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Rev. Laurie Matarazzo's sermon from July 26, 2020
Proper 12 A 26 July 2020
St. Luke’s and St. Mary’s Rev. Laurie R. Matarazzo

1 Kings 3:5-12; Ps 119:125-136; Rom 8:26-39; Matt 13:31-33, 44-52

I don’t know where to begin today. There is so much here in the scriptures we have just listened to. Do I start from that hidden place--the dark soil enclosing the tiny seed, or the invisible grains of yeast in the heart of 3 measures of flour--do I start from the smallness, the hiddenness of the kingdom of heaven and work my way out from there?

Or do I invite you to see the beauty and love of Solomon’s request. He was a king, the ruler of a great people, son of the most revered king in the history of Israel, and he could ask of God anything; anything he wanted. He could have asked for wealth, or more power, or the sure conquest of his enemies; instead, he asked God for “an understanding mind to govern your people.” Solomon’s central concern is the wellbeing of God’s people and he knows he can govern them well only with God’s help.

Or do I begin with my repulsion around the words, “God’s elect,” “God’s chosen people,” words that, misinterpreted, have led to untold destruction and grief when one group of people looks down on another, when one group understands itself as superior to another; as set apart, “chosen.” In the context of the history I am currently reading, I think of all the colonization pursued around the world throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th, centuries, when largely white western Europeans went out to “civilize,” to “Christianize,” and to enslave native peoples. Paul’s description of persons God “foreknew” and “predestined” for right relationship with God, these words sound so separatist, so elitist in my ears that my heart rebels.

Or, do I begin with my tears? Along with the Psalmist, “My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law.” Your law of love, O God, your statutes of merciful justice and your insistence on compassion for the least of our sisters and brothers--these precepts are not kept in this world. I weep easily these days, O Lord, as I study history, and listen to current events, and witness the ways we hurt one another. I weep easily these days, O Lord, as I discern the unjust and harmful systems that govern our lives.

So, where to begin this sermon?

I was driving slowly along one of our farm roads yesterday morning, thinking about this sermon and this question about where to begin. I raised my eyes to the heavens and asked God what she would have me say to you and her answer, which is almost always the same for me when it comes to this question of what to preach, was, “Tell them I love them. Tell them that I love each and every one of them; all people; my whole creation. Tell them I love them.”

So, if I begin with God’s endless, irrevocable, universal love for each of us and for all of “them,” whoever “them” is for you, and for ALL of creation, if we begin with this infinite love and look at all that we just heard in our scriptures, and at all that is happening in our world this morning, what then have I to say to you?

Beginning with Solomon, may I suggest that his humility in knowing that he doesn’t have all the answers, his compassion in wanting what is best for the whole people, and his wisdom in turning to Someone greater than himself for help is precisely what we need to look for in our leaders today. Here, my Friends, is love--this unselfish motive, this humble posture, this longing for true wisdom for the sake of others, this use of power for the common good--these are practices--that is, practical applications--of the Great Love that is God. Let us look for these things in leaders who stand for election when we vote.

Now, it’s a bit more of a challenge for me to find God’s great love in these teachings about God’s “elect.” I know that Paul was trying to keep the young Roman church together; a church comprised of Jews and non-Jews, and he needed to keep them in communion with one another. And I get that he was bringing forward, out of the Jewish tradition, this self-understanding of having been chosen by God; of being God’s “treasured possession,” and he was bringing this forward so that there was a continuation of this identity, not a rejection of what has gone before which might have caused a schism. However, I cannot see how a sense of being “chosen” cultivates or reinforces our understanding that God’s love is for ALL, that every human being bears some likeness of the God in whose image we all are created. Perhaps, if those folks felt they were “chosen” to embody God’s love for all, if they knew Love as their very purpose and mission, then I might make a connection between this singular “election” of one group of people and our universal identity of being One in Christ. You can hear it in my words; it’s a bit of a stretch for me. Maybe you can make a clearer connection and we can talk about it later.

