Sermon: Even Christ's Kingdom is Tiny! Finding Hope When God Seems Invisible

Title: Sometimes Christ’s Kingdom Seems Small! Finding Hope When God Seems Invisible
Scripture: Matthew 13:31-33
Date: February 25, 2007
Christian Year: First Sunday of Lent

Given the cool, wet weather we have had this weekend, it has become a little difficult to remember those unseasonably warm, sunny days that we had last week. But during the recent warm streak I found myself spending every free moment outside soaking up the sun and plotting, scheming, planning for my summer garden. I know that we are still months away from putting seed in the ground, but for me planting a garden is one of the most hope-filled things we can do. To watch plants grow, blossom and bear fruit from a tiny seed is so awe inspiring to me.

I have planted flowers and grown roses, and I have even managed to add a couple of bushes to our meager front-yard landscape. But last summer was the first time I had ever planted a vegetable garden that survived long enough to harvest. Until last year every, single vegetable I had planted withered and dried out somewhere around July Fourth. So, I don’t know if it was the Missouri soil that enabled my gardening success or whether I just happen to finally stumble upon the right vegetable plants.

Since I had had so little gardening success, I decided that I would buy the cheapest vegetable plants that I could find. So, I ended up buying a little four-pack of tomato plants that were apparently just out of range of the sprinkler in the plant nursery because the soil in each one of those small plastic compartments was so dry that it looked like it was starting to shrink and the tomato plants were starting to go limp. I guess I looked at those tiny, pitiful plants and said, “Hey that’s what they are going to look like anyway, so we’ll just start with withered plants and save me the time and hassle of nurturing them to their premature death.”

But I took these hopeless little plants home. I dumped them out of their plastic containers, and I dug a series of small holes a 6 inches or one-foot apart and put those tomatoes in the ground. I did remember to stick into the ground the white, plastic information stake that tells you the name of the plant variety and how to care for the plant so that later on I could identify which plants I had managed to kill. I did notice that these tomatoes were called “Big Boy” tomatoes. I missed the suggestion to plant them 36 to 48 inches apart. I watered those tomatoes, and lo and behold, to my surprise they started to grow!

Encountering the Kingdom of God which Jesus describes in this morning’s parables is a lot like cultivating wilting, dying tomato plants in your garden. It can seem hopeless and pointless at times, and it can feel like God is invisible or even absent, and it certainly can feel – based on our previous attempts and experiences – that a favorable outcome is never guaranteed, but for some reason we keep watering and to our surprise we eventually see growth.
Slide text: Encountering the Kingdom of God is a lot like cultivating dying tomato plants: it can feel hopeless and pointless and like God is invisible or even absent.

Well, Jesus uses his own gardening metaphor to describe to his disciples the way that the Kingdom of God is at work. Jesus tells the disciples that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a tiny mustard seed. There are several seeming inconsistencies in Jesus’ parables this morning. For starters, strictly speaking the mustard seed, while tiny, is not the smallest of seeds in Palestine – the region where Jesus is teaching and preaching. For example the seeds of the cypress trees that grow in the area are smaller. But for the Jewish people living in Palestine to say that something was as small as a mustard seed was an expression or a cliché that indicated that something was so small as to be insignificant. It’s kind of like my grandma who would always say, “Oh, that’s just small potatoes!” to describe something that was seemingly insignificant or inconsequential. Obviously a potato is not that small, but that’s just how the saying goes.

So when Jesus tells his followers that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, he is using the everyday language of the people; he is using common sayings that people can grasp. In a way Jesus is saying that this Kingdom of God is not so complex and difficult to access that you need fancy words, technical terms, or flowery language. When Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, it is a sign that says that you can find God where you are at and how you are right now.

When Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, he has another point in mind as well. Jesus would have in all likelihood seen mustard plants growing in the landscape all around him, and so he knew the tremendous size that these bushes or shrubs could achieve. And Jesus is saying that God’s purposes, God’s reign will grow to tremendous size even from its humble beginnings as an invisible, insignificant seed. It is like having only four little, dried out tomato plants just struggling to survive when we really crave big, juicy red tomatoes today.

Here is where we encounter another seeming inconsistency with Jesus’ parable. He says that this mustard plant becomes like a tree in which birds make their nests. The botany isn’t quite right here. A mustard plant usually grows two- to six-feet tall; in extreme cases the mustard plant might reach 10 feet, but even then it is still a plant. It never has the defining marks of a tree: woody limbs, bark, a trunk. So, why does Jesus anticipate the mustard plant will be like a tree?

