Sunday, July 27, 2014

Invasive Maneuvers!

Invasive Maneuvers! from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

31He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."

44"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. 47"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49So will it be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

51"Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes." 52And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

God intervenes.

I was meeting with the chaplain at the hospital near where Leah and I live. One of the first people I met at Shelby Presbyterian Church had gotten the impression that I wanted to be a chaplain and so set up a meeting for me with the the head of the pastoral/spiritual care unit at Cleveland hospital. It was a good meeting, we shared lunch. Towards the end of the conversation, the chaplain asked me what single phrase I would choose to describe the good news God has given me to tell through my ministry.

There's a lot of good news to tell! So much that it took four gospels to describe just some of the aspects of who this Jesus character is! No one person could carry the whole of the good news through their ministry, except of course Jesus. Spoiler alert: I'm not Jesus. So Chaplain Len Byers question has stuck with me as a way of focusing myself, not trying vainly to give the whole truth, which is so much bigger than me, but just pointing to the piece of it I have been given to tell.

God intervenes in this world.

Jesus taught in parables, we've all grown up hearing them, and the last three weeks worth of gospel readings were from the same chapter, and all of them are parables. "[These parables] are not simple illustrations but...enigmatic utterances teasing the mind into reflection and response." They're a window that allows us to see how God is at work, but only dimly, because they can only describe what the kingdom of heaven is like, they can't paint an unambiguous portrait that encompasses the whole of God's kingdom.

But these parables invite us to be curious about how God is at work in the world. They provide narratives into which we can insert ourselves, but it's not always clear what God the Son is telling us about God the Father through these stories. When Jesus asks the disciples, at the end of our reading this morning, "Have you understood all this?" I picture them awkwardly shuffling their feet in the sand before giving their teacher the answer they think he wants. We can imagine them wondering, maybe it'll make more sense once I hear the next thing. Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't get it. Maybe he'll be disappointed in me if I say no. So they say "Yes?"

But I don't believe them. I'm highly suspicious of anyone who claims that they totally understand everything Jesus said. The truth is not dependent on our understanding or knowledge, we're just people after all. But when knowledge fails, we still have faith, which guides us forward in spite of our limited understanding.

God intervenes in this world. We may not always see it or understand.

In fact, we often understand very little of the world around us. One of the oldest questions that religions all over the world have had to address is "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

One of the solutions to this issue is to write off this world as inherently sinful, and that those of us who are saved will ascend to heaven where there will be no more suffering. I'm sure we've all heard celebrations of "When I get to heaven, something will no longer be a problem." There's even a taste of it in our scripture passage, "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So will it be at the end of the age..." I think that kind of theology can be a great comfort to people at certain points in our lives, but when we get stuck in that mindset, it can train us to only look to the future for God's activity. One day God will do this... as though God is distant, or sleeping, and not active in the world all around us.

This mindset may be especially appealing in our success, when we can tell ourselves that our victories are out of our own ability and goodness, rather than free gifts from the God of all creation.

God intervenes in this world. We may not always see it or understand. It's tempting to try and hide from God by pushing him into the far-off future.

I've always pictured the parable that begins our passage this morning through the classic Sunday School image of a tiny seed that grows over time into a mighty tree. Whenever someone brought up the image of a mighty tree, I always pictured the 200 year old oak that sits on the front lawn at my home church in Morganton, so big that it takes several people holding hands to wrap their arms around it, with long branches and broad leaves. We've got one beside our church. Isn't it amazing that such a small seed can grow into such a mighty tree!

But that image doesn't take into account what a mustard plant actually is. "Jesus probably has a twinkle in his eye as he plays on the popular image, drawn from the Old Testament, that a mighty Political Kingdom is like a great and strong tree." Growing up in temperate climates and deciduous forests, our image of a great tree brings oaks and hardwoods to mind, those are noble trees. But a mustard plant is a fast-growing weed, sure its seeds can be used to make spices, but in the arid ground of first century Palestine, growing plants for flavor was a waste of garden space. Imagine Jesus standing in the shade beneath a mighty tree, perhaps one of the cedars mentioned so often in the Old Testament in connection with Israel's monarchy, and describing the greatness of the kingdom of heaven as being like... kudzu.

