Childlike Hospitality - Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Childlike Hospitality

Pentecost 17B (Lectionary 25)

September 19, 2021

Good Shepherd, Wells, MN

Mark 9.30-37

In the first five years of my life we lived in St. Louis Park, west suburban Minneapolis, and we became friends with the Fleming family. It was easy because our moms were stay-at-home, they lived two doors down from us, and we had children of similar ages. Although we would move to South Minneapolis. and eventually suburban Richfield, and they would move to suburban Hopkins, we stayed in touch with them, getting together once or twice a year, often at Thanksgiving time. When we ate together, since there were 13 of us, there was an “adult table” and “children’s table.” As you can imagine, those children at the children’s table longed for the day when they’d be promoted to the adult table.

The status of children is at the heart of Jesus’ lesson on discipleship in the Gospel reading today. We have been traveling with Jesus and his followers on the road to Jerusalem and as he goes to meet his betrayal, crucifixion, death and resurrection, he has been teaching them the way of Jesus. If you’ve been on that journey with us, you know that they have been baffled by Jesus’ words. As New Testament scholar C. Clifton Black says, “They are so dense that light bends around them.” Unable to fathom Jesus’ predictions about his mission, they prefer arguing among themselves to asking questions of Jesus.

What are they arguing about? Greatness. We don’t know precisely what they were arguing about. Perhaps who was Jesus’ favorite and right hand man or, perish the thought, who was going to take over when Jesus dies. Now, this is not unusual for 1st century Middle Eastern men, as status was everything for them. But, what we do know is that Jesus takes the opportunity to tell them what true greatness is about. And here Jesus does one of those topsy-turvy, stand expectations on their head kind of thing. He says that true greatness comes from serving others.

To make his point, he puts a child in their midst and says they need to welcome others like this child. Now, similar to relegating children to their own lower dinner table, but far more extreme, children had no status in Jesus’ time, not until they became adults at age 13. Children were little more than property and weren’t to be seen or heard. Jesus is inviting his followers to look around at those people who don’t have any status or standing, those at the margins of society that no one takes seriously, those who appear disposable. Who are they? Jesus frequently mentions tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, and lepers, among others, as worthy of attention.

In Canoeing the Mountain, Tod Bolsinger uses the Lewis & Clark Expedition to find a Northwest Passage as a framework for understanding the challenges facing the church today. Lewis & Clark believed they could canoe their way to the Pacific Ocean. That is, until they hit the mountains. They had no expertise for the way ahead and everything they thought they knew was useless. So, they did something unheard of: they listened to a voice at the margins, a young Native American mother named Sacagawea, who helped them find a new way forward into uncharted territory.

This week Good Shepherd has officially entered the interim period as you prepare for the calling of your next pastor and that work, along with pandemic recovery, may prompt some “Make Good Shepherd Great Again” feelings. But, as we walk this road together, Jesus invites us to remember the measure of true greatness is not in how many people are in attendance or how much people are giving, though those two things are important. Rather, true greatness is measured by how we share with others, how we care for others, how we love others and how we serve others, as well as how well we pay attention to those others that we may be missing from our table.

The lesson of the children’s table, the child in the midst of the disciples, and Sacagawea remind us that there are voices at the margin that are missing from the table and need to be included as we move forward. I am excited about the possibilities that face Good Shepherd and the work we will be sharing. We may not know the way forward, but we do know that the One who walked with those first bumbling, clueless followers also continues to walk with us, prodding us to service, strengthening us to do it, and forgiving us when we fall short. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Let’s Go! … Oozing Love - Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Let’s Go! … Oozing Love

Pentecost 12B (Lectionary 20)

August 15, 2021

Grace, Waseca, MN

John 6.51-58

“… and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (Jesus, in John 6.51b)

“You are what you eat.” (Popularized by Victor Lindlahr)

On a recent episode of Science Friday, host Ira Plato talked to Sarah Everts, researcher and author of The Joy of Sweat. She talked about what makes sweat useful, it’s chemistry, and why it’s our evolutionary superpower. Then Everts told a story of a woman whose sweat was red and, if that was not disconcerting enough, it was ruining her clothing. The doctors ran many tests, but couldn’t figure out why her sweat was red until one day they noticed her brownish-red fingers, like a roll-your-own smoker. Except she didn’t use tobacco in any form. To make a long story short, the woman was consuming 45 bags of tomato snack chips per week and that’s why her sweat was red. I hope they were small bags. Can you imagine?

