Sunday, July 24, 2011

July 24, 2011

A seed. Yeast. A hidden treasure. A pearl. A net full of fish. These are the things to which Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven.

Really? That’s the best that Jesus can do? And then we find that the disciples do, in fact, on occasion, lie to Jesus: do you understand this? He asks. Er….yes? So he gives them another: “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.”

I’m going to let you ponder that. So, as far as Jesus says today, if you think you understand what he’s said, it’s as simple as going through your treasure (whatever that may be) and separating it into two piles: old, and new.

Then what, Jesus? Where’s the punchline? Should we not keep what is old? The next time I visit my mother, should the 300-year-old cut crystal Macintyre christening bowl be given to my children?

Because the truth is, our treasure is both ‘old’ and ‘new’. Even the ways we interpret the treasure of Scripture: we find joy in Paul’s passages about the love of God poured out for us in Christ, but widely disregard the number of things that are labelled as ‘abominations’ by the various writers of the books: eating with Egyptians, leftovers, eagles, inaccurate weights and measures…the list is long. Jesus eats on the Sabbath, eats with sinners, looks for the lost…his treasure, too, is both ‘old’ and ‘new’.

So maybe that’s why Jesus picks such a diverse group of things to which he can compare the kingdom of heaven: old and new, small and big; unlikely things are made precious when God is involved. What’s most interesting about these little parables: Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom of heaven is NOT someplace we go when we die. He’s not telling a story about the halls of Asgard or Olympus or Hogwarts; no, he’s using fairly worldly examples.

I remember coordinating a VBS one summer when one volunteer came to me. “I have a problem,” He said. Anticipating any number of things, I went running back with him to his area. There he unveiled his problem to me: it’s not big enough! I need to find another, a better one! It’s got to be bigger!

Do you wonder what his crisis was? It was simple: he’d looked for a picture of a mustard tree, and had found one. To his dismay, he found that this ‘mightiest of trees’ was about three and a half feet high. He was trying to trace it onto the wall of his room, but had found the picture too puny. He was expecting a redwood; not a shrub.

And I remember the first time I thought I’d help my mother and make bread while she was out getting groceries. I put all the ingredients together, but one thing didn’t make sense: 8 cups of flour and one freaking tablespoon of yeast? Had to be a mistake. So I used 1 cup of yeast.

We never did get the dough out of the cupboard, and that house probably still smells like a distillery.

Something so small that we overlook its significance – that’s the kingdom of heaven.

And then there are the people Jesus talks about: a treasure-hunter, a merchant, a fisherman. Are we them? Are they us? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

I think Jesus uses those stories to show us just how passionate God is about seeking us and finding us. Think of God grubbing through the dirt and mud of a world in search of us, finding us, and then running out and buying that entire world just to make us his own.

Or God as the merchant of fine pearls, seeking high and low. And finding one pearl of great value, rushing out sell all that God has to redeem it.

Or God as the fisherman, bringing up the great harvest of ourselves, patiently winnowing through us until he has cast all that is empty and dead and sinful away and has left only what is good and right and perfect; only what is mindful of God’s Son.

I think Jesus tells us stories about the kingdom of heaven so that we stop thinking of it in terms of something we can sneak into if we’re good enough, and instead start living like it’s right here, within, and amongst us – as he says later in the gospel of Luke, chapter 12.

Today, we get a sneak peak of that, as Gabriel Micha is brought by God into the kingdom of heaven through the sacrament of holy baptism. Gabriel is born into this world; a world that doesn’t work the way it should – a world of sin and death. But today, he is becomes part of much larger story, a story were trees and bushes mean that God loves him more than life itself; that God was willing to die so that little Gabe can live forever.

And today Gabriel joins a rather exclusive family, too – a family of pearls, of great treasure that has been uncovered - as everybody here today on this great occasion is caught in the great net of God’s love. Because – and I’m sorry if I didn’t make this clear when we did baptism prep together – today Gabe is caught. Caught in the love of God, who through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus -- purchased the world.

And as the apostle Paul promised, and he saw in his world how people quickly corrupted the gospel of Jesus, and then how those who believed were persecuted – if God is for Gabriel – if God is for us – then who can stand against us?

Nobody. Nobody is a better seeker than God, nobody is a better fisher. And what’s better – what’s even more important than that – is that God is a keeper. For he keeps what is his. In our baptism, we become the pearls of great price that are purchased at such a high cost, as God gave himself so that we may be become members of his body; and nothing can separate us from that grace and love of God in Jesus Christ.

I am convinced of that: neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let the people of God say amen.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Sunday, July 10, 2011

The prophet Isaiah recounts the words of God, who made heaven and earth:

10For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

and do not return there until they have watered the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

11so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

That’s pretty heavy, isn’t it? I mean, ALL of what God wants to accomplish with the Word is going to be done? That’s a loaded theological statement. What about the bad things in the world, then? Does God want those things to happen? How do we reconcile our claims of a just and righteous God with a world that seems, at times, beholden to the merest whim of fate?