God intervenes in this world. We may not always see it or understand. It's tempting to try and hide from God by pushing him into the far-off future. But the kingdom of God breaks through our barriers.

Jesus is a master of reversing our expectations. We expect a mighty tree, he gives us an invasive weed. We expect inspiring speeches, he gives us veiled stories. "He put before them another parable." We expect a conquering king driving the occupying Romans out of the Holy Land, he gives us a poor traveling rabbi. We expect a great and strong tree, he gives us a mustard plant,"it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." It's a wild and invasive plant, it's tiny seeds would get mixed in with the seeds a farmer would plant in his or her field, and the farmer would never know something different was coming until the fast-growing mustard would appear in the midst of his carefully cultivated crops.

So too the kingdom of God tends to mess with our carefully cultivated ideas. I think sometimes God likes to remind us exactly who is in charge around here. In the words of one writer, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." We try to put up barriers to God so that we can maintain the illusion of control over our world instead of relying on the faith of one who finds a "treasure hidden in a field... then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."

These parables give a picture of the abundance and invasiveness of God's kingdom, not as a far-off future, some utopia for which Christians can hope. Jesus preached that the kingdom of God is at hand, not on the way. The kingdom of heaven is breaking into the world and we get to watch as it happens. As followers of Jesus Christ, we even get to participate, as God works through us in the world, showing that God does not always wait for an invitation, but seeks out those who are in need. So too the church seeks ways to gratefully live in faith.

God intervenes in this world. We may not always see it or understand. It's tempting to try and hide from God by pushing him into the far-off future. But the kingdom of God breaks through our barriers, surprising us with the invasive providence of a loving God. 

Someone told me recently about a preacher who confessed that many of his prayers were variations on "God, I have a problem, and here's how I need you to fix it..."

But we don't get to choose the solutions. Sometimes we get the ones we pray for, the one's that we think fit our plan the best. Other times we get a mustard plant in the middle of our wheat field. It's never what we would have chosen in our own narrow view of our needs, but that's how the kingdom of heaven works. It pops up where we do not expect, and will take over our carefully cultivated plans in a hurry.

We can try and hold on to our own interpretation, and it is faithful to try and discern whether God is invading or if something else is trying to pull us off course, but it's important to remember what God has already done in our lives, to be reminded of who it is we serve, and to help us discover what God is doing in our midst. It will be surprising and sometimes frightening, because it's out of our hands. But we're in God's hands, and though it's not our control, it's even more comforting.

God intervenes in this world. We may not always see it or understand. It's tempting to try and hide from God by pushing him into the far-off future. But the kingdom of God breaks through our barriers, surprising us with the invasive providence of a loving God. We don't control the way God moves in the world.

So we're not in control, but we do have faith in the Almighty God, whose kingdom is already present among us, breaking into our daily routines that surprise us, and comfort us at the same time. Perhaps, when we learn to watch for God's activity among us, we can put aside some of our fears and trust God to carry us not just at the end of the age, but right now. Our hope is in the future God has promised us. Our comfort is in the mighty works God has done in the past, recorded in scripture and remembered in the stories we tell from our own lives.

But we have the opportunity to sing praises to the God who is doing marvelous things. So our response is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, because he's not content to let us alone, but claims dominion over all creation, from the earth, all stars, and planets rushing through space to the daughters and sons at prayer here in this small-to-medium sized church in a little town called Lowell. "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."



I wonder how God has intervened in our lives?



I wonder how we can watch for the kingdom of heaven present among us right now?

God intervenes in this world. We may not always see it or understand. It's tempting to try and hide from God by pushing him into the far-off future. But the kingdom of God breaks through our barriers, surprising us with the invasive providence of a loving God. We don't control the way God moves in the world, but we are rescued and reformed by God's invasive maneuvers.



I wonder what God's invasive maneuvers will be in the life of this group of people?

Let's find out.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Taking on Heirs



Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

24He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went awy. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?' 28He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29But he replied, "No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30Let both of them grow together intol the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"...

36Then he left the crows and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of he field." 37He answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; 28the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40Just as the weeds are collected and burned up wit fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!"

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

Romans 8:12-25

12So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh - 13for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!" 16it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ - if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

18I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

Leah and I have been married for a little over three years now, but have been a serious part of each others lives for almost nine. We met one another's parents pretty early on, but the question of fitting with one another's extended family took a while longer to get settled.

