I.Theme – How we carry out our work in the world
"The Sower" – Van Gogh, 1888
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
Old Testament – Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm – Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14 Page 672 or 673, BCP
Epistle –Romans 8:1-11
Gospel – Matthew 13:1-9,18-23
This week the emphasis is how we play our stories in the world.
The New Testament readings provide guidance on reacting to Jesus ministry and work with our own. It is empowered by the spirit to be about the spirit. We must be careful to seek that world – the world according to the spirit and not the flesh
Those whose lives are motivated and powered by earthly goals and passions, no matter how "good" they may be, are in opposition to God. Those who offer the Gospel to the world often seem to squander so much of their time and resources with little chance of a return but we can be assured that Jesus has invested in each one of us as his disciples. We become life giving to each other as God has been to us.
Perhaps here the sower is anyone who tells the good news. Growth represents receptivity. It could be you or me. It could be God. It could be Jesus. The sower scatters his seed generously and seems to waste so much of it on ground that holds little promise of a rich harvest. Those who offer the Gospel to the world often seem to squander so much of their time and resources with little chance of a return but we can be assured that Jesus has invested in each one of us as his disciples. He too seemingly squandered his time with all sorts of people, outcasts of all hues and yet the harvest has already been a good one. Surely a great encouragement for us all!
For Paul if we promote God’s teaching and goals as agents of God then we are acting according the spirit. If we look selfishly to our own then we are not.
Are we brave enough to step out of our comfort zones? Do we hold on rather too tightly to our resources, making sure we have something in reserve for the proverbial rainy day or should we imitate the sower in our own generosity?
The sower seems to lead to the idea that disciples are not always the chosen. It seems that these will often be the most unlikely candidates; the people that the world does not rate, the goats rather than the sheep, the tax collectors and the prostitutes rather than the respectable. These are the ones that will go ahead of the religious leaders of the day into heaven! And what of the disciples? Is there hope for them too? Time and again they are found wanting in understanding, in faith and in courage but the encouraging thing for all of us is that Jesus doesn’t give up on them. In fact, he continues to invest in them, even to the point of entrusting the future of his mission to them. The disciples will bring others to Christ
It may take time for results to appear as Isaiah seems to say. It’s the environment that causes the sowers crop to eventually turn into bread as Isaiah says. God will make the peoples’ religious lives fruitful, as he has done for their land.
God’s presence is shown as powerful, gracious, and life-giving in the Psalm. The dangerous features of nature are pacified, and the rest of nature comes to life with joyful exuberance. God’s presence is shown as powerful, gracious, and life-giving in the psalm. The dangerous features of nature are pacified, and the rest of nature comes to life with joyful exuberance. As with the sower’s seeds, results don’t happen over night and patience is a must. As Walter Bouzard writes about the Psalm, “The motion of the psalm from quiet, expectant waiting to a summons for the creation itself to join the choir of praise suggests that the journey from expectation to exaltation is just that — a journey. Many of us, perhaps most of us, find ourselves somewhere in the middle of the journey.”
II. Summary
Old Testament – Isaiah 55:10-13
The prophecies collected in Isaiah, chapters 40-55, are known as the Book of Consolation (also called Second Isaiahr). Written while exiles were returning from Babylon to Judah, the chapters are meant to comfort dispirited people. The trauma of the Babylonian Exile they had lived through was too much to bear. After seeing their beloved city destroyed; families torn apart; houses demolished; their country lost, it was not surprising that members of the prophet’s audience were not so sure anymore whether they still believed in the God of their ancestors.
The job description of the prophet contains among other less than coveted tasks the ability to speak a life-giving word of hope when all the events seem to point to the contrary. There are promises of fertile land and restoration, water for the thirsty, secure defense against enemies, and more.
In Isaiah 55:10-13 one sees the prophet performing this task particularly well when in but a few short verses, the prophet is able to conjure up a world where the impossible seems possible again. Ever since chapter 40, the prophet has been seeking to provide his fellow exiles with much-needed perspective, helping the survivors to look at their broken world with new eyes.
Today’s passage ( a single 70 word sentence!) promises spiritual fertility. Yahweh’s word is certain and powerful. Like rain and snow that water the earth so that seeds may sprout and grow, causing nourishing food to grow that sustains the body, God’s word will accomplish its purpose to return the exiles back to their homes in peace.
