On which field of action did you encounter God, and see Jesus at work this week?  Is the Spirit that is moving in your life hidden, or revealed?  And what are the boundaries within which you expect this ‘holy encounter’ to take place? 

Jesus tells a string of parables today about what the “kingdom of heaven is like.”  Stories, wisdom sayings, and riddles, which are not straight forward allegories or metaphors.  His meaning is simple, yet hidden; available for all to see, yet multivalent and always surprisingly new.  He takes everyday things like mustard seeds and yeast, pearls and a net, and points to the unknown, the promised, but unknowable realm of God. 

One day, at the family home in central Wisconsin, Kim and my mom and I were out for a walk, and I pointed out the most beautiful purple colored wild flower by the side of the road.  Look how pretty the flower is, I said!  I noticed these when we were driving here too.  They fill in by the road so well, and make for a colorful view as we travel!  Oh, that’s Spotted Knapweed, my mom said.  It’s an invasive species.  We’re trying to get rid of those, they take over everything.  They often spread by cars, attaching themselves to the underside and being distributed to new territory unbeknownst to most people, very tricky little things.  Beautiful, but dangerous!  They can only be eradicated by controlled burns. 

Who knew Spotted Knapweed was so beguiling!  Attractive, yet invasive!  Not unlike the mustard shrub that becomes a tree, according to Matthew.  The black mustard seed was known across the Mediterranean as the proto-typical “smallest of seeds.”  The thing about the mustard seed, less than an 1/8th of an inch in diameter, was that it grew like a weed, sprouting quickly and becoming an impressive six, even as much as a 10 or 12 foot shrubbery, though not a real tree as we usually think of them.  So as a metaphor of comparison, it does the job: the kingdom of heaven grows from next to nothing in our lives, to an impressive, well, shrubbery!  Jesus’ kingdom is impressive, not on the level of Caesar Augustus’ kingdom, which would have been more like a might cedar tree, but on the level of making a home for the birds of the air to live. 

The comparison of the leaven reveals the same thing.  Three measures of flour was a rather enormous amount, something like 10 times the amount of bread a home-maker would make in a day.  I remember when I first learned to bake bread – the same basic honey-whole-wheat bread recipe I still love make – and that my favorite part was always the rising.  I hated the kneading part, the most difficult to master.  But as I have gotten better at kneading over the years, my favorite part is now… well I still like the rising part the best!  It’s amazing to watch it’s progress, slow but sure, growing in the bowl, rounding up and finally edging over the rim until double in size.  It has a life of it’s own.  And compared to the kneading, which takes training, and depends on your labor, the rising part takes place completely beyond your control.  So the comparison in this parable is also readily apparent: the leaven works, slow but sure, by the work of God, and grows into something much greater than you expected. 

But parables are more than metaphors, and Jesus most likely has in mind the subversive nature of the mustard seed, and the leaven, itself.  The mustard seed was a kind of an invasive species.  It spreads!  It will not be contained in garden or field.  There was a Rabbinical prohibition about sowing mustard seed in a garden with another crop at the same time. Mustard grows quickly, overwhelming other plants, spilling over it’s boundaries.  It is a desired and culinary plant for its spice, but it must be reigned in, sometimes eradicated. 

Jesus, is that subversive mustard seed – on one level, he is surely talking about himself in the parable.  Following on the heels of the parable of the wheat and the weeds, and the prohibition not to cut down the weeds until the harvest time, for fear of confusing them with the wheat, and cutting down the innocent, Jesus now tells about a farmer who sows weeds in his field, on purpose!  Jesus has become the mustard plant!  He sprouts and grows among the people, good and bad, and stands out, but will be cut down before the harvest.  He is rejected as a weed, an invasive species, an enemy. 

So Jesus is also like the leaven that was “hidden” in three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.  His kingdom was contending with was the kingdom of the Roman empire, which demanded obedience to Caesar, as a king and a god.  Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to – not the success of a soldier, or Caesar’s hierarchically ordered world – but to a woman doing a daily chore, making bread for the family.  And because of leaven’s hidden, unknown nature, it was considered somewhat suspicious.  It could be a good thing, as it is here in this story of raising an unexpectedly large measure of flour, but it could be a negative thing too, like “the leaven of the Pharisees,” that Jesus warns his disciples against.  

