Sermon for Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, "The Kingdom of Heaven is Like...," Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Sermon 7/27/14

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

The Kingdom is Like…

            If I was to ask you what the “Good News” of the Bible was, I might get a variety of responses, but I think a common one, perhaps the most common response, might be this: The good news is that Jesus Christ died for our sins to save us and give us eternal life. There’s certainly scriptural support for that. And our United Methodist heritage echoes that – in our official communion liturgy, for example, the celebrants says, “Hear the good news. Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. That proves God’s love toward us. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!” And indeed, that is good news.

            The interesting thing, though, is that Jesus talked about good news himself. And when he talked about good news, he wasn’t talking about the fact he would die for our sins. Of course, that hadn’t happened yet, for one. And also, Jesus usually only talked about his imminent death with the twelve, his closest disciples. But he did talk about “good news” with the crowds. So, what did Jesus mean by good news?

            When Jesus spoke of good news, his good news was that the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven, used in the same way in the gospels – the kingdom of God was “at hand.” “At hand” is a phrase that means both “arrived” and “arriving,” both “near” and “just here.” So for Jesus, the good news that he wanted to share was that the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, was at hand – both near and here. Our next questions, then, are: what does that mean exactly – that God’s kingdom is near or here? And why is that good news exactly?

            Remember a couple of weeks ago, on my first Sunday, when I told you about my favorite Bible passage? I told you it was John 10:10 – The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly. I told you that one of the reasons I loved this passage so much was that as a teenager, and still as an adult, but especially when I first noticed it as a teenager, the idea that what Jesus wants for us, what God wants for us is abundant, full, overflowing with joy lives was so appealing to me. Sure, God wants us to follow commandments – but they’re all centered around the joyful act of love – loving God and loving one another. God wants us to experience abundant life! Well, that’s a little bit, for me, of a way to glimpse what Jesus means by the kingdom of God being here, or near already. I think Jesus really, really wanted people to know that to experience the fullness and joyfulness of life and love and wholeness wasn’t something for later, wasn’t something for only a few, the wealthy and powerful, the healthy, the learned, the scholarly, the religious elite. No, God’s promises of joy and love and abundant life were for all and for now! Because the kingdom is here and ready for us to reach and touch and draw in and pour out and share! When Jesus taught and healed and preached, he was speaking to Israelites who lived under foreign occupation. They lived under the control of the Roman Empire. Conditions were harsh. People were oppressed and facing injustice all around. And yet, Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven was theirs – already!

            And that’s good news, isn’t it! Because even if we’re looking eagerly forward to however we understand heaven and eternal life someday, hopefully after good long lives here – I think Jesus knew that the promises of something that you can’t actually have any time in the near future could only be so appealing. Think of telling a 13 year old about how much they’ll love driving – in 3 years! That’s an eternity. An older sibling telling a younger sibling that they can come along for the fun event – when they’re older. Telling a hungry person who has no food that they’ll get enough money to feed themselves – in four weeks. Sure – all that stuff coming later is great. But what about now? Eternity someday. But what about now?

            And so the good news that Jesus tells us is this: If we want to be workers following our master Jesus, his students, helping with kingdom-work, then we don’t have to wait. The kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven – it’s already right here! And in this kingdom things are flipped upside down from the oppressive culture that says might is right, that says money and possessions and status are everything, that says if you’re poor and uneducated you’re nothing, that says if you don’t have the ideal body shape or skin color or lifestyle or birthplace you’re nothing. This kingdom flips that all upside down and inside out and says the last shall be first and the first shall be last and the humbled shall be exalted and the exalted shall be humbled and it is very good news indeed.

            All this finally gets us to our text for the day at last. Like last week, we’ve heard again some parables of Jesus. Several short parables right in a row. I listened to a commentary about this passage, and the speaker aptly said that it is as if either Jesus, or the gospel-writer Matthew, felt like they were running out of time and so frantically started listing kingdom parables as quickly as possible. “The kingdom is like, the kingdom is like, the kingdom is like.”  

