Look There!

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Jesus put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” 

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. 

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. “Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

The Kingdom of Heaven is like the tiniest seed, hidden under acres of farmland.  The Kingdom of Heaven is like a 4 micron (that’s literally microscopic!) yeast cell, hidden in three measures of flour… that’s 16- five pound bags to you and me! The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure chest, buried without an “X” to mark the spot or a map to show the way.  The Kingdom of Heaven is like a perfect pearl, hidden in a shell on the floor of the sea.  The Kingdom of Heaven is like the fish who swim in the ocean, hidden beneath the depths that cover the majority of our world.   

Given all of that it seems that the Kingdom of Heaven is pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to find.  Not such great news for those of us looking for some hope in this world.  But hang on just a bit.  There is much more to these parables than first meets the eye.  The first thing we are meant to see beyond how hidden the Kingdom appears to be is that the One who does the hiding… the Sower, the Baker, the Treasure burier, the Pearl builder and the Fish grower is God.  As a side note, using this particular cast of characters means that Jesus is portraying God as the sower being male, the baker being female, and the oyster being trans gender.  All oysters start as male and then mostly change to female after a year.  But that's for another sermon.  

The next thing for this sermon is to see that it's the ENTIRE Kingdom of God that is planted, inoculated, buried, seeded and swimming in the ocean.  It’s not a precursor or something that MAY or may not become the Kingdom of God.  It’s the whole Megillah.  “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a Mustard Seed.  That helps beat the idea into our heads, short parable after short parable, that The Kingdom of Heaven is ALL God’s doing.  True you say, but we’re supposed to GROW the Kingdom, right?  Not so fast.  Look again.  The seed, planted by God, germinates and grows on it’s own.  No human help needed.  Same with the yeast.  The yeast does the work.  We just watch the tea towel covered dough rise.  We don’t do the work.  Same with the Oyster, it adds layer after layer to the Pearl without our help, and fish too just grow on their own.  It is not our task to PLANT the Kingdom.  It is not our job to GROW the Kingdom.  God does all that and as far as I’m concerned… THANK GOD!  Can you imagine what the Kingdom of Heaven would be like if it was left to us!?   

The next thing we are meant to see from these parables is that God has planted the Kingdom of Heaven, EVERYWHERE and in EVERYTHING and in EVERYONE.  The sower planted the Mustard Seed in “The Earth”... pun, I believe intended!  The treasure too is buried in “The Earth” and if those aren’t good enough for you, how about you try to pick out those 4 micron yeast cells from that one hundred plus pounds of dough!  

So the Kingdom of Heaven is fully God’s doing.  It very often begins hidden, but in spite of that is still literally everywhere, and it does it’s work… BIG WORK at that… growing from tiny seed into gigantic bush, building layer upon layer upon layer of pearl, and leavening the entire planet-resembling ball of dough as it doubles in size! 

To me, all of these examples, from different parabolic angles, come together as an enormous comfort.  When I look out the window, or open a window online to see the news, it is very often incredibly difficult to SEE the Kingdom of Heaven out there in the world.  It seems very hidden to me much of the time.  To hear from Jesus that “Hidden” is just how God has chosen to get things going is Good News in my book.  Now, would I like it to get growing, building and doubling in a hurry!  Absolutely, but here I’m reminded that what God starts, God also grows, and it all happens God’s way and not my way.  I actually think God made a wise choice in not leaving that for me to do, but at the same time, I have trouble being patient.  

But that then leaves us with one more wondering when it comes to this bullet list of parables.  If we don’t plant it and we don’t grow it, what are WE supposed to DO with it?  Well, if you ask me, I think our task is first to help one another TRUST that The Kingdom of Heaven is out actually there, particularly in those places and times when it's really hard to see, and then, WHEN we finally see a sign of it… even the tiniest of signs…  Our task is to thump our neighbor on the arm, point at it and tell them, “LOOK!  LOOK AT THAT!  THAT’S A BEAUTIFUL BIT OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN POKING THROUGH RIGHT THERE!”

These last seven months I’ve found it hard to find the energy to scan the horizon much for signs of the Kingdom.  Head down and plodding along, it’s difficult to see much more than the one square foot patch of ground right under my feet at that moment.  But in all this time, YOU have been doing that for me.  Looking out and seeing a tiny dot of earth being displaced by a sprouting stem.  You’ve seen it and thumped me and pointed and said, “LOOK, there it is!” and with that help I could see it.  That is the power of gathering in this community!  This community does not plant the seed.  This community does not grow the bush, the fish, or the pearl.  The power that this community wields is in gathering together, in person if at all possible, so that each of us is here to get the thump we need it or to give the thump that is needed more than we could ever imagine.  

