Rev. Maureen Frescott
Congregational Church of
Amherst, UCC
July 20, 2014 – Sixth Sunday
after Pentecost
Isaiah 55:10-13; Matthew
13:1-9, 18-23
Intro to Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Today’s gospel passage is the Parable of the Sower.
This familiar story that Jesus shared with his followers tells
the tale of a farmer who tosses out seeds in hope and discovers what happens
when those seeds fall on various types of ground - on a beaten path, on rocky
ground, on ground choked with thorns, and finally on good, fertile soil.
The second part of today’s passage contains an explanation
of the parable that equates the seed with the word of God and names the good
soil as those who hear God’s word and allow it to bear fruit in their heart.
We may wonder why Jesus, who often spoke in parables when he
was in public, took the time to explain the meaning of this particular parable
to the gathered crowd when most other times he did not.
Many scholars believe that the most likely reason is that
the explanation of the parable offered here is not original to Jesus, but was
added at a later date, either by the author of the Gospel of Matthew or by a
later editor.
While the explanation offers a legitimate interpretation of
the story, in some ways its presence undermines the very reason why Jesus spoke
in parables.
The practical reason is that it was often dangerous for
Jesus to speak in a direct manner in front of a crowd that could contain Roman
or religious informants who were all too eager to report his counter cultural
words to their superiors. So instead he sometimes couched his teachings in
stories and parables in the hope that those who opened their hearts would hear
the message underneath.
But the deeper reason why Jesus chose to teach through
parables is found in the Parable of the Sower itself.
Jesus said, “Let anyone with ears listen.”
We all have the ability to hear God’s word – but what we
hear and how we act on it can be different for each one of us, and can change
depending on how open we are to hearing it and what distractions we have going
on in our lives.
Sometimes we are fertile soil, sometimes we are choked by
weeds, and sometimes all we have to offer is barren ground.
The meaning of Jesus’ parable may take a while to take root.
But God ensures that if just take the time to listen, the
seed will grow when we’re ready.
“Ears to Hear”
Once
upon a time, 4,845 years ago, before the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built and
a thousand years before Abraham walked the earth, a tiny seed took flight on a
cold mountain wind.
The
seed flew through the air and tumbled along the stark, rocky ground, turning
end over end before finally coming to rest in a jutting outcrop, some 10,000
feet up, on the sloping side of a mountain.
Wedged
in-between the rocks, the tiny seed had little chance of taking root. The limestone
soil below it was shallow and dry and devoid of most of the nutrients that a
seedling would need to survive.
The
wind at this elevation was relentless, precipitation was scarce, and the
temperature hovered way below freezing for 11 months of the year.
Yet
on that day, 4,845 years ago, this tiny seed defied the odds and took root.
Somehow, someway, it found just enough
moisture and just enough nourishment in that rocky soil to break itself open
and send out a tiny shoot towards the sky.
That
seedling grew into a mighty tree.
A
bristlecone pine, to be exact, that today sits just below the tree line in the
White Mountains of California, just over the Nevada border.
Scientists
have named this particular tree Methuselah, after the longest living person in
the Hebrew Bible - the grandfather of Noah who was said to have lived 969 years.
At
4,845 years, this knotted and gnarled pine named Methuselah is the oldest
living organism on earth.
Robert
Mohlenbrock, a professor of botany at Southern Illinois University, recalls the
first time that he visited the Bristlecone Pine Forest in California to study
the ancient tree.
Mohlenbrock
wrote, "At the time I thought that any organism that lived longer than the
norm had to have optimal conditions to survive.”
For
plants, that would mean moderate temperature, shelter from extreme weather, and
plenty of moisture and nutrients.
“But,”
Mohlenbrock continued, "when I stood in that bone-chilling wind looking at
Methuselah, I knew I had been wrong."
Here
was a tree that not only defied all odds in taking root, it had also withstood
thousands of years of fierce winters, minimal rainfall, and more recently the encroachment
of human beings.
Methuselah
survived the California gold rush, the nuclear testing in the nearby Nevada
desert, and the influx of curious scientists who in the 1950’s cut down and
destroyed a neighboring bristlecone pine to examine it, only to discover that
that tree, named Prometheus, was even older than Methuselah, having taken root
over 5,000 years ago.
One
might say the bristlecone pine was seemingly designed to thrive in harsh
conditions. It has a shallow but
extensive root system that spreads underneath the tree seeking water wherever
it falls. The wood is very dense
and resistant to invasion by insects, fungi, and other pests. And where other species of trees suffer
rot, bristlecone pines endure, even after death, standing solidly on their
roots for many centuries to come.
Now,
you may wonder why I chose to share this story of this odds-defying ancient
tree when its existence seems to contradict Jesus’ lesson of the Parable of the
Sower, the time-worn gospel story that teaches us that only seeds that land on
rich fertile soil have a fighting chance to survive.
Of
course the seed that Jesus speaks of is not the seed of a hearty bristlecone
pine, but an everyday ordinary plant seed, which we are intended to see as an
analogy for the word of God.
For
the word of God to take root in us, the parable tells us, we must offer
ourselves up as willing and fertile soil, and nurture that seed to fruition.
But
we may wonder if something about this analogy falls short.
While
we can imagine an ordinary plant seed needing ideal conditions to take root,
one would think that the word of God would not be as fragile and prone to
failure as the parable implies.
After
all, how prevalent would God’s word be, if it had to rely solely on the fickle
and unforgiving soil of humanity to survive and flourish in this world?
So
perhaps Jesus’ parable is not so much about the quality of the soil as it
exists in us, as it is about the hardiness of the seed…..and the persistent and
nurturing presence of the sower.
Think
back to the time when you first heard the word of God.
Perhaps
you were a small child and your parents read stories to you out of a family
bible.
Perhaps
you went to Sunday School where you drew pictures of Moses parting the read sea,
made heavenly angels of out of construction paper and cotton balls, and you
learned to equate the moral teachings of Jesus with the Golden Rule – to love
your neighbor as yourself and do unto others, as you would have done unto you.
Perhaps
you had limited or no exposure to religion as a child and you first encountered
the word of God as a teenager or adult, and found it to be confusing,
contradictory, or hopelessly outdated for our age.
Perhaps
the way you hear the word of God is not limited to the sacred texts that we
call scripture, and you also hear God speaking in other forms of literature, in
music, in art, in nature, in the voices and actions of ordinary human beings
who serve as vessels for God’s extraordinary Spirit in this world.
Regardless
of how we encounter the word of God, we often hear it, interpret it, and act on
it, in many different ways, as we move through our lives and integrate our experiences
from the world around us.
The
word of God is not stagnant, and neither are we.
As
we change, and the circumstances of our lives change, the meaning that we find
in these ancient texts changes, too.
The
word of God that we hear as a 15-year-old struggling with peer pressure,
parental expectations, and the excitement of having our whole lives ahead of
us, may be quite different than the word we hear as a 65-year-old, when we’re
immersed in thoughts of retirement, downsizing, and issues of health and
mortality.
There
may be times in our lives when we don’t hear God speaking to us at all –
because we don’t have the time to listen, or we’re struggling to find meaning
in religious beliefs and traditions that for us no longer ring true.
And
there are still other times in our lives when we seek and find meaning in every
experience and in every encounter. God is all around us, and we revel in the
abundance of grace in our lives.
The
beauty of God’s word is that has the ability to speak to us in many ways, over
the course of our lives, and in the course of one day.
The
spiritual practice known as lectio divina
– or divine reading - involves a contemplative reading of a short passage from
scripture. The same passage is read three or four times in a row, with the
participants pausing between each reading to reflect on the word or the
invitation that is heard each time.
Those
who try lectio divina are often surprised at how a different word, phrase, or
message will rise up for them each time they read the same text, and how even a
familiar text can offer up a new insight or a new interpretation that they had
never considered before.
The
seed that God scatters among us is persistent.
Regardless
of whether we self identify as barren soil, rocky ground, or prone to being
overcome by weeds, the seed of God’s word lands on us regardless and often it
will lie dormant until we’re ready for it to take root.
Brandon
Stantan is a NY photojournalist who specializes in portraits of everyday people
that he posts on his website titled, “Humans of New York.”
Stantan
photographs people from all walks of life as he encounters them on the streets
of NYC, and then asks them brief but personal questions:
“What
is your happiest or saddest memory” - “What advice would you give to a large
group of people?” - “Can you tell me about your work?”
The
photographs alone are moving, but the answers that Stanten receives to his
simple questions are often insightful and inspiring.
A few
days ago he published a photo of a middle-aged African American man who was sitting
next to a trashcan and wearing the orange uniform of a city street cleaner. We don’t know what question Stanten
asked the man, but the response the man gave is as follows:
In my heart of hearts, I wanted to do the right
thing, but selling drugs was easy. Everyone was doing it. I mean, I'm not using
that as an excuse, I made my own decisions. But I grew up around these Robin
Hood figures who would sell drugs, then buy supplies for kids who were going
back to school, or pay rent for an old woman who was about to get evicted. All
my friends were doing it. It almost seemed fashionable. I never felt proud of
it. I always thought I'd transition to a job with the Transit Authority, or a
job like this-- something I'd feel good about, but instead I transitioned to
jail. I did six years. When I got out, it was tempting to go back to the easy
money, because everyone around me was still doing it, and I couldn't get a job.
But luckily I found an agency that helps ex-cons, because there aren't many
companies looking to give people a second chance. I've had this job for a few
years now. You know what product I'm selling now? Myself. Everyone here in
Times Square is my client. And I'm picking up all the trash so that they can
have the full Times Square experience.
This
is a modern day parable of a seed being tossed on rocky, thorn choked ground
that had little hope of taking root.
And
yet take root it did.
Just
as it does every day in places that we least expect it and in ways that defy
belief.
When
we hear the parable of the sower we often get lost in the explanation that
follows Jesus’ parable and place the focus on ourselves and the quality of the
soil that we have to offer – and then we beat ourselves up if our soil is not
good enough….and we can’t seem to pull ourselves out of the thorns that
suffocate the seeds that God throws upon us.
But
as with all of Jesus’ parables there are many ways to hear it.
What
if we try shifting our focus off our own shortcomings and instead see the
parable as a celebration of the extravagant nature of the sower – this God who
tosses seeds with wild abandon knowing that some will land on rocky, unfertile
ground, and some will land on ground so choked with weeds that it’s unlikely
that anything will ever grow.
But
God throws those seeds anyway.
Because
you never know when one will take root and send a tiny shoot into the light and
the rain and inspire others to grow as well.
As
we circle back to where we started and consider the tenacity of the bristlecone
pine tree, it may surprise you to hear that Methuselah is no longer the oldest
living organism on earth.
In
2013, scientists examined another bristlecone pine not far from where
Methuselah stands, and they were able to determine that this yet unnamed tree
sprouted from a seed that took root in 3051 BC, making it 5,063 years old, 200
years older than Methuselah.
Perhaps,
the unlikely occurrence of seeds taking root in unfertile soil is not as rare
as we would think.
All
those who have ears to hear, listen.
And
thanks be to God.
Amen.
