Sermon — July 16, 2023

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

From time to time in my ministry, I’ve had a certain kind of conversation with a parent who’s concerned about their child’s spiritual life. It’s usually about how they wish their kids found the same joy and peace in a church community or practice of prayer like the parent did. I’ve never had a conversation like this about a young child, by the way; occasionally about teenagers, sometimes about young adults. But the overwhelming majority of these conversations have been parents in their 70s and 80s, even 90s, who wish their sweet little middle-aged children would go to church. Marion Wood, for example, once promised me $10 if I could get any of her kids to come to church.

In every one of these conversations, I’ve found myself offering some variation on these words: You know, they’re still young. They’ve got plenty of time. You’ve planted the seed of faith; there’s no way to know if or when it’s going to sprout.

It’s the Parable of the Sower, over and over again.

Parables are an interesting literary genre. They’re not fables, with talking animals acting out a folk tale that ends with the moral of the story, tied up in a bow. They’re not allegories, where each character is a thinly-veiled reference to someone else, like the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm who each stand for a different figure in 1930s Soviet politics. The question of a parable is not, “Okay, who’s the sower? Is it me? Is it God?” That’s the question of an allegory. And the question of the parable isn’t “So what’s the moral of the story? What’s the bottom line?” That’s the question of a fable. A parable simply tells a story in a mostly-realistic way. It points out something that’s true about the way the world works. And then it invites you to grapple with the question of what it actually means in your situation.

Jesus doesn’t always explain his parables, at least not to the general public. In fact, if you look at the verse numbers for our Gospel reading today, you’ll notice there’s a jump, from verse 9 to verse 18. And we skip some important narration. Jesus tells the parable, the story itself, to the crowd, and ends with the enigmatic phrase, “Let anyone with ears listen!” (Matthew 13:9) In other words: “Now think about that for yourself.” Then, in verse 10, his inner circle of disciples come to him and ask, “Why do you speak in parables?” Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah to the effect that he’s destined to teach in a way that people will hear, but not understand. And then he interprets the parable in the second half of our reading, not to the whole crowd who heard it, but just to that inner circle. The rest of them are left sitting by the sea, wondering: “Huh. What was that all about?”

In the parable itself, Jesus doesn’t even give us a clue. Some of the parables begin with something like, “The kingdom of heaven is like…” But no. Here, Jesus simply says, “Listen! A sower went out to sow.” (Matt. 13:3) There’s no allegorical meaning. There’s no fable with a neat moral. There’s just an observation about agricultural: Here’s what it’s like when someone is sowing seeds. Sometimes birds eat them up. Sometimes the soil is too shallow. Sometimes there are weeds. Now think about that. And then he sits down.

I’d like to think that some of them spent their whole lives thinking about that story, especially after Jesus died and his fame and glory, paradoxically, grew. A fable gets boiled down to its moral and then forgotten. An allegory is decoded once, and understood. But a parable is never over. From time to time it floats back into memory, and you have to think to yourself: Huh. I wonder what this parable means today. Because that’s the key: not to try to figure out “what the parable means,” as if a parable only ever meant one thing, but to use it to make meaning of the situation at hand.

There are a few things I notice whenever the Parable of the Sower comes back into my mind.

The first thing I notice about this parable is that there’s a big difference between the most meaningful change and the most obvious change. Every new gardener planting their first vegetables wants to see something sprout up, as quick as it can. But the more experienced gardener knows this isn’t always a good sign. Sometimes, as Jesus says, seeds fall on rocky ground, and spring up, and look amazing at first—but when the sun comes out, they shrivel up and die, because they have “no depth of soil.” (Matthew 13:5) It’s the kind of thing we sometimes call a “flash in the pan”: something that flares into sudden brilliance, and just as quickly fades away. And you’ve probably seen this before: The new road bike or home gym equipment bought in a burst of enthusiasm that soon lies forgotten somewhere in the basement or garage. The new member who joins a church or a book club or a community group, full of energy and opinions only to burn out or leave in a huff after their first year. Literally every mid-life crisis, in which that which is shiny and new seems fantastic compared to the hard work of the long term.