This is the part of the parable that does it’s work on us internally, pushing us to a decision, growing in us towards our transformation.  If we have ears, we hear, and are changed.  Jesus, coming as a mustard seed, and as leaven, did not come within the boundaries of where anyone expected to find him, not as the next King David to conquer Rome; not as the next King Solomon seated in the Temple.  Jesus came as friend of the working class, healer of the homeless, invasive species to the powerful.  His reward was, death on a cross, despised and misunderstood.  Do not cut down the weeds with the wheat, said Jesus, lest in pulling the weeds you uproot the wheat.  And so we begin to understand that Jesus, the mustard seed become a great shrubbery, who was the true king, is sacrificed as a noxious weed.  Jesus, the bread of life, and our unleavened bread of the Passover from death to life, has become our banqueting celebration, our nourishment and salvation! 

Where does Jesus crop up in your life?  Where will your next holy encounter be?  Jesus subverts our normal expectations of weeds and wheat, good and bad, evil and righteous.  As his followers, we begin to understand the realm of God that Jesus brought.  One where seeking revenge, would be to crucify him again.  What we thought was a weed, a bad fish, or evil, may turn out to be just the opposite, God’s own precious child.  We cannot contain God’s loving grace in neat little gardens.  God sows angels and messengers, leaven and mustard seed, in amongst us all.  The kingdom of heaven is not like a mighty cedar tree, but like a surprising shrubbery, beguiling and attractive, providing life for all, even for the birds of the air, and producing some delicious herbs that spice up our life!  God loves us that much.

We ‘craned our necks, looking down the road’ to see if we could see the end of the Critical Mass mob of bike riders.  But they kept coming, not just single file, but filling up 3, sometimes all 4 lanes of our Blvd, and stopping traffic in both directions.  People waved at us and said, “Happy Friday.”  There must have been hundreds, we thought, when we first saw them.  But after some 10 minutes without end, it was conceivably thousands, and boggled the mind!  That was a couple of Friday’s ago. Then yesterday morning it was the Tour de Fat.  We ‘craned our necks’ again trying not to miss any of the fun, and funny costumes, the double-decker and other eye-catching bicycles, riding right outside our front window. 

You don’t really have to ‘crane your neck’ to see the parade of bikers for our Bike For Real event, I admit.  It’s not quite a “critical mass” yet!  But I did look long and hard, and proudly, at the list of sponsors who donated in honor of our bikers, whose gifts will benefit Care For Real, our Edgewater food pantry.  We’ve had more than three times as many pledgers as bikers, and, it’s not yet too late to make a donation today!  And so I’m ‘craning my neck’ to see the finish line of our fund-raiser.  We have over $350 pledged so far, not even counting two more checks that have been promised for today, and one next weekend, of unknown amounts.  Maybe we can reach $500!  If I could only see into the future!? 

St. Paul says, “For the creation waits, craning it’s neck to get a better look at what is coming down the road, for the revealing of the children of God.”  ‘Craning it’s neck’ is a literal translation, anyway, of “eager expectation.”  For “the creation itself,” Paul continues, “will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”  Paul introduces this rather unusual ecological belief into his letter to the Romans, describing redemption, not only of humans, baptized into the triune God, and, life in the spirit, but the redemption of all of creation!  “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now,” Paul summarizes, “and not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”  In addition to ‘craning our necks,’ according to Paul, we wait as eagerly, and uncomfortably, as a woman ready to give birth any day, any moment now! 

In this very last letter of Paul’s that we have, we hear an incredibly seasoned and well thought out theology, an ecology of redemption, for all of creation.  God has sent the Son into the world to save us, that by lives of service, just as Jesus lived for others, we might be freed from a life of sin and death.  That is, saved from a life of living only for ourselves, a way that can only endanger healthy lives and life-giving relationships, our own and others.  “Choose life,” as Paul has said before, “and live.”  And so just as Jesus was sent by God, for us, Paul opens up the invitation to a wider vista, an invitation to “the great project, the global and cosmic dimension of salvation.” [N.T.Wright]  We are ‘craning our necks’ to get a better glimpse of the very dawning of the Son’s redemption.  As followers of Jesus then, we live in the “now, but not yet,” of the realm of God’s promise.  We live at the overlap of the ‘old and new creations,’ and we strain ‘our necks’ to see, ‘crane’ intently to be part of, the life of service to others that helps to inaugurate the Spirit of Jesus in the world, and indeed to transform all of creation under the just and healing rule of God’s children. 

St. Paul, a thorough-going Jewish student and scholar, has come to know Christ’s redemption, not only on the human plain for himself and other humans, but in terms of the “new heavens and new earth” that the prophet Isaiah ‘craned his neck’ to foresee. [Is.65:17, 66:22], as well as in the creation story in Genesis, that teaches how we were ‘made in God’s image,’ and have been given responsibility as ‘stewards’ and ‘care-takers’ over God’s creation. 

Just as we have learned from the bodily resurrection appearances of Jesus, and from the John’s image, which he ‘craned his neck’ to see, of the new Jerusalem coming down, to transform the old, in the book of Revelation, that the world and everything that God made is not to be discarded, but will be redeemed, so we understand God’s continued intentions for blessing and redeeming the world.  The Left Behind images of the destruction of the earth are the exact opposite of this very Hebrew and New Testament belief.  God means to redeem bodies and planets, sun and moon, birds and all creeping things.  God will transform us and the world, not blow it up.  That’s what Paul has taught us to ‘crane our necks’ to see.  We are again, and still, the care-takers of creation, and one another. 

So, Paul does a surprisingly impressive job, of laying the basis for “greening” our society, our economy and world, in a ‘care for creation’ theology that we are having to relearn now, in these days, again. 

Which brings me back to Green Week!  Biking is just a small gesture, an individual decision most often, but when multiplied, increases the reduction of our carbon footprint.  It’s just one way to be “green,” and be good stewards.  In other words, to care for God’s creation, to ‘crane our necks’ toward the realm of God whose aim it is to transform this world and make it whole again.  Or, in the words of Bishop Tom Wright, “if the world is to attain its full beauty and dignity as God’s liberated new creation, a beauty and dignity for which the present evidences of God’s grandeur within creation are just a foretaste, it will not do to regard beauty, and its creation and conservation, as a pleasant but irrelevant optional extra within a world manipulated by science, exploited by technology, and bought and sold in the economic marketplace. Christians must be in the forefront of bringing, in the present time, signs and foretastes of God’s fresh beauty to birth within the world, signs of hope for what the Spirit will yet do.” 

Creation is “groaning in labor pains” for God’s transformation, even as mother earth is in distress from our excessive carbon emissions.   But whether you believe we are the cause of global warming or not, the availability and price of oil on which so much of our economy and lives depend has become a national security issue.  So either way, we must come together as a “critical mass,” and ‘crane our necks’ now, down the road toward the new fuel that will be ours, and the planet’s, new life.  The age of oil has peaked, and we have less and less of a secure grasp of it’s production and delivery.  But, we can go green, be it for security, for money, for jobs; or for God’s good green earth. God’s future is calling us today, here in this “urban green space,” in our nation and world, to ‘crane our necks’ and see what’s coming down our own road, and I’m betting, it’s a hybrid, or a bio-diesel, or maybe even a bike!  

I took a large stack of the Bike For Real postcards with me, stuffed them in my pack, put on my helmet, unlocked my bike, and pedaled my way over to the Andersonville Farmers Market on Berwyn, between Clark and Ashland.  I had high hopes.  The Andersonville Green Week event was still over a week away, and this was a great opportunity to get out the word about our biking fund-raiser for Care For Real.  The postcards were attractive and clearly directed you how to sign up by either biking or donating on our Unity website.  And so I was excited about “sowing the seed” & spreading the “word.”  The farmer’s market was the perfect location, right off Clark, just a block south of our street, Balmoral.  And people who cared about the environment would be streaming in and out of the market, probably a good number of bikers too.  And, it was a beautiful sunny summer day. 

