Sermon: "Ears to Hear"

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.