If we are what we eat, then what does it mean that Jesus’ flesh is for the life of the world? Today’s Gospel is the fourth of five texts reflecting on Jesus as the Bread of Life in John 6. Three weeks ago, in the story of the feeding of the 5,000, we discovered that the shape of Holy Communion was hinted at there, summed by the letters BBBS: Bring, Bless, Break, and Share. Last week we reflected on how Jesus as the Bread of Life gives us what we need for our wilderness times and, because we are the Body of Christ, enables us to be the Bread of Life for others going through difficult times as well.

In today’s text, what was hinted at about Holy Communion comes full bore as Jesus becomes more explicit and, dare I say, graphic. The Word who became flesh in John 1.14 now shockingly gives his flesh and blood to eat. It’s easier to see in the Greek, but this is no ordinary eating; this is chewing or munching. As we’ll see more pointedly next week, this is “tough to swallow” (as Eugene Peterson says in The Message). And, if you like puns, Jesus is trying to get a rise out of the Jewish authorities, but they can’t stomach this and are getting fed up, if not sick.

There has been a lot of ink spilled over what happens in Holy Communion, what kind of presence Jesus talks about. As Lutheran Christians, we insist that we consume Jesus, just as he claimed, without explaining it. When Jesus says “This is my body, this is my blood,” we believe that “is” means is. Bottom line: that means that Jesus goes to every part of our body, every molecule and atom. And at the risk of being just as graphic as Jesus, comes out through our very pores. In all that we think, say, or do we ooze the love of God through Jesus for the sake of the world.

Today is my last Sunday as your Interim Senior Pastor and besides thanking you for the opportunity to walk with you these past two years, I want to share with you some of my observations about God’s call on you. First, God has gifted you with tremendous staff and lay leadership; a beautiful worship space and physical plant; an endowment fund to meet community and individual needs; a childcare center, Grace Garden, that is respected throughout the community; and dedicated volunteers such as Ward Ask and Randy Bennet who guide the mission to Pine Ridge and the quilters who send more than 300 quilts each year all over the world. Even more so, God has given you a desire for reaching out into the Waseca community in a meaningful way, as yet discovered, and you are looking for a leader to guide you.

I’ve learned that both this congregation and the Waseca community is resilient and continually comes together to meet difficulties and traumatic events, and that Grace is often at the forefront. I’m confident that you will weather the storm of the pandemic with the same resiliency and become stronger for it. Furthermore, I suspect that because the school system is such a central component in Waseca you will build upon your long standing relationship with them and find new ways to be partners. Even so, I hope you will discern a way to address the significant mental health needs that are arising because of the pandemic.

Finally, I would like you to remember that the hard work of the Discovery Team, Call Committee and Church Council to call your next senior pastor is not the end, but rather a new chapter in God’s mission and ministry through Grace. So, please look deeply at the new mission statement, vision statement, and core values and then live them out while living into them. And remember that you are beloved children of God because you are what you eat, the very flesh and blood of the One who gives himself for you, for the sake of the world. So, Go!, oozing love. Amen.

For the video version and entire worship service click here.

