Sunday Sermon - Rev. Dr. David Alenskis

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that you would

open our eyes to see you. Open our

hearts to love you. Open our ears to

hear you. Use this time, Lord,

to transform us.

implant within us your hidden truth that

we may declare it publicly and openly

that you may be glorified. We ask this

in your name. Amen.

>> Amen. You may be seated.

As Father Craig mentioned at the

beginning of worship this morning, my

name is uh Father David Alinskis. My

wife Mary Beth. Mary Beth, can you raise

your hand? She's right there. Um our

kids have departed with yours. Um so I

can't introduce them now. But we are

missionaries with the Society of

Anglican Missionaries and Senders. We

are sent out from North America to uh be

the the voice not just of Anglicans in

North America around the world but uh to

serve Jesus Christ as his emissaries and

that is made possible because we are

sent out we are sent out by the church

sent out by people like you and we are

transitioning to a new ministry. uh we

had been serving in pastoral ministry in

Bise and it was there that we first uh

developed a wonderful relationship with

Christurch Anglican. I had known Clark

and Carol Smith before then but it was

in 2014 that uh Christurch sent a

mission team to Bise and we so benefited

from that relationship uh between your

church and ours at St. Andrews and San

Ignasio uh from for many years and we

were so grateful for that partnership

and for that relationship. But the Lord

is calling us to a new ministry, a new

ministry of theological education, of

preparing ministers not just in BISE and

not just in the Netherlands where the

seminary is located, but preparing

ministers for the world. Most of the

students that we will be teaching and

serving in the Netherlands come from

Africa. They come from Asia, from Latin

America and they go to the Netherlands

and receive a full fully free education

uh in a master's level by studying

there. Every faculty person is a

missionary to make this possible and

that is in a nutshell what our ministry

is all about. Now I may touch on aspects

of what that ministry will entail or at

least what I hope for my students there

in the Netherlands. But before I say

that, let me just say that I would

encourage before you leave here today.

Get one of these little cards. Some of

you get these coming in or see them. If

not, grab one on the way out. There's a

little stack by the door. It has our

picture. And that's the main thing

because I would like you to pray for us.

And this is a perfect size for your

refrigerator. Okay? Your refrigerator

needs a picture of our family so that

you can remember to pray for us

long after we are gone. When our

children are old and gray themselves, I

hope that this picture or one like it is

still on your refrigerator.

I would also encourage you to as you

pray for us, figure out what we need,

what what you can be praying for us for.

And while you can visit our website, I

encourage you to pick up one of these on

your way out as well. There's a little

QR code here similar to the one in your

bulletin, but that will help you to see

our missionary profile on the SAM's

website, the Society of Anglican

Missionaries and Senders. And if you

feel very adventurous, I invite you to

put your name and your email address

here and give it to us so that we can

put you on our email update list, okay?

Because we would like to send you our

prayer request, let you know how things

are going so that you can pray better

for us. We are excited about this new

ministry. We are excited to be training

and equipping people from all around the

world to be the voice to be the

spokespeople to be the hands and the

feet of Jesus Christ all around the

world. Beloved, there are places in this

world where it is hard for someone who

has skin like mine and a passport like

mine and a background like mine to go.

But where someone from Ethiopia,

someone from India, someone from Bise or

Argentina could conceivably go because

they look and sound different than I do

because they have a passport that is

different from mine and they are able to

go to parts of the world and minister in

ways that I am not able to do.

But I can contribute to what the Lord is

doing around this world by providing a

more robust training in the word of God

and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Helping them to understand in deeper

ways how to search the scriptures, how

to find Jesus Christ there, how to

discern what his mission is for us in

this world. And it involves things like

church history. It involves courses in

biblical Greek and Hebrew. It involves

courses in systematic theology which is

just a fancy way of saying topics in God

in what God wants us to know.

But through this education, my hope is

that my students have a more profound

engagement with the word of God and

through the word of God with Jesus

Christ himself.

So that whether they are returning to

Cameroon or Ghana, whether they are

returning to the eastern block countries

in Europe or whether they are local

Dutch people who living in a society and

a culture where only 5% of people are

practicing evangelical Christians,

they are able to take what they have

learned

and bring it to others.

Our job as missionaries is to make new

missionaries.

But this takes patience. It takes time

for these seeds that are planted to

grow. It takes time to see

the impact of what we as educators, as

missionaries are doing in this world.

Because the word of God

is his word,

but it is also one that rewards us

getting further and further into. I

didn't say that very well. Let me see if

I can say that a little more clearly.

