Proper 10 (9 Pentecost): 13 July 2008
(Genesis 25:19-34/Psalm 119:105-112/Romans 8:1-11/Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23)
Listen
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The monastic Rule of St. Benedict opens with the word listen, calling its readers or hearers to holy attention. It matters little whether you are Benedictine or not: listen is a good place to start. Our God is loquacious – talkative – and it just makes good sense to pay attention when the Creator of the universe speaks. When He speaks things happen: worlds are created, light shines forth from the darkness, cosmos arises out of chaos, new and eternal life conquers death. Listen, Benedict says, and if we are smart we will.
Today, Jesus speaks, many parables. He opens with the word listen – Idou – calling the crowds to holy attention. Idou – Behold! Look! Listen! – pay attention. Listen is a good place to start. Jesus is the Logos, the very word of God and it just makes good sense to pay attention when the first and the last, the living one, the one who was dead but is now alive forever speaks. When he speaks things happen: the sick are healed, the demons tremble, sins are forgiven, the dead are raised. Listen, Jesus says, and if we are smart we will.
Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen (Mt 13:3b-9, NRSV)!
Jesus likely told this parable many times, all up and down throughout Galilee: here in the synagogue, there on the mountain side, today from aboard a fishing boat bobbing on the Sea of Galilee to a large crowd gathered ashore. He apparently told it without context or explanation, which almost certainly means no one understood it. Clearly, the Apostles didn’t – thanks be to God. Had they understood we would not have this explanation
Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty (Mt 13:18-23, NRSV).
Any good farmer – particularly one whose life depends on his crops – prepares his field to receive the seed. A first century Galilean farmer who heard this parable was no different. As Jesus speaks this peasant farmer pictures his own small plot of ground at home. He’s worked the soil, broken it up, fertilized it. Running between adjacent plots there is a pathway along which he walks to tend the plants. In this corner there is an outcropping of rock that all his muscles and effort and sweat were unable to break up and haul off. And, around the edge of the field is uncultivated ground, covered with grass and weeds, prickly with thorns.
It is nearly time for the seed. Soon the farmer will walk along the pathway broadcasting handsful of seed to the right and left throughout his plot of ready ground. In each sweep of his arm some small amount of seed will drop on the foot path. The birds will circle overhead, land behind him, and peck the seed from the path – a small and tolerable loss; God provides for the birds of the air, after all. Some will land in that small corner among the rocks and still other seed beyond the edges of the garden, out among the weeds. This is all part of the process; the sower must scatter generously – even prodigally – for not all seed takes root, and of that which does, not all produces a harvest. And now the sower waits, waits for things beyond his control: sun, rain, germination, pollination. If the seed is good and the rains have come and the sun shines, it’s all up to the soil now. Of course he will tend the plants as they sprout later, but for the moment, his task is complete: scatter the seed and wait. It’s literally out of his hands.
This parable of the sower is a bit different from most of Jesus’ stories; it is an allegory. Each element is a symbol with a real-world counterpart. The seed is the word of God. The sower is Jesus, in the immediate instance. In a more general sense it is anyone who did, does, or yet will proclaim the word of God: prophets, priests, kings, apostles, and yes, perhaps even us. The path, the birds, the weeds and thorns – all these have symbolic meaning which Jesus is careful to explain.
But beyond the mere symbols – the externals of the parable – lies the meaning, the intent. To whom is Jesus speaking and what does he have to say?
Jesus calls this story the parable of the sower, though, in reality, the sower plays a small, albeit essential, role. The heart of the parable lies instead in the contrasting soils. And it is to the “soils” after all – the crowds on shore – that Jesus, the sower, speaks this day. Some of them will simply not understand what he has to say; his words are cryptic and require diligent effort and perhaps repeated hearing even to begin to decode. That might mean traveling with him, becoming a disciple: too much effort for most. So the evil one – perhaps Satan, perhaps one’s own laziness or self-interest – comes to snatch away the word spoken. Others will hear and enthusiastically accept the word – so exuberant, so sure this is the real thing, so ready to tell the world what they’ve found. You’ve met people like these: people always on the lookout for the next, new thing – people who jump aboard any bandwagon but who have no staying power. Flighty, we might call them, and we rarely take them too seriously. Let difficulty come or challenge or just something new and away they go again: shallow people, a mile long but only an inch deep. Then there are those who are a bit more substantive: they take the time and make the effort to understand, and they are not just looking for the next fad. No, they are more serious and more mature. They see something of real value in the word; they may even sense that they’ve stumbled across the truth. It begins to work on them as the word has a way of doing, which means the word becomes intrusive and demanding. You can have the word, but only on its own, costly terms. And these folk hadn’t counted on the cost. What do you mean, You can’t serve God and Mammon? What do you mean, Take up your cross and follow me? What do you mean, Anyone who doesn’t hate father or mother or son or daughter is not worthy to be your disciple? What do you mean, Foxes have dens and birds have nests but you have no place to lay your head? What will we eat? Where will we sleep? What will become of our businesses and families if we follow you any further? We’ve come this far – surely it’s enough. But, alas, no – if it is not to the death it is not nearly far enough, and so these, too, turn back, caught up in the ordinariness of life – the cares and worries that plague us all. For the rest of their ordinary lives they are haunted by a wistful sense of what might have been. But there are a few – Perhaps you’ve been blessed to meet one or two? – a few who hear the word and understand, who put down deep roots of faith, who count the cost and consider it nothing compared to the riches Jesus offers, who cast aside all doubts and anxieties and take up the cross with joy. These few – though the saints will become a numberless multitude – these few bear precious fruit, fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Idou, Jesus says: Behold! Look! Listen! Pay attention! And we do well to heed this call to listen, because he speaks the parable not just to the crowd gathered ashore on the Sea of Galilee that day, but to us gathered here this day. As we listen, the parable lives for us as it did for them. As we listen, Jesus scatters the seed of the word of God across the soil of our lives.
