Fifth Sunday after Trinity 2017

Isaiah 55:10-13 (and Romans 8:1-11) and Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

On Monday night, I took my boys to the cinema to see Spider-Man: Homecoming. We had a good time. Spider-Man is an interesting character, because he is the secret identity of a fifteen-year-old high school student. And while most fifteen-year-olds haven’t been given superhuman strength and agility, Peter Parker’s story allows us to recognise and explore so much that is going on at that age. Here is a teenager, desperate to be part of something bigger, to be included with the grown-ups, to be mentored by someone he looks up to; while at the same time needing and guarding privacy to grow into his identity without everyone looking on; navigating friendship and a growing, vulnerable awareness of romantic attraction to girls—alongside a boyish unawareness of girls liking him. He swings between over-confidence and lack of self-belief, soaring high and crashing low. He makes poor decisions, with damaging consequences. And around him, his mentor Iron Man, his aunt May, his best friend Ned, and a host of other characters, consciously and unconsciously help shape his world and his finding his place within it.

It is likely that several of ‘the Twelve’—the symbolic group at the core of Jesus’ disciples—were teenagers. Though not superheroes, Peter Parker’s story resonates with theirs—and with ours as those who are trying to figure-out and grow-into our identity as followers of Jesus.

In our Gospel reading today we heard the parable of the sower. It will help to know something of the context. The lake, around which so many of the stories of Jesus are centred, is surrounded by hills. The population lived in small towns and villages, in an agricultural peasant economy. On the edge of a settlement would be a large field subdivided into strips belonging to each family, not dissimilar to allotments. Each family lived on what they grew, to eat or to trade, but would harvest communally. The fields had several common features the crowd listening to Jesus would be familiar with:

Firstly, there were paths between the plots, so that you could access your strip without walking over your neighbours’. Good paths make for good neighbours.

Secondly, because the land was not flat, it had to be terraced, in steps up the hillside. The best places to build a retaining wall were where there was bedrock close to the surface, providing a foundation.

Thirdly, the edges of the fields were planted with thorns, to prevent animals from getting in and eating the crop intended for humans.

If you were fortunate, you had a plot that was not so constrained by path or rock or thorns, maximising your good soil; but everybody had a shared investment in these things.

But what has any of this got to do with Spider-Man? And, more to the point, what has it to do with us? I want to suggest that the different areas of the field speak to us of different aspects of our lives, that shape our identity for good or ill.

First, the path. The path speaks to us of family, of connectedness within community. Peter Parker can’t talk to aunt May about his new identity, and for many of us it is hard to speak of Jesus or to follow Jesus when we are with those who know us best or longest. There are times when we let opportunities pass us by, because it is too hard. On the one hand, I think we need to acknowledge that; and on the other hand, I don’t think we need to beat ourselves up about it. Even if seeds don’t take root along the path, they do take root alongside the path. Eventually, aunt May will have to get her head around who her nephew is, and is involved with. Often with family members it is wise to let them ask their own questions in their own time.

The other thing to note about family and growing into our identity is the way in which Peter Parker looks to Tony Stark—Iron Man—as a mentor. If we want to grow into our new identity in Christ, we need mentors too. Who are you learning from? Who is mentoring you? Or, who are you mentoring? (Is that the heart of being a godparent?) A word of caution: if you are listening to too many mentors, or involved in too many communities—if you are over-involved relationally—you might multiply path upon path at the expense of good soil for growing.

Second, the rocky ground. The rocky ground speaks to us of foundations. Like family, the foundational things of our lives—where we grew up, our education, our experience of gender, to list a few examples—set parameters around our ability to receive the word God sows in our hearts. Foundational things are not determinative, but they are significant. They tend to be built slowly, and they tend to be moved slowly—though this is not always the case. I think of our Iranian brothers and sisters who knew that, in the long term, it would be very difficult for their faith in Jesus to flourish where they were, and who therefore took the costly decision to relocate their lives.

