Our scripture readings give us two vivid stories - our Old
Testament reading about Esau and Jacob – the basis for the sermon title - and
our Gospel reading with Jesus’ parable of the sower – for which we have a
stained glass window in the back of the church, dedicated to the son of one of
our long-ago pastors, the Rev. John Forster, who had been a missionary in
Africa. Both are vivid, and both seem to
point in different directions, and I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to preach
on – so I’m going to talk about both of these stories. Both of them tell us about the awesome God we
worship and the unexpected ways in which God works.
Jesus tells about someone planting seeds. Now, when you or I have a small garden and
plant seeds, we’re careful about how we plant them – we would want to break up
the ground first, and we might want to space out the plants every so many
inches, and there are some plants we may not want to plant near other plants,
because one might crowd out the other – or, as I once heard it put, “some
plants don’t play well together”.
That’s not how things go in Jesus’ story. In Jesus’ story, the sower isn’t at all
careful about where the seed lands, but instead is tossing seed everywhere –
some lands on the road, some falls among rocks – again, in one of our small
garden patch, we’d probably break up this ground and remove any stones – some
falls among the weeds – which we’d likely have wanted to pull in advance – and
some falls among good soil. And the
results are predictable – the seed that lands on the road doesn’t sprout at
all; the seed that falls among the rocks withers, the seed that falls among the
weeds gets crowded out, and the seed that falls in good soil yields a bumper
crop.
To some extent, the parable provides its own interpretation
– Jesus tells us that the different kinds of ground represent different
responses to the gospel. Some peoples’
hearts are so hard that the gospel doesn’t have a chance to take hold at
all. Some people respond
enthusiastically at first – there are some folks who are searching for meaning
and will jump on any passing bandwagon – but they have no staying power, no
endurance – so that when the demands of the Gospel become too great, they get
burned out. These will say things
like, “Well, I tried church, but it wasn’t all that fulfilling and they wanted
too much of my time and money.” Others
respond to the gospel, but want to experience the new life Christ brings, while
not wanting any change in their lives – particularly changes such as rooting
out old patterns of sin – and so their faith doesn’t grow and flourish. Often these are the folks who may have grown
up in the church and been confirmed, but never came back after
confirmation. They still profess faith
in Christ, but their lives don’t show it.
And then, of course, there are those who respond gladly to the gospel,
and with every passing year their faith is deepened and strengthened by life’s
joys and trials.
Given that Jesus gave us a parable and interpretation, it
may seem a bit hard to know what more to say. Seemingly it is what it is, and
that’s all – take it or leave it. But
Jesus’ parables are never cut and dried, and always have multiple
interpretations, so I’d like to spend a
little more time on it.
It’s thought that, for the early church, this parable
provided an explanation for why not everyone responded favorably to the gospel
– indeed, that seemingly very few people responded to the gospel. The early believers had this amazing good
news about Jesus, and yet many, perhaps most of the people they met didn’t want
to hear it. The explanation is that not
everyone’s heart is ready to respond.
It’s something to keep in mind as we – all of us - minister here at
Emanuel Church, where small numbers may tempt us to be discouraged. We need to be patient – people will respond
when their hearts are ready.
This parable tells us about people, but it also tells us
about the God we worship. Remember that
when the sower planted, his seed went everywhere – the path, the rocks, the
weeds, as well as prepared soil. The
point is not that God is a sloppy gardener, but that he’s a patient and
generous gardener. Every plot of ground,
even the hard road, had seed land on it.
Every plot of ground had an opportunity to respond, and each one
responded according to its character.
And that’s what God is like – God gives everyone a chance to respond to
his gracious initiative. No matter how
unpromising our lives are or someone else’s life is, God gives us a chance, and
gives them a chance. The sower didn’t
write any plot of ground off as being beyond hope – and the parable’s would seem to be saying
that God’s like that, that God doesn’t write any of us off as being beyond
hope. That’s good news for us, but also
a challenge, in that we’re often quick to write other people off as being
hopeless, or even worthless. We worship
the God of second chances, and as Christians we’ve every one of us been given
second, third, fourth, and fifth chances and more. Indeed, our own congregation had considered
closing maybe ten years ago, but the members didn’t give up. The members at the time – many of you – knew
somehow that the seeds of the gospel had been planted and had faith that those
seeds just needed more time to sprout.
