Trinity 8: Small Things Matter

An acrylic painting on wood illustrating the bible verse in Mark 4 describing the kingdom of God like a mustard seed. Jen Norton

Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-5

When I was first ordained, I served my curacy in a lovely three church united benefice in Slough. You may insert any number of references to Slough – John Betjeman’s poem about the friendly bombs or The Office or the McDonald’s that is apparently sitting on crown land. One of my lines was that I could see Windsor Castle from the end of my road. Having that grand castle so close was a reminder of the rule and reign of Queen Elizabeth. Her kingdom and now Charles’ is visible among us.

If you have been into Windsor, Buckingham or Kensington Palace you can see the opulence, the indulgence of the earthly kingdom. This is equally true if you travel to other countries that still have a monarchy; there are grand palaces all over Europe that attest to this.

How does the luxury, excessiveness of the earthly kingdom reconcile to the kingdom of heaven that is described in terms of mustard seeds, yeast, hidden treasure, pearls and a fishing net? These earthly kingdoms are largely off-limits to us peasants! Sure, we get glimpses of it.

Millions of people watched the Queen’s funeral and then the Coronation of Charles. Maybe some of you have received an invitation to a garden party or received an award presented by a Member of the Royal Family. Most of us have to watch television programs or pay to visit the bits of the palace or castle that they want to show us. But it is not the whole picture.

The kingdom of God on the other hand is available to us all at any time. This kingdom is about small things that suddenly swell to take over the whole world. These small things are both common (seeds, yeast, fish) and incredibly valuable treasure and pearls). The most valuable things that you come across by accident and then cannot seem to live without.

Let’s pick apart these short parables…

The mustard seed and the yeast represent everyday miracles. We all know how they work. Mustard seeds grow in a wide variety of climates; Pakistan, India and Canada are the world’s top producers of mustard seeds. Once the seeds start growing, they need very little care and not much water. And they grow! They spread quickly; not exactly something you would want in a well-tended garden! Mustard seeds have small beginnings but grow into useful shrubs for the birds and connoisseurs of mustard.

Yeast. The bread makers among us know that you only need a little bit of yeast kneaded into bread dough to make it rise. Yeast is an agent of change as it converts fermentable sugar into carbon dioxide and ethanol. Yeast gets passed on from batch to batch in the ‘old’ dough. It is thought that yeast improved the quality of bread in ancient Egypt from the hard flatbreads to lighter and tastier bread. Something like sourdough as we know it.

Mustard seeds start small and grow into large, useful bushes. Small quantities of yeast change the taste of the bread. The kingdom of God starts small and grows, spreading out and changing the taste of the world around it. The lesson is that we should not discount the small things until we know what they are capable of! Most big things come from small beginnings.

The parables of the treasure and the pearl feed into the imagination. I am sure we have all had dreams of winning the lottery or finding treasure; look at programs like Cash in the Attic (a personal favourite) or Antiques Roadshow.

We want to find treasure that is hidden away that will put some cash in our pockets. The treasure dreams of most people are about wealth, striking it rich. However the two people in the parables dream of the beauty of the treasure itself; not what the treasure will bring to them.

Jesus portrays these two people as relishing in the feeling of what it is to know the treasure is theirs. There is no indication that they intend to sell their treasures to get richer. They see the value in what they have. It could be assumed that these people already have wealth as they are able to buy land and fine things. It looks like they gave up their wealth to get the treasure in the field and the pearl. These two parables tell us that the kingdom of God is attractive and valuable; something worth looking for, searching for.

The fishing net, again a common item to those listening to Jesus on the beach, is useful and needed. The kingdom of God is meant to catch people and bring them in. All fish, all people are welcome. However not all fish are good, not all people want to know. A time will come when there will be a separation. Those who do not want to be part of the kingdom will not be. Offers can be rejected and there will be consequences. It is hard to understand this. Jesus asked the disciples if they understood all this. They answered Yes. I bet!

