Radical Welcome

The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 56:1, 6-8; Matthew 15:10-28

            "In the fashion world, as in this competition, you're either in or you're out."  So says Heidi Klum in one of my favorite TV shows, Project Runway.  Now, she has a very fetching German accent, which you will notice I did not even attempt.  In the fashion world, Heidi Klum is very definitely in. 

            There are a lot of things that I love about Project Runway, but the chief thing is that it appeals to my sense of order.  They start with a lot of designers, and one by one they are eliminated.  Each episode ends with Heidi looking sad, and saying to one hapless contestant, “I’m sorry, that means you are out.”  And then another host hugs the loser and sends him or her upstairs to clean up the work room.

            Top Chef is a similar show, only it is about cooking instead of fashion design—and the experts aren’t quite as cute as Heidi.  But at the end of each episode, a host says, “I’m sorry, please pack your knives and go.”

            In both shows, the season starts out in chaos—designers and chefs are everywhere.  Whether they are fitting chiffon or chopping onions, the mess flies around.  Gradually, some beauty develops—in constructed garments or delicious dishes.  And if I cannot taste the food on Top Chef—well, there’s no way I could ever wear the clothes on Project Runway—so it is all about considering and discerning which look or which taste I think I might like the best.

            Week by week, a designer and a chef each leave and order begins to emerge, until finally the work room and the kitchen aren’t so terribly messy.  The food becomes more complicated and the outfits more elaborate.  And for both shows, as the season proceeds, we get to know the designers and the chefs.  We begin to make favorites—and to root for them—even if they seem to make an odd choice of fabric, or get caught over-poaching the salmon.  And as we get to know them, it gets harder and harder to hear, “I’m sorry, you are out.”  Or, “Please pack your knives and go.”  Even so, the competition is part of the thrill.

            And it makes sense, because who doesn’t like to be in with the in-crowd?  And as long as we remember to tune in again next week, we can be with the ones who are flinging the chiffon and chopping the onions.  Heidi Klum would never dream of telling us we are out.

            The desire to be included is as old as human nature—and right along with it is the urge for order and thrill of competition that makes us exclude one another.  It is exactly these contrary impulses that struggle through our lessons this morning. 

            The prophet Isaiah is telling the people that they can return from their centuries-long exile in Babylon.  And when they do, God will welcome them.  And not only that, God understands that they have been away for generations—it’s okay that they made relationships while they were in exile.  It’s all right if foreigners come with them when they return home.  For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples, says the Lord.            You might call the prophet’s attitude “radically welcoming.”  And Isaiah knows that this is a new thing for the people to understand about God.

            All through the Old Testament, the people busily define themselves as the ones—the only ones—that God loves.  And God plays the in-and-out game, too.  God finds people difficult to handle and so decides to destroy us by flood.  But then, Noah seems righteous, and is saved.  God decides that Abraham should be the father of a nation that is under God’s direct sponsorship, and so grants him children even though he is in his 90’s. 

Abraham favors Isaac, so his older son Ishmael is—out, clean up your workspace before going out into the desert, please.  God favors Isaac’s son Jacob, and he gets the blessing and the birthright instead of his older brother Esau—he cheats by presenting his father with a better tasting and more timely presented stew.  In an interesting twist on this in-and-out business, it is Jacob who packs his knives and leaves, but later seems to have been under God’s protection the whole time.   

It is this same Jacob whom God names “Israel”—and then there is a grand game of in-and-out among his twelve sons—first the construction of a high-fashion coat of many colors and then all that nastiness about selling Joseph into slavery.  And it is Jacob’s sons who become the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel.  By the end of Genesis, they are very definitely in.

All through the Hebrew Scriptures, God is faithful to this one nation of people—the nation who were born of Abraham.  The children of Israel believed in God, and made attempts at faithfulness, more or less.  But whether they were faithful or not, God never forgot them.  The children of Israel were in—in God’s favor, even when they were thrown out into slavery or exile.  God knew them.  He knew they weren’t perfect, but they had developed a special relationship over the centuries.

And now, millennia into the relationship, Isaiah declares a new thing—that God will welcome everyone to God’s holy mountain—the exiles returning home, the outcasts among the exiles, even the foreigners who follow along—not sure where they are going, but sure that they are looking for welcome.

Five hundred years after Isaiah’s new thing, Jesus is all about the welcome.  Drop your nets, he says to Peter and Andrew.  I will make you fish for people.  And off they go through the Galilean countryside, gathering people, just as Isaiah predicted.  The outcasts of Israel were the first to get on board.  The sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes; widows and orphans; women and children, all fell into Jesus’ wide-open embrace. 

Those Pharisees had a harder time of it.  They couldn’t seem to get with it.  We might think of them as spiritual exiles.  They concentrated so hard on God’s justice that they had trouble with the mercy that Isaiah’s prophecy required.

