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Rollins Chapel Sermon
Kurt Nelson, 11/29/07, Mark 4: 1-20
I hope most of us, at some point during our younger years, have had the
experience of sitting outside on a warm summer day, perhaps at a picnic or
barbecue, eating a huge and delicious slice of watermelon. Just enjoying this
delicious fruit, full of cool goodness. Maybe even pondering the great and
mysterious gift of God that is the watermelon. And I suppose that almost as
many of us, due to our youth and gullibility also had the experience of being
convinced by some malevolent older friend and/or relative, that if we swallowed
a watermelon seed, a watermelon tree would grow in our stomach.
Now I know that we’re all smart here. And many of us may have never
really believed that a watermelon tree would grow in our stomach. Some
of us may have even done research to discover that there’s no such thing as a
watermelon tree. But just the same, a little bit of that basic watermelon joy
was lost. To worry about swallowing those ubiquitous and mysterious black
watermelon seeds. And while there’s surely a good sermon to be written, on
these malevolent older friends and/or relatives, and their seeming need to
destroy the innocent joy of youth. Today, I’d rather talk about seeds. Because
they are profound and mysterious little things. And they play a large part in
the parables of Jesus. From these seeds of ‘the word’ in the parable of the
sower, Mark moves into an image of the mysterious seed of the kingdom growing
in ways unknown, and then moved directly into the notion of faith as the
mustard seed, so small and so powerful. This is clearly powerful imagery, the
seed, and I think it still works today.
This parable of the sower evokes powerful questions, about the nature of the
ground on which the seed is being spread. Questions about paths and thorns and
birds and rocks, and receptive soil, and blooming too quickly, and not
blooming. Which sort of soil am I? Where are the rocks of unreceptiveness in my
own life? And it evokes powerful questions about the nature of the haphazard
sower. Spreading seed on rocks and paths and good soil alike, who wouldn’t make
much of a farmer, but is a pretty compelling image of the God of freely given,
undeserved grace. But for me, it evokes even more, questions about the seeds.
What are they? Are they seeds of the word, grace, love, wisdom?
How do they work? Why does it take so well with some and not with others? Big
questions, complex questions, looming questions.
with no easy answers. Because this is a parable. One of those wonderfully
frustrating little stories, so common to Jesus’ method. Full of simplicity and
complexity, rich with many levels of meaning, sometimes none of which are
apparent at first. A story that runs deep with meaning and wisdom and truth,
none of it terribly clear.
And the disciples ask Jesus a question many of us have likely pondered: Why
do you speak in Parables, Jesus? And what do they mean? Why can’t you just give
us a straight forward answer? Such questions are understandable. But I’m not
entirely satisfied with Mark’s answer.
And here’s where it gets tricky for me. Throughout the Gospel texts, we find
parables of Jesus with lines of explanation clearly tacked on the end by the
gospel writer. Sometimes they are helpful and sometimes they seem to come from
left field, but I almost always find them limiting. Scholars have debated
whether or not this particular sermonic explanation given by Mark at the end of
the parable of the sower, is really direct from the lips of Jesus, or is a
Marcan commentary on Jesus’ parable. I’m not sure that question is terribly
important to me, but I understand what’s behind it. For it is in the nature of
mysterious parables that they have countless layers of meaning. They are
accessible across generations and even millennia. But at the same time, they
offer no easy answers, but are rather points to begin meaningful theological,
personal or communal reflection.
And it is in the nature of tight, clear, instant, paint-by-numbers
explanations, that we so often want to find that they are not so much any of
these things. They do not resonate across generations, or apply easily to a
variety of questions or concerns. Their specificity, while comforting at time,
can also be quite limiting. Now, that’s not to say that there’s no value in
Mark’s attempted explanation of this parable of the sower. While I don’t tend
to find the image of the Satanic birds, swooping in and stealing away God’s
word and wisdom terribly helpful to my life of faith right now, I do indeed
find the image of the thorns of the garden as the cares of the world and the
lures of wealth choking out our connection to God and community, to speak well
to our current context. The potential problem comes for me, whenever such
tight, neat packages of explanation, serve to limit the breadth and depth of
wisdom and knowledge that can come from these wisdom of parables. These are
meant not to offer easy explanation and understanding, but to force us to
reflect meaningfully, on how they might carry over into our own context. While
an image of the world as thorns, choking out the concerns of God might at times
be a useful reading for particular people, in particular contexts, the larger
lesson coming from this sort of literature, is of deep, personal
introspection.
On faith and ethics, and indeed on Godly wisdom, coming not in tight,
easy-to-apply, messages and laws for our owns lives. Instead, these parables
offer us a mysterious starting point, meant to be lived out in reflection and
conversation. With many layers of meaning, often hidden, which need tending,
time and care. Just likes the seeds portrayed within. God’s word and wisdom
come to us in parables, in seeds, full of possibility and mystery and problems
and struggles. For good and for bad. And our yearning to turn them into tightly
packaged, easily applicable truths, while understandable, I think is not right.
Because I don’t think God’s word and God’s wisdom works that way. Any specific
understanding of a parable such as this one that presumes to exclude all
others. Becomes a little like that malevolent older friend and/or relative, who
convinces us that we ought to fear swallowing watermelon seeds, and in so
doing, strips away some of the joy of the watermelon. Specific readings
of stories like these, when they come at the expense of other possibilities,
strip away some of the depth and meaning contained within. Seeds and
parables.
So perhaps for me today, this parable of the sower, is a parable about
parables. A story about how God’s wisdom comes to us as seeds, hidden in
intensely complex, but intensely simple stories. And we, like the good soil,
must be receptive. Must allow these stories to become a part of us, to take
time to sit and sprout and grow and yield. Indeed, these seeds of wisdom must
not be carried off by want of simplicity or questions of ease of access. Wisdom
must not spring up too fast and wither at the first sign of trouble, God’s
wisdom must not be choked out by concerns of the world and of wealth. But must
be allowed time and space to germinate within us.
In order that they might yield 30 and 60 and 100 fold.
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