve been thrown in a pit and sold into bondage, whether we are in a self-made mess or one we have absolutely no control over, Jesus does not expect us to walk on water.  Jesus does expect us to believe that he can walk on water, that he is with us, and that his presence matters.  Jesus’ presence with us gives us the courage we need to do the work of justice and peace Jesus calls us to do.  Jesus’ presence with us gives us the courage to withstand whatever storm we find ourselves in.  Jesus’ presence with us means we never face anything alone.  The promise of the gospel is that in good times, and especially in frightful and difficult times, Jesus is with us.  And Jesus’ presence matters!

                                                                             Amen.

Little Things

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 2, 2020

13 Proper A

          A couple of years ago, I was invited to a wedding shower, the theme of which was “little things.”  The guests were invited to bring a small thing that brought them joy such as a recipe, or a candle, or their favorite tea or coffee or cookbook.  The bride received a wonderful assortment of little things that make a house or an apartment a home, some of which were new, some of which were family heirlooms ready for a new generation, and all of which brought joy to the giver.  I had never been to such a wedding shower and I was struck, not only by the gifts, but by the stories that accompanied the gifts.  Some people talked about how the item gave them joy.  Others spoke of the history of a family item.  All of those little things were blessed in their giving and represented a huge amount of love and blessing for this bride and her new life.

          Little things seem like the theme of our gospel reading this morning.  A great crowd of people have followed Jesus to a deserted place, where Jesus has compassion on them and cures their sick.  At dinner time, the disciples urge Jesus to send the crowds away to find some food, but Jesus tells the disciples to give the crowd of 5000 men plus women and children something to eat. 

          How, exactly, are the disciples supposed to whip up a meal on the spot for about 10,000 people?  They have five loaves of bread and two fish.  Little things, actually, especially in the face of so many hungry people.  But Jesus takes those little things, blesses and breaks them, then gives the food to the disciples to distribute.  When everyone had eaten their fill, there were twelve baskets full leftover, or more food than they had to start with.

          Much has been written about this story, trying to explain exactly how Jesus fed so many with so little.  Some say that when the little bit was shared, everyone started sharing what they had so there was more than enough.  But there is no evidence in the story that anyone had brought a picnic with them.  Jesus and the disciples are all clear that the people will need to be fed one way or another.  Others say that when we are really hungry, only a small bit of food is needed for us to feel full. While that might be true, that explanation does not account for the 12 baskets full that were left. Still others recognize that this is a miracle pure and simple.  And if we could just figure out how to replicate the miracle we could solve the problem of world hunger overnight.

          Tonight, we will host an online service to acknowledge and pray for what I call “pandemic grief”.  Whether we have experienced the grief of a loved one, or mourn the loss of life the way we knew it in February, or feel the loss of the Eucharist, or the ability to sing together, or have lost a job or other opportunity, or miss family and loved ones and milestone events, whether our grief seems to us to be large overwhelming grief or small, nuisance grief, I think most of us have wrestled with grief in this uncertain and challenging time. And if you are like me, perhaps you have wrestled with God a bit, too.

          In our reading from Genesis, Jacob wrestles with a man who turns out to be God.  After a night of wrestling, Jacob tells the man that he will not let the man go unless the man blesses Jacob. Jacob is blessed by God and given a new name, Israel.  Jacob has wrestled with God, been blessed and given a new name, and walks away with a limp.  The limp is a sign that Jacob was not unharmed by the wrestling match, even as Jacob was blessed.  Jacob was blessed AND changed through his wrestling match with God.

          Jesus reminds us this morning that when we offer what we have to God, no matter how small or large, whether something good or something hard, and allow what we have to be broken by God and blessed, what we offer becomes a blessing to many.  Jacob reminds us that when we offer ourselves to God at our deepest level, and wrestle with God whatever our challenge, we will be blessed and changed.  And, while we often talk about offering our little bit of time, or money, or other resources to God, or wrestling with God over God’s call on our lives, or some injustice in the world or some other brokenness, I believe, the same applies to our grief.  When we offer that for which we mourn to God, that which we have lost no matter whether a large thing or a seemingly little thing, and allow God to break it and bless it as with the little bit of bread and the fish, the grief we have offered can become a blessing to ourselves and others.  We become more aware of what really matters to us, more compassionate, more deeply connected with each other and God, and more driven to make a difference.  And, like Jacob who wrestled with God, when we walk out of this wilderness, we will have been changed in ways we cannot imagine.  We may walk with a limp, metaphorical or literal, but we will, like Jacob, will walk out of the wilderness to be a blessing to the world.

                                                                                      Amen.

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.