Cultivating A Garden of Weeds

A Sermon Preached by the
Rev’d Peter De Franco at
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church,
July 27, 2008

Just think about what will happen today at St. Peter’s Church. We celebrate the baptism of our youngest member and the birthday of one of our oldest members.
So you would imagine that with the parable of the mustard seed, I would preach a sermon where I would compare Ava to the mustard seed and Rosemary to the mustard tree. We would all think that the sermon would encourage Ava’s parents and family to help her grow into the tree, that they would water her soul with love and instruction and discipline and all the things that good parents do for their children. Sort of like the thinks that Rosemary’s parents did for her so that one day Ava will sit in this church and celebrate her 90th birthday and someone will read this same gospel and compare her to the mustard seed that has grown into the mustard tree. Wouldn’t that be a perfect sermon? No, not by a long shot. That sermon would be too predictable.
Whenever we hear Jesus speaking in a parable, we should train our ears to discover the unpredictable. So let me tell you a story.
Someone, way back went in the history of St. Peter’s church, thought that it would be nice to plant morning glories around the church. They thought that morning glories would look really nice where they could do what they did best: climb. So they found the things on which the morning glories could climb: the railings up the steps of the parish hall and the pole in the front of the church. I am sure that the first year the morning glories were planted they were beautiful. Lovely blue flowers opening up to the sun, and every week more and more flowers began to grow on the vine. Every week, the vine must have taken over the railings so that it became impossible to use the railings going up to the Parish Hall.
Every week the vine must have grown up the sign at the front of the church till it covered the sign with a waterfall of blue morning glories cascading down the sign. Were the morning glories a thing of beauty or a weed?
When I first came to St. Peter’s Church, three years ago, there were huge bushes that flanked the entrance to the parish hall. Growing on the crooked branches of those overgrown bushes were morning glories. As they grew closer to the railings, people would pull out the morning glories. I cannot remember a single morning glory flower. No flowers mean no seeds. But, even this year, you can see morning glories sprouting on either side of the parish hall and Fr. Ed pulls them out so they don’t take over the new gardens. And next year, I am sure that we shall continue to find those morning glories continuing to sprout in places where they have not been seen in years.
Morning Glories are invasive. Once you plant them you will have them forever. For those of us who are gardeners, morning glories are like bamboo, or mint, or dandelions, they have a habit of taking over the garden.
In Jesus’ world, mustard was like dandelions, morning glories, bamboo or mint. You would have to be out of your mind to plant it in your garden. Unless you wanted your entire garden to be taken over by the weed. Does that make any sense?
Now every parable of Jesus has something in it that does not make any sense. There is always something in a parable that baffles the one who hears it. A smart shepherd would not risk the lives of 99 sheep for the sake of one lamb. A thrifty housewife would not spend a hundred dollars on a party when she found her silver dollar. A smart gardener would not plant a weed that would take over the garden. Who would plant dandelions? Who would plant morning glories?
Perhaps a God who knows about dandelion wine. Perhaps a God who loves the blue of morning glories. Perhaps a God who knows that mustard can heal and season and prevent disease. Perhaps a God who invites us to look into those places in our lives where we do not expect or even want God, in the dark crevices, in the ordinariness of our days, in the disorders of our minds and hearts, all the places we neglect.
Perhaps, if we anticipate God coming to us in those places we neglect, as we would neglect a weed, we will find God lightening the darkness, cheering our ordinariness, restoring us to peace. It is the crazy seed of God. It is God’s unconditional love. Available to us this day in the sign of water poured, bread broken and a shared cup.
It is the crazy seed of God’s love, that spreads through the world as much as dandelions, when, on a windy spring day the breeze lifts the seeds and spreads them through all the gardens. Not many of us deal with mustard seeds, but many of us know about dandelions, and morning glories, and mint and bamboo.
Today God plants a seed in the soul of Ava. It’s the seed that God plants in each of our hearts when we are baptized – that wild and crazy seed that God plants in mustard plants, dandelions and morning glories. It is God’s unconditional love. That we are loved by God, no matter what we do or say or become.
If you ever watch very young children, and those of us who are parents might remember this happening to us, young children do not seen dandelions as weeds. Children love to go to the lawn and pick a bouquet of dandelions because of their ready made beauty. They see them as a heaven sent gift of God planted in the lawn as a ready gift to pick and bring to mom or dad. Children have that eye to see the beauty of ordinary things. I think they have that eye because they see like the God from whom they have come.
Let us pray this day that we might be overrun with weeds, with dandelions and mustard and mint and bamboo. Let us pray that Ava’s soul will be overgrown with that weed of God’s Love. Let us pray that Rosemary’s heart will continue to be overrun with that same pesty weed. And let us all go out and gather the dandelions and give and receive bouquets of God’s love.