We do not always fully understand the things of God or to know what to ask for, what to search for. Paul, in a slightly convoluted way, writes that we do not know how to pray as we ought to but that the Spirit does. The Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words and tells God what we mean to ask for because sometimes we just do not know what is missing.

Paul suggests that what we are missing is to know that we are loved completely and fully for ever and ever. God has had plans for us from the very beginning. Once we understand how high, deep, wide and indivisibly we are loved – then we can search out the right things, the things of God, the wisdom of God and the kingdom of God.

As we grow in wisdom we can come to know where the kingdom of God can be found – in the small things, the everyday things and equally in the surprises of treasure and pearls. The kingdom of God is everywhere! It is a kingdom that is ruled by love and wisdom and we cannot be separated from it.

Trinity 7: Wheat & Weeds

19/7/26

Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

We might be in Ordinary Time in the church calendar but our readings are anything but. Matthew has recorded Jesus’ agricultural parables of the good and generous sower scattering his good seeds on different types of soil. Paul starts probably the most difficult chapter in his letter to the Romans with the bold and joyful declaration that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. It is in the Spirit where true life and peace are found

While these images are beautiful and full of joy they have a shadow in them. A warning for us. The easier option would be to ignore the shadow warning and carry on with joy. In this week’s readings, the heat is getting turned up. To the good news of last week is added some bad news.

In Matthew’s Gospel we still have a generous sower sowing seed in his field. This time though, he is limiting the sowing to his field only. The other sower appeared to scatter seed everywhere, regardless of soil conditions.

This sower is narrowing his focus down. Both the sowers are references to God. We see God as desiring his love and word to go everywhere, be flung to the farthest reaches. We also see God focusing on a particular field.

My back garden has some magnificently tall weeds growing in it at the moment. It needs some weeding and my neighbour and his mower to do a job on it. I find weeding an immensely satisfying job. I am not always a careful weed-er but rather take the position that anything I do not want growing in a particular location is a weed. I would stop short of classifying myself as an enemy though.

The field in our Gospel reading has an enemy who sows weeds into the good wheat. A little research tells us that the literal weeds (which many scholars believe is darnel, also known as “false wheat”) are not harmless. They are poisonous. These weeds mimic the look and colour of nourishing grain, but they are fake. Their seeds can cause illness and even death if consumed in large quantities.

This is evil! We are not to deny or gloss over the evil that exists in the world. Debie Thomas writes, ‘In other words, there is nothing enlightened about denying the reality of evil in our world and in our midst. We are, like the field in the parable, both mixed and messy. Each of us individually, our faith communities corporately, and our world in its entirety, contain wheat and weed, good and evil, the fruitful and the poisonous.’

The existence of evil in the world brings a lot of questions. We might think that God should stop it, step in and intervene. Of course. However, we then need to be prepared for God to root out the evil in our own individual hearts and minds. Would we really want God to rule the world directly and immediately so that every thought and action was weighed, instantly judged and potentially punished?

These parables are about waiting. Waiting for the seed to take root and grow. The sower is watching, probably with frustration, as the weeds grow alongside his wheat. Waiting for the harvest to come.

So often we are like the servants who want to go out and pull up the weeds. Clear the field of them. The sower is emphatic that this is not what he wants. The weeds are to stay until the harvest comes. The danger being that the good wheat could be uprooted and the good crop could be lost.

For Jesus’ followers who heard this parable, they did not want to wait. They wanted Jesus to act, to bring about restoring the kingdom and Temple as they thought. Remove the Romans, get a Jewish king back and all would be well.

Patience is required. Patience on the part of the sower who watches what is happening to his crop. Patience for the servants who want to pull up the weeds immediately. Patience on the part of God who does not want to see a field full of weeds. But God does not enjoy the thought of declaring the harvest time too soon and destroying the wheat along with the weeds.

Those who cause sin and all evildoers will be harvested at the end of time. This is as serious as it gets. Some people will be harvested for the evil they have done and punished for it. It is but for the grace of God that (I hope) many of us will not. We should want all people to be the good seed of the children of the kingdom.

