Do you know what a “second-person, personal pronoun” is? Don’t worry. This post will not be a grammar lesson. I’ve tried three times to write one, but I’ve bored myself so much that I gave up. Anyway, the word “you” is just such a pronoun. We use this word everyday, and in proper English it can be used either in a singular or a plural number. (Such as when some says, “You preachers talk too much.” or “You Christians are all the same.”) However, in the southern and southwestern parts of the US, we developed “ya’ll” to replace the plural form.
Well, I lied about the grammar lesson it seems, but that will be the end of it…for the most part. “Ya’ll” has become so handy that my iPhone will even correct for it when I send a text. (It adds the apostrophe and everything.) I’ve met people from other parts of the US that employ their own versions of “ya’ll.” It’s to correct for a deficiency in English where we can’t tell when we hear someone speak whether they mean one person or a group of people. It doesn’t come up so much in the political arena, mostly because politicians want to be inclusive and use “we” instead. However, these colloquial terms exist, and they are hard to get out of our everyday speech. (Trust me! I’ve been trying not to say “ya’ll” since I’ve moved to DC…and I tend to fail more than succeed.)
But none of these terms are considered “good grammar,” and so when authors write for publication, or when Biblical scholars translate a text, we are left with the good, old fashioned, “you.” Not a problem, though. It was meant to serve as both a singular and plural word. We can tell the difference, right?
I don’t think we do a good job of that, though. The US is a country of individuals, not a place of great community. Because we are trying to be whatever we want, or taking care of ourselves, because no one else will. Individualism is a part of our American DNA. American individualism is talked about so much that there is almost no need to talk about it. It’s that part of us that says that our struggles and afflictions are really our own. They are unique to who we are.
But what if individualism did more than just inform the way we see the world? What if it informed the way we read our Bibles? Like I talked about earlier, it’s not proper grammar to say “ya’ll” in a formal setting. Biblical scholars would never use such a common turn of phrase in formal writing. When we read our English-language Bibles, we are reading a proper style that is far from what we normally speak and hear. For most of my teen years, the pastors who ministered to me were apt to let “ya’ll” into their sermons, though, and that just goes to fuel my curiosity.
You see, the writers of the Bible had a way to differentiate between you-singular and you-plural. The original audiences would have heard the difference when the texts were read. Is it different for us? On Sunday morning, or if you read the texts for yourself, do we really know who the writer is talking to? I think we tend to think of the texts as talking to an individual…not a community. We can’t help but understand the texts in terms of our language. Our thoughts are processed through English filters enhanced with our American worship of the individuals.
A good “ya’ll” would probably benefit us when we read the Scriptures. That way when when Jesus, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples,”(John 8:31) it would be more of a conversation in a community instead of a command for me. Maybe the next version of the English Bible should read, “If ya’ll hold to my teaching, ya’ll are really my disciples.”
Although, if I had done this in seminary...I probably would have done even worse in Greek.
If your church follows the lectionary, there is a good chance you will hear this passage during your Sunday morning service. I find it fascinating that these words are read on the same Sunday where the Gospel reading is one where Jesus is threatened with death by his hometown. Lot’s of love in the Gospel passage this week.
Most often, this passage has been devoted to being read in weddings, where we have cast these words as some kind of descriptor of romantic love. However, Paul just concluded a long section on spiritual gifts and roles in the church. We know that 12th chapter pretty well, too. You know… “If the foot would say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,…” It’s a great statement about he important of every member of Christ’s Church. Paul concludes the 12th chapter using rhetorical questions to show that there are many gifts, but the last verse says there is a more excellent way.
To remember the 12th chapter while reading this week’s passage, helps me to remember that Paul is not working for Hallmark or Mardel’s. I see the Apostle to the Gentiles telling us that all of these gifts we just read about are superseded by Love. Paul then tells us how to recognize this “more excellent” love before reminding us of something very important.
Love is outside of us.
By the time we get to verse 8, Paul is bringing us back to something that grounds us. He is remind us of the gifts of tongues, our knowledge, and our prophecies are all internal and temporary. There will come a time when they will be no more, but the love described in verses 4-7 will continue on. Love is complete and whole, though we are not. It’s a powerful message. Much more so than just when it has been used as a platitude for a wedding.
