9 Pentecost

 July 26, 2026

 Casselton Heritage Center

(formerly the ORIGINAL St. Stephen’s)

Casselton, ND

 

+ Let’s face it, there’s something deeply holy about returning to where a story began.

This morning we gather in the building that first housed St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church.

 

It’s the first time in almost 80 years that Episcopalians have gathered in this place to worship.

 

Now, for a moment, I want you just to sit and be quiet for one moment.

 

Just sit here in this place and feel it.

 

Drink it all in.

 

The stained glass.

 

The pews.

 

The altar.

 

These walls.

 

This space has known prayer.

 

Hymns resounded in these walls.

 

People were washed in the waters of baptism.

 

Tears were cried here as people were remembered and commended to God before being buried.

 

There was laughter here.

 

There was sorrow here.

 

There was joy here.

 

There was a quiet faithfulness of ordinary people who simply showed up week after week to worship God.

 

Long before any of us were here, those faithful people entrusted this parish to the grace of God.

 

Back in 1886, the foundation of this building was laid, due to contributions of none other than Geroge C Cass, who was a member of Christ Episcopal Church in New York City—and namesake of the county and the town.

 

The congregation itself wasn’t actually formed until after the building was finished a year later.

 

On August 30, 1887, 8 people met and Bishop William Walker, the first Episcopal bishop of North Dakota, who consecrated this building that day.

 

Although this building was described as the “finest Episcopal church int eh diocese,” the congregation just didn’t seem to “gell.”

 

In 1902, the Reverend Arthur Chard, on this arrival in town, was told, “Oh yes, there is an Episcopal Church here, a fine building with a dead congregation,” this despite the fact that there were 117 people in Casselton declaring their preference for the Episcopal Church.

 

When it finally closed in the early 1950s and the building was sold to the Mennonites, the ministry of St. Stephen’s lay fallow for a few years.

 

In 1956, when a mission as being established in north Fargo, they chose the name St. Stephen’s and several of the furnishings came from here and are still used in our congregation.

 

The church in Fargo also went through times of feast and famine.

 

When I came on board at St. Stephen’s, there were 55 members, with about 10 people in church on Sunday.

 

It was not that pretty of a church.

 

There had been a huge “exodus” out of he church in the early 1980s due to some bad leadership, and a very faithful band of lay people kept the church  going through those lean years.

 

We are now are a very vital and influential congregation int eh diocese, being one at the forefront of many social and spiritual endeavors.

 

Now, we can chuckle over all of this.

 

We express our frustrating over how the church’s influence waxes and wanes.

 

But, this is just the way it is.

 

The Church has always lived by seasons.

 

There are seasons of abundance and seasons of scarcity.

 

There are years when the pews are full and years when they are not.

 

Communities flourish, decline, reinvent themselves, and sometimes surprise everyone by blooming once again.

 

Certainly that has been the history of St. Stephen’s to a T.

 

And that has been very true throughout the history of God’s people.

 

I know we’re always tempted to measure the Church by numbers, buildings, or budgets.

 

But Scripture reminds us that God’s faithfulness is measured differently.

 

God’s promises are not dependent on attendance charts or demographic trends.

 

The same God who called Abraham, sustained Israel in exile, raised Jesus from the dead, and breathed life into the early Church is the same God who has carried St. Stephen’s through every chapter of its history.

 

Today is not merely a visit to an old building.

 

It is an opportunity to remember that we are part of something much larger than ourselves.

 

We inherit the faith of those who came before us, and we are entrusted with passing it on to those who will come after us.

 

The building may have changed.

 

The town may be different. changed.

 

Certainly, our congregation has changed.

 

But, let’s face it: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

 

Perhaps that is the greatest lesson of returning here.

 

The story is not over.

 

The God who has been faithful through every ebb and every flow has never abandoned his Church.

 

New life often comes where we least expect it.

 

Seeds that seem buried sometimes become gardens.

 

Congregations that seem small often become places where remarkable ministry happens.

 

So today as we gather here in this holy space, we give thanks.

