Park View Mennonite Church sermons: July 2008

July 13, 2008
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

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Many of us like good stories. Some of us are pretty good at telling them. Others are better at writing them. A few of us are even good at acting them out. Whenever we curl up with a good book, watch a movie or play or hear a story told, we soon know if we will be drawn into this drama or not. Stories can evoke deep feelings and emotions. We can be challenged, confronted, teased. We can be invited in, to engage and interact with the characters and the message. Even when we have a negative response or readily dismiss a story because it doesn’t seem to ‘connect’ with us, we may find at a later time, that some image, remark or scene has stayed with us, reminding us of something, encouraging us, maybe even haunting us.

Several weeks ago when I preached, I included some stories of hope, and help being offered to people and framed them as stories where a “cup of cold water” was being offered in the name of Christ. Someone came to me later and said, “that will stay with me...the stories, the visuals, the cup of water.” That’s what we want and hope for, that something will stay with you!

Stories are powerful tools of communication. Jesus obviously knew that. He told lots of them. Most often they are called parables. Over the centuries, even up to the present, scholars have debated whether these parables have primarily one, relatively simple, point, or do parables have multiple layers of meaning? There is no consensus. Does it need to be one or the other? I contend it can be both/and.

C.H. Dodd describes a parable as a comparison “drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” (p.5 The Parables of the Kingdom)

Today’s gospel reading from Matthew 13 includes a familiar story often referred to as The Parable of the Sower, verses 1-9. Then a section of verses is skipped and we pick up again in verses 18-23, which really is the interpretation of the story, according to Matthew. When we study, teach or preach from this text, we often skip to the second part, the interpretation of the parable without giving much attention to the original parable and its meaning. As Jesus’ parables were told over and over again in the early church and used in teaching settings, they were adapted in various ways and meanings were assigned to parts and features were added as they were retold. Soon the tendency was to see symbolic meaning behind each element...what does this represent, what does that stand for. They began to be interpreted as allegories, but we know that frequently allegories eventually break down. The explanation cannot be carried through with consistency.

I remember wrestling with some of that when I preached on a sermon in April on John 10...Jesus the Good Shepherd. Within that chapter we understand Jesus to be the good shepherd, but there are parts where Jesus becomes the gate and even hints of gatekeeper.

As parables began to be interpreted more allegorically, sometimes meanings became somewhat distorted.

Today I want to look primarily at the original parable found in verses 1-9. It is one of about 8 parables in chapter 13, some of which have additional explanations or interpretations. The main thrust of all of them is the Kingdom of heaven. The parables become the tool, the vehicle for revealing to us more about the Kingdom!!

What is the Kingdom of heaven like? The kingdom is like a ......
-mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field.
-yeast that a woman took and mixed in with flour
-treasure hidden in a field
-merchant in search of fine pearls
-net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind.

The Kingdom parables don’t tell us what the Kingdom will be like in all of its glory, the final consummation. Jesus’ parables touch the here and now of every day life, not the pie in the sky, in the sweet by and by, this world is not my home
time. Jesus is revealing through his stories, glimpses of what the kingdom is...how it is already present to us and within us and near us. They are differing views of the same subject.....The Kingdom of heaven.

So if I am a business person, I might identify and understand the parable of the merchant in search of fine pearls. If I am a woman who loves to bake bread, I know about yeast and flour and leavening. If I am a horticulturist, a biologist, a farmer, I probably understand more of the Kingdom as I read parables involving seeds and plants and trees and so on. Jesus identifies the very ordinary pieces of every day life and uses them to tell us something more. He takes these parables and ‘puts them’ out there before his listeners, his audience. And by doing that he invites anyone who reads them, who hears them, to examine, to engage, to respond. Concrete examples from every day life for simple people to understand more about the reign of God, or Kingdom of heaven, as Matthew phrases it.

So Jesus is outside a house, near the sea...sound s pretty good to me. Crowds begin to gather..lots of people, so Jesus gets into a boat, sits down, as the crowd stands on the beach. I like his pulpit! They are probably happy if the parable is short, which they usually are. And so he begins to tell them many things in parables/in stories. It doesn’t say he is teaching them, he is telling them stories.

Peterson’s the Message: “What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds, as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams. “Are you listening to this? Really listening?”

