Proper 10 (July 10-16)
Texts: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23;
Isa. 55:10-13; Rom. 8:1-11
GOD BLESS AMERICA . . . WITH GOOD SOIL
Children's Sermon
Bring a jar of mulch to elaborate on what makes for good soil
(or the alternative word "dirt").
The parable talks a lot about the bad soil -- beaten down hard,
rocky, thorny -- but it doesn't say
much about the good soil. Mulch is an example of how to make good
soil. We put this on our
gardens to make the soil better in growing our flowers and plants.
Pass around the jar so the kids
can see the twigs and dead vegetation. If I was spunky
enough, I would have brought manure. Do
you know what manure is? Explain how mulch and manure is
dead, stinky stuff that makes for
good soil.
Jesus told this parable to help us understand how God brings good
stuff out of bad stuff. God can
grow new lives out of dead things -- like the things in your garden
growing out of good soil
made from mulch and manure. For example, three years ago told the
story of a homeless man who
later got a job and a home and then made helping homeless people his
passion in life. Another
example would be a sick person who gets well and then works to help
other sick people. And our
high school youth left early this morning for Iowa to help people
whose lives have become stinky
because they're poor. Our youth are trying to be good soil for God's
love this week in helping
people who could use some help. For God, the good soil of his love
is when we live our lives
helping others. And we most easily become good soil by going through
the hard stuff in life and
having God and other people help us through those times. Jesus let
himself die on the cross so
that God could raise him to a new life of being able to fill us with
his love. The cross was like this
mulch -- the dead stuff out of which good soil is made, so that new
life can spring up. (1)
Dear Jesus, thank you for dying for us, like mulch, so that we can
be the good soil of your love.
Amen
Sermon
I'd like to begin this
morning by reading a chapter from my new favorite book, Brian
Zahnd's A
Farewell to Mars -- and, yes, I did say a chapter.
There is no them;
there is only us. (2)
Did you miss it? It's
chapter 9 in the book, the concluding chapter, and it's only
eight words. I
have time to read it again: "There is no them; there is only
us."
I want to build on where
we were with this parable three years ago, which is basically what
you
just heard in the Children's Sermon. And I want to extend it into
the bigger picture of Matthew's
Gospel. When Isaiah uses the image of God's Word going forth like
rain and not returning empty;
or Jesus the image of God's Word continually going forth as seed
and surely producing a yield;
what is the yield which God is trying to produce? Life, certainly.
But for us human beings
abundant life will only come when God's love pulls us together
like a family, when there is no
longer any them but only us. For it is all the ways in which our
us-them structuring of human
institutions continues that creates so much death.
God's word to us from the very beginning has been about creating
one human family. It came to
childless Abraham and Sarah in order to give them a family, many
descendants, but only in so far
as they became a blessing to all the families of the earth. And so
the message of the prophets was
about God favoring the "them" which we most often leave out, like
the widows and the orphans.
It came to a climax in Jesus whose whole life and ministry was
about crossing the boundaries of
us and them. In the end, he let himself become a "them" in order,
as St. Paul says, to break down
the dividing walls and create one new humanity out of two. There
is no us-them; there is only us.
And in Matthew's Gospel the final words of Jesus' teaching make
what's at stake clear. Two days
before his Holy Passion begins, he tells a final parable, one that
is very familiar to us. (3) "When
the
Son of Man comes in his glory," it begins, "and all the angels
with him, then he will sit on the
throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him,
and he will separate people one
from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats...."
(25:31-32) And then we
quickly learn the criteria for the separation: "I was hungry and
you gave me food, I was thirsty
and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you
welcomed me, I was naked and
you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in
prison and you visited me. . . .
Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of
my family, you did it to me"
(25:35-36, 40). This, I think, is a picture of the good soil
bearing fruit. We become one human
family by taking care of the least of Jesus' family. We are good
soil when we care for the poor,
the sick, the immigrant, the prisoner.
The goats? Well, they neglect or oppress the least of Jesus'
family. Even so, their judgment seems
awfully harsh and scary. "Depart from me," says Jesus, "into an
age of fire prepared for the devil
and his angels" (25:41). How do we understand such words of
judgment from Jesus which seem
to bring us right back into us-them thinking? First, understand
what the devil and his angels
signify. They signify the powers that lead us into us-them
thinking. Satan in Jesus' time was the
symbol for the Accuser, the one who points the finger at "them."