The other thing to note about foundations is their usefulness. Peter Parker wants to quit high school and go off saving the world. His mentor wants him to engage with his studies, and learn his trade: to be a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. Working on the basic disciplines is indirect effort, enabling something else. As those whose identity is in Christ, we cannot make ourselves fruitful: but we can attend to the foundational things such as reading and meditating on the Bible; and the daily conversation with God we call prayer; and seeking to put love and forgiveness into practice.

Third, the thorns. The thorns speak to us of fears, the things we try to protect ourselves from, the defensive stance. Everyone fears something. Peter Parker suffers from FOMO—Fear of Missing Out. It is one of the defining fears of our age (ironically, the others are fear of suffering and of dying, which we try hard to miss out on). The tragic irony is that our defences so often end up imprisoning us. Fear is natural: but God’s perfect love drives out fear—and does so in a way that expands our experience of life, rather than reducing it.

Fear is never productive. Sometimes Fear of Missing Out drives us to so much activity for God, or for the church, or for the community, that we burn out. I’ve seen that happen many times. For others, fear of change—fear of the unknown—causes us to hold on to the familiar long after it has served its good purpose. Sometimes we need to face our fears directly, and act in faith—whether that means taking a step forward, or taking a step back. And we won’t always get it right: but the same love that drives out fear also covers a multitude of sins, catches us when we fall short.

Fourth, and finally, the good soil. The good soil speaks to us of fruitfulness. The first thing to note in this parable, or story that reveals truth, is that we are the field, not the seed or the sower. We cannot make our lives fruitful; but our lives are designed by God to be fruitful, to be the context in which God’s good intention for the world is expressed. This is true of every human life. The second thing to note is that the seeds sown produce a harvest in varying amounts. Fruitful life is a gift, given to all, not a competition. Peter Parker is dealt a hand that enables him to be a superhero, to achieve great things; but his geeky overweight friend Ned and his slightly stressed-out aunt May and the owner of the corner bodega all have something unique and valuable to share with the world too.

You might be a hundred-fold person, or a sixty-fold person, or a thirty-fold person. You might offer the world back a hundred-fold return on a small area of good soil, or a sixty-fold return on a large field. The point is not a comparison game. The point is that you are, inevitably, a person of fruitfulness—and of paths and stones and thorny weeds.

Noting all of this as true, what is the word that Jesus has sown in you today? Perhaps it is a word that will set you in a new family, God’s family? Or a word that says, God is the rock on which you can stand, when everything else seems so uncertain? Perhaps it is a whispered word of love, so amazing that it overwhelms your fear? Or a word of fruitful purpose that makes your life a gift to others?

This is what the Lord says: ‘For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.’

Amen.

Fourth Sunday after Trinity 2017

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

On any term-time Tuesday morning in the Minster, you will find the Minstrels, our playgroup for pre-schoolers and their grown-ups. From an early age, the children play with dolls, with a kitchen, with cars and other vehicles. They play because they will grow up to be adults who have babies of their own, who must cook, who might drive. The play of infants—whether cubs or kittens or children—is a rehearsal for adulthood. It always has been.

It was no different in Jesus’ culture. He was clearly familiar with the games children played in the marketplaces—of course he was: as a child, he would have taken part in such games on many occasions.

In the culture in which Jesus grew up, the men of the community took the lead in orchestrating celebrations, such as weddings. A band of musicians would head the parade, with everyone else joining-in and following them from the bridegroom’s home to the home of the parents of the bride, and back again. Likewise, the women of the community took the lead in times of mourning, such as funerals. Their rising and falling ululation both honoured the dead and gave voice to the grief of the living. In our Gospel reading today, Jesus refers to the game in which the boys and the girls have taken turns, the boys drawing the girls into a wedding dance, the girls drawing the boys into a funeral march, the dance and the march flowing back and forth, perhaps for hours on end as the amused market-sellers look on with half an eye.