The section following these verses is omitted in the lectionary texts for today, but what happens is the disciples came up and asked Jesus, “Why do you tell stories?”
Jesus then replies the intent and purpose of these parables. The disciples have already been given a gift of understanding how this kingdom works. They know, they perceive, they understand. Others don’t. Jesus tells stories to nudge people along to new learning, new insights, to be receptive. They were told and used in response to what was happening in previous sections where Jesus was dealing with the unbelief of Israel...the lack of receptive hearts to the message of the kingdom!

The second section, verses 18-23, then focuses on an interpretation of the parable, according to Matthew. It looks at possible levels of meaning at the different soils and the receptivity of it, and where we might identify ourselves. But I am not going there today.

Back to the original parable.... it gives us new understanding about the Kingdom. The Kingdom is different from our expectations!

One would expect that in order to get an abundant harvest, great care and much planning should take place before sowing seeds
-checking out the land
-researching the kind of seed to use, making sure it is good seed,
-placing and planting the seeds judiciously, so that we would not waste any
-avoiding planting where the crop would fail
In general, there should be a plan, some strategy, careful thought. But NO..

The sower goes out and sows/broadcasts the seeds. There is a certain spontaneity to it all...no preparation of soil, no planning. Let’s put it out there and see what happens. And lo and behold...there is an abundant harvest!!! It exceeds all expectations, but yes, along the way, there is some waste, some disappointment, some failure. But God works in the meantime. The Kingdom of God inaugurated by Jesus is making its ways, it is on the move, even with some loss and bumps along the road, the harvest will be glorious, the Kingdom will come in its fullness. The sower is faithful, takes risks as he sows with abandonment outside of the box or straight row. He becomes vulnerable to the elements, needs patience for the waiting, watches the maturing of his crops, takes some losses, rejoices when there is abundance, celebrates with a feast.

The Kingdom of heaven is about..
-unpredictability
-mystery
-abundance
-surprise
-risk
-gathering
-scattering
-exceeding expectations
-wildest dreams

The Parable of the Sower helps us to see that even with poor farming technique and inadequate preparation, that the mixed results of beginning efforts eventually resulted in an astonishingly fruitful outcome in the harvest!

When we plant our gardens, whether they are raised beds in the backyard, larger truck patches with extra produce to sell at market, or a few tomatoes planted in a container on the patio or deck, there is much mystery to how and why some things grow better one year than another year, why this seed works better here than in Kansas, or why when we do lots of work and produce is slim and other times we neglect some plants and they seem to thrive.

The Kingdom of heaven is within us already, around us, close by...it is present in the every day ness of our lives. We need to be open, receptive to its movement and activity. In many of the parables there is a contrast between something small and obscure at the beginning, but at the end there is an amazing result!! Even when the power of the Kingdom seems veiled, hidden,, at least for the moment, eventually it helps to shape the future of human history.

Carry on your work, Oh faithful ones, in spite of mixed results. Be prepared for surprises!! The secrets of the kingdom are not taught, but revealed. The Holy Spirit will not leave us devoid of results. Even with our best efforts, good results and abundant harvests are not guaranteed. God is in control. Other times we think we have failed and missed important steps, maybe really screwed up, yet surprising glimmers of hope emerge even as a few precious plants or flowers push through the weeds or cracks in the rock. Some of the seeds we toss out there will produce results, not so much because of our doing and careful planning and preparing, but because the soil is receptive already.

A story: An elderly woman taught Sunday school for many years. She received a letter one day from a young man in the hospital. It said, “You probably don’t remember me, but I visited your Sunday school class when I was a young boy staying with my grandparents during the summer many years ago.. You were very kind to me. Because of you, I became a Christian, and my faith has been very important to me, especially now that I have been diagnosed with cancer. So, I just wanted to tell you, ‘thanks’.”
The elderly woman didn’t remember the young man at all, not his name nor anything about him, but she kept a diary/journal for many years. She went back into her journal and found the summer he was referring to. She had written this notation: “We had a visitor in class today. He was a handful! Couldn’t sit still. I sat beside him and gave him some extra attention. Don’t know whether I did him any good.”

Often we do not see the results of the work we do. God honors all our offerings, big or small. God promises that the seeds of love and compassion and caring we plant in Jesus’ name will yield a bountiful harvest.
In our sowing we should not be stingy. Let us plant with abandon, trusting that God will work a good thing wherever the seed falls.

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Park View Mennonite Church sermons

Sunday, July 13, 2008

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