Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17, Year A

The Kingdom of Heaven is Like …

Readings: Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 128; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Jesus was a great storyteller. He told parables about the kingdom of God that opened up what God’s kingdom is like. It is like a tiny mustard seed that grows into a plant large enough and secure enough to harbour nesting birds. It is like a fish hiding in the deep water that should be fished out. It is like a pearl, like a treasure, hidden in the earth. It needs to be found. It is like yeast that one puts into the dough to make it rise.

And the people listening to the stories nod their heads in agreement. They can picture it. They have planted tiny mustard seeds and seen them grow to be twelve feet high. The smallest of seeds becomes a plant that expands out and is so large, secure and encompassing that the birds of heaven come and nest in its branches, hidden and safe where their young can be nurtured.

They can see themselves finding the pearl of great price. “It really is possible,” they are thinking to themselves. Palestine was infested with brigands and soldiers. The best way to ensure the safety of treasure was to bury it. You could happen upon a great treasure. “Why, there could be treasure buried in my own back yard,” they think, “and wouldn’t that be wonderful!” And that is what God’s kingdom is like. It could be mine. The kingdom of God is within my reach.

They heard as well the ominous tone in Jesus’ voice as he told them about their responsibility. The kingdom of God is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind. The net is a drag net that sweeps along the bottom of the sea and catches every imaginable kind of fish. At the end of the day they are sorted and some are thrown back. “Could I be found wanting at the end of time?” they consider. “What do I have to do to make certain that I live as God wants me too?”

The parables that Jesus tells are attempts to grasp hold of our hearts and shake us into a new position. They are meant to be unsettling, to overturn our certainty and startle us into insight and vision into God’s kingdom. Jesus’ purpose is to reveal what God’s kingdom is about. It is a new kind of kingdom, a spiritual one that will include people of every nation and race. An inclusive kingdom that does not judge us by the colour of our skin, our sexual orientation, our intelligence, but rather by our faith in God and by how we have lived our lives. In other words, it is about our commitment to God. When we offer ourselves to God we fid a deep sense of meaning and satisfaction in our ongoing life, but we become accountable to God.

That means that the Church is like the net. Its community contains a whole spectrum of human motivations and intentions from the most self-centred to the most self-sacrificing. All are brought into the net. We are all called to a process of change, transformation and growth in Christ. As with the first disciples, we are a varied catch, ranging from the totally committed to the lukewarm.

So the question is, how much is our Christian life worth to us? How much is a sense of the presence of God, of the love of Christ, of the peace and meaning that such realities can bring into one’s life? How much are these things worth? The ultimate truth is that these realities are worth everything.

The parable is intended as a message to Jesus' disciples. "The cost of discipleship," he tells them over and over again, "is very great. It costs everything." They have found a great treasure in Jesus. At the moment it is hidden from the world. It is their secret. They must leave everything to follow him. They must look to God, not humanity, for their reward. The claims of the kingdom are total. They leave no room for self-interest. Discipleship demands total response, total commitment.

As Christians we are searching for a great treasure. We are children of the kingdom, living in a kind of exile from it, discovering glimpses of it from time to time. It is worth the search, for it is a great treasure. But the search is costly. It will cost everything we have. But the transformation in our lives will make it a treasure worth having.

Most of us would like our faith to make a difference – but perhaps not too much. We may have had a wonderful mountain top experience in our lives, a Conference, a retreat weekend, or a moment in our lives when everything came together for us. We perceived God in a different light. But over time the experience fades. We think about it once in a while. But there are problems in our lives. We have to earn a living and raise our family. There are the stresses and conflicts of life to deal with. There is sickness. We go to church on Sunday. But to make a commitment to the faith, to work at it, to read our Bibles, to pray, to reach out to others in Christian love, to give of ourselves – those things we put aside. We want to be committed Christians, but on our own terms.

There is a Japanese folk saying that goes this way, “The scent of the flowers remains on the hands of the person who gives the gift away.” That is the way of the kingdom of God. That is the way the kingdom comes, yielding the treasure to others, giving away the pearl of great price, making bread and opening our arms so that others can come and find a home secure in us.

