Fearless Sowing

Matthew 22:34-46; Deuteronomy 34:1-12; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

You heard Jesus’ parable of the soils as part of the Prayer for Learning offered before the scripture readings. One interpretation of the seed is that it is the word of scripture. In the end only the good soil produced a harvest. The seed that fell on the hard, shallow, rocky, weedy areas was wasted, producing nothing, but the seed that fell on the good soil produced abundantly. This abundance more than made up for the seed that failed.

The farmer had to be fearless in sowing the seed, not only for the differences in the land—he didn’t deliberately waste seed on non-productive soils, but it was hard to avoid them. And beside the soil issue, the farmer had to contend with the weather. Because seed normally produced many seeds for every seed that grew, farmers were able to save back a portion of a crop to be planted the next season. In lean years, the amount of grain available for home usage might be reduced, and in very lean years, even some of the grain reserved for the next year’s planting might have to be eaten.

Farming has been a game of chance from the very beginning. Farmers’ attitudes range from the very negative (“The crop won’t amount to anything”) to the very positive (“We’re going to have the best crop ever”). The degree of optimism is based it on experience. They remember the great harvests and believe the next one will be like that last great one. They are willing to let go of the reserved seed in the storehouse (which they could be eating right now) believing that if planted it will bring in the great harvest. Farmers fearlessly sowed, even following terrible years. So the psalmist can say in Psalm 126:
Let those who plant with tears 
reap the harvest with joyful shouts. 
Let those who go out, crying and carrying their seed, 
come home with joyful shouts, carrying bales of grain! (Psalm 126:5-6)

Our scripture readings today don’t mention farming or sowing, but they all speak of the same fearless quality that farmers have.

The time is the day after the triumphant palm-strewn, raucous “Hosanna” parade down Mount of Olives Avenue into Jerusalem. Jesus silenced a Sadducee who had raised a theological question. The Sadducees and the Pharisees were rival sects within the Jewish faith community. The Sadducees usually interpreted religious laws narrowly and the Pharisees were generally the progressive group. I can envision them telling jokes at each other’s expense, much in the way Baptists and Presbyterians like to tell jokes about each other’s religious idiosyncracies.

The ego balloon of the Sadducee’s question had been quickly popped by Jesus. A Pharisee picked up the task. “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?” This wasn’t a new question. Rabbis had debates about the Law. There were several views: the issue of making portions of the Law into a super canon, or distilling the Law to a handful of precepts, or maintaining that each of the over six hundred pieces of the ceremonial Law had equal value.

We don’t know the Pharisee’s motive in asking. Perhaps he was showing that he too was opposed to Jesus. Perhaps he was showing the Sadducees that the Pharisees weren’t ignorant of the Law and that a Pharisee could succeed where a Sadducee had failed in outwitting Jesus. Maybe he just wanted to prove that Pharisees could ask better questions. Or, maybe, he was genuinely seeking to discern what the Law required of him, and, being impressed with Jesus’ knowledge and understanding, he believed that Jesus could give him a powerful insight into the faith.

The tension is mounting. The opposition of the religious leaders had increased throughout Jesus’ three-year ministry and was at a fevered pitch in the days leading to his execution. Jesus was no longer touring the countryside which was at arm’s length from or even outside the ceremonial reach of the Temple guardians. He was sparring with those very guardians on their own turf and besting them at their own game. Jesus was on a journey to the heart of a people’s faith.

While Jesus had deflected previous questions or avoided them with questions of his own, Jesus paused in the heat of the debate to give a concise and solid answer to a question that went to the very heart of what really matters in life.

I can’t speak for you, but I know that I have participated in discussions by asking flippant, throw-away, off-putting questions. Yet the conversation moved towards a deeper, more honest questioning which stopped abusing the issue and started getting at the real meat. Sometimes we have to wait out the superficial to get to the real. That’s when the deepest, sincerest, most meaningful revelations occur, when minds begin to articulate the yearnings of the Spirit.

Questions are strewn around like the farmer’s seed. The empty ones bounce off the hardened earth. The flippant ones land among the rocks and the weeds. The deepest questions land in the nourishing soil and yield illuminating answers, “aha!” moments, and life-changing revelations.

The question that the legal expert asked was one of the seed-in-the-good-soil questions. And Jesus honored it. He began with the holy words, the “Shema,” that began every synagogue worship service (Deuteronomy 6:5), added the Levitical expansion (Leviticus 19:18), and then capped it off with his own imprint: “All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

In this final sentence Jesus asserts his own authority as the one who is privileged to unite these two commandments together as the theme of the whole. It is his final sentence that makes his answer messianic and in its own way becomes a witness to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah now in their presence.(1)

The legal expert’s question bore a hundred-fold answer in the good soil of Jesus’ teaching.

