(excerpts from a sermon by the Rev. Sam Adams at St. George’s Church on July 27, 2014)

The Rev. Sam Adams preached from the Gospel chosen from the Lectionary for the Seventh Sunday of Pentecost: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 last week. Jesus was explaining the kingdom of heaven to the disciples through more parables.

Sam described the kingdom of God not as some far off place that we go to, but that it is here and now, and is demonstrated by God’s victories over evil. In the parables we have a mustard seed, yeast hidden in flour, and a merchant selling everything and hiding a treasure in his field. Sam commented that the parable illustrates that God’s kingdom takes time to come into the light. Many times it doesn’t look like we expect, but we can be assured that it is slowly permeating everything around us. One day God’s kingdom will be obvious to everyone.

Sam continued: “We get these glimpses of God’s kingdom but in order to really experience it all the time, we have to “go all in.” We have to be a real disciple, giving up everything in order to follow Christ. But when we do, God’s kingdom is revealed to us and we realize that we now have everything that we were looking for. We have been rearranged, redeemed and reconciled to God.”

Sam’s Sunday words carried me through last week. It was a tough few days, but I saw God’s kingdom all around me as the mysterious reality that Sam described.

God won victories over evil in my life last week just as Jesus predicted in Matthew 13:49-50: “So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

I’ve seen the hand of God and I’m ready to “go all in”. Are you?

Blessings, my friend,
Agatha