Call and Response: Sprouting God’s Dream for Us. Proper 6 Yr B June 17, 2012

The Parable of the Mustard Seed gives most of us a really warm and fuzzy feeling inside. We feel good knowing that even if our faith is TEENY, it’s enough.
“Phew”…..no heavy lifting, our puny faith will carry the day. But, while it’s true that even the smallest morsel of faith can lead to incredible things, the point of this parable is easily lost on a non-farming culture. You see, the mustard plant, in the ancient world, was viewed as an invasive, out of control, undesirable WEED. (this perspective gained from David Lose’s column at working preacher.org accessed June 14, 2012)  Those itsy bitsy seeds would blow everywhere, infiltrating carefully tilled fields and spreading the mustard plant all over, upsetting the carefully laid out plans of the farmer. Nothing warm and fuzzy there.
In other words, Jesus’ parable, to the ears of his followers in the 1st century did EXACTLY what a parable is supposed to do: make us think of things in a totally new strange and uncomfortable way. This is why Jesus used parables so often—because the truth of living a faithful life, the truth of working to bring the Kingdom of God to fruition here on earth is risky, uncomfortable and upsetting. As Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan tells us,
The point, in other words, is not just that the mustard plant starts as a proverbially small seed and grows into a shrub of three or four feet, or even higher, it is that it tends to take over where it is not wanted, that it tends to get out of control…   (The Historical Jesus, pp. 278-279 as accessed through workingpreacher.org on 6.14.12)
The kingdom Jesus proclaims isn’t something we can control—it is something that, once sprouted in a community, takes over, upsets and transforms.  It isn’t, as pastor David Lose tells us, something we should want if we’re even slightly satisfied with the way things are. Because the kingdom of Jesus will change EVERYTHING, not just those things we happen to find distasteful and unwanted. The kingdom Jesus speaks of comes to upset the very fabric of this world, the very kingdoms that rule our daily lives. The kingdoms of a “me first” existence. The kingdoms of big business getting bigger on the backs of the underprivileged and the poor. The kingdoms of a city where a high school graduation rate of 53% is something to celebrate. Kingdoms where royalty is made up of supermodels, athletes and reality t.v. stars instead of teachers, parents and prophets.
The good news is that I know most all of us here today are NOT SATISFIED with the way things are, that we can imagine something more than the ruling kingdoms of this world, that we can imagine a world where the humble are exalted, the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, the illiterate read, the unemployed work , the fearful are encouraged, the lonely embraced and the lost are found.
I know that we’re a people of hope and a people of action who understand that the mustard seed faith Jesus speaks of has its roots in hope. I also know that this hope isn’t just pie in the sky platitudes for us. I know that the hope found in faith prods and pokes us into taking action. Because once that seed sprouts and those roots take hold our faith, just like the mustard plant, spreads, infiltrates, meanders and edges in. Once our faith sprouts, once the roots of our faith take hold, this faith of ours stops being a noun and starts being a verb.
Which is just what God intends. Just like a planted seed needs sunlight and water to take hold and grow, God takes initiative, plants the seed, but it is our response which helps those Divine Dreams come to life here on earth. And once those dreams are realized, new dreams sprout and grow, and spread. It just keeps going! God has a vision and through God’s call and our response, amazing things happen: a shepherd boy is chosen as king, a mustard seed grows into an immense plant, and a small child from Nazareth grows into the Christ. (Bruce Epperly, Text this Week for Proper6 Yr B)


God’s dreams and our response vary. For God is not “ a homogenous force, evenly distributing inspiration and revelation across the universe.” (Epperly ibid)  Sometimes the seed of faith sprouts into something fierce and intrusive, propelling us into loud and brash acts of faith much like the mustard seed blooms into an uninvited weed spreading all over, taking on a life of it’s own. We’ve seen that with the civil rights actions of the 1960’s-- the race riots, the anti war demonstrations and the uprising at Stonewall. More recently we saw it in Egypt and in Libya and currently it seems to be brewing in Syria. But more often, the seed of faith, planted in us by God through Jesus Christ, sprouts in quieter, more subtle ways…..the point is there’s no telling how and when and where the sprouting will happen. The important thing is that we remain open to it. Because, when we’re open to it, receptive to it, Grace happens. God’s vision for the world is realized through this grace and it, like the mustard seed shows up in all sorts of  places, growing and spreading and at times upsetting the status quo. Grace is when possibilities appear to emerge from nowhere and we, in response, make something happen.
(Epperly ibid).
God calls and we respond…that’s what it’s all about.
People are hungry? We’ll establish a food pantry.
Kids don’t read because they have no books of their own? We give them a book.
Pets can’t be kept because their people can’t afford to feed them? We give them pet food.
A lost soul wanders in among us looking for solace and hope? We great them with a smile, a pat on the back and an invitation to come back anytime.
A small gesture can sprout hope and then the roots become established and amazing, unexpected, uncontrollable things  happen. For the Kingdom of God is amazing, it’s unexpected and it’s uncontrollable, upsetting the best laid plans of you and me. Thanks be to God.

You can go home again...to God. Pentecost 2, Proper 5 Yr B June 10, 2012

I consider myself a native Chicagoan but I’m also a proud Buffalonian. I’ve lived here for 11 years and have no trouble referring to Buffalo as “home.” (even though the lake remains on the wrong side!) Yet, until about 3 or 4 years ago, I was decidedly still an “outsider.” We Western New Yorkers are very protective of our region-- we don’t let just anyone in….even after 7 or 8 years….
It’s that way lots of places----no matter how much you fall in love with a city, a town, a village--for a period of time you’re considered an outsider. A similar thing can happen when we go home again, to our hometown.
I grew up in a small village outside of Chicago. We lived right in the center of town and were so connected with the community that when my oldest sister was married she and my brother in law stopped at the local grocery store between the wedding and the reception to say hi…. the owners of the grocery store were like a part of our family. Our extended family that included neighbors, our church and the local merchants!
But, now that I haven’t lived there for many years, I don’t really fit in. There’s a whole new generation (well a couple of generations since I lived there) of people who are integral members of this small community. Unless there’s a real old timer around, when I walk into the hardware store (sadly the grocery store and the drug store are long gone) people look at me with that “you’re not from around here are you? “ stare.  It doesn’t take too long away before you move from being an insider to being on the outs.
Jesus had such an experience when he returned to Nazareth after what was a whirlwind first few months of ministry. He had gained quite a following and was saying and doing things that, frankly, a good kid from Nazareth, the child of Joseph and Mary wasn’t supposed to do. Back home folks barely recognized this charismatic leader who was ticking off the temple authorities and the scribes left and right. As if that wasn’t disturbing enough he was also performing exorcisms. Exorcisms! And then, probably most shocking of all, he denies his own family—his mother, his brothers and his sisters.
Jesus had left home and came back acting at best like a jerk and at worst, like a possessed lunatic. It’s a tough scene to watch, a difficult Gospel reading to hear.  (and, by the way, one many preachers choose to ignore, focusing instead on the reading from Samuel about the people longing for a King or the Corinthians reading about the Spirit)
But before we freak out, let’s dig a little deeper and remember that what Jesus seems to say is not always what Jesus means.
When he appears to reject his family what Jesus is really doing is proclaiming that there’s something greater than family something greater than all the human structures we’ve erected to order our world….something greater than society, something greater than government, something even greater than the love we have for our mother, our father, our sisters, our brothers, our wives, husbands,  partners and children. He’s speaking, of course, of the Source of all Love: God. Before we were the child of our parents, before we were the spouse of our partner, before we were the parent of our children we belonged to God. Jesus is saying, all of these structures—be they family as mentioned in the Gospel or governmental as mentioned in Samuel, they mean nothing if before these things, we don’t acknowledge, we don’t remember and we don’t proclaim ourselves beloved children of God.
This is wonderfully illustrated by the tradition of the Hapsburg dynasty in Austria ---Remember the Hapsburgs? For more than 600 years they ruled much of Europe. In 1916 Emperor Franz-Josef I of Austria, a member of the Hapsburg line,  died. A procession of dignitaries and elegantly dressed royal mourners escorted the coffin, which was draped in black and gold silk. A military band played somber funeral music as the torch-lit procession made its way down winding narrow stairs into the catacombs beneath the Capuchin Monastery in Vienna
At the bottom of the stairs were great iron doors leading to the Hapsburg family crypt. Behind the door was the Cardinal-Archbishop of Vienna.
The Commanding officer rapped on the door and cried out. “Open!”
The Archbishop replied, “Who goes there?”
“We bear the remains of his Imperial and Apostolic Majesty, Franz-Josef I, by the grace of God Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Defender of the Faith, Prince of Bohemia-Moravia, Grand-Duke of Lombardy . . . .” And so it went, through the entire list of his 37 titles.
“We know him not, “ the Cardinal said, “Who goes there?”
The officer spoke again, using the informal title, “We bear the remains of Emperor Franz-Josef I of the Hapsburg line.”
“We know him not,” the cardinal said again. “Who goes there?”
This time the officer replied, “We bear the body of Franz-Josef, our brother, a sinner like all of us.” At that the doors swung open and Franz-Josef was welcomed home.(story taken from The Lectionary Lab: http:lectionarylab.blogspot.com)  
We move around a lot in our world—I read someplace that the average American will move 12 times in their lifetime. Roots are hard to maintain in such a transient culture. Each time we move, we establish new friendships, we lay down new roots….but at the end of the day… whether our relationship with the family we grew up with, the family we married into or the family we raised ourselves is still solid and familiar, we need, we long for, roots that attach us wherever it is we find ourselves. And what Jesus offers us in today’s Gospel, and what the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna so boldly demands of royalty and peasantry alike, is a connection, a family tree, a hometown we can always count on, a place we’ll always be welcomed, a place we always belong. You see, the good news in today’s readings is that as long as we maintain that primary relationship with our loving Creator God as experienced through the Holy and Undivided Trinity, we are never ever alone. For this is the family from which all other families spring.  As long as we keep that relationship vital and healthy, then we’ll always be on the inside, we’ll always be a “part of.” Because, “whoever else [we] may be, whatever other relationships [we] may have, there is one title and one relationship that can never be taken away from [us]; [we] are always [children] of God, born out of the waters of baptism and sealed with the Holy Spirit forever. “
Amen.