The Kingdom of Heaven is here.  It is in that Kingdom that we live and move and have our being.  It grows and will, in time, consume all of creation AND in the mean time you and I are called to just show up to be thumped when we need it and to give a thump when someone else needs it so that all of us can point and see that what might look like a barren, bleak horizon is in reality THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN!  And in seeing even the smallest glimpse we can have hope!”  Amen.  

The Parable of the Flaming Bag of Poo

Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

Jesus put before them another parable: “The kingdom
of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

The last we hear about Jesus as a child is when his parents lose him at the Temple.  The next we see Jesus is as an adult.  What happened in those years in between is a mystery.  Christopher Moore’s novel “Lamb” is the story of what Jesus and his best friend Biff did in those years.  A great read, by the way.  But I like to imagine that in those years Jesus was working up his material and the 13… 14 year old version of this parable might have gone like this… The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to someone who planted a beautiful flower box on their front porch.  But while everyone was asleep, an enemy came and put a paper bag filled with dog poo in the planter, lit it on fire, and rang the doorbell.  A visiting aunt answered the door and began to loose her ever loving mind!  She screamed, “Oh no!  Oh no!  Stamp it out!  Stamp it out!  It’s going to burn the house down!”  But the master of the house came downstairs and replied, ‘No; for in stamping on the bag you would crush all of my beautiful flowers AND you would get poo all over the porch.  Let it be until the morning; then I’ll go out and first get the remnants of the bag and contents, bind them up in a poo bag, and throw them away.  Then I will water my flowers.” 

Jesus, always more sensible than I am, chose to evolve that story from poo and flowers into weeds and wheat.  Both versions however, deliver the same message… You and I… we ain’t God.  When we try to stamp out evil, even with the greatest good in mind, even with the greatest attention to details, even with the best of intentions in the entire world… we WILL end up making things worse, even while we intend to make things better.

Taking care of evil is a God-level job.  Reading the original Greek version helps us understand that a little better than the English version.  You see, the weeds in this story aren’t  just any old generic weeds, they are Lolium temulentum… darnel, poison darnel, darnel ryegrass or cockle.  It is a mimic grass that looks EXACTLY LIKE WHEAT when it’s growing so trying to pull it out while it’s growing would inevitably make a bigger mess.  Like trying to stamp out evil makes an even bigger mess.  Like trying to stomp out the flaming bag makes an even bigger mess. 

We’ve all had people plant destructive things in our lives.  We all know what it’s like to open the door of life and find a poo filled bag blazing away on our front porch.  And if stamping it out isn’t the answer, what is?  What do we DO when someone plants weeds among our wheat?  What do we DO when someone leaves a flaming bag of poo burning on our front porch?  How can we stop the pain sharers, the conflict stirrers, the drama bringers, and the trauma inflictors?  You’re not going to like this answer... but the answer is that we can’t stop them.  We can’t control how THEY act.  All we can control is how WE react… and Jesus is proposing that the best way to react… is to love them.  Just as the farmer suggests that the weeds and the wheat be allowed to grow together, each receiving the same sun, rain, and nutrients from the earth.  You and I are called to love the easy to love in exactly the same way we are called to love those who make it really, really, really hard to love them.

In fact, Jesus is trying to help us understand that the more someone causes trouble in our lives, sowing weeds and putting bag after bag of flaming poo on our porch, the MORE they are in need of being pulled into the wide embrace of unconditional love that Jesus showed the world from the cross.  Jesus is telling us to resist the urge to rush in and start pulling weeds.  Jesus is advising us to let the bag burn itself out and resist the urge to stomp out the fire.  Jesus is calling us to meet those pain sharers, conflict stirrers, drama bringers, and trauma inflictors… with love*.  

At this point, we need to refer to the note connected with the asterisk attached to love.  The asterisk reminds us to NOT confuse “love” with “nice.”  “Nice” isn’t the same as “love.”  “Nice” avoids conflict, gives in, ignores trouble, shies away from confrontation, drives us to distance ourselves from difficult people and situations, put our fingers in our ears and say la, la, la, la, la and hope it all just goes away.  

Love, on the other hand, takes the time… notices, leans in, and tries to understand the deeper hurts that lead people to sow weeds and leave flaming bags of poo.  Love listens not to respond but to understand.  But love is not a doormat.  Love creates clear boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not.  Love insists that those boundaries remain firmly in place.  Love is very clear and never shy, when boundaries are breached, and yet does all it can to not abandon the other.  Love is firm but never hateful, love is clear but never vengeful.  We are called to love.

