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An old saying goes, “There’s no free lunch”. I guess that this means that there’s a price to pay for everything, whether in cash or in psychic energy. We capitalists relish the idea that we’re self-sufficient, and that we pay for all we receive. Is there a virtue in being seemingly debt-free? Sunday’s readings can be shockingly counter- cultural!

Into the noisy bazaar of our daily lives comes the shout of yet another vendor: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1) What can this mean? Another gimmick of some kind? Or is this a prophetic voice of an alternative to our scrabbling in the dust for meaning and sustenance?? A Divine Question: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (v.2)

After the towering poetry of Romans 8 which we’ve been reading for the last several weeks, Chapter 9 seems almost introspective. We hear St. Paul bemoaning the slowness of the Jewish establishment to accept the gift of Christ bestowed upon them: “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.” (v.2) For all his spiritual progress, Paul yet honors the tradition of law, worship and promises. Why can’t they receive the free gift of Jesus, the Messiah?

Jesus, wracked by the execution of John the Baptizer, went off to get his bearings. But a large and desperate crowd followed him. (Matthew 14:13-21) “He had compassion for them and cured their sick”(v.14), and eventually provided dinner. None of these had much, but the disciples scraped up a few loaves and fish–which turned out to be enough! (Another one of God’s free lunches!) There was even enough left over to take to the rest of the world: 12 baskets, one for each tribe!

The miracle is not only that there’s enough to go ’round, but also that Grace becomes measurable when it’s passed on. When the rest of the world sends the hungry away to fend for themselves, the People of God issue an invitation to receive an endless supply of what is good, what is filling. A New World will abolish monetary values and turn to the human worth of all God’s sons and daughters.

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King

What sustains you when so much of The Old Dream grows moss? On our overnight trip yesterday & today we drove through attractive towns of mid-America apparently populated by comfortable citizens who owned and maintained and shopped in mid-America stores. We ate too well with other seniors who didn’t need to consume that much. The crops of wheat and corn are prospering, this year… We also drove down some one-way courts where houses were shabby, with kids playing on the street since they had no yards. Rusty roofs abounded, as did derelict porches and rutty & muddy driveways… I’ve trained myself to say, “Yeah, that’s how it is.” But thorns of need-amidst-plenty still prick at my soul.

Sunday’s scriptures contain A Word I/We Need to Hear. In I Kings we’re told of young Solomon surprisingly ascending the throne, and honestly telling God that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. “I do not know how to go out or come in.” (3:7) He asks The Lord for discernment between righteousness and evil, to find the redeemable within the tawdry. “Good call,” says the Lord. “It’s done!”

The Eighth Chapter of Romans concludes with the powerful words which sustain ME when I ask if God’s on vacation: “I am CONVINCED that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor ANYTHING ELSE in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (38-39) At my daily funeral service for humanity, this phrase rushes at me and tells me that a wobbly Creation hasn’t yet been consigned to the rubbish…

What to do with Jesus’ parables? (Matthew 13) If there’s a common thread, it’s that of anticipation, of waiting. The mustard seed needs time to mature into a sheltering tree; we wait. The yeast is mixed with flour, but the loaf continues to rise; we wait. The trespasser who stumbles upon hidden treasure has to wait through legal processes. The pearl-merchant has to liquidate his stock to raise the cash he needs; he also waits. What’s good to hear and to tell is that seeds and yeast DO hold life, that there IS treasure, that there IS the pearl of my dreams!

I’ve gotta lighten up and stop telling God how to run the world. But how to move past “weak resignation to the evils we deplore”? Become blind of eye and hard of heart? No. But if I really make Paul’s conviction my own, I can see this as a promise to humanity…and maybe cast my meager energy into announcing this to the Poor…

God Bless Us! Every One… Horace Brown King

I didn’t buy any tomato plants, this year. In past years, birds have dropped seeds in strange places so that I may grow my own. True to form, while weeding the broccoli, I discovered three very tiny tomato plants cowering under the leaves of their bigger partners. I transplanted them to a sunnier spot, and told them how wonderful they would someday become. Tim, my gardening friend, is doubtful that they’ll mature enough before frost to yield ripe tomatoes…but I have hope!

Sunday’s scriptures deal with who we are between seed-time and frost. The passage by Second Isaiah speaks of the uniqueness of God, “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.” (44:6) Implicit here are directions to live boldly and hopefully, accepting a position of Good Creation. “Do not fear, or be afraid….You are my witnesses!” (v.8)

Don’t be afraid of Paul’s Letter to the Romans just because of its weighty sentences. We read in Chapter 8 that it’s really OK to bet the farm on that new Kingdom which we believe is even now unfolding. Paul affirms that it’s God’s Good Pleasure to include us as beloved children, even “heirs” of future glory! Again, we live boldly: “For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (8:24-25)

Do be careful, though, with the Gospel, for it could be and often has been used to abuse and bully. Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 is the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. The self-righteous can have a field-day (!) chanting, “We’re WHEAT! You’re WEEDS!” (And we’ll sing,”God Will Take Care of YOU!”) Are some really pre-destined to be Good, some to be Evil? Or is the field ME, growing all sorts of tawdry vines amidst the planned Image of God in which I’m created? I have hope that Some Day an angelic intervention will clean me up…

So gardening fits my theology. Each growing season is a small cosmic story of maturation and nurture. Seed-time is an exercise in hope: though there are no guarantees, I have high expectations — and I really believe that someday this late summer I WILL have ripe tomatoes!

