24 July 2011 Discovering Joy Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Six times in these readings Jesus tells us what the kingdom of heaven is like. Yet, even after six examples, I’m not sure I really know what I am supposed to know.
I know what a mustard seed is and what yeast is. I can imagine a treasure hidden in a field. A merchant in search of fine pearls sounds reasonable, and I know what a fishing net is.
To say that God’s kingdom is like these things confuses me. Each is so very different. They seem to have nothing in common. How can they all be like the kingdom of heaven?
If I take this claim literally, then God’s kingdom may be these everyday things. Seeds, yeast, treasure, pearls and fishing nets. God’s kingdom, if normal stuff, must be a here and now place and not something we would call heaven or someplace ‘out there’ in another world.
If on the other hand I remember these are parables and that parables have a deeper meaning, then the kingdom could just as well be here or in heaven or “out there” in another world.
Theologians, folk who study about God, seem to think the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven as Matthew calls it, may be a sort of ideal utopian place very different from this world. They say this worldly existence has too much pain and suffering sadness and sorrow to be God’s kingdom of love and happiness. If this is the case the kingdom surely must be a kingdom to come in the future. Others, as we might imagine, disagree as they point to Jesus’ own claim that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near.
I don’t know, this world or another world, the future or now. Do we hear our deafening confusion or is it just me?
Perhaps knowing the truth about a location or time for the kingdom of heaven is illusive for a reason. Perhaps this ideal utopian kingdom is, like many other wonderful truths about God, a mysterious reality. A reality true enough, but a mysterious one.
Actually a mysterious reality may make the most sense. We are after all talking about the kingdom of The Sovereign Monarch, God. There really is no other kingdom on earth to compare to God’s and we’ll have to wait to know about heaven. At best we dream up an analogy of a kingdom and try and apply it. It is common for us to create our own prescripted kingdom world isn’t it. We’ve been known to do that once or twice a day. But the truth is an analogy will never be like the real thing.
Or might we study a parable and consider the only one who really would know its meaning is God. That is what we should do. Let God teach us.
In Matthew’s gospel reading this morning, Jesus gives us several examples of what the kingdom ‘is like.’ I think I missed that. Jesus says this is what the kingdom ‘is like’, not what it actually is. Close, but not exactly. The mystery stays in play.
The first two parables, the ones about the mustard seed and the yeast, are different from the others. In these parables something of surprising size or substance is found to produce unexpected results. The mustard seed, the smallest seed, becomes the greatest of shrubs and then even becomes a tree. The yeast, a catalyst for leavening, is mixed with a lot of flour until it all becomes leavened. In these examples the kingdom of heaven is like a known quantity with unpredictable or unexplainable results.
We begin life thinking we know who we are, with a clearly perceived purpose, no different than everyone else and then we find ourselves in love with Jesus and our life is flipped on its head with unpredictable or unexplainable results.
Kingdom living begins with our intention to discover what God is about. Like the parent proud of their adventurous child, God smiles at our efforts. God smiles and God actually encourages our seeking, our quest for discovery. All along the way God is filling our world, each of our lives, with grace, for we too become sought after.
Rick Warren, author of the popular book, “The Purpose Driven Life”, reminds us, “the purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind or even you happiness.” The truth is God seeks after us solely for God’s purposes and so often we find ourselves living a life we never expected.
The next two parables, the ones about the treasure hidden and the pearl merchant, are also different. In these parables something of surprising value is found. Having found, our been found in this way may bring us to new places of beauty. Surprising us with treasures hidden, pieces of life that, once found, produce great joy.
So, the kingdom of heaven is now like a surprising discover, expected or unexpected, that brings great joy. We may be on to something now. Joy is a good thing. Joy brings smiles, relieves worry, and produces a good night’s sleep.
The discovery of joy is so powerful though we are often moved to desire it at all costs, to even sell all that we have. Sounds unlikely doesn’t it? To sell it all for a life of joy and hope for what at times seems like at best an elusive kingdom. Surprising what we will do when searching for kingdom living.
It has been said many times, our Christian faith depends on our believing in the impossible. Otherwise our human imagination, our human expectations may limit the possibilities of the kingdom at hand. To overcome these limitations requires nothing less than unyielding faith in the impossible. Perhaps, a miracle.
Don’t be fooled, life is not really about treasure or pearls. But we know that’s not the point. We have our own weaknesses, our own treasure or pearl we would give everything for. We know what it is. We work extra hard for it, we give up things to have it, we cannot stop ourselves. We will even go into debt for it!
Scripture is right about these things though, it is not the object of our affection that drives us as much as it is the result of having it, the surprising joy it gives. You have all heard the story, the two happiest days for a boat owner, the day the boat is bought and the day it is sold. Joy to have it, joy to not have it. Joy is the constant feeling we search for. All else is changing. Discovering the one joy that never changes jut may be what Jesus is teaching in these parables. Discovering the one joy that will always bring joy sounds very much like kingdom language to me.
There is a story in the gospel of John of a wedding in Cana of Galilee. “And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’” We know Jesus’ response. He performs his first miracle turning water into wine. Here during a wedding, during a time of joy and celebration and gladness Jesus’ first act of kingdom building. It was not our grief, but our joy that Jesus first visited with a miracle. Surprised? Isn’t that how Jesus helps us find the purpose in our life? By surprising us in our discoveries about his kingdom.
The final parable, the one about the net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind, is also different. In this parable we hear a story that predicts for us how faithfulness works for God. The fish are drawn to shore and separated. The good fish are placed in a basket and the bad are thrown out.
There is a strong ethic in the kingdom of heaven about what is good and what is bad and judgment will separate the two. The good go in the basket, the bad are thrown out. The good are kept for a future meal, not so the bad. They are not invited to the feast.
The deeper meaning becomes personal when we consider how we are living our lives. How do we know what we do is right or wrong? Knowledge of the good will allow us to be kept, to be placed in the basket, to join in the surprising feast of the kingdom. Knowledge of the bad is equally important. It allows us to avoid being thrown out of the kingdom. Knowing the rules profoundly affects how we live our lives, what we do with our lives, who we worship in the process, and who we become. The faithful, in God’s eyes, live the good life. Choosing the righteous life, they reject evil and become a child of God.
Jesus teaches these things and much more. In addition to the here and now truth about God’s kingdom Jesus also predicts our future. At the end of the age angels will come and separate the righteous from the evil. The end of the age will catch us in its net and the angels will separate, they will judge. Will we be in the basket or not?
To help us Jesus asks, “Have you understood all this?” Why, no, not of our own wits have we. We need a whole lot more than just our own discernment. God offers us knowledge of the ultimate, absolute source of wisdom about the kingdom. God offers deeper meanings of God’s truth that can only come with the help from one true source. That help, that source is our Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, through whom or what else might we understand what is good and what is evil. Jesus Christ, through whom or what else might we be surprised by great joy. Jesus Christ, with whom or what else might we discover the kingdom of heaven?
