“Seed”
The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 11
19 July 2020
Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Berkeley, California
Isaiah 44:6-8
Psalm 86:11-17
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
INI
There is something precious that we are learning in our time, perhaps not very patiently. What we are learning to do, what we have to do is to wait – patiently wait. Of course we have always been called upon to wait for various things, but to wait for our lives to return to what we have deemed as normal is a new demand, indeed, a new necessity. There are aspects to this waiting, for us as individuals, employees, family members and friends. There are aspects to this waiting that call us as Christians. In the readings for this morning, we have examples of what we are called to both be and do in this difficult time. Let us see what that might be.
Do you remember, in school, when you were a kid – taking a Styrofoam cup, some potting soil, and a seed? We took the potting soil and gently laid it into the cup, placed the seed in the soil and then we watered it. It was at that point (and here we need to remember what time is like when you’re a kid) we waited. It seemed like an eternity, as the seed worked its genetic magic beneath the surface of the soil, sending out roots, and then final a finial of leaves. We waited upon the seed to form a plant. Such waiting brought joy and learning in our young lives, and, if we planted it, a tomato!
In the Gospel for today, Jesus tells another parable with a sower. This one, however, is peculiar to Matthew. It is different than the parable of the sower we heard last week in which the seed was all good, and the different placements of the seed in various environments was the telling point. The seed was the word, and the environments were representative of where and how the seed (word) might be received. Matthew’s parable has a different import. Here is the distinctive clue, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom.” We are the seed; you are the seed. We are the ones who are to grow into something that gives evidence of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus’ field, in this parable, is different in another way. It is not the difficulty of soil that frustrates the sower’s intent, but rather the fact that someone (an enemy) has sown darnel amongst the wheat seeds that the Son of Man has sown. Darnel is not just a weed. An ordinary weed wouldn’t be all that difficult in this situation. Darnel, however, looks just like the wheat. Would the one tending the garden wish to weed out the darnel, she would find that to be a very difficult task. Which one is darnel, which one is wheat?
And here is our challenge, and it is unique in a way to Matthew. Let me explain. Matthew writes from a Levantine or Palestinian perspective. Mark wrote briefly and concisely to tell the story of Jesus. Luke wrote with an eye to the gentile and the Roman world of which he was a part. John had an eye for the mystery of the story, and a delivery informed by Greek philosophy and the Hebrew story. Matthew, however, saw the church gathered from some of the families of Palestine – families in which some of the members looked to Jesus as the Messiah, and some not seeing that same vision. It was a wheat and darnel situation. The question was, how do you operate in a world where everyone looks the same, but are at cross-purposes with one another. Does this sound familiar?
Jesus asks his followers to be patient – to live in a permanent Advent of waiting for the final plant to appear. In the parable, the harvest, which is held at “the end of days” (a truly eschatological harvest), would be the proof of the pudding. Angels sort out the weeds, the darnel, from the wheat, and destroy the weeds. We are, perhaps I really ought to say, I am, seeing a lot of darnel these days: People and churches and institutions that seem to have been sown with bad seed, and horrible intentions. It is a world of good and bad, and we are called upon to sort it out. Second Isaiah reminds us, in the first reading, of what is necessary. He pictures God as speaking out for God’s good intentions and desires:
“Who is like me? Let them proclaim it,
Let them declare and set it forth before me.
Who has announced from of old the things to come?
Let them tell us what is yet to be.
Do not fear, or be afraid;
Have I not told you from of old and declared it?
You are my witness!
Is there any god besides me?
There is no other rock; I know not one.”
God is asking us to give witness to what we have seen and heard. In our own lives we have often been redeemed from bad situations; life circumstances and challenges that seemed to be obstacles to living. Isaiah asks Israel to remember the God who redeemed them from Egypt, and now he asks them to be seeds of witness and proclamation.
In our time, in this day and age, we are called to be good seed, witnesses, those who proclaim. God has redeemed this world, and yet there are those who claim to follow in Jesus’ footsteps who still see the redeeming God as one who hates, who condemns some to misery, who makes distinctions between those into whom God has blown the breath of life. If we are to announce anything, it is that this is wrong – that we live in a saved world, black, white, brown, native, immigrant, man, woman, rich, poor, sick, healthy, gay, straight – all saved, all loved of God. If this seems obvious to you, know that it is not obvious to everyone. We must patiently announce the good news over and over again.
Angels are coming to gather the harvest, to bring in the produce of the field. How might you be involved in the redeeming of our world and land? What are you called upon to patiently proclaim?
SDG