If I were an evangelist preaching to the unbaptized I might now pose the “standard,” evangelical question, What kind of soil will you be this day: hard packed earth that refuses the seed? shallow, rocky soil that cannot support a rooted life? thorn-infested soil that chokes out the tender shoots of faith? or good soil that produces bountiful fruit for the sower? But, I’m not and you’re not; I’m not an evangelist and you’re not unbaptized. And for us, the question posed by this parable is more complex. Our lives are not a single kind of soil. No one here is all hard-packed foot path or rocky, shallow soil or uncultivated briar patches or good, ready soil. Our lives are vast gardens with trampled paths criss-crossing their length and breadth; with great hidden strata of rock and with boulders breaking the surface; with dandelion and ivy and poison oak and sticker-bushes encroaching along the borders and gaining foothold in the garden; with good, rich, black earth here and there. The question is not, What kind of soil are you this day? You are all the types of soil mentioned in the parable. The better question is, Where in you life are you each kind of soil?
Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word of God is even now falling on the path, on a place that has been so trampled down and hardened that the word cannot penetrate. The world has its ways of beating us down and hardening us to the word. Of course, so do we; we can be as stubborn and stiff-necked as Israel in the wilderness, and expert at hardening our own hearts. Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – you are resisting the word. The evil one is stealing this word from you – the very word you need to hear and understand. Where in your life are you like the path?
Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word of God is even now falling on rocky ground, on a place with soil so thin that no roots can reach the living water of the Spirit. Like the man who has quit smoking seven times already, you know the truth and you know that it has the power to set you free; yet, you lack – what? – the Spirit-filled conviction to put down roots of change? For a moment real life blossoms and flourishes. You get a sense of what can be, of what should be. And then the shallow roots give way to the harsh sun of inertia and real life withers and dies. Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word of God is even now falling on rocky ground.
Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word is even now falling among the weeds and thorns, a place so densely tangled with worry and care, with desire and the lure of the flesh, that the word is imprisoned there. In this tangled web you struggle to hear Jesus say, “Do not worry; the Father loves you. Do not fear; I am with you always, even to the ages of ages.” Who would you be if you had no fear? What would you do if you could not fail? How would you live if you believed this word, really believed it?
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:35, 37-39, NRSV).
Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word is even now falling among the weeds and thorns.
And somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word is even now falling on good ground: soft, rich, fertile. Life is springing forth. Fruit is growing. The harvest is coming. Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – God’s word to Isaiah is coming true, Isaiah’s song is being sung over you:
For as rain and snow fall from the heavens
and return not again, but water the earth,
Bringing forth life and giving growth,
seed for sowing and bread for eating,
So is my word that goes forth from my mouth;
it will not return to me empty;
But it will accomplish that which I have purposed,
and prosper in that for which I sent it (Canticle 10, BCP 86-87).
Somewhere.
Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen (Mt 13:3b-9, NRSV)!
You are that field in which the sower scatters the seed: hard-packed path; rocky ground and shallow soil; weed and thorn infested ground; and good soil. Listen to the parable; it is for you.
What makes me bold to speak this way? What gives me the right? Only these two things. First, I know that what I have said is true for me. And, since there is nothing special about me, nothing to distinguish me from other men and women, I assume it must also be true for you. Second, what I have said is not my word to you, but Jesus’ word to all of us.
Luke’s account of the parable of the sower ends with these words of Jesus – again, his words to all of us:
Therefore, be careful how you listen. For whoever has, more will be given to him. And whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.
Amen.
