St Luke’s, Havelock North – 15th Sunday in
Ordinary Time, 13th July 2008 – ‘The Sower’
“Let anyone with ears listen.”
I want to focus on our gospel reading this morning and I want to begin
by suggesting we’ve actually had two gospel readings today which makes it all the more important that those who have ears
listen carefully.
As you’ll note from the front of your newsletter, this reading from
Matthew 13 has been split into two sections, with a big gap in-between, and I want
us to note that because it’s important that we realise we’re missing something,
and in fact I believe that if we really want to take seriously what’s happening
in both sections of this reading we need to have some idea of the bit in
between.
The chapter opens, as we’ve heard, with Jesus being confronted by such a
huge crowd who have come to hear him teach that he’s forced to take to the
water and speak from a boat, and so he tells those gathered many things in
parables. I want to come back to that point in a moment, but our reading goes
on to cover the Parable of the Sower and then we’re
into the in-between stuff, where if we look at it we find the disciples coming
to Jesus, apparently after the teaching session is over, and asking him ‘why do
you speak to them in parables?’ It’s a fair question, and not just for the
disciples at that time, but for us, the disciples at this time.
I want to say a word or two about parables and firstly let’s put paid
right now to this notion that parables are simple stories told in such a way
that their meanings are obvious to those to whom they’re told. It’s just not
true and anyone who has really tried to come to grips with some of Jesus’
parables knows it’s just not true. No, we’re not first century Palestinians,
and yes, there are some allusions, some ideas, in the parables that might be
clearer to us if we were, but I want to say here and now that if the parables
are simple then I’m clearly even simpler, because quite frankly I find some of
them really, really hard to get my head around.
So parables are not fables, they’re not folksy little tales with nice,
neat morals at the end of each one, in fact one of the most common
characteristics of the parables is that it’s usually left over to the listener
to work out what the moral, if any, might be. Jesus rarely – and I actually
want to suggest shortly, never – explains a parable, because ultimately
parables aren’t meant to be explained, but rather responded to.
That point made, let’s go back for a moment to the in-between bit in our
reading, and the disciples have asked why Jesus teaches in parables and his
response is a little confusing to say the least, and this is probably part of
the reason why we didn’t get it in our reading. Jesus says, “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.’”
‘Hearing they do not listen,
nor do they understand.’ Jesus goes on to tell the disciples how lucky they are
that they get to see and hear what they do because ‘many prophets and righteous
people longed to’ do so. You guys get what they all waited for. Then, for no
obvious reason Jesus launches into explaining, or interpreting, the parable we
heard in the first section, but with a serious and significant shift in
emphasis. In the first telling of this parable, in the parable proper we might
say, the focus is all on the sower, which of course
is why it’s called the Parable of the Sower. But in
this so-called explanation that focus shifts to the soil, or more accurately I
suppose to wherever the seed lands. So suddenly rather than a story about a
farmer and his seeding practices, we get a teaching about what sort of ground
is required to receive that seed.
Do you see why I call this a
whole new parable? Many scholars actually believe this part of chapter 13 was
added after the rest was written. Certainly it just seems to appear without
much warning, and without any explanation as to why, in this case and pretty
much only this case, why it is that Jesus would act so out of character and
turn around and actually explain a parable. But if we accept those scholars
theory, if we understand that this is an explanation added later specifically
to help some of those who, like me, find these supposedly simple parables not
all that simple, then perhaps this second part makes sense. Seen in those terms
I think it begins to look and sound like what it actually is, a sermon,
offered, just as this one is, to help others understand what they’re reading or
hearing. Which is not a bad thing per se, but what it does do, which I believe
isn’t all that helpful, is distract from the original parable itself. I say
that’s unhelpful because I don’t believe the original parable is about the
ground the seed falls on at all. I believe that the original parable is, as it’s name says, a parable about the sower.
As most of you know, I’m not
a gardener let alone any kind of professional horticulturalist, but even I know
that if you want results from your planting you have to pay attention to what
kind of soil you’re putting your seeds in. This is actually where those first
century Palestinian ears might come in a bit handy because for most of them –
people living a fairly humble lifestyle, with no great wealth or assets because
they’ve been taxed to the hilt by Rome – for them the idea of throwing precious
seeds around willy nilly,
not paying any attention to whether they’re landing on good soil, or among the
rocks, or even on the path, for them this sort of waste would go beyond
reckless to being simply foolish.
The crux of the parable, of
course, is its last line. Jesus has described this foolish farmer, throwing his
seeds all over the place, but finally some, maybe just a small percentage,
actually land on some good ground with good soil, and those few seeds produce
grain, “some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Let anyone who has ears
listen.
Jesus tells this story and
describes this reckless, foolish, sower, wasting seed
all over the place, and what is his comeuppance? What price does he pay for
this foolishness, this shocking stewardship of a precious resource? What
happens is that the few seeds that actually make it to the right place, the
good soil, actually produce such good results, great results, that suddenly it
makes no difference how many seeds were wasted.
Here’s another common
characteristic of parables – they’re designed to surprise and even shock the
audience who hear them. Jesus stands here, before a huge crowd, many of whom
know what it means to scratch out a living, and describes a scene of absolute
and utter wastefulness and then says such actions are rewarded. Let those who
have ears listen.
I don’t want to try to
explain this parable this morning because, as I’ve already said, that’s not
what parables are actually for. Parables are for responding to, reacting to, so
really all I want to do is ask three questions; do we have ears, and if we do,
how are we responding to what we’re hearing, and what does any of this have to
say to how we live, what we do with our seeds, both individually and as a
church?
Let those who have ears
listen.