July 13,
2014
St.
Philip’s Episcopal Church, Jackson, MS
Year A, Season After Pentecost, Proper 10, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-24
Why does Jesus so confound us? I
realize, of course, that maybe it’s just me. I don’t know about you, but I
don’t really get the parable we just heard, and Jesus’ explanation doesn’t
really help me much, either. I spent a lot time thinking about this parable and
Jesus’ explanation of it, a lot of time rereading this parable, a lot of time
consulting Biblical scholars on this parable, and even took a class on
preaching the parables last spring, and still am not really sure what Jesus is
talking about. There’s so much he doesn’t say, so much he doesn’t explain.
And while it’s a minor consolation,
I do find some comfort in the fact that I am not alone on this. The crowd
gathered on the shore of the Sea of Galilee to listen to Jesus as he teaches
from a boat and goes on about sowing and terrain—that crowd does not really
understand what Jesus is talking about, either. And we don’t hear that as part
of our lectionary text this morning, but it’s there in the verses that we skip
over. The crowd is confused and the disciples are confused about why Jesus is
confusing the crowd with parables of all things. And then Jesus quotes Isaiah
to say that some people just won’t understand, and we’re not clear if that is
merely a description of how things are going for Jesus and will continue to go
in Matthew’s gospel or if this is how God has made the world to be. Again, it’s
all very confusing.
This is a difficult text, and even
really learned modern-day scholars concede as much. Why is it so difficult? I
want an answer.
Of course Jesus tells us that the
seeds are like people who hear the “word of the kingdom” and that makes sense,
in and of itself. There are those who are like the seed that falls on the hard
path, the ones who hear but do not understand. There are those who are like the
seed on the rocky ground, the ones who hear and are on fire for Jesus for a
time but then fall away. There are those who are like the seed that fall among
the thorns, who hear and but would rather just not bother. And, last of course,
there are those who hear and understand, and so bear fruit. All of this in and
of itself makes sense.
But I want to know why so many seeds
are lost to places where there is no chance of their coming to fruition. Why
are so many seeds devoured or scorched or choked and so bear no fruit?
Of course parables aren’t riddles—I
did learn that in my class—and they don’t have answers. They don’t have easy
solutions. Instead, the parables of Jesus often challenge and confound us. The
parables, like Jesus, challenge and
confound us.
And probably that’s not a bad thing.
In fact, I’m certain it’s a good thing.
There’s one other really big thing
that happens in the verses that we skip over in the lectionary. Jesus blesses
the disciples. Just before he gives his explanation of the parable, he tells
the disciples that they are blessed because they see and hear (13:16). They are
blessed because they get it. They get it—they understand—and they follow him.
Or maybe they follow him and so they understand.
Stanley Hauerwas, a theologian and
ethicist up at Duke, writes that the “disciples are the good soil upon which
the seeds of the kingdom have been spread,” and “we know that they are good
soil, because if they were not, we would not be the church of Jesus Christ.”[1]
And he goes on to say something really important, I think. He says that the
“soil that the disciples are is fertile because the disciples are not afraid to
ask Jesus to explain why he teaches in parables.”[2]
The disciples are fertile fruit-bearing soil because they engage Jesus. They
engage Jesus.
This is not an easy thing and
perhaps that’s why I have such trouble with this parable. It calls me to an
engagement with Jesus, who later in Matthew’s gospel will of course say that
the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and that the second greatest
commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself” (22:37). This parable calls me to an engagement with
the one that challenges us to do the seemingly impossible. Jesus challenges us
to love this invisible God that he calls Father and to love our neighbors as
ourselves, that is, for Matthew, to care for the least of those among us, to
make sure they have basic needs like clothing and food and clean water and shelter
and that they do not feel alone.
This is a huge and difficult and
seemingly impossible task. But here is the thing. Discipleship is hard. It just
is. And there is no really good answer on this side of the grave for why that
is so. The cares and distractions of the world, the insidious urge to have more
than we actually need and to give less than we actually are able to give will
always win out unless we engage Jesus. All the things we think we should have
and think we should be will win out unless we truly engage Jesus. Unless we
come face to face with the one who comes to show us God, the one who is God
come down to show us how very much we are loved, we will never understand the
“word of the kingdom”—unless we truly encounter Jesus, we are bound to live
empty, fruitless lives. I’m not talking about hell or damnation, but emptiness,
fruitlessness, lifelessness, in the here and now, which may as well be hell.
We are, you and I are, the very
fruit of the love of God in this world, and as such we are called to bear yet
more fruit in the world. Understanding this leads to blessing, and not
you-will-have-more-and-life-will-be-easy-type blessing, but the blessing of
knowing who you truly are, of knowing that you are God’s beloved and that is
way more than enough. That is way more than enough to allow each of us to sow a
ton of seed and to see yields of even a hundred fold.
That is great good news. And yet.
I think this parable is nevertheless
difficult, difficult for me at least, because it calls us to seriously think
about the fruit that we bear—and more to the point, the fruit that we, I, don’t
bear—in the world. I can spend a lot of time asking red-herring questions like,
Why does so much seed fall in these weird places that don’t bear fruit? I can
spend a lot of time trying to figure out some easy answer for this parable,
some easy interpretation that will leave me contented and allow me to continue
to go about my day, business as usual. But the real question, I think, for me
and for all of us today is, What are the things that keep me from bearing
fruit? What are the things that keep me from encountering Jesus and cause me to
be stingy, to be unkind to be dismissive? Where is the fruitlessness in my
life? Where am I keeping Jesus out and so ensuring zero growth? Where are the hard
paths, the rocky terrain, the weeds in my life? Where are the dead zones?
When we engage Jesus, when we walk
with Jesus, in prayer, in worship, in Scripture, when we walk with Jesus and
trust in his promise. When we trust in the love that God shows us through
Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, when we understand this overwhelming love,
this love that will not be taken away from us no matter what we do or don’t do
in this world, the dead zones become fewer and fewer. When we truly engage
Jesus, there is good soil, soil that can do nothing else but bring forth an
abundance of fruit.
