Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45: 10-17
Romans 7: 15-25a
Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30

Have you ever gone to the fridge or the cupboard with a craving but after looking at all of the contents realized that you weren’t hungry for anything you had in the house? Have you ever longed for something then bought it and then realized, only a short time later that owning it didn’t give you the thrill you thought it would? Have you ever had the feeling that you were on a treadmill of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ and feeling that somehow there must be more to life? Do you ever go to bed unsatisfied with your day or sit down on New Year’s Eve, unsatisfied with the year even though nothing went terribly wrong and even though you’ve met the goals you set out for yourself and your family.

In today’s passage Jesus uses an example of 2 groups of children calling back and forth to one another looking for a common game to play and neither of them being satisfied with the suggestions of the other.

Before Jesus began his public ministry a man called “John” preached about the one who was to come and he offered the people who came to hear him a ‘baptism for the remission of sins’. When Jesus came, John’s mission was completed. Yet, as time went on, even John himself became disenchanted with what Jesus offered, as did some of the people who came to hear Jesus.

Jesus’ vision was not guided by a slavish devotion to the ‘law’ as understood by some of the religious establishment but rather a devotion to God through the Spirit. It wasn’t that ‘anything goes’ but rather a way of life in which ‘the law’ was not an end in itself, but rather a way of loving God and serving the people and the community. He went behind the letter of the law to the original spirit, or intent of the law.

They didn’t want what the traditional religion of their day offered to them, which seemed to be nothing more than a slavish following of many rules, but they didn’t want Jesus’ version of a heart and life committed to God and God’s love, either. It was, as if, nothing would satisfy them.

As Jesus pointed out: some of them didn’t like John because he didn’t drink, lived in the desert and ate weird food and they didn’t like Jesus because he drank, seemed to love parties and crowds and ate with everyone and anyone. It was, as if, nothing would satisfy them.

What ARE the signs of a good life? Well, it depends on who you ask! For many the “good life” entails popularity, and success. For many the good life involves getting ahead in life: acquiring more and more stuff? From the moment we are born our society preaches to us the gospel of consumerism. Parents are told that they have to have the best toys for their child’s development and enroll their child in some kind of early childhood education program. Parents must capture every moment, not just on a still camera, but on video. Parents must buy the brand names of clothes and snacks and toys so their children will be liked by their friends and belong.

Teens and young adults are told much the same thing with commercials carefully crafted to ‘push all their buttons’. Car commercials are aimed at various age groups and leave the listener with the feeling that his or her life is not complete without a vehicle that will make life ‘just right’. After all, doesn’t everyone need a vehicle that can handle the most rugged terrain! Or impress the right person! Or carry half the hockey team in style! Happiness means the right vacation, the right house, the right cleaning products and the right lawn and garden equipment. Happiness comes from buying stuff and when the feeling runs out, buying newer, more advanced stuff; last year’s model just won’t do!

Or does the good life come from being a success, and beat everyone else to the top of our profession! We turn on our TVs and the so called reality tv programs such as ‘Survivor’ applaud cut-throat competition, and the forging of alliances only to stab the other person in the back in order to win the prize.

If that is reality, do we really want it? If that is how we reach the good life, do we really want it? Do we really want to live in a world like that?

What satisfies us?

Whom do we serve?

A yoke is a carved piece of wood most often used to harness together two oxen so that they can pull together. It can also mean a device used by a single person to enable that person to divide a heavy load, such as water, into two. So instead of carrying one bucket of water two smaller ones are carried by supporting the weight across the shoulders by means of a carved and padded piece of wood.

I typed the words ‘ox yoke’ into my address bar on Internet Explorer on Friday morning. The first three results referred to things I could buy related to the words ox yoke. Then as I scrolled down I could find out about ox yokes. The internet is set up to do that, that is list the ‘commercial hits’ first! Just for fun I also put in the terms ‘horseless carriage’, ‘Model T’, ‘rhinoceros’, and may other words and the FIRST sites that were listed were almost always selling something. I put in the word Canada and the first site was ebay: find clothing and accessories for less! I tried but failed to see the connection between those two!

