Sometimes, on a long drive, in an area that we’re not too familiar with, we can get caught in the trap of thinking that it’ll be the same old, same old, around the next corner.
Lynne & I have travelled across the Simpson Desert a couple of times and it never ceases to amaze us how much the scenery, vegetation and wildlife changes every few hours.
You might think of a desert as a largely boring and desolate place, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Just like we can never predict how the Kingdom of God will manifest itself.
Take, for example, the parable of the mustard seed that Jesus tells in today’s gospel.
 
What may not be apparent to us today, but what the early listeners would have understood, is that the mustard plant referred to by Jesus was the black mustard, that grows into a large bush and spreads prolifically.
It was not cultivated, instead growing wild in the area around Judea.
The mustard that we know today is the Indian mustard, which is smaller and easier to cultivate and harvest.
 
Jesus is comparing the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, as Matthew refers to it, to a plant that he knew would constantly, and inevitably, keep growing and spreading.
Have you ever seen ivy, growing on an old wall, taking it over completely?
Not difficult to visualise, as I’m sure we’ve all seen it.
Well, that’s what the Kingdom of God is like.
But keep in mind - that’s the endgame.
The point Jesus makes in Matthew’s gospel is that the beginnings of the Kingdom are tiny.
The Kingdom of Heaven starts small and can be barely noticeable.
But when the Kingdom comes into its own, it is seen everywhere, and you can’t miss it.
 
We are part of that growth, part of that Kingdom, whether anyone recognizes us for what we are, or not.
The most important thing is that God knows.
 
In our gospel lesson today, Jesus doesn’t stop there.
He gives even more parables – more stories of ordinary things that possibly have extraordinary meanings.
Parables like these should be wrestled with, delved into, to determine their hidden meanings.
 
In his book “The Parables of the Kingdom,” C.H. Dodd wrote:
“At its simplest, a parable is a metaphor or simile, drawn from nature or the common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, leaving the mind in doubt about its precise application, teasing it into active thought.”
 
In Matthew 13, Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is like the yeast that the baker mixes with flour to make huge amounts of dough – enough for an entire wedding feast.
In the scriptures of Jesus’ time, leavening was something that people understood to be unclean or evil.
Unlike the convenient packets of dried yeast that we have today, leavening was done by letting some bread rot, just enough, in order to leaven a new batch of ingredients.
 
The Kingdom of Heaven is being modelled after something that is seen by some as unwanted or unusable in everyday life - and yet, God makes it good.
 
Jesus goes on to tell us that the Kingdom of Heaven is also like a treasure, hidden in a field, that makes a certain person sell all he has, in order to buy the field where he found that treasure.
It’s also like a pearl of great price, that makes a merchant sell all he has, in order to possess just that one pearl.
How valuable is the Kingdom of God to you?
What we see as valuable in God’s Kingdom, others may see as junk.
What possessions would you be willing to give up to enter it?
 
Sometimes we can even try to contain the Kingdom, only to pull it out when we think we should.
 
How often do we buy into the attitude that we carry Jesus in our pocket and take him out for a while on Sundays, only to put him back in as soon as we leave the church?
We get settled back in our neat little daily lives during the rest of the week and forget whom it is we follow.
We might think, “Oh I’m just part of a little church. We can’t do much, so why should I bother?”
 
Lou F. McNeil, an American writer once said, “When one’s thinking begins with the parish and its members, rather than the gospel itself, it is likely that ministry and planning will not progress beyond the parish and its membership.”
So, I ask again, why should we bother?
Well, for one thing, we know that God bothers. In fact, God actually asks us to bother more than we usually want to.
 
Jesus refers to the Kingdom starting out small like a tiny black mustard seed and yet it grows into a tree that shelters birds and the like.
When that small mustard seed starts growing, it has an advantage, because it can grow in and around the landscape, sheltering those beneath it and giving a place to perch for those above it.
This, too, is how the gospel is spread in neighbourhoods where churches discern which leaf to unfurl in their present landscape.
A little branch here, a little branch there, and suddenly the place is alive with people in the neighbourhood being nurtured by the spread of the gospel.
 