Is there a way we can read these words anew? Can we bring them into our context, so far removed from Paul’s 1st century world? I think we should. I believe the preacher is doing that they take to the pulpit. Jesus did that in last week’s Gospel passage when reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah.
What if when we put 1 Corinthians 13: 8 into our context it looked something like this:
Our preaching will pass away.
Our theologies will cease being productive.
Our cooperative programs will dry up.
Our church buildings will crumble.
The Pew Research Study where the “nones” were brought into the fore of church conversations has everyone terrified over the future of the church. I understand that. My wife and I have a vocational connection to the church. Without that connection, I must confess that we don’t really know what to do. We love our churches, and find fulfillment in serving the local congregation. But it’s hard to deny the facts. These local havens that we have devoted our lives to are changing. While there are still megachurches, the majority of Christian communities are much smaller, and shrinking with each successive generation.
It’s not the first time the Church has changed.
And it will not be the last.
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is telling us that Love will continue. That through all of the past changes, Love has carried on. It’s wholeness is not contained inside of our institutions, and so when they pass away, Love will remain. It’s a scary place to be, watching something you love die. Personally, I feel myself to be in the early stages of grieving. I’m scared of a world where the church is resurrected different from what I’ve known, and so I consciously deny what I know to be true. I feel left out, and afraid.
I am one who needs to hear the message of Dr. King. When I was younger, I would have been a member of the groups that picketed the marches, or at least been apathetic to the cause of equality. Granted, I was born a few decades after MLK’s death. But I remember the formative years of elementary through high school, and I lament that I spoke very much like those who were opponents to Civil Rights. My friends and I would talk about how there were two kinds of people within ethnic minorities. There were the good ones (i.e. the people who spoke/dressed/acted like myself) and there were the bad ones (i.e. people who were different). Of course, we would never say these things in mixed ethnic company; that would have been unChristian of us. Instead, we held our statements as inside remarks against those we saw as a threat to our stable, privileged way of life.
It took a long time for me to realize that. In college and seminary, I would have moments of inspiration, but on the whole, remained ignorant to my subversive racism. Instead, it shifted to that form of exclusion reserved for those who don’t hate the other, but instead condescend towards the other. I saw myself as one of the educated. I was part of a group that new best and therefore should shoulder the responsibility of bringing those different from me into the light of such knowledge. Instead of hating others because of their inherent differences, I pitied them for not being like me. The ignorance of my position allowed me an arrogance that may have been even more dangerous. I was eager to jettison signs of overt racial hatred, but vehemently objected to any insinuation that I was truly part of the problem.
In truth, I am still one who is struggling. I struggle with dismissing anyone who is now not as willing to admit privilege as I am. My arrogance has moved toward anger, not with people who provoke painful conversations around race, but instead towards people who think just as I once did. I hear words that I used to say coming from the mouths of people I used to talk to and I want to weep. It’s difficult for me to explain just how much I don’t like the person I used to be, and that is because the only way I know to see that younger me is through the lens of the things I now despise.
Through all of this long process MLK day meant very little to me. I often worked in fields were it was not a day off, once I was not in school anymore. There were many years that I forgot it even was MLK day until the sun was set. I should little honor or respect to this Baptist minister who laid his entire existence on the line for his vocation. I admired his speeches, for sure. As one who longed to preach, I could not help admiring such a powerful preacher. However, the courage, faith and righteousness of the man was far from something I contemplated.
This year may have been very similar to others had I not seen something that filled me with sorrow. I was perusing social media when a friend posted a link. The story was about how a person of color was dressed down by a judge about their culture before being sentenced harshly for a crime. I couldn’t even bear to read the article because of the comment my friend put as their status. They chose a racially stereotypical name for this person they did not know, followed by the phrase, “…if that’s your name.” Then, they concluded the post with a rhetorical, “as if it matters,” in reference to the fact that the now convicted person would be removed from society for decades. And all of this just 24 hours after praising how God has been so active in the writer’s personal experience.
