Pentecost 11 Year A Sermon

Pentecost 11 Year A Matthew13:31-33. 44-52 July 27, 2008 The Rev.Benton Quest

Some of you told me that you were raised Roman Catholic, but the question is; “How many of you went to Catholic school?”

Ok, now those of you who went to Catholic school, how many of you had to read “The Lives of the Saints”?

Yep, when I was in school, I had to read these stories, and I must say, I really didn’t mind reading about the lives of the saints. It was kind of cool! These people doing all kinds of miraculous things. Meeting the devil in a carriage. Healing people. Seeing visions! It was cool! And I know that these stories were supposed to be examples to us and to challenge us to be better people. But I actually found that they did the opposite. Yes, they were exciting stories. And yes, they captivated my young mind. But I always thought, “What’s the use? God only selects certain people for the ‘Big Stuff’ and the rest of us are destined to go through a pretty boring life.”

Really, how many of us have actually ran into Satan? I am sure we all know a few people we could claim to be the devil incarnate, but the real thing, smell of fire and brimstone and all that? Or, how many of us have put on a pair of gloves and take them off only to find we have leprosy? And then put the glove back on and when we took them off again the leprosy is gone?

Me neither.

That is the problem with these stories; they are interesting, but they are so far beyond our usual life experience that we can usually disregard them. For the vast majority of us, performing spontaneous healings or getting mystical revelations is something that will probably never happen. These events make for interesting stories, but they really have no bearing on our lives.

So, what is up with us normal people? How do we fit in the plan of God? For the most part, we will never do anything that will get us on the evening news, let alone get a church or a cathedral named after us. For most of us, we probably will never do anything that would earn us the title of “Saint.”

So if we cannot fill the usual definition of saint, does that does not mean that we are to just give up and float through life? Does that mean that our lives are any less important than Augustine, or Paul, or Barnabus; those folks with the letters “ST” in front of their name? Of course not. Our scripture readings for today give us a sense of how we are to approach the world and how we can change the world.

We have six parables in today’s gospel reading that tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like. The one thing that strikes me about all of these parables is that the person who is the main actor is not really doing anything extraordinary. These people are doing simple things like making bread, walking in a field or planting a seed. Not huge miraculous things like those recorded in the Lives of the Saints. Jesus presents us with a vision of God’s kingdom that is very attainable by us all. This is not just for the ultra-pious, this for everyone.

What Jesus is telling us is that we are called to be about our lives. We are called to do the things that we normally do. But that is not all of it, we are also called to be living our lives for the kingdom of God. This means that we are to be living our lives mindful of God. For some folks, this might mean spending hours in prayer and totally dedicating one’s life to God, and these folks would probably come close to the saints we read about as children. But for most of us, we are to live keeping our attention focused on God. The kingdom of God was not compared to a woman sitting in temple hearing the teaching of the rabbi; the kingdom was compared to a woman at work, making bread. The kingdom was not likened to a fisherman praying on the Sabbath, the kingdom was compared to a net being thrown into the water. Yes, coming to church, prayer, spiritual discipline, and being part of a worshipping community is important, but what is more important is being out in the world and living our lives for the kingdom.

This may not always be easy. I know that often I feel I fall short of this ideal. This is where I take comfort in what we have heard in today’s reading from Romans. We are reminded that we are not left alone in this process but the Holy Spirit travels with us as we go through our lives. The Holy Spirit travels with us. The Holy Spirit prays for us in our weakness. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us according to the will of God. Throughout our ups and downs, the Holy Spirit travels with us and protects us.

Paul tells us in the reading that all things work together for good for those who love God and all called according to God’s purpose. That is a pretty big assurance. ALL things work for good. This is what we need to remember because from our point of view, it may not look like all is working for good.

We have seen a couple of weeks ago how God’s love is being spread throughout the world. And we considered last week how even though we may all have been considered weeds at one time or another, God still loves us and wants us to care for each other. Now we hear that we are being called to bring about the kingdom of God. Whatever we are able to do, we are to be out there doing it.

