One of the most unfortunate pieces of advice I have ever received was from the senior priest who conducted the pre-ordination retreat for myself and eleven other candidates Late last year at the marvellous Drusilla estate in Mount Macedon; We were discussing spirituality and religion and things like that Over port and chocolates As one does on a pre-ordination retreat And one of the candidates talked about the “mystery of faith” At which the retreat conductor flew into action “I don’t like terms like the mystery of faith” he told us “As priests you should know that the Christian faith is not a mystery it’s quite clear and very and easy for anyone to understand” I saw the point he was making But it struck me as rather sad and uninspiring all the same Clearly our retreat leader was of the “creed and bible tell you all you need to know” school For him, one could say all that needed to be said about God Simply by reading a book or ticking each box off on a list of propositions Clearly, what he was offering us – insisting on, was The image of God as a list of statements written on a piece of paper A list of rational propositions Clergy have been very fond of this image of God in the past For it reinforces the Medieval notion of the Church being a great repository of answers to questions about life and God That were shelled out in very small doses to the ignorant masses by the priests Interestingly, the political columnist Gerald Henderson – writing in The Age during the week about a completely unrelated matter – Made this observation, and I quote “The Christian Churches began their decline when the congregation began to be as well educated, and even better educated, than the clergy” Perhaps the church and its clergy and its lay people I hasten to add Ought to begin to redefine ourselves And to think of themselves as spiritual guides as was Jesus not so much telling everyone else how to live their life but pointing the way to God and saying “Come… Follow… Journey with me… and let us learn together” One reason I immediately rejected this description of God As a rational list of beliefs When I heard it on my pre-ordination retreat last year was because I had by this time read so much theology Which really and quite literally simply means “words about God” That I knew quite well that no amount of incredibly long books could say all that could be said about God That one could write and preach and teach about God for a life time And still barely scratch the surface when it came to talking about God All of the really great theologians The one’s whose works are held in awe by students and professors of theology and the like Never finished – never even came close – to finishing their life work on theology Karl Barth – some ten large volumes of fine print, unfinished Thomas Aquinas – enough parchment to kill several herds of cattle, unfinished The list goes on and on And what’s more I had done too much Greek in college to forget that the Greek word “mysterion” is translated in Latin by the word “sacramentum” The primary means by which God has always and continues now to be known and experienced amongst God’s people The sacraments of the Church Are inherently also a mystery that cannot be explained or understood to the satisfaction of modern people either And when we do turn to the pages of the Bible We find that Jesus himself speaks in mysteries and quickly admits to doing so The very word Parable is the direct equivalent of the Hebrew Mashal which means “riddle” The mashal or proverb was a riddle As life was a riddle That the wise tried to unravel and explain – as one does a riddle Jesus speaks in parables As he does in this reading from Matthew’s Gospel this morning’ Telling the parable of the Sower And when the disciples come to him and ask why he speaks like this His answer – in part – is to admit “I speak in the language of mysterion” these are mysteries – or secrets as the English translations usually have about the kingdom of God What Jesus is saying – in short – is I do not come with a list of ready made answers Or statements requiring your intellectual assent I do not come with a fact sheet But with mysteries about the kingdom of God With word pictures and riddles that engage you and make you think and wrestle with them Those who have ears to hear let them listen… Having said all of that it is of course too much to say that God is all mystery That Jesus’ teaching amounts to secrets, riddles, and enigmas There are many things esoteric and hard to understand in the Bible St Peter even makes this observation about St Paul’s writings in his second epistle Saying “Some things Paul writes are hard to understand and mysterious and are distorted by the unlearned and unwise” The Parable of the Sower – the parable before us this morning Is not understood by the hearers But to the disciples Jesus provides a detailed explanation Those who have their spiritual ears open he insists Do understand and appreciate the parable But for those who are hard of hearing – the explanation is given Theologians and academics who write commentaries on books of the Bible are seemingly quite hard of hearing Because I have several commentaries on St Matthew’s Gospel And also on St Mark and St Luke which also record the parable of the sower And all are hopelessly divided about what it all means Despite the fact this is one of the very very rare cases where Jesus actually gives an explanation He tells them what it means… The points of disagreement and contention centre around firstly is the parable really about the sower or is it about the soils Like all of the parables of Jesus The image is familiar enough It is drawn from everyday life in Palestine at the time When Jesus quieted the crowd and began to address them by saying Listen, a Sower went out to sow… The hearers would be immediately familiar with the image of a farmer walking long a field with seed bag around his shoulder scattering seed from it to either side as he walked along But because Jesus goes on to talk about the different types of soil the seed falls on The pathway, the rocky ground, the thorns, and the good soil many have wondered if the four types of soil are the real point of the parable And whether it ought to be called the parable of the soils… The reality is, I think, Is that the parable is about the way the sed and the soil together produce - or fail to produce - a crop of fruit the parable or the story is a word picture That invites us into the illustration as we hear it unfold And confronts us with a spiritual truth, or perhaps many spiritual truths Clearly the sower scattering seed is an image for the bearer of the good news about the kingdom of God In the context of the parable as Jesus speaks – it is Jesus himself who is the sower But for the readers and hearers of Matthew’s Gospel it is those who come after Jesus – the apostles and their successors Who are bearers of the same good news And the sowers of the seeds of hope, or love, and of justice In our day, it is of course we ourselves, every baptised Christian Who are the sowers of the same seed in the places in which we live and work and spend our day to day lives And among those with whom we share our day today lives The seeds we sow Which we can liken to those things we might say or do because we are Christians and disciples of Jesus No doubt will meet with different responses Some grateful, some inquisitive, some indifferent, some hostile I’ve certainly experienced all of those and more And I’m sure you have too But this does not deter the sower The sower can only sprinkle the seeds and scatter them about The sower has no control over whether the seed falls on good soil or rocky ground or is swept onto the pathway The sower has no control over whether the seed germinates and takes root and begins to grow and flourish That is entirely dependent on the miracle of nature On the earth, on the rain, and sun The life giving forces of nature are beyond the sowers control So too are the life giving forces of the spiritual world The sower can only sow St Paul sough to illustrate this very point to the hearers and readers of his first letter to the Corinthian Church Where in chapter three of that epistle he writes “Who is Apollos and who is Paul? We are just servants through whom you came to believe” We scattered the seeds of faith. I planted and Apollos watered. But it is God who gives the growth. Neither the one who scatters or plants or waters is anything. But only God who gives the growth.” We are all sowers of seeds Seeds of love, seeds of faith, seeds of hope, seeds of righteousness and justice and mercy… Seeds that – God willing – might take root in the lives of those among whom we sow Where those seeds take root and grow and flourish is a mystery to me Often the good soil will be the most unlikely And what we thought was good soil in which to sow will turn out to be rocky ground indeed But such is the mystery of the Kingdom of God Let us go out to sow… In the name of the Father, and of the Son ,and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. |