Sermon for Sunday June 14th

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.

I met a lady in North Dakota who lived there all her life. By the time I met her, though, she was in her nineties. She was a twin and, after her husband died, she lived with her twin sister. She had had a stroke, at least one as I can recall, but her sister took care of what needed to be done. While I was on internship, however, this lady had another stroke and that is when I got to know the family much better.

She had grown up in a small rural town in North Dakota, one among many other small towns in North Dakota that now has houses lying abandoned on the side of the road that you look at briefly as you fly by on your way to your real destination. She was a teacher, as was her sister, and attended church all her life. One of the funny stories that was told about her was that one night in Lent there was a horrible North Dakota snowstorm that kept everyone from coming. Everyone except for these two ninety year old twins, who called to get a ride from a 95 year old man so that they wouldn’t be dangerous.

But as I mentioned, by the time I met this lady, she had had a stroke and couldn’t really respond to anything I or anyone else said. She got to get out of the hospital briefly, but then was placed back soon after into a nursing home for the end of her life. I visited her often there, spoke to her without ever getting any response for months, just like most everyone else in her family that came and visited. But one time, as she laid there, after weeks and weeks in her trance, the family and I held hands around her bedside and said the Lord’s Prayer. And as we said the prayer, her lips began to move and mouth the prayer with us. A couple of weeks later she died.

“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” The kingdom of God is like a ninety year old woman who comes out her stroke induced trance to mouth the Lord’s Prayer with her family, one last time, when everyone had given up hope.

Augustine of Hippo, Saint Augustine as you and I might know him now, was the son of a pagan father and a Christian mother in North Africa. He was sent to study in Carthage, known for its great education system, in order to become a lawyer, teacher or some other well-respected profession. Among other things, Augustine took on a concubine and lived with this woman he was not married to for around fourteen years, even having a son with her. He joined various Christian movements outside of the mainstream, but was always quite skeptical of the Christian faith and, as he said later, was really just waiting and looking for another plausible alternative. He was a rational being and didn’t like the idea of having to have something as ephemeral as “faith” in order to prove himself; he was much more interested in his career and in having a good time. As he put it, he was “panting after honors, profits, and marriage”. He was like a lot college graduates you might know today.

Then in a garden in Milan, Italy he overheard a children’s riddle being yelled over and over again on a street nearby, “Take and read, take and read”. Finding a Bible handy, he opened it and read this verse from Romans, “let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” Augustine realized that his inner search for truth and his outward behavior didn’t make sense placed side by side. He would soon become baptized and then become a pastor and then, eventually, a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. He is one of the most celebrated Christian leaders in history.

“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” The kingdom of God is like a man bent on his own pleasure and power, with a wife at home and a woman on the side, with a mind focused on wisdom and rationality, suddenly leaving it all behind and becoming a pillar of the Christian faith because he heard a children’s riddle and read a verse of the Bible one day. No one knows how this happened, but it did, and now our faith is supported by the depth of this man’s understanding. In fact, Martin Luther started as an Augustinian monk.

“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” Who is it in your life that shows no signs of faith? The one who has left the church or is leaving. The one who was baptized and never seen again. Jesus promises that the kingdom of God isn’t based on your understanding. Jesus promises that the kingdom of God doesn’t need you to see it for it to happen, for it to be real. You can keep digging up those seeds in your garden to see if they are sprouting yet, but you can’t make it grow all by yourself. You plant. You water. But God gives the growth.

Four decades ago, a little boy was baptized in a small Norweigian church. In the front row, a middle aged lady witnessed the promise, but decades passed without ever seeing that boy again. God told the man Simeon that he would not die before seeing the Messiah, even though the Jews had waited patiently for thousands of years already. God promised Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child, even though Abraham was already a hundred years old and, “as good as dead” as the Bible puts it. Isaac was born and God’s promise was fulfilled. Simeon took the baby Jesus in his arms and praised God.

The kingdom of God is like waiting for a promise even when you should’ve stopped hoping for it long ago. The kingdom of God is like praising God for his timing even when you’ve cursed him for years of forgetting.

A young, handsome seminarian from Minnesota and his beautiful wife and family were waiting for a call into the ministry for much longer than they had expected after graduation. All they really wanted was to serve God and the church . . . that and they really hoped to live in Nebraska where all their family was. But then, after a few emails, a couple of phone calls, and a couple of plane trips, they headed off to Connecticut of all places to a little town and church in Cornwall. But the people of this church, this pastor and his family believed that God still had plans for them, plans for a future and a hope, even though they were all so small, they were a little beaten down, and nobody was really sure how and if it was all going to work out in the end. The kingdom of God is as if . . . well, what IS the kingdom of God? You are living in it!

“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how..” The kingdom of God is waiting for a promise and a future that you probably should’ve given up on long ago. The kingdom of God is expecting God to work in the most unlikeliest of places and through the most undeserving of people. The kingdom of God is finding faith where there was only death and despair a moment before. Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.” Amen.