Knowing Your Audience

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday July 24, 2011, the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Genesis 29:15-28

Psalm 128

Romans 8:26-39

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

I have mentioned that I use something called the Revised Common Lectionary to pick the readings we use in worship each Sunday. One of the glorious things about the lectionary is that it is used by many denominations and many congregations. If you were at another Presbyterian church today, the odds are very good that you will hear these same scriptures. It’s one of the ways the Church connects as the Body of Christ. Of course you won’t hear the same interpretation in each place, and that’s glorious too. Different sermons are a part of the glory of how God works in different places.

Matthew’s gospel takes his community into account when he uses the phrases “Kingdom of Heaven” and “Kingdom of God.” Matthew’s gospel was written for first century Jewish Christians. Because of his intended audience, Matthew’s gospel uses the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” 31 times and “Kingdom of God” just five. As for the other gospels, you won’t find “Kingdom of Heaven” in any of them. The other gospels use the phrase “Kingdom of God” 48 times.

Scholars say for the purpose of describing the kingdom, “Kingdom of Heaven” and the “Kingdom of God,” are interchangeable, but what is true to scholars was not true to Matthew’s congregation. So why use one over the other?

Something peculiar to Jews and Jewish Christians is that many will not say the word “God” lest they take the name of the Lord in vain. So Matthew’s gospel takes special care to avoid mention of God by name. Matthew’s gospel was written with such a distinct nod toward the sensitivities of Jewish Christians that over 85% of mentions of the kingdom use “Kingdom of Heaven.” As for the other gospels, this was not a concern. Matthew knew who he intended to hear this gospel and worked hard to make sure the language didn’t get in the way of the message.

Getting back to the Revised Common Lectionary, today’s reading presents a bit of a problem. Today’s reading is two different pieces from Matthew’s gospel containing five different parables about the Kingdom of Heaven. Well, surely interpreting five different parables is a big enough problem. Each of these parables could be the subject of a sermon on its own. But that’s what I want to bring to your attention today.

Today I want to focus on the parables’ audiences. Just plucking these verses out of the gospel like the editors of the lectionary did; it looks like they were addressed to a single audience. This is not so and it’s important to know who was intended to hear each of these parables because of what they mean to their intended audience.

The first two parables, the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, were intended for the crowds that were listening to Jesus. A different audience, Christ’s disciples alone, received the parables of buried treasure, the pearl of great price, and the net cast into the sea. These are two completely different and specific audiences who were meant to learn specific lessons about the Kingdom of Heaven from their specific parables.

The lessons of the mustard seed and the yeast are odd at worst, scandalous in their most glorious.

Let’s start with the fact that the parable of the mustard seed is loaded with factual errors! To start, mustard, while it’s a teeny-tiny seed, wasn’t the smallest known seed. Orchids were grown and harvested in this time and their seeds were then and are still now smaller than the mustard seed.

Saying that the mustard plant becomes a tree isn’t accurate either. It produces a great shrub, up to ten feet tall, but it isn’t a tree in any sense of the word. A mustard plant is an annual plant, not a perennial like a tree. When mustard goes dormant at the end of the growing cycle, it’s the end, not so for trees.

Where a large shrub is like a tree is that it can provide food and shelter for the most unexpected of visitors. You wouldn’t necessarily expect a shrub to protect life, but Jesus points out that this one does.

So what was Jesus doing with this parable? Jesus was saying that great things come from humble beginnings. Jesus was making a point of contrast, from a tiny seed comes something large enough to provide food and protection. Something extravagantly large comes from something infinitely minuscule. From the smallest seed, from the smallest action, from the briefest nod, the world can be changed.

There’s an old saying, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world; because it’s the only thing that ever has.”

The lesson of the leaven has its own scandalous elements.

Let’s begin with the yeast itself. The Jews would have been shocked by the kingdom being like anything with yeast. Since the days of the Passover, bread with leaven was unholy. With the celebration of the Passover meal, the Seder, a liturgy is followed. During the celebration, someone will ask if all of the leaven is out of the house. To this day, Jews will keep one piece of leavened bread in the house so that there is something to throw out. To this audience, yeast is not holy, not at all. Yet Jesus says that the kingdom is like yeast worked into the flour.

The next bit that would have shocked the listeners was the woman. Only men worked in the temple, what could a woman do that would be useful to the kingdom of heaven? She was the one who hid the yeast in the flour.

The amount of flour was also shocking. We read three measures. In amounts that mean something to us, that comes to seventy pounds. In volume, that would come up to ten gallons. Once the yeast began doing its job, the mass and volume of the dough will increase far beyond what it was before the woman and the yeast did their work. That amount of dough would be able to make bread for between 100 and 150 people.

The parable of the leaven has three things no one would have ever expected, the yeast, the woman, and the amount; the impure, the unorthodox, and the overflowing. Jesus was making the point that the Kingdom of Heaven will not be what we expect. All that we can imagine the Kingdom to be is merely a poor reflection of what we find.[1]

Along with the parable of the wheat and the weeds we heard last week, these are the messages that were intended for the people outside of our Lord’s inner circle. God is sovereign. The kingdom is extravagant. The kingdom provides protection to all who seek its shelter. The kingdom is unorthodox; God will not be contained by our expectations. The kingdom is ever expanding.

It is also important to note that all of these parables deal with God’s actions in creation. It is only God who can grow a plant from a seed. It is only God who can make yeast do what yeast does. This becomes more important when talking about the next two parables where the focus moves from the contrast of small beginnings and cosmic impact to personal encounter with the Kingdom.

Where the parables of the mustard seed and leaven are made up of several elements conveying different facets of the parable, the parables of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great value are to be taken as wholes. In these parables, the Kingdom of Heaven is like the entire story of the treasure and the entire story of the pearl of great value.

As for the parable of the treasure and the pearl of great value, they tell the disciples the same thing, the Kingdom is present, it’s glorious, and its price is dear. To have it you must be willing to give everything. Both of the treasure and the pearl parables say this. Like Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams, the parable is repeated differently to emphasize its truth.