There's always some trepidation involved with meeting new family, especially family you're trying to impress so that they'll say good things about you to your future father-and-mother-in-law. So several years ago, when Leah took me to meet her family that still lives in Alabama, I was more than a little anxious. Alongside the hugs, the greetings, the welcome homes, there was also the furtive discussions of "that boy." Wouldn't you know it, every one of those discussions involved pointing fingers, stealing glances, and meaningful nods in my direction. I was "That Boy" to her family.

But as the weekend went on, I had a chance to gather around a table and graze on h'ors d'oeuvres with some of Leah's older cousins, while their children played in the back yard. Eventually, Leah's cousins broke off leaving only their spouses and me and half-eaten bowls of vegetable dip at the table. Then the conversation turned.

Each of the folks around the table introduced themselves to me again, and started sharing stories of how they used to be "that boy" or "that girl." They remembered their awkwardness aloud, and got to know me in a way that was more full of camaraderie than expectation. Each of them remembered their family inspection, and as a group they adopted me into the "that boy" club. We former outsiders made our own in-group out of the shared experience of trying to live up to the person who introduced us to the family.

That memory is perhaps the highlight of my Alabama trip.

Just so, Paul's theology of adoption is one of the highlights of his letter to the Romans. It's an image for the way God claims us and defines our identity.

The Christian Church in Rome was founded by someone other than Paul, and as such his letter to them does not address a specific issue in the life of the church, as many of the other letters of Paul do, but rather it introduces the Apostle, and gives us a summary of his theology as a whole.

But there was an issue that was eating up the Christian church in Rome. There was division between the Jewish and Gentile believers. Paul is speaking to a church that had divided itself along racial lines. The Jewish Christians on the one hand, the Gentile Christians on the other. The Jewish Christians were very proud of their heritage, of their connection with the ancestors whose stories and struggles are told in the Old Testament. They had been a part of God's covenant people already when they heard the good news of Christ.

When a social group gets put under pressure, there's a natural human tendency to try and hunker down into a defensible position, and to identify who is and is not part of our little tribe. When we feel threatened, we start dividing ourselves into smaller groups, to pull inward because it feels safer. We revert into an almost primal state of making sure our group, and only our group, will have access to the limited resources around us.

But the gospel challenges us to reach out to those around us, rather than to reach into ourselves. Because we have been adopted as fellow heirs with Christ, and whatever may be threatening us is "not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us."

Paul is a Jewish Christian, and was trained as a Pharisee before he converted to Christianity, so he has the same connection that they do. But he was sent as an Apostle to the Gentiles, to spread the good news beyond his own people. He does not discount the importance of the covenant with Israel, but he describes the relationship that we have with God in a deeper, more powerful way: Where there had once been a law, an instruction, a covenant, now there was adoption. God  claims us and defines our identity. Unlike a law we could break, "redemption is the powerful act of a loving God... and part of that love is not to allow us to botch it up." Redemption means adoption into God's household.

We are members of God's household, not as servants, but as fellow heirs with Christ. We are not hired into the household, we are adopted into the family.

My family line is very important to me, I keep wondering how much it would cost to get an artist's rendering of my family tree, depicting both the people and all the complicated relationships therein. I am, after all, Joseph William Taber IV: son of a minister, grandson of a neurologist, great-grandson of a construction worker who was also a poet. That's just one line, the Joseph William Tabers. There's also the Potters, the Barnettes, the Shrewsburys, the Boshells, the Barnards, and many dozens more than I could hope to count. Each family has stories to celebrate, triumphs and struggles, and more than a little baggage that their members carry with them.

But even though my family heritage has shaped my identity, it's not the founding principle of who I am. I am a child of God, adopted into God's household, and a fellow heir with Christ. There's not anything I've done to apply for it, I don't have some special genetic link, I certainly don't deserve such an honor, but that's the Christian claim: We are adopted by our heavenly Father. "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ - if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him."

I do not believe that the Christian claim is that we are somehow holier than those who do not go to church every Sunday. I do not believe that the Christian claim is that we are always going to be happy or successful in this life. I do not believe that the Christian claim is that we have access to some magical ability that is otherwise inaccessible.

The Christian claim is that God claims us and defines our identity.

