5 Pentecost, Cycle A Proper 10, July 13, 2014
Today, I would like for us to consider
farming before Jethro Tull. And what
does Jethro Tull have to do with farming?
Jethro Tull is the rock band which produced Aqua Lung and stars the
flautist, Ian Anderson. But the rock
band is named after Jethro Tull, a progressive farmer who in the early 18th
century perfected the method of seed drilling.
This involved dropping seeds through tubes and planted in nice rows,
easy to thin and cultivate. The more
ancient method of seeding was called "broadcast" seeding, throwing
seeds to the winds and letting them fall where they may.
If one tries to rationalize the business of
farming then one wants to increase the odds of seeds germinating and coming to
full fruition and being accessible to harvest at the right time.
The parable of Jesus which we have read
today is not about Jethro Tull farming; it is about broadcast seeding
method. Slinging the seeds to the wind,
falling willy, nilly upon a hopeful place to germinate and grow. One might even say, it is kind of hit or
miss farming. And what kind of actuarial
genius is God if the divine one does "hit or miss" farming?
This parable was generated and it maintained
itself by being repeated and elaborated and then finally written down with a subsequent
interpretation because the parable is honest to the mystery of success. It really does not explain why particular
success happens; it only highlights that the conditions of freedom make success
a continuous process of nature. This
sort of explanation can be very disappointing, because we want actuarial
certainty in the explanation of things.
We want guaranteed success in all of our ventures. It is a universal and inspired question
continually to be asking about the success of things and the failure of
things. We often have plenty of each in
our trial and error lives and we want to develop theories of probabilities to
increase the odds of success and decrease the odds of failure.
I think that the common wisdom of life is
what would be called "probability" living. It means we learn from living the likelihood
of the conditions that contribute to success or failure in our ventures of
life. And so we have to take into account
the dynamic mixture of nature and nurture which comprise any situation in life.
Jesus and his followers were those who had questions about the success and failure of the Gospel
Movement. The implied questions that
everyone was asking and the ones which we ask are: Jesus how can we have success? How can we be guaranteed success? Or what are the reasons why some things are
successful? Why are things sometimes
just "ninety day" wonders, reaching a faddish success only to fizzle
out? Why don’t the effects of the Gospel
message endure in the lives of those who hear it?
The parable of the Sower provides us with
some insights about creative advance in our lives. The first insight is that the Sower is the
one who owns the planting field. God
owns all of creation and God wants to impart this knowledge to humanity, who
for the most part has lost the meaning and knowledge of being owned by
God. God does not want to lord it over
human beings; God wants to remind humanity that if they acknowledge being sons
and daughters of God then their lives would be more successful, because the
knowledge of God’s love, God’s grace and God’s forgiveness and God’s justice is
the good news which can bring success into the lives of people.
Now one could make a negative judgment upon
the farming abilities of the sower? Why
would God be one to do indiscriminate broadcast seeding with such a wonderful
message as the message of the kingdom of God?
This indiscriminate broadcast seeding method is represented in other
Gospels sayings about the impartial nature of God. God is like the sun which shines upon the
just and the unjust. God is like the
rain which falls upon the good and the evil.
The broadcast seeding method as seen in the parable of the sower is an
indication that the good news of God's kingdom of love is freely given to
everyone. The seed arrives into every
human condition and it is a good seed, it is a hybrid seed. The seed of the kingdom is about how we
belong to God as God's sons and daughters.
It is about how God loves us and forgives us and invites to grow in
grace, love and justice.
This wonderful message falls into the
conditions of life experience of many people.
And not everyone is ready to receive and understand the benefit of this
wonderful message? Why? Because the message is not forced upon anyone. It is but a freely offered persuasive lure
given as an invitation to everyone to come to know God's love.
The unevenness of the human conditions means
that everyone is not able to even know how to receive good news into one’s life. The uneven human condition of the souls of
people in significant ways determines the success of how we are converted to
the good things offered to us in life.
The parable of the sower represents the fact
that Jesus honored the freedom present in the success and failure of how things
happen in life. Sometimes we do not
become open to growth or change unless we have suffered some crisis of loss or
change. The gates and doors of our
perception have to be cleansed continually so that we can see and understand the
new creative advance which is offered to us.
The genius of the parable of the sower is not
that it explains success or failure but that it acknowledges the mystery of
success and failure because all things are subject to the freedom of the
process of nature and nurture. But
included within the processes of nature and nurture is the freedom of our
choice. Each of us has significant
freedom in the play of nature and nurture for the success of creative advance
in our lives.
So what is our response to the parable of the
sower today?
We ask God and each other to help us have
insights about the condition of receptivity of our lives today for making
creative advance toward more just and loving outcomes. And as we understand our condition of
receptivity for more good news, we also are challenged to use our freedom to
act deliberately towards the next step of creative advance.
The parable of the sower reveals to us that life
is not just about nature or about nurture, it also includes our willingness to
determine the things which we can through wise action. And so we ask today for insights and
discernment about the process of nature and nurture in our lives, but we also
ask for strength to become deliberate agents of changes towards what we know is
better for us, our families, our parish, our community and our world.
The parable of the sower is valid
illumination for us today because it acknowledges the mystery of the nature of
life even as it encourages us to exercise deliberate freedom toward creative
advance in our lives today. May the
words of Jesus give us encouragement in our continuous efforts to advance in
the art of living today. Amen.
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