For as much as their object is the same, the human subject is different. Both the ploughman digging the earth and the merchant buying pearls are doing their regular day jobs. They’re taking care of business, and this is where their similarity ends. The man who found the treasure wasn’t looking for it. Maybe he has plowed this same field for years without finding the treasure, but in the wink of an eye the treasure finds him more than he finds it. When he sees it, he knows its value and knows what he has to do to have it.

As for the merchant, his business is pearls. He is looking for great and wonderful pearls. Then he finds one that is far beyond what he could ever hope or imagine. Like the ploughman he knows the value of his find. He also knows what he has to do to have it.

Jesus is reminding the disciples that the kingdom is their business, a business that requires their all.

As for the final parable, the parable of the great catch of fish, this one is similar to the parable of the wheat and the weeds showing that in the end of the age there will be a separation of the good and the bad. Like in that parable, the difference between good and bad is made by God and carried out by the angels.

When these lessons are shared, Jesus asks if they have understood all these things. Jesus asked if they understood that they would have to give everything. He asked if they knew the creation would be judged, and them along with it to which they say “Yes.” Jesus then told them that every teacher who has been instructed about the kingdom is like the owner of a house who brings out his treasure, the old and the new.

This means that those who teach need to know about the ancient covenants and the new covenant in Jesus Christ. Today we would say they need to know their Old and New Testaments.

So why did Jesus have different messages for the crowds and the disciples? Jesus answers this very question from the disciples in verses 11 and 13 of this chapter: “He answered, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.’ The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’” As this was true when Jesus said it, so it is true today.

Earlier I said Matthew knew who he intended to hear this gospel and worked hard to make sure the language didn’t get in the way of the message. Jesus knew his audience and so did Matthew. As this was true it Matthew’s time, so it is true today.

Here in worship the interpretation of scripture is presented differently than it is in Sunday School. In Sunday School you would explain the parables differently to younger children than you would older children than you would teens. You would explain scripture to life-long Christians differently than you would to new Christians. Each of these folks is at different stages of intellectual, social, and spiritual development, so using the same illustrations for each of these groups is ineffective.

You also interpret the word differently to church members and the Session because Session members have different roles in the body of Christ; their role involves the responsibility of ruling. Not all are called to the same role in the church, so the word and the lessons should be presented as differently today as they were between the crowds and the disciples then.

Still the word is the word.

A professor in Austin once asked his Introduction to Preaching class “If the sermon were an arrow and the target represented the gospel, where should we aim?” He said to aim at the center, aim at the heart of the gospel. I later told him that I didn’t like his “target” analogy. I said that with different listeners being at different places in development to aim at the dead center would miss many.

I suggested turning the target on its side, shooting through every layer until reaching the heart of the gospel. Yes, it’s a more difficult shot in archery and preaching, but when done right it reaches all people. I believe this to be part of my call, being able to share the gospel with anyone I meet. It means that I have to be sensitive to them, and sensitive to what they are ready to hear and do with what they hear.

[And if I am failing to make this connection with you, please tell me or, if it makes you more comfortable, a member of the Session so they can tell me. Session members can tell me your concerns without telling me your name.]

In different ways, this is important for all of us. We have to know our Lord and our audience. Whether we sit on the Session, teach a Sunday School class, or listen to a friend who needs a shoulder to lean on; we need to be ready to share the gospel in a way others are able to hear. This way we can share the gospel making sure language doesn’t get in the way. This is the word of the Lord.

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[1] The following paragraph was cut for time consideration: In Austin, the evangelism professor had us read a text that laid out the kingdom of heaven from the perspective of a suburban megachurch pastor. I told that professor that I thought this author’s vision of the Kingdom of Heaven looked like Central Market, the Texas based gourmet mega-grocery store. I told him I thought it would look more like Fiesta, the huge Hispanic grocery store with a bank, salon, taqueria, and groceries a gringo like me wouldn’t know how to prepare on a bet. I believe this pastor imagined the kingdom like the American suburban dream. I think it will be more than I can know or imagine.

Them

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday July 17, 2011, the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Genesis 28:10-19a

Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24

Romans 8:12-25

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

John Calvin, the theologian whose ideas about God and the church form the root of Presbyterianism, was a lawyer in Geneva. It would go to figure that the theology developed by a lawyer would have a constitution. This month, on Calvin’s 501^st birthday, after approval at the last General Assembly and by more than half of the Presbyteries, the denomination began using a new Form of Government. What you may not know is that the  Book of Order’s Form of Government is not the most important of the church’s ruling documents. That honor belongs to scripture of course. As for the constitution, it’s subordinate to scripture and the Form of Government beginning its second part.

The first part of the constitution is the Book of Confessions. The confessions are historic documents written to help the church understand the scripture, the church, and their place in the world at the time they were written. They were written to help the church interpret scripture. While they were written for a specific time and place we also understand they still contain truth that is worth learning and using today.

The Book of Confessions has nine confessions; the first two are from the ancient church. These are probably the most familiar to Christians. The Apostles’ Creed, the words we say when I ask us to state what we believe, is one of the two.[1] There are four confessions that make their way to us from the Reformation. These are still important because they were the church’s responses to the great split between the Roman and Protestant churches. The third group is made up of 20^th Century confessions. These confessions tend to be more tightly focused toward specific events and challenges to the church. The last of these is called “A Brief Statement of Faith.” It was accepted by the church following the reunification of the two largest branches of the Presbyterian Church at the 1991 General Assembly.

I want to talk about one of the confessions of the Reformation for a moment, the Second Helvetic Confession. What makes this confession distinctive is not its use of what we believe, but of what we don’t believe and how we feel about people who believe differently. For example, only eight paragraphs into the confession (and considering this confession has 259 paragraphs “eight” is “only eight”) we have the declaration that “We detest all the heresies of Artemon, the Manichaeans, the Valentinians, of Cerdon, and the Marcionites,” who didn’t think about scripture the same way the author did in 1566 when this was written.[2]

Throughout the text we detest, condemn and just plain disagree with Monarchians, Novatians, Patripassians, Anthropomorphites, Manichaeans, Marcionites, Pelagians, Jovinians, Epicureans, and Stoics. Individually we detest, condemn and just plain disagree with Florinus, Blastus, Praxeas, Sabellius, Paul of Samosata, Aëtius, Macedonius, Arius, Michael Servetus and dozens of others most people never knew existed. This is before we detest, condemn, and just plain disagree with Jews, Muslims, Catholics and Anabaptists.[3]

So what’s this got to do with the wheat and the weeds?