This is “Homecoming” weekend in several of our communities. In Rexton and Kouchibouguac we reminisce with family and friends, especially those who have moved away. This is also the “Year of the Veteran’, when we remember freedom preserved by great sacrifice. It is also the Canada Day weekend, and in the midst of eating hot dogs and watching fireworks, we are all called to reflect on what it means to be Canadian and to celebrate out country and perhaps we don’t celebrate our country often enough! We are, after all, the land of ‘peace, order and good government’! But we can be happy about it and celebrate it too! We celebrate the great Canadian Mosaic and, especially on July 1, we welcome many of those who take the oath of citizenship and who appreciate their new country in a way that we could do well to learn from.

I believe that the essence, or ideal Canada, is not about self, but the other: we have a vision of a life turned, not inward, but outward. In a CBC sponsored ‘contest’ we recently chose as ‘the Greatest Canadian’, Tommy Douglas, the one who forged medicare and various other social programs. It seemed to the majority who voted that the mark of Canada was the mutual caring and sharing of burdens that our social safety net enables and entails.

We must never forget that Canada is not just about what’s in it for the people like us, not just for Canadian citizens and residents, but rather how we can work together for the common good of the world. When we focus on ourselves to the exclusion of others we lose a large part of what it is to be Canadian and followers of Jesus.

Jesus calls people to come and leave behind the other ways and to follow in his way. He called those who followed him to leave behind the burden of the law, the demands of which were always beyond their grasp, and to accept the yoke or demands of the gospel. We may rebel at that and talk of wanting to be free, but the reality is that there is no such thing as complete freedom. We will always end up serving something or someone. Our choice may not be between Jesus or the ‘law’ but it may well be between the our consumer culture and the way of Jesus. Jesus talks about taking on his yoke, his way of working and being in the world.

In order to commit ourselves to the gospel yoke, what are we called to leave behind?

Perhaps it is the yoke of excessive consumerism, of buying and having and replacing and acquiring, but perhaps it is the yoke of excessive ambition, or the yoke of hectic schedules. Somedays we sit back exhausted and wonder if maybe, just maybe, the tail has started to wag the dog.

How do we get out of this? How do we have more quality time for our families, how do we choose what we truly want and need instead of being forced onto some sort of never ending treadmill of desire and dashed expectations. Jesus did not come preaching a gospel of prosperity - he didn’t really care about how much someone had, after they had enough, he then cared about how much someone loved.

He came presenting a new way. While his culture was so different from our own that it would be almost unrecognizable, his message is very relevant for today, because in another way, his world was no different at all.

Our culture’s ‘what’s in it for me’ attitude is challenged by the gospel which seeks to remove the burden placed by the striving for the things that do not last and can never satisfy with the command to love God to love neighbour and to love self - in a balance.

It’s a way to get off the treadmill- to say enough. To commit to One who is satisfied with what and who we are; to follow the One who in grace and love accepts us as we are and then calls us to be all that we can be. This One does not value us for our looks or our family name or our possessions but because we are all God’s children.

This yoke of this One of God is a call to a radical generosity, to care for the creation which God loved, which sustains us so that it can sustain our children, to care for the least of God’s children and to love our God with our whole being.

The yoke is offered to us, will we take it on and serve the one who called us and called us beloved disciples?

Amen!

Genesis 25: 19-34
Psalm 119: 105-112
Romans 8: 1-11
Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

We open our Bibles and we read these words “The Kingdom of Heaven is like ....” “The Kingdom of God is like” and we know we are about to read what is commonly called, a ‘parable’. Today’s passage begins slightly differently, with the words, “listen, a sower went out to sow......”. What is a parable? Is it a story with a moral? How does it speak of the Kingdom of God? Walter Wink, a teacher of preachers from New York, writes, in his book, “Letting Parables Live” : “Parables are tiny lumps of coal squeezed into diamonds, condensed metaphors that catch the rays of something ultimate and glint it at our lives. Parables are not illustrations; they do not support, elaborate or simplify a more basic idea. They are not ideas at all, nor can they ever be reduced to theological statements. They are the jewelled portals of another world; we cannot see through them like windows, but through their surfaces are refracted lights that would otherwise blind us -- or pass unseen.” As quoted on the PRCL-L Preaching List

We are very familiar with most of the parables told by Jesus. However, this familiarity can get in the way of our understanding of this method of teachings about God’s realm. Each of the parables seems, at first, to be a normal story about normal every day life in the places where Jesus lived and worked. However, in each of the parables there is a twist, or perhaps an unexpected ending, and it is in that twist, that unexpected ending that the message usually lies. The parables are there to “tease our minds into active thought”, as someone else has said, I forget who said this and to leave us scratching our heads and wondering what Jesus was really talking about.