I positioned myself at the entrance on Clark, and there were lots of people coming and going.  I held out my first postcard to hand it to a 20 something young man who was carrying his bike helmet, but he gestured with the hand nearest me, and said, “no thanks,” and veered away.  What?  You’re my ideal target, I thought!  But, more were coming and going all the time, and there were about as many takers as those who ignored me or otherwise failed to be “good soil” for my project.  I knew that I didn’t have to target bikers alone, that anybody could donate to Care For Real, our Edgewater food and clothing pantry, even those who had never ridden a bike.  And just then, an older woman in a wheel chair gladly took one, and received it as her personal invitation! 

So I “scattered” the postcards far and wide, to everyone who reached out to accept, young and old, black, white, yellow and brown, rich and poor, some very eager, others somewhat skeptical, and those who mindlessly took one in mid-conversation not interested now – but perhaps later?  One, after taking a quick glance, deposited it in the nearest garbage can, right in front of me.  And more than one stopped and read the postcard on the spot, but returned it to me, and, in the Green Week theme, wanted it to be recycled and reused! 

I had a couple of interesting conversations too.  One gentleman, who took me for a biking expert, wanted to know a trustworthy bike shop.  He had taken his bike in twice to get fixed and both times it broke down again days later!  I told him about Igor our mechanic who’s coming next Sunday to do bike checks, but he was going to be out of town.  So we talked about other bike shops I knew.  He asked again about our Bike For Real event and, explaining how it worked, he promised to give it strong consideration.  Would this seed grow?

For all my careful planning, I wasn’t sure any of it would help my success rate.  So far I haven’t seen 30, much less 60 or a 100 people signing up for Bike For Real on our website.  More like my message was choked, withered, and stolen! 

Matthew sets this parable of the Sower in a prominent position in the gospel, making it the grand marshal in a parade of parables.  It’s longer and more elaborate than most, especially when you include the allegorical explanation Jesus gives.  And yet, Jesus’ parables are not about a neat and easy moral lesson.  The meaning is not contained in the parable itself, as David McCracken says, but they work in and on us, to find either acceptance or rejection.  Says McCracken: “Parables do not 'contain' knowledge; they cannot be understood as we understand a moral tale, an argument, or a statement. Parables precipitate internal action, forcing the hearer or reader [that’s you and I] to a crisis or collision that requires movement, which in New Testament terms is an either/or: either stumbling, or changing-and-becoming, …[and] being transformed.” 

And so in search for the meaning, we find mostly questions.  Who is the Sower in this parable?  God?  Jesus?  Us?  Is there some way that the good soil can be maximized?  Prepared, or fertilized?  Why is it that even the “good soil,” whatever that is, produces such differing results: 100, 60, or 30-fold?  And why is it that mirroring these 3 bumper wheat crops are 3 other ways of failing to produce?  So that, just as likely, the seed will be plucked up by the evil one?  Or received well initially by those who get excited about God’s kingdom among us, but wither just as quickly when the excitement is over, not yet being well rooted in the holy and life-giving word?  Or, most common perhaps, are the seeds who are choked out by all the world’s temptations to make it rich. 

And does this parable then, ask us to work harder, be better?  Barbara Brown Taylor describes this feeling best, I think: “...I had the same response I always do to this parable,” she says. “I started worrying about what kind of ground I was on with God. I started worrying about how many birds were in my field, how many rocks, how many thorns.  I started worrying about how I could clean them all up, how I could turn myself into a well-tilled, well-weeded, well-fertilized field for the sowing of God’s word.  I started worrying about how the odds were three to one against me … and I began thinking about how I could beat the odds, or at least improve on them, by cleaning up my act.” 

Just so, for all my planning, for all my high hopes for scattering our postcard “seeds” for Bike For Real, for all the thought and work I put in preparing to distribute them, the response was pretty mediocre, and largely impossible to measure.  