One answer might be that Jesus is an awesome saviour, and he was a pretty-good carpenter, but he made a lousy botanist. But another answer might be that Jesus wants those who hear this parable to take a closer look because throughout the Old Testament trees represent rulers and the fulfillment of God’s reign. The botany involved in calling a mustard plant a tree is not quite right, but “becoming a tree” signifies that this is God’s rule and God’s reign. Jesus says that in this tree – in God’s way of ruling – the birds of the air make their nests.

Birds are yet another common symbol Jesus is using in this parable. In the early day of the Jewish people it was the poorest among them who brought birds as an offering to God, so birds came to symbolize not just the entire Israelite people, but especially the poorest, the outcast, and the oppressed. Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of Heaven – God’s rule – is active and growing when the poor, the forgotten, the oppressed, the mistreated find food and shelter and safety and a welcoming home.

Let me give you one example of how this might work. Yesterday 13 people gathered here at this church, and we headed north almost to I-44 where we worked cutting and clearing tree limbs until the rains came and cut our work short. In that small, seemingly insignificant period of time we helped clear two pieces of property, and we logged more than 26 hours of volunteer work. That’s more than half a work week worth of debris removal. That tiny investment of time and energy grows and multiplies and so it is with the Kingdom of Heaven.

Today is the first Sunday of the holy and sacred season of Lent. This is the 40 days leading up to Easter when we prepare our hearts and minds and bodies to receive the miracle of Jesus' resurection from the dead. During Lent peopel have traditionally given something up.

I have alreay spoken with people in this congregation who have said that they will be giving up deserts during Lent, and I talked to one brave soul who has given up caffeine. And last week during our confirmation class one student raised his hand and asked if he could give up going to school for Lent.

The point of giving something up during Lent is to rid our lives of one small, tiny thing that somehow seperates us from God. Here we have some Good News! We don't have to address every single flaw or sin or error in our lives; we pick something small to work because we know that even in that smallness God is working great things!

We learn from the parable of the mustard seed to give ourselves a break and focus on some small thing during Lent. But while mustard seeds are small, I have noticed that around here mustard plants are often considered undesirable for the very fact that the small seeds lead to plants that grow so large that they can take over the entire landscape – over running fields and filling pastures. Mustard plants in a sense can corrupt or change the landscape which brings us to Jesus’ one-verse parable about the yeast.

Right on the heals of the parable about the mustard seed Jesus now tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast that is hidden in the dough that a woman is mixing. It is interesting that Jesus would say that God’s rule is like yeast since throughout the Bible yeast is seen as a corrupting agent that the people avoid. It was Jewish practice to eat unleavened bread as a reminder of when God liberated their ancestors from slavery in Egypt and they did not have time to allow their bread to rise before fleeing.

It seems that Jesus is telling his disciples that the Kingdom of Heaven in a sense corrupts the world. God’s rule goes against conventional wisdom; it tells us that the way we are doing things are not always right. This tells us that our assumptions and our ideas and our traditions may not always be in keeping with God. Jesus seems to be telling us that the Kingdom works by scandalous means that we will work so hard to avoid when really they hold what we are searching for. God’s kingdom has the power to change the landscape of the world.

Finally, we read that this woman in whose dough the yeast is hidden is not baking bread just for herself. She is not even baking bread just for her family because the three measures of flour that she uses is enough to bake bread to feed 150 people. We are not talking about a simple meal, but a full-blown gathering, a banquet, a feast. Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is like this tiny, world-corrupting, hidden yeast which results in abundance. There is no skimping; there is no shortage, only abundance even though it is hard to see or distinguish today.

Yes, encountering God and living in the Kingdom of Heaven is a lot like cultivating wilting, dying tomato plants in your garden. I did not think that those fragile plants would make it. When I planted their dried-up roots in the soil it was with full expectation that that summer I would be doing all my tomato shopping at the grocery store, but I watered those plants anyway. And a miraculously, unexpectedly they grew … and they grew … and they grew. They began to flower and produce huge red, juicy tomatoes – more than we could eat or give away!

And those tomatoes kept growing and growing. They outgrew the tomato cages we built to support the weight of their vines. They grew over the fence. They grew up the trellis right alongside the rose bushes. Those tomato plants grew so large that they took over the entire garden – choking out the broccoli and basil plants.

