I want to share with you today a new song by Lucy Dacus. I am going to spare you all because it’s my last Sunday with you by not singing it. Rather, I’m going to read it to you as a poem, and poems are almost always a kind of prayer. I think this is a kind of prayer. It’s called "Planting Tomatoes.” (You can also listen to the song here.)
Planting tomatoes in the
empty lot
Someone practicing saxophone down the block
And they are not good yet
They are not good yet
Picking flowers off the shoulder of the road
18-wheelers rushing by a little too close
Life is just a series of close calls
One day one will come to end them all
But before then, I've got some ideas
But before then, I've got some ideas
Coming together in a circle of hands
Gently pressing palms when the prayer ends
We all say amen
Say amen
Subtle pixelation of the world through the screened-in porch
I could sit here for hours
You've gotta live the life you're fighting for
You've gotta live a life you would die for
But before then, I've got some ideas
But before then, I've got some ideas
Hearing my friends laughing in the distance
I can't help but laugh along without knowing what the joke is
Can't help thinking that I am gonna miss this
Living in the moment, I can feel the moment passing
Now I'm older than you'll ever be
On a day you will never see
There is so much that I have not lost
Someday I know I will pay the cost
But before then, I've got some ideas
But before then, I've got some ideas
But before then, I've got some ideas
But before then, I've got some ideas
I could probably sit down right now and give you all a few moments to figure
out why I’ve started there and if in so doing whether or not it’s helpful to
you, if there is good news there for you. But let me linger among you a few
moments longer and tell you how I connect this song by Lucy Dacus to today’s
Gospel Reading. I know that my colleague, Rev. Anna, would likely be able to do
this much better than I can, since she is the published gardener and I know she
will be glad to rejoin you in a few weeks. But for today you’ve still got me,
who is better with making a caprese salad than in planting and growing
tomatoes!
In the thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus
is talking about sowing seeds. He speaks often about seeds in his ministry.
Mustard seeds that can grow into something much bigger. Tending to the vineyard
so that good grapes can grow and yield good wine. He speaks of grains of wheat
and of the harvest. Today he is speaking in parables which is his schtick. He’s
saying that the soil where seeds are planted matters.
I try to stay focused on what is right with the
Episcopal Church most of all and build on that. I’m committed to appreciative
inquiry when it comes to personal spiritual growth and to congregational
development. And then to also pay attention to what’s wrong and how we navigate
that, manage that, change that. I try to look honestly at our little branch of
the Jesus’ Movement and not to be too quick to judge other branches. Some days
that’s harder than others. But I’m going to break that norm briefly, this
morning at least a little bit.
We swim in the waters of American evangelicalism in
this country and although that isn’t all bad, it impacts on us a lot. American
Christians, even progressive ones, tend to know the Left Behind series
about the end times better than we know the Book of Revelation. That’s a
problem.
American evangelicalism has been around a while. Think
Jonathan Edwards – ever heard of him? And the Second Great Awakening and
sinners in the hands of an angry God. Think Billy Graham and “just as I am
without one plea, I come…”
I’ve managed to be with you for three months and only
at the very end mention Jonathan Edwards. In one place he said that “You contribute nothing to your salvation
except the sin that made it necessary.” That’s pretty classic American
evangelicalism. We are sinners, saved by grace alone. It’s not wrong – it might
even be right. But it’s not the only way to tell the story of our faith.
Yet it’s in the water. And some branches of that part of the Jesus Movement have been overtaken by a more insidious problem: Christian nationalism. American evangelicals have been more susceptible to this, I think. But that’s a much longer sermon. I do think, though, that our vocation as Episcopalians becomes clearer as we learn to speak about our experience with Jesus of Nazareth, the one we claim to be the Christ.
What I want to notice
with you today, though, is that the parable before us today is not about a one-time
event. Seeds die and the moment they do, they begin a process of transformation
over time. You don’t learn to play the saxophone overnight, nor get vine-ripe
tomatoes overnight either, sings Lucy Dacus. And Jesus of Nazareth says that
lots can go wrong when you plant seeds. But sometimes the stars align and there
is the right mix of sun and rain and good earth and things grow and produce
fruit.
And he says that we are
like that. I don’t think this is pushing it too far: I think Jesus might even say
that he doesn’t care so much about a day in one’s life when they may have
accepted him as Lord and Savior as he cares about those who choose to take up
their mats and walk, those who take up their crosses to follow him. The
planting of the seed, including the seed of the gospel, matters but only as a
beginning.
When we speak about a
great cloud of witnesses, about the communion of saints, we are saying
something very similar. If you want to know what it means to be a follower of
Jesus then find someone who’s been doing it for decades, in whom the growth has
been happening, someone who embodies the good news of Jesus because they have
been intentional about it over time. And then ask yourself: what do I need to
do to get to that place in my own life?
The Christian life is
about practices over time that change us for good. Last weekend it was my honor
to baptize Daphne here, among all of you. It’s the best thing I get to do as a
priest and it never gets old, even after 38 years of ordained ministry. But
that’s the beginning of a lifelong journey as Daphne and all of our young
people, our children and our children’s children, try to navigate this unsteady and confusing world. Including our
young pilgrims headed off to bonnie Scotland this coming week.
I spent my junior year
of college at the University of St. Andrew’s, situated on the North Sea, north
of Edinburgh. There, I met my future wife, another American studying abroad. I
also fell in love with the Scottish people so I was not at all surprised by the
joy and love they brought to Boston during the World Cup. I pray that our young
pilgrims will be changed for good there. I pray it will be a key moment in
their journeys that began in their mother’s wombs, and that continued when a
priest dabbed some water on their heads and sealed and marked them as Christ’s
own forever with holy oil. They have been claimed and these folks now headed to
Scotland are living into that calling, that claim on their lives. They are
growing in the faith, into the full stature of Christ. Thanks be to God!
We Episcopalians know
that Christian formation is a life-long process. We know God isn’t finished
with any of us yet.
God is not finished
with you, yet, St. John’s. We take the long view, and we do not lose heart.
Seeds get planted but along the way the growth that we observe in ourselves and
in others needs to be watered and fertilized and tended to if you want to get to
full and abundant life in Christ. There are ups and downs along the way but by
God’s grace there is an orientation to love. And love brings us close to the
God who is love. That love that is God, and from God, sustains us for the
journey. May it be so for you now and always.
Other seeds fell on good soil
and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let
anyone with ears listen!
