Sermon for Pentecost 7, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

First I have to say that it was on honor to be one of Jennifer’s presenters

            Tuesday evening at her ordination to the priesthood.

We had a number of Emmanuelites there

            assisting in the liturgy and supplying food for the reception.

It was truly a great occasion for the five being ordained

            and the gathering of congregations from around the diocese.

The focus of an ordination is on being called to serve in ministry

            following our Lord Jesus,

            and because the renewal of the baptismal covenant is also included

                                                                        in the liturgy,

we are reminded that we ALL are called to serve in ministry – ordained or lay.

For us seasoned clergy each ordination is also an opportunity

                        to renew our own ordination vows along with the ordinands,

            and I personally take this seriously.

And one part of those vows, a major part of those vows, is about Holy Scriptures.

I can quote from memory this vow:

            “I solemnly declare that I do believe

            the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments

            to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation…”

And the Bishop in the Examination asks the ordinands:

            “Will you be diligent in the reading and study of the Holy Scriptures,

            and in seeking the knowledge of such things

            as may make you a stronger and more able minister of Christ?”

Bishop Greg in his sermon also exhorted the ordinands:

            “Do not hinder the people you serve.”

Remember that with what I say next about the Gospel!

I have been ordained now for going on 30 years,

            and during that time I have seen some major changes in the church,

and I think that a lot of those changes were initiated, enabled and supported

            by the women ordained to the priesthood.

And I do believe that the presence of women in the priesthood

                        has enriched us all greatly.

One of the most hopeful things I have seen is an increase in awareness

            about the differences between “churchianity,” or ecclesiology,

            and a living, experienced faith that comes through

                        revelation by the Holy Spirit, the Resurrection Presence of Jesus.

With that in mind I have the boldness to now preach what I am about to say

                        about the Gospel reading for today

            as it has been revealed to me by the Resurrection Spirit of our Lord.

The Gospel reading for today is the third in a three week series

            from the 13^th chapter of Matthew,

a whole long chapter of the parables of Jesus about the Kingdom of Heaven.

Parables of the Kingdom/Parables of Grace

The parables are always about the truth that is in Jesus,

that he is living out for us.

And the parables are stories about a process at work in us.

They are about our relationship with Jesus,

            the experience of the disciple in relationship to the Beloved.

In these parables watch out for the point of absurdity in each parable,

            and look also for the expression of abundance.

Today we have FIVE parables,

            five short, quick original pictures about the Kingdom of Heaven.

In each is absurdity, and in each is abundance.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed…”

            a small, tiny seed.

I’ve seen fields of mustard growing –

            four, maybe five feet tall, good size bushes.

But growing to become a tree?

            Not by any stretch of the imagination.            Absurd.

Yet the Kingdom grows way beyond expectation

and accommodates life, offering shelter, abundantly useful.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast…”

A woman takes the yeast and adds it to the flour for a batch of bread,

but she uses three times the amount of flour than usual.

She kneads the dough

and tucks it into a warm corner of the kitchen to rise.

What would you expect to have happened

when she comes back a couple of hours later?!

Someone once told me of a mistake she had made in her recipe

             when making bread.

She had put the bowl of dough in the warm oven to rise

      only to come back later to see the dough pushing against the oven door

             ready to ooze out into the rest of the kitchen.

Absurd abundance and expansiveness.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field…”

Now listen and tell me if this sounds like

recommended ethics for business transactions.

Someone discovers treasure in a field that does not belong to him.

So he obscures it from sight, so that others wouldn’t see it,

until he himself can gather his resources

and carry out the transaction necessary to buy the field,

so that he can then claim the treasure as his own.

Is Jesus recommending shady business deals, insider trading and the like?!

Absurd.

But the Kingdom is like the treasure,

something so valuable that when its presence is recognized

             it drives one to do whatever is necessary

to get that treasure. 

It becomes the ultimate carrot

so that we might be filled with such yearning for it

and be drawn into relentless pursuit of it.

The treasure is abundance;

the treasure is the Teacher, the Beloved, Jesus.

“Again the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls…”

Finally he finds what he has been looking for –

THE Pearl, the biggest, finest pearl in all creation.

This pearl is so valuable to the merchant, so precious, so beloved

that he must have it no matter that it takes all that he has

– house, car, computer, TV, clothes,

cash value of his pension fund and life insurance, everything.

Once he has that pearl, then what?

The pearl is useless for providing him life support

– he can’t eat it; it doesn’t supply shelter.

What an absurd action, what extravagant expense and waste!

Remember, the parables are about the truth that Jesus is living out.

And they are stories about a process at work in us,

about our relationship with Jesus,

            the experience of the disciple in relationship to the Beloved.

