Category Archives: Sermons

Sermon – Matthew 11.25-30, St. Francis Feast, YB, September 29, 2024

02 Wednesday Oct 2024

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Today we honor the life and witness of St. Francis of Assisi.  St. Francis is well-known and beloved for myriad reasons.  Primarily, people tend to appreciate two things about him: his commitment to living in solidarity with the poor, which included dramatically stripping his clothing off, begging for food, and supporting the most needy; and, his affinity for the creatures of God, with stories of preaching to birds, negotiating with a violent wolf to make peace with the local town, and generally valuing the beasts of the earth.  But what we rarely talk about is the stigmata of St. Francis – those marks corresponding to the ones left on Jesus’ body by the crucifixion said to have been impressed by divine favor on devoted followers of Christ.

Here’s what we know about St. Francis’ stigmata.  He was praying on the Feast of the Cross, which falls on September 14.  His prayer that day to Jesus was that he might feel in his body and soul the pain that Jesus felt in the Passion.  But he also prayed to feel in equal measure the excessive love that Jesus felt that allowed him to endure pain for us.  We are told that in his intense prayer session, he saw a vision, and when he emerged, he had what looked like piercings in his hands and feet – or, stigmata.[i]  Now I don’t know how you feel about the existence of stigmata on certain saints, but I’ve always thought it was a little, well, weird – and even more heretical, maybe even unbelievable.

So, why, on this Sunday when all we want to do is bless and celebrate animals or remember the poor, do we need to talk about stigmata?  Believe me or not, there is actually a deep correlation with today’s gospel lesson.  Today, Jesus talks about yokes – those tools used to harness two animals for work.  The yoke allows the two not just to double their work, but to rely on one another – if one is tired, the other can push harder; and then the weaker one can later support the stronger one.  Yokes, like Jesus’ work, are easy and make the burden light. 

But beyond the mechanics of a good yoke, the yoke is also a good metaphor for how we see the gospel.  Being yoked to another makes you connected.  And once you are connected, and see how dependent upon one another you are, you begin to see how that connection extends beyond the two of you – that your yoked interconnection is a microcosm of the connectedness of all of God’s creation.  When Francis prayed fervently to both feel Jesus’ deepest physical pain as well as Jesus’ excessive outpouring of love, his resulting stigmata left a physical reminder of the ways in which, even in pain or great love, we are connected to one another.

Perhaps another example may help.  “Ramakrishna was a mystic who lived in India over a hundred years ago.  One day, as he was walking through the marketplace, he saw a servant boy being whipped by his master.  As he watched that boy being whipped, welts appeared on Ramakrishna’s own body.”  We are told that, “This suggests that this man had such a strong feeling for this boy that he could identify with him in the sufferings that he was enduring.”[ii]  Furthermore, “Like Ramakrishna, who was so at one with God that he could walk through the marketplace and become one with God’s creations, especially this poor servant, Francis so identified with the suffering of Jesus that he took on the wounds himself.”[iii]

What we see in Francis’ stigmata and even in the experience of the mystic Ramakrishna is that when we are living faithfully, we begin to see that we are yoked to one another.  We slowly begin to see all of humanity is connected.  And the more we spend time seeing the humanity in others – especially the humanity in those we would rather not – then we start to see that our interconnectedness extends even further – to God’s creation, to God’s creatures, to the cosmos.  If we open our hearts to one, we cannot help to open our hearts to all.  Francis’ love for the poor, Francis’ love for creatures, and even Francis’ stigmata are not disconnected – they are one in the same. 

In Psalm 148, a psalm sometimes read or sung on St. Francis’ feast day, we hear an invitation to all of God’s creation:  Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars;  Wild beasts and all cattle, creeping things and winged birds; Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the world; Young men and maidens, old and young together.[iv]  We bless animals today because Francis reminded us how all of God’s creation is worthy of love and is interconnected.  But the invitation for us today is not just to love on cute dogs, cats, hamsters, and horses.  The invitation for us is to start claiming our yoked nature – yoked to those we love, yoked to our political opponents, yoked to those who have different ethics and values than ourselves, yoked to parents who make different parenting decisions, yoked to those with different skin color or sexual orientation or gender identity, yoked to those we see as deserving of God’s grace and those who are not.  Our yoked nature allows us to pray the Prayer of St. Francis from our Prayer Book:  “Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”[v]  We can do the work of St. Francis because of the yoke of Jesus.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[i] Hilarion Kistner, O.F.M., The Gospels According to Saint Francis (Cincinnati:  Franciscan Media, 2014), 88-91.

[ii] Kistner, 87-88.

[iii] Kistner, 92.

[iv] Psalm 148.9-12.

[v] BCP, 833.

Sermon – Proverbs 31.10-31, P20, YB, September 22, 2024

02 Wednesday Oct 2024

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As the presidential election approaches in just about six weeks, I have spoken with many of you about a rising sense of anxiety and despair.  One of the things I have noticed about the last three presidential elections is that we have kind of gotten lost – so caught up in big personalities and dramatic events that we have lost sight of one core question in elections:  what do we need in a president to create a just country that reflects the priority of love.

Since I always tell our community that I do not preach politics – just Jesus – I thought I would turn to scripture this week for guidance.  I started with the daily office.  On Wednesday, I came across Psalm 72.  The psalm begins, “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son.  May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.  May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.”  “Yes,” I thought, “This is the president we need.  After all this debate and controversy, this is the kind of president I want.”  Then I kept reading.  The more I read about this noble king, the more the king sounded a lot like Jesus.  Finally, a truth seeped through – this year, as I am considering my choice for President, I have not been looking for an actual person.  I have been looking for a savior; and that is not fair to any human being.  Any person running for president is going to be flawed.  And we already have a Savior – we do not need another one. 

