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July
30
2017

Tell me about your hometown

Scripture: Matthew 13:31-33 & 44-58; Eric Vogt, Senior Pastor

The Lord be with you. Let us pray. God of small seeds and mighty plants, you take our humble lives and with your love cause them to produce abundant acts of loving kindness for you and our neighbors. You hear our cries and find us when we are lost and wandering in fear. You bring us home to you so that we may be made whole. Use this time that we may more faithfully and joyfully follow you, and know your presence through times of lack and abundance, loss and gain, fear and faith, death and life. Prepare our hearts now as good soil to receive your word, and prepare our spirits and bodies to serve you and carry that word from this place, sowing the seeds of the good news of your reign in all our lives. We pray this in the name of Jesus, who not only told good stories but taught us to share and live and embody your good story. Amen.

(adapted from Nancy Townley, ministrymatters.com)

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            I don’t know that I’m great at small talk. But as a pastor, a big part of my job is connecting with new people. How can I begin to get to know you – it takes time, thanks for being patient with me and Valerie and our kids – and build a foundation for further relationship? When you first meet someone, there are certain questions someone from a background easily defaults to – “where did you go to school?” Or worse, “where did you do your undergrad?” - thus making certain assumptions about higher education. “What do you do for work, or what do you do for a living?” are similarly narrow-minded in a way that don’t connect with everyone. There are places around the world and right here in our community where it’s not really considered interesting or polite to talk about work. If you hate your job or don’t have one, maybe the last thing you want to do is talk about it. And if you love your job, you don’t want to rub it in or speak in jargon that no one outside your field understands.

            I’m not saying we should never talk about work with each other – we need to help each other think through meaningful work, paid or unpaid, and how to balance that with other needed parts of our life. But I am saying that in many cases, work may not be the place to start. But for many of us, in lots of different settings around the world, if you’re going to ask about my story, if I’m going to share about mine, a good place to start is “where are you from?” “Tell me about your hometown.”

            So I actually want us to take a minute and do that. Where are you from, and what feeling does that place bring up in you? How has being from that place shaped you? What do you like or dislike about your hometown? Take just a minute – turn to a neighbor, this works best if it’s not your partner or someone you know super well, and tell them where you’re from and one thing you like or dislike about that place. (pause)

            I grew up in lots of different places, and that has shaped me in its own way. I’ve lived in Austin more than I’ve lived anywhere else. But when I think about where I’m from, I guess I might name Grapevine, Texas, a suburb in the D/FW area, as home, because that’s where I went to high school. I don’t think I realized all of what that place and its people meant to me until I moved far away on my own to go to college in Boston. For me, home was a place where I was known and loved and celebrated by lots of people. Maybe their expectations were too high, or they hadn’t had to deal with me letting them down, but I felt appreciated there.

            If someone hadn’t been to your part of the world – I’ve gotten this when I’ve traveled internationally especially to some poorer areas, and people ask, is it really like we see on TV or movies or music videos? – if someone didn’t have a lot of connection with your hometown, what analogies, what metaphors, what images might you use to help describe it? With what can I compare my hometown? Maybe your hometown feels like Cheers, a happy pub where everybody knows your name. Maybe it feels like a more seedy dive bar, with a mean bouncer and fights breaking out and a bathroom floor that makes you glad for dim light and closed-toe shoes. Maybe your hometown feels like a warm coat when it’s cold, making you feel cozy and protected. Maybe it feels like a surprise party, where you’re the guest of honor. Maybe it feels like a test your parents and grandparents seem to have passed easily but which never made much sense to you. Maybe your hometown feels like quicksand or a black hole that keeps dragging you back in, holds you down and makes you feel stuck. Maybe it’s like game point in horse or ping pong, where your back is against the wall and you don’t get any more second chances, if you ever got any to begin with.

            If you’d never been to anywhere like the place I came from, maybe I could use an image, an analogy, a metaphor like one of these to help paint the picture, to help bridge our experiences so you could start to think about what it would be like to be from there.

