St. Andrew's Community Garden Project and Jesus' Parables about Gardening

First I want to tell you all that each week as I come here to St. Andrew's

         I observe the expanding number of boxes and raised beds

as you all put such energy and loving care into creating 

                  a truly community garden,

and I pray that all the little seeds and seedlings planted here

         will thrive and grow into their full potential,

         and that your witness and generosity in this neighborhood

                  will also continue to thrive and grow into a full harvest.

 

This project, you know, is very biblical.

         It is deeply grounded in scripture – pun intended!

 

But before looking at the readings for today,

         I want to call your attention to this Sunday’s collect:

“Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love,

         That through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness

         and minister justice with compassion…”

 

Massey Shepherd, who was the great liturgy authority 

                                             of the last century in the Episcopal Church, 

         was the author of this collect,

and he incorporated within the collect 

                  references from Galatians and Ephesians.

He linked together twin ideals of truth and justice 

                                             with courage and compassion:

         truth with the boldness of courage

         and justice linked with compassion.

 

This, he declared, was the fullness of Christian duty and service.

         If you want a good, solid guidepost for living out your faith,

                  there it is.

 

We have prayed that collect each year on this Sunday for decades.

         We ask for God’s help in being steadfast in both faith and love.

That’s good that we keep asking, 

         because it takes God’s help to keep on being steadfast.

And note that in this collect we learn that faith and love go together.

 

The Apostle Paul must have realized this also.

In today’s reading from the second letter to the church in Corinth

         he states that we walk by faith and not by sight.

Things are not always as they appear.

         We can be deceived by appearances.

                  Something that appears so very small 

                  may actually contain something so very huge.

“…we walk by faith, not by sight…”

 

That great Apostle and missionary Paul wrote this 

         to the faith community in the Greek city of Corinth 2 millennia ago,

                  in a time of turbulence and uncertainty.

He was writing to people who knew the truth of these words,

         who experienced what it was like to enter the unknown

                  and place their faith in this new Savior,

         people who discovered the presence of this Savior 

                  in the Holy Spirit as an intimate encounter with the Divine

                           in their innermost beings

                           and in the midst of their fellowship with one another.

“…we walk by faith, not by sight…”

 

And that is why it is so important to be steadfast in faith and love,

         the two together help provide balance and give us perspective 

                  as we go about navigating a world that is so full of

                           issues, problems, dangers, and contradictions

                  that loom so large that they can eclipse our seedling faith.

 

Paul continues,

         “For the love of Christ urges us on…”
It’s all there in the huge, loving act of salvation 

                                    through the death and Resurrection of Jesus.

         That is what brings about a new creation in us.

 

Just like in a mustard seed that is sown

         that has within it all the DNA that makes it possible 

                  to grow and become its destiny,

                  big enough to shelter all the birds of the air,

so in Christ there is a new creation, a new DNA, so to speak, Christ DNA,

        that makes it possible to grow up into 

                                             and actually live into that new life.

 

Creation is giving us such examples all over the place 

         and is reflected in numerous scripture readings.         

         The Gospel reading from Mark for today is such an example.

You plant your garden with peas and green beans, carrots and cabbage,

                  you water the soil,

         but you can’t make the seeds sprout and grow.

They do that because they are faithful to the way God created them,

         fulfilling the blueprint of the DNA in the tiny seeds 

                  until they are full grown and fruitful,

                                    just as God intended.

 

Jesus said the Kingdom of God that he came to bring us into

         is like God’s Creation, natural, spontaneous, growing, abundant, 

                           ever expanding.

If we could get that into our vision, that naturally occurring expansion,

         we would see that we are just like tiny mustard seeds,

                  tiny but with huge potential,

         potential beyond appearances, 

                           beyond what our eyes see and our minds comprehend.

 

Steadfast faith and love,

         keep us steadfast in your faith and love, we prayed.

 

That’s our big challenge, 

                  so that we are not just settling for stunted growth, 

         but have the audacity of faith to look beyond what we currently see.

 

Then there is another ingredient to add to our personal gardens,

         continuing the gardening metaphor – God’s manure.

Yes, manure.