These parables though, seem almost unrelated. The imagery is so different, and the point of each parable seems so different. The kingdom is like a mustard seed that grows into a bush large enough for birds to nest in. Of course, that’s not actually true – they don’t grow that large – but as I mentioned last Sunday, Jesus puts details into his parables that make ears perk up. So Jesus is telling them that in the kingdom, what you think is a little faith – when you actually put it into action – can go much, much farther than you’d imagine. The parable of the yeast is the same – a little bit of yeast wouldn’t go quite so far – but the kingdom is pervasive. God’s goodness will fill up every nook and cranny and multiply faster than you can imagine. The kingdom is like someone seeking and seeking and seeking until they find that precious pearl – and they sell everything else to have it. Who does that, really? But the kingdom is so valuable, so worth our lives – Jesus wants our everything. And the kingdom casts a much wider net than you think it does. Everyone is drawn in, invited, included. If there’s sorting to do, it’s God’s task, later. And the kingdom is meant to be shared. We who know it, get it, like the disciples say they do – although their one word “yes” makes me think they think that’s what they’re supposed to say – but we who start to get or at least glimpse the kingdom that’s near and here – we’re meant to share it – bringing our treasure out to be seen, not hidden, locked away, buried. What is the kingdom of heaven like then? Well, not like any one thing. No one definition will suffice. Because the kingdom is God’s life and love and dream for us and hope and faith in us and invitation to us, and home for us, and more, all at once.

And Jesus will keep telling us about it until we realize that. The kingdom is like the kingdom is like, the kingdom is like. Because the most important things in our world don’t usually have just one answer, but many. If you child or spouse or dear one asked why you loved them, you’d probably have not just one answer, one reason, but 1000. Because our love would be too big to be contained by one response. And so it is with God’s realm, God’s kingdom. Too much to be contained by one small definition.

            This week on Facebook, I encouraged people to respond to my fill-in-the-blank sentence. “The kingdom of God/the kingdom of heaven is like ______________.” Here’s some of the responses I got. The kingdom of God/the kingdom of heaven is:

Like being embraced with love.

Like love that cannot be contained, joy that banishes trouble, and peace beyond reasoning

Like Purest love

Like the playground

Like a wish/dream come true

Like perfect peace

Like the Unity of God's People truly celebrating our imperfections and realizing we are an interwoven tapestry of God's perfection.

Like our backyard on a summer day

Like the best of a Volunteers in Mission journey

Like being welcomed into a family on a mission trip, like knowing you are loved and cared for immediately and everyone crying when you have to leave but knowing you will be loved forever.

Like how complicated and complex relationships feel reconciled. Where I can live generously without fear of exploitation. When the search for meaning has culminated. It's laughter where the refugees live.

Healing, beauty, rest, music, poetry, storytelling, feasting, fun, wisdom, and love.

Where Eternity begins. What we do with that is what makes it heaven or hell.

Like the time/space/place where wholeness and holiness are real for all people.

Like a box of chocolates

Like wonderland!

Like love.

Like a series of colorful threads, humming and vibrating as the Source of all being connected together...

Like Gandhi's satyagraha, and MLK's beloved community, full of people who have dared to be vulnerable, facing a perceived enemy with openness and love.

Like a song we can all sing--and a perfect meal with plenty to go around.

            I love the variety of responses, the imagination, the creativity, the ways the images speak to the individuals. And that’s what I want to hear from you too. So I’m giving you a homework assignment this week. I should warn you, I like to give homework. You’ll find an insert in your bulletin with this same fill-in-the-blank prompt. And I’m hoping you – maybe not right this second – but before next Sunday – I’m hoping you’ll think about your vision of the kingdom of God. How do you describe the good news that God’s promises are for us now? How do you put into words that God’s love for us is immeasurable and we don’t have to wait a second longer to experience it in all fullness? How will you let someone know the good news about what the kingdom is like? What would you say? You tell me. What is the kingdom of heaven like?

            The kingdom is like, the kingdom is like, the kingdom is like….

            Amen.

.

Sermon for Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, "Wheat and Weeds," Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon 7/20/14

Matthew 13:24-30

Wheat and Weeds

            This week is enjoyed spending a little time helping out at the Matthew 25 Farm in Tully. The weather this spring and summer has helped to create a plentiful harvest, and the peas are ready to be picked faster than they can manage with their volunteers, so they were enlisting extra, emergency help this week. When I got there, one of the farmers spent a bit of time showing me the difference between peas that were not yet ready to be picked, peas that were a bit past their prime, and peas that were just right, Goldilocks-style. He also showed me that some younger, more eager volunteers weren’t gentle enough with the peas when they were picking them, and would accidentally uproot the whole plant in the process. As tall and winding as the plants are, their roots aren’t very deep or anchored into the ground. So they’re pretty fragile when you go to snap a pod off. Of course, once a plant is uprooted, that’s it for harvesting from that particular plant. He also pointed out that they don’t really spend much time weeding the field. There were rows of pea plants that were easy enough to see. But there were lots and lots of weeds. He said the plants were healthy enough – yielding more than they could keep up with already – and the weeds didn’t seem to be a problem. I guess if you have limited volunteer hours, you better focus on getting the food harvested that will go to feed hungry people. I also suspect, given the fragile nature of the plants and the eagerness of volunteers, weeding might just end up doing more harm than good.