God’s gifts are unexpected, however they are so vast that they require a response.
We should be willing to give up our self-centred attitudes and everything else for the task of spreading the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The process may take a lifetime to achieve and is easier said than done.
 
Sometimes we don’t know what to do with the part of God’s Kingdom that we’ve been given.
Even right now, we’re in flux – we don’t know what the future holds for our church.
But even in that unknowing, we have an advocate – the Holy Spirit – that helps us in our weakness and intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.
As Paul says in today’s reading from his letter to the Romans, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
It might not look like what we think it should look like, but God knows better.
 
We must trust God, because God uses what others think is unusable, calling us to love others with reckless abandon.
God sees in us what others cannot see and by living this way, we show what the Kingdom of Heaven is made of.
 
But we can’t just rest comfortably in our little patch of Kingdom, under the protective branches of the mustard tree. No, we’ve been tasked by Jesus to go far and wide to spread more seeds, so that others, who haven’t yet heard about him and his love for all of us, can also enjoy the fruits of living in the Kingdom.
Therefore, as the church of God, we need to make sure that we don’t become too introspective, or inward-looking, only thinking of ourselves and our lovely service of worship.
 
Instead, we need to continue with outward focussed activities - like the chaplaincy work Liam is doing with the Lane Cove Community and also those other missional projects we assist - like Saltbush (whose motto is “uniting the scattered communities”) and Bidwill Uniting - in the 2770 postcode in western Sydney.
 
We must keep looking outside of the church walls and seeing what we, as individuals and as a group, can do to help grow the Kingdom.
Hopefully, our tiny mustard seed, yeast, treasure, or pearl will become mighty in the Kingdom of God.
But only if we share God’s love with those who are out there searching for it.
 
I encourage you to be vitally re-invigorated and ready to work for the Lord in the Kingdom.           
 
Pastor Rick

If you go into any gym and search out the section where people are lifting weights, you’ll hear a lot of grunting and groaning.
This is because weightlifters often groan, as they strain to push weights off their chests, or lift them over their heads, or pull them off the floor.
 
A straining car engine also groans if you strap on a heavy trailer and point it uphill, then you’ll hear the engine groan. Gears push against gears, the engine revs, and the vehicle groans as it strains to move forward.
 
Groaning is also the sound of creation, as Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now”, which is a pretty vivid image.
This metaphor may be more relevant for women who have actually experienced labour pains and it reminds us of the difficult work of creation, because that sort of work can be hard and definitely groan-inducing.
 
Groaning happens in a gap – the gap between what we’re trying to do and what we hope to do.
Groaning reminds us that the time spent in the gap between what is, and what could be, is a place of hard work.
 
Our readings from the New Testament today are about living in this gap.
We hear about the gap between creation, as God intends and wills it, and where we are now.
Paul describes how to live with optimism and hope in a world that so often doesn’t fulfil what God has promised to us. He calls this “life in the Spirit”.
Paul’s whole ministry, in a way, was driven to close this gap.
 
Paul felt that he had seen the fulfilment of creation in Jesus and he knew that it was within reach.
He also knew that the communities he had preached to, still lived with injustice, war, poverty and suffering.
He knew both the glory that is to come and the sufferings of the present time.
He exhorted the Christians in Rome to live in the Spirit, because he also saw the glory that’s just beyond the gap.
 
A life in the Spirit is a life characterized by the confidence that, through Christ, we’ve been freed from all the things that can increase our suffering.
A life in the Spirit is a life lived free of hatred and violence - and instead filled with joy and reconciliation.
A life in the Spirit is a way to live in the gap between what is, and what shall be - in joyful exertion, not in desperation.
 
