26 He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

Jesus is the outlier in whom there is new life. What does it mean to be 'broken' upon the rock? We have a natural resistance to vulnerability and to change, and yet the path to transformation is found as we are broken upon Jesus. Pride and stubbornness, on the other hand, make us hard and brittle, so that we become crushed by outside forces, even those that are good and life-giving.

This Sunday's lectionary Gospel text is timely given our country's current context of protest and disdain for this protest, ie., NFL players/Trump. Jesus has just cleansed the temple and now occupies it in protest of the corruption/injustices rampant in the temple religious system. The Chief Priests and Elders of the people have come to challenge his authority: "By what authority [what right] are you doing these things?" Jesus counter-challenges with a parable about two brothers in a vineyard to convey his point about true righteousness and the faithfulness of Israel to being people of God. We are not Israel, but our hermeneutical approaches to cultural symbols risk a dangerous dogma of its own. A dogma that renders non-white expressions of freedom of speech and protest as un American and dangerous, while blindly defending relics of dominant culture and ritual that actually oppress people of color. What really does it mean to be American and 'patriotic?' Is it blindly defending enculturated, politicized symbols legalistically, or embodying and defending the values of freedom and equality those symbols were meant to represent? #Matthew 21:23-32

Jesus responds to the religious leaders' challenge with a parable about workers in a vineyard.

Matthew 14:22-33

Jesus is inviting us to get out of the boat and come to him . . . but just because Jesus is calling you out to him, doesn’t mean the storms will stop.

Matthew 14:13-21 Jesus has compassion on the crowds and commands the disciples to feed them opening the opportunity for all to witness his miracle of abundance.

James 4:13-15

John 14:15-20; 25-27

Conversation #6 in the Tangible Kingdom Series. Bill Strunk discusses how we are a community of apprenticeship. Luke 5:1-11

Judges 6:11-16 & Luke 19:1-10

We Live out and invite in . . . conversation #5 of the Tangible Kingdom series.

I Peter 4:8-10 || Hebrews 10:24-25 || Colossians 3:12-17

We Practice Community.