One of the things that makes the parable of the wheat and the weeds interesting is the way it has been used and misused over the centuries. Its most common misuse is reading too much into it and drawing conclusions it was never meant to draw.

One of the misuses of this parable is to defeat evangelism. There is good seed and there is bad seed. From the good seed comes the sons of the kingdom and from the bad comes the sons of the evil one. This leads to something called double-predestination, the thought that some are destined for heaven, others for hell, and there’s nothing to be done about either. I can see how to jump to this conclusion, but it’s not the object of this parable.

Another is to look at the behaviors of the sons of the evil one and say that they can’t be changed. Some use this parable to say there is no sense trying to influence bad behavior because there is no changing fate. In the same vein, there is a certain conceit among the self-declared sons of the kingdom over the sons of the evil one. Conceit should never be part of the Church. These beliefs are two sides of the same coin and are not the object of this parable either.

Perhaps the worst use of this parable is when individuals and churches try to separate the wheat and the weeds on their own. On this subject Dan Krotz, a friend from the Ozarks who contributes to the local newspaper, a local free advertiser, and The Huffington Post, writes:

A local church is spending time and money bashing Catholics, to what end I can't say, but given everything that is going on in the world it's a bit startling to see. At its best, it reminds one of certain ego-centric tent revivals of the late nineteen fifties; at its worst it cultivates a sense of religious superiority that is done at the expense of both religion and humanity itself.[4]

The author is a light hearted man, a serious thinker, and a member of the First Christian Church of Berryville, Arkansas who believes God “frequents churches that keep tidy lawns and refuse to house Praise Bands.”

He points out how Christians separate the wheat from the weeds every Sunday, but really shouldn't. “In my own view” he writes, “a true spiritual self only emerges after often long periods of succeeding at loving the self-righteous, immoral, hypocritical wing nut who sits in an adjacent pew every Sunday for the sole purpose of depressing you.”

He isn’t beyond noting the reason we shouldn't separate wheat and weed is that the shoe is often on the other foot writing, “Frequently, you are the self-righteous, immoral, hypocritical wing nut sitting in an adjacent pew, and that is really depressing.”

So, if this isn’t what this parable is about, then what is it?

We begin answering this question with the truth that this parable is about the end times. This parable is about the harvest at the end of the age. Jesus begins the parable with the characters and their props. There is a man who sowed good seed in his field. There is an enemy who came in the dark of night and sowed weeds among the wheat. Soon there is both wheat and weeds in the field. Finally there are servants who call their master a bad farmer. (This is my snarky interpretation of the servant’s question “Didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where did the weeds come from?”)

When the servants ask if the master wants them to take care of the weeding now, he says “no, wait until the harvest because to do anything now will do more harm than good to the crop.” But when it comes time for the harvest, collect the weeds first, burn them, and then collect the wheat into sheaves and bring them into my barn.

Again, like last week, we like to know who we are in the parable. Jesus says the farmer is the Son of Man, the field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The sower of the bad seed is the devil and the weeds are the sons of the evil one. The harvest is the end of the age and the harvesters are the angels.

By the way, our word “angel” comes from the Greek word for “messenger.” So the angels carry out God’s commands; they can only do as God instructs them. They base their decision on what to do with the wheat and the weed on the command of the great farmer.

Before going on, I want to share an old joke, when asked who’s who in a parable, the best answer to the question “Who is God?” is “God.” As much as folks want to cubby-hole God into definitions that come from our own biases and even snippets of scripture; in the end, God is God and God can only be God.

In the case of the parable, we are told the one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man, a phrase Matthew uses to indicate Jesus. It is right to describe Jesus as a sower of good seed in this parable, but for the grand scheme it’s too narrow. God is God and God can only be God. Further, only God can be God.

The good news is that since only God can be God, we don’t have to be God. What this means for us in this parable is that it’s not up to us to separate the wheat from the weeds in the field or at the harvest. We don’t have to make that judgment. In fact, we aren’t qualified to make that judgment. We just don’t have the information or authority to judge who is wheat and who is weed.

We can see when life is bearing good fruit and when it isn’t, and this is important for us; but even with that we still don’t know enough to judge who will be thrown into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The Presbyterian Church has had a time recently reworking its Form of Government. It seems that people who believe one thing are constantly pitted against people who believe something else. Ever since I have been in the pew the big question has been about leadership and sexuality. Before that it was about leadership and gender; and before that it was about leadership and race; and that takes us back over 100 years.

Each time questions of this-or-that and leadership have come up over the last 100-plus years, there have been folks in the denomination on both sides of these arguments who have said that people who believe the other way are dead wrong and should be rooted up like the weeds and burned just like Matthew says.

This is the point Dan Krotz was making when he pointed out that not only do you sit next to a “self-righteous, immoral, hypocritical wing nut,” but “frequently, you are the self-righteous, immoral, hypocritical wing nut sitting in an adjacent pew.”

So since we don’t have to be God, we don’t have to judge the differences between the wheat and the weeds. None of us have the means or the authority to judge that anyone is among the weeds, so let’s not even try to make that judgment.

Judging behavior: yes. We do need to say “that’s good” or “that’s not good” for us. But as for judging eternal damnation: no. That’s up to God alone.

The church, from the days before the Second Helvetic Confession has been saying we are not “like them.” Well we need to be more than just “not them.” Being “not them” is a judgment of division. We need to be “us” and we need to be “us” with God. It is unity in Christ, not division, where strength lies.

On the subject of sexuality and leadership, my best friend from seminary and I disagree, and I don’t see anything in the near future that will make us agree. Instead of using this to divide us we have chosen to focus on what makes us “us.” We focus on what we share.

