Heaven is Doing - Matthew 13 - Proper 12A

Heaven is doing

Tony E Hansen

Sermon based upon Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52; Romans 8:26-39, Psalm 119:129-136

Opening prayer

Hope everyone had a great week of RAGBRAI - even if you didn’t ride! While I enjoy riding bicycle, riding 400 miles in a week does something.  1) you get tired 2) some days are better than others and 3) there are many potential “off-ramps” available to you: rain, storms, a flat tires, oppressive heat, cramps, and dehydration (just to name a few.) 

Yet, we persevere because we need to continue - to make it to the next town, next hydration stop, or the goal. (Pickles help!) Why would anyone do this?

There is a community that shows up in bicycling that is quite unique. For instance when someone suffers a flat, there are usually people willing to stop and help. When it is hot, you see it in every person, and people will offer water or ice to someone who is clearly showing. All along the day’s route, you see pop-up stands with people offering to sell a pickle or lemonade. 

(Yes Pickles help to ease cramps and sore muscles. )

Especially during RAGBRAI, people of different faiths, different politics, different fitness, and different goals all are visibly sharing a path, occasionally see a uni-bike or someone riding backwards. Not only riding together but also having beverages or camping next to each other without judgment. 

Even outside of RAGBRAI, cyclists do this. 

What does that sound like to you? Glad you asked.

Perhaps that is something similar to what Jesus preaches?

That community reveals aspects of today’s parables and Romans.

Matthew’s lesson gives us a handful of parables. A mustard seed that grows into trees; woman hiding yeast in flour to make bread; a guy buying a field with hidden treasure; a merchant finding a pearl and sells everything; net cast into the sea bringing up all and then separated. Subversive and provocative - some mystery - so much here.

Who wants to be a caught fish?

For many of us who have grown up hearing some of these parables as “reasoning” to separate people - what is good and what’s evil - rather who - followed by litany of poor examples of “why.” 

Yet, the parable is more than separation because that net pulls up everything and anything. People have presumed some selection that happens here but wait… what if I was one of the fish that just wanted to live another day but instead got pulled out of the water? How lucky are those fish? 

They, or I, might be dinner for someone - Hope I am tasty…

Judgment usually precedes selection in our world. Why do we go to judgment first instead of being selected? Someone judges, someone gets the good stuff and “they” get that over there. 

Something like the two kids at gym class picking their teams. The athletes get picked first whittled until they get to “those” people - you know like me, the scrawny and not-terribly-gifted-in-athletics. The only reason why we even get to play is because the gym teacher says all of us get selected. Interesting…?

That might be a point here. All of us get selected. All of us were born and are now hearing (or reading) these words. All of us came from nowhere to be here today and now. All of us have dreams and going about our days: riding bicycle, swimming in a lake, making surprise bread or otherwise. All people are brought into this world, and it is up to us how we choose to live because heaven is more than clouds.

The parables reveal aspects of heaven. It is intention, it is surprise, it is comforting and caring. It is searching and is collecting. Heaven is doing. 

 

For all the talk about judging, we read this gorgeous bit from Paul. Our lesson from Romans 8 is veritable soothing, “All things work together for good…[for] those who are called to his purpose.” All children are called to God’s purpose - to belong - not to the marketing slice, not the commercial enterprise, and definitely not the evil war machine. 

God’s purpose is much bigger and that purpose includes you and me. That belonging invites you and me into using our gifts that we have to share with each other - doing. For some the gift is making bread, repairing bicycles, building nests, fishing, sharing stories, or reminding us that we all are God’s children. 

Do, share and live in this way - and then, there is no need for judgment.

“If God is for us, who is against us? …Who will bring any charge against God’s people for it is God who justifies." Let judgment be with God not us. You are invited to be healed from the broken world and to be victorious through the divine.

Our broken world wants to tell us differently. That is somehow ok to leave people out and not care - or rather, only care for myself - because no one else will. 

How wrong they are. For God cares and is knocking on your door to invite you. God wants you. God selected you.

It is not for us to pass judgement, or to condemn because that belongs to God. Instead, Christ brings us to together whether as thousands of riders, small rural congregation, queer people with many questions, parents raising children, children caring for parents, or addicts finding their ways in AA. Great people, small ones, downtrodden and poor in spirit, God is for us. That is the Matthew theme with pastoral frame in Romans.

God plants us as small seeds so that we turn into trees providing nests, safe places, to make families. God cares for us so that we might care for others and the planet around us. God selects you to grow and to share - to be part of the heaven doing what God wants us to be.

