Child of God: A Sermon for 25 September 2011

Christ Church, St. Joseph, La.

Today’s parable from Matthew (21:23-32, NRSV) follows last Sunday’s parable by just a few verses. The Master is still presiding over the vineyard.

In the time of Jesus, wine was drunk with most meals. It was the safest thing to drink. Thus the Master of the vineyard was in the business of providing a major necessity of everyday life.

Today wine is not a major necessity of life, at least not for those of us who have safe drinking water. Yet we value it highly, first because of its role in our sacramental life, but also as a special drink we willingly pay for--sometimes handsomely. So Jesus’ imagery continues to resonate.

Today’s story about the Master’s sons and the vineyard struck close to home for me. Up in Ouachita Parish we are privileged to have a real, honest-to-goodness functioning vineyard. It came about when Hurricane Katrina chased Jeff Landry out of south Louisiana. He found a lovely piece of hilly land west of West Monroe and planted his vines.

Landry’s Vineyard thrives, I believe in part because Jeff’s business plan seems to involve inviting the locals to become part of the family and get hands-on involved in the operation. 

Libby & Jeff Landry, Landry Vineyards, Ouachita Parish

Thus when it is time to pick the grapes, Jeff doesn’t hire a professional crew of grape pickers. Rather, he invites everyone and anyone to come on out on the chosen Saturdays, pick grapes for as long as you want or are able, then return for an evening of festivities that includes wine tasting, of course, plus Louisiana cuisine and live music, and even stomping grapes, if you are so inclined.

Back in late August, I decided to help with the red grape harvest. I even told several friends that I was going to be there come Saturday morning to help pick those grapes. After all, I love red wine!

But, you guessed it: Come Saturday morning, it was hot, hot, hot. I was tired from a week of I don’t remember what…. It just didn’t seem so important to hop out of bed early and go out into the sun, on that steep hillside, among those vines that probably harbored mosquitoes and who knows what all, and pick those grapes. I didn’t show.

We have all been the son or daughter who said “yes,” then didn’t do what we said we would do. For any number of reasons, some good, some not so good, we all at least occasionally agree to do things that we ultimately do not do.

But, you know what? We have also all been the son or daughter who said “no.” No, I don’t have time. No, I have a scheduling conflict. No, I’m no good at that. Etc., etc. Then we thought better of it, or we made some time, or we simply felt guilty, and we went and did what we thought we couldn’t or wouldn’t do.

Moreover, more times than not, we are the son or daughter Jesus doesn’t mention in this story—the one that says “yes”… and then is good to that word. That’s the ideal we uphold, and even though we don’t always achieve it, I’m pretty confident that most of us most of the time are people of our word.

We say “no” only when we must. We say “yes” most of the time, perhaps too often for our own good, and most of the time, we do what we say we’ll do.

So why didn’t Jesus put these ideal children in his story? What is the lesson of this story for us, given that most of us know that on any given day we could be either of these sons, both of whom need an attitude adjustment, but that on most days we strive to be the ideal child who is not in the story?

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve completely passed over, so far, one set of characters who… well, are they part of this story or not? What IS the connection between this story about the Master of the vineyard and his two sons, and these Pharisees standing around questioning Jesus about his authority?

At first blush, there appears to be none. The Pharisees try to trick Jesus. Jesus quickly turns the tables on them. Jesus launches into a story.

We can readily see ourselves in either and both of the sons who insult their father by not being men of their word. But we’re not too upset by that because we also know that we are often the missing ideal child.

But… and here’s where it gets uncomfortable: What if we’re the Pharisees?

Could it be that the Pharisees are those “ideal” children missing from the story? The good church people of the day who strive to be good to their word… but who then forget the times they said “yes” and didn’t show?

The good church people of the day who say “no” because, after all, they have businesses to take care of and a family and lifestyle to maintain, and they really don’t have time to feed the poor and welcome the stranger—who are surely lazy or illegal anyway?

The good church people of the day who become so full of themselves and their many good deeds that they come to think themselves better than all those sinners out there who just can’t seem to get their act together?

