Month: July 2023

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, July 30, 2023, Proper 12: Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45b; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

Today’s readings are full of promises: good promises and bad promises, promises kept and betrayed. We start with a broken promise. Jacob worked for seven years for Laban to win his daughter Rachel who Jacob loved; after seven years, Laban instead gives him his older daughter Leah. Laban argues that the younger daughter cannot be married before the older one, but if Jacob works another seven years, he can marry Rachel.

The psalm tells us to rejoice in the Lord. The psalmist reminds us that “He has always been mindful of his covenant/ the promise he made for a thousand generations:/ The covenant he made with Abraham,/ the oath that he swore to Isaac.” This is the Lord we can count on, promises that are kept.

Paul is also full of promises. These are somewhat more complicated. Paul is thinking through predestination, the idea that our salvation is set before we are born, and is not in our control. Predestination is comforting in a way, as it takes control out of our hands. But that is also difficult: most of us like to be in control. And we might even like to know if we are among the saved. So Paul suggests that those who truly love God will also be “justified”, or saved. He suggests that, “if God is for us, who is against us?” And then comes the rousing promise, one that many of us have heard before:

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 will be able to separate us from the love of God. That’s quite a promise.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is describing the Kingdom of heaven. With a series of images, Jesus reminds us that while the Kingdom may seem small, its value is all out of proportion to its size. The little mustard seed produces a great tree; the merchant sells all he has for the one pearl of great value. But then there is a sorting: the net catches many fish, but the bad fish are thrown out. The promise Jesus makes at the end is a hard promise: “The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

We, of course, want to believe with Paul that we are among the righteous, that we will not be among those weeping and gnashing their teeth. But I do not find it comforting to know that anyone will suffer in the furnace of fire.

Promises matter. We seek assurances that promises will be kept. But promises also take decisions away from us: once we have promised, there are choices we do not have. Not all promises have happy endings. So we have trouble with promises.

As Christians we make promises, starting with those which (for many of us) were made for us when we were baptized. We reaffirm those promises when we have a baptism, and again at the Easter vigil. We promise to renounce Satan, and accept Jesus. We promise to be faithful, to resist evil, and when we sin, to repent and turn to the Lord. These are promises to God.

But the next set of promises turn to the world: to “proclaim, by word and example, the good news of God in Christ”. To “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.” And finally, to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

In baptism, we make promises to God. We try to keep them, but often fail. (That makes the promise to “repent and return to the Lord” valuable!) And while we may not always believe it, God promises us life eternal. Nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus”.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 11: July 23, 2023: Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

Our readings today begin with a dream. Jacob is traveling and stops for the night “because the sun had set”. He used a stone for a pillow, and went to sleep. He dreamed of a ladder connecting earth and heaven, with angels going up and down the ladder. And in his dream, he received a promise from the Lord, promising him the land he was lying on, and promising that his descendants would be “like the dust of the earth”, spread in all directions. When he woke up, he recognized the place as “the gate of heaven”.

Jacob’s ladder is a marvelous image, and has inspired people all over the world. The medieval masons carving the front of Bath Abbey in England framed the west entry is decorated with an illustration of Jacob’s Ladder: angels are climbing up it, and demons are heading down. Some centuries later, enslaved people in the American south used the image as a metaphor for spiritual growth: “we are climbing Jacob’s ladder“. The image of Jacob’s ladder is a reminder that the deep longing for connection with God has a long history.

In biblical sources, that longing is sometimes a hope, sometimes more of a certainty. The writer of Psalm 139 suggests that the Lord is always there, in a way that may be terrifying and may be comforting. On the one hand, there is nowhere they can “flee from your presence”; on the other, it is protective:

If I take the wings of the morning /and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, / Even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast. (Ps. 139, 8-9)

The psalm ends with a request to be led “in the way that is everlasting”. Like Jacob, the journey to heaven is a goal. Jesus, in today’s reading, makes that more difficult. In the second parable of the sower, Jesus notes that the good seed is mixed with weeds, and the weeds need to be gathered first and burned so that the wheat can then be gathered.

This parable is not particularly comforting: the saved and the damned are all mixed up together. Jesus tells us that the Son of Man will send his angels and throw the evildoers into the furnace, where there is “wailing and gnashing of teeth”. The righteous, on the other hand, “will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their father”. How do we know which we are?

The concern with being saved, and how we can be sure we are saved, has a long history among Christians, going back to the letters of Paul. Today’s letter offers a more generous reading: if you are led by the Spirit of God you are children of God. But this is hope, and “in hope we were saved”.

Jacob’s ladder is an image of ongoing effort, climbing. Paul sees us having made a choice at a defined moment. However it comes, both remind us that the longing for connection to the divine is part of our lives.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10; July 16, 2023: Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

Over the past few weeks, the passages from the Hebrew Scriptures have focused on the stories of Abraham and his descendants. These are great stories, as stories. They are more challenging as our understanding of God’s message to us.

