Proper 15, Year A

What is God’s Spirit Saying to the Church?

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

Jesus leaves the house and goes down to sit beside the sea. What a natural thing for him to be doing! It is something all of us like to do now and then, especially during the summer months. We leave everything behind, head out into nature and sit quietly at the lakeside. In Jesus case, more is going on than we have been told. He has faced some difficulties in his hometown. People think he is out of his mind. Even his disciples don’t always understand him.

Then the crowds gather. Jesus leaves his solitude, slips into a boat and addresses them from the shore. He tells a parable, a story to which people in this agrarian society can relate. As the story unfolds, they can picture it. They can picture themselves walking through the unploughed field, scattering the good grain they have kept from the last harvest. There is lots of seed. They simply scatter it. They know that some will land on the hardened soil that forms into paths through the fields. It may be lost. The wild thorns that grow up after the ploughing will choke some of the seed. There are stones just under the soil. You can never tell just where they are, out of sight until the field is ploughed. The seed that lands there will surely be wasted. Some seed even gets scattered to the very edge of the field. Birds scoop up some of the grain. But there is plenty of seed. You can afford to lose some. And some of it will produce even in the poorest soil. As he tells them about the sower they understand what is going on. They get it. That is, until he tells them about the bounty of the harvest.

They cannot even imagine producing that kind of a yield. With even a small harvest a farmer is able to put aside enough seed for the following year. What if the harvest was thirty times what was sown? “With that kind of yield,” they are thinking. “I could pay off my debt, put in irrigation ditches and erect a new barn. With sixty times what was sown I would be the richest person in the area. And if it were ninety percent, I would be able to export grain to other countries. I would own it all,” the dream continues.

Jesus simply ends the story there. “Let anyone with ears listen!” he says. They are all ears. Jesus is speaking to them.

But what is he really saying? What does he expect them to make of the story? The parable contrasts seed that never grows and bears fruit with seed that is fruitful. And yet somehow the fruitful seed makes up for the waste that has been involved. We might hear it as a story contrasting faith and unbelief. God’s realm will flourish with or without our help.
Matthew had ears to hear. He interpreted the story for us. He made it a parable about different degrees of faith. It is a very different interpretation, a pep talk to the early Christians. Some were excited by the faith initially, but did not understand. They were unable to receive the message. Some, no doubt, did not put down roots. They lasted for a time, but when troubles arose, persecution, suffering they lost faith. They may even have seen it as proof that there is no God. Some were lured away by worldly possessions. It was more important for them to get ahead in life. Or maybe they simply became too busy to deal with spiritual matters. They put other things first. “But” Matthew points out, “there were enough of those who were fruitful” in good works. Hearing was matched by understanding. They responded to God’s call and were open to God’s leading. They bore fruit.

And what about our own ears? Do we have ears to hear what God’s Spirit is saying to us today? What is the Spirit saying to the Church? What is the Spirit saying to the world? How are we to hear this parable, here in the 21st century in Port Hope? Do we get it? It isn't enough to hear. We have to understand. And even understanding is not enough. At its earliest level, the parable on Jesus’ lips may have been saying that despite all the setbacks they were facing, God had other ideas. God’s realm would come with all of its surprises. The rewards, the outcome, would be beyond imagination. To the uninformed that would have seemed stupid, just as ridiculous as scattering seed willy-nilly seems to us. Who could have imagined that a motely crew of fishermen, tax collectors and sinners could spawn a worldwide religion that would exist two thousand years later? It is absurd, isn’t it? It is Paul’s folly of the cross!

It is easy to look at the Church and see its shortcomings and failures, its lack of relevance. But perhaps that is our failure to recognize what the Church is. It is not our building, beautiful though it might be. We are the Church. That is why we need to meet Sunday after Sunday. How can we be renewed and go out into the world and be the Church if we are not sustained and nurtured by our faith? Are we in our lives and in our work in the world, bringing God's love to a world that needs to hear it? Are we committed to the faith? Are we sowing the seed lavishly? Or have we just given up. We look at the world and its problems. We look at our dwindling numbers and aging congregations and throw our hands into the air.