Jesus told another parable, one of so many about the Kingdom of God

                  in terms of the creation and spontaneous, abundant growth.

But this parable is one in which a fig tree was not thriving,

                  but it was given another chance.

And the instructions were to dig around it and work manure into the soil.

         Get that amazing grace worked into the soil of our lives.

 

We are not in this whole enterprise 

         of being Church or living a Christian life on our own.

We are gifted all along the way

         in ways that sight cannot see, but faith can.

 

Life may give us challenges, difficulties and devastation  in so many ways,

         but we are given new life in Christ, we are a new creation.

                  The DNA of the Kingdom of God is there,

but we need to walk by faith and not be distracted by what we see.

 

“…we walk by faith, not by sight…”

It 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. 

The earth produces of itself, 

first the stalk, 

then the head, 

then the full grain in the head.

 

As sure and as certain as this natural, organic process 

                                                               of a seed sprouting and growing,

         so faith is planted by Holy Spirit in us where it sprouts and grows,

                           and grows and grows 

                  with the same potential as a mustard seed.

 

This statement, “…we walk by faith, not by sight…”, 

can become truth for us

         when we experience that Holy Presence in our loves,

                  moving us in that innermost part of our being

                           that is so hard for us to put into words,

                  but which we know to be as real as anything.

                           “…we walk by faith, not by sight…”

This faith is putting our trust into that Holy Presence 

         in our innermost being

         which has no tangible dimension to measure empirically.

This faith is a surrendering of the illusion we hold onto 

         about being in control of our lives.

This faith is a letting go, 

         like raising your hands on the roller coaster ride at the amusement park

         as you go over the top of that first big drop.

 

The Collect for today again:

 

“Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love,

         That through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness

                                                      and minister justice with compassion…”

 

So let us allow the Love of Christ to urge us on

         Christ’s love for us, the new creation in us

that we may be equipped to proclaim truth courageously

                  in a world of distrust

         and to minister justice with compassion

                  in all the multitude of situations that cry out for it.

 

And thus we will be living more fully into 

         our God-given potential

                           for the sake of the world. 

Crazy Love

 Jesus said,

         “This is my commandment, that you love one another.

         Just as I have love you, so you love one another.”

 

That commandment was not just 

         for those disciples there with him at the time,

                  but it quickly became the distinguishing mark 

                           of all followers of Jesus after that.

We are called to love – 

         that New Commandment that Jesus gave his disciples          

                  on the night of violence when he was then betrayed 

                  and taken and tortured and handed over for execution. 

 

If that is what he asked of us 

                  at that incredibly tense and challenging moment in his own life, how can we not take his words without absolute seriousness?

 

So how are we doing with that?

         Looking at the Church as a whole, 

                  not just this congregation 

                  or this denomination of the Episcopal Church, 

                  but the whole enterprise, the whole institution,

in some ways it looks like Christianity is dying out.

 

U.S. church membership has fallen below the majority of the population          

         and continues to dip.

In the eyes of the general society we may appear to be irrelevant.

 

However, yesterday our Bishop and the Episcopal Church in Spokane

         was very relevant to a significant portion of our community,

                  as Grand Marshall of the Pride Parade,

because our bishop and diocese

         stepped in and responded to hateful and spiteful actions

                  with a loving response of support and solidarity.

So our group of Episcopalians marching behind a large 

         “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You” sign,

was met by loud cheering and applause all along the entire parade route.

                  It was truly stunning to hear that prolonged cheering

                           rising as we passed by.

We had made a difference to a group of fellow human beings 

         often marginalized and maligned.

 

This is important, I believe, for bringing us back to the realization

         that Jesus at the center of the life and ministry of the Church

                  calls us with an unconditional love for us,

                  which we then must share with all others.

And remember it’s not just our own efforts to carry out that mission

                  of loving one another in truth and action.

         We can’t put the world right 

                                    just by the way we humans ordinarily do things.

         It is God’s mercy, grace and love working through us.

         

It is not through a political answer, 

or by making the best deals, or by wielding power

                           that the world can be put right.

