week 04 || The Slow Apprenticeship - Small & Hidden || Matt 13: 31-33,44-52 & Gen 29:15-28

Kia ora and welcome to the St Francis Church

sermon podcast. We're so glad that you've joined

us. Our prayer is that as you listen, you would

encounter God's presence. Be refreshed in your

faith and equipped for everyday life with Jesus.

As a church, we are learning to faithfully follow

Jesus by practicing His way at His pace. For

more info about who we are and what God is doing

among us, head to stfrancis .co .nz. Grace and

peace. We're in week four and this month's gone

rather quick. Week four of this series, and it's

not just the end of a series, it's actually a

continuation. I wonder how you've gone with some

of the practices. in this booklet here this morning

that you've had. Remember, that's not just something

that's to be put aside as of today, the end of

the series here, but something to carry through

with you in those practices to learn. I want

to sit this morning with one of the most counter

-cultural truths in all of scripture, because

it cuts directly against everything that our

culture, I believe today, worships. is that our

culture worships scale. Big performances, numbers,

big launches, personalities, big impact. We measure

everything by just how big, how visible, how

fast, and how much the reach goes. Now think

of the FIFA Cup, or the good and the not so good.

in there, that's been put out there. It's trying

to make something really huge global. But most

of what God is doing in you and I this week,

last week, and all the weeks that are to come,

never make the news. It will not trend. No one

will clap. It will look really like on the outside

of everyday life, like nothing at all. A bit

like a mustard seed dropped into dirt. a pinch

of yeast folded into flour that you don't see,

a coin buried in a field that nobody actually

thought to dig. This morning on our last Sunday

of the Slow Apprenticeship, I want to talk about

the strange, the quiet, and the stubborn shape

of the kingdom of God, where it's small and it's

hidden, and because it's sustained by a love

that is not going to let you go. It's able to

outlast anything asked of it. Now, there's a

sentence in the Genesis reading set down for

today, 29, that grabs me. It's talking about

how Jacob is in love with Rachel. And he's fled

to his uncle Liban's country. And he met this

young woman at a well. And the text says simply,

Jacob loved Rachel. And then his uncle goes on

to say, what shall I pay you? And then Jacob

says back to him, well, I'll serve you seven

years for your younger daughter, Rachel. Seven

years of shepherding. Seven years of long days

and longer nights of weather and dust and rain

and watching the after sheep that do not appreciate

you. Seven years of waiting. And then the sentence.

in verse 20. So Jacob served seven years for

Rachel. And they seemed to him but a few days

because of the love he had for her. A few days.

Seven years of hard labor. And to him it felt

like a few days because of love that he had for

Rachel. Now I'm going to start here because that

one sentence I believe is how the kingdom actually

grows, and how the Christian life that you and

I live actually works at depth. I think most

of us tend to imagine that going deep with God

will mean a steady supply of mountaintop experiences

and moments. A life that feels like a highlight

reel. Well, life's not like that, and you could

agree with that too. It is much more often small

and hidden. A seed you cannot see doing anything.

It's like a pinch of yeast inside the dough.

Seven years of ordinary labour. Which nobody

outside the family even notices. And it is a

love. Not our strength that makes it hidden,

unglamorous, labour, bearable, or even sweet.

Now there's a word. from their old craft guilds,

and it's called the Journeyman. And someone came

up to me after the service and said that they

were called a Journeyman in their apprentice

life many years ago. The Journeyman was the apprentice

who had not yet become a master, but the Journeyman

was the person who had stayed long enough to

be trusted with the work. The Journeyman is the

one who did not leave when everyone else said,

Wow, nothing's really happening. Who kept doing

the small, the invisible tasks of the trade long

after the excitement of learning had worn off.

Now, we all know what that excitement's like

going into new things and doing stuff. Yes, I've

got the energy and enthusiasm, and then you've

got to sweep the floor. You've got to do the

other stuff. And that excitement wears off. Well,

the journeyman is one that continues beyond that.

So what matters most in your life is not what

you accomplish, but what you become. Now I tried

in my previous work life to accomplish being

a millionaire by the time I was 30 and retired.

That didn't work because I'm here. So God was

wanting to work on me and to become a better

person. So he stripped away just about everything.

Back then I was a journeyman without substance.

