Chris Yaw

Welcome! I’m an Episcopal priest serving a congregation in Metro Detroit... With a passion for gun safety... A zest for online Christian formation... A zeal for video blogging... A budding writer... A heart for those who have unintentionally harmed... A commitment to workforce housing... A love for marrying people... And a wonderful wife, three kids, and a cat... If we have common interests or not, I'd love to connect with you.

Why Is Bad Stuff Happening to Me?

A little baby died this week of a kiss.

Maybe you heard - little Mariana Sifrit of Iowa was just 18 days old when she died of viral meningitis most likely passed on when someone kissed her - a gesture of love and affection gone horribly awry.

The deeper tragedy is that Mariana’s death is added to the ocean of heartbreak that makes up human life – for the prevalence and predominance of evil is simply too immense to avoid.

And the Bible has some things to say about this.

This Sunday we will hear a familiar parable from Jesus about a farmer who sows wheat and an enemy who secretly sows weeds in the same bed. Surprisingly Jesus advises no action – he says the good and the bad seeds are to grow up together, living and thriving alongside one another, until the day of completion when a judgment will come.

I am drawn to St. Augustine’s words, “Almighty God, himself supremely good, would never allow anything evil to invade his works, unless he were so almighty and so good that he can bring good even out of evil.”

Let us consider that God is up to more than we can know.

Our response to evil can never be one of ultimate failure. God is up to something in both the good and the bad. Have faith, hold on - God is not finished yet.

The Sower

In 1977 the president of a leading tech company, NEC, was on the lookout for new products.

He was on the hunt for trends and new developments to take his company to the next level. He spent hours studying the latest technology. He immersed himself in the latest market data. That was when he made this statement,

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

This is a big reason you and I recognize the names Apple and Google these days, but not so much NEC. At the most basic level this is a cautionary tale about being open to the new.

On Sunday you and I will hear that famous story about a sower who cast seeds everywhere. However, he only sees a harvest in a few places.

This sower, like God, is constantly sowing things that want to grow – inspiring us with new visions and ideas, bringing new possibilities across our paths.

That’s why it's incumbent upon the soil to be fertile, to be open and nurturing to that which God is planting and wants to grow.

What's this say about our openness, our willingness, to that which the sower is casting seeds upon the soil of our hearts?

Growing...

It was a rather simple science experiment.

My 6-year-old brought home some dirt, a sunflower seed, and a coffee can. We placed the dirt and the seed in the can, watered it, then he took it to his room.

A week later he brought it to me, angered and frustrated, he said ‘This doesn’t work!’ and he handed me his can of dry dirt – no plant, no flower.

I asked if he had watered the seed, and if he had placed it in his windowsill so it could get sunlight. He said yes, he had watered it that once, a week ago and he had put it on his bookshelf, which was near the windowsill. But then, he’d forgotten about it.

This result, as surprising as it was to him, was not to me. I told him that the problem probably had to do, less with the seed and the dirt, and more with the rather indolent way we were following instructions.

This Sunday you and I will hear those epic words of Jesus that we know so well, ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’

And if you’re like me, you may ask, ‘Why don’t I always feel this rest? Why do I feel angry, frustrated, and worried about things? After all, I've given my life to Jesus, where's the peace?

And on our good days we step back and ponder just how comprehensively we’re ‘coming’ to Jesus.

Let’s face it, in our modern culture of fast answers, simple solutions, and instant results we can be programmed to forget that ‘coming to Jesus’ is not something we do overnight - not once a lifetime, once a year, or even once a week. Over and over again, we are to come. We are to bring all that we are to Jesus, coming to him physically, spiritually, financially, recreationally, sexually, and politically. There is no part of us that we withhold, there is no part of our life that goes unexamined, there is no period in which we are to back off.

Like that seed in the coffee can, we are to tend to our lives with Christ, bringing all that we are, giving time and attention to this, our life’s most noble pursuit. How can we more completely ‘come to Christ’ today?

Chris Yaw

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Chris Yaw

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