Not our own

Homilist on Proper 6 (Pentecost 4) (June 16, 2024) The Reverend Adam J Shoemaker

In the name of the lion, the lamb, and the dove. Amen.

Just before I was ordained a priest in the diocese of Massachusetts, my ordaining Bishop Tom Shaw who was a monk—now a blessed memory—gave us some advice. He told my ordination class that he would recommend that we find ourselves a hobby, a hobby that would give us a project that had a beginning and an end that would give us a sense of finality and accomplishment in life because, in Bishop Shaw's estimation, when it comes to the work of the church, things are never really finished. Things are never really resolved, and our ability to control the outcome of our efforts is limited.

I thought of this advice that was handed to me so long ago in light of the Gospel reading. we have just heard read from Mark in which Jesus teaches us in Parables, the first of which is a parable in which the kingdom of God is compared to a sewer who scatters seeds on the ground seemingly indiscriminately. This means that in this Parable the Sower cannot really control where the seed ends up, where it takes root, and when that seed ultimately yields fruit. This seems like an apt lesson for me, given my 17 years now of ordained Ministry, serving three different congregations. In my experience we can plan and we can strategize—and Episcopalians love to do that—but ultimately,  ultimately,  we have limited control and we have a limited field of vision, as we are reminded today in that wonderful reading from the Hebrew Bible from 1 Samuel about the selection of King David that nobody saw coming.

We sow seeds. We labor with love. But our work is always ongoing, and the seeds that we plant may not bear fruit for years to come. It may happen long after we're gone or after we've left whatever Ministry setting we found ourselves in at the time. This has parallels to my experience of fatherhood—today of course is Father's Day, Happy Father's Day to all the fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers who are in our minds today and to all those who've served as father figures for others every Father's Day. I'm always so full of gratitude for all of the father figures in my life—for my biological father, for the father who raised me, and for so many others, for coaches and mentors and spiritual directors, even for my ordaining Bishop—who all in their own way planted seeds in me and helped me in time to grow more fully into the person and the priest that I have been called to be.

But Father's Day also for me calls to mind the challenges of this role because while it is surely one of the greatest gifts God has given me, I am sometimes overwhelmed with the task of being a dad. As Fathers, as parents, we can love our children; we can try to raise them with compassion and understanding, but ultimately that time comes when you realize the outcome is beyond your control and your field of vision is limited. For me certainly I am reminded again and again of my human frailty, of my penchant to screw up, to fall short of my highest ideals. You know, we are all fallible; we all fall short which is why I believe deeply that we all need to rely on the grace of God, the amazing grace and mercy of our God that makes up for that inevitable Gap in life. And I believe in turn that we need to strive as best as we are able as we carry out our lives and ministries to extend that grace to one another, to those around us, and to ourselves. We need to be gracious and gentle in understanding with ourselves because, guess what, we are not God. That's an important truth to embrace in the spiritual life but one that I have found as a priest and pastor we all sometimes need to be reminded of. Years ago, I was a seminary intern serving at St Stevens's Memorial Episcopal Church in Lynn, Massachusetts, on the North Shore uh just outside of Boston. I was in my early 20s, struggling mightily with the ministry responsibilities that had been assigned to me. One day my priest supervisor looked at me and saw that I was stressed out and overwhelmed like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. She said, “Adam we do the best that we can but you have to remember you are not God. You are not in control. We scatter seeds. We offer our labors. the labors of our lives with love, but it's a limited contribution in a much grander unfolding story. In all humility, we need to acknowledge that and we need to lean on the grace and mercy of God and trust in the power of God to take our offering, however small it might be even if it be as small as a mustard seed, and trust that in God's time, not on our timetable but in God's time, God will do of our offering more than we could ever ask or imagine.”

I want to wrap up today by offering you a prayerful poem that was introduced to me by a lay leader in my former congregation where I served as Rector in North Carolina. As we were beginning a pretty ambitious ministry project. It is a prayerful poem that has been attributed to the late martyred Archbishop of El Salvador Oscar Romero. So I invite you friends to hear these words as we continue to reflect on our lives and our ministries as individuals and is a part of the people of God called to be at St Stevens's Episcopal Church in the City of Charleston.

“It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders;
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.

Amen.”

© 2024 Adam J Shoemaker