Sermon for: July 20, 2008 Brian McHugh, priest
Season: Proper 11A_RCL, Track 1 St. Paul’s, Cambria CA



It is one of the great privileges of my life as a priest to stand at the altar as an “icon” of the priesthood we all share in Jesus, and to preside at our Eucharistic meal. Thank you for inviting me to be with you this morning. My partner Dennis and I are glad to share worship with you.

St. Paul says to those he loves in the church in Rome this morning: For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and – listen closely here - will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. [Rom 8:19-21].

Ah, yes! This is why you and I are here this morning. There are many reasons why we come together as “church”. But there is one core reason that we stick with it Sunday by Sunday and year by year, often through many frustrations and disappointments. God knows there have been many times in my life when I just wanted to chuck it all through 35 years of priesthood and over 40 in ministry. We stick with each other, and with the Scripture, and with Sacrament because we were called from deep within us, some perhaps recently, some perhaps many years ago. We were called, some gently, some shockingly, by the Christ who dwells at the center. A vision, a hope, was awakened within us. It is a vision of the possibilities for ourselves and for the whole Creation. In Paul’s words, it is the vision of the glory of the children of God.

There are perhaps some hardened souls whom the vision never touches or who don’t allow it to touch them. Such people have created and continue to create havoc and suffering in the World. They often suck many others in because of fear or deception. But most of us, in some way, have caught a glimpse of , well, let’s call it God, and we hunger for it to flower.

Jesus told many parables about the path that leads to the Glory. We gather around one of them in our worship today. But before we look at it, let me “rattle your cage” a little bit. Let’s first talk about the Bible. How people understand the Bible is the fundamental divisive issue among Christians today. Not just how they interpret it, but how they think it came about. Being a “good Episcopalian”, you can make your choices and you certainly don’t have to accept what I say! But I’ll tell you where I have gotten in over 40 years of thinking and meditating and studying and listening to greater intellects than mine.

Some believe that God dictated it word for word to various scribes. Others, that God somehow mysteriously manages by the skin of His teeth to get Her message across through the written experiences of the peoples of the Bible. Most are somewhere in between. (By the way, I use Him and Her for God interchangeably, just to remind us of a longstanding Anglican principle enunciated in what are known as the Articles of Religion (see BCP). The First Article says, God is a spirit, without body, parts, or passions - thereby reminding us that God does not have a gender, and that it is misleading and dangerous to box God in with one or the other.) I’m far to the “skin of His teeth” side. There is an icon often seen in the Eastern Orthodox Church, an icon of Christ the Teacher, holding a closed Gospel Book. This icon is to remind us of something I have believed and taught for a long time: that Christians interpret the Scriptures through Christ, and not the other way around. Once you understand this, as I think the Church did in the early centuries and until the ascendency of the Western Church, you understand why it is important to have an intimate relationship with Jesus, to know the core of His Being. It is His teachings and, most importantly, His Love, grounded in and manifesting the unconditional Love of His Father, that define how we understand and interpret Scripture.

Let’s look at the parable of the Wheat and the Weeds (or tares if you prefer). I do not believe that Jesus interpreted His parables to his followers. As I said, the Gospels are a combination of what Jesus might actually have said, and additions by the early church in the decades following His Death and Resurrection, expressing their understanding of what Jesus said and meant. They would in no way have thought that they were falsifying or misinterpreting Him. The “interpretation” we have today is, I believe, one of those additions. And to me, it doesn’t sound like Jesus. Neither God nor Jesus goes about destroying people and sending them to the “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. I think it comes from the early community defining its specialness as against the surrounding Jewish and pagan cultures and religions. Many scholars agree. And of course, you can do your own thinking.

Jesus, as usual, is clear in his parable today. It is about hope and faith in a loving God Who, having created us, knows what we human beings are like. We can choose Good and we can choose Evil. This is the human condition. And all of us, like St. Paul, have cried out in desperation at how often we fail in choosing the Good, often bewilderingly so. But God wants us, as Romans says, to shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father. God has a covenant of Love with all of us, symbolized in the covenant with Jacob. The promise is that, despite all, God will stay by us, shower us with mercy and forgiveness and strength and hope, lead us like a faithful shepherd Who is even willing to give His life for the sheep - as He does in every Eucharist.

Our destiny is to have all causes of sin burned out of us, till we shine like the sun in the Kingdom. Even a little success brings light to our own lives and to the World. Our part of the bargain is to be as faithful as we can in repentance and humility, acknowledging our failures and accepting God’s grace and Love. We “come to church” to be held on, and to help each other along, that path.

In the words of the lovely Psalm 139: If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. This is the God we love and trust and serve.