Scriptures: Isaiah
55:10-13 Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11 Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible tells a story on two
levels. On the surface, the play is
about the Salem witch trials of the 1690’s, in which accusations of witchcraft
made by a number of teenaged girls lead to the execution or imprisonment of two
dozen people. And it’s an engaging
story. But the play, written in 1953,
was written as an allegory about McCarthyism and the wave of anti-communist
hysteria that gripped America at the time.
Miller wanted to show that just as false accusations of witchcraft tore
apart the town of Salem, the McCarthy trials and investigations of the House
UnAmerican Activities Committee were doing the same to the country. Predictably, Miller himself was brought
before the committee and convicted of contempt of Congress.[1] Perhaps we can say instead that Miller was
holding up a mirror to the contempt that Congress was bringing on itself
through its investigations. In a hostile
political climate, writers and other artists often have to find indirect, coded
ways to express ideas that are too dangerous to express directly.
In our Gospel reading, the religious climate was becoming
increasingly hostile toward Jesus. Before today’s Gospel reading, we’re told that
Jesus and his disciples were hungry and, seeing a cornfield, they helped
themselves to a bit of corn. In that
time, it would have been allowed for the poor to help themselves to a fruit or
grain near the end of a field – it was called gleaning, and was part of the
very limited social safety net of the day. We’d probably call it stealing – but
maybe that says more about us than about what the disciples did. But the Pharisees were angry anyway – not
because the disciples helped themselves to corn, but because they did so on the
Sabbath, when they weren’t supposed to be working. And then Jesus healed a man with a withered
hand on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees were upset about that as well – Jesus
actually had to tell the religious authorities that God was ok with helping
people on the Sabbath – which tells us how messed up the priorities of these
religious leaders were. Truly, as Jesus
said elsewhere, they were blind guides leading the blind into the ditch, or
maybe off a cliff. We’re told that the religious authorities conspired to
destroy him – and so he and his disciples had to get out of town. So Jesus went away from that area, and he
cured people on the way. He went into a
house along the way, and the crowds followed him there….and he continued to teach,
and he continued to deal with harassment.
He cast a demon out of a man, and the religious authorities said it was
because Jesus was the head demon.
Truly, for Jesus at this time, it seems no good deed went
unpunished. We’re even told that Jesus’
mother and brothers were standing outside the house, and he left them standing
outside – which doesn’t sound very Jesusy, but since Jesus was dealing with all
this opposition, it might have been for their own safety. Had he pointed them out, perhaps they’d have
shared in his harassment. All of this
was in Matthew 12, and sets the stage for today’s reading.
As our Gospel reading begins, it’s a little later in the
day, and Jesus leaves the house – and, of course, the crowds swarm around, so
much so that he couldn’t make himself heard.
So he went out on a boat to teach the crowds – the water would have made
the sound of Jesus’ voice carry further – and he began to teach. But Jesus was well aware that there were
likely spies in the crowd, just waiting to report to the religious authorities
anything Jesus said that could be considered subversive. And so he taught in parables – like Miller’s
play, telling stories that meant one thing on the surface, but carried
additional meanings for those whose spiritual ears were attuned – perhaps a bit
like speaking in code. Of course, when he was with his disciples, Jesus decoded
the parable – and so we have both the parable and its explanation.
So Jesus talks about a sower with a lousy aim, or maybe
holes in his pockets. If we were
planting our garden, we’d be very specific about where we planted the seeds –
breaking up the soil in advance, perhaps spacing the seeds out every so many
inches, being careful where we planted things so that, for example, the big
sprawling zucchini plant doesn’t choke out the pea plants or such. But in Jesus’ parable, the sower is letting
seed fall everywhere, some on the hard path, some on rocky soil, some in a
thorn bush, and he does get some seed into the garden. Predictably, the seed on the path just sits
on top of the ground until some birds find it and eat it; the seed in rocky
soil grows initially but then wilts when the heat is on; the seed in the thorn
bush grows but is stunted and produces no grain, and the seed in the garden
produces a bumper crop, more than the farmer knows what to do with, more than
enough to make up for the loss from the seed that didn’t grow.
