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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.

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​Sermon by The Rev. Deena M. Galantowicz
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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. 

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“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.

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THIS IS THE SERMON I DID NOT PREACH!
 
Well, COVID19 has come home.  A member of the congregation, with whom a number of people have had contact, woke up yesterday with a fever, and they chose to be test for COVID19.  We do not know if anyone is infected … we are waiting for test results.  Again … let me be clear … we do not know if anyone is infected … we are waiting for test results.  However, out of an abundance of caution, we are exercising extreme social distance … essentially isolation.  We do not have any music this morning.  There are no singers, no lector, no one at the controls of our camera for the live-streaming … and no Pastor Deena at the altar with me.  I asked to stay home this morning.

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Welcome to St. Cyprian’s

Extraordinary times sometimes demand extra ordinary efforts.  Yesterday, one of our parishioner with whom a number of the music and production team have had contact this week, woke up with a fever.  They have been tested for COVID19 but we do not yet have the results of that test.  So, in an abundance of caution I decided that we would do our service this morning without the production and music team, thus minimizing the possibility that any of us might transmit the disease to another person. 

The parishioner who was tested for COVID was asymptomatic at the time of the testing … their body temperature was normal.  We include them in our prayers as we adapt to some extra ordinary circumstances.