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Jered Weber-Johnson | Craig Lemming | Marjorie D. Grevious | Barbara Mraz | Guest Preacher | All
Spiritual hope is harvested unseen after many seasons of patiently, gently, and consistently caring for our innermost parts. Parts that need constant gardening. How do we do this inner, spiritual work when we cannot immediately identify our wheat or our weeds?
The sower in Jesus’ parable does not see “less than.” The sower sees soil worth sowing in. God’s Word does not depend on perfect soil. God’s call does not depend on perfect bodies. God’s grace does not depend on perfect minds. God sows because God sees possibility where the world sees limitation.
We are set free from the power of sin and death, and from the need to perform flawlessly all the Commandments prescribed by the law, but we are not set free to do whatever we want. We are now constrained by the law of Love, and that very limitation is the space of our freedom, because it is the space of the Holy Spirit, who is always free.
Mr Johnson’s words and work, I believe, embody the wisdom in Paul’s Letter to The Ephesians. Paul reminds us: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Today’s sermon is about how limitations can become sacred sites of liberation. Limitations may be what we are born into: a body, a family, a society, a time in history. Limitations we had no choice but to live within. Limitations may be imposed upon us by principalities and powers over which we have no control. Limitations, innate and imposed, can be both frustrating and liberating.
The followers of Jesus, the disciples, included men and women, married and single, people of different ages, fishermen and tax collectors, perhaps farmers, shepherds, and day laborers. And at least one rich man. An eclectic bunch. Perhaps you and I might find we can imagine ourselves as disciples.
I am loved by God for all that I am created to be, without exception. In today’s gospel Jesus is saying he did not come for those who are so righteous they stand in judgement of their fellow human beings — he came for all of us who need spiritual healing, comfort, and restorative guidance — and at some point in this life that is every one of us.
Let’s assume for today that God does want personal communication with us, he is our mover and Trinity is our way of understanding the movers’ ways of communicating and being present with us. That is what I experience, direct communication with God. So, let’s wonder about some readings.
If you want to know and understand the mission of the church in the world, you couldn’t go far wrong reading and meditating on the Solemn Collects. The catechism says that mission of the Church is to reconcile all things to God in Christ. That’s the ministry Paul claims for himself and for the church at Corinth. The Solemn Collects spell that ministry out in detail.
“Gifts can only be gifts when we give them entirely away. The true meaning of our lives emerges when we humbly receive and generously give The Holy Spirit’s Love Divine to everyone. This Love Divine that flows generously through us is Christ’s deep river of living water.”
Guest preacher Nicole Starr is diakonal minister with the United Church of Christ and works as a District Court judge in Ramsey County where she holds tightly to the ideal that “justice is what love looks like in public.” (Dr. Cornel West, Union Theological Seminary).
Jesus is preparing to leave his disciples, and he knows what challenges and trials the future holds for them and those who will follow them, the suffering and pain, even the violence that will be brought against these beloved who have known him and struggled to understand his teaching, and he promises that God’s Spirit will come to them and abide with them when he is gone. He calls this Spirit, “Advocate”. In Greek, this word is “paraclete” a word that Johannine scholars have studied and debated and admired for millennia, and can mean “lawyer”, or, more accurately, an attorney for the defense. Seeing the conflicts and struggles of the church on the horizon, is Jesus assuring his disciples – “Don’t worry, I’ve got a great lawyer for you!”? Perhaps.
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