Fruitful

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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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crucible

Rest

Scriptures:     Jeremiah 2:9-13         Psalm 145:8-14

Romans 7:15-25         Matthew 11:16-30

I’ll begin today’s sermon with a story – an old story, likely many of you have heard it at one time or another, maybe in another sermon by another pastor in another church.  And no, it’s not a true story – think of it as a sort of modern-day parable.  It seems there was a ship captain navigating a US Navy ship through thick fog.   Suddenly, on the ship’s radio, the captain hears a voice:  “Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.”  The captain is miffed.  Nobody’s going to tell him what to do.  So he responds: “No.  We’re maintaining course.  You divert your course 15 degrees north to avoid a collision.   The voice comes again, more urgently this time:  “No, I say again, you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collison.”  The captain, really peeved now, says, “I am the captain of a United States Naval Vessel.  We are accompanied by three destroyers, along with support vessels.  I demand that you divert your course, or we will take all necessary countermeasures to assure the safety of this ship.”   The voice on the radio comes a third time.  “This is a lighthouse.  Your call.”

Today we encounter Jesus after he has sent his disciples off on their first mission, and after he has also been preaching and healing.  His reception has been a mixed bag.  The crowds like the miracles, but when he starts preaching about repentance, they tune out.  And it’s important that we understand what is meant by repentance.  We commonly think of repentance as pulling a long face and saying we’re sorry for what we’ve done.  And that is a part of it, but not the most important part.  The Greek word translated as repentance is metanoia, which literally means to change one’s mind.  And so the major part of repentance is changing our minds, changing direction, not just being sorry for having gone in the wrong direction in the past, but actually changing direction so that we’re headed in the right direction going forward. Like the lighthouse captain, Jesus is telling his listeners that they’re headed in the wrong direction, they’re headed for the rocks, but they maintain their course, full speed ahead.   And Jesus is frustrated, and that frustration comes through in our reading today.

First Jesus expresses frustration that, instead of acting on his message, the people are quibbling about the messenger.  Jesus compares them to children calling to their friends, “We played funeral and you wouldn’t cry, so we played wedding and you wouldn’t dance.  What will it take to make you happy?”  And Jesus makes the application – John the Baptist came, and the crowds said, “He’s such a gloomy Gus.  He’s been out in the sun too long and gone bonkers, full-on barking at the moon crazy! Why waste your time with him?”  So Jesus came, and the crowds said, “This guy’s a party animal, letting the good times roll.  It’s a wonder he can stop feeding his face or get his nose out of his wine cup long enough to catch his breath.  And look at the scum and riff-raff he hangs out with!  What can we learn from him?”

The people are quibbling about the messenger, but if your ship is headed for the rocks, it’s the message that’s important.  The same applies to us as well.  We tend to put God’s truth into a little box called “Sunday morning”, and expect God’s messengers to show up only in the pulpit.  But all truth is God’s truth, and God may speak through people in church and outside church. Perhaps, for example, God may be speaking through the ones telling us that our planet’s ecosystem is on the verge of collapse and we need to repent of our heavy use of fossil fuel – a literal message of “turn or burn” -  or perhaps God is speaking through people of goodwill, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or some other tradition, or no faith tradition at all, who urge us to work together for the common good.  Not all of God’s messengers wear clerical collars, and lots of folks wearing clerical collars weren’t sent by God – as the saying goes, “some are sent, and some just went.”

Jesus then goes on to condemn, by name, some of the towns to whom he ministered.  “Woe to you Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida!  And especially woe to you, Capernaum.  You think you’re all that, but your day of reckoning is coming.”  Capernaum especially might have felt a connection to Jesus – he moved there to begin his earthly ministry, and if Capernaum had been doing tourism at the time, there are plenty of places where they could have hung a sign saying “Jesus slept here” or “Jesus ate here.”  In fact, I visited Capernaum two years ago when I was in the Holy Land, and they do indeed have places marked where Jesus might have taught or lived.  They felt complacent, entitled, thinking that because Jesus spent time with them and did miracles among them, it was because he approved of them.  They felt they were headed in the right direction.  But instead, the intent of Jesus’ work among them was to get them to repent, to change direction, to steer away from the rocks and back into safe waters.

