"God's New Age, Growing Of Its Own" June 18, 2006 Pentecost 2 (Proper 6)

(First read the text for this sermon: Mark 4:26-34)

Who here enjoys spending time in the garden? Who here knows how to break up clay, adding good dirt and hummus, to create good soil in the garden? Who knows how to divide up perennials? You know how to plan and plant a garden in which something is blooming all the time, right?

Who here knows how to nurture a lawn? You know all about your soil, and what seed is best, and what fertilizer to use and when to apply it, right?

When a person has the expertise I’ve been describing, we say that s/he has “a green thumb,” and there are all kinds of people like that in Williamsburg. There are many Master Gardeners in our congregation. But now, let me ask another question. Who here can make something grow?

Not a single one of us can do that! We can do all kinds of things to encourage growth, to provide opportunity for growth. But growth itself is a gift from God.

The two parables this morning, in the gospel of Mark, are exaggerated stories making that point – that growth is a gift of God! Specifically, Jesus is teaching us here how to watch for the growth of the kingdom of God, of God’s new age.

"The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.

Jesus is using a little bit of comedy to make the point clear. In that ancient culture, the sower of seed certainly knew about good soil, and about cultivating and nourishing the tiny plants that emerged from the seed. But this parable isn’t about proper agricultural technique. It is about this: "The kingdom of God is as if…”

And so, the story is about this: Can you and I cause the kingdom of God to grow? How does it grow? “He does not know how!” Instead, the parable is telling us, all we can do is to be alert, to watch for where the kingdom is growing! Because it grows when we’re not looking! When we finally do see it, the kingdom has already been growing! The growth is God’s gift.

The kingdom of God is God’s new age. It is the resurrected life, and you have experienced that. There are any number of characteristics of God’s new age. There is no violence. Those who live in the resurrection care for the poor, and protect the weak, and stand with those who are oppressed. God’s kingdom is the environment in which the fruit of the Holy Spirit flourishes! And so (to use Paul’s list of that fruit, from Galatians), you are noticing the kingdom of God whenever you’re alert to any of these things: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

And when we’re attentive enough to notice the growth of the kingdom, where do we see it? It’s right in the midst of us! It’s right in the midst of all that we experience. It’s in the midst of great joys and deep tragedies.

Sometimes it takes great alertness to see God’s new age growing within us and among us, because the growth begins in ways that are infinitesimally small. Sometimes, even, It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth.” But God’s new age grows of its own! And so, when the tiniest of kingdom seeds is sown, “it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."

Whenever you’re alert to the presence of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, you realize that God’s new age has been growing in the midst of us!

Whenever you find yourself acting out of that fruit of the Spirit – caring for the poor, and protecting the weak, and standing with those who are oppressed – you are acting as a citizen of God’s kingdom! You are receiving the ability to live the resurrected life!

I am trying to communicate the deep grace in these parables we’re encountering this morning. It’s a difficult thing to do – because I am an unbeliever speaking to other unbelievers. Just like you, I take too much onto myself. I think it’s all up to me, and I’m always worrying that I’m not working hard enough to fulfill my responsibilities, and … (I won’t ask you to embarrass yourself by raising your hand if you live there too!)

What joy and release there is when, instead, you and I live immersed in the grace that these parables are describing! For instance, can you cause love to grow? Can you make others feel joy and peace? Can you force yourself to be patient? Instead, isn’t it a matter of receiving love, and joy and peace, and the abilities to be patient and kind and generous, as gifts from God? God’s new age grows of its own, within us and among us. We see that when we’re alert. The growth is gift, and we live in the resurrection when we respond to the gift.

One of God’s chief purposes for gathering us together in worship and study and fellowship is to teach us how to do this! We teach each other how to be open to the enabling of God the Holy Spirit, as we share our own experiences of what that looks like. We gather to give support for each other as we live in this entirely counter cultural way! God’s new age grows of its own. The life of faith is becoming more and more deeply a part of that, and watching for it.

How is God’s new age growing, in your own spiritual life, even from a beginning as tiny as a mustard seed? How are you living the resurrection, in how you treat others you live with and work with? Where are you more alert to the needs of the poor and of those who are weak?