            Today we’re wrapping up our three weeks on Jesus’s parables about the kingdom – or the kin-dom, as the Inclusive Bible translation renders it to emphasize that it’s about living as a healthy family, a beloved community. Maybe if you don’t live in a kingdom, you might still realize that we’re talking about a place with a ruler, and with people as subjects, and with a system of government and culture and language, a kind of way of life. But even if I, living in a democratic republic, somewhat get the idea of a kingdom, that doesn’t mean I know much about your kingdom. Are we talking Saudi Arabia or Sweden? Luxembourg or Lesotho? Bhutan or Brunei or Belgium? Could I even find your hometown on the kind of map we make around here?

            This is what Jesus is doing when he tells these stories, these parables, about the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God. The place God rules, where God’s will is done on earth as in heaven, the place I’m from, Jesus says, is like a somewhat incompetent or at least inefficient farmer, who throws seed everywhere, and some of it lands on a path or in thorns or rocks, but some lands on good soil and bears fruit in an abundant yield. That was 2 weeks ago. The place I’m from, Jesus said last week in the next part of Matthew 13, my hometown is like another farmer who planted good wheat but got some weeds growing in there too. And that farmer decided to let it all grow, rather than pull up the weeds and risk hurting the wheat.

Let those who have ears to hear, hear, Jesus says. But Jesus, I thought you wanted us to understand about the place you’re from! There’s a mystery that we can only get by walking with Jesus, wrestling with the word, seeking to cultivate good soil in our lives. It can take patience, and perseverance – just like the growth of the seeds.

            So today, there are 5 mini parables. Let me tell you about the kingdom, the kin-dom, the place I’m from, Jesus says. It’s like a mustard seed, which is tiny but grows into a huge tree that blesses the birds who make their homes there. What’s Jesus getting at? The kingdom looks small, hidden, insignificant sometimes. Other work, other seeds, other growth and building seems more important and powerful. But wait. If you give it time, the mustard seed will overtake them all. And where will others around, the birds, want to find a home? In this huge mustard seed plant. It’s significant to know that the mustard plant was considered a bit of a weed, speaking of our weed problem from last week. I once met someone in the Mississippi Delta who said that in her vernacular, this parable would be about the kingdom is like kudzu. Have you seen kudzu? It’s this ivy like stuff that just covers trees and everything in some parts of the deep south, and it’s considered invasive, a problem. But this woman was convinced that food and energy and clothes and all kinds of good stuff could come from kudzu. Like that, mustard was seen as something that, if it got big enough to be significant at all, was something of a pest. No one would let a mustard shrub grow to be this kind of a tree Jesus talks about. But wait, and see an unexpected and outsized impact from this kingdom underdog, the mustard plant. That’s what Jesus is saying. Wait, and the kingdom will multiply and spread to be something bigger and better than you could have dreamed. Don’t cut that off by squelching the growth too soon.

            Yeast in the second parable functions much the same way as the mustard seed. A pinch of yeast seems small, insignificant, next to a huge amount of flour, but wait and let the leaven do its thing. It’s unseen now, but something big is coming.

            I’ve been reading some Robert Farrar Capon on the parables, and I’d really recommend his writing for giving you some fresh takes on familiar Scripture. He reminds us, as a baker himself, that this kin-dom, queen-dom, woman hides the yeast in the flour. So much flour! A bushel, that’s like 16 5-pound bags of flour. It’s like you’re making bread for 5000 or something. And when it’s dough, there’s no way to separate the yeast from the flour, just like you couldn’t separate the weeds and the wheat. The world is in transition, Capon writes, not from non-kingdom, a place where God never was, to kingdom – but from kingdom hidden to kingdom manifest. But we have to wait on the leavening, and not give up on this thing that just looks like a useless lump of dough. How does the yeast work? Capon notes that dough rises because leaven fills it with tiny pockets of carbon dioxide. And then those pockets of air expand when heated, causing the bread to rise. And what, Capon asks, causes us to rise? God’s warm carbon dioxide, that is, God’s exhaled breath, God’s spirit, that gives us life and causes us, like Jesus, to rise. Capon writes, “we are as good as baked to perfection right now. We have been accepted in the Beloved; the only real development left for us is the final accolade to be spoken over us by the divine Woman Baker: ‘now that’s what I call a real loaf of bread!’”

