Sermons

Generous Is the Name of Our God

July 10, 2011
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 25:19-34; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
The Reverend Stephen P. Bauman

As the story is told Jesus had attracted a large crowd at the edge of the sea. So large in fact he climbed into a boat to gain distance and perspective from all those gathered on the shore. Matthew reports that from this vantage point Jesus told one of his most famous and beloved parables. It’s famous for good reason—it’s a wonderful story that has been allegorized to death over the centuries.

A sower scatters seed with generous, even wasteful abandon in a wide arc. Lousy soil, rocks, thorn weeds and birds all prevent most of it from taking firm root. With unusual concern for his listeners’ understanding, Jesus interprets his storytelling; the various outcomes represent the responses of different persons to hearing the words of God’s kingdom, evidently, ironically in the moment, even the words heard from his own mouth on this very day on the seashore.

This moral is completely transparent, or course. Most kids can understand it at an early age. So, I’ll start my conversation by asking a simple and obvious question: Which one of the outcomes most represents you? Taking Jesus’ words at face value, overall, are you good soil or bad? Now I suppose that might seem a bit oxymoronic to ask since all of you have managed to come out to church on a hot summer day. But knowing myself as I do, while the answer might be “well, all things being equal, I’m pretty good soil thank you,” possibly the better answer might be, “honestly, much of the time I’m quite hard and crusty, sorry to say.”

If we spoke frankly to one another we’d have to admit that what we generally like to hear is confirmation of what we already think we know or believe. Most of the time we’re not hoping for some major corrective in our thinking, in our attitudes, our prejudices and predispositions, our understanding of our place in the world. We prefer to hear all of those things confirmed. And we’ll actively seek out those persons and places that will do that for us. Frankly, we hold a pretty high opinion of our own opinions.

One of the most documented findings in human dynamics is that the average person believes very flattering things about him or herself—beliefs that do not stand up to objective analysis. For example, numerous studies reveal that the general public thinks that they are more intelligent, more fair-minded, less prejudiced, and more skilled behind the wheel of a car than the average person.

A survey of one million high-school seniors found that 70% thought they were above average in leadership ability, and only 2% thought they were below average. In terms of ability to get along with others, ALL students thought they were above average, 60% thought they were in the top 10% and 25% thought they were in the top 1%. A survey of university professors found that 94% thought they were better at their jobs than their colleagues.[1]

These statistics simply document what we instinctively believe about ourselves—we like what we think and we like ourselves for it. So, if we had taken a survey today of what sort of soil you thought you were, it would have been a good bet to predict that the results would indicate a truckload of rich and loamy earth filling these pews.

But then, any given church service seems to promote cross-purposes. We certainly want to celebrate a foundational faith we all jointly affirm. We’re sisters and brothers together, bound by a common sacred ancestry—we have a holy bond having discovered each of us is one of God’s beloved offspring. And in this we long to hear God’s reassuring voice about who we are, how worthy we are, how wonderful and loved we are, how valuable and correct our opinions.

Yet my experience has been that on the rare occasion I realize God has just spoken, I’m shaken to my core. God’s voice truly heard rearranges the foundation blocks of our lives. It brings new and important information—often disrupting information. And while this voice has loving intention, it may come as a great interruption to our normal way of understanding ourselves and the world. You mean, I’m not the brightest bulb in the room? You mean I actually should work at loving my enemy?

Then again, most of the time I don’t hear the voice of God so profoundly. Truth is, much of the time I’m as impervious to it as the hard path upon which the seed fell, easily picked off by the circling birds.

Come to think of it, there seems a lot of waste on a Sunday morning.[2] Think of the cost of running this place Sunday to Sunday. I can tell you it costs a lot. And there’s no telling who will show up especially in the summer. And then there’s such a lot of words, a lot of music, even organized silence, spent with little return in our short, expensive hour given our predispositions to hear what we want to hear. It’s like a great profligacy of seed scattered in a wide arc.