It is difficult for me to express my emotions about what I read. It was a mixture of anger, sadness, outrage, and sorrow. As the day has progressed, I’ve thought about never speaking with my friend again. That would be easy, and I feel I could justify it. I don’t live near them and so it would be easy to say that I will never have an opportunity to discuss this in a meaningful way. I want to scream things like “Of course it matters! This is a human being we are talking about! They are created in the image of God! If Christ died for us, then Christ died for them as well!” But another social media rant isn’t helpful, and throwing around the word “racism” is counter-productive.
In the end, I’ve left with these thoughts, and the pain of knowing that of all days, today would be the time that I encountered such a sentiment. It’s what has driven me to reflect on that person that I was, and the person I am. In the pain, I see how far I’ve come, but also how far I still have to go. I think of the way I viewed the world as a black and white vista of easily identifiable categories, and rejoice/mourn the colorful beauty of nuance. To hold rejoicing and mourning so close together is not difficult, I believe. I mourn the by-gone days of comfort from the simplicity of the past, and with anxiety, rejoice at the beauty of today’s nuance. Through it all I see my past self with more empathy than I did when I awoke. And for this, I think Dr. King for it is today that all of these struggles have taken place.
"I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
This week, after making the last post, I wanted to write about something that has been on my mind a lot over the last few months. I have talked about this issue with friends on many occasions, and all of those conversations have been interesting as well as insightful. However, when I sat down to actually write the thing, it turned out to be much harder than I had originally intended or imagined. I am having a difficult time grasping exactly why that is. There are all of these intelligent things I want to say, but exactly how to put them seems difficult to nail down with precision.
That being the case, I am going to try the direct approach. I’ve become astonishingly aware, of late, how much we truly worship violence, myself included. As a society, we have talked about/scoffed about the violence of video games and movies over the years. Today, violence is actually a relatively rare occurrence in the typical American’s daily experience. I know for some it is a part of their everyday existence, but for the majority of us, we are safer now than we have ever been. The murder-rate, though higher here than other developed countries, is the lowest it has ever been in any historic period that we can truly record. Yet, we seem to have found ways to make sure violence itself is a part of everything we do.
Look at the most popular movies of the last year. Both the second Avengers movie, and the new Star Wars film, are full of violence. Though they are not the bloody affairs like Saving Private Ryan, they still have a great deal of violence. I saw them both, and wanted to see them badly. I, along with everyone else in the theater, cheered more for the big fight scenes of the Avengers than…say the scene where Black Widow tells the heartbreaking story of her forced sterilization. It wasn’t the scene where Rey had the vision that make everyone cheer; it was seeing the Millennium Falcon dogfight against TIE fighters over a desert planet. Its war and punching and brute strength and winners and losers, and those are the parts that we want to devour. They are narratives that appeal to the part of us that wants there to be stark contrasts between good/evil, winners/losers.
It’s why American Football is the most popular sport. It’s the only one where you have a very high probability of coming away with serious brain injury, and yet those hits that probably cause said injuries are why we watch. For years, my favorite team was not the one with the flashy offense, but the one that had a defense that could hurt you. Even in an era where there are rules to regulate hitting to try and lessen the effects of brain injuries, it’s those exact moments where two Adonis(es?) collide headlong at full speed that thrill us. We love it so much that we spend millions of dollars for teenagers to have the best stadium from which we can witness this event.
Today, even Christians advocate for violence. During the time of Advent, there were several high-profile Christians advocating for violence in one form or another. Whether it be violence against personal bodily attack, or US response to international terrorism, some Christians who have big platforms advocated for violence. It’s not the first time this has happened to be sure, and it most likely will not be the last. (Anyone remember the Crusades? No?)
When I heard about or read about some of the vehemence expressed by these leaders who so fervently trumpet the name of Jesus, I became felt uncomfortable. As a person of the Christian faith, I don’t really feel it was appropriate. Should we, as representatives of a homeless prophet put to death by the State, advocate for state sponsored violence against others? Should we, who were told to “turn the other cheek,” and that, “they who live by the sword will die by the sword” really be so quick to boast of our own willingness to dispense violence? Should the followers of the one who healed the ear of one of the people come to arrest him be so quick threaten the lives of others in order to defend their ideologies?
