"Statement of Faith", or, "Hoops, we are jumping them"

This is what I wish I could have said:

To believe is to “hold dear.” 

These are things that I hold dear:

I believe in doubt.  

I believe in knocking.

I believe in laying in the green grass and feeling that sudden dip of your body turning with the earth.

I believe that Jesus came so close to being who he was created to be that the lines between himself and God were blurred. Because of this, Jesus casts out fear.

I believe that even though we do violence to ourselves and to each other and to all of creation because of our fear, this isn’t who we are created to be.

I believe in the power of story.

I believe in breath. Inhale and Exhale.

I believe that Jesus taught us, through the power of stories, vulnerability, and community, how to live more like we were created to be.

I believe that the Scriptures are a testament and an inheritance.  They are a bunch of stories that do not tell us what to believe, but how to believe.

I believe that God’s presence is with us all the time, but when we break bread together, we have a way of naming that presence in such a way that unites us, makes God real for us.

I believe in water.

I believe that God does not will suffering. I believe that God can make good things out of bad.

I believe that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.

I believe that God is the creator.  Everything that God creates has a “piece” of God in it.
That means we're all family.

I believe in rest, and in sea glass, and in flesh and blood and that God is part of all of history, even as it changes and moves and is birthed and re-birthed.  Which means God changes too.
I believe that God wants us to crawl in God's lap. Maybe to take a nap, maybe to tell a story, maybe just to pat God's cheek and smile.

I believe that we can be what God is doing in the world. 

We are called to do what God is doing in the world. This is the kingdom of God.

I believe we are practicing resurrection when we do this.

This is what I tried to say:

God is the Creator of heaven and earth who invites us, even in our weakness, to be in relationship with God and with each other, participating in creation with God, and inviting others into the dance and beauty of this creation. We, who are created in the very image of God, experience God through God's transcendence, through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and through the workings of Holy Spirit. We feel separated from God when we sin, when we fall short of the creation that God has made us to be, and when we fail to trust in God's full and complete love for us. The incarnate love of God reveals God's absolute care for us, showing that God is fully in relationship with us, suffering as we suffer, rejoicing as we rejoice.  We, as the catholic Church, are called to share this presence of a fully relational God with others, through word and deed, baptizing by the power of the Holy Spirit, and working toward the fulfillment of God's kingdom of justice and joy for all, a kingdom which is close at hand. Because of this, we rejoice that nothing can separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. We celebrate this and our unity with Christ through the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, through the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup, which binds us to God and to each other.  

This is what I ended up saying:

God is the Creator of heaven and earth who invites us, even in our weakness, to be in relationship with God and with each other, participating in creation with God, and inviting others into the dance and beauty of this creation. 

God is one, but is revealed through the great mystery of God’s “three-ness.” We, who are created in the very image of God, experience the mystery of God’s oneness through God's transcendence, traditionally expressed through the imagery of father, through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, who, being God’s Son, became vulnerable to us in love, and through the workings of Holy Spirit, the living, intimate witness of God in our lives today.

Jesus Christ, as God’s Son, is the perfect response to God’s calling to all of us, and thus, embodies God in flesh and bone for us all. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God within all of us, who leads us and directs us, calling us into relationship with God, and draws us into the kingdom of God which is here, now, and also yet to be.

We feel separated from God when we sin, when we fall short of the creation that God has made us to be, and when we fail to trust in God's full and complete love for us. 

The incarnate love of God reveals God's absolute care for us, showing that God is fully in relationship with us, suffering as we suffer, rejoicing as we rejoice.  This incarnational love is fully expressed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who although in the very likeness of God, accepted the humiliation of death on a cross in order to destroy the power of violence and death, and invites us into the community of the Kingdom of God, where every tear is wiped away and death is no more. This is our hope. This is what is yet to be, but also what is here and now, available to all of us who call out to God. God’s kingdom stands within and outside of time; God’s kingdom has no end.

The Holy Spirit speaks to us in many ways, but especially through the Scriptures, which are “God breathed” testimonies of who God is and who we are as God’s children.  The Scriptures are a living text, and although historically rooted, are viable and applicable to our lives and our particular contexts, guiding and encouraging all of us through stories of God’s relationships with God’s people throughout history. 

We celebrate this living faith and our unity with Christ through the sacrament of communion, through the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup, which binds us to God and to each other.  We celebrate this living faith and our unity with Christ through the sacrament of Baptism, through the Grace given to us that is experienced by the pouring of water and the support of a community. These are visible signs of an inward change, and communal glimpses of a future kingdom here on earth.