The Pharisees in this story stand for us when we are hypocritical and self- righteous, when we forget that we are sinners in need of mercy too.

A drunk man who smelled like beer sat down on a subway seat next to a priest. The man's tie was stained, his face plastered with red lipstick, and a half-empty bottle of gin was sticking out of his torn coat pocket. He opened his newspaper and began to read.



After a few minutes the man turned to the priest and asked, 'Say Father, what causes arthritis?'



The priest replied, 'My son, it's caused by loose living, too much alcohol, contempt for your fellow man, sleeping around with prostitutes and lack of a bath.' 

The drunk muttered, 'Well, I'll be damned,' and returned to his paper.



The priest, thinking about what he had said, nudged the man and apologized. 'I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to come on so strong. How long have you had arthritis?'



The drunk answered, 'I don't have it, Father. I was just reading here that the Pope does.' (Internet joke, contributed by Edge of the Enclosure)

Those who would enjoy the bounty of the Master’s Vineyard, better get used to rubbing elbows with drunks and prostitutes. For they are variations on Child of God just like you and me, and the Master sees through ALL of our false selves.                                                                    

AMEN

God's Economy: A Sermon for 18 September 2011

Christ Church, St. Joseph, La.

We really don’t like this story, do we?

I mean, listen to this! Here’s Jesus once again teaching his disciples using his favorite method: a parable (Matthew 20:1-16, NRSV). The characters in the parable are easily recognized by us. The Master of the Vineyard is, of course, God.

Because Jesus is speaking, I’m guessing many of us immediately think “God the Father.” But the Master of the Vineyard could also be Jesus the Christ, who was, after all, frequently called “Master” by his disciples, and did, after all, sometimes refer to himself in the third person.

Either way, the Master of the Vineyard is clearly a personification of the one and only God we worship.

The workers are, of course, us. And we recognize each type. Being good church people, we are probably the ones ready and eager to go into the vineyard at the break of day, and stay at it all day.

We do it, at least in part, because we are good church people. We’re loyal and committed. We believe in our work, that it is a good thing to do. We have a strong work ethic. We’re not slackers!

We look with disdain on those we perceive to be slackers. And we are pretty sure those who show up to be hired late in the day, and who therefore put in only an hour of work, are slackers. 

Parable of the Workers of the Vineyard, by Rembrandt

                                       
It goes without saying that we expect to be rewarded for our hard work, and we expect those we have judged to be slackers to at least earn less, if not be outright penalized for their lesser effort.

Sound familiar? It should, because it is a system devised by humans for the purpose of regulating human behavior. It’s called the merit system, and we are quite devoted to it. 

And I will certainly grant you that it makes a certain kind of sense and accomplishes certain things in the world of human endeavor. One of the hats I wear is that of a member of the Board of Control of the Ouachita Parish Public Library system. Just this past week, we decided, in these days of economic constraint, that the only raises the library system will give this year will be merit raises.

Last year we gave an across-the-board, cost-of-living raise to everyone. But we agreed that we could only do that occasionally. We agreed that merit raises hold people accountable and are an incentive to work harder and better.

So, yes, the merit system has value in the quid pro quo world of human endeavor.

But we get confused. As with so many things that seem necessary to make human societies function, we imbue the merit system with moral virtue. We even come to think it so wonderful that we are quite sure God must have invented it.

The story of creation in Genesis says that God made us in his image. But we humans put the cart in front of the horse all the time. We think that because we are made in God’s image, therefore God must think like us.

We would be wrong.

And as people of the Good News, who purport to not only believe in but follow Jesus, we really should know better.

Jesus tells us and shows us, over and over again, in myriad ways, that the human economy of merit falls short. He teaches it through his criticism of the scribes and Pharisees—the good church people of his day—who believe they are earning their way to heaven by following the letter of the law.

He teaches it with parables like the one about the treasures accumulated on earth through our economy of merit, treasures that will rot and rust and be stolen by thieves.

He shows it by insisting upon associating with, even eating with, all those people who don’t measure up according to the economy of merit: prostitutes, poor people, even tax collectors.