Perhaps the secret lies in big rocks.

I come from southern Alberta, and not far from where I grew up is the site of Big Rock – the tremendous glacial erratic that was deposited by a glacier some 10 000 years ago. If you’ve been there, you’ve seen that the rock has been split in two.

What you’ve maybe not seen, though, is the lichen and other growing things that cover some of the smaller pieces of the rock, breaking them down into smaller and smaller pieces.

One little seed of grass or moss can bring the largest mountain crashing down, simply wearing down hardness with eons of stretching, and growth.

Something living overcoming something of stone: cold, and dead.

That’s what a seed can do.

Today, Jesus sits down with his friends and tells them about the way God relates to them, but in a puzzling way. Speaking to a group of fishermen, he uses a farming analogy. But it’s probably harder to be a farmer than a fisherman.

(I hope there’s nobody from either coast here today).

So he tells them a parable: a sower went out to sow. And some seed he threw on the rocky ground, some among the thorns, other seed he threw on the path, and still more he threw on the good soil, which was deep, and rich, and receptive.

Birds ate the seed off the path; the thorns choked out the plants that grew among them; the sprouts in the rocky soil withered under the glare of the sun; but the seed that fell on the good soil returned 30, 60, even a hundredfold of the seed sown.

So I’d like you to think a moment about the field this sower must be standing in: it must be really, really small. It’s got three times as much useless soil as good stuff: there’s a path, rocks, and weeds. In fact, this may be the crappiest field in all of creation. But there’s a small part of it that produces amazing results.

Which is a good thing, because that sower really stinks at his job.

In the time that Jesus lived, seeds were a precious commodity. From every crop you harvested, you washed, cleaned, and kept some of it for next year’s seed. You had to preserve it, so that you had a future. What the sower does in this parable is ludicrous. You don’t waste good seeds on bad ground. How many rocks must there be in this field? How many thorns?

When I was a kid, we had a neighbour who was working on bringing a field of pastureland under cultivation. He was a old-timer, which meant that he didn’t just hook up the 700-horsepower John Deere to the harrow or the plow. Every afternoon, he would go out and spend an hour or two with a wheel barrow, picking rocks.

Well, one summer’s day I’d been working, and a friend of mine called and asked if I wanted to go into the city to see a movie with him and another friend. We did. On the way home, another friend called and invited us to a party. We had time, we were young, we went.

And the next morning I came home with the worst case of the “flu” I had ever had. I was deeply disappointed when I realized that I wouldn’t die; it seemed such a waste of good suffering.

And my mother was, of course, a deeply caring individual, a delicate and godly woman who trusted her youngest son. And seeing him in such deep distress on the one of the hottest days of the summer, she had mercy upon him and sent him out, into the field. To pick rocks.

That is the cleanest field in Vulcan county, I’m proud to say. Sad that nothing will grow in it. But very clean.

The sower in the parable could have learned something. Or maybe we can learn something from that sower.

We can learn to trust.

Are you familiar with the tale of the prodigal son? Well, this is the tale of the prodigal sower. It the tale of God, who casts the seed of his word with incredible abundance, so that it lands in every nook and cranny of our lives and our hearts, so that not one little bit is missed. It is the story of God, who scandalously wastes grace and love on those who don’t deserve it, and yet is ready again to sow when the ground is ready.

And it’s also the tale of the ground of our being; the rock of our hearts and the thorny thickets of our minds.

And the good soil of our souls.

God casts the seed into our lives; and some withers, and dies. We are vulnerable to our own needs and desires, likes and dislikes, sinfulness and self-centredness. But when it finds root in our heart, it grows, breaking down the rock at our core and replacing it with something much, much more alive: something that when it grows, it expands up to a hundred times bigger than the little seed that began it.

And then WE become the seed; breaking down the hard hearts of our world. Withering, dying, and being sown and raised up again by the word of Jesus Christ.

And our lives fulfill their purpose; returning the word of God to where it was spoken, knowing that we are part of the great narrative of God’s creation; word spoken, which creates; word claimed, which heals; word killed, which breaks down; and the Word proclaimed, which gives eternal life.

Our national church meets in convention next week – and it will be contentious. There are issues being debated that have polarized many in the church, but one thing must remain clear: the word of God, once spoken, will not return empty. We are equally sinful; were are all in need of grace.

When it is over, the face of our church may look different; it may look like the face of that Big Rock where I grew up – split, pained, and hard. But still, in that rock, is the seed of life that we proclaim to be the Spirit of the Living God, at work among us, declaring to us that when God has spoken his word will not return empty.

No, it will not return empty. We will return it. With joy, because of what we have first received. With peace, because God is bigger than we are.

And with grace, because our hard hearts have been broken, and only Christ remains.

Let the people of God say ‘amen’.