17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 12)

In our end is our beginning;
in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is believing;
in our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection;
at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see.
​
~In the Bulb There is a Flower,
Natalie Sleeth, 1986
 
Telling the difference between good and evil is sometimes no simple thing. Consider the characters that inhabit today’s readings. Laban outtricking the trickster Jacob in Genesis. In Matthew, a thief and a merchant. Fish both desired and rejected. Yeast in a batch that is properly without leaven. A weed masquerading as a plant that is intentionally sown in a field. Shady, subversive, corrupting, confounding stories all, yet Jesus offers them up, and, along with the disciples we are so confident: “Yes, we understand.”
 
Do we?
 
Here is a counter-cultural good word. Wisdom is more fleeting than we might think, although it is there in abundance for the harvest. Like baptism, it takes a lifetime to achieve, and ears to hear. Perhaps that is why it is so valuable! Finding our way amidst masquerading either/or realities is harder than we might think. Remembering that we belong together when we are so torn apart is no small feat. Poking around the edges of Jacob and Rachel and Leah’s stories we discover just how difficult and important this is. And perhaps around our own stories as well. The poking, the prodding, the searching, the sorting. These just may lead to that pearl of great price.
 
The Spirit helps us in our weakness. There’s food for thought! Open yourself up to the Love from which nothing can separate us. Listen for that Spirit of truth. Be transformed. Enter into worship. Sunday 10:00am in person or online.
 
Readings: Genesis 29:15-28 † Psalm 105:1-11, 45b † Romans 8:26-39 † Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
About the Art: Koenig, Peter. Treasure in the Field, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58507 [retrieved July 17, 2023]. Original source: Peter Winfried (Canisius) Koenig, https://www.pwkoenig.co.uk/.

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