Matthew 13:1-9; 18-23 13 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! 18 Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23 But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty. 1
07.13.2014 The Constant Gardner Summer is the season of fresh fruit. In Korea, and especially in our house, that means 참외 (Korean melon) [SLIDE]. Boxes and boxes of 참외. To be honest, I m not a big fan of 참외. I don t think they have much taste, but Sandy really likes them. Watermelon or 수박 is another popular summer fruit, both here and in America. If you ve been watching a lot of the World Cup, as I have, you ve no doubt seen the commercial featuring the singing watermelons. As many times as I ve seen that commercial, I m still not sure what it s advertising. 참외 and watermelon aside, my favorite fruit has always been raspberries ( 나무딸기 ) [SLIDE]. Fresh raspberries are hard to come by, and they re expensive. But I was lucky. In the back yard of the house where I grew up we had a raspberry bush. Nobody planted it. It just grew wild. It was there when my family moved into the house, and we were the first people to live on that property. Before my family moved in, the area around what would become our house had been woods. Fortunately, in clearing the woods to make room for our house, the developer left the raspberry bush intact. Raspberries weren t the only fruit that grew naturally in our yard. We also had a plum tree and an apple tree. Unfortunately, the fruit from those trees wasn t any good. I don t think either tree was that healthy. The plums were small and bitter and the apples were sour and mostly rotten. One of my summer chores was gathering and disposing of all the rotten apples that fell from the tree. Yet, for whatever reason, the raspberry bush was healthy. Every summer it yielded an abundance of sweet, juicy raspberries. My mother would gather them by the bucketful. The bush yielded so much fruit that my mother would make gift bowls for some of the neighbors. And the raspberries from that bush were not like those 2
sold in stores. I ve had raspberries from the supermarket; they are a pale comparison to the fresh variety. The raspberries sold in supermarkets are just bland, and they are overpriced. One of the reasons raspberries are so expensive is that their season for blooming is short just two weeks in early summer and another week or so at the end of summer. The raspberry bush in our yard knew instinctively when it was time to bloom. Right around the Fourth of July the bush would spring to life. It would yield its fruit for about two weeks. Actually, right now mid July is peak raspberry season. I wish I could go back to my old home and pick some. But I don t think whoever lives there now would appreciate me stealing their raspberries. Speaking of returning home, earlier this week I looked up my childhood home on Google Earth. Google Earth is an app that allows you to see an overhead and street view of nearly any address on Earth. I was actually able to zoom in and see the back yard. My father cut down the plum tree years ago, so I knew that wouldn t be there. And I saw that the apple tree was no longer there either. But you know what? Just a few meters away from the back porch, up against the neighbor s fence, I saw a patch of green. The raspberry bush was still there. No doubt it is still bearing fruit all these years since my family moved out of the house. I don t know what made the raspberry bush thrive while the plum and apple trees could not. Maybe those particular trees came from bad seeds. Maybe the soil where they grew was not appropriate for them. Maybe those first raspberry seeds that eventually became our raspberry bush were fortunate to have fallen upon good soil. Perhaps the soil itself is what made all the difference and allowed the raspberry bush to yield so much fruit. No doubt you already see in which direction this sermon is heading. Seeds and soil form the basis of the parable that Jesus tells the crowd in today s passage. Matthew sets the stage for the parable by first telling us that it was [t]hat same day (Mt. 13:1) 3
[SLIDE]. That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea (13:1). Which begs the question, The same day as what? In the previous chapter Jesus spends quite a bit of time defending himself from the verbal attacks of the scribes and Pharisees. He also dishes it out pretty well. He calls them a brood of vipers. These are strong words. We may not fully appreciate their power. But remember this: the scribes and Pharisees were the priests and pastors of their day. Imagine Jesus today calling a group of pastors a brood of vipers. We would be shocked to hear such words used to address good, religious leaders. And for all their knowledge of the scriptures, the scribes and Pharisees don t really understand them. If they did, Jesus tells them, they would know that the scriptures are more concerned with mercy than sacrifice. That is, correctly understood, the scriptures reveal God s grace and mercy toward sinful human beings. The proper response to this generosity is for us to show grace and mercy toward one another. But what the scribes and Pharisees do is to misuse the law to justify themselves, to show themselves to be righteous. So on the same day that Jesus had argued with the Pharisees he leaves the house where he and the disciples were staying and sits by the sea. Soon a crowd gathers. Maybe they re waiting for him to perform another miracle. Or maybe they just want to hear him speak. He begins his teaching by first telling the crowd, which includes the disciples, Listen! [SLIDE]. Listen. Stop talking about things that are unimportant. Stop arguing. Stop worrying about all the things you have to do. Stop checking your mobile phone for Facebook or Kakao updates. (I don t think Jesus meant that last one, but the principle certainly applies to our time.) Put all that aside for now and just do one simple thing listen. The parable Jesus tells them is a simple one. A farmer spreads seeds of grain indiscriminately on the ground. He is not concerned with creating neat rows of crops, but throws the seed generously, even wastefully. I say wastefully because most of 4
the seed lands on infertile soil. Some lands on a walking path where birds come and quickly eat it. Some falls on rocky ground with no depth of soil for the roots to embed themselves. Some falls among thorns, which choke the seeds before they have a chance to mature. All this good seed gone to waste! What is the sower thinking being so wasteful? Shouldn t he concentrate the seed in the areas where it is most likely to grow, i.e., on the good soil? Some of the seed does manage to find its way on to good soil. The ground is soft and deep and free of thorns. The conditions are ripe for the seed to sprout, take root, and bloom, which it does. It produces grain of varying amounts of abundance. And just in case those in the crowd have forgotten what Jesus told them at the outset, i.e., Listen, he ends the parable by reminding them, Let anyone with ears listen (13:9). Perhaps then, as now, people had a hard time listening. Clearly the scribes and the Pharisees did. For although they had read the scriptures, and although they had heard Jesus preach about the kingdom of God, in their self-righteous actions and in their anger toward him they showed that they weren t really listening. Because they weren t listening they did not understand the things of God. They were too rooted in themselves to receive the message of the kingdom of God as good news. To make sure that the disciples were listening and that they understood him, Jesus interprets the parable for them. The parable concerns that favorite topic of Jesus the kingdom of God [SLIDE]. By kingdom of God Jesus doesn t mean heaven. He is not talking about a future event, a place we go after this life has ended. No, Jesus is talking about something immediate something here and now. Although it concerns the here and now, the kingdom of God is not like an earthly kingdom. The kingdom of God is not about power, at least not the power over his subjects that an earthly king possesses. The kingdom of God is actually an overturning of the present order. In the kingdom of God the last are first and the first 5
