July 16, 2017 at Old First, Brooklyn.

Scripture Lessons:

Genesis 25: 19-34

Psalm 119: 105-112

Romans 8: 1-11

Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

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We see a lot of condemnation in our world today. We see plenty in politics. We condemn our leaders. Our leaders condemn each other.

We condemn other nations. We condemn our own nation, its past of slavery and violence. We condemn industries and corporations, for the destruction they enact on our world.

We condemn those who disagree with us, who take a different approach to life, who believe something different than we do. Whoever you are, whatever you do or think or say, fear not! you can sleep peacefully knowing there is someone out there, ready to condemn you.

Recently, in our culture, condemnation has become a virtue. If you aren’t speaking up in wrath and judgment against someone or something, you’re not doing your moral duty as a human being.

And actually, this condemnation, maybe I deserve it.

I’m not doing as much as I could be to help the poor and the sick.

My lifestyle and my choices contribute to the degradation of the environment. I waste food. I eat meat. I burn fossil fuels. When I go shopping, I don’t think about which company has the most ethical labor practices, or pays its workers the highest wages. I tend to buy whatever is on sale this week. I think about me.

Our brother the Apostle Paul said it much better than I can, in the beginning of his letter to the Romans, “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.”

And in our reading from the same letter today, Paul tells us, “There is 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.”

For Paul, condemnation is a consequence of living under a certain kind of law-- the law of sin. We who are in Christ, do not live under this law, but we live under the law of the Spirit.

Paul has a vision of the world in two parallel realities.

One reality is governed by the law of sin and death-- a reality of the flesh and condemnation.

One reality is governed by the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ -- a reality of peace.

And we tend to live our lives caught in between these two realities.

I know I often live my life under the law of sin and death-- afraid of messing up, afraid of letting someone down, afraid of the condemnation I face for not being good enough. Too often I value people and other creatures, for what they can do for me, rather than for their value and beauty as creations of God. And I often extend that reality of fear and condemnation from my own heart, against others.

But other times, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, I am aware of a different reality-- a world overflowing with the abounding love and forgiveness of God, a world without fear and condemnation, in which even strangers connect to each other with love, hope and mutual giving.

One life. Two realities.

I find an analogy in those great classics of American cinema: It’s a Wonderful Life, and Back to the Future 2. (Pick whichever you prefer). In both movies the protagonists find themselves in a twisted version of their beloved hometown. All the same people and places are there, but everything is in a miserable circumstance. The bright and handsome main street has become dirty and run-down, full of saloons and gambling parlors. Dear friends and family are imprisoned, or dead. The cruel neighborhood bully has become the most powerful man in town.

Our experience of the world is not always so different.

Paul uses this phrase: “set the mind.” He writes, “to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

Our minds do become set so easily. We absorb the patterns, habits, and language of our environment, and we start to use those patterns with ourself, and on others, without realizing it. Often it takes a painful moment for me to realize how my mind is set on something that leads to death.

Jesus’s parable also describes the tension we experience, caught as we are between different realities. Jesus doesn’t use the terms flesh and spirit like Paul, but he illustrates how the habits and ways of the world, have a hold on us, and what happens when God’s word comes to us in those habits and ways.

(The parable of the sower, is illustrated on one of our stained glass windows, in the sanctuary. As you enter, it’s the second window on the left side, and I recommend looking at it for anyone who hasn’t seen it!)

Our feelings of loneliness, our confusion, and estrangement from God is not because God is not speaking to us. In the parable, Jesus tells us, this sower sharing the word of God, is not cautious with her supply of seeds. She’s not searching for the perfect soil. She is careless, even wasteful, tossing seeds freely in every direction.

Walking out of our church, onto 7th Avenue, she isn’t looking for a garden. She’s throwing seeds onto the pavement! Down the storm drain! Into the subway station! Into a flock of pigeons.

God is giving his word to us, every moment

But we, the soil, are often not ready to receive it.

Often our soil is like a busy road. Our hearts and minds are full of visitors passing through, people, animals, thoughts and feelings rushing on the way to somewhere else. No sooner do we receive a seed from God, than something else runs in and takes it away.

Or our soil is like solid rocky. Our hearts, our minds are set, and we are unwilling to yield. The seed God gave to us is trying to put down a root into us, but our soil resists it!

(Although all rock is turned into soft soil eventually, even if it takes millions of years.)

Or our soil may be rich and fertile, but it is already planted, with the plants we chose, and we have no room for God’s seed. We may be so attached to these plants we have been tending for so long, that we fail to recognize they are not bearing any fruit! In fact they are thorns.

For the seeds that find good soil and a protected spot, life and growth is a process: it takes time for the plant put down a deep root. It might look like the plant isn’t growing at all. But that root, Jesus tells us, helps our plant persist through the hot dry days, and remain planted during a storm. Finally, at the end of the season, the plant bears fruit, in one case a hundredfold. But the harvest can’t be rushed.

This new reality of the Kingdom, is a process.

We live under the law of sin and death, but we are learning to live in the Spirit, we are learning to live with Christ, is a process. Like planting seeds and tending them to harvest over many months, this has seasons, and it asks us to work. This life in the spirit is not always a floating blissful heavenlyness, with halos and harps for everyone.

Jesus himself, the son of God, into whom we are joined together, suffered and went to the cross, and died. On the cross, sin and condemnation did their worst.

And on the third day, he rose again, in life and peace, by the power of God.

Though we may feel ourselves caught between two worlds, I invite you to believe, siblings, in Christ there is no condemnation. Christ calls us to a world of forgiveness and new life.

May we receive him, the living word, as a seed into our soil.