We both know all of those questions are rhetorical…but I hope you will want to talk about it in the comments section anyway.
In the not to distant past, my wife and I had the wonderful opportunity to serve an international church in Bali, Indonesia. We had only been married a few months and so we looked at this amazing opportunity as a wonderful working honeymoon. I mean, why not? We were living in a tropical paradise while getting the opportunity to work with an amazingly diverse group of Christians. One opportunity sticks out as we sit in the shadow of last Sunday’s worship around the Lukan narrative of Jesus’ baptism.
We were invited to visit a Hindu temple up in the mountains. Part of the trip was to sit down at a family home near the temple and participate in some informal interfaith dialogue. There was an American woman living with this Balinese family who acted as an interpreter for us. As we sat to have tea, she told us about her conversation with the family before we came. We had told her while planning this visit that we were Christians who ministered from the Baptist perspective, and she recounted to us her experience of trying to explain that to the Balinese Hindu family she was living with. The only way she knew to describe our faith practices to the family's elders was to tell them that we were Christians with a special relationship to water.
At the time, I didn’t know what to think about it. I’ve always wondered about the name Baptist and what it means. Often, the Walter Shurden book, The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms, comes to mind. It’s a great book, if you haven’t read it. Regularly, I reflect on Shurden’s work around religious freedom, soul freedom, bible freedom, and congregational freedom. In terms of what I truly think of Baptist distictives, in a formal sense, the book captures my position well.
However, if you ask me what the word “Baptist” means, I have a harder time answering that question. I can recite my old seminary answers about baptizing members of the church and not children, or why we immerse as the official mode of baptism, but there isn’t one way for me to really capture what baptism means in full-throated way. There could be all kinds of reasons. Baptism does not save a soul, as the Campbellite Churches of Christ put it, and it is not a sacrament as my Episcopalian or Catholic friends would think of it. So, what does it do? Why is baptism important?
This last Sunday, I listened to a pastor give a great sermon, more a dramatic presentation really, of someone standing in line behind Jesus as if they were there in the reading from Luke. As I listened, I was carried away by the story and felt myself responding to the dramatic cues, and following the along, just as the pastor has planned it, I’m sure. Then, I remembered another scene. We were in the chapel of the Episcopal seminary where my wife earned her masters. It was the Saturday before Easter, and we were participating in The Great Easter Vigil.
For this Baptist boy, it was a long service. At the end, the dean of the seminary baptized the children who had been born in the seminary community that year. Though I prefer the practice Baptists have clung to, I appreciated the moment of families and god-parents gathered around the priest as they watched the ceremony with a packed chapel. It was quite beautiful after just singing of the resurrection. Then, something happened that I had never known before. The priest took a branch of rosemary and dipped it into the bowl . Turning to the crowd she said, “Remember your baptism,” before shaking the water over the heads of the gathered worshipers. We were sitting too far back to have the water hit us, and so after the service had fully concluded, my wife went to one of the professors with whom she had grown close. She told her, “We didn’t get any of the water during the remembrance of baptism.” The professor, still in her vestments, said, “Oh, I can handle that.” She gathered her alb and ran to the font. There, she took the rosemary and plunged it into the bowl before turning to my wife, whose arms were outstretched and gave her a good dousing. It was joyful, and beautiful. The perfect mixture of reverence and irreverence, levity and depth, beautiful and fun. It is an image I will remember.
I remember it mainly because it caused me to remember my baptism. I remember the night when I stood on a milk carton in the baptistry of my local church as a 4th grader. I remember my pastor in his white baptismal robe, and I remember the nervousness of that moment in front of the entire congregation. As I put all of those stories together, I even begin to see what it means.
It took me experiencing a Baptist ritual, then seeing my Baptist ritual through the Episcopal remembrance for me to think my Baptism all that important. It’s the first time that I really remember having any discussion or ritual that was called as a memorial for baptism. In a way, I find it a touch shameful, being that I am a Baptist. Baptism is one of the big things we SHOULD be known for, it is in our name.