(Genesis 25:19-34/Psalm 119:105-112/Romans 8:1-11/Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23)
Listen
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The monastic Rule of St. Benedict opens with the word listen, calling its readers or hearers to holy attention. It matters little whether you are Benedictine or not: listen is a good place to start. Our God is loquacious – talkative – and it just makes good sense to pay attention when the Creator of the universe speaks. When He speaks things happen: worlds are created, light shines forth from the darkness, cosmos arises out of chaos, new and eternal life conquers death. Listen, Benedict says, and if we are smart we will.
Today, Jesus speaks, many parables. He opens with the word listen – Idou – calling the crowds to holy attention. Idou – Behold! Look! Listen! – pay attention. Listen is a good place to start. Jesus is the Logos, the very word of God and it just makes good sense to pay attention when the first and the last, the living one, the one who was dead but is now alive forever speaks. When he speaks things happen: the sick are healed, the demons tremble, sins are forgiven, the dead are raised. Listen, Jesus says, and if we are smart we will.
Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen (Mt 13:3b-9, NRSV)!
Jesus likely told this parable many times, all up and down throughout Galilee: here in the synagogue, there on the mountain side, today from aboard a fishing boat bobbing on the Sea of Galilee to a large crowd gathered ashore. He apparently told it without context or explanation, which almost certainly means no one understood it. Clearly, the Apostles didn’t – thanks be to God. Had they understood we would not have this explanation
Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty (Mt 13:18-23, NRSV).
Any good farmer – particularly one whose life depends on his crops – prepares his field to receive the seed. A first century Galilean farmer who heard this parable was no different. As Jesus speaks this peasant farmer pictures his own small plot of ground at home. He’s worked the soil, broken it up, fertilized it. Running between adjacent plots there is a pathway along which he walks to tend the plants. In this corner there is an outcropping of rock that all his muscles and effort and sweat were unable to break up and haul off. And, around the edge of the field is uncultivated ground, covered with grass and weeds, prickly with thorns.
It is nearly time for the seed. Soon the farmer will walk along the pathway broadcasting handsful of seed to the right and left throughout his plot of ready ground. In each sweep of his arm some small amount of seed will drop on the foot path. The birds will circle overhead, land behind him, and peck the seed from the path – a small and tolerable loss; God provides for the birds of the air, after all. Some will land in that small corner among the rocks and still other seed beyond the edges of the garden, out among the weeds. This is all part of the process; the sower must scatter generously – even prodigally – for not all seed takes root, and of that which does, not all produces a harvest. And now the sower waits, waits for things beyond his control: sun, rain, germination, pollination. If the seed is good and the rains have come and the sun shines, it’s all up to the soil now. Of course he will tend the plants as they sprout later, but for the moment, his task is complete: scatter the seed and wait. It’s literally out of his hands.
This parable of the sower is a bit different from most of Jesus’ stories; it is an allegory. Each element is a symbol with a real-world counterpart. The seed is the word of God. The sower is Jesus, in the immediate instance. In a more general sense it is anyone who did, does, or yet will proclaim the word of God: prophets, priests, kings, apostles, and yes, perhaps even us. The path, the birds, the weeds and thorns – all these have symbolic meaning which Jesus is careful to explain.
But beyond the mere symbols – the externals of the parable – lies the meaning, the intent. To whom is Jesus speaking and what does he have to say?
Jesus calls this story the parable of the sower, though, in reality, the sower plays a small, albeit essential, role. The heart of the parable lies instead in the contrasting soils. And it is to the “soils” after all – the crowds on shore – that Jesus, the sower, speaks this day. Some of them will simply not understand what he has to say; his words are cryptic and require diligent effort and perhaps repeated hearing even to begin to decode. That might mean traveling with him, becoming a disciple: too much effort for most. So the evil one – perhaps Satan, perhaps one’s own laziness or self-interest – comes to snatch away the word spoken. Others will hear and enthusiastically accept the word – so exuberant, so sure this is the real thing, so ready to tell the world what they’ve found. You’ve met people like these: people always on the lookout for the next, new thing – people who jump aboard any bandwagon but who have no staying power. Flighty, we might call them, and we rarely take them too seriously. Let difficulty come or challenge or just something new and away they go again: shallow people, a mile long but only an inch deep. Then there are those who are a bit more substantive: they take the time and make the effort to understand, and they are not just looking for the next fad. No, they are more serious and more mature. They see something of real value in the word; they may even sense that they’ve stumbled across the truth. It begins to work on them as the word has a way of doing, which means the word becomes intrusive and demanding. You can have the word, but only on its own, costly terms. And these folk hadn’t counted on the cost. What do you mean, You can’t serve God and Mammon? What do you mean, Take up your cross and follow me? What do you mean, Anyone who doesn’t hate father or mother or son or daughter is not worthy to be your disciple? What do you mean, Foxes have dens and birds have nests but you have no place to lay your head? What will we eat? Where will we sleep? What will become of our businesses and families if we follow you any further? We’ve come this far – surely it’s enough. But, alas, no – if it is not to the death it is not nearly far enough, and so these, too, turn back, caught up in the ordinariness of life – the cares and worries that plague us all. For the rest of their ordinary lives they are haunted by a wistful sense of what might have been. But there are a few – Perhaps you’ve been blessed to meet one or two? – a few who hear the word and understand, who put down deep roots of faith, who count the cost and consider it nothing compared to the riches Jesus offers, who cast aside all doubts and anxieties and take up the cross with joy. These few – though the saints will become a numberless multitude – these few bear precious fruit, fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Idou, Jesus says: Behold! Look! Listen! Pay attention! And we do well to heed this call to listen, because he speaks the parable not just to the crowd gathered ashore on the Sea of Galilee that day, but to us gathered here this day. As we listen, the parable lives for us as it did for them. As we listen, Jesus scatters the seed of the word of God across the soil of our lives.