We have access to a treasure so great and awesome that it is enough to share with a hungry world. What a treasure we have in our Christian faith! What a treasure it is to know what it means to be loved by God, to be totally accepted by God. The tragedies and conflicts of life can discourage us but they do not change God's love for us. Failures and defeats may bother us, but they do not affect our relationship with God. God's love and reconciling grace are forever. God's will is carried out through us. We are children of God.

Of what value is a sense of the presence of God, of the love of Christ, of the peace and meaning that such realities can bring into one's life? How much are these things worth? The ultimate truth is that these realities are worth everything. The Christian story is one of miracles. It is the story of lives turned around, of hope reborn, and of amazement at how, when we seek to live in concert with God's will, great things can happen. May we find that great treasure!

Proper 15, Year C

Who is My Neighbour?

Readings: Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37

A lawyer comes to test Jesus. “What should I do to be saved?” Jesus does not give him the answer. He seldom does. Instead, he turns tables on him, asking him, “What do you think you should do?” The lawyer gives the correct answer. “Love God and love your neighbour.” He knows the law. He says all the right things. He does all the right things. He lives a respectable life. He knows that he cannot be challenged on his knowledge of the law. But he wants to justify his actions, so he asks another trick question, “Who is my neighbour?”

Being a lawyer and an upstanding Jew, he knows the definition. Long before Christianity, Jewish tradition taught that love of neighbour was one of the great principles of the Torah. In fact Judaism’s love principle goes deeper than most people imagine. We Christians pride ourselves on the concept of loving our enemies, while the Torah gives examples of how to love do it. “When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back. When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free.”

Jewish people were conscious in every aspect of life of being the chosen people. If other Jews were also God’s chosen, then it was of the utmost importance to be a good neighbour, even to one whom you did not like. So yes, the lawyer understood the call to being a neighbour – to other Jews. So did Jesus.

And so Jesus tells a story. We know it well. A man travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho is robbed of everything and left for dead. Several people pass by him on that busy road, amongst them a priest and a Levite. Maybe they are in a hurry to reach Jericho before nightfall. Perhaps they fear being made unclean. Or they may fear being attacked themselves. For whatever reason, they don’t stop. But a Samaritan, an outcast of society, does stop. He cannot pass another human being in pain without wanting to relieve that pain. He takes care of the man, binding up his wounds. He takes him to an inn and looks after him as long as he can. He even gives the innkeeper enough money to care for the man until he is well. His are not simply Band-Aid solutions; he accepts the full responsibility for this person who is in desperate need.

In telling the story of the Good Samaritan, in even suggesting the possibility that a Samaritan could be good, Jesus is going beyond the biblical laws of the Old Testament that speak of treating other Jews as neighbours. And so he asks the lawyer one last question. “Who was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He knows there is only answer. “Go and do likewise,” Jesus tells him.

For us 'Good Samaritan' means doing the loving thing. It is a common metaphor, so much a part of our culture that it is in the dictionary. It is defined in the Oxford dictionary as a “charitable or helpful person”. However, in Jesus' time it would have been a stretch. It would have been inconceivable to the lawyer to put those two words together in the same sentence. The Jews of Jesus' time did not consider the Samaritans to be a "good" people. They were considered to be heretical in their worship. The breach between the Jews and Samaritans went as deep as any controversy could go. It hit at every prejudice – race, religion, nationality; that in itself gives a powerful dimension to the story, communicating Jesus’ vision of justice. We do not hear the lawyer’s response. The story comes to an end. But truly the lawyer could not help but get the point that Jesus was making.

We get the point as well. Or do we? ‘Good Samaritan’ means ‘good neighbour’. We all know that. If someone does a great kindness to another we acknowledge that person as a ‘Good Samaritan’. Our province even has a ‘Good Samaritan’ act written to prevent people doing good deeds that go wrong from being prosecuted. We relate to the story. But we can all find legitimate excuses for acting in other ways, to keep from becoming involved.

And so we need to continue to ask, “Who is my neighbour?” What an important question it is in today’s context. We have Brexit in Britain focusing on its nationhood, but with its underlying current of racism. We have the Syrian refugee crisis in a world that puts its own needs first. I have to admit that our response as Canadians makes me very proud, but I know we have not gone far enough. We have our First Nations people who need justice on so many levels. In our society the real challenge is not the casual hand out. Most of us manage ‘charity’ without much thought. It is in confronting the system that creates need in the first place. It is becoming advocates for those who lack power. It is accepting the responsibility for past mistakes that occurred long before our time and allowing transformation to take place in the lives of innocent victims. It is in understanding what it means to be a neighbour.

