7th Sunday after Pentecost Sermon
When Father Eric asked if I could preach this Sunday, and shared with me the Gospel text of the parable of the sower, I said yes, right away…
it’s been quite a week for us in this parish…
So, I went home and read each of the texts, the Gospel, the New Testament,
and the Hebrew text, which I am most often inclined toward… (I just love a good story….)
I have to say, I was delighted to see one of my favorites… Isaiah 55
that promise that God’s purposes will not be thwarted…
of the snow and rain, coming from heaven, doing its work, and returning to God,
nothing gets in the way…
it waters and nourishes, it brings forth food, and beauty,
…and in just the same way, all that God speaks in the way of justice and righteousness
will not be in vain, it will accomplish all the good for which God had purposed it…
I could immediately see the connection of the good things coming to the earth, the water, the seed in Matthew, nourishing, causing to grow, accomplishing God’s purpose…
But wait….
What about this story of the farmer tossing seed indiscriminately on rocks and hard ground, with birds eating the seed up and tossing the seeds among…
blackberry bushes (?) with thorns and briars ….
Well, the juxtaposition of the two texts made my mind wander…
– I imagined birds eating the seeds and pooping out nourishment
while dropping more seeds to get sown in other places…
– I thought of the thorns and weeds that Jesus mentioned in another saying,
“no, don’t pull the weeds, because you’ll pull the wheat up with it…”
– and then I thought of the cracks in Leonard Cohen’s song,
the cracks in all our lives:
“there’s a crack in everything… that’s how the light gets in…”
And it’s true:
Sometimes we feel choked by the stuff of life that makes it hard to breathe,
– and sometimes, we feel so broken and cracked that nothing good can about
– and sometimes it seems, no matter what we do, the good we want just doesn’t happen…
Sometimes…
N.T. Wright talks about these existential questions that float above all of us from time to time;
and in this Gospel of Matthew; the five discourses Jesus gives, points to these realities…
Yesterday at Lloyd’s funeral we heard another one from the sermon on the mount:
the blessings promised to those who suffer on so many levels…
And here we have these leaders, Jesus is speaking to, both religious and secular authorities,
asking questions to determine what kind of threat this Jesus-person was going to be, to the status quo…
And so, he speaks in metaphor (that’s what we would call it) to get the message across to those who would ‘get it.’ This wasn’t a new thing…
Here is this apparently parenthetical section between the parable and the explanation of the parable, where the disciples ask him:
“why do you speak in parables?”
That’s when Jesus quotes a different passage in Isaiah…. giving a heads-up where the prophet also speaks to the people, in general and the leaders, in particular…
Isaiah says:
“you listen, but don’t understand; you look, but don’t perceive”
the people’s heart is dull, they’re hard of hearing, they shut their eyes…
…yet, it is my desire to heal them
It seems to be a statement to those who are more interested in the questions than the answers…. and so, he tells stories….
But you, Jesus says to the disciples….
“blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear….
Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see,
but did not see it…
and to hear what you hear,
but did not hear it.”
What was it they were already seeing and hearing and knowing, even before they knew they knew it? I believe it was the love of God, the very presence of God in their midst…
The very God who didn’t seem to be doing much about the mess in the world, was right there with them, in the person of Jesus, spreading the seed somewhat randomly in the world, the seeds of love, of redemption, of forgiveness and caring. And healing.
This, I believe, the disciples understood deep in their bones, before Jesus explained the parable.
And yet, in explaining the parable he says this:
– you also have a choice to do and be good in this world, to be healed, and strengthened, to be enriched in such a way that you can be part of the healing and nurturing of this world.
To be, metaphorically, receptive soil, producing and sending back like water as snow and rain, God’s purposes, on earth and in heaven.
Still, what is curious to me, in this parable of God, the good farmer, is that he scatters the seed, rather… indiscriminately!!! I mean, who tosses pumpkin seeds on a New York sidewalk? What a waste, no?? Find the good soil and plant it there!
Yet, what this God-the-farmer gives and scatters is for the whole world, for everyone…
We might even say the responsibility lies not just with the farmer, but with the soil too.
…. not just the one sowing, but the one receiving the good seed.
So, as with the disciples:
it’s not just what you know in your heart about love and God’s presence and goodness,
but what we can each do to find our way to that which nourishes the seeds…
I suspect that’s why you’re here today… to be together, to be nourished,
to worship God, to receive solace, as well as strength, and not just for pardon, but for renewal, and to join in God’s good work in the world
I believe our text today in Isaiah is giving us a great hope…
a great promise:
As we struggle through the realities and confusions of the world we live in,
as we experience the things we wish God would fix,
or at least tell us what to do to fix them…
to get rid of the evil in our world…
And as we try to be good soil:
– to pull out the weeds in our lives that are choking the goodness out of us…
– as we stumble, at times, over the events that are just too painful to bear
– And as we feel hardened and cynical,
and see no good come from our efforts to do good…
In all of that, we have this promise:
That as the snow and the rain come down from heaven
and do not return there until they have watered the earth
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
So shall the word of God that comes out of God’s mouth not return to God empty….
but it shall accomplish that which God purposed and succeed….
…succeed in the thing for which God sent it.
And you, you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace….
So, do all that you can
to be tender and loving, receptive and giving,
to work for justice and all that is right, in the world…
~ that is your part.
But know this…. God is at work in the world,
with us,
alongside us….
And all shall be well… all manner of things shall be well.
Amen.