For the creation, as Paul writes in Romans, waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. We wait to be set free, free to become the people God created us to be. Not only us but the whole of creation. Paul calls us to hope for salvation. This hope is often unseen and we have to wait patiently.

Trinity 5: Making up the Rules

5/7/26
Trinity 9

Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

I am never quite sure how to start sermons about sin. I have heard a good number on the topic; some have started rather bluntly with ‘you bunch of sinners!’. Others have led down the garden path with a gentle introduction of the topic and then dropped the hammer. I have not decided which I prefer.

This morning I am talking about sin. Your sin. My sin. Our sin. This is not solely because we are overly sinful or that you need a telling off from the front. Both readings this morning talk about Jesus and his coming to set people free. Free from what? Sin.

The word sin often gets used in the wrong context and has lost its meaning. In contemporary culture it used to advertise chocolate, alcohol, lingerie – all the ‘naughty but nice’ things. Sin is positioned as something indulgent but not necessarily dangerous. Sin in the church context can feel judgmental and outdated. Again we want to soften it.

How do you define sin? When you hear the word what immediately comes to mind? Is it only the naughty things we do? Is it harmless?

Sin is not limited to our actions but also our thoughts and words. We can also sin by not doing what we should do. In the words of the confession we seek absolution for the things we have left undone.

Sin has much to do with our attitudes. Any attitude that says ‘I don’t need God – I can do this myself’ or any action, thought, word that separates us from God. Anything that puts us out of sync with God can be considered sinning.

Sometimes it does not take much for that to happen. In the Romans reading Paul has caught the idea that we are often in conflict with ourselves. We know what good we want to do, but somehow we do the opposite. Paul is lamenting his own state; ‘I do the things that I do not want to do and the things I don’t want to do – I do!’ Anyone else?!
Part of the difficulty with this Romans passage is that we do not know if Paul is talking about his life as a pious Jew before his conversion or if he is talking about his life as a Christian after his Damascus Road experience.

Whatever the answer is; Paul is talking about the power of sin and the inability of human nature to break free from its strangle-hold. This is true for all human beings; regardless of religious stripe or belief. Even if people wanted to break free from sin, they would find that their good intentions were frustrated by sin. This is a very human response!

There are two dangers that we can fall into when it comes to sin. The first is that basically everything we do is sinful or has some element of sin in it. I am not sure if this is the case.

Secondly and more worryingly is that some people think that they do not sin at all ever. They may have convinced themselves that whatever wrong or unjust things they do aren’t really a sin. It can be excused away without confronting their actions.

If we are honest with ourselves and with God, we know that we do things, say things, think things that are wrong, that separate us from Him. We might be able to convince ourselves that whatever we thought, said or did was not all that bad when compared to what other people do or say or that the person affected deserved it. We are only playing a game with ourselves and making up the rules to suit us.

This is what Jesus is referring to in Matthew’s Gospel when he describes this generation like children sitting in the marketplace calling to one another. They were playing games and making up the rules as they went in regard to Jesus and John the Baptist. John didn’t eat or drink and they accused him of having a demon. Jesus ate and drank and was accused of being a drunk and glutton. You can’t win!

We sometimes hold ourselves to different standards than we do other people. We make up different rules for us and for them so we can let ourselves off the hook far more easily than others.

But when we compare ourselves to Jesus we all fall a long way short. We might look pretty good compared to murderers, robbers and maybe even our neighbours. However that is not the standard that Christians are held to. It is the standard of Jesus. The next time you find yourself getting a bit uppity with someone else, check to see if you do that thing that they are doing!

Another problem with sin is that we do not want to get caught. We don’t want others to know about the things we do, say, think that are less than honourable.

The author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (wrote the Sherlock Holmes books) once played a practical joke on 12 men. They were all very well-known, respected and honorable men. He sent each of them a telegram, with the same message: ‘Flee at once. All is discovered!’ Apparently within 24 hours they had all fled the country!