Then I turned to our Old Testament lesson for today: the so-called “capable woman” from Proverbs.  I spent some time with this text when I was writing my thesis in seminary, so I am always drawn to this familiar text.  But the more I read about this woman this time, the more inadequate I felt.  She makes clothes, rises before dawn to feed her family, manages a staff, purchases a field, and plants a vineyard by herself.  She in an entrepreneur, selling her wares for good money.  She cares for the poor, and is a wise teacher.  She does all this and is happy.  As a priest, mother of two, and a wife, I feel woefully inadequate next to the capable woman.  In fact, in Hebrew, the word to describe her is not really “capable” per se.  The word, hayil, is a word that means much more than capable.  Hayil is primarily used in the Old Testament to describe men of great power, valor, and strength.  Hayil is a term for powerful warriors.  In fact, this Proverbs woman and Ruth are the only women in the Old Testament to earn the title normally reserved for men.  The Proverbs woman is not just capable; she is a woman of strength and power.  She is a superwoman. 

The challenge with these two images – the righteous king and the powerful woman – is that neither of these labels feels attainable.  For women, the Proverbs woman of power is especially loaded.  Many of us long to be a woman of hayil.  We want to be a woman who can do everything – work outside the home, manage our finances, care for a home and family, maintain a healthy relationship with God, have power and honor in our lives.  This is the challenge of the modern woman – society is opening doors for us to do everything – to work, to raise a family, to be successful.  But the reality is that we either kill ourselves trying to do everything, or we feel horribly guilty for our many failures.  Unlike celebrities, who seem to manage family, fame, and face with ease, we feel overwhelmed and woefully inadequate.  In fact, as I was pondering preaching this text this week, I stumbled across a quote from one seminary professor.  She writes, “Many of you will conclude this text is too much a minefield and steer clear, with good reason.”[i] 

Of course, today is not just a sermon for the women in our community.  Men often feel the same sense of being overwhelmed by trying to do everything.  Forget the kingly imagery from the Psalm.  There is often pressure for men to be financially stable, and if you have a family, to provide for them.  There is now an expectation that men play a role in the rearing of children and doing housework, being involved in the community, and caring for the upkeep of your home.  As I have read parenting magazines over the years, I have seen story after story of men trying to navigate the modern family’s expectations of playing both traditional and nontraditional male roles.  And for the man and woman running for President, expecting a “just king” or a “capable woman” places incredibly unfair expectations on either candidate.

So, what do we make of this woman of hayil in Proverbs today?  Like the King in Psalm 72, I wonder if the woman in Proverbs is perhaps not a particular human, but an ideal.  All the practices of the woman of strength are practices that we should strive to embody – we are to be industrious, using the talents that God has given us for the good of ourselves and others.  We are to work hard and to care for the poor and needy.  We are to use our words wisely, and shape the next generation to love kindness and walk humbly with God.  And most of all, we are to fear the Lord.  Fear in this sense is not the kind of fear that cowers from God, but that holds the Lord in awe, marveling at the majesty of God, rooting our lives in that sense of wonder, gratitude, and reverent humility before the Creator.[ii]  But mostly, this text is a reminder that we do not put these expectations just on presidents – these are expectations, or ways of life, for each of us.

The good news is that we do not strive for the ideal of hayil alone.  Perhaps a better image for us today is not a single woman of hayil, but a community of hayil.  This text from Proverbs is not inviting us to be all things to all people, but instead is inviting all men and women to consider together what the tasks of a family, church, or community are, and to consider the ways we can share in those tasks together.[iii]  When we focus on only one woman, we miss that this text encourages us to think about the partnerships between men and women in the work of the community.  This text is not a beautiful hymn to one human woman, but is a lesson about interdependence, partnership, and the contours of community.[iv]

That’s what excites me about Hickory Neck.  We are on a journey to become a woman, a community, of hayil.  I see you using your time, talent, and treasure to help in the ways that you are most gifted.  I see you praying for one another, especially when one of us looks particularly overwhelmed or stressed.  I see you looking beyond our doors about the way we can individually and collectively care for our neighbors in need.  I see you leaning into our creativity to make a path forward in a new reality.  In this moment, Hickory Neck is living as the woman of hayil.

Of course, we still have work to do – we are still accomplishing the ideal as a community.  A priest friend of mine had a set of triplets in her parish.  She knew that the mother could not manage all three alone – one person only has two arms!  So, the priest arranged for a rocking chair in the narthex to help ease the babies’ tempers.  There were older women in the congregation who, within seconds of a cry, would swoop up one of the babies and rock the child in the side aisle, without the mother having to even ask for help.  There were men who caught the crawling babies under pews and returned them to their mother.  And mostly, there were patient parishioners, who would focus through the cries of the children to hear the sermon without complaint.  We too can offer this grace to one another.  Whether there is a parent with a child who could use some help, whether there is a parishioner who needs a hand to get to the communion rail, or whether we offer prayers for someone who we notice is struggling this week, we are a community who can exemplify the holy partnership we see in scripture today.  We can acknowledge that our work is best accomplished together because our shared labor expresses faith, hope, and love in ways that build us up and bring us together.  We can all be that woman of hayil, that superwoman for the wider community, but only if we do the work together.  Amen.

[i] Amy Oden, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-25-2/commentary-on-proverbs-3110-3, September 23, 2012, as found on September 20, 2024. 

[ii] Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 79.

[iii] H. James Hopkins, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 77.

[iv] Hopkins, 79.

Sermon – Proverbs 22.1-2, 8-9, 22-23, P18, YB, September 8, 2024

11 Wednesday Sep 2024

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Many of us grew up with parents or grandparents who were always trying to instill wisdom.  “A penny saved is a penny earned.”  Or, “The early bird gets the worm.” Or one that overlaps with faith, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  I think the hope has been to create mantras that will remind us to be good human beings.  In a lot of ways, that is what we do in baptism.  Certainly, the main purpose of baptism is to welcome people into the community of faith.  But every baptism is also an educational moment – an identity-making moment.  The liturgy of baptism (and especially the renewal of our baptismal covenant which we will do later today) is chock full of wisdom about how to live faithfully as a Christian:  continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers;  resist evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord; proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ; seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself; and strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.  The baptismal covenant may not be as catchy or memorable as those phrases your grandparent used, but they do the same thing:  teach us something about being people of faith.