The gospel parable also speaks to life in the gap, because the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus preached about, was already here and it’s described as being glorious.
Jesus compares it to a grain field and reminds us that a field of grain is the source of not just one loaf of bread, but an abundance of bread.
This is an image of an abundance of what was, and for many still is, the basic food, the basic source of life.
Yet, in the midst of this vision of an abundant life, there are weeds.
The weeds gum up the works and can’t be removed easily.
The parable today is about having to wait in the gap – in a world of both abundance and weeds.
It’s there to comfort those who live in the gap, assuring them that, at the end, the weeds will not ruin the harvest.
 
I guess that most of us find it extremely difficult to live in a gap.
It’s difficult to see the glory beyond the horizon and still live in a place that’s not yet fully glorified.
The first Christians must have also felt this very strongly.
Those who knew Jesus, had known in their minds and felt in their souls, the goodness and love of God through creation.
They might have struggled in the time between his departure and second coming they expectantly waited for.
 
Paul, too, had seen the glory of the risen Christ, and so his conviction, faith and excitement must have filled the minds and souls of the people in the churches that he planted.
Yet, just outside the door of each house church, every time the communion meal ended and people returned to their lives, they were confronted by the realities of a world that did not meet that vision.
 
The parables Jesus told about the end of time, the words Paul gave to his communities, were written to help those communities understand and overcome the gap between what is and what ought to be.
They had an expectation that the time would be very short, but, with each passing day, week, month and year, their time in the gap became more stressful.
 
The parables are also words written for today, because Christians are still living in the gap.
Many know the feeling of God’s love and have experienced it in their lives.
Many have seen it in grand acts of compassion and small daily acts of kindness.
Christians rejoice when justice triumphs and celebrate when sickness turns to health.
These are signs of the Kingdom of God come near, yet, people everywhere also wake daily to news of war and rumours of war, of violence in homes and communities, of soul-crushing poverty in every country, of injustice, and all the many ways the dignity inherent in every person is neglected.
 
How do we reconcile the problems that are affecting the world with global warming?
Some will question whether the Kingdom is any nearer, after hearing news reports of disasters that are occurring.
 
As Paul reminded the Christians in Rome and Christians are reminded today – we don’t hope, based on what we see, but Christian hope is based on the confidence and assurance that the risen Christ is present in the world, bringing all things to what they are meant to be and closing the gap.
God’s focus is on closing the gap between what is and what ought to be.
 
This is the work of God from the beginning of creation.
To be Christian, is to do this work, as we’re all children of God and a part of a creation which is coming into being.
The way to join in this work is to live a life in the Spirit.
This isn’t a life that tries to ignore the gap, but a life that can stride confidently into the gap – angered at injustice, grieving at suffering, striving and straining and groaning.
 
Groaning is the soundtrack of creation - the sound of the gap closing and of the Spirit overcoming resistance.
Life in the Spirit strains and groans to close the gap.
It’s a good, honest groaning, the soundtrack of what will be coming into being.
 
Life in the Spirit is a life that closes the gap between the weight on the chest and the weight lifted high and triumphantly overhead.
Life in the Spirit closes the gap between the engine straining against the gears and finally reaching full speed, running like a well-oiled machine.
 
Christians are made to be gap closers, seeing the distance between what should be and what is, and straining, heaving, and working to close that gap.
It may be necessary to groan, but the groans sing the soundtrack of creation.
 
I pray that we will stay true in the struggle, groaning if need be and laughing at our groaning when we can.
The gap is closing, so let us hear the soundtrack of creation as we raise our voices in work and strain and joy.
 
Are you willing to groan for God?
 
It’s not a question you hear every day, either in church or out in the street, but it epitomises the struggles that we must commit to in our Christian walk.
 
I encourage you to re-read these passages and strengthen your hearts for the courage to bear the weight, striving towards life God has prepared for us on the other side of the gap – the Kingdom of God.