He preaches it in the Sermon on the Mount with its series of inversions: The meek shall inherit the earth! Really, now? Not in the economy of merit, they won’t!

He teaches it in today’s lesson: The last shall be first and the first shall be last. And who are any of you, you good church people, to say I can’t do what I want with what belongs to me?

Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan monk and Roman Catholic priest. He writes prolifically and publishes both books and an online daily meditation. He is another of my favorite spiritual mentors.

Fr. Richard says that the gospel—the good news taught by Jesus—won’t make much sense to those who are committed to worthiness, competition and rewards—in other words, to the economy of merit.

That’s because the very heart of the Gospel is that God’s economy is one of grace, radical grace, offered to us as unconditional love—a wedding feast of God’s love.

Sounds fabulous, right? So why do we have such a hard time accepting it? Why do we cling so tightly to our economy of merit?

Well, for one thing, we really aren’t sure we want to rub elbows with all the folks who are invited to God’s feast of unconditional love. The economy of merit feeds our pride in accomplishment, our pride in being the ones who show up for work at the break of day. The economy of merit allows us to think we are better than the ones who show up at noon, or late afternoon, for heaven’s sake.

But Paul, in the passage read today from his letter to the Philippians (1:21-30, NRSV), gives us a glimpse of what happens when we accept God’s unconditional love and embrace God’s economy of grace. Remember that Paul wrote this letter from a Roman jail under threat of execution. Yet he is free, free even from fear of death. Living is Christ and dying is gain, he rejoices, and I do not know which I prefer.

Then Paul admonishes us to live a life worthy of the Gospel of Christ. But note that the purpose is not to merit God’s love. Rather, following Jesus the Christ serves as evidence of our salvation in the face of a hurting and sometimes evil world.

Or, as Fr. Richard puts it, God does not love us because we are good. We are good because God loves us.

AMEN

                  

Practice Blessing: A Sermon for 28 August 2011

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, La.

In today’s lessons, people who are trying to serve God engage in intense struggles with the world. First is Moses, called by God from the burning bush that is not consumed to lead the Hebrew people out of bondage in Egypt (Exodus 3:1-15, NRSV). 

Moses struggles throughout this story with his fears. First he fears God and hides his face. Then he fears Pharaoh. After all, he is in the wilderness precisely because he is a fugitive from Pharaoh’s justice, having slain an Egyptian who had been beating a Hebrew slave.

Moses and the Burning Bush

When God reassures him on that point, Moses struggles further with his fears, this time in relationship to the Isrealites themselves. He needs a credential, and God provides it: Say that “I AM,” the God of your ancestors, has sent you.

This is a “good news, bad news” story. The good news, or "gospel" message, is that the Lord God has seen the affliction of God's people and has come to deliver them from slavery and oppression. The bad news, for Moses, is that responding to the good news requires him to go way out of his comfort zone.

The story from Matthew’s Gospel (16: 21-28, NRSV) is a prediction of the suffering and death of Jesus. We know, of course, that it was written well after those events had taken place. Thus the vantage point is post-resurrection and the writer believes that Jesus’ death and resurrection had been necessary to his salvation, just as we believe today they were necessary to our salvation.

In that light, Peter seems rather clueless, if not an outright obstacle to what Jesus needed to accomplish. At the same time, who among us, not yet comprehending God’s plan for our salvation, would not have acted as Peter did? Would we not also have said, No, Lord, that can’t be. That you should suffer so is unacceptable.

Jesus rebukes Peter sharply. Wasn’t it just last Sunday and a couple of chapters ago that he was saying to Peter, You are the rock on which I will build my church? Yet today he says to Peter, Get thee behind me Satan.
                           

The sharpness of Jesus’ rebuke suggests two things: First, he did have a clue to what was coming, and, second, he was struggling with that awareness. How could he go through with such a horrendous reality if his own closest friends and followers were going to try to talk him out of it? Indeed, were not prepared to go through it with him?