So, the parables are not nice sweet tales with a safe moral, such as work hard, obey your parents, respect your elders, don’t lie, cheat or steal, and give generously to the poor. Although all of those things I just mentioned are usually quite worthy virtues, they are not promoted by the parables. Parables are, quite often, shocking statements, which would have puzzled many hearers and angered others. They continue to puzzle us today, and even, make us angry.

What is it, then, about the act of a sower sowing seed that makes it similar to the life of faith? What is it about this parable that would shock people? The different kinds of soil are well explained in the interpretation attached to this parable, which I read a few moments ago, but that is only one way to look at the parable.

For today, I’d like to focus on the sower. And that is where, I believe, the most shocking meaning lies. If the parable is a window into God’s realm then it seems to me that God’s ways are most like the ways of this sower.

A few years ago I bought some geranium seed for “salmon pink geraniums” from Vesey’s. (where else?) Vesey’s Seeds and the package had a stamp on the outside saying there were only 5 seeds. Usually seeds are sold by the gram, but geranium seeds are sold by the seed, they are so valuable. I remember being sent to one of the fields to pick rocks, or mustard, depending on the season and how bad a year it was.

Farmers know that they are at the mercy of their land, the year or the weather. Farmers know that they have to prepare the land properly before it is seeded. Seed is usually valuable and not to be wasted. Jesus seemed to ignore all of that in his parable which would, of course, be very irresponsible farming. But he wasn’t talking about farming.

This sower in Jesus’ parable just goes out into his fields and throws the seed out by the handful, in any and all directions at once. There is much debate about whether or not sowers in Jesus’ day actually broadcast seed in this fashion. However that is not the point, and people knew that Jesus was teaching them about God, not about farming.

I think that the people listening to Jesus speak knew that he was talking abut the love and mercy of God, the grace of God, the forgiving presence of God, the message of God’s will for human bings, and it was this message, this way of God which was being broadcast far and wide. You see, the sower did not look around first to see if this or that direction would produce the best results, but just flung the seed. It was as if he didn’t care if some was wasted as long as the seed was given the opportunity to grow.

This was once of those parables which would have made people angry. It was, as if, Jesus was advocating that they take the things which were most valuable to them and just throw them to the four winds.

However they were forgetting their own history; they were forgetting how extravagant their God had been to their nation in the past. You see, the story of God’s people as told in the Hebrew is certainly not your average story of fame, fortune and success. It’s not a story about people who worked hard, set their eyes on a goal, made sacrifices in order to achieve that goal, took setbacks in their stride and then, achieved that goal and lived, happily ever after. It’s not a story about a people who deserved God’s love and mercy.

It’s a story about a people who were constantly messing up, constantly getting it wrong, almost never ‘winning’; but it’s also a story of a people who, despite their circumstances, experience God’s power and grace.

If God was looking for a people who had achieved fame and success he would have chosen the Babylonians, the Persians, or some other more ancient and already successful culture. But, according to their own stories, God chose a childless couple and made of them a nation, with the intention that he would make of them a light to the other nations, so that others could look at them and see the greatness of God. God chose a geriatric childless couple to be the parents of a whole new generation .

And here was this carpenter reminding them that God still acted in this way, that God still needed to act in this way. Through the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth God wanted them to look toward divine grace rather than human ability.

We need to learn this lesson over and over again. We need to look at the history of the church to see how much we have counted on grace rather than our own wisdom or abilities or success.

We need to be like that extravagant sower, and spread the love of this God far and wide; even to those who may never bother, because we never know if it is rocks lurking beneath the soil or good healthy earth.

We have no right to be exclusive, to decide who is worthy of receiving the word and act of grace and who is not.

I did some research a few yeas ago into old communion liturgies, (most likely used in this church 100 or more years ago) in years gone by (in the Presbyterian tradition) and what I found was quite interesting. Thankfully we have left some of these practices and some of this theology behind. Admission to communion was by the presentation of little metal rectangles called ‘communion tokens’, which, presumably, only those deemed worthy received. The invitation to communion made it quite clear that the impure and the unholy were not welcome. The communion tokens (used on this charge) are inscribed with the words, “lest a man examine himself”. The invitation did not welcome those seeking to be in ‘love and charity with their neighbour’ but only those who actually were. If my memory serves me correctly the words said just before communion was distributed went something like, “these are God’s holy thins for God’s holy people”.