We need to remember that God has not given up. Faith is empty without action on our part. Church isn't about a building. It also isn't about insightful preachers having wonderful messages to share Sunday by Sunday. It is about the commitment of the Christian community. It is easy to listen to the parable of the sower and gloat about how responsive we are to God, to see ourselves as good seed landing on good soil. Many good churchgoing people are unresponsive to God's call. We have all sorts of excuses for our lack of faith. It isn't our fault. It is the way we were brought up. It is because of what happened to me in my childhood. It is God's fault for treating me this way.

We choose our own paths. The good news is that God is there to give us guidance and support. The church is there to nurture us on the way. But it requires action on our part. We who are privileged to hear need to respond. We don't need to find excuses. We just need to do what God calls us to do.
If we would believe the parable of the sower, although God does not seem to be at work in the world, although God does not seem to be in control, nevertheless, God's realm is coming. In its coming it will make up for all the failures and disappointments which have gone on before. We are assured of abundant success despite failure. We are privileged – we Christians – to be bearers of God's truth in the world. We bear a message of great hope. "Let anyone with ears listen!"

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, Year A

Our God is an Awesome God

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

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells another parable. A farmer had a field, with deep, rich soil. In the spring he sowed it with his finest seed. He sat back, confidently waiting for a good harvest. Each morning he went out to feast his eyes on the field. He saw the green shoots as they sprang up. What joy he felt watching them sway in the gently breezes!

One morning, however, he got a terrible shock. Growing among the young shoots of wheat were weeds. Not just a few weeds here and there, but weeds everywhere he looked. Weeds in his best field where he had sowed his best seed! It was the last thing he had expected to see. And it was a terrible blow!

"What did I do wrong?" he kept asking himself. Yet he knew that he was not responsible for what had happened. He concluded that an enemy must have spread the weeds during the night. But what could he do about it? They were ruining his chances at a good crop. He would have to get rid of them. But how?

Get his field hands to pull them up? That seemed a good solution. But they looked so much like the wheat. And they were growing so close to the stalks that pulling them up would mean uprooting the wheat as well. Plough up the field and start again? Tempting, but it was too late in the season for that. "No!" he concluded. The only thing to do was to look after the wheat as best he could, to coax it, to encourage it to outgrow the weeds.

When the harvest came he was able at long last to separate the wheat from the weeds. What satisfaction it gave him! What was even more surprising was the fine harvest that resulted from all of his hard labour. It proved more than adequate to meet his needs and the needs of his family. And bonus, he was able to use the weeds as fuel.

Once again Jesus takes an example from the world around him in order to illustrate a truth about the spiritual life. As with all parables, we can look at it as a ‘nice’ story or we can allow ourselves to reflect on it until we come to that ‘aha’ moment when we see what Jesus is getting at in our particular context.

I have a love-hate relationship with weeds. When I walk along the path through the ravine near my house I see their beauty. I know how important, for instance, milkweed is to the butterfly population. I see and hear the birds and frogs around the pond. Every time I take a walk I enjoy the beauty of God’s creation. And then I go back to my garden and take a look at yet another crop of dandelions, crab grass and creeping Charlie taking hold of my lawn. When I moved into my brand new house in a brand new subdivision I knew that the soil would not be the best for preparing flowerbeds. So my first Spring I bought what seemed like a mountain of topsoil to spread around the garden. I mulched and reseeded, and yet two years later, although the garden is beginning to take shape, I am still battling the weeds. So for me personally, this is yet another good Gospel for the time of year, as plants and weeds continue to grow.

