Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Cultivating Faith - Good Soil - Matthew 13:1-13, Isaiah 55:6-13


This is a sermon that was preached on Sunday, July 16 2017 at United Presbyterian Church in Sterling, KS.

Read Matthew 13 here.

Listen to the sermon here.

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Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.  –Matthew 13:9

One day, Jesus said to his disciples:
"The Kingdom of Heaven is like y = 3 x2 + 8 x - 9."
A man who had just joined the disciples looked very confused and asked Peter:
"What, on Earth, does he mean by that?"
Peter smiled. "Don't worry. It's just another one of his parabolas."[1]

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like y = 3 x2 + 8 x - 9."

You might recognize that as a parabolic equation.  It’s called parabolic because if you put it on a graph, the line it creates is a parabola.  An arch, like the famous one in St. Louis.

Don’t worry, that’s as far as I’m going with math today.  I brought up parabolic equations because today we begin looking at the section of the book of Matthew that’s called the parabolic discourse. (A discourse is like a sermon.) It’s not called that because Jesus teaches about math, but because Jesus teaches using a series of parables.  Today we’re talking about the parable of the soils.  Next week we’ll look at the parable of the weeds, and then the following week we’ll look at the group of short parables that finish this section of teaching.

All of these parables are teaching about the kingdom of God.  Jesus was continually telling people that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  The parable of the soils is the only one in this series of parables that doesn’t begin, “The kingdom of God is like…”

The kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer Jesus taught the disciples when they asked him to teach them how to pray.  In the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

What that means…and I’m borrowing this explanation from the Heidelberg Catechism, one of the confessions found in our Book of Confessions…
“Your kingdom come” means:
Rule us by your Word and Spirit in such a way that more and more we submit to you.
Preserve your church and make it grow.
Destroy the devil’s work; …
Do this until your kingdom fully comes, when you will be all in all.[2]
In other words, God’s kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, is where God is sovereign.

But looking around at the world, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that God is not sovereign and that the kingdom of God is far off.  That was the thinking in Jesus’ time, too.  They were hoping that he would start acting more like a king and work on taking over the government.  But if they were really listening to his teaching, they would have heard that the kingdom of God was not about taking over the government, but about turning hearts to God.  To further demonstrate that, Jesus tells this parable.  And we get a bonus with this parable, we get an explanation: 
The four kinds of soils are four different ways that people hear God’s word.  The optimum results come from the fourth way, hearing and understanding and bearing fruit. 
Which makes it fairly obvious that it’s best to be good soil.  But how much control do we really have over that?

Two scriptures have been running through my mind this week as I was pondering this parable.  One is the scripture from Isaiah 55 that Carol read for us this morning:
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Is. 55:10-11)

God’s word is always effective at accomplishing God’s purposes.  We should also note, however, that this same passage also talks about how God’s ways are different than our ways.  God’s purposes may be different than our purposes, and so we may misjudge the effectiveness of God’s word.

The other scripture comes from the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  They were arguing over who was the better teacher and Paul put the argument to rest by saying, “God is the one who gives the growth.”

With those two scriptures in mind, let’s look at the four scenarios.

#1
The seed that lands on the path is the person who doesn’t understand the word.  The soil is too hard for the seed to sink in.  They are too hard-hearted, or the word is too foreign to be understood.

Hard soil is what we find in the desert where there hasn’t been water for a very long time.  On those rare occasions when it does rain, the ground is so hard that the water just runs right off.  It can’t soak in.

But what if just one seed didn’t get snatched away but remained and gradually sunk in and lay there unsprouted, maybe even for a long time, and when it did finally sprout it grew slowly, so slowly that no one even noticed.

Hiking in the mountains in California I have seen trees growing out of the side of giant cliffs of rock.  How the seed that became that tree even got there is a mystery.  I was always amazed at the tenacity of those trees to have grown in spite of the impossible conditions.

Good soil is best, but there is grace and hard hearts can be softened.  God says in Ezekiel 36:26, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”  With humans this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

#2
The second kind of soil is rocky.  The seed grows but there’s not enough soil for deep roots, so the plant is scorched by the sun.  It can’t handle the heat and withers. 

Jesus tells a similar story about two houses, one built on rock and the other built on sand.  Wind and rain cannot blow over the house built on the rock, but the one built on sand is easily blown away.  We tell this same story to our children in a different way.  Three little pigs each built houses – one made of straw, one made of sticks, and one made of bricks.  When the big bad wolf comes to blow down the houses, the only one that stands is the one made of bricks.

Whether we’re talking about building houses or growing plants, we’re talking about strength of character, and a foundation built on faith in Jesus Christ, instead of other things. 

What if, even though the plants are scorched and the house is blown over, there’s still just enough root to remain, or just enough of the foundation left to rebuild?

There’s a beautiful movie you may have seen that came out in the 90’s starring Keanu Reeves called “A Walk in the Clouds.”[3]  It’s set in the 1940s in the Northern California wine country.  At one point in the story … spoiler alert…the family’s vineyard catches fire.  It looks like all the grape vines are destroyed, including the original plant that they’d brought from their family home in Italy.  They hurry to find that vine. It too looks burned to survive, but as they peel away the burned part, they find that there is still life at the center, and from that life they are able to regrow the vineyard.