I know that today there are all manner of conversations around how we attract new people to our churches, and how we through the doors open in such a way that all feel that our faith is accessible. Last Sunday, as I listened to the pastor tell the story as if they were there, I realized, we need to make the things we do mean something. It doesn’t matter if we keep practicing full immersion baptism or the Lord’s Supper/Communion if we do not take it seriously. When I am asked to remember my baptism, in whatever ritual or form that could be used, I want to relive it. In the moments, I want to be baptized again. It is re-born in me. and I feel as I did when I was a new member to the body of Christ.
Maybe, there is a new way for us to remember our baptism.
Hopefully, it is something worth remembering.
Eventually, it may lead us to realizing how connected we are as a body.
So, I am going to take this moment to place some things on the table. I am a member of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, I am ordained with an M.Div, I am married to a minister, but I am not serving a congregation, at present. There, now we all know the perspective from which I will be speaking. Now, in my past, I was a Southern Baptist, mostly because I did not know there was another option. The church of my family was a SBC congregation, and eventually, it was the church that honored my call to ministry and sent me off to college. However, when I was growing up in the late 80s and 90s, I didn’t know anything about what was going on in the larger landscape of SBC life. Our sleepy little town did not talk much of the larger happenings, and my pastor, was a young man at the time, did not see himself as a firebrand of the convention.
It was not until I got to college in 2002 that I began to learn about the recent history of the SBC. I heard about the different confessions of the SBC for the first time, and which ones were considered good and which ones were an affront to our tradition, according to my professors and state denominational leaders. During my junior year, I heard about the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship for the first time. When I say heard about it, that is what I mean. One of my peers said they were going to the CBF General Assembly in Atlanta, and that was it. At the time, I was serving as a ministry intern on the staff of an SBC congregation. Looking back, it didn’t make much difference, there was only one CBF congregation in town at the time, and I didn’t know the people you need to know to be considered for a position there.
All this to say, when I began to take part in conversations over the direction of Baptist life, I was much older and already a member of a CBF congregation.
The reason I wanted to write this is because of something I have noticed over the last couple of years. As a person who is not a member of the SBC, or in any way affiliated with the SBC, I sure do see a lot of people in CBF who spend a lot of time talking about the SBC. Specifically, how something was said/did/decided that is a bad thing. I just keep wondering why.
This last year, I heard a lot of conversations at General Assembly about how the CBF is not the SBC. Terms like “different kind of Baptist,” or “not that kind of Baptist” get thrown around a lot. Usually, this happens between people I don’t know, who are older than I am, and who remember the SBC the way it was. Many of them were active then, and had a vision of their future that was dramatically changed by what happened. They lost careers, friends, and a safe place to retreat in one decade. Every story I have heard, every article I have read, and every book published by those who would call themselves moderates or liberals is filled with pain and loss. I see how their eyes focus into that middle space where they can see their past and the hopes that person had back then.
I also hear the venom many of them use when they speak of how the SBC acts now, and I imagine they feel as if someone is dating their ex-wife. They see these people they don’t know in their house, and watch as they let the yard go. I’m sure it feels as if all the hard work they did has been destroyed, or that the name they loved so much is being drug through the mud. And I’ve experienced how it affects conversations around ministry and vision-casting. Hot topics in the congregation have to exorcise all of the demons of past pain before a new future can be dreamed of, and there has to be the caveat that it’s different from the SBC church on the other side of town. All of our worship is compared to what is going on in SBC churches, our preaching is compared to the guys in SBC mega-churches, and our seminaries are always held up to the ghosts of what was.
I wonder how long we can keep defining ourselves by what we are not. Do we have to wait until age and mortality rates cause a population shift in the CBF? As a new generation of ministers emerge; one who doesn’t remember the fights and controversy, will their voice be appreciated? I feel that the future is very bright, mostly because my friends are talented ministers who I think are going to do great things. However, I also feel that we can’t look back at our past if we are going to make that new future. We can no longer define ourselves by who we are not.
This sermon was delivered at First Baptist Church of Austin, TX on July 13, 2014. It was a great morning at our church, mostly because the music was so powerful. Below is the text of the sermon, which I followed fairly closely. It's always better to watch the video of a sermon, in my opinion. If you like good sermons, you should go to fbcaustin.org and listen to some of the ones there. Dr. Roger A. Paynter, our pastor, is amazing. Peace to all of you.
