Sweet Corn and the Kingdom of God - The Rev. C. Dean Taylor

Proper 18, Year C

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26

 

            This morning’s sermon begins last Wednesday night, when Elizabeth asked everybody in the Intergenerational Global Village class a question. It was the perfect question for a class, ages 6 through 76, one that everybody could answer.

          “What is your favorite food?”  If I listed all the answers, you would not be able to tell whether the answers came from the six year old or the seventy-six year old—well, maybe the purple and green skittles.

          The answers came fast and furious: macaroni and cheese, chocolate ice cream, fried chicken, homemade bread, pizza, chocolate again, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (this from an adult), chocolate again, tacos, and my favorite answer—Apple pie a la mode with ice cream!

          I was at one of the last tables to be called. What would mine be? Then it came to me in a vision—sweet corn. Sweet corn, picked from the field that morning, a kind of sweet corn my Dad grows that is called “Peaches and Cream,” because the kernels are mixed, yellow and white.  You let the butter drip deep, deep down and around the kernels and deep into the tiny crevices and onto the plate.

          My grandmother had little miniature corn holders, shaped like tiny ears of corn themselves, with two little prongs to stick in each end of the ears, so you wouldn’t have to wait so long for the corn to cool. Just pick it up from each and bite into it.

          And when that happened, when your teeth crunched into that sweet corn, each kernel exploded into your mouth—pop, pop, pop. (If you can eat sweet corn without two streams of butter running down your chin—something’s wrong! Something’s not right. It’s not God’s will.)

It was so good, it actually grieved you to have to go ahead and swallow it.

2.

          If there’s a heaven—and we believe that there is; we assume that there is—then surely we will be served, upon arrival, a fresh, hot ear of sweet corn, dripping with heavenly butter. 

          Today, we are all gathered here on this first day of Sunday School as the church.  The church is, you might say, in the business of heaven.  But probably not in the way that we usually think.

          Usually when non-Christians hear that, they make the mistake that in fact many church goers have made over the centuries, which is to assume that the church is mainly in the business of getting its people ready for heaven. That is, to get its people ready for the afterlife.

          For most people, it goes something like this:  Obey the rules, make enough brownie points of good deeds, and you get to go to heaven. Fall short, you go to that other place.  According to that view, church is where we come to get the rules and to nag us so that we will earn our place one day, in heaven.

          But that’s not how I hear it, at least not the way I read the scriptures. Yes, when we come near the end of our time on this journey of life, the church does prepare us for that passage.  And that’s important.

          But the business of heaven is much, much more than that. And this is exactly what we’re here to teach these children (and adults) in Sunday School.  This is why we need to keep coming to Sunday School all year, to hear this truth:  It’s not about getting to heaven in the end, but bringing heaven to earth now. 

          It is God’s wish, God’s desire, that we enjoy—that we en-joy, and share, God’s good gifts to us. God created sweet corn for us to delight in and for us to share with one another in that delight. 

          But God created sweet corn primarily for this world, not the next.  The business of the church is not to contemplate the sweet corn of heaven, but rather, to do the ministries of this life that make sure that all God’s children will taste sweet corn and delight in it.

3.

          That no child on this planet will go to sleep hungry, or cold, or homeless, or scared, or sick, or comfortless.  That is the ministry of the church.  That is what discipleship is all about. That was Jesus’ driving passion, and Jesus calls for it to be ours as well.  To take joy in God’s gifts to us, but to work with a passion for God’s justice, so that everyone on the planet can share fairly in God’s good gifts.

          Being a disciple of Christ is not about getting to heaven, but bringing heaven to earth.  It’s in the passion of that discipleship that we need to hear the disturbing words of today’s Gospel lesson. That discipleship is so important, that we let nothing get in our way.  Jesus is so passionate about this ministry of justice, he is so aware of the suffering and the pain of the poor, he wants to get his followers’ attention in a big way. 

          “Whoever…does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”  Oh, yes, and while I’m at it, give away all your possessions.

          It is the language of exaggeration, and it works:  Imagine with me, for a moment, that you have gone to a roadside stand somewhere out Highway 225 or somewhere and bought a sack full of sweet corn. The old farmer is some old guy in overalls from the back of a truck, and he has a kind of wild look in his eye.

You take the corn and other vegetables home, fix a wonderful dinner, you’re sitting at the table, ready to dig in, and bang, the front door opens and in walks the old farmer.  He comes to the table, bangs his hand on the table so hard the dishes rattle and your ice tea spills over. 

And he says, “Before you take a bite, do you know what is involved in getting that corn to your plate? In spring, somebody has to harrow the field, then deep plough it, then plant in straight rows, then pull weeds in the hot sun, then deal with insects, and harvest—you ever pull corn? It’s tough. And finally,” he says, “have you given enough of it away?  Have you done everything you can so that everybody—EVERYBODY—is enjoying this blessing from God?”

4.

That’s what Jesus is doing in this Gospel today.  Being a disciple takes that kind of passion.  Being a disciple—bringing heaven to earth—is tough work. It’s joyful and glorious—the sweet corn is very, very sweet—and so much sweeter when we are in that life of discipleship, that life of passion as we do all we can to gather all God’s children around the table in solidarity and fellowship. 

The Communion, the Eucharist, is a symbol of that hope—a heavenly banquet meal brought to earth. 

All of that is what we have to teach these wonderful children, as we begin this church school year. How to be disciples. Passionate disciples.  Not about getting to heaven, but bringing heaven to earth.     Amen.