We believe that Christ is the head of the Church (this time with a capital “C”). We believe Almighty God has given the Christ all rule and authority. We believe Almighty God has given Him all power in and on earth in this age and in the age to come.[5]

We believe Christ gives the church life.[6] We believe Christ is the Church’s hope[7] and foundation.[8]

We believe in what the Scots Confession calls the Great Ends of the Church: the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.[9]

These are the kind of things that can unify all Presbyterians. These are the kind of things that can unify all Christians. These are the kind of things that can unify all people. These are the kind of things that can unify the wheat of the field.

There are many things that scripture tells us, but sometimes scripture gets taken to places it wasn’t intended to go. Sometimes scripture is used to separate us from the Novatians, the Sabellians, the Anthropomorphites, the Pelagians, the Stoics, the Jews, the Muslims, the Catholics, and the Anabaptists; and even when it’s right, that’s not what this parable is about. This parable isn’t about us judging the wheat and the weeds. It’s not about the wheat trying to change the weeds. It’s not even about stopping the bad seed from entering the field.

This parable is about the harvest at the end of the age. This parable is about the fact that there is wheat and there is weed in the world. This parable is about God being God and how when the time comes only God has the authority to separate the wheat from the weeds.

Focusing on what makes them “them?” Well, that’s not going to get any of us anywhere. In fact, it always causes problems when mere humans try to do the work that is God’s alone.

So let’s let God be God. Let’s let God send messengers at the end of the age to separate the wheat from the weeds. In the meantime, we are called to be who we are. We are a people who believe God is sovereign above all. We believe Christ gives the church life.  We believe Christ is the Church’s hope, and foundation. We believe the Great Ends of the Church make life in Christ worth living. That’s what brings us together. That’s what makes us “us.”

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[1] I preface the Apostles’ Creed by saying, “And now let us state what we believe using the words of the Apostles’ Creed.”

[2] The Second Helvetic Confession, “The Book of Confessions, Study Edition.” Louisville, KY” Geneva Press, 1996. Text citation 5.008, date information from page 85.

[3] The original text says “Mohammedans” instead of “Muslims.”

[4] Krotz, Dan, “Catholic Bashing.” Carroll County News Blogs, http://www.carrollconews.com/blogs/1250/entry/42453, retrieved July 12, 2011

[5] PC(USA) Form of Government, http://oga.pcusa.org/pdf/proposed_amendments.pdf, F-1.0201

[6] Ibid. F-1.0203

[7] Ibid. F-1.0204

[8] Ibid. F-1.0205

[9] Ibid. F-1.0304. For more information about the Great Ends of the Church see the Scots Confession, PCUSA Book of Confessions, Section 3.18.

Scattering

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday July 10, 2011, the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

I apologize for not having audio available for this sermon. Something happened while recording so the audio is not available.

Genesis 25:19-34

Psalm 119:105-112

Romans 8:1-11

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

When preaching the parables, the greatest danger is over simplifying the gospel. With our reading this morning not only are we blessed with the parable, we are also blessed with its interpretation from the mouth of the Lord himself. But if there is one thing we can say about the Lord, it’s that his words are never as simple as they first appear. Often the word of the Lord is laced with wisdom it takes a lifetime to discover.

There are several ways to look at parables. The most common way is to decipher them like a code. The parable is offered like a puzzle which is then solved.[1] It is also the easiest and most enduring way of interpreting parables.

This parable is actually built like a code. The first half of today’s reading is a word problem, and the second half is the solution.

There is nothing wrong with reading this parable like a code. But if this is all there is to the passage then we would be cheating ourselves and the One who gave it to us. It would not be a very deep or involved reading of the passage either. If this “code” was all there was to biblical interpretation we’d be singing hymns now, but there is so much more. So let’s go back over the reading and see how the parable deciphers itself:

“When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.”

This seems easy enough, what is sown is the message about the kingdom; this is the seed. The path is the heart of anyone who hears the message and does not understand. The bird is the evil one. The seed would have as much trouble penetrating and germinating on the hard and crusty path as it does being understood by someone who has become hardened, so it becomes bird food. So far so good? Let’s continue...

“The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.”

Without roots the plant cannot be nourished, it becomes scorched and withers away. All right, this is someone who hears and is excited about the word, but when they face obstacles because of the word they fall away. This is someone who starts living in the Word, but after facing abuse for the sake of the word they choose to rejoin the big bad world. Nice flowers, no roots, dust in the wind. Well, next...

“The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.”

There’s one big difference between the rocky soil and the thorny soil. It’s the difference between the soil itself and what pops up through it. It’s the difference between the world’s climate and the world’s worries and temptations.

Nothing grows in rocky soil for long. Everything on it withers and dies on a hot summer day. So where rocky soil represents the obstacles of the world, the thorny soil is like someone who has sprouted roots and is growing, but is overcome by the woe of the world or by the lure of riches and glory. And like leaves and flowers tangled in thorns, as they try to grow they are ripped and torn from the way of the word until they too fall away. Okay, finally...

“But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

In biblical times, one bushel seed could produce between seven-and-a-half and fifteen bushels at harvest.[2] Jesus tells them that compared to these harvests, the harvest of the kingdom can be between two and fourteen times greater than they could hope or imagine. Jesus tells his disciples that the word of the kingdom produces a bountiful harvest when it falls on good soil; this is the harvest of the heart that hears the word and understands it.

So much for my interpretation of the “Parable of the Sower,” I have just used around 500 words to say what Matthew did in fewer than 165; but it’s not much of an interpretation. It’s like waterskiing over the parable, fast and shallow.

In fact, there are other things worth considering this morning. Getting back to parables in general, one of the most common questions about any parable, especially when trying to decipher the code, is “who am I in this story?” To answer that, we need to review the elements of the story.

The bird is the evil one, the interpretation tells us this. Now what if the evil one is not the devil per se? There is much more evil in this world than what is directly perpetrated by “The Accuser.”[3]  Minions pop up all around us to steel the seed from the soil, the voices of those who love us and even our own voices can become accusing. One well meant but ill-tempered warning can easily become a thorn that grows as big as a spike.