The word of God invites us to come in

and to get to know him better. The word

of God invites us to come in and to

study it and to find things that we

never saw there before, to understand it

at a level that is going to not only

make us go, "Huh, that's interesting. I

never thought about that." But that is

going to challenge us to take God's word

and to apply it to our lives in new and

more powerful ways.

There are more superficial readings

where we read the text along the surface

and they are true and they are good, but

they are not all that God wants us to

take away from scripture.

That I think is one of the great

benefits of a seminary education like I

hope to provide my students with in the

Netherlands. Today in the message I

would like to take just a few minutes to

look at our gospel reading today and to

look at some of the layers of meanings.

what I might say to move from a casual

reading of Matthew chapter 13, but to

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

get a little bit deeper and to get a

little bit deeper to take you on a

journey that I would hope that my

students one day will be taking with

this and similar passages in scripture

as well.

If you don't mind, I'd like to begin in

Matthew chapter 13. Some of you may have

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

brought your Bibles. If you didn't,

that's okay. But I want us to look at

some of the verses starting in 31. As

you turn there, I'm going to I'm going

to mention

some important things that I would want

my students even at a basic level to

notice about this passage. First of all,

that it is in the Gospel according to

St. Matthew. Now, you're going to say,

"Of course, Father David, it's in the

Gospel according to St. Matthew." We

said that at the beginning when we read

it, okay, but there are some things that

you need to know about the Gospel

according to St. Matthew. And one of

them is that there are some long

discourses, long speeches, teachings of

Jesus. five of them. Just like there are

five books of Moses, there are five

teachings of Jesus in the Gospel

according to St. Matthew. And we're in

the middle of one of those long sections

of teaching. Another thing that I'd

point out to my students is that Jesus's

teaching here is in parables.

And here we have seven parables.

And they all begin with the kingdom of

heaven is like, and he goes on. And

these parables are analogies. They're

word pictures that help us understand

what the kingdom of heaven is like. Now,

two weeks ago, we read the first one.

You may remember the first one had to do

with a sewer who went out to sew. And as

he swed, the seed fell on different

kinds of soils and it had different

results and only one of them ended up

bearing fruit. One of the great things

that Jesus does in that parable is that

he explains it to his disciples because

they go to Jesus and they say, "We don't

get it."

So Jesus tells them what the parable

means.

Last week we read another parable about

wheat and tears, about the good crops

and the weeds that were sewn up among

them and how you have to take care until

the harvest time not to harvest

prematurely and not to weed prematurely.

And fortunately again Jesus tells us the

meaning of this parable.

Today we read the other five and Jesus

does not tell us what they mean.

So this is an encouragement on a

superficial level to go to these and

say, "Well, Jesus didn't tell me what

they meant. I'm assuming that this

should be pretty easy to figure out."

And so they are on one level. Reading

these these parables, I think most of us

have a meaning come to us pretty

quickly. We read about a mustard seed,

the smallest of all the seeds, and it

does what? It grows up into a massive

bush or tree. And Jesus says, "The

kingdom of heaven is like this. It

starts out small and then it gets

it gets bigger. Then we move on." We

read about

a bit of yeast, leaven that is worked

into the bread and it goes into the

whole thing and it rises up and Jesus

says, you see, even a little bit of

leaven will leaven this whole lump of

dough just like the kingdom of heaven.

It starts out small but it starts

spreading. Gets bigger, it starts

spreading.

So far so good, right? We hear about a

treasure hidden in a field.

A man finds it

and then he decides how am I going to

get this treasure? What does he do? He

doesn't steal it. He buries it again. He

goes and he buys the field and now he is

a rich man because he bought the field

with the treasure.

Same thing with the pearl of great

price. A pearl vendor finds a pearl that

has been significantly discounted and

even though it is still expensive, even

though he has to sell everything that he

has to buy that one pearl, he knows that

it's worth it. And in the same way, we

can walk away from these parables and

say that like that treasure and like the

pearl, the kingdom of heaven itself is

valuable enough. It's important enough

that I should be willing to give

everything that I have and everything

that I am to lay hold of that treasure

because it is a pearl of great price.

And then we have a parable about the end

times that the good will be sorted from

the bad, the good fish from the rotten

when that net is dragged in and when the

angels come and sort us all out. And

this is a little bit harder for some of

us to place. But on a very literal

reading, I think we would say, well,

Jesus is talking about how the kingdom

of heaven is going to be like that and

that there's going to be a harvest one

day and that we will all end up being

counted.