Now, it seems like a good thing, in a way, to promote the kind of community where hurts were corrected and good neighbourly relations were encouraged. Who could argue with having a community of people who take the gospel call very seriously? However, it seems to me to leave little room for human frailty. It seems to me to be more about law than grace. It seems to be more about judgement than forgiveness. We all know how communities, and individuals, can end up being less than the ideal; families don’t get along, old hurts die hard and, as Paul says, we end up doing the opposite of the good we want to do. Aren’t those the folks who should be gathering at the Table? Aren’t those the folks that Jesus came to seek and save? Aren’t we all like that, from time to time?

These days we take a different view of communion, and we welcome everyone who wishes to come, everyone who wants this food for the journey. It is not for the worthy but especially for those who know they are unworthy, everyone who knows how much grace and love means to their living.

This is also about how we distribute our charity; sparingly, or with loving generosity, without regard for the question of who deserves it or not? This parable is about the daily life of communities of faith, it’s about something as fundamental to the life of faith as the growing of food is to physical life itself.

We have to admit that it’s a risk to come together in community, (faith community of otherwise) with others, some neighbours, some extended family, some strangers, yet it is our call, to go out to the highways and bi-ways and invite the lame the needy the friendless, those who are in need of the good news - the seed does no good in the barn, that it the one place where we are guaranteed that it WON’T multiply at all. We are called to risk. To risk what is valuable for an even more valuable harvest. The sowing is ours; the growth is God’s.

Let us follow the God of sowing and harvest, trusting that there will be grace for the journey.

Amen.

NOTE: This sermon was preached three times. One of the services was a usual Sunday Service, one was special in that maembers of a family attending a family reunion were a large part of teh small congregation, and the third was a 'memorial' service (ie a service held in a church open only one Sunday a year and the offering goes for teh upkeep of the cemetery.

Genesis 28: 10-19a
Psalm 139: 1-12, 23-24
Romans 8: 18-25
Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43

One summer day I was visiting a friend and were sitting in her living room, talking and looking out the window. Suddenly there was a noise and we saw a small blur strike the window and fall to the ground. We thought it must be a bird, but it was so small. We went outside and looked carefully at the ground beneath her window and we saw a small hummingbird, lying motionless on the grass. Just then we saw the local cat coming along, as if he knew that there was an easy snack just waiting for him. My friend picked up the small green and red bird very carefully and carried it into the house, placing it on the coffee table. It was still breathing but did not seem to be able to move. We knew that most people don’t get the opportunity to be that close to a real live hummingbird, but we wondered if the wee creature would ever fly again. We marvelled at the delicate beauty and the wonder of this small creature of God.

We continued our conversation, all the while keeping one eye on the small creature and it’s laboured breathing. We were startled when the bird suddenly took flight and tried to get through the window it had crashed into minutes before. After closing all the doors to the other rooms we managed to trap the bird between the curtains and the window and when it calmed down we carefully picked it up and went outside. The same cat was still lurking outside so I shooed it away and my friend released the bird. We returned to our conversation thankful that we had been in the right time and place to save a small life. Moments later the bird reappeared, but this time it did not crash into the window, it hovered on the other side of the glass for a few moments, as if to say thank-you, and then flew off.

In Jacob’s day the widely held belief was that the earth was flat and the dwelling of God was above the sky, which was positioned over the earth like you put a dome over a cake to keep the flies off! So Jacob’s ladder, or to use a more accurate translation of the original Hebrew, Jacob’s staircase, was an appropriate way, considering the understanding of the day, for God to reach down and interact with humans. How else would one get from earth to heaven?

We no longer think of the earth in this way but somehow we still believe that God is out there somewhere or UP there, beyond our reach. But, Jacob put it well when, at the end of the dream, he said “God was in this place and I didn’t know it”. Jacob erected the stone pillow altar at Bethel to remind him of the encounter with the holy, and to remind the people who would follow him of God’s promise.