What is Jesus telling the crowds – and maybe trying to sneak
past the authorities? Remember, if any
spies in the audience were listening, all they could tell the authorities was,
“Yeah, he was talking about seeds and rocks and thorn bushes and bumper crops….” For such listeners, their interpretation of
Jesus’ story wouldn’t get much past, “good seed should be planted in good soil.” But, like Arthur Miller in his play, perhaps
Jesus was holding up a mirror to the crowds and the authorities who questioned
the validity of his message. Jesus was
saying that the seed – the message about the kingdom of God – was good, and not
only good, but life changing, would produce so much fruit that hearers wouldn’t
know what to do with it all. But
obviously not everyone was responding in this way; while Jesus drew big crowds,
the number of people who really got it, who really responded, was discouraging. And so Jesus may have been telling the crowds
that to the extent that they didn’t respond, it was a reflection on them, that
maybe they need to ask some questions of themselves, that there were things in
their lives that were getting in the way – their hearts were too hard or their
commitment was too shallow or they were too preoccupied with their own comfort
to act on the word – while at the same time reassuring his disciples that if
they held on to what Jesus was saying and lived by it, their blessings would
overflow. And at the same time, Jesus
was giving testimony to the incredible goodness of God, whose good seed went
everywhere, bad soil and good soil alike, the incredible grace of God, which
was offered to those with closed hearts and minds as well as those with open
hearts and minds.
The same is true for us today. And really, this parable is not an invitation
to speculate about other peoples’ lives, but to examine our own. God’s word is still life-changing, as much so
as when Jesus walked the earth. But how
receptive are we? We may hear something
or read something in church and not understand it. We have a choice. We can just toss it out and move on to the
next thing. Or we can hang on to it,
perhaps read more about it or ask a question, and give it a chance to work in
our lives – often great learning comes when we don’t initially understand
something, but give it a chance to work in our minds. This happened with me years ago when, as a
gift, a pastor gave me Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book “The Cost of Discipleship”,
which invites his readers to a much deeper level of discipleship than we may
initially think possible. On first
reading, I thought Bonhoeffer was crazy and I put the book aside. But that little book has kept calling me back
– especially when I have considered how Bonhoeffer lived out what he wrote
about in his resistance to Hitler’s regime – a resistance that cost him his
life, costly discipleship indeed - and over the years I have returned to
reading it, and while I still can’t say I fully understand it, the book has
made a difference in my life, and it’s a book that over the 25+ years I’ve had
it, I have kept returning to over and over again.
But while there may be things we hear or read in church that
we don’t understand, I hope there are plenty that we do, at least to some
extent. I hope everything we do here
isn’t in Greek, that some of it is plain English. But what do we do with it? Do we act on it? After all, while we proclaim salvation by
faith, it is also true that faith without actions is dead, that a living faith
results in acts of obedience to God’s word.
So what do we do with the parts of Jesus’ teaching we do
understand. Do we hang in when the heat
is on, or do we wither, like the seed planted on the rocky, shallow soil? Or are we too distracted by other priorities
to focus? These are some of the questions Jesus’ parable invites us to ask of
ourselves.
I think this parable also has a word for us as a
congregation. We are supposed to be
spreading the word of God. We are
supposed to be planting seeds. How do we
plant, and where? Maybe we’re a little
too careful, planting only among our family, or among other church members.
Maybe we need to be a bit more like the sower in the parable, being willing to
take some chances and plant some seeds even where we don’t expect much to
happen. After all, if God is generous with grace toward us, who
are we to be stingy toward others. Perhaps
God’s word for us is in the first verse of our Gospel reading: “That same day Jesus went out of the house
and sat beside the lake.” Jesus went out
of the house. Even with all the
opposition he faced, he left the house, where it was safer, to go outside to
the lake, where the people were. And
maybe that’s Jesus’ call for us – to get out from behind these walls and get
into the neighborhood, and find ways to connect.
“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." May the word be fruitful in our hearts, here
at Emanuel Church, but even more so in our daily lives and in this neighborhood
of Bridesburg in which we have been planted. Amen.
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