Events of Fertile Ground
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
I love this sanctuary. I know there is an architectural reason it was designed the way it was, but when you move the pulpit and the choir to the side, putting the table and the cross in the center, you make a theological statement as well. It says, none of the people who occupy this space, whether they sing, or preach, is as important as the God who has called us here.
When we watch a movie, or television show, read fiction or poetry, look at art, or even listen to music, our minds start searching for meaning to these images and metaphors that are presented to us. Stories and images excite our minds in a very unique way. We pick out sages and Christ-figures, heroes and villains, and the like, but all of these help us to make sense of the medium. When those lenses of interpretation can be established quickly, we begin to invest in the story and are more likely to stick with it to the end. When those lenses are absent it leaves us without an emotional anchor to ground their involvement.
In the book, Reel Spirituality, Robert Johnson talks about this interpretive practice, in relation to movies, as something we all do, and often it happens unconsciously. However, our minds require interpretation in order to bring these alien characters, who often live lives very different from our own, closer to us. Humanity craves these interpretations so much so that we can take things that have little or no meaning and give them a great deal of weight. Bob Dylan never talks about the meaning of his songs because he knows people will make their own regardless of what he says. Mark Twain, when asked to respond to some literary critics interpretation of the meaning of the Mississippi River in the books Tom Sawer, and Huck Finn said, “It’s just a ‘blank’ river.”
Today, we are looking at this first parable from the book of Matthew, and it paints a picture using agriculture as its theme. According to the last US census, our population has made a significant change. For the first time in American history, the majority of people live in large urban or suburban areas instead of rural locales. The reason I point this out is to highlight that very few of us can connect to agricultural images the same way our parents and grandparents did. That includes all of us sitting here. I mean we are a downtown church. You would have to drive, at least 45 minutes, maybe more depending on normal traffic, and if the president is in town maybe an entire day just to get to a place where there are farms around. Myself, I grew up in a small community and my grandfather did farm, but I don’t understand agriculture out side of the general knowledge I picked up in school.
In the nine verses that were not read from Matthew 13 today, the Gospel writer tells us that Jesus teaches his disciples that there is a reason why he teaches in parables. It is so God can allow people to make meaning and interpretation of the parables. Then, he goes on to explain what’s happening in the parable of the sower. Even then, theologians, preachers, teachers, and laypeople have interpreted this parable to narrow down certain images that Jesus used. We have heard them. This passage is used often as a source to inspire evangelism, defend interpretations of Scripture, and exemplify the role of Jesus as our Savior. The sower has been cast as the evangelist who goes out to tell the world about the work of Christ, and we are to take up this call. I’ve even heard the Holy Spirit cast as the sower and Christians cast as those who follow along into the world to reap the harvest. These sermons were all in different locations, different churches from different traditions and even in different countries. And for those places, all of them made sense to the people who received that message.
Now, some of you probably had a sick feeling in your stomach when I said people have interpreted the words of Jesus, but we’ve already done that. Hop in the “Way Back Machine” with me, and let’s go way back. Way back to earlier in the service when my wife, Meg gave me that very inflated introduction.
Anyway, when you heard her read that passage from Isaiah and the phrase, “...so shall the word that goes forth from my mouth,” you interpreted “word” in that sentence to have a meaning. Either it was the prophetic statement come from God through the prophet Isaiah, or you expanded it to mean the entirety of the Bible, or maybe you connected it to John chapter one and took it to mean that when Jesus moves, things happen. Regardless, you did not just leave it as it was on the page, you put some meaning to it, and hence interpreted it. Just think, people with initials after their names get paid to do what you just did by listening. Maybe I paid too much for seminary?
But all kidding aside, no matter how much you truly believe that we can take every passage in the Bible literally, none of us can actually do that. There are places where it just doesn’t make sense, just like in the Isaiah passage. Sometimes, the interpretations we give the passage make perfect sense. The bringer of the message struggles and strives to find exactly how to best reflect the Biblical teaching in our current society with all of its technological, sociological, ecological, and economic differences. Sometimes, the bringer is repeating what they have always heard without testing their faith, as the book of First Peter asks us. Well, we have this same struggle with this passage, but we get some help. Jesus does move us from just the images of seed and ground; to the word of the kingdom and the heart of people. However, we still have to wade through some misconceptions and influenced memory to get back to the heart of this parable.