            I had all of this on my mind this week as I prepared my sermon. This summer, we’ll be journeying through the gospel of Matthew, and today we come to what is known as the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, or the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Jesus has been teaching the crowds in a series of parables, first sitting outside the house where he is staying by the lake, and then eventually, because the crowds are so great, teaching from a boat to give him a little space while the crowds listen from the beach.

            Now parables are a particular kind of teaching that Jesus uses. Parable is from a Greek word – a verb actually – that means literally to bring something alongside another thing. To set something beside another thing. To bring something parallel with something else. To compare one thing with another. You’ll notice that Jesus, in his parables, is always telling a story that he sets alongside something in particular: “The kingdom of heaven is like” or “The kingdom of God is like.” Whenever Jesus tells us a parable, he’s bringing his story, his illustration, and setting it alongside what he knows about what God’s kingdom, God’s realm, is like. So, he’s trying to get us to learn about the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, by telling us these vivid stories that are maybe easier for us to understand than if we just went straight for trying to understand God’s kingdom.

            So, this time, what does Jesus say the kingdom is like? Well, it’s like a this: Someone sows good seed – wheat – in his field. But while everyone is asleep, an enemy comes and sows weeds with the wheat. When the plants start growing, and the weeds are discovered with the grain, the slaves of the sower seem shocked, and go to the sower saying, “Master, didn’t you sow good seed here? Why then are their weeds? Where did they come from?” The master replies that an enemy sowed the weeds. So the slaves offer to pull the weeds up. “No,” the master replies, “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.” Both wheat and weeds have to grow together until harvest time, when the wheat will be harvested at least, gathered into the barn, and the weeds will be bundled and burned.     

            Jesus’ parables would cause a mixed reaction in the crowds. On the one hand, the parables would use imagery that was familiar to them. They knew about planting crops and working the land. But on the other hand, some things would stick out to the crowds and cause them to ask questions. This is just what Jesus wants. The crowd knows how to find the point of the parable by noticing the details that Jesus presents as commonplace, but they know are quite unusual actually.

            You might wonder how you can figure out the things in the parable that would make the crowds’ ears perk up, worried that our twenty-first century ears won’t understand what sounded strange to first century ears. But if you think carefully, any of us with basic gardening knowledge might have some questions about this parable. Jesus says the sower sows good seed. Who would sow anything else? And why would the slaves think the master sowed weed? Or why would an enemy need to sow weed? We all know that weeds do just fine planting themselves. I was telling someone (Mary?) yesterday about a bag of potting soil that’s sitting in my backyard. I had it open to pot some plants, and left it outside. Now, there’s a big plant – a weed, really, pretty though it is – growing right in the open bag of potting soil. Weeds will grow anywhere, without our effort in planting them.

            So what does this parable tell us? What is Jesus trying to get us to know? First, in any parable, I think it is important to figure out where we are in the story, and where we are not. In this story, as in most of Jesus’ parables – we’re not the master! We’re the slaves! We’re not the sower of the seeds. And that means, as the master tells the slaves, that it is not our responsibility in this world to decide which are wheat and which are weeds. I repeat – it is not our responsibility to decide which are wheat and which are weeds. That responsibility belongs to the sower. And the sower is not us. I’ve found that we’re all pretty sure that we know how to tell wheat and weeds apart. But even if we’re right, our attempts to weed seem to end up like the over eager harvesters whose work I witnessed at the Matthew 25 Farm. In our attempt to pull out weeds, we uproot healthy plants, and find delicate blossoms that could have become good plants to harvest withering without root. It is not our responsibility to decide which are wheat and which are weeds. God has that covered, and God has not asked for our help with this task, as eager to help as we are. We need to do some soul searching, and ask ourselves when and where in our quest to point out the weeds of the world to God, our actions and attitudes have actually resulted in hurting, uprooting, destroying good plants.