The name he chose for this place of encounter was Beth-el, which means, literally, ‘the house of God’. It was to serve as a reminder, not only of this event, but of god’s presence with the people, because as Jacob was to find out, God was not only in that place, but God is in all places.

Occasionally people feel the need to erect a monument to the intersection of heaven and earth. Often it’s as a result of a tragic occurrence. Outside of Halifax there is, or at least there used to be, a decorated Christmas tree which appear every year just before Christmas. Beside the traffic circle near Champlain Place is a decorated cross and some flowers and a similar one has been recently erected in Upper Rexton, These roadside shrines are supposed to be illegal, because, I suppose they are a distraction to drivers, but they seem to fill a need in those left behind, a need to recognize a terrible event.

Much thought and much controversy has gone into the process of choosing the memorial for the terrorist attack in New York City on September 11, 2001. Far as I can tell the chosen entry was designed to reflect a sense of absence; to point to the buildings and the people that are now absent as a result of the attacks.

(((REXTON))) There are many war memorials that speak of sacrifice, honour and horror. The monument at Vimy Ridge is one of those that comes readily to mind. Our American neighbours have the Vietnam Memorial, with its seeming endless line of black granite inscribed with seemingly endless lists of the names of those killed in that war. These memorials draw people to a deeper and larger reality, to the horror, but also to the lives lost and saved; to the courage of otherwise ordinary people. They remind people that our lives are not lived in a vacuum and that the reality of our lives was shaped by many who have gone before us. They also remind us that our reactions to what is happening and our responses and interactions are of great significance.

((((WARMAN REUNION)))

Many of you have gathered for the Warman Reunion. You gather around a common ancestor or group of ancestors and many of you have come home, to the place where the Warman family began its life in this country. No doubt you will remember those ancestors who built the family homesteads, who carved a life out of woods or took a living from the sea. You will have told stories of days gone by, stories of the Christmas there was so much snow, or the stories of the sadness that come to all families. You will reconnect with relatives you have not seen for years and you will decide who looks like whom. And you will have planted flowers. All of these are memorials, if only ‘memorials of the heart’ and all can be Bethel like experiences, for Bethel is simply the place of encounter.

(((CLAIRVILLE))) We have gathered as we do every year to reconnect with friends and relatives and to remember those whose lives have influenced our own. We gather to sing the songs of the faith that we remember singing in this place in years gone by and we give thanks. We give thanks to God for the memories, for the foundation this place has given us for our living. Perhaps we will ahve time to tell stories of the good times and the bad and how our community was shaped and made stronger by the faith and courage of those whose lives we remember. Our offering goes to the upkeep of those memorial stones where these loved ones have been laid to rest. But we must never forget that we gather always and foremost to give praise and thanks to God. We give thanks because this place, this church, this community, these families, all of this together has been one of our Bethels.

((((ALL))))) You see this passage is not about something that happened long ago and in a far away place (like some science fiction/apace odyssey) but is something which happens to us all, all the time.

We take too many things for granted and we just don’t notice the significance of many of the things we see every day. Heaven and earth are closer than we sometimes think. We have missed the point if we feel that it is only in these special places that we can encounter the divine.

God is always here; God is with us already, but we don’t often recognize it. We go through life and we forget that God has also made promises to and laid a claim on us. We are not promised a life without difficulty; we certainly know that from experience, but we are promised a presence; a presence that does not desert us.

We think sometimes that we have to come to a church building to meet the divine, but church buildings are only reminders of the presence of God, they are not God’s dwelling. Church buildings are the places where God’s people gather and they are a visible witness to the faith of that community, but they are not an exclusive dwelling, not are they God’s prison. God is free to live and be active in the world that is God’s beloved creation.

I believe that it was in W.O. Mitchell’s “Who Has Seen the Wind” that a child was quoted as going to the church because that was where God lived. We may find it easier to speak to God and to let God speak to us in a church but God is not limited to places like this.

I spent a few hours at Camp Ta-Wa-Si a few weekends ago and I was reminded of my summers at Camp Abegewit in PEI. I’m told that church camps are a great recruiting ground for budding clergy. There is something about the fresh sir, the sunset on the salt water, the crackle of a campfire, the singing of camp songs, even the silly ones, and the sound of a cabin of kids asleep at dawn that draws one closer to the heart of life, to the creator and to that creator’s will for all of humanity. There is something about quiet discussions with trusted adults and a space to be and to think and to listen to the breath of the Spirit.