            Like the mustard seed and yeast, the treasure and the pearl merchant parables connect to each other. In the first, someone doesn’t seem to be seeking the treasure, but they find it anyway, almost by accident. They realize how they could never afford to buy the treasure from the field’s owner themselves, nor would the owner sell if they knew what they had right there in their own midst. So they hide the treasure again, so they can be sneaky and joyful and sell everything they have to buy the field, knowing they got a great deal because of the undisclosed buried treasure that isn’t in the real estate contract, the mineral rights that only they know about. You have to buy the field in anticipation, in hope, before it’s all fully revealed. You can’t start with tons of bread, or a fully grown mustard plant. You have to start with something small, hidden, insignificant, strange – and wait in faith. Who would give up everything for something seemingly so small? That is the folly and the beauty of the gospel.

The merchant, unlike our lucky real-estate investor, is seeking pearls and knows a good find when he sees it. But the outcome is similar – this merchant sells all that he owns in order to possess this one pearl. What about us? What are we willing to give up in order to seek and to find Jesus, to prioritize his will and his life in our lives? Someone said, “Show me your calendar and your checkbook and I’ll show you what kind of a Jesus follower you are.” If we want to follow Jesus, it has to show in how we live. Sometimes the church is known too much by what we say no to – often, I think, judging the wrong things and pushing away people who Jesus loves and who have gifts we need. But you can also tell a lot by what we’re willing to say no to – not in others but in ourselves - in order to pursue something better with God.

I’m excited about our building committee meeting soon to consider development proposals that will help us use more of our building and resources for ministry. Pray for that process, please. But I’m also excited to get emails like I got this week from Phil Watkins, who reminded our team, I can’t meet with the building committee Wednesday at that time, because I’m downstairs with the recovery and prayer circle. What can we say no to, what can we let go, what can we sell, because of the surpassing value of God’s kingdom in our lives? That paints a picture for people, including our kids. Don’t tell me faith and church are important. Show me by the priorities you live by.

Finally, we get a net, and another picture of seeming judgment. I told you last week, I don’t love the weeping and gnashing of teeth and burning passages. But I don’t think we can just skip them or throw them out. I think we have to keep wrestling. And I think if we do, we realize that what Jesus is getting at with the net image is that the kingdom is gathering all kinds of fish. This fisherman isn’t discriminating, isn’t only seeking out one kind of fish. It’s not until the end that the angels – not us – do the separating of good and bad fish. That’s not our job, and it’s not the work of the kingdom right now.

I have to read you what Capon wrote about this. “Everybody, even the worst stinker on earth, is somebody for whom Christ died. What a colossal misrepresentation it is, then, when the church gathers up its skirts and chases questionable types out of its midst with a broom. For the church to act as if it dare not have any dealings with sinners is as much a betrayal of its mission as it would be for a hospital to turn away sick people.

Capon continues, “Sinners are the church’s business, for God’s sake. Literally. Let the scribes and the Pharisees…take care of any judging. But let the church – which works for somebody who delights in getting everybody’s name – stay a million miles away from it. We are supposed to represent a Lord who came not to judge the world but to save it. Our business should be simply to keep everybody in the net of his kingdom until we reach the farther shore. Sorting is strictly his department, not ours.”

            So Jesus told these stories to try to tell us about the place he was from, the kingdom of heaven, an everlasting and everloving relationship with his Abba Daddy, and the Spirit breath of God. It looks insignificant and weak, like a weed, but it’s going to be something huge that will bless everyone. It’s worth selling everything for, even giving up your life. It’s not about picking out just the best, biggest, brightest fish – it’s about gathering everybody and waiting to separate it all out later, like the wheat and the weeds.

            And Jesus didn’t just tell these stories, he lived them. He lived them by his humility, not looking like the warrior-king Messiah people expected but coming as a humble servant. He lived them by his loving sacrifice, selling all he had, giving everything to seek the kingdom, giving up his rights, his dignity, even his life to seek us. And he lived them by gathering all to his table, not sorting out righteous and wicked but inviting all to come. Jesus didn’t just tell parables, he lived a parable, he was a parable. A mystery to some, but a word that bore much fruit for those with ears to hear, with hope and patience cultivated in their lives. The early church said Jesus was the “auto-basileia,” the kingdom in himself. He didn’t just talk about the kingdom, Jesus and life with him was the kingdom come, the working out of all that people had been waiting for.

