Keeping Our Eyes on The Prize

It's not often that the Collect of the Day is what captures my imagination. But this one has a special place in my heart. I once quoted this one in an email to the embattled Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire while he was being ostracized in England during the Lambeth Conference. I felt compelled to write to him as one of those who had known him from my very earliest days growing up in the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire. 

Being a journalist and familiar with the aggressiveness of the media, particularly the British press, I wanted to pass along to +Gene some words that might give him grounding as he was mocked and scorned by the powerful of the Anglican Communion and bullied by their buddies in the press. +Gene responded that the words of this Collect assigned for Proper 12 made him feel like Elijah being fed by the ravens. I was glad that I could be of some help. 

Texts: Romans 8:26-39; Matt 13:31-33; 44-52

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When we began the service this morning… we prayed what is known as the Collect of the Day.

Simply put, a Collect is a prayer that is “collecting” the sentiments that focus our worship for the morning service…and then is used throughout the week with our daily prayers.

The one designated for today is among my favorites.

I love that line “we may pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal.”

It’s a poetic way of saying…

” Help us to keep our eyes on the prize and never lose hope.”

I think that fits well both with our lesson from Paul’s Letter to the Romans as well as our Gospel… with that series of short parables about “the kingdom of heaven.”

Both contain messages which encourage us to not to let all the noise of the temporal… the “stuff” happening around us… get in the way of seeing that there is a bigger and brighter eternal always at our fingertips.

It can be really hard to do that on some days.

There are pressures that press on us at home and work.

There’s the “adulting” most of us have to do with the mundane annoyances of bills to be paid…and jobs where we must carry out a policy or a practice that we may not think is the best.

We might daydream about when life was simpler…but even children aren’t immune from the temporal forces that can knock them off their game.

They face peer pressures to conform and be exactly like their classmates or face that unthinkable feeling of being ostracized.

Like some of their parents…they’re ordered to sit still at their desks when…really…our bodies need to be in motion.

Add to all of this the existential problems…

The waters around the Florida Keys had temperatures above 100-degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s not good for sea life…or for the upcoming months of hurricane season.

I’m sure you’ve all heard that the state of Florida has approved new standards for teaching African American history that treat the institution of slavery as a job training program.

It wasn’t.

This week… the President designated three sites as memorials to remember the brutal lynching death of Emmet Till in Mississippi.

Till would have been in his 80s.

The President used the occasion to remind us that the sin of racism is real… and continues to press in on the people of God today…even while some attempt to hide the history.

Such news… and pressures… can weigh us down.

Because life…the things temporal… is challenging.

And then St. Paul reminds us… that as large and looming as all the ills might be… not a single one of them will separate us from the love of God.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

These last lines of chapter eight in Paul’s Letter to the Romans are most commonly heard at funerals in the Episcopal Church.

They offer comfort for those mourning the death of their loved one.

But I think they also offer a blessed assurance that we all could use every single day… especially on those days when we feel life is getting the better of us.

Paul puts before the Christian church in Rome all the things that were challenging to them:

They were familiar with war, famine, peril, hardships, distress, nakedness.

In fact…Paul had inflicted some of these on the followers of The Way.

He himself had suffered bouts of punishment and imprisonment as a consequence of his testimony in believing Jesus to be the Messiah.

Despite all of it… Paul asserts that none of those things cancel the power of God’s love to those who are faithful.

He’s cheering the Roman Christians and us on to keep our eyes on the prize… and not to lose hope in God.

God’s faithfulness to us is always there and it grows and grows… much like the mustard seed that blossoms into a bush.

Like the seed parables we’ve been hearing for the past couple of weeks… Jesus uses the example of a mustard seed to a First Century Palestine audience as a way of saying,

“Look y’all: this tiny seed of which produces that trash tree of a mustard bush is a perfect symbol of the kingdom of heaven. You may have it in your heads that it’s ruined your well-planned garden… but take a look at how it’s attracting birds and other life into your little plot of land.”

If we were to do an update of this part of the Gospel, Jesus might tell us  “the kingdom of heaven is like kudzu.”

We all know how invasive kudzu is.

The Soil Erosion Service and Conservation Corps introduced it into the southeast of the United States in the 1930s.

It was supposed to keep the soil stable and serve as an ornamental plant.

But this “wonder plant” quickly took over everything.

As annoying as kudzu might be... it does have benefits.

There are 70 compounds in the kudzu root which practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine use to treat everything from inflammation to headaches.

Animals…especially sheep and goats… enjoy eating it.

So… just as the kingdom of heaven gets compared to a mustard seed… a small seed that grows a huge bush which overtakes a garden….God’s love and faithfulness… is just as large and invasive.

It’s wild.

It’s messy.

And the unexpected always happens.

And it happens through people and things that the more powerful and well-connected might not pay attention to or think are that important.

Trash trees… women baking bread… the field worker become the vehicles for illustrating the way things work in the kingdom of heaven.

God makes use of the ordinary for extraordinary benefit.

God’s faithfulness stretches and bends and carries the faithful like a rolling rapid on a river of hope and love that will not allow obstacles to get in its way.

This is the level of powerful conviction that Paul is talking about to the Christians in Rome…which is now passed on to us for our benefit.  

Neither Paul… nor Jesus for that matter… promises us that following a path of love is easy.

But trusting in God’s love and faithfulness and remembering the call of our baptism… we have that power to tap into to help us resist when those forces that move against the creatures of God try to lure us into a place where we don’t care about others.

That force of love is the life blood in us that will keep us in community and avoid the toxicity of an “us vs. them” world.

We can stand up for justice for all people because God stands on the side of mercy and justice.

We have the power of an advocate in Jesus to give us voices to speak up when the bullies and tyrants attempt to silence those who are oppressed.

Sticking with the Spirit of God…we can keep our eyes on the prize that comes with patience, love, and kindness.

And so again we pray…

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.