Now notice, in this parable

the Kingdom of Heaven is like the merchant, not the pearl.

So who is the merchant?  Jesus is the merchant.

Then what or who is the pearl?

So often this parable is read to mean

that WE are to be like the merchant seeking the pearl of great price,

                         the pearl being the Kingdom of God or Jesus.

But is that really what this parable is saying?

Or is it saying more consistently with the other parables around it

that it is God seeking extravagantly, generously, with great yearning love

                 for that which God sees as being of inestimable value?

Who then is the pearl?

You are.

The Kingdom of Heaven, through the grace of Jesus, seeks you out

to have, to draw you in to itself,

to be purchased, bought with a price, to be saved.

Absurd abundance, grace poured out for our joy.

Finally, the fifth parable:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a net…”

not like the fishermen, but the net.

The net gathers into it everything in its path.

Those doing the fishing can’t say to the net,

“We’re just collecting halibut today, thank you.”

The net will catch whatever is there, and it may not just be fish.

It may even be possible to come up with

an old boot or tire entangled in the net.

The net is by nature absurdly non-discriminatory.

In the net we may find an abundance

of what we were not necessarily seeking.

So then there is this sorting through of the good and the bad.

And the Greek words here, please understand, have no moral implication

as we may want to jump to conclusions about.

The words good and bad here mean in their basic meaning

what is profitable and useful

and what is spoiled, rotten, no longer any good, of any use.

This is a parable about our relationship with Jesus?

Yes, a parable of grace and inclusiveness.

And then the process of purification takes place.

And now, because I take so seriously my ordination vow

            of being diligent in the reading and study of the Holy Scriptures,

I must inform you that there has been an unfortunate mistranslation

            in the last verse of the Gospel reading:

"Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven

is like the master of a household

who brings out – no, who throws out – of his treasure

what is new and what is old."

The process of discipleship with Jesus,

            which is the same for both clergy and laity,

takes us through a profound reorientation out of the mindset of the world

            into the absurd abundance of the Kingdom of Heaven

                        in all its joy and love and mercy and grace.

Everything previous to the Kingdom, previous to Jesus, goes – tossed out.

The Apostle Paul in the reading from Romans today

makes this profound statement:

            “For I am convinced 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.”

Nothing

  – good, bad, or indifferent, church traditions and customs, or ordination status –             

             can stand in the way of that love of God that Jesus embodies.

This, I declare to you, is the radical meaning of these Kingdom parables,

            parables which are at the heart of discipleship with Jesus.

This is what we are to be about here – lay or ordained.

            Those who have ears to hear let them listen to what the Spirit is saying.

Sermon for July 6 at Emmanuel Episcopal Church

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,

and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;

for I am gentle and humble in heart,

and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Beautiful words of the Gospel this morning,

welcome words, words of great comfort.

How we long to hear these words spoken by Jesus,

            how good they are to hear,

especially with five funerals in the last month,

                        that have left many of us with heavy hearts.

Come to me, all you that are weary,

and I will give you rest.

But let’s look at these beautiful workds in their context,

            that is, how they fit in with the words that come before them,

and that will show us even more

about what these beautiful words mean.

In other words, it’s not just rest, getting some R and R, taking a vacation,

            that these words are all about.

No, there is a lot more than meets the eye.

These words come at the end of a whole chapter about controversy

over just who Jesus was, and who John the Baptist was.

Some saw them both as great prophets,

but those with the theological backgrounds had lots of considerations, because, first of all,

John the Baptist was this strange man

coming out of the Judean desert

with bits of grasshopper wings and dribbles of honey

in his untrimmed beard,

preaching sermons full of fire and brimstone and name calling.

Then Jesus comes along,

having called a tax-collector,

a collaborator with an oppressive foreign regime,

to be one of his disciples,

eating and drinking with all sorts of low life. 

Jesus certainly did not fit the observance of worship of God

or keeping of Torah, the Law,

as did those highly respected religious leaders,

like the clergy and the theologians

and congregational lay leaders

known for the examples of how they lived upstanding lives.

But nevertheless what Jesus was saying and doing

galvanized many into following him about

to hear him preach and watch him heal.

And lives were being transformed,

people were being healed

and liberated in ways that opened their understanding

to experiencing the Kingdom of God present in their midst,

while at the same time those

who were so much in tune with their practice of faith

were taking affront with what was going on

as irregular, immoral and uncontrolled.

So Jesus says,

"I give thanks to you, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth,

            because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent

            and have revealed them to infants;

yes, Father, for it was delightful, this that was coming to be before you."

So we could say that it's not head knowledge

that the wise and intelligent have,

            but what can be called “heart” knowledge,

                        that is able to comprehend and take in the revelation of God.