We know our call to be neighbour, yet we still hear the questions asked and perhaps even think them ourselves. ‘If we open our borders to Syrian refugees what will happen to us? Will we lose jobs for Canadians? Will they just go back when life improves? Will they become terrorists?’ Or when it involves our First Nations people, ‘if we honour their treaties, how will it affect us? What will it cost us? Won’t they just squander our resources? Why don’t they just get over it?’

The story is a revealing and judgemental condemnation of much that goes under the name of Christianity. It makes many professions of faith seem less than authentic. As long as I say the right thing and belong to the right church, my faith cannot be proved or disproved. But this parable demands that I account for my actions. I cannot simply say, “I turn to Christ” without making a commitment to love neighbour as self. Who is my neighbour? Every human being is my neighbour, without regard to colour, background or social status. Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan hits to the heart of the matter. The question remains: How will I put it into practice?

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18, Year A

I Believe in Miracles

Readings: Genesis 32: 22 – 31; Psalm 17: 1 - 7, 16 ; Romans 9: 1 – 5; Matthew 14: 13 – 21

There is a song from the 70’s by Pearl Jam that talks about miracles.

“I used to be on an endless run
Believed in miracles 'cause I'm one
I've been blessed with the power to survive
After all these years I'm still alive”

I am not certain as I listen to the lyrics that the singer is actually attributing the miracle of his survival to God. Rather he attributes the miracle to his own powers.

Do we believe in miracles? Do we believe that God intervenes in our world and, whether it is through remarkable people or simply through God's own actions, brings about some miraculous happening? We want to, but our twenty-first century minds won't wrap themselves around the possibilities. We have seen it all. We live in a technological age that has made things that past generations just dreamed about totally possible. We also know that events are not always what they appear to be. I must say, I follow on YouTube, an amazing techie who has his three-year-old son doing the most fantastic things. In one video he is in a MacDonald’s playground that suddenly takes off like a rocket ship. It makes it truly difficult to believe in miracles.

It is especially difficult when we see what is going on in our world. There is war. There is violence and suffering. There are poor and hungry people. There are disasters and tragic events. So when it comes to the miracles of Jesus we want to believe them. They are about God intervening in our world. They are about God changing the bad things that are beyond our control. God relieves human suffering. The eyes of the blind are opened. Lepers are cleansed. Hungry people are fed. Such events give us a glimmer of hope in a world where so many things seem beyond our control. They give us a glimpse of God's glory. Yes! We want to believe them.

We want to believe the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. It reveals so much to us about Jesus' compassion for the crowds who followed him. He is suffering himself. News has just come to him about the death of John the Baptist. He is in grief. He reacts as many of us do by withdrawing. He goes to a deserted place by himself. He wants time to consider the tragedy. He wants time to consider what it means in his own ministry.

But the crowds follow him out into the wilderness. They follow as they always do. They have such need. He has compassion on them and heals their sick. And when evening comes the disciples want to send them away to fend for themselves.

"You give them something to eat," Jesus tells the disciples.

"We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish."
Out of his silence and grief, out of his compassion, Jesus performs a miracle. He takes the bread and fish and blesses them. He gives the crowd what they want, a miracle to thrill them and bread to fill them.

Stories about feeding hungry people are numerous in Scripture. There are six such stories in the four Gospels. These passages were very important to the early church community. That makes them important to us. What are you really thinking about this story? Let's face it; most of us cannot believe the story literally. We look for explanations. And it is not difficult to think of a few.

The most common, of course, is that it is a tale about people sharing their lunches. Jesus had the people sit down. He blessed what he had and started to share it. Others opened up their hearts and their picnic baskets and everyone had enough to eat. Now wouldn’t that constitute a miracle? Whenever people give themselves it is a miracle of God's grace. When we reach out to others and share what little we have we are bringing about God's kingdom of shalom.
It is a miracle that is enacted over and over again in our world. Back to YouTube, there is a video that has gone viral, which is just such a miracle. A homeless person is sitting on the sidewalk, his belongings within reach, and a Styrofoam cup in front of him to collect coins. No one is stopping. No one even notices him sitting there. Along comes a young man.