My father-in-law tells a story of when he was young. It was the time in our cultural history when it was fashionable to leave home and go "find yourself." He packed his bags, and got ready to go, and announced to his dad that he was headed out to go "find himself." His Dad replied, "You don't need to go find yourself, I'll tell you exactly where you are. You're Don Boshell and you're standing on my front porch in Townley Alabama." Don was apparently satisfied by that, because he went back into the house and unpacked.

God claims us and defines our identity. But part of our task as the church is to remind one another of that adoption, because we will forget from time to time. Paul, in Romans, was writing to a church that was struggling with its own identity, with what it meant to be united in Christ, rather than divided by family and ethnic ties. The early church faced persecution, and Paul's assurance is that there is hope that outweighs the present suffering. Verses 18 and 19, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God."

God claims us and defines our identity.

It is tempting to set aside who we are and whose we are when things get difficult. It is tempting to trust in our own ability, because we can see the work of our own hands, but trusting the hope we have in God takes faith that may look like a luxury when we are suffering. Paul is pushing us towards acting in faith, knowing that part of the life of a Christian is suffering, but the claim God places on us through adoption defines us more than suffering ever could.

God claims us and defines our identity.

But it's easy to forget that truth when things are going well for us. In times of trial, we fall back on our faith for comfort, crying out "Abba, Father." But when things are going well, it's easy to forget what it means to be God's children. The church's job is to remind us of what it means to be a fellow heir with Christ. "If they are God's children, they are to think of themselves as in the same family as Christ, set to inherit all that Christ inherits. What Christ receives at his death is both suffering and glory"

God claims us and defines our identity. We are not who we are because we are successful, neither do we find ourselves in our suffering. We find ourselves when we orient our lives toward our relationship with God. The church is a community who have come together to remind one another of who we are and by whom we are adopted.

This church family has adopted me, and some of y'all are fiercely protective of me, others have expressed, and shown, a willingness to help me in any way possible. The reception we had to welcome me and Leah a couple of weeks ago was a big event in a long line of confirmations that this congregation and I are called to walk together into the next chapter of our ministry.

We know that new life in Christ is emerging into the world through the cross and the empty tomb, but it is a difficult transition. Paul is dealing with the suffering that still exists in a redeemed world, and uses the beautiful metaphor of childbirth to explain the connection between suffering and hope. "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies."

We are not satisfied with the state of the world right now, because we have seen a piece of the what redemption looks like, the first fruit of the Spirit. So we work to show the world the hope we have in Christ, and to proclaim the kingdom of God in our midst. When the rest of the world turns inward in the face of tension, dividing into opposing camps, the church is called to go out, and proclaim the hope we have in Christ Jesus. Perhaps that's the next chapter in our ministry, to be the strange folk who run to help, knowing that even when we stumble or end up going the wrong way, we are still adopted by God, and there's nothing we can do to lose that claim.

God claims us and defines our identity.

Because we have received a Spirit of adoption, and our church is stepping into the breach to share the hope we have for each other and for the world. We also know that we are not our own. We belong to God, as fellow heirs with Christ, who will not let us go. We will not always get it right, in fact we humans have an almost majestic capacity to botch things up. But we at the Presbyterian Church of Lowell have been called to be together so that we can share in both the suffering and the hope as "we groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies." While we wait for that adoption, that new life, we know who it is that claims us and defines our identity. We know that it is God who redeems us. Therefore, let us orient our lives toward relationship with God, and to live out our adoption into Christ's love.

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Understanding Mystery

Understanding Mystery from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Isaiah 55:10-13

10For 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,
11So shall my word be that goes 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.

12For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace;
The mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song,
And all the trees of field will clap their hands.
13Instead of the thorn shall come the cypress;
Instead of the briar shall come the myrtle;
And it shall be to the LORD a memorial,
For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

The Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

1That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the lake. 2Such crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the crowds stood on the beach. 3And he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9Let anyone with ears listen!’

18 ‘Hear then the parable of the sower. 19When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.’

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

My Dad spent many of his days off working in our yard, doing landscaping to make it feel more like home to him. I think he also did it so that he could spend a day working and see the results at the end of the day. Seeing the results of work in a church is a rare gift for a minister. Whenever I could, I helped him in the yard.

