Photo credit: Noah Busher, used with permission via Unsplash
For the last 5 or 6 weeks, we’ve looked at Scriptures where the issues were framed in the adversarial setting of a courtroom. There was a complaint and a response, and we looked for truth in the tension between the two. And so, the invitation was – as God said in one of those Scriptures – “Come, let us reason this out!” or “Come, let us argue this out!”
This morning, our Scripture is a parable[1] – one of those curious little stories that Jesus tells – and parables come with a different invitation. The invitation with this kind of Scripture is more, “Come, let us puzzle this out.” Come. Listen. See. Let’s try to figure out together whatever this curious little story might mean.
We may think of parables, first and foremost, as stories – and they are – and they’re so much more. In the gospels, parables are – as one writer describes them – “brief stories drawn from common experience [from ordinary life] that take a drastic or a surprising turn.”[2] The point of a parable “lies in the reversal, the unusual or exaggerated image, or the new twist.”[3] The word for parable comes from the Greek meaning “to throw alongside.” [4]Parables are stories thrown alongside real life. We glean meaning from the interaction between the two.
Parables are active. They do something. They are stories that “tease the mind into active thought.”[5] They are, as one writer describes them, “stories that subvert the world.”[6]I love that.
Parables are dynamic. They keep moving. The more we sit with a parable, the more we see...and unsee... and see again. They’re kind of like those Magic Eye images – Do you remember those? – those dot images that if you stared at them long enough, all of the sudden an image would come into focus.
Or, I’ve been thinking lately of kaleidoscope images. You know, you look in to a kaleidoscope and see this dazzling array of color and geometric shapes, and then you give it a turn, and an entirely new, dazzling array appears. Each turn brings new vision.
So let’s give this morning’s parable a look and a listen. Let’s puzzle this thing out together.
This morning, we’re back in the Gospel of Mark – the breathless gospel. Remember. It’s the gospel where Jesus is baptized, and immediately, he’s thrown into the wilderness, and immediately, he calls his disciples, and immediately, he moves from village to village, immediately again and again, healing and teaching. And the crowds gather, and grow bigger and bigger, and follow him all around. The gospel keeps moving breathlessly forward.
Until chapter 4, and this morning’s scripture. Here we are – on the edge of the lake – and the action stops – for a moment. The crowd is so big, that Jesus gets out into a boat, just out in the lake, and he sits down to teach. (Interestingly, when we talked about this in worship team – Daniel pointed out that water amplifies sound, so maybe Jesus did this so that even more people could here).
Here they are – Jesus is in the boat facing the crowd, they’re on the edge of the lake facing him. And Jesus teaches them with this parable:
Listen. Look. A sower went out to sow.
And in their sowing, some of the seed fell beside the way, and the birds came and gobbled it up.
Other seed fell on rocky ground where there wasn’t much good earth. There was enough for the seed to sprout up. But when the sun came out, it scorched the sprouts, and they withered because they had no roots.
Other seed fell into thorns that grew and choked the sprouts, so that they bore no fruit.
But some other seed – other seed fell on good earth. And it sprouted up, and grew out, and gave fruit – thirtyfold, sixtyfold, one hundredfold. An abundant crop.
Let those who have ears to hear, hear.
Sounds pretty straightforward – it’s a gardening, farming metaphor. With a story like this, we might start to think in terms of allegory – where one element in this story represents one element in the world – this is this, and that is that. I grew up with a reading like that: Jesus is the sower. The seed is the word of God. And we are the soil. And the lesson is: Be good soil. (Did you notice that Natsuko’s prelude was, God, Help my Heart Be Good Soil?) There’s something in that.
But parables aren’t as straightforward as allegories[7] – if you push that a little.... Well, if we are the soil, then what or who are the sprouts? This is one of the few parables that Jesus actually explains – and a few verses after this – when the disciples ask what all this means: “Jesus says, “The sower sows the seed, and the seed is like the word. And, you/we are like the seed, some of us on rocky ground, some struggling in the thorns.”
So is the seed the word – or are we the seeds? Or, are we the sprouts, and the soil is our context, our challenge? I read one writer who said that if the seed is the word, then the seed is Jesus.... and we are the soil that receives the seed... but who then is the sower?
It all gets very confusing.
The more you look at a parable the more it keeps moving.
Parables aren’t simple. They poke at us to ask questions. Parables are stories drawn out of ordinary life, but with a twist. So we might want to to look for the twist, and ask, What’s unusual here, in this ordinary scene? Well, here, the sower is profligate in their sowing of seed. The folks hearing this story knew agriculture practice. They all lived a bare subsistence living. They would have wasted nothing – there was nothing to waste. A sower wouldn’t have just strewn seed willy-nilly – they would have plowed and planted. What the sower is doing here is extravagant. Where can we find meaning in that?
We can ask, What’s unusual here? and look for meaning there.
Or, this week, as I puzzled with this text, I started asking, “What’s usual here?” As I gave the kaleidoscope a turn, what came into focus for me, was simply this: A sower went out to sow. This sower went out to do what sowers do. I was drawn, not to the twist, but to the lovely ordinariness of it all.