Keep groaning……………Pastor Rick

The Parable of the Sower is found in all three Synoptic Gospels.
​
Mark ‘s account was written first and then Matthew and Luke had access to his writings when they wrote their own accounts of the story.
The way we hear these parables in today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, tells us how receptive we really are to the gospel of Jesus Christ, because Jesus uses this first parable to set us up for the seven parables that will follow.
They are all about the Kingdom of God and this one is about the character of God and how God reveals that character to those who recognize it.

Throughout this 13th chapter, Jesus keeps saying, “those who have ears, let them hear; anyone with ears, listen!”
In other words, these stories will seek out people who can understand them.
As you listen to the stories, they will attempt to identify which kind of recipient you are by the way you hear it.
The depth of our understanding depends on our willingness to be changed by what we hear.
 
Yes, you can take the story at face value: seeds get sown, and where they land determines how well they will grow.
Or you can try to assign meaning to the parts of the parable, treating it strictly as an allegory.
The Sower is God, the Word is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the soil is our hearts.
Using this interpretation, and the explanation Jesus gives of this story, we might think the point is to do everything we can to become good soil.
However,  there’s a problem with this approach as we can’t change the kind of soil we are – only God can do that.
​
The bigger problem with this kind of interpretation is that it makes the story be about us, about the soil.
But the story is not about you (be good dirt); the story is for you.
This parable, like all scripture, is really about God and God’s extravagant generosity.
 
God is the Sower, scattering seed liberally, even wastefully, everywhere.
It’s what God does and keeps on doing.
God keeps throwing seeds, regardless of where the seed might land. 
God is love, and love is generous, lavish, abundant, eager to share what is good.
God will not withhold the Word from anyone or deny anyone access to the Good News.


This parable tells of a sower who is ridiculously generous with the amount of seed he scatters, throwing it not only on the good soil, but on soil that even non-farmers can recognise wasn’t a good bet: on thorny soil, rocks and even a beaten path.
God doesn’t use a GPS-driven tractor to plot out perfectly spaced rows, carefully inserting each seed at the exact depth of carefully prepared soil for optimum germination.
God scatters the Good News of the Kingdom liberally, even in places where it’s not likely to grow or bear fruit.
God sows everywhere.
 
Wherever it’s sown, the Good News cannot be contained.
God doesn’t discriminate between good soil and bad soil.
God throws the seed of the Kingdom everywhere!
It goes out into all the world, to transform any who will accept it.
You see, seed can only become fruitful when it stops being a seed.
 
Seed must change to become a plant.
It breaks open, just as God has broken into the world in the person of Jesus Christ.
As it grows, it becomes something that is not a seed anymore – it becomes a plant, bearing more seeds!
 
The parables read us – where the seed lands, how we understand the Word and absorb it into our lives, how well our ears are tuned to listen to it, determine the extent to which it can change us, transforming us into fruitful plants that bear abundantly.
 
As we listen to the parables of Jesus over the next few weeks, how will they change us?
How will our ears hear them?
How will we be changed, as we find ourselves drawn into God’s story, as God invites us to become part of it? How willing are we to be transformed by that story, becoming something we’ve not been before?
 
Each week, preachers cast the gospel as broadly as possible, with no guarantee where it will land.
Preachers know that people listen to the word for all kinds of reasons.
Maybe as a newcomer, checking out a new church - a place to call their spiritual home.
Maybe they’re experiencing a crisis in their life.
Maybe they come out of habit, or to see friends they hope will also be there.
This is their social network
And maybe they come because they’re hungry for God’s Word; eager to bring their praise and gifts to worship the Lord in the spirit of holiness
 
But every preacher knows that no matter how carefully crafted the sermon may be, no matter how much prayer and study have been poured into sharing the Word of the Lord, the chances of something taking root doesn’t depend on the sower.
Yet that’s what we’ve all been called to do.
To sow the seed and to bear the heartache and frustration when it falls on rocky, weed-infested ground.
And, chances are that you’ve been there! Each of you have probably experienced the hard truths of this parable at some level.
Every parent whose words of loving concern have fallen on a teenager’s deaf ears knows about hard-packed ground
Everyone who has operated a business with integrity, only to see clients go to where prices are cheaper, understands shallow roots
Every person who has been overwhelmed with worry or caught in the trap of loving money has experienced the chokehold of thorny weeds.
 