We, as the catholic Church, are called to share this presence of a fully relational God with others, through word and deed, baptizing by the power of the Holy Spirit, and working toward the fulfillment of God's kingdom of justice and joy for all, a kingdom which is close at hand. Because of this, we rejoice that nothing can separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Resuregano

Mark 1:9-15

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." 12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. 14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

First, a disclaimer: So I’m going to attempt to talk about suffering. But to do this, I need you to join me out on the high wire. I need you to come with me to do a little bit of tightrope walking. It’s a fine balance that we must strike between seeking suffering and ignoring it altogether. If you go too far on one side, you’ll end up thinking that God wills suffering and that you can’t be a good Christian without it. If you swing too far on the other side, you’ll start to think that suffering is always evil to the core, and that there is no chance of redemption or healing or resurrection. Like trying to hold the divinity and humanity of Christ, or trying to balance the spiritual with the physical, it’s a tightrope walk - if we go too far on one side or the other we’ll fall. So, for the record: I am not advocating that we seek out death or suffering. Nor am I saying that we should ignore that it exists. And, well, if we do end up falling on one side or the other, God’s grace will be there to catch us.

So. Here we go...

I’m a terrible swimmer. My mom put me in swimming lessons as a kid, and when other kids were passing out of levels every two weeks, moving on from freestyle to backstroke to the butterfly, I spent two whole summers in the fourth level, trying to figure out how to coordinate my breathing with my arms swinging and my legs kicking. Kids years younger than I were literally leaving me in their wake.

When we’d play that game - you know the one where you line up at one end of the pool and you all take a deep breath at the same time and then push off from the wall, swimming under the water to see who could hold their breath the longest, I was always the first one up, only a few feet away from where I had started.

I hated the feeling of being overwhelmed, completely surrounded by water. I hated not feeling in control, and instead of surrendering to the currents and the weight of the water all around me, I fought it. And my head would bob right back up to the surface again. It was my own fear that limited my swimming experiences. When kids would be diving in the deep end, or swimming far out on a sand bar on Lake Michigan, I was wading in the shallow end, waiting for them to come back in for lunch.

I was terrified of drowning. Terrified of being out of control. Terrified of the oppressive weight of all that water. I couldn’t figure out how to let it hold me, how to be in it. How to not freak out when the water came up over my head.

These last few weeks it feels as though my family and I have been pummeled. Or maybe, to stick with the water metaphor, we have been drowning under the weight of water all around us. The powers of the universe, or evil, or fate, or just life, have been throwing us into the deep end seemingly every time we turn around. We’re finding it hard to breathe, to keep our heads above water, to find the side of the pool to hang on to and rest. Lots of deaths. Lots of disappointments. Lots of heartbreak, all condensed into a few short weeks. We are bruised deep. We’re limping a little. Our breathing is a bit labored. We are hunched over, flinching at every turn, waiting for the next round of bad news: another has passed away, or another is in the hospital, or yet another is abusing or being abused. These are all little and big deaths. They’re weighing us down and tripping us up.

And we’re carrying them with us, inside of us, even now, like a millstone or one of those scuba diving weights that send you straight to the bottom of the ocean.

We have death that we carry with us. It’s inside of us, deep in our bones. It’s loss and fear and disappointments. But I want to be clear: I’m not really talking about sin here, though. It may be a result of sin, but it’s not our sin. It’s not something we had a choice about. It’s our suffering. And if you can let it go, and heal, and move on. Great. Please. Do it. Let it go. Move on. Heal. Go back up to the surface and take a big deep breath.

But for those of you who can’t. For those of you, who, like me, will be hobbling along for some time now, hanging out at the bottom of the ocean for a little while longer, I want us to sit close, to lean in, to hear the words in our Gospel reading today.

‘Cause you know what, some of us - no, I’m willing to bet, all of us, if we’re honest - we all have pain that we will carry with us, carry inside of us, forever.

My brother-in-law and good friend just lost his brother - who was only 37 - a little over a month ago. When he has expressed his grief, many people have encouraged him, saying things like “time does heal all wounds” and “it’ll get better.” These are all good sentiments. They come from deep love and care and concern for my brother-in-law. And they may very well be true. But what if they’re not? What if the grief doesn’t lift? What if he carries this loss inside of him forever? Or for what feels like forever. Where’s the hope in that? There HAS to be hope within, inside of, the pain, even as it’s happening here, and now, not just beyond the pain. Otherwise, we could rush through our sorrow or our fear or our humiliation to get to the other side and be happy again. But that’s not how it works. Or at least, not how it’s worked for me.