The metaphor of rain and snow would have been particularly effective for people accustomed to arid conditions. The prophet’s audience would most likely have understood the vital importance of rain and snow to transform dry land into conditions able to sustain the vegetation necessary for human survival. Rain and snow ensured food for the next year as well as the seed that would secure subsequent crops (verse 10). Within such conditions, precipitation indeed meant the difference between life and death, thus serving as an apt description of the ability of God’s word to have a transformative effect on the lives of the exiles.
We might say it implies that God will make the peoples’ religious lives fruitful, as he has done for their land . Their return shall be an everlasting memorial to the power of Yahweh’s word.
So sure is the prophet of what he is saying that he all but bursts out in song. Immediately following the statement about the efficacy of God’s word, the prophet employs imaginative words that conjure up a world where the mountains and the hills break out in song and the trees of the fields clap their hands in accompaniment.
Within this exuberant display of joy with all of creation joining in song, the return of the exiles is imaged in terms of a festive procession. The term "to go out" in verse 12 is reminiscent of the paradigmatic account of the Exodus of God’s people (Exodus 14-15). ). This original exodus account became a way of talking about freedom from bondage and despair–freedom from settling for less than what God intended creation to be
The prophet’s words envision a world where the thorn trees and briers that throughout Isaiah were used as a symbol of judgment now will be transformed into luscious green myrtles and cypresses. This radical transformation serves as a powerful symbol for the new life that lies ahead for the exiles after the devastation brought about by the Babylonian exile. The promise of God’s restoration, healing, and peace also impacts the trees of the field; the mountains and the hills that now joyously can sing about the powers of chaos that have been defeated.
The ultimate intention of the prophetic word is that the exiles must take the first steps home by breaking with the empire and by joining the alternative world imagined by the prophet.
Psalm – Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14 Page 672 or 673, BCP
Psalm 65 expresses remains at the heart of our relationship with God. Its poet describes God, God’s works and their benefits to us. What’s more, it’s as if the poet has the kind of intimate relationship with the Lord for which we long. He writes Psalm 65 as if he were somehow standing in God’s living room, talking directly to God about God.
Psalm 65 thus depicts a world alive with the bounty and glory of God. While many scholars believe that its original use was for thanksgiving celebrations at harvest time, its possible applications today are many.
It begins with praise to God in Zion (verse 1), a setting which continues through verse 4. Even here the topics of praise are varied, including prayer being answered (verse 2), sins being forgiven (verse 3), and the blessedness of dwelling with God (verse 4).
Verse 5 turns briefly to God’s mighty acts of deliverance but then quickly moves to "the ends of the earth" and "the farthest seas." This global setting stays in view through verse 8, asserting God’s might with references to the mountains (verse 6), the seas and the "tumult of peoples" (verse 7), and the farthest points east and west (verse 8). God’s presence is shown as powerful, gracious, and life-giving in the psalm. The dangerous features of nature are pacified, and the rest of nature comes to life with joyful exuberance.
Verses 9-13 maintain the focus on the earth, but the emphasis moves from God’s might to God’s bounty in the harvest, which is described in lavishly descriptive language. This lavishness might well be said to be the unifying force throughout the psalm. Verses 9-10 celebrate the gift of water, which provides people with grain, shapes the earth, and causes life to grow
The descriptions of the earth are almost mythical sounding throughout. This mythical quality, combined with the exclusively beneficent description of God’s dealings with humankind that pervade the psalm, gives the attentive reader or hearer an overwhelming sense of the life-giving presence of God.
Verses 12-13 close the psalm with a series of further personifications: The pastures, hills, meadows, and valleys all clothe themselves with appropriate bounty, and they all "shout and sing together for joy."
This psalm is connected thematically to the water words of Isaiah. Water appears in both texts as instrumental in producing a rich harvest. Indeed, to understand the intent of the psalmist we need to go back to verse 8, which is not a part of our response to the word this morning: “Who quiets the roar of the seas, the roar of their waves and the tumult of nations.” Here the psalmist reminds us of a recurring theme in the Ancient Near East – the power of the gods over the chaos of the primordial waters. The first creation account shares in this understanding as God divides the land from the waters. Now the waters are free to have some other use and facility. The psalmist sees a fecund and fruitful earth watered with the once-threatening waters. Now all is life and praise.