In other words, the story both suggests what God was to accomplish with that cruel death—namely our ultimate deliverance from death—even as it makes clear that the price of deliverance is affliction and suffering. If any want to become my followers, Jesus says, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

In today’s Epistle, the Apostle Paul provides guidelines for how we should live in response to the gospel proclaimed by these stories (Romans 12:9-21). And just as Jesus’ statement suggest, Paul’s guidelines reveal that it will be a struggle and it will take us out of our comfort zone.

Much has been made over the centuries of the supposed conflict between a good, omnipotent God and the persistence of evil in the world. Underlying that debate is the notion that it’s God’s responsibility to fix evil in the world.

But Paul makes it perfectly clear that countering evil is our job, and in the passage from Romans just read, Paul focuses on how we are to counter evil. He provides us with an impressive list, the bottom line being quite simple and succinct: We are to overcome evil with good.

Our human tendency is to think that we must overcome evil with much more aggressive strategies than those listed here. I suppose that is, at least in part, because we fear evil and when we are afraid, a peaceful counter to the threat is about the last thing that occurs to us. We want to “fight fire with fire.” We believe that “the best defense is a good offense,” and so forth.

But that is hardly what Paul commands and that is precisely why his instructions take us out of our comfort zone. We are to hate evil but respond to it with love and nobility and leave vengeance to God.

One of the strategies Paul suggests for countering evil in this familiar passage strikes me today in a way it never has before. It comes about a third of the way in: Bless those who persecute you, Paul says, bless and do not curse them.

Wow. What a thought. And it strikes me today because I just finished reading a book that I think I mentioned to you a few weeks ago. The book is An Altar in the World by Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor.

The book is about how to draw closer to God through the demands, struggles and pleasures of everyday life. Spirituality is not just for formal worship experiences, Taylor argues. Rather, we can turn many aspects of our daily life into spiritual practices.

She begins with a chapter called “The Practice of Waking Up to God,” followed by chapters called “The Practice of Paying Attention,” “The Practice of Getting Lost,” and more. The last chapter of the book is “The Practice of Pronouncing Blessings.”

Bar Mitzvah Blessing

                                  
Now we Episcopalians are very big on blessing things, but we have rules about who can bless what and when. Bishops must always bless churches, communion vessels and those who are being ordained deacon or priest. Priests can bless many things: bread, wine, marriages, babies just baptized, houses, vestments, jewelry, and all of us at the end of every worship service.

But as Taylor notes, that leaves lots and lots of things that all of us can bless: Our food before we eat. Our children when putting them to bed at night. A perfect stranger who happens to sneeze in a public place.

Blessing is everyone’s job and surely the world would be a better place if we all spent more time pronouncing blessings and less blaming, criticizing and cursing!

Like Paul, Taylor says we need especially to bless that which at first repels us or seems unworthy of blessing: the fat man spilling into your space from the airplane seat next to you, the sullen cashier, the neighbor who has already put the wrong political sign in his front yard, even the mosquito intent on supper at your expense. God made these beings, Taylor says, they share in God’s…holiness, whether or not they meet your minimum requirements for a blessing. And to bless is to recognize that holiness. It is to defer judgment, and to see God in every aspect of life.

And watch what happens inside when you do this. The recipient of the blessing might never know or notice. Transformation of the blessee is not required, but the heart and mind of the pronouncer of blessings will be changed.

Let us pray: Blessed are you, Lord of the Universe, and blessed is your creation now and forever,

AMEN.

Does God's Mission Have You? A Sermon for 21 August 2011

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Mer Rouge, La.

It is not that God’s Church has a Mission, but that God’s Mission has a Church.

I wish I could put that statement out there and just let you all think that I came up with it. But, in fact, I didn’t. As usual, I began sermon preparation by casting about on the Internet to see what others were saying about today’s lessons.

The Rev. Kirk Alan Kubicek of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Maryland made that statement, and you can find his sermon based on it on the Web at a site called “Sermons That Work.”

I think it is a brilliant insight, but plan to have my own way with it. So allow me to repeat:

It is not that God’s Church has a Mission, but that God’s Mission has a Church.

We church folks have a tendency to get such things reversed. We tend to talk about “the church’s mission” in and to the world.