No Condemnation

A Sermon Preached by the the Rev’d Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church,
Clifton, New Jersey
July 13, 2008

Over the last six weeks, we have been reading sections from the letter to the Romans. The first week came as the most positive of all those readings and it has been a steady downward spin as we listened to Paul describe the increasingly dire situation in the world. Last week we heard one of the most difficult passages in Paul, not because we cannot understand what Paul says but because his words are as a mirror to our souls caught in the dilemma of wanted to do God’s good works but also drawn away from God’s good works. Each of us is painfully aware of that tension between what we would want to do that is good, holy and blessed and what we actually find ourselves doing which is less than our idealized plans. Paul speaks of an energy in us that spirals downward, not unlike the flush of the toilet that spins the water and the refuse in a circle and down the pipes and into the sewer. Last week, we ended the reading on a terribly depressing note with the question: What A wretch I am. Who will rescue me from this body doomed to death? Not the best news in the world.
But today, we come to a turning point in the letter to the Romans. Today the water is not being flushed down the toilet. Today the water is dancing like a fountain, spraying upward in joy and delight, as we hear described for us the effect of living in the Spirit. Today’s reading begins with those phenomenal ords: “There is no condemnation for you.” Just imagine that: No Condemnation for you!
I shall speak for myself, but I am not a sterling saint. There are some of us here who have been living the Christian life with devoted energy for a long time and they approach that sterling shine, but for the rest of us sinners, I cannot imagine greater words of joy: There is no condemnation for you.”
Just imagine the person who for their entire lives was told that they could not meet the standards that their parents set for them as children, who for their entire lives lived as underachievers since they could never hope to reach that impossible standard: There is no condemnation for you.
Just imagine that person living with family members who constantly live on a downward spiral so no matter what they do, they cannot reverse that negative energy: There is no condemnation for you.
Just imagine that person who knew that they were lesbian, gay, or bisexual and were told that they would be condemned to hell realizing that God does not create to condemn, that there is no condemnation for you.
Just imagine whatever your circumstance in life, whatever situation drains you of energy, whatever circumstance hampers you from feeling the fullness of life and joy, there is no condemnation for you.
In Christ Jesus. That is the hitch. Condemnation has been lifted because of a relationship. A relationship with Christ Jesus. That relationship begins with our Baptism. Something mystical happens to each of us at Baptism. Something of a miracle. We become part of Jesus. That dipping in water, those words spoken over us, effect a miracle in our souls. We become one with Christ. So when God looks at us, God sees us as part of God’s own Child, Jesus.
If we search deep in our hearts, not just on the surface, but in the very depths of our souls, we will discover an energy deeper than our own spirit, in the depths of our hearts, God’s Spirit is welling up, like a fountain of water, springing up to water our souls and lead them to discover new ways of acting, new ways of seeing, new ways of relating.
I would like to tell you a story about a couple of girls who experienced this strength to follow Christ. The story is told by a woman, a shy woman, who stepped out in the public to become a community organizer. When she was asked why she took this step she told this story: “When I was a young girl in North Caroline, my sister and I began to attend the local Roman Catholic Church. In those days, blacks sat in the back pews. Now I was a very large young girl, rather heavy, and so was my sister. When we went to that church, I saw no reason why my sister and I should sit in the back. So one Sunday we went right up and sat in the first pew. The pastors and ushers were upset. The pastor came over before Mass and asked me if we would please sit in the back, like all the other blacks. I was scared as I could be, but I just couldn’t see where God would care where we sat, so I said no. Finally, the ushers came and carried me and my sister to the back. Carried us right down the aisle of the church. On the next Sunday, my sister and I sat in the front pew again, and the priest came and the ushers came and they hauled us off again, huffing and puffing. On the third Sunday, the same thing happened.
By this time, we were pretty well known. The black girls who got carried away to the back of the church every Sunday.
“My family, my mother particularly, was frightened at what we were doing, but she said we were doing the right thing. On the fourth Sunday, the priests and ushers didn’t do a thin. The Mass started, the choir sang, we took our seats, and from then on we sat where we wanted in that church and in any Roman Catholic church we ever attended.” (Roots for Radicals by Edward Chambers)
God’s Spirit lived in those two girls. God’s Spirit gave them the courage to do the right thing.
Each of us also faces unique challenges, those places where we need to find the grace to move into greater freedom. If you wonder how to find such freedom, just listen to what Paul says: Set your mind on the things of the spirit and you will find life and peace.(See Romans 8: 6)
Those two girls found that peace. They experience that life. You too can move into that life and peace. You too can experience that freedom.