Texts: 2 Corinthians 5:6-17 Mark 4:26-34
At the end of today's worship service there was a special called congregational meeting to vote on whether or not we would offer the use of our building for a pilot project being developed by a community task force to provide shelter for the homeless in our community and county beginning this coming winter. This was my sermon...
Outside our kitchen window, on the west end of the house, directly under the window & growing up above the level of the windowsill, is a bush. It’s just an ordinary bush—a shrub—but a couple of years ago I noticed that one of our cats liked to sit on that particular windowsill quite a bit. Eventually I found out why.
Jesus talks about the mustard seed that is the smallest seed yet grows into the largest shrub—with branches, even—“so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”[Mark 4:32]
Someone planted those shrubs outside our kitchen window—and along the “bedroom wing” of our house as well. I don’t know if Cecil Hess planted those bushes, or Dr. Crowe, or Mark and Nancy Ness. All I know is that someone who lived in the house before us planted them. And, like the person in Jesus’ parable who scatters seed on the ground and then eats and sleeps and doesn’t worry about those seeds, they went about their business of living. And the shrubs grew. We know not how, but it’s one of God’s miracles of life.
God sends the rain, the sun, the snow, the hail, the cold, the heat and the humidity. And the shrubs and bushes grow. Homeowners eventually have to cut them back so they don’t completely cover the windows of the house. And still, they continue to grow.
And my cat sat on the windowsill and watched because the birds didn’t make nests in the shade under the shrub; those cute little birds lived IN the shrubbery. And when someone walked by, or there was a loud noise in the cul-de-sac, or someone drove in the driveway… the birds would frantically rise—as one—out of the bush up into the safety of a taller, nearby tree. And the cat thought that was a wonderful sight to behold—definitely worth sitting on the windowsill and waiting to see!
That bush—and the others around our house—doesn’t produce pretty flowers or edible berries or anything. It’s very plain. It’s just there. In the winter it’s a mass of bare twigs until it becomes a huge white snowball. But in the summer—ooooh! In the summer (I don’t know how, just as the seed-scatterer in Jesus’ parable doesn’t know how) it miraculously sprouts green leaves so it’s no longer bare and barren-looking. And it becomes a temporary home, a haven, a safe refuge, a shelter for some of the birds who spend their summers here in the north.
We could be like that shrub or bush! We could be a temporary home, a haven, a safe refuge, a shelter! It’s not as frightening or difficult as some people might think. We have been presented with a wonderful opportunity for mission in our community—a terrific opportunity to immerse ourselves and Share the Love!
Not long after I became pastor at the Congregational UCC in Decorah, Iowa, I was visited by a member of a community committee that was working to find sponsors for Vietnamese refugee families who wanted to come to the U.S. Other churches in town were sponsoring families, which entailed getting them set up with furniture, winter clothing and food and helping them out until they were able to get work and become self-supporting. I told the committee representative that our congregation was mostly older and not large enough to support a family.
A year or so later we were contacted again. This time, they said, there was a father and his young son who needed sponsors. With only two people to provide for, was that something our church might be able to do?
Spear-headed by 2 members of the congregation who were deeply committed to this project, we agreed that we would try sponsoring a father and son. We had no idea how it would turn out or exactly what it would entail, but we chose to “walk by faith, not by sight.”
And what a wonderful experience it was! Nghiep and Thuc (otherwise lovingly referred to as “Nip & Tuck”) taught us about love, honor, appreciation, and their culture. Nghiep went to work at the turkey plant in Postville, eventually being able to send money to the rest of the family back in Viet Nam. We all enjoyed watching Thuc blossom and become fluent in English, excel in school and enjoy being a kid growing up in the Midwest as if he’d been born here.
Eventually they brought the rest of their family over, and on the Saturday before my last Sunday there, we had a wedding! I was privileged to officiate at the marriage of Nghiep’s oldest daughter to the son of the first family that had been sponsored by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Our two passionate members thought it was the perfect opportunity for a traditional Vietnamese wedding, but the families thought otherwise—they wanted a very traditional American wedding! It was great fun watching my Lutheran colleague teach the guys how to usher people in and out of pews and how to hold their arms just SO to escort the women down the aisle!
Because most people would rather walk by sight than by faith, making changes, doing new things and taking risks can be quite frightening. But Paul says, “…if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” [2 Cor. 5:17]
God calls us to do new things and Jesus says, “…Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”[1] The “least of these,” no matter who they are, or how we might feel prejudiced against them, ARE members of God’s family, every bit as much as we are.
We live in uncertainty, between the planting and the harvest. We don’t know what may grow from the seeds we sow. Symptoms of our anxiety include perfectionism, drivenness, moral outrage, restlessness, dread of being alone, and estrangement from God. This kind of anxiety is "an occupational hazard of being a finite creature in a universe of infinite possibilities.” Barbara Brown Taylor tells us that “What is absent when anxiety is present is faith…[faith] that God will be God, that the automatic earth will yield its fruit, that life can be trusted.” The antidote to anxiety is courage, which is chosen “over and over again, every day that [we] live, if real living is what [we] are after….” And if real living is what we’re after, then we should “scatter [our] seeds,”[2] open up our hearts and our doors and be willing to be amazed at what God will do through us! Wouldn’t it be great to see what God can do through us if we give God room, if we give God a chance?
Taking the first step—opening our doors and our hearts—may feel like the old cartoons where the character walks off the edge of a cliff into nothingness and fear and scrambles frantically to get back up to solid ground. But as God’s people we DO walk by faith, not by sight. We don’t walk alone because God is always with us. And as we gather at Christ’s table we are reminded that we are all one in the Body of Christ.
I may not see what lies ahead, but still I walk—in faith. AMEN.
Endnotes:
[1] Matthew 25:40, NRSV.
[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Automatic Earth,” from Mixed Blessings, quoted at http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/june-14-2009-eleventh-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html
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The Congregation voted to be part of the pilot project by offering our building as one of three sites for the start of the pilot homeless shelter project.
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