Tom Currie, pastor at our home church in Brenham before he left to pastor in Kerrville, says, the joy of discovery of the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst “sustains those who undertake the risk of… (Living)…the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Undertaking the risk of living the gospel of Jesus Christ we discover the Kingdom comes from the master of the household, our God, alive in our life through the power of the Holy Spirit. Our kingdom joy is the discovery that leads us to our God, who is the source of the only wisdom that matters at the end of the age. For it is then that the master of the household brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.
To undertake the risk of living the gospel of Jesus Christ will do this to us. When we reach into the Bible and pull out a text so old that “ancient” doesn’t begin to cover it. The text of scripture rises and unfolds into the air something ancient no more. The ancient treasure of joy lies in its uncanny ability to be resurrected in us to new life. To a new life where we undertake the risk of living a gospel which will become written on our human heart.
The gospel of Jesus Christ, written on our hearts, where through Jesus we understand surprising results, where through Jesus we are surprised by our faith in the impossible, where through Jesus we discover unchanging joy.
That sounds a lot like Kingdom language to me.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
072411.gpc
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
17 July 2011 “What Do You Expect?” Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
When we lived in the country in Washington County we lived near a small farming community called Greenvine. You have to love that name, Greenvine. Just hearing it gives you a sense that this broad area of farmers and ranchers produces an abundant crop. Green must be the vine and everything else that grows their.
I particularly enjoyed two times in our growing season there on the farm. First was when it was time to prepare the soil and plant the seed and second was the time for the harvest.
In between there was the usual need for watering and weeding and waiting. I anticipated with great expectation as I watched for the new growth I hoped would come. But I really enjoyed the bounty, the harvest.
Actually the whole family enjoyed our little time for harvest heaven. Small though it was in comparison to some, we loved that time in our garden there at the farm. Harvest time for us was a full on family affair.
I remember we grew corn, black eyed peas, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, melons and even okra a few times. With the call for help with the picking there came a rush and scurry and a great slam from the back porch screen door. You remember those don’t you, screen doors?
Everyone had their job and we would gather pails and bags and grubbing hoes and whatever the crop of the moment required. Potatoes were probably the most fun to dig for. It was as if every turning of the fork brought up candy or something sweet. The kids thought it was the best. I can still see their bright faces as I turned up the next potato plant for them to dig under. Sometimes there were 4 or 5 potatoes, sometimes many more. We always had a contest to see who would find the biggest one. The digging was ferocious! I often could not keep up!
Corn was fun too. The trouble with corn was the surprise of a worm or two when you pulled the shuck away! We could always count on worm inspired squeals when we shucked the corn!
The parable of the weeds growing with the wheat we read this morning follows last Sundays parable of the Sower and his seeming waste at slinging seed everywhere at once. These parables are in a greater section of Matthew detailing the conflict between Jesus and his opponents among the leaders of Israel. To our first century brethren there is special meaning in these stories for at the time they felt their future was being threatened by hostile opponents. Evil lurked in their midst.
It is not difficult for us to connect to these same stories known so long ago. We find comfort in them for they are the stories of everyday life. We too have lived them.
Our first century brethren had planted good seed before and they knew about growing crops. They also knew, no matter how careful they were with their soil preparation and planting, weeds would come. Through these recognized and common experiences Jesus was adept at teaching special deeper meanings. He teaches that if we will open our eyes to the obvious, to the familiar everyday life that is around us, we will experience an amazing truth. We will have a glimpse of the kingdom of God.
Opening our eyes to this morning’s parable we learn many things.
First, we learn there are two plantings. Both the wheat and the weeds are the result of an intentional activity that brings them to stand together in the field.
Second, we learn it is only when the disciples are alone with Jesus that they ask what the parable means. And he teaches them. The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest will come at the end of the age, and the reapers, the harvesters, will be angels.
Third, we are reminded first to not judge fellow members of our community, those we presume to be weeds. Then we are commanded to leave them alone. The separation of authentic members of the covenant community from false members is God’s business. Jesus almost seems to view the world as a field for conflict with competing claims by two kingdoms, one good and of God, the other evil and of Satan.
Finally, we learn the harvest time is critical to the bounty.
In the parable the servants want to begin immediately pulling the weeds. Their master forbids it. They may do more harm than good, he tells them. Wait, he commands. Wait until the harvest and at that time another group, the reapers, the angels, will gather the grain and separate the weeds for burning.
A good lesson, taught by the garden, is to learn when the potatoes are ready to harvest. You cannot know just by looking at the surface, you have to dig deeper. It is at the deeper level we find sustaining and lasting nutrition from the harvesting.
What then might we be missing about this morning’s parable? There is, after all, an enemy in our garden. It is as if Jesus is presenting us with the haunting question, “Why does evil exist?”
Jesus tells us that the enemy has come and gone. The enemy need not hang around. But it is clear, evil exists. Why evil exists is a tricky question. When life is rocking along and things are going well we seldom give evil a passing thought. But, up close, shaken by the evil in our world, immediate and sustainable answers elude us.
Ever our patient teacher, Jesus may help us see God’s deeper meaning.
…Perhaps there is evil because it is difficult to decide what is wheat and what is weed and our response should be to allow weeds every chance to change and become wheat.
…Or perhaps evil exists because weed and evil occasionally serve a purpose? I know how impossible this seems. But it is true; many of us have learned valuable lessons when bad things have happened.
…Perhaps it is simply that the weeds remind the wheat what it is and what it is not. Can you think of a really good “bad example”, a person who has done something bad and through their evil decision you were motivated to make a good decision.
Martin Luther, the great leader of the protestant movement, said that we are “at the same time saint and sinner.” We are wheat, indeed, but sometimes we act just like weeds.”
One of the ways we do that is in our persistence to point out the weeds, the evil or bad behavior in other people. We are quick to judge when, in our view, someone is good and when someone is bad or evil.
One of my favorite stories about judgment was told by H. A. Ironside in his book “Illustrations of Bible Truth.” It is the story of a man called Bishop Potter, who was headed for Europe on a great ocean liner. When he boarded the ship he discovered that he was to share his cabin with another passenger. After meeting his new roommate, the bishop went to a crew member to ask is he could place his valuables in the ships safe. He shared, in confidence of course, that judging from the appearance of his roommate he was suspicious of the man’s trustworthiness. The crew member accepted the bishop’s valuables and said, “It’s all right Bishop, I’ll be very glad to take care of them for you. The other man has been up here too, and left his for the same reason!”
The moral of the story is that we are all weeds to someone else! Don’t you know we all have a severe reputation in the eyes of another?
Jesus’ deep rooted parable message to us this morning is that it is not the church’s task to uproot weeds and equally it is not our task to judge one another.