One of my favorite stories about Mother Theresa involves her desire to build an orphanage. Even though she wanted to build one, everyone she knew told her that all that she had was two cents to her name. Her response was, “Well, with my two cents and the grace of God, we will build an orphanage!”

I think we so often just get stuck looking at our two cents. We forget that our two cents exists within the context of the love of God and the intervention of the Holy Spirit. We look at the world around us and assume that what we see is all there is. We limit ourselves because we lack the trust that through God, all things work together for good. We forget that the one who raised Jesus from the dead is there, intervening for us even when we are too weak to intervene for ourselves.

Where are you being called to bring the kingdom? Do you feel the tug to spread God’s love through your home, workplace, or neighborhood? Where do you feel the Holy Spirit leading you?

Remember, the Mother Theresa’s, the Gandhi’s, the St. Augustine’s, were people just like you and me. They were people who sensed the call of God and answered in faith. The saints are not some special sort of human. Saints are people who heard the call and answered. The question is not IF you are called, trust me, you are called. The question is how you will answer the call that God is sending into your life.

It does not take some special to follow Jesus, it just takes faith. Well, faith and the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. But we have been promised that the Spirit is there, interceding. Now we just need to go out and live in the courage of our calling.

Pentecost 10 Year A Sermon

Pentecost 10 Year A Matt 13:24-30, 36-43 July 20, 2008 The Rev. Benton Quest

Welcome to our next installment of “Gardening With Jesus!”
As you will remember, last week we were discussing the whole sowing part of the gardening process. We were talking about how God spreads the seeds of his love everywhere, even to those places where most people would believe that love could not grow. And we discussed how God unconditionally spreads this love. Even where others may think it silly, God chooses to spread the seeds of love. We also touched on soil preparation, both preparing our own soil, but how to assist in the preparation of our neighbors’ soil.
This week, we have the seeds growing, but we have a new problem; we have weeds growing along with the seeds! So what is a good gardener, I mean Christian supposed to do? What are we supposed to do with those pesky weeds?
The usual response would be that we are supposed to pull the weeds out. Isn’t that what we have been taught all along? Having no weeds around make plants grow stronger, right? And isn’t this exactly what the workers in the parable suggest? Just get in there and yank those weeds out!
But, of course, we are gardening with Jesus and that means that what we expect to do and what we are told to do are often two different things. The master of the workers, who we can assume to be either Jesus himself, or God, tells the workers to leave the weeds grow along with the wheat. And when the plants have all grown, then the master will tell the reapers to collect the weeds to be burned and to gather the wheat into the barn.
Why not pull up the weeds? Don’t we hear that all the time? We need to get the weeds out of the way so that the good crops can grow? But here we have Jesus instructing his followers to do just the opposite: leave the plants and the weeds.
We probably all have stories of things in our gardens that we thought were weeds but end up being the very plants we were trying to cultivate. I moved into a new house and saw all these plants growing along the driveway. They were growing at an incredible rate and were producing a ton of seeds. I began to pull these plants out thinking that they must surely be weeds.
Well, you guessed it, they weren’t weeds; they were day lilies. Some started to bloom before I got there to yank them out and I realized that they were beautiful flowers! In my ignorance of plants, I almost yanked up an entire flowerbed! Thankfully I didn’t rip them all out and they managed to reestablish themselves.
But if we have this much trouble identifying which plant is a flower and which is a weed, think of how much harder it would be to make these judgments on people -- who are so much more complex than plants. How can we even begin to kid ourselves that we know which people are the wheat and which people are the weeds? Jesus is pointing out the folly of thinking we can boil a whole, complex, person down to a simple title such as wheat or weed. But yet, we as people try!
We can just look through history to see where this has happened and see the results when people tried to place others into the categories of wheat and weeds. Throughout history people have named groups of people as “weeds” and then tried to get rid of them. We have had the Jews, the Blacks, Women, Gays, Italians, Protestants, Catholics, Communists, the Mentally Challenged, the Physically Challenged, the Mexicans, Irish, the Poor, the Rich, the Indigenous Peoples of and area, the Christians, the Muslims, Chinese, Mormons, Japanese, the Left-handed, … and I am sure there are more categories that I have not thought of. But if you fit into ANY of these categories, at some point, you have been considered a weed and have been considered worthy of being yanked out by the roots.