Let’s Go! … In the Strength of This Food - Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Let’s Go! … In the Strength of This Food

Pentecost 11B (Lect. 18)

August 8, 2021

Grace, Waseca, MN

John 6.35, 41-51; 1 Kings 19.4-8

One Sunday after worship, Terri approached me and said, “I just want you to know how much my son, George, appreciates your sermons.” Her son, a high school teen, had been serving on the AV team the past several Sundays and, I might add, had been held captive to my sermonizing. I don’t know what I said that day, probably mumbling words of gratitude. But what I do remember is that I was going through a rough patch in my ministry at that time, which Terri couldn’t possibly have known. And I distinctly remember thinking that I would go “in the strength of that food 40 days and nights into the wilderness.”

Now, I’m not presumptuous to compare myself to the prophet Elijah in our reading from 1 Kings 19 today. This snippet doesn’t do this wonderful story justice, of a prophet who, with the power of God, does some amazing work only to run in fear of his life from the wicked Queen Jezebel. Yes, that Queen Jezebel. (This is a perfect example of the old adage, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Exhausted and out of gas in the wilderness, he collapses under a broom tree wanting to die. (By the way, it was pointed out by Dr. Rolf Jacobson, professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, that those in the Old Testament who askGod to die aren’t allowed. I might add that God always has more for them to do, perhaps giving pause to those who claim they’ve done enough in the church and that it’s someone else’s turn.) Well, an angel appears to Elijah twice to give him bread to eat, strengthening him for God’s mission ahead. I encourage you to read the whole story, beginning in 1 Kings 17 and ending in chapter 20.

Being in the wilderness is typically not a choice for us; we find it disorienting and uncertain. We have been in one of the most disorienting wildernesses of our lives for the past year and a half caused by the pandemic. In the midst of this awful time there are added personal and social wildernesses: job changes; the death of loved ones to whom we have not said adequate goodbyes; political upheavals; and even increased divorces and addictions. None of these are of our choosing. And if that weren’t enough, here at Grace, we’ve had the wilderness of transitioning from one senior pastor to another.

Without diminishing the seriousness of these wildernesses, our texts today suggest these can be places of possibility. On the one hand, we can acknowledge that we don’t know what’s next and that is disorienting. Yet, on the other hand, we know that these are places where God shows up and meets us in the midst of our need. This is hard, because we aren’t comfortable in the wilderness and we want to rush through to the other side. But what if we were to sit for a bit, rest for a while, take a breath and look for where God’s angels come?

If that sounds simplistic, Jesus’ declaration and promise bolster us. He says, “I am the Bread of Life.” In those words, Jesus focuses the story of Elijah’s strengthening for 40 days and nights as well as that of the Israelites who were provided manna every day for 40 years on the way to the Promised Land. In the giving of himself as the Bread of Life, Jesus establishes a relationship with us, one that promises he will sustain us so that we can go “in the strength of that food” into our wildernesses of daily life.

Yet, there’s more, because there’s always more with God. We not only get strengthened for our journeys in the wilderness, we also help strengthen others in their journeys. You see, Jesus as the Bread of Life feeds and then we, as the Body of Christ, feed others with ourselves. Although Terri didn’t know it, she was the Bread of Life to me that Sunday. Wherever you are today, know that Jesus as the Bread of Life meets you and feeds you, not only to sustain you on your journey but also to sustain others in our hungry, thirsty world. So, let’s go in the strength of that food! Amen.

For the video version of the sermon click here.

Let’s Go! … Fed and Nourished - Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Let’s Go! … Fed and Nourished

Pentecost 9B (Lectionary 17)

July 25, 2021

Grace, Waseca, MN

John 6.1-21

The feeding of the 5,000 in John has overtones of Holy Communion, especially since there is no Lord’s Supper during the celebration of the Last Supper with Jesus’ disciples. The four-fold shape that we find in Holy Communion of “BBBS” is there: Bring, Bless, Break and Share, though there are no Words of Institution. As I was preparing for this sermon, I was thinking about memorable experiences I’ve had of Holy Communion. There was my “illegal” first Communion during a youth camp at Gustavus Adolphus College before I was confirmed. And there was the Holy Communion we shared after a contentious meeting with denomination officials about a building project that greatly calmed the waters. Yet, for me the most memorable Communion is the weekly privilege of looking into peoples’ eyes and saying the words, “The Body of Christ, given for you.”