For instance, how many of you thought Jesus was talking about the “word of God?” It would make sense. The Old Testament reading already talked about words, and if you are a regular member here, Roger often prays about “words and word.” If you grew up Baptist, you may have heard the phrase, “We are people of the Book,” and often that is used as “word of God.” Unfortunately if you did think Jesus he said “word of God,” Jesus never says this or “Kingdom of God” in the book of Matthew. Instead, he says “word of the kingdom” here. In other passages, when naming the kingdom, he uses the phrase, “Kingdom of Heaven.” It’s a small thing to point out, for sure, but if we are to take the Bible seriously, then we have to be serious about what Jesus says, and where it is said.
So, what do we do with this “word of the kingdom?” For most of my life, I have heard of this word being, “Jesus has come to forgive you of your sins, if you believe in Him, so you can go to heaven.” Faithful men and women from my childhood, youth, and even in churches where I have served have uttered some form of this statement with total conviction. I’ve taught that from so many pulpits in so many places, and I was wholeheartedly behind this. For more than two decades, this was the altar call that many of us responded to. Billy Graham, probably the most effective evangelist of the twentieth century, always spoke of belief leading to forgiveness. While it is a beautiful thought, I mean who would not want to be forgiven of their failures, I don’t think that is what Jesus is talking about, and the reason, Jesus did not say, I have come to forgive you of your sins, if you believe in me, so that you can go to heaven.” I know I’m stepping into some sticky mud with this. However, to be people of the Book, we should be looking at the Book. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus talks about the kingdom, and what is the acceptable response to the kingdom, for three chapters. We call it the sermon on the Mount and it is the longest single discourse from Jesus in any of the four Gospels. In that sermon, Jesus gives a vivid description of the kingdom, and what kind of life this kingdom calls all of us to take up in response. The word about the kingdom calls us to live differently. It asks us to shift our focus from us as individuals and look out at others as our neighbors.
In Luke chapter four, Jesus quotes from the prophet Isaiah when he is reading in the Nazarene synagogue. And says,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And then he hands the scroll back and tells the gathered people, “And what you see before you, he’s the one who is going out, doing those things.” I have not been a member of First Austin very long, but if I, or Meg, were to stand up here and say that, you would probably take us down to the Congress Street bridge and throw us in the lake. Or at least, you would tell us to leave and not come back.
But Jesus is making these kinds of claims, and it does not sound like, “believe in me as the Savior and I will take away your sins so that you can go to heaven when you die.” Instead Jesus says, this is the life I live, and you should live this life if you want to be known as a child of God. Those are very different statements. One is something we are to believe, the other is something we are to live toward. The former takes the responsibility for our missteps away from us through an act of God. Jesus, however, calls us to respond to our missteps by reorienting our life, because God has reconciled us through Christ. You can tweet that if you like.
The Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, described the word not as something spoken but something that is manifested in the presence of people when the Church, as a community, reflects the life of Christ. The word, then, is not something that we say, or can be said really, instead it is living. This corresponds so much to what Jesus said about how we are to take up our cross, do as he has done, and love as he has love. Why, then, does the idea of Jesus coming into our heart become the dominant metaphor? Well, let’s look at what happened to Jesus when he lived this life. It ended with Jesus being put on a cross and dying a horrible death. That’s not exactly the part of the story we want to emulate, even when we know that Easter Sunday is coming. It’s a lot easier to focus on believing in Jesus because we can talk less about the living like Jesus part. Because when we talk about living like Jesus, it makes us confront the fact that we like our lives just the way they are. We don’t want to rethink political affiliations in light of the Gospel. We do not want to rethink our feelings on social issues in light of the Gospel. And we certainly do not want to be thought of as weird or different, like Jesus was, because that means we might get ridiculed and loose our position in society.