Now, even though we’re still quite small, God has blessed us with new
families and new life. So we at Emanuel
are a “second chance” congregation. It’s
a second chance we’re called to extend to others.
And here’s where our reading from the Old Testament comes in,
that difficult story about Rebekah’s sons, Jacob and Esau. A little context: God had promised Jacob’s grandparents, Abraham
and Sarah, that God would make of them a great nation, and also made the
promise of land to them. It’s a promise
that, on the face of it, seemed ridiculous, because Abraham and Sarah had been
unable to have children – Sarah’s womb is seemingly like hardened ground, where
seed can’t sprout…., and they were both long past the age of childbearing. But God made the promise. Time marched on, and seemingly the promise
was unfulfilled. At one point Sarah
tries to help out by letting Abraham have a child by her slave, Hagar – sort of
an ancient form of surrogate motherhood, we might say….and Hagar does give
birth to a son, Ishmael….but while God makes promises of blessing to Ishmael,
he lets Abraham know that he still has plans for Sarah to bear a son. And finally, at long last, Abraham and Sarah
give birth to Isaac. Last week we read
about Isaac’s introduction to his wife, Rebekah. And that’s where we pick up the story
today…..Once again, in a recurring theme throughout the stories of Abraham’s
family, Rebekah, like Sarah, had been unable to have children – thus
threatening God’s promise to make of the family a great nation. And so Isaac prayed to the Lord on her
behalf, and Rebekah conceived twins. But
it was a difficult pregnancy – Rebekah prays to God, and is told that the twins
are fighting inside her womb. We get the
sense that, even before they were born, these twins were at odds, and they
aren’t going to get along any better as their lives progress. Going back to what I said earlier about not
planting some seeds next to other seeds because one plant may tend to crowd out
the other plant – it can be like that with people as well, as certainly was the
case with these twins. So the twins are
born, Esau coming first, and then Jacob, comes out, grabbing at Esau’s heal. Jacob, who was born grabbing his brother’s
heel, proves to be grabby his whole life, taking more than he’s due, eventually
taking his brother Esau’s birthright, and later his father’s dying blessing. Jacob, to put it mildly, is a world class
jerk. He’s the one you’d never want to
let out of your sight at a family reunion, lest he start putting the family jewelry
and silverware in his pocket. And yet
God showers grace upon grace on Jacob, because God knew that eventually Jacob
would respond faithfully. If God could
make something worthwhile out of the life of as big a jerk as Jacob, don’t you think he can change our lives as
well – and those of our neighbors?
Esau and Jacob were brothers, but were a house divided. While Jacob did eventually have a kind of
reconciliation with his brother Esau, at various points through the Old
Testament, their descendents are hostile to one another. Today, in the middle east, we have another
version of a house divided, with hostilities in Israel and Palestine flaring
up. While our media coverage wants to
divide the Israelis and Palestinians into good guys and bad guys, white hats
and black hats – I think it’s important to remember that both Jews and
Palestinians trace their spiritual ancestry to Abraham – and, as those “grafted
into the tree of faith”, as St Paul puts it in the book of Romans, so do
we. And there are Christian communities
among the Palestinians – so among those being bombed in Gaza are our sisters
and brothers in Christ. Jewish,
Christian, and Muslim communities all trace their lineage – physically or
spiritually – to Abraham. In the middle
east, these communities are murderously at odds, but they are still brothers
and sisters, a house divided, a house at war among itself. Can the seeds of peace sprout in that
scorched earth, amid the bombings? From
our vantage point, it seems doubtful at best.
And yet the God who gave a son to Abraham and Sarah in their old age,
the God who plants seed not only in the field but on the path and on rocks and
among weeds, is a God who can plant seeds of peace in the Middle East, and make
them sprout. And so, among our prayers
in coming weeks, please pray for peace in the Middle East. And if you’re
feeling really energetic, you can likely find online organizations working for
peace in the middle east in which you can get involved.
“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, in another thirty.” May we at Emanuel Church be receptive to the
Word of God, and may it bear bountiful fruit in our lives. Amen.
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