# Sermon for the Seventh Sunday After Pentecost July 20, 2023 - [ Blog ](/news-categories/blog) ![Photo of Garden](/sites/g/files/omnuum7126/files/thememorialchurch/files/adobestock_ritapowell_garden.jpg) *Sermon by the Rev. Rita Powell, Chaplain for Harvard Episcopal Community, Harvard University. File photo by AdobeStock* *––* Embed [Harvard Memorial Church](https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church "Harvard Memorial Church") · [The Rev. Rita Powell - July 16, 2023 | Sunday Sermon](https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church/the-rev-rita-powell-july-16-2023-sunday-sermon "The Rev. Rita Powell - July 16, 2023 | Sunday Sermon") *––* *By the Rev. Rita Powell Chaplain for Harvard Episcopal Community Harvard University* *(The following is a transcript of the service audio, July 16, 2023)* ![Rita Powell](/sites/g/files/omnuum7126/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/thememorialchurch/files/rita.jpg?itok=p0no4uLd) May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. And the scripture ends by saying, "Let anyone with ears listen." The sound of the rain is hard to miss. It's a good sound, a sound of varied percussion, and texture, and intensity. And in a drought or a desert culture, surely the sign of mercy and relief. But this week, here in New England, it's impossible to hear these rain words without thinking of Vermont, and the flood disaster there. Where rivers overflow, combined with sewage and household toxins, makes the waters contaminant as well as agent of destruction to the homes and farms built in its reach. What might be a natural event feels like an unnatural one because of our human role in it, both in the toxins and the sewage contributions, the dams we've made that change the course of the rivers, and, of course, the global impact of human industry. In the same week, we've watched extreme heat wreak havoc in the southern parts of the country and in Mexico. And we are burdened with the knowledge that this furious and inhospitable weather is on a steady rise because of things we do, which disrupt the natural order of the world. And that's not even all that we do wrong, is it? This week, I've been reading Matthew Desmond's book, Poverty, by America. I recommend it. In which he shows how the lives of people like me and some of you are bound up in millions of Americans suffering long-term racist poverty. Oppressing a huge part of our people, poisoning our own ecosystem, these are sicknesses that we are living with. Now, I suspect every single one of you listening here today is well aware of, and concerned with, and grieving these deep, intractable problems that we are facing as a nation, as a planet. It seems very foolhardy to try to preach hope into that weather pattern, this context. But, by God, the readings today demand exactly that. Let us see if we may dare to receive a sacred message of joy, of peace, even hope from these Words of God. So, turning to this passage from Isaiah, after the rain part, we see a poetic analogy is made between God's Word and the sweet, trustworthy rhythms of plants growing on the earth. "As rain falls and waters the earth, bringing forth sprouting plants, so is my Word," so is God's Word. God's Word is like the life cycle itself. And as this cycle of life, rain to earth to plant to table, God's Word does not go unheard. It does not return to God empty. God's creation will accomplish that which it has been made for. Even the simple truth of being unbreakably bound to the life cycle, we, the earth, fulfill divine purpose. As much as our current state drives us to lament and fear separation from the green growing plant world life cycle, "the vegetal world never stopped teaching humans, reaching to us through our dreams and visions, and we never stopped learning by listening to it." These last words are from the book Thus Spoke the Plant, by Dr. Monica Gagliano, part of a growing stream of scientists and philosophers, like Michael Marder and David Abram, who are turning to the world of plants to learn lessons about how to be better than the humans we think we can be. Now, plants in the normative western stream of culture that I'm a part of have long been considered less than human. We can hang that one on Aristotle, De Anima. But they come into play, this wisdom of plants, they come into play often in the dreams and visions of the Bible, as signs of the spirit, guideposts of the more than human. Jesus points to the lilies of the field as the ideal believers in God, the ones whose trust is perfect, and who are radiant with divine beauty as a result. Paul, Paul's magnificent imagining of the resurrected body, teaches that our spiritual, resurrected body is like the plant, like the oak tree, which arises from the acorn of this body. And in today's texts, we are taught that the Word of God is not a singularly human form of reading and writing, but is written into the rain, into the ground, into the seedling, and the head of grain. And certainly in the midst of