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
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