What grace there is, in the gifts of God that enable us to live in the resurrection! Whenever there is love and joy and peace, patience and kindness, generosity, faithfulness and gentleness and self control, we thank God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"The Holy Trinity" Invitation And Definition" June 11, 2006

Today the theme of our worship is a church doctrine! This is the only Sunday of the church year that that is true. (Every other Sunday the theme is an event in the life of Jesus, or of the Jesus movement that became the Church.)

“Doctrine” is such a boring word to many people, particularly so when it is the doctrine of The Holy Trinity. But I’m here to tell you that this is exciting stuff! Here we are deep into the mystery that is God: God’s tri-unity. It is mystery that can never be understood. It can only be entered into. This morning, to pick just two aspects of the mystery, let’s look at the Trinity as invitation, and then as definition. (Are your seat belts buckled? Lots of this you won’t have thought about before.)

When God comes to us in tri-unity, God is inviting us into relationship. Indeed, God is relationship! Out of the stuff that is God, God proceeds, as Father, and as Son, and as Holy Spirit. God’s three identities are all equally God! (It’s not like there’s “God” up here, “the Father”; and then there is “the Son,” who’s not quite God; and then “the Holy Spirit,” who comes tagging along afterwards in third place.) It is God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, in relationship with each other, in a three-way divine dance. God is relationship!

And as God comes to us, as Father and Son and Holy Spirit, you and I are invited into that relationship! Here is deep mystery: God refuses to be God without us (even though that causes God to experience suffering, as Jesus the Christ). And so, because God is relationship, and because God created human beings to be partners with God, you and I are drawn into what God is doing in creation. God’s activity is creating, and redeeming, and delivering, and saving, and making holy. As that is happening in you and among us, we are drawn into that activity too. The Holy Trinity means that our creativity is co-creativity with God! When you do what you can in the lives of others – serving and nourishing and modeling the way of Christ to others – you are doing that in partnership with God!

God is love. Growing in faith means falling more and more deeply in love with God. What kind of a word is “love?” Love is a relationship word! Love is what happens in relationship.

God invites you and me into relationship. God invites us into the divine dance. It is Father and Son and Holy Spirit dancing together, and including us in all of God’s activity in creation and among people!

If God is Holy Trinity, then all of that is true! Isn’t that an exciting way of knowing God?

The doctrine of The Holy Trinity also gives definition to God. I struggle with what word to use here, in the mystery. Should I use “definition?” Or “corrective,” instead?” Or “guide,” or maybe “boundary,” or even “expansion” of how we conceive of God? The Holy Trinity provides all of that.

For instance, because of the doctrine of The Holy Trinity, the Franciscan Richard Rohr describes God as “powerful powerlessness.” Rohr writes about a painting above the altar in a Cistercian monastery in Germany, done by a 16th century artist named Sebastian Dayg. In the painting, the Father and the Son are standing next to each other, looking at each other, reaching up and holding the same sword. Let me quote how Richard Rohr describes the painting, with its Trinitarian theology. (In From Wild Man to Wise Man: Relfections on Male Spirituality)

"Look at the stereotypical figure of God the Father. He’s a stern old man with a flowing gray beard, and in his left hand he holds the orb that in medieval times symbolized kingly power. If you look more closely, though, you see that the orb of power is slipping from his hand! God the Father, the supreme authority figure, is supposedly in control of the whole world, and yet he seems to be losing that control. Maybe he is sure enough of his own power that he can let go of it. He is so certain of his own authority that he doesn’t have to manipulate or dominate. He is self-possessed enough that he can allow for freedom, error and weakness.