After all, Jesus did not bring justice upon the evil one. All he needed to do was sow the weeds – and pretty soon the wheat gets confused about what it is to be wheat and starts acting like a weed. Luther’s words ring true, we are “at the same time saint and sinner.”
If this were not enough, Jesus reminds us our duty is to do nothing when the weeds grow higher and higher in our lives. We are not to pull them. What we are to do is much harder. Perhaps it’s the most difficult thing a Christian is to do.
We are called by God to forgive, to forgive, and forgive yet again. While the deeper message of this parable tells us to do nothing in RESPONSE to evil we are clearly to do something to PREPARE ourselves for it. We must never relent in our efforts to do good things. Our good seed will keep growing if we tend them until the time of glory, the harvest.
We tend them as we receive the life giving water from our baptism. We tend them as we nourish them with the bread and the cup that feeds our souls with the presence of God during the Lord’s Supper. We take these preventative actions all with an eye to making it more difficult for the enemy to sow the seed that looks like wheat among the good wheat of our lives, our families, our congregation, and our world.
Let us not forget, it is up to God to harvest the good and burn the evil, not us.
Dear ones, we are called to reach out, to love, to be patient with, and to show tolerance toward our enemies. We are called to bring justice and right living in the face of evil as best we can. But we cannot nor will we ever absolutely overcome injustice and violence and pain and suffering. But God can. And God will, in God’s time of course.
The poet, Theodore Roethke, says this about weeds;
“Long live the weeds that overwhelm
My narrow vegetable realm!
The bitter rock, the barren soil
That force the son of man to toil;
All things unholy, marked by curse,
The ugly of the universe.
The rough, the wicked, and the wild
That keep the spirit undefiled.
With these I match my little wit
And earn the right to stand or sit.
Hope, look, create, or drink and die:
These shape the creature that is I.”
The deeply rooted message in today’s parable is a message to forgive the weeds and go about the business of being wheat and bearing fruit and listening to God. For God has complete control. God controls wheat and weed alike and God is in control even when bad things happen. The ultimate victory in this tug of wills belongs to God, and just like the victory of the resurrection following the crucifixion, the ultimate victor is God.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
071711.gpc
Additional resources:
“Pulpit Resource”, Volume 36, Number 3, 2008, pages 13-16.
I particularly enjoyed two times in our growing season there on the farm. First was when it was time to prepare the soil and plant the seed and second was the time for the harvest.
In between there was the usual need for watering and weeding and waiting. I anticipated with great expectation as I watched for the new growth I hoped would come. But I really enjoyed the bounty, the harvest.
Actually the whole family enjoyed our little time for harvest heaven. Small though it was in comparison to some, we loved that time in our garden there at the farm. Harvest time for us was a full on family affair.
I remember we grew corn, black eyed peas, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, melons and even okra a few times. With the call for help with the picking there came a rush and scurry and a great slam from the back porch screen door. You remember those don’t you, screen doors?
Everyone had their job and we would gather pails and bags and grubbing hoes and whatever the crop of the moment required. Potatoes were probably the most fun to dig for. It was as if every turning of the fork brought up candy or something sweet. The kids thought it was the best. I can still see their bright faces as I turned up the next potato plant for them to dig under. Sometimes there were 4 or 5 potatoes, sometimes many more. We always had a contest to see who would find the biggest one. The digging was ferocious! I often could not keep up!
Corn was fun too. The trouble with corn was the surprise of a worm or two when you pulled the shuck away! We could always count on worm inspired squeals when we shucked the corn!
The parable of the weeds growing with the wheat we read this morning follows last Sundays parable of the Sower and his seeming waste at slinging seed everywhere at once. These parables are in a greater section of Matthew detailing the conflict between Jesus and his opponents among the leaders of Israel. To our first century brethren there is special meaning in these stories for at the time they felt their future was being threatened by hostile opponents. Evil lurked in their midst.
It is not difficult for us to connect to these same stories known so long ago. We find comfort in them for they are the stories of everyday life. We too have lived them.
Our first century brethren had planted good seed before and they knew about growing crops. They also knew, no matter how careful they were with their soil preparation and planting, weeds would come. Through these recognized and common experiences Jesus was adept at teaching special deeper meanings. He teaches that if we will open our eyes to the obvious, to the familiar everyday life that is around us, we will experience an amazing truth. We will have a glimpse of the kingdom of God.
Opening our eyes to this morning’s parable we learn many things.
First, we learn there are two plantings. Both the wheat and the weeds are the result of an intentional activity that brings them to stand together in the field.
Second, we learn it is only when the disciples are alone with Jesus that they ask what the parable means. And he teaches them. The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest will come at the end of the age, and the reapers, the harvesters, will be angels.
Third, we are reminded first to not judge fellow members of our community, those we presume to be weeds. Then we are commanded to leave them alone. The separation of authentic members of the covenant community from false members is God’s business. Jesus almost seems to view the world as a field for conflict with competing claims by two kingdoms, one good and of God, the other evil and of Satan.
Finally, we learn the harvest time is critical to the bounty.
In the parable the servants want to begin immediately pulling the weeds. Their master forbids it. They may do more harm than good, he tells them. Wait, he commands. Wait until the harvest and at that time another group, the reapers, the angels, will gather the grain and separate the weeds for burning.
A good lesson, taught by the garden, is to learn when the potatoes are ready to harvest. You cannot know just by looking at the surface, you have to dig deeper. It is at the deeper level we find sustaining and lasting nutrition from the harvesting.
What then might we be missing about this morning’s parable? There is, after all, an enemy in our garden. It is as if Jesus is presenting us with the haunting question, “Why does evil exist?”
Jesus tells us that the enemy has come and gone. The enemy need not hang around. But it is clear, evil exists. Why evil exists is a tricky question. When life is rocking along and things are going well we seldom give evil a passing thought. But, up close, shaken by the evil in our world, immediate and sustainable answers elude us.
Ever our patient teacher, Jesus may help us see God’s deeper meaning.
…Perhaps there is evil because it is difficult to decide what is wheat and what is weed and our response should be to allow weeds every chance to change and become wheat.
…Or perhaps evil exists because weed and evil occasionally serve a purpose? I know how impossible this seems. But it is true; many of us have learned valuable lessons when bad things have happened.
…Perhaps it is simply that the weeds remind the wheat what it is and what it is not. Can you think of a really good “bad example”, a person who has done something bad and through their evil decision you were motivated to make a good decision.
Martin Luther, the great leader of the protestant movement, said that we are “at the same time saint and sinner.” We are wheat, indeed, but sometimes we act just like weeds.”
One of the ways we do that is in our persistence to point out the weeds, the evil or bad behavior in other people. We are quick to judge when, in our view, someone is good and when someone is bad or evil.
