President Teresa Sullivan: No fences around the caring community

This morning's sermon is based on Mark 4:26-34.

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This morning I must begin by mentioning the most significant event in our community of the last week – and which I know is weighing on many of you: The dismissal of University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan.

Even if you are not connected directly to the University of Virginia, you and I are affected daily by this huge institution across the street. It is no exaggeration to say that the most important public official in our community is the president of the University.

I certainly have no more information than any of you, and no doubt a good deal less than some of you. And I am in no position to comment on the actions of the Board of Visitors, nor should I.

But I would be remiss in not expressing the gratitude of our congregation, and my personal appreciation, to President Sullivan for the care and friendship she has shown to the Charlottesville community, and in particular, to this the parish church to the University of Virginia.

I first met Dr. Sullivan in a snowstorm, in the great blizzard of January 2010, when she was still president-elect.

Like many of you, she braved the elements to attend our Centennial banquet, and it was our great honor to seat her next to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

As it turned out, the only two guests at the UVA Colonnade Club that snowy weekend were Dr. Sullivan, the first woman to head the University of Virginia, and Bishop Katharine, the first woman to head the Episcopal Church of the United States, and the first woman primate of an Anglican province in the world.

I’ve wondered since what these two intellectually powerful, historically groundbreaking women talked about over breakfast in the middle of a blizzard.

As President, Dr. Sullivan gave her first public address here in this pulpit on August 29, 2010 at our University Convocation Sunday. The backdrop to that sermon, and it is not so long ago, was the death of student Yeardley Love.

President Sullivan eloquently spoke to us about how we cannot be bystanders as others suffer.

She said this to us: 

“Care for those around you, especially those who are most in need. This is one of the foundations of a strong community based on caring and shared responsibility for one another’s well-being. The Kingdom of God has many bridges, but not so many fences.”

I don’t know – none of us can know – what will happen next week, or next month or next year, as this struggle over the leadership of this great university unfolds.

But I do know this – we can show our gratitude for Terry Sullivan and what she has stood for by continuing the work of building a caring community.

And I would point out, the president of this very secular University put the building of a caring community in terms of her own faith and the building God’s kingdom.

What she spoke of is far bigger than any of us, bigger than a university or its president, or any single leader.

And bigger than any fence.

Today, in the Gospel lesson from Mark, Jesus describes the Kingdom of God as a place without fences. But get that, you have to hear what he is describing as something of an inside joke. Follow me here.

We’ve domesticated the mustard seed story into a platitude about how big things can grow from small things, and that is certainly true. Giant Sequoia redwoods do start with a seed from a very small cone.

But it’s not just about the seed. It is about what grows from the seed.

Jesus uses the story of the mustard seed to make fun of the pomposity of the Temple authorities, who compare the glory of the Temple to the majesty of the cedars of Lebanon, which as the Old Testament says, are so large birds nest in them.

Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to not a majestic cedar, but to a scraggly, weedy, unruly mustard shrub.

Mustard bush in the Middle East

In the Mediterranean world, mustard is not a condiment for hotdogs. It is a weed that grew as big as a house, and it took over the grain fields.

It starts as a tiny seed no bigger than the period on a printed page. It is truly the tiniest of seeds, and when it grows, watch out. It is the Kudzu of the Middle East.

It take over everything in its path. It is unpredictable, no respecter of fences, no respecter of neat rows of grain. It growns everywhere, no stopping it.

The Kingdom of God is “like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

No doubt the Temple authorities were infuriated by this pithy little story – Jesus was, indeed, mocking them. And the people got the mocking tone, and they repeated his story over and over and they wrote it down. It appears in three of the gospels and in documents about Jesus that did not get into the New Testament.

The Kingdom of God is like a mustard weed. It starts small, and it grows where it will and no fence – no institution – can stop it.

The community we are called to build in God’s kingdom – the community of caring people who heal the sick, comfort the afflicted, put bread on the table, educate the young and old, and work to change the social structures that cause suffering – that community is like a mustard bush that will grown everywhere.

It is unpredictable; fences cannot contain it, and it will bring heaven to earth in those places of need and suffering. That is the true Kingdom God.

All of us are a part of this great work – all of us have a role – and no fence can keep you or I out.