"At the same time that the Father allows us our freedom, he is also demanding. This is symbolized in the painting by a large sword that the Father holds in his right hand, wielding it over his head. This is the expectant and exacting side of God, summoning us to use well the freedom he has given us and challenging us to be all that we can be. In human fathers it’s a kind of love that pushes and won’t put up with excuses. It’s a very masculine, tough love, not brutal or threatening, just hopeful and effective. …

"The other side of God in the picture is the Son. In the painting this is symbolized by Jesus, stripped almost naked and still wearing the crown of thorns. If the Father is the strong and demanding side of God, the Son is the weak and suffering side, the part of God that identifies with our brokenness and even with our sinfulness. God asks a lot of us, but God also knows our feebleness and limitations by solidarity with us. In the painting the Father is looking into the Son’s eyes and the Son is looking into the Father’s eyes in perfect reciprocity and mutual understanding. Strength is honoring weakness and weakness is honoring strength. They know they need one another.

"As if to emphasize his human weakness, Jesus’ right thumb is in the bleeding wound in his side and his fingers pointing toward it, but his left hand reaches up and grabs the sword that is poised above the head of these two figures. The Son holds back the sternness of the Father and prevents it from being too severe, so that the toughness and tenderness of God are in perfect balance. … If the Father is the powerful side of God, the Son is the vulnerable side. The two are in perfect tension… The creative energy that tension releases is symbolized by the dove of the Holy Spirit, which, appropriately enough, hovers on the balanced sword. It is this same kind of creative energy that is released whenever strength and gentleness understand and respect each other."

How exciting is this Trinitarian theology, as it helps us to understand who God is!
The doctrine of The Holy Trinity corrects the distortions of God that happen when one identity of the Trinity is emphasized over another. For instance, many people have a hard time with God as “Father,” because of abusive, or at least angry fathers. In the triune dance, God the Son expands that narrow conception of God. And so, God the Son is God absorbing and suffering the anger of the world! Wow.

Another example: it is limiting and distorting to think of God as male. Drawing from the riches of our Christian tradition, on Mother’s Day I printed the 14th century quote from Julian of Norwich, in which she called Jesus our perfect mother! In our Christian tradition, the male Jesus is the embodiment of holy wisdom – and wisdom is identified with the feminine. In addition, is the Holy Spirit the feminine in the divine, triune dance? (Are your seatbelts still buckled?) Perhaps you have noticed that I never use the pronoun, “he,” for God, because God includes and transcends maleness and femaleness.

Another example. As comforting as it may be, it is a distortion to overemphasize God as “friend.” (“What a friend we have in Jesus …”) Then God is distorted so that everything revolves around me! All God wants is my happiness, and I can do whatever I want to do and God is still my friend! Right? Wrong!

The doctrine of The Holy Trinity corrects such a distortion. For the Trinitarian corrective, simply check out today’s First Reading and Psalm.

From Psalm 29:

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over mighty waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty….
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon….
The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.
The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. …
The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.
May the Lord give strength to his people!
May the Lord bless his people with peace!

Wow! After all that scary-sounding imagery describing God, we come to a prayer for the blessing of peace, which is what God yearns for, for all human beings and for all of creation. What an admixture here, of holiness and grace and love! God is all of that, in tri-unity.

And from the first reading this morning, in Isaiah 6, the terrifying vision of God’s holiness, complete with seraphs swooping around:

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out."

What images! After all that talk of seraphs and red-hot coals, “your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” What holiness and grace and love!

God as Holy Trinity is powerful and powerless, male and female, transcendent “other” and intimately present with us. God is all of that – and more. It is deep mystery.

In the life of faith, God draws us deeper and deeper into the Trinitarian mystery.

Thanks be to God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"God As Spirit, Moving Within Us and Among Us, Making Us Holy" Petecost June 4, 2006

(First read the passage for this sermon: Romans 8:22-27)

Today we celebrate being out of control. Does that sound like a strange thing to say? It’s the theme of the day!

Certainly, there is nothing more frightening to us middle and upper class Americans than being out of control. Our need for control is even reflected in the professional titles we covet. What is the career path, in the manufacturing process, or in the corporate structure? To be promoted so that you’re in management, right? How many here are (or were) managers?

Our great cultural illusion is that we can indeed manage dynamics and processes. And so, this morning’s readings are quite alien to that assumption. In this morning’s story from Acts, Jesus’ followers experience God as Spirit run amuck! (Acts 2:1-21) And in the reading from Romans, St. Paul uses the analogy of human birth. How much are we in command of that process? Has anyone ever heard of a baby coming on what we confidently call the “due date?“ The baby comes when it’s time for her to be born, right?

