For those who were not able to attend services at Advent and for those who would like to experience the sermon and readings again, Reverend Robin Martin's sermons and the Lessons and Collects will appear on this page.

The Collect and Scripture Readings the Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
July 20th, 2008

Celebrant:  The Lord is with you.
People:  And also with you.
Celebrant:  Let us pray.

COLLECT:  Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

FIRST LESSON:   Genesis 28:10-19a   
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the LORD stood beside him and said, "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place-- and I did not know it!" And he was afraid, and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."  So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel.

Reader:  Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.
People:   Thanks be to God.

PSALM:   Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23
1
LORD, you have searched me out and known me; *
     you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
2
You trace my journeys and my resting-places *
     and are acquainted with all my ways.
3
Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, *
     but you, O LORD, know it altogether.
4
You press upon me behind and before *
     and lay your hand upon me.
5
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; *
     it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
6
Where can I go then from your Spirit? *
     where can I flee from your presence?
7
If I climb up to heaven, you are there; *
     if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
8
If I take the wings of the morning *
     and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
9
Even there your hand will lead me *
     and your right hand hold me fast.
10
If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me, *
     and the light around me turn to night,"
11
Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; *
     darkness and light to you are both alike.
22
Search me out, O God, and know my heart; *
     try me and know my restless thoughts.
23
Look well whether there be any wickedness in me *
     and lead me in the way that is everlasting.

SECOND LESSON:   Romans 8:12-25  
Brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-- for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ-- if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.  I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 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 will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Reader:      Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.
People:      Thanks be to God.

Celebrant:   The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew.
People:        Glory to you, O Christ.

GOSPEL  Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43  
Jesus put before them another parable:  “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?”  He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The salves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’  But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and find them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”  Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.”  He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!”

Celebrant:     The Gospel of the Lord.
People:          Praise to you O Christ.

The Sermon for the Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
July 20th, 2008

Reverend Robin Martin

When John and I moved to Wyncote about six and a half years ago, there was a huge and not very healthy tree growing right next to the house.  It had a tremendous branch that hung over the back wing of the building barely twelve or fourteen inches above the roof ridge.  Just about everyone agreed that the tree had to be removed, so in came the tree people with a large crane and over the course of several days removed it down to the ground..  That was in February.  As spring came on I set myself the task of digging a garden in the newly sunny spot that lay beneath where the tree had been.  It took forever, and in the course of doing it I dug and prodded and axed more roots than I ever could have imagined lay in that little piece of ground...some of them as big around as small tree trunks themselves.  Finally, I got it to a state that seemed plantable.  But as I turned the suggested amendments into the soil, I lifted up new roots with nearly every shovelful of dirt.  And with almost every plant or bulb I’ve dug a hole for over the years?  You guessed it, more roots.  I live in hope that eventually most of the roots that are left will decay, hopefully before I die or move into a retirement or nursing home.

We’re back in the field again this week, hearing Jesus’ parable about the wheat and the weeds.  But the issue is no longer about soil quality or seed placement or the expected harvest.  It’s about roots, specifically roots from different plants that have intertwined with each other so that the undesirable plants can’t be removed without disturbing and uprooting the desirable ones.  The slaves who are faced with the dilemma of what to do about this situation confront their master.  “Did you buy cheap seeds?” they ask.  “No way,” the master replies.  “An enemy has done this hoping to ruin my harvest.”  “Well, what do you want us to do?” they ask.  “Dig them out?”  “No, that would destroy the crop for sure.  We’ll separate the weeds from the wheat at harvest time.”

This is the parable that Jesus told.  But the explanation that follows it at the request of the disciples is almost surely from Matthew not Jesus.  As such it gives us a glimpse into the life of the very early church.  For those of us who are tempted to romanticize the past, this is yet another time when scripture tells us there were no “good old days” in the Church.  Even in the heady days of the fledgling church, there were people who said they believed and then lived their lives like unbelievers, people who were quick to volunteer and just as quick to not follow through, people who were enthusiastic at first but grew bored and disappeared after a while.  Matthew is clearly not satisfied with this state of affairs, and assures his readers that those who have failed to be faithful will pay dearly in the end even as though who persevere will be rewarded, so everyone better pay attention to business!

The problem is that the central theme of the parable itself is the patience of the householder, while the central thrust of the gospel writer’s interpretation is intractable judgment.  The parable, without denying that judgment is inevitable, nevertheless responds with patient grace which is why it’s really good news for you and me and all God’s children that God, not us, is in charge of judgment.  Our impatience with ourselves and with others when we fail to be the persons God created us to be wreaks havoc in our lives and theirs.  And it can have a profound ripple effect across the globe by creating a culture and a mind set where flawed and harsh human judgment is seldom mediated by divine graciousness.

It is one of the primary tensions in human existence, this being stretched between the desire to declare ourselves judge, jury and occasionally even executioner and God’s call to us to wait, to be patient, to let God do the necessary unraveling when the time comes.  I think we can only hope to do this as we come to recognize ourselves as a microcosm of the entire field, with wheat and weeds growing together inside each of us.  As you and I get in touch with our desire for God to deal patiently with us, to give us time to sort out our own lives before they come under divine scrutiny and then to judge the remaining entanglements with compassion...as we are honest about ourselves maybe we can begin to treat one another with patient compassion.

All this has particular meaning for me right now.  At this very moment bishops from around the Anglican Communion are arriving in England for the Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade gathering with one another and the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Some of those bishops would like to expel our church and the Church in Canada and others from the Anglican Communion.  They are angry about many things many of which have to do with gender and sexual orientation.  They have expended much time and energy and treasure condemning and interfering and even fomenting unrest and schism outside their own diocesan boundaries.  Some have even threatened not to attend the conference if some of their brother and sister bishops will be there.  I find it so sad and so very un-Anglican.  At our best we have always been a church that is widely inclusive; a church that is patient, living with what seems threateningly new and, perhaps, not what God desires for us or from us.  But, at our best, we have been willing to wait and see.  I commend these men and women, these bishops of the Anglican Communion, to your prayers over the next week or two.

While the Lambeth Conference has no power to do what some of the dissenting bishops propose and desire, whatever is said there and whatever declarations are adopted will have an effect on who and how we are.  And as we pray for them, meeting so far away, we also need to pray for ourselves that somehow the gracious patience of the householder in the parable will shape the way we view and act toward one another.  Because, in the end, God alone will judge, and we can, in the end, depend on that judgment to be just and compassionate.