In our weekly celebration of the Eucharist, we affirm that it is right, our duty and our joy to give thanks and praise to God.  The Samaritan man who is healed of his skin disease might have said the same thing if he had been asked why we went back to say thank you to Jesus. 

Vicar Lauren Mildahl 
Thanksgiving Day
Text: Luke 17:11-19 

God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.  

It is right to give God thanks and praise! 

It is indeed right. 

Our duty. 

And our joy. 

That we should, at all times and in all places give thanks and praise to you, 

Almighty and merciful God, through our Savior Jesus Christ. 

If you have worshiped here or in another ELCA church, those words should sound pretty familiar.

They are some of the first words of the celebration of the Eucharist, which if you’re rusty on your Ancient Greek, means “Thanksgiving.”  So, it seemed like the best place to start, as we are gathered together today, on our national holiday of Thanksgiving, because it is a good reminder of how, for us, every time we celebrate the Eucharist, every Sunday is Thanksgiving. And how every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we proclaim that it is indeed right for us to give thanks to God. Not only right, it is our duty and it is our joy. Not just on Sundays, but at all times and in all places.  It is right.

And it struck me that the Samaritan man who was healed of his skin disease in our gospel reading, if he had been asked, “why did you go back to give thanks?” he might have answered with these same words. 

“It was right!” he might have said. Right to give thanks! After all, this is the story of Jesus miraculously making things right. The ten men in this story had been suffering from a torturous skin disease. We aren’t sure exactly what it was, but it is clear that it was a malady that was a painful and slow killer, which had separated them from their families, from their communities, maybe for years or even decades. So they had pleaded with Jesus, begging him from a distance, “Master, have mercy on us!”  Make things right!

And Jesus did.  Healing their bodies, yes, but also sending them to the priests to complete the necessary rituals of restoration, so that not only their health was restored, but so were their families, and so were their communities that had missed them. So that everything was made right. 

And so, “of course” the Samaritan might say, “of course I gave thanks!” Not just for the healing, but for the rightness, because he saw, for a moment, the world restored to wholeness, wholeness he never expected, wholeness that felt like God’s perfect and complete and abundant life.  So perfectly right.  And his part? To see it, to witness and recognize it, and rightfully, to give thanks for it.

“It was indeed right,” the Samaritan might say, “and it was my duty!” 

He felt it was not simply his responsibility, but the only thing he could do. And it wasn’t even what Jesus had told him to do. Jesus had told him to go to the priests, but the moment he saw his disease had been cured, he realized that he didn’t need the priests to be his bridge to God’s goodness. God was right there in front of him. What else could he do but his duty, and fall at the feet of the Great High Priest?  

“And it was my joy!” the Samaritan might say.

A joy so overwhelming, so abundant, so profound, it couldn’t be kept in. He shouted! He ran! He hurled himself toward Jesus.  Maybe he couldn’t decide if he should hug him or dance with him or just tackle him, but in the end all he could do was throw himself to the ground. Bowing prostrate at the feet of Jesus, with what I imagine was the biggest smile he had ever smiled – just radiating joy. 

What an experience!  It’s so enticing to imagine. 

But it’s something that most of the time we have to imagine. 

We don’t really get to experience anything like this on an everyday basis. Or, at least I don’t.  I can’t think of many moments when it was so obvious that God had acted, putting the world to right.  I think the moments probably happen all the time, but I just don’t notice, and maybe you don’t either. 

And I really hope you do have a moment, soon, when you see, you witness, you recognize God putting something to right, something you had given up hope on.  And that when you do see it, I hope that you can’t help but fall on your knees, grinning from ear to ear, shouting or maybe just whispering, a fervent thank you that bubbles up out of the sheer joy of it.

But even though we say that it is indeed right to give thanks at all times and in all places, we know that we can’t always maintain such intense, continual joyfulness that erupts in spontaneous thanksgiving.  Especially when instead we are overcome with all the ways the world isn’t right, all the ways it is broken and dying – how do we feel gratitude? When we are separated from our loved ones, when we are crying out to Jesus to have mercy – how can we give thanks?