Now the apprenticeship years since then have

built a far greater substance and character than

any millions of dollars could actually do. So

this morning, with the reading of Genesis 29,

Romans 8, and Matthew 13, I actually want to

talk with you about what it means to be a journeyman

of the kingdom. to keep doing the small, the

hidden things for as long as it takes so that

we become someone different. Because going deep

is one thing, growing up is another. And the

season of this ordinary time that we're in is

a school in which both happen mostly out of sight.

It's something that we learn to do. So I'm going

to carry on with Jacob. We're now seven years

have passed. And Jacob asks for Rachel and there's

a wedding feast, the bride has failed. Jacob

lies with her in the dark and wakes in the morning

to discover that his uncle has substitute Leah,

the older sister. The very man who once deceived

his blind father has now been deceived by his

uncle. There's a kind of awful justice in it,

isn't it? And his uncle says, now it is not the

custom in our country to marry off the younger

before the older. Complete the bridal week of

this one and I'll give you the other daughter

in exchange for serving me another seven years.

Seven more years. 14 years total for one woman

and Jacob does it. He stays. He had not yet become

Israel, he's still known as Jacob. This name

that would come later. in a night of resting

many years from now. But he kept the apprenticeship.

He stayed in the field doing small work no one

was watching for seven more years. Now think

about what this story is actually teaching us

today. Jacob, who is the heel grabber, the supplanter,

the man who once swindled his brother and tricked

his father, is now being slowly formed by love

and labor into someone different. Now, the arc

of Jacob's life is like the slow conversion of

a clever young man into Israel, the one who then

eventually wrestles with God. And the workshop

of that transformation is not a spiritual high

for him. It is 14 years of shepherding, hidden

in the hills for a woman that he loves. This

is how God grows people up, you and I, slowly.

Through faithful, sometimes disappointing labour

that actually nobody else sees. Through promises

kept past the point of feeling like keeping them.

I think we've all been there. Our Lord, I promise

to do this. Nah, it's tiring. I'll give up. Through

love that holds when other things would have

walked away. I've shared this saying, and I think

it's a beautiful saying from Eugene Peterson.

He called it a long obedience in the same direction.

to stay there. It's an obedience to stay on that

path. That's Jacob. That's the journeyman. That's

a slow apprenticeship. That's you and I, which

is exactly what Paul says in Romans 8. He opens

this chapter with no condemnation. And now he's

bringing it home with these words. He says the

Spirit helps us in our weakness. The Spirit prays

in our groans with sighs too deep for words.

God works all things. together for good for those

who love him. And then he reaches his crescendo

in Romans 8. Who shall separate us from the love

of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution

or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? But

then he goes on with these verses and he answers

his own question. No. Do you hear what Paul is

doing here as he's saying these words? He's not

promising you a problem -free life. You're going

to get it. He has just listed seven categories

of difficulty. Tribulation, distress, persecution,

famine, nakedness, peril, sword. He knows the

Christian life will involve all of these. He

himself has been imprisoned, shipwrecked. He's

hungry, he's been beaten, he's been betrayed.

He's not promising you, Rachel, without the seven

years. Are you saying, OK people, you've got

seven years, maybe 14 years to move through things.

He is promising here for us a love that holds

across those seven years, a love that stays with

you in the small, hidden, unnoticed places, that

you work, that you live, and that you move for

as long as it takes. He is promising here with

these words that the one who loves you cannot

be driven off by anything that you might do,

be talked out of it, or frightened away, or outlasted.

He is promising you and I that the very things

that would have separated other lovers from each

other, height, depth, presence, and future, cannot

separate you from God and Christ. This is the

love that we have that makes the seven years

feel like a few days. for us is the love that

keeps an apprentice faithful to the small and

the hidden work that we do as disciples of Christ.

People throughout time have talked about the

love of God, given us examples through their

life. Now Julia Norwich was one. Writing from

a cell in Norwich centuries ago, she had faced

plague and grief in a country in upheaval. She

put her whole theology into one sentence. all

shall be well, and all manner of thing shall

be well. She did not say that because it would

be easy. She said it because she had stayed everything

on the love Paul is describing, a love that holds

whatever comes our way. Which is why Jesus tells

us in the parables of Matthew 13, there's five

quick parables in a row that we heard this morning,

that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard

seed, the smallest of all seeds, that grows into

a tree then large enough for the birds to rest

in. And the kingdom of heaven is like yeast,

that woman hides in the measures of flour until

leavens the whole batch. And it also like treasure

hidden in a field, which someone found and hid,

then in his joy goes and sells all that he has

and buys that field, even though he had everything.