Epistle – Romans 8:1-11
Paul continues his argument from last Sunday, as he contrasts both Law and Spirit. Paul wants his readers to tie the notion of failure and condemnation with the Law, and then wishes to compare that with the life in the Spirit, that God offers through Jesus Christ. The law cannot be fulfilled "in the flesh," in fact the flesh is weakened by the law. Other agents are used in his arguments: flesh and spirit, death and life. The resurrection of Jesus is a model of what happens in the Christian’s life – a new man or a new woman is raised in Christ’s Spirit.
Paul’s recurring theme is that of justification by faith. We are free citizens of the kingdom.
Paul has written of the inner conflict which arises within the believer.
For Paul the body is neither good nor bad, the real issue is what we do with it. Those whose lives are motivated and powered by earthly goals and passions, no matter how "good" they may be, are in opposition to God. Death is the consequence. When we act selfishly caring only of our own pleasure and not thinking of how what we do affects others, then the body is being used sinfully. Conversely if we use our physical attributes, our body, to promote the purposes of God, it is good.
One wills to follow God’s ways, but somehow one does otherwise. Something within one causes one not to follow through from “mind” (v. 6) to action. One’s body, one’s “flesh”, seems naturally inclined to do evil. Paul has thanked God for rescuing us from this state: for we who are incorporated “in Christ Jesus” (v. 1) there are no dire consequences (“condemnation”) of our mistakes. Why? Because God’s “Spirit” (v. 2), in the new way of being, has freed us from the finality of physical death. God has overcome our inclination to sin by lovingly “sending his own Son” (v. 3): he who suffered the effects of human sin in order to do away with it through rising again, thus enabling us to attain oneness with God (v. 4). One result of the death of Jesus was the fulfilment of the law in and for those "who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (v 4) Walk is a term for how people live their lives. God wants us to walk the walk, not just talk the talk
The positive walk is one according to the Spirit, the life of integrity.
In verses 5-8 flesh and Spirit are contrasted again. It’s all about focus. When people focus on the Spirit the outcome is sure to be one that pleases God; ‘ life and peace’ (verse 6).There are two mindsets (vv. 5-6): one self-oriented and the other Spirit-oriented, one leading to the finality of “death”, and one to spiritual “life”. Self-orientation is inherently in opposition to God (v. 7). To live according to the flesh is to live within the field of force of an alien power, a power that denies the realm of the Spirit altogether. It is to live as if material reality were the only dimension of existence. But Christians are motivated by the Spirit (dwells”, v. 9), belong to God. “Spirit” and “Christ” come together. To live according the Spirit is, by contrast, to live within the sphere of influence of God’s empowering presence. It is God luring us toward the good in every moment of our lives, listening to God’s persuasive influence in every decision we have to make.
Vv. 10-11 say: if Christ (or the Spirit) is in you, though you may be a corpse because of all the wrong you have done, you are actually very much alive – because of the Spirit. If God’s Spirit is in you, God will resuscitate your bodies (from being corpses) through the Spirit, in raising you to new life at the end of time.
Gospel – Matthew 13:1-9,18-23
Chapter 13 as a whole comprises the third of Matthew’s five great teaching discourses. It is devoted to parables that are thematically focused on the Rule of Heaven.
The parable of the sower explores the mystery of the mixed responses to Jesus and his ministry. It was mixed then and it is still mixed. Parables helped people get to the essence of the gospels.
Although Jesus is found teaching from a boat in the Sea of Galilee since his crowd is large his teaching uses farming images, the sowing of the seed in differing types of soil. He tells several parables; he explains the first one (vv. 18-23), but only partially. People were familiar with Palestinian farming; sometimes seeding preceded ploughing. The “sower” (v. 3) and the seed are constant; where it lands varies: in three unfruitful places (“on the path”, v. 4, among rocks, v. 5, “among thorns”, v. 7) and in one fruitful place (v. 8). V. 9 tells us (and the crowd) that this is a story with a deeper meaning.
There are examples throughout Matthew’s Gospel of each kind of response to the Gospel.