In the very same way, God’s kingdom comes when it’s time – when it’s God’s time. Listen to how Paul uses the analogy of birth to describe this:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

What evocative poetic imagery – of longing, of yearning – and of being out of control.

Perhaps your groaning happens when you read or watch the news. Barbara Brown Taylor puts it this way: “The world turns and conflict flares up like a struck match. A soccer field fills with fresh graves. Believers are shot dead at their prayers. A thin buzzard waits three yards from a thinner child.”

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Perhaps your groaning happens during personal experience. It could happen during periods of depression, or when a loved one endures despair. Perhaps it is the groaning of grief – over a loved one’s death, or over a lost physical ability that you enjoyed during younger years, or over a broken relationship.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience, writes St. Paul.

It is all out of our control. We wait. We hope.

We have basis for hope! We see evidence of what we hope for!

Sometimes that is as dramatic as the fall of the Berlin Wall, with the scene of jubilant West Germans thumping the tops of those Trabants that East Germans drove through newly opened breaches in the Wall. Sometimes the basis for hope is as extraordinary as the collapse of apartheid in South Africa, without a single shot fired.

More often, the evidence for our hope is a daily thing, easy to miss when we’re not alert. It is those daily sightings of those “first fruits of the Spirit” that Paul talks about. In his letter to the church at Galatia, Paul even offers a list of those fruits (5:22-23): [T]he fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Wherever those appear, in daily experience, there is God as Spirit, moving within us and among us, making us holy, because we grow in those divine virtues.

We see glimpses now. We hope for fulfillment! For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Here’s how Martin Luther put it:

This life, therefore,
is not godliness
but the process of becoming godly,

not health
but getting well,

not being
but becoming,

not rest
but exercise.

We are not now what we shall be,
but we are on the way.

The process is not yet finished,
but it is actively going on.

This is not the goal
but it is the right road.

At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle,
but everything is being cleansed.

Martin Luther
From Defense and Explanation of All The Articles
(Luther’s Works, Vol. 32, page 24)

During our final Sunday evening session, I distributed that quote to our 11 Confirmands and their parents, and asked how God is moving within and among them, making them holy in that way. I commend the same exercise to you!

It is God who takes initiative, moving within and among us, making us holy, simply because God loves us! Here we are deep within the mystery that is God. We have no control over the movement of God. All you and I can do is respond to what God is doing in God’s own time.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

It’s astonishing what Paul is saying here: that we cannot even pray without the Spirit first moving within and among us, making us holy! Instead, prayer is paying attention to the Spirit’s prompting, and responding to that. Only then is it prayer, and not our own prattling out of our own self-centeredness. We are entirely dependent upon God as Spirit, moving within and among us, making us holy.

That is what Luther is describing in the excerpt from the Small Catechism that’s printed on your bulletin insert: that radical dependency on God as Spirit. Without the Spirit, indeed, you and I cannot even believe in God! Faith is pure gift! Check out the portion of Luther’s long sentence that I’ve printed in italics:

The Third Article (of the Creed): On Being Made Holy

"I believe in the Holy Spirit, one holy Christian church, the community of the saints, forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the flesh, and eternal life. Amen.

"What is this? Answer:

"I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith. Daily in this Christian church the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins – mine and those of all believers. On the Last Day the Holy Spirit will raise me and all the dead and will give to me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true."

Our faith is created, as a gift of the Spirit. Our prayer is created by the promptings of the Spirit. Our life of active discipleship arises from that prayer, in response to God as Spirit, moving within us and among us, making us holy.
Hear how this is expressed, in the words of the liturgy we will use this morning, when 11 of our young members will stand before us to affirm their Baptisms. We will pray:

“Gracious Lord, through water and the Spirit you have made these men and women your own. You forgave them all their sins and brought them to newness of life. Continue to strengthen them with the Holy Spirit, and daily increase in them your gifts of grace: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence.”

Thanks be to God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit moving within us and among us, making us holy. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia