Video of service 
Worship Booklet 
Communion Prayer​
Printer-Friendly Version (Sermon)

During my childhood, since the time I was an infant, my family vacationed on the coast of North Carolina.  My youngest years were spent visiting my grandparents on their farm alongside the Neuse River.  Later, we stayed in Beaufort, a pre-Revolutionary War town that my ancestors helped settle.  As the family grew, and we spent more time on the beach, my family rented a house in nearby Morehead City.  

Video of service
Worship Booklet 
​Communion Prayer
Printer-Friendly Version (Sermon)

The Feeding of the Five Thousand.  Interestingly, this story is found in all four gospels.  In Matthew and Mark there is also the story of the story of the Feeding of Four Thousand.  This story is included in all three of our lectionary cycles, so it is an option every year … every summer.  I’ve preached on the Miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand many times … but not today.

Video of service
Worship Booklet 
​Communion Prayer
Printer-Friendly Version (Sermon)

So, what is this “kingdom of heaven” that Jesus keeps talking about?  Where is it?  What is it?  When is it?
 
Two weeks ago we heard the parable of the sower.  Last week we heard the parable of the wheat and the weeds.  This week we here five more parables … all one liners.
 
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.  The kingdom of heaven is like yeast kneaded into dough to make bread.  The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field.  The kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great value.  The kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea that catches all kinds of fish. 
 
Wow … my head is spinning.

Video of the service 
Worship Booklet 
Communion Prayer

​Sermon by The Rev. Deena M. Galantowicz
​Printer-Friendly Version (Sermon)
Today we have another parable of Jesus.  Now, parables are not intended to comfort us, but to challenge us and hopefully, change us.  Parables speak out against the status quo, against our ways of thinking, our provisional ways of hearing God. 
 
Last Sunday we heard the parable of the seed being sown on different kinds of soil and what the results were.  More especially we considered the ways of THE SOWER.  Now, today, we hear Jesus once again using a parable about seeds and farming to convey his message about God’s kingdom.  I think it is pretty interesting that he compares the Kingdom of Heaven to farming.  The people he is speaking to would readily understand the image of a field, and they would grasp the difficulties in the battle between the good product, that is… the wheat, and the weeds which can spoil the harvest.  And keep in mind that these weren’t just any old weeds growing with the wheat.  The original Greek identified them as DARnel, a weed that looks very much like a stalk of wheat as it is growing.  The big difference is that the DARnel doesn’t produce anything.  So the only safe time to separate the weeds from the wheat would be at the harvest. 

Video of service 
Worship Booklet 
Communion Prayer
Printer-Friendly Version (Sermon)

“A sower went out to sow,” Jesus tells a vast crowd in our reading from Matthew’s Gospel, and the seeds he flung all over the place in joyful abandon “brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.  Let anyone with ears listen!”    
     
If you’re like me, anxious about the surging pandemic, isolated from loved ones, weary of the ugliness infecting global politics, and either heartbroken or furious (or both) in the face of systemic injustice, inequality, violence, and death in your own community or country, then you need some gladness right now.  In the midst of scarcity, we could use some abundance.  In the face of sadness and sorrow we could use some joy.  When faced with shortages of necessary supplies at unreasonable costs, we could use some indiscriminate generosity.