And here’s the secret – we do it anyway.

And it’s why we return, Sunday after Sunday, to our own great thanksgiving.  That’s why we say the words every week.  That’s why in 1863, in the middle of the bloodiest war our country had ever experienced, when it seemed that nothing was right and no joy was to be found, President Lincoln declared a new national holiday – a Day of Thanksgiving.   

Because when we give thanks anyway, a funny thing happens.  It’s Joy! 

It can be so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we have to feel the joy before we can really give thanks, that the only authentic kind of thanksgiving is the Samaritan’s spontaneous outburst – but the secret is that it also works the other way around. Joy produces thanksgiving – and thanksgiving produces joy. Our rituals of gratitude, when we take the time to notice and acknowledge the ways that God is working in the world – that produces joy.  

There is joy when we gather in the spirit of thanksgiving, whether we gather in our homes around tables packed with family or friends, or whether we come to God’s table, where everyone is invited. Where Jesus seeks out every single person, always and forever asking, where are the others? Wanting them at the table too. There is joy.

Thanksgiving produces joy!

Whether we pass around the plates of food that remind us to give thanks, our turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and pie or whatever foods you will eat today, or whether we feast on the indescribable gift of God’s own body and blood, the bread and the wine that are our tangible signs of God’s surpassing grace. 

Thanksgiving produces joy, whether we are feeling happy or whether we are mourning all those that should be at our tables but won’t be, whether everything happens exactly as planned or whether everything is on fire, whether everything feels right or whether it feels broken beyond repair. 

Because God does have mercy on us. God sees what is broken, God acts to make it right, and God is doing it in all times and in all places – and when we take the time to notice, when we take the time to cultivate gratitude in our hearts, when we take the time to “Eucharist,” we enter in to God’s abundant love for us where there is peace and, you guessed it, joy. 

Cheesy and corny as it may be, I’m thankful for Thanksgiving. For our holiday today and for every time we gather at God’s table of grace.  I’m thankful for these rituals that open our eyes to the ways that God is putting the world right. And it is right that we respond with thanks and praise. It is indeed right, our duty, yes, and our joy. 

In the name of the Father, of the  ☩  Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

We so often approach the commandment to love God and love your neighbor as labor, leading to exhaustion or despair. But it becomes easier when we remember the crucial insight of the Reformation and mystics:  that it’s actually about God’s love for us! 

Vicar Lauren Mildahl 
Reformation Sunday, Lect. 30 A 
Texts: Leviticus 19:1-2, Psalm 1, Matthew 22:34-46 

God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We hear this morning “the greatest commandment” – the very center of Jesus’ teaching.

And it’s pretty simple. Love God and love your neighbor.  That’s it. 

This wasn’t some secret that Jesus revealed. The two parts of this commandment are both pulled straight from the Torah, God’s gift to the children of Israel, which we often call the law.  It’s what God had been saying all along.  “Love me and love each other.”

And I really do believe that it is a gift. And that if I could just do that, just really get good at loving God and loving my neighbor, my life would be better. I could be so happy, like it says in Psalm 1. I could be like a tree planted by streams of water, bearing the most beautiful fruit in due season.

And I feel like I should be able to do it.

I feel like I should be able to love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind and to love my neighbor as myself.  But then, I start to think about actually doing it and all of a sudden, my anxiety ratchets up, because that’s a lot!  My brain immediately goes into problem solving mode and I think maybe if I break it up, try just one of the pieces at first.  Maybe if I just focus on the easier one to start with, that might help! Okay, Well. Which one is easier?

Is it easier to love God who sometimes feels so far away?  Or is it easier to love my neighbor, who, you know, a lot of the time feels way too close?

Either way, it’s not so easy.

Either way, it feels pretty hard. A labor of love with an emphasis on the labor. It feels like work. 

It’s hard work to love a God whose sheer vastness I can’t hope to comprehend! Hard work to love my neighbors who are so small and petty (and so am I). 