This world of ours is filled with hurt people trying to get rid of their pain by sowing it in someone else’s field or leaving it burning on someone else’s porch.  That is a reality we simply cannot control.  All we can control is how we react to those hurting people trying to escape that pain in unhealthy ways.  Both versions of this parable remind us of that truth and also remind us that even when that happens… we are in the love business.  We are in the healthy reaction business.  We are in the good boundary business.  We are in the not taking it personally business.  We are in the letting go and letting God business.  We are in the stretching out our arms in the radically inclusive love business.  You and I… we are in the “As I have loved you, so also you should love one another” business.   Amen.

Boiled or Grilled?

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

I love to grill.  I also love grilling cookbooks… at least in theory.  I say “in theory” because most grilling cookbooks seem to be made for someone with a degree in Food Science.  Now I happen to have a degree in Food Science, but I don’t want to have to marinade my roast in a vacuum, adding freshly picked herbs from the mountains of Tibet every two hours.  It’s just too complicated for my life.

  

The Pharisees also made life too complicated.  They believed that it was by following the rules that you got closer to God’s Kingdom.  The Ten Commandments were the steering wheel that they used to keep on the straight road to the Kingdom, but that wasn’t enough for them.  They added additional rules to make the sure no one even got close to the edge.

My favorite grilling cookbook is The Webber Big Book of Grilling.  It’s seen so much use over the years its literally falling apart.  I haven’t tried a recipe that’s a bust yet.  This book, unlike most recipes I see these days, doesn’t require you to wade through the author's life story before you get to the meat.  It just cuts through all that complicating mumbo jumbo and gets right to what matters:  Good ingredients, simple technique, and fire.  That approach makes it a pleasure to grill and has encouraged me to try more and more recipes over the years.

Jesus too was looking to cut through the complicating mumbo jumbo the Pharisees had piled onto God’s Law.  All the extra rules weren’t actually helping the people get closer to God; instead it most often made people just give up along the way.  Jesus offered a different approach.  He said forget the distracting mumbo jumbo.  Instead, just “take my yolk upon you” in other words, walk along this life in my footsteps, and we'll all get to God’s Kingdom, AND life along the way will be simpler, richer and actually deepen your relationship with God rather than making you want to throw up your hands.  Don’t make your life harder than the world already makes it, Jesus would say!  Simply love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and your neighbor as yourself.  THAT, like the recipes in Weber’s Big Book of Grilling, is a recipe for life that is straight forward and clear.  Walking with Jesus, accepting his yoke, allowing yourself to be steered by the love, grace, kindness and generosity of Christ in everything we do, gives our lives a clear purpose that leads to an ever more peaceful, closer, and eternal relationship with God.  A relationship and an abundant life that begins now and goes on beyond eternity.  

That’s the program.  Letting go and letting God, as one particular spiritual path says.  Having God as your pilot, not just the co-pilot.  Letting God take the reigns and guide the cart of your life.  Getting on the Jesus bus, putting our tray tables up and and our seat backs in the upright and locked positions on the Jesus plane.  No matter how you want to talk about it, when we begin to walk, step by step in Jesus’ footsteps toward the life God created us to live, we begin to find ourselves living more and more a life of meaning, purpose, dignity, love, and joy.  

Now, none of us will do this perfectly and I am at the top of the "not doing it perfectly" list.  We’ll let Jesus drive for a while and inevitably our lives hit a rock in the road… sometimes a small rock and sometimes a rock the size of Gibraltar… and in those times we’ll find our lives off the road, rolled right into a ditch, and up to our necks in muck.  The Good News is that no matter how much time we spend on the road and how many times we find ourselves in the ditch, Jesus lived, died, and was raised from the dead to make sure that each and every one of us gets to where God created us to go.  

Is it also true that Jesus thinks walking on the road makes for a more pleasant journey through this life than being dragged along through the ditch?  Absolutely!  That’s why he’s always encouraging us to stick to the path of loving God and loving neighbor.  But no matter how much time we spend on the road and how much time we end up in the ditch, Jesus' promise to us and all of creation is that we will ALL get there and not even death will get in His way of making sure that happens.  

You see, life is like a prime ribeye given to us as a completely free, unconditional gift from God.  God has also given us the freedom to cook that steak any way we choose.  We can choose to boil it to flavorless leather OR we can choose to dry age it, add a rub, give it a beautiful crusty seer, and grill it to the rare side of medium rare and then serve it with topped with roasted garlic butter.  Ether way the steak is a gift and you will be fed.  But for both life and that steak, it turns out that it makes an enormous difference depending on how you cook it.  Amen.

