Entangled States

It’s August and that means the best part of the summer is upon us. (I’m a big fan of the latter part of summer.) I’m going to be off for much of this month, and otherwise occupied with some weekend events for the rest.

Rather than recycle some old sermons, I’m going to just ask your forbearance for the next four weeks or so.

I hope wherever you are, you’re going to get a chance to savor these days too.

Blessings!

+Nicholas

I reposting my sermon from six years ago. I was thinking about what I’d say differently this time, and couldn’t think of anything…

It’s a beautiful weekend here in Southern New England. I hope, if you’re here, you’re getting out to enjoy it. (I am!) It the weekend of the Newport Folk Festival and next weekend is the Jazz Festival. It’s a good time to stay local and enjoy your neighborhood!

The Gospel reading for this week has a parable and its interpretation once again – just like last week. And once again, the reading skips over part of the narrative that St. Matthew is constructing. Given that it can seem like parables are just a funny sort of rhetorical device that rabbis used in Jesus’ day to teach their disciples, whereas in truth, the hard work of trying to unpack the meaning or meanings of a parable is how the path of wisdom was shown to the hearers.

We do ourselves a disservice when we skip from teaching to interpretation in the lectionary. When that happens it seems like we’re demonstrating that faith is easy, just know the answers to the questions and good things will come to you. (And that’s certainly been a message I’ve heard from preachers over the years.) But that’s not at all how this works, and I don’t think it was what Jesus was saying in this passage or in any of the others where we hear his teachings to his disciples.

Spiritual growth requires friction. It requires us to live into confusion and discomfort and a kind of lack of clarity as we struggle to make sense of who God is and what God expects of us. Honestly, most learning, real internalized learning, requires enough friction that we can internalize what we have grasped. Superficial, easy answers give way to simple learning that is quickly forgotten. It’s one of the many concerns I and others have about using Artificial Intelligence in unwise ways.

You can watch the full sermon directly at this link.

This week’s Gospel reading skips over the, to my mind, most interesting part of the reading. In between the parable of the sower and its explanation is a vignette where the disciples take Jesus aside apart from the crowd and push to know why it is that he teaches in parables rather than speaking the truth plainly.

Jesus doesn’t really explain it. He makes clear that he is doing so, and that in doing so, some people will not be able to hear the Truth. He says that the disciples who are with him and hearing the Truth, but the others, the crowds will not. He quotes a teaching from Isaiah to remind us that this isn’t a novel idea. But he doesn’t explain it – at least not in a satisfying way to my mind.

What’s going on? I’m not sure. But what is clear is that there is more going on in what Jesus teaches that meets the eye at first glance. There’s a depth and a richness that will only be clear after study and discipleship – and that not all will have that opportunity. But for those who are so moved, the fruit that their study and struggle will bring them will be amazing.

If you are called to go deeper – and I expect you are simply because you’re reading these words when you could choose to do something else with your time – then understand the profound nature of the gift you have been given, and how greatly you will be rewarded.

And what a gift you are, and can be to others as well.

You can view the sermon directly at this link.

This Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 10:40–42) is only three verses long, but it quietly rearranges the way most of us keep score. We’re trained to read résumés: titles, degrees, the things a person earns and accumulates over a lifetime. And we tend to assume God reads us the same way, tallying up what we’ve managed to make of ourselves.

But that’s not how Jesus talks about reward in the reading. He doesn’t say, “whoever does great things.” He says, “whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet.” The reward hinges not on what we’ve achieved but on whom we honor. And I guess, just as importantly, why we honor them.

God isn’t scanning our credentials; God is asking who our friends are. Who do we recognize? Who do we receive? To whom do we hand even a cup of cold water? And here’s the wonder of it: when we honor someone because of how God already sees them, we are drawn into their reward. Relationship, not résumé, turns out to be what counts. At least if we’re looking to be blessed with an extra helping of blessing.

You can view the full sermon directly at this link.

We read the Bible as though we are always meant to be focused on Isaac, the chosen one, the child of the promise, the one the story is about, the one who is the ancestor of Israel. But this story is also, quietly, about the one who gets sent away, the one who exits the story at this point in Moses’ account of his people. God says something remarkable to Abraham: do not be distressed about the boy. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.

Ishmael is not a mistake to be cleaned up. He is not a loose end. He has his own destiny, his own future, his own nation, a future God promises to protect, out there, beyond the edge of the family that did not want him.

It is a hard thing to learn that not every story is about us and that sometimes we are not the main character at all, but rather a bit player in someone else’s deliverance. And it is harder still to learn that the people we are tempted to write off, the ones we are sure need to leave, may be carrying a destiny from God that we simply cannot see.

You can view the sermon directly at this link.