So, last Sunday morning I woke at 5 am wondering where my shoes were. I could have worn my tennis shoes with my suit and robe, I guess, but I think it would have drawn more attention than it deserved. Luckily, my sleepy wife knew exactly where they were.
The past week has been a constant series of “where is my ...” sort of conversations. Alongside the “where are we going to put ...” questions. Not to mention the “why did we keep all of these” complaints. Moving is an adventure in the best sense of the word, and a messy business in the worst. Or maybe that should be the other way around. I’m not sure. I just look around me and see the rubble of too much stuff, and the disorganization of not knowing what would be needed where. We’d love to invite you over, but we don’t want you to see the mess.
You know how that is, don’t you? “You should have told me you were coming,” we’ll say to a surprise guest, “I could have cleared a path!” We try to make light of it, but deep down we are bothered by the debris of our lives. We wish that everything, every bit of stuff, every emotion, every thought, every mistake or good deed had a place. We’d like things on the shelf, put away, tucked out of sight, so that we can present our lives as an ordered whole. This is me, we could declare. A place for everything and everything in its place.
At least we dream about that. And on some levels we can accomplish it. But life for most of us is a messy business. Which is why we resonate with and are disturbed by our parable for this week. It is a familiar one. And a favorite of some. An easy one, some think. Straightforward. And yet there is something niggling at the back of our minds and souls about it. At least in mine, anyway. Take a look:
Matthew 13:1-9 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 Let anyone with ears listen!"
Ah, the parable of the sower. Or the parable of the seeds. Or the soils. Hmmm, what is this thing about anyway? It is one of the few parables that includes an explanation. A few verses later (after this interlude where Jesus says “I tell parables just to confuse people.” Huh? That’s for another day) Jesus says “Hear then the parable of the sower,” and then he proceeds to explain it.
Except if you look at it (verses 18-23) he doesn’t really explain. He just describes. And he calls it the parable of the sower but then never mentions the sower. So, I think he just messing with us, like he was messing with the disciples who begged an explanation from him. He didn’t tell everybody what it meant, just the few who stood scratching their heads and followed him like a little puppy that hopes its going to get something special if it begs long enough.
But I didn’t add in the explanation this time. I just wanted to let the parable itself speak to us before we just to interpretation. Just live in the story for a moment. Read it again and tell me what comes to mind first. I’ll wait.
Messy. That’s what comes to mind. Or it would if you were a farmer or a gardener. I know you gotta get your hands dirty if you are going to work in agriculture. But this seems beyond the pale. I know, I know, I’ve read all the back in that day reflections that talk about farming practices in the first century. But still, it seems wasteful. Doesn’t it. Just tossing seeds here and there. And three-fourths of them won’t amount to anything of value.
Surely we can do better than that. That’s what we want from our parables anyway, isn’t it? To figure out ways of being better. So, we’ve turned this one into a recovery project for bad soil. We all want to be good soil, don’t we? We’ll stop being distracted and shallow and hard hearted and then you too can produce good fruit. Right? A soil reclamation project, that’s what we need in the church.
Well, maybe. Certainly paying more attention, and trying to get deeper into our faith and opening those hearts is a good thing. So, it isn’t a bad interpretation to turn this into a “lessons for living” approach. That would be a good use of the words that here. Certainly.
Except that it seems to missing something. Something messy. Maybe this parable isn’t about being a better person in three easy steps. Maybe it isn’t about neatening up your life the parabolic way. Maybe like all of Jesus parables it is giving us a gift. It is revealing a secret. And it isn’t so much a secret about us, but a secret about God. And that secret, in this case, is that God is messy.
God doesn’t seem to care that some are hard-hearted or distracted. God isn’t bothered by those who seem to be living an inch deep. At least when it comes to sending the blessings, letting the sun rise or the rain fall. It just pours out. It is scattered willy-nilly. It is just ... there. Everywhere.
That’s the secret of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. Jesus tells a series of parables about the Kingdom of God. And the common threat is that it is just there. It is just here. Everywhere. In the least expected places. Making a mess of everything. Oh, it isn’t fully realized yet. But it is there, in potential. It is a seed ready to burst forth into some spectacular plant, flower or tree, who knows? It is yeast, ready to bubble up giving texture and flavor to the bread or cake or who knows what. It is a treasure hidden in a field, it is a pearl you gotta hunt for, it is a net hidden underwater but catching all sorts of unexpected fish. It is there, just there, waiting. For you, perhaps. Or for that guy, you know the one who makes you uncomfortable every time you are in a room with him. Or for that woman, the one who looks like she wouldn’t know what to do with it if it fell in her lap.
God’s kingdom spills out everywhere, on everyone. And it bothers us, to be honest. We’re pretty sure we could do a better job of keeping the Kingdom for those worthy. Those like us. The good soil. And let’s face it, we are good soil. It sounds like bragging, but we are. We are doing our best. We are following the rules, we are keeping our noses clean. We want to do our best to be the kind of dirt that Jesus can use. Right?
Except that at our best we couldn’t do what is needed here. We couldn’t be the good soil that Jesus describes here. Farmers at the time would say at best you could reap seven fold. Seven times what you plant. That’s pretty good farming! But Jesus says the good soil produces a hundred fold, or sixty or thirty. That is way beyond us. If this parable is really about us pulling up our big boy pants and doing our best, then we are in big trouble. But if it is about the messy business of God, then we can clap our hands with joy as the Kingdom continues to spill out all over the place.