And, yes, of course, it is in part just an easier way to talk about things. After all, the church is structured and organized to do certain things: to serve the spiritual needs of people, to spread the Gospel, to do various kinds of outreach, like disaster relief, soup kitchens, and so forth.

One could even argue that talking about these things as “the church’s mission” is a healthy way of taking responsibility and claiming ownership of the things we are called to do as the body of Jesus Christ in the world.

I would not deny or reject any of that. At the same time, it is also the case that the church has, throughout history, tended to get confused on this point. And when the church loses sight of its subordination to God’s Mission, when the church starts thinking it is pursuing its own mission, bad things tend to happen.

I am currently taking a course at the Diocesan School on Anglican Theology, and we began yesterday with a lecture on things that led up to the Protestant Reformation, things like the Roman church’s shake-down of believers by putting a price on forgiveness.

That was the practice known as the selling of indulgences, and it was the impetus and inspiration for the 95 theses Luther probably did NOT nail to a church door, but did present to his Bishop along with a letter of calling for open debate on the matter, and thereby kicked off the Protestant Reformation.

But we needn’t go so deep into history to find examples of churches acting arrogantly, and taking over the role of God in sorting the good sheep from the bad. In recent months we have seen religious fanatics, Muslim and Christian alike, blowing up, gunning down, burning holy books, sabotaging the construction of worship spaces… from the Middle East to Tennessee and Florida, and from New York City to Norway, of all places.

And then there’s the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas spreading its anti-gay hatred across the country. The churches behind the “pray away the gay” movement. Even our own church’s civil war over doctrine and the interpretation of Scripture.

These are surely examples of religious institutions—churches, mosques, synagogues—pursuing their own mission in the world rather than God’s.

But let us bring the point closer to home. If indeed we agree that God’s Mission has a Church, in general, then it’s not a huge step to recognize that the same is true for all of the church’s constituent parts: God’s Mission has a St. Andrew’s, and a St. Thomas’ and a St. Alban’s. God’s Mission has a Diocese of Western Louisiana, an Episcopal Church… and on and on.

How does it re-orient our thinking to say that these units of church do not have a mission, rather God’s Mission has them? Indeed, perhaps we should pose it as a question: Does God’s Mission have them?

This might be an especially useful and important question for St. Andrew’s to consider as you embark upon the task of preparing a parish profile as part of your search for a new rector!

Likewise, it is an extremely important question for this Diocese as we prepare a profile in search of our next Bishop.

Saint Teresa church window, Convento de Sta Teresa,
Ávila de los Caballeros, Spain.

                                
Do we think WE have a mission in the world? Or do we understand, accept and practice our faith in ways that make perfectly clear that God’s Mission in the world has us?

Our Bishop has been known to pose the question this way: “If Christianity were illegal,” he asks, “would there be enough evidence to convict us?”

And now, one more step, even closer to home. Consider this: It is not that Bette Kauffman has a mission, but that God’s Mission has a Bette Kauffman.

I was going to stand here and name names, but.. you can put your own name in the sentence. Now how does that distill your thinking? How might it adjust priorities for each of us?

We have lots of practice and experience in seeking to carry out our own mission in the world. Indeed, that is the primary job, for each of us, of our own precious ego.

But what can we do with and in response to this moment of profound humility? For as we recognize that the Mission is God’s, and that we are called to belong to God’s Mission, we must also recognize—in gratitude and with fear and trembling—that we are, at one and the same time, wholly inadequate but selected and formed by God precisely for that purpose.

The 16th Century nun, Teresa of Avila, said it like this:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which to look out Christ's compassion to the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which he is to bless...

AMEN.

The Miracle: A Sermon for 31 July 2011

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, La.

In this day of cell phones and iPads and GPS devices and laptops, iPods and more, it can be pretty hard to “get away from it all.” Indeed, I have noticed a change in my own travel planning. Any hotel that does not offer free wireless high speed Internet gets my business only in the absence of appropriately connected alternatives!