Sure, we cover over the pain with time, or numbness, or distractions. But it’s always there, always ready to surprise you with tears or anger or frustration at the least convenient times. The death is always there. Scar tissue always stays scarred.

So isn’t it crazy that we use the death imagery of being overcome by water in our baptisms? When we are baptized, we are not just “washed” clean, but ritually sent into the depths; we are dead with Christ. Funny how something as necessary and life-giving as water can also mean distress, pain, and even death.

In the Hebrew Bible, feelings of distress and fear of death are often depicted by images of being overcome by water.

And in the New Testament, Romans 6:3-4 says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We have been buried with Christ in baptism, into Christ’s death...”

• Colossians 2:12, says “When you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.”
• Galatians 3:27 says that we who are baptized are “clothed ourselves with Christ” - clothed with both the glory and the suffering of Christ.

And When James and John come to Jesus later on in Mark 10, and ask to sit at Jesus’ right hand, wanting to live in his glory, Jesus refers to his death. He says, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” Essentially, Jesus asks, if you want to sit on my right hand, you will need to suffer what I suffer. You will need to enter into a baptism of sacrifice, service, and death.

So, isn’t it crazy that we baptize babies - these beautiful, helpless, hope-filled and fleshy new lives? Even infants are ritually “sent into the depths” in their baptisms. And I don’t think that this is because of any morbid fascinations of our church fathers. We baptize babies because we know that life and death are so very closely entwined. No matter how careful and protective the infant’s parents are, this child will suffer. This child will experience little deaths, moments of pain, and maybe even long stretches of sorrow. But what an act of faith it is to come up to that baptismal font, to bring your child forward, and say, “God’s grace is sufficient. God’s power is made perfect in weakness” - maybe even in death, maybe even through a death on a cross.

If we read the story of Jesus’ baptism carefully, we’ll see that this is no fairy tale; there is no defeat of evil, no satisfying happily ever after, not even a clear hope that the Super-Hero Savior is now going to swoop in and fix everything. You may say, “Well, that is because this is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.” But everything we need to know about how this ministry is going to turn out is given to us in these seven short verses. It’s a micro-narrative. The end is included here, in the beginning. The pain and the sorrow that will result for Jesus and his followers in his work here on earth is all mixed up with the glory and the peace and the joy.

• Jesus’ baptism is a symbol of both death and new life
• Jesus is put under the water, signifying death
• But Jesus comes out of the water and the heavens are torn apart, and the Spirit descends like a dove upon Jesus. And Jesus hears “This is my son, The beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Initially this sounds like a lot of life. A real affirmation. A glorious moment. But any good Jew hearing this would think back to another very important time when they heard God refer to a “beloved son” - that of the story of Abraham and Isaac, when God tells Abraham to walk up Mount Moriah with wood and flint and a knife to sacrifice his only “beloved son.” They would hear sacrifice and death, as well as glorious life in this one short phrase directed towards Jesus.

• And then Jesus is immediately sent into the wilderness - a barren, dead, deserted place. A frightening place, a place where no one goes alone for surely bandits or animals, or just plain exposure will threaten to take one’s life.
• He is there for forty days, tempted by death itself.
• And yet there is also life here in this desert, for the angels wait upon him.
• But we are thrown back into a world of death when we learn that John has been arrested - because we know what that will lead to. But there is life, yet again, when Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee, “proclaiming the good news of God”

• Jesus says, “It’s time! The kingdom of God is near!” - life is here!
• Andin the same breath he also says, “repent” - realize the death in your life, the big and the little deaths that you have caused.
• And we are left in a liminal space, this place of in-between-ness. When Jesus says, “believe in the good news,” we are left holding both the life and the death in our hands. We are left with the hope of the future, the hope that is not yet here, but soon to come.

This passage is one that swings us from life to death and back again. Or perhaps, they aren’t two different places, or two different concepts, but tied up so intimately with each other that it’s artificial to try to sift them apart. Jesus’ baptism is a moment of both life and death, all mixed up together. The story of Jesus’ baptism is also the story of Jesus’ death on the cross. There isn’t a linear, straight path from struggle to life here. It’s a big life/death mess. The cross, the symbol of a horrid and humiliating death is also our symbol for hope and new life. And that’s what our baptisms are - recognition that this faith journey is a big life/death mess - but that the Grace of God is there to give us the hope of the future, the hope that is not yet here, but soon to come.