And so Jesus taught them, in a passage so graphic that we will surely remember it—it is not what goes into your body that will make you sick.  What goes in comes out just as quickly.  No, Jesus said:  What makes us sick is how we think about one another, how we treat one another, how we use one another for our own advantage.

Well, you cannot blame the Pharisees for not wanting to be schooled by someone as obviously “out” as Jesus.  I mean, really, he hung out with all the people who knew how to clean a workroom and pack up their knives.  What could the least and lost of the children of Israel possibly know about God?

            Well, how about what Isaiah knew?

Thus says the LORD:

Maintain justice, and do what is right,

for soon my salvation will come,

and my deliverance be revealed.

            The ones who followed Jesus understood the yearning of Isaiah.  They understood that coming home was more than about where they lived—what they wore—or what they ate.  They understood that coming home was about being accepted—that coming home was about being welcomed in.

            And so, we have to ask, what were the disciples thinking when they asked Jesus to send the Canaanite woman away?  Okay, so she wasn’t a Jew—she was a foreigner.  And she was yelling at them—she a woman, was yelling at men—definitely not good manners.  But those fishermen and tax collectors weren’t known for their manners.

            Why did the disciples find her so disturbing that they begged Jesus to send her away?  And come to that, why wasn’t Jesus nice to her? "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  Really?  Didn’t Isaiah settle all that centuries ago?

            This is one of those times when I really wish I could see Jesus’ face.  I want to see a twinkle in his eye—and I want to see him nod his head toward that grumbling group of Pharisees standing a little way off.

            We do not know what Jesus was thinking when he said, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."  But here is what we do know—as bad as her manners were, the Canaanite woman’s story gets told.  As loud as she was yelling, as foreign as she was, she didn’t clean up her workspace or pack her knives.  She walked right up to Jesus and told him what she needed. 

            And we know this, too:  Jesus recognized her faith.  It didn’t matter that her shouting was annoying, or that her daughter’s illness would make them both outcasts, or that she was a foreigner.  What mattered to Jesus was her faith.  Jesus was faithful, too.  And her daughter was healed instantly.  And Jesus showed again that even though he understood our human inclination to bring order through exclusion, God calls us to something better. 

            When the woman came up to Jesus, when she called him by name and begged him for mercy, he could have told her that she was out.  He could have turned his back on her.  Instead, he engaged her in conversation.  We may not like or understand what he said—but we know that there was a power to heal in the connection that he made.

            The radical welcome that Isaiah proclaimed and the Canaanite woman claimed for herself and her daughter is the very same welcome that God offers us today.  Thus says the Lord, Maintain justice, and do what is right.  If we are to heed Isaiah’s proclamation, it begs an important question:  just who are the foreigners today?  Who are the outcasts?

            Maybe it is the child who hates to go to school because the way she looks or the way he speaks draws the attention of bullies.  Maybe it is the father who cannot get a doctor’s appointment for his son, because the insurance company doesn’t think the kid is sick enough.  Maybe it is the couple that wants to be married, but lives in a state where only some couples have that privilege.  I’m guessing you can think of others.

Week by week we come into this holy place—and the truth is, often we know that in one aspect or another of our individual lives, we are the outcasts, we are the foreigners—we are out!  We should be cleaning up our work space and packing our knives.  But in this place, we claim God’s radical welcome.  And more, we are invited to welcome others—any others—outcasts, foreigners, even those who are in with the in-crowd. 

All these years later it is up to us to offer the radical welcome of God, to make friends and strangers joyful in God’s house of prayer.  When we do, then we will know God’s power to heal and God’s salvation and deliverance will be revealed.

August 14, 2011  Proper 14A

The Episcopal Church of the Atonement

The Rev. Nancy Webb Stroud

These Feet Are Made for Walking

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

1 Kings 19:9-18; 
Psalm 85:8-13; 
Romans 10:5-15; 
Matthew 14:22-33

I have been thinking a fair amount about shoes this week—and not just because I finally made my way to the Lee Outlets earlier this week, and came home with a carful of good bargains—but also because I am in the midst of renovating my closet.  I have tried to figure out how many inches of shelves I need to fit all of my shoes.  It is a daunting figure, but I am sure that the good folks at Home Depot will be able to help me out.  And then, on Friday, my husband and I attended a planning meeting for the upcoming Tornado Relief Mission Project that will take place this Labor Day Weekend.  And of course, we had to spend precious Friday evening minutes discussing whether or not one really had to have steel-toed boots to participate. . . .

Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, quotes Isaiah, the prophet of the one, true God: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"  We human beings certainly seem to think that feet are important, if not beautiful, for we seem to design a remarkable number of ways to cover them.

But have you noticed that the most lovely shoes and boots are surely the least practical?  Watch a talk show sometime, when the guests walk on and off the set—isn’t it amazing that a woman can stand in those six-inch heels; that a man can walk without sliding on slick leather souls?  And I wonder sometimes how anyone can walk down a hospital or school or office corridor without succumbing to the fashion no-no of just wearing sneakers.  It seems that the lovelier we make our feet, the less likely we are to be able to walk very far.