            Second, we need to wonder about the parable telling us an enemy has sown the weeds in the field. It seems strange to us, to me at least, to picture some villain sneaking into a garden under cover of night to plant weeds in the field. It’s absurd. There’s enough weed without anyone planting anything intentionally. Who would do that? So, if it sounds so silly to us – planting weeds on purpose – we need to ask ourselves – when have our actions in the world been like planting weeds? What have we done, or failed to do, that has resulted in planting in someone else’s life some extra weeds for them to deal with? Where have you sown division, or bitterness, or envy, or mistrust, or judging attitudes, or unkindness, or even hatred, in the life of another beloved child of God? If sowing weeds sounds so silly, so useless, we all have to remind ourselves to stop doing it!

Finally, we need to wonder about what it says when you can’t tell wheat from weeds anyway. Sometimes good plants and weeds look so similar that you can’t tell one from another. And they grow so closely together, as Jesus’ parable indicates, that it is hard to tell which is which, where one begins and the other ends. What does it say if we can’t tell wheat from weed? If we’re sure we’re wheat, but there’s nothing about our lives, our treatment of one another, our relationship with God, our actions in the world that says we’ve been planted by God as good seed? We don’t only want to be careful not to do harm by taking on God’s role and pulling up what we think are weeds – we need to realize that sometimes others might see the way we’re living our lives and feel like they know that we’re weeds!

I can tell you for sure that everything God created God called good. Go back and read Genesis 1. “And God saw that it was good” is the theme of creation. We are good seed. So let’s live like it! And live like we see that goodness at the core of everyone we meet. It’s there. So let’s claim the goodness with which God created each one of us by living out the love God has poured into us. The kingdom of heaven is like this: God sows good seed with love everywhere, all around. And despite the weeds, God’s good seed can’t be stopped. The wheat can thrive in abundance, undeterred, until the Lord of the harvest gathers us in again. Thanks be to God. Amen.

           

Sermon for 7/13/14, John 10:1-10

Sermon 7/13/14

John 10:1-10

Perhaps all of you feel a little bit like I do today. A mixture of things. Excited and anxious. Anticipating and wondering. Ready for change, but thinking about things that have been left behind. Heart full of good-byes and hellos. The time between when you found out Pastor Clair would be leaving here, and when Penny and I found out we would be leaving our last congregations and coming here to you has flown by, and here we are, at the beginning of this new stage in our faith journey. This is an extremely significant time of transition for all of us, and we are all wondering what the future will hold. It’s a lot to take in! I know you all are no strangers to change and transition, and as United Methodist pastors, Penny and I aren’t either. The question is: where do we find God calling to us in the midst of the constant of change?

            Pastor Penny and I are so excited to be here with you today, to be joining you, as we seek, together, to hear God’s call and respond in faithful action. We have been and will be planning and preparing, and we are ready to get started! Penny and I have the benefit of having served together already – we both spent time in ministry at Liverpool First United Methodist Church. We’ve both served large congregations and smaller congregations. I’ve served churches that are congregations born of the combination of previous congregations, too. So some things are familiar to us. But many things are new. Penny and I have never served together in quite this exact way before. I've never served “part-time” before, and have to figure out what that looks like. You’ve never had two pastors at once before. And, we’ve never been in ministry together before. We don’t know exactly what this will look like yet. We plan to watch and listen and get to know you as we figure out how best to use our time and gifts and talents here.

            Today we wanted to introduce ourselves to you, and tell you a bit about what has brought us to this place and this time, about who we are, and what we’re excited about. I grew up in Westernville, a little country town between Rome and Boonville, and then moved to Rome, NY. I have a large extended family, almost all of whom live in Central New York, which is such a blessing to me. My younger brother Tim lives in Rome still. My oldest brother Jim and his wife Jennifer and seven year old son Sam, who you will hear a lot about, live in Minoa. They also have a little girl on the way, due to arrive in September, so I will get to add stories about my niece to my repertoire very soon. My youngest brother Todd is a professional actor who is currently working on his MFA at Purdue in Indiana. You’ll probably get to meet him on Christmas Eve, as I usually enlist him to perform some dramatic monologues in worship.

