Jesus
was teaching to a crowd standing on the beach while he sat in a boat. Often beaches are slanted toward the water;
perhaps they could hear him better in that setting--perhaps an amphitheater
effect. Perhaps the wind was blowing
from the sea and carried his words to them.
In his teaching Jesus began with the command, "Listen!" and
then he ended the parable with, "Let anyone with ears listen!" Then he ends his explanation of the parable
by describing the nature of the people who he hopes will respond to his
teaching about God's kingdom and do something about it, comparing them to good
soil, ". . . this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who
indeed bears fruit and yields in one
case a hundred fold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."
The
parable's explanation makes this parable--despite Jesus' naming it for the
sower--more a parable about soil--and the question that must follow is what
sort of soil are you? Are you loamy,
fruitful soil able to attract people to God's Word, to Jesus and his way of
loving God and neighbor?
Yet
that question leads back to the sower:
why does the sower bother with sowing anywhere but fruitful soil? Might you call him a careless, wasteful
sower? Can he not tell the difference
between unfruitful soil and loam? I'll
never forget walking into a cornfield in Illinois and being struck by how
different the soil looked from the soil I knew here in Delaware. Dark and productive looking, it taught me
what the word "loam" truly means.
And farmers don't plant their seed just anywhere--that would be just
plain foolish!
Yes,
both the soil and the sower are important to reflect on. If God-in-Jesus could be seen the sower,
might the correct descriptive words be "generous" or
"hopeful" or "gracious?"
Unlike a farmer who must take care where he or she plants in order to
maximize the yield, the sower in the parable cannot judge ahead of time what
sort of soil is there. And in terms of
human beings, the sort of soil we are may change from one time to another. Sometimes we understand; sometimes we
don't. Sometimes we let our worries get
the best of us; other times we hear what God is trying to have us
understand. If God as sower does not
pass judgment on the type of soil we are, we should not presume to either.
We
must also see ourselves in the role of the sower as well. Jesus sent his disciples--and sends us--into
the world to spread the Good News of God's love and the eventual triumph of
peace with justice in God's coming reign. I want to share a story with you about
a pastor reaching out past the discomfort of evangelism to become a hopeful and
gracious "sower." His name is
Steve Wilco from Amherst, Massachusetts.
He
begins, "I looked ridiculous. I was
sitting in the campus center cafeteria wearing my clerical collar, something
I’d been doing once a week for months. As the pastor of a congregation adjacent
to campus, I was trying to get to know the students, but I had no idea how to
start.
"I knew another minister who posted questions on a giant
bulletin board, and I wondered if I could do the same thing. Then it occurred
to me—I’d use a whiteboard as a facsimile of a Facebook wall. I purchased a 2'
x 3' whiteboard and carried it into the campus center. Now I was risking my
dignity. I imagined being asked to leave by the cafeteria managers or ridiculed
by the students. I posted questions that tackled faith issues. “What are you
most afraid of?” “What are you waiting for?” and “Love is . . .”
"People began slowing down to read the board. They were
intrigued, and some offered comments as if they were grateful for a chance to
express themselves.
"But the most intriguing result was that people started
conversations—not with me, but with each other. In fact, most often people read
the question and asked their friends for answers.
"They usually walked out of earshot before any answer was
offered, though sometimes I could see that a good conversation had begun—and
that I had no control over it. I had thought that I was risking my dignity; the
risk was in putting something out into the world that had a life of its own.
"We take the same risk in Sunday worship. We give people
the body of Christ and then send them out into the world to be that body. Like
questions that begin conversations I will never hear, worship propels us into
ministry that isn’t contained within the confines of the church. Thanks to the
whiteboard, I began to imagine every worship gathering as a holy risk that we
trust into God’s hands."
We can never know--in most instances--whether a conversation we
have with someone about issues of faith has made a difference. Yet we can be a non-judgmental
"sower," listening well and speaking from the truth in our hearts
about how God has worked in our lives.
Perhaps through our words there will a fruitful yield. But as St. Paul explained about who gets
credit in evangelism efforts, "So neither the one who plants nor the one
who waters is anything, but only God gives the growth." (I Cor. 3:7) Let us trust in God's blessing on our work as
"sowers" in God's name!
Steve
Wilco’s reflection on “Risk,” The Christian Century, July 9, 2014, p. 27.
No comments:
Post a Comment