And oh the abundance of tomatoes! We froze eight gallons of diced tomatoes so that they did not go to waste! When the first frost did fall, we made 12 quarts of pickled green tomatoes, and we ate fried green tomatoes every night for dinner for two weeks. All of this came from four seemingly pitiful tomato plants.

Encountering God’s Kingdom is a lot like putting your hopes for a plentiful harvest in four discounted, near-death tomato plants: abundance seems so far away and impossible. Yet, with regular watering and a little time we find those plants have transformed the landscape of our lives. Amen.

Holy Destruction and the Season of Lent

This morning my daily Scripture reading took me through Numbers 21 where I encountered the notion of "holy destruction."

Upon first reading this I was taken aback at the notion of offering to God the fruits of our violence. In Numbers 21 the wilderness wanderers present to God the ruins of the Canaanites' towns as holy destruction.

Maybe this passage offers to us several possibilities -- some disturbing and some hope-filled:

1. God sanctions genocide. Enemies are to be destroyed and the destruction presented to God. This seems like the easiest option to choose. Opponents are to be eradicated. It seems to me that we frequently see this in U.S. foreign policy, politics, and, yes, sometimes even in the church.

2. Violence aside, perhaps this passage is intended as a sign of grace and restoration for the Israelite people. This incident occurs at the same location where the people were defeated after recklessly and rebelliously trying to enter the Promised Land at the end of Numbers 14. So, perhaps this is a sign of God's forgiveness for the previous rebellion, and the people's way of acknowledging their previous rebellion and turning from that rebellion (which only seems temporary since more rebellion against God is only a few verses away!).

Still, why so much violence? In a way this story seems to point to the way that we tend to try and uproot whatever we perceive as the cause of our sin. When that uprooting fails to eradicate sin completely from our lives, we move on to the next enemy and begin a new seek and destroy effort. So, we leave in our wakes an ever increasing path of destruction in our quest for a holy life.

3. In a metaphorical sense I do crave "holy destruction" especially during this season of Lent. I want to drive out and destroy all in my life that keeps me from following God. But here is my hang up with this possibility: I am not convinced that God wants to see the ruins of old habits as much as God wants to see the fruit of the changes in my life.

So, perhaps "holy destruction" can be redeemed in favor of "holy transformation."

What do you think?

Sermon for Feb. 18, 2006 Intertwined Roots -- Living in a Weedy World

Title: Intertwined Roots: Living in a Weedy World
Scripture: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Date: February 18, 2007
Christian Year: Transfiguration Sunday

I always hated those Saturday mornings when my dad would march me out to the edge of our concrete driveway. He would set an empty, white, plastic bucket at my feet and then hand me the largest flat-head screwdriver he could find in his toolbox that day. My dad with a smile on his face would then motion with a sweep of his arm as if we were standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon overlooking some beautiful vista rather than peering across our suburban lawn.

Then he would say those words I dreaded most, “Josh, I need you to pull all the dandelions before I mown the lawn this afternoon.” Before he retreated back into the garage he would point to the screwdriver in my hand and say, “And don’t forget to pull out the entire root, so those weeds don’t grow back!”

I guess my dad did not believe in fertilizer or herbicide (or buying any of the yard tools actually made for weeding), so while the other neighborhood kids were safely inside their homes watching Scooby Doo and Bugs Bunny, I was outside working my way across the front lawn. I would take that flathead screwdriver, drive it deep into the soil about an inch or two from the base of each dandelion, and I would begin to pry upward to loosen the soil and eject – I hoped – the entire dandelion, roots and all.

It took hours to make my way across the yard poking and prying dandelions from the grass in that manner. When I finally finished, I could stand at the other end of the lawn, opposite the concrete driveway, and survey the pitted-out excuse for grass that remained. After each of these weeding campaigns the front yard was reduced to a series of dirt-filled craters and indentations void of grass, barren spots where yellow dandelion flowers once grew. It was an ugly sight, but apparently it was more beautiful that a yard full of dandelions. And it apparently made my father feel like he was upholding his horticultural obligations to the neighbors.

