They Did Not Know That We Are Seeds

Sara Warfield

March 19, 2017

Second Sunday in Lent, Year A

At the center of our faith is a man who was mocked, stripped, flogged, and eventually tortured to his death. Jesus begged his Father to take the cup of suffering from him. He cried to God, “why have you forsaken me?” He died an enemy of the state after being unjustly condemned during a sham of a trial. Jesus, the word made flesh, God incarnate walking with us on this ground, breathing this air. Jesus suffered and was buried.

It is this story that carries us through this season of Lent, and it is powerful. It is powerful because we know that to be human means to experience suffering, and we know that Jesus knows what it means to suffer. We know that he cried out to his Father in the worst of his pain, just as so many of us have called for our mother or father when we have despaired. Our God is not a remote God who watches our pain and fear and loss dispassionately from above. Our God has suffered with us.

So at first it struck me as a little odd, if not a bit insulting, that Paul wrote to the Church in Rome that they should boast of their sufferings. Is this a contest? Is the person who suffers the most the most faithful? But just as I was about to step up on my soapbox to rail against how some Christians emphasize, if not glamorize, suffering, I remembered who exactly Paul was writing to.

His letter is addressed to a small group of Christ-followers living in the capital of a huge and powerful empire. They worshiped a God no one around them believed in. Indeed, the coins in their pockets declared that the Roman Emperor Nero was Deus et Dominus, God and Lord.

The authorities were getting suspicious, and more and more hostile. In ten years, the emperor’s formal persecution of the Christian community would begin. Some sources say that Nero had Paul beheaded in that time. The threats to this community’s safety were real and growing. So I don’t think that Paul was congratulating them. No, Paul was trying to make meaning of the suffering that they were already experiencing. They weren’t seeking it. They didn’t deserve it. But the suffering was there and real and difficult. So Paul challenged Christ’s followers in Rome: what would your faith have you do?

But we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.

Paul’s words of encouragement remind me of a saying that’s been popping up in the past few years as a rallying cry for the oppressed. It says, They tried to bury us, but they did not know that we are seeds.

So often suffering feels like being shoved deeply, inescapably into the darkness, surrounded on all sides, stuck, paralyzed. We don’t know what the Church in Rome had written to Paul before he sent that response, but I imagine it might have been something like, “We are so scared. They are closing in on us.”

We all know this feeling. When your mother died, and you had no idea how you would go on without her. When you lost everything, and not even your family would take you in for fear of your addiction. When ICE agents were circling your block in a van. When you were sleeping on the streets, your wallet shoved into your underwear so that no one would steal it while you slept. When your partner said he was leaving. The darkness becomes thick, the fear paralyzing. The temptation is to give up.

The seed often looks dried out, like there’s not another drop of life in it. Like it will remain lifeless forever. The grief is so heavy, almost impenetrable. But in the midst of that darkness. Paul tells us, “God’s love has been poured into our heart through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” This is good news. A strength that is not your own starts to stir within you.

You don’t have to do anything. The Spirit is already there, infusing you with what you need. And you feel a crack in the darkness, the hard shell of the seed giving way to a spark of new life within. It’s still dark, and you are still closed in on all sides, but a tiny sprout reaches out, pushes into the hard-packed dirt. It’s not easy. It requires endurance—the trust that the Spirit will continue to send you strength through God’s love. Sometimes it’s a fight against your own hopelessness. But that tiny ounce of trust in the Spirit propels you. Your little sprout continues to push through the darkness. Against all odds. It feels like it takes forever. It’s exhausting. Grief is exhausting. Change is exhausting.

Until the dirt around you starts to feel warmer. And tiny drops of light start to drip down towards you. Until, quite suddenly, you break through. Suddenly, you feel a breeze on your face. You’re a tiny sprout in the sun. As you slowly grow towards the light, you start to figure yourself out. This is a leaf. This is a stem. This is a tendril. You start to notice new, beautiful things about yourself. Strengths that you didn’t know you had before. Endurance produces character.

And before you know it, you’re in full blossom, radiant in color and dancing in the breeze. Hope blooming out of the hard dirt. Suddenly, you are the one we write stories about. You are the inspiration, the breath of God’s hope we can take in when something buries us. You who were buried only to be reborn with new strength. Illness tried to bury you…Addiction tried to bury you…Loss tried to bury you, but they did not know that you are a seed.

But maybe you feel like the lifeless seed right now, buried impossibly deep in the hard-packed dirt, surrounded by darkness. I know that this message might feel hard to hear. That’s okay. You don’t have to hear it. You don’t have to agree or try to do anything. Those of us who can will hold the hope of God’s love for you. We will trust on your behalf. We will have faith in your stead. That’s what this community, this Body of Christ, is for.

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Even as he says it, Jesus knows there is suffering to come. And yet he speaks of hope, which is our spring of water when we are buried. This is the story of the Lenten season. We intentionally practice suffering in small ways by giving something up. We reflect somberly on our mortality, how we will eventually be literally buried in the ground. But then, after 40 days and crying out with joy and light and singing, we proclaim together that:

They tried to bury Jesus, but they did not know that he was a seed.