What is sown, the seed, is the word of the kingdom. According to the Swiss theologian Karl Barth, the Word of the kingdom is the word written, incarnate, and proclaimed. The Word sown in the field is the word of the scripture, and the word incarnate is the life of Jesus Christ, and the proclaimed word beginning with sermons and lessons. Of course it does not come in sermons and lessons alone, our personal proclamation is the witness of our lives.

As for the sower, the Lord is the one who sows the seed that began it all by spreading the seed of creation. This is obvious in scripture. But here’s something important, we are also called to be sowers with the Lord. What the Lord begins we are called to continue. This is what Mr. Al was talking about during today’s children’s sermon.[4]

This puts us in a precarious situation, we are the sower who shares the word of the kingdom with the world and our lives are the seed. This is the sort of interpretation that challenges us to dig deep to share the word of the kingdom with all the world. Didn’t I promise you there was more to this than a simple code?

Last week was a fun week to be Presbyterian. The largest assembly of Presbyterians outside of the General Assembly was held in Indianapolis last weekend. Simply known as the “Big Tent,” this weekend featured eleven major Presbyterian conferences including the Evangelism and Church Growth Conference, the Healthy Ministry Conference, the National Elders Conference, and the World Mission Matters Conference along with a score of other smaller meetings.

At one of the events, the Reverend Jill Hudson reported one of the biggest challenges facing churches is learning how to be effective in reaching new generations. She reported that in her opinion the church has missed the boat on people born between 1964 and 1981, the people collectively known as Generation X. She said because the church focused on baby-boomers rather than the emerging generations “we already have all the Gen Xers we are likely to have in church.” She continued “What we need to learn now…are skills in reaching the generations younger than Gen Xers.”

Reverend Hudson asks “How does the church get ahead of the curve, rather than behind it? The church will need to become multicultural, high tech, high sensory and high touch, interwoven with images and music. To become such a church requires that leaders blend a love of Jesus Christ with a desire to make faith relevant to the culture.”[5]

For those who wonder what’s wrong with the images Jesus used in scripture, it is important to remember that the people who heard the Parable of the Sower were familiar with agriculture, way more familiar than most of us are. The images of the seed and the soil were something they knew intimately. They knew the relative yield numbers that I shared with you; but for the most part, we don’t.

Further, the yield today of good hybrid seed in well prepared soil is 200 grains per seed.[6] If you know modern yield numbers and not the ancient it would seem the word of the kingdom would be limiting. We know better than that, but without proper reference it could be taken the wrong way. Jesus was culturally relevant and our call is to continue that today.

Writing for the Presbyterian News Service, Jessica Reid talked about a small group of folks who turned an old bus stop shelter into a greenhouse. The banner above the headline proclaimed “Faith meets action for Big Tent young adults.”

Jordan Akin, a college student from Little Rock, AR, said. “There’s no grocery store here, so all the people around here have is unhealthy or processed food, so, this is important and I wanted to help.”

There are neighborhoods like this in Marshall too. There may be a small convenience store, but what usually goes out the door is gas, beer and cigarettes. They might have microwave food or deep fried burritos, but frankly, that’s not really food.

Akin and four other young adults were taking part in a unique trip to Urban Mountain Farms in Indianapolis. Through a combination of service and prayer, the organization is cultivating a garden to provide fresh produce for an underserved and impoverished area of the community.

The “field trip” was organized by Adrian McMullen as part of the Pathways Conference at Big Tent. The conference focused on discipleship exploration and leadership development for youth, young adults, and collegiate ministry leaders.

McMullen said “Through this work, [these young adults] are putting their faith into action physically, not just through spiritual acts. They care about eco-justice, and they care about social issues, so this program integrates the two. It meets them where they are in their faith journey.”[7]

Faith into action, it is as the book of James says, faith without works is dead.

There are dozens of other stories that can be shared about what happened at Big Tent but this is enough to say that these were just two types of seed scattered in Indianapolis by sowers from the Presbyterian Church (USA) last weekend. The seed really can’t be separated from the sower. This is the word of the kingdom of God being shared here on earth, the place where the kingdom breaks into our lives like lightning on an oak tree.

As much as we are the sower and the seed, the church is the soil. Through the Holy Spirit, the church has now and forever been ordained to bear the fruit of the word in the world. We are called to act with love and peace and compassion in a sinful and broken world. As a seed is not able to sprout in mid air, only when we are planted in the soil of church can we possibly bear fruit, but the church is not always the good soil.

The church should be the good soil, but it can also be hard and crusty like the path. It can be rocky. And it can be filled with thorns. For the church to become good soil, it must be cultivated. These days, preparing a garden takes more than simply throwing seed. The ground must be tilled and tended to be productive. A garden becomes fruitful when prudently fertilized and watered.

We participate in cultivating the soil as we celebrate the sacraments. In remembering the waters of our baptism and receiving the spiritual food of the Lord’s Supper we are prepared by God. Through this work of God, the fields are cleared of rocks and thorns.

As we just heard, summer camp is a great way to prepare the soil too.[8]

Spiritual disciplines including study, worship, prayer, fasting, stewardship, and celebrating the Sabbath are other things we do to clear the fields of rocks and thistles so that we may grow. These are some of the disciplines which help us become more fertile and fortify the soil so that we may bear fruit.

Only when our lives are good seed, only when we are a generous sower, only when the ground is properly prepared, and only when we cooperate and participate in the tilling of the soil can we accept the word and participate in the work of the kingdom. When the people of God, are firmly rooted in the good soil of the church we are nourished.

So let us work the soil and prepare it for good seed; this is one of the responsibilities of the sower. We must be receptive and responsive to the call of God in our lives. Then we will be able to take root in the word in the soil of the church, and bear the fruit of the Spirit. Then we will have an abundance of seed to scatter on the world. This is what God wants for all of us. The word is sown, the gift is freely given, the soil is here. Let us thrive in it.

---

[1] Long, Thomas G., “Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible.” Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989, page 96.

[2] Hare, Douglas R. A., “Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Matthew.” Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1993, page 152-153.

[3] “ha satan” is the Hebrew phrase for “the accuser”

[4] Today’s Children’s sermon was from Elder Al Key with the story of Johnny Appleseed.