And yet, the Sower, I believe, is God sowing Jesus in our lives.  And we are the various kinds of soils.  Each of us, in fact, are various kinds of soils at various times in our lives.  If at first we are hard, or rocky or thorny soil, we also might be good and fertile soil later on.  And, I think, we are also called to be the Sower.  We spread the message, postcard or otherwise, whenever we share who we are with family and friends, newcomers and strangers, and we risk a bit of who we are, the person God has called us to be, and the person that faith has shaped us into, not knowing for sure how we will be accepted!  Hoping and praying that our ‘risk’ will come back 30 or 60 or even 100-fold to us, and for the good of the realm of God in God’s world, though realistic, it may just as often fail. 

One thing for sure, God scatters the seed widely on every kind of soil.  Surprisingly God doesn’t spend any time in soil preparation.  God’s method is courageous and bountiful scattering, a free and grace-filled giving that never waits for the soil to be all prettied up or what we would consider as ready.  God almost seems wasteful by our standards!  But God is like that, never holding back, just as God doesn’t withhold the only begotten Son.  

Can we do this?  Can we be God’s agents of boundless indiscriminate grace-sowing?  It entails rejections and failures, but also joy and surprising acceptance.  Certainly, whenever we go out, we go in Jesus name.  

When Dale started coming to church I thought it must be because his oldest son was entering Confirmation class.  But that was only part of the story.  Dale had his own catechetical questions, and he was hoping the church could answer them.  ‘If I come to church, if I sacrifice my freedom for the yoke of religion, will I get a blessing?  Will I have a better life?  Will my burdens get lighter?’ 

“Come to me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  Dale didn’t know this wisdom saying from Jesus, but none-the-less, it was the core of his story.  Dale was a jovial upbeat person on the outside.  He was well liked in the community.  But he also carried significant burdens.  As an only child, he was now the primary care giver for his mother, a demanding woman who was homebound, in her HUD-housing apartment.  He made it his duty to check in on her daily:  he did most of her shopping, and transporting her to doctor’s appointments and to all the extended family gatherings, Christmas and Easter, birthdays and anniversaries.  Dale never knew his father, who died when he was an infant.  Some years later he shocked the community when he announced he was getting a divorce.  In a community where everyone knew everyone else’s business, no one for a second, ever saw that coming.  Though it was amicable, there was enough hurt and confusion to burden Dale, his wife and children, and the whole community.

Through it all Dale matured in his faith.  Being unchurched, we baptized Dale on the day of his sons Confirmation, later he became a Council member and even President.  He was a member of the volunteer fire department.  Around town, Dale was known as the kind of guy that would give you the shirt off his back. 

At first, I addressed Dale’s questions by teaching him the Lutheran basics.  ‘You can’t barter your good works for a better life either here, or for a free pass to heaven,’ I counseled him as wisely and directly as possible.  But, God blesses us everyday.  Everything we have comes from God: our lives, our families, our opportunities, the blue sky and the rain, a bowl of cherries or a bowl of lemons.  It’s what we do with those gifts, or opportunities, that matters.  It’s how we respond with thanksgiving in service to God’s world, that forms us into followers of Jesus.  Our lives are in the shape of the cross.  The vertical line is God’s grace given to us, and the horizontal line is our life in, with, and for our neighbor in the world – both, our yoke of Christ.

Even after Dale realized there was no quid pro quo in Jesus’ promise of salvation, because we’re saved by grace alone through faith, he never totally gave up his questioning.  Thank God for that!  Our lives are also in the shape of a question, seeking an answer in religion.  Yet Jesus does not come to make things just a little bit easier, just a little better for us personally, like some “trickle-down” theory of religion.  Jesus would not, and cannot spare us from the grief we feel when a loved one dies, or from the twisting fate of tornado’s, or the endings and loss of once meaningful relationships.  But Jesus does come to invite us to the celebration of God’s banquet – “Come to me,” Jesus says, speaking as a personification of Lady Wisdom – he-she bids us to come and enter a new life, even amidst our weariness, because, the realm of God has broken in, through the death and resurrection of the Son, and is alive fully in that ‘trust fund’ we call baptism, the continuation, now and forever, of our Trinitarian relationship already begun at the font, and nourished at the table. 

