[Propertalk] Proper 10 a 2017

[Robert P Morrison]

I'll try this in one mailing this week, since there are no
references...
I drafted this about a week or so ago, and typed it yesterday. It may
change a little, but ...
Happy Thursday!
Love,
Robert

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY   THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER
PENTECOST

	GENESIS 125:19-34   PROPER 10 a

	ROMANS 8:1-11    16th JULY, 2017

	MATTHEW 13:1-9, 18-23   PSALM 119:105-112

	 “Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game.” What terrifying
words! What on earth was Isaac thinking of? Don’t answer – we just
heard that he was thinking with his stomach.

	 But “Rebekah loved Jacob.” Equally terrifying! What on earth was
SHE thinking of?

	 The story’s as old as the hills. Dad loved ME best. Or Mum loved
ME best. Favouritism – the key to family, congregational, national
disaster. But it’s such an easy trap into which to fall. In fact,
seldom do we ever see it as a trap. It’s – well, I’m tempted to
say that it’s natural, but that’s the LAST thing that it is.
It’s UN-natural. As easy as it is to do, it’s the WORST thing that
we can do. It sets up jealousy, animosity, bigotry, prejudice,
everything that’s worst in human beings.

	 Now I can hear all sorts of rationalisations – both from three
thousand years ago and from this morning. Was Joseph so locked in to
macho stereotypes that the only sort of son whom he’d praise was
someone who lived by chasing down food, by engaging in rough sports,
by sitting around the camp fire at night,

	Drinking beer and belching. You know, manly things!

	 But Jacob – Jacob stick around the tent, dusting, washing dishes,
making sure the drapes were hung just right. He cooked – possibly
receiving things from Esau, who probably embarrassed his brother when
he dumped the antelope, or gazelle, or other wild animal on the
kitchen floor. You can picture it, I’m sure. Jacob didn’t do
anything worth being called work.

	 I can hear the intake of breath from at least half the congregation
already, and possibly even the hackles starting to rise. So,
Stereotypes set in far before the time of Jacob and Esau, and continue
right into the present. One sort of activity is acceptable, another is
not. One is seen as indicative of praise, another is taken for granted
and left unmentioned.

	 Where WERE Isaac’s brains when he set up this conflict? Where was
Rebekah’s head when she followed suit? The problem arises so easily
when people insist on making one person, one activity, one – well,
you name the categories. All this trouble because of favouritism that
starts out so carelessly and builds up into full scale conflict. We
see it in families – “I’m so disappointed in you for not going
to university!” “I keep wishing you’d do something else, or hang
out with different people.” And, perhaps the ultimate put-down,
“Well, you’ve been down that road so long, you’ve made your bed,
you’re just going to have to lie in it.”

	 Thus we categorise everyone. We make assumptions that WE have the
only rational understanding of what a person should look like, how a
person should live, what a person should prefer in terms of religion,
and so on. We love the one and we despise, or ridicule, or hate the
other.

	 It’s such a sad state of affairs, more so because it’s such an
easy trap into which to fall.

	 That’s one of the prime reasons Jesus was lynched. He didn’t
play favourites. He didn’t think before He accepted dinner
invitations. He didn’t worry about on whose head He laid his hands.
He reached out all around the three-hundred-and-sixty degree spectrum
of humanity to heal, to reinvigorate, to encourage, to accept
EVERYONE. No exceptions. No favourites.

	 I have a wonderful refrigerator magnet. The caption says, :Jesus
loves you. But I’M His favourite.” I keep it there as a reminder
that it’s totally and absolutely untrue.

	 Remember the parable that Peggy just read a few minutes ago? “A
sower went out to sow.” The way that Matthew and the other Gospel
writers set up their stories, we’re led to believe that when
“Jesus went out and sat beside the sea”, He cast His eyes around
to see who was in the crowd and what was going on around Him. If He
were here, it would be highly unlikely that He’d be in this building
for long. He’d far more likely be sitting on the cracked hazelnut
shells, leaning against the city water tower fence, pointing across
the street towards the Dari Mart, and saying, “There was a person
who stopped at the door of a market, counting through a coin purse to
see if there was enough to buy a pint of milk.” Or maybe He’d look
up, smile and say, “Three young children walked into a store
together and came out, sharing one ice cream cone among them in total
pleasure.”