One of my favorite stories about judgment was told by H. A. Ironside in his book “Illustrations of Bible Truth.” It is the story of a man called Bishop Potter, who was headed for Europe on a great ocean liner. When he boarded the ship he discovered that he was to share his cabin with another passenger. After meeting his new roommate, the bishop went to a crew member to ask is he could place his valuables in the ships safe. He shared, in confidence of course, that judging from the appearance of his roommate he was suspicious of the man’s trustworthiness. The crew member accepted the bishop’s valuables and said, “It’s all right Bishop, I’ll be very glad to take care of them for you. The other man has been up here too, and left his for the same reason!”
The moral of the story is that we are all weeds to someone else! Don’t you know we all have a severe reputation in the eyes of another?
Jesus’ deep rooted parable message to us this morning is that it is not the church’s task to uproot weeds and equally it is not our task to judge one another.
After all, Jesus did not bring justice upon the evil one. All he needed to do was sow the weeds – and pretty soon the wheat gets confused about what it is to be wheat and starts acting like a weed. Luther’s words ring true, we are “at the same time saint and sinner.”
If this were not enough, Jesus reminds us our duty is to do nothing when the weeds grow higher and higher in our lives. We are not to pull them. What we are to do is much harder. Perhaps it’s the most difficult thing a Christian is to do.
We are called by God to forgive, to forgive, and forgive yet again. While the deeper message of this parable tells us to do nothing in RESPONSE to evil we are clearly to do something to PREPARE ourselves for it. We must never relent in our efforts to do good things. Our good seed will keep growing if we tend them until the time of glory, the harvest.
We tend them as we receive the life giving water from our baptism. We tend them as we nourish them with the bread and the cup that feeds our souls with the presence of God during the Lord’s Supper. We take these preventative actions all with an eye to making it more difficult for the enemy to sow the seed that looks like wheat among the good wheat of our lives, our families, our congregation, and our world.
Let us not forget, it is up to God to harvest the good and burn the evil, not us.
Dear ones, we are called to reach out, to love, to be patient with, and to show tolerance toward our enemies. We are called to bring justice and right living in the face of evil as best we can. But we cannot nor will we ever absolutely overcome injustice and violence and pain and suffering. But God can. And God will, in God’s time of course.
The poet, Theodore Roethke, says this about weeds;
“Long live the weeds that overwhelm
My narrow vegetable realm!
The bitter rock, the barren soil
That force the son of man to toil;
All things unholy, marked by curse,
The ugly of the universe.
The rough, the wicked, and the wild
That keep the spirit undefiled.
With these I match my little wit
And earn the right to stand or sit.
Hope, look, create, or drink and die:
These shape the creature that is I.”
The deeply rooted message in today’s parable is a message to forgive the weeds and go about the business of being wheat and bearing fruit and listening to God. For God has complete control. God controls wheat and weed alike and God is in control even when bad things happen. The ultimate victory in this tug of wills belongs to God, and just like the victory of the resurrection following the crucifixion, the ultimate victor is God.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
071711.gpc
Additional resources:
“Pulpit Resource”, Volume 36, Number 3, 2008, pages 13-16.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
10 July 2011 The Sower and the Seed Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
10 July 2011 The Sower and the Seed Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
It was my grandfather who showed me how to use and reuse wire, old inner tubes, various nuts and bolts, clips and pins, used boards, old car parts, discarded bits of carpet and any other used but useful piece of refuse that with a bit of luck and good old fashioned ingenuity might fix just about anything. He would not buy something new or even reconditioned until he tried to fix it or repair it or get around it or do without it.
My brother Jim and I helped on more than one occasion re-roof the house my grandfather built. We spent a fair amount of time out in the garage rooting around in a bucket or a box looking for the right thing to fix something.
Granddaddy hated waste. Like lots of people of his generation who grew up during the Great Depression, long before we became environmentally sensitive, he loved to recycle things. He lived the motto of not wanting, not wasting.
I am reminded of a poster from that time, an advertisement that was put out by the Green Giant Food Company. The poster showed a well-cleaned plate, just after someone had eaten the food on the plate and licked it clean. Over the plate were the words, “The plate of a patriotic American.” Some of you may remember it. We had a war on. There were shortages. Eat you peas. Clean your plate for the good of the war effort was the message.
My grandmother lived by that philosophy too. I moved in to live with them when I was fourteen or fifteen. We always had plenty of food, but we were expected to eat our plates clean. A clean ‘happy’ plate was a patriotic plate!
Most of us have this nature about us. We don’t like to be wasteful. When we are properly motivated we will take the time and make the effort to take care of our physical, mental, and spiritual resources. It is the faithful thing to do, to respect and use with reverence all that God has given us. Wasting just may be a sin.
Certainly, there is no eleventh commandment about being wasteful. But, how often do we find, in scripture or in life, expectations of a disciple that seem to run counter intuitive to our very sensibility? At times, we are not so naturally inclined to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Many aspects of our personality make discipleship somewhat of a reach for many of us. And this parable in Matthew’s gospel this morning of the sower speaks to one of them. We are by nature efficient. We don’t like to waste anything.
But then there is Jesus. In today’s scripture he tells the story about a man who went forth to sow. A farmer went forth to sow seed as farmers have done for centuries. But this farmer had to be one of the most inept farmers who have ever sown seed.
Jesus says the farmer goes out to his field. We know what should come next. The farmer carefully removes all the rocks and weeds. He plows the soil into neat, straight furrows. And then he puts the seed in the furrows, carefully covering up the seed with about a quarter of an inch of soil, each seed about eight inches from every other seed. Like us, the farmer deftly follows the directions on the Burpee Seed package!
Well, no, he did no such thing. Jesus says the farmer simply goes out and with no preparation or care starts slinging seed!
Once the seed germinates, and it is time for harvest, the harvest is rather disappointing. Most of the seed has been wasted. Of course, you would expect this with this kind of farmer!
Some of the seed has been thrown onto the roadside. What on earth did the farmer expect by that? Much of the seed has been eaten by birds where it was not sufficiently covered by the soil. Other seed thrown into clumps of weeds has been choked out by the weeds.
The amazing thing about this is that Jesus says there was a miraculous harvest. About ten percent of the seed actually germinated. Jesus enthusiastically calls this an amazingly rich harvest, one that brought the farmer great joy.
Don’t you find it interesting that the sort of farming we would call a failure Jesus calls a success? He sure looks at things differently than the way we look at things.
In the name of efficiency and the greatest good for the greatest number, the modern world has stacked people on top of each other, piled human beings together, forced us into large groups – the herd. Jesus appears to point to another way in which, though a minority of the seed actually germinated and bore fruit, it is considered to be a wonderful, miraculous event.
Certainly with this formula there is a great deal of waste in the kingdom of God. Our way of figuring things would surely say so. A great deal of seed is being put at risk with this sort of sowing. A lot of otherwise good seed is going to be wasted.