            Jesus came to proclaim, announce, and embody the kingdom, the kin-dom, the reign of God. He came from a place we didn’t know, and came to be an ambassador. To tell us about the place, to invite us home there, back from exile. Now that doesn’t always work out well. At the end of our passage, Jesus goes to his earthly hometown, and they don’t receive him. We know this kid, we know his parents, we think we know where he comes from. We remember him when. He can’t be a prophet or a miracle-worker, let alone an ambassador from God, the Messiah we’ve been waiting for.

            We’re all stuck between two hometowns, our heavenly one and our earthly one. God wants to bring those two worlds together, and wants to use us as ambassadors, as immigrants, as bridge-builders. We have to learn to tell the story with pictures our friends can start to understand. More than that, we have to live out the metaphors we use. Can we be patiently hopeful like the mustard seed and yeast, radically single-minded and devoted like the treasure finder and pearl merchant, generously all-inclusive like the net? Do we realize that’s who God has been for us, and how much that changes things from the hometowns we know here?

            In August, we’ll be looking at the story of Joseph in Genesis, and using some material from a book written by Valerie’s seminary roommate, Sarah Heath. It’s called “What’s your Story?” and we’ll be looking at our own stories and the story God is writing in and through our lives. This will go together with the home meetings where Valerie and I want to sit with you to hear more of your stories and dream with you about Travis Park’s story. But here’s Sarah talking about her book, which will frame our sermons in August.  (video clip: Sarah Heath, “What’s your Story?” teaser/preview)

            One person who lived God’s big story in a compelling way, who lived as a parable, was the Archbishop Oscar Romero. In El Salvador through the 1970s, he preached how the church had to be aligned with the poor, and spoke out against the government’s infringement on the people’s rights. In 1980, he was assassinated while celebrating Mass. Even in his death, he lived a parable worthy of his Lord, he showed how he was an ambassador from another place. I thought it would be fitting to end with a prayer attributed to him. We’ll pray that together at the close of today’s gathering. Let me pray for us now using some of that prayer.

            Pray. God, give us ears to hear and make us your parable, your ambassador, your representatives to show there’s another kingdom, another home where you are inviting all. Make us seeds and yeast, make us treasure finders and pearl merchants, make us fish and fishers with your net. Help us live your story, and give us patience and hope to trust you as the good author who starts and completes the story. Amen.

 

 

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*SCRIPTURE READING                     Matthew 13:31-33 & 44-58 IB                     Brock Curry

      Jesus presented another parable to the crowds: “The kindom of heaven is like the mustard seed which a farmer sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest shrub of all—it becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come to perch in its branches.”

      Jesus offered them still another parable: “The kindom of heaven is like the yeast a baker took and mixed in with three measures of flour until it was leavened all through.”

      “The kindom of heaven is like a buried treasure found in a field. The ones who discovered it hid it again, and, rejoicing at the discovery, went and sold all their possessions and bought that field.

      “Or again, the kindom of heaven is like a merchant’s search for fine pearls. When one pearl of great value was found, the merchant went back and sold everything else and bought it.

      Or again, the kindom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collected all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishers hauled it ashore. Then, sitting down, they collected the good ones in a basket and threw away those that were of no use. This is how it will be at the end of time. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the just and throw the wicked into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

“Have you understood all this?”
“Yes,” they answered.

      To this Jesus replied, “Every religious scholar who ahs become a student of the kindom of heaven is like the head of a household who can bring from the storeroom both the new and the old.”

      When Jesus had finished these parables, he left the area and came to his home town and began teaching the people in the synagogue, and the people were amazed. They said to one another, “Where did he get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Isn’t this the carpenter’s child? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judah? His sisters, too, aren’t they all here with us? But where did such gifts come from?” And they found him altogether too much for them.

      Jesus said to them, “Prophets are only despised in their own home town and in their own households.” And Jesus did not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

One:  Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.     All: Thanks be to God

 

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