July 26, 2020, Year A: Proper 12
The Episcopal Church of St. Thomas the Apostle
Dallas, Texas
Allen M. Junek, Seminarian-in-Residence
+ In the name of the one, holy, undivided Trinity. Amen.
Think for a moment about the expanse of God’s love.
Its height.
Its width.
Its breath.
This love that welcomes us, and calls us each by name.
Now once you’ve considered this Love, I have a question: Who does God love more…the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, or the President of the United States?
This question rose in my mind earlier this week while I was meditating on today’s lectionary passages, particularly the epistle reading, and it has haunted me ever since — mainly because I don’t like my answer.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I have a complicated relationship with Paul. Some of the things he writes I think are beautiful, and others make me want to talk back to him quite a bit. In rare cases, I want to do both, and today’s epistle is one of those cases.
Perhaps you know in your bones that nothing can separate us from the love of God, yet a part of you still wishes that isn’t the case.
Perhaps you’re like me, and want to say, “Yeah, Paul, sure. God’s love knows no bounds. That’s all good and great, but is it really? Is it really as you say? It can’t be, at least not for everyone–not him, her, them…or even me.”
Well, I think in today’s gospel reading, one of the things Jesus is trying to say is “Yes, it really is that way! As those who grew up in the Digital Age might say, “It really be like that.”
And so, how on earth would you communicate this love? Love as we know it doesn’t look like anything. It’s like the wind…You can’t taste it, you can’t see it, and it surely doesn’t smell like much.
You can, however, feel it and see where it has been.
That’s why stories and parables are important, they help us feel the things we can’t exactly see, and to know when we’re in the presence of these things. One of these great mysteries is love.
From today’s gospel reading, I think something we can glean from Jesus’ stories is just how excessive the love of God is.
In the first parable, God is a gardener, the planter of heaven, who, with great care and patience nurtures the seedlings before they grow into a massive tree. Matthew calls these mustard seeds, and yeah, those tend to be pretty small, most seeds are. Yet if you were to see what those mustard seeds would grow into, if I’m being honest, they’re not as impressive as the text makes them sound. But that’s the point! On their own, the mustard seeds would become a scrappy shrubby thing only a couple meters tall. It’s only after these seedlings have wallowed in the excess of God, the Planter’s love, that they grow into something beautiful, and unexpected, to provide shelter and nurture to others.
In the next parable, God is the Baker who leavens three measures of flour to make bread. Now, three measures of flour yields an obscene amount of bread — and that’s the point! She graciously invites us into her kitchen that all might be fed. There is food for all through the excess of God’s love. After we’ve had our fill, I dare say that God—much like a Southern grandmother—then invites us to roll up our sleeves and get to work, so that, just like the seedlings who grew so they might provide shelter, we might feed as we have been fed.
Now, God’s love is excessive in the best of ways, but what good is excess if you can’t find it, or if it can’t get to you? These United States among the wealthiest nations of the world, but what good is 630 billionaires if over half a million of our people will sleep on the streets tonight? What good is Jeff Bezos’ accumulation of $13,000,000,000 in one day last week, if, on that same day, tens of thousands of people finally succumbed to malnutrition? Similarly, what good is God’s love if it remains beyond our reach? The next two parables of Jesus are similar in that they communicate something else about the love of God: that it’s persistent.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, she went and sold all that she had and bought it.”
Could it be, that we are this pearl? This treasure? Could it be that the God we know in Jesus Christ sold all that they had—not begrudgingly, but with great joy–at only the thought of having this treasure?
When was the last time that, without a second thought, we sold all that we had—our cars, our clothes, the computers or tablets that we’re using right now—and were happy about it? And not even with the promise that we would get what we desired, at that! It’s unfathomable, and that’s the point! God’s love is so persistent, so tireless, so stubborn even, that the One who held everything gave it away at merely the thought of you, of me, of those we love, and yes, even those we struggle to love—each one of us, a pearl of great price.
Sometimes I think that the harm we do to each other is a result of ourselves not believing that we are loved, or that someone else is not worthy of such love.
Paul knew of this love when he wrote that nothing in heaven, or earth, or the entire cosmos can separate us from this excessive, steadfast love of God.
Thomas knew it, when he placed his hand in Love’s side.
And we know it too, even if we don’t feel it all the time — and that’s what makes this journey of faith difficult (or, the Way of Love, as Bishop Curry so often calls it)! It’s difficult, because love shows no partiality, no matter how much we — not matter I — try to stand in its way.
So in answer to my first question, “Yes.” And thank God for that.
May we never lose our wonder in this excessive, persistent Love—this Love for us and our neighbors, even our neighbors that we could afford to love more. In so doing, I suspect that we might become not unworthy followers of this One, this One whose name is Love.
Amen.