But then we think about how God created the world. Why didn’t God create just one species of flower, for example? That ought to be miracle enough. But God didn’t stop there. God created a lot of flowers, all different colors and sizes and shapes. Few of the world’s flowers are actually seen by many people. Why did God continue and waste so much beauty? There does seem to be a sort of extravagance built right into the grain of the universe. A great deal of waste. God is effusive, or we might say, wasteful. Jesus calls it something different; he calls it a divine wonder.
Much of the great good that this God does is unseen by the world, unacknowledged, and unnoticed. Few of us will ever read through the entire Bible; much less comprehend all of it. God has just said too much to us, on too many different subjects, on too diverse occasions. So we hire preachers, to plow through the Bible, and then reduce what we have read to four spiritual laws, or three basic principles, or six fundamentals. We human beings acts as if it is our job to comprehend all of God, but in order to do that we have to considerably reduce God, bring everything down to the lowest common denominator, something that you can put on a bumper sticker. “Jesus saves” or “My boss is a Jewish Carpenter”, or one I saw yesterday, “Real men love Jesus.”
But then we are reminded that God is bigger than all of our reductions and generalizations. There is a great deal more to be said and thought about God than we can say or think.
Sometimes people emerge from church mumbling, “I didn’t really get anything out of that service today.” It’s true, let’s be honest here.
Am I supposed to take that as a criticism? Well, usually I don’t. Perhaps the sermon was focused on people who are going through times of difficulty and trial. Maybe that person is experiencing smooth sailing right now, no problems. So naturally they “didn’t get anything out of it.”
The point is that church is not simply the efficient, individual and personal answer to “what do I get out of it?” Maybe the point of church is more often, “what does my neighbor get out of it?” In church, a great deal is wasted. More is said than we really need to hear. Many times we sing a hymn that does nothing to uplift our heart. But maybe that hymn uplifts the heart of our neighbor. And Jesus has made our neighbor, and our neighbor’s needs our problem too.
So maybe we should say that to be a good disciple we have to have training in how to sit through a lot of church, a great many worship services that are wasted.
Waste isn’t reserved just for a few. Some folks actually complain that their pastor is disorganized and the he/she doesn’t use church time well. Sometimes it is true. We are working not just for the church, but also for Jesus. When a pastor wastes an entire afternoon with a troubled person this may not be the most efficient use of the pastor’s talent, training, and time, but are these the only measures for what is at the heart of the reign of God?
In fact, I have had folk say to me, “I don’t get about 90 percent of what’s said in your sermons.”
I might be concerned about this low percentage of comprehension. But then I hear, with a twinkle in the eye, “But the 10 percent I do understand keeps me coming back, Sunday after Sunday, and gives me quite enough to chew on the rest of the week.” Sometimes only about ten percent of the seed actually germinates.
The Methodist Bishop, William Willimon tells the story of a woman, a graduate of John Hopkins University, who went on to Duke University where she earned a graduate degree in nursing. She did so well academically that the faculty asked her to stay on and be a professor of nursing.
Bishop Willimon did not meet her until she was in her 60’s. By that time she had left the nursing faculty and she was working in an inner-city health center, a volunteer, for those who had AIDS. One afternoon, talking to her and her friend, the Bishop was saying that he had so much respect for the work she was doing, for the way she was using her gifts.
Her friend said, “Do you? Frankly, I consider it a waste. When I think of all the good she could be doing and I consider the brilliant career that she simply tossed away, I consider her story to be sad, rather than inspiring.”
What a waste? That Jesus came to us reaching out to us in love. He told us the truth about ourselves and our world and the truth about God. And we responded by rejecting him, abandoning him, nailing him to a cross, where his life blood drained out of him. What a waste.
Even there, he kept reaching out to us, embracing us, forgiving us. And then when God raised him from his death, he came back to us again, back to the very people with whom he had failed so miserably. He came back to the very ones who betrayed him and promised us, “I will never leave you.” No, no matter what. No matter how you waste your life. I will never leave you.
What a waste.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
Additional resource:
“Pulpit Resource”, Volume 36, Number 3, 2008, pages 9-12.
071011.gpc
It was my grandfather who showed me how to use and reuse wire, old inner tubes, various nuts and bolts, clips and pins, used boards, old car parts, discarded bits of carpet and any other used but useful piece of refuse that with a bit of luck and good old fashioned ingenuity might fix just about anything. He would not buy something new or even reconditioned until he tried to fix it or repair it or get around it or do without it.
My brother Jim and I helped on more than one occasion re-roof the house my grandfather built. We spent a fair amount of time out in the garage rooting around in a bucket or a box looking for the right thing to fix something.
Granddaddy hated waste. Like lots of people of his generation who grew up during the Great Depression, long before we became environmentally sensitive, he loved to recycle things. He lived the motto of not wanting, not wasting.
I am reminded of a poster from that time, an advertisement that was put out by the Green Giant Food Company. The poster showed a well-cleaned plate, just after someone had eaten the food on the plate and licked it clean. Over the plate were the words, “The plate of a patriotic American.” Some of you may remember it. We had a war on. There were shortages. Eat you peas. Clean your plate for the good of the war effort was the message.
My grandmother lived by that philosophy too. I moved in to live with them when I was fourteen or fifteen. We always had plenty of food, but we were expected to eat our plates clean. A clean ‘happy’ plate was a patriotic plate!
Most of us have this nature about us. We don’t like to be wasteful. When we are properly motivated we will take the time and make the effort to take care of our physical, mental, and spiritual resources. It is the faithful thing to do, to respect and use with reverence all that God has given us. Wasting just may be a sin.
Certainly, there is no eleventh commandment about being wasteful. But, how often do we find, in scripture or in life, expectations of a disciple that seem to run counter intuitive to our very sensibility? At times, we are not so naturally inclined to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Many aspects of our personality make discipleship somewhat of a reach for many of us. And this parable in Matthew’s gospel this morning of the sower speaks to one of them. We are by nature efficient. We don’t like to waste anything.
But then there is Jesus. In today’s scripture he tells the story about a man who went forth to sow. A farmer went forth to sow seed as farmers have done for centuries. But this farmer had to be one of the most inept farmers who have ever sown seed.
Jesus says the farmer goes out to his field. We know what should come next. The farmer carefully removes all the rocks and weeds. He plows the soil into neat, straight furrows. And then he puts the seed in the furrows, carefully covering up the seed with about a quarter of an inch of soil, each seed about eight inches from every other seed. Like us, the farmer deftly follows the directions on the Burpee Seed package!
Well, no, he did no such thing. Jesus says the farmer simply goes out and with no preparation or care starts slinging seed!
Once the seed germinates, and it is time for harvest, the harvest is rather disappointing. Most of the seed has been wasted. Of course, you would expect this with this kind of farmer!
Some of the seed has been thrown onto the roadside. What on earth did the farmer expect by that? Much of the seed has been eaten by birds where it was not sufficiently covered by the soil. Other seed thrown into clumps of weeds has been choked out by the weeds.
