There Is No Easy Church

A sermon preached on July 12, 2020 via Zoom with The Episcopal Dioceses of Western New York & Northwestern Pennsylvania.

A video of the sermon is available on YouTube.

This morning, we find Jesus sitting by the sea, where he has drawn great crowds around him. I imagine Jesus – perhaps surprised by the size of this gathering – looking around and taking stock of the situation. He does not have a microphone to reach these people. He does not have a stage. He does not have a mega-screen.

How to preach the Gospel in a time such as this? Jesus uses what he’s got.

And what he’s got is a beach, and water, and a boat. I imagine him climbing into a little fishing vessel. I imagine him shifting his weight from foot to foot as soft waves pass under the bobbling boat. I imagine him, perhaps, choosing a spot on the horizon to focus on in order to avoid sea-sickness.

This is not easy church. But it is church. And the people who have come to see this controversial figure who has been preaching and teaching and healing from town to town will be changed by it. “Listen!” Jesus shouts, the waves of sound carried along by the waves of water. And the restless crowd falls silent and still.

And Jesus tells the people about a man sowing seeds. The man is walking along a path and the seeds fly everywhere, meeting all kinds of different fates. Some of them become food for the birds, some become quickly-scorched plants, and some bear tons and tons of healthy fruit. Each seed’s fate represents a possible outcome of what happens when someone hears the Word – when someone hears Gospel truth. Some won’t understand and simply walk away, some will get really excited in a shallow and impermanent way, some won’t quite prioritize Gospel values above those of the dominant culture, and some will take the Word deeply to heart, bearing the fruit of a life in Christ. I tend to think we all experience a bit of each seed’s fate as we learn and grow as Christians.

Jesus – drifting in his makeshift floating pulpit – is telling the crowd, and he is telling us, that there is no time and no place ideal for the seed-sowing work of sharing Gospel truth. He is telling us that there is no easy church. Gospel seed-sowing will provide life-giving community and it will change lives. Sometimes, we will rejoice in witnessing the growth of orchards of fruit. And sometimes we will see fruit wither on the vine. And it’s all part of the work of sowing seeds.

This work will sometimes be under-resourced and it will often look awkward and un-polished, like preaching from a soggy boat. Real seed-sowing work will live into the Christian hope for a kind of love and justice that is nearly unimaginable to us in the here and now, a kind of love and justice that is deeply unfamiliar to our dominant culture, and a kind of love and justice that has always been potentially threatening for the powerful – for those of us on the privileged ends of systems of oppression. 

Right now our nation is living through a pandemic and coming to terms with systemic racism and other deep inequalities this emergency has laid bare.

How to preach the Gospel in a time such as this? Like Jesus, we take stock of the situation and we use what we’ve got.

We put away our embarrassment if the seeds don’t look pretty, if we drop a handful on the path by mistake, if our rows don’t look neat and tidy, if we don’t like how we look or sound as we sow, if we have to use a clunky internet tool or wear a face mask to reach people, If as we learn we must admit we have been wrong in the past. We remember that each and every one of us has special gifts for sowing seeds – and it may not involve what we’ve come to think of as “preaching,” and we commit to collaboration and partnership. To doing this work in community, together – even if physically distant. We expect to be surprised. We expect discomfort and inconvenience. We proclaim the Gospel values that God “has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly,” that “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” and that Black Lives Matter, even when we know doing so may result in hard conversations. Even when we know it may cause the rootless to fall away. We expect disappointment and failure. And, we expect that some seeds will never bear fruit.

Jesus tells us can have faith that even though no time is ideal for the seed-sowing work of Gospel truth and that there is no easy church, the Spirit is always at work. He tells us that the Gospel will be heard. And that some seeds will bear fruit. If we only trust in God’s presence, look around, take stock of the situation, and use what we’ve got to walk along the path, sowing seeds.