That glimmer of hope is what we have through faith in Jesus Christ.  Romans 5 tells us how hope survives in the midst of rocks and trouble:
Therefore, since we are [made right with God] by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

We grow roots into the rock that is Jesus Christ.


#3
The third soil is full of thorns that choke out the sprouting plant.  The worries and cares of this world and the lure of wealth get in the way. 

But what if the plants don’t die and they’re able to push away the thorns and keep on growing?

Scrooge, in Charles Dickens’ story A Christmas Carol, is a pretty thorny guy.  He’s all about saving a penny and has no room in his life for people.  What’s growing in Scrooge is his bank account.  But those ghosts that come on Christmas Eve help push away the thorns and cares that have crowded out the life that still lives deep down inside, and on Christmas morning Scrooge has become a new man.

Jesus talks about worry in Matthew 6:
Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32. . . your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
And Paul says in Phillippians:
Do not worry about anything, but in everything with prayer and thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:6-7)

The best way to deal with our worries is to keep on bringing them to God in prayer.


One of the great debates among commentators is how we should see ourselves in this parable.  Are we the sowers or the soil . . . or both? 

If our hearts are the soil, then the only one who can help us make things grow in our hearts is God, so the way to be good soil is to ask God for help with this.  Each of the kinds of soil can be changed through seeking God in prayer. 

If we are the sowers, then we still need God to make the seeds grow and so we still need to be praying as we sow.

If we are the path – the hardened soil – then we can pray, “Change my heart, God.”  And if we are sowing on hard soil, they we pray for that person’s heart to be softened and we keep on sowing seeds of love, hoping that at least one will sprout and take root.
We can also pray for understanding – God, help me to understand what I’m reading in the Bible or hearing in a group or sermon.  If we’re the one teaching or speaking, we pray that our words will find softened soil, listening hearts.

If we are the rocky soil, we can pray to ask God to help us withstand trouble, to help us to remember that God is still with us even in the midst of the trouble.  If we are the sower, we can pray for someone who is having trouble and look for ways to be the help that they need.

If we are the thorny soil, we can pray for God to help us see beyond the thorns, and for God to help us know that his ways are good and trustworthy, and we can look for ways to be thankful for what we have.  We can ask God to help us remember Jesus’ words, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  If we are the sower, we can pray for those who are having trouble with thorns, and look for ways to help clear them away.

Whether we are the soil or the sower, we can be good soil and good sowers by being consistent and constant pray-ers. How do we do that?

1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to pray continually. This is what God wants, and this is our goal, to be in conversation with God through as much of each day as possible.  Most of us probably fall short of that.   Wherever you stand on prayer, join me in a challenge - to spend the next 40 days praying more. 

God says in Jeremiah: You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  (Jeremiah 29:13)

You’ll find an insert in your bulletins (see below to download jpgs) on light brown paper with a tree on it. Take a look at it now, and you’ll see that it has a chart on it.  Next to each date there are 5 boxes to check off for praying.  Our growth challenge is to go the next 40 days checking at least one box a day. 

There are boxes to check for up to 5 times a day.  I chose 5 because it sounded easier to me to remember to pray when I get up in the morning, when I go to bed at night, and at breakfast, lunch and dinner.  There’s also an ancient tradition of praying the hours each day which would mean praying at 6am, 9am, noon, 3pm, 6pm and 9pm.[4]  That’s 6 instead of 5.

Next to each day there’s also a space for putting a word or two, a note to yourself, whatever you want to put there.  It could be a scripture you prayed that day, or something that occurred to you as you were praying, or the names of people you prayed for.

At the bottom of the back of the card is a version of the Lord’s Prayer, which makes a great template for prayer.

Writer Ann Lamotte has a great book about prayer called Help, Thanks, Wow.  She encourages us to not worry so much about the words, but to call out to God throughout the day to ask for help in big and small ways, to say thanks for things as we go through the day, and to notice God’s blessings and say Wow to those.

Please add to your prayers a prayer for those who are finding this challenge difficult, or who are having trouble deciding to pray at all. 

Please also pray daily for our church, that we would grow in our understanding of God’s vision for us as a church.

"Praying is a joining of realities, making a live connection between the place we find ourselves and the God who is finding us."
--Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor

The place we find ourselves.  I think reality is that sometimes we are good soil, and sometimes we are thorny soil, or rocky soil, or even hardened soil.  We are people in process.  God says in Ezekiel that he will take our hearts of stone and soften them, turn them into hearts of flesh.  All of us are somewhere in that process. 

I know for me even in the course of a day there are times when a seed falling on the soil of my heart might hit any one of those kinds of soil.  Early in the morning I’m better at listening to God than I am later in the busyness of the day. 

Throughout the day, wherever we find ourselves, the more we can think to talk to God and say, “Here I am, God.  Help me bring your kingdom of heaven on earth to this place, to this part of my life,” the more we will be good soil and good sowers of God’s love and grace in the hearts of those around us.

God is so patient with us.  Only God can make us grow. 

Let continually open our hearts to him with thanks and praise.







[2] Heidelberg Catechism Question 123 from the 2014 edition of the PC(USA) Book of Confessions
[3] A Walk in the Clouds, 1995 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114887/

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