I remember one such discussion I had with a camp director when I was a counsellor. We were in the basement of the main camp building trying to get the sump pump to work; or rather he was working on the pump and I was holding the flashlight! Or that same year sitting on the cliff, looking over the waters of Northumberland Strait, watching the Ferry from CN Marine crossing the strait and talking of following a call that would take me away from home. Significant moments, significant Bethels! Internet colleague Tammy Rider has written this reflection on the passage:

			
	Beth-El
Here in this place, 
this ordinary place,
in this holy ordinary place
where ladders descend from heaven
and rocks rise as altars,

God lives.

Here in this place,
this holy ordinary place,
in this place we did not choose
where tubes and machines
breathe for those we love,

God lives.

Here in this place,
this place between,
in this place on the road,
where stones cradle our heads
and the destination has no name,
God lives.

Here in this place,
this ordinary place,
Here.

The passage is about God’s commitment to Jacob and to his descendants and, of course, God’s commitment to all humanity. Jacob had not been very faithful to the promises, tricking his brother out of his rightful inheritance and he would go on to be tricked by his father-in-law.

God does not set up a contract with us, but operates out of a relationship of grace; God is with us for the long haul, not the short term and not conditionally; Our God is committed to us unconditionally.

Yet our God calls us into a relationship of blessing. God calls us to follow, to recognize that blessing and to live out of it. One of the most important things we are called to do is to witness to the blessing by being a blessing to others.

Our God calls. Our God is present in our lives and in our world, but we are called to take notice, to recognize this and then to live as if it is the most important thing in the world.

Amen.

Genesis 29: 15-28
Psalm 105: 1-11, 45b
Romans 8: 26-39
Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth in the immensely popular series about a British schoolboy growing up in a special school for magical people. Near the beginning of book six we go with Harry back in time and we see a young orphan named Tom Riddle being invited to study at the Hogwarts school by the kindly but firm schoolmaster, Albus Dumbledore. Even though Riddle had grown up in an orphanage with non-magical people he had become aware that he possessed some very special powers. As he welcomes Riddle to the school, Dumbledore tells him that his special powers must not be abused and that the school will teach him to both refine and control his powers.

The astute reader can see what Harry must; that he and Riddle share similar experiences and have many traits in common. This is especially important because Riddle has become an evil wizard, has changed his name to Lord Voldemort and has taken on the good wizards in an effort to control the world. He does not care who he hurts in his quest.

The Harry Potter books are full of puzzles, parables and stories. Each book begins with a problem: an object has been stolen, a prisoner has escaped, evil wizards are terrorizing good wizards and non-magical people alike, or some such dilemma and the stories and puzzles are the key to returning life to normal. In their attempts to solve the truths hidden in these puzzles, parables and stories, Harry and his best friends Ron and Hermione learn about themselves and what being a wizard means as they attempt to avert disaster.

The use of stories with a broader meaning is a common literary technique and, in the tradition of the prophets before him, Jesus used them a great deal. On the whole, stories do a better job of conveying the truth because that kind of truth cannot be conveyed in one a single sentence. It’s easier to describe God’s ways by telling a story than by saying in simpler, more direct sentences. To say that God is a persistent seeker, is better said in the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. Jesus’ stories and parables are often startling; they often have a twist or a surprise to them. It is the twist or surprise that would leave folks scratching their heads wondering what Jesus could possibly mean!

The people of Matthew’s church were feeling defeated and on the verge of failure. Matthew presents these stories of Jesus as an answer to their questions. Yes, God is still in charge. Yes, the Kingdom will come. Yes, their faithfulness is important. So the Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, “remember it”, “that was Jesus’ message to his disciples” and it was what Matthew wanted his church to remember!

Of course, we must remember that in using the words ‘like’ and ‘as’ we are not saying that kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of Gos IS a mustard seed, or IS yeast, or IS a merchant in search of fine pearls or is a net or even a scribe.

Some folks were sitting around one of those hospital waiting rooms reserved for people whose loved ones were in surgery. It was a lengthy surgery and the relatives and their minister were all very weary and “talked out” so one of them began to look through old magazines, you know the kind that end up in hospital waiting rooms. She showed an ad for a baking product involving yeast to the rest of the family and said, “That looks interesting, I’d like to try that”. One of them responded, “It’s not for me, I don’t want to cook anything I can’t control”. As told on the Midrash preaching list by Mike Johnson .