And although God’s servants through the centuries have found our feet to be beautiful, it seems that their value is more in where they can take us than in how beautifully we can gussy them up.

Elijah trudged up the mountain.  It was a lonely journey.  Elijah was the lone prophet of God in the land.  Oh, he wasn’t the only prophet, you understand.  Lots and lots of folks thought they could make a pretty good living being a prophet and interpreting the mysteries of the universe to the King.  It’s just that the other 400 prophets were the prophets of Baal.  The fact that Baal was just a big old statue that sat around doing nothing did not seem to bother the prophets.  In fact, I am sure it made their job easier.

Elijah’s God was always suggesting that he make difficult journeys, and listen in trying circumstances.  But Elijah didn’t just have beautiful and valuable feet, he had deep integrity, and an open heart.  And Elijah heard the voice of God.  The people, led astray by their own noisiness, and by the noisy prophets of Baal, were quite convinced that if God existed at all—he would be found in wind and earthquake and fire.  Only nature seemed to have enough power and violence to be what God was.  And so they tried to convince themselves that the weather and God was the same thing.

But, God was not in the wind.  God was not in the earthquake.  God was not in the fire.

God spoke from the deep silence.  And in the integrity of his heart, Elijah heard the voice of God in the silence.  And God let Elijah know that he was not alone, that God was with him—and that through Elijah’s witness, the people would return to God.

And then—God told Elijah to walk down off that mountain and into the wilderness of Damascus. "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"  After all that tramping around in desert and wilderness, I’ll bet that Elijah’s feet were dirty and calloused, and yet, we can guess that God saw beauty in their faithful journey.

Early in the morning, Matthew tells us, Jesus came walking toward them on the sea.  Have you ever wondered how that felt on his feet?  Once Jesus begins his ministry, he seems to be walking all the time!  He walks up mountains to pray, or to teach, or to feed a crowd.  He walks from village to village to spread the news that God’s kingdom has come now.  He walks through fields of wheat, and on dusty paths, and by rocky shores.  We don’t know if he was barefoot or if he wore sandals—but we do know that the kind of cushiony, high traction material that makes good hiking boots would not be invented for two thousand years.  I would guess that walking on the water after that tramp down the mountain felt pretty good on Jesus’ feet—cooler and softer and less slippery than any walking he had done in awhile.

"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"  Of course, the disciples weren’t really concerned about his feet.  They were having trouble with the physics of the thing.  Jesus should be in the water, not on it! 

But Peter was another one of those servants of God with strong feet and deep integrity and an open heart.  While the other disciples were puzzling over the impossibility of it all, Peter called out to Jesus.  And when Jesus called him to come, he got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.

And it all would have been fine, really, if Peter had just kept walking, and just kept listening to the voice of Jesus calling his heart.  But like the people who heard only the clamorous voice of the prophets of Baal, who heard only the rumble of the earthquake and the roar of the fire, Peter noticed the strong wind and began to sink.  

God was not in the wind or that water on that amazing morning when Jesus walked down off the mountain and onto the cool water of the Sea of Galilee.  God was calling to Peter. 

And here is the good news for us this morning.  When Peter failed; when his ears began to take in fear and became dull to the voice of God; when his strong and faithful feet began to sink into the water, when he cried out in fear to the man in whom just a moment ago he believed—then immediately, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.

"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"  For Isaiah and for Paul—this is, of course, a figure of speech, a synecdoche for those of you who, like me, are old English teachers.  In a synecdoche a part stands in for the whole.  It is not just the feet that are beautiful—the whole person who brings good news is beautiful!

And so, care-worn, lonely old Elijah is beautiful in God’s eyes.  And rough, anxious Peter is beautiful to Jesus.  And Paul would suggest that we can be beautiful too—whether we wear orthopedic oxfords or Manolo Blahniks.

One of the things that always strikes me about the heroes of the Bible is how physically fit they were—they walked everywhere they went!  The thought of all those rocky, dusty paths make my feet hurt!  For those of us who live and work in the suburbs, it can be a challenge to have strong feet. In just one day last week, my professional duties took me to a home in Westfield, another in Southwick, a restaurant in back in Westfield, a store just off River Road, and St. Andrew’s Church in Longmeadow.  There was no way to make even one of those visits on foot and still have time to make the others.  And so, I try to fit in “taking a walk” as a separate activity.

It’s an important thing to do—to keep our bodies fit—and if you want to be better at it yourself, you shouldn’t follow my example. "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

But Paul wasn’t using the image of beautiful feet to stand in for just our bodies—he used the image to mean our whole selves—bodies, yes—but hearts and minds as well.  Paul wasn’t concerned with beautiful feet, he was teaching us to have beautiful souls.

In our lessons today, God comes to us—in silence to Elijah, and walking on water to Peter.  That is, in seemingly impossible ways—God comes to us, and calls us to walk alongside.  God brings the good news, and calls us to bring it too.