And again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant.

in search of fine pearls. On finding one pearl

of great value, he weaned and sold all that he

had and bought it. And then the kingdom of heaven

is like a net let down in the sea that catches

every kind of fish. Do you hear and see what

these have in common? Smallness, hiddenness,

patience, cost, worth. The kingdom of God is

really loud. It is not flashy, even though our

God owns and created everything. It's like the

mustard seeded... It is a treasure that no one

has dug up. It is a pearl among many shells.

And here's what that means for Christian maturity

as we journey in this faith life following Jesus.

Growing up in faith, well that means learning

to be unimpressed by what the world is impressed

by. and learning to be impressed by what God

is doing in the small and the hidden things in

our lives. As we go about living day to day,

most of the Kingdom work in your life this week

will be invisible to others. And that can be

through the kind word that you spoke when you

did not have to, or the forgiveness you extended

in your heart that no one will ever know about,

or the prayer that you've whispered in the carpark

before you walked into a hard meeting, the faithfulness

that you offered in a marriage on a difficult

Wednesday. or the hour that you sat with someone

who was dying. These things do not look like

a hundredfold harvest. They look like nothing.

They look like Jacob shepherding in the rain

for seven years. And yet, this is the kingdom.

The kingdom that we're in and living in. The

whole loaf rises because of yeast that no one

can see. So what do we do with these three texts

and what do they say to us together? Well Jesus

tells us that the kingdom we serve is mostly

hidden. Mostly small, mostly slow. And yet it

is a treasure worth giving everything for. And

Jacob teaches us that love makes the long hidden

apprenticeship possible. And Paul tells us that

the love of God in Christ cannot be separated

from us by anything and all creation. Which means

you and I, we can stay in the small work for

as long as it takes because God's love is there.

And our love is for Him. This is growing up.

Christian maturity is not the absence of difficulty

and it is rarely visible from the outside. It

is the long faithfulness of a love that does

not quit on the small and the hidden things of

life. Tish Harrison Warren writes about this

in the Liturgy of the Ordinary. She says that

the most formative things in our lives are not

the big crises but the small daily almost unconscious

habits. The unmade bed, the morning prayer. the

brushing of teeth. We become what we do when

no one is looking. Now we can be impressive in

front of people and groups and crowds and then

be completely different when we're by ourselves.

We're not the real person in those big crowds

when we're like that. We become what we do when

no one is looking. The kingdom is a mustard seed.

It's yeast, it's treasure. Most of what God is

doing in your life right now and through the

days This week is hidden but it is real and it

is real treasure. It's only in hindsight in time

that the seven years will feel like a few days

because of the love that you have for Him. And

the love He has for you cannot be separated from

you by death or life or angels or anything else

in all creation. That means that it is open to

you all the time, everywhere. Now what I've been

sharing with you over the past few weeks is not

a system. It's not a program, it's not a hack

to make life better instantly. It is a life lived

in proximity to Jesus. And doing that season

after season, year after year until almost without

noticing, we have been changed. Most of us do

not see the changes in ourselves. Often we'll

get pointed out by someone else that says, I

see that change happened anew. We will not feel

transformed. We will not have a moment when we

look in the mirror and say, aha, I've arrived.

Everything's set and done. But instead, we will

become people who love better than we used to.

We will become people who are more patient than

we used to be. And we will quietly become people

whose first instinct in suffering is to turn

toward God rather than away. we will become over

decades almost unnoticed, we'll become Christ

-like. And then one day maybe at the very end

we will look back over all the long years that

we've lived and we'll see what the apprentice

Jacob saw at the end of his seven years of labour

that the years just seemed but a few days because

of the love we had for God and the love that

he has for us. This is what we have been practicing

for. We haven't been practicing for visibility,

or for impact, or for arrival. We've been practicing

because of love. That unconditional love that

God has for each one of us. The slow, the deep,

and the quiet love that makes a whole life into

a single long obedience. Lived small, lived hidden,

and it's lived well. Knowing that love transforms

time, love bends time. So I'm going to close

with the words that we've anchored this series

with from the French priest, the scientist, the

mystic. His words that he wrote in a letter back

to his sister when he was a stretcher bearer

in the First World War. He wrote this, above

all trust in the slow work of God. So may we

walk the slow road together. all the days of

our lives. Amen.