In late May of this year, I traveled to the Dominican Republic with a group of U.S. deacons to learn about the growth and struggles of the Episcopal church there. We were to spend some time living with the families of Dominican deacons, most of whom are working class. And so I braced myself for two days and two nights of “Internet withdrawal.”

Much to my surprise and delight, my Dominican family had—indeed—high speed wireless Internet! They were people of humble means, a lot of them living in a small space. No screens on the windows; no air conditioning. Water came out of the tap on demand… about half of the time. But there it was, on a high shelf: an Internet router blinking away!

We all complain that our inability to really get away is an affliction of contemporary life, and we tend to blame it on the ubiquity of electronic devices designed precisely to keep us in touch, no matter how far away from our everyday routine we have traveled. You’ve seen the commercials touting the latest gadget that enables us to conduct business from a remote beach.

So… how interesting it is that back in the day of row-boat technology, Jesus himself could not “get away.” Here again is the beginning of today’s Gospel lesson: Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns (Matthew 14:13, NRSV).

As the story continues, it sounds like the crowd might actually have gotten their first. When he went ashore, it says, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick (Ibid., v. 14).

Feeding of the 5000, by Justino Magalona.

Jesus could not get away from the needs of the world, even though, just like us, he needed to. But, why? Why did Jesus need to withdraw in the first place?

I’m not asking for a psychological explanation here, like “all humans need vacations and Jesus was human.” I’m also not asking the cosmic why, like people do when they wonder about God’s grand plan or scheme for each of us that involves inexplicable chains of events. Those might be useful discussions, but...

Rather, I’m asking what happened just before Jesus got in that boat, such that he felt the need to get away at that precise moment. What are the first 12 verses of Matthew 14 about?

It’s important to know that the lessons we read in church on a Sunday morning are often not quite the same as the original passage in Scripture. Often, they are adjusted slightly so that they will stand alone better, as “a lesson” for a given Sunday. And that often works well and facilitates sermon writing. Today, however, that practice directs our attention away from something very important.

So, let me read Matthew 14:13 again, as it actually appears in the Bible. It says, Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself (op cit.).

How’s that for a clue? But what did Jesus hear that caused him to need to get away? Verse 12, the one right before the beginning of today’s lesson, is an even better clue: His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.

So, whose body was it? John the Baptizer’s body. You know the story well. The first 12 verses of Matthew 14 tell about Herod and Herodias, the wife he had taken from his brother, and Salome, and the dance, and the promise and the beheading…. a story—if ever there was one—of violence begot by and for power and politics.

It’s a story of the unnecessary sacrifice of human life out of sheer arrogance, a story of injustice by the proud in order to save face. The news of the day drove Jesus to need to get away. And does it not sound familiar?

And do we not have plenty to want to flee from today? Starvation in Somalia, due to the maldistribution of food worldwide. Religious fanatics, Muslim and Christian alike, blowing up, gunning down, burning holy books, sabotaging the construction of worship spaces… from the Middle East to Florida and New York to Norway, of all places. And our own federal government ready to do economic violence, very possibly global in scope, in order to preserve rigid ideological positions.

If we don’t flee from the news of the day, we are likely to become cynics. But notice: That’s not how Jesus responded. When the needs of the world followed him to his get away, he turned and ministered to the people.

And just what, do you suppose, was the miracle that took place on that hill near the Sea of Galilee some 2,000 years ago? I’m sure God can create out of nothing at any time. I’m sure God can cause molecules of bread and fish to magically multiply.. at any time.

But that kind of miracle would be almost unremarkable. After separating light from dark and sea from dry land, after hanging the sun, moon and stars in the heavens, I’m guessing God could multiply bread and fish without breaking a sweat.

I’m guessing a greater miracle happened on that day so long ago. I’m guessing Jesus blessed the bread and fish.. and through his compassion and his act of thanksgiving and praise, God became known to the gathered throng in the breaking of that bread.

And when God becomes known to humankind, our hearts are opened and miracles happen, miracles of giving and sharing even when we ourselves are in hard times, of welcoming the strangers…, of caring for the least among us. So much so that we have more blessing left over than what we started with.

You’ve heard it many times: “I went to the homeless shelter or the food bank or the mission field to give/help/do something for people who are less fortunate than me,” people say, “and I got more out of it than I gave.”

Meister Eckhart, a German theologian and Franciscan monk of the 14th Century, said it this way:
For not only bread
but all things necessary
for sustenance in this life
  are given on loan to us
    with others
    and because of others
    and for others
    to others through us.*

Amen.

*As quoted online by Edge of the Enclosure, 7/30/11.

Buried in Plain Sight: A Sermon for 24 July 2011

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, LA

This is my first time ever to worship with you here at Christ Church, St. Joseph. So I thought I might begin by sharing who I am by way of taking you on a “buried treasure” tour of my home.

Imagine a nice brick, 1-story home. We’ll enter through this doorway from the carport. Just a few steps inside and we’re standing in the kitchen. Right here, on the window sill over the sink is the first treasure I want to show you.

It’s a little brown rock, about the size of a meatball—you know, the kind you see in chafing dishes at parties and receptions. It’s a pretty ordinary looking rock, except… Look! It has a heart!

From My Window Sill

I don’t know how it came to be, but this plain brown rock has one kind of flat side and there on the flat side, tilted at just the perfect angle, is a perfectly heart-shaped opening. A friend who knows that I collect treasures gave me “Rock with a Heart.” She found it lying on the ground in plain sight.

On the window sill, right next to Rock with a Heart, is another smaller rock. This one I picked up on the bank of a stream. It is whitish gray in color, but what makes it treasure is that it has been polished to a lovely sheen by its rough and tumble existence at the hands of moving water.

If you’ll step into the living room, here on a shelf above the TV is a couple of inches of armadillo tail. Happily, it has been picked clean of tissue by the industrious insects that do the important clean-up work in our environment. So what we have left is the bony architecture of the armadillo tail in all its intricate, complex beauty. 

Armadillo Tail Architecture

What in the world about an armadillo’s life requires such an extraordinary tail structure? Or, might the armadillo tail be merely an exuberant, over-the-top expression of its Creator—here just for the glory of it?

We could continue. My house is strewn with treasures buried in plain sight. Among the rocks, bones and shells, you will also find human-made treasures, like a little pink satin-glass swan that I just picked up at an auction about a week ago.

But let’s turn, for a moment, to today’s Gospel lesson (Matthew 13:31-33,44-52; NRSV). Jesus has taken aside his closest disciples to teach them about finding the Kingdom of God. He does so with a series of parables. To be more precise, he does so with a pair of twin parables. Then he wraps up the lesson with one more parable that goes beyond finding and recognizing the Kingdom, to suggesting that the Kingdom is also actually looking for us.

The first set of twin parables compares the Kingdom of God to a tiny mustard seed that grows into a tree, and to a measure of yeast that leavens three measures of flour to make multiple loaves of bread. These parables tell us that the Kingdom is a living, growing thing.

They say that although the Kingdom can be found in the tiny and seemingly insignificant—a seed, a measure of yeast—it cannot be contained by such things. The Kingdom is dynamic; it has already burst its bounds, sent out its limbs, spread its life-giving influence. It is as ubiquitous as trees and birds that nest in them.

The second set of twin parables compares the Kingdom to a treasure found lying out in an apparently ordinary field, and a pearl, which we know is formed around a fragment of grit inside that ugliest of all shells, the oyster. In this part of Louisiana, we don’t have to go far to see lots of ordinary fields and ordinary broken oyster shells being used as landscaping material!

When was the last time you looked at all that ordinariness and saw the Kingdom of God lurking there, just waiting to be discovered?

I’m currently reading a book by Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest who teaches at Columbia Theological Seminary. It’s called An Altar in the World.

Taylor’s point is that if we take incarnation seriously, if we open our eyes and hearts to the world we live in, if we live fully in the present, slow down, pay attention, leave the beaten paths of our everyday routine, strike out across that open field…. we will find evidence.. of God’s presence.. everywhere.

And not just in the physical environment. Taylor takes her seminary students in search of altars in Jewish synagogues and Islamic mosques, as well as Christian churches of all denominations. She writes also about getting lost in strange neighborhoods, other countries and other cultures as another way to stumble upon altars in the world.