This parable reminds us that we are not alone in these struggles.
The parable also reminds us where to keep our focus.
As a church, we invest time, energy, and hope in trying to coax growth among people.
We shouldn’t despair when the seeds we sow do not take root.
The sower accepts the reality that a good chunk of seed will fall on bad soil - yet he keeps sowing.
Jesus wants us to keep spreading the word.
He calls us to hope, challenging us to believe in God’s abundance.

This story could have ended with a normal harvest from good soil, but it is filled with the promise of lavish abundance, even in the face of rejection and the hard realities of living in this world.
God wants our hearts to be good soil, but nevertheless he also hurls huge amounts of seed even on dry, thorny, or beaten soil.
Similarly, God doesn’t want us to hold back - because there is enough seed, grace and love for everyone.

The story isn’t about what the dirt is like - the story is about God, and the way God breaks into our lives in the person of Jesus Christ - to change us and accept his extravagant love.
It’s about God’s abundant generosity, and God’s desire to draw us into the kind of transformation that bears abundantly more than a “normal” crop could possibly bear.

Hear God’s love for you and be broken like the shell of a seed.
Let the Word of God grow in you and produce an abundance in you, becoming something new and a part of God’s story in the world.
Let these parables take root in you and change you.

All who have ears, listen!

Blessings on you and your Christian sowing endeavours.                    

Pastor Rick

​Today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel is quite a contrast to what we’ve been hearing Jesus say in earlier passages.
He’s been talking about the cost of discipleship – the certainty of persecution, conflict, suffering and painful division for those who choose to follow him.
Things like “Leave it all behind, pick up your cross and give up your life for my sake” - strong stuff like that.
 
But today his tone changes.
Jesus is sounding all sweetness and light – promising rest and comfort, light burdens and easy yokes.
This is more like it - gentle masters are much more to our liking – if we must have masters at all.
 
But, as we’ve come to understand, the words of Jesus are usually a little more complex than they seem.
The primary thrust of what Jesus is saying here is not directed toward people who have just any kind of difficulty.
By saying “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” or an older translation, “who labour and are heavy laden,” Jesus doesn’t primarily mean people with ordinary problems – such as too many bills, or being unemployed, or sick, or having ungrateful kids.
 
Jesus has all sorts of things to say about stuff like that, but that’s not what he’s talking about here.
Here, Jesus is talking quite specifically to, and about, those who are on a religious quest – those who are seeking God, and a relationship with God.
He’s calling the religiously exhausted to himself – those who’ve tried all of the usual ways of finding some peace with the divine and have achieved only frustration.
 
The clue to all of this is the fact that a yoke was not only a device for harnessing beasts of burden, but in early Jewish times, it was also the common symbol for the Laws of Abraham and Moses.  
It was used to cover the details of the “law” and the particular demands of the legalism of the Pharisees.
In fact, there were about 613 of these!
 
Also, we need to remember here that Matthew is presenting an exaggerated picture of the Pharisees – most of them were not nearly this extreme; many were not bad at all; but there were enough of them who were, to justify this caricature.
 
This is why Jesus says that the wise and intelligent – i.e. the religious leaders – have missed the point.
He then adds that only the Son – not those leaders, and not you, or me, or anyone else, only the Son – knows the Father - and we can only come to the Father through him.
 
The yoke of the Pharisees, their demands that you have to do this and this and this, exactly in the right order, to matter to God, in order to be a decent person, in order to be loved or counted significant – that yoke Jesus rejects, even though it was the yoke of the “wise and intelligent”.
 