But something has gone wrong. The children aren’t playing together now. And it isn’t simply that they have grown tired, or bored of this game; that they are resting, or have gone on to something else. The boys and the girls sit in two groups, on opposite sides of the square, at an impasse. Each group is blaming the other for the breakdown of their play. We started up the wedding dance again, shout the boys, and you didn’t join in: why, then, should we join in with your funeral march?

We only refused to join in because you had first refused to join in with our funeral march, the girls retort! Each group blames the other: you wronged me before I wronged you!

The context of Jesus’ childish tale is this. John, the baptiser, had been put in prison. He would, eventually, be executed. But for now, he is imprisoned, and had sent messengers to Jesus in search of answers to doubts that troubled him. You see, Jesus was so different from John, as different as a wedding from a funeral. Had John got it all wrong? Or was it Jesus that had got it wrong: had John served God faithfully, only for Jesus to let it all fall away again? Jesus sends back his reply to John, and then turns to the crowd around him, asking them, what did they make of John’s ministry?

John and Jesus were so different from one another, at least on the surface. John was aesthetic, extreme. Many had been drawn to his call to repent. Others had found it all too much: this man was clearly under the influence of a demon; those drawn to his cult, themselves demonic. Jesus, on the other hand, was all about having a party, eating and drinking with sinners. Jesus was not religious enough for the Pharisees who passed judgement on those who had gone to John; and, ironically, not religious enough for those who had gone to John, who had repented of their sins.

Here’s the situation:

Those who had followed John were wailing repentance, and the good religious people wouldn’t join in: it was tawdry and excessive and beneath them.

The good religious people were proclaiming the wedding celebration of God and his people, but needed to keep the people—the bride—pure: sinners must be excluded.

Those who had followed John in the funeral march didn’t want to follow Jesus in the wedding dance, because it was too joyful.

And those who wanted a wedding dance didn’t want Jesus in it, because he brought sinners with him.

Things have reached an impasse: and Jesus starts to tell a story about children playing in the marketplace, a scenario everyone would recognise. They, too, have reached an impasse. But both groups bring something that the other needs. Lament, repentance, is not an end in and of itself: there is no point in repentance if it does not lead into participation in celebration [Confession and Absolution leads into the Gloria]. But there is no celebration, no inclusion, without repentance. You can’t have either one without the other!

Oh, and it doesn’t matter whether you joined the game when it was a wedding dance or when it was a funeral march. Neither one is better than the other. The point to the game is not to move from one to the other as you mature—journeying from celebration to mourning, or from lament to rejoicing. The point of the game is that we become increasingly attuned to what is needful in the given moment, and increasingly confident and competent in our participation.

Jesus says: John leads to me; his ministry flows into mine.

And Jesus continues: Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Some of us have found our way here with an inclination—whether nature, or nurture, or both—to noticing what is wrong (as we perceive it) with the world, to judging people—including ourselves—quickly and harshly, to setting ourselves standards we can never live up to. And we find it quite disconcerting that there are other people here who frankly don’t seem that bothered about it all; who are all about love and acceptance and inclusivity and letting God sort the rest of it out.

And, if we are honest, we are weary from being good, and feeling bad; we are weighed down by the burden of it—and affronted that others won’t share the load.

And Jesus says to us: Let me come alongside you; allow yourself to be yoked to me, as a young ox is yoked to an experienced ox at the plough. Let me be the other ox, and let me train you in the art of celebration, of thankfulness, of enjoying God’s good gifts and sharing them with others.

On the other side of the marketplace, some of us have found our way here with an inclination—whether in our upbringing, or in rebellion against our upbringing—to self-justification, to believing that who we are—and who others are—is already the full realisation of God’s plan for us. We are already seated at the wedding banquet at the End of the Age, when God has wiped away every tear; but if we are honest we want to keep crying because of the other people here who keep calling us to repent, to change our outlook and direction, to become something other than what we are.

And we worry about the gap, between the banquet we proclaim and the joylessness displayed by some Christians: it makes us look like hypocrites—and who would be drawn to that anyway? We, too, are weary.