Miracle and Mystery in the Three in One and One in Three

+Every Sunday, as the server brings the bowl over to me and I symbolically wash my hands, I utter a simple prayer: “Gracious God, cleanse me from all iniquity and make me worthy to enter Your mystery.” I use this prayer as a way to ready myself for what will happen at this altar because, truth be told, I have NO IDEA what happens at this altar. But not being able to explain it doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Not fully understanding doesn’t mean nothing is happening. It just means that some things can’t be explained as much as they must be experienced.
A major— I am not sure I can explain it, but I know it is real, I know it means something to me, I just don’t understand it---concept in Christianity is the Trinity: The one in Three and Three in One.
The bottom line is, none of us fully understand it. We may well have some comprehension of it---we believe in One God who is present to us in three distinct, yet linked ways: God as Father/Mother/Creator, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit---but we can’t really understand it because to understand it means that we fully grasp it in all of it’s nuance. We can’t do that. Our comprehension of the Trinity requires a leap of faith, a leap into a mystery, and an acceptance that we won’t know what this really means until the last day. Until then, we’re grasping at straws whenever we try to come up with a hard and fast definition.
So in no way am I going to try and make the Holy and Undivided Trinity understandable to you, Understanding is a personal thing which comes to each of us in different ways and at different times. [a process so well exemplified in Nicodemus, the main character in today’s Gospel. Nicodemus appears several times in John’s Gospel, each time, gaining a bit more understanding, a little more insight into just who this Jesus is and how this Jesus is God. It was, for Nicodemus, a process.
It is for all of us a dynamic process, constantly changing, evolving, moving. As a matter of fact---the dynamic nature of learning, of understanding--is an excellent way to describe the Trinity.  For “dynamic” is a key piece of the interrelatedness between our Creator Father/Mother God our Redeeming Son God and our Sustaining Advocate Holy Spirit God---these three persons of the Trinity are in constant movement toward one another and towards us.
Now let’s get one thing clear, we have one God. Period. When we say, there are three persons in One God, what we mean is that there are three aspects, three distinct ways the Almighty is in relationship with us—the more authoritative, parental God who was and is the Creator of all things, the accessible fully human and fully divine God—the Son who felt all the same things we feel and was capable of all the same things as us and finally, the advocate, the Holy Spirit given to us on Pentecost; that unseen God who acts in and through other people in our lives and is that still small voice deep within us. But these three distinct characteristics of God are just that--- characteristics of a whole—they are not separate. They are “part of.”
Throughout the generations, people have fought over the Doctrine of the Trinity---I’ve mentioned before that St Nicholas was expelled from the Council of Nicea because he became so irate over the efforts to explain, in words, just what we mean by the Holy and Undivided Trinity, one God, that he actually punched another attendee. Others have made valiant efforts to explain the Trinity using visual aids:
St. Patrick used the three leaves of a Shamrock—each leaf is distinct but is not separate from the whole of the clover.
Icons show the Trinity as a swirling dance of interconnected parts—always attached, but each moving in it’s own way. Almost all expository attempts at describing the Trinity fall short because at its heart, the essence of the Trinity is relationship. And describing the essence of a relationship is like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree…it just doesn’t work.
Think of your own relationships---the most precious ones you have—how would you describe them? Can you find the words? Could you diagram it? You could get close, but it would still be lacking.  That’s my point---to describe the Holy and Undivided Trinity just doesn’t do it justice, because it’s a relationship and relationships are hard to explain.
God is relationship.
Retired Lutheran Pastor Richard Lischer shared this interpretation of the Trinity he discovered while contemplating a stained glass window depiction of the Trinity: “The fairly typical Trinitarian design of three interconnecting triangles reminded me of an aerial photograph taken of our small farming community. Besides the straight and orderly rows of crops in the fields, another distinct pattern emerged: well-worn paths criss-crossing from one farmhouse to another. These paths, worn into the ground by generations of neighbors visiting and helping out in times of need, linked the town, they knit the community together.” Lischer’s description of the interconnectedness represented in those paths explains my experience of the Trinity.
God grooves paths in our lives, coming to us at different times and in different forms to address a variety of needs.
God, in three persons, Blessed Trinity, reaches out to us as a strong parental type when we feel small and childlike. God in three persons, Blessed Trinity reaches out to us as a forgiving friend in times of loneliness and confusion. God in three persons, Blessed Trinity reaches out to us as a sustaining force of inexplicable peace when we are bereft and lost, angry and bitter, hopeless and helpless. God in three persons, Blessed Trinity, longs to be a palpable presence in our lives, so God, in God’s infinite wisdom, walks a number of paths to reach us.
Although difficult to explain, the formula of the Trinity is simple
God Loves Us.
God Wants to be With Us
Through the miracle and mystery of God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity, God’s Love is always with us.
And that, although almost impossible to explain, is so utterly real.
Amen.