We are taking a five-week sojourn into John’s Gospel, with today’s lesson being John’s version of the story that was skipped in Mark’s Gospel last week, one that Pr. Paige read to fill in the blanks between the return of the 12 from their mission trip and the healing of the sick in Gennesaret. To set us up for five weeks of bread, it’s helpful to point out some features about John’s Gospel in general and this story in particular. First, apparently the crowds that follow Jesus do so because of the signs, John’s word for miracles, because these amazing acts point as signs to who Jesus is. Even so, we are not sure what they expect and this is to be played out in the Gospel. Also, unlike the other versions of the feeding, the people are not described as harassed, lost, sick or in need of Jesus’ compassion. They appear to be gawkers.

Second, the disciples aren’t the ones who worry about feeding; it is Jesus who tests Philip and asks how the people are to be fed. And when Andrew finds a young boy with the loaves and fish, it is Jesus who feeds them all. Then, also peculiar to John, this miraculous sign pushes the crowd to make Jesus king, because one of the signs of the coming Messiah is that he will feed the poor people. Finally, when Jesus comes to the disciples across the water, he says, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Though these words are also in Mark, this is significant because Jesus is really saying “I am,” the name for God.

There are a number of “I am sayings” in John: “I am the Good Shepherd,” “I am the way, the truth and the life,” I am the resurrection and the life,” I am the true vine,” and “I am the light of the world,” to name a few. But for the next four weeks we’ll be thinking about what Jesus means when he says, “I am the bread of life.” But for today, I want to reflect on what it meant that Jesus distributed the meal to everyone. One takeaway is that, in Jesus, what appears to be insufficient can produce what is needed, and more. Yet, I’m still wondering what the people were looking for as they followed Jesus and what it was like as he gazed into each of their eyes as he pressed food into their outstretched hands. Was there gratitude for an unexpected meal? Was it skepticism that it would be enough? Or something else?

Regardless of what they were looking for or expected from Jesus, this God in the flesh gave them exactly what they needed in the breaking of the bread, even though they responded rashly. They had the best of intentions, not knowing that Jesus would not be made a king in that way. And when Jesus comes to the disciples on the water, he also meets them in the midst of their need. They, too, assumed what they needed to do with Jesus, but Jesus had other ideas. Jesus brought them to their destination in his own time and in his own way.

These are words of caution but also words of comfort: Jesus meets us in our very need, but does so according to his purposes and not our own, giving exactly enough with more left over. Understandably, there is disappointment here about losing some pastoral candidates but I would say that you have not lost anything; rather, you’ve just not found the right pastor God intends you to have. And, I would say, God has given you what you need in a dedicated, committed call committee, a church council that is supporting them, and a synod giving you every chance to succeed.

So, maybe the question isn’t “What are you looking for?” but “What is it that Jesus is giving that you need?” Very often, what we find is more important than what we are looking for. As we’ll see in the coming weeks, Jesus is the Bread of Life, giving you what you need. When you come forward for Holy Communion, know that this Bread of Life meets you where you are, bringing life abundantly. So, let’s go, fed and nourished, in service to our communities. Thanks be to God. Amen.

For the video version of this sermon during worship click here.

Let’s Go! … Comforted and Provoked - Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Let’s Go! … Comforted and Provoked

Pentecost 7B – Lectionary 15

July 11, 2021

Grace, Waseca, MN

Mark 6.14-29

Preaching can be a dangerous affair. Just ask Amos, just ask John the Baptist, just ask Jesus. One may have some sympathy for the priest Amaziah, who only wants to preach good news to King Jeroboam. And then comes along this usurper of a traveling preacher calling the king to account for his misdeeds. Yet Amos cannot stand in the way of God’s powerful word no more than John or Jesus can. Both of them are speaking truth to power to their respective secular leaders, Herod and Pilate. The similarities are eerie. Both preachers are viewed favorably by them but they are both easily manipulated and, though seemingly in charge, become helpless in the flow of events. Preaching can be a dangerous affair.