The sower went out to sow – much like teachers go out to teach – or like cooks go out to cook – or like roofers go out to roof. On this Labor Day weekend, we think about and honor workers – the value of work, the dignity of work, the difference that work makes in the world. And our work – we know – our work is so much more than what we do professionally. Broadly understood, work is activity undertaken with a purpose. As a physicist might say, work is the energy expended to move an object from Point A to Point B – energy expended to make something happen. Work is activity undertaken with a purpose that makes a difference in the world.
A sower went out to sow – just to do the work that sowers do.
Notice in this parable, how our work is related to who we are. The sower is known to us as “the sower.” In this story, what we know of who this sower is, we know by what they do in the world.
Notice, from this story, how what we do, we always do in context. The sower goes out to sow – he does what sowers do – but not in a vacuum. Notice how it’s all connected – this sower, and the seed, and the sun, and the soil, and water enough for life – this cycle of sowing and challenge and growth and abundance.
As the worship team was looking at this Scripture this week, someone – I think it was Judie – said, well, this is all a process – every bit of this parable is one big process.[8]
These past two weeks, those roofers went out to roof – and they took flats of shingles, and moved them up to make a roof – a shelter for this place. For months, the Raise the Roof team has been active with a purpose – working – as together this community pooled its resources to fund that new roof. Their work made and the community’s generosity made that roofing possible. And then, this morning, under that roof,
folks worked with purpose,
practiced music to sing,
set out bulletins and made sure there was no clutter in the pews,
got ready to collect postcards that could be sent
to encourage voters to go out and vote,
brought out the communion elements,
prepared the table,
all so that we could feast together.
A sower went out to sow – to do what sowers do. And there were challenges. And some things didn’t work out as expected. Some things got off to a good start, but then took a bum turn. And even so, some of their work found good soil, and flourished – thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundred fold.
In this morning’s Scripture, we are back in the Gospel of Mark – the breathless gospel.
The breathless gospel is breathless about the good news –
the urgent good news that the reign of God
is breaking into this troubled world even now – with purpose –
to move and transform the world –
breaking down the systems that harm and oppress,
and building – growing – something entirely new.[9]
Jesus is talking to the crowds and the disciples – teaching them this parable – right in the midst of that urgent good news And what he's saying to them is that “This sowing of seed – this is part of who you are now.” Don’t you see? Listen. Look. Pay attention.
A sower went out to sow – and threw seed as expansively as one can – and there was struggle and challenge – and there was loss along the way – but look at what is sprouting up – beyond and through all that challenge – beyond and through all that work – look at the life that is springing up – so much life – thirtyfold, sixtyfold, one hundred fold. One writer puts it like this: “The loss in this parable may appear to be predominant, but the end of this agricultural season has not yet arrived, and may not for a long time. Meanwhile, human beings can live in hope... because the seed has been sown, the reign of God has begun, and there will be a harvest.”[10]
Jesus said: A sower goes out to sow. That is what a sower does. And from that sowing, there will be a harvest. Let those who have ears to hear, hear. Let those who see, see. Let those who do, do.
Let me tell you another parable. I call this the parable of the lover and the banquet.
One troubled night, a lover went out to love – and he prepared a feast for his beloved. He gathered those he loved at a table, and he fed them well.
Now, some of those at the table were ones who would betray him.
And others at the table were ones who would deny him.
And others at the table – well, really all the rest of the others –
were ones who, when things got tough, would flee into the night.
But knowing all that, this lover gathered his beloved at that table,
and he loved them still, and he fed them well.
And at one point in the meal, this lover said to them:
“This bread here, this is my body that will be broken.
And this cup here, this is my life that will be poured out.
Take. Eat. Drink. All of you.
For in all this. In all this. Here is where you will find your life.”
Let those who hear, hear. Let those who see, see.
Let those who have beating hearts... well, may you let this life pulse in you.
© 2024 Scott Clark
[1] For general background on the Gospel of Mark and this text, see Pheme Perkins, “The Gospel of Mark,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol.viii (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp. 573-79; Herman Waetjen, A Reordering of Power (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1989), pp.100-06; Douglas R.A. Hare, Mark (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996); Ahmi Lee, Commentary on Working Preacher, at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/parables-in-mark-2/commentary-on-mark-41-34-4 ; Karl Jacobson, Commentary on Working Preacher, at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/parables-in-mark/commentary-on-mark-41-34
[2] Perkins, p.568
[3] Id.
[4] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (HarperOne, San Francisco: 2014), p.7.
[5] See C.H. Dodd, quoted in Mike Graves, “God’s Little Farm: Preaching as Planting God’s Little Seeds,” in What’s Right With Preaching Today? (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021), pp.30-36.
[6] See Waetjen, p.100.
[7] See Levine, pp.7-8.
[8] Cf. Waetjen, p.122, emphasizing the parable’s comparison of the Rule of God to an agricultural season, and the losses and gains along the way.
[9] See Waetjen, pp.102-03.
[10] See Waetjen, p.103.
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