We don’t suffer “in order to” accomplish anything. We don’t go through heartache just so we can “learn from it” and move on. It’s not about “whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” Although strength or learning or growth may be an outcome of suffering, it’s not the reason WHY we go through it. So, you’re asking, why DO we go through it? I don’t know. I’m just an intern. Ask the real pastors. You get what you pay for. But what I do know is that there is life - not just after the pain, but in the midst of it. God doesn’t put us through trials to toy with us, or to make us grateful, or to teach us some important life lesson. God certainly doesn’t put us through trials to punish us. This is not a mathematical equation. Pain + God does not equal “good Christian” or “lesson learned” or “stronger faith.”

(Although, again, I want to emphasize that these things can and do come from pain. But that is not WHY we suffer. Remember, we need to balance on that tightrope a little while longer.)

Pain is just pain. And it sucks. God doesn’t will it. God doesn’t want it. But here it is.

And yet.

When we hold death inside of us, when we carry the weight of it inside of us, what if we saw it as staying underwater just a little bit longer? Can we trust that God is holding us, even in the midst of stress, death, fear, whatever is holding us down? The surface of the water is right there; the seed, buried in the soil, will sprout. We don’t need to freak out. We just have to wait. And it’s often a painful wait. We have to trust that we won’t drown. We have to trust that the earth will not completely crush us. We have to give up things we thought defined us.

But while we’re waiting, we can hold on to the life that is still there; it’s just hidden among all that death. But even if the trust isn’t there, or we just can’t hold on anymore, even if taking the next breath is a strain, God is there. And God is holding on to us.

I’m a lazy gardener. I stick stuff in the ground and I see what it does. Or I put plants in pots, and forget about them until months later. This dead stuff here, came from my house. These used to be violets, and these are mums. They came from seeds that had to die in order for the plant to be grown. And now, they look pitiful. They are pitiful. This thing right here - that’s oregano. It’s looking pretty sad.

But I like to call it “resuregano” because sure enough, if you look close enough, you’ll see a little bit of green amidst all that shriveled, dried up death. That green, that life, has been in there all along, deep in its taproots, even in the dead of winter, even when the snow weighed down its leaves and the winds broke its stems. Even when the soil froze and hardened and the ice sealed it over. The life is just now starting to sprout. But it has been in there all along. Amidst the pain and harshness of winter. Amidst the rains and this dead grey Pittsburgh sky. It’s been there. Waiting. And also just being. Just existing.

When we are pummeled by all the deaths around us, may we be able to sit in it, to find the life within it, to find the hope even in our despair. That’s what the writer of Mark leaves us with in this passage. Just hope. That’s it. And yet, that’s it. The kingdom is coming. But it’s also right here - right here when the waters overwhelm us, right here when the soil has buried us, right here when the winter has frozen us to the core. This “hereness” of the kingdom is what enables us to say, with Paul, “we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” It’s what enables us to say, along with Jesus, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” - for even as he breathed his last breath, he called out for his Father, for the one who gives life and hope and peace to us all. Just as the kingdom of God was in that moment of despair, so is it in all of ours.

Thanks be to God.

Mustard Trees

³¹He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; ³²it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."

³³He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."

^{Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52}

⁴⁴"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

⁴⁵"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; ⁴⁶on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

⁴⁷"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind;⁴⁸when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. ⁴⁹So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous ⁵⁰and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

⁵¹"Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes." ⁵²And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

So every Spring, Dan and I continue our crusade to eliminate our need to do any sort of lawn care. Well, it doesn’t really start out that way. What really happens is that after a long winter of gray skies and frozen pizzas, we get this itch to plant things, to see stuff grow, to just walk out our back door and pick fresh raspberries and sun-warmed tomatoes - even eat them right off the vine. So each year, we set our sights on adding to our garden. Every May we move the t-posts and stretch out the chicken wire a little further to accommodate just one more tomato plant, and then just one row of asparagus, and then, heck, while we’re at it, let’s try blueberry bushes this year. Needless to say, we’re running out of lawn. The three strawberry plants we planted two years ago have now taken up the whole flower bed and wandered out past our fence and into the front yard. The raspberry bush we planted last year has tripled in size and sprouted up three new extensions. And we really only wanted one zucchini plant and one yellow squash, but when they come in packs of four, well, you might as well plant them all and see what happens. Well, what happened is that we’ve got a whole freezer full of shredded zucchini, and I’ve tried so many different yellow squash recipes that I’m thinking about trying yellow squash sorbet next.