high summer, when my garden is a fireworks display of St. John's-wort, coneflower, raspberry canes, and all kinds of thyme, it seems plausible to learn from, to be taught by these beings. And if Isaiah's prophecy is right, these beings are indeed none other than the very Words of God, who do not return to God as a failure, but whose beautiful lives are, in fact, the signs of God's presence. Plants are a memorial to God, a sign that shall not be cut off. As long as we have plants to learn from and be with, we have ways of remembering God. Evagrius, a hero of mine, the fourth century desert philosopher, a monastic who spent his life contemplating in the land of Egypt, had an idea like this. In the Great Letter, he wrote that all of creation should be understood as a kind of sacred writing. That the world around us is God's love letter to us, written to call us back to our truest selves, to awaken our hearts, to lead us home in peace. It is our spiritual work, then to learn to read this writing, to contemplate these words, these letters of water and air, light and color, harsh and mild weathers, birds, insects, star patterns, rock formations, to discern the Words of God. If we can do this, if we can learn to read the Word of God in the world around us, then we "shall go out in joy and be led back in peace. The mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all of the trees of the field shall clap their hands." Can it be that simple? Yes, that is the good news of today! Go outside, and look and listen and be taught by everything you see and hear. "Let them that have ears listen." Go out, enjoy, be led back in peace. Now, lest you think I'm being too sunny on this rainy day, let's return to climate crisis, poverty in America, and the gospel parable for today. We will have to do more than look at flowers to work through and heal some very concrete wounds and illnesses we are hurting from. In Poverty, by America, Desmond describes a number of very realistic interventions we could make to change the landscape of systemic poverty and racism in our society today. But he also describes the overwhelming chorus he often hears in response to these proposals. Folks are always saying to him that even if we make changes to our system, people would still find a way to beat it. You hear that with climate crisis, too. "Even if we make these changes, the problem is beyond our grasp." And this leads to a pervasive sense of despair and hopelessness. Now, Jesus today gives us a Word of God on this very topic. Drawing from the sacred order of plants, Jesus offers something like a mathematics of hope. In the parable of the sower, Jesus shows that most of the Word of God, these seeds, will not succeed. Falling on very predictable types of obstacles; rocky ground, thorns, birds eating them, most of the seeds will not thrive. This is like the predictions of the predictable challenges to implementing anti-poverty measures or climate rescue initiatives. You could probably name what would be the thorns or the rocky ground. The point is built into the grammar of God's Word, which will not fail, the grammar of plants is a lot of failure. But the tiny amount of seed that does sprout and grow produces in wild amounts. This is the sacred math equation of hope. Yes, we will likely fail, even as much as 80 percent of the time, and that is part of the equation. God's Word factors in a huge amount of failure, and the success of the vision of God is not shaken by that. For when the seeds do grow, the return is abundance we can barely dream of; thunderous volume of tomatoes when they start coming in, mulberries raining on the sidewalks, iridescent dragonflies everywhere you look. This is a summer sermon, so I'm going to bring in one last image from the green grass of left field and that's baseball. As a lifelong member of Red Sox Nation, there are many things I can commend about the spiritual implications of this fine pastime. But today, I would just like to call attention to the way in which the mathematics of baseball matches the mathematics of hope from Jesus' parable. In baseball, it is part of the game to fail a lot. Most of the time, in fact. In professional baseball, if you fail at the plate seven times out of 10, you are one of the elite stars of the field. You can fail eight or nine times out of 10, and still make a valuable contribution to the team. In fact, you can fail game after game, and then hit that one, two out, bases loaded, single in the ninth, and help your team win the game. So, friends, without dodging the ailments we are beset by, let us listen to the Word of God. Let us go out from here in joy. Let us contemplate and be taught by the sacred grammar of plants, and even the baseball games, of summer. Let us work with diligence, undaunted by failure, secure in the knowledge that we are part of God's flourishing Word that will not fail. And may we be led home in peace. Amen. Amen. See also:- [ Sermon ](/archive/sermons) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)