Sower of Abundance

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10A)

Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23

The Rev. Michael K. Fincher

 

I am always intrigued by what made it into the Gospels and what did not. As we know, with the exception of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, the Gospels focus almost exclusively on Jesus’ three-year public ministry. Obviously, the Gospels cannot provide minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow accounts of Jesus’ life between the time he was baptized by John until his death and resurrection in Jerusalem. The authors are naturally only interested in the major things. Significant miracles, such as the feeding of the 5,000, the healing of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus. Significant teachings and parables, such as the parables of Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.

 

As followers of Jesus, we are left to try to figure out for ourselves just what these recorded events—the healings and miracles, the teachings and parables—mean in our own lives of faith. That is one of the jobs of the Church, one of the jobs of the clergy: to help facilitate that process of digging into the stories presented and figuring out what Jesus meant through his words and his actions. Not always an easy task. Sure, we can sometimes take Jesus’ words at face value. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind . . . and . . . You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22.37, 39). Pretty clear-cut. Although, we try to complicate things by splitting hairs over such questions as “who is my neighbor?” But by and large, a lot of Jesus’ teachings require some work on our part to figure them out. Particularly when it comes to the parables. Those seemingly simple stories that illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. And, admittedly, at times, those stories are not so simple. Sometimes, they are a bit cryptic. Leaving us scratching our heads, trying to figure out just what Jesus is really trying to say.

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Religious Freedom and Striving to Be Perfect

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Independence Day)

Deuteronomy 10.17-21; Matthew 5.43-48

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

Today we take a break from our liturgical calendar. While it is still the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, I have chosen not to use the propers—the readings and collect of the day—assigned for this particular Sunday. Instead, I have chosen to use the propers for Independence Day. Even though, according to the rules guiding liturgical celebrations, I should not be doing this since Independence Day was yesterday and not today. However, I felt that this liturgical infraction was warranted given the fact that yesterday we celebrated a milestone in our nation’s history: the celebration of the 250^th anniversary of declaring our independence. And also warranted given what seems to be happening to religious freedom after 250 years of independence. So, in honor of our Founding Fathers and Mothers, I am exercising my religious freedom so that we can collectively celebrate who we are, where we have been, and where we are today, as one expression of God’s people in the United States of America. And, to look at where we go from here if the liberties declared 250 years ago are to continue for another 250 years, God willing.

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Jesus & Associates

Third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6A)

Matthew 9.35—10.23

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

As most of you know, before I became a priest I had a previous life as a transportation planner and traffic engineer. Part of my time was spent working for a transportation planning consulting firm and the latter part of it was working for a larger environmental consulting firm. Of course, consulting firms have to have a business name to operate. One of the most common naming schemas (at least at the time) was the name of the founder of the firm followed by “associates” or “and associates.” An associate being a coworker or business partner, depending on context. During the course of my career, I first worked for Ausin and Associates. When that firm merged with another one, we became Austin Foust Associates. I then left AFA and went to work for LSA. LSA had originally stood for Larry Seeman Associates, but after Larry retired and we became an employee-owned company, the name was shortened to LSA to honor the founder, but also to provide business and reputational continuity.

 

While younger and working for Austin and Associates and then Austin Foust Associates, I obviously knew I was one of the “associates,” but also always felt that the term implied a lesser position, a lesser status. I always knew that I was a mere employee and that the profits and real benefits accrued to the men who were the actual owners of the firm. But then when I went to LSA, the business model was different by virtue of being an employee-owned firm. We were all, from entry-level employees up to principals (the upper management), regarded as “associates” in the fullest sense of the term. While we each may have been at different levels in the corporate hierarchy and each had different amounts of time in the firm and money vested in employee stock ownership, we were all equal in the sense of being partners in the firm and having a vested interest in how well the firm did. When you know that the overall value of the company, which translates into compensation adjustments, bonuses, and retirement benefits, is dependent in part on your efforts, that makes a huge difference. You truly feel an integral part of the whole operation as opposed to feeling like you are merely a replaceable “cog in the wheel.” The sense of partnership tends to make you willing to go the extra mile.

 

It is through this lens of twenty years in private sector consulting before becoming a priest that I view today’s Gospel reading. Jesus said to his disciples, “’The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few’ . . . Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot.” To my way of thinking, collectively known as . . . Jesus & Associates.

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I Desire Mercy, Not Sacrifice

Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5A)

Matthew 9.9-13, 18-26

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

With our commemoration of Trinity Sunday behind us, we begin a new liturgical season and, along with it, we experience a shift in the focus of our Gospel readings. The Christian Year is divided roughly in half. For the first six months of the liturgical year, beginning with the First Sunday of Advent in late November or early December, we have a string of high holy days focusing on key events in the life of Christ and the accompanying time for us to prepare for those events. In the first half of the liturgical year, we move in rapid succession from Advent to Christmas to Epiphany to Lent to Holy Week to Easter to Pentecost. For good measure, we throw in Trinity Sunday, providing our transition to the Season after Pentecost. Also referred to as Ordinary Time.

 

Now, just to be clear—and lest you think Ordinary Time sounds boring—Ordinary Time is not “ordinary” as in the sense of commonplace. Rather “ordinary” refers to the mathematical term “ordinal”: to the sequential ordering in a series. In this case, referring to the sequential numbering of the Sundays in this season. Trinity Sunday is technically the First Sunday after Pentecost. Therefore, today is the Second Sunday after Pentecost, with next Sunday being the Third Sunday after Pentecost, and so on, until we reach the 783^rd Sunday after Pentecost sometime later in the year. Not really. Sometimes it may seem like it in what we fondly refer to as the “long green season”—referring to the six months of green, which is the color for the Season after Pentecost, for Ordinary Time.

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The New Math of the Trinity (1+1+1=1)

Trinity Sunday (Year A)

Genesis 1.1—2.4a; Matthew 28.16-20

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

Those of us of a certain age probably remember “New Math.” Even if we didn’t quite know what it meant, we heard the term a lot back in the “Dark Ages” of our youth. New Math was a dramatically different way of teaching math that was popular in the 1950s through the 1970s. A way that was, at the time, quite controversial. Many of us here probably learned math the “new” way without ever knowing it, without ever knowing there was an old way. As a kid, when I heard something on the news about New Math, I sarcastically wondered (yes, I was sarcastic even as a child) so instead of two plus two equals four, under New Math does two plus two now equal five? Or three? Or some other number that changes depending on circumstances? I only recently learned that New Math was a shift away from merely memorizing mathematical facts and procedures to trying to teach children the underlying structures and concepts of mathematics. To more fully understand how math operated as opposed to just doing it.

 

Every year when we come to Trinity Sunday, I cannot help but think of New Math. That when it comes to the Trinity, we are dealing with a New Math, of sorts. That in Trinitarian Math, while one plus one plus one equals three, it also means that one plus one plus one equals one.

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Right for the Moment

Day of Pentecost (Year A)

Acts 2.1-21; John 20.19-23

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

You have to admit . . . the Holy Spirit knows how to make an entrance. Our first reading for today, this Day of Pentecost, is the account of the first Pentecost event. Well, that is not entirely true. In more ways than one. While we recognize Pentecost as the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit and, by extension, the birthday of the Church, up until the event recorded in Acts, Pentecost was a completely different thing. Before it became the Christian celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost was a Jewish holy day.

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What's the Holdup?

Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year A)

Acts 1.6-14

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

Once again, the disciples find themselves in an “in-between” time. An in-between time that we share as part of our journey through Eastertide, as we approach Pentecost in just one week’s time. The disciples have been here before. Sort of. Following Jesus’ death on Good Friday, they experienced the in-between time of waiting for the resurrection Jesus had foretold. Now, six weeks later, they are back in another, a different, in-between time. Only now, it is the time between the Risen Christ’s Ascension into heaven and the Day of Pentecost. A time of waiting for the promised sending of the Holy Spirit upon them. Unlike the first in-between time, between Good Friday and Easter, this one is qualitatively different. And, as we shall see, has a very different purpose.

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I Will Not Leave You Orphaned

Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year A)

Acts 17.22-31; John 14.15-21

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

“I will not leave you orphaned.” Jesus says these words to his disciples in the early part of his Farewell Discourse. He has already told them multiple times that he will be killed. He is sharing a final meal with those closest to him before his Passion, before his death. The disciples are obviously anxious, confused, distraught, even devastated at the mere idea of this coming to pass. In the first part of his Farewell Discourse—both in his words that we heard last week, and in the words we heard a few moments ago—Jesus is seeking to calm the disciples’ fears, and particularly their concerns about what his departure means for them. “I will not leave you orphaned.” An interesting choice of words.

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Embodying Eternal Life

Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year A)

1 Peter 2.2-10; John 14.1-14

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

Occasionally, someone will ask me: “So, what is heaven really like?” Presuming that, as a priest, I have some secret inside knowledge about such matters. No, we do not take a class in seminary that reveals hidden secrets. When we are ordained, we are not given a secret manual with the answers to the sacred mysteries. My response to that question is usually something along the lines of “We really don’t know. The only person to have come back from heaven didn’t give us any details.”

 

I think such questions about heaven are prompted in part by our natural curiosity about the unknown, and in part by such passages as our Gospel for today. After all, it starts off with Jesus saying, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” Or, as in the King James Version, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” Even though I can only afford a two-bedroom apartment in this life—in Southern California, anyway—at least I will get a mansion for all eternity.

 

While today’s Gospel reading and the imagery of a heaven filled with McMansions for all sounds appealing, and while such imagery is intended to say something about our eternal life in God’s heavenly realm, one commentator cautions that it is not about “celestial real estate.” While certainly having implications for our eternal life, the broader intent of Jesus’ image of dwelling places for all is a metaphor for relationship with God and Christ in the broadest of terms.

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The Gate to Life Abundant

Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year A)

John 10.1-10

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

Since Easter, our Gospel readings have focused on various post-resurrection appearances, all occurring on the Day of the Resurrection, on the first Easter Day. As of today, we shift the focus, leaving behind the Gospel accounts of the Risen Christ appearing to the disciples, or anyone else for that matter. Although, following those appearances, the Risen Christ continued to be around for another forty days before making his final exit (for the time being, anyway) and ascending into heaven. The Gospel records vary, but there is a strong indication that the Resurrected Jesus continued to interact with the disciples during the intervening time. Continuing to teach them and prepare them for what would come following his Ascension, what would be required particularly following Pentecost and him sending the Holy Spirit. Until that time, until Pentecost, the disciples and all who followed Jesus were in a liminal state, in an in-between time, learning and receiving wisdom from the Resurrected Christ. What those teachings entailed are not recorded or have been lost to us.

 

With another two and a half weeks to the Ascension and another four weeks until Pentecost, we, too, are in a liminal state, an in-between time. We are still in Eastertide, but we have no more post-resurrection appearances to focus on. Well, there are still some from Easter Day, those contained in the Gospels we did not touch on this year, but frankly, you can only glean so much from variations of the same initial appearances to Mary Magdalene and to the eleven apostles. So, for the remaining Sundays in Eastertide, we shift our focus to some of the quintessential teachings of Jesus that focus on living in intimacy with God. Teachings that, while originally occurring before the Passion, in hindsight, may have been intended to prepare the disciples for this life post-resurrection. To give the disciples a foundation that would help them—and us—more fully understand what Easter means in our ongoing lives of faith.

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