And then we go

with our hands and we move on to chapter

14.

I don't think any of those readings of

the parable are wrong. Those are all

true. Mustard seeds do grow.

Bread does rise. Treasures and pearls

are worth sacrificing for. And there

will be a day of judgment one day.

But what is missing from this reading

and where I would encourage my students

to press into what Jesus is saying here

a little bit more is to ask the

question, but where do we find Jesus in

all of this?

Because there's another level of reading

where we say, well, the kingdom of

heaven is like these things, but the

kingdom of heaven is about the king as

well, isn't it?

We have a good news about Jesus that is

not just about what we are willing to

give up for the kingdom. It is about

what the king has been willing to give

up for his people.

One could flip

the parable of the treasure in the field

for instance on its head or the pearl of

great price on its head and instead of

beginning with what are you willing to

give up for the kingdom? Where what

country in the world are you willing to

go as a missionary for example

in order to bring about that kingdom?

What if we began with Jesus? What if we

began with that God who did not spare

his only son but gave himself up for us

all?

Gave him up for us all.

What if we began with the God who was

willing to do everything to be with you

and with me? Because when we talk about

the kingdom of heaven, we are not

talking about something of which we are

not ourselves called to belong. We have

been called into his kingdom. We have

been called into his glorious light. We

have been made priests, royal priests as

a part of this kingdom. And we with him

have been graced with something that we

did not earn or deserve or bring about

for ourselves. And if we think about the

kingdom as the reason why Jesus has come

into the world, we can look at these

parables and say Jesus

yes is the goal.

He is the omega but he is also the

alpha. He is the beginning. He is the

pioneer and not just the perfector of

our faith. And it is he who comes

looking for that pearl of great price.

It is he who comes looking for that

treasure hidden in a field. It is he who

comes looking for us.

He comes into this world and becomes a

human being. takes on our flesh, lives

our life, brings his healing into our

world, and then he brings it all to the

cross and gives his life for us. Because

through the shedding of his blood, and

by his resurrection from the dead, he

has brought about a new reality. He has

brought about the kingdom of heaven that

has been at hand from the beginning that

Matthew begins his gospel. And I would

push my students at Tindell Seminary.

And I would push you here, sisters and

brothers, to consider how is Jesus

Christ in these parables.

He is the pearl of great price. But for

him, you were that pearl of great price.

He is the mustard seed who though small

and though easy to overlook through most

of his life and although he was despised

and afflicted and rejected, he though

being small was swn into this earth. He

his body into that grave and what

happened? It has sprouted

and his church is extending all around

the world. His

his kingdom by the power of the Holy

Spirit is going forth. It cannot be

stopped. The gates of hell cannot stand

against it. And all of the nations of

the earth, all of those birds of heaven

are finding a nest in its branches

because Jesus Christ's mission continues

to this day.

He is that leaven that is spreading

himself through the whole dough.

I encourage my students like I would

encourage all of you to ask the question

where do I see Jesus in these texts of

scripture because as the one who is

telling these parables he is not telling

them general principles for living. He

is revealing something about himself.

I hope my students come to scripture and

see Jesus there.

But even there, I would push them a

little bit further.

I would push them further because I

would like them to see what holds these

parables together, what ties them in

unity. There are seven parables being

told here. And one would expect that

with such a nice little round number,

you read the Bible, there are a ton of

sevens there, right?

That they would be linked together. And

Jesus actually gives us the link. It is

a link that is missing from our

lectionary readings over the last three

weeks. But let me read it to you because

this is a little bit counterintuitive.

The disciples came to Jesus and said,

"Why do you speak to them in parables?"

And Jesus answered them,

"To you it has been given to know the

secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to

them it has not been given. For to the

one who has more will be given, and he w

who has, sorry, he who has more will be

given, and he will have an abundance.

But from the one who has not, even what

he has will be taken away."

This is why I speak to them in parables

because seeing they do not see and

hearing they do not hear nor do they

understand. Indeed, in their case, the

prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that

says, "You will indeed hear but never

understand. You will indeed see but

never perceive. For this people's heart

has grown dull, and with their ears they

can barely hear, and their eyes they

have closed. lest they should see with

their eyes and hear with their ears and

understand with their heart and turn and

I would heal them.

One of the strangest things about

parables is that we read them as though

Jesus told us these parables, these

agrarian metaphors of seeds and sewers

and fields and farms and fish and nets,

pearls and treasures.