True enough, all of us have a lot on our minds, running the gamut from a recent visit with a doctor, to startling news about a loved one, tomorrow’s work agenda, the current state of the markets, preoccupation with the employment report—matters ranging from the tragic, to the worrisome, to the joyful, to the mundane.

The crowds came out to hear Jesus, but would it make any difference in the end? He said it depended upon what sort of soil his seed-words fell. Hard to tell, really. Hard to know where the good soil might be found. For any given person it might depend on the day. He knew the people who came to listen were very attached to what they thought they already knew about themselves and their world. Scatter the seed, that’s about all he could do and hope for the best. Seems like a lot of waste in that.

And by the end of his short and seemingly wasted life, what did he have to show for his efforts? Executed as a criminal at a young age. Probably could have been a decent carpenter if he put his mind to it, have had a nice spouse, a number of kids, and been a credit to his village instead of an embarrassment if he had only stayed home.

As it was he managed twelve, maybe fifteen, twenty, couple of dozen, hard-core followers after his short career scattering seeds of what he referred to as the kingdom of God.

But that seems the point, then. From the sower’s perspective, the indiscriminate sowing is what allows for the harvest. Sure on any given day most of the seed doesn’t land in promising terrain, but the little that does produces a remarkable result. And there, in this very small and transparent story, we see a snapshot of how God moves and works in the world among humans. God makes the seeming impossible, possible. God sows abundance in the midst of scarcity.

At any one time, in any one place, the words of the kingdom don’t need to land and produce 100%, or 80, 50, 20, even 5%. This is a very hopeful story, really. Hanging around the church one can sometimes get accustomed to what seems a very modest result at any given moment. Ironically, don’t we follow a man whose friends abandoned him at his moment of greatest need? Aren’t they our forebears?

Nevertheless, something of what Jesus said and lived, some fertile germ of understanding did take root. Something of who Jesus was landed on patches of fertile soil because here we are gathered together, 2000 years later—even with all of our preoccupations—when we might be spending our time at the shore, in the park, or in bed with the Times or an ipad and a cup of coffee.

There’s great vulnerability to God’s way in the world. God’s words and wisdom are subject to all the adverse conditions found in hostile environments. Yet, there seems a never-ending indiscriminate sowing of God’s truth, love and hope. Sometimes it lands, takes hold and spreads deep roots because that seems to be part of the warp and woof of creation—life, and hope and love will have its day.

Such a sowing took place on the corner of Park Avenue and 60th Street eight decades ago. The plant that sprung from the crusty soil between the subterranean crossing of the N and the R subways and the Metro North railroad, between the traffic-filled streets of a mid-town nexus in the largest city in the nation—right there in that hard-packed geography—that plant, though weathering long droughts, has lifted high branches that have formed a sanctuary of hope which in turn produce a unique crop of sowers.

Friends, when you go about your business beyond these walls, when on the occasion you consciously wonder why you should bother to regularly put your faith into action in the small, seemingly inconsequential moments of the day—a conversation here, a decision there, standing for integrity in the middle of a very difficult adversity or offering a cup of water to a thirsty soul you would rather ignore—remember that our God sows indiscriminately, showering fertile, rocky, and weed-infested soil alike with the blessings of the kingdom. If not for that, where would hope be found? As it is, the offspring of such a God can’t help but follow the patterns of their spiritual DNA and sow the seeds of the kingdom with a generous, even wasteful abandon.

Here is one very important setting we’re not to worry about an outcome. Just like God we’re supposed to share and live the good news of God’s astonishing grace with indiscriminate abandon as though we actually believed that this grace holds the essence of life-energy and will opportunistically take root wherever it can. Why on earth would we withhold from anyone, anywhere, such an incredible gift? Generous is the name of our God. So, too, by birthright, all of his children carry that name as well.

[1] Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn’t So, The Free Press, New York, 1991, 77.
[2] This tack on “waste” prompted by Will Willimon.