The amazing thing about this is that Jesus says there was a miraculous harvest. About ten percent of the seed actually germinated. Jesus enthusiastically calls this an amazingly rich harvest, one that brought the farmer great joy.
Don’t you find it interesting that the sort of farming we would call a failure Jesus calls a success? He sure looks at things differently than the way we look at things.
In the name of efficiency and the greatest good for the greatest number, the modern world has stacked people on top of each other, piled human beings together, forced us into large groups – the herd. Jesus appears to point to another way in which, though a minority of the seed actually germinated and bore fruit, it is considered to be a wonderful, miraculous event.
Certainly with this formula there is a great deal of waste in the kingdom of God. Our way of figuring things would surely say so. A great deal of seed is being put at risk with this sort of sowing. A lot of otherwise good seed is going to be wasted.
But then we think about how God created the world. Why didn’t God create just one species of flower, for example? That ought to be miracle enough. But God didn’t stop there. God created a lot of flowers, all different colors and sizes and shapes. Few of the world’s flowers are actually seen by many people. Why did God continue and waste so much beauty? There does seem to be a sort of extravagance built right into the grain of the universe. A great deal of waste. God is effusive, or we might say, wasteful. Jesus calls it something different; he calls it a divine wonder.
Much of the great good that this God does is unseen by the world, unacknowledged, and unnoticed. Few of us will ever read through the entire Bible; much less comprehend all of it. God has just said too much to us, on too many different subjects, on too diverse occasions. So we hire preachers, to plow through the Bible, and then reduce what we have read to four spiritual laws, or three basic principles, or six fundamentals. We human beings acts as if it is our job to comprehend all of God, but in order to do that we have to considerably reduce God, bring everything down to the lowest common denominator, something that you can put on a bumper sticker. “Jesus saves” or “My boss is a Jewish Carpenter”, or one I saw yesterday, “Real men love Jesus.”
But then we are reminded that God is bigger than all of our reductions and generalizations. There is a great deal more to be said and thought about God than we can say or think.
Sometimes people emerge from church mumbling, “I didn’t really get anything out of that service today.” It’s true, let’s be honest here.
Am I supposed to take that as a criticism? Well, usually I don’t. Perhaps the sermon was focused on people who are going through times of difficulty and trial. Maybe that person is experiencing smooth sailing right now, no problems. So naturally they “didn’t get anything out of it.”
The point is that church is not simply the efficient, individual and personal answer to “what do I get out of it?” Maybe the point of church is more often, “what does my neighbor get out of it?” In church, a great deal is wasted. More is said than we really need to hear. Many times we sing a hymn that does nothing to uplift our heart. But maybe that hymn uplifts the heart of our neighbor. And Jesus has made our neighbor, and our neighbor’s needs our problem too.
So maybe we should say that to be a good disciple we have to have training in how to sit through a lot of church, a great many worship services that are wasted.
Waste isn’t reserved just for a few. Some folks actually complain that their pastor is disorganized and the he/she doesn’t use church time well. Sometimes it is true. We are working not just for the church, but also for Jesus. When a pastor wastes an entire afternoon with a troubled person this may not be the most efficient use of the pastor’s talent, training, and time, but are these the only measures for what is at the heart of the reign of God?
In fact, I have had folk say to me, “I don’t get about 90 percent of what’s said in your sermons.”
I might be concerned about this low percentage of comprehension. But then I hear, with a twinkle in the eye, “But the 10 percent I do understand keeps me coming back, Sunday after Sunday, and gives me quite enough to chew on the rest of the week.” Sometimes only about ten percent of the seed actually germinates.
The Methodist Bishop, William Willimon tells the story of a woman, a graduate of John Hopkins University, who went on to Duke University where she earned a graduate degree in nursing. She did so well academically that the faculty asked her to stay on and be a professor of nursing.
Bishop Willimon did not meet her until she was in her 60’s. By that time she had left the nursing faculty and she was working in an inner-city health center, a volunteer, for those who had AIDS. One afternoon, talking to her and her friend, the Bishop was saying that he had so much respect for the work she was doing, for the way she was using her gifts.
Her friend said, “Do you? Frankly, I consider it a waste. When I think of all the good she could be doing and I consider the brilliant career that she simply tossed away, I consider her story to be sad, rather than inspiring.”
What a waste? That Jesus came to us reaching out to us in love. He told us the truth about ourselves and our world and the truth about God. And we responded by rejecting him, abandoning him, nailing him to a cross, where his life blood drained out of him. What a waste.
Even there, he kept reaching out to us, embracing us, forgiving us. And then when God raised him from his death, he came back to us again, back to the very people with whom he had failed so miserably. He came back to the very ones who betrayed him and promised us, “I will never leave you.” No, no matter what. No matter how you waste your life. I will never leave you.
What a waste.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
Additional resource:
“Pulpit Resource”, Volume 36, Number 3, 2008, pages 9-12.
071011.gpc
10 July 2011 The Sower and the Seed Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
10 July 2011 The Sower and the Seed Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
It was my grandfather who showed me how to use and reuse wire, old inner tubes, various nuts and bolts, clips and pins, used boards, old car parts, discarded bits of carpet and any other used but useful piece of refuse that with a bit of luck and good old fashioned ingenuity might fix just about anything. He would not buy something new or even reconditioned until he tried to fix it or repair it or get around it or do without it.
My brother Jim and I helped on more than one occasion re-roof the house my grandfather built. We spent a fair amount of time out in the garage rooting around in a bucket or a box looking for the right thing to fix something.
Granddaddy hated waste. Like lots of people of his generation who grew up during the Great Depression, long before we became environmentally sensitive, he loved to recycle things. He lived the motto of not wanting, not wasting.
I am reminded of a poster from that time, an advertisement that was put out by the Green Giant Food Company. The poster showed a well-cleaned plate, just after someone had eaten the food on the place and licked it clean. Over the plate were the words, “The plate of a patriotic American.” Some of you may remember it. We had a war on. There were shortages. Eat you peas. Clean you plate for the good of the war effort was the message.
My grandmother lived by that philosophy too. I moved in to live with them when I was fourteen or fifteen. We always had plenty of food, but we were expected to eat our plates clean. A clean ‘happy’ plate was a patriotic plate!
Most of us have this nature about us. We don’t like to be wasteful. When we are properly motivated we will take the time and make the effort to take care of our physical, mental, and spiritual resources. It is the faithful thing to do, to respect and use with reverence all that God has given us. Wasting just may be a sin.
Certainly, there is no eleventh commandment about being wasteful. But, how often do we find, in scripture or in life, expectations of a disciple than seem to run counter intuitive to our very sensibility? At times, we are not so naturally inclined to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Many aspects of our personality make discipleship somewhat of a reach for many of us. And this parable in Matthew’s gospel this morning of the sower speaks to one of them. We are by nature efficient. We don’t like to waste anything.