Please allow me to end this morning by reading to you the concluding words of President Sullivan in her remarkable sermon to us nearly two years ago. I quote:

“Ask yourself this question: If you happened to encounter an angel unawares, how would you treat him or her? What if this angel-in-disguise were a stranger, or someone who looks different from you, or someone who is on the low end of the socio-economic ladder, or someone suffering from physical or mental distress?

“This morning, let’s affirm our commitment to caring for every member of this community every day. Let’s make this promise to ourselves and to each other. Let’s promise not to stand by when someone else needs help. Let’s promise to take responsibility for each other. Let’s promise to show hospitality and kindness to everyone around us — even the strangers, who, for all we know, might be angels.

“Your neighbors might not exalt you for taking such responsibility. Your friends might criticize you. But building a community of caring is a very positive long-term investment.”

Let me to add that it remains our task to carry on this work of building a caring community – work that is truly all of ours to share, no matter our age, our social status, our educational status, or our affiliation with the University of Virginia.

Teresa Sullivan ended her sermon by saying “God bless the University of Virginia,” and I would add, God bless President Sullivan. Amen

      

By James Richardson, Fiat Lux 

Mustard seeds within us

If you've been reading the Daily Office lately you might conclude Jesus has an inordinate fondness for small things like yeast and seeds and small coins. On Friday came a string of these parables, including one of the most familiar: the story of the mustard seed, from Matthew 13:31-35. Here it is in full:

“He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’ ”

I once wrote a seminary paper, that was very well received, on the parable, putting forth the proposition that the parable is something of an inside joke. Jesus is making fun of the pomposity of the Temple priests who compare to the Temple to the mighty “cedars of Lebanon,” a building so tall that birds nest in its branches.

It helps to know that in the 1st century world of Jesus, a mustard plant was not a lovely condiment for hotdogs. Mustard seeds grew into big bushes that were the scourge of neatly growing grain fields. Mustard was a weed, and not welcome in the grain fields.

By comparing the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed that grows like a weed, Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of God is unpredictable, surprising, not always respectable – and like the Holy Spirit, will grow where it will and invade the neat rows of grain. The point of the parable was not just the seed; it was the weed that grew from it. The Kingdom of God doesn't follow human rules and is seldom neat. For those excluded from the Temple and the restrictions of the priests, this was a satirical story. The story doubtlessly scandalized the Temple authorities. Who was Jesus to compare their grandiose Temple to a weed?

There is another way to hear the parable as well that is perhaps so obvious that I have not thought of it until recently. You can hear the parable of the mustard seed as a metaphor for the interior spiritual life. God’s spirit grows in unpredictable, surprising and not always respectable ways within us. The Holy Spirit grows where it will within us, and sometimes makes us uncomfortable by invading the neat rows of grain in our life. It is why the interior life can be unsettling, but also a great adventure if we are open to it. Small things do grow within us, and not always as we expect.

Yesterday, retired Bishop Steven Charleston of Alaska, as he is likes to do, posted a bit of wisdom on his Facebook page. Here is the one from Friday, and I leave it with you here today:

“An answer to your prayer is coming to you. It may not arrive exactly as you imagined, but you will recognize it when it happens. The pieces will fall together. The situation will change. Something unexpected will enter into the picture. At that moment, you will realize again one of the deepest truths of human faith: someone is listening when you pray. Someone hears you, cares for you, knows you. From that tiny seed of experience great religions grow. But they all begin when an answer is received to an appeal as ancient as time and a hope as new as now.”

By James Richardson, Fiat Lux

Cultivating seeds and new life to come

We awoke this morning to find a light covering of snow on the ground and covering the chicken coop. The snow has come early. It is raining today and the snow will likely disappear before noon.

As this first hint of winter, it is hard to imagine Spring and the new life beyond. But it will come. The seeds are in the ground, and in our hearts, and they will grow if we cultivate them.

In the Daily Office readings this morning, Jesus is back with the seeds again. He tells the oddly strange "mustard seed" parable in Matthew 13:31-35.

It must have been one of his greatest hits, for it appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and in the Gospel of Thomas that was dropped from the canon in the 4th century as the Church decided what would be the New Testament.

