WE SEE A GLIMMER... Isaiah 55:1, 10-13; Psalm 65; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender
As you know, #WPCSTRONG! Meets on Wednesdays at noon for a chit-chat, a bit of Scripture and prayer. It’s another way to connect via Zoom and you are all welcomed to join us! This past Wednesday, 5 of the 7 people on line are part of the gardening team this summer. We got to talking, again, about the disappointing yield of our beds so far. Robin, Cay’s husband, built beautiful new additions to the bed frames this spring and we got new soil from a different place to build up the beds. You know, we probably should be having this service outside around our garden beds. I could take the laptop and microphone out there and show you what we are talking about. They are pathetic. Especially in light of last summer’s bumper crop of 250 lbs given to Familyworks. Something is very wrong with the soil this year. We are desperately adding fish fertilizer every week, with a low nitrogen level, Mike C. Suggests steer manure in the fall before we put the cover crop down, Cay is tearing her hair out trying to figure out what is wrong with the ph factor in our dirt. I got a very good chuckle when I said to the group, guess what the Gospel lesson is for this Sunday? The Sower! Let’s hear it.
But this is the important lesson for all of us. There is some good news in the gospel and in our garden and in our lives. Dirt can change. Dirt can change. And more importantly, The Sower is profligate in her casting of seed. Extravagant. There is no other word for this Sower. Its like She’s throwing pixie dust! Scatters the seed everywhere, the rich lush soil, the rocky ground, amongst the thorny blackberry bushes threatening everything, even along the front walk where nothing ever grows because kids are always running through it. (slow down) She plants new seeds everywhere! Including in our own lives. This high-risk Sower is not acting in Her own best interest to gain the highest yield. Soil can change. How do we know this? The Sower spends the next 15 chapters of Matthew’s gospel throwing seeds everywhere--to the broken, the blind, the bleeding, the Gentiles, the Pharisees, the Religious Leaders, the women, the prostitutes, the fishermen, the tax collectors, the sinners. Everywhere, on everyone, like pixie dust. But that’s not all She does. She is not only a planter. She is a Master Gardener, nurturing the little shoots of growth wherever they appear. She does not give up on any plant, any soil, any seed. We know this because We Catch A Glimmer...
It is Isaiah’s clarion call: For the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return until they’ve watered the earth. So shall My Word be that goes out from My Mouth; iIT SHALL NOT RETURN EMPTY. Capitalize those words in your mind, write them on the lintels of your doorposts. Speak about them when you lie down and when you rise up. God’s Word shall not return empty. The Sower is still sowing. Listen to how Thomas W. Blair says it, “Spring does not just arrive because the earth’s axis tilts toward the sun. The warmth of God’s Presence arrives because God turns toward us in love. Forgiveness arrives because of the Wideness of God’s mercy. Joy arrives because we see a glimmer of our new in God in our own.” Unquote. I don’t know about you, but I need to hold these words close. I get all tangled up in me, me, me; my wants, my needs, my demands. Yet, God’s warmth has turned toward me in love, forgiveness, mercy and joy. I catch a glimmer...
This week it was in a 2 day argument with our friend, Josh, who is houseless. He’s back on the streets again after a 7 month hiatus in a motel up on Aurora. We give him breakfast most days and sometimes a cup of coffee in the evening. But he arrived back on the streets on a Monday and every day for the next 10 he was on our porch, except when I asked him to leave so Jeff and I could enjoy it. As you can imagine He makes a big mess. I give him the broom to sweep but it is not to my standards. He arrives early in the morning and because he is a smoker he coughs a blue streak, wakes me up. I ask hm not to show up so early and we get into it. I have to be reminded of Josh’s mental health as well as my own demanding ways. On the 2nd day of disagreement, I went inside to make him breakfast, came back out with it, and he said, “Am I still welcomed here?” I said, “Of course you are. Just not all day every day. I want to enjoy the beauty of my porch.” He said, with a sweet sad smile on his face, “It’s really comfortable, Tiare. That’s why I like to sit here.” In that moment I caught a glimmer of glory... And The Sower’s Command to share what I’ve been given. We Catch A Glimmer...
I want you to think about this question: Has God withdrawn Her Word to the World? Has it returned to Her null and void, empty, without completion? (Pause). Which leads me to ask, What is God’s purpose? The Psalmist doesn’t think so. ‘By awesome deeds You answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation; You are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. The River of God is full of water.” Provision written all over these words. You know where the river of God first appears in Scripture? The second story of creation, Genesis 2. “A River flows out of Eden to water the garden and from there it divides and becomes four branches.” You know where the river of God last shows up in Scripture? Revelation 22, last chapter. “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the trees of life...the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.” Jesus says in John 4, “Everyone who drinks of this water from the well will be thirsty again. But those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water I will give will become IN THEM a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
We are haunted by this glimmer of another world. It is a sight line that makes us head out into the streets in protest of another Black Person’s killing by militarized police. A catch phrase I learned from Rev. Willie Dwayne Francois III in New Jersey calls it the ministry of erosion, against the organized sin of white supremacy, within our country, communities, church and our own brains. It is us taking action to dismantle patriarchy that supports the continued oppression of women and people of color. We want to work with the great Sower to plant new seeds of hope, justice, mercy, generosity, empathy, and enough for all - especially economically. We have to address the white advantage in building wealth over time, which includes looking deeply at our own denomination’s history and practices, for we’ve been here since 1789. Rev. John Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence, an ordained Presbyterian Minister, 6th president of Princeton University. And a slave owner who argued against abolition. This is going to cost us something and it should. For we are people baptized in the River of God! Jesus didn’t go to the cross for nothing! It is Jesus’ redemption that makes it possible to open up our imaginations to dream new ways, new structures of thinking and being and doing. We Catch A Glimmer...of Glory! Amen