Indeed, this is all of our stories.  We are all Dale, our lives in the shape of a question, looking to Jesus for rest, a place where we can let go of our heavy burdens, a way to feel good about who we are, and what we do.  Could Jesus’ invitation, "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me…. for my yoke is easy and my burden is light," be the answer we’re looking for?  That great Lutheran teacher Paul Tillich said of this verse: “This does not indicate a quantitative difference, a little easier, a little lighter. It indicates a contradiction!”  In Jesus, Lady Wisdom bids us to enter the school of discipleship.  The contradiction, or paradox is: this release from our burdens does not equal freedom, as we have come to know it, but taking on Jesus’ yoke, brings freedom.

Along with Dale, as our lives take on the shape of the cross, as we become disciples, we learn that it is not the church that saves us or transforms us, but through the church, it’s our response to the free gift of grace, to the call and invitation of Jesus.  “Jesus is not the creator of another religion, but the victor over religion; He is not the maker of another law, but the conqueror of law. [“Come to me…” is a call] to the New Being,” to use Tillich’s terminology again, “Forget all Christian doctrines; forget your own certainties and your own doubts, when you hear the call of Jesus. Forget all Christian morals, your achievements and your failures, when you come to Him. Nothing is demanded of you, no idea of God, and no goodness in yourselves, not your being religious, not your being Christian, not your being wise, and not your being moral. But what is demanded is only your being open and willing to accept what is given to you, the New Being [in Jesus], the being of love and justice and truth, as it is manifest in Him Whose yoke is easy and Whose burden is light.”.  [Tillich sermon, “The Yoke of Religion,” from “Shaking the Foundations”]

“Are you willing to leave behind your expectations of who God is, of what it means to be a disciple, of what it means to be church and to allow your eyes to be opened again and glimpse the promises that are already coming true?”  The contradiction, the gospel message of subversion calling to us, is that, the yoke of Jesus, is a gift of freedom, allowing us to “join in the celebration. The King is in the camp! Wisdom is vindicated! The Spirit moves among us!  Get on board, little children! Open your eyes. Open your hearts. The New Age is now. The promised land is wherever you are. Turn, grasp, embrace, serve — live differently — and the Holy [banqueting host,] Jesus of Nazareth will meet you … at the table, at the [O.N.E. housing] protest, in the [All American Nursing Home], in the board room, [and] in the halls of Congress — anywhere that justice is being done, bonds are being loosed, strangers are being embraced and the hungry are being fed. And, when we acquiesce to take on this yoke, the yoke of this gentle Savior, where we expect a burden, we find an easy load.”  [Scot Haldeman, “Out in Scripture” -professor CTS]

I suspect that Dale is still questioning, having learned his life of faith well.  Our questions arise because we are all caught up in “this generation,” and the temptation to call out names at those we don’t agree with in the marketplace of politics, which continues to perplex and divide us.  Jesus invites us to a new reality, right here in the very midst of our heavy burdens and politics, to receive the yoke of Christ, a surprisingly light burden, and a refreshingly transformed heart.  It’s the beginning of freedom, and the way of peace and justice, for us, and the world God calls, very good.  

On this Pride Sunday, we can’t help but celebrate along with the State of NY, and shout a few more Alleluia’s, for the passage of the Marriage Equality Act, Friday night.  After the Senate passed the bill, one commentator noted, there was a scramble, right down to the last minute, for the senators trying to figure out if voting for, or against the bill, would help them, or hurt them, come re-election time!  The tide is turning – like the confusion of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the transformation of the realm of God, is breaking in!

The welcome for same-sex couples now totals six states and the District of Columbia, when it comes to marriage equality.  New York is by far the largest, and first majority Republican state, to do so.  Kim and I watched the vote streaming live on the internet Friday night along with more than 45,000 others.  And it was quite a celebration in New York’s upper chamber.  There was jubilation, relief, and a welcoming, sustained, thunder of applause. 