Faith is an enquiring mind. Faith fearlessly sows the daily living questions in the good soil mixture of scripture and personal, prayerful interaction with the Savior. Faith sows the deep questions and knows that through the steady growth cycle of each seed there will come a meaningful harvest of awe and wonder at the breadth and depth of God’s generous grace. The farmer relinquishes the known seed in her hand in order to gain a harvest of seeds for herself and for the world.

Think of all the seeds that we plant as a congregation.

• We are planting the seed of the gospel in soil of the women in the Recovery Council addiction rehab program. Those seeds are growing and producing. One of the joys of some seeds that is they grow and produce seed that then seed themselves to grow more plants and produce more seeds. 
• We are planting the seed of gracious dignity as we give food and money to the Outreach Council through our budgeted giving as well as through our generous Deacons’ Fund gifts.
• We are planting the seeds of God’s love through the One Great Hour, Pentecost, Peacemaking, and Christmas Joy special offerings that we receive during each year.
• We are planting the seeds of a mission-focused community as we develop the possibilities generated by the New Beginnings assessment and cluster group discussions.
• We are planting the seeds of a welcoming, nurturing community as we continue to develop our internet and social media presence. 
• We are planting seeds of extended caring as we hear from, pray for, and support Mark and Jenny Hare’s ministry in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and Esther Wakeman and Rob Collins’ ministry at Payap University.
• We are planting seeds of caring as we pray for and work with our deacons and session members to care for and support in times of need our own neighbors and friends
• We are planting seeds of connection as we prayerfully remember sister congregations in Scioto Valley Presbytery and in presbyteries, synods and mission fields around the world.
• We are learning to plant our faith seeds more deeply as we study God’s word in women’s circles and Sunday morning classes and as we sing, listen, pray, and respond in worship.

We are fearlessly sowing the gospel in the way Paul described to the Thessalonian faithful:

We have been examined and approved by God to be trusted with the good news....We aren’t trying to please people, but we are trying to please God, who continues to examine our hearts....We were glad to share not only God’s good news with you but also our very lives because we cared....

All the persecutions and criticisms didn’t deter Paul. Nor should they deter us. Jesus invites us to the work of fearlessly sowing the Good News he brought to the world. As we prepare our time, talent, and financial commitments for next year, let us go and sow fearlessly. Amen.

(1) Earl Palmer, “Matthew 22:34-46 – Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), Year A, vol. 4, pp. 214, 216.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Fearless Living

Matthew 22:1-14; Genesis 1:1-2:3; Philippians 4:1-9

At the midpoint of his correspondence with the Ephesian church, Paul breaks into a exclamation of praise to God:

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21, NRSV)

Paul’s positive affirmation stands in stark contrast to many viewpoints expressed in the current events and business pages of print and electronic media. Reporters, politicians, and business leaders seem to base everything on a foundation of scarcity and negativity and of looking out for self before community. And much of it is fueled by fear. The world around us tells us to live fearfully. Paul, across the generations, across the centuries, calls us to fearless living.

If we were to sit and listen to scripture straight through from Genesis’ “In the beginning” to Revelation’s final “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints” — about 90 hours later — the thing that would strike us about the full sweep of scripture is that God desires God’s people to give up living fearfully and to live fearlessly in the rich abundance generously provided by our God.

Paul wants us to know without any doubt whatsoever, that the sky’s the limit with God. Any dream that we can dream, God can dream it bigger, grander, and more abundant. The Westminster Catechism tells us that God is “infinite...in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”(1) Infinity is always moving. Is there something bigger than infinity? Infinity plus one; ad infinitum. God is always bigger than we imagine. God is always bigger than the containers we try to put God in. God is always more generous than we are willing to imagine for ourselves, more generous than we or others think we deserve, and more generous to others than we think they deserve.

What is even more amazing is that God chooses to work through us to accomplish more than we can imagine. If that isn’t a living example of fearless living, I don’t know what is. God has taken a huge chance for God’s precious creation by deciding to work with us, through us, alongside us in the glorious work of tending all that God spoke into existence. God has entrusted us with it all—every last atom and subatomic particle. It’s like giving a 16 year old the keys to a new Corvette. It’s not going to survive unscathed. There are going to be dents and dings, crashes and mishaps. We human beings have taken the universe for quite a ride and it is battered and scraped up something fierce. But God hasn’t asked for the keys back yet.

Mark Kirchoff writes that

“God was fearless in giving charge of creation over to humanity. Humans could destroy creation outright. They could maintain creation differently from how God intended. Because of free will, humanity has spoiled creation through original sin. The good news is that we don’t have to continue to give in to the dark side.”(2)

But more than that, God has given us an innate desire to leave our mark on the world, to exert an influence on the communities we participate in.

We are in a constant struggle between thinking only of ourselves and of thinking generously towards other members of our community. In the midst of that struggle, we let fear rush in.

When I published the readings for this week several weeks ago, I had intended to use a reading from Exodus 34. In the reading, Moses was on Mt. Sinai getting a reprint of the first set of tablets of the Law. (He had thrown down the first set in a pique of anger at the behavior of the Israelites and the tablets had shattered.) Moses had been on the mountain for a long time and the people were afraid that he had died or left them. So they persuaded Aaron and the other leaders to create an image of their God. Some theological wit has noted that what they wanted was a massive bull, maybe something like the one in New York’s Wall Street financial district. Except that when they donated their gold, there only enough for a calf. Even in their disobedience they lived fearfully and couldn’t even fearlessly live following an idol made with their own hands.

While the people were cowering with their calf, Moses was fearlessly facing God and bargaining for the people and the future generations of God’s people which they represented. Moses, as human as he was, as fallible and moody and difficult as he was, nevertheless had a sense of the enormity of God’s generosity as well as a vision of what all God desired to accomplish through them. The goodness of creation was within them. It had to be brought out.

We see the same kind of struggle between scarcity and generosity, between living fearfully and living fearlessly in many of the events that the gospel writers recorded about Jesus and in the parables he told. The story of the wedding party is really a retelling of the truth expressed in the Genesis creation story we heard earlier and the subsequent story of the first beings choosing their own path of life different from what God had desired them to follow.

The king desired to give a party for the wedding of his son. This was not going to be a party where everyone got one tea sandwich, three mints, and half a cup of punch. The king put everything into the planning and execution of the party plans, just as God had put everything into creation resulting in an acclamation that it was “supremely good.” That’s how the wedding party details were carried out. It was very good. But all the invited guests weren’t interested in the generous party which the king had prepared. They had their own agendas, their own schedules, their own sense of fear that they had to live their way because the world revolved around them. They declined to participate in the king’s joyful generosity and generous joy.

Paul was telling the believers in Philippi something similar:

Be glad in the Lord always! Again I say, be glad!...Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4, 6-8)

The peace of God that exceeds all understanding draws our imagination farther and farther toward that infinity of God’s generous love for us. That peace, that “all” that we can’t even imagine is freedom to try, freedom to learn from things that don’t work as expected, freedom to learn from serendipitous accomplishments, freedom to let God use us to do things far beyond our own abilities. In our results-oriented society, we avoid risk. We bury or otherwise abuse the talent, nest-egg, resource entrusted to us, when God invites us to invest ourselves as well as God’s resources for the sake of kingdom. That takes courage. That is fearless living.

The Ephesian letter describes the church as “God’s new humanity, a colony in which the Lord of history has established a foretaste of the renewed unity and dignity of the human race,”(3) that God-imprint from day six of creation.

Jesus concluded the wedding party parables with the note that “Many people are invited, but few people are chosen.” In God’s generous love for us in Christ, we have been chosen. We are the few who are called to live fearlessly.

In The Message Eugene Peterson paraphrased Paul’s Ephesian praise this way:

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

Oh, yes, indeed!

(1) Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 4.
(2) Mark Kirchoff, “Fearless Generosity,” Giving, volume 16 (2014), p.4.
(3) Overview of the Book of Ephesians, Third Millennium Ministries, http://thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/41361. 

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

All Our Hindering Will Be for Nought

Matthew 21:33-46; Philippians 3:4b-14

We cannot hinder the gospel. The word of God will not be locked within the confines of a context two millennia removed from our time. John Calvin understood this. In his commentary on this parable he identified two points that transcend time and place: (1) we should expect people, and especially religious leaders, to try to hinder the reign of Christ; and (2) whatever contrivances are mounted against the church, God will be victorious. All human hindering will be for nought.

Andrew Purves writes that the parable teaches us to expect rejection, but not just of the gospel. It is more a system of ideas, more than an argument, more than a series of propositions inviting head nodding or verbal assent. The defining point, the focal point of the rejection which we are to expect is very precise: Jesus Christ. Personal rejection – described as the premeditated murder of the landowner’s son – is the heart of the parable.

Let’s step back for just a moment. Matthew describes Jesus standing in the temple, the place of God’s dwelling on earth (a house already destroyed and the Presence departed by the time that Matthew edited his gospel account). Only days before his crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus tells a story to the people who have been set apart to keep God’s house in order. We know two things about those within earshot of Jesus’ parable: (1) they do not believe that Jesus has divine authorization to speak to them; and (2) their minds have remained unchanged in response to another messenger, the Baptizer John.

The immediate theological debate between the temple leaders and Jesus moves into round two. Jesus had already bested them in their attempt to discredit his authority when they refused to acknowledge John’s authority. The parable to the two sons, one openly disobedient but later repentant and obedient, the other openly servile but disobedient in the end, had hit its mark. And still the temple leaders refused to give in to Jesus’ truth. So Jesus says, “Listen to another parable.”

The sophisticated temple leaders weren’t going to be swayed by folksy stories from the countryside. Jesus goes to the heart of their theological power base – the Law and the Prophets. Jesus bases his parable on a well-known passage from Isaiah (it’s from chapter 5.)

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
He dug it,
cleared away its stones,
planted it with excellent vines,
built a tower inside it,
and dug out a wine vat in it.
He expected it to grow good grapes—
but it grew rotten grapes.
So now, you who live in Jerusalem, you people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard:
What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I haven’t done for it?
When I expected it to grow good grapes,
why did it grow rotten grapes? . . .
The vineyard of the Lord of heavenly forces is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah are the plantings in which God delighted.
God expected justice, but there was bloodshed;
righteousness, but there was a cry of distress!

Jesus compounded the force of this image with a quotation from the powerful Psalm 118:

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
The Lord has done this,
and it’s amazing in our eyes.

The issue, then, is the rejection of Jesus and the refusal to acknowledge him as Lord, God’s anointed, through whom God lavishly has given life.

In every fiber of this parable about the rejection of and deadly violence against the landowner’s son is the reminder that the heart of faith is relationship with Jesus. The tenant farmers did not seize and kill an idea, a principle, or a system of doctrine. They seized and killed the landowner’s son. The gospel comes to us as a person.

It is obvious in the Isaiah reference and in Jesus’ parable who was rejecting his authority then. If rejection is part of the continuing legacy of the parable, who is rejecting Jesus today? The vineyard of the early 21st century is vulnerable to destruction. It is being assailed from the outside by virulent new atheisms which are based on a strident and aggressive rationalism which routinely dismisses Christian faith. There is also a growing apathy and indifference that isn’t particularly anti-church but which is certainly not pro-church.

But Jesus wasn’t speaking about the philosophies and theologies of the occupying empire. Jesus was addressing the leaders of the temple, the inner circle of those supposedly closest to God. Jesus’ complaint against them was that they had so narrowly constricted the faith that it had become a strait-jacketed and sedated prisoner locked away from its very source.

Some of God’s people today strait-jacket the faith in ways which exclude the very people whom God seeks to welcome into the community of sinners being sanctified through relationship with Jesus. Another extreme includes people for whom there are no boundaries, no absolutes, no guiding reference points to distinguish holy and sacred from profane and irreverent.

It is this deeper, internal sense that Jesus’ parable strikes at. The parable is less concerned about Jesus being rejected by strangers than it is about his being rejected by members of his own household, especially those in leadership. Calvin refers to church people rising up against their head, tenant farmers against the landowner. Given the architectural image of the foundation stone being rejected, the parable is about Jesus being betrayed by some of those he has called into positions of leadership. So each of us is called to repentance and renewal, not once in a lifetime or yearly, but daily.

Even though the cornerstone may be rejected, it doesn’t cease being the cornerstone. Whoever falls on the stone – that is whoever seeks to break Christ – will be broken by it. Attack on Jesus is pointless and fruitless. Jesus is not diminished by rejection. And in spite of betrayal he keeps the place that God has given to him. As the psalmist said, “The Lord has done this.”

So we come to this table today. It is not my table or the Session’s table. None of you can claim it as solely yours. It is Christ’s table. He invites all who trust in him to come. On this World Communion Sunday, we remember that this table goes around the world uniting the faithful of every language and culture, every tribe and clan. We don’t come here to highlight what separates us from other believers. We don’t come to shut some out because they don’t believe or think in exactly the way we do. We come to celebrate what unites us – the person of Jesus Christ. We celebrate the Word made flesh, the relationship which God created especially to bring grace and salvation, peace and restoration to humanity.

This table goes to the east as far as we can see, It goes to the west far beyond the horizon. It goes so far north that it becomes the south to which it goes in the other direction. This table is the assurance that in spite of rejection and betrayal, in spite of watered down thinking or strait-jacketed narrow thinking, God’s relationship to humanity in Christ will never fail. It is the Lord’s doing. All human hindering will be for nought.

Welcome to the table of Christ. Come joyfully to meet your Savior.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.