	 In today’s case, Jesus must have looked up the slope running away
from the sea shore, and said, “A sower went out to sow.”

	 Now, in today’s high tech agricultural scene, probably you CAN set
your farm equipment to discriminate so that the seed doesn’t fall
where the farm worked chose NOT to have it fall. But this wasn’t the
case when Jesus told the [parable. As Jesus told it, the seed flew
everywhere. It landed wherever the cast of the hand and the force of
the wind took it. And Jesus was being specific. The seed was the word
of the Gospel which talked about complete acceptance, and welcome, and
encouragement, the equal treatment of everyone, and full access to
what made life healthy and fulfilling. The seed was scattered
everywhere and was only diminished in its capacity to grow by the
conditions others placed on it – by not clearing stones, or pulling
out thorns, or eradicating any sort of an obstacle.

	 God has no favourites. Put it another way, in what is, perhaps, an
oxymoron, everyone is God’s favourite. No one is better, no one
worse than the other. All of us have the capacity to accept or reject
the incredible lavishness of God’s invitation. It’s US, it’s you
and I, who, unfortunately, find it so easy to discriminate, to
withhold care and encouragement; who shrug our shoulders when it comes
to any number of things necessary for human life – like food, or
clothing, or educational opportunities, or healthcare – the list
goes on and on.

	 Isaac loves me best, we think, so we pattern our lives on pleasing
and emulating him, and we start to allow his standards to dictate how
we behave. But, said Jesus, the seed falls everywhere. ALL are to be
helped to be able to respond in as fair and as equitable a way as we
can possibly arrange. And if one person wishes to hunt, great; or
another to cook, wonderful; or another work in an office; terrific; or
– and this list goes on too, no one better, no one worse or lesser
than the other. And if one, for whatever reason, cannot get rid of the
stones, or the thorns, or is continually picked on, then it is our
responsibility to work alongside that person too.

	 Our Christian heritage can be a royal pain sometimes. Just as the
font in the middle of the aisle can slow us down a little, or make us
turn sideways, in order to move up and down, so Baptism into the
family of God keeps getting in our way. We have to slow down to think
about what we see, what we say, what we hear, what we touch, and, as
we’re asperged with the water of Baptism ourselves, what we taste.
ALL of our senses are engaged by Baptism. ALL of our beings are
reminded again and again that we are all equal before God in Jesus. We
are ALL called to take on the awkward mission of ensuring that we are
all God’s favourites in Christianity.

	 In a few moments, children will be brought to the water to be
welcomed into the household of God, such a household in which ALL
gifts are treasured and ALL stereotypes are banished. The parents, the
Godparents, and all of us make promises that we will ensure that this
will happen.

	 We don’t baptize and say, “Good luck, kid! Your parents, and
this congregation, and maybe even God likes your brother, or your
sister, or your cousin better. I hope you’ll make it. And don’t
look for God to make up the difference either.”

	 One of the ways in which we’ll demonstrate that we are marked as
Christ’s own will be through the way that we set aside all that
divides, all that inhibits, all that discourages others from growing
to fullness in Jesus Christ. Instead, we’ll show the mark of Christ
in how we celebrate and value diversity, because this is how the fruit
yields an hundredfold, and sixtyfold, and thirtyfold. And no one is
measuring to see who might appear to come out on top. The only thing
that matters is if you and I follow Jesus, and make it possible for
God’s Spirit to blow and to scatter the seed in order to bring
others with us. What matters is how we all live out the promises
we’ll remake in a few minutes.

	 What matters is how we accept the most vulnerable in and into our
communities and societies, and help them to know how important they
are, and how they’re loved.

	 The first reading today contains a perfect example of how NOT to do
this in life, even if you thing or feel you may be on the important
people list. The Good News, however, is that we all have the
opportunity to change, to correct our courses, to learn that God HAS
NO favourites. As Brooklyn and Brody as followers of Jesus, it’s our
responsibility to teach them that this is so. That and get to work
clearing away those stones, and pulling out the thorns, and so on,
that will inevitably be in front of them – and everyone else.

	 Here’s a vocation we may never have considered: stone clearing,
thorn pulling, making the way easier for people to know that they’re
loved, as we are loved, to God’s uttermost – and beyond.


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