Kingdom Hope for the Weak

Sunday 26-27

1 Kings 3:5-12     Ps 119:129-136   Romans 8:26-39   Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

We all remember Martha’s complaint to Jesus, “Tell my sister to help me.” Paul uses that same Greek word when he says. “The Spirit of God helps us in our weakness.” In Genesis 1, the wind of God hovers over the chaos in creation, and in Genesis 2 God breathes His breath into the dust to make a human. Wind, breath, Spirit—ruah in Hebrew—refers to the life-giving power of God. Humans were created to rule the earth, but sin and corruption have literally made us (asthenia) “not strong.” We are so weak that we do not even know how to pray. Paul uses the word “weak” to describe our human condition, more than any other author in the New Testament, but he has hope that the Helper, whom Jesus promised, has come. Paul says the Spirit sanctifies our groaning and makes it prayer! Think what that means!

Paul sees God’s redemption in the midst of—our sin, guilt and shame, the hardships, violence, poverty and persecutions, the material and spiritual powers which would destroy us—and he declares that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. The Kingdom will come.

Yet, the Kingdom of Heaven is already manifest among us and within us. Jesus says it like the tiny mustard seed, just a speck, yet it grows into a large bush. It is hidden, like leaven in fifty pounds of flour—a direct references to Abrahams huge lunch feast for the Three Visitors! Remember, that meal ended with a laughable promise of a son, but Sarah is the great-grandmother of the twelve tribes of Israel. The impossible happens in the Kingdom!

God is secretly ruling in places even now, while some stumble across it by accident, like a buried treasure, others seek and find it, like the man searching for the pearl. But it comes at the cost everything. Why? Because whatever is not given to God remains a servant of sin and death. Remember, our earth is ruled by rival monarchs. Jesus says, choose your King.

In Genesis 1, God creates by speaking and separating: light from dark, land from water, day from night… In the same manner, the Torah separates righteous from sinner, clean from unclean. Jesus says the final separation will be the last judgement, where God will divide out His friends from His foes.

Let us be the wise man, treasuring both the Ancient and the new. Learn the Scriptures and tradition even as you study the arts and sciences. Jesus contains all truth, and the Spirit will help us in our weakness to pray and live as His disciples each day.

7/5

zechariah 9:9-12     Psalm 145:8-15    Romans 7:15-25     Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30

zechariah 9:9-12     Psalm 145:8-15    Romans 7:15-25     Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30

When Jesus says, "to what can I compare this generation?," He uses the same verb (homoioo) which introduces numerous parables. Jesus points to the everyday reality to uncover the symbolic meaning of life and the patterns which reveal God’s Kingdom.

In a small, impoverished village, funerals and weddings were grand events, so children’s games would imitate the adults. Jesus says that the people of His time are like difficult children who cannot be satisfied. They reject John the Baptist and his ascetical lifestyle (the funeral) calling him possessed, in our time it would be called ‘crazy.’ But neither do they like the celebrative approach of Jesus, who describes the Kingdom as a wedding feast. How can Jesus be holy when is a drunkard and a glutton? As a result, that generation failed to recognize its visitation.

How could this happen? In Classical spirituality, there is a spirit called "acedia+." It is the passion of discontentment and dissatisfaction. Jesus' contemporaries had hard hearts because they were unmotivated to seek and embrace the things of God. This malady is the voice in your head asking “What’s the point?” When confronted with a prophet, or even the Messiah, it has us shrug and mumble “whatever…” Rather than repent and rejoice, the contemporaries of Jesus choose to find fault. Their murmuring kills their souls.

Jesus models the antidote for acedia. Rather than become disheartened and give up, Jesus turns to His Father and proclaims thanks and praise. The Apostle Paul famously said, “knowledge puffs up.” (I Corinthians 8:1) Jesus

Reinforces that idea with his claim that God has hidden from the wise what He has revealed to His little ones. This is no advocacy of intellectual laziness nor is it blessing ignorance. But it is a reminder that our riches are a barrier to the Kingdom of God and the arrogance of the self identified learned and wise is a huge barrier. Too often we remain sophomores our whole life (Sophia WISE and Morons Fools) Our highly educated elite are too often proudly atheistic, embacing science and disdaining faith.

Jesus has come to reveal the Father to  us. It is His choice. We must fight the urges of acedia and battle the boredom and disinterest. We must also be loving, humble servants. Keenly aware that we are a little one and avoid the arrogance of the wise.

Jesus is Here with us now. Offering us the Father. Let us rejoice in the kingdom wedding feast in ourt hearts

+ see below for insights
http://www.centerforbaptistrenewal.com/blog/2020/3/6/the-desert-fathers-on-dissatisfaction-and-sorrow

7/12

Isaiah 55:10-13
psalm 65
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9,  18-23

Isaiah 55* contains many memorable verses as it expresses God's saving will for His people.
Are you thirsty? Come to the water!
Have no money? eat for free!
Worldly things cannot satisfy us, yet wear ourselves out to fill our belly and ignore the greater promise of covenant with God. 