That yoke leads us to seek God by keeping the rules, doing what somebody or anybody or everybody else says is the thing to do.  
Trying to get it right all the time and so living constantly in fear of getting it wrong - that yoke leads those who wear it to “labour and be heavy laden.”
It leads to living in what Paul just called “this body of death.”
It leads to a religion and a life of fearful obedience to a multitude of petty dictates where the spirit is deadened, and where some measure of success is more likely to lead you into self-righteousness than into the heart of God.
 
To say to your child, a friend, your spouse, or anyone else, “I’ll only love you if you do everything right”, is to ensure a sick and twisted relationship that hurts everybody involved.
 
To teach that this is what God says, is not only terrible theology, but it can also be devastating to those who hear it.
Yet the yoke of the Law, at its worst, did just that.
Those who, like Paul, struggled under such a yoke, discovered that it didn’t fit; that it didn’t bring them closer to God; that it didn’t enrich their lives - yokes like that never do.
 
To go scurrying about with the notion that if we could only figure out the right thing to do – the right way to act, the right words to say, the right way to do the rituals – then we’ll be all right.
But that is to skate on the edge of magic, as if we could conjure up God’s acceptance.
In the end, it’ll only ensure frustration and exhaustion.
God’s presence with us and God’s love for us are never the results of our actions.
He’s in charge; we’re not.
 
Even the Apostle Paul, when writing to the Jews in Rome, struggled with this.
He stated that if he tried to keep to the Jewish laws, he was, in fact, sinning, because he was only doing it (ie. keeping the laws) because he felt he had to.
 
Instead, Paul remembered the call of Jesus, who says, “Come to me.”
 
Not to a new law, not to a new teaching, not to a secret interpretation, or a hidden loophole, not to a book, not to a list; but “to me.”    Come to Jesus himself.
 
In essence, Jesus is saying, “If you seek God; if you seek his love; if you seek a life that makes some sense; if you want a way of understanding the world that allows you to deal honestly with what happens and not be destroyed; if you want to be who you are created to be – if you want this, then come to me.”
 
It’s a call to relationship – to relationship with Jesus and to relationship with the community that continues Jesus’ life and ministry – that is, the church.
 
The alternatives, then and now, will fail, but Jesus will not. We’re reminded that God has taught us that all the commandments can be kept by loving God and our neighbour. Such is the yoke of Christ.
 
In many translations, Jesus calls his yoke “easy”, but that’s an unfortunate translation into English, as it makes it sound like everything’s a doddle and that very little effort or energy is required to do it.
As anyone who’s tried to live the life of Jesus knows, that’s just not true.
I like the New English Bible’s translation which reads, “My yoke is good to bear.”
 
The point is not that this yoke, the Lord’s call to relationship, makes no difference, or asks nothing of us – quite the contrary. The point is that it fits - it’s the right size, so it works – it leads us to God, and brings with it wholeness and a peace that can’t be found anywhere else.
To come to him is to discover that, what can seem a frantic and desperate task – life with God – is, in fact, not an earned reward, but a free gift.
To come to him is to discover, as Paul discovered, that “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
To come to him is to discover that the task of getting it all correct is replaced by the absolute gift of God’s grace, and our grateful response to that gift.
 
All the strong stuff we’ve been hearing the past few weeks about the cost of discipleship is still very much there.
But the yoke is good to bear - it leads to life.
To put it on is to be embraced by God’s mercy – to carry it is to fulfil both God’s will and our own humanity.
We’re called to this yoke, not to a law, or set of rules, but to a person and a community built around that person.
And in this the religious quest – the greatest journey of human existence – can find its richest fulfilment, and its deepest satisfaction.
 
Jesus said, “Come to me if you seek God, if you seek life, I will give you rest.”
Are you ready to wear that yoke?    
To let Jesus carry you?                       
 
Pastor Rick