And just as we have to practice to be physically fit—we have to practice “soul fitness” as well.  Forgive me for saying it—but we have to walk the walk!  That is why we gather for worship every Sunday—even when it’s hot, and even when it’s icy, and all those other Sundays in between.  And that is why we pray every day, when we have lots to be thankful for, and even when it seems hard to find anything to be thankful for.  And that is why we give blood, and work on Habitat projects, and give up part of our Labor Day weekend to help rebuild Springfield. 

There is a powerful amount of noise in our world.  There were devastating tornadoes in June.  But God was not in the tornadoes.  There was poor leadership in our nation this month.  But God is not in our credit rating.  There is a shortage of blood in our hospitals.  But God is not in illness and disease.

God calls us to clean up the mess, to raise up effective leaders, to give what we have to those who have less.  And when we do, God calls out to us “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news!”

August 7, 2011  Proper 14A

The Episcopal Church of the Atonement

The Rev. Nancy Webb Stroud

What to do with the leftovers

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 14:13-21

            For the last several weeks, our Gospel lessons have presented Jesus’ parables of the kingdom of God.  The kingdom of God is like this; the kingdom of God is like that. . . . Jesus wants us to know that the kingdom of God is a present reality:  whatever else the political landscape looks like—whether we are living under harsh Roman oppression in the first century or crazy-making representative government in the twenty-first century—either way, our lives are lived in the constant presence of God.

            In today’s Gospel lesson, it seems that Jesus wants to be alone with God.  He has much to think about.  In Matthew’s Gospel just before the portion that we have today, Jesus goes back to his hometown and begins to teach in the synagogue there.  For the first time, his stories don’t get a good response.  People know him there—they know his mother and his siblings, they remember him as a boy in the carpenter’s shop with Joseph.  The people in Jesus’ hometown are harder to impress than the crowds in the countryside.

            Just as he realizes that his ministry is not going so well among his friends and family, Jesus gets some bad news.  His cousin, John the Baptist, has been executed by the king.  All of this time that Jesus has spent teaching about the true kingdom, the kingdom of God, John has been in prison.  Herod, a minor monarch of the region, and a collaborator with the Roman oppressors, this King Herod has John the Baptist beheaded after a wild evening of drinking and lewd dancing.

            Now when Jesus heard this, Matthew tells us, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.  Discouraged by his family and friends, and grieving over the loss of his first partner in ministry, Jesus just wants to be alone. 

            The tradition of the Church is that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine.  And when I read about Jesus getting into that small boat all by himself, because he needs to be alone, I see a very human person.  Tired, discouraged, and sad, Jesus just wants to be alone.  And who among us doesn’t know how that feels?

            But of course, Jesus knew that he was never alone.  Jesus came to show us that God is a very present reality.  And that is why he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.  There he would have taken the time to pray had not the crowds found him.  Here were more people who wanted to learn about the kingdom of God.  Here were more people looking for the present reality, who followed him on foot, Matthew tells us.  Some of them were running, no doubt, to keep up with his boat as he sailed along, and but I’m guessing that some were walking, and some were struggling to get there at all.

            And Jesus realized that for him, the constant presence of God was something that would always draw him back to the people.  His desire for the refreshment of prayer was not just a sign of his human need for quiet and comfort; it was for Jesus a sign of his present reality—but so were the crowds who yearned to touch him.

            The people followed him, running and walking and struggling along.  They needed him.  Matthew tells us that Jesus had compassion on them.  And as the day wore on, the disciples got worried.  Talk of the present reality of God was well and good.  And curing the sick was compassionate and powerful.  But the day was lengthening, and there were a lot of people here.  And as the day wore on, everyone was getting hungry.

            The disciples begged Jesus to let the people go, so that they could get back to their villages to take care of themselves.  But remember that Jesus wants us to know that the kingdom of heaven is right here and right now.  Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."

            And we all know the miracle.  The disciples had nothing but their own dinner:  some loaves of bread, and a couple of fish.  It was an adequate picnic for thirteen men, but it was nothing for the five thousand who were in front of them, besides the women and children, who seemed at least as hungry as their husbands and fathers.  And Jesus took the loaves and fish, and he thanked God for them, and then there was enough for everyone to eat.  It was quite a show.  It is one of the few stories about Jesus that is told in every Gospel:  Jesus took almost nothing and fed an entire crowd.  Jesus did more than just teach about a kingdom of heaven that changed lives; he actually changed lives right before their eyes.  Sick people were cured and hungry people were fed.  And when we hear this story, it is easy to affirm that Jesus is not just fully human, he is fully divine, as well.  The presence of God is a present reality.

            And we are deeply grateful that God is a present reality—especially after the week we have just lived together.  I am not going to comment on what is going on in the government of our nation except to say this:  I am beyond grateful that I am called to put my faith in God.  I will try to have compassion for our elected officials this week, but I sure don’t have any confidence in them at the moment.  Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus made a miracle and helped these people get along well enough to figure it out?

            And while we are wishing for miracles—there are plenty of hungry people today.  Half the people of the world live on less than $2 a day.  Half the people of the world couldn’t by a loaf of bread and a whole fish in a month, much less for a single meal.  Why isn’t Jesus making a feeding miracle for them?

            And then, much closer to home, this has been a very difficult time for our parish family.  Most of you have heard by now that this week the Vestry of this church made the very difficult decision to close the Preschool at Atonement.  After 51 years of service to the little children of our community, we simply cannot afford to keep the school open.  Just because the decision makes good financial sense doesn’t make it an easy or happy thing.  A little miracle of enrollment or endowment would have come in handy this week—it would save us worry over the future of our teachers and our children.  It would save us from the trouble of re-envisioning how our ministry will proceed from this building.

            We know that God is with us, a present reality amidst political turmoil and uncertain times.  And so I wonder, 21 centuries later, what are we to make of this story of the loaves and the fishes?  We, who come here Sunday by Sunday, and acknowledge the present reality of God—where is the miracle for us? 

            We usually say that the miracle of this story is that the loaves and the fishes were multiplied.  Five loaves and two fish were not enough to feed them, and yet everyone had enough to eat.  Something happened that could not happen, and that is a miracle. 

            But it seems to that there is more to this miracle than just enough to eat.  If Jesus is divine, it stands to reason that he could make any kind of a miracle that he wanted to make.  If all that Jesus wanted was for the crowd that day to have a nourishing meal, wouldn’t he just have multiplied enough bread and enough fish to go around?  Why did he make more than they needed?  It seems wasteful—or at least untidy—that there were so many baskets of food left over.

            The multiplication of the loaves and the fishes is a sign of the presence of God on that day and in that place, to be sure.  But maybe the miracle in this story is not that God is present.  The presence of God is just the reality.  Maybe the miracle in this story is the opportunity that God’s presence gave the disciples.  Maybe the miracle is the opportunity that God’s presence gives all of us.

            Before the food is distributed, Jesus looks at his disciples and says, you give them something to eat.  Later, Matthew tells us, . . . all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.

            Twelve baskets full of leftovers: twelve like the twelve tribes of Israel.  That is, there were enough leftovers for everyone to have enough.  Twelve baskets of leftovers:  twelve like the twelve disciples.  That is, there were enough baskets so that everyone had the opportunity to feed the hungry—the ones who were there right then—and the ones to whom those baskets were taken later.  You give them something to eat.

            Sunday by Sunday, we come to this place, and we are nourished by Jesus, the bread of heaven.  Sunday by Sunday, we know the present reality of God.  And Sunday by Sunday we are filled, and we find that there is more than enough.  We find that we have what we need and more besides.  And we know that the miracle is the astonishing abundance of God—that we are full and there is more to nourish others.  And more, we know that the miracle is the amazing generosity of God who allows us to participate in the feeding.  As we take what we have been given and share it with the ones that God loves, we know the miracle.

July 31, 2011  Proper 13A

The Episcopal Church of the Atonement

The Rev. Nancy Webb Stroud

Resurrection: Not Just for Easter!

For the Westfield News

From the Greater Westfield Clergy Association

Friday, July 29, 2011

Because the Greater Westfield Clergy Association shares the privilege of writing this column, I only contribute four or five times a year.  But my parishioners are devoted to the Westfield News, so occasionally, one will tell me that he or she saw an article with my name on it.  They are usually good enough not to say, “Wasn’t that what your sermon was about last week?”  Most often, I write about what is on my heart and mind—and that is usually whatever sermon I have just preached.

            What is on my heart this week is resurrection.  Or rather, my longing for it.  On Monday evening, the Vestry (our governing board) made the terribly difficult decision to close the Preschool at the Church of the Atonement.  For 51 years, the Preschool has served children and parents of Westfield and the surrounding communities.  Atonement Preschool graduates are everywhere in Westfield—and far beyond.  A family friend who lives in New York City started her education in the rooms below my office!

            Declining enrollment has made it difficult to continue the program in the last several years, and this week we faced the reality that we simply do not have the money to fund the program for an entire year.  It was very hard to make a decision about money when our decision about people would be entirely different.  Our dedicated director and teaching staff, our caring parents, and our fabulous children make Atonement Preschool a fun, loving, nurturing environment.  Who doesn’t want fun, love, and nourishment?  But without funds, the program cannot exist.

            Jesus spent his years of ministry caring for the least and the lost, the marginalized and the oppressed.  He taught, he fed, he healed.  The people loved him—and grew in their love of one another.  His death at the hands of oppressive civil and religious authorities might have ended that culture of love and concern.  But God would not let love die:  Jesus was resurrected.  His return to life—his return to love and concern and nurture—meant new life for all of us.

