Welcome, Everybody!
Readings:
Ezekiel 17, 22-24, All the trees of the field will know…
Psalm 130, Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.
2 Corinthians — A special reading
Mark 4, 26-34, This is how it is with the kingdom of God.
Welcome to our Fathers' Day Special.
Homily by John Cade:
Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is here all around us and, yes, it is miraculous, like the mustard seed or pine nut are miraculous. To Jesus’ listeners the gifts of nature, like the growth of plants, were a mystery, how they start out so little and somehow grow so big. This is how God’s Spirit works. From inside we are moved to grow, to mature, to share, to help create God’s kingdom.
Emma sharing one of her special gift, lighting our candles.
Examples of people building the kingdom abound. We see each week this wall of portraits of people who were like us, regular people, and who also dared to love their neighbors however they met them: Like Mahatma Gandhi in India, standing for non-violent civil disobedience and for self-government for the Indian people; like Martin Luther King Jr. in the U.S., standing for racial equality and against unjust war; like Mother Teresa in India, serving the poor and outcast; like Oscar Romero in El Salvador, standing for his people against political tyranny and abuse; like Nelson Mandela in South Africa, standing for his native people of color against apartheid; like Cesar Chavez and Harriet Tubman in the U.S., Cesar standing against the unjust treatment of migrant workers and for the right to unionize, and Harriet standing for the freeing of slaves and risking her life supporting the ‘underground railroad’; and so forth with the others.
The Team.
These people were, like us, born as regular people. They had eyes like us to see, and ears like us to hear, and they, each in their own way, imagined how they could help build up the kingdom of God in their time. We tend to make our heroes seem other-worldly, bigger than life. We put them on a pedestal, just out of our reach, just a bit too super to imitate. But this is an overly idealized view. Most people who actively build up the kingdom of God don’t get known as super heroes, don’t get their portrait on a wall.
The Doughertys, Connie, John, & home from college, Kevin.
Like my sister-in-law who raised 2 children while working full time as a teacher and when her husband developed a brain tumor, being a caring partner in his journey. She now divides her time between helping her grown daughter, a single mom who has MS and a 3 year old son, and helping her 95 year old father, who is in failing health, to remain in his own home.
The Best, Shonda, Ben, & David.
Or like two young men and fathers I know who, though their marriages did not succeed, stay true to their mission to be fathers to their sons, participating wholeheartedly in their growth and development.
The Bresson Offertory Procession, Kevin, John, & Connie.
These good people are builders of the kingdom of God visualized by Jesus. Look around. See all the ways people you know are building up the kingdom. How you help make the kingdom come in your time is limited only by the unlimited ways you can imagine it. It’s not how big a splash you make. It’s the love and courage and persistence of your choices and behaviors that make God’s kingdom come in our world in our time.
Welcome Home, Mary Ellen. So nice to see you here with us all.
Who have you seen building up God’s kingdom, and you can imagine their portrait on the wall? And when did you last imagine how you could build up this kingdom in your lifetime?
Thanks for being special to us all, My Dearest Emma.