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TheSecond Sunday after Pentecost The Episcopal Church has been much in the news this week—ABC, NBC, Fox, NPR, BBC, Larry King Live—I don’t know if TEC has ever had so much publicity. The reason for all this media coverage is, of course, the meeting of General Convention, taking place even as we speak in Columbus OH. Well, that’s part of the reason…I say part of the reason because GC meets every three years, but rarely with this amount of media attention. The real reason for the intense media coverage is the swirl of controversy that surrounds this year’s GC—controversy about issues of sexuality to be sure, but controversy about power and authority as well. I don’t intend to focus on GC or the controversies therein, but I mention them because I think that although it may not be immediately apparent, today’s readings are particularly apt for this time in the life of our church. In today’s gospel from Mark, we hear two parables, two brief stories that are likely very familiar to many of you. The first parable describes how seeds grow while the sower goes about her business—no effort is expended on her part after the seeds are scattered—the seeds just sprout and grow. The second parable compares the Kingdom of God to the mustard seed—the smallest of all seeds that nonetheless grows to become the greatest of all shrubs. Both of these stories speak of the power of God—the first of a God who calls humans to the task of bringing the Kingdom into being, but who nevertheless is not dependent on human efforts; and the second of a God who, although conceived of as a God of power and majesty and might, can nonetheless bring forth from the smallest seed something large and abundant. These parables both apply to how we often experience God in our own lives—God’s comfort and reassurance coming to us unexpectedly even when we’ve done nothing to cultivate that relationship; and God’s love and care springing from the smallest gesture, the tiniest word of hope, the smallest seed of faith. Mark’s gospel was likely compiled in the time of Nero’s persecutions of Christians and the Jewish war that culminated in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. This was undoubtedly a time of crisis for the followers of Jesus who were both separating themselves from their Jewish roots and coming to be marginalized and persecuted for their faith. Moreover these early Christians lived in a world dominated by the Roman Empire, a world where their beliefs and practices were, for the most part, insignificant blips on the screen of world events. Jesus’ words about God’s power, about God’s ability to bring in the Kingdom by means of the small and insignificant must have been comforting for the early Christians. Christianity started as something small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but that changed over time. Probably the most radical change began with the reign of the emperor Constantine who legitimized Christianity in the Empire, an act that eventually led to the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire—and you know the rest of that story. The institutional church became a mighty force to be reckoned with, affecting not only the spiritual lives of the empire’s citizens, but eventually every aspect of daily living. In our Church History class in seminary we were asked to write an essay about whether Constantine’s recognition of the church was ultimately a good thing for Christianity. Of course, on the face of things it would seem to be a good thing—it meant the end of persecution of Christians, it meant a greater audience for the Gospel, it meant greater influence for the church—the chance to enact the Kingdom in powerful and lasting ways. But it also meant opportunities for corruption, for misuse of power; it meant that Christianity became the ‘easy option’—one could be ‘nominally’ Christian without ever having to struggle with the implications of that choice. Today in many ways we live in a post Constantinian world—a post Christian world, but also a world shaped by both the positive and negative outcomes of Constantine’s action. No longer is the institutional church a major player in world affairs it once shaped. No longer can Christianity claim to be the religion of the state, or even the religion of the masses. Churches are shrinking; declining attendance is cited as evidence of the problems in TEC by some of its most vocal critics—although I would hasten to point out that attendance is declining in ALL the mainline churches, not just TEC, and that that decline is part of a larger multi-determined cultural change that affects not only churches but other civic organizations and structures as well. What I would like to suggest here, though, is that living in this post Constantinian, post Christian world might actually be a good thing in some ways. Living in a world no longer dominated by ‘the Church’ might present us with new opportunities to come to terms with what being Christians means to us. In a post Christian world, it becomes more difficult to be ‘nominal Christians’, to give no thought to what being Christian means for our lives. Instead we are called, I think, to consider carefully what our faith means for our daily lives, how our faith informs the values that we live by, what religion means to us outside of attendance at services once a week. Just as the early Christians must have been reassured by Jesus’ words about God’s power, so too might we be reassured by them. We can be assured that even the smallest seeds we sow might grow and bear great fruit. We don’t have to measure our success in bringing in God’s Kingdom with numbers. It’s not up to us to do all the work. We are called to sow the seeds—to sow them by sharing the gospel, by sharing our faith, by working to bring in a Kingdom of justice and mercy for all. But the outcome rests in God—in God who can bring forth great fruits in and from the smallest and most insignificant among us; in God, whose will for us is more than we can ask or imagine, whose will for us demands our action, yes, but also transcends it. Jesus’ words about God’s power serve as reassurance for each of us as individuals, for all of us who comprise Saint Mary’s, and for the body we know as The Episcopal Church. No matter what the outcome of the controversies being debated at GC, no matter what our numbers or our status in the grand scheme of things, we are still called to be sowers of the Kingdom, and through God we still have the power to act in the world. None of our efforts to bring in the Kingdom are too small or too insignificant to bear fruit as long as we remember that the power is God’s. For God’s power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, and for this we give thanks. AMEN |
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