July 26, 2020
Sunday, July 26, 2020
Thursday, July 23, 2020
Keep calm and carry on. July 19, 2020 The Rev. David M. Stoddart
Genesis 28:10-19a; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
I am drinking my caffeinated coffee this
morning with a mug that reads, “Keep Calm and Carry On.” That phrase has become
a cultural meme, with many variations like “Keep Calm and Eat Chocolate,” “Keep
Calm and Call Dad,” and even “Keep Calm and Play Rugby.” But originally it was
a poster printed in the United Kingdom in 1939 to encourage the British people
at the outset of World War II. It’s tone is very English, of course, but we are
Anglicans after all, and it has been on my mind a lot as I have sat with these
readings today, all of which are marvelous.
And let me begin with Romans. The Apostle
Paul’s life is filled with hardship and suffering. And he looks around him and
sees a tumultuous world and a small church struggling to survive. But he does
not conclude that everything is going to hell in a handbasket. Rather he sees
it all as part of the process of giving birth to new life: We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until
now. That’s a striking image: labor pains are intense (or so I’ve been
told) and the process of giving birth is arduous and painful. As Paul sees it,
God is slowly giving birth to a new world, a world that hasn’t been fully
realized yet but will be. And how are people to live in such a time? Well, he
writes, For in hope we were saved. Now
hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope
for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Yes, the world is in
tumult, but God is working God’s purposes out. Goodness and love will prevail.
So keep calm and carry on.
There’s a similar feel in the parable
Jesus tells today. Some enemy has sown bad seed among the wheat. The workers
are upset: they want to go dig out all the weeds and fix everything right away.
But the owner says no, that will damage the wheat as well. Everything will be
sorted out at harvest time. There is no reason to panic and overreact. Keep
calm and carry on.
Now obviously our own world is also
tumultuous, with challenges hitting us at every level. So the message of calm
perseverance is as timely and relevant as ever. I don’t need to list all the
problems we face, nor do I need to elaborate on the divisions and strife among
people as we struggle with them. The Bible doesn’t tell us to do nothing in
such a time: certainly Jesus and Paul worked hard, and there is much for the
church to do when the world is in such distress. But the Bible does say not to
panic and not to fear. Whatever we do, we do not need to act in desperation or
despair. There is a reason why we can stay hopeful and not panic; there’s a
reason why we can keep calm and carry on. And I think that reason is simply and
beautifully illustrated in our first reading from Genesis.
Jacob is also in tumult. After cheating
his brother Esau out of his rightful blessing, he is fleeing for his life. And
it’s at this critical moment when he is alone and afraid that God appears to
him in a dream. And Jacob has this remarkable epiphany: Surely the LORD is in this place — and I did not know it. Jacob’s
world has been turned upside down, but he is able to carry on because he comes
to see, in a profound way, that God really is with him and that God will be
faithful and will fulfill the promises God has made.
We want to resist the temptation of being
faithful believers on Sunday morning and then functional atheists the rest of
the week, people who act as if God is nowhere to be found. One of the reasons
we gather on Sunday mornings is to remind ourselves of the truth, which is that
even now God is working her purposes out. We are living through a difficult and
challenging time, no question, but we have not been forsaken and God has not
been defeated. So I ask you: how might this coming week be different if we look
around us and see not just uncertainty and confusion but the birth pains of new
life, a life of deeper caring and greater justice? How might our days be better
if we take Jacob’s epiphany to heart: Surely the Lord is in this place — even
when we fail to see it?
This is not a call to passivity: we need
to act. We need to love and support each other as a church. We need to work for
greater justice in our society. We need to be signs of hope to a hurting world.
But if that world looks at us, who claim to have faith, and sees people acting
out of fear or denial, as if God had somehow disappeared from the scene, then
we really have nothing to offer. Far better to follow Jesus and act with hope
and quiet confidence, as he calls us to do. So in the Spirit of Christ, and
remembering the example of Jacob and Paul, I encourage you to keep calm and
carry on. God is with us.
