Sunday, August 11, 2019 – Pentecost 9

Pentecost 9 2019

Luke 12:22-34

Our Savior’s La Crosse

From Blossoms
(…as if death were nowhere in the background…)

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Li-Young Lee

 

A “brown paper bag of peaches” “bought from the boy at the bend of the road.”

(from the poem “Blossoms” by Li-Young Lee).

How many times have you bought a peach, or a bag of peaches, imagining the jubilance of your first bite?

Summertime is time for peaches, time for watermelon, time for corn on the cob from the yellow truck, time for luscious raspberries and giant juicy tomatoes.

The days are hot and sometimes humid but these hot days bear fruit. Luscious, gorgeous fruit.

As our cover poem states: “There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom” (Li-Young Lee).

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;

yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field,

which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,

how much more will God clothe you?

And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink

and do not keep worrying.

Instead, strive for God’s kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

(Luke 12:27-31 excerpts)

 

We worry.

Violence fills the world. Death comes to children or their parents as their parents attempt to protect them. Families are separated. Immigrants are called invaders.

Black people, brown people are thought of as “less” not as equal. There is fear of those who are “other.”

And we worry.

Our worries and our fears stand in bold contradiction to the luscious days of summer when we hope to, when we want to live from “joy to joy to joy” (Li-Young Lee).

As followers of Jesus Christ we must show the world the truths Jesus taught us.

Now, in these days of anxiety and fear and violence and death, if we are to recover life’s joys we must show the world, we must proclaim to the world the truths Jesus taught us.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34).

Scripture is clear:

Jesus taught us the most important law written upon our hearts, is the law to love one another.

In John 15:12 Jesus said “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.”

In John 15:17 Jesus is said to have said “These things I command you, that you love one another.”

Love lies at the heart of our faith. If we live the love Jesus calls us to love, we must speak out against violence, we must speak out against injustice, we must speak out against inequalities…

I asked a few weeks ago “Where is the love?”

My answer today: God’s love lives in us; we must allow God’s love to live through us. God’s love will bear fruit in us and through us if we allow God’s love to live and to thrive.

Today we pray as Christians have prayed Sunday after Sunday, year after year, generation after generation “deliver us from evil” (Lord’s Prayer).

The violence that lives in our world is evil. Domestic terrorism is evil. Separating children from their parents is evil. Closing our borders to brown people is evil. Racism is evil. These are evil acts that turn us away from God.

The love of Jesus Christ conquers evil. The love of Jesus Christ opens hearts. The love of Jesus Christ brings people together. The love of Jesus Christ cannot and it will not divide us.

We must be bringers of that love.

We must live God’s love in all that we say and all that we do and all that we are.

God’s love brings to the world days when we can “live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom” (Li-Young Lee).

We must not fear the happenings in our world. We must trust in God and in God’s gift of love for the world. And then we must share our trust in the power of God’s love with all people.

This is our call. We are not alone in this call. God is with us, guiding us.

Have no fear.

In all things God works with us and through us.

And then there is joy. There is “joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to impossible blossom” (Li-Young Lee).

Amen.