But here’s the thing - we really don’t spend that much time gardening. Neither of us would describe our thumbs with any shade of green. We stick the plants in the ground, throw some worm castings over it, give it some water now and then, and get back to reading about Process Womanist Theology, or the “shared cultural milieu of the Gospel of John and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” and appeasing our toddler’s newest fascination with trucks and vacuum cleaners. We just let them go, and yet, and yet, they still take over our lawn and fill our countertops and freezer with produce. It’s overwhelming, really, but in a fun, melting-ice-cream-all-over-your-fingertips sort of way. And I’m sure our neighbors think we’re crazy, and maybe shake their heads a little at our tiny farm in the city.

And that’s sorta how I feel when I try to thread all of these parables together in today’s Scripture reading. The images and their implications are overwhelming, maybe even a little overgrown, and so much can be said about each parable individually that we could be here all day. But don’t worry, I’m just a seminary student, so I won’t make us do that.

Instead, what I want us to do is to hover over these stories, and see how they are all planted in the same field, how, when these parables are sewn together, or sown together, they make a kind of narrative, a pattern of responding to the kingdom of God that is both present here, now, as well as in the future. I want us to see the narrative arch that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew presents to us when we thread these parables together. The kingdom starts small, invisibly even, but when we see it, or when we know it’s there even if we don’t see it, our response should be one of both joy and discernment.

This list of parables is Jesus’ response to the disciples’ confusion. They don’t get why more people aren’t coming on board with Jesus’ message. As good, observant Jews, they’ve been waiting and looking for the Kingdom to come their whole lives, and now that it’s here, now that they see it and feel it and can almost taste it through their encounters with Jesus, they don’t understand why everyone else isn’t seeing it too. They’re trying to juxtapose two incongruous facts: the “smallness” of Jesus and the disciples’ ministry and the “great” expectations of the future - the fact that a scrubby son of a Jewish carpenter and his mentally unstable cousin - along with twelve or so equally scrubby fishermen, tax collectors, and joe six packs - are going to be the beginning of this paradigm shift that centuries of Jews have been waiting for. This collection of parables is an invitation to contemplate these two things - our present circumstances as well as our hopes and expectations of a future that God has promised us.

And of course, Jesus explains things in a way that turns everything on its head and, if we’re paying attention, completely confounds us. The kingdom of heaven isn’t going to come in a grand whirlwind or from a lightning bolt from the sky. No, Jesus tells us, the kingdom starts small. Its beginnings look insignificant, and maybe even a little precarious - like a mustard seed, like leaven. Through these series of parables, a vital truth is revealed about God’s kingdom - that, to quote Dale Allison, “a humble beginning and secret presence are not inconsistent with a great and glorious destiny.”

So, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field,” and “The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour.” When it comes to gardening, or making bread, or the beginnings of the coming of the Kingdom, it’s easy to screw it up. So much can so easily go wrong. That’s why we place ten or even fifteen tiny seeds into the peat pots in the spring, hoping to get one good tomato plant out of it. And if your water is too cold, your yeast won’t activate. But if it’s too hot, the yeast will die. If you accidentally forget about your sourdough starter, and find it dried up and crumbled in the back of your refrigerator, you have to start all over again. Someone can tell you that you don’t belong in a church, or that you’re not good enough, or that you’re not “spiritual” enough, and the hopes of the Kingdom could just whither on the vine.

And yet. In each of us is a part of the divine spark that sent entire planets into being. The end is held in the beginning. A little bit of the old leaven is needed to make new dough. And all the potential, the entire future of a tree is held within that one seed. Again, our buddy Dale Allison writes, “For Matthew, the kingdom exists now; and it is an ‘eschatological sphere of salvation, which breaks in, makes a small, unpretentious beginning, miraculously swells, and increases; as a divine “field of energy” it extends and expands ever farther.”

But let’s not forget about the scandal of it all. This is Jesus after all. Jesus not only takes the expectations of the Disciples and turns them upside down, but he completely reverses the clearly defined codes and limits of Jewish life. But for us to understand this, we need a little bit of a botany lesson as well as a little bit of an Old Testament lesson. According to Jewish codes in Leviticus, “You shall not sow your field with two different kinds of seed.” Seeds need to be properly separated. You don’t mix the wheat with the corn, or the barley with the oats. But the thing is, it is the nature of the mustard seed to spread and take over, to cross boundaries, to do what my raspberry bush is doing now by fraternizing with the tomatoes. If you tried to plant one nice, neat little row of mustard bushes, they’re so resilient and persistent, they’ll soon spread and take over the whole field. So hold that idea in one hand.