It is this type of action – the act of weeding and the sense of being obligated to eradicate something unwanted – that Jesus address with his disciples as he tells and explains the parable of the weeds. Jesus tells us that the reign of God is like a farmer who planted good seed. While that farmer was away an enemy, an adversary, an opponent plants weeds in that same field so that when the good wheat begins growing, the weeds grow up next to the wheat. Now, the servants who are tending the field while the farmer is absent notice this and ask the farmer if it is their horticultural obligation demands that they pull the weeds. The farmer replies, “no” because the wheat and the weeds have grown up together and as such their roots have become intertwined making it impossible to pry upwards and eject the weeds’ roots without leaving dirt-filled craters and indentations void of wheat. Pulling out the weeds will also destroy the wheat, so our fields are stuck with weeds until the harvest.

What Jesus describes in this parable is a little bit like checking your email. Now, I have a pretty good anti-spam software program to keep unwanted, unsolicited, and sometimes-vulgar messages out of my mailbox. But every now and then when I am away and I can’t update that anti-spam software, I find that these unwanted messages about car loans, home mortgages, low-cost prescription drugs, and singles’ dating networks start making their way into my email inbox right along with the important messages from friends and family and church members. There is a process I could go through to block each of the individual senders who have sent me unwanted email, but it’s a hassle, it’s time consuming, and I have found that doesn’t ever seem to decrease the amount of spam or junk email that is sent my way. So, instead of getting rid of email all together – which would pretty much leave me incommunicado with the rest of the world – I take the unwanted along with the essential email.

Jesus did not set out telling parables to give us a better grasp on landscape management or to provide us with sound email maintenance practices; rather, Jesus is telling us how the kingdom of heaven operates in our world, but not only that Jesus is telling us how we are called to live in the kingdom of heaven right now in our world.

Chapter 13 of the Gospel of Matthew is at the beginning of what is usually called Jesus Third Teaching Discourse. In chapter five we have the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus teaches concepts like “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” This is where Jesus starts reaching out to and making connections with people. In chapter 10 there is the Mission Discourse where Jesus begins describing the work involved in being a part of the community of disciples. Here Jesus teaches the people to go and proclaim the good news. Having drawn people into community and then having sent them out to share the good news of this community with others, Jesus in chapter 13 now explains to the faithful how the kingdom of heaven that they have been living in and sharing with others really works.

Jesus seems to know that as the disciples went out, they met with frustration, they were challenged by what they saw and experienced, and they were perplexed by this kingdom of heaven they had been sent to proclaim. As the disciples moved outside of their community of faith they found that even though they carried with them Good News, the good news was not always warmly received. The disciples discovered that injustice and indifference, that pain and suffering, that inequality and anguish still existed in the world into which they had been sent. So, if they came home perplexed by the kingdom of heaven, it’s understandable. I imagine that more that a few of those followers who went out into the world came back to their teacher with a white bucket in one hand and an improvised weeding tool in the other hand and said, “Jesus, we gotta do a little weeding. We’ve gotta rid the world of evil! We have to eradicate the institutions that oppose us! We’ve gotta uproot and destroy our enemies!” Jesus responds by telling the parable of the weeds.

After the last “Amen” this morning when the last chord of our last praise song has faded out into the hallways, we will get up from here and go out into the world just like those first disciples. There we will meet with incredible injustices. As we go out to our homes and our places of work – and if we are honest even as we walk the hallways of this congregation – we will be challenged by what we see, and we will confronted by perplexing experiences, abrasive people, and so-called enemies that just don’t seem to fit within the kingdom of heaven. I imagine that more than a few of us will be ready to take up our tools and do a little weeding in our world.

But Jesus’ advice to us who are tempted to get out our flathead screwdrivers or other more elaborate weeding tools is, “listen to the parable of the weeds.” We live in weedy world where our roots are intertwined to the point that we cannot pull one weed without uprooting the good wheat also. When we do undertake a little weeding project of our own, we end up creating nothing more than a series of dirt-filled craters and indentations void of grass, barren spots in the world. We cause more harm than good.

Why not do a little bit of weeding? Maybe Jesus knew that in the end we are not very good at picking weeds. This is the same Jesus who has taught the disciples not to remove a speck from your neighbor’s eye when you have a log lodged in you own eye. Jesus taught, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Jesus teaches us to turn the other cheek. Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

While shopping at a health food store years after my last weeding campaign, I grabbed a bag of prepackaged salad greens and as I read the ingredient list to see what exactly was in that bag, I was shocked to read that that mix included dandelion leaves. After a little bit of investigation I was surprised to learn that dandelion, my front yard nemesis, is one of the most nutritious plants in existence. There isn’t a part of the dandelion that can’t be eaten. This knew knowledge set me off on a new quest for dandelions – not one of uproot and destroy, but a mission of harvest and nurture. After a little bit of study and getting to know the dandelion I tried eating the flower heads boiled and fried. I munched the stalks like it was celery, added the leaves to my salads, and after this nutritious, so-called weed had dispersed its white fluffy seeds, I pulled out the root and roasted it like a potato.

