Sermon for Sunday June 26 2022 - The Kingdom of God is Like a Corn Field
PSALM: Psalm 16
1Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you;
I have said to the Lord, “You are my Lord, my good above all other.”
2All my delight is in the godly that are in the land,
upon those who are noble among the people.
3But those who run after other gods
shall have their troubles multiplied.
4I will not pour out drink offerings to such gods,
never take their names upon my lips.
5O Lord, you are my portion and my cup;
it is you who uphold my lot.
6My boundaries enclose a pleasant land;
indeed, I have a rich inheritance.
7I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
my heart teaches me night after night.
8I have set the Lord always before me;
because God is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
9My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices;
my body also shall rest in hope.
10For you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor let your holy one see the pit.
11You will show me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
SECOND READING: Galatians 5:1, 13-25
A reading from Galatians.
1For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
13For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. 14For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
16Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. 19Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
Word of God, word of life.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Luke 9:51-62
The holy gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, O Lord.
51When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” 55But he turned and rebuked them. 56Then they went on to another village.
57As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
The gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
It seems to me that both Jesus and Paul,
as they talk about what it means to follow Jesus,
are talking about the kingdom of God;
talking about this life of faith
as though it is some different kind of reality.
Jesus hears the practical and emotional concerns
of potential followers
and contrasts them with how difficult
a life of discipleship,
a life of following Jesus can be.
Paul addresses the church in Galatia,
contrasting the appealing life of living by the flesh
with an alternate reality of living by the Spirit.
And this is hard.
Hear Paul’s words again
using Eugene Petersen’s “The Message” version:
“It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time:
repetitive, loveless, cheap sex;
a stinking accumulation
of mental and emotional garbage;
frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness;
trinket gods;
magic-show religion;
paranoid loneliness;
cutthroat competition;
all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants;
a brutal temper;
an impotence to love or be loved;
divided homes and divided lives;
small-minded and lopsided pursuits;
the vicious habit of depersonalizing
everyone into a rival;
uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions;
ugly parodies of community.
I could go on.”
That’s what comes natural.
That’s what life in this world has to offer.
But Paul invites us to live by the Spirit:
to live into an alternate reality,
a reality of love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control.
It is for real, true freedom
that Christ has set us free.
This reminds me of a story.
Perhaps you’ve seen it or read it.
The Novel is called Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella.
The Movie is Field of Dreams.
I don’t know about you,
but when I hear the words “Field of Dreams”
I immediately think of the voice -
“if you build it they will come.”
But that’s not what the voice says.
It’s not build it and they will come
Ray Kinsella, the Iowa farmer,
hears a voice in his corn field, saying
“If you build it, HE will come.”
Build what? Who is he?
Ray thinks that this voice
is somehow about Shoeless Joe Jackson,
and that if he builds a baseball diamond
in the middle of his corn field,
Shoeless Joe Jackson will come.
So Ray builds a baseball diamond.
People thought he was crazy.
Ray says, “Until I heard the voice,
I never did a crazy thing in my life”
We don’t think twice when someone in the movies
hears a voice like this; Just do it!
But in real life,
we might think we want to hear God’s voice
ring out from the clouds
with specific instruction for our lives,
but should that actually happen to us,
whether we say yes or no,
people would think we are crazy.
If we heard a voice like Ray did,
telling us to turn our livelihood into a field of dreams,
giving away our source of income
drastically changing our lives,
we would probably curse the voice.
We want to decide what God’s voice is saying.
Like Ray we might cry out:
“Who are you?
What do you want from me?”
Perhaps those of us
who have not heard the voice from the clouds
are already asking God those questions.
Ray needs help discerning what to do.
People think he is crazy,
his brother-in-law thinks he is a fool.
Ray asks his wife, Annie;
“Am I completely nuts?”
She says “Not completely”
I can relate.
I know some people thought I was nuts back in 2007
when we sold our home
and moved to Saskatoon to attend Seminary.
Maybe I was nuts;
but not completely,
because I was following God’s lead.
I didn’t hear a voice in a corn field,
not even a voice at a Lutheran communion table,
but after months - no, years - of discernment
I believed I was called.
I believe God was speaking to me.
So we went.
Ray and Annie discern together
that Ray has to go through with this adventure.
Ray has to listen to the voice from the heavens.
But things get hard for Ray and his family.
Seasons change and still no Shoeless Joe Jackson.
As finances get tighter and tighter,
they find themselves forced into a decision:
they have to choose between the farm and the field;
they can’t afford to continue on.