Being Beloved

First Sunday of Lent, Year A, 2017

The Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

There’s a pretty basic question at play in today’s gospel. It’s about our identity, about who we are, and, more specifically, what it means concretely to be God's beloved daughters and sons.

If you listen to the prosperity gospel preachers, the ones most welcomed these days at the White House, you’ll get one set of answers: that being God’s beloved child means God will bless you not just with eternal salvation but with material wealth here on earth.

Today’s gospel passage suggests otherwise. Take a look.

This passage comes immediately after Jesus has been baptized by John in the Jordan River. You remember that scene when the heavens opened, Jesus saw a dove rest on him, and heard the voice from heaven, "This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased."

Awesome words, but what does it mean concretely to be the Beloved Son in whom God is well pleased?

Jesus needs to find out, so the Spirit leads him into the desert for a retreat. He fasts for forty days and nights, and, at the end, he is starving and exhausted--which is when the tempter arrives, and throws three temptations at him.

Each temptation begins by calling into question whether Jesus really is the beloved child of God.

For example, in the first temptation, notice the "IF": “IF you are the Son of God”, and IF God really does love you, then command these stones to become loaves of bread.

The implication is that being God's beloved son means never going hungry, means always being full. This fullness will be supplied by supernatural means. The laws of planting and harvesting will be suspended. It’s a prosperity gospel message.

But Jesus rejects this idea that being loved by God means you will always be filled. Instead, he remembers the word he heard that day in the Jordan. That word was "Beloved". Nothing can change the reality and power of that word.

At times he may be full and at other times hungry, but the word remains true in either case. Hungry or not, Jesus will still be the Beloved Child of God.

In the second temptation, the tempter implies that IF you really are God's beloved child, you will always be physically safe. You can leap from the very top of the temple. The laws of gravity will be suspended for you. Angels will break your fall. You won't even injure your foot.

But Jesus doesn’t buy this understanding of God's loving care. You do not show that you are God’s beloved child by remaining physically safe.

In the course of Jesus' life, there will be times when he is not safe. He will get hurt--emotially, physically, spiritually--but even then the word he heard on the day of his baptism will still be true: He will still be God’s beloved child.

And in the third temptation, the tempter tells Jesus that if he worships the evil one and adopts his ways, he will have control over all the kingdoms of this world.

But Jesus is a Jew of the first commandment. He worships only "the Lord your God". He refuses to worship the evil one and live according to the those values. That means he will not have political power.

But although, from a political point of view, Jesus will be powerless, the word he heard that day in the Jordan will remain true: He will still be God's beloved child.

So Jesus is very clear about who he is. "I am God's beloved child, and there will be moments when I am hungry; moments of physical, emotional, spiritual pain; moments when I am powerless and helpless.

But through it all, I will still be God's beloved child.

There’s a story you may remember from school about one of the West’s other great teachers who lived many years ago in Greece, a man named Socrates.* One day, his fellow citizens accused him of heresy and of corrupting the youth of Athens. They gave him the death sentence--he would be executed by drinking a cup of hemlock.

Socrates accepted the judgment of the court, gave an impressive speech about the meaning of life and death, found no cause for fear; drank the poison and died.

Jesus‐‐‐how different his story was, how different his way of being human! When Jesus came to his own death, he was almost hysterical with terror and fear; looked for comfort from friends and an escape from death and found neither; finally got control over himself and accepted his death in silence and lonely isolation.

The difference between Socrates and Jesus could not be more clear.

Jesus was a more profoundly weak and vulnerable man than Socrates. Socrates never wept over Athens as Jesus once did over Jerusalem. Socrates never expressed sorrow and pain at the betrayal of friends. He was never over‐extended, he was convinced that the just man could never suffer genuine hurt. Socrates was calm, poised, and aloof--a philosopher.

By contrast, Jesus took his place among the poor, the outcasts, those whose lives do not follow the script of the prosperity gospel--like those in today’s homeless encampments, like the children in our neighborhood who go to sleep each night in fear that their parents will be snatched from them in the middle of the night by Immigration.

Jesus was, you might say, a more profoundly weak and vulnerable man than Socrates. This allowed him to feel with us the human condition, including the human struggle and darkness and anguish that calls out for justice, redemption, salvation.

Jesus is very clear about who he is, and in today’s gospel this clarity governs his response to each of the temptations the devil throws at him.

I remember the story of Martin Luther, the great reformer. Whenever he was feeling discouraged or confused or lacking confidence, he would do some self-talk, he would say: “Martin, Martin, you are baptized!” This remembrance of his own deepest identity--that he was a beloved child of God--gave him a renewed strength and clarity to move through the confusion and to discern the path he needed to take.

While Jesus may have been conscious of his true identity in a clear and immediate way, most of us need a little spiritual work to reach this clarity. Which is why we do Lent. It’s why we take on the ancient practices of extra prayer, some fasting, and giving alms.

So now, at the beginning of our Lenten journey, a blessing for you. It’s one I included in this week’s parish email. I like it so much, I want to use it to conclude this sermon.

Beloved Is Where We Begin-- by Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace 

If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what
this journey is for.
I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.
But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.
I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.

* Grateful to Michael J. Buckley for his discussion of the contrast between Jesus and Socrates.