As I look at the weeds thriving in the garden and wonder how to tackle them without destroying the plants around them, I consider God’s problem with us as humans. Does God deal with the weeds and risk damaging the crop, or does God allow us to grow together and perhaps even change one another for the better? I do sometimes feel surrounded by “weeds”, the negative and even evil influences around me. We live in the world, and it is a world where there are harsh realities. It is a world in which injustice and oppression abound. At such times, I can honestly thank God that it is God who is ultimately the judge. I do sometimes wonder at whom God chooses, but then I remember that God chose me with all my foibles and that rather changes the picture for me.

When you come to think about it, God does choose some unlikely people. Take the Old Testament reading for example. Jacob is running in fear, and I cannot say that I have much sympathy for him. His difficulties are of his own making. He swindled his brother out of his birthright with a bowl of soup, and tricked his father Isaac into giving him the blessing of the firstborn. Despite all that he has done, his mother, Rebekah, who favours him over his brother Esau, talks to Isaac, persuading him that since it cannot be undone, the family line should be secured. He should be sent to visit her brother Laban to find himself a wife. Isaac gives him a final blessing, this time a sincere one and he is sent off to Haran.

As night falls, Jacob finds himself in a desert place with no shelter. He takes a stone to put down under his head and falls asleep. There in that forsaken place he has a dream in which he glimpses the divine. He dreams of a ladder, a “stairway to Heaven”, with angels of God ascending and descending on it. And God gives him a promise; not just any promise, but the same promise that God gave to Abraham and Isaac, the promise that his legacy will be a great nation and that God will keep him wherever he goes and will bring him back to the land. This person, hardly an upstanding model of faith, is shown the grace that God has in store for him.

He awakens from the dream, a dream in which he has glimpsed the divine. It fills him with both fear and awe. “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven!” he exclaims. He takes the stone on which he has been sleeping and makes it into an altar. And he makes a vow with as many conditions as he can possibly dream up. “If you’ll be with me,” he demands of God, “and if you’ll make certain I have enough to eat and clothing to wear, and if I can return safely to my father’s house, then I will believe in you and tithe what I have.”

After all, this is not a fairy tale story with a perfect ending. Jacob does not act much better than he did before his encounter with God. But God remains faithful to the promise made to Jacob. God remains faithful to us. And those spiritual awakenings, those ‘aha’ moments in our lives, call us back into relationship with God.

Life is sown with such moments of grace. They are moments of sheer bliss, moments to hold onto when the weeds seem to be taking over. There are such moments of grace scattered throughout my life. When I need to feel that sense of closeness to God, that Spiritual presence, at times of Spiritual dryness I call them to mind and find myself once more transported into God’s presence, where I can say, “How awesome is this place!”

Perhaps my favourite ‘moment of grace’ is a real place. I visited it only once, but have gone back in my prayer time over and over again. I was visiting a friend who lived out in the country on the Credit River near the Forks of the Credit. She suggested a walk, and said that she would take me to a very special place. We walked along the river until we came to a grove of trees. There was a path through the wooded area that led up a hill and then back towards the river. I could hear rushing water, and yet the river remained quite calm. We walked once again along the bank of the river until we came to a bend. The only way forward was to take off our shoes and wade in the water. The bend opened up into a large cave. Beyond the cave was a lovely waterfall that extended across the river. Water was cascading into a pool. There was a huge rock out in the centre of the pool. We climbed up on the rock. We spent a lovely afternoon sitting there, bathed in mist and sunlight, praying, listening to God, renewing ourselves spiritually.

Like Jacob our journey of faith may be filled with moments of loneliness, fear and despair that are transformed by the presence of God standing beside us. It is in looking back that we see where God was at work. Then we are able to say as Jacob did, “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!” Amen

6th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 13, Year C

Don’t Look Back

Readings: 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

“When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem,” Luke tells us in the Gospel. Those few words say so much. We know the end of the story. We know what Jesus was facing in Jerusalem. He doesn’t want to go, but he knows it is what he must do. It is where God is calling him to be. It is a moment of change in his life; it is a moment of transition. He looks to God for strength to sustain him in what he needs to do.