And that is the moment - to either commit or give up -
that, finally,
Shoeless Joe Jackson shows up,
and like the disciples
who see the resurrected Jesus for the first time,
while in their joy were still unbelieving,
they play ball.
The daughter asks him “are you a ghost?”
“What do you think?”
“You look real to me.” She says.
“Then I guess I’m real.”
They decide to keep the baseball diamond.
And more players come.
Even in the face of imminent bankruptcy,
they continue on with this field of dreams,
and if that weren’t enough,
Ray hears the voice from the heavens
give two other commands:
“Ease his pain”
and “Go the distance”
Ray listens to the voice,
and their adventure in this alternate reality continued.
There’s a great scene as the family is watching the ball game.
Ray’s brother-in-law walks up to them,
right through the middle of the ball game,
and he just cannot see them playing.
The daughter, Karin,
Annie, Ray,
even James Earl Jone’s character, Terrance Mann
can all see the ball game;
they can all see this alternate reality
that the brother in law can’t see.
So it is with the kingdom of God.
We can’t see it.
And also we can see it.
It is all around us.
As followers of Jesus,
we strive for the Kingdom of Heaven,
we live into this alternate reality
that is more real than
the kingdom of this world.
Yet some people just cannot see this alternate reality
that is the Kingdom of Heaven,
right here in our midst,
hidden like mustard seed or yeast.
As the story goes,
by some miracle,
the brother-in-law eventually
sees the players on the field
and he says to Ray
“You are not selling this farm!”
Sure enough,
as seen by the line of the tail lights to end the movie
the people did come.
God calls us,
God speaks to us for a purpose.
Perhaps part of our call
to live in this alternate reality
that is the kingdom of God
is to help others see the kingdom of Heaven among us,
to point to Jesus in our midst,
to show what’s really happening in our fields.
I’d like to show you a brief clip from the movie.
This scene is close to the very end of the movie.
Ray has finally figured out what the voice was saying:
“If you build it, HE will come”
Ray thought it was for Shoeless Joe Jackson,
but it was really about reconciling with his father.
The he is Ray’s father.
Is this heaven?
it’s Iowa!
is there a heaven?
oh yeah, it’s where dreams come true
maybe this is heaven!
God called Ray, and Heaven happened.
God called Ray to bring dead people back to life.
God called Ray to reconcile with his father.
And in listening to the voice,
Ray’s eyes,
and his family’s eyes,
were all opened to this alternate reality
that is even more real than life as we know it.
God makes this, heaven, happen
here on earth,
here and now,
in and through people like you and me.
Heaven doesn’t have to wait until our death.
Like this corn field turned baseball diamond,
we never really know what Heaven is going to look like;
be it the heaven that awaits after our death,
or the heaven we are called to live into
in this life today.
Living in the kingdom of Heaven is easy,
and it is difficult.
It requires commitment.
It might mean people thinking we are crazy.
Maybe sometimes we might feel like Annie, Ray’s wife,
and just want to cry out in frustration
“Why can’t the voice call someone else?”
But God is going to call who God is going to call.
We regularly hear other voices
from other people,
from the media,
from advertisers,
telling us what it is that we want in this life,
things like:
Cruises and Cheeseburgers,
yoga pants and the latest blockbuster movie
4X4 trucks with wifi and the iPhone 17:
As though the things of this world
will make us happy and complete.
Not to say that these things are bad,
but, in the words of Eugene Peterson,
the kingdom of this world is filled with
grabs for happiness;
trinket gods;
cutthroat competition;
and all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants;
As the Psalmist declares;
those who run after other gods
have their troubles multiplied.
Yet as we live into this alternate reality
that is the kingdom of Heaven;
not to pursue what we want,
but to pursue what God calls us into;
we find goodness and delight
above all other
in God’s presence,
we find fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore
in the Kingdom of God,
we find that that God brings the dead back to life.
Life, real life,
true life,
the life worth living
is not about doing what people have always done,
nor simply paying the bills
and putting food on the table,
important as that is.
It is about listening for God’s voice,
even if we will never hear it in a corn field
like Kevin Costner.
When God speaks,
when God calls us,
it is not always a call to our own comfort,
but rather a call to love and care for others,
to reconcile, or at least to forgive,
to find heaven
in helping others’ dreams come true,
and with it,
we find joy in God’s presence
in the Kingdom of Heaven
right here and now.
May you hear the voice of God,
be willing to say yes to God’s call
and do something crazy!
May you follow Jesus into this alternate reality
not trusting in yourself
or what you might see,
but trusting that God’s reality,
the kingdom of God,
is even more real than the life we know.
And living in God’s presence
May you find joy and goodness now and always.
Thanks be to God. Amen!