The soil in Burke County, where I grew up, is mostly red clay. When it's wet it turns into the heaviest mud you've ever seen and when it dries back out it turns into brick. Not a lot of good soil for planting and growing.

So Dad would order truckloads of topsoil and build up raised beds around our yard, breaking up the uniformity of the grade and adding some texture to our yard. We planted mostly flowers and shrubs. We went to the local hardware store and carefully select which little plastic tray had the best looking plants, then individually popping them out and placing them in a carefully measured hole in the high-quality topsoil we had purchased for the raised bed. We'd diligently mold the soil around the roots, top it off with a little mulch, and repeat the process until the project was complete. Then we'd carefully water the whole bed so that our little shrubs could properly thrive.

At the end of the day we'd sit on the porch with a glass of cool water or iced tea and survey the work we had done, enjoying how pretty and inviting the flowerbed already looked. Some days, instead of a raised flower bed, we'd work with potted plants to spruce up the porch or the driveway, transplanting plants into larger pots as needed, carefully cultivating our time and money to bring about the best possible result.

While I'm sure that God the son would be pleased to see a father and son team working side-by-side, Jesus tells a parable of a different style of planting. Rather than transplanting from pots and trays to a carefully prepared bed, he begins with, "A sower went out to sow."

The New Testament is full of parables, stories that are layered with meaning. They're kind of like an Advanced Placement version of discipleship. We've been unpacking them for hundreds of years, and they still have something to teach us. Jesus spins tales that invite curiosity and encourage us to explore what God is saying to us with each revisit to the story.

The parable of the sower is probably familiar to each of us. A farmer goes out to plant his crop, and he tosses out his seed, and it lands on several different kinds of ground, and each type results in a different kind of growth. Some dies before it can sprout, others sprout quickly and then wither, but some lands on good ground and provides a huge return on the farmer's investment.

Our human understanding would then suggest that we find more good soil, and only plant there, saving the seeds for the ground that will yield the most produce. We could carefully cultivate a garden with what God is doing, and find ways to maximize the gospel in that way, sort of a theological "best practice," as though the purpose of the church were efficiency, rather than faithfulness.

But the problem with that plan of action is that we only have a partial understanding of what's going on. God is often active in ways which we cannot see in this lifetime. Sometimes, we have to understand God's mystery through faith, rather than rthrough our own insight.

And that means spreading the word abundantly. We do not know which patches of soil God has elected as good, so the word must by spread with hope for all.

The farmer in our parable this morning is not setting up a greenhouse full of potted plants. His livelyhood is wholly in God's hands, and he is tossing out his seeds with reckless abandon, nowing that God's hgood harvest is assured, but not knowing where the best yield will come up.

So he casts his seed about, into the weeds, onto the road, in the shallow soil, and in the good soil.

There's no indication that he's aiming for any one particular place. He's just tossing out some seed, trusting God to produce whatever yield God chooses. Whether that be a hundredfold, or sixtyfold, or thirtyfold. The usual yield for a field of planting was three or four time as much return as one had invested. But the sower in Jesus's parable throws out the seed anyway, not in carefully prepared potted plants, but recklessly thrown wherever the seed might land.

The sower and cultivation of seeds is probably an image that came readily to mind in the farming culture of first century Palestine. But in 21st century America, most of us don't plant in the same way. We carefully set the boundaries of our gardens and raised flower beds, we choose the best bag of grass seed for the shaded parts of our yard and another kind altogether for the parts of the yard that get full sun. With very few exceptions, we're not relying on our yardwork to pay our bills for the year.

So what does it look like for us, if the recklessly faithful sower is not an image with which we can easily connect? If Jesus were shedding light on God's mysteries among us today, what image would he use to reveal this truth to us? An investment banker choosing stocks at random? A tech company developing whatever computer programs crossed their desk on a particular day?

I don't know how Jesus would tell it now, but I've seen some seeds planted this week at Workcamp.

By the end of the day Tuesday, I started to hear construction sounds around the neighborhoods as I drove to the houses where my crews were working. I assumed they were my crew, hard at work, and got ready to congratulate them for staying on task. When I arrived at the house, however, the crew was taking a break, sharing a devotional together, but the construction sounds continued.