That is what our lesson from Proverbs is doing today too.  Truthfully, many of those proverbial sayings we learned from our elders come from scripture or even the book of Proverbs directly.[i]  Today’s lesson from Proverbs is all about wealth.  Now I know what you are thinking, we just baptized a little baby – why in the world do we need to talk to them about money?  Besides, isn’t that a little uncouth?  Much as we polite southerners might not like to admit it, Holy Scripture always has a lot to say about money.  For Jesus, money was the topic he talked about the most in Scripture.  But Jesus comes from a long line of people and scriptures that talk about wealth.  He was probably shaped just like we were by elders trying to give us wisdom.  But before you get too squeamish, just remember that talking about wealth is not just a concern about personal behavior or morality.  In the instance of our lesson from Proverbs, talking about wealth helps us understand how to live in community – how to be a people of faith together.[ii]

Let’s take a deeper dive with these verses today (feel free to go back to your bulletin as we read along).  The first verse talks about how a good name is much more valuable than great riches.  Now that does not mean we need to literally pick good names for our children – although Nathan, who was baptized earlier, is a beautiful name (quite biblical, actually!).  But what the original Hebrew means by “good name” is “good reputation.”[iii]  In other words, people need to know that you are a decent human being more than they need to know you have high levels of wealth.  In the second verse, the proverb goes even deeper, suggesting that whether we are rich or poor (or somewhere in between) we are all equally loved by God.  We are all beloved children of God.  Now if our equally beloved status is true, and how we treat others matters most, then our main job in life is to care for one another.  If we happen to be wealthy, we are encouraged to share our wealth.  As a community, we share our resources to support the work of ministry – verses eight and nine as well as 22 and 23 tell us how important our care for one another is.  That right prioritizing with wealth and community puts us in right relationship with God.  And Lord knows, Nathan, or any newly baptized, is going to need to navigate that reality in their lifetimes. 

That is what baptism does.  Baptism helps us remember first and foremost what we want to teach the newly baptized.  Whether the baptized is an adult or an infant we will communally raise, we want people like Nathan to know what being a person of faith is, and how that identity impacts the whole of our lives – from our weekly gathering in worship, to our caring for the poor, to the ways we steward our own resources. 

Secondly, baptism reminds us as a community what we need to remember.  Just because we were baptized once, or have reaffirmed our baptisms multiple times, that does not mean we have mastered faithful discipleship.  Even in our baptismal covenant, we do not say, “if we fall into sin,” we say, “whenever we fall into sin.”  Being a person of faith means working at being faithful over and over again – always with the help of fellow people on the journey, but certainly the work is ongoing.

That is why today, in addition to celebrating our baptism, we are also turning our hearts again to the topic of stewardship.  As we kickoff another program year, we are reminded that generosity is at the heart of faithful living.  Verse nine that we read today says, “Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.”  Generosity, as one scholar explains, is “here imagined as sharing bread with the poor; that is, sharing those things that are necessary for a safe life.  In the ancient context, ‘sharing bread’ is not just dropping money in a cup, but is an expression of solidarity.  Those who share what they need for life (bread) find that they will have what they need for life.”[iv]   Our invitation today, as water is sprinkled on all our heads, is to consider how we might embrace a generous life – how we might, recognizing our blessedness, share our bread with others.  For when we live generously, we find we have all that we need for life.  Amen.

[i] Susan T. Henry-Crowe, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 26.

[ii] Stephen C. Johnson, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 27.

[iii] Megan Fullerton Strollo, “Commentary on Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23,” September 8, 2024, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-23-2/commentary-on-proverbs-221-2-8-9-22-23-6 on September 4, 2024.

[iv] Ronald J. Allen, “Considering the Text:  Week 4, Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 8 September 2024” Center for Faith and Giving, as found at centerforfaithandgiving.org, 27.

Sermon – Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23, P17, YB, September 1, 2024

04 Wednesday Sep 2024

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Before I became a priest, I served as a Director of Volunteer services at a Habitat for Humanity affiliate.  In my training as a volunteer manager, I learned that one of the most important things about recruiting someone to a volunteer position was clarity about what one was asking from a volunteer.  If they were going to serve on a committee, how long was the commitment, how frequently would they meet, what work would be expected, and how was leadership structured were all details they should have.  If they were going to work on site, what training was expected or would be provided, what age restrictions existed, what risks would they undertake, and how their day would be structured were important details before a workday.  If they had a group event, they needed to know how many volunteers could be on site, what hours they needed to commit to, and what happened in inclement weather.  By the end of my tenure, every volunteer position had a position description outlining expectations, qualifications, and rewards.

So, imagine my transition to the priesthood and realizing how poorly the Episcopal Church had defined membership.  The very first time someone asked me (and every time since then), I dread the question, “So what do I need to do to become a member of this church?”  The Episcopal Church does a notoriously poor job of defining membership.  Our commitment to professing “All are welcome!” seems to translate into no defining characteristics of membership.  “How do I join your church?” should be one of the easiest questions there is.  And yet, when I talk to new members, the answer has to be two-fold:  the technical answer (as long as you attend three services a year and are a financial contributor, you’re considered a member – the answer from the wider Episcopal Church which I loathe!), and the more practical answer we have crafted here at Hickory Neck:  you fill out a form, you commit to supporting the church financially, you commit to feeding yourself (through study, prayer, regular worship), and you commit to feeding others (through giving your time to the church and to the wider community on behalf of the church). 

Our gospel lesson today seems to be wading through a similar lack of clarity.  The Pharisees and scribes are totally perplexed by how some of Jesus’ disciples are not washing their hands before eating – a totally valid concern in these days of post-pandemic!  But handwashing was not just about hygiene.  The ritual washing of hands was about identity, or “membership” as we understand membership today.  The Jews of this time are in an “oppressed minority, living in an occupied land.”  Their question is asked with the backdrop of colonialism, cultural and religious diversity, and competing claims on identity.[i]    Their question is both simple and complex:  why aren’t the disciples living like members of our community? 