“…revealed them to infants…” he said.

The word here is not just implying having child-like faith.

This is the word for new born babies,

            those who have just experienced a MAJOR paradigm shift,

                                    - we could say -

            popping out into a whole new world of experiences

                        for which they do not have any words,

                        no way to express what it is they are experiencing yet.

Those who followed Jesus around listening to what he said,

            to all the outlandish things he was saying in parables,

            got jolted into whole new ways of looking at things.

They were shedding all the overlays of enculturation, of sophistication,

            of all the commonly held beliefs about how life is supposed to work.

They were going through a MAJOR paradigm shift

            about what their religion and faith practice was all about,

all revealed through Jesus.            Infants in this new way of seeing the world.

So Jesus says,

"All things have been handed over to me by my Father;

and no one knows the Son except the Father,

and no one knows the Father except the Son

            and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

And this is the direct context for the familiar words that follow.

This is how the Son reveals the Father to us.

"Come to me, all the ones laboring and having been burdened,

            - those spent with labor, exhausted -

and I will give you rest.

            - I will cause you to pause, to rest, to come to a stop.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;

for I am meek and humble in heart,                        What? Meek!  Jesus meek?

In Greek the word meek means unassuming, gentle, kind, forgiving, humane

                        and so totally absorbed in Divine Presence

that there is no violence at all within him -

And - humble, lowly,

meaning that there is no pride or focus on self in Jesus,

and so he opens the way, give accessibility to the Father -

and you will find rest for your souls.

            - in the Greek literally it is a place of rest

            where? in Jesus' heart, where there is open access to him -

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Rest is promised.

We have dreams of Jesus soothing our brow,

            taking our hand and patting it, saying,

            "There, there. Put your feet up."

Rest is promised, but strange way to get rest:

"Take my yoke upon you…"

            Take up a yoke, instrument for bearing more work and burden.

Take my yoke … and learn from me…"

            maqete - learn, disciple,

                                    enter into discipleship with me.

This is how the Son reveals the Father to us.

Through the learning process of a yoke, our submission.

            Oooh, a hard word for us to hear,

                        yet with much truth to be revealed in submission.

By submitting to a yoke of obedience,

one will have the Kingdom of God open into your awareness.

But this yoke is not a yoke of work or effort, of striving and exhaustion,

           

So the rest Jesus offers

            is in a yoke of obedience and with a burden to carry;

            it is in discipleship

                        which, he says, will lead to rest and refreshment

Why do we make it such work then?

We don't get it about discipleship;

            we make it a heavy load.

The Gospel passage for today is about the heart of discipleship,

            and the point is that it's not hard,

            and it's actually refreshing and restful.

Submission and discipleship is actually very liberating.

By now it should be apparent

that the access point is the heart, not the head,

because we are speaking paradoxes here, not logical sense.

It has to be revealed to us by the Spirit of Jesus through grace

            a whole new perspective on this vale of tears that we live in.

We all can to some degree or another identify with

St. Paul’s classic description of the human predicament

described in the Epistle lesson for today.

To paraphrase, I want to do what is right, but find that I can’t,

because there is such disharmony within me

that one part of me is at war with another part of me.

Paul realizes that it is only through intervention beyond himself

that he is saved out of all that. 

“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free

from the law of sin and of death.”

The yoke of the Spirit of life in Jesus has set you free

from the wearisome burden of struggle

to extricate yourself from the deadening and life-draining labor

                                                             of living life all on one’s own.

“Come to me, all you that are weary…

…my yoke is easy…”

It comes to me that this is all another way of saying,

            “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness,

            and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Sermon for Easter 4, Emmanuel

Some of you know that I recently got a dog.

So, of course, I will come up with some dog stories in my sermons.

My new dog is a two year old rescue dog,

            whom I have had for just two months now.

I named her Mercy for several reasons,

            and it fits her well.

We are getting to know each other,

            and both of us are learning such things as how to heel

                        and how to interact with other dogs.

And we have discovered the dog parks,

            where Mercy can race around with other dogs to her heart’s content.

Dog parks are fascinating places – all the different breeds of dogs,

            such gorgeous animals. 

I love just watching them all as they engage in their various dog games.

In particular I love to watch the border collies

            when their human goes to throw a ball for them.

Their herding instinct comes out.

            They crouch, then stealthily creep forward,

                        then race off to round up that ball before it escapes.

Keep this in mind.

We heard the words of Jesus in the Gospel reading for today:

“The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

The gatekeeper opens the gate for him,

and the sheep hear his voice.

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them,

and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

The image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is a favorite for many.

How many stained glass windows have you seen

            that show Jesus gently carrying a lamb

            and being followed by a flock of sheep through a lovely pastoral scene?

