1 GOD S WI-FI BLC 7.16.17 B. HULL SOMERS Isaiah 55:10-13, Romans 8:1-11, Matthew 13:1-, 18-23 My Aunt Roxie always has a smile on her face. She is shy in front of crowds but has a fierce and quiet strength. Being the elder sister of two hyperactive twin boys and the mother of three creative and rambunctious children, she has had a lot of practice holding her own. Every memory I have of her is filled with warmth and love and rice crispy treats. This past weekend her children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren gathered together in Nampa, Idaho where she lives. They came together to celebrate her and tell her how much they loved her. It was not a milestone birthday or an anniversary. She did not receive a reward. They came because she is dying.
2 My Aunt Roxie was recently diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer that has metastasized to her liver. She has been given weeks to months to live. When she found out about this, she was understandably disappointed. She had hoped for more time, more time to watch her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow. More time to travel with my Uncle Paul and do mission projects like they have done since they retired. More time, period. But she does not have more time. She faces a finite ending. Barring a miraculous healing, she will be dead by Christmas. The amazing thing to me is that she is not angry. She is overwhelmingly grateful. My cousin told me that they, as a family, are staggeringly sad but overwhelmingly thankful. My aunt has no regrets in the way that she has lived her life and
3 has been gifted ample time to say her goodbyes to all of the people she loves. In my work as a pastor and as a chaplain I have seen many people die. I have seen deaths that were violent and sudden. Deaths that were drawn out and lingering. Deaths that were met with insurmountable grief and deaths that were welcomed with quiet relief at the end of suffering. One of the things that always strikes me is how a life comes into focus when it is ending. The sum of a life is taken good, bad, and otherwise. Families are faced with the reality of their loved one and may have to take time to forgive or ask forgiveness, work through pain or simply be thankful. No life is lived perfectly, not even my saintly Aunt Roxie s. Although if anyone could come close, it would be her. The fact is that life as a human being is messy. It is unpredictable. It has
4 pain and suffering and hardship and failures. And, in the end, no one gets out alive. Today s Scriptures are a refocusing on the ebbs and flow of life. They are reminder of humanity s inability to control it. Biblical scholars believe that the last half of the passage that we read today that defines the different ways the seeds can fail is specific to the community that Matthew was writing to at the time. It is not an exclusive list of things that can choke out God s work in us, just a few examples. Truth be told there are countless ways that the work and grace of God can be blocked. Jesus parable this morning is not a how to garden for dummies. It is a description of how difficult it is to allow God s goodness to grow when so many other things are vying for space in our heads, hearts and lives.
5 Jesus always taught using parables. And parables were not meant to be comical word pictures or even poignant sermon illustrations; they were meant to disturb and throw people off of their regular, predictable lives. Parables were meant to challenge and to change. If we hear a parable and think, That s nice, or I am down with that, then we are not listening. The purpose of the parable is to pierce our hearts and make us look critically at what we have adopted as status quo. They should at least disturb us and at best inspire a course correction. The Parable that Jesus taught in our Gospel this morning is one that was very specific to the first century. Most of us do not traipse around with seeds throwing them around --- some of us are farmers and farmers these days are more organized in their seed planting. Many of us do not resonate with this illustration.
6 Perhaps a better way to describe this concept in 2017 is in using modern terminology. What if the seeds that Jesus is speaking of was Wi-Fi. In the air and we can connect to it or not with things that get in the way of good reception location, whether we even have our Wi-Fi turned on. Imagine that God is spreading God s Good News like Wi-Fi and some have their devices turned on and ready to roll with it allowing the signal to connect, and others will not move even though they are having a hard time getting a connection.still others do not even bother to turn theirs on for fear that the Wi-Fi would connect to them. If you have ever had a difficult time downloading an email or looking up directions, you can understand this. Are we in tune and turned on to the life giving, changing, challenging and disrupting Good News of Christ Jesus? Will we
7 allow it to download new grace, new inspiration, new conviction, will we let it change our minds, our directions, our best laid plans? The fact of it remains. Will we be conduits for the grace, love and radical welcome of God? Ironically, part of being tuned into God means tuning out to the distractions that are so prevalent in our world. It will literally mean putting down our actual Wi-Fi so that we can recognize the presence of the Spirit. Contemplation, prayer and devotion are counter cultural in a world with a distraction for everything that ails us. Taking moments of quiet to listen to nature, to our hearts, and to God is revolutionary in a noisy and relentless world. If you want to see growth and connect to the Spirit, unplug for a few minutes every day. Jesus was not saying, in this passage, that some will grow and some will not and there is nothing we can do about it. He
8 was reminding us that life is a comedy of joys and errors and failures and victories. That there will be so many things that we cannot control but that God s work will continue. That whether we are experiencing the rockiness of life or the distractions of the world, God s grace will rain down on us just the same implanted in our hearts for us to grow into or to ignore. Whether we have been distracted and distractible or connected and open, His love for us remains. That should comfort us and that should disrupt us. It should be a stark reminder of the joy of growing in God and spreading that same Good News to others with our lives. It should be inspiration to make space in our lives for the Spirit to speak to us and move us in God s love. It should be conviction for wanting constant comfort and motivation to seek the ways of the Kingdom of God.
9 My Aunt Roxie s life is an example of the Good News taking root. Her life has never been perfect, but she has kept choosing love, she has kept choosing to turn her face to the Son, she has kept doubling down hope. The way that she is choosing to die is exactly how she has lived. With a beautiful smile, a positive attitude and lots of prayers. Sad that she will have to say goodbye sooner than she had hoped but ever grateful for a life laced with God s amazing grace. I do not have to be a fly on your wall to know that your life is not perfect. Know that. You do not have to pretend here. This is a place we can be ourselves and watch as God s strength shines through our weakness. I know each of us face challenge and hardship. But I also know that God is planting seeds of grace, love and hope in you regardless of the state of your life. And that those seeds will do the work that God intended. I
10 know that the signal and presence of the Spirit is strong whether you are connecting or not and that, whenever you are ready, you can flow into the life giving disruption of the Good News. My prayer for you is that on the day when all this ends, I that you can face it like my Aunt Roxie, with rice crispy treats and smiles and a declaration: God is good. Amen. This sermon is the intellectual property of Pastor Bethany Hull Somers. Please feel free to read and use for Christian education purposes but do not use or distribute without proper attribution. If you have any further questions about the use of this sermon, please email the church office: burlingtonlutheran@gmail.com