Maybe Jesus commands us to refrain from weeding because he knows that our vision is far from perfect when distinguishing the weeds from the wheat. I thought of all those sweet-tasting and nutrient giving leaves that I had piled into that white, plastic bucket as a kid: all that food that I had uprooted and thrown away in the name of having a beautiful – if not less nutritious – lawn.
The Good News is this: even when we look out across our lawns or across the world and it appears that it is all infected and infested with weeds – noxious people, undesirable beliefs, offensive opinions, and unjust acts – the kingdom of God is still present, growing among the weeds. We live in a weedy world where our roots are intertwined: weeds and wheat growing together.

The Good News is this: Jesus does not call us to take up our weeding tools and fill our white plastic buckets with those we think are our enemies. Christ calls us to live and grow among the weeds – side by side – until God brings God’s purposes to completion. Yes, there will be times when it will be difficult and it will be a struggle because we know that weeds can choke us out. But Jesus asks us to listen and grow.

Study notes for February Sermons

Study notes for the February 11, 2007 sermon titled "The Fruitful Quarter" and available below the sermon text or by clicking here.

Study notes for the February 4, 2007 sermon title "Glimpses of Glory: The Importance of Parables" are available here.

Enjoy and feel free to leave comments and ask questions. --Josh

The Fruitful Quarter

Date: February 11, 2007
Christian Year: Sixth Sunday After Epiphany
Title: The Fruitful Quarter: Handling Difficulties and Disappointments
Scripture: Matthew 13:1-9; 18-23

When I was younger, my granddad purchased for each of us grandkids shares of stock in a Fortune 500 company. I think it was his way of teaching us grandkids about the importance of investing and saving money. So, he purchased for me a couple of shares in Johnson & Johnson, and when I turned 21 my granddad transferred control of that stock account over to me. I became a proud shareholder in Johnson & Johnson which was a little troubling to me because the only thing I knew about this company was that they made baby shampoo. Since I wasn’t a baby nor did I have enough hair to justify buying vast quantities of shampoo, I figured this company was destined for failure, but because this was a gift from my granddad, I held onto those stocks.

That first year after I became an official player on Wall Street, I sat down to do my taxes just like most of us are preparing to do and my fears about the inadequacies of Johnson & Johnson seemed to be justified. I began to open each of those envelopes with the black stamp on the outside that read “Important Tax Documents Enclosed.” When I opened the envelope from Johnson & Johnson, I was horrified. As I read that statement I came to the slow realization that those few shares of stock had steadily lost value over the previous year. All that my granddad had invested in my name and what little contributions I had been able to make were now actually worth less than when I started!

And I panicked! I picked up the phone and called my granddad.

“Granddad!” I shouted when he picked up the phone. “Should I sell my stock? Its value is going down!”

There was a long pause followed by soft laughing. Finally, my granddad said, “Josh, you have to look at the long term. If you had invested during the depths of the Great Depression,” he said, “and held on to that stock until today the dividends would be beyond what you could imagine.”

That was sound advice, but not exactly what I wanted to hear. Because from the second I became an official stockholder, I expected instant success and immediate value in my stock portfolio. If you have ever wanted instant success in the stock market, in your job, in your relationships, then you know what it was like to be a disciple in the early Christian church. By the time we get to the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew the disciples are looking around and they see that Jesus’ teachings are not taking root like they expected them to; they have not yet seen the desired result; God’s presence in Jesus Christ is not affecting others the way that it has transformed the disciples. And Jesus tells them, “That’s because the kingdom of heaven is like a sower planting the fields.”

In all likelihood the Gospel of Matthew was finally written down[1] around the year 90 C.E.[2] maybe 50 or 60 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection[3]. For all of the accounts of Jesus preaching to large crowds, this gospel was probably written to between 20 and 200 Jewish-Christians[4] living in the city[5] Antioch of Syria[6] in the very southwestern corner of modern-day Turkey.