For many a reader of this text, all sorts of erroneous conclusions have been drawn – primarily the anti-Semitic understanding that the laws of the Jews are superseded by laws of Jesus.[ii]  But that is not what is happening in this text.  Jesus does not have any issue with ritual cleansing:  he of all people understands the expectations of following God.  But Jesus is saying something more nuanced about identity and membership.  Jesus is saying that no matter how we traditionally mark ourselves as “other,” even if something is “the way we’ve always done it,” what is more important is how we live our faith.  So, if we are doing all the right things:  washing our hands the right way, bowing or genuflecting at all the right times, crossing ourselves when we’re supposed to, saying “Amen” during the sermon – or avoiding saying “Amen” during the sermon – none of that matters if our insides are defiled.  As Jesus quotes from Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me…”[iii] 

Today’s invitation is to ponder what membership in this body of faith means.  Are we honoring Jesus with our lips, but our hearts are far from Jesus?  Are we following the external “rules” but fostering evil intentions in our heart?  Have we filled out the membership form but neglected our work of feeding ourselves and feeding others?  Our work this week is making sure that when we go out into the world to love and serve the Lord – the dismissal that the we agree to every week – that we love and serve the Lord in ways that show people Christ through our words and actions; that as the political season ramps up, we ensure we are not defiling the dignity of any human being with our lips; and that when we talk about how much we love this church on the hill, we do so in a way that does not mask our individual struggles with avarice, deceit, slander, pride, and folly.  Telling the world you are a proud member of Hickory Neck Episcopal Church is just fine – and something I hope you do on a regular basis.  But our invitation from scripture today is to be clear with others that, as that old tune says, “He’s still working on me,” is also a part of membership in the body of Christ – perhaps the most appealing one that draws others into a desire for membership too.  Amen. 

[i] Debie Thomas, “True Religion,” August 22, 2021, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2944 on August 30, 2024.

[ii] Idea suggested by Matt Skinner on the Sermon Brainwave podcast, “#799: 14th Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 22B) – Aug. 29, 2021,” August 22, 2021, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/799-14th-sunday-after-pentecost-ord-22b-aug-29-2021 on August 28, 2024.

[iii] Mark 7.6b.

Sermon – John 6.35, 41-51, P14, YB, August 11, 2024

28 Wednesday Aug 2024

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One of the components of our leadership training in Vestry is to talk about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  If you’re not familiar with his model, Maslow presents a pyramid of needs.  At the bottom are the physiological needs:  food, water, shelter, etc.  The next level of need is safety or security:  this would include health, employment, and social support.  The third level up the pyramid is love and belonging:  this entails friendship, family, intimacy, connection.  The fourth level is self-esteem:  including confidence, achievement, and respect.  And the final level, the tip of that pyramid is self-actualization:  creativity, a sense of purpose and meaning, and acceptance happen here.  The idea is, you cannot work on someone’s sense of purpose or meaning – the top of the pyramid, or even their sense of achievement and confidence without first meeting their basic needs at the base of the pyramid.  The same is true in the church.[i]  If we want to have excellent programming and ministry, where people are successfully naming and living into their vocations, we first have to make sure that we are a church who is in accordance with the canons of the Episcopal Church, that our property is safely maintained, that people feel welcome and cared for, before we think about people feeling proud about their church and helping their church thrive.  For Vestry members, when we are initiating change, we must be sure the hierarchy of needs has been met before we act.

Neal Mitchell tells a story of church who struggled with that sense of pacing with change.  There was a pastor who decided that the piano was not in the ultimate location in the sanctuary, so one week, he just moved it to the other side.  You would have thought he sacrificed a baby on the altar for the blowback he got.  He stirred such a commotion with his unilateral change that he eventually left the church and took another job.  Years and years later, that same pastor came back to the church for an anniversary celebration.  When he walked in the sanctuary, he immediately saw that the piano was in the location he always wanted but the church had refused to allow in his tenure.  After the worship service, he quietly asked the current pastor, “How in the world did you get them to move the piano over to that side of the worship space?!?”  The newer pastor said, “Oh, that.  Yeah, I just moved the piano an inch at a time.  No one even balked with the piano landed in the current position.”[ii] 

In John’s gospel today, Jesus in right in the middle of a lesson about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  We are in the third week of what is called the Bread of Life Discourse.  To the casual reader, you may be thinking, “Didn’t we just talk about the bread of life last week?”  And you wouldn’t be wrong.  We are in the middle of talking about the bread of life for five weeks.  But the text may not be as repetitive as the text feels.  You see, Jesus has been walking us through a hierarchy of needs.  First, we had that feeding of the five thousand.  Jesus starts by attending to the people’s immediate need – food.  You can’t share the love of Christ if your belly is growling with hunger.  Next, the conversation goes back to their history – when God provided manna in the wilderness – in other words, when God didn’t just tend today’s hunger, but worked on the need of security – of daily bread.  There God tended to the second level of need.  Today, Jesus is talking not about today’s bread, or even daily bread.  Jesus is talking about the bread of life – the bread that will sustain us for eternity – the feeding of our souls, not just our bodies.  This kind of bread means relationship, intimacy, care, and empowerment.[iii]  

This week, I experienced another week of Vacation Bible School – this time through one of our ecumenical partners in town.  Over the course of two weeks of VBS, one of the common conversations I have had with church members here, there, and with the other Williamsburg Episcopal Churches was a reflection about how although families find their way to church through a program like VBS, the next step of coming to church regularly is more difficult to inspire.  Now there is a lot wrapped up in that pondering, but at the heart of that reflection, particularly by longtime churchgoers is an understanding that they have found something deeply meaningful and lifegiving at church and they want to share that soul sustenance – that bread of life – with folks who do not have that same sustenance. 