And now, for the tears…
Has any of you felt closer to breaking down of late, or have you felt a lump in your throat at unexpected moments, or has moisture welled up in your eyes at some simple, everyday sight, or have you felt your heart expand and push emotions up into your chest lately? I contend, and I presume that research will bear this out, that we all are experiencing higher levels of emotion, more frequent outbursts, greater sensitivity and deeper sighs than we are accustomed to in ourselves. The threat of harm in this Covid time, is oppressive, the absence of human contact is deprivation, the limitations to specific spaces is confinement, the lack of a unified response among us is confusing and frightening. The ground beneath us feels unstable and life uncertain. These are the conditions of our common life at the moment. No wonder we are emotional.

Imagine, then,if you will, these conditions--oppression, deprivation, confusion, confinement, and fear as the quality of your life from birth; as the quality of life for your mother and father before you and their mother and father before then. I do not presume to know a thing about living in a dark-skinned body, but I have thought often since the pandemic began that we as a nation may be experiencing a tiny, tiny fraction of what our brothers and sisters of color have known as a way of life since their ancestors first stepped foot on American soil. Oppression, deprivation, confusion, confinement, and fear. I invite you, I urge you to ponder this. What is uncomfortable, what is painful and restrictive may yet teach us understanding and compel us to just and loving action. May our loving God make it so.

Which brings me, finally, to the tiny mustard seed, the grainy yeast, the priceless treasure, and the single pearl. Jesus tries so hard to help us understand the nature of his kingdom. It is not what we think of as a kingdom--a political and social and economic entity inhabited by human beings and ruled by a monarch. No. It is NOT a place up above the clouds where we go when we die. No. It is not even a conceivable human community where all are fed, all sheltered, all provided for. No.

Jesus tells us, time and time again, that the kingdom of heaven is small and invisible. Seed, yeast, buried treasure, a pearl in a shell--all of which, my Friends, can fit in a human heart. More than once, in other stories in our scripture, Jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven is “in our midst” or “within” us. In the non-canonical gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven is inside of you.” (3) Perhaps, my Friends, the kingdom is not a place but a condition; an indwelling presence. Perhaps when I say my heart is “sore,” I am expressing a wounded Love, a suffocated compassion, a sigh “too deep for words.”

Perhaps our sadness, our inexplicable lethargy, the weight of the day ahead each morning--perhaps all of this is some sort of prayer that the Spirit praying with us and in us. Perhaps we are praying our need unconsciously as well as consciously. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness,” Paul says, “for we do not know how to pray as we ought. But that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

There you have it, Friends. God loves you…and you, and you, and you, and all of us…endlessly. And God’s love is alive in you, it makes of your heart a kingdom where all are loved and respected and fed and sheltered and given what they need to live. This is where it begins, my Friends; this is where the Great Love is planted, a tiny seed that will grow into something great, something that will shelter and provide refuge; this is where God’s love can ferment, like yeast, and grow to nourish and strengthen others; this is the hidden treasure that will provide for the whole community; this is the pearl of great value whose shining beauty gives life over and over and over again.

When we pause and turn to God in prayer, we open ourselves to God’s goodness, which is to cultivate God’s holy kingdom within us, to kindle God’s love in us for the sake of the World.

Amen.

Below is a link to a recording of Rev. Fain Webb's sermon from the service on 8/2/2020.
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June 12, 2020 update
As of June 12, 2020, we continue to conduct weekly service online and the hall and Thrift Store remain closed until further notice.

"We have suspended public worship and church group meetings in order to keep our congregation safe and to protect the vulnerable. This suspension will, temporarily, include the availability of our buildings and property. We are confident that you share our concerns as they apply to your own important members. We must do everything possible to maintain the safety of everyone during this extraordinary period of risk. Therefore, we respectfully require that you suspend your meetings at STL&STM immediately and work with your colleagues this week to determine alternative and appropriate ways to provide support for each other. You all continue to have our support and prayers.”