Those first followers of Jesus Christ look around and just like Jesus’ disciples in chapter 13 they ask, “Where are the crowds!?! Where are the hordes of faithful followers!?! Where did Jesus go wrong? Why are there so few of us? Why is it so difficult for the gospel teachings to grow in us and others?

Jesus’ disciples wondered this; the early church wondered this, and we still ask the same questions today: why don’t more people wholeheartedly embraced Christ’s teachings? For some of us we might ask, “Why aren’t more people in church?” Others of us ask, “Why in a Christian community and a nation where most people claim to be Christian is there still so much poverty and hunger.” How ever we phrase the question what we are really asking is why haven’t Christ’s teaching been more successful in truly changing lives? Why isn’t there instant success and immediate value?

In college one of my best friends, Chris, started dating Jennifer, who turned out to be his future fiancé. During the first year of their relationship as Chris’ birthday approached Jennifer wanted to get him something really extra-special as a birthday gift. So, she spent weeks listening closely to the music that Chris liked, and after awhile she decided to purchase a rare collection of early recording from his favorite hip-hop rap group The Beastie Boys. Jennifer wrapped up the gift and presented it to Chris on his birthday.

A few weeks later I was over at Chris’ house, and I started looking through his music collection when I found this five-CD set of old-school Beastie Boys recording sitting on his shelf unopened I said to Chris, “Why haven’t you opened this and listened to it?”

Chris said, “Well, I like the band, but in their early days they played a different style of music; they were more punk rock than rap.”

“So!” I said.

Chris said, “So, I’m not sure that I will like these particular albums, so I never bothered to open them.”

Chris in essence lost that gift that Jennifer had so painstakingly prepared for him. Jesus tells his disciples that those who harden their hearts like a path pounded through an otherwise fertile field likewise lose the gift and thwart the growth of God’s Kingdom. On the front of the bulletin this morning are the words “Changing Lives for Christ.” For the gift to be received and for the seed to grow we are asked to leave some things behind; we are asked to take up new behaviors; we are asked to enter into a new community; we’re asked to dance to a little different style of music than we are used to. And when we don’t, we are like hardened paths where seeds have no opportunity for growth.

While some seed is snatched away before it ever has a chance to sprout, there are times when some growth is possible. If you watched the ice and the snow that we have had recently melt – because it did finally melt. You may have noticed that there were certain places where it seemed to melt more rapidly. It seemed like places of fast-thawing were around tree stumps or around dark-colored tree limbs, or around stones that were just under the surface. This is because those stones or other objects would trap or conduct the sun’s energy and heat up faster and then that heat would melt the surrounding snow and ice even quicker.

When we plant a garden if there is a stone or rock just under the surface the same thing can happen. That patch of ground above it heats up faster, so the seeds that have been scattered over that ground sprout up quicker and begin to grow. But when the heat and the harsh days of summer arrive, that plant withers because its roots are not deep enough to penetrate the rocky soil and get the water below.

The Gospel of Matthew tells us that very early on Jesus’ disciples and followers experienced conflict.[7] We hear that disciples suffered physical and verbal harassment. Some were brought to the synagogues and flogged for their beliefs. Others had to go before kings and governors to give an account of their religion. Still others found that their new way of life led to division within their own households. Without deep roots in the face of these difficulties they withered. They turned from their beliefs and opt for the path of least resistance willing to adopt the majority position and forget that minority position known as Christianity.

Of course today most Christians, in this country at least, don’t face this type of persecution. But like the first disciples we do face certain pressures and risks that can thwart our spiritual growth. For most of us these stumbling blocks are probably nothing more than having to weather critical questions from friends, family or co-workers: “Do you really believe all that?” or “How can you believe that?” Sometimes I find myself reluctant to express my faith because I am afraid that doing so will lump me in with political or social viewpoints that I don’t necessarily support. We all face stumbling blocks, pressures, and risks of some sort: places where our faith has grown up but in the face of difficulty cannot be sustained because we haven’t deliberately worked on rooting our faith deeply enough. Then, we wither like plants with shallow roots among rocky soil.

Even when we have good, deep roots growth is not necessarily assured. In a January 9th article the USA Today published the results of a poll asking people 18- to 25-years old to select from a list their most important goals in life.[8] In that survey 81 percent of those responding said that getting rich is one of their top two goals in life. Thirty percent ranked helping others in need as a top goal while only 10 percent responded that growing spiritually was an important goal in life. Jesus’ parable of the sower certainly has something to say to our society today.