I think that is what Jesus is trying to help us see today.  We are certainly called to be a community of food.  Lord knows Jesus did that all the time – feeding masses of people, tending to their health needs, helping lift up the poor.  And, Jesus was also about feeding souls – helping people find relationship, belonging, soul-nourishing, and that sense of purpose in the kingdom.  We consume the bread of life here every week not because the bread tastes all that particularly good or because that bread fills our stomachs (certainly not like Coffee Hour does).  We consume that bread of life because that taste, that lingering feeling of a melting wafer moving down our throats, is a balm of belonging, of purpose, of entrance into the eternal.  We are very good at describing our welcoming community here at Hickory Neck or our awesome children’s formation program or our incredible service to the community.  But what Jesus is inviting us into this week is vulnerable conversations with others about our deep-soul needs that God fills every week in this place.  Those kinds of conversations are tricky while standing at the bus stop with our kids, or while waiting in line at the grocery story, or while running into someone at the gas station.  But those are the conversations that move pianos and move hearts – conversations that name the deep, hidden longing for the eternal that we all have.  Jesus invites us to feed others today, to tend to others’ daily bread, and to share the bread of life:  to share the deepest gift of the Church with a hungry world.  Amen. 

[i] Idea explored by Matt Skinner in Sermon Brainwave Podcast, “#977: Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 19B) – Aug. 11, 2024,” August 4, 2024, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/977-twelfth-sunday-after-pentecost-ord-19b-aug-11-2024 on August 7, 2024.

[ii] Neal O. Michell, How to Hit the Ground Running (New York:  Church Publishing, 2005), 51-58.

[iii] Idea explored by Karoline Lewis in aforementioned podcast.

Sermon – 2 Samuel 11.26-12.13a, P13, YB, August 4, 2024

28 Wednesday Aug 2024

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

One of the most powerful offerings at Hickory Neck is our Godly Play program.  Our youngest children engage in Godly Play in Sunday School, we broadcast Godly Play stories on Facebook every Sunday, our children use Godly Play in Children’s Chapel at the 10:00 am service, and we use Godly Play at The Kensington School for over 20 children each week.  Several of us got to witness Godly Play this week at Vacation Bible School, and I have to tell you, Mr. Z. told one of the more powerful stories this week.  He started out with wooden figurines – a man with a staff, a fence, and lots of little sheep.  As he told the story, the kids came up with names for the sheep:  Rufus, Bob, and Cookie, to name a few.  And then very quietly and dramatically, Mr. Z said, “Look what happens now.”  The fence for the sheep that the Good Shepherd was protecting was taken away and replaced with a little wooden table.  Then the sheep were replaced one by one with little wooden figures of people.  And then the Good Shepherd shed his staff, and assumed the role of serving bread and wine at the table.  The transformation had all the adults in the room stunned – not to mention all our kids.  Suddenly the Good Shepherd (i.e. Jesus and his sheep – or followers), was found in modern day, consecrating a meal among similarly named people, or followers of Jesus.  I made sure Mr. Z clarified that the priest at the table was not actually Jesus but a representative of Jesus, but as one who breaks bread with you weekly, my senses were totally disoriented by those powerful little pieces of wood.

The same thing happens to David today.  We did not talk about it last week, but our Hebrew Scripture reading last week told one of the more awful stories in our Scriptures – the sainted King David acting very un-saintly:  coveting what was not his, acting violently against a woman and impregnating her, attempting to cover his sin through trickery, and when that did not work, having the woman’s husband killed so he could have her as his own.  In today’s lesson, Nathan takes on the role of Mr. Z, entering the narrative with a story.  Nathan spends a great deal of time describing this poor man who has only one ewe lamb, whom he feeds with his own meager food, and loves like a daughter – and a rich man who, although he has more than enough of his own lambs, takes the poor man’s beloved little lamb and kills it for food.  The story is so pitiful that even David gets in a rage and says this man deserves to die and should restore the lamb fourfold.  And here is where Nathan pulls a Mr. Z switch.  “You are the man!” Nathan says.

Now in the whole of this sordid story of David there are three instances of characters speaking two simple words in the original Hebrew.  The first happens in the last chapter of second Samuel when Bathsheba sends word, translated as “I am pregnant” or harah ‘anoki.  The second instance of two simple Hebrew words comes from Nathan “’atah ha’ish,” translated as “You are the man.”  The final two words will come at the end of the story, when David realizing his grave sins, confesses “hata’ti lyhwh,” translated as “I have sinned against Yahweh.”  In these three short phrases, David is indicted, David is identified, and David submits and turns to God.  None of these phrases is easy to say by any of the characters, and yet all are needed for powerful transformation to happen before God.[i] 

But most of those words could never have emerged without the gift of story.  Just like Mr. Z transformed sheep named Rufus, Bob, and Cookie into parishioners named Sue, David, and Linda, so God uses Nathan to transform human sinfulness into faithful living.  As one scholar describes, Nathan’s parable, “…engaged a side of David that is totally different from the man who forces sex upon Bathsheba and orders the death of her husband Uriah.  David is no longer the absolutist king acting from the prerogatives of power and authority.  Nathan’s parable has touched the moral sensibilities of David’s humanity.”[ii] 

One of the more troubling realities of our day is that we have lost the ability to really talk to one another.  The seductive power of “us versus them” in the world has put us in seemingly impenetrable bubbles that keep us divided, full of hate (or at least extreme dislike), and surrounded by people who always agree with us instead of challenging us to be better followers of Christ.  Into this troubling reality, Nathan and Mr. Z remind us of the power of story to transform us into the faithful community that God calls us to be – not divided, hateful, monolithic groups – but united, loving, diverse groups of truth and love.  Nathan teaches us that our work is to reframe narrative and the message of Jesus so that we all stand on common ground.  Though we and others may need judgment, our invitation is not to condemn, but to invite others into fresh eyes through the power of reframing story – to find ways to tell the story of Jesus in alternative ways that lead to new insight and behavior.[iii]  The promise in our commitment to that work is that we can fulfill God’s deepest desire – that we turn from our sinful ways and return to God.  We can do that work as long as we work to do that work together – sinners united in loving storytelling and turning to God.  Amen.

[i] Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel:  Interpretation:  A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1990), 282-283.

[ii] Thomas H. Troeger, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Proper 13, Year B, Supplemental Batch 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 4.

[iii] Shawnthea Monroe, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Proper 13, Year B, Supplemental Batch 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 5.

Sermon – John 6.1-21, P12, YB, July 28, 2024

28 Wednesday Aug 2024

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

This spring and summer your Vestry has been reading Mark Elsdon’s book We Aren’t Broke:  Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry.  Elsdon’s primary argument is that churches and faith communities have more resources than they realize and often neglect to utilize those latent resources as alternative sources of revenue and mission.  In his own setting, a campus ministry in the Midwest that no longer had students, they converted the parking lot of their worship space to a high-rise apartment building for students, with designated intentional communities for students.  The rental income from the apartments became a revenue stream that supported both the housing ministry and the worshiping community that emerged.  Whether churches repurpose their existing buildings for coworking space, redesignate green space for affordable housing, or simply rent their land for use by a business like a childcare center, Elsdon’s argument is that churches have an abundance at their fingertips that they rarely recognize or utilize.

As our Vestry has been dreaming about abundance and creative repurposing of resources, I have been seeing a lot of parallels from Elsdon’s vision and today’s gospel lesson.  Because every gospel has a version of the Jesus’ miracle of feeding a mass of people, and because this story is beloved, we sometimes gloss over this story without really hearing the story.  As scholar Karoline Lewis argues, “…a comparison of John and the Synoptic Gospels yields important differences and underscores particular theological themes in the Gospel of John.  The setting has a specific detail unique to John:  that of much grass (6:10).  This description alludes to and foreshadows the presentation of Jesus as the Good Shepherd in chapter 10.  The pasture for the sheep signals provision and abundance of life and this abundance is clearly present in the feeding of the five thousand.”[i]  In a place where there is abundant space, where an enormously abundant amount of people gets to eat until they are full, and there is an abundance of leftovers – twelve whole baskets to be exact – Jesus gives us insight into the abundant life that is found in him. 

But abundant thinking is not how most of us are hardwired.  As one pastor describes, “Much of the time our faith mirrors that of Philip and Andrew, who could not see past the six months’ wages or the meager five loaves and two fish.  We tend to base our living on our own scarcity or even on our own fears of insufficiency.  So we hoard and save and worry and end up living life in small and safe measures.  We pull back when we should push forward.  We give in to our fear of a shortfall rather than exercising faith in God’s abundance.  But Christians are constantly on call to go places where we have never been, to do things that we have never attempted, and to be things we have never envisioned.”[ii]

For those of you who have been around the Episcopal Church very long, you may know that we have something called “the reserve sacrament” – a fancy phrase for leftover communion.  When we celebrate the Great Thanksgiving, if any wine or bread is leftover, we set the elements aside in a safe place – in the New Chapel, we use the aumbry.  We then use the reserve sacrament the next week, or when your clergy take communion out to our homebound members.  But the holy meal we consume each week rarely needs that reserve.  I remember distinctly being asked once to come and deliver communion to a dying parishioner.  I came with a few reserve wafers in my kit and my flask of reserve wine.  But when I arrived, there were probably ten to twelve people in the room.  And although I expected some of them to say, “Oh, no thanks – no communion for me,” they all wanted to consume.  And so, I found myself making tiny wafers even tinier so that everyone might share the sacred meal with their grandma one last time.

Now, I am not suggesting Jesus gave super tiny bites to everyone on that huge area of “much grass.”  In fact, John’s gospel says they don’t just get what they need, they get as much bread and fish as they want – and there are still leftovers!  What I am saying is, Jesus is inviting us today to see with eyes of abundance.  To look at a room full of grieving people and figure out a way to make much bread out of little.  To talk to a business owner who serves our community and see what creative ways we can use our blessings to bless others.  To know that there is a shortage of housing for the workforce in our community and imagine if some of our property might be the solution.  I have been to enough potluck dinners at churches in my lifetime that we almost never finish every morsel of food – in fact, usually we are all taking at least a portion or two home of what we brought.  Jesus is inviting us into being a potluck community:  to see the abundance all around us, to remember where that abundance comes from, and to live and love abundantly in ministry without fear of scarcity.  As one scholar says, Jesus “…gives bread because he is Bread.  He makes possible the gathering of the body so that we might become his body, the church.”[iii]  Our invitation is to honor his generous, abundant legacy in the way we live, move, and have our being – as His Church in the world.  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 83.

[ii] Charles Hoffman, “More than Enough,” Christian Century, July 25, 2006, vol. 123, no. 15, 18.

[iii] Debie Thomas, “The Miracle of Gathering,” July 18, 2021, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3081-the-miracle-of-gathering on July 26, 2024.

Sermon – Mark 6.14-29, P10, YB, July 14, 2024

17 Wednesday Jul 2024

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today’s gospel lesson contains one of those iconic stories that is so vivid the story is seared in our minds.  In short, John the Baptist is decapitated by Herod Antipas who serves John’s head on a platter.  On the one hand, the brutal scene, depicted in art for centuries, is one we prefer to acknowledge and move on.  Certainly, this is a cautionary tale for the prophetic life.  John is now dead, and Jesus takes the reins.  But there is so much more to this story.  There is John’s faithfulness to making a way for the inbreaking of the kingdom – including the criticism of Herod Antipas’ marriage to his brother’s wife.  There is the king’s imprisonment of John mingled with his fascination with John, leaving him sitting at John’s feet enthralled by John’s teachings.  There is the vengeance of Herodias, the criticized wife of Antipas, who manipulates her daughter into asking for John’s head.  There is the proud Herod Antipas who makes ridiculous promises to his daughter and spinelessly agrees to kill John despite his knowing better – just to save face in front of his friends.  This is a story so woven in political and ethical intrigue that we do not like to look too closely for fear of seeing modern-day parallels.