A cousin of mine was known for his speed once he got behind the wheel. He claimed that although he drove well over the speed limit he had never had a ticket. “I drive with my eyes on the rear view mirror!” he bragged. I did not find it particularly reassuring.

I realize that many of us live our lives that way. We are constantly looking back, living our lives worrying about past mistakes, unwilling to take a risk, unable sometimes even to grow up and take responsiblity for ourselves. It can affect us in our personal lives. Churches too can be places that get stuck in the past.

The readings this week are an invitation to a new kind of journeying, a new way of setting our face towards Jerusalem. We followers of Jesus are reminded that on life's journey there will be tough choices that require clear vision and determination. They are choices that require moving forward trusting in God's promises. They are choices that remind us not to keep checking in the rear view mirror.

Elisha is being called by God to bear the prophetic word in place of Elijah. Elijah is the tried and tested past, Elisha, the unknown future. It is difficult to assume that kind of leadership, that kind of responsibility. Elisha wants to cling to the strength, reputation and wisdom of the older man. Elijah knows that he needs to hand over the responsibility to the next generation.

He asks an important question. "Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you." It is a time of testing. Elisha must be ready to act. He must be decisive. He must even risk failure. He asks for the right thing, a double share of Elijah's spirit, the same source of strength that sustains Elijah, strength beyond his own that will assist him in the challenges ahead.

Elijah wisely points out that it is up to him. "If you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not," he tells him. It is a matter of whether or not he has that capacity within himself to accept the grace of God. And of course, Elisha sees beyond the ordinary to the heart of the matter. His anguished cry is the cry of one being deprived of all he trusts and holds dear, but also a cry of suddenly discovered confidence. The challenge is to continue to move forward with that same confidence. The task for him is to channel that grace through his own gifts and strengths.

It is not easy to be a disciple of Christ, to live as Christ would have us live, to be all that God wants us to be. Even Jesus’ own disciples did not always live the life of grace. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus and his disciples approach a village in Samaria. They are looking for a place to stay. The villagers when they hear that Jesus is headed for Jerusalem refuse to receive them. James and John, not named the sons of thunder for nothing, react with anger. “Lord, shall we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?”

Doesn’t their reaction shock you just a little? Wouldn't you think after all the time they have spent with Jesus that they would have known that it was not his way of doing things, that he was not going to approve of their reaction, that it was not God’s call to them? What they were calling for was not mere retaliation but a show of power that is nothing short of barbarism. It is the kind of thinking that is behind war, apartheid, homophobia, racism and any number of evils done in the name of God.

We may be shocked by the behaviour of the disciples, yet if we reflect on it, their reaction probably is not all that surprising. In similar circumstances any of us, church going and God fearing people though we may be, people trying to live the Christian life, people trying to answer the call of God, might have reacted in much the same way. All any of us need to do is to look into our hearts to see the truth of this. Are we not constantly surprised, shocked, and humbled at the feelings of anger and resentment that arise in us when we are opposed or feel threatened?

And yet, the question of punishment did not even occur to Jesus. Even if it had, to punish a whole village for the attitudes of a few would be not only unjust, but beyond reason. Jesus knew that the only thing to do when people refuse to love you is to move on.

There follow a number of meetings between Jesus and some wannabe followers. As they travel along the road, someone comes to Jesus. “I will follow you wherever you go!” he says. He is over eager. He hasn’t really thought it through. Jesus knows that such emotional decisions come from good intentions but often do not last.
“Foxes have holes, birds have nests; we have nowhere to lay our heads,” Jesus points out to the man. Jesus offers change, transience and insecurity. It is a good idea to know what you are getting into before you take the plunge. It is not always easy to be a disciple of Jesus. We often forget that there is a cost to discipleship. We forget that it is a way that requires commitment. For the way of the Christian is costly and demanding. It promises not softness, but suffering, not comfort, but challenge, not safety, but sacrifice. There is security, joy and abundance, but there is also blood, sweat and tears.
Jesus meets someone along the road. Is it someone he has seen during his ministry? Does he see some possibility in this person? He issues an invitation, “Follow me.”
“First let me go and bury my father,” is the reply. A reasonable request, we may say. Indeed it is a sacred duty. It forces us to ask how we respond to God’s call. It challenges family values with a higher claim of allegiance, our allegiance to God. Looking ahead is the stance that God seems to call for and affirm. That call to radical compassion may challenge all other calls.