We all want to avoid shame and embarrassment; we have done and said things that we would not want others to know about. We often put up barriers around us to avoid the possibility of being found out. We don’t want people to think less of us or badly of us.

Paul laments doing those things that he doesn’t want to do – anybody can relate to this?

Whether it is a package of biscuits, what we watch on TV, the next drink or the deeper things such as unforgiveness, anger, lack of charity, and anything that we worship more than God needs to be addressed and treated seriously.

What do we do?
We start by recognising the sin in our lives. This is what Paul is doing as he realises the conflict within himself. Jesus points out to the child-like generation who make up rules and play their silly games.

Not just recognise – but name it. Not easy but necessary.

When are you tempted to fall into sin? Some of the most comforting words ever to fall from the mouth of Jesus are ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’

When you are stressed out, angry, anxious, hungry, not getting enough sleep; in other words weary and burdened. All these conditions can push us into making bad decisions that can lead us to sin. Jesus is saying come to me and I will give you rest.

Recognising it – identifying when it might happen and taking it to Jesus.

Leave a moment…

Trinity Sunday: Can You Handle the Truth?

31/05/26
Trinity Sunday

Isaiah 40:12-17, 27-31
Matthew 28:16-20

The first Sunday after Pentecost is always Trinity Sunday. That special day when we are meant to celebrate the Christian doctrine of the Trinity: God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. Celebrating foundational Christian doctrine might not sound all that exciting, but it is!

It is always worthwhile to remind ourselves about the essence of our Christian faith after the seasons of Lent, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost. The church year now rolls along until Advent as the big festivals are complete.

The Church has marked Trinity Sunday since the mid 800’s. It was instituted to speak against the heresies of the early church as they worked out how to understand the nature of Jesus; was he only a man? Was he divine? A combination of both? How could the church understand and explain how God can be three and one.

Reference to the Trinity is woven through our services; each time I or we say ‘in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit‘. We repeat it each week in the Creeds. The entire Christian story is retold in the Eucharistic prayer before Communion; listen for the references again this morning.

It is difficult to understand and at some point needs to be believed as part of the mystery of God. But don’t simply jump to that conclusion (or not) as tempting as it is!

The doctrine of the Trinity sets out to tell the whole truth about God, even though it is difficult. The full Christian story is that God created the world, redeemed it through Jesus and is present in the world and our lives through the Holy Spirit. All equal, all the same.

From theologian Alistair McGrath,

‘Let’s pretend that God is simply someone up in heaven, who made the world. That’s the way many Greek philosophers thought about God. It’s not a difficult idea. So why don’t Christians just adopt this simple view of God? The reason is clear. This may be an easy idea to understand, but it is a totally inadequate view of God, from a Christian point of view. Why? Because this scaled-down God is the distant and far-removed creator of this world, who never becomes directly involved in its affairs. And Christians know that God just isn’t like that. For Christians, God entered into this world in Jesus of Nazareth: “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). Good theology is about telling the full story, and enabling us to see the full picture. And that means weeding out inadequate ideas about God.’

Trying to deepen our understanding of the Trinity, should help us to expand our faith ideas of what it is to be a Christian. How? The Trinity should challenge us with the truth about God. Being a Christian is not solely about turning up to church or simply being a good person. The truth of God will always be more than our minds can cope with.

The truth of God will always convict and remake us. We are created in God’s image as everyone is. We cannot remake the image to suit ourselves. It is an image we are to grow and mature into.

Secondly, the Trinity shows us that God is dynamic. God is on the move. He flows, he dances. This proves that the idea of a distant God is inadequate. We pray and worship, we believe that God is creator and lord, we know that the Spirit guides and moves us to action.

We see the action of God in Isaiah 40. The Israelites are in Babylon by force as the prophecies of the coming exile have come true. Jerusalem fell to King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 587 BC. This section is dated from the 540’s.

