June 20, 2021
(can be printed)
Monday, June 21, 2021
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Monday, June 14, 2021
The kingdom of God is alive and unstoppable. June 13, 2021. The Rev. David M. Stoddart.
Mark 4:26-34
So what do you think makes someone a Christian? Is a Christian someone who believes the right things about Jesus? Or someone who has been baptized, goes to church weekly, and puts money in the plate? Or is a Christian someone who gives away their money to the poor and lives a life of simple service to others? Is it someone who prays faithfully every day? Or maybe a person who is kind and loving to everyone? Or someone who advocates for social justice and peace in our world? Would a Christian even bother trying to figure out what makes someone a Christian? Maybe a real Christian wouldn’t foist such a question on an unsuspecting congregation first thing in the morning.
So let me re-frame the question: what lies at the center of Jesus’s teaching? In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the answer to that is actually pretty straightforward: the core message Jesus proclaims is the kingdom of God. He begins his ministry by saying that the kingdom is near. He continually shows people what life in the kingdom looks like. He constantly tells parables about the kingdom. Now for some reason we have tended to interpret it as a future reality, as something that happens after we die. But Jesus teaches that the kingdom is near. And as we hear in the parables today, that kingdom is not only near; it is vibrant and ever-expanding. Jesus says the seeds of the kingdom are being sown all the time and are growing all the time. And we don’t create the seeds, nor do we make them grow. Listen to the Gospel: The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. And dear God, does it grow, like a tiny mustard seed that becomes the greatest of shrubs. The kingdom of God is alive and unstoppable. Every second new seeds are being sown, every second old seeds are bearing fruit simply because God desires it.
And it is not just happening somewhere out there. The kingdom of God, Jesus teaches, is within us, within each one of us. It is a state of being where love is the key to everything, where beauty is everywhere, and where death is just a gateway to greater life. If we want to define what makes someone a Christian, we could simply say that a Christian is anyone who lives in the kingdom that Christ reveals.
And to live in that kingdom, we don’t need to go anywhere, we don’t need to achieve moral perfection. We just need to open our eyes. The kingdom of God is within us and all around us. It just is. Your heart is beating right now because God loves you; every breath you take is a sign of the kingdom. Each moment there is opportunity to experience love and share love: when we walk the dog, when we argue with our spouse, when we sit on the porch, when we lie in bed with the flu, when we watch a loved one die: each moment the kingdom is there. Like so many people in the Gospel stories, we are often just too blind or too stubborn to see it. We can be like those people in Plato’s famous allegory who live in a cave and see only dim shadows reflected on the walls. If we would just turn around and face the entrance to the cave, we would see blue skies and green trees, we would feel the warmth of the sun and the cool evening breeze. Our entire view of reality would change — if we would only turn around (i.e., repent) and open our eyes.
Blindness is the great scourge of the New Testament, but there is nothing that prevents us from opening our eyes. If we want to see signs of the kingdom, we will, because the signs are everywhere. Last week, when I gave people the Body of Christ for the first time in over a year, I thought, “This is the kingdom of God.” But that moment of communion with Christ and each other just highlighted what is true every moment. The other day we got a package delivered to us that was actually addressed to someone else on a different street. So I took the package to that house, and this couple opened the door, trying to thank me while holding back their very loud and very large dog, and I thought, “This is the kingdom of God.” I didn’t know those people at all, but I knew I was one with them. It wasn’t a great epiphany or a moment of euphoria, just a reminder that every second seeds are being sown, every second the harvest is plentiful. Right now, the person sitting next to you is filled with the Holy Spirit. Right now, this place is radiant with God’s love.
Life, of course, is challenging, and it can be easy to retreat into our caves. We might be tempted to tell ourselves that our situation is just too difficult or too painful to get even a glimpse of God’s kingdom. But I will gently remind you that the Apostle Paul saw that kingdom when he was shipwrecked, beaten and imprisoned. Francis of Assisi saw the kingdom amidst poverty and leprosy. Etty Hillesum saw the kingdom in Auschwitz. I could go on and on with similar examples. In our brokenness, we humans can certainly obscure our vision of the kingdom, but we can never erase it. As Jesus teaches, the kingdom of God is unstoppable. And it is our joy as Christians, the very thing that marks us as Christians, to live in that kingdom every day of our lives.
Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Monday, June 7, 2021
Enlarging the circle of family. June 6, 2021. The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges
Mark 3:20-35
Family. We all have one. Some are loving, some are odd, some are dysfunctional, some are abusive, and some are a combination of all those things and more. If nothing else, families are complicated. And as we find ourselves right in between our cultural celebration of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and all the sentimental ideals that those holidays promote, the gospel of Mark provides us with a glimpse of a particular family and their dynamics - Jesus’ family, often referred to as the Holy Family. Now with such a title, who could blame us for assuming that Jesus’ family would be wholly perfect - always serene, supportive, understanding, and patient. But if that’s what we think we would be mistaken.
After going about healing the sick, casting out demons, and preaching the gospel, Jesus comes home. But the reception is not warm. He is not behaving in the way many would expect. People are talking. Rumors are flying. “That Jesus,” they say, “he’s out of his mind.” And his family is concerned. But they aren’t the only ones. Religious authorities from Jerusalem are also up in arms about Jesus claiming that what he is doing comes straight from the devil himself.
So his family comes to restrain him. Maybe thinking that they will save him? Maybe they are just trying to salvage the family reputation? Who knows. Nonetheless, they go and call for him. And word is passed to Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” But Jesus doesn’t go to them. Instead he stays and asks, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then looking at those around him, he answers his own question, “Here are my mother and my brothers!”
Ouch! That must have stung - at least for his mother and blood siblings. But for those beyond that small, closed group it probably sounded like very good news. Outsiders are now in. It’s not that Jesus is rejecting his own family of origin, he’s broadening it. Enlarging the circle of who family is. “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother,” he says. Without shutting anyone out Jesus expands who belongs, who matters, who is connected. And in doing so he pushes the boundaries so far out that everyone’s expectations about how things should be are shattered.
That is really at the heart of all this
turmoil. Family, friends, and authorities, they all have their own ideas about
where lines should be drawn. What’s right and what’s wrong, what’s acceptable
and what’s not. When it comes to Jesus the expectations are along the lines of
traditional son, good hometown boy, obedient Jew. But Jesus is not having it.
That’s not why Jesus came. He’s not here to fulfill anyone’s vision of how he
should be - not theirs, not even ours. Rather he comes to give us a new
vision, God’s vision of life as we were created to live it.
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. Now some may hear this as a way to earn entrance into Jesus’ family. As in, if I do the right things, the things that are deemed the will of God then, when I do them, I will be accepted, I will belong, I will have value. But nothing could be further from the truth. We don’t earn our way into God’s good graces no matter how good we are. God’s grace, God’s love, God’s acceptance is generous and it is free. Which explains why Jesus calls those around him his family, his brothers and mother. They aren’t doing anything special to earn that status. All they’re doing is sitting with Jesus and being present to love.
Because it always comes down to love. That’s the will of God - love - encountering it, recognizing it, sharing it. God is the source of all love - everything and everyone begins from there. But Jesus’ call to do the will of God is not just to feel the love and remain seated. Because if that’s all we do we miss out. In order to experience God’s love most fully and connect with that love most deeply we must give it away. For as we love in ways that enable others to know and feel that they too are loved, everyone wins. We all thrive. No one is left out. Together we are family. Connected in love. That is God’s vision for us all.
God’s love makes us all more. It expands who we are. Although sometimes that expanding can make us uncomfortable. It certainly made Jesus’ family, friends, and religious authorities uncomfortable - and, really, we are no different than they are. Because God’s love is so vast, so broad, so all encompassing, of course our limits will bump up against the limitless love of God and push us. So the next time you are feeling uncomfortable because something or someone seems a bit out of bounds, before you dismiss it out of hand, consider it as an opportunity to get curious about how you might expand your generosity of being. How might the situation be calling you to be more gracious, more forgiving, more understanding? Is your circle of care growing? Is your family getting bigger? That’s what doing God’s will is all about.
Jesus’ family is an open one. And because that is so, because we are all included it means that, guaranteed, it will be complicated. Even the holiest of families has its challenges.But Jesus will have it no other way. Regardless of the state of your earthly family, God’s family is where all of us belong, all of us matter, all of us are truly loved.
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