This past week, I lost a dear friend of mine, a priest in this diocese, Carol Ludden. She died after a long struggle with brain cancer. She was many things—a dear friend, a mentor. She was also one of the first priests in this diocese to dedicate her ministry to working on the streets.
She spent
part of her time in Nicaragua, where she worked with small Christian
communities there. She introduced me to the story of the community of
Solentiname. Solentiname was a small village on an island in the middle of Lake
Nicaragua and in the 1970s, the priest there started a Bible study. Every
Sunday, the campesinos would gather together by the shores of the island and
read the gospel together. They would ask what the gospel was saying to them,
what the word of God meant for them. Years later, after the community was
destroyed by their government during Nicaragua’s civil war, the notes from
these Bible studies were published as a book called “The Gospel in
Solentiname.” It’s a book I use often for sermon writing.
The premise
of that study--and of the book as well-- is that the campesinos of Solentiname were just as qualified and just as
called to read and to interpret the Bible as a seminary professor at Yale. That
is, that every single one of us is called to ask what the Bible means for our
time and place--in community. I, as the trained and (now) paid professional, am
not the person who gets to tell all of you what the Bible means. We have to do
that together, all of us, in community.
So, to the
passage that we read this morning. Just a little background. We are beginning
Matthew Chapter 13, at the height of Jesus' ministry in Galilee. You have heard
of the Sermon on the Mount, earlier in Matthew's gospel? Well, this is the
Sermon by the Lake. And this sermon is a series of wise stories, actually--what
we call parables. They are really like folktales or folk stories.
Two things
strike me about this passage:
First, who
Jesus hangs out with. He sometimes talks with the religious leaders
and debates the finer points of the law, but he really doesn't spend much time
in those circles. Jesus hangs out instead with the peasants, the fisherfolk,
the small farmers--the ordinary people--of Galilee. And, of course, Jesus is a
peasant himself, right? He is a peasant Rabbi of peasants, as I heard someone
say this week.
Second, what
Jesus talks about. Jesus doesn't go on long tangents about important, weighty
theological matters. Jesus doesn't try to sound educated and smart. He sits
down by the side of the lake and says; "Hey, you know, there was this
farmer who wanted to plant a field...." He talks about ordinary things in
ordinary life.
He talks
about planting fields and fishing, about the land people lived and worked.
About housecleaning. About trying to save up enough to buy a field to support
your family. About looking for jobs. About desperate women begging a judge for
justice. About a landlord who cheated all these people. About everyday life and
its struggles.
WHY?
Because--and listen carefully to this--the kingdom of God is concerned with the
value and worth of ordinary people and with the importance of ordinary things.
Jesus is not spending a lot of time talking about a faraway heaven somewhere
and telling people to focus on higher, mysterious things. Jesus cares about
everyday life for everyday people. Because that is where the kingdom of God
happens.
Let me say
it again. The kingdom of God is concerned
with the value and worth of ordinary people and with the importance of
ordinary things.
And, with
this, Jesus tells a story. And Matthew gives us an interpretation of this
story. Jesus has been travelling around the towns and villages of Galilee, he
is at the height of his ministry, and he says-- you know, my work is a little
like planting a field. Any of us who have planted a garden or a field or even a
lawn know a little about this. I wander around these towns and villages and I
preach about the kingdom of God. I say; "The kingdom of heaven is at
hand." And sometimes--you know how it is, when you are planting a lawn and
the some of the seed you are broadcasting hits the gravel road or the path?
Sometimes people just don't want to listen and go on their way.
Sometimes
people get really excited about what I say and then they get scared. Lets not
forget--just thirteen chapters down the road, Jesus is arrested and executed
for what he is saying. Some people are scared of being associated with Jesus.
When Jesus preaches that every single person has dignity, that ordinary people
are children of God, this challenges the empire. It is hard to keep people
slaves when they believe that have dignity and worth.
And sometimes,
you know how it is, the thistle and the dock and the darn dandelions grow
faster than the grass? Sometimes people are excited, until they realize what
the kingdom will cost them. When they are told they have dignity, that's great
(we all love that!), but when they are told that other people do too, that is a
different story.
People made
money off treating people poorly. The tax collectors, at least some of them in
the gospels, collect toll taxes for the Romans and often extorted extra money
from the people and some people got pretty darn wealthy doing it. Landowners
oppressed those working the land, people they believed to be less than they
were. The kingdom of God, for some people, meant they had to live differently.
For some people, it was bad for business.
But, for
the rest, the soil was good. They heard this word of God--this word that every
one of us, that ordinary people, had worth and value--that their ordinary lives
were important--that the kingdom of heaven was lived by ordinary people doing
ordinary things. And they were glad.
That's the
story.
So, I have
a question for you. Today, in Aberdeen, WA, in the year 2014, in this
community, in this time and place--what does the gospel mean for us? What does
it mean for us to hear Jesus' message; "The kingdom of God is at
hand"?
I'd bet
that those three challenges are still in our way. Some of us maybe are too busy
to answer that question-- I certainly have been there. Or maybe not interested.
Some of us
are afraid of what it might mean to claim our dignity. To stand up and say;
"I am a person of value." For some of us, that is a hard thing to do.
It can make other people angry at us, even. Its a scary thing.
Some of us
are ok with saying WE have dignity--but we struggle when it means that other
people in our lives and communities have equal dignity. We are taught in our
society to look after #1 above all. That anything is justified as long as we
get ahead. But the gospel challenges our culture. Maybe it means our
relationships have to change or how we relate to the world and the people
around us must change. It might even be bad for business.
So, again.
What does the gospel mean for us today, here and now in this place? I cannot
answer that question, not alone. We have to answer it together, as a community.
I will ask it this afternoon. You all know about my ministry under the bridge
and this afternoon, we will start a small Bible study with a group of people,
asking just this question. And we all need to ask it. We all need to find ways
to answer it, in community.
I leave you
with that question. Today, in Aberdeen, WA, in 2014, what does it mean that;
"The kingdom of God is at hand?"
That is our
work. We all, together, must answer that question.