And I start to wonder, how can I possibly love God with my entire self, my heart, my emotions, my center… With my soul, my being, my identity… With my mind, my intellect, my understanding? And how can I do it when I’m afraid that if I really did love with all of that, with all of me, there wouldn’t be any left of anything else?

And how can I hope to love my neighbor as myself, when I have such a hard time loving, or even liking, myself?

It’s exhausting! And so easy to despair.  And that’s the bad news. 

Not the commandment itself, that is a gift, but the way I tend to approach it as a checklist. How I experience it as a burden, as labor.  The way I obsess over all the ways I think it’s too hard, impossible even.  The way I let the tree from the psalm be withered, instead of watered.

But here’s where the good news comes in.

It’s hiding in plain sight, in the very verse from Leviticus that Jesus quotes, although he stops before he gets there.  But in the Torah, it says: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”  I am the Lord. 

So often, we don’t say the last few words of this verse, focusing so much on the imperative (you shall love), that we miss the declarative: “I am the Lord.”  But these words ought to resound, like a bell, calling us back to the Great I Am, the source of all life and all love. 

It’s about God!  This is the good news! It’s not about how hard we work, how much we labor to love.  It’s not about all the shoulds and should nots or our insecurities over whether we are loving enough or the right way.  This little refrain (“I am the LORD”) is our reminder that it’s actually and always about what God did and does. How God has loved and will love and always loves.  

The same good news that the writer of I John captured so eloquently and succinctly: “this is love: not that we loved God, but that God loved us.”

And it’s the same thing Martin Luther was trying to tell everyone. 

The reformers of 16th Century Germany that we celebrate today recognized how easy it is to get caught up in the fear and the anxiety of doing the labor of love. And how toxic and depleting that approach is and how often it leads to despair.  Their remedy was to insist that it isn’t about us doing work, isn’t about us doing anything – it’s all about God.  Because God saves, we are saved. Because God is faithful, we can have faith.  Because God loves, we can love. 

The crucial realization, or maybe we should say recentering, of the Lutheran Reformation wasn’t earth-shattering because it was a new insight. It was earth-shattering because God’s love is earth-shattering. 

After all, many people throughout time, the medieval mystics in particular, have experienced the earth-shattering love God has for us. Often in evocative and sometimes frankly erotic terms, they have written about how God loves us with God’s whole heart, soul, and mind. 

I want to stay on that image for a moment.

To take a cue from the mystic imagination, and play with the idea of how intensely and passionately God loves you. Let’s imagine God’s heart –whatever that might be – that it aches.  I imagine God’s heart aches for you, composing love letters and poetry for you, sending you messages of every kind, hoping someday you’ll respond. 

I imagine God’s soul – God’s very being – warming at the thought of you, itching to embrace you, leaning with longing toward you.  

I imagine God’s mind – and God is head over heels in love, utterly fascinated and mesmerized by you, hanging on to every word you say. 

That’s the kind of love that kindles reformation. On the scale of Christendom – and also deep in each person, deep in me, and deep in you. 

Because when you accept God’s outrageous love for you, it changes the way you hear this commandment. 

It’s not an order to try harder, piling up greater and greater labors of love.  It’s an invitation to relax, relax into God’s love, like sinking into a warm bath. Not just around you but inside you too. The love of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit dwells in you and wells up in you, warming you from the inside and spilling over to others. 

God’s love around us and within us frees us and transforms us.  That’s what allows us to love as God loves, in a way that is abundant and abiding, and a tiny bit absurd.  Because when we are snuggled in the warm, fuzzy blanket of God’s love, we experience the commandment like Luther did, who said that “the heart draws joy from the commandment and warms itself in God’s love to the point of melting.”¹  

Melted in the furnace of God’s love, suddenly it isn’t labor any more.  

Suddenly it is an exquisite joy to love God back, heart for heart and soul for soul and mind for mind, a perfect dance of desire and longing.  Suddenly it’s easier to love ourselves, to turn down the volume of our anxieties and fears and self-consciousness because we are too busy blushing at God’s tenderness toward us.  Suddenly it’s a delight to love our neighbors – because we know God is absolutely crazy about them as well. 

