Grace: It's Our Way of Life

As Episcopal Christians we
Worship at home daily and together weekly;
Study the Scriptures, our tradition, and what it means to be a disciple today;
Serve our families, our parish, and our world in the name of Christ.

Everything we do is done with an ethic of Welcome
because we are only here by Grace.

18 June 2012

Sermon, Pentecost III, Year B, 17 June 2012 - Wisdom - Learning to See through Samuel and Two Parables



World's Smallest Seed
by James B. Janknegt



Sermon on Learning to be Wise, to see with older eyes, and ultimately the eyes of Christ. The sermon looks first at Samuel's ability to see the unseeable about David, the eighth son of Jesse, and then at two parables. The parable of the un-worked-for crop and the mustard seed of picture of the Rule of God. The mustard seed is a warning that the Rule of God will ruin everything.

Some interesting questions from the sermon:

Could you recognize a man of God today? Could you recognize a woman of God?
What do you trust? Who provides for you?
Are you getting wiser or just older?
Can you learn to see through Jesus' eyes?

I prayed for three years to Christ, "Let me see what you saw that made you teach what you taught about the Kingdom of God." I had a revelation, a sort of vision, one Sunday while preaching at St. James in San Francisco. I saw the people lit up as the children of God, right now, in their wonder and imperfections. It was beautiful, hopeful, and also deeply sad because their distance from their true reality was so obvious. That moment profoundly changed my understanding of God and the purpose of Jesus. It changed my study and my prayer, not to mention my preaching. I stopped the sermon before the end, and just said, "Do you get it?" and they said "yes, and I sat down, weeping.


1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Psalm 20
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17
Mark 4:26-34