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Sunday, July 19, 2020
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Sunday, July 12, 2020
Given a vision of abundance. July 12, 2020 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges
Is the glass half full or half empty? Even though we all see
the same thing people can come to different conclusions. Like optimists, the
thinking goes, see the glass half full while pessimists view it as half empty.
Who’s right? Are either of them? Maybe there’s another way to look at the
glass? Well it all depends on your perspective.
Which makes me curious,
what is your perspective on our reading from the gospel of Matthew? Good news
or bad? A sower went out to sow, Jesus begins, and this sower ends up scattering
a copious amount of seed everywhere - on the pathway, on rocky ground, among
thorns, and on good soil - all with varying results. Then comes the
explanation. The seed, Jesus says, is the word of the kingdom sown in the soil
of a person’s heart. And depending upon the condition of one’s heart whether
it’s beaten down, rocky, distracted or receptive, the seed either takes root or
not and yields a great harvest or nothing at all.
So is this good news or
bad? Judgement or joy? If what we hear is primarily a story about bad soils
and, therefore, bad hearts, then this becomes a parable of judgment - on us and
on others. And from that perspective we may think that what we should be doing
is going around judging ourselves or others as good or bad, right or wrong,
open to the word of the kingdom or closed. But this point of view in no way
produces good fruit or a bountiful harvest which should be our first clue that
that is not what Jesus wants us to hear. He never says, “Therefore, I tell you,
be of good soil!”
He doesn’t say that
because the good news, the hope we have is not found in the condition of the
soil, but in the character of the sower. The sower who scatters seed
everywhere. Instead of judgement, there is joy and delight in the image of this
carefree, extravagant, generous sower that has an abundance of seed and holds
none of it back. A sower that we can identify as God. For God is always sowing
seeds - the word of the kingdom, the Word that is Christ, the word of life and
love and mercy and grace. God is always sowing those seeds into our lives and
into our world.
But seeds, by their very
nature, take time. And they are easily overlooked. Nonetheless, seeds are
powerful as they push their way through dirt, rocks, and other obstacles. They
are also persistent, working night and day to grow and flourish. Seeds do all this
work out of view until the time of harvest comes and we can actually see what’s
been there all along.
And the harvest, Jesus
says, turns out to be thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold. Which would have been
the real shocker for those who first heard this parable. Back in Jesus’ day, a
seven or eight
fold yield from one seed
was considered quite good. Ten fold was great. Anything more was simply unheard
of. To talk about an increase of thirty, sixty or one hundred fold, that was
more than being optimistic, that was talking about a whole different way of
seeing the world. Seeing with a hope, a vision, a confidence which can only
come from the perspective of the Kingdom of God.
But in this kingdom, God
is not the only generous sower of these powerfully determined seeds. We, who
are created in the image of God, are made to be sowers too. To likewise be
carefree, extravagant and generous in our sowing because we have been given
this vision of abundance, both in seed and in harvest. But that’s not to say
that we look reality in the face and deny it. Hardly. Right now the whole world
is reeling from all the fallout of this pandemic. Death, suffering, loss,
uncertainty and anxiety abound. And yet in the midst of all this there are also
seeds and harvest. Countless people sacrificing for the sake of others, a
growing movement for racial justice, a new appreciation for the simple things,
those, to name a few, are both the sowing of seeds and the reaping of harvest.
For when we look through the lens of God’s kingdom we see the seeds of God’s
life and harvest of God’s love everywhere.
Because, when you really
look at it, the glass is not half empty, but neither is it half full. There is
more there than meets the eye. Water is in the bottom half. The top half is
filled with air. From that perspective the glass is not simply full, but like
the kingdom of God, it is overflowing.
Wednesday, July 8, 2020
Monday, July 6, 2020
Sunday, July 5, 2020
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
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