The Sermon on the Lake

Text: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

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.