[5] Cox-Holmes, Erin, “Is better ever enough?” http://www.pcusa.org/news/2011/7/1/better-ever-enough/, retrieved July 2, 2011

[6] “How many grains of wheat on a stalk,”http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080426145223AA6zCbE, retrieved July 6, 2011

[7] Reid, Jessica, “Faith meets action for Big Tent young adults.” http://www.pcusa.org/news/2011/7/2/faith-meets-action-big-tent-young-adults/, retrieved July 2, 2011

[8] We had just heard a Minute for Mission from the kids who went to Summer Camp at Camp Gilmont in Gilmer, Texas. Visit Gilmont at http://campgilmont.org/.

Ordinary and Extraordinary

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday July 27, 2008, the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time.

Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 128
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

In 1991, a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode named “Darmok”[1] introduced a new and different language structure to Trekkies[2] everywhere. The crew of the Enterprise meets a species of humanoids named the Tamarians. While everyone speaks English well enough to understand the words, the syntax of the Tamarian language is just so much gibberish to the crew of the Enterprise, and vice versa. Great dialogue like, “Darmok, and Jalad at Tanagra!” “Shaka, when the walls fell,” and “Darmok, and Jalad on the ocean!” stupefied our heroes.

What was just a little too dumbed-down for my taste is that it took a crew of rocket scientists over half an episode to figure out what I did as soon as the first Tamarian opened his mouth—and you figured out as soon as I said “Darmok, and Jalad at Tanagra”— these people spoke in figures of speech. Metaphors and parables are the basics of their language and culture; idioms which have absolutely no meaning to us.

So when the crew finally figures out how the Tamarians are trying to communicate, they realize that they have no idea what they are trying to say, even though they understand all of the words. This demonstrates the inherent difficulty with parable, metaphor, and allegory; without common reference, the message is lost.

Shoot, if you have any question at all about this conclusion, you don’t have to go any further than my illustration. Unless I gave you enough background information to make the connection or you know the lore of Star Trek, then I’ve just made my own point by giving you a useless illustration.

This reading from Matthew introduces us to five more images of the Kingdom of Heaven to go with last week’s. These images are given to us as parables, similes, forms of speech which open the mind in different ways. These forms of speech take ordinary words and twist them and recast them into extraordinary images.

Our reading uses five images common in the day Jesus told them to illustrate the kingdom of heaven; the so-called parables of mustard seed, leaven, treasure, pearl, and fish. All of these were a part of ordinary life when these parables were spoken. But in the hands of the almighty, they become extraordinary things.

Our reading begins with two images of the kingdom of heaven Jesus shares with the crowd. The tiny seed, the mustard seed, becomes a plant big enough to support life. A pinch of yeast is folded into three measures, that’s seventy pounds[3] to you and me, where it works until the entire batch is leavened. Commentaries say these are tales of growth, teaching stories[4] which tell us how the kingdom of Heaven will encompass all that ever has been, all that ever will be.

These are also stories of faith. These stories do not teach us what to do or how to be the people of God. These are stories of the nature of God and creation. These are stories of how the kingdom of heaven is like the natural way of life. The mustard seed is planted, and it grows. Just a bit of leaven is added to a huge amount of flour and it all rises. This doesn’t happen because of anything we do. It is a matter of the way things happen in God’s good creation.

But these parables have a strangeness in them. After all, the mustard seed wasn’t the smallest known seed. Even in Jesus’ time the orchid seed was known to be smaller than the mustard. And as an annual, one that had to be planted every growing season, it isn’t even a tree. Even stranger, the use of leavened bread in holy sacrifice was absolutely prohibited.

What we have come to accept as symbols of growth would have been dramatic puzzles in the time when they were told. A mustard seed can’t produce a tree, how can it be like the kingdom of heaven? Leavened bread cannot be holy, how can it be like the kingdom of heaven? These questions don’t occur to us because we have heard these parables over and over again for two thousand years, but in their day, they were scandalous.

These parables weren’t written to encourage the church to be all it could be. These stories were told to the people assembled at the lake shore to shake up their image of kingdom of heaven. Reminding them the growth of the kingdom of heaven is the Lord’s work, not theirs.

Still the Lord calls us to pay attention to our vocation. A farmer plants the seed. A woman kneads the dough which the leaven permeates the flour. Yes, we are called to participate in the work of the kingdom of Heaven, but the work of growth itself is the Lord’s.

Our reading then shifts to Jesus alone with his apostles. The parables of the treasure, the pearl, and the fish teach the disciples more lessons. Traditionally, these parables are decoded as human response to the kingdom of Heaven, but I am not so sure.

The apostles are told that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure found in a field, and when discovered, the finder sells everything to purchase the field. The traditional interpretation is that humanity is the finder and treasure alone is the kingdom. This is pretty straight forward. But what if, instead of just one element of the parable, the treasure, is like the kingdom; we look at the whole phrase as being like the kingdom of heaven.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” What happens when we plug into the code that God the Father is the one who finds the treasure and pays the great price to redeem it? Instead of teaching our response to the kingdom, we learn of God’s faithful actions toward the treasure of creation. We have been redeemed; we have been purchased for a great price.

Likewise, when we talk of the pearl of great price, traditional interpretation breaks this down so that it seems to reiterate the parable of the treasure in the field, noting our faithful response to the gospel. But a closer look reveals that this parable is not about the pearl, it is about the merchant.

In this parable, the kingdom is not like the pearl, “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls.” So it does reiterate the words of the prior parable, but it reiterates that we have been redeemed and purchased for a great price.

We have been paid for with the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and what greater sacrifice could be made by the Father than the life of his Son? Instead of these parables showing our faithful response to the gospel, I believe it might be showing us God’s faithful response to creation.

These parables, when interpreted as the work of God’s saving grace toward the creation, reinforce the glory of the sovereignty of God through Matthew’s parables. The kingdom of heaven is not in our hands, it is in the hands of the Almighty, the finder, the merchant. We are the created and God is God.

