A Choice of Hope

[Our lessons were Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:1-4, 11-14; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17; and Mark 4:26-34.]

Churches have and need lots of helpers—even small ones like St. Christopher’s! When you multiply all of the St. Christophers’ and Christ Churches across the whole Episcopal Church, that becomes a lot of people. And that doesn’t even take into account all of the other faith groups across our country and the world.

Sometimes we get to worrying that this task or that job won’t get done if we don’t do it ourselves. I think it’s an occupational (or vocational?) hazard that sometimes we confuse the invitation to participate in God’s mission with an invitation to take over for God.

The first of Jesus’ mustard seed parables addresses this. The farmer may sow seeds and the seeds may grow—or not. Whichever result comes is not the farmer’s doing. No farmer can make seeds grow. Creation comes from God, not us. We can (and should) participate in the process by influencing things which can help growth—working the soil, watering, and so on, but we don’t have the power of creation. Only God has that power.

And He has used that to create an earth which is fruitful—sometimes despite our best efforts!—where the rain falls without our deserving it. Remember that God saw that his creation was good.

We do well to remember the basic goodness of creation. We sometimes tend to talk and act as if the world is an irredeemably evil place. That way is the path of despair. The Truth (with a “capital T”) is that this world yearns for the Kingdom of Heaven; it is irresistibly drawn toward it and every day contains opportunities to experience God’s power and love. We can make a choice of hope. We can have confidence, as St. Paul told the early church in Corinth, that our new creation in Christ is eternal and indestructible and, as in the second parable we hear today, the smallest mustard seed will grow to a great plant.

With that confidence in our new creation comes a sense of life in abundance, of opportunities, of joy and hope. While God does call us to labor in the vineyards, that is not a call only to soul-crushing, unceasing toil. That was the original meaning of the Sabbath: a day to rest from work and be thankful for God’s creation. (The connection to a a six-day creation was added later.)

In the Kingdom of Heaven there will be no need to pray “that God’s will be done” because it will be done! In the Kingdom of Heaven, no one will feel a need to have power over others and instead will act out of compassion. In the Kingdom of Heaven, violence will cease and all will have life in its fullest.

We know that people don’t always make the choice of hope. They instead make the choice of fear. We choose the safe and familiar instead of the new and challenging. We willingly remain in ignorance instead of taking the risks that can come from learning. We follow our instincts and “feelings” even though they don’t lead us to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Fortunately, we don’t have that choice presented to us only once in our lifetimes or even just on special occasions. The choice to live in the Kingdom of Heaven comes to each of us every hour of every day of our lives.

As St. Paul says, “we walk by faith, not by sight…. For the love of Christ urges us on, [and] there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”