But then there is Jesus. In today’s scripture he tells the story about a man who went forth to sow. A farmer went forth to sow seed as farmers have done for centuries. But this farmer had to be one of the most inept farmers who has ever sown seed.
Jesus says, the farmer goes out to his field. We know what should come next. The farmer carefully removes all the rocks and weeds. He plows the soil into neat, straight furrows. And then he puts the seed in the furrows, carefully covering up the seed with about a quarter of an inch of soil, each seed about eight inches from every other seed. Like us, the farmer deftly follows the directions on the Burpee Seed package!
Well, no, he did no such thing. Jesus says the farmer simply goes out and with no preparation or care starts slinging seed!
Once the seed germinates, and it is time for harvest, the harvest is rather disappointing. Most of the seed has been wasted. Of course, you would expect this with this kind of farmer!
Some of the seed has been thrown onto the roadside. What on earth did the farmer expect by that? Much of the seed has been eaten by birds where it was not sufficiently covered by the soil. Other seed thrown into clumps of weeds has been choked out by the weeds.
The amazing thing about this is that Jesus says there was a miraculous harvest. About ten percent of the seed actually germinated. Jesus enthusiastically calls this an amazingly rich harvest, one that brought the farmer great joy.
Don’t you find it interesting that the sort of farming we would call a failure Jesus calls a success? He sure looks at things differently than the way we look at things.
In the name of efficiency and the greatest good for the greatest number, the modern world has stacked people on top of each other, piled human beings together, forced us into large groups – the herd. Jesus appears to point to another way in which, though a minority of the seed actually germinated and bore fruit, it is considered to be a wonderful, miraculous event.
Certainly with this formula there is a great deal of waste in the kingdom of God. Our way of figuring things would surely say so. A great deal of seed is being put at risk with this sort of sowing. A lot of otherwise good seed is going to be wasted.
But then we think about how God created the world. Why didn’t God create just one species of flower, for example? That ought to be miracle enough. But God didn’t stop there. God created a lot of flowers, all different colors and sizes and shapes. Few of the world’s flowers are actually seen by many people. Why did God continue and waste so much beauty? There does seem to be a sort of
extravagance built right into the grain of the universe. A great deal of waste. God is effusive, or we might say, wasteful. Jesus calls something different, he calls it a divine wonder.
Much of the great good that this God does is unseen by the world, unacknowledged, and unnoticed. Few of us will ever read through the entire Bible, much less comprehend all of it. God has just said too much to us, on too many different subjects, on too diverse occasions. So we hire preachers, to plow through the Bible, then reduce what we have read to four spiritual laws, or three basic principles, or six fundamentals. We human beings acts as if it is our job to comprehend all of God, but in order to do that we have to considerably reduce God, bring everything down to the lowest common denominator, something that you can put on a bumper sticker. “Jesus saves” or “My boss is a Jewish Carpenter”, or one I saw yesterday, “Real men love Jesus.”
But then we are reminded that God is bigger than all of our reductions and generalizations. There is a great deal more to be said and thought about God than we can say or think.
Sometimes people emerge from church mumbling, “I didn’t really get anything out of that service today.” It’s true, let’s be honest here.
Am I supposed to take that as a criticism? Well, usually I don’t. Perhaps the sermon was focused on people who are going through times of difficulty and trial. Maybe that person is experiencing smooth sailing right now, no problems. So naturally they “didn’t get anything out of it.”
The point is that church is not simply the efficient, individual and personal answer to “what do I get out of it?” Maybe the point of church is more often, “what does my neighbor get out of it?” In church, a great deal is wasted. More is said than we really need to hear. Many times we sing a hymn that does nothing to uplift our heart. But maybe that hymn uplifts the heart of our neighbor. And Jesus has made our neighbor, and our neighbor’s needs our problem too.
So maybe we should say that to be a good disciple we have to have training in how to sit through a lot of church, a great many worship services that are wasted.
Waste isn’t reserved just for a few. Some folks actually complain that their pastor is disorganized and the he/she doesn’t use church time well. Sometimes it is true. We are working not just for the church, but also for Jesus. When a pastor wastes an entire afternoon with a troubled person this may not be the most efficient use of the pastor’s talent, training, and time, but are these the only measures for what is at the heart of the reign of God?
In fact, I have had folk say to me, “I don’t get about 90 percent of what’s said in your sermons.”
I might be concerned about this low percentage of comprehension. But then I hear, with a twinkle in the eye, “But the 10 percent I do understand keeps me coming back, Sunday after Sunday, and gives me quite enough to chew on the rest of the week.” Sometimes only about ten percent of the seed actually germinates.
The Methodist Bishop, William Willimon tells the story of a woman, a graduate of John Hopkins University, who went on to Duke University where she earned a graduate degree in nursing. She did so well academically that the faculty asked her to stay on and be a professor of nursing.
Bishop Willimon did not meet her until she was in her 60’s. By that time she had left the nursing faculty and she was working in an inner-city health center, a volunteer, for those who had AIDS. One afternoon, talking to her and her friend, the Bishop was saying that he had so much respect for the work she was doing, for the way she was using her gifts.
Her friend said, “Do you? Frankly, I consider it a waste. When I think of all the good she could be doing and I consider the brilliant career that she simply tossed away, I consider her story to be sad, rather than inspiring.”
What a waste? That Jesus came to us reaching out to us in love. He told us the truth about ourselves and our world and the truth about God. And we responded by rejecting him, abandoning him, nailing him to a cross, where his life blood drained out of him. What a waste.
Even there, he kept reaching out to us, embracing us, forgiving us. And then when God raised him from his death, he came back to us again, back to the very people with whom he had failed so miserably. He came back to the very ones who betrayed him and promised us, “I will never leave you.” No, no matter what. No matter how you waste your life. I will never leave you.
What a waste.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
Additional resource:
“Pulpit Resource”, Volume 36, Number 3, 2008, pages 9-12.
071011.gpc
It was my grandfather who showed me how to use and reuse wire, old inner tubes, various nuts and bolts, clips and pins, used boards, old car parts, discarded bits of carpet and any other used but useful piece of refuse that with a bit of luck and good old fashioned ingenuity might fix just about anything. He would not buy something new or even reconditioned until he tried to fix it or repair it or get around it or do without it.
My brother Jim and I helped on more than one occasion re-roof the house my grandfather built. We spent a fair amount of time out in the garage rooting around in a bucket or a box looking for the right thing to fix something.
Granddaddy hated waste. Like lots of people of his generation who grew up during the Great Depression, long before we became environmentally sensitive, he loved to recycle things. He lived the motto of not wanting, not wasting.
I am reminded of a poster from that time, an advertisement that was put out by the Green Giant Food Company. The poster showed a well-cleaned plate, just after someone had eaten the food on the place and licked it clean. Over the plate were the words, “The plate of a patriotic American.” Some of you may remember it. We had a war on. There were shortages. Eat you peas. Clean you plate for the good of the war effort was the message.