Isaiah is addressing people who have suffered the trauma of exile after 40 years. There is a new generation who did not know the ‘old’ Jerusalem. The writer is bringing hope and comfort to the community whose exile is coming to an end by the grace of God. He is reminding them of God’s vastness: a God who can measure the waters in the hollow of his hand, enclose the dust of the earth in a measure, and weigh the mountains on scales. Nations are like a drop from a bucket.

The writer makes the case that God can be trusted to save the exiles. He wants to and he can. God is the source of power and will renew the strength of the exhausted and weary. Isaiah is imploring the old generation to tell the new generation about God.

Jesus’ final commandment to his disciples in Matthew’s Gospel is to ‘Go! Make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ They were not to stay still in Jerusalem and never change. Thank God they did go. God is always waiting and watching over us. He wants us to move and change; to become the people He created us to be.

Now some who heard Jesus that day doubted, hesitated. Why? Maybe they were not sure of what they were seeing? Was it really Jesus? Or a vision? They were not the first people who had trouble recognising the post-resurrection Jesus.

Disciples are learners and followers; if you want to learn and follow then you are in good company. We need to make more of them. This is not about securing more members to the group but securing wholehearted commitment to Jesus, to the Trinity. We do that by following the example of Jesus and being open to the work of the Spirit in our lives. What might that look like for you?

Take comfort in the words of Jesus, ‘I am with you always, to the end of age.’ The Trinity is not something we will ever fully understand but it is an attempt to tell the full story of God. Not the absent one but the God whose love and presence can be known here and now in the ordinary every day.

God is not forgetful or careless. No one who measured the water in the hollow of his hand or weighed the mountains on a scale lacks attention to detail. Remember that God is inexhaustible. God is unending energy. Jesus is unending energy. The Holy Spirit is unending energy.

Lean into God for comfort and encouragement. Lean into Jesus and follow his example. Lean into the Holy Spirit and ask for energy and imagination. Lean into each other as we continue to learn and grow together. May we be transformed by the Trinity.

Pentecost: The Great Festival

24/5/26
Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21
John 7:37-39

Creator God, as your spirit moved over the face of the waters bringing light and life to your creation, pour out your Spirit on us today that we may walk as children of light and by your grace reveal your presence. Amen. 

Titian’s Pentecost

Pentecost can be one of those Sundays where it is hard to come up with new material. We have the same readings every year, the same thing happened. What should be different is our reaction, has it deepened, changed? Have we experienced the work or movement of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost last year? 

The story of the first Pentecost is overwhelming. No one knew what to expect. The disciples had hung together as Jesus had told them to. They were at their weakest point; tired, afraid, unsure and were waiting and expecting something to happen. 

The Acts reading has the very public falling and filling of the Spirit; it would have been delightful, raucous chaos. Fear not if this makes you nervous. Not every filling of the Holy Spirit is a dramatic event. The Spirit falls on people the way they need to be met. All that is required is a willingness, a desire.  

Pentecost is about people experiencing God in new ways. God is drawing new people from every nation at the time towards him. In Acts, the people, mostly Jews, are encountering the Holy Spirit and being changed. Jesus changes people. We are seeing an in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. 

After the ascension of Jesus there was wide speculation that Jesus would return soon, likely in days or weeks. Certainly not 2,000 years and counting. There are fewer things that are worse than waiting for something with no idea when it will actually happen. The early followers of Jesus are waiting like this, staying together might have helped.

They also had something to look forward to; the Jewish Feast of Weeks. There are three pilgrim festivals in the Jewish calendar; Passover, Shavuot (Feast of Weeks) and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles). Each year faithful Jews were commanded to travel to the temple in Jerusalem to celebrate. 

For centuries 50 days after the Passover, the Jews have celebrated with a feast, traditionally called Shavout. The number 50 points to fullness, ripeness, to a time that is ready for something to happen. This Feast lasted for seven weeks and a day.  This was already a time of celebration. Pentecost happens 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus at Easter.   

In the Feast of Weeks and at Pentecost, God was creating for himself a new people. When the disciples received the Spirit, they became witnesses for Christ. Here Jesus is forming a people for himself; His church and we are that church. 