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King*

* – I confessed to my study group that I dislike thinning turnips, because who made ME God of the Turnips? They suggested that my sermon title should be, “No Turnip Left Behind”… Do with that as you will…

Nestled in the corner where the back porch meets the kitchen wall is an immense rose-bush. Who knows how long it’s been there? It’s main stem is two inches thick, and it bears literally hundreds of deep-red blossoms in June and September. We try to prune it back, but each Spring this bush produces a marvelous cascade of red & green! Did I tell you that the thorns are miserably sharp? Someone, Mark Twain I suppose, said that roses without thorns are like daytime kisses without hope of concealing night…

Readings for Sunday are about Grace. Isaiah of Babylon ties up his encouragement to the Exiles, “for you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace”. (55:12) From wherever you’ve wandered, from wherever you’ve been taken! The night may be stormy, we may feel like aliens, yet God comes for us. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle.” (v.13) It’s never too late, it’s never too hopeless. I need to hear this again and again.

Paul is more plainspoken than usual: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” (Romans 8:1-2) Is it too late to reprise Independence Day? Much time could be spent debating Paul’s concept of two laws, perhaps more salient to Jewish hearers than to contemporary Protestants. But that’s a rabbit track. The core of this Good News is that there is indeed a way out: remember Liberation Theology?

Matthew’s Gospel remembrance is from the long list of parables, that of The Sower. (13:1-9, 18-23) Our study-group disagreed on whether God Himself or an Apostle was the sower; but we honored the allegory of the seed being the Word of God, liberally scattered on both the deserving and those less so. Can we change what kind of soil we are? Doubtful; yet The Master Gardener will. It is the Sower’s intent that ALL the seed will take root and prosper, without arguing for or against predestination.

Thorns & briers threaten every day. What flowers and fruit come our way often get overcome by “the cares of the world and the lure of wealth”. The news this week told of one of my colleagues from Texas who set himself on fire–literally–to call attention to the brokenness surrounding…immigration distrust, intimidation with side-arms, constant complaining about the Federal government, inequitable attitudes toward women and the LGBT community… I can relate to that, although I’m too chicken to do so myself. BUT in all of it, God brings humanity a holy way out, back to the integrity in which I believe we were created.

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King

Probably dating myself, but one of my all-time favorite cartoons was “Mighty Mouse”.  Only as my own boys were watching these episodes in re-run did I fully appreciate them as mini-operas –always sung, never spoken– with the Bad Guys sung by basses, the crowd by screechy sopranos, and the Pretty Girl in Distress was an alto.  Just when the plot was at its most fiendiish,  Our Hero (a tenor, natch!) swooped down from the sky to restore Justice and make a Happy Ending!   “Here I come to save the daaay…!

Longing for a super-hero?  Isn’t there ONE who can overthrow our captivity to this broken society and fly a flag of Truth & Equity?  The American Church needs to hear encouragement:  “Your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey….the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations….Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope.” (Zechariah 9:9-12)   Z’s audience were newly-returned from exile in Babylon:  although their homeland was reclaimed, the Holy Dream languished.  Fourth of July speeches will call for a renewal of the Old Patriotic Dream — but is there a new and better dream waiting to be articulated??

St. Paul lived long before Murphy expressed his famous Law, “Whatever can go wrong, will.”   But in Romans 7, he admits to the same phenomenon: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (v.19)  Paul was good at splitting our singleness into pieces, claiming that the Evil Presence waged a cosmic battle against the Righteous inside him.  He too looked for a hero to resolve his ambiguity:  “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  And then he names his hero, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Sunday’s Gospel reading is long and a bit difficult, yet it cuts the mustard on this “Independence” Day as words we need to hear, patriotic fluff not included.  Throwing up his hands, Jesus exclaims, “But to what will I compare this generation?”, and allows that the hearers like neither fast music nor mournful, that they complained about John the Baptizer’s ascetic life, and also about Jesus’ glad inclusiveness.  (Matthew 11:16-19)   The People yearn for a uniting, prophetic leader; but fail to respond.  Who will hear the invitation, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for l am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”?(vv.28-30)  “Here he comes to save the day!”

Here on the Fourth of July, anno domini 2014, the Old Dream slumbers in its twilight.  Like all human constructions, it has served well but can be retired.  Since 1776, we have moved beyond slavery, beyond conquering the West and subjugating Indians.  Women now vote, and thinking people cringe away from armed militias.  Racial & immigration problems still abound, living-wages pale against corporate salaries, and bullies intimidate in both gangs and individually.   Is there a New Dream which includes Justice, Truth and Righteousness??  Who will speak this Dream into the vaccuum of our boredom?  Come quickly, Lord Jesus…

God Bless Us, Every One                                               Horace Brown King