What Jesus Does With Just This Much (Sermon preached 6 August 2023)

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself (Matt 14:13). 

On our way to the Feeding of the Five Thousand, a miracle which, by the way, is attested in all four Gospels – everybody knows about it, not just church people –  we might want to pay particular attention to that opening line in Matthew’s account. Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. Obviously, Jesus has heard something. And seeing as how he needs to get away from everyone and everything, it sounds like that something might not be good.

 

Last week he was teaching up a storm. Rolling out parables, one after another, about the kingdom of heaven being like a mustard seed, or yeast, or a treasure hidden in a field, or a matchless pearl. But since then, something has happened. And no, it’s not good. In fact, it is really bad. In the 13-verse gap between last week’s parables and this morning’s story, Jesus has learned of the grisly execution of his cousin, John.

 

Herod Antipas, the Roman puppet governor of Galilee, at his own birthday party, became so enthralled by his stepdaughter’s dancing that he promised, in front of all of his guests, that he would give her whatever she wanted. And, coached by her mother, she asked for...(read more)

 

Treasured in the Gap (Sermon preached 23 July 2023)

“Beware the gaps in the lectionary!”A Biblical studies professor of mine once said that.

Beware those places in the Sunday readings where verses get skipped over. 

Okay, so if you are following along in the generic printed bulletins, you can’t tell that’s what happened a couple of minutes ago when Bruce read the Gospel. If you are reading from the online version, though, you can see the Scripture reference for this morning’s text is Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.  Verses 31-35, right there in the middle of the passage, are left out.

And who, you may ask, decided to do this? The North American Consultation on Common Texts, in collaboration with the International English Language Liturgical Consultation, decided to do this! And they know what they are doing, right? 

I mean, all that’s in those five verses, between the story and Jesus’ explanation of it are a couple of “the kingdom of heaven is like” sayings, and a note that he liked teaching in parables. They don’t seem to have anything to do with this parable about a carefully planted field that gets contaminated under cover of darkness, and the meaning that his disciples, and you and I, are to draw from it. 

Still, I’m not sure they’ve done us any favors by taking that short cut to the tidy wrapping up of a story that on the surface seems pretty simple but, if we sit with it a bit longer, pretty challenging...(read more)