God is in control. And like we read last week in the parable of the wheat and the tares, the work of grace and salvation is God’s. It is our call, our vocation to respond to God’s grace through faith. It is our call to be redeemed by the Lord who came before us and purchased us with his life. It is our call live as the kingdom people of the triune God, and the reason follows in the final parable of this chapter.

The parable of the net which drags in every kind of fish reminds us of how the parable of the wheat and tares ends, with judgment and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Both of these parables show us an image of the sorting of good creation at the end of the age. Last week we read how the weeds are separated and the grain is brought into the barn. This week we read how the net scoops every fish from the sea, but when the good fish are separated from the bad, the good are put in baskets and the bad thrown out.

The only difference between this parable and the parable of the wheat and the tares is that where last week the parable was heard by the crowd, this week, the parable of the dragnet and the fish is shared with the apostles alone.

So Jesus asks the apostles, “Have you understood all this?” and they answered, “Yes.” Do they understand; can we ever really understand? No, we can’t really completely understand, not on this side of the sorting, certainly. To paraphrase Saint Augustine, when I say that I understand God, what I understand is not God.[5] God is more wonderful than we will ever know or imagine.

The Lord continues to reveal the Almighty presence in our lives everyday, from the history of God’s sovereignty found in scripture to revelation of God incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ to the continuing work of God on earth in the person of the Holy Spirit, God’s work is around us, finding us and redeeming us.

And Jesus said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

In the church universal, and Presbyterian Church in particular, there is great debate about how to interpret scripture, how to bring out the treasure if you will. One way to frame this question is how the history of the people of Israel is still valid for us today. I believe the history of Israel is still important for us today, without the Old Testament, our witness is incomplete.

As important as history is in the revelation of God, no less important is what God continues to do. Jesus teaches the scribes, those trained for the kingdom of heaven are not just called to teach history, but to teach living history too. We are called not to simply regurgitate the ancient words, but to discern the word fresh for us today. And we are called not just to speak to today; we are called to listen to yesterday.

By the end of the Star Trek episode, the Captain of the Enterprise was on the planet El-Adrel IV with the captain of the Tamarian vessel, trying to communicate while fighting against a dangerous monster. By the end of the episode, Captain Picard of the Enterprise understands the story of Darmok, and Jalad at Tanagra, and Tamarian Captain Dathon hears Picard tell a similar earth story, the epic of Gilgamesh and Enkidu at Uruk. Together the civilizations leave with a new shared history, the story of “Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel.”

Listen to the history. Listen to the words of the Old Testament as it teaches us the story of Jacob, the man the Lord renames Israel. Listen to the words of the apostle Paul as he teaches us how the Holy Spirit of God continues to intercede on our behalf. Listen to the words of the Lord as he teaches us to use not just the old but the new.

The things which are ordinary become extraordinary in service of the Lord. What makes no earthly sense to us is perfectly logical in the redeemed presence of God. What we understand, we can only understand by God’s perfect grace; accepted and exercised in our imperfect faith. This much, we understand.

[1] “Darmok,” http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Darmok_%28episode%29, retrieved July 26, 2008.
[2] Yes, yes, I know the great Trekkie/Trekker debate, I prefer Trekker but I am going with the more common Trekkie for the sake of the congregation who don’t know the difference. And it goes with Rodenberry’s take on the controversy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekkie#Trekkie_v._Trekker retrieved July 27, 2008.
[3] About 32 kilos
[4] Hare, Douglas R. A., “Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Matthew.” James L. Mays, Ed. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993, page 156.
[5] Augustine wrote, “We are talking about God. Which wonder do you think you understand? If you understand, it is not God.” I wish I could find the citation.

What Endures

Back from vacation, there will be no more summer re-runs until September when I celebrate my nephew's wedding.

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on July 20, 2008, the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Genesis 28:10-19a
Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I read this in a paper from the Reformed Church in America Commission on Theology:

“The relationship between divine freedom and God’s use of human agency is a mystery. It is wise for us to confess with conviction what God has revealed—that the only assurance of salvation revealed to us is found through explicit faith in Jesus Christ. At the same time it is also wise for us to avoid saying what we do not know—exactly how God will deal with all those who have not heard or responded to the gospel. We do know that God is both completely gracious and completely just. That is enough for us. With Abraham we confess in hope, ‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ (Gen. 18:25)”[1]

God is free to do as God will do for God’s own glory and the benefit of all creation. God’s authentic divine freedom does not point toward doing just any old thing. God is good, not malicious, and God’s use of human agency is always directed toward glory, not shame. Within the witness of scripture, the works of God are toward righteousness, not spite or malevolence. Perhaps this was the Lord’s first freedom, choosing glory above shame. But, that’s for another day.

The parable of “The Wheat and the Tares” tells the story of a man, a farmer and presumably the land owner; his seed; his servants; the fruit of his crop; his harvesters; and his enemy with seed of his own. While there are several methods of interpreting scripture’s parables, one of the most ordinary is to analyze the parable like a code. In the code, each parable element directly represents something specific.

In this case, this parable has been dissected as a code within scripture itself. Verses 36-43 tell us that the one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, the fruit of the harvest is righteous, and the reapers are angels.

The passage even goes as far to tell us that the angel/reapers will collect the causes of sin and all evil doers and they will be thrown to the fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Returning to the Reformed Church paper for just a moment, while this describes the consequences of God’s complete justice, it does not exclude God’s complete grace. In the meantime, the harvest, the righteous, the fruit of the children of the kingdom will shine like sun in the kingdom of their Holy Father.

In my reading, one of the things that caught my attention about this section of the reading is that above all other things; each of the elements in the code has a very specific purpose. And this specificity, this particularity, this peculiarity must be remembered and followed as we interpret the code.

For instance, it is the responsibility of the reapers, the angels, to separate the good wheat from the bad weeds. It isn’t the responsibility of the servants to separate the wheat from the tares. It isn’t even the farmer’s chore since he has delegated that to the reapers. And above all, it isn’t the responsibility of the seed to separate its fruit from the weeds.

In fact, Jesus is very specific about this point, at no time before the end of the age is anyone to attempt to separate the wheat from the weeds. If anybody tries, the wheat will be uprooted along with the weeds. Trying to make the crop pure before the harvest time will cause more harm than good.

The Essenes were an important Jewish community flourishing in Palestine along side the Pharisees and Sadducees during the lifetime of Jesus. Their teachings and practice were well known for centuries through the writings of Philo and Josephus.[2] Most of us know the Essenes through the work they left behind. In 1947, a series of wonderful discoveries were made in the Palestinian wilderness. Clay pots containing manuscripts were found in dozens of caves. This collection is what we call the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls have fueled important Old Testament scholarship for over sixty years.

Nobody knows for sure the origin of the name Essene. Certainly nowhere in the scrolls does this community use this title to describe itself. The name could have been derived from numerous Greek and Hebrew words including the nouns for “seer,” “observers of the law,” “watchers,” or “silent ones;” or the adjectives for “holy,” “powerful;” or “modest;” or even the verbs for “to bathe” or “to do.” Even the East Aramaic word for “pious” has been suggested as a source of the name Essene.

These and other derivations represent attempts with varying success to find linguistically plausible reasons for the name Essene in view of their known traits. There is no scholarly consensus on this, which seems to have been a mystery since the days of Philo. But something that seems consistent is that these traits which could have been the inspiration for their name could have led to their extinction.

You see, these observers, these silent ones, these holy and pious people separated themselves from the general community of Palestine and set up shop in a little corner where they wouldn’t be infected by others’ impurities. In the words of the parable, they plucked themselves up and gathered themselves away from the tares to a place where they would not be tainted by the seed of the farmer’s enemy.

There is one problem with this; after the community uprooted itself it died off. Information is scarce. Honestly all we know of them is the fruit of their labor, the library of scrolls they left behind. Don’t get me wrong, what they left is valuable, but it is all that exists of what was once a wonderfully fruitful crop. There are no Essenes, as there are no Pharisees or Sadducees. These groups which tried to separate themselves from the world have succeeded more completely than they had hoped.

When the seed tries to do the job of the reaper, it can’t survive.

Another problem we run into as the seed is that it is not our job to even identify the weeds. If there is one thing human beings can do all too often it is judge someone else to be a weed. This is not only true between Christians and other world religions; it is true between different Christian denominations. It is even true between different denominations of Presbyterians.

And when the seed tries to do the job of the reaper, it can’t survive.

We though are called to live a life of righteousness, which can only happen when the seed remains firmly rooted in the soil of the one who planted us. We can never bear good fruit if we try to be a weed. Scripture reminds us we are called to be in the world, but not of the world. When our actions become those of God’s enemy, we do not live into the goodness of creation. The wheat will forever be with the tares, but it must not become the tares. According to this passage, what is left in the fields after the weeds are gone is called the righteous. When the wheat becomes the weed, it will be taken away.

Again, when the seed tries to do the job of the reaper, it can’t survive.

But, we run into a problem. It’s the same problem we run into whenever we try to interpret a parable as a code. The problem with this model or any model is that in God’s good creation things can change. In a world where the Lord is sovereign, it is quite possible for those who were sown by his enemy to become his disciples. In God, by God, and through God; the weeds can become wheat. In agriculture this doesn’t happen, but in God, all things are possible.

The Reverend Doctor Cindy Rigby was one of the preachers at the PC (USA) General Assembly in San Jose a couple of weeks ago.[3] She said, “The point is changing the world, but we’re called to change it not by focusing on change, but by abiding in Christ.” Our role is not to sow the seed, weed the garden, or bring in the crop; our role is to be the seed and abide in Christ.

To fruitfully reach the harvest, we must remain in the soil; even if, no, especially since there are weeds in there with us. This is our call and our vocation; because when a kernel of grain falls from the head, it has the potential to abide in the soil. And when a single seed abides in the ground, its fruit can multiply beyond imagination, continuing the process of life in the arms of the everlasting Lord.

The Reverend Doctor Rigby used a quote from the late theologian Letty Russell which has stayed with her since Russell first uttered it: “The problem with the PC(USA) is that we are of the world, but not in it.” Explaining this she said that it is not enough to give the poor fish, or even to teach them to fish so the poor can eat for a lifetime.

“The rich need to sit down with the poor and join in the fishing, emptying themselves.” Rigby continued “We have the opportunity here and now to repent in our complicity in the destructive systems of the world — not because we hate the world, but want to be more fully in it.”

The renowned Christian mission scholar Lesslie Newbigin wrote this about the church being called to be witnesses to the presence of the Holy Spirit as a foretaste of the kingdom to come:

“It is immediately necessary to say that this fundamental truth can become a source of disastrous error if it is used to withdraw those who believe the gospel from responsible engagements in the immediacies, the relativities of political and cultural life of their times. The vision of the ultimate goal of the human story must not be used to withdraw attention from the immediate possibilities which the Lord of history offers.”[4]

It is necessary for us to be the good seed, to grow into the harvest in the soil prepared by the Lord our God. We are to be the seed among the weeds sharing the bread of salvation, not the bitter fruit of human judgment. It is up to us not to produce stuff that will survive after we are gone, but to develop relationships, develop communities which God will continue to bless.

This was the vocation of the saints that have come before us. This is the work we have been called to continue today. This is call of those who will follow us in the future. Yes we are called to do good works, but without building communities, we will not be a part of what endures. We don’t know what ever became of the Essenes; and they are gone. We do know what became of the body of Christ, because after 2,000 years we are a part of that community.

We are part of the body which was seeded on Good Friday and planted at Pentecost. We are a part of the body which eats a meal instituted on Maundy Thursday, called to do this remembering Jesus the Christ who rose on Easter. We are planted as the body that will grow until the angels come to gather the harvest in the end of the age.

[1] Commission on Theology of the Reformed Church in America, “The Crucified One Is Lord. Confessing the Uniqueness of Christ in a Pluralist Society.” Louisville: Congregational Ministries Publishing, 2000, page 26.
[2] Essene, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Supplemental Edition, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1976.
[3] Walking Humbly, We Aren’t Good at That, Preacher Says, http://www.pcusa.org/ga218/news/ga08114.htm, retrieved August 16, 2008
[4] Newbigin, Lesslie, “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.” Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989, page 139.