But what is perhaps more intriguing about trying to avert our eyes from this brutal, shameful scene is that John’s beheading is not the first time scripture hands us a story like this.   “The story looks like a reprise of 2 Kings 16-21, the story of Queen Jezebel, the enemy of Elijah.  Just as Jezebel manipulated her husband, King Ahab, so Herodias manipulates Antipas.  Just as Elijah indicts Ahab and Jezebel, so John the Baptizer indicts Antipas and Herodias.”[i]  Furthermore, there are parallels to Esther’s story, whose husband also promises her anything she wants, up to half of his kingdom.  Esther uses her promise for good, able to thwart the villain Haman’s plan to kill off her fellow Jewish brothers and sisters.  Reflecting on the canon of scripture, we cannot avoid the ugly truth that scholar Amy-Jill Levine uncovers:  that “Death at the hands of corrupt authorities is the fate of John, and Jesus, and of countless others who have done the right thing, at the cost of their own lives.”[ii]

So, what do we do with this tale of terror laid at our feet today – a tale told time and time again in scripture?  I am intrigued by scholar Matt Skinner’s instruction look at the disciples.[iii]  In the very last line of our text today, Mark says, “When his disciples heard about [John the Baptizer’s murder], they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.”[iv]  If you remember, in the text last week, Jesus was shut down in his hometown and unable to perform miracles, instead sending out the twelve in pairs to cast out demons and to heal the sick.  For Jesus and his disciples, they got back to work.  And if we kept reading Mark’s gospel, in the verses that follow today’s story, we will hear how Jesus and disciples go on about their work, with Jesus miraculously feeding five thousand people.  John’s death is horrific, brought about by evil and sinfulness.  And yet, his disciples boldly come forward and bury his body.  Jesus sees John’s death and must know a similar fate awaits him.  And yet, he and his disciples get back to work, doing the good news of God in Christ.

Stories like John’s beheading are indeed graphic, sobering stories of what awaits those who live in the light of God.  And yet, time and again, Elijah, Esther, John the Baptizer, Jesus, and Jesus’ disciples keep going.  They keep doing the next good thing.  There is part of that model that feels unjust – surely, we should be fighting for justice, standing up to those who abuse power, who manipulate authority, whose self-centeredness and pride promote evil.  We revere plenty of saints who did just that kind of work.  And yet today, in the face of brutality, hopelessness, and injustice, the disciples of John and the disciples of Jesus just keep going.  They keep doing the work of the kingdom.

We are in an unprecedented time of political turmoil.  And in the coming weeks and months, given our diverse political backgrounds in this community, we will likely disagree about what our country can and should be doing.  But what brings us to this common table every week is a commitment to the life and ministry of Christ – the bringing about of a kingdom that is not of this world.  We will need each other – sometimes to figure out what the next best thing is, sometimes for the encouragement to do the next best thing, and always as a reminder that we disciples of Jesus need each other to do the next best thing.  We know from John, Jesus, Elijah, and others that doing the next best thing may end in personal suffering.  But we also know that continuing to do that next best thing helps bring us just a little bit closer to that kingdom here on earth.  We go together.  Amen.

[i] Amy-Jill Levine, The Gospel of Mark:  A Beginner’s Guide to the Good News (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 2023), 38-39.

[ii] Levine, 42.

[iii] Matt Skinner, “Commentary on Mark 6:14-29,” July 14, 2024, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-15-2/commentary-on-mark-614-29-6 on July 12, 2024.

[iv] Mark 6.29.

Sermon – Mark 6.1-13, P9, YB, July 7, 2024

17 Wednesday Jul 2024

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I realized recently that one of things I often say when I am asked how my family is doing is to offer a halfhearted compliment, “Everyone is staying in their lane.”   I think I started adopting that minimum standard, “staying in your lane,” because I have learned over the years how little control I have as a parent.  I may not be able to control what things my kids are interested in, I may not be able to control how well they perform in school, and I may not be able to control how they handle interpersonal relationships.  But if each family member is “staying in their lane,” then that means I have at least controlled their meddling with one another, their active misbehavior, or their making a scene anywhere else. 

That is what seems to be bothering the folks in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth – Jesus is not staying in his lane.  At the beginning, there seems to be a modicum of respect for what Jesus is teaching in the synagogue – they compliment the wisdom he seems to have gained and the healing acts he has performed.  But the compliments end there.  Then the questions begin.  Where did he get this wisdom?  Isn’t he the carpenter’s son?  Isn’t he the son of Mary – a question dripping with criticism, as you would usually only refer to someone’s parentage through the father, not the mother.[i]  In other words, the people of Jesus’ hometown are basically saying, “Stay in your lane, Jesus!”

Passages like this can be so tempting for us.  We read about Jesus’ hometown and think, “Those silly folks from Nazareth!  They cannot see what God is doing right in front of them!”  As if “those” people and finger pointing is what the gospel calls for.  But when we start wagging our fingers at “those” people, we forget one kernel of truth about scripture:  we are always “those” people.”  Anytime something someone does in scripture makes us uncomfortable or sanctimonious, scripture is speaking straight to “us” not “those people.”  So, the people of Nazareth aren’t the only ones telling Jesus to stay in his lane.  We tell that to Jesus all the time.  When the Holy Spirit is calling us try a new ministry that feels daunting, we are tempted to tell Jesus to stay in his lane and let us do things our way.  When Jesus puts people in our lives that push us out of our comfort zones, we grumble to Jesus to stay in his lane and stop sending us prophets – I mean, annoying people.  When we hear that still, quiet voice speaking truth to us in places we like to keep in a box, we cut Jesus some nasty side-eye and tell Jesus to stay in his lane.

But as scholar Debie Thomas says, “The call of the Gospel is not a call to stand still.  It is a call to choose movement over stasis, change over security, growth over decay.”[ii]  Just last Sunday, we started a movie series about changemakers.  Last week, the film was The Philadelphia Eleven, the story of the unsanctioned ordination of the first eleven women in the Episcopal Church.  The vitriol of the bishops, clergy, and lay people who were opposed to those women’s ordination was shocking to the ears.  From the clergy person who stated with confidence, “Women can be anything they want – except a priest in God’s holy church.”  From the woman who lamented the ways those women had violated what God calls women to be and do in the world.  To the bishops held a public, scathing trial of the three male bishops who dared to ordain the first eleven.  The Philadelphia Eleven had waited time after time for the Episcopal Church to change – to chose growth, change, and movement instead of decay, security, and stasis.  And when the church refused to let these women out of their lane, the stepped out of their lane anyway.