 

We give thanks not because we can return to the past, but because the God who met God’s people here long ago still meets us today.

 

And we leave this place trusting that wherever St. Stephen’s gathers—in this historic sanctuary, in our building in Fargo, or anywhere God’s people assemble—we are God’s faithful people.

 

And God, in turn, is faithful to us as well.

 

The Church has never been sustained by nostalgia.

 

The Church is not a museum to the past.

 

It is here and now, wherever wee gather together ot love God and love one another.

 

The Church has always been sustained by grace.

 

And grace, thanks be to our faithful God, has never failed us yet.

 

Amen.

 

 

 

8 Pentecost

 July 19, 2026

 Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43

 + Last week I told a story in my sermon about how I once had an herb garden.

 I was in my early 20s.

 And, for some reason I don’t remember anymore, I had this idea that I wanted to plant an herb garden at my parents’ home.

 I planned it out.

 I did my research.

 I bought all the seeds and was very excited about having these various herbs.

 I dutifully planted them in a corner of my parents’ property and would try hard to cultivate it.

 But, as I said last week, the weeds started coming around the same time the herbs started growing.

 And soon, I couldn’t tell which was which.

 I could not for the life of me figure out what was an herb and what was a weed.

 And, as you can guess, I simply wiped my hands of it and walked away.

 Months later, in this overgrown patch, I found it kind of amusing that some of those so-called “weeds” smelled amazing in the sun.

 In fact, for years, my father would say that little patch of ground had some of the best smelling “weeds” he ever smelled.

 So, when I heard the story last week in our Gospel reading about sowing seeds and especially the one this week, I am reminded of that forlorn little herb garden all those years ago.

 For today, the story Jesus tells us is, like some many of his stories,  both comforting and frustrating.

 In it, we find a farmer who sows good seed, but does so under the cover of darkness.

 An enemy sows weeds among the wheat.

 When the servants discover the problem, they ask the obvious question: “Do you want us to pull the weeds?”

 Their instinct is our instinct.

 We want to fix things.

 We want to make things right.

 We want to sort people into neat categories.

 We want the righteous over here, the wicked over there.

 We want the world cleaned up.

 Nice and neat.

 What does Jesus say to that?

 He says, “No.”

 Leave them both to grow together until the harvest.

 That answer is almost unbearable.

 We look at the violence in the world, the cruelty, the injustice, and we want God to act now.

 We look at the failures of the Church, at our own failures, and we wonder—why is God so patient?

 Perhaps the answer is this: because God knows something we do not.

 The servants cannot always tell the difference between wheat and weeds.

 Their zeal for purity may end up destroying what God intends to save.

 We are not always reliable judges of one another, or even of ourselves.

 The person we have written off may yet become a saint.

 The one who appears strong may be barely hanging on.

 A life that seems hopeless today may, by God’s grace, bear extraordinary fruit tomorrow.

 God’s patience is not indifference.

 It is mercy.

 The reign of God is not built by our ability to identify the weeds.

 It is built by God’s determination never to give up on the wheat, even when it is surrounded by everything that threatens to choke it.

 There is another truth here as well.

 The field is not simply “the world.”

 It is also our own hearts.

 Wheat and weeds grow together within each of us.

 Love and resentment.

 Faith and fear.

 Generosity and selfishness.

 Confidence and insecurity.

 We know what it is to be divided people.

 We ourselves are often so divided within ourselves.

 The good news is that Jesus doesn’t abandon the field because it is messy.

 He continues to tend it.

 He waters it with grace.

 He feeds it with his own Body and Blood.

 He waits patiently for what only time and mercy can accomplish.

 There will be a harvest.

 Jesus doesn’t deny that.

 As you’ve heard me say again and again, evil does not have the last word.

 Justice will come.

 Every hidden thing will be brought into the light.

 Into God’s Light.

 But that day belongs to God, not to us.

 Our calling, in the meantime, is not to become experts at pulling weeds.

 It is not our job to figure out what is wheat—or herbs---and what are weeds.