Ride a bike and see all that God has given to us in the great world in all of the conditions that God presents. Help a fellow out who needs help. Laugh with people. Have dinner with people and hear stories. Set goals and achieve and learn along the way. Ride backwards if that is your goal. Offer a pickle. Offer help.

Walk in that world! 

Be in that world! 

Do in that world and you will see everything that God has for you - that is indeed good.

Thanks be to God, Amen

Parables - Matthew 13 - Proper 10A

Parables

Tony E Hansen

Sermon based upon Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23; Romans 8:1-11; Psalm 65

Opening Prayer

Jesus loves to tell us parables. People love stories - ones that are nice, charming and feel good and also ones that shock and scare us. Some like the more intimate settings: stories that convey how we feel, what we did, what is on the mind, and where we think we are going. 

All of these reveal something about us. Sometimes quite intentionally, we are trying to teach and educate, but also when we tell our story, we find connections through shared experiences.  While I may not have understood the whole reason why someone did something, the result from or the feelings that people along their journey are interesting and teaching.

Stories, our stories, are important. They are part of us and they connect us. What is your story? What should I hear about you? What do you want to teach me? Then will you listen to mine…? 

Jesus telling this story about someone throwing seeds everywhere reminds me of “throwing” seeds around my garden as well as grass seed.  I directed my seeds to specific places and pray they prove to be “fruitful” to produce vegetables, flowers or grass. Many times that growth is often accompanied by weeds or critters that want to snack on my work. 

In this story, Jesus says that some seeds land to produce shortly, some never, some become bird feed and still some produce abundantly. That is cute isn’t it? 

A lot of people will leave it there for us consider on our own.

Then Jesus gives the description. The seeds are people and how they come to receive the Word, how they receive God. For we all come to God in different ways. The person to our left and right do not have the same experiences or even same feelings about the same texts. 

I hear the same speech differently than others because my experiences are simply different. That difference isn’t a problem - it just is because we don’t always have to agree. That is where listening is important because that is how we learn.

People listening to stories will start dreaming images in their heads while the story is told. Some might even throw judgment onto stories like this - as to who is chosen and who is not. They may offer reasons why that seems to fit a narrative they have conjured in their minds. 

Why go to judgment right away?

The parable is presented to us as metaphorical and the description further draws distinctions. Yet Jesus does not say who is in each ”group” but Jesus does say that “lure of wealth chokes”; that trouble or discomfort can cause people to immediately jump ship - being less than patient to allow things to grow.  

The person that only cares about what they accumulate but shares nothing gets stuck in a mindset that is never satisfied. They get caught in constant hunger and thirst for the wrong things because wealth, status and privilege are fleeting. Then they fight (sometimes violently) to keep the broken promises. They exclude so they can hoard their “rewards.” 

…Until they realize that is all they have - or don’t.

Some don’t want to endure anything. I don’t want to have to go through pain, but discomfort is a necessary teacher. It helps understand when not to do something again or how we might be able to help someone else going through similar as me. It doesn’t have to be constant nor should it be the expectation of life, but avoiding pain and discomfort is how some find themselves addicted to poisons to escape that possible. 

The impatient person: That is the person who plants a seed in the ground and then shakes fingers - telling “now grow,” but they will assuredly be denied a quick resolution. We, in this day and age, are quick with judgment, and with expectations. We like to have the Burger King “have it made our way” and delivered when we want. 

We have been primed by marketing to get things tailored to us and our desires when we want it and how we want it. It doesn’t matter whether that is reasonable or not or who it impacts. We have been lied to by corporations that say we can have it all and we dont have to struggle. That money shines and feels warm, comforting - above all else. 

That is a lie and we know it. The world doesn’t have to work like that. God doesn’t work like that.

There is something for you and me and is more sustaining than any of those broken lies. 

God offers us a field of opportunities, a garden for us to tend and a life to lead with purpose. That purpose has nothing to do with wealth, status or comforts. Jesus tells us more than enough times that following him will lead to discomfort. Being part of the “Jesus way” will have some friction because the world will be luring, enticing and even spiteful for our realized faith and comfort in Christ. 

We know our neighbors can irritate us and will. We know things happen that cause anxiety, but they don’t have to control us no more than the lure of materialism. 

When we let God be for us and with us and with our neighbors, we find all that we need and we find it abundantly.

You are a seed in the hand of God. You have been planted and you have been tended by our Creator. You are loved. You are hope. You are faith. You have everything you need.