“May I borrow your bucket,” he asks.

Finally the homeless man nods. The young man sits down with the bucket and begins to drum on it. As the crowd gathers he puts his hat out. Two others join him, one with a guitar, another singing. Soon the crowd is enthusiastically dropping money into the hat. They complete their song. The crowd disperses. They pass the hat over to the astonished man and disappear into the crowd. A miracle! It certainly was for the homeless man.

I witnessed more than one miracle when I went to Africa to the World Council of Churches a number of years ago. There was one particular story that resonated in me. Two widows in a poor village in the North Transvaal needed work desperately. There was an abandoned factory outside the village. They got permission to use it. They began to make bead bracelets and necklaces that they sold. Their business grew. They began to export them. Others in the village needed work. The women bought the equipment to do batik and brought others into the co-op. They began to educate and train people for work. The next stage was to send in tenders on government jobs, roadwork. Now a whole village works. Hungry people are fed. They see it as a miracle of God's grace.

There is the thought that perhaps the main focus of the feeding of the five thousand is the ideal of Christ gathering together the people of God as the true shepherd of Israel. It reminds us that God provided manna for the people to eat as they journeyed through the wilderness. That too is a miracle that is enacted Sunday by Sunday. Our communities gather together in worship. We break bread and we become part of Christ and Christ becomes part of us. We are sent out to be bread for a hungry world.

The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand teaches us about our God, our God who provides for us. We have all been in situations that feel hopeless. We are constantly amazed by the ability of God to take what we offer and make it great. But it teaches us so much more. Jesus sustained physical life with bread. But his real purpose was giving people eternal life. And that is the real miracle in which we participate. He would have these people and us understand that the provision of God is more than enough to fulfill every need of every man, woman and child on earth.

All of this presents to us a tremendous commission. Needy people followed Jesus everywhere. We don't need to look far to know that the thing most common to people is need of one kind or another. There are millions in our world who have the most basic needs of existence – food, clean water, shelter, freedom, security. There is within each of us a need for spiritual fulfillment, for inner assurance and serenity, for meaning and purpose in life.
As the people of God, we are fed and nourished so that there is no holding back in our life journey. We come to the table of the Lord and bread is shared with one another. Our journeys become the journeys of all. The path becomes one path lived together. That is the miracle of God's love. Amen.

Proper 15, Year C

The Road from Jerusalem to Jericho

Readings: Amos 7:1-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37

A lawyer comes to test Jesus. “What should I do to be saved?” Jesus does not give him the answer. He seldom does. Instead, he turns tables on him, asking him, “What do you think you should do?” The lawyer gives the correct answer. “Love God and love your neighbour.” He knows the law. He says all the right things. He does all the right things. He lives a respectable life. He knows that he cannot be challenged on his knowledge of the law. But he wants to justify his actions, so he asks another trick question, “Who is my neighbour?”

Jesus responds, but not in the way we might expect. He does not argue with him about the law. He does not write a pastoral letter. He does not form a committee to talk about the issue. He does not give a theological reflection on the subject. He tells a story that hits home.

A man travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho is robbed of everything and left for dead. Several people pass by him on that busy road, amongst them a priest and a Levite. Maybe they are in a hurry to reach Jericho before nightfall. Perhaps they fear being made unclean. Or they may fear being attacked themselves. For whatever reason, they don’t stop. But a Samaritan, an outcast of society, does stop. He cannot pass another human being in pain without wanting to relieve that pain. He takes care of the man, binding up his wounds. He takes him to an inn and looks after him as long as he can. He gives the innkeeper enough money to care for the man until he is well. His are not simply band-aid solutions; he accepts the responsibility for this person who is in desperate need.

Jesus asks the lawyer one last question. “Who was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He knows there is only answer. “Go and do likewise,” Jesus tells him.

I suspect the lawyer was expecting an argument from Jesus, something he could really sink his teeth into. He is a person looking for a debate. And what Jesus gives him is an opportunity to judge himself. Hopefully he discovered that if we are motivated by law rather than love we are robbing others of real justice.