Being rich in and of itself is not the problem; there were certainly some financially prosperous individuals among Jesus first followers.[9] In a community, and a nation and a world of poverty, disciples are called to trust God’s graciousness and to distribute resources so that all have adequate provisions for life. But Jesus says that the seed that grows up among the thorns is like the person who allows the “worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth (to) choke it.” A misplaced, misguided focus on obtaining wealth and pursuing materialism and making these things the goal of life is more than being scratched or poked by a few pesky thorns; it is akin to being choked, fatally attacked.

As Jesus tells the parable of the sower the picture just keeps getting bleaker and bleaker. If someone came to us and said, “I have this great investment opportunity where 75 percent of everything you invest is absolutely, positively guaranteed to fail!” We’d run the other way laughing. But this is just the type of investment Jesus describes in this morning’s parable. A quarter of the seed falls along the hardened path; a quarter falls in the shallow, rocky soil; anther quarter falls amid the money-hungry thorns. This is the kind of investment that God makes, so where is the Good News in that?

Anyone who has ever planted a garden or watched a neighbor plant a garden knows that rarely if ever do you simply throw seed on top of the soil and hope for the best. Rather, weeks and months before the seed ever hits the ground we start tilling the soil, pulling out stones, adding mulch, putting in fertilizer so that the seeds have good soil in which to grow. Whatever type of soil we have in our hearts, we still have the opportunity to prepare it through Disciple classes, Bible study, Sunday School, fellowship times, and mission projects. The Good News is God enables to till and fertilize the soil of our hearts, minds, and bodies.

But this is the even better news. The beautiful part of this parable is that God continues sowing even though God knows three quarters of the seed will fail. Whether we are beaten down, whether we are rooted shallowly, whether we have wandered astray, God continues to sow knowing that someday one of those seeds will fall in good soil. In Jesus’ time the average yield was about 9-fold; for ever one bushel of seed planted a 1st century farmer could expect to harvest about nine bushels of crops. But Christ tells us that when that when the seed finds the good soil, the yield from that one fruitful quarter will be 30-, 60-, 100-fold far offsetting the three-quarters that have yielded nothing.

Somewhere around the turn of the millennium my stupidity and my impatience finally caught up to me. I owed a former landlord money from a sublease deal that had gone bad, and the quickest, easiest way I could see out of that predicament was to sell some of my shares in Johnsons & Johnson – to take what had been graciously given to me and sell it off. I cashed in about three-quarters of my stock – it fell like seed onto hardened, rocky, thorn-ridden ground – amounting to relatively nothing compared with what could have been. A couple years later Johnson & Johnson – whose stock I had decided was inadequate and destine for failure – announced a stock split, and the few shares that I still owned doubled and grew in value just like that one seed that by some miracle managed to fall in a speck of fertile soil. May we be the good soil, and may we nourish in our lives that one fruitful quarter which God has sown. Amen.

Endnotes:
[1] Jack Dean Kingsbury, Matthew as Story (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1988), 159. Kingsbury notes that an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry would not need to rely on Markan material.
[2] Kingsbury, Matthew as Story, 148. Harrington, Gospel of Matthew, 8.
[3] Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, 12, 16-17. Following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by Roman imperial armies Judaism responded with apocalyptic movements, early rabbinic movements, and Jewish-Christian movements such as Matthew’s community. Carter, Matthew and the Margins, 33. Pharisaic Judaism which was centered on synagogue worship emerged as the dominant form of Judaism at this time. Kingsbury, Matthew as Story, 154, places Matthew’s community outside of Judaism; however, Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, 16-17, states Matthew’s community was one of many movements that claimed to represent authentic Judaism, and while the Jewish-Christian community was outside of the rabbinic movement, it was still within the framework of Judaism.
[4] Kingsbury, Matthew as Story, 148-51. Kingsbury notes that while the intended audience probably included people with Jewish and gentile backgrounds, Matthew presumes a knowledge of Judaism, used Jewish language, presents Jesus in Jewish terms, contains a geographic emphasis on Galilee and Israel, respects Mosaic Law, and lacks explanation of traditional Jewish practices. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, 8. Harrington adds to that an interest in Hebrew scriptures and “fulfillment quotations.”
[5] Kingsbury, Matthew as Story, 148. He notes that use of Greek points toward an audience in a city.
[6] Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, 9. Harrington notes that Syria of Antioch would have been one of several cities large enough to include large Jewish and non-Jewish populations. Carter, Matthew and the Margins, 15-16, 37. Carter notes that the earliest evidence links Matthew with Antioch and Syria is specifically mentioned in 4.24. Carter also cites the strong presence of the Roman Empire in Antioch which contrasts with Matthew’s depiction of God’s empire.
[7] Carter, Matthew and the Margins, 33. The community may have experienced a recent and bitter conflict with some parts of the nearby Jewish community. Senior, Matthew, 30. This “wrenching separation between Matthew’s Jewish-Christian community and the rest of Judaism” contributes to the sustained criticism of the Jewish leaders. Kingsbury, Matthew as Story, 155-56. Persecution characterized the relationship between Matthew’s community and contemporary Judaism which made the community subject to physical and verbal abuse (5.11) aimed at expulsion from the synagogues and even death(10.17, 23; 23:34).
[8] Jayson, Sharon, “Gen Y’s goal? Wealth and Fame,” available at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-09-gen-y-cover_x.htm. Accessed 10-Feb-2007.
[9] Kingsbury, Matthew as Story, 152-53. Kingsbury cites textual evidence such as the larger denominations of money mentioned in Matthew that points to the riches of the community. Carter, Matthew and the Margins, 25-27. Carter cites analysis of names mentioned in Matthew as pointing to a community that represents a cross section of society. The gospel may have been trying to sensitize the privileged audience to mission among the marginalized.

Study notes for "The Fruitful Quarter"

Here are a few study notes for Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23. Please feel free to leave comments.

1. What might "seed" and "harvest" represent? Read Jeremiah 31:27-28, Ezekiel 36:9, Hosea 2:21-23, and Matthew 9:37-38.

How does that impact the message of the parable of the sower?

2. What type of harassment, persecution, and trouble might early Christian communities have faced according to the Gospel of Matthew? Read Matthew 5:10-12, 10:17-22, and 24:9, 21, and 29?

What type of troubles do you face in your daily faith journey? How do you address these troubles?

3. What are the "worries of this life" mentioned in Matthew 13:22? Read Matthew 6:25-34. What sort of worries do you have in your daily life? How do you address them?

4. A recent survey found that 81 percent of people 18- to 25-years old rank being rich as one of the two top goals in life. Do you think that being rich is a worthy life goal?

How would you rank the following five life goals?
-- To get rich
-- To be famous
-- To help people who need help
-- To be a leader in the community
-- To become more spiritual

5. In Jesus parable of the sower we learn that 3/4 of the seeds fail to reach full maturity, but the 1/4 that sprouts, puts down roots, and grows strong is so fruitful that it more than compensates for the 3/4 that did not grow. How do we measure fruitfulness? Number of people in attendance? Conversions? The number of activities we are involved in? Spiritual depth? Personal transformation? Societal transformation? Health? Healing? Professions of faith?

Are there other or better ways to measure fruitfulness?

I look forward to sharing your responses to these questions as well as any other questions/issues on your mind.

Blessing!

Josh Langille-Hoppe

Study Notes for "Glimpses of Glory: The Importance of Parables"

Here are some notes for further study on Matthew 13:10-17, 34-35. Feel free to discuss any questions or insights you have by posting a response here. May God bless your reading and study.

Read Matthew 13:11. From what or whom does understanding come? Compare this with Matthew 11:25-30. How does this impact your understanding of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge? Do you agree or disagree with this viewpoint?

Read Matthew 13:12 and Proverbs 9:7-9. What similarities do you notice? We might call this "the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer." How do you interpret these passages? What might be the purpose of giving those who have spiritual knowledge/riches even more?

Read Matthew 4:15-16, Matthew 24:14, and Matthew 28:19-20. Why does God give to the few? How does this impact your view of the knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and expereince you have? What will you do with it?

Read Mathew 13:13-17 and its Old Testament reference in Isaiah 6:9-10. Why do you think Jesus spoke in parables instead of just using plain, straight forward, easy to understand language? For both Jesus and the prophet Isaiah before, do you think that they were intentionally cryptic? What kept the people from understanding?

When we think of parables, we often think of Jesus. Read 2 Samuel 12:1-7, Judges 9:7-20, and Ezekiel 17:22-24. Do you consider these passages to be parables? Why or why not?

In what way can we use parables to convey our understanding of the Christian faith to others?