The issue of ‘welcome’ is on Jesus’ mind too, at the end of a long chapter in Matthew’s gospel about living out one’s faith, and how to invite people to become followers.  I’m giving you the authority to welcome in my name, says Jesus.  “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”  Jesus is handing authority off to us! 

Welcoming was an essential ingredient in the Palestinian culture of Jesus day, and throughout the ancient Near East.  It was a social custom and essential art form to welcome the traveler, the stranger passing through.  In Israelite tradition, Abraham and Sarah provided the proto-typical example of hospitality.  The three strangers that stop by their tent one day seemed like ordinary travelers, yet Abraham and Sarah go beyond the call of duty and prepare a lavish feast for them, and sure enough, they turn out to be messengers of God, angels.  Which, a couple millennia later, prompted the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews to say, “do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” [Hebrews. 13:2]   

“Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because one is a disciple,” said Jesus, “amen, I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”  “Little ones” did not mean children in this case, so much as the new Christian believers and followers of Jesus, the ones they – and all of us – are called to reach out to with extravagant welcome; the seekers, those who are testing the waters of a Christian community, those who see in them – in us – a hope for an alternative to the dog-eat-dog rule of the empire, and it’s false gods of hierarchical exclusionism, it’s eco-destructive economy, it’s scape-goating of “the least of these, and little ones.”  Jesus builds his community on the wisdom of sharing the abundance of God’s gifts as it’s center piece, where the Messiah sets the example, even in sharing a cup of cold water on a hot summer day.  The reward is abundant life shared in community, and the promise of eternal life with all the saints.  The reward is receiving the welcome of Jesus, and if we say yes to the welcome of Jesus, thereby, we also have received the welcome of God, in the face of every seeker and believer. 

Welcome starts small, but is important in all we do, whether in sharing a cold beverage, or in sharing the deepest held beliefs of our hearts.  The welcome in Jesus name must be both.  Peter discovered this hospitality when he shared a dream with Cornelius, the Roman soldier, and outsider.  Peter’s dream was unexpected and deeply disturbing – the dream of the sheet descending from heaven with every kind of unclean animal on it and God telling him 3 times to eat the forbidden food.  Cornelius’ dream was to invite this Jew, Peter, to his home.  Peter is like a renowned Guest Speaker coming to a foreign land.  And the more Peter preaches the word of God, the more the Spirit descends on the household of Cornelius, until Peter himself says, “can anyone withhold water for baptism?”  And so, in a surprising transformation for Peter too, he baptizes his entire family.  And when Cornelius invites him to stay for a few days and celebrate, what else can Peter do?  The one who sent Peter, is the one who has welcomed and bestowed the renewing-restoring grace of baptism on Cornelius.  They are brothers now, Peter and Cornelius, welcomed in the name of Jesus, and welcomed in the name of this awesome God we have. 

Hospitality may start with a cup of cold water, but it is also much more.  It welcomes across social, ethnic and sexual boundaries.  It sits down with the stranger, the one who is different.  “Welcome” unites black and white, rich and poor, male and female, supporters and detractors of same-sex marriage, and gives us all a chance to receive the same reward.  It recognizes that even the presence, and breaking in of the Holy Spirit to create change, is just the beginning.  And we are called to continually invite people to sit down with us for a number of days, for whatever it takes, to learn who each other is, and where we come from, so we can continue to welcome Jesus into our lives, and the one who sent him.  We need transformation not just of our minds, but of our hearts, and our whole persons – and transformation of any social-political- and economic custom that separates us. 

The welcoming realm of God is a lot to share!  And so, beyond a smile and a handshake, we continue to deepen our welcome.  We sit down together.  We break bread together.  We march with Pride.  And we “praise the gracious power, the persistent truth, the inclusive love, the word of faith, and the tide of grace, that make us one.”  [“Oh, Praise the Gracious Power”, ELW 651]