Others on the road overhear the conversation. “I will, but not yet,” they respond. It is a common response, isn’t it? First let me raise my family. Let me get the children through university. Let me get settled in my job and save a little money.

Is it impossible to really be a follower of Jesus? As he writes to the Galatians Paul sets out what it means to choose to follow Christ. He affirms the need to choose between grace and law, between wanting to do something and having to do it. The Galatians were saying that if Christ has set them free from the law then that means they can do whatever they wish. “No!” says Paul. “We are under a new law, the law of love.” That sets us free to become everything that God wants us to be. What a wonderful gift that is, but what a difficult law to keep!

It requires persistence in the faith. Do we have that willingness to follow Jesus? Do we take the promises of our baptism seriously? Are we willing to live differently? Are we willing to see with eyes of faith, like Elisha, to see beyond the ordinary to where God is leading us? Do we have that sense of radical compassion? Are our lives different because we are Christians? Is God at work in our lives?

This parish is in a period of transition. The way ahead is not often clear. There are many unknowns as you discern where God is calling you. And with the beautiful historical setting in which you worship, you may well be tempted to look back on the past. If this community of faith is to thrive it is by embracing the future and all it can bring. I encourage you as new leadership comes into place to trust that God has great things in store for you. Be the community of faith that God is calling you to be. Amen.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B (Proper 14)

My Grace is Sufficient

Readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; Psalm 48; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13

There were some people whom Jesus simply could not reach. He was preaching in his hometown synagogue. His message and ministry there were heckled and rejected. People were not able or willing to understand how he could speak with such authority and wisdom. “Where does it all come from?” they ask. After all, isn’t he just a carpenter, the son of Mary, Jo’s boy? Don’t some of his brothers still live in the town? While they acknowledge his wisdom and power they cannot really accept it. After all, they knew him when he was growing up.

Jesus doesn’t really give it a second thought. He doesn’t let it consume him. He simply comments: “Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown, and among their kin, and in their own house.” Jesus is simply saying that this is the way things are.

Families and people who have known us our whole lives have a habit of cutting us down to size, sometimes gently, often harshly. You can grow up and mature and have a respectable position in the community and still be remembered as the brat who was always getting into a fight. You can be a dependable parent yourself and still be reminded about your teen years when you tried your parents’ patience by coming in late. People can even take offense at your achievements. Human nature being what it is, rather than admit blindness to someone’s growth and change we can become angry at their achievements. How dare he or she prove our assumptions so wrong?

Jesus knew that his disciples would also face rejection. He prepared them for it. He gave them some directions, some rules. They had to take care of their own travel. That is what the staff and sandals were for. But for the rest of their needs they were to depend on the hospitality and resources of the community.

What was it that Jesus wanted the disciples to learn as he sent them out? He has nurtured them. Now he gives them responsibility and the opportunity to decide and respond and to act on their own. He sends them out in pairs. We need mutual support and encouragement. How important it is to have feedback on how your ministry is going! But most of all he is teaching them that they are to rely on God. They are to have no reliance upon their own means. Messengers who wish to provide for every emergency simply do not have enough faith. How can you believe the word of a person who relies on their resources rather than on the message they proclaim? They are to make use of what is provided, but things are in no way to become a hindrance to them.

