Ordinary Faith: Open Heartedness (Audio)

Sermon for The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Saint Peter's | Arlington, VA

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10,[11-13],14-17; Mark 4:26-34

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Good morning, Saint Peter’s—

With a program year now brought to a close and the threshold of summer vacations fully upon us, we now begin to settle into a season typically called in the church “ordinary time.” It’s entered the long stretch between the liturgical seasons that really grab our attention—the ones we might think of as more exciting or enriching. There isn’t necessarily any grand, festive gesture to let ourselves to be swept up into during this season. Rather, it’s all just a bit, well, ordinary.

Now, to be clear, even though Sunday School classrooms downstairs lie fallow for the summer, so to speak, the active ministry of this community continues... But there is something of a shift, though. And so I find myself wondering about what a spiritual practice looks like in the “ordinary” rhythms of life.

Earlier this week, I took one of many regular mid-week walks around this campus. And if you’ve not yet had the opportunity to immerse yourself in all that surrounds this building, I encourage you to do so. Because within its beauty and stillness there is a unique spirituality of place. One that is rich and nurturing—and it’s particular to the stories and people that have shaped this place. And let me suggest you begin in the Memorial Garden...

While I sat on one of it’s benches a few days ago, there was something to the way the wind moved through the surrounding trees. I was reminded how as a young adult, I once shared with a mentor of mine what felt to me like a profound revelation: “I think listening to the sound of wind rustle through leaves might be a form of prayer.” And then added: “I think, maybe, this is how I best know to hear God.” To which he affirmed, “It’s the only way I know to pray.”

After enough time on that bench listening to what sounded like gentle, soothing ocean waves, my attention was drawn upward to it’s source... And honestly, I was surprised at how tall those trees are. Something like 200 feet, or possibly more.

It can be all-too-easy to stay focused on what is on the path immediately before us. Now, focusing on that angle does provide a helpful sense of potential obstacles beneath our feet as well as the many new things sprouting up from the ground. But it is far from a complete picture. In gazing up at the swaying tops of those trees, I marveled that they once began as a simple, tiny seed in the ground.

But because many, many years ago, that seed took root, reached itself up to the heavens, and its branches have now grown long enough to provide shade and respite for the soul.

And this is really all so ordinary. But by simply being a tree and doing what a tree does, something extraordinary unfolds. It’s not unlike the story of Saint Peter’s...   

What began as an idea only a handful of decades ago has become this. All that we see and have experienced. At one point the ministry of this full-of-life congregation that revels in passing the peace was nothing more than a seed. But as relational soil was tended to and that seedling of community nurtured, it has grown into a place where not only birds come to find rest, but also foxes and more than a few deer and each one of us. Many people have come and will continue to find renewal here. Thanks be to God!

On two plaques in the Memorial Garden there are written 92 names. I encourage you to take a moment sometime and trace your hands over each of those names. Read each one and while you do so wonder about the lives and faith they represent. Which, I am sure, were filled with moments that were extraordinary ordinary. 92 souls who have participated in and contributed to this story we are now living ourselves, and even continuing to create today.

This morning we begin a sermon series called “Ordinary Faith.” And over the weeks ahead, we will read in the lectionary many lessons that reveal to us something about the substance of faith.

In so many of these readings there is a counter-intuitive quality. Over and over again, we hear of God working within the ordinary: through seemingly unlikely places and people—ordinary folks living their ordinary lives who find themselves cosmically caught up in what God is doing. It very much the case in what we’ve just heard of a meager shepherd boy selected as king.

Israel was never intended to have a human rule. But the people demanded one—and God relented. So, that first king, Saul, was selected by the people that he might bring them a tangible sense of security and comfort. But all of his promising traits—none of which were impressive to God—Saul falls short in leadership, and he is rejected.

So, Samuel goes to the house of Jesse in search of Saul’s successor—seeking out the king God has promised to provide. And one by one, Jesse presents his sons—men full of vigor, fierce, imposing, real John Wayne-like ideals bearing promises of liberty and freedom. And, again, God is not impressed. Seven sons pass by and with each Samuel surely hears the refrain of his instructions: “Do not look on appearance...the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Now, as we consider the substance of faith, we might also pause to wonder just what qualities make for a good leader? Jesse would seem to be caught up in a few notions: strength, stature, certitude—the sort of things that make one self-sufficient. But this, of course, is not at all what God has in mind...

So, the young shepherd boy is summoned from the field. Even though he surely stinks like sheep, he’s noted for pretty features but his physicality is otherwise unremarkable, just ordinary. And this is who God chooses.

The smallest of all the brothers, the weakest: this is the one anointed to become king. From the root of the House of Jesse, David will build a great nation that is to be a light to the nations, to offer rest to many. And it is from this lineage Christ will come and usher in a kingdom of true refuge for all.

It’s really quite peculiar. A shepherd boy tending sheep out on the margins of society and a day laborer from the insignificant podunk town of Nazareth: these are those through whom God chooses to work and be revealed. And these are but two of countless examples of the upside-down logic found throughout our scriptures.

So, just what is it that the great King David possesses?

Despite many insufficient and even grave moral failures, David displays a kind of receptive posture. It is an open heartedness allowing him to become a conduit of the grace God desires to bring. And in his willingness to be part of God’s work, this grace falls upon him—again and again—and will flow through him to many.

It is much the same quality as this person we hear of in Jesus’ parable. The one who scatters seed on the ground, goes to sleep, wakes up to new growth and “he does not know how.”

It is precisely here where we find the good news this morning: the burden to create anew does not rest on our shoulders. As Henri Nouwen writes,

“We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for. The mystery of [faith] is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God.”

The source of new creation does not ultimately come from us, and so we can rest after our labor. But neither are we absolved from cultivating the conditions that allow for great towering trees where others might make nest in their shade. Rather, in this ordinary rhythm of life, we are simply to show up and faithfully partake in what is ours to do. And with open hearts, till the soil of our lives and communities so that the grace of God might be made known through them.

This is what ordinary faith looks like. It is not certainty nor certitude that provides the necessary soil of faith. Rather, it is an open heart. An absolutely unremarkable willingness to enter into the mystery of what God seeks to do.

So, as we continue reflecting on Ordinary Faith in the weeks ahead, I invite you to consider: Where in your own life is there evidence of sprouting seedlings? What soil have you, or we as a community, been entrusted to till?

May we be faithful in tilling the soil. Amen.