That is part of your story.

Thanks Be to God, Amen

All Who Are Weary - Matthew 11 - Proper 9A

All Who Are Weary

Tony E Hansen

Sermon based upon Matthew 11:11-30, Psalm 145, Romans 7: 15-25

Opening Prayer

Happy 250th Birthday to the US.

“Come to me, all you who are weary … carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” 

Jesus prays in thanks for wisdom and for grace - not just for him , but for all who are weary and carrying burdens.  This is prayer of the Matthew Beatitudes - for the meek, those who mourn, who hunger, and the peacemakers and those who believe. This is a prayer for John the Baptist, who is jailed for being a prophet speaking truth.

People as a whole carry burdens - some that we choose and some that are thrust upon us. I chose to ride bike in the intense desert winds of Palm Springs. There are compelling ones like parents who have to be the 24-hour-7-day-a-week caretaker for their kids or a spouse that had a stroke. These days, the tables turn, and now we kids have to take care of mother. There are people whose job it is literally lifting heavy things all day long. (It is how I paid for part of my college.) Firefighters have to be able haul heavy loads up stairs.

There are real burdens for many people, many neighbors - some we see and some that we don’t. 

There are those of us who carry burdens from trauma, from wars, from violence, or from experience(s) in our lifetime that bring memories and anxiety with those. 

Carrying burdens doesn’t have to be a visible “yoke” but a real weight upon our backs - the pit in our stomachs or in our hearts.

Romans 7 gives us a glimpse into someone’s real internal burden - constant - even threatening - questions. You can see the high expectations of the self but somehow feeling like not delivering or feeling like failing all the time. You might know this person.

It probably isn’t all of the time, but we are our biggest critics. When we fail, we tend to dwell upon that - some to an extreme. It is one thing to be critical of the self, but the author talks of “war” with the self. 

This goes from I have a problem to “I am the problem.”

What is so awful that we declare war with our inmost being.

People struggling with addiction, like me, can attest to this passage because the temptations are always there. The thirst is there - no matter how much we try to avoid it. Some might use the addiction to help mask other issues in their lives - including sexuality or violence done to them. Some might use it to escape many internal conflicts and personal guilts. 

Many that have grown up as queer, like myself, can easily attest to the internal conflicts. While trying to figure myself out, I wanted to appear “normal”, especially in a family that has strong religious or more conservative convictions.

I fought that battle for years trying to come to grips with who I was - knowing that I just didn’t follow the normal path of human attraction. Why did I have to be different? 

When I came to terms with it and with God - then peace and growth followed.

That struggle is real today for many - even though there is bit more acceptance. There are still people hiding their true self from themselves and the people around them. There are people that want to be the model child, but realize they are much different than the stereotypical “model.” 

In a world that has drawn maps of gendered roles, how true are those models?

In this day of hyper-macho displays, like MMA fights on front lawns, masculinity has been commandeered as a political leaning even. Yet masculinity isn’t political because being a man includes being a steward and using intelligence as much as brawn. It doesn’t require a model sexuality either. 

Being human doesn’t require a boxing ring. Being religious doesn’t mean we attack people or exclude. Nor does it require us to beat ourselves up for our inner thoughts.

We can counter the toxic narrative and the false models. 

This is where we must realize there is love and comfortable available for us. The Psalmist writes “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love… is good to all and compassions is over all…”. There is no exception or exclusion. 

Yet too many find ways to distort that. Perhaps for whatever is broken in themselves, they want others to carry their burdens instead of meeting them - pass the buck. 

Well as Truman says, the buck stops here! Why does it have to be internal violence - or violence at all? 

Jesus says blessed are the peacemakers and the merciful. Where is the rest we need and seek? Be the peace and be merciful.

There is rest from the internal struggles as well as violence upon us. There is someone who gives us respite and love - no matter what others may try to tell us.

Jesus prays “come to me.. I will give you rest.” Jesus does not give exception. 

When I accepted my sexuality and thanked God for making me the way I am, I found rest. Come to Jesus.

Even the LGBTQ+ trying to understand,

Even the addicted trying to clean up,

Even those who think they have to do everything,

Even those who mourn, who hunger and you who are merciful…

Even the person who thinks they have it all figured out, there is room for you. 

Even the country that has grown from 13 colonies to 50 beautiful states, a country of many races, creeds, sexuality, politics, and challenging history, there is room.

Jesus says to you individually - “come to me.” 

You, Child of God, be peace.

Thanks be to God, Amen