A Sermon preached on July 13 at St.
Augustine’s Church, Wiesbaden
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost:
Isaiah 55:10-13, Romans 8:1-11, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, Psalm 65:9-14
I’m afraid that St. Paul
will have to fend for himself this week as I am going to focus on the Gospel
message, as well as on the two Old Testament passages that complement it. We
have been given lots of agricultural and agrarian images about sowing, about
growth, and about harvesting. The Psalm identifies God as the source of life,
of the water that makes the ground fertile to grow food for humans and their
animals. Isaiah picks up this image for God’s word. Rain and snow soak the
earth so that seed can grow and be made into bread. God’s word also soaks into us
to bring forth divine fruits. And in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus uses the parable of
the sower and of the very different ways in which the seed sown takes root to explain
and warn about how differently the word of the kingdom is received.
This should not
surprise us. Old Testament Israel was a mainly agrarian society and at this
point in Matthew’s account, Jesus is out in the countryside, well away from any
large towns or cities, so his audience is rural and his message tailored to
them. The problem of course, is that we are not a rural audience. Even when
Jesus so helpfully explains the parable, can we fully understand the images if
we are not farmers, especially not 1st century AD farmers? Just to
give you one example. In Jesus’ day the seed was sown by hand. So while most of
it would land on the field, some would fall on the path next to the field, some
in the shallow soil at the edge of the field, and some in the hedgerows. And
the seed on the field was unevenly distributed, which would explain the
different yields – though not the abnormal tripling that Jesus describes, “some
a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” That has more to do with the
explanation of the parable and with the divine abundance that only God can
provide.
But today no seed would
be wasted. Mechanical seed drills ensure that each seed is planted only in the
right soil, at the right depth, and the right distance from each other. Modern practice
is good for the farmer, but bad for the parable. I don’t think the seed that went
outside the field was wasted. It stands for God’s generosity, for God’s interest
in all people. God’s Word is not just for some pre-defined ‘in-group,’ but for
everyone, even if the chances of it taking root are weaker with people who have
not been prepared.
What would be a more common
contemporary context than farming? Well, when I re-read this parable while preparing
this sermon, I was struck by how much Jesus’ explanation reminded me of modern
communications theories and models. If you work for a big corporation as long
as I did, you end up going to a lot of seminars and training sessions: Learning
presentation, management, manipulation, sorry I meant motivation, and communication
techniques. Though I sometimes had the feeling that communication techniques
were those most immediately forgotten when people returned to their place of
work! One set of models[1]
focuses on the mechanics of communication: looking at the different roles of the
transmitter and the receiver, at how communication can be disturbed by “noise,”
by misunderstandings, and by different perceptions. One helpful “poem” I learnt
is meant to remind us of the possible pitfalls and that communication is not a
single event:
Gedacht ist nicht gesagt
Gesagt ist nicht gehoert
Gehoert ist nicht verstanden
Verstanden ist nicht gewollt
Gewollt ist nicht gekonnt
Gekonnt ist nicht getan.
Or
in English: thinking is not saying, saying is not hearing, hearing is not
understanding, understanding is not willing, willing is not able, able is not
doing. That’s why asking for and giving feedback in the course of a
conversation is so important. It tells us where our message is, which stage it has
reached, and whether the message has in some way been disturbed or corrupted.
In
the parable one message, the word of the kingdom was transmitted, but very
differently received. As Jesus explains, the seed that landed on the path did
not get past the first stage. It was heard but not understood. The seed that
was sown on the rocky ground was heard and received with joy, so it must have
been understood and the person was willing – but when the going got tough, they
were not able to act on the word they had received. While in the case of the seeds
sown among thorns, the word was heard and understood, but the will was missing,
also because the communication process had been disturbed by too many other
seemingly more attractive messages and ideas, “the cares of the world and the
lure of wealth. These attractions and sometimes even addictions can numb our
ability to hear God’s message and to be affected by it. So only in the case of
what was sown on the good soil was the whole process of communication, from
thinking to doing, successful.
As
far as God’s word is concerned we have two roles, we are both transmitter and
receiver. As transmitters of the Good News, or evangelists to use the more
traditional phase, we all have a responsibility for communicating the Word
of God, even if the ultimate success of the process is something we can safely
leave in God’s hands: “It shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in
the thing for which I sent it” God says in Isaiah (55:11). And while to our
human eyes our efforts may sometimes seem futile and fruitless, Jesus tells us
that God’s harvest will be beyond all asking and conceiving.
But
first we have to sow, we have to make sure we are actually saying and not just thinking.
I love St. Francis, but the saying attributed to him, “Preach the gospel, and
if necessary, use words” has been abused. People need not only to see what we
do, but also understand why we do it! To give you a simple example: It’s not
enough to think that we would like a friend or acquaintance to come with us to
church and to hope that just by telling them
that we go to church and how inspiring and enriching and nourishing it is,
especially the sermons, that they will decide to come along. No, we need to say
it and ask them!
As
transmitters we also have the responsibility of tailoring the message to the
person so it can be understood. The word may not take root immediately, it may
take time and so we also have a duty to be patient and to tend the relationship.
As
receivers of the message we also have an obligation. According to one translation
of verse 3 in today’s Gospel “He had much to say to them, and he said it all in
parables.”[2]
Jesus chose parables as a means of communication because they make us think,
they make us reflect on what the story means for us and for our lives, and
because he wanted his audience to participate. We are not just passive receivers
of the word. We must also prepare ourselves, in Jesus’ metaphor to be good
soil, well plowed and fertile. We do this by regular spiritual practices: Reading
and paying careful attention to Holy Scripture, participating in corporate worship
and the Sacraments, and through private prayer. This will ensure that the word
takes root and produces fruit.
Finally
we need to give God feedback. Look at Isaiah again. God says that just as water
returns to the skies, so too “the word that goes out from my mouth shall not
return to me empty.” (55:11) The first
type of feedback that we give is to show that the seed has taken root and bears
fruit, that the word of kingdom has been heard, understood, willed, and acted
on. We show this when we make the kingdom values such as love, selflessness, and
generosity part of our lives. The other element of feedback is joy. Look at how
the whole world reacts to God’s word in Isaiah and in the Psalm: Mountains
burst into song, trees clap their hands, and valleys shout for joy and sing. What
other reaction can there be to God’s Word, to God’s love and to the promise of a
kingdom overflowing with divine fullness and abundance than joy and praise?
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment