July 24, 2005 At Saint Mark in Norman, OK

I Kings 3:5,7-12 + Romans 8:28-30 + Matthew 13:44=52

Three parables conclude the thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel.

The parables are about the Kingdom of Heaven.

To make sure we get it, Matthew says it three times:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like……..”

And then he asks the question worth asking again and again:
“Do you understand?”

I think the question and the struggle for the answer is the issue with this Gospel

when we proclaim it in Norman, Oklahoma on a hot July weekend.

“Have you understood all this?” he asks after to speaking to them about treasures buried in fields, merchants searching for pearls, and nets that collect fish?

“Yep, we sure do.” they say, and then the evidence begins to pile up against them.

Because I know how it will go with them, I’m not so quick with my answer,

and I wonder about you.

I’m not so sure I do understand.

I’m caught between wanting to say that I do

in order to appear wise and knowledgeable,

and wanting to cry out:

“I don’t get it. Tell me again. Help me understand!”

Perhaps that was Solomon’s greatest gift:

knowing that he didn’t know it all,

and asking to have an understanding heart.

With that desire, we might take a second look at these parables

from another point of view.

There is another way to imagine these parables

that might lead to deeper understanding.

Something about our life style and the power–driven western world always pushes us to think that the parables are giving us instructions about what to do or telling us how to do something.

What if we switch from the active to the passive?

What if these are really parables that describe the Kingdom of Heaven?

What if these are parables that describe

how we shall be in this “now and not-yet existence we call “the present?”

It is, after all, our built in impatience with being in the “now and not yet”

that makes us want to do something

often at the cost of being something.

In the end, I think the reason we have

and have preserved these parables and words of Jesus

are to give us something to imagine and long for while we wait.

They actually tell us how to BE in this world

just as much as they tell us what to DO.

In fact, what we DO must flow from what we ARE.

So, instead of hearing these parables as instructions about what to do,

listen again and think about what else they have to tell us.

Perhaps these parables have something to say about God.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like the TREASURE.

That’s what the parable is about, not about the person.

It’s about being sought, being desired above all things,

about being wanted enough to sell everything in order to be possessed.

Then the Kingdom of Heaven is about the MERCHANT

who sells everything to get that pearl.

Finally, the Kingdom of Heaven is about the NET

that gathers every kind of fish!

With that said, suppose the first parable is about us:

the greatest treasure in God’s eyes.

Suppose the second parable is about God who sells or gives his only Son

in order to have us as God’s own.

Finally, suppose the third parable is about church,

the net of love that gathers us all and leaves no one behind.

“Do you understand this?”

Do any of us ever really understand that we are treasures

that God desires more than anything?

Do any of us ever really get it?

Do we ever grasp what a price has been paid for us and our salvation?

Are we ever going to see that all of us are in this net of love together?

Once we do,

the gift of wisdom and real understanding will be ours,

and the cry of Joy from the one who has found us

will echo through all creation

and once again it will be a beginning,

a Genesis,

and we and all creation shall be GOOD.

July 10, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman,OK

Isaiah 55:10-11 + Romans 8:18-23 + Matthew 13: 1-23

This is a parable of promise, not a parable of judgment.

It is about what will come to be, not about the past.

We need no parables to tell us about that.

But because of the past in which we live minute by minute,

we do need to hear about will come,

what is God’s will, and how to accomplish that will.

And so Matthew gives us this parable on the lips of Jesus.

We begin to get the point as we listen to the prophet today

speaking of how certain and effective God’s Word has become.

As sure as rain, sun, and seed make harvest,

so it shall be with the Word of God.

It will bear fruit.

The seed Jesus sews will bear fruit,

but this harvest does not happen in the gospel narrative.

When Matthew’s Gospel concludes, disciples are sent out to all nations to continue scattering the seeds.

What we do get in the Gospel is the failure of the seed to flourish:

Fleeing disciples who are ashamed and afraid of Jesus;

betrayal by Peter whose name is “rock” by the way, and Judas;

a rich young man who has been given everything will give up nothing.

All of these failures are summed up in three images worth looking at and reflecting upon in the midst of summer.

Perhaps a glance at them today will give us some thought about how we might maker more certain that the promised harvest will happen in our lives.

The image of the well – worn path is powerful when we consider how it contributes to the failure of the harvest. Too busy, too stuck in the ruts and habits of our lives, the planted seed, the gifts we are given bear no fruit. Busy in the fast lane is the life of those who are here today and gone tomorrow. All that can be expected of these people so busy with their lives is that we can hope for nothing except more of the same.

The image of the rocky ground is just as powerful to express what happens when the Word of God is sown into a hardened heart. These hearts, as I spoke of last week, cannot change. No conversion, so response, just stone cold silence, stubbornness, and certitude that I am right and my way is the only way.  No harvest here.

The final image suggests a condition too common and pervasive in our culture: the shallow ground. These hearers have so many interests in life, so much to do, so many to please! Their priorities are all a jumble. Their prayer is shallow. The commitment is convenient, and when more is ask or expected, it is replaced by something or someone else.

But there is also the good ground, and the promise it holds.

So we tell the parable again

to encourage ourselves with the promise it proclaims,

to look at the conditions

into which this Word and Promise have been sewn,

and perhaps rejoice and receive the blessing we hear

from the lips of Jesus;

a blessing upon those who have eyes to see

and ears to hear.

July 3, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Zechariah 9:9-10 + Romans 8:9, 11-13 + Matthew 11:25-30

Since I am assuming no one arrived here this morning by horse or by colt the difference between the two modes of transportation has likely escaped us.

The prophet Zechariah proposes that the messiah, the “savior” will arrive on a donkey, not a horse, and for those of his time this is something unexpected.

This is news. For us, the story of Palm Sunday has dulled the impact of this message, especially so if the significance of the animal is not understood.

Historians tell us that in the ancient world, donkeys were symbols of peace,

as opposed to the horse, which was used for war.

Riders of donkeys in the Jewish scriptures

were regarded as distinguished and even majestic.

In his prophesy, Zechariah proposes that the rider of the donkey

will be a non violent peacemaker through whom

justice will be universally established.

The horse will be banished.

For the people of his time, this was unexpected news, and a whole new idea. Because of their recent oppression in exile,

they expected a messiah on a horse

that would violently destroy all enemies in the style of King David.

It was not to be.

The intelligent and the learned do not get it.

Something new has come, and they don’t want it.

They can’t understand it.

They didn’t think of it first, and they will have nothing to do with it,

so they ran the risk of missing the opportunity.

Jesus suggests that they are like children in the market place,

where they refused to dance with the flute and refused to morn with the dirge. Suspicious and unwilling, they will not give the Kingdom of God a chance.

It asks more of them than they can imagine, and so it passes them by.

Stories of missed opportunities abound in history.

Thomas Edison spent only three months in formal education

because a teacher thought he was dull.

So he started reading on his own discovering literature, philosophy, and science.

The “lights” went on and he literally changed the course of history,

but not because of the intelligent, the learned and the clever.

It was the same with Galileo who mastered

the grinding of lenses for glasses and telescopes.

He confirmed the earlier thought of Copernicus

that the sun was fixed and earth moved around it.

But the wise and the learned were threatened by new information

and silenced both Copernicus and Galileo.

This behavior continues to wear away at news of the Reign of God.

“These things” which are being revealed can be grasped by the mind of a child

while people of influence and power never get it.

“These things” refer to the mysteries of the Kingdom

and how the grace of the Father reaches down

through Jesus to hearts that are open and hungry for transformation.

Resistance to what is new, to these mysteries springs from fear

that worldviews must change and the landscape of one’s life must shift.

For the learned and the clever,

for those in power and those with all the answers, this is far too risky;

but not to the childlike who are open to the fresh air of the Divine Spirit

that was blowing in their midst.

The troubles Jesus had with proclaiming a new message

are the troubles Christ still has today.

Our sense of the Kingdom of God, I images for what it shall be like,

and our sense of how it shall come to be

are still not open enough to allow it to happen.

Extremism continues to push us apart into suspicious and mean spirited opponents

who can no longer imagine the unity of the human family.

A change of mind, of values, of opinions or of ideas is looked upon as a weakness

or flaw of character.

When in fact, openness to change, to conversion, or rethinking opinions in the face of facts is exactly what it takes for the Spirit to move us toward the Reign of God.

Issues of peace, violence, the death penalty, the dignity of life, capitalism, and even democracy are obvious issues where the Spirit can lead and call for change in some hearts that are closed and will not listen.

There are issues in our church as well

and sometimes they threaten the unity of parish communities.

Language, vesture, hymn books, (for heaven’s sake) translations, governance, posture, the integration and preservation of one’s rights and the exercise of one’s duties too often give evidence that the trouble Jesus had is still a trouble today.

Around this altar because of this Gospel and Matthew’s words, we might well look not at each other, but at ourselves and resistance with us that delays the coming the Kingdom of God. It isn’t a matter of time. It is a matter of will, of desire, and of faith.

What we wait for is not another day, another year, nor another generation;

but for our own hearts to change so that we might dance with the piper

and mourn with the dirge.

When the day comes that we desire to change ourselves

consistently and completely

into an unmistakable image of Christ,

we will finally know what it is to be meek and humble of heart

and the Spirit of God will dwell within us.