REMAINING OPEN TO NEWNESS OF LIFE

(Preached on Sunday, July 10, 2005)

Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.  Let anyone with ears listen.             -Matthew 13:8-9

 

What is Jesus doing here?  Is he really trying to give instruction in farming?  No, of course not.

He is trying to teach us about God and God’s ways by tapping into something very common and familiar that we do understand.

And we don’t even need to be gardeners to understand this teaching.

All we need do is look around us at the trees and flowers.

For seeds to grow and bear fruit, there are a lot of obstacles.

Most seeds do not grow to maturity.  Nature understands this, for every plant produces hundreds of seeds each season in an attempt to reproduce itself.

Just look at the mango or avocado trees in our yards.

Do they produce one mango or avocado each year in the hopes of producing another tree?  No, they produces dozens, if not hundreds, in the hopes of producing one tree.

And farmers and gardeners have learned this truth, which is why they scatter hundreds of seeds each time they plant a crop, in the hopes that some of them will grow and produce enough fruit to harvest.

 

So, what does this teach us about God?  First, that God is extravagant in spreading the seeds of new life in the hope that some will grow.

God is not stingy with the message of love and acceptance but broadcasts that message far and wide.

God knows that it will not take root or flourish in every place that it lands; some hearts are too hard, some are too narrow, some are too burdened and distracted.

But God is not turned aside by that knowledge.

God is the eternal optimist. God continues to spread out that message of love, acceptance, and welcome over and over and over again.

For God knows that when the message does take root in a person’s heart, the result is an amazingly fruitful harvest, giving a return of thirty, sixty, or hundred times of actions of love, acceptance, and welcome.

 

That is what Jesus teaches us about God.

Evidently, as with all parables, people struggled to understand its meaning.  So, an interpretation became attached to it, the only parable in the gospels for which that was done.

Matthew places the interpretation on the lips of Jesus in verses 18-23.

Basically, what the interpretation does is draw very close to allegorizing the parable.  It suggests a meaning for each of the kinds of soil on which the seed falls.  It really doesn’t change the message of the parable, it is still about God’s extravagant message of love, acceptance and welcome broadcast widely to all people.  But in an attempt to clarify the meaning of the parable the door was opened for a dangerous shift of focus from God and God’s activity to what we human beings need to do.

 

As a result we begin to classify people again, breaking  into groups those who bear good fruit and those who don’t.

But that shift doesn’t have to occur.  Just look again at what the parable says.

The seed falls on different types of soil, yes.

The seed falls on hard packed soil of pathways, where people and animals have walked.  Not the choice of the soil.

The hearts and minds of some people have grown hardened to the message of God, quite often because of the way representatives of God have treated them, condemned them, tramped and walked all over them instead of reaching out to them in love.

Some seed fell on rocky soil, again not the choice of the soil.

Some people have so little experience with God or God’s positive message; they never grew up in the church or in a community of love and acceptance, so they have no depth to their experience of God and when life gets tough again, their faith shrivels and dries up.

Some seed fell into soil filled with weeds, again not the choice of the soil.  Some people have so many cares and distractions, responsibilities and commitments, desires and involvements that it is difficult for them to change their practices, the focus of their lives, in response to God’s message of love.

Yet, God persists in spreading the seed, in constantly reaching out to all these people, to all people everywhere, in love, acceptance and welcome.  God continues to offer the possibility of new life.

Even when the chances are slim that the message will take root and blossom, still, some seed might fall into a crack on the hardened path, or alongside the pathway, or in a crevice in the rocks where a little more receptive soil has accumulated, or some few sprouts just might spring up through the weeds and cares of daily living.

Never let us begin classifying or judging one another.

Rather, let us affirm one another for what we are and the fruit we have born, be it little or be it much.  And let us rejoice, for “this is God’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

 

So, is there nothing we are to do, then?  Is it all just God’s work and we just sit back and wait for God to work in us and around us?

To a great extent, yes.

But not totally, for there is one thing we do as soil.

What does the soil do that helps the seed bear fruit?

It receives the seed with openness and acceptance.

That is what this parable calls forth from us: openness to the message of God’s love, acceptance and welcome.

 

Unfortunately, for all of us, openness to new ideas, to new people, to God’s message of love, tends not to come naturally.  We can get very content with who we are and what we have and what we believe.

We also become very closed when we become very fearful.  And we become more closed when we fear things are not progressing in a positive manner.

 

There was an article in the Herald this past week, buried on the back pages, about a new document from the Vatican detailing what it called abuses of the Eucharist, Holy Communion, in the Catholic Church.

The document bemoaned the fact that fewer and fewer Catholics are going to Mass on Sundays — in some countries, only 5% of the faithful attend — and that fewer Catholics are going to confession.

In response the document was suggesting that some of the old practices be reclaimed: such as using Latin during international liturgical gatherings so all priests involved can understand the proceedings; that parishes consider using more Gregorian chants to prevent more “profane” types of music from being played; and that lay people can have an important but “minimal” presence in Masses.

All of these, and other suggestions, are reminiscent of the Catholic church before the renewal movement of Vatican II in the 1960's.

 

But let’s not point the finger at the Catholic Church.  It is a common practice in churches of all stripes that when changes start to take place, whether new ideas or in the community or the neighborhood, that we fall back on our memories.  We cling to frosted visions of bygone better days or to the memory of new ideas tried and failed.

Either way we remain enslaved to the powerful grip of the past upon our lives and thus stunt the possibility of newness of life in the present.

 

Meanwhile seeds of faith are sown all around us.

Every time we witness the birth of a new baby, or a baptism, hear the good news of God’s love for us, see the smile of that person in the next pew, or hear the words of forgiveness and love, a seed of faith is sown.