If you conclude that Jesus had an inordinate fondness for seeds, you would be right.

The seed story today is about a tiny mustard seed growing into a mighty bush – and is probably the most familiar of all the seed stories.

Maybe too familiar?

What an odd thing to compare the Kingdom of God to seeds, and to the plants and weeds that grow from them. Religious people in the time of Jesus would have been shocked by these stories.

They would expect a holy man like Jesus to give them grandiose religious images like a majestic cedar tree or a marble temple or God riding on a Chariot of Fire.

They would not expect to hear God’s kingdom compared to seeds and weeds. After all, in yesterday's parable, in Matthew 13:24-30,  Jesus said the weeds would be burned. Now he is comparing the Kingdom of God to those very weeds! What is he getting at?

And they certainly would not expect to hear that God’s kingdom is like a mustard bush. I can safely guess that many of those who first heard this story from Jesus would have been mightily offended.
Why? Because a mustard bush is a scourge of the grain fields.

To get the full impact of this parable, it may help you to know something about mustard.
In our time, we consider mustard a delightful condiment, and we cultivate it as an herb. Not so in the time of Jesus.

Mustard was considered a weed, and farmers dreaded it when mustard sprouted in their fields. Mustard weeds could grow the size of a house, and when they did, mustard would take over the neatly cultivated rows of grain.

So when Jesus says the mustard seed grows into a mighty plant with birds nesting in it, he is talking about a shrub considered by many as an unrespectable weed.

Indeed, biblical scholars will tell you that the mustard seed parable is something of an ancient inside joke. Jesus is making fun of the Temple priests who indeed describe the Temple in the grandiose imagery of mighty cedars of Lebanon so large that birds nest in it.

Jesus is saying the Kingdom of God will grow not like a grandiose cedar, but more like a mustard weed from tiny ordinary seeds – seeds that no one usually thinks are useful or important.

The Kingdom of God is mighty, but not the way the Temple priests think.

The kingdom won’t be orderly growing in neat rows. God’s Kingdom is entwined with all the other plants of the field, and nothing will stop these plants from growing. And then this parable gets worse for high-and-mighty Temple crowd.

They must have wondered what kind of farmer would throw seeds everywhere, or mixes all the seeds together with wheat and mustard and thorns and put them on rocky ground and loamy ground?

Farmers don’t do that.

Farmers grow things in neat rows and they do their best to keep the weeds out. Seeds are valuable, and farmers don’t waste them, and certainly don’t mix them together in the fields.

But the farmer of the parable does exactly that – and that is precisely the point Jesus is making with these stories.

The farmer – the God of abundance – has so many seeds, and so many kinds of seeds, that the farmer is not afraid to toss as many around as possible, and get them all jumbled up.

I am absolutely convinced Jesus wants us to go one more step with this: Everyone is included in this great holy mix of seeds that is God’s kingdom, especially people who are considered outcasts like the weeds.

The lowly and unwashed may look like weeds to the world, but to God they are mighty. The meek and the humble of heart shall inherit the earth.

And the sower of these seeds?

The sower is not stingy. The sower has an overabundance of seeds and plants them with abandon.

There is a challenge to us in this. We are being pushed to plant God’s seeds, and plant them extravagantly, on good ground and thorny ground, rocky ground and loamy ground.

We won’t know what will grow until we plant – and what comes of these seeds may not be as we expect. Be ready to be surprised and delighted.

The weeds may be just as beautiful as the orchids, more beautiful than we might ever have imagined.

The outrageous idea that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed

My sermon today is based on Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52:

+ + +

Seeds, yeast, nets: ordinary things are where you will find the Kingdom of God.

Last weekend, a good many of us from St. Paul’s went to Shrine Mont for our annual parish retreat.
For those of you unfamiliar with this wonderful place – and there are some – Shrine Mont is an old Episcopal retreat center up the Shenandoah Valley, nestled up against the mountains within hiking distance of the border with West Virginia.

We had a great time relaxing and visiting, and some of us took part in workshops ranging from poetry to yoga.

The kids caught fish, got muddy, and roasted marshmallows. We played softball and forgot to keep score.

And some enjoyed doing nothing at all.