Mark has laid out for us another masterfully told story with vivid detail and intriguing characters. And as a sidebar, it’s the only place in Mark’s Gospel where Jesus is not present yet the story has huge implications for him. It’s important to note that this story is the meat to last week’s and next week’s sandwich bread. Just prior to this reading, Jesus sends out the twelve nascent preachers on a mission, warning them that their preaching may not be welcomed. And next week we’ll hear of their return for their debriefing and some intended time away. Mark’s point seems clear: preaching is a dangerous affair. What happened to John will happen to Jesus, what happened to Jesus will happen to his disciples, and what happened to them may happen to those who come after them.

There has been a common refrain heard by preachers from parishioners in the last decade: no politics in the pulpit! Well, tell that to Amos who gets in a load of trouble preaching to King Jeroboam. Tell that to John the Baptist who loses his head to Herodias who doesn’t like his message. Tell that to Jesus whom we know was “crucified under Pontius Pilate.” Tell that to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died at the hands of the Nazis days before he would have been liberated. Tell that to Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned for preaching against apartheid in South Africa. Tell that to Bishop Oscar Romero, who was brutally slain while performing mass in El Salvador for speaking against governmental atrocities. I could go on. 

In a 1902 newspaper column, Finley Peter Dunne said of newspapers, “they … comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable,” a phrase picked up by many leaders but especially as something of a mission statement for preachers. Preaching is dangerous for preachers because it’s dangerous for listeners, or it ought to be. Annie Dillard, speaking about God’s powerful word says this: “It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.” God’s word does something in, with, and through us. This past week a colleague said that she prefers to use the word “provoked” instead of “afflicted,” and I agree with her.

Once in awhile a seasoned member of a congregation will reminisce about a preacher from a bygone era saying, “When he preached you knew you were being preached at.” I understand what they mean as I was reminded of an event during my American Lit class at Gustavus Adolphus College. Professor Gerhard Alexis shook his finger at us, saying “You hang by a slender thread.” He was of course channeling 18th c. theologian Jonathan Edwards with a quote from his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Indeed, we Freshman American Lit students were provoked just as Edwards’ listeners were. You see, preaching is dangerous for listeners because the gospel makes a claim on our lives. We are people on the way seeking to live out and live into God’s kingdom, living the abundant life God intends for us. Indeed, we are “already but not yet.”

Preaching is a dangerous affair, but we preachers wouldn't do, couldn’t do, anything else because God lays a claim on us. It is a joy to proclaim God’s grace, mercy and love, but it is also a great responsibility. Today we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Pr. Paige’s ordination and tenure here at Grace. I hope you will thank her for those times when she has comforted you in your afflictions, but I hope you will also thank her for those times she provoked you in your comfort zones. And I’m going to invite you to do one more thing: take the Celebrate insert home, read through it devotionally, asking yourself, “What might God be saying to me in this text? Where am I finding comfort, but where might God be prodding me to deeper life?” So, put your crash helmets on, strap yourselves in and Let’s Go! into the world, comforted and provoked. Thanks be to God. Amen.

For the video version of this sermon click here.

Let’s Go! … Healed and in Peace - Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Let’s Go! … Healed and in Peace 

Pentecost 5B

June 27, 2021

Grace, Waseca, MN

Mark 5.21-43

As the father of two girls, I have a sense of Jairus’ desperation in the Gospel reading for today as he seeks to get healing for his daughter. Very early in our oldest daughter’s life, Angela developed almost unending bouts of bronchitis. There were times I slept by her crib fearful she’d stop breathing. Finally, I begged our doctor, whom we very much liked and respected, that we needed to do something. He agreed and referred us to a specialist who diagnosed her with moderate to severe asthma with allergies while not so subtly chiding us for not doing something sooner. Then, when our youngest was about 5 or 6, she woke with severe hip pain that paralyzed her. We were in Pennsylvania where I was attending seminary and we didn’t have a pediatrician yet, so I picked Amy up, bundled her into the car, and took her to the emergency room where she was diagnosed with a staph infection.