So, as we can see, just about anything that one person could use to identify another person as “different” has been used to categorize others as “weeds.” And what is even scarier is that in just about every one of these cases, the labeling of “weed” was said to be mandated by God.
The other interesting thing, when we look at the historical context of wheat and weeds, is that history often portrays the ones trying to do the weeding as the actual weeds. Groups such as the KKK, The McCarthy Commission, and even the Pharisees have not fared well in the eyes of history. Although I am sure these people believed what they were doing was for the good of society through maintaining purity, hopefully we can see that their actions were as evil if not more evil than the evil they were trying to eradicate.
Now, this is not saying that we should just ignore everything anybody does and carry an extreme “Live and let live” attitude, but it does call us to think about what is happening. Crime is crime; murder is murder; abuse is abuse. There are things that do indeed tear away at the fabric of society. We need to be aware of what is happening in society and work to build up society as a whole. But when people are placed into the “weed” category en masse, it is then that we need to begin to wonder what is happening. We need to question exactly what it is that makes that group a bunch of weeds. Maybe even ask the question, “Why am I not a weed? What have I done, or not done, that puts me in a different category?” Are these people weeds just because they are different than you and me?
So often, it seems the thing that causes one group of people to place another group of people into the category of “weed” is a lack of understanding by those who are either in the majority or in power. And since these other people are different then those in the majority, there is a feeling of threat. Now most of us would agree that threat is not the most comfortable feeling and most of us would want to make it go away as soon as possible. So, instead of learning why the power folks feel threatened and growing through the experience, the power folks turn those who are different into “weeds” and try to get rid of them. So, to say it another way, the perception of who is a weed is based off of fear, ignorance, and discomfort. I feel uncomfortable so you need to change.
Unfortunately, right now there are various sections of the Anglican Union who are running around calling each other weeds. And unfortunately, these sections are trying to tear each other out by the roots. But tearing each other out by the roots is not what Jesus is telling us to do. Jesus is telling us that we are to grow together. And that has been an Anglican tradition for hundreds of years. When we are not so quick to yank those people we would consider weeds, we learn to grow together. And as we grow, our fear, ignorance, and discomfort decreases. It is in this way that we grow together and we grow into the reign of God.
It is not our job to select those who are worthy of God’s love and those who aren’t. We are not to go around yanking people out by the roots because we think they are undesirable. It is not our job to decide those who are part of the in crowd and those who are the weeds. If we were left to decide, eventually there would be no one left, except maybe me, ‘cause we all know that I never, ever, do anything that would cause God to be disappointed! Yeah, right!
Just like the lilies along my driveway, when we begin yanking weeds without knowing what we are doing, we may just start yanking the flowers along with the weeds. And some of those we have decided were weeds, if we had let them grow, may have grown to be wheat or flowers, but since we yanked them out, we will never know. When the time for the harvest comes, God will do the deciding, but for now, our business is to help all grow, regardless of whether we think they are wheat or weeds.
I do want to repeat that this does not give people free reign to do whatever they would like. And it does not mean that we are to tolerate everything that anyone would care to do. But it does mean that we are called to be inclusive, welcoming, and open to the alternatives the Holy Spirit might send our direction.
The garden that Jesus would have grow on earth is one of diversity and delight. It is one that both sustains us and dazzles us. It is found where we would expect it to be and where we would be shocked or even scandalized. The garden that Jesus would plan, would be so much more than we could ever dream. There is a place for all kinds of plant, all growing together. Christ placed the vision before us, and empowers us to help bring it to reality.