Abraham and his descendants are special: they will be the start of a new nation. And the Lord, according to the writer of Genesis, is always there for Abraham and his son Isaac, at least at the end. It wouldn’t be a good story if there were not some drama. But we have heard Sarah laugh at the promise that she, as an old woman, would finally bear a child, only for the prophecy to come true. Abraham is asked to bring Isaac to a place of sacrifice, only to have a ram appear at the last minute. In today’s reading, we learn about Isaac and his sons.

Like Sarah, Isaac’s wife Rebekah was, as the scripture says, “barren”. But after Isaac prays to the Lord, she conceived, and gave birth to twins. The twins started fighting in the womb, and the rivalry never ended. Esau, the elder, was Isaac’s favorite, while Jacob was his mother’s favorite. Jacob takes advantage of Esau’s hunger, and gets him to sell his birthright, the inheritance rights of the firstborn. Isaac got his sons, but sibling rivalry is alive and well.

So what’s wrong with this story? Nothing, really. Except the model of divine intervention, where the Lord takes care of the family, is not one we experience, or at least in the same way that Abraham and Isaac do. They get VIP treatment. We may pray for an outcome, but whether the Lord does what we want is not something we can take for granted. Plenty of those who have prayed for the gift of children have not received it. Those who have prayed that someone they love not die have not always been rewarded.

Does God love those whose prayers have been answered more than those whose prayers have not? With Jesus, God offers salvation to all, not just one family. God is not in the business of managing our everyday lives: if everyone is included, none of us are VIPs. When our prayers may not be answered as we had hoped, but he is with us. And that is part of the story for us: in the Lord’s Prayer, we ask that “thy will be done”. Thy will, not my will.

God is calling us to hear the word and bear fruit. Readers of the parable of the sower in today’s Gospel might reflect that Jesus does not speak like an experienced gardener. For it is not just the soil that matters, but the seed. Not all plants flourish in all soils. Every gardener discovers what does and does not flourish, even on good soil. On some level Jesus knows this. Jesus speaks to his followers in a series of parables, and each tells stories in different ways. Different parables speak to different people. Even those who are “good soil” need to have the right kind of seed.

Our job is to be good soil; but it is also to share the good news in ways that can be heard. Where do we sow the seed? What seed do we sow? How can we find the seed that will flourish in the particular soil where we cast it? That is our challenge now.

Sixth Sunday of Pentecost, 9 July 2023: Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Psalm 45: 11-18 or Song of Solomon 2:8-13; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

“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.”

Jesus’ words are among the most familiar from the Gospels. In the 1928 Episcopal Prayer Book, they were among the “Comfortable words” read before Communion. Yet most of us do not have a direct line to Jesus, so may not always feel that we are given rest. Life is stressful in various ways, from events in the world, to events in our lives. Work and family issues can be hard. When are we given rest?

But then I remembered a conversation with a wise older friend many years ago. She told me that when things were difficult, she always had a short list of people through whom she hoped, as she put it, “Jesus would come to me”. Generally, she added, it was not the person she wanted, but a person she actively did not want. But sure enough, someone would come. And the fact that it was whoever it was reminded her that the community of the Church was not just a group of friends. It opened your heart to others.

And so it is. Things are hard, but someone does something to help, to lighten the load. They bring a meal, they run an errand, do the shopping, or just sit with us. Things may not be easy, but someone does something that gives us rest. This is what community means. For this I always say a prayer of gratitude.

Jesus does not promise that life will be easy, but we will not be alone. And that makes a difference. When we are weary, there will be rest.

Amen.

5th Sunday of Pentecost, Proper 8: Genesis 22:1-14; Psalm 13; Romans 6:12-23;
Matthew 10:40-42

Everytime the story of the binding of Isaac comes up in the lectionary, I get upset. It is a story of child abuse: the fact that Isaac in the end is not sacrificed does not make up for the terror he experienced. He knows what is happening, and knows that his father is willing to sacrifice him. It is also the story of an abusive God, who demands that Abraham sacrifice his only son. (Well, the only one living with him, which was all that counts for him.) If Isaac is terrified, Abraham is clearly distraught.

The end of the reading gives us Abraham’s lesson from this: “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided”. I am always relieved that Isaac is not sacrificed. But I am always angry that the Lord puts Abraham and Isaac through this. We can’t pretend that this is just the Hebrew scriptures: last week Jesus told us that he came not to bring peace, but a sword, dividing parents from children and siblings from each other. I am not comfortable with this.

This year, I decided to think about this reading in light of the Gospel. Today we read in Matthew the section of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about welcome. Jesus calls us to welcome everyone. Here, following the Lord is providing water and welcoming the righteous. This is the God who calls us to love, to welcome and to community.

What I have come to think in all this is that following the commands of the sermon on the mount, following Jesus in the way of love, will sometimes put us at odds with others. It is now, for instance, illegal in Florida to provide housing to undocumented people. Christians there have choices: we can love our neighbors, all of them, or we can follow the law. These choices create division.

I do not want to follow a God who would ask me to sacrifice my child. But I know that following Jesus in the way of love may lead me to make choices that may divide me from others. Then we can hope, with Abraham, that “it” (whatever “it” is) shall be provided.