Proper 10A; Matthew
13:1-9, 18-23; St. Paul’s, 7/12/2020
Jim Melnyk: “Cry the Gospel”
Charles de Foucauld was a nineteenth century French explorer
who joined the Trappist order and became known as “the Hermit of the Sahara.”
He has been quoted as saying, “Cry the gospel with your whole life.” And it is
said of him, “he did not follow that adage with worry about how it was to be
received.”[1] In
the light of today’s parable from Jesus, one might read his comments as an
affirmation that we should always be ready to sow the seeds of the gospel,
wherever we are – whatever we do. Cry the gospel with your whole life – sow the
seed.
But before I came across the Hermit of the Sahara, another
name came to me when I first started thinking about today’s gospel. John Newton.
We just sang (or read) one of his hymns – Amazing
Grace. Most of us know at least a little of John Newton’s story. Talk about
your thorn infested, rock-strewn, hard-packed soil. Newton was captain of a
slave-trading ship for many years – even after his conversion to the gospel. He
bought, traded, and kidnapped human beings for a living. He was a
bible-reading, church-going Anglican, who heard the gospel preached throughout
his life, and yet he bought and sold his sisters and brothers – his fellow human
beings. What a waste of good seed – scattered where the crows would snatch it
away, the hot sun burn it dry, or the weeds choke its life before it could ever
flourish. What a blind, lost, and wretched man. What a waste of good seed!
Were we to resign ourselves to the allegorical explanation
of today’s parable as the only way it
could be understood, as the author of Matthew seems to do, we would be shocked
that Newton could write not only Amazing
Grace, but that he could have written nearly 300 hymns of faith. Even more,
we would be shocked to know how as an Anglican Priest he influenced and worked
with the great abolitionist William Wilberforce in the fight to end the slave
trade. “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once
was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”[2] And
John Newton could certainly make that statement about himself.
Living with only the interpretation offered in Matthew, we
would find ourselves focused solely on the question of what kind of soil we
might be – and what kind of soil other folks might be – perhaps even to
the point of not wanting to waste our good seed on the many types of soil not
conducive to a good harvest.
And if the parable were to be expanded a bit to include the
reaction of on-lookers, I’m willing to bet we would hear the Sower’s neighbors
tsk-tsking away saying, “Look how that poor fool is wasting seed, tossing it
where it will never bear fruit.” Not much different than the church throughout
the ages: “You’re going to let those
people into our church? You think God loves them?
You want me to give communion to whom?”
Perhaps the offered interpretation of this parable has been
at the back of the church’s collective subconscious over the centuries when we
persecuted Jews and Moslems, enslaved or segregated whole races of peoples,
subjugated women, and excluded sisters and brothers who are lesbian and gay
from the full sacramental life of the church. You are welcome to the gospel as
long as we believe you to be the right type of soil as we define soil –
otherwise, the Church has too often said, you’re just unworthy of the seed –
just worthless dirt, just a bunch of poor lost souls we can dismiss without a
second thought.
Now, I'm just enough of a gardener to know it takes good
soil to give a plant its best chance to grow. But I've also seen some amazing
plants take root and flourish – even on the side of rocky outcroppings, out of
cracks in the side of a busy city street, or in a concrete sidewalk.
Parables, by nature, aren’t meant to have just one answer –
just one way of hearing them. Parables are “stories that upset worlds….
Parables work to reveal the unexpected, subvert the normal, cast out certainty
to make room for hope, and thus provoke various responses. They are dangerous
stories,” writes theologian Terrence W. Tilley[3]
And so in way, Matthew’s gospel does us a disservice in
offering us a set interpretation of the parable about the Sower. “Here’s
precisely how you should understand what I’ve just told you,” Jesus seems to be
saying. Matthew seems to add those little interpretations to parables of Jesus
here and there – and those interpretations are not always helpful. They fly in
the face of the mystery that parables are supposed to communicate. The word
pictures we call parables are Jesus’ way of inviting his listeners into the
practice of what I would call “theological re-imagining” – a way of looking at
the world as we expect it to be, and
being challenged to re-imagine it as the world God calls it to be.
Unlike the interpretation in Matthew which seems to be an
allegory about the soil, the parable also seems to be about the Sower and the
seed. After all, Jesus starts his parable with the words, “A Sower went out to
sow.” He doesn’t begin, “There were four different types of soil.” It’s the
parable, more than the interpretation, which invites us to participate in the
act of theological re-imagining. The
Word of God – or the promise of the kingdom – or the Good News of God’s love –
whatever we understand the seed to be, is sown all over the place – haphazardly
– almost carelessly – by the Sower – without regard to the expected promise of
the different soils – without anxiety about what may or may not come to
fruition. “Such is the grace of God,” Jesus seems to be telling us. “Imagine,” he
says, “a theological reality where no
place – no person – is outside
the Sower’s reach.” Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch
like me!
The Sower most certainly feels like Jesus to me – though I
realize his unexpected, subversive, provoking way of preaching about the
inclusive kingdom of heaven fits prophets and teachers of many traditions. The
seed he scatters – the seed of the gospel – the seed of Good News – is meant to
turn the world on its ear – is meant to shake the foundations of those who think
they have an inside track on heaven – those who think they have a leg up on the
rest of the world – those who think they smell just a little sweeter than the
rest of us – or look just a little prettier – or deserve just a little – or
even a lot – more than anyone else. Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that
saved a wretch like me!
Later in Matthew’s gospel Jesus will take a group of
argumentative scribes and Pharisees to task. He’ll challenge them about their
religiosity and their concern for status alongside their lack of concern for
anyone else. Jesus will say to them, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have ignored the weightier
matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.”[4] I
can almost hear Jesus asking them, “What kind of seed are you sowing, you
hypocrites! You talk about your own righteousness while you ignore or reject
the very people you are called to love and serve!”
But we see the same thing today, don’t we? We see those who
would sow seeds of dissension rather than community; seeds of separation rather
than inclusion; seeds of bigotry and alienation rather than seeds of tolerance
and acceptance. We see those who sow the seeds of power, of status, and of
unchecked wealth – those who sow seeds that bring about the destruction of our
environment for personal gain. They need to be challenged with the gospel of
love and grace!
All that said, I do think the soil part of the parable is
important in our own lives. We should
work at being the good, fertile soil that nourishes and feeds the gospel seed. In our own lives we need to do some
spiritual gardening – we need to push aside some of the rocks, pull some of the
thorny weeds, and break up some of the hardened soil that gets in the way of our own growth as followers of Christ. But
we also have to “cry the gospel with our whole lives” as well – and
recognize the giftedness of God can flourish in the most barren of places –
just ask John Newton, or any one of the all too many folks the church has cast
aside in the name of Jesus over the centuries – just ask the folks who have
found their way to St. Paul's because they have been cast aside by the church
in the past!
We need to sow the seeds of God’s good grace: seeds of
compassion, community, and forbearance – seeds of justice, mercy and faith –
seeds of inclusion, hope and promise. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that
saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see."
[1] H. King Oehmig, Synthesis
[2] The
Hymnal 1982, 671
[3] quoted by Julie Polter in, Preaching the Word, Sojourners
[4] Matthew 23:23
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