Most of us do not have the ability or opportunity to come to such an understanding as the disciples did through an experience provided for their learning. I have to say, I did have such an opportunity when I was studying theology. I did a course in Urban Ministry. One of the requirements was to spend two days living on the streets of Toronto. I kept telling myself that I didn’t really need to do it, but it was made clear that if we did not participate we would not pass the course. And so one cold November weekend I set out with only the clothes on my back. Now I had prepared myself. I talked to the street people with whom I was working. “You’ll never survive a weekend on the streets,” they told me. But they helped me to prepare, giving me good advice. “When you ask for money,” they told me, “look for a couple. Look down. Speak to the woman. Have a good story ready. She’ll give you a lecture about finding a job, but then she’ll turn to her husband and tell him to give you something.” I must say, it worked every time.

I knew that in the cold of November I could not sleep outside on a grate. And so I planned on staying in a hostel. I had been working that year in a Food Bank. I remember seeing people pacing in front of the building. I would think to myself, “Why don’t they just come in? We always help them. We always give them something.” Then I found myself pacing in front of a hostel. I must have wandered back and forth for fifteen minutes before I went in. I realized that the most difficult thing for me to do was to say “I need help”. But when I did, the help came. They found me a place to stay.

Over that weekend I questioned whether it was the right thing to do, the ethical thing. But I know that without that life changing experience I could never have learned the things I learned about myself, about ministry, about human nature, and most especially about my need to rely on God. I needed to experience that God’s grace is sufficient for my needs.

Unfortunately in our human fallibility, it takes the crunches, the difficult times of life to bring us closer to God. It is times of affliction, trouble and adversity that cause us to seek refuge and dependence on a higher power.

For one it might be a diagnosis of cancer. How does one deal with the initial shock of the illness? How does one deal with the resulting treatments that leave one physically and emotionally spent? How does one deal with friends who find such illness threatening? How does one face one’s own sense of mortality?

For another it might be the death of a loved one after a long illness, the prospect of a life alone. How does one fill lonely days which have been spent in the care and nurture of one who has been ill? How does one deal with feelings of inadequacy and guilt? How does one deal with anger at being abandoned?

For another it may be the loss of a job after a life-time of dedicated service. How does one begin again? How does one face the financial crunch of being out of work or the feelings of inadequacy as one gets turned down for job after job? How does one even get up in the morning knowing that there is no job to go to? It is the crunch times of life that bring us to the point where we admit that we need God.

It was a crunch time for the apostle Paul that brought him to know that he could depend on God for his needs. He shares at a very deep level about a spiritual experience in his life. It is far from clear just what he experienced, but such things are often beyond words. Then he admits that it was the thorn in his flesh and not the mystical experience that caused him to put his reliance on God. He kept asking God to remove the “thorn”. Finally he accepted God’s response. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

By ourselves we are inadequate to deal with our brokenness. The things that happen to us, the tragedies and difficult times, cause us to question our faith. Can that same brokenness which leads us to seek God help us in some tangible way to cling to God? Can the memory of our brokenness help us to hold on to that sense of dependency when things are going well? Can the reminders of our brokenness prevent us from going backwards in our faith journey?

Henri Nouwen, a Roman Catholic priest and the author of the book “The Wounded Healer”, explains that it is our brokenness that allows us to minister to others. It provides us with an understanding of the brokenness of others. In our brokenness we reach out in compassion to others.

I can well imagine that it was Jesus’ compassion for those in need, which led him to give authority to the twelve whom he had chosen. He certainly intended that in this first period of preaching, they would learn that his power extended beyond his presence and could even be delegated to them. They would learn to depend on God for their needs. They would learn that God could supply their temporal needs. They would learn that despite opposition, God would not fail them. They would learn that even in their weakness they could depend on God.

“My grace is sufficient for you,” God is saying to each one of us. Can we open ourselves to God working through our weaknesses? Can we see God’s grace at work in our lives? Can we learn that reliance on God will help us, not only in our daily lives, but will allow us, in compassion to reach out to others? Amen.