Back in 1977, 47 years ago, some of us here, and many others since, sat in darkened movie theaters, mesmerized as the words “Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away” scrolled into the far distance; and we might even have caught our breaths – I know I did – as the huge, pale underside of an Imperial destroyer suddenly passed silently “over us” across the screen; at the time, a wonder of animation against the black background of space. The Star Wars world has continued to grow in the years since then, spawning multiple storylines and characters, both future and past in relation to the original; but this morning I want us to remember the first time a young actor named Mark Hamill entered our lives as Luke Skywalker – back before R2-D2, C3PO, and light sabers all became part of our culture. I want us to remember the first time we watched Obi Wan Kenobi encourage Luke to close his eyes, and to feel and to trust the Force, that mysterious life energy in opposition to the Dark Side; the first time Obi Wan encouraged Luke to let go, and to let himself be guided by a power greater than himself.
Back here in our own galaxy, some of us in the corporate world may at one time or another have taken part in a team building exercise called a “trust walk,” where one person is blindfolded and led by someone else through a building or along a trail, with the blindfolded person being completely dependent upon the person leading them for safe passage through whatever obstacles may be in the way.
More energetic than the trust walk but also popular in both team building and general recreation are ropes courses, various arrangements of rigging and climbing and whatnot that present challenges for both individuals and groups, encouraging participants to trust each other and to work towards a common goal.
If we toss these three situations into the pot: Luke Skywalker trusting the Force, one blindfolded person trusting another person, and members of a group learning to trust each other; if we toss these three situations of trust into the pot and stir them around, we start to get an idea of what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians when he refers to “walk[ing] by faith, not by sight.”
Remembering that Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “…faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” to “walk by faith, not by sight” is to walk every day, no matter what’s happening with the world and in the world, to walk every day trusting in Jesus’ assurance that God’s promises will come to pass and that God’s kingdom will come in its fullness. To walk by faith rather than by sight is to trust Jesus’ words through the visions of Julian of Norwich that “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well;” and trusting that in this world of ours, contrary to things seen, sooner or later, in the fullness of God’s time, God’s Ultimate Will, will be done.
For us as disciples of Jesus, walking by faith is important; and this importance, along with the trust that makes such walking possible, this importance and trust are both affirmed by the parables of the kingdom that we hear Jesus tell this morning in Mark’s Gospel. Both the parable of the seed that grows secretly, and the parable of the mustard seed, these both involve growth that is steady and sure, but in each case the growth begins underground and cannot initially be seen. The sower sows the seeds, and then trusts that in God’s time and by God’s grace, they will germinate and begin to grow.
But there’s a question mark here when we look more closely at these parables and we try to relate them to Christian life on a daily basis: as important as walking by faith is, as important as trusting in the growth that God brings is, if we look at these parables to guide us in our everyday lives, it’s a little hard to see exactly what kind of guidance they’re giving us because there aren’t any people at all in one of them – and there’s only the “someone” I’ve already mentioned who scatters the seed in the other.
The parable of the seed tells us that the sower sleeps and rises, night and day, but has no control over the sprouting of the seed, much less any knowledge of the “how” of its growth. The earth produces “of itself” without the sower’s help, and the seeds’ growth is progressive and orderly: “first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.” Only when the grain is fully mature does the sower get involved again, and then the task is simply to harvest that which has come to fruition all by itself.
So where is the guidance here for us as disciples?
Just before today’s 2 Corinthians passage, Paul says, “…we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal…,” but I’m afraid this isn’t much help – because if this visible world and its visible troubles are actually temporary and passing away, and if, as it seems in the parables, God’s kingdom is going to steadily erupt from the soil on its own, does what we do in our own lives even make a difference anymore?
A few verses later, though, as we just heard, Paul also says that “…whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please [the Lord]. For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.” (2 Cor. 5:10)
So even though this world of the body is temporary, says Paul, our actions in this world are still important; keeping our eyes on Jesus and choosing actions consistent with what we believe Jesus would do, and would have us do, in a given situation or relationship, these actions do still make a difference.
So now the question is, what in fact should we do? Which actions will please Jesus as we wait and walk in the confident expectation of his return, and the inbreaking of God’s kingdom? Should we perhaps try to be helpful to hurry things along? Should we be proactive, put the seed in a hothouse under some lights, and give God a hand by speeding up the kingdom’s growth?
We may remember that Sarah tried that back in Genesis when she despaired of ever conceiving the child God had promised, and she took matters into her own hands. She sent her maid Hagar to lie with Abraham, with the result that Ishmael was conceived; and the tragic and the horrific continue to this day as the descendants of Ishmael, the first born, and the descendants of Isaac, the child of God’s promise, do battle even as I preach, over who gets the land, and to whom the land really belongs.
