Proper 15, Year A

What is God’s Spirit Saying to the Church?

Readings: Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Jesus leaves the house and goes down to sit beside the sea. What a natural thing for him to be doing! It is something all of us like to do now and then, especially during the summer months. We leave everything behind, head out into nature and sit quietly at the lakeside. In Jesus case, more is going on than we have been told. He has faced some difficulties in his hometown. People think he is out of his mind. Even his disciples don’t always understand him.

Then the crowds gather. Jesus leaves his solitude, slips into a boat and addresses them from the shore. He tells a parable, a story to which people in this agrarian society can relate. As the story unfolds, they can picture it. They can picture themselves walking through the unploughed field, scattering the good grain they have kept from the last harvest. There is lots of seed. They simply scatter it. They know that some will land on the hardened soil that forms into paths through the fields. It may be lost. The wild thorns that grow up after the ploughing will choke some of the seed. There are stones just under the soil. You can never tell just where they are, out of sight until the field is ploughed. The seed that lands there will surely be wasted. Some seed even gets scattered to the very edge of the field. Birds scoop up some of the grain. But there is plenty of seed. You can afford to lose some. And some of it will produce even in the poorest soil. As he tells them about the sower they understand what is going on. They get it. That is, until he tells them about the bounty of the harvest.

They cannot even imagine producing that kind of a yield. With even a small harvest a farmer is able to put aside enough seed for the following year. What if the harvest was thirty times what was sown? “With that kind of yield,” they are thinking. “I could pay off my debt, put in irrigation ditches and erect a new barn. With sixty times what was sown I would be the richest person in the area. And if it were ninety percent, I would be able to export grain to other countries. I would own it all,” the dream continues.

Jesus simply ends the story there. “Let anyone with ears listen!” he says. They are all ears. Jesus is speaking to them.

But what is he really saying? What does he expect them to make of the story? The parable contrasts seed that never grows and bears fruit with seed that is fruitful. And yet somehow the fruitful seed makes up for the waste that has been involved. We might hear it as a story contrasting faith and unbelief. God’s realm will flourish with or without our help.
Matthew had ears to hear. He interpreted the story for us. He made it a parable about different degrees of faith. It is a very different interpretation, a pep talk to the early Christians. Some were excited by the faith initially, but did not understand. They were unable to receive the message. Some, no doubt, did not put down roots. They lasted for a time, but when troubles arose, persecution, suffering they lost faith. They may even have seen it as proof that there is no God. Some were lured away by worldly possessions. It was more important for them to get ahead in life. Or maybe they simply became too busy to deal with spiritual matters. They put other things first. “But” Matthew points out, “there were enough of those who were fruitful” in good works. Hearing was matched by understanding. They responded to God’s call and were open to God’s leading. They bore fruit.

And what about our own ears? Do we have ears to hear what God’s Spirit is saying to us today? What is the Spirit saying to the Church? What is the Spirit saying to the world? How are we to hear this parable, here in the 21st century in Port Hope? Do we get it? It isn't enough to hear. We have to understand. And even understanding is not enough. At its earliest level, the parable on Jesus’ lips may have been saying that despite all the setbacks they were facing, God had other ideas. God’s realm would come with all of its surprises. The rewards, the outcome, would be beyond imagination. To the uninformed that would have seemed stupid, just as ridiculous as scattering seed willy-nilly seems to us. Who could have imagined that a motely crew of fishermen, tax collectors and sinners could spawn a worldwide religion that would exist two thousand years later? It is absurd, isn’t it? It is Paul’s folly of the cross!

It is easy to look at the Church and see its shortcomings and failures, its lack of relevance. But perhaps that is our failure to recognize what the Church is. It is not our building, beautiful though it might be. We are the Church. That is why we need to meet Sunday after Sunday. How can we be renewed and go out into the world and be the Church if we are not sustained and nurtured by our faith? Are we in our lives and in our work in the world, bringing God's love to a world that needs to hear it? Are we committed to the faith? Are we sowing the seed lavishly? Or have we just given up. We look at the world and its problems. We look at our dwindling numbers and aging congregations and throw our hands into the air.

We need to remember that God has not given up. Faith is empty without action on our part. Church isn't about a building. It also isn't about insightful preachers having wonderful messages to share Sunday by Sunday. It is about the commitment of the Christian community. It is easy to listen to the parable of the sower and gloat about how responsive we are to God, to see ourselves as good seed landing on good soil. Many good churchgoing people are unresponsive to God's call. We have all sorts of excuses for our lack of faith. It isn't our fault. It is the way we were brought up. It is because of what happened to me in my childhood. It is God's fault for treating me this way.

We choose our own paths. The good news is that God is there to give us guidance and support. The church is there to nurture us on the way. But it requires action on our part. We who are privileged to hear need to respond. We don't need to find excuses. We just need to do what God calls us to do.
If we would believe the parable of the sower, although God does not seem to be at work in the world, although God does not seem to be in control, nevertheless, God's realm is coming. In its coming it will make up for all the failures and disappointments which have gone on before. We are assured of abundant success despite failure. We are privileged – we Christians – to be bearers of God's truth in the world. We bear a message of great hope. "Let anyone with ears listen!"