If I were an evangelist preaching to the unbaptized I might now pose the “standard,” evangelical question, What kind of soil will you be this day: hard packed earth that refuses the seed? shallow, rocky soil that cannot support a rooted life? thorn-infested soil that chokes out the tender shoots of faith? or good soil that produces bountiful fruit for the sower? But, I’m not and you’re not; I’m not an evangelist and you’re not unbaptized. And for us, the question posed by this parable is more complex. Our lives are not a single kind of soil. No one here is all hard-packed foot path or rocky, shallow soil or uncultivated briar patches or good, ready soil. Our lives are vast gardens with trampled paths criss-crossing their length and breadth; with great hidden strata of rock and with boulders breaking the surface; with dandelion and ivy and poison oak and sticker-bushes encroaching along the borders and gaining foothold in the garden; with good, rich, black earth here and there. The question is not, What kind of soil are you this day? You are all the types of soil mentioned in the parable. The better question is, Where in you life are you each kind of soil?
Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word of God is even now falling on the path, on a place that has been so trampled down and hardened that the word cannot penetrate. The world has its ways of beating us down and hardening us to the word. Of course, so do we; we can be as stubborn and stiff-necked as Israel in the wilderness, and expert at hardening our own hearts. Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – you are resisting the word. The evil one is stealing this word from you – the very word you need to hear and understand. Where in your life are you like the path?
Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word of God is even now falling on rocky ground, on a place with soil so thin that no roots can reach the living water of the Spirit. Like the man who has quit smoking seven times already, you know the truth and you know that it has the power to set you free; yet, you lack – what? – the Spirit-filled conviction to put down roots of change? For a moment real life blossoms and flourishes. You get a sense of what can be, of what should be. And then the shallow roots give way to the harsh sun of inertia and real life withers and dies. Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word of God is even now falling on rocky ground.
Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word is even now falling among the weeds and thorns, a place so densely tangled with worry and care, with desire and the lure of the flesh, that the word is imprisoned there. In this tangled web you struggle to hear Jesus say, “Do not worry; the Father loves you. Do not fear; I am with you always, even to the ages of ages.” Who would you be if you had no fear? What would you do if you could not fail? How would you live if you believed this word, really believed it?
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:35, 37-39, NRSV).
Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word is even now falling among the weeds and thorns.
And somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – the word is even now falling on good ground: soft, rich, fertile. Life is springing forth. Fruit is growing. The harvest is coming. Somewhere in your life – and only you and the sower know where – God’s word to Isaiah is coming true, Isaiah’s song is being sung over you:
For as rain and snow fall from the heavens
and return not again, but water the earth,
Bringing forth life and giving growth,
seed for sowing and bread for eating,
So is my word that goes forth from my mouth;
it will not return to me empty;
But it will accomplish that which I have purposed,
and prosper in that for which I sent it (Canticle 10, BCP 86-87).
Somewhere.
Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen (Mt 13:3b-9, NRSV)!
You are that field in which the sower scatters the seed: hard-packed path; rocky ground and shallow soil; weed and thorn infested ground; and good soil. Listen to the parable; it is for you.
What makes me bold to speak this way? What gives me the right? Only these two things. First, I know that what I have said is true for me. And, since there is nothing special about me, nothing to distinguish me from other men and women, I assume it must also be true for you. Second, what I have said is not my word to you, but Jesus’ word to all of us.
Luke’s account of the parable of the sower ends with these words of Jesus – again, his words to all of us:
Therefore, be careful how you listen. For whoever has, more will be given to him. And whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.
Amen.
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