The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

            “Show up!”  That was the unsolicited advice given to me recently by a Bishop.  He was on a rant, It was one of those beautiful passionate tirades that flow so wonderfully you can’t interrupt.  You just sit there and nodding your head, casually motioning him to go on… The Right Reverend was, a little bit more than frustrated with a rector in his diocese.  While I didn’t know the man, as described by his bishop, he was more than aloof to his congregation, he was absent.  His church did not feel they had a pastor, a confidant, someone who cared about their well being, and because of this all, the church was suffering.  Hence the rant.  And that’s when he did it, in the middle of the rant he turned to me, the greenest priest of the bunch.  “Morris,” he said, “You wanna know the secret to success? You want to know how to be a good priest? It’s not hard. Anyone can do it!  You want to know how to lead a church?  SHOW UP!”
            This morning we have a couple parables from Jesus.  Apparently a large crowd showed up and Jesus went on his own parabolic tirade.  And the two we get this morning are about seeds.  You know, those tiny little things we either eat or put in the ground and watch as a mysterious plant springs forth. You know, to me, what’s amazing about seeds is that they are basically magical.  You put this tiny, hard, seemingly simple speck of creation back into the earth, and from it life grows.  But not just grows 3 or 4 or 100 or 1000 times, but seemingly infinite.  From its growth it brings forth fruit to nourish, oxygen to breathe, shelter, shade, beauty.  Seeds are the most valuable aspect of an ecosystem because they promise the next generation of LIFE.
            So, “with what can we compare the kingdom of God?”  A seed. Something simple.  Something elementary.  Something easily dismissible.  But if used correctly. Heck, if only scattered… Bursts forth life yet only dreamed about!  I love this. If you look at the first parable it says, “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, and he does not know how.”  All he did was scatter seed.  He didn’t till it, as one commentary says, “no other farm work comes into view.” But somehow, miraculously, God is at work, and a harvest comes.
            We all know the phrase, “plant a seed.” It’s used to depict action, usually a small, a relatively, or seemingly insignificant action, with an underlying meaning, or purpose.  It is usually subtle, like if your interested in your spouse getting you a Mini Cooper, you’re not going to say, “I want a Mini Cooper.”  Instead you’d say something like, “Man that’s a cool looking car!” Planted a seed.  Or if we bring it back to church, if you’re trying to get someone to come to Mediator, your not going to outright say, “I’m going to pick you up next Sunday morning.” No instead, when they ask about your weekend, you say, “I had a fun time at Church yesterday, you know your friend Bob was there, he asked about you.  Planting a seed is subtle, but it is always intentional.
            Which brings me back to my story… We’ve gotta show up.  We have to be present to scatter the seed.  Movement, growth, life will not happen if we stay stagnant.  You know the thing about showing up is that is it just as elementary as that seed. Anyone can do it.  Showing up doesn’t require you knowing what to say. It doesn’t require you being experienced in the act.  It doesn’t require you to get your hands dirty and save this world on your own. It only requires your presence, your 100% attention to the situation at hand.  There have been many times in my life when I have felt inadequate to the situation at hand.  Listening to the horrors of a veterans life, sitting with the struggles of mental illness or poverty, standing alongside family at a loved ones deathbed.  At times like these, I pray, I believe and trust that if I only show up, God will be there to do the work.
            Now there is one part where I disagree with the bishop.  While anyone, while I, while you, can do this work of “Showing up,” I would never claim that this work is easy.  There are many times that I have and will fail.  Being totally present, 100% focused is difficult.  There are so many distractions in this world, so many things that would keep us away from where God would hope our mind to be.  More than distractions, there are many places we feel we should be at any given time, be it with family, work, prayer, friends or even on ourselves, self care.  Life was difficult to juggle even before the iPhone came out to distract us. Life was already difficult before all those self help books and Pinterest came out telling you how to do everything better, claiming that perfection is within reach.  And it can make life so exhausting trying to do it all, to be all things for all people.  But don’t confuse being perfect, or working yourself to the bone with “showing up.”  Instead live into the moment you are in, be with the people in your presence. 
            Our Good News for today is that we are not called to be all things for all people. God has never expected us to be models of perfection. Instead we are models shown to be flawed but redeemed by grace.  We are people who simply show up, devoid of distractions, plant a seed with our presence, and wait with anticipation for God’s life giving work.  My friends we never know what minute task we show up for might make the difference for those in our lives.  Be it showing up for our kids baseball game,  Volunteering those 20 minutes a week, reading with a student who has no one at home to read with them, or even taking 2 seconds to ask how the cashiers days is going…  In a world that is becoming more and more insular, showing up and being present is the greatest gift we can give one another.  More than that it is a form of protest against a society that believes the motto “me first.” Instead “showing up” cries out “you, we first.”  And God can work with that.  Because as we pray often,  where two or three are gathered, God is in the midst of them.  And folks, nothing can stop that community.  Amen.