The past week has been a constant series of “where is my ...” sort of conversations. Alongside the “where are we going to put ...” questions. Not to mention the “why did we keep all of these” complaints. Moving is an adventure in the best sense of the word, and a messy business in the worst. Or maybe that should be the other way around. I’m not sure. I just look around me and see the rubble of too much stuff, and the disorganization of not knowing what would be needed where. We’d love to invite you over, but we don’t want you to see the mess.
You know how that is, don’t you? “You should have told me you were coming,” we’ll say to a surprise guest, “I could have cleared a path!” We try to make light of it, but deep down we are bothered by the debris of our lives. We wish that everything, every bit of stuff, every emotion, every thought, every mistake or good deed had a place. We’d like things on the shelf, put away, tucked out of sight, so that we can present our lives as an ordered whole. This is me, we could declare. A place for everything and everything in its place.
At least we dream about that. And on some levels we can accomplish it. But life for most of us is a messy business. Which is why we resonate with and are disturbed by our parable for this week. It is a familiar one. And a favorite of some. An easy one, some think. Straightforward. And yet there is something niggling at the back of our minds and souls about it. At least in mine, anyway. Take a look:
Matthew 13:1-9 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 Let anyone with ears listen!"
Ah, the parable of the sower. Or the parable of the seeds. Or the soils. Hmmm, what is this thing about anyway? It is one of the few parables that includes an explanation. A few verses later (after this interlude where Jesus says “I tell parables just to confuse people.” Huh? That’s for another day) Jesus says “Hear then the parable of the sower,” and then he proceeds to explain it.
Except if you look at it (verses 18-23) he doesn’t really explain. He just describes. And he calls it the parable of the sower but then never mentions the sower. So, I think he just messing with us, like he was messing with the disciples who begged an explanation from him. He didn’t tell everybody what it meant, just the few who stood scratching their heads and followed him like a little puppy that hopes its going to get something special if it begs long enough.
But I didn’t add in the explanation this time. I just wanted to let the parable itself speak to us before we just to interpretation. Just live in the story for a moment. Read it again and tell me what comes to mind first. I’ll wait.
Messy. That’s what comes to mind. Or it would if you were a farmer or a gardener. I know you gotta get your hands dirty if you are going to work in agriculture. But this seems beyond the pale. I know, I know, I’ve read all the back in that day reflections that talk about farming practices in the first century. But still, it seems wasteful. Doesn’t it. Just tossing seeds here and there. And three-fourths of them won’t amount to anything of value.
Surely we can do better than that. That’s what we want from our parables anyway, isn’t it? To figure out ways of being better. So, we’ve turned this one into a recovery project for bad soil. We all want to be good soil, don’t we? We’ll stop being distracted and shallow and hard hearted and then you too can produce good fruit. Right? A soil reclamation project, that’s what we need in the church.
Well, maybe. Certainly paying more attention, and trying to get deeper into our faith and opening those hearts is a good thing. So, it isn’t a bad interpretation to turn this into a “lessons for living” approach. That would be a good use of the words that here. Certainly.
Except that it seems to missing something. Something messy. Maybe this parable isn’t about being a better person in three easy steps. Maybe it isn’t about neatening up your life the parabolic way. Maybe like all of Jesus parables it is giving us a gift. It is revealing a secret. And it isn’t so much a secret about us, but a secret about God. And that secret, in this case, is that God is messy.
God doesn’t seem to care that some are hard-hearted or distracted. God isn’t bothered by those who seem to be living an inch deep. At least when it comes to sending the blessings, letting the sun rise or the rain fall. It just pours out. It is scattered willy-nilly. It is just ... there. Everywhere.
That’s the secret of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. Jesus tells a series of parables about the Kingdom of God. And the common threat is that it is just there. It is just here. Everywhere. In the least expected places. Making a mess of everything. Oh, it isn’t fully realized yet. But it is there, in potential. It is a seed ready to burst forth into some spectacular plant, flower or tree, who knows? It is yeast, ready to bubble up giving texture and flavor to the bread or cake or who knows what. It is a treasure hidden in a field, it is a pearl you gotta hunt for, it is a net hidden underwater but catching all sorts of unexpected fish. It is there, just there, waiting. For you, perhaps. Or for that guy, you know the one who makes you uncomfortable every time you are in a room with him. Or for that woman, the one who looks like she wouldn’t know what to do with it if it fell in her lap.
God’s kingdom spills out everywhere, on everyone. And it bothers us, to be honest. We’re pretty sure we could do a better job of keeping the Kingdom for those worthy. Those like us. The good soil. And let’s face it, we are good soil. It sounds like bragging, but we are. We are doing our best. We are following the rules, we are keeping our noses clean. We want to do our best to be the kind of dirt that Jesus can use. Right?
Except that at our best we couldn’t do what is needed here. We couldn’t be the good soil that Jesus describes here. Farmers at the time would say at best you could reap seven fold. Seven times what you plant. That’s pretty good farming! But Jesus says the good soil produces a hundred fold, or sixty or thirty. That is way beyond us. If this parable is really about us pulling up our big boy pants and doing our best, then we are in big trouble. But if it is about the messy business of God, then we can clap our hands with joy as the Kingdom continues to spill out all over the place.
Now, back to the mess of moving.
Shalom,
Derek
No comments:
Post a Comment