I was asked to post the sermon I gave at my home church a few weeks ago, so here ya go. This is the version I followed though when I actually spoke I made small changes here and there in the moment, and there may be a few references you don't get. Enjoy!
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When Pastor Brian offered me the chance to preach today, he told me that I could either rely on the provided lectionary or pick my own verses out as I wished.
I took this as a challenge… It may have been over-optimistic considering the lectionary is composed of three verses and I didn’t want to leave any of them out because they all worked together well. So here we go.
On my first trip with Voices, it was my first time away from home for an extended period of time, and my first time on a long trip without my parents. I was in a foreign land where they spoke English (as opposed to AMURRIKAN). But being singers and musicians, we bonded quickly.
By my second trip, I already felt like an old pro, and we quickly reformed that big family, give or take a certain number of kids who had left or joined.
My third trip with Voices of Youth was in 2006, after my senior year of high school, and that was the year we went to Africa. That was also the summer that we moved to a new house – WHILE I was in Africa. So in one summer, I went from living in my childhood home and being a teenager to coming to a new home for about a month before leaving for college just far away enough from home to feel like a different place. I should point out that I’m certainly not angry about the timing.
Move-in day at college wasn’t too dramatic after three years of letting me go on Voices. And as much as I did enjoy being away from home, I and a number of other students gravitated towards one another (mostly based on a shared love of theatre). I didn’t actively work to create a new family unit, it just sort of happened. By our sophomore year we were living in a house together.
I just finished my first year up at Boston University, which was a whole new realm for me. I left behind comforts like southern hospitality and barbecue and, y’know, WARMTH. As my uncle warned me, they have REAL winter up there. And because they were putting us through the new curriculum, we quickly bonded and found our own family through our mutual frustration. A few of us were also living together in the Theology House and became especially close.
The point of all these stories is that I found myself in a new situation and the immediate reaction was to formulate my own home, my own family. It wasn’t an intentional decision, though. These sorts of things just happen. In most cases, it happened because I was no longer in a position to feel close to my childhood home and the people I’d grown up with. But those things were so crucial that I had to recreate them.
In the film Garden State, the main character – Zach Braff’s Andrew Largeman – has returned home after living in LA for 9 years in order to go to his mother’s funeral. While home, he gets reacquainted with old friends, and finds his life turned around by a girl he meets, Sam. He spends much of the film awakening from his dead life, a symptom of taking far too many unnecessary pills. And in one scene, he’s attempting to explain what it’s like to grow out of your own home and says some pretty profound stuff. “It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist…. Maybe that's all family really is.” He suggests. “A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.”
In England, I found “home” at a former castle-turned-college surrounded by grassy hills. In Zimbabwe, it was the cement steps outside an auditorium at Africa University, laying under the stars. At Randolph-Macon, it was sitting and staring at the fountain in the middle of the night when I was plagued by my thoughts. In Boston, it was the living room of our home where we did everything from studying to watching too many movies, but we couldn’t arrange the furniture how we wanted because of our crazy housing director.
And I suppose this is where the first reading comes in. Jacob was simply on a journey, taking a rest in the middle of the field. Recall that he rested his head on a rock and still managed to find God. I usually need at least two pillows to sleep comfortably. Maybe I’m doing it wrong! At any rate, he clearly has the right idea. The home of our family is the church, yes, but sometimes there is a tendency to get too caught up in the building. We have our restrictions of various kinds, and for practical purposes and those are fine for what they are. But they distract us from the fact that the home of the Christian family is wherever someone can find God. In a park, in an alleyway, in a club, or a restaurant, or sleeping in a field resting against a rock. Our Bethels need not always be in a place with a big cross on the roof or stained-glass windows. Sometimes, they’re just imaginary places we all miss simultaneously.
And keep in mind that even Jacob admits that he was not actively searching for God. He said he was not aware that God was present, and only upon waking did he realize his error. We don’t need to work so hard at shoving God into a building when we already know that He’s everywhere. We need to let him show himself and respect those places as well. Some of the most ridiculous spaces have become sacred to me, spaces that some might consider odd, simply because I’ve allowed myself to find God there.
And then we have our reading from Romans in which Paul reminds the readers that they are becoming part of a much wider family.
And I think it’s very important that we never lose that. Family is the one thing that everyone takes for granted until it’s no longer there. Because when we grow up and drift away from our families, we can feel groundless. That’s why I kept making new families everywhere I went, not always actively thinking “I really need to make a new family”, but simply because it had become a natural reflex in the face of not having anyone I loved close by. Friedrich Schiller, German poet, philosopher, and playwright, once said, “It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.”
I think this is the case even in the church. Certainly you’ll get families joining a church at the same time, but just as often you’ll have people coming in by themselves. And before long, within these walls, with this company, they can feel at home. Community is an important part of church life, just as much as the worship.
So up to this point, I haven’t really sermonized yet, per se, and I promise I’m getting to that now. As I warned, there’s still a third reading I haven’t touched upon. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna read it ver batim.
In Matthew (13:24), Jesus tells a parable about a man who has sowed wheat in his field. But while he’s asleep, the man’s enemy sneaks in and sows weeds among the wheat. All the servants are freaking out, they have no idea what to do, and their first instinct is to pull the weeds. But the sower stops them knowing they might very well damage the wheat in the process. So he says they should instead grow together, and wait until harvest to gather and burn the weeds, then gather up the wheat.
He explains that, as I’m sure you can guess, the man is Jesus, the enemy is the devil, the wheat represents those who hear the Word, and the weeds the people of the devil. The harvest becomes the end of days, and the harvesters the angels. But ignoring for a second the apocalyptic talk, I want to return to the command the man gives his servants: Let them grow together, because pulling the weeds may damage the wheat.
I think this is an incredibly important point. Why are we commanded to not only ignore what is bad instead of getting rid of it, but to grow together, side by side?
The first reason that comes to mind is the old adage: It builds character. Often our initial reaction to anything unpleasant is to put as much distance between us and it as is humanly possible. An awkward situation, a horrifying sight, a terrible smell – we just try to run away. But to remain strong in the face of what bothers us most is what makes us better.
But the more important reason is that weed-pulling can damage the wheat. We think we know what’s best for the church and what’s best for us, and instead of trusting in God, we try to rid ourselves of it for fear that the bad seeds will somehow ruin us.
Allow me to expand the metaphor for a moment beyond just people though.
When extremist TV personalities and politicians speak for the church against various groups – that’s weed-pulling.
When we argue about homosexuality when we have bigger things to worry about like greed, violence, and complacency – that’s weed-pulling.
When we reject a something because of objectionable content and completely lose the message in the process – that’s weed-pulling.
When we’re more concerned with how someone presents themselves than who they are inside – that’s weed-pulling.
And when we have the audacity to think that someone God brought into our midst doesn’t belong in the family? That’s weed-pulling.
And who knows, when harvest time rolls around, you might be surprised to find that some of the weeds you were willing to include in the field were actually wheat who needed a second look.
