"One Of Those Mothers"

Check out Susanna's sermon from last Sunday. The Reverend Dr. Susanna Singer is a volunteer associated clergy person at St. Cyprian's & professor at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Sunday, March 3rd 2013

Isaiah 55: 1-9, Psalm 63: 1-8, Luke 13: 1-9

When my son Ben was a little boy, I was One Of Those Mothers about food.

I tried to make sure that everything he ate was healthy, good for him, and preferably home made.

It helped that my husband and I have always liked cooking, that this was the way our family had always eaten anyway, and that we couldn’t afford to eat out, hardly at all, but I must admit that sometimes I got a bit obsessive about it!

So it was quite a day when we were out shopping with another mother and her son from his preschool class, and we happened to end up in a burger joint at lunchtime for the first time in Ben’s life.

I tried to act blasé about it, and ordered something very plain and simple for him – how different could a basic commercial burger be from what I made him at home, for goodness sakes?! – and I waited.

So he took the first bite, looked at me in a puzzled kind of way, and then said in a clear and carrying three-year-old voice, “Mummy, this isn’t food!”

Of course I wanted to slither under the table and disappear, and I did my best to explain and excuse myself to the other mother, trying not to look too much like One Of Those Mothers … but a small part of me was actually quite proud of my kid.

Because it’s a good thing to know what is real food and what is not.

The prophet Isaiah would certainly agree.

In today’s reading he makes God sound like One Of Those Mothers, giving us a good scolding.

“Why are you wasting your money and your sweat on food that doesn’t feed you?” God asks.  “You know the difference, and so do I.  I’m standing here, ready to fill you up with rich food, with a feast.  What are you waiting for? Come and get some of the good stuff free of charge!”

Such a deal!

And then we read on, and we discover a very strange thing.

Being fed by God with the food we need, with real food, will change us.

Being fed with the mercy and forgiveness of God will mean that we will become people who turn away from wickedness, people who repent – which means, literally, getting whole new mind, a whole new way of living.

Eating life-giving divine food will make us into people who are alive!

It puts a whole new spin on the old saying, you are what you eat.

The Gospel gives us another vivid image of the tending and transformation that will happen to us if we let God lay hands on us – only this time God is The Expert Gardener.

We will be like the fig tree in Jesus’ parable – even when we’re not bearing fruit, we won’t be dismissed as barren failures, we’ll get another chance, and our merciful, gardener God will dig around out hard soil, loosen us up, shovel on the life-giving manure, and generously, hopefully wait for that care and feeding to make us into living trees, producing a great crop of figs.

This kind of divine care and feeding, and the human transformation it brings about, these things are what the season of Lent is all about.

Lent is the time when we take a hard look at ourselves, and let God take a hard look at us, to see if we are alive and well-nourished and bearing fruit.

We do this, not expecting to be punished, but knowing that we will be fed, and that as we let God feed us, we will begin to learn the difference between food that is real food, and food that is not.

We do this, not fearing that God will cut us down, but knowing that God will loosen up the hard, caked places in us, feed us with a feast of mercy and forgiveness, help us turn over our lives and dig into some new ways of thinking and some new ways of being, so that we can be transformed, and then bear good fruit.

We will learn the ways of living, the habits of behavior, the ways of being in relationship, that will feed us and make us flourish, and we will start to turn away from the spiritual junk food that leaves us hungry and thirsty and barren. 

Maybe this Lent God will help us learn patience, with ourselves and other people.

Or maybe a diet of discernment is what is called for – deliberate, prayerful thinking-through of some major issue in our life.

Perhaps God is standing by with a tempting dish of playfulness and rest, so that we can learn the power of taking Sabbath time.

Or maybe we are being challenged to let God the gardener break through the hard crust of indifference in us, and lead us out towards our neighbors in need.

The spiritual food and the spiritual care that God has in store for us this Lent will be different for each of us, but we can be sure that God, like One Of Those Mothers, like The Expert Gardener, has a plan for our health and well-being.

This is what can and will happen to us individually, if we let it, and the same kind of things can also happen to us as a community – as the people of God here at St Cyprian’s.

The message of the prophet Isaiah and the parable of Jesus that we have heard today are things we have been actually living out in this congregation.

God has come to St Cyprian’s like The Expert Gardener comes to a fig tree that is struggling, and God has dug around our roots and fed and watered us so that we can come alive and bear fruit.

It’s not an accident, I think, that the new face we show to our neighborhood has green sidewalk gardens;  it’s not an accident that some of our newest friends in the community are students of ecology.

God has come to St Cyprian’s like One Of Those Mothers, worried about our hunger and thirst, concerned that we are just getting by, and offered us a feast of good food so we can come alive and be witnesses to new hope, and share the feast with others.

It’s not an accident, I think, that so much of the new life in this community happens around tables of food – sandwiches, and lunches for elders, and concert refreshments, and foraged dinners, and after-school snacks.

It’s not an accident that part of our stepping out in hope means that we know we absolutely have to make a new kitchen.

St Cyprian’s has always been a great food place, and now the feast is overflowing into the world.

Because we let God feed us, every week here at this table, with God’s very self, we are becoming people who feed others.

Because we know God’s renewing care and grace among us, we are becoming a community of renewal in our neighborhood.

We know what real, life-giving spiritual food is, and we know what real, life-giving divine care is.

We receive these things from God’s own hand, and they transform us into people who are truly alive, people who bear fruit, people who hold out our hands to the world in the same way that God does, overflowing with good things, without money and without price.