And Jesus says to us: Let me come alongside you. Let me be the other ox, and let me train you in the art of lament, of repentance; of dying to self, in order that you be transformed from the person God accepts as you are, into the person God hopes and dreams you might be.

Presumably the children find a way to move beyond their impasse, if only that they slope off home and reconvene again the next day, leaving yesterday’s quarrel to yesterday, where it belongs. I say presumably because Jesus holds them up as our model and invites us to learn from them. Today is a new day. If you are weary, come: come to Jesus, whatever your burden.

Come, together with the boys with their flutes and the girls who wail. Come and join in the game, that together we might learn, that together we might grow into maturity, the fullness of Christ. Amen.

Third Sunday after Trinity 2017

‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’

Matthew 10:40-42

Welcome.

To welcome means to receive gladly. To receive a person, gladly. To receive the news they bring, the gifts they offer, gladly. Welcome is more than a word of greeting: welcome is a shared experience two or more people actively participate in.

Last week I said that there are two great themes that run, entwined, through the Bible from beginning to end. One is the theme of covenant: of God coming to us, in search of a welcome, in hope of relationship. In the words of Jesus, ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’ And the other great theme is that of kingdom: of God sending us out, in search of welcome, finding outposts and potential-outposts of the reign of God in a fearful and hostile world. In the words of Jesus, ‘Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.’ Covenant and kingdom, coming together and being sent out, go hand-in-hand. Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

Whoever welcomes you welcomes your covenant-partner, Jesus. And whoever welcomes Jesus welcomes the one who has made him king.

Let us consider just a few examples of Jesus’ experience of welcome.

Consider his birth. Our English translations have not served us well here. You will recall that Joseph brought his wife to his hometown. The most natural interpretation of Luke’s account is that at the time of Jesus’ birth, they were staying with Joseph’s family, in an ordinary home. Immediately inside the door is the space where animals were kept at night; then, at a raised level with a hollow in the floor forming a manger, the one main room the family shared by day and night; and beyond that, furthest from the animals, a small guest room. The guest room Joseph and Mary are staying in is not big enough for Mary to give birth in—no room in the inn—attended as she would be by the village midwives and Joseph’ female relatives, including any young girls, in order that giving birth might not be a terrifying mystery to them; and so Mary gives birth to Jesus in the family room, at the heart of the home, displacing male relatives and animals alike.

Consider the flight to Egypt. Joseph—we are told by Matthew that he is a righteous man—fleeing with his wife and young son by night, turning up as refugees seeking asylum among the Jewish community that has dispersed and established itself perhaps in cosmopolitan Alexandria.

Consider the wedding at Cana. Jesus and his disciples have been invited, along with his mother. They have celebrated well, and now the wine has ran out. That would be the sign that it was time to go home, to return to normality, to get up in the morning nursing a hangover and drag your weary bones out of bed and off to work. But Jesus, prompted by his mother, turns the occasion into a different sign. Taking jars of water that symbolised being made clean, being accepted by God, he transformed the water into wine, symbolising the great banquet at the End of the Age, when, having healed the nations, God will sit down with humanity to celebrate without end—without a return to the old normal of Jesus the builder constructing homes for Roman colonials and Peter the fisherman catching fish to export them to dining tables in Rome, the heart of the Empire. In a hot land, even a cup of cold water could be enough to point to such hope.

Consider the disreputable sinners and tax-collectors who invited Jesus to eat at their tables—people who knew that they were sick, unable to cure themselves of their malady, hoping for a doctor.

Consider the Pharisees, worried that they might offend God even unintentionally, also inviting Jesus—so hungry and thirsty for righteousness that they forget to meet the conventions of welcoming him at all; and—ironically—find themselves participating in welcome, however poorly, more fully than ever before.

The more you think about it, the more welcome is the heart of the gospel—and its reward.

Some questions to ponder:

Where have you experienced welcome?

What did that look like?

How did it make you feel?

What grew—what flourished—in that space?