As the neighborhood saw one house being repaired, they were inspired to do a little work in their own yards. They didn't have our funding, or our team of handymen guiding them, or our staff delivering supplies, but they got out their tools and tore down the old shed before it collapsed. They went ahead and added a railing to their back steps. They went ahead and pulled the nails out of the pile of scrapwood to make their yard safer.

When you scatter seed with abundance, you never know where you may find fertile soil. Perhaps in the hard ground of inner-city Petersburg a few seeds may sprout, not just in the houses where we work, but also in the neighborhoods that surround those houses. If we can take just a half a step in a week, that's worth celebrating.

Workcampers are are known in the city of Petersburg, where we have worked for twenty-six years. This year our home base, where we ate together, prayed together, played together, and collapsed from exhaustion at the end of each 16 hour day together,  posted bulletin boards covered in newspaper articles about us from the past 26 years of camp.

Two of my crews were on some of the roughest streets in the city. We sent teenagers into the area of the city where EMTs have standing orders not to enter until the Police have cleared the area. Driving up to one of these crews, I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of drug sales and I know I saw more than one handgun. We asked the police to increase their patrols in that area for the week we were there, but when our decorated vehicles and matching T-shirts rolled in, most of that activity moves away and leaves us alone. We may not have fixed their house, but we've done work on their grandfather's house, or their aunt's yard, or their sister's windows.

So by Thursday morning, all of the unsavory influences had moved away. That in itself is amazing, but what astonished me this year was when a couple of nine or ten year old boys approach one of my crews and asked if they could help paint the exterior of the house! Through their work, those two boys connected with our resident's son, a 22-year-old named Thaddeus.

Workcamp shows up for two weeks a year, we do some home repair, show the residents we love them, and maybe crime goes down or moves a short distance away for those weeks, but we're just passing through. Those 9-10 year olds found a male role model in their neighborhood who is going to be there for their day to day lives, and maybe show them a different possibility of what it means to be a man than they would have seen from the front porches in that end of town.

And if we had sought out the carefully cultivated raised beds, where we would have predicted that our seeds would grow, we never would have gone into those areas at all. It would have been easy to write them off as a lost cause, and moved on to areas that don't require as much bravery, as much faith, to enter.

"A sower went out to sow," and he tossed the seed all around, knowing that some of it would fail, just as the paint we put on the walls will eventually chip away, just as the gutters we repaired or installed will eventually leak, just as the handrails we built will eventually sag. "The work of the kingdom, like the work of the [sower], will take its share of blows, will have a series of overwhelming setbacks, but the abundant harvest is sure."


We will often not understand, in this fear-filled world, how God's abundant harvest will come, but God's will is not bound to human understanding. So the sower tosses his seeds around abundantly, know that God will provide from a place he may not have expected. The growth that comes from those who hear and understand the Word is worth the efforts that fail. God is able to pull up growth in places we did not expect, but we only get to see that happen if we throw the seeds out trusting that God will put them where they need to be.

Our scripture verse contains both a parable and an interpretation, which is pretty unusual. Jesus is content to just let most of his parables float out there without giving us much more insight. But understanding, in this parable, is highly valued. It's not enough to just hear the word. One has to be changed by the way God is working in the world, and in our lives. For Matthew, understanding is not just an intellectual exercise, it's is a commitment of being, rather than just grabbing new information.  "Such an understanding is so far beyond intellectual competence that it is regarded as God's gift." There's no way we can get to that level of understanding on our own, no stack of commentaries can change our lives, only God can bridge the gap to transform us.

God's will, however, is not bound to human understanding. God is always working in ways we cannot grasp. We are limited, God is not. So God is able to take scattered seeds and call them up out of the ground into a harvest beyond measure.

There's a lot in this world for us to fear. There are a lot of unknowns in each of our lives. But we know that our God reigns, and we know that God intervenes in the world. We also know that God's will is going to be done whether we understand it or not, and that God is working to the good of all creation.

So like the Workcampers who go to the dangerous neighborhoods to do their work, like the sower who spreads seed recklessly across all kinds of ground, "the church is called to 'waste itself,' to throw grace around like there is no tomorrow, precisely because there is a tomorrow, and it belongs to God." We know that, even if we don't understand, our future is sure, so there's no need to try and maximize things on our end by investing only in potted plants. When we have the faith to live abundantly, to share love recklessly, we know that we are finally understanding mystery.