 It is to become faithful wheat—to sink our roots deeply into the love of God, to bear fruit for the sake of the world, and to trust that the Judge of all the earth knows what God is doing.

 Sometimes, from that mess of weeds, comes a beautiful smell, and when it does, we know, all is not lost.

 That kind of trust is difficult.

 It asks us to surrender our need to control, our desire to condemn, our impatience with God.

 But it also frees us.

 We no longer have to carry the burden of sorting out the whole world.

 We are simply called to follow Jesus, to love our neighbors, and to let God’s grace do its quiet work.

 God’s reign often grows unnoticed.

 So does holiness.

 And in God’s own good time, not ours, the wheat will shine like the sun in the kingdom of God.

 Amen.  

 

7 Pentecost

 
July 12, 2026

 Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

 I am not a garden person.

 I just have never been the kind of person who likes to spend time in a garden, planting seeds and watching things grow.

 I’ve tried.

 I once tried to start an herb garden years and years ago.

 But there came this point when I couldn’t tell the difference between hat was a weed and what was an herb.

 So, I just let it go.

 And you can guess how that ended.

 So, all this talk today in our Gospel reading about sowers and seeds is kind of lost on me.

 I will say this, though.

 At first glance, the parable of the sower is one of those stories that sounds simple.

 I kind of get it.

 But then, we realize, that’s not the way Jesus does things.

 Nothing is ever really simple.

 And as we all know, Jesus refuses to explain everything away.

 In this parable, he speaks of seed scattered everywhere.

 Some fall on the path.

 Some on rocky ground.

 Some among thorns.

 Some on good soil.

 And then he simply says:

 “Let anyone with ears listen.”

 What a strange thing to say!

 It leaves us wondering.

 For us, no doubt we start asking ourselves, What kind of soil am I?

 But perhaps maybe that’s not the real first question we should be asking.

 Maybe the first thing we should do is notice how extravagance the sower is.

 Again, not an expert here, but. . .

 I don’t think a careful farmer would scatter seed on a hard path or among rocks and thorns. 

Even I know that!

 It would be a waste.

 It would be a waste of time.

 And it would be a waste of money.

 But you know who does sow like this?

 God does.

 Because, the kingdom of God is to be announced everywhere.

 Even on the hard path.

 Even among rocks and thorns.

 Grace—this wonderful un-asked for gift from God--the very seed of that Kindom of God,  is scattered wherever.

 Without calculation.

 God’s grace is offered to everyone—to saints and doubters, to the faithful and the indifferent, to those who are ready and to those who are not.

 God, as I hope we all realize, is astonishingly generous.

 And only after this talk of seeds and sowing does Jesus speak about the soil.

 And that is where the parable quietly becomes uncomfortable.

 Because good soil doesn’t always just happen.

 Or rather, good soil can be made in places where we thought it couldn’t.

 A hard path can be broken open.

 Rocky ground can be cleared.

 Thorns can be pulled.

 Good soil is cultivated.

 Following Jesus is not about pretending our hearts are already fertile.

 It is about allowing God, often painfully, to prepare us for what has always been freely given.

 Certainly, most of us know exactly what thorns feel like.

 Anxiety.

 Depression.

 Endless distraction.

 The desire to acquire just a little more.

 The need to always be right.

 The fear that there will never be enough.

 Jesus tells us that these things choke the seed before it can bear fruit.

 Notice he doesn’t say that they destroy the seed.

 They simply keep it from growing.

 And perhaps that is the greater danger.

 Maybe the greater danger is becoming so crowded with other concerns that we no longer have room for God’s grace to take hold in our lives and flourish.

 But, we have to be clear before we start to despair over this parable.

 This parable is actually full of hope.

 The seed itself is alive.

 Its power doesn’t come from us.

 Our task isn’t to manufacture life.

 Our task is simply to remain open to the One who never stops sowing.

 Every Sunday, the Word is scattered again.

 Every Eucharist, grace is scattered again.

 Every morning, God begins again in us.

 The Sower has not given up on the field.

 Or on us.

 And that’s the real message of this parable.

 Amen.