Fortunately, neither one of them has “endured much under many physicians” like the unnamed woman with the hemorrhage, though Angela will live with her asthma and allergies forever. Also, luckily, neither of these are shameful diseases, though I think Angela feels like an outcast at times because she has to be very careful what she eats and the things she can do. Furthermore, I didn’t need to risk my self-respect to get our girls help, but I sure would have done so if it was necessary. Now, even though there is a great deal of emphasis on the faith of the woman and Jairus, which is not to be ignored, I’d like to focus on the One who makes that faith possible and its implications for us today.

Aside from the incredible that healing Jesus brings, not to be dismissed lightly, are the boundaries Jesus crosses to do so and what it means to them and to us that he has crossed those boundaries. First, it’s important to know that the woman with hemorrhage was considered unclean in Jewish society. As if 12 years of suffering weren’t enough, she would not have been able to worship in the temple or synagogue or even be around people for that entire time. Just coming into contact with Jesus would have made him ritually unclean, disastrous for a Jew. And then Jesus compounds his uncleanness by touching the dead body of the girl. Now he’s doubly unclean.

Yet, even more remarkably, Jesus stops on his way to heal the girl, which may have cost her life, to fully touch the woman. Even after she was cured of the disease, he curiously pronounces that she is now healed. But to get the full impact of what Jesus is saying we need to know that the word for healed is really translated as “saved.” Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you.” In other words, she has nothing to be ashamed of anymore and she is now fully restored to life, God’s shalom. As I think about this woman, I wonder how many of us are walking around hemorrhaging with shame, feeling like outcasts, enduring much under those who may be judging us, perhaps the harshest from ourselves.

A number of years ago, “Carol” stopped by my office and asked to see me. Of course I agreed; I respected Carol and made time for her. My curiosity turned to shame as she began to tell me that a joke I told at a recent public event was inappropriate. As I listened to her, I realized with horror that she was right and a deep shame came over me. But Carol was Jesus to me that day, pronouncing forgiveness and reminding me that although it was appropriate that I express guilt for what I had done, that I was also loved and not to be shamed. In doing so, Carol restored me to the fullness of life in community and as her pastor. Since then, the work of sociologist Brené Brown regarding shame and vulnerability has been instrumental in my personal life and my ministry. Dr. Brown has many worthwhile books, but I highly recommend The Gifts of Imperfection.

Two weeks ago, we started exploring two of Jesus’ parables that described the Kingdom of God. We recognized that Jesus was trying to convey with images something that can’t be readily defined. Jesus was saying that the kingdom of God wasn’t as much a future promise as it is a present reality, that the kingdom life could be lived here and now in some way. I think that these healing stories give us another glimpse of what Jesus means by the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is life as God intends, flourishing and abundant, where we can experience God’s shalom and healing.

There are two things I want to leave you with today. First, that if you are hemorrhaging from shame or anything that is keeping you back, if there are dead parts of you, know that Jesus comes and restores you to healing and inclusion. You are a beloved child of God. Second, I want you to look for opportunities to be Jesus to others like Carol was to me, to remind others that they, too, are beloved of God and fully included in God’s merciful, loving embrace. Maybe you see someone struggling and all you need to say is, “You’ve got this” or “It’ll be okay.” You can figure it out. Then come back and tell us how it went. So, let’s go from here to be the healing presence of shalom that our world so desperately needs. Amen.

For the entire worship service and video version, click here.

Let’s Go! … Patiently? - Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost (Lect. 11B)

Let’s Go! … Patiently?