One day after Bible Study I was taking one of the participants home when she suggested that we go out for lunch. Since I had no other plans I agreed and we went to the local restaurant and ordered our meal and were duly served. Suddenly, in the midst of considering whether or not to order desert, she gasped. “I forgot my bread!” She had started bread that morning and had planned to put it in the pans after Bible study. Well, we left as soon as we could and when we arrived at her house she ran from the car and out of curiosity I followed. The bread had not only risen out of the bowl, pushing aside the damp tea-towel covering it, but had spilled over the counter and onto the floor. Certainly, it was out of control.

One of the examples in the biblical passage is of a woman who is said to have mixed yeast in with three measures of flour! There are two startling things about this passage: First of all, three measures of flour would produce enough bread to feed hundreds of people, apparently not even a professional baker would use this much. And second, the verb used is not really ‘mixed’ but ‘hidden’; there is a secrecy involved. But anyone who has ever made bread knows that yeast is a secret that is impossible to hide; yeast is, in a sense, impossible to control because it does what yeast is designed to do; it leavens and changes the dough in which it has been stashed.

The kingdom, the presence of God, is found in the mundane and the commonplace, yes, but it manifests itself in such a way that the effects are out of the ordinary, out of all proportion to what is expected and quite miraculous.

Sometimes it can be a little unwelcome. As I was doing some housecleaning the other day I came across the recipe for wine fruitcake, you know the kind that is sometimes called ‘Friendship Cake’; the kind that really tests a friendship! You go to the restaurant and buy a large glass pickle jar and you put 2 cups of this special juice you receive from your friend in the jar with peaches and sugar and stir once a day for ten days, then more sugar and crushed pineapple and then ten more days of stirring and then cherries and sugar and ten more days of stirring once a day! Then a dozen eggs and three cake mixes later you have three cakes and enough starter for two friends. If you can’t find two friends and feel that you should ‘waste not want not’, you go out and buy or bum 2 more pickle jars and in a month you’ll end up with nine cakes, and in thirty more days I think that you would have 27 cakes. So you see, leaven has its consequences. A parishioner of mine gave me some sourdough starter once. I kept it going for a while but grew tired of sourdough cake and muffins and used it all up. I was told that she had also given some to a previous minister who used it, fed it and kept it going for a almost a year, until a friend was house-sitting and cleaned the fridge - thinking that the sourdough was something gone very bad (it does have a certain smell) , it went in the garbage!

Mustard was not a positive word in my house. My mom didn’t buy the kind you put on hot dogs, she bought the kind you put in pickles, but outside the house, in the grainfield it was a weed. I’ve never seen it any taller than 4 feet but maybe we were lucky to get it young. It’s now kept at bay with herbicides; it’s the only thing you can do with acres and acres of grain. Mustard is but one of many relatively large plants which grow from relatively small seeds.

Small seeds and large plants; a little yeast and great vats of fresh fluffy bread.

How often does God’s presence stop us in our tracks? How often are our plans and our values and our schedules challenged by the ways of the kingdom?

Many of us work very hard for what we have; our house, or cars, our vacations, our children’s education, our RRSP’s and the like. The message of the gospel in this day and age, I think, is that the things of our faith are at least this important.

I was talking to a new dad the otehr day and his comment was, “It’s amazing how much a baby can change your life!” Yes it is. It’s amazing how something so small can make such a big impact. Yet in order for them to properly car for the baby, their life has to change!

How much more then does the Kingdom change our lives. How much more potential is there fro growth and change and development.

There IS risk involved; yet the rewards are great. And when we are talking about the Kingdom of God, we arenn’t just talking about heaven, but the life of faith lived in the community of faith and in the presence of God. It is something which changges us from within, as if we were being filled with yeast, it is as if we were a small seed producing a big plant. It is as of we had found a great treasure or a pearl of great price and committed all we have to acquire it. It’s that important. It’s that valuable.

It’s more than going to church. It’s more than one or two aspects of your life; yeast is invasive; it fill all of the bread; God seeks to be part of all of our lives. God’s presence, God’s kingdom is the most valuable thing there is; let us respond in kind.

Amen.