Jesus is the Wokest

Matthew 10:40-42

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever
welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Rob called me one night and told me that he really needed some pastoral counseling.  He also told me that to insure confidentiality, we would need to go out in his boat onto the lake.  Also, so we wouldn’t raise any suspicions about what we were doing out in the middle of the lake, we would need to make it look like we were fishing when in reality it was pastoral counseling.  I could tell it was an emergency so I got to Rob’s house first thing the next morning.  Rob’s wife Sally greeted me at the door and took me through the house and down to the boathouse, she handed me a small cooler packed with water, sodas and snacks.  

Rob had everything ready.  We got in the boat and went out onto the lake… for “counseling.”  Rob had fished this lake for probably 60 years.  As a kid he ran catfish lines and sold the catch to a “supper club” for Friday night fish fry.  We fished.  We talked.  About 11:30 we headed back to the boathouse and pulled out the catch of fish.  Rob cleaned all the fish.  I was not allowed to help.  I was his guest.  

We then went back to the house and opened the door to the overwhelming smell of fresh baked bread.  And there in the kitchen was “just a little lunch” as Sally called it.  Fresh bread, meats and cheeses, pickles and condiments all laid out with the deepest of care.  Rob showed me his favorite way to eat this lunch… a slice of Sally’s homemade bread with meat and cheese and some garlic sprinkled on top and then toasted in the toaster oven.  It was perfect.  The three of us chatted over lunch and when it was done I thanked them both and Sally put into my hands a bag with the rest of the fresh baked bread and Rob handed me a cooler with all the cleaned filets packed in baggies on ice and Rob told me he would need additional counseling… probably in next couple of weeks.  I told him I would make room in my calendar for him.  

Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.  Whoever welcomes me, welcomes the One who sent me.  Rob and Sally welcomed me.  By welcoming me, they welcomed Christ and by welcoming Christ they welcomed God.  That’s not just a pastor thing.  That’s a human being thing.  Rob and Sally clearly lived that way… day in and day out.  This is how they welcomed EVERYONE!  This is the way they treated all of “the little ones” this lesson talks about.  This is how they cared for the “the least of these” as Jesus refers to all of humanity later in Matthew’s Gospel.

   

The way we show welcome to “the little ones” and “the least of these” is how we show welcome to God!  So this lesson asks us to reflect on how we welcome God in our churches?  In our country?  In our homes?  In our hearts?  You won’t convince me or anyone else with words.  It is in what we DO… in how we SHOW our welcome for the "little ones" and "the least of these" that will show how welcoming we are to God. 

So how do we show it?  How do we SHOW welcome to the little ones and the least of these… titles that pretty much encompass all of humanity?  The first step is to NOTICE them.  You first have to SEE folks.  Not for what you might get out of them.  Not for how you might exploit them.  Not for how you might have been told to fear them.  But to SEE them as God created them to be at their core, and remember, everything that God creates isn’t just “good” but is “very good.”  

All around us, people are asking us, pleading to us, screaming at us, and challenging us to notice them as they have not been noticed before.  All around us people are saying to us “SEE ME FULLY AS GOD MADE ME TO BE!”  That, I think, is what folks these days are talking about when they talk about being “WOKE.”  Using the word “WOKE” in that way is certainly new, but the call to walk our lives towards being “WOKE” is as old as Abraham welcoming angels “unaware” into his tent for a meal.  It’s as old as washing the feet of a weary traveler.  It’s as old as a couple of folks inviting someone they met on the road to “stay with us now, because it is evening.” 

 

In our world there has been violent pushback to the notion of being “WOKE” from politicians to pundits to the supreme court.  What folks don’t understand when they pushback on “WOKE” is that they are pushing back on Jesus and the One who sent him.  To counter that pushback you and I and the larger Christ Trinity community is being called to lead the way toward “WOKE” in our community.  Or if you’d rather, toward a radical and extravagant welcome for all people, just as God has made them to be.

   

Providing that extravagant welcome to all people, just as God created them to be is what we are about here in this place.  Christ Trinity is being called to continue to lead the way!  We do that not only with words but in how we live.  Out in the world, determined to see… to FULLY SEE the other we greet them as you would greet God’s angels.  We greet them as you would greet one of Jesus’ disciples.  We greet them as you would greet Jesus himself.  We greet that new person as if the Divine were standing right there… right in front of you, because if we take seriously what Jesus says here, THAT is exactly what you will be doing.  Amen.