In today’s parables from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us that the kingdom of heaven is indeed "at hand." He speaks in vivid word pictures to illustrate that the Kingdom is indeed among us. Referring to the ordinary and familiar, he shows us that the Kingdom is here and now, waiting for us to seek and to find.

Better yet, God does not sit passively waiting for us. Surely the fisherman casting the net is the Lord of the Kingdom looking for us.

Moreover, we don’t need a “buried treasure” map to find the Kingdom of God. Not only is the Kingdom of God out in plain sight, but incarnation also means that we have already been given what we need to see it!

Another of my favorite spiritual teachers is a Franciscan monk by the name of Richard Rohr, who publishes a daily online meditation. He says that each of us has a homing device within, a homing device that seeks its Author and Creator. Think of it as the God-shaped opening in the side of your heart.

Or, think of it as the eyes of God within us, through which we see God in the world.., in the natural environment, in other people, both stranger and friend. The eyes of God within us enable us to see the Kingdom of God everywhere, at every turn.

So watch your step! Treasure is all around you, if you will but see it. Don’t trip over that little altar, right there next to your foot! The Kingdom of God is within you and among you.

Amen.

To All Humankind, Ability: A Meditation for 14 July 2011

 Note: The occasion of this meditation was the graduation ceremony for participants in NOVA, the employer-driven workforce intermediary that finds and trains people for living wage jobs.

I begin this evening by reading from the book of Exodus, chapter 31 (NRSV):

See, I have called by name Bezalel of the tribe of Judah: and I have filled him with Divine Spirit, with ability, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, in every kind of craft. Moreover, I have appointed with him Oholiab of the tribe of Dan; and I have given skill to all the skilful, so that they may make all that I have commanded you…

In that passage from the Hebrew Scripture, God tells the people, through the profit Moses, that they not only have work to do, but that God will provide the ability, intelligence, knowledge and skills to do it.

Stone-Cutter's Hands Hold a Rock Chisel Used for Cutting Marble

That particular context a few thousand years ago was the building of the temple, and the skills and abilities God provided included such things as tent-making, stone cutting, wood carving, metal-working, sewing, and pressing oil.

We probably don’t have too many “Bezalels” and “Oholiabs” seated in front of us this evening, and we aren’t—at least not at the moment—charged with building a temple! But we are still called by God to work and even though our technology and our end products have certainly changed, those skills, and all kinds of new skills, are still very much in demand.

Work is from God! Indeed, the very first story in the Hebrew Scripture, the story of the creation of the universe, is the story of God working. And we know that God worked so-o-o hard, that he followed up the creation of the universe by immediately inventing “the weekend”!

When we say, “Thank God, it’s Friday,” we recognize both the gift of work, and the gift of rest, which has meaning precisely because of the gift of work.

The Exodus story doesn’t tell us exactly how the Israelites became, with God’s help, able to build the temple. I’m pretty sure it involved a handful of those with skills and experience teaching and mentoring those who needed it, until a skilled workforce able to get the job done had been created.

Today, our local educational institutions provide much of the training. The institutions of Northern and Central Louisiana Interfaith help find people called to work and to contribute to the welfare of the city, and Interfaith helps mentor those folks through the training process.

NOVA is that all-important intermediary that links employer needs to skilled workers, ready, able, eager to become productive members of their community. And, although she might not look much like a tribal elder, Ms. Juanita Woods functions a lot like one in relationship to these graduates.

Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith helped create the political will and find the funding to start and continue NOVA because we understand that work is from God, and that all people need the opportunity to provide for themselves and their families, and to contribute to their communities.

At the end of just two years, NOVA graduates have not only transformed their own lives and families, but they are also contributing more than $2 million dollars annually to the economy of Ouachita Parish.

We are contemporary Israelites gathered here this evening to celebrate the achievement of these new NOVA graduates, and to welcome them to the skilled workforce that is so central to the welfare of our communities and region.

AMEN.

Photo above by Raymond Gehman.