My grandmother lived by that philosophy too. I moved in to live with them when I was fourteen or fifteen. We always had plenty of food, but we were expected to eat our plates clean. A clean ‘happy’ plate was a patriotic plate!
Most of us have this nature about us. We don’t like to be wasteful. When we are properly motivated we will take the time and make the effort to take care of our physical, mental, and spiritual resources. It is the faithful thing to do, to respect and use with reverence all that God has given us. Wasting just may be a sin.
Certainly, there is no eleventh commandment about being wasteful. But, how often do we find, in scripture or in life, expectations of a disciple than seem to run counter intuitive to our very sensibility? At times, we are not so naturally inclined to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Many aspects of our personality make discipleship somewhat of a reach for many of us. And this parable in Matthew’s gospel this morning of the sower speaks to one of them. We are by nature efficient. We don’t like to waste anything.
But then there is Jesus. In today’s scripture he tells the story about a man who went forth to sow. A farmer went forth to sow seed as farmers have done for centuries. But this farmer had to be one of the most inept farmers who has ever sown seed.
Jesus says, the farmer goes out to his field. We know what should come next. The farmer carefully removes all the rocks and weeds. He plows the soil into neat, straight furrows. And then he puts the seed in the furrows, carefully covering up the seed with about a quarter of an inch of soil, each seed about eight inches from every other seed. Like us, the farmer deftly follows the directions on the Burpee Seed package!
Well, no, he did no such thing. Jesus says the farmer simply goes out and with no preparation or care starts slinging seed!
Once the seed germinates, and it is time for harvest, the harvest is rather disappointing. Most of the seed has been wasted. Of course, you would expect this with this kind of farmer!
Some of the seed has been thrown onto the roadside. What on earth did the farmer expect by that? Much of the seed has been eaten by birds where it was not sufficiently covered by the soil. Other seed thrown into clumps of weeds has been choked out by the weeds.
The amazing thing about this is that Jesus says there was a miraculous harvest. About ten percent of the seed actually germinated. Jesus enthusiastically calls this an amazingly rich harvest, one that brought the farmer great joy.
Don’t you find it interesting that the sort of farming we would call a failure Jesus calls a success? He sure looks at things differently than the way we look at things.
In the name of efficiency and the greatest good for the greatest number, the modern world has stacked people on top of each other, piled human beings together, forced us into large groups – the herd. Jesus appears to point to another way in which, though a minority of the seed actually germinated and bore fruit, it is considered to be a wonderful, miraculous event.
Certainly with this formula there is a great deal of waste in the kingdom of God. Our way of figuring things would surely say so. A great deal of seed is being put at risk with this sort of sowing. A lot of otherwise good seed is going to be wasted.
But then we think about how God created the world. Why didn’t God create just one species of flower, for example? That ought to be miracle enough. But God didn’t stop there. God created a lot of flowers, all different colors and sizes and shapes. Few of the world’s flowers are actually seen by many people. Why did God continue and waste so much beauty? There does seem to be a sort of
extravagance built right into the grain of the universe. A great deal of waste. God is effusive, or we might say, wasteful. Jesus calls something different, he calls it a divine wonder.
Much of the great good that this God does is unseen by the world, unacknowledged, and unnoticed. Few of us will ever read through the entire Bible, much less comprehend all of it. God has just said too much to us, on too many different subjects, on too diverse occasions. So we hire preachers, to plow through the Bible, then reduce what we have read to four spiritual laws, or three basic principles, or six fundamentals. We human beings acts as if it is our job to comprehend all of God, but in order to do that we have to considerably reduce God, bring everything down to the lowest common denominator, something that you can put on a bumper sticker. “Jesus saves” or “My boss is a Jewish Carpenter”, or one I saw yesterday, “Real men love Jesus.”
But then we are reminded that God is bigger than all of our reductions and generalizations. There is a great deal more to be said and thought about God than we can say or think.
Sometimes people emerge from church mumbling, “I didn’t really get anything out of that service today.” It’s true, let’s be honest here.
Am I supposed to take that as a criticism? Well, usually I don’t. Perhaps the sermon was focused on people who are going through times of difficulty and trial. Maybe that person is experiencing smooth sailing right now, no problems. So naturally they “didn’t get anything out of it.”
The point is that church is not simply the efficient, individual and personal answer to “what do I get out of it?” Maybe the point of church is more often, “what does my neighbor get out of it?” In church, a great deal is wasted. More is said than we really need to hear. Many times we sing a hymn that does nothing to uplift our heart. But maybe that hymn uplifts the heart of our neighbor. And Jesus has made our neighbor, and our neighbor’s needs our problem too.
So maybe we should say that to be a good disciple we have to have training in how to sit through a lot of church, a great many worship services that are wasted.
Waste isn’t reserved just for a few. Some folks actually complain that their pastor is disorganized and the he/she doesn’t use church time well. Sometimes it is true. We are working not just for the church, but also for Jesus. When a pastor wastes an entire afternoon with a troubled person this may not be the most efficient use of the pastor’s talent, training, and time, but are these the only measures for what is at the heart of the reign of God?
In fact, I have had folk say to me, “I don’t get about 90 percent of what’s said in your sermons.”
I might be concerned about this low percentage of comprehension. But then I hear, with a twinkle in the eye, “But the 10 percent I do understand keeps me coming back, Sunday after Sunday, and gives me quite enough to chew on the rest of the week.” Sometimes only about ten percent of the seed actually germinates.
The Methodist Bishop, William Willimon tells the story of a woman, a graduate of John Hopkins University, who went on to Duke University where she earned a graduate degree in nursing. She did so well academically that the faculty asked her to stay on and be a professor of nursing.
Bishop Willimon did not meet her until she was in her 60’s. By that time she had left the nursing faculty and she was working in an inner-city health center, a volunteer, for those who had AIDS. One afternoon, talking to her and her friend, the Bishop was saying that he had so much respect for the work she was doing, for the way she was using her gifts.
Her friend said, “Do you? Frankly, I consider it a waste. When I think of all the good she could be doing and I consider the brilliant career that she simply tossed away, I consider her story to be sad, rather than inspiring.”
What a waste? That Jesus came to us reaching out to us in love. He told us the truth about ourselves and our world and the truth about God. And we responded by rejecting him, abandoning him, nailing him to a cross, where his life blood drained out of him. What a waste.
Even there, he kept reaching out to us, embracing us, forgiving us. And then when God raised him from his death, he came back to us again, back to the very people with whom he had failed so miserably. He came back to the very ones who betrayed him and promised us, “I will never leave you.” No, no matter what. No matter how you waste your life. I will never leave you.
What a waste.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
Additional resource:
“Pulpit Resource”, Volume 36, Number 3, 2008, pages 9-12.
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