And in the other hand, consider that in the Old Testament, it’s trees, not bushes, that are symbols for God’s reign on earth. The book of Daniel, the book of Ezekiel and even Psalm 104 all refer to giant trees where birds find shelter and places to nest. “A tree in whose shade animals or birds find shelter and sustenance is an Old Testament image of a powerful kingdom sheltering the nations.” But Jesus changes this up. He says that this planted mustard seed “is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown, it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” Mustard plants don’t really become trees. According to Pliny the Elder, an ancient Roman botanist who wrote a Natural History - a sort of ancient encyclopedia of nature - most mustard bushes grow to be about four feet tall. These are bushes, not trees. So why does the writer of Matthew choose to call it a tree? Maybe Matthew was a horrible botanist who didn’t know his ragweed from his sea weed. Or, maybe, and perhaps more likely, Matthew, an ever careful writer, chooses the word “tree” on purpose, to emphasize that this is something that we’ve never seen before, something beyond our expectations. God’s kingdom is one made up of mustard trees. As Bernard Brandon Scott calls it, these trees are an “unnatural malformity of mythical botany.” And in these overgrown bush/tree hybrids is “recognition that God’s mighty words [and works] are among the unclean and insignificant.” It’s not a giant cedar or a majestic oak, but the tiny shoot of Jesse, a lowly carpenter’s son, a torn up man hanging on a cross of rotting wood, or a bush that barely grows four feet high - these are the ways the kingdom of heaven comes to earth.

The planting and growth of a mustard seed is a scandal on many levels. It’s a scandal for planting this seed where it will certainly “corrupt” the other fields, and a scandal for becoming a tree - something completely unexpected for such a humble plant. Or, think of the scandal, the shock on the faces of the disciples when Jesus suggests that a woman is one who can facilitate the coming of the kingdom in the simple and domestic realm of baking bread.

Jesus again restructures, adjusts, and sometimes even obliterates our expectations. The kingdom is like a seed, or the leaven needed for bread. We want the quick fix, the immediate answer, or if we have to wait, we at least want something majestic and lasting and big. But this isn’t how things work, says Jesus. The kingdom must be planted, and when planted, it is buried, it is hidden, and then it must germinate and grow. All of the potential of the kingdom is in that tiny seed, or contained in that yeast, and that potential is huge, life-changing, unexpected and welcoming.

The coming of the kingdom begins with a hidden presence, and it’s first growth is vulnerable, small, weak even...maybe even threatening.

But Jesus says to the Disciples - give everything you have for it anyway. And so we continue with our narrative of parables. If the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast tell us that the kingdom of God has humble, even scandalous beginnings, the parables of the treasure and the great pearl tell us to give up all that we have to attain it - even if it seems strange, or radical, or ridiculous or even a bit scandalous.

Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Or again, it’s like “a merchant in search of pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all he had and bought it.” The value of the kingdom goes hand in hand with our appropriate response. Give everything you have, because it is worth everything you have.

And I can hear you all, right now. You’re thinking, “whoa, whoa, Jenn - I go to Sixth, I’m a Presbyterian, one of the “frozen chosen,” when did you get all Fundagelical on us?” Give up everything? That’s just irresponsible. That’s not only crazy; that’s just dumb.

But let’s stop and think about this for a minute. Don’t we do this all the time? Don’t we make decisions about what we’re going to give our lives to and what we aren’t? This is where our parable of the nets comes in. The kingdom of heaven “is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.”

Don’t we give our whole lives to our children? Or, wouldn’t we, if we were asked to? Don’t our jobs demand this from us, even if we resist? Don’t we watch television commercials and think, “If I just had that new car, or bought that kind of mayonnaise, or used that kind of deodorant or had that degree everything in my life would be so much better?” The question is, how do we sort through what is life-giving and what needs to be thrown out? Does what you give your whole self to give you your self back? Does it give back more? What is worth giving of our whole selves? And what isn’t? Jesus tells us it’s the stuff that surprises us, the stuff that seems a little bit scandalous, the stuff that seems hidden that will give us our lives back, and ultimately, bring the kingdom of heaven here on earth.