Ah, this is the way we want Jesus to be:

            taking care of us, providing for us, as lovingly as a mother.

So, you know what I am going to say next –

            Good luck with that!

The Good Shepherd is but one view of Jesus,

            and Jesus was not always sweetness and kindness

                        with those whom he loved.

And, admit it, the most loving mother is one who does not hesitate to correct             and make you take a time out and hand you chores to do.

And the sheep don’t exist

            just to be led by still waters and graze in green pastures.

The sheep are a valuable commodity for the shepherd,

            first for their wool,

            and then some are going to end up on the dinner table,

                        their lives will be sacrificed,

and that has certainly happened with some of those who followed Jesus.

So let’s keep this Good Shepherd imagery reality based.

But you know, the image of this shepherding quality of Jesus

            has been extended to clergy as well.

Sometimes the clergy are called pastors, another term for shepherd.

And our bishops carry crosiers around with them –

            and you know what a crosier is?            a fancy shepherd’s crook.

I always see a problem with this image about clergy,

            for it sets us up

as being between the One who is the Good Shepherd and the sheep.

So we must not forget , and it is probably self evident,

that we clergy are also one of the critters, members of the flock.

It doesn’t take much of a reality check for most clergy to remember this.

There is only one Shepherd, only One who can say,

            “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

If we want to carry on with the imagery of sheep and Shepherd,

            then perhaps we should look at clergy

            in terms of what my Pastoral Theology professor in seminary suggested:

that clergy are like “sheep dogs.”

Clergy are to keep the flock together,

            check for strays, sneak up behind them, nip their heels,

            and herd them back into the flock,

            then keep the sheep moving so that they don’t wander off into danger,

                        or overgraze one place, always moving on to new pasture lands.

To extend the analogy,

            a good sermon then should be like nipping at the heels,

                        and move us into a new place of nourishment.

                       

But the point of all this is to help us all be clear

            that we are all fellow creatures together before our Creator.

Something that is very important to note in particular

about this biblical model of shepherding

is that in relationship to Jesus and his disciples

never did Jesus pick out one single, specially gifted disciple

to take over as the next, official shepherd of the flock,

not even Peter, if you read the texts carefully.

Peter wouldn’t have been a particularly logical choice anyway,

            given his track record.

Instead Jesus assured them – and us –

that he would never leave us without his presence,

never abandon us,

that he would continue to shepherd us.

And he entrusted his work to ALL of us:

            that is, the work of making disciples among all peoples,

                        and the ongoing care of the community of faith.

“Love one another,” he said.

This is the commandment for care within the faith community,

            and, of course, beyond the walls of the congregation.

Love one another.

            Have care and compassion for one another.

            Serve one another.

So actually and especially to be noted:

            The Good Shepherd calls all of the flock to share in the shepherding.

Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd,

            one who was willing to sacrifice his life for the lives of sheep;

                        in much the same way he referred to himself as a servant.

In Luke 22 Jesus said to his disciples,

“The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them;

and those in authority over them are called benefactors.

But not so with you;

rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest,

and the leader like one who serves.

For who is greater,

the one who is at the table or the one who serves?

Is it not the one at the table?

But I am among you as one who serves.

Jesus is the Servant, the One who waits tables, the Deacon.

He is our example to be like him,

            each one of us, not just the clergy.

My dog Mercy has been teaching me about leadership,

            how in order to lead her and keep her from going astray

            I must speak her language.

In dog thought, most dogs don’t want to be the leader, the alpha dog.

            They would really feel more secure and less anxious

                        with the leader of the pack in charge.

So when I am clear and confident in my own actions,

            then Mercy has greater confidence and is more at ease.

If I am not doing my job of leading confidently and clearly

            then she thinks that she must pick up that job,

                        but doing it out of a place of anxiety and fear.

That’s when she gets into trouble,

            and when it comes down to it, it really is my fault.

So the best kind of caring leadership for her

            is for me to be alert to how SHE thinks

            and to serve her needs by my alertness.

The master serves…

Each of us is called to act with compassion and kindness,

to give our attention to others, especially those who are wandering off,

to take time to know others by name

and to be with each other

when times are particularly difficult or challenging,

            to help one another expediently when we get lost,

                        and at times when we become “black sheet,” so to speak,

all to keep the flock together as a community,

                                                following the voice of Jesus.

Peter, the unlikely shepherd, speaks to us all

in these words from the Epistle reading for today:

“For you were going astray like sheep,

but now you have returned

to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”

There is only one Shepherd, and – here is the surprise –

he himself identifies with the sheep.

            The Lamb of God

Rev. 7:17             For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,

                        and he will guide them to springs of the water of life.