Proper 10A, 16 July 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

• Genesis 25:19-34. If it is going to be this way, why do I live?
• Romans 8:1-11. You are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.
• Matthew 13:1-9 [10-17] 18-23. Hear then the parable of the sower.

O God of grace, grant us the wisdom, the strength, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

There is an old Jewish wisdom teaching that God created humans because God loves stories. Two of our three readings this morning are stories. We have the story of Rebekah bearing twins, Esau and Jacob, and of the most expensive bowl of red-lentil soup there ever was in the history of the world. Our Gospel portion includes a memorable story, parable. I often think that the Apostle Paul’s letters might have been more comprehensible and less objectionable, if they focused more on stories than high rhetoric, elegant as it is.

The first verse of our Gospel reading actually begins with the words that same day. The lectionary “cleaned that up” so the parable could stand alone, but parables never stand alone. The same day as what? That same day as the Sabbath when, walking through grain fields, Jesus’ disciples became so hungry that they began to pluck heads of grain off and eat.  Then Jesus began to debate with community leaders, who had reported the violation of what is permissible on the Sabbath. Jesus contended that rescue work is always permissible on the Sabbath, including rescue from hunger. To drive home his point he healed a man with a withered hand and another man who was unable to see or speak. Then, Jesus was in a house, when someone came to tell him that his mother and siblings were standing outside wanting to speak to him. Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my siblings?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my siblings! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my sibling and mother.” Then, that same day Jesus went out of the house down to the shore of Lake Genesaret (also known as the Sea of Galilee) and, pressed by the crowds and using a boat for a pulpit, he said, “Listen! A sower went out to sow.”

There’s a helpful note in the Jewish Annotated New Testament about the number of references to sowing as doing the work of God in the Hebrew Bible and the metaphor of seeds for God’s Word in the Talmud. Jesus says that the good seeds of God’s Word are scattered everywhere, with extravagance:  on the beaten path (where birds eat, carry, and deliver them far away in a ready-to-plant, manure packets); on rocks where their lives are joyful but short; among thorns, which prevent any yield at all; and on good soil, which produces varying levels of abundant fruit. Bearing fruit is the desired outcome, right? (Everyone knows that.) This is how it is: Jesus is saying, “Let anyone with ears, listen!”

You might have noticed the italicized portion of our Gospel reading this morning. Those are the verses that our lectionary skips to get from the parable to the interpretation of the parable. But I want to say, “Not so fast!” Why does Jesus speak to the crowds in parables, his disciples want to know. To confuse them? Because they don’t understand the mysteries of the realm of God, but his disciples do? According to Matthew, those who have dedicated themselves to learning from Jesus will perceive the mysterious work of the Divine; they will see and hear what many prophets and righteous ones longed to see and hear, but didn’t. What are these secrets, these mysteries? Remember the beatitudes, the blessings bestowed on those who are destitute or humble in spirit, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, or persecuted for what is right. They will see and hear what many prophets and righteous ones longed to see and hear. 

Jesus, however, says, “Hear then the parable of the sower,” not the parable of the ground or the parable of the various soils, the seeds, or even the parable of the parable! Jesus returns to the parable of the sower. It seems to me that people listening to this explanation get rather easily distracted by wondering about our own ecosystems, judging where the fertile soil is in me or in us as a community, trying to identify the well-worn paths and wheel ruts, the thorns, and the rocks. But let’s go back to the sower who is not at all careful with the seeds. I mean, Who scatters seeds on rocks, among thorns, or on roads? The answer is, Yes; Love does that. This parable always provokes in me a fantasy of buying a bucket of valuable seeds to toss around inside the church as my opening illustration of this parable. They’d land on the floor, on your clothes, in your hair, all over the place. That would be a sermon illustration you wouldn’t forget soon! 

I think that Jesus is telling a story that would make his disciples laugh about a sower who is crazy extravagant with the seeds and a shockingly huge harvest, which is between thirty and one-hundred times the amount of seed scattered, even counting the seeds that the birds ate, the sun scorched, or the thorns choked. If we understand the parable to tell us something about the realm of God, we have here a picture of extravagant generosity and abundance, even when the planting conditions are far from ideal. It seems to me that Jesus’ intent here was to encourage with a hopeful vision his troubled disciples, troubled religious and community leaders–to encourage them to stop wringing their hands about seeds scattered where they will not optimally grow, to  to harvest God’s abundance where the seeds are bearing fruit! One thing that all of Jesus’ parables teachings have in common is this: they are each surprising, even disturbing–-every single one. They’re about disrupting the order or the framework that the hearer takes for granted. They are designed to disrupt the way we think things are (or the way we think they should be). Here’s a little story about how this parable disrupted the way I think about how things should be. 

Once upon a time (two Saturdays ago), I was preaching a carefully written sermon at a funeral for a woman I did not know, to family and friends of hers, whom I had just met. I’d talked with some of them on the phone and had read her obituary. They lived out of state, and she was being buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. As she was a lifelong Episcopalian, one of her sons wanted a priest to preside over the services.  Other family members seemed uncomfortably resigned to a service of Christian burial, and some seemed downright grumpy. Oh, it was about 90 degrees in the shade, so I was a little grumpy, too. The family had put together a slideshow of pictures of the deceased,  a lovely gesture. That was all good, except they had set up the screen across from the pulpit and began the slideshow when the service began.  I didn’t know that, however, because I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t until I got to a particularly tender part of the sermon, that mid-sentence the congregation burst out laughing.   I then realized that they were all watching the slideshow while I was speaking, and surmised there must have been a funny picture. Would there be more ill-timed outbursts of laughter? Yes. Then I got more than a little grumpy. I thought, next time I’m planning a funeral with someone, this will be on my list of things to tell them not to do:  do not play a slideshow during eulogies, sermons, and prayers. I confess righteous indignation. I was still complaining about it a day later.

This week it dawned on me that maybe I was the only one in the whole chapel that needed to hear the sermon I was preaching. It was a message about kindness, which I realized is substantially different from being polite or well-mannered. “Listen,” I hear Jesus saying. Listen, imagine, and understand this. The seeds of the redeeming love of God, the compassion, the kindness, the mercy, the forgiveness, the justice of the realm of God are everywhere.  There’s so much that God isn’t fretting about what falls on the road, on the rocks, or in the thorns.  God isn’t fretting about what the birds eat, what the sun scorches, or about the weeds. God knows that there’s enough good soil in each one of us, in all of us together, in the world, to ensure a mind-blowing harvest. 

So what would it look like if we really believed that? What if we lived as if it were true that the seeds of love, compassion, kindness, mercy, forgiveness, and justice didn’t need to get distributed in the good soil only, but that they could get tossed around with reckless abandon? What if, instead of fretting about the condition of the soil in ourselves, in others, in the community, or the world, what if we started imitating the sower in spreading kindness and mercy, spreading seeds of love, tossing them everywhere? What are things that we could do with the love of God as a parish that would be crazy extravagant even for Emmanuel?

Instead of fretting about our limited resources and placing all kinds of careful restrictions, which have to do with the fear of “not enough” or running out,  what if we explode the notion of what a resource is and assume that we have way more than enough:  we have enough to throw seeds everywhere, on the pathways (even in the ruts), on the rocks, in the thorns. Let’s dare to be crazy extravagant in our ministry together. Maybe that sounds brave; but I bet, for at least some of you, it sounds foolish (and to tell the truth, it sounds like both to me).  Maybe that’s just what we’re being surprised (or disturbed) into becoming:  brave, foolish, and crazily extravagantly kind for the love of God.