Jesus tells us that when we find that hidden, vulnerable, pervasive thing that brings in the kingdom, it’s worth everything we have, and that means making some choices. That means that when we gather up everything that life has to offer into our nets, we’re going to have to throw out the things that don’t bring about the kingdom. We must sort through what gives us life and what takes life from us.

Jesus says, the Kingdom is worth it, even when it’s hidden, even when it looks like a weed, even when it needs to be carefully tended to, even when it disrupts our neat little rows of order, control and routine. And when we give everything we have, we don’t leave with nothing. We leave with our arms full of life, nets full of fish, loaves and loaves of bread, and acres of mustard trees. And more than that. We leave with an idea of what we thought was impossible is now possible - bushes become trees, fields become treasure, a speck of dirt becomes a pearl.

Thanks be to God.

Another Beginner's Sermon...

Seam Allowances.

We continue our reading with the Gospel of Luke, chapter 4, verses 22 through 30. This continues directly from our reading from last week, where Jesus is in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth, and has claimed that he is the one Isaiah is speaking about: That he is the one to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed.

Let us pray:

Our God, speak to us through this text, that we may hear your good news. Invite us into your complexities, that we may find a way to live in your light. Show us your way, so that we can wade through the muddiness of our lives and see your truth. Amen.

I’m still working on my son’s quilt. I started it more than a year ago, as soon as I found out that he was coming. Now quilt-making isn’t so tricky, as long as you follow a few simple rules, and these rules all have to do with your seams. See when you’re quilting, you’re piecing many disparate parts of cloth together, sometimes sewing together two types of cloth that are of different consistencies, different thread counts, or different thicknesses. So when you sew these pieces together, you need to be consistent, and allow what the quilting books call a “scant one quarter inch seam.” You put the two pieces together, the back side out, and as you sew, you sew a quarter of an inch below the edge of the fabric. Now if you’re too stingy with the seam allowance, you could get holes in your quilt. If you’re too gracious with the seam allowance, your pieces won’t meet up, and you’ll get a quilt that is far from the square or rectangle that you were hoping for in the first place. When you first start cutting up your fabric into various shapes, then, you need to remember to add a quarter of an inch to each side, to account for the seams that you need to be able to combine your pieces. If you forget, you’ll have to start all over.

But when we look at a quilt, we hardly think about the seams; we think about how all the different shapes and colors combine to form a whole. But if you don’t think about seams when you’re first beginning your quilting project, you’ll find yourself in a mess of wasted fabric.

In our reading today, Luke shows us his seams. If you read the passage carefully, you’ll notice that there are a few strange things going on here, things that don’t appear to go together very well. You’ll remember from last week that Jesus has just come into the synagogue of his hometown and read from the Scroll of Isaiah. After he reads, he essentially says, “This passage is about me: I’ve come to give good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, give sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And everybody’s floored. They “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

But then they question his authority. They say, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” As if to say, “We know this kid – who does this guy think he is? He’s just Joseph’s son, the son of a carpenter.”

And then, Jesus gets his back up, and either goes on the offensive, attacking them, or begins defending himself against some accusation that hasn’t even been mentioned yet. He starts ranting about how even Elijah and Elisha couldn’t do miracles in their hometowns, how they, too, were rejected.

As readers, we’re left to think, “What in the world has just happened?” How did amazement at who Jesus is turn to some kind of angry diatribe on the part of Jesus? And again, why would a group of people who were amazed at Jesus suddenly turn around and decide that he deserves to be thrown off a cliff?

Many scholars have suggested that this is what is called a “literary seam” in the text.

Here the author of the Gospel of Luke has combined his sources, Mark and a second source scholars call Q, without trying to smooth things over, without trying to make any alterations. Luke stitches together two disparate passages, and there is an obvious discrepancy between the two. But instead of solving the problem, Luke lets the rough connections and inconsistencies stand as they are.

So instead of figuring out some way to resolve the problem of the dramatic change in response to Jesus on the part of the Nazarenes, Luke leaves it alone, and lets us wrestle with the fact that Jesus is, at the same time, loved and hated, by the same people.

So today, I’d like us to pay attention to these seams. In this passage, the seams are places where two things that don’t seem to go together are placed together anyway. Jesus is loved, and then hated. Jesus is praised, but then feels the need to get a little bit belligerent, to explain to them why he hasn’t done any miracles in their midst. The people of Jesus’ hometown are awed at his proclamations, and then, just a few minutes later, they’re ready to throw him off a cliff.

Let’s hear what the Spirit is saying to us, inside of these seams.

I think the key to understanding these seams is what Jesus does.

The Nazarenes, apparently forgetting that they adored him just a few minutes ago, get up, drive him out of town and prepare to throw him off a cliff. And what does Jesus do? He slips out. He passes through the midst of them and goes on his way.

Jesus slips by both sentiments. He slips by the love and the hate. He escapes from those who want to praise him and those who want to curse him. He goes away unnoticed because they’ve both got him wrong. Jesus is neither “just the carpenter’s son”, nor is he the military leader they’ve all been waiting for. And he goes away unnoticed because, in some ways, they’ve both got him right: He has come to bring about the Kingdom, and he is going to confound and frustrate.

Jesus once again breaks down the dialectic; Jesus turns everything on its head. Jesus doesn’t live in the either/or – the “this or that” – the false opposites that we put up for ourselves so that we can make sense of our world.

We put up these false opposites all the time: we create stark divisions between acceptance/rejection, black/white, rich/poor, smart/dumb, male/female, elation/depression, subject/object; the list goes on and on. Even Jeremiah, in our Hebrew Testament reading, says, “I’m just a kid; I can’t be a leader” – revealing the dialectic between youth and experience.

But Jesus gives them all the slip. Jesus breaks down these dialectics by living in the seams. Jesus sews two opposing things together and shows us how to find the grace to glide by – or through - them both.

Isn’t this the beauty of the incarnation? As soon as we emphasize Jesus’ divinity, we’ve forgotten his humanity. And as soon as we emphasize Jesus’ humanity, we’ve de-emphasized his divinity.

As soon as we think we’ve got Jesus figured out – he slips out through the crowd.

Now personally, I struggle with the divine aspect of Jesus. And I go to school with others who seem to forget about the human element of Jesus. But, the beauty of this is that as soon as I think I’ve got Jesus figured out, as soon as I think, “Jesus must have been solely human because he prayed to God, because he showed need, because he weeps, bleeds, and gets angry,” I am confronted by a Jesus who preexists the rest of creation, who refers to himself as “I Am” and who has the power to calm the waves and wind. My idea of Jesus is the bubble that, just as I reach out to hold it in my hands, as soon as I think I can control who he is and what he wants from me, the idea pops, and Jesus slips away, escapes my grasp.

It’s not easy to live in the seams. It’s not easy to be vulnerable enough to reveal our own seams – whether it be the uncertainties about who we think Jesus is, or to break down the walls between the dialectics by which we live.

But this is where we live. We just need to recognize it.

How often do we laugh after a funeral, telling funny stories, remembering the joy that that person gave us or the ridiculous things that person did?

Or, how often do we feel guilty that we can’t be in two places at once? For myself, I feel the tension of being a working mom, wishing I could do both things: be the best mother possible without sacrificing my work and vice versa. When I’m home, I feel like I’m not doing what’s best for my job. And when I’m at work, I feel like I’m not doing what is best for my son.

But this tension - this place of “both” – is where we are called to live.

How often do we try to balance our own view of ourselves, trying to find a healthy humility: one that is not completely disparaging, nor too elevating?

It’s a tightrope walk from which we are always falling.

And yet, this is where Jesus lives. He parties, going to weddings and making wine. He gives sight to the blind with mud and spit. He dines with sinners. He heals the poor hemorrhaging woman on the way to raising a rich man’s daughter from the dead. He feasts on the Sabbath and fasts in the desert. He dies among two thieves, while, at the same time, proclaiming the reign of God, and saying that he’s going to paradise.

Aren’t we so glad that we have a net of grace which catches us when we overemphasize one side of the dialectic over the other – when we put Jesus beyond our reach, we are reminded of Jesus’ humanity, of our commonality. And when we try to domesticate Jesus, we are reminded that Jesus cannot be tamed. We are called to remember that, as Dr. Dale Allison says, “a domesticated Jesus who sounds like us, makes us comfortable, and commends our opinions is no Jesus at all.”

Let us allow for seams. Let us strive to live in the seams – in the “both/and” – in the place where things don’t always make sense, but where grace abounds.

Jesus invites us to live in the synthesis of tensions, to live, not in the “black or white” but in the grey.

As we wrestle with who Jesus is, Jesus invites us to wrestle with who we are. Jesus encourages us to slip out of the prescribed roles set out for us so that we can be who we truly are.

May we live in the seams. Thanks be to God.