            We at the Church of the Atonement are experiencing a kind of death—the loss of a beloved program.  We are concerned about the teachers and children we will no longer see on a regular basis.  But we know that the fun, and love, and nurture that existed here for 51 years will continue in other forms. We know that we now have new and different opportunities to offer God’s love to this community.  We are already eagerly exploring just how that will be—just what plans God has for us.  God does not let love die.  We have resurrection on our hearts.

by The Rev. Nancy Webb Stroud

Rector, The Episcopal Church of the Atonement

The Astonishing Woman Baker

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

           

            For three weeks now, our Gospel lessons have been Jesus’ parables of the kingdom.  For most of us here, I think, the idea of the kingdom of God is a spiritual tenet—because few of us have lived in the kind of kingdom that Jesus’ followers knew.  The first people who heard these parables lived under Roman rule.  They knew the physical reality of a kingdom, and most of them experienced it as deeply oppressive.  But two thousand years later, we are happy with our participatory democracy.  Well maybe this week we are not so happy—but if the behavior of our elected representatives leaves us less than pleased, at least we know that we can vote them out at the next election!

            Maybe it is because we live in a democracy that is founded on principles of freedom and religious tolerance that we have grown accustomed to thinking of “the kingdom of heaven” as something that affects our spiritual lives—or rather something that will affect our spiritual lives after we leave this material life. 

            But Jesus was teaching about much more than what would happen to us in the sweet, bye and bye.  Jesus was talking about life right now, life right here in this world.  As Paul tells us in today’s lesson from his letter to the Romans, neither death, nor life. . . will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  So when Jesus tells his parables of the kingdom of heaven, he is not getting us ready for life in paradise.  He is trying to get us to think about right now.

            Of course, I know a lot of people, and sometimes I am one of them, who come to church exactly because it is nice to shut out the world for an hour a week.  It is nice to come into this space—not as cool as we would like it to be today, of course—but still a holy place, a place where shadows glow in the colors of the stained glass and candlelight, where we are accustomed to speaking in hushed tones, where the reverberation of the organ seems to tune our hearts to hear God’s whisper.

            And on a week like this week—when our government seems to be heading toward financial chaos, when the capital of world-wide peace is racked by a crazed terrorist, when nature seems intent on bringing us to unknown levels of discomfort—well, the idea of a weekly escape seems like a good thing.

            There’s only one problem with the notion.  It is not what Jesus taught.

            Jesus cared for the people right where they were.  He healed them and fed them and taught them.  He cared deeply for the least and the lost of society.  He gathered the children to himself, not because they were cute, but because they had so little power in their society.  He engaged in theological discussion—sometimes with scribes and Pharisees, but much more often with women and fishermen, with tax collectors and sinners.  Jesus cared for the lives of the people, and so he cared that they understood that even as they suffered under the oppression of Roman rule, they were important citizens of the kingdom of God.  Today’s Gospel lesson gives us five quick images of the kingdom of God.[1]

            The kingdom of God is like the tiny mustard seed that grows into a plant so large that birds may nest in it.  And so we know that the kingdom of God can grow from the least auspicious beginning.

            The kingdom of God is like treasure hidden in a field.  When someone finds the treasure he first he tucks it safely away in a field and then he buys the field.  And so we know that the kingdom of heaven is worth obtaining and protecting.

            The kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great price, so beautiful that the pearl broker gives all that he has to get it.  And so we know that the kingdom of heaven is worth giving up all that we have.

            The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet thrown into the sea that catches all manner of fish and is full to overflowing when it is pulled up.  And so we know that the kingdom of heaven is available to all.

            My favorite of Jesus’ images of the kingdom is this one: The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.  There is a wonderful commentary on these parables, written by Robert Farrar Capon.  Father Capon is an Episcopal priest, a theologian and a cookbook writer.  In fact, I first came across Father Capon’s work when I was a teenager learning how to cook.  Capon points out a couple of things about this parable that may have seemed obviously striking to Jesus’ first listeners.

            First of all, Jesus uses a woman as the agent in his parable—just an early acknowledgement of what we—or at least of what our children—have taken for granted, that women make for just as good a metaphor about God’ action in the world as men do.  It may seem obvious to us that Jesus was speaking to everyone, men and women—but to the first ones who heard the parables Jesus’ inclusion of women was a shocking upset to their world view.

            Another thing that we might miss that was obvious to Jesus’ listeners is the abundance of the bread that the woman bakes.  As Father Capon tells us, “Three measures . . . is a bushel of flour, for crying out loud!  That’s 128 cups!  That’s 16 five-pound bags!”  (Kingdom, Grace, Judgement, p. 100).  For those of you who enjoy the visual image:  if Father Capon’s calculations are correct, then the woman in the parable mixed the yeast into enough flour to fill 40 of these bags.  I baked bread for our Eucharist this morning, using just half of this bag of flour—about three cups.  I made enough bread to offer Communion to about 150 people!  The woman in Jesus’ parable took that yeast, and mixed it into enough flour to offer a mouthful of bread to 12,000.  If it sounds like a lot of bread to you, imagine how you would feel if you were truly hungry this morning.  Imagine how you would feel if you rarely had a meal that filled you up.  The woman in Jesus’ parable was making an astonishing amount of bread.  She was making enough bread to feed many, many people.  And so we know that the kingdom of heaven is amazingly abundant and astonishingly nourishing.