The story of the Good Samaritan is one that we all know only too well. But I wonder, how many of us have truly heard the story? How many of us have found ourselves on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho? What was our response? Did we respond out of love?

In a university course, a teacher once the class if they had ever heard the story of the Good Samaritan. They all looked at her incredulously. Of course they had heard the story. In our society we call people who help other people “Good Samaritans”. But she went on. “I am not asking if you have listened to the story. I am asking if you have ever heard the story.”

One young woman began to sob. “I know exactly what it you mean,” she said. I was just a child of seven at the time. My father was driving me to the beach to join the rest of the family at the start of the summer holidays. As we were driving along the highway my father had a heart attack. He managed to pull the car over to the side of the highway and told me to try to get help. I got out, waved my arms frantically, but no one on that busy highway would stop.”

“After what seems ages, someone finally stopped to find out what was the matter. He alerted the police, but by the time help arrived my father had died. He was only thirty-four years old.”

Those listening to her story vented their anger and resentment at the motorists who passed by, finding it incomprehensible. One person, however, piped up and said, “I can understand it totally.” He related his story.

“One cold winter night, very late, just as I was about to go to bed, there was a knock at my front door. It was a stranger looking for a place to spend the night. He was travelling back to university, had run out of money and was hitch-hiking. It had not gone well. He needed a place to sleep for the night.”

He went on. “I looked him over. He sounded genuine, but I felt angry at him for not being better prepared. I found every reason in the book not to help him. My own safety, his lack of foresight! I closed the door on him. I watched him disappear into the night. I admire the person who acted. He was a real hero. I wish I had.”

A third person began to relate her story. “You don’t feel like a hero when it happens. I was in my apartment one evening when there was a knock on the door. My neighbour from the next apartment was there holding the limp body of her young child. She was hysterical and had no idea what to do. I took the child in my arms, pointed to the phone and told her to call 911. I proceeded to do mouth to mouth on the little one. An ambulance arrived a short time later. One of the attendants said that if I had not acted the child would surely have died. Mother and child were taken to the hospital. She made a full recovery. I was lauded as a hero, but honestly, I just did what I had learned in my First Aid course.”

Who heard the story? They all did.

There have been many stories this past week from the town of Lac Megantic of people who heard the story and responded as neighbour to neighbour. Crisis so often brings out the best in neighbours. But it should not take a crisis.

So the question remains for us; dol we hear the story? What will we do to put Jesus’ vision of justice into practice in our world? How do we offer gestures of kindness to others? This passage is a revealing and judgemental condemnation of much that passes itself as Christian. It makes many professions of faith seem less than authentic. If we take it seriously, we can no longer simply say the right words or belong to the right church. The parable demands that we account for our actions. We cannot say, "I turn to Christ" without making a commitment to love God and to love neighbour.

Who is my neighbour? Is my neighbour the one who lives next door to me? Is it others who are like me, who share my heritage, my interests? The fact is that every human being is my neighbour. It can have nothing to do with colour, background or social status. It cannot have to do with how clean the person is. It cannot have to do with how well they speak. It must simply be the one who needs my help.

Jesus knew what it meant to be a neighbour. He was tortured, stripped and left in a ditch to die. Do we bear the marks of the wounded Christ in our lives? Are we neighbours to the wounded in our society? Those wounded by life, those burdened with cares, poverty, sickness and despair? Do we know who is our neighbour? Do our actions show that we know? What impact is our congregation having on the community around us? Those are questions we need to be asking.

A teacher once asked his pupils, "How do you know when night ends and day begins?"

One student answered, "You know that night ends and day begins when you can look into the distance and know which animal is your dog, and which is your sheep."

"That is a good answer," the teacher said, "but it is not my answer."

"You know that night ends and day begins," another student said, "when light falls on the leaves and you can see whether it is a maple or an oak."

"That too is a good answer," the teacher said, "but it is not my answer."

"What is you answer, teacher?" they asked.

"When you look into the eyes of a human being and see a brother or sister you know that it is morning. If you cannot see a sister or brother you will know that it will always be night."

Let us look in the face of our neighbour and see Christ. Amen.