are last. In the kingdom of God the meek are blessed and inherit the earth. In the kingdom of God are found sinners and prostitutes while the good religious people are excluded. The kingdom of God is populated with the poor while the rich go away empty handed. It s not hard to imagine why some people would not welcome the message about the kingdom of God. To anyone who benefits from present injustices, the kingdom of God is not good news. It s a threat. Now we can begin to see why those with religious or political power were so concerned about this kingdom that Jesus was always going on about. It represented a threat to their power. The world today reacts in much the same way to the message of the kingdom of God. And I don t mean only those who wield power. Even if we don t have religious or political or social power, we all maintain a degree of personal power. What I m referring to is the power that we have over the way we live our lives the numerous decisions that we make each day regarding whose priorities will come first those of Christ or our own. Will I choose to love that person who irritates me or will I write them off as a pain in the neck to be ignored? Will I be willing to listen to what others have to say or will I need to have the first and the last word? Will I be slow to anger or will I need to give the world a piece of my mind? Will I be able to disagree with someone and still see them as a brother or sister in Christ, or will I consider them an enemy? Will I hear of another s good fortune and celebrate or will I silently brood with envy? Will I be grateful for all the blessings God has given me, or will I focus solely on what I do not have? Will I welcome the newcomer to church or the workplace or will I leave that for others to do? 6
Will I support my prayer with action, or will I justify my laziness by saying it s up to God? These are just a few of the many decisions we make each day, often without even thinking about them or without even realizing that we are making a decision. They seem small, I know. I chose them deliberately because they seem small not that big a deal. On the sin scale we might consider them less severe than murder or adultery or stealing sins that cause physical, emotional, or material harm to another person. But let s recognize them for what they are they are decisions for or against the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is a place for the humble, for those who wish to serve, for those who are willing to die to their own self interest at least when it comes to placing themselves first. That s not a place that we like to go. That s not a place that is easy for us to get to. The kingdom of the self is a much more natural home. For us it s more familiar ground [SLIDE]. And do you know what the ground is like in the kingdom of the self? The soil is hard, rocky, and filled with thorns. The conditions are not good for the message of the kingdom of God to take root. The soil needs to be worked. It needs to be tilled, the rocks need to be removed, and the thorns need to be pulled. What the soil needs is a good gardener to prepare it so that the message of the kingdom can be firmly planted. I hope you see what I m doing, or trying to do, at least. What I m trying to do here is interpret this passage in a way that doesn t justify our complacency, meaning our self-satisfaction. It s easy to read this passage as suggesting that Christians are the good soil and everyone else meaning those who have heard the message but have not responded are the solid pathway, or the rocky ground, or the soil beset with thorns. We then pat ourselves on the back that we are not like those who have rejected the word. Aren t we good? 7
Yes, we have received the message of the kingdom of God as good news. The kingdom of God has taken root in our hearts. But that is only because, before we were even aware, God was already at work preparing our hearts to receive the message of the kingdom [SLIDE]. As a gardener, God had a lot of work to do to ready our hearts to receive the kingdom. The soil was hard, rocky, and filled with thorns. But through the grace of God we were made ready. Nor is that is the end of God s work. There is still much to be done. The Holy Spirit does not sow the seed of the kingdom of God and then move on as if it had better things to do. No, the Spirit labors in the soil of our hearts, tilling the soil, turning it over so that it can breathe, and watering it. God is continually gardening so that we may bear much fruit. A good gardener doesn t just throw seeds on the ground and wait for them to grow. Seeds need care. If you search the Web for gardening tips you will find hundreds, if not thousands of suggestions. And the suggestions will vary by the type of seed planted. Every type of seed is different. Some need more water or less sunlight. Some seeds need more room to grow, others less. Some seeds need to be planted at a particular time of year. So it is with each of us. Our needs may differ some of us need more of one thing, less of another but the Spirit works in each of us, in the soil of our heart. And God is a good gardener. Just as a good gardener knows exactly what her seeds need, so God knows exactly what we need to flourish. Moreover, God also works for our own benefit, so that we might produce good fruit for the kingdom. When the Holy Spirit nurtures the seed of the kingdom in our hearts, the fruit that is produced is always sweet, always delicious, always in season. This is the fruit of the Spirit that Paul writes about in Galatians: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). 8
There is a food shortage in the world right now. The world doesn t lack for wheat or rice or potatoes or any other food staple. We have more than enough food to feed the planet. What we lack is fruit the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are all in short supply. But there is good news. The Holy Spirit is at work in each of our hearts, working the soil there. The Spirit is nurturing the life of the kingdom of God in our hearts. The roots are becoming firmly embedded. Branches are stretching out. Leaves are sprouting. The Spirit is preparing us to bear fruit. The time is ripe. So let us go out into the world and be fruitful, sharing the fruit of the Spirit with a starving world. 9