            There is a third obvious thing about this parable that may be easy for us to miss.  The yeast and the water in the bread are mixed together from the very beginning.  When we make bread these days, it is usually with dried granules of yeast, but in Jesus’ day, the baker kept back a lump of dough from a batch of bread, and mixed it with water and kept the gluey mess in a jar or pot until the next time she made the bread.  The yeast and the water went into the flour together.  Indeed the flour never knew the yeast without the water that carried it.  And so we know another thing about the kingdom of God—just as the flour never knows the water without the yeast; we have never known a time outside of God’s grace.

            The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened. Jesus worked with what was obvious to show the people the astonishing love of God.

            Jesus taught us all he knew about the kingdom of heaven, about the new life lived in the Spirit of God.  He taught us that is life that can start small, but it will grow big and strong.  He taught us that it is worthy of protection, and more valuable than any other possession we might have.  He taught us that the new life lived in the Spirit is available to all of us.  And in the parable of the woman baker, he taught us that the Spirit of God has been there all along, and yearns for us to join in the new life we are offered.

            Perhaps that is the most astonishing thing of all about the kingdom of heaven—we are invited to participate in it.  Paul says it this way: The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. That is, even though we don’t really know what we are doing, the Spirit is right here with us, holding us up, helping us to live in God’s love right now—in the heat, whether we are poor or rich, whether we live in places of political stability or frightening fragility.            But there is even more—because with God, there is always more—and that is, we have the power to be the ones who bring God’s love to the people.  When we join in the new life lived in the Spirit of God, then we can be like the bread that is mixed and kneaded, is leavened and rises, and expands in the baking to nourish all the ones whom God loves.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

July 24, 2011  Proper 12A

The Episcopal Church of the Atonement

The Rev. Nancy Webb Stroud

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[1] This would be as good a place as any to say that I am indebted to the Rev. Robert Farrar Capon for his insightful interpretation of this parable.  See especially his three-part work, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment:  Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), 2002.  

Weed Seeds

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

            And he told them many things in parables (Matthew 13:3a). . . .So begins the section of Matthew’s gospel where Jesus teaches the crowds about the kingdom of heaven.  The kingdom of heaven is like this; the kingdom of heaven is like that . . .. And usually, at the end of each little commonplace story, Jesus says something just a bit edgy.  At the end of the parable we have in today’s gospel, he says, Let anyone with ears listen!  Now, there were great crowds gathered around him, to hear what he had to say.  Of course they were going to listen!  It is almost as if he is daring[1] them to really hear him.  It is almost as if he said, “Are your minds and hearts really open to what I have to teach you?”

            Now what Jesus wants to teach about is the kingdom of heaven.  And the truth is the crowds that were following him had much more experience with kingdoms than we do. Kingdoms are about the few who have power and the many who are oppressed.  Kingdoms are about the few who have enough wealth to get what they need and the many who struggle to get through the day on what is left over.  The crowd who followed Jesus around and heard his parables for the first time knew about kings—the king, or at this time in their history, the emperor in Rome—had all the power and all the wealth.  And just in case there was any bit of power or wealth left anywhere in the known world, the emperor sent his legions in to occupy the territory and plunder whatever they could find. 

            I look around this room and I have to wonder, how much meaning do we get out of the image of “kingdom”? We got rid of the last king that was bothering us, and that was over 200 years ago!  Oh, we in this room might not have all the power and money we want.  We might feel oppressed by our tax burden, or wish we had more power when it comes to getting an insurance company to pay a claim, or making sure our kids are better off than we are.  But the kind of oppressed, even dispossessed, understanding of kingdom that Jesus’ first listeners had?  Probably not.

            Well, when the people first hear this parable, they may know more about kingdoms than we do.  But we know more about Jesus than they did, because we know about the cross and we know about the resurrection.  We know that Jesus came to the people—not to save their lives from a few years of tyranny and oppression.  Jesus came to give them something altogether new—new life lived in the Spirit of God.  And this wasn’t a gift to be opened sometime in the future, either.  This gift of new life was not reserved for those who died.  New life in the Spirit of God is life to be lived right now.  But how do we do it?

            Listen! says Jesus.  And then he tells his little parable.  A man sowed good seed in his field.  That night an enemy comes along and sows weeds.  The man who sows the good seed is out in his field at the usual time, where everyone can see and know what he is doing.  The enemy sows his bad seed when everyone else is sleeping.  No one knows anything about the sabotage until the plants begin to grow.  But right away, we know something about the kingdom:  good things happen when everyone is around to see and know what is going on.  Bad things happen in secret.

            As the wheat and the weeds grow up, the workers on the farm want to take out the weeds, but they look so much like the wheat and they are so tangled in with the wheat that the farmer knows that they cannot be removed without damaging the crop.  And the crop is important, because the fruit of the wheat will become bread that will nourish the people. 

And now we know more about the kingdom:  sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between what is good and what is bad, but there in one whose eye is on everything.  And we know that what is good will serve the people.

            It seems like such a simple story that it is kind of surprising that Jesus has to explain it.  But Jesus doesn’t use the parables because they are easy.  A few verses before today’s Gospel, Jesus explains that he is using the parables precisely because the people are having such a hard time understanding about God.  He quotes the prophet Isaiah,

            “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn—and I would heal them”  (Matthew 13:15).  Jesus tells the parables to try to find a new way into the minds and hearts of the people, so that he can heal them—that is, so that he can bring them closer to God. 

Later in the chapter, Matthew tells us, Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing  (13:34). That is, Jesus is telling us everything he has to say about the kingdom of God.  Jesus is telling us everything he has to say about the new life lived in the Spirit of God—but it will be hard for us to open our minds and our hearts.

            And so Jesus explains his little parable, using a neat allegory.  Jesus tells us that the seed in his parable are children—the children of the kingdom and the children of the evil one.  They grow up together, these seeds.  They look very nearly the same.  It is not possible to tell which of the seeds are the wheat and which are the weeds—it is not possible to tell until the fruit of each can be examined.  But when it is possible to tell the difference—then the farmer will separate the weeds from the wheat.  The weeds, which are useless, will be burned—but the wheat?  The wheat will become bread, and the bread will feed the people.

The first house that Bill and I lived in had a generous yard, with a small garden bordered by large rocks.  Every year we planted a few tomato plants and some zucchini, and lots of herbs and lettuce. 

As vegetable gardens go, it was not very much, but it always tickled me to eat a salad that came from my own yard.  We were never very tidy, and the weeds often grew up in and around things.  A couple of times every summer we would spend a couple of hours on our hands and knees pulling out the bad and admiring the good.  Toward the end of August, we would go on vacation for a couple of weeks, and when we returned, we would be greeted by herbs gone to seed and zucchini that looked more like clown shoes than food.  In the next few weeks, we would harvest our pumpkins and sometimes even clean things up a little before it got cold.

We made the garden a little bigger and a little more organized every year.  Then came the summer, 20 years ago, that I realized that I would be having my third child right in the middle of the growing season.  Somehow, the thought of tending the garden while tending two children and a newborn baby just defeated me.  If I couldn’t really keep the garden tidy and the herbs trimmed back without a babe-in-arms, how on earth was I going to do it this year?

So I bought one of those containers called “Meadow in a Can.”  Sprinkle this on the ground, read the directions, and in a few short weeks you will have a beautiful meadow of wildflowers!  Well, I handed the can to Bill and put my feet up to wait for the baby to arrive.  Edward came in July as the flowers were just starting to show their faces.  All through the summer we were treated to flowers and flowering grasses in a variety of sizes and colors.  It was quite lovely and it attracted butterflies, and unlike the baby, it never had to be tended—it just grew.

After the first frost, Bill mowed it down.  The next summer, with Edward firmly established as a member of the family, and Julia and William busily engaged in day camps and swimming lessons, I felt ready to tackle the garden again.  And so Bill tilled the little plot, and we planted our usual collection of lettuce and herbs, tomatoes and squash.

I am guessing that some of you knowledgeable people have discerned my folly.  That “Meadow in a Can” could have been called “Can o’ Weeds”!  When Bill tilled the garden, his careful work aerated the soil and spread everything around, making a lovely, fertile field for all of those beautiful perennial wildflowers and flowering grasses.  And so along with my lettuce and basil, tomatoes and thyme, grew a thick and tenacious bed of weeds—weeds with beautiful flowers, to be sure, but weeds that all but hid the tomatoes and got all mixed up with the tarragon and tender nasturtiums. 

But really, the only difference between the weeds and the good plants were the use to which they were put.  There was the summer when the fruit that nourished me were the beautiful flowers that grew without my tending them.  And there were the summers when what nourished me were the wonderful vegetables and herbs that grew despite the weeds and flowering grasses.

            Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing.  Jesus is telling us everything he has to say about the new life lived in the Spirit of God.  The gift of new life is freely given to all of the children of God.  We are like the seed scattered in a fertile garden.  We will grow and grow and we have the possibility of bearing fruit.  Jesus tells us that in the kingdom of God, good fruit will be like the wheat, that feeds God’s people:  the wheat that heals them and makes them whole.

The plants grow and grow, always under the watchful eye of the one who sows the seeds.  And in the end, the only way to tell whether we are the weeds or the wheat will be whether we serve the people.

Amen.

July 17, 2011  Proper 11A

The Episcopal Church of the Atonement

The Rev. Nancy Webb Stroud

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[1] This would be as good a place as any to say that I am indebted to the Rev. Robert Farrar Capon for his insightful interpretation the parables of the Kingdom.  See especially his three-part work, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment:  Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), 2002.  Fr. Capon is a retired Episcopal priest who also writes elegantly and deliciously on food.