Our society lives in that space

         and people suffer as a result: 

                  especially the weak, the powerless, the alien, the marginalized,

                  women and children,

                  those who all get exploited, taken advantage of,

while those at the top, the ones with the power,

                           secure their power and wealth for themselves.

 

Jesus was not about that,

         even though some have gone so far 

                  as to use their faith beliefs as a rationale 

                           for judgment and moral exclusiveness.

 

A king is what the people asked the Prophet Samuel for,

         even though he warned them this was not a good idea.

A king is so different from the liberating, healing power of Love

                  that a Crucified Savior brings.

 

No, Jesus is out of his mind.  

That’s what they said about him in the Gospel reading for today.

                           “He has gone out of his mind.”

         He’s crazy.  

That’s how this society, this culture would have characterize him also.

         Say he’s crazy 

         and you can discredit that whole love one another thing.

That’s a familiar tactic used over the ages.

         Call your opponent a liar, discredit their work.

And the culture we live in today has such a pervasive effect on us

         that we unconsciously start to accept those lies.

 

But when we let down our guard 

         and our tight grip on that pervasive belief in a merit based morality,

and instead take our suffering in all its many forms to Jesus

         then there is a huge break through 

                                    in the spiritual potency of the Church.

We can experience the stunning intimacy of Love in the Presence of Jesus

         and we can discover how to love one another

                  with authenticity and genuine intention.

And that can rock the world.

 

Crazy – The Cross of Jesus is a mass pardon. 

                                    a mass pardon for all our sins – Crazy.

The Cross stands between us and the condition of suffering in the world.

 

One might think Jesus was out of his mind to attempt that 

                           – you know, saving the whole world – 

         but then he went farther and in one huge Resurrection appearance,

                  Pentecost when the Holy Spirit, 

         the Resurrection Spirit and Presence of Jesus rests on us,

                  into which we were baptized

which provides in us a continuous source and process of sanctification

                  provided in that space of the Cross, which we call salvation.

 

This is the experience accessible to all in the Church,

         accessible through our spiritual practices of 

                  prayer, meditation, 

                  the liturgy and sacraments, 

                  reading and hearing and reflecting on the scriptures, 

                  breaking bread together, forgiving one another.

That being in the Presence of Jesus style of Love

         is what liberates us to freely love one another.

 

This is not the way of a king or any other type of political leader.

         They called Jesus crazy, out of his mind.

         And he didn’t do a thing to deny that.

They said to him, “Your family is here to collect you,

         your mother and brothers and sisters.”

And he looked around at those sitting there with him and said,

         “These are my mother and my brothers and sisters.”

Those doing the will of God, 

         those yielding to experiencing that Divine Presence 

                  as it was coming to them through Jesus at that moment.

Brothers and sisters in the same craziness as Jesus.

 

And mother also, in whom the divine seed is planted and grows

         and is born and comes forth into the world.         Crazy.

 

Matthew chapter 25, the story Jesus told 

about when the king would come and separate the sheep and the goats,

         you know the one I think: 

“Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, 

         or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 

And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, 

         or naked and gave you clothing? 

And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” 

 

And the answer, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least 

         of these who are brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”

 

Jesus tells us in this story that these are the people he identifies with,

                                                                        not the power brokers.

         Crazy the world would say.         

                                    Those people?!         Those losers?!

Just look at how our society treats the homeless poor, 

         the aliens seeking refuge and asylum at our borders, 

         those needing to access health care, 

         and the incarcerated,

         those marginalized in any way, shape or form.

But I have seen that those people, the ones in need, 

         are those who get it about Love.  That’s where Jesus really is.

Crazy.

 

This way of Love in the heart of Jesus is craziness to the world

         that will call it names 

         and call what is good evil and of the devil

                  and seek to discount, discredit, ignore and push it aside.

But when you experience being loved by Jesus 

         then you can get crazy too

                  in that life-giving, liberating way for others.

 

So at the heart of it all, this is all that I want to say.

         Don’t be afraid to get close to that Love, 

                                                               to get close to Jesus.

Give up resisting, give up the merit based theology  

and accept the fact that you are just as much in need of a free gift of Love                   as anyone else.

Let yourself be loved by Jesus, 

                                    and go crazy in that good way with him.