            I think God was always luring me towards being a pastor. I come from a family of pastors – two uncles, and two great uncles were United Methodist pastors, including my uncle Bill Mudge, who is District Superintendent of the Adirondack District in our conference, and my great uncle Baden Mudge, who served several churches in the Syracuse area. And I grew up attending a small country church in Westernville that had a lot of female pastors – I never knew some people found female pastors unusual – it was just how it was in my young experience! Actually, in my short acquaintance with Apple Valley so far, this place reminds me so much of my childhood church in powerful ways. My mother instilled in my brothers and me a deep sense that we are all called by God for some purpose – and it is our life’s work to figure out what that call is and how we can respond to it. So I was in the practice of listening for God’s voice, God’s direction, at a young age. I grew up attending one of our church camps, Camp Aldersgate, every summer, and for a while, I believed I was called into camping ministry, because that was where I felt closest to God. At camp is still a place I feel especially close to God.

But I have always needed to feel “settled” with decisions, at peace with them, to know that I heard God as accurately as I can. And I knew I hadn’t found the right spot yet. I started to become involved with youth ministry. Of course, I was a youth myself at the time, but I loved planning and preparing youth events, and I felt like maybe I had found my calling this time. But still, God was nudging me. Somewhere between applying for and beginning college, I realized God was calling me to pastoral ministry. I can’t pinpoint a specific date or time when I knew for sure, just God’s persistent tugging at me until I got the picture.

            I attended Ohio Wesleyan for my undergraduate work in pre-theology, and then went to seminary at Drew Theological School in New Jersey. I was commissioned in 2003 and ordained in 2006. I’ve remained passionate about my early loves – I still stay involved with camping ministries, and have spent eleven years now working with our Conference Council on Youth Ministries, CCYM. I love theatre and music, and have been grateful for how God has allowed me to use these gifts in my ministry. I have a love for social justice ministry – mission and outreach and service to those in the greatest need, those on the fringes, those who Jesus was always bringing to the center. In May, I completed my Doctor of Ministry at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio in the area of Leadership for Transformational Change, and in particular, I focused my writing on how a congregation’s outreach ministry can move from being charity-focused to justice-focused. God is still calling, always calling, and I continue to listen for God’s voice. I’ve served congregations in Oneida, in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, East Syracuse, Liverpool, and now, God has called us together in this place. That’s a bit about my path. As some of you know, I’m here quarter time with Pastor Penny because I’ve been feeling again God’s call on my life, and I’m looking at what ministry paths I can take in addition to this local church ministry that will especially allow me to build on the social justice work I focused on in my doctoral program. It’s another transition in my life, and I’ll admit to you that I find the uncertainty a bit scary. But I’m determined to listen and follow as best as I can for God’s voice, leading me.

            In the weeks and months ahead, we will want to hear about your path – your personal journey, your family, the path this congregation has taken. Your District Superintendent speaks very highly of you as a congregation, especially of how well you have handled transitions, and your reputation for being a warm and welcoming congregation where all people are welcome to come and learn about our God of love and grace. That makes me so excited to be your pastor, and I’m excited to see where God will lead all of us together.

            Today, I chose John 10:1-10, one of my favorite passages of scripture, to share with you. I love this whole chapter of scripture, but my favorite verse is John 10:10: Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” This verse caught my eye when I was in tenth grade, and reading the scriptures, and it just stuck with me. In a world that often paints Christianity as a list of thou-shalt-nots, when we Christians often let ourselves be boiled down to things you shouldn’t be doing, I was just fascinated that what Jesus said he wanted for us was abundant life. Abundance! Life that is full and rich and meaningful and complete, not a life where we feel restricted and limited and deprived. What God has in mind for us is that we find that our lives are overflowing with goodness and promise, that we have so much that we can’t begin to run out of ways to use and serve and love with the gifts we’ve been given. God wants us to have it all! Abundant life.

In challenging times, it is so easy for us to focus on what we don’t have, what we think we don’t have enough of. And it is so easy to try to fill up our lives with our own efforts, trying to fill an emptiness with a lot of stuff that has nothing much to do with God. We don’t need to. Jesus promises us all the abundance we could desire. God wants us to have it all. The catch? Of course, God wants us to give it all too. We get abundant life. God always gives us more. And as much as we have been following God, on the various paths we have taken to arrive here today, God is always going to call us further down the path. God is always read to give more and ask more.   

Friends, my hope is that we will learn to look in our hands, look in our lives, look in this congregation and community and recognize all the abundant life God has poured out on us. And then, I hope we will listen. God is calling us still, farther on. Let’s go together, and find out what God has in store.

Amen.