Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 & Isaiah 55:10-13

My pastor buddies and I were talking about our gospel lesson the other day, and we got into...I wouldn't call it a fight. Not even a heated discussion. Maybe an animated conversation about the passage.

They were trying to convince me that the parable of the sower is about the disciples' duty to spread God's word. Because it falls on pathways and rocky ground and among thorns and seldom in fertile ground, my friends were saying, because it is so tenuous and unrewarding, we have a duty to sow the word near and far and as often as we can.

This makes a certain amount of sense. After all, Jesus gives instructions to his disciples after they ask him why he speaks to the people in parables, rather than directly. And so he explains to them that they need to cast the word where it can grow, or so the idea goes.

My position, which was needless to say well-reasoned and insightful, was that this story didn't have anything to do with sending the word. It has to do with receiving it.

Romans 6:12-23

The passage from Romans that we just heard is actually the suggested epistle lesson from last week. I decided to hold it over to this week first because I had something to preach, but also because it speaks about freedom, which only seems appropriate for this weekend.

Martin Luther provides a helpful summary of this passage when he says

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

Matthew 10:40-42

You know, sometimes I think that we make our faith too complicated. We talk about how you have to believe this and think that and behave just so, or you won't get into Heaven.

God, meanwhile, says it's as simple a glass of cold water. Don't overthink it.

Here's the situation: Jesus sends his disciples out into the world on their training mission. As they go, he tells them that things won't always be easy for them. People are mean, is the bottom line. But if anyone so much as gives you a cup of water, Jesus says, they're in. They just made the cut for salvation, because they're not just welcoming you, they're welcoming me. And they're not just welcoming me, they're welcoming God.

Don't overthink it. Take the cup of water and bless them. Chalk it up as a win. You done good.

The message is equally clear for readers such as us, looking over the disciples' shoulders, as it were. Be good to one another, be good to those who come to you in the name of God. That's all. Offer one another a cup of cold water on a hot day, how much easier could God make it to get into heaven?

Now, having said that, I've pretty much given you the primary point of my sermon. That leaves us with about another 14 minutes and 30 seconds to fill, and there's really no advantage in expounding on a very simple idea. So let me tell you a couple of stories to fill out the point.

Genesis 21:8-21

Last week, as sometimes happens, I made up bulletins for two weeks in a row. And, as sometimes happens, I got a bit confused after looking at two weeks' worth of scriptures. For a few days, it was stuck in my head that the story of Abraham sending Ishmael away was the appointed lesson for Father's Day.

And I thought, what kind of a sick joke is this?

Now that things are straightened out and the reading is heard on its proper day, I renew my objection. What kind of a sick joke is this?

Matthew 9:35-10:8

I was intrigued by the little phrase "like sheep without a shepherd" in our gospel reading. So I looked into it, and it turns out that it's used several times in the Old Testament, usually to describe political leadership in ancient Israel.

Let me share just a couple of examples. This one is from the book of Zechariah:*

Ask rain from the Lord in the season of the spring rain, from the Lord who makes the storm clouds, who gives showers of rain to you, the vegetation in the field to everyone. For the teraphim ]the house gods_ utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; the dreamers tell false dreams, and give empty consolation. Therefore the people wander like sheep; they suffer for lack of a shepherd. My anger is hot against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders; for the Lord of hosts cares for his flock, the house of Judah, and will make them like his proud war-horse.

I must say, it's looking bad for shepherds like me. Especially when you consider how much rain we asked for this spring, and how much we actually received. Apparently, the shepherds of the sheep just aren't up to snuff these days.

Matthew 7:21-27

I have something of a theme going here. In my last couple of sermons, I talked about how God's creative work prompts us to make some choices between consuming scare resources and ourselves creating a common good. That second choice - making a community or a common good - was, I suggested, God's desired outcome, though of course we are free to walk any way we see fit.

Looking at this morning's gospel lesson, I realize that it's a bit unfair to say "create a common good!" without saying how that can be done. Lucky for all of us, Jesus gives us some hints in this lesson.

Whaddya know about that. It's almost as if somebody put our scheduled readings together so that a theme could develop over the course of a few weeks.

Matthew 6:24-34

I am tempted to leave my sermon at these three numbers: 4-0-9, which of course is the cost of a gallon of gas at our friendly neighborhood BP station in Kewaskum. (Or was, the last time I checked.)

But of course there's more to it than that. There always is.

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

The Old Testament scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann says of this passage:

Genesis I is a song of praise for God's generosity. It tells how well the world is ordered. It keeps saying, "It is good, it is good, it is good, it is very good." It declares that God blesses -- that is, endows with vitality -- the plants and the animals and the fish and the birds and humankind. And it pictures the creator as saying, "Be fruitful and multiply." In an orgy of fruitfulness, everything in its kind is to multiply the overflowing goodness that pours from God's creator spirit. And as you know, the creation ends in Sabbath. God is so overrun with fruitfulness that God says, "I've got to take a break from all this. I've got to get out of the office."

That's a pretty accurate summary, I'd say. We are almost overrun by all the goodness and abundance in Genesis. We have more than we could ever imagine or ask for from God, and we're only two pages into the Bible!

Of course, this is not the way we perceive things. If you ask us, we never have enough, time or money or energy or health. Some of those are natural worries, and some is just our sinful nature. And because of that sinful nature, our response to worry is often to grab at whatever resources we can reach, to hold them tight and attempt to monopolize them.

John 7:37-39

So, little Charlie, not to put too much of a damper on your special day or anything, but I just wanted you to know that the future course of your salvation will depend largely on grammar and punctuation.

Yes, yes, it's terribly sad. Frightfully awful, what. But no, there's really nothing that can be done about it. Sorry.

John 17:1-11

Here's a question for you: how do you do the impossible?

Let me tell you why I ask. I've been dipping into the philosophy again (a bad habit, I know), and I just read somebody who says that one way you can describe religion is as an encounter with the impossible.

Which stands to reason. Everything we know about medical science tells us that people who have been dead for three days cannot simply get up and walk around. And everything we know about physics tells us that it is impossible for a person to simply float off into the clouds and disappear. It just doesn't happen. If you came in to church this morning saying you'd seen it with your own eyes, I'd think you were nuts.

We don't just encounter miracles in our faith, we swear allegiance to them. We use the miraculous to make sense of our lives. We are Christians because we believe in the impossible story of Jesus' resurrection and the impossible claim that he is in fact the Son of God. And because we are Christians, everything we know about right and wrong starts with the impossible: God has acted decisively in history to accomplish the salvation of the world and our salvation from sin. In fact, God didn't just intervene in history, he became one of us, a claim that is so patently ridiculous that I'm surprised sometimes that we don't just laugh it off and start all over again.

And remember, I believe all of this. It's impossible, yet I believe.

1 Peter 3:13-22

Now, you have all heard me say I think that not many people we know are actually martyred for their faith these days. It does happen in places like Africa and Asia that people will be killed for being Christians. But even then it's relatively rare, and often has more to do with some kind of tribalism than with the actual content of their faith.

For example, Christians in Iraq have been the target of unrelenting violence since the US-led invasion. Recently, the Chaldean Catholic bishop of Baghdad was kidnapped and killed.

But is this persecution because they differ from the majority Muslim faith, or is it because under Saddam Christians enjoyed a favored status, and without the protection his regime they are now subject to the horrors of ethnic cleansing? You could make an argument either way.

The point is, persecution and martyrdom is distant from our lives today. We do not, we cannot, hear Peter's exhortation to "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you" in the same way that his original audience did. Unless there is something you're not telling me, we are not going to have to answer hostile questions about our Christian beliefs today. Nor will we face a beating, getting thrown in jail, or being executed because of them.

Yet we will be required to defend the hope that is in us.

How so?

John 14:1-14

There is an old joke, older than dirt, that goes like this. Forgive me if you've heard it before:

A man arrived at the gates of Heaven.

St. Peter asked, "Religion?"

The man said, "Methodist."

St. Peter looked down his list and said," Go to Room 24, but be very quiet as you pass Room 8."

Another man arrived at the gates of Heaven.

"Religion?"

"Catholic."

"Go to Room 18, but be very quiet as you pass Room 8."

A third man arrived at the gates.

"Religion?"

"Jewish."

"Go to Room 11 but be very quiet as you pass Room 8."

The man said, "I can understand there being different rooms for different religions, but why must I be quiet when I pass Room 8?"

St. Peter told him, "Well, the Baptists are in Room 8, and they think they're the only ones here."