Might Jesus say the same about us here in America?  We say we are a Christian nation, and especially with Independence Day just past, we are tempted to pat ourselves on the back.  I wonder whether Jesus would agree.  Might Jesus tell us, as he told the religious leaders of his day, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice; real caring, not self-righteous certitude and conformity, not mindless consumerism.”  Might Jesus be calling us, as individuals and as a nation, to repent, to change direction, to steer away from the rocks and into safe waters.

Finally, Jesus expressed gratitude to God that even though so many, especially the learned and wise, turned away, yet God opened the hearts of children and people of childlike trust to Jesus.  Sometimes what we think we know can get in the way of new learning, and especially if we think we’ve got God all figured out, it’s likely a sign of how little we know, how much we yet have to learn.  And then he made the famous invitation:  “Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Rest?  Is that what Jesus calls it?  Last time I checked, Jesus ended up on a cross, not a Sealy Posturepedic mattress.  On the cross of Christ, there were no sleep-number settings.  Was Jesus nuts?  What was Jesus trying to tell the crowds that followed him?  What is Jesus trying to tell us?

We are all carrying burdens, of one kind or another.  We all have responsibilities.  We all do work of one kind or another, whether paid work, or the unpaid work of maintaining a household and raising a family.  Most of us have commitments of one kind or another – to a spouse or partner, to raising children, to church.   But our attitude will have a lot to do with whether we see these commitments and responsibilities as a burden or a blessing.  We can take them on grudgingly, resentfully, and then they will seem like a crushing burden, weighing us down at every step.  Or we can take them on in a spirit of love, and we’ll actually be energized by doing them.  In caring for small children or a disabled spouse or aging parents, we may do things for them out of love – cleaning them, feeding them – that we wouldn’t do for a million dollars for someone we didn’t care for.   And that applies to church commitments as well.  Before I became pastor here, I was a board member at another congregation, and so I had responsibilities. And sometimes contentious issues came up, usually over how to use church property or spend church money.  There were times that coming to the house of the Lord was such a joy, I couldn’t wait to get there.  And there were other times – when members were coming to me with questions and demands, when the board was tied up in endlessly long meetings and contentious discussions,  that I could hardly stand to set foot in the building, times it felt like tension among board members had made the air itself toxic and I couldn’t breathe, times that it felt like the building itself was on my shoulders.  Whether coming to church was a blessing or a burden all depended on where I was at emotionally and spiritually.  And so it is for many of the responsibilities and commitments we carry.

And then there are those burdens we impose on ourselves, false burdens we were never meant to carry.  We may feel crushed by guilt because of some past sin or failing or even crime.  Or we may feel compelled to live up to some standard others impose on us – being a straight A+ student, owning a big house, holding a prestigious job, having a picture-perfect family – and beat ourselves up because we fall short.  Jesus wants to take these heavy burdens off our backs, heavy because they weren’t ours to carry,  heavy because these are yokes we were never meant to carry.  Jesus tells us – lay them down! Lay them down! Let go of them!  Let go!   Let’s not try to force ourselves to live according to other peoples’ standards or to strive for other peoples’ dreams. Let’s not try to live other peoples’ lives.  Instead, let’s live our own lives, authentically, from a place of love.   In place of these false burdens, Jesus offers us the only yoke we were ever intended to carry: love of God and love of neighbor.  And when we are speaking and acting and living from a place of love, indeed, the yoke is easy and the burden light – light because when we are living from a place of love, we are carrying the yoke Jesus intended for us – and indeed, we are yoked together with Jesus, and Jesus is carrying most of the weight.

None of us can see clearly to the end of our lives.  We’re all navigating through fog, with just enough light for the next step.  And we surely don’t need to be weighed down on our life’s journey with excess baggage.  Let us look to Jesus to show us the way, and let us cast our cares on him.  Let us accept the rest he offers. Amen.