Pentecost 3B (Lectionary 11)

June 13, 2021

Grace, Waseca, MN

Mark 4.26-34

In the churchy world we churchy people toss around churchy words like free candy from floats at parade, mostly unwrapped and scooped up with abandon. We use words like koinonia (or fellowship, take your pick), faith formation, spiritual growth, and exegesis. Okay, maybe you don’t toss around words like that, but I think you get the point. We aren’t always clear about what we mean. And Jesus isn’t much better. He tosses around parables just as freely as the actors in most of these parables toss around seeds. Those two things come together because most of the time Jesus is tossing around the phrase “kingdom of God” like Tootsie Rolls.

Jesus spends a lot of parabolic time talking about the kingdom of God so we know it must be important. In fact, his first words in Mark are, “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near.” Now, unlike us, the folk Jesus addressed would have a good idea what the kingdom of God was. For them, it would be a glorious time when God will rule over all things after defeating God’s enemies, those things that stand in the way of God’s original intent for creation, especially humanity.

So, if those first hearers were familiar with the kingdom of God, why is Jesus using parables so much? First, remember that parables are not riddles to be solved; rather, they are mysteries to be entered. Or, to switch the analogy, they are like Trojan horses, seemingly tame and entering our consciousness until they explode and disrupt our thinking. Jesus used parables about the kingdom because the crowds and religious leaders couldn’t see how his presence was bringing it near. Furthermore, he wanted to stretch their thinking (and ours, too) about what God’s reign is really like. The kingdom, Jesus will show, comes in humility with power made perfect in weakness and love.

At the risk of appearing to have solved both parables, let me offer some thoughts about each that might stretch your thinking. In the first parable about the seed that grows “he knows not how,” Jesus invites us to imagine that the kingdom of God is coming even though we may not see much evidence of it. The parable also challenges our notion that it’s up to us to make God’s reign come in. We are to ask ourselves what role we have in kingdom work, knowing that it is God who ultimately gives the growth.

The parable of the mustard seed is dangerous because it is so familiar and we risk thinking we already understand it. Yet, explanations about the parable of the mustard seed are as prodigious as the plant is itself. One offshoot is that, like the mustard bush, Jesus and the kingdom are more than they seem. The mustard bush was and is an invasive, noxious species that takes over wherever planted, kind of like a latter day buckthorn. The comparison of the kingdom of God to a mustard bush would have stretched peoples’ minds and caused them to stop and think. Furthermore, with the addition of the birds finding a place to roost, he hints there are more inhabitants included in God’s kingdom than we might have thought. There is room and a place for everyone.

In Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, he details attributes of companies that are as the title suggests: great. He evaluated companies that sustained greatness over time and compared them to similar companies who were merely good. He wanted to know what separated the great companies from the good ones. In one chapter, he describes one attribute, the Flywheel Effect. A flywheel is a large metal disc that rotates on an axis. He notes that, like a flywheel, great companies made small pushes over time that accumulated and eventually resulted in a momentum that releases energy and sustains itself. They took off, much like that merry go round you pushed and rode as a child. In contrast, those companies that were merely good looked for the one big breakthrough that would make them great, but it never works that way. Becoming great takes time and small consistent pushes that gather steam and momentum.

So, what might these two parables and the Flywheel Effect mean for Grace, Waseca? The summer worship theme for Grace is “Let’s Go!” and perhaps the parables caution us to go patiently, trusting God for the growth and doing so in ways we may not expect. There’s a tendency among churches to look for the one big thing that’s going to “save” the congregation and make it great, whether that be a person (like a pastor or youth director) or a program. Big splashy events are fun and even necessary, but it’s going to be the small pushes, sticking to Grace’s vision and mission, solidifying your identity as a Christ-centered, welcoming place in service to your communities, gaining momentum that will make a difference. You won’t bring in the kingdom, but you’ll catch glimpses of God’s work in, with and through you as you join God in it. Amen.

For the video version of the sermon click here.