Jesus told us these things

to make them plain to simple people.

But Jesus tells his disciples that Jesus

teaches in parables so that people will

not understand.

Although you'd say but why does he do it

at all then?

I think rather what Jesus is saying is

that there is a secret in a parable.

There is something hidden there. Parable

doesn't just bring something to the

surface. It is there to draw us into

the parable itself, to draw us into his

words, to draw us into scripture. There

is something there that beckons us in

because it has been hidden there.

And if we are unwilling to jump down the

rabbit hole, as it were, with Alice into

the weird world of scripture, we are

going to miss out

on what Jesus has to say.

And as we keep that idea of hiddenness,

of secrecy, as he will later say that

all these things Jesus said to the

crowds in parables, he said nothing

without a parable because he was going

to fulfill what was spoken through

through the prophets. I will open my

mouth in parables. I will utter what has

been hidden since the foundation of the

world. Jesus has taken hidden things and

put them in the parables and he is

saying, do you want to follow me? Do you

want to find me? Do you want to walk

with me? Then you need to spend time.

You need to dive into these parables

because in the parables themselves you

will find a treasure.

Jesus understands the kingdom. He

understands its hiddenness.

And like a parable, the kingdom of

heaven itself, it lies hidden in this

world. It lies hidden in our hearts. It

lies hidden in the word of God. It lies

hidden in the life of Jesus as people

worked alongside of him, walked

alongside of him, listened to him, and

still left confused as to what was

happening.

Because the hiddenness of the kingdom is

a way of drawing people in and saying

you need to seek it and you need once

you find it, you need to take it and you

need to hide it. Again,

not in the sense of keeping it away from

people, but of investing it in something

that is going to bear fruit.

The funny thing is that when the man

finds the treasure in the field, what

does he do? He hides it again.

What does the man do when he takes that

mustard seed? He hides it in the dirt.

What does the woman do when she find

when she has her leaven? She hides it in

the lump.

In these lowly parables, in these easy,

not easy, these these simpler ways of

explaining the kingdom, there is a great

profoundity hidden. In the same way that

as we follow Jesus into ministry, we

invest our time, our lives, our

treasures, our talents, as we often say,

we invest ourselves in the lives of

other people and it doesn't seem like it

is bearing much fruit. There is a secret

in that when we pursue the loneliness of

giving up ourselves, of following Jesus,

in giving up our lives to the people

around us, by bearing witness to Jesus

Christ, by sharing the gospel, by

changing the direction of our vocation

and our life, we are entering into the

secret of Jesus.

It is not obvious how this is all going

to play out. One day, yes, a net will be

gathered up. And like that, kingdom one

day will bring to light what was down

below there in the depths of the sea,

the good fish and the bad fish, but was

hidden. There is something hidden in

God's word that is beckoning us and

calling us to enter into these parables

are a parable about parables.

These parables in being a parable of the

kingdom are teaching us about God's word

and how God's word itself is bringing

about the kingdom. Not by putting it all

out there in the open, but by drawing

people into the pages of scripture

itself and finding Jesus there and then

taking that scripture and by embodying

it in ourselves, hiding it in our

hearts, we pour ourselves in secret,

unseen ways that often are not credited.

They gain no glory or attention, but

little by little, year by year, begin

having an impact.

like yeast in bread, like a mustard seed

that gradually grows.

We understand that yes, we need to have

that treasure, but not for ourselves

right away. We need to take it and put

it back into that field to sew it into

the field again. So that having given up

everything, we can see the realization

of that treasure, that kingdom, that

place where Jesus says your treas where

your treasure is, there will your heart

be also. And having desired the kingdom,

we can see it grow into fullness

because we have reinvested it secretly

into the lives of those around us.

I want to keep going,

but my time is coming to an end. So, let

me say this.

I want to encourage my students. I want

to see my students dive head first into

this word into these pages

so that when they are standing before

people they can say thus says the Lord

with a good conscience so that they can

find in God's word the resources that

they will need for years and decades of

ministry for pouring themselves into the

lives of people around them in hidden

and secret kind of ways that aren't

obvious to everyone but we believe and

trust that that kingdom is at work in

their words because Jesus is present in

I encourage you to take the same

attitude,

take the same heart, to devote yourself

to the study of scripture, to hear those

words of Jesus, and to delight in the

kingdom where you find it, where you see

it here and now. Pray that you would be

given eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts

to perceive and understand where Jesus

is speaking in these texts of scripture.

and having found him to give him the

glory. Amen.