Shavuot and Pentecost are times to remember and give thanks for all that has been done for us. The Jewish people were to remember and celebrate their release from slavery by being generous to each other, feeding the widows, the orphans, the poor and other unfortunates. Our works, how we give our time and money should be a reflection of all that Jesus has done for us. 

Looking back to the past to help explain a current situation is a common Jewish method of interpretation or understanding called ‘midrash’. This is what Peter is doing in Acts 2 when he refers to the prophecy of Joel to explain to the mostly Jewish crowd what is happening beyond ‘we are not drunk at 9 am.’ Joel announced that God was going to do something very special on Mount Zion (which is in Jerusalem). Peter is reminding and confirming that. 

Pentecost also helps us to look ahead. In the few lines of John’s Gospel chosen for this morning Jesus is again preparing people for the coming of the Spirit. This time he is at the third feast, the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot. 

The Feast of Tabernacles was to commemorate the 40 years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. It is celebrated by dwelling in temporary outdoor booths (sukkahs). It is over seven days in the autumn; similar to a harvest festival to mark the end of the agricultural season with offerings of olives and wine. It was the most popular of the three pilgrim festivals. 

The “forefathers” of the Jewish people are to be welcomed during the seven days of the festival, in this order: Day 1: Abraham; Day 2: Isaac; Day 3: Jacob; Day 4: Moses; Day 5: Aaron; Day 6: Joseph; Day 7: David. 

All of these are remembered for their faith. All of them were imperfect, inconsistent and some did some shocking things; murdered, built idols, almost killed his son, slept with another man’s wife and set him up to die in battle, stole from his brother. And that is only some of the things that are documented. 

The members of this group had moments of greatness when they remembered their dependence on God. This is a hallmark of this feast. 

It is at this feast where Jesus is in John 7. Jesus sent the disciples to Jerusalem and told them he was not going to the festival. At this point in his ministry Jesus is growing in popularity; public teaching and healings are receiving attention from those in authority. 

He then goes to Jerusalem in secret, shows up in the middle of the festival and begins to teach in the temple. The crowd is astounded. It appears that Jesus begins to teach on Moses’ day; Moses who received the ten commandments and led Israel to the promised land. Moses who stood on holy ground in front of the burning bush. The authorities want to arrest Jesus but they do not. 

Then on the last day of the festival, the greatest day, Jesus appears again. The final day was David’s day. Jesus is from the house of David; it has been prophesied that the Messiah would come from the house of David. The final day was meant to be a day of joy and recitations as they waiting for Messiah to arrive. 

There he is. It is thought Jesus spoke up after the ceremonies were over, the official bits done. Jesus is announcing that He is the fulfilment of all that the Feast of Tabernacles anticipated. Jesus is calling for people who are hungry and thirsty to come to Him. There is something familiar in Jesus’ words which echo Isaiah 55: 

“Come, all you who are thirsty,

    come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

    come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

    without money and without cost.

2  Why spend money on what is not bread,

    and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

    and you will delight in the richest of fare.

3  Give ear and come to me;

    listen, that you may live.

I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

    my faithful love promised to David.

Jesus came to save us, to heal us and change us from the inside out. We are not meant to be the same once we have met with Jesus. The Holy Spirit leads and guides us, it brings joy and peace beyond what we can imagine even in the most difficult of circumstances. The Spirit is often most powerful when we are at our most weak, tired, out of energy and resource.  

Abundant life is what Jesus came to bring. Not just a little but or enough but big and abundant. Jesus is still pouring out his Spirit on people for their own salvation and to change and heal. It is literally the breath of life. We need to drink it in, let it be the breath of our lives.  

At Pentecost we can be refreshed and refilled. It is not always dramatic but comes in the quietness and weakness.  

Spend a few moments asking for the Holy Spirit to come. Fill those places where oxygen levels are low. Where the air is stale. Where they are signs of suffocation; where water needs to flow again.