St. Mark's Parish

Greetings from Medford as this corner of Oregon has become less chaotic leading up to the ninth Sunday after Pentecost.

We gathered with a remembrance that God provides true strength and makes us holy so we can move to eternity. Our first lesson from Genesis was the story of Jacob working for Laban to earn his wife Rachel but being tricked to marry Leah too. The Psalmist gives thanks to God for revealing God’s self to humanity and strengthening humans for service. The reading from the letter to the Romans summarizes the interaction of the Spirit and Jesus to support and carry humans through the toils of life. Matthew’s gospel is a series of parables including the mustard seed and the pearl of great price, all reenforcing that God’s message is extravagant and all-encompassing.

We heard the stories of the bible, and today the stories told by Jesus, which try to tell people, “The kingdom of heaven is like,” using multiple metaphors and similes. Jesus supposedly used these different images to convey the same message to a group of people who might not resonate with an agricultural, or homemaking, or finding treasure, or a merchant’s, or a fisherman’s, or a storyteller’s perspective. Jesus offers different perspectives to help people know the principal messages of the gospel: the kingdom of God is expansive and extravagant; faith is worth more that temporal things; and that there is no one way to share our story of faith which is better than another. We simply find a way to bring the old stories of the Bible into the modern so we can experience God’s grace and mercy.

How do you convey the message of hope? How might you have to retool your story so others can understand that story today? I invite your comments,
Les+

Lessons: Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45b; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Sermon link: https://audiomack.com/fatherles-2/song/pentecost-9-sermon-1