This is reformation. And it’s on-going and it’s happening in you. Every time you remember how utterly and completely God loves you.  Every time you are reminded that this commandment isn’t a to-do list, it’s a love letter.  Then your heart, and soul, and mind are re-formed, made new, every day by God’s love. 

So, relax.  And be loved into love. 

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

_{1. Martin Luther, “The Third Commandment,” Treatise on Good Works, 1520.}

When we read the parable of the Wicked Tenants with the resurrection in mind, we can see both a warning for those that think they own the vineyard, and the reality of new life for the whole vineyard. 

Vicar Lauren Mildahl
The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 27 A
Texts: Isaiah 5:1-7, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46

Beloved church, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It’s been a crazy few days for the Jewish religious leaders.

Passover is coming up, which is always a busy time, and worshippers are arriving in Jerusalem from all over Judea.  And just yesterday there was a huge commotion when some rabbi from Nazareth rode into the city on a donkey, like he was some kind of Messiah.  The people thought he was a prophet and they didn’t check with the chief priests and the Pharisees – they just started spreading their cloaks in front of him and waving their palm branches, and singing “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  A huge disruption and a great way to catch the eye of the Roman occupiers. 

And if that wasn’t bad enough, this Jesus went straight into the temple and started turning over tables!  What were those chief priests supposed to do when Jesus chased out the money changers and the dove sellers? When he threatened and condemned the whole temple economic system that they relied on?   And then Jesus had the audacity to park himself there all day, healing the sick, with no regard for the proper procedure of their sacred spaces. And the children wouldn’t stop singing that chorus, over and over again. 

And the chief priests and Pharisees had had enough. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, they thought.  We have systems. This is OUR temple! 

And so when Jesus came back the next day, they confront him.  Last week we heard them, summoning all their bluster, practically frothing at the mouth, “By what authority are you doing these things?”  The thing is, they don’t really want an answer to the question. They want to maintain their power, and the status quo.  They want their tables back in their places.

And Jesus is pretty frustrated too. I imagine that he still smelled a little bit like donkey, that he still had splinters in hands from the tables he was tossing around, that he still had the words of the song the children were singing stuck in his head.  And he can see the path that he is on, and where it will lead by the end of the week.  And here are these chief priests and Pharisees, the ones who absolutely should know better, the ones who should have understood what was going on, and they are quibbling about authority.

So Jesus tells them a story. 

A story about a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower.  And then leased to tenants.  And not very good ones as we soon find out.  He tells a story that is pretty harsh.  With some uncanny similarities to what is about to happen.  A story that doesn’t end well. 

This is a story meant for specific people.

Not only is it directly addressed to the chief priests and Pharisees, it is a story that was deliberately constructed for them too.  It was clearly meant to be heard by those who really knew their scripture. Right off the bat, Jesus makes an allusion to Isaiah 5, the Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard, in which God sings about planting a vineyard, digging a winepress, and building a watchtower.   In that passage, the prophet Isaiah is warning the people of Judah.  “You may be God’s cherished garden, but God will not abide your rotten grapes forever.”  

The religious leaders would have picked up on this, would have realized that by invoking Isaiah 5, Jesus meant the parable to be a warning.  In fact we are told explicitly that they knew that Jesus was speaking about them.  They knew that they were the wicked tenants. 

But they couldn’t bear to give up the idea that the vineyard was theirs. 

Of course, the kingdom of God wasn’t theirs and deep down they probably knew it.  But they were so resentful of the fact. They wanted it to be theirs.  Just like we sometimes have to remind ourselves that this isn’t our vineyard. It’s God’s. It’s not our kingdom, it’s God’s. It’s not our church, it’s God’s.  We aren’t even the tenants.

We are the vineyard. 

We are a vineyard that doesn’t always produce good grapes.  But we are beloved and cared for and lovingly tended by God. We are the vineyard that God plants and builds a watch tower over and agonizes over.  The vineyard that God would send the Son to claim and save. The vineyard that the Son would die for.  

And if only the chief priests and Pharisees had taken a moment to consider, wait a minute, what if we don’t have to be the tenants?  What if they had given up their claim to the power and the systems they were clinging to? What if they embraced their place as part of the vineyard?  They might have produced some good fruit. 

And at this point, we have to talk about the end of the story.

At the end of this parable it seems like the tenants win. The Son is dead. With no grapes to show for it. But we know that’s not the end. Jesus died, but he didn’t stay dead. 

The resurrection has to change the way we read this parable. 

It takes the rhetorical question asked in Isaiah, “What more could I have done for my vineyard?” and answers it forever.  God sends the Son, the Christ, God’s own self to be with us.  And not just to die, but to live! To create life where there was no life. To restore and renew everything!  When we read this parable with the resurrection in mind, we can see that it isn’t about God’s wrath, it is about God’s closeness. It is about the Gospel that comes as a person to be close to us.  A story about a God that is so close that you could trip over him, like a stone you didn’t see and stumbled over.  And it is a story about how easy it is to trip and fall on that stone if your eyes are set on protecting your own power. 

This parable is a warning to all those who think that they own the vineyard, but it isn’t a categorical rejection of the chief priests and Pharisees, because that’s not the end of the story. Punishment comes, yes, but so does reconciliation, because God came to save the whole vineyard, including the Pharisees.  And we know that because a Pharisee who wrote half of our New Testament!   

Paul was one of the very people that this parable was meant for.  

He rattles off his entire pedigree to the Philippians: “circumcised on the 8th day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

Before he met Jesus, Paul thought the vineyard was his.  Maybe he even thought he was doing God a favor by persecuting the church, when all he was really doing was protecting his own position.  Paul thought he knew it all. Until he stumbled right over the stone that the builders rejected on the road to Damascus.  When Paul meets the Son who died and rose for the vineyard, he realizes that all of those credentials, everything that he might have boasted about, everything he knew before – it’s all rubbish. The real value, the surpassing value, is knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection.  

The resurrection makes all the difference.

For Paul and for us. This is the end of the story.  The end that is just the beginning.  New life in Christ. For everyone.  For disciples and for Pharisees. A beautiful, beloved vineyard, built on the cornerstone of Christ.  

This is the Lord’s doing. And it is amazing in our eyes!

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The church that Jesus describes in the gospels is beautiful and messy.   Life and love in Jesus sometimes means leaning into the messiness of being church, because we are bound to each other.

Vicar Lauren Mildahl
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 23 A
Texts: Ezekiel 33:7-11, Psalm 119:33-40, Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:(+10-14) 15-20

Beloved church, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The word “church” (ecclesia, in Greek) only appears in two places in the Gospels. 

It appears lots of times in the book of Acts and in most of the epistles, but Jesus only mentions the church twice, and only Matthew’s gospel.   In fact, we heard him say the word “church” for the first time a few weeks ago.  When Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!”  Then Jesus came back with, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it!” 

The first time we hear of the church, it is ascendant. A church that death itself cannot prevail against. A church built strong on the rock of faith, of Peter’s faith in the Living God who came in love as Christ. This church is a glimpse of God’s beloved community, of life and love in Christ. It’s beautiful!

And now, here we are, just two chapters later, and when Jesus speaks of the church this time it is in conflict and disarray. Jesus describes a wounded church, where members are hurting each other and aren’t listening to each other, and the church represents the last-ditch effort to restore peace. It’s messy!

These two chapters tell a tale of two churches. The best of times and the worst of times. So divine. So human. Beautiful and messy. And isn’t that just like the church? 

Because church is often messy, isn’t it?

Even this church. I haven’t been here long, but I’ve been reading the wonderful history of Mount Olive that was put together for the 100th anniversary. It has been such a lovely way to get to know more of the rich history of this place. But it’s also a tale of two churches (at least 2!) There have been many beautiful moments and many messy moments in this place.

And in the wider church as well.  Some of you shared with me this week your own painful stories of the messy church and the ways you have been brought down and let down, sometimes by people who sanctioned their actions with these very texts. It’s all too easy for “2 or 3” people to claim God’s authority to push away or even excommunicate some sheep who makes things just a bit too messy.  Whose “sins” (real or imagined) threaten the idea of the beautiful church. And the conflicts weigh us down. And they hurt. 

It’s heartbreaking. In my cynical moments, I think about God’s promise to do anything we ask – IF “two of you can agree.” – I imagine God thinking, “Oh I’ll take that bet.  Two of you need to agree on something?  Yeah, sure. If two of you can agree on anything, I’ll do it.  Good luck.”

But of course, that’s not how God thinks or what God wants.  God wants us to agree, wants us to love one another, wants us to live! Telling the prophet Ezekiel, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live!”  But how? How do we turn and live? How do we muddle through the messiness of living side by side? 

Well, God has given us a good place to start. It’s called “the law.”  

We Lutherans love gospel so much we like to give the law a bad name. But the law is a gift. It is supposed to help us.  It’s a good thing.  It was the desire and delight of the writer of Psalm 119. And it’s what Paul offered to the Romans who were trying to navigate their own very messy church. Paul helpfully summarized for them and for us that “the law” is really just love. Love for our neighbors.   So that we can turn and live!  So that maybe we can be that first beautiful version of the church a little bit more often. 

But as helpful as the law is, the love and life we find in Jesus goes even beyond that.

This passage in Matthew 18 is often called “The Rule of Christ” – but it isn’t just sensible conflict management advice.  This is the kind of love that doesn’t just follow the law, it fulfills it. This is the love that goes to find the lost sheep that has gone astray.  The love that doesn’t want a single one of these little ones to be lost.  The love that brings every single one back. 

That’s what we are commanded to do here.  If a sibling in Christ has sinned against you, has hurt you, has offended you, has annoyed you, whatever it is, you don’t shut the door on them. And you don’t just take it like a doormat.  You go out and you meet them face to face.  You might need to bring along others. You might have to bring along the whole dang messy church if you need to, for the sake of one. That is restoration and reconciliation that will go to every length. 

Which sometimes means that we need to be a little bit flexible for the sake of reconciliation.  

We need to learn to lean into the messiness. Sometimes that might even mean re-evaluating the rules the law has given us.

And God gives us that flexibility!  Jesus says, not once, but in both of these passages where he mentions the church, the same phrase:  whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in heaven. This isn’t God setting us up as little tyrants with terrifying cosmic power.  This is God reminding the church to go to every length to reconcile, to restore, to turn to life.  You aren’t bound to the law.  If the law isn’t working to bring every sheep back, be released from it.  If you need a few new rules to help you love each other into life, go for it. 

You aren’t bound to the law.  You are bound to each other.  

Which means that when you need to hold others accountable (which sometimes you will), you can’t forget to hold them. ¹

Too often, these passages are used to wash our hands of those who have hurt us or those we don’t think should be a part of the church. 

Sometimes we are so afraid of a messy church, we want so badly to skip right to that beautiful church, that we are really tempted to read that part about Gentiles and tax collectors as license to exclude. To leave those sheep to wander on their cliffs. 

But that isn’t the church.  We only need to look at the way that Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors to see that.  Jesus wasn’t afraid of messy. Jesus knew that the two churches, beautiful and messy, are really only one church.  Because the church that death cannot prevail against is the same church desperately trying to hold itself together.  Not two churches. One church in Jesus. Who has already gone to every length to reconcile us to God, to bring us back into the fold, who doesn’t want to see a single one be lost. 

And don’t forget, dear church: Jesus is here.  He promised. 

Where 2 or 3 are gathered in my name, I am among them. In my beautiful, messy church, I am among them. 

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

_{1. This idea was inspired by Kazu Haga, a trainer of Kingian Nonviolence, from a line in his book Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm (Parallax Press: 2020).}

 

God does not determine worth by the amount of seeds we sow successfully–God already holds us knowing we have unimaginable worth and hopes that we will be brave to sow seeds to bring God’s reign.

Vicar Mollie Hamre
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
Texts: Isaiah 55:10-13, Psalm 65:1,8-13, Romans 8:1-11, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“A sower went out to sow.”

As Jesus often does in parables, he does not give much context, motivations of the character or even who this person is. Instead, he tells a story that sounds simple, but is also a lot to digest. Parables ask that we learn from each other and listen to the different ways that a story can be heard. In recognizing that Jesus does give an explanation today, that does not mean it is the only thing we learn from this parable.

The story starts with an individual going out to sow seeds–to plant what might be grain in the future. For those that have planted, there are two parts to caring for seeds. There is the experience side that tells us temperature, kinds of soil, water, drainage, among many other things, all play a factor in having a successful harvest. The other part is the hope and bravery that comes with planting. At some point, how the seeds grow is out of your control. As much as you can plan and prepare, there is a chance that nothing might grow which is a risk you take.

Sowing seeds is not for the faint of heart.

It takes patience, time, and commitment. Learning with one another, asking questions, trial and error. And eventually, we hope that we learn from experiences and grow from them.    

Planting anything is quite literally an act of trust because we place hope into the Earth’s soil that it might flourish and grow. That in itself takes bravery. But what comes of those seeds? The ones that hold hopes and failures? What if we plant in the wrong places? What if, even with experience, we find failure?

A simple story about planting seeds, quickly becomes much more.

We are talking about the ways we live and plant all over in our lives. The ways that we treat one another, invest in each other, show compassion, even to ourselves. The seeds that you sow when you stand up against racism. Stand up against aggression towards our trans siblings. And call for peace and justice in our world.

The seeds you sow when you call to check in on a friend or remind those around you that they are loved. When you have difficult conversations about caring for your neighbors with a family member and it feels like rocky ground. Those are brave seeds to plant. The ones that we are not sure what kind of soil we are encountering, but have hope and trust that God brings growth and the Spirit’s presence amidst it. The times that we put our hearts out there, on the line, with hope that change will happen. And even have to ask: about the times we do not feel successful?

Looking back to the parable, the sower is all across the board for results.

God is not looking for perfection. God is not a stranger to failure or working within imperfect people. So much focus can go to the seeds that land on good soil and bring forth grain, but the output is not the focus and results have never been a part of this for God.

The grain that does grow is enough to fill a whole community. For the hearers of the story thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold was a sign of abundance to be shared. But this grain would not be there if it was not for the time, patience, learning, and growth that is done together first. We are called to bring God’s reign to our world, that means reaching out to one another with grace to learn, grow and share together. This kind of abundance takes community effort, not the perfection of one person

All the seeds in your life will not be planted in perfect soil. You will get confused and lost. You will have success and you will have failure. And as a community, we hope that when we fail, we hold each other up and grow together.

While we can plan and prepare, we also hold as followers of Jesus, God with us, that some things are simply out of our control. And God tells us that is okay. The Triune God does not determine worth by the number of seeds we sow successfully. God already holds us knowing we have unimaginable worth and hopes that we will be brave to sow seeds to bring God’s reign.

“Listen!” Jesus says “A sower went out to sow.”

One of the bravest things you can do. For our world that lays so much stress on success and accomplishment, the Triune God does not. A sower goes out into the world and decides to have hope that seeds might sprout into a harvest, some a hundredfold. And sometimes those seeds do not.

Sometimes we fail and everything does not go according to plan, but that does not change the importance of the work you do. Because God continues to bring rain and snow and sunshine–all signs of God’s growing abundance and presence. These gifts that helps our community learn about soils, planting depth, watering and that is why we rejoice and embrace learning together. And when that seed brings forth grain, we rejoice too. Because in your own ways, just as all the seeds do, you each bring essential grain that feeds the community and gives it nourishment in order that we may hope together for God’s peace and justice in our future.

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.