Scholar Thomas concludes, “The scandal of the Incarnation is precisely that Jesus doesn’t stay in his lane.  God doesn’t limit God’s self to our small and stingy notions of the sacred.  God exceeds, God abounds, God transgresses, God transcends.  The lowly carpenter reveals himself as Lord.  The guy with the tainted birth story offers us salvation.  The hometown prophet tells us truths we’d rather not hear… [Jesus] will call out to us, nevertheless, daring us always to see and experience him anew.”[iii]  Our invitation today is let Jesus out of his lane in our life:  to not hold his lane as sacred, and to open ourselves to the ways his transgression of lanes is helping us to experience Jesus in new and fresh ways.  Maybe we do that in weekly worship, opening ourselves through song, prayer, and scripture to fresh experiences of God.  Maybe we come to the film series or Bible study this summer to see where God is exceeding, abounding, transgressing, and transcending.  Or maybe we let go of whatever boundary we are holding here at Hickory Neck to see what happens when we ask Jesus to please cross out of his lane.  The promise for us is a fresh experience of Jesus in our own day, time, and place.  Amen.

[i] Efrain Agosto, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 215.

[ii] Debie Thomas, “Hometown Prophets,” June 27, 2021, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3058-hometown-prophets on July 5, 2024.

[iii] Thomas.

Sermon – Mark 4.26-32, P6, YB, June 16, 2024

19 Wednesday Jun 2024

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Many of you know that I grew up in the United Methodist Church.  Growing up in the Methodist Church meant that I was steeped a particular set of hymns, many written by John and Charles Wesley themselves – John being attributed with the founding of the Methodist movement.  I can be at a retirement community or an ecumenical service and one of those songs will come up, and I am instantly transported back to the old country church where my dad was the pastor.  There is something about that music that almost feels like the music is a part of my DNA.  So, imagine my surprise when I found out in seminary that much of the music settings for those old timey hymns I love were actually pub songs – tunes that anyone who had spent time at the pub would know, just set to new words about Jesus.  Charles and John did that because they knew it would make the songs deeply familiar, while becoming teaching tools for the church.  No wonder those hymns are so catchy!

In some ways, parables from Jesus are similar.  Jesus uses story to teach truth.  Teaching through parables makes the teaching engaging, accessible, and memorable.  I bet that even today, two thousand years later, when we heard Mark’s gospel today, we probably thought, “Oh yeah!  The one about the mustard seed.  That’s about just having a little faith is all you need!”  And in part, you would be right.  But as catchy as pub songs are and parables seem, unfortunately, Jesus’ parables, while memorable, are not always simple in meaning. 

Our trouble starts with the fact that we have two parables together today – not just the one about the mustard seed.  In the first one, Jesus says the kingdom is like a guy who scatters some seed and then does literally almost nothing – he does not even know how the growing of seeds into plants works.  And then he just goes out to harvest.  So, that’s parable number one.  Parable number two compares the kingdom of God to a tiny little mustard seed that, when planted, grows into a huge bush big enough where birds can make nests.  So, this is not exactly a set of stories about just having a little bit of faith.  And quite frankly, if you take these two together, they seem to be saying that basically we do not really have much of a hand in the fruitfulness of the kingdom – that maybe we do not even understand the kingdom.  So, is that the message?  Just sit back because God does all the work to bring about the kingdom – oh, and the kingdom will be really big?

As much as I would like to send you all home today thinking you can just kick up your feet and sit back while God does the heavy lifting, especially as summer gets into full swing, unfortunately, we have summertime work to do.  You see, in both of these parables, while the miracle of growth happens through God, the planting in both stories has to be done by a person – by us, namely.  Scholar Amy-Jill Levine explains that in these parables, the seed still has to be planted.  She confesses that certainly some things need to be left alone – notice the man in the first parable.  And sometimes we need to get out of the way – notice the planter in the second parable.  But most importantly, Levine argues “The kingdom is present when humanity and nature work together, and we do what we were put here to do – to go out on a limb and provide for others, and ourselves as well.”[i]

That doing something, that lack of passivity in the bringing about of the kingdom, is what we are talking about when we talk about stewardship.  Often when we talk about stewardship, we think of that as the church’s codeword for our money.  But we were made stewards long before there was a church.  Even in the moment of creation way back in the book of Genesis, God created us to steward God’s creation – to tend to the blessings given to us.  Now that may feel daunting – as if not only are we to tend to this church but now we must tend to the whole world! 

But before you panic, let’s go back to that mustard seed parable.  I do not know how many of you have actually been around mustard plants, but mustard plants are a lot like kudzu – they tend to take over an area where they are germinated.  Jesus is telling us all we do is plant one of those teeny-tiny seeds, and suddenly we will have kudzu spreading everywhere.  In other words, our work of stewardship is like kudzu[ii] – we invest our time, our talent, and our treasure here in this place – and the results will spread like wildfire.  Suddenly, we have whole hillsides full the love of Christ, spilling over into the neighbor’s yard, draping everything in goodness.  We do not have to micromanage the growth – we do the planting, and God partners with us to bring the growth – even growth we sometimes do not understand.  Our job is simply to plant.

Our invitation today, then is to ponder what seeds we can plant here at Hickory Neck.  What gift of time can you place here that can spread to your fellow parishioner?  What gift of your unique talent can you plant here that can grow into powerful ministry?  What gift of your financial resources can you gift here that reach beyond these walls to share and spread God’s love?  Jesus’ familiar story reminds us that whatever we give, our giving allows us to participate with God in helping manifest the kingdom of God.[iii]  And God will spread our gifts like kudzu!  Amen.

[i] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus:  The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York:  Harper One, 2014), 182.

[ii] Ronald J. Allen, “Considering the Text: Week Two, Fourth Sunday After Pentecost, 16 June 2024,” Center for Faith and Giving, 11, as found at centerforfaithandgiving.org, 2.

[iii] Allen, 13.