1. The religious leaders of the day “hear the word” but consistently fail to understand.
2. Even the crowd who listen avidly to Jesus teachings and respond so well to his miracles will turn against him at the time of his crucifixion. Maybe they never really understood any of it!
And the rich young man who finds that he cannot part with all his worldly goods is a great example of how we can be seduced by the things of the world so that our ability to bear fruit can be choked out!
3. Even the disciples themselves are found wanting when trouble comes along.
The seeds treated negatively in the Parable of the Sower could include members of the growing church, and the parable and explanation serve as a warning to Christians and encouragement to hold fast to their commitment to the word. Even those who once received it with joy can fall away in the face of trouble, persecution, worldly cares, and “the lure of wealth.”
In our time we can see the reaction of people to the Gospel– those who dismiss religion with hearts that are calouse, those who expect instant results (shallow hearts) and those who are plain too busy and crowded . These hearts are neither calloused nor shallow. In fact, there is some real depth to them. Lots of stuff grows here. But in the end, it’s too much. The seed of the gospel comes in and sprouts just fine but faces stiff competition for light and warmth and nutrients. Because just over there the plants of commerce and business are growing. Concerns about the 401k fund, the Roth IRA, the kids’ college funds, and the growth of their stock market portfolio absorb a lot of nutrients from the soil of the heart
So what about the good soil? Who are the ones who will hear and understand and ultimately bear fruit? It seems that these will often be the most unlikely candidates; the people that the world does not rate, the goats rather than the sheep, the tax collectors and the prostitutes rather than the respectable. These are the ones that will go ahead of the religious leaders of the day into heaven! And what of the disciples? Is there hope for them too? Time and again they are found wanting in understanding, in faith and in courage but the encouraging thing for all of us is that Jesus doesn’t give up on them. In fact, he continues to invest in them, even to the point of entrusting the future of his mission to them. The disciples will bring others to Christ
In our time, you have to assume that the hearts whose soil is deep, wide, and unencumbered with other things is a field cleared by the Holy Spirit himself. Only the power of Almighty God could overcome the obstacles thrown up by this world: the obstacles of cynicism and despair, of media hype and incessant novelty, of sheer busyness and greed.
What about the main character in the story, who is the sower? People naturally thought of the sower as God and the various soils as the people of the world; knowing the prophecy of the fate of Jeroboam’s household in 1 Kings, they probably linked “birds” (v. 4) with evil. The sower scatters his seed carelessly, recklessly, seemingly wasting much of the seed on ground that holds little promise for a fruitful harvest. He will not give up on us but will keep working on whatever is hardened, rocky, or thorny within and among us.
Perhaps here the sower is anyone who tells the good news. Growth represents receptivity. It could be you or me. It could be God. It could be Jesus. The sower scatters his seed generously and seems to waste so much of it on ground that holds little promise of a rich harvest. Those who offer the Gospel to the world often seem to squander so much of their time and resources with little chance of a return but we can be assured that Jesus has invested in each one of us as his disciples. He too seemingly squandered his time with all sorts of people, outcasts of all hues and yet the harvest has already been a good one. Surely a great encouragement for us all!
We might consider the implications of this parable for how we engage in mission. Too often we play it safe, sowing the word only where we are confident it will be well received, and only where those who receive it are likely to become contributing members of our congregations. In the name of stewardship, we hold tightly to our resources, wanting to make sure that nothing is wasted. We stifle creativity and energy for mission, resisting new ideas for fear they might not work — as though mistakes or failure were to be avoided at all costs. He gives us freedom to take risks for the sake of the gospel. He endorses extravagant generosity in sowing the word, even in perilous places. Though we may wonder about the wisdom or efficiency of his methods, Jesus promises that the end result will be a bumper crop
More important is the last sentence of the gospel, where the yield of some of the seed is a hundredfold, or sixtyfold, or at least thirtyfold. These were astonishing figures when our Lord spoke them, for in those days a yield of sevenfold was considered a bumper crop. The meaning is that the believer who "hears the word and understands it" enjoys and shares a yield of grace incomprehensibly rich, beyond anything the believer could account for on his or her own merits.
III. Articles for this week in WorkingPreacher:
Old Testament – Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm – Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14 Page 672 or 673, BCP
Epistle – Romans 8:1-11
Gospel – Matthew 13:1-9,18-23