Believe it or not, one of the things I love the most about going to Shrine Mont is – going to Shrine Mont. I love the drive north in the Shenandoah Valley. I enjoy getting out onto the open road and seeing the farms and fields.

The sky seems just a little bigger over there than it does over here.

Seeing the neat rows of corn and grain got me thinking about the parables of Jesus we’ve been hearing the last several Sundays. Most of these stories of late are about seeds.

Last week we heard about the seeds getting mixed up together and growing in a big tangled knot.
Or another story was about the farmer tossing seeds on rocky ground, or into the thorn bushes, or on good soil or bad.

If you conclude that Jesus had an inordinate fondness for seeds you would be right.

The seed story today – the one about a tiny mustard seed growing into a mighty bush – is probably the most familiar of all the seed stories.

Maybe too familiar?

What an odd thing to compare the Kingdom of God to seeds, and to the plants and weeds that grow from them. Religious people in the time of Jesus would have been shocked by these stories.

They would expect a holy man like Jesus to give them grandiose religious images like a majestic cedar tree or a marble temple or God riding on a Chariot of Fire.

They would not expect to hear God’s kingdom compared to seeds and weeds.

And they certainly would not expect to hear that God’s kingdom is like a mustard bush. I can safely guess that many of those who first heard this story from Jesus would have been mightily offended.
Why? Because a mustard bush is a scourge of the grain fields.

To get the full impact of this parable, it may help you to know something about mustard.
In our time, we consider mustard a delightful condiment, and we cultivate it as an herb. Not so in the time of Jesus.

Mustard was considered a weed, and farmers dreaded it when mustard sprouted in their fields. Mustard weeds could grow the size of a house, and when they did, mustard would take over the neatly cultivated rows of grain.

So when Jesus says the mustard seed grows into a mighty plant with birds nesting in it, he is talking about a shrub considered by many as an unrespectable weed.

Indeed, biblical scholars will tell you that the mustard seed parable is something of an ancient inside joke.
Jesus is making fun of the Temple priests who indeed describe the Temple in the grandiose imagery of mighty cedars of Lebanon so large that birds nest in it.

Jesus is saying the Kingdom of God will grow not like a grandiose cedar, but more like a mustard weed from tiny ordinary seeds – seeds that no one usually thinks are useful or important.

The Kingdom of God is mighty, but not the way the Temple priests think.

The kingdom won’t be orderly growing in neat rows. God’s Kingdom is entwined with all the other plants of the field, and nothing will stop these plants from growing. And then this parable gets worse for high-and-might Temple priests.

They must have wondered what kind of farmer would throw seeds everywhere, or mixes all the seeds together with wheat and mustard and thorns and put them on rocky ground and loamy ground?

Farmers don’t do that.

Farmers grow things in need rows and they do their best to keep the weeds out. Seeds are valuable, and farmers don’t waste them, and certainly don’t mix them together in the fields.

But the farmer of the parable does exactly that – and that is precisely the point Jesus is making with these stories.

The farmer – the God of abundance – has so many seeds, and so many kinds of seeds, that the farmer is not afraid to toss as many around as possible, and get them all jumbled up.

I am absolutely convinced Jesus wants us to go one more step with this: Everyone is included in this great holy mix of seeds that is God’s kingdom, especially people who are considered outcasts like the weeds.

The lowly and unwashed may look like weeds to the world, but to God they are mighty. The meek and the humble of heart shall inherit the earth.

And the sower of these seeds?

The sower is not stingy. The sower has an overabundance of seeds and plants them with abandon.
There is a challenge to us in this. We are being pushed to plant God’s seeds, and plant them extravagantly, on good ground and thorny ground, rocky ground and loamy ground.

We won’t know what will grow until we plant – and what comes of these seeds may not be as we expect. Be ready to be surprised and delighted.

The weeds may be just as beautiful as the orchids, more beautiful than we might ever have imagined.
This summer, and always, watch for the Kingdom of God in the small things and in the unexpected places in your life, in the places you go and the people you meet. What small seed have you and I overlooked? What looks at first glance like a weed that is really a gorgeous mustard plant?

Let these seeds grow in your life – cultivate them in your heart – and may the harvest of your soul be plentiful always. Amen.