God declares that His covenant with David will transcend Israel, that the nations of the world will run to join His people.

We know in the Gospels that Jesus multiplies the loaves and feeds the people with bread, but more importantly with His word. We know Jesus, the Son of David, will draw the nations to His cross at Jerusalem and form a New Israel from all the tribes of the earth.

Isaiah 55:6-11 are Canticle 10 in the Morning Prayer Office. It is a beautiful song inviting us to seek the Lord while there is time, to call Him now. Isaiah, like all the  great spokesmen for God, requires our repentance "let the wicked forsake their ways, and the evil ones their thoughts and let them return to the  Lord so He can have mercy." Always, always, the offer of salvation has a sense of urgency. The Day of Doom approaches.

The mind of the God of Isaiah is far above us. As the sky is far from the earth, or better, as heaven (the abode of God) is far above the fallen earth--so far away is He. The gap is unbridgeable, unless He comes to us. And so He speaks His word.

It is like precipitation falling from the clouds, the  life giving waters which produce life on the earth. God is firm, His word does not return empty. He will accomplish His goal.

That Word is incarnate in Jesus Christ. Jesus is God's Self-communication to each and all of us. Jesus is the  revelation of GOd in flesh and blood. Today Jesus speaks of His own ministry as throwing  seed. The seed will grow, it will produce; but woe to those who  are  barren land.

Those who are owned by the passions and sin cannot even hear the word of Christ. Those of shallow spirit engage the Lord briefly for a season, but then quickly move on to other concerns when the price of discipleship becomes too great. The affluent and worldly have the word choked away. It is hard to receive the Lord and embrace His word.

There is abundance of fruit for any who do. this is the good news of GOd's salvation. we are of the earth, far below and far away from our maker. yet he turns to us and pours His own life into us. The connection of water and the SPirit in the Scriptures leads one to see the same possibility in Isaiah. Jesus sowing the seed of His word also echo with John 1. Our only task is to be attentive and receptive. To be aware that our Father wants us to receive His life--the Son and SPirit. He wants us to be united to Him and in this union the fruits of a holy life are automatically going to flow. Trust God will do this.












*they are also found in Canticle 10, which we recite each Friday at Morning Prayer. 

Good Seed, Bad Seed

July 18-19, 2020

Isaiah 44:6-8   Ps 86:11-17   Romans 8:12-25   Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

One of the most important revelations in the Bible are from this section of Isaiah where YHWH declares: “I am God. I am the only God. There is no other God. I alone am God.” I guess this raises the question, if there is only one God, what is the source of evil in the world?

The recurring theme of judgement comes through strongly in this parable. The simplistic and erroneous contrast of a NT God of Love and OT God of judgement could not be more wrong. The Kingdom of Heaven is a dividing process.

Jesus tell us about the Kingdom of Heaven over fifty times in Matthew’s Gospel. He tells us to pray “Father…your kingdom come, your will be done.” In today’s parable He says that an enemy’s hand is at work in our world. Right now, God is not ruling, His dominion is being opposed. In Mt 11:12, Jesus told us “that the violent take the kingdom by force”—probably a reference to worldly powers.  Jesus says that the Kingdom belongs to the weak and poor, to the simple believers and mere children; those are trampled by the powerful. The kingdom is found in the hearts of those who do God’s will and obey. We follow the Crucified, but other masters seek our allegiance.    

The parable begins with the simple words, “someone sowed seed in a field.” The word “fields” is connected to human troubles in the bible. Adam sins and the earth is cursed; human toil will produce thorns and thistles. The serpent is a symbol of the hand of the enemy sowing bad seeds.

Rabbi Friedman enumerates connection of fields to family conflicts. Cain slays Abel in a field. Jacob tricks his brother, when Esau comes in from a field. Joseph irritates his brothers with a dream that they were sheaves in a field which bow to him. In Judges 20, Israel slaughters the tribe of Benjamin, and the word field appears twice. A wise woman tells King David a parable about a man killing his brother in a field. Thorns and thistle in the fields is a metaphor for fratricide and violent conflict.

The greatest fruit of the Kingdom is the divine love humans have for one another, and Jesus’s parable reminds us that the failure to love is the work of an enemy’s hand. Injustice, cruelty, and war, racism, crime, and indifference are all the evil seed among us. Too many families are filled with suffering and pain, too often the weak suffer at the hands of those who oppose the Kingdom of Heaven.    

The world is filled with evil because the Kingdom of Heaven is not fully among us. God did not plant the bad seed, it is an enemy’s work. Sadly, sometimes the enemy’s hand is at the end of my arm, or yours. Sometimes, we are part of the problem. This is why we must repent, and why we cannot judge others.

We live in the troubled times, with the probability that more troubles lie ahead. Weed and wheat grow together, but God will not act until the harvest. We need not speculate on the source of evil, we need to trust Jesus and follow Him. Every day, all day.