But the seed, is only part of the parable. The soil where the sower spreads the seed has a very important part to play in this Gospel. In this parable you can not grow seeds without soil. I do know what dirt can do to clothes. I grew up near the Red River, and all of our lakes up there were the same color. I remember having some swim trunks that had a little white on them. For the Fourth of July, when I was a kid, we were going to the lake to spend the day with the family. We swam, fished, skied, tubed and kneeboarded behind the boat that was much older than I am today. And I remember the next day, after we had gotten home, and I was going to play at a friend’s pool. I grabbed my swim trunks, and the white was now a nice reddish brown. That’s the kind of soil I’m used to. I don’t don’t know if that is the soil that Jesus was used to.
But what I do know is, that if I were to spread seeds to grow a crop, I would definitely make sure that they all end up on good soil. Seeds are expensive, and if I were a farmer this would be my livelihood. There is very little to waste, and so I need to make good choices from the beginning. However, the sower of the parable starts spreading seed, seemingly, everywhere. There is no perceived thought to what kind of soil this is landing on. It is put on the path. It lands on rocks. It flies in among the weeds. It is put on fertile ground. It makes me wonder if this sower is blind or something because I am not a farmer but I know where I would rather spread seed of these four choices. For certain, this sower left the original audience just as perplexed , but that is part of the joy of the parable.
This word is too precious to be limited by good business. God as the sower shows that this seed needs to go everywhere, even places where it will be choked out and snatched up. But what is this soil supposed to mean to us? Again, in my past experience with this parable from books and such, the soil is supposed to be the hearts of individuals. I remember how this interpretation helped to explain the kids I went to all those conferences with as a kid. I remember watching them respond to the big altar call. If you went to the youth camps I did, then you remember. It was always the last night before everyone went home. We were exhausted, fed a big meal, then lead to worship. The lines would be up the aisles with young women and young men crying over the words from the speaker about how if we died in our church van the next day we wouldn’t know our eternal destiny unless we came down to the front that night. But as we went back to school, things usually faded. My youth minister would talk about how they might be the path, or the rocky soil, or even the weeds. The seed had just not been able to find fertile ground in their hearts. It makes us recoil a bit now, but individualism is the American way. Our society thrives on it, and our theologies reflect it.
Instead of seeing the soil as the hearts of individuals, what if the soil is the hearts in communities. Imagine that. This fertile ground is where, like the Barth quote earlier, the life of Christ becomes manifest in the people of God. The New Testament is full of images of communities living together and working out beliefs. They are not making decisions in a vacuum, just like we are not today. We are responding to the influences around us all the time. What does it look like to be a Christ-follower in 21st-century America? That’s the struggle we are confronted with, and we move in that very particular and powerful context. Just like geologists are telling us about topsoil in response to erosion and water. It is not the same soil from day to day. These are not static locations set in some geographical place or point in time. This is not rock because you can not plant crops in rock. It is fertile ground, combined with good seed that makes these bountiful crops grow. You can not have just part of the equation. Good soil grows nothing without seed, and seed needs the good soil, just like the parable says.
Combine this good word of the Kingdom with the good soil of hearts in community that are responding to that word, and you have vibrant communities. They are not characterized by right doctrine or proper worship, but vibrant living. That makes good seed in fertile ground an event where the people of God live into the life that was shown to us. It means we have to be active. The event erupts into our lives when the people of God respond to this call from Jesus to live like he lived. It is about movement toward the future of the kingdom not statements of our past comforts. Events are spontaneous, and sweep us away as communities in a movement of God drawing humanity towards the kingdom.
It’s about loving enemies, turning the other cheek and not resisting evil. Fertile ground and good seed touches the unclean, eats with sinners and prostitutes, returns evil with good, love for violence, bringing in the poor and downtrodden to the great banquet. It loves refugees, heals the brokenhearted and turns the world on its head. It doesn’t just give money for charitable causes but speaks out against injustice and refuses to sit down or be quiet because everyone deserves to be loved. And it says, “You do not get to define love because I am God and I am love.” When it springs up it has a habit of throwing open doors and flinging wide gates. It tears down walls that separate and builds bridges.
When that event happens, the good seed growing in good soil tells the world that everyone is loved by God and no one is excluded.