Speaking of the Land, the Holy Land, the Promised Land, as Jewish author Chaim Potok incorporates into his classic novel The Chosen, it’s both poignant and telling in light of our Gospel reading that back in 1948, strict Orthodox Jews opposed the formation of the State of Israel because they said that this new Jewish homeland would be an act of blasphemy; that its formation was an attempt to force God’s hand and God’s timing, because it would give the land back to the Jews before God was ready for that to happen; before God had sent them God’s messiah.
Even today – and there was a lot of buzz around this back at Y2K, buzz that still continues – even today, various fringe groups of both Evangelical Christians and Jews, sometimes working together and sometimes working separately, these groups look at the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem and they dream about building the Third Temple in our day by force, and, depending on one’s religious perspective, thereby triggering either the Messiah’s first coming (for Jews) or second coming (for Christians). However, given that the Muslim Dome of the Rock currently occupies, and has occupied, the Temple Mount for over 1,300 years (1,333 to be exact), such a move does not appear at the moment to be a constructive step towards world peace.
So: if on the one hand, doing nothing while we wait upon God and the kingdom; and on the other, doing too much instead of waiting upon God; if neither of these is what Jesus would have us do, perhaps we should take a page or two from Luke Skywalker and from the realities of gardening. Perhaps we should work together in concert with the kingdom’s growth, through our actions as identified by today’s collect – through proclaiming God’s truth with boldness and ministering God’s justice with compassion, providing through our lives as favorable an environment for God’s will being done on earth as we can. As we pray so often in the Prayers of the People, “Give us grace to do your will in all that we undertake, that our works may find favor in your sight.”
In 2 Corinthians in the verses that come right after the end of today’s reading, Paul says, “All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself…and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us….” (2 Cor. 5:18, 19a, 20a)
We are ambassadors for Christ, and ambassadors speak in the name of the one who has sent them. We are representatives of Christ and as we walk by faith, this is how we are to work in concert with God: we are to be reconcilers in this broken world. We are to continue Jesus’ healing work of bringing people back into relationship with each other, back into relationship with creation, and back into relationship with God – because that’s what reconciliation is. Reconciliation is restoring, being in, and staying in, relationships that are marked with truth, with justice, and with compassion.
The Rt. Rev. Stephen Charleston, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and a former Bishop of Alaska, says this about Jesus and relationships: “Jesus invites us into a living relationship with God. That relationship is love, but the love is sustained through forgiveness. Forgiveness is what keeps us from being lost to God. It is what keeps us from being lost to one another. Forgiveness is our life line in the storm. It is our path to peace. In the gospel, Jesus makes this connection by drawing a spiritual circle of forgiveness around us. He tells us that we cannot stop forgiving because if we do we will stop being in relationship. For his healing to work in our lives, for peace to be possible, we must keep the living link that only compassion can offer. It is the deep acknowledgement that none of us stand outside the Jesus circle in our need for forgiveness. None of us has a corner on the market of forgiving others because they have sinned greater than ourselves. ‘Who will cast the first stone?’ he asked those who wanted to judge another’s sin. Within the love of Jesus, there are no corners in which to hide, only the circle of forgiveness that is his healing compassion.” (Good News: A Scriptural Path to Reconciliation, p. 21)
Bp. Charleston goes on to say that “It is difficult to not retreat from one another because [staying] will challenge us to live into an obedience to God that is not based on law, but love. As much as we would like to resolve our conflicts with hard and fast rules about how to judge one another’s behavior, we will have to accept the fact that we will rarely agree on what is ‘right.’ Instead, like the living branches of a vine, we will have to grow together. We will have to be guided by love, by the example of Jesus as he taught us to be open, merciful, forgiving, and faithful. Consequently, we will have to be open to change, to compromise, to humility. Our faithfulness will not be measured by how ‘right’ we are, but by how loving we are.” (Ibid., p. 27)
Bp. Charleston finishes by saying, “Compassion is the power of God to bring forgiveness into even the most violent conflict. Forgiveness is the mercy of God to bring people back into community even after the most hurtful separation. Community is the grace of God to bring peace into human lives even in a world of fear.” (Ibid., p. 22)
We are ambassadors of Christ in community, called to be reconcilers; called to be a new creation in this world of fear by walking together in faith, in compassion, in forgiveness, in love – and in trust, trusting that “God walks beside us through all the peaks and valleys of our lives,” “as near to us as our very breath.” (F, 2 Cor, H, 139)
As God’s new creation, it’s time for each of us to let go of our own fear and allow ourselves to be guided, sustained, and empowered by a Spirit and a Force far, far greater than ourselves – for the sake of the world, and the reconciliation of all humankind. Amen.