When we, "us," carry out our
crusading violence against "them" we think we are carrying out
God's punishment. But Jesus
came to show us that this is actually Satanic work. Nations and
tribes and empires that follow
Satan's way of doing things remain a house forever divided, so
they are forever returning to times
of terrible violence, of hellish fires that consume us -- like
"the devil and his angels."
And that's the second thing to understand about this parable: it
poses things on the huge stage of
history where empires and nations rise and then fall into
violence. The imagery of the Son of Man
on clouds that Jesus uses is taken from Daniel 7, where Daniel has
a vision of many of the great
empires in terms of animals -- a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a
monstrous creature, symbolizing
Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. But Daniel sees a vision of the
Son of Man in the clouds with
God, judging all the nations, and the Son of Man is given lordship
over all the earth.
Brothers and Sisters, I believe that Matthew and the other
Evangelists are passing along to us the
Good News that in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, he has
become that Son of Man who gives
judgment over the nations. But he's also the servant king
empowering others to join him in the
creation of one new humanity out of two -- which happens as we
care for the poor, the sick, the
immigrant, and the prisoner, and as we learn to love even our
enemies. And in nations and
empires where this isn't adequately done, they will continue to be
judged in history and fall, often
coming to a fiery end in their own self-inflicted violence, like
"the devil and his angels."
Obviously, this regime change isn't going to happen overnight,
because King Jesus refuses to use
any force or violence that would make him beastly. Jesus himself
in this parable portrays his
followers as sheep. (4) And the
Book of Revelation, very similar to the Book of Daniel, portrays
King Jesus as a Lamb slain.
So we are sheep, not lions. But in this long period of regime
change, Matthew's Jesus uses many
other images for us: we are light to shine in the darkness; we are
salt for giving the proper flavor;
we are yeast to help things rise up. And we are good soil.
Our nation, our world, needs people
who are good soil for God's word of love and new life. We are good
soil when, as individuals, we
reach out to a neighbor, or friend, or family member in need. We
are good soil when we volunteer
to help the stranger in need. We are good soil when, together in
mission, we join Open Doors and
Habitat for Humanity in multiplying affordable housing; in tending
Jubilee Gardens of food for the
hungry; in sending people out on mission trips. But we are also
good soil, I think, when we find
meaningful ways to call our neighbors and fellow citizens to what
matters the most in living
together in peace -- namely, how we care for the poor the sick,
the immigrant, and the prisoner.
Can we find new ways together here at PoP to be the good soil our
nation and world so
desperately needs?
And so we end with the same point where we began, but in the form
of a short story:
An old Rabbi once asked his
pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the
day had begun.
"Could it be," asked one of the students, "when you can see an
animal in the distance
and tell whether it's a sheep or a dog?"
"No," answered the Rabbi.
Another asked, "Is it when you can look at a tree in the
distance and tell whether it's a
fig tree or a peach tree?"
"No," answered the Rabbi.
"Then what is it?" the pupils demanded.
"It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see
that it is your sister
or brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night." (5)
Yes, it may still be
night, but the new day is dawning, and so Jesus says to you and
me: "Let your
light shine before others so that they may see your good works and
glorify your Father in heaven"
(Matt 5:16). Or in the language of today's Gospel: "Let the mulch
and manure of your life
become the good soil of God's love shared with neighbors." Amen
Paul J. Nuechterlein
Delivered at Prince of Peace Lutheran,
Portage, MI, July 13, 2014
1. This Children's Sermon is a partial summary
of my 2011 sermon on this text,
but the main
point was deepened thanks to a comment by Pastor Kim Beckmann
on the ELCA Clergy Facebook
page: "...it is the
sower's continued sowing that in time transforms even these failed
situations
into good soil and a chance for abundant life. Good soil only
comes about through the processes
of death and decay. Even the seed that falls to the earth and dies
participates in this. God is
driving toward life. I get assurance that Jesus is teaching about
death and resurrection and God's
transformative power even in the face of sin and death."
2. Brian Zahnd, A
Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward
the Biblical
Gospel of Peace [David C. Cook, 2014], page 197.
3. My reading of this parable is indebted to
Brian Zahnd, in A
Farewell to Arms, ch. 7, "Clouds,
Christ, and Kingdom Come," pages 153-72.
4. But notice that Jesus doesn't use any
monstrous creatures for those who are judges. It's not
lions, or bears, or dragons. It's simply goats -- not that much
different from the sheep, really.
5. Thanks to Pastor Fritz Wendt
for posting this Hasidic tale on the ELCA Clergy Facebook
page.