In fact, if you think back to the reading from Isaiah, you can take this observation a step further, because the deeper the soil, the slower the cycles of change and growth seem to be. I think of Isaiah’s description of what my middle-school science classes called “the water cycle.” The prophet is right. The rain and the snow fall from the heavens, and they do, actually, return again. But not until they’ve watered the earth. Water falls from the sky, and sinks into the earth, and then it does one of two things. It drains down through the soil and out into rivers, lakes, and seas, where it evaporates and rises back into the air. Or it’s sucked up by the plants, which use it to live but also breathe it back out, like we do. When rain falls on asphalt, it either evaporates quickly or causes flash floods. But when rain falls on deep soil, it’s forgotten, but present; unseen, unnoticed, but making the earth “bring forth and sprout.” (Isaiah 55:10) The less visible the water is from the outside, the more work it’s doing within.

And this leads me to the third thing I notice about this parable: if you took a snapshot, at any instant, you wouldn’t know which seeds were going to thrive. Maybe you could guess that the seeds lying out on the road were sitting ducks for the birds. But how could you know which were the seeds that had fallen on too-shallow, rocky soil? They look so good, sprouting up so soon! How could you know which seeds were about to be choked out by weeds? That’s the whole problem with weeds—you never know where exactly they’ll appear. There’s no way of knowing, at any given moment, which seeds are which. You don’t know whether the incredible excitement you’re feeling for something right now has any depth of soil. You don’t know whether your attention is going to be choked up by the cares of the world. You don’t know if the seeds you’ve planted over a lifetime in the world around you will one day bear fruit. All you can do is hope and trust and pray.

It’s the perfect parable for the rector’s last Sunday before a couple weeks’ vacation. Ministers all across the country are having existential crises in the pulpit this week as they realize that they’ve been scattering seed, preaching good news to their people, week after week after week, and they’re not sure if it’s going to bear fruit. But it’s also the perfect parable for the parent who wonders whether the love of God and neighbor they’ve tried to plant over six or sixteen or sixty years will grow into a child’s living faith. And in fact, it’s a parable for every one of us.

Every one of us walks through the world, scattering seeds. Every conversation we have, with a stranger or with a friend, every chance encounter and every life-long relationship, bears within in the potential for joy and love to grow. If you’re like me, you probably remember things a teacher or a mentor said to you, long after they’ve forgotten. They never knew that that little patch of soil would turn out to be so deep. And neither did we. Only God knows. But it’s God who is the Sower, in the end. It’s God whose word of love is the seed from which our love grows. Every day, all around us, God’s word goes forth, God sows the seeds of hope in us and through us; and some of those seeds will bear fruit— who knows which ones, and who knows when—but they will bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.

Amen.

Sermon — July 9, 2023

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

There are certain phrases that evoke a whole story. One of my favorites is “I just couldn’t resist…” As in, “I’m trying to cut down on caffeine, but an iced coffee sounded so good on a day like today, and I just couldn’t resist.” “I know that Sue didn’t want me to tell anyone about her new boyfriend, but my friends started gossiping, and I just couldn’t resist…” Or, my favorite, from a blog post about someone’s visit to the British Museum, captioning a photo of an ancient Assyrian column—“I know it says ‘Kindly do not touch the displays,’ but I just couldn’t resist. I just kind of had to hug them.” I just couldn’t resist. I knew the thing I was about to do was the wrong thing to do. But I did it anyway.

It’s a feeling the Apostle Paul knew all too well. “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 7:15, 17-18) Has this ever happened to you? I suspect it has. Maybe it’s a vice you can’t give up, or a New Year’s Resolution you inevitably fail, or the simple daily reality of procrastination. But it’s clear that sometimes, even when we know what the right thing is to do, we just can’t make ourselves do it. And even when we know that something’s wrong, well, sometimes… we just can’t resist.

Now, Paul isn’t writing to his therapist. This isn’t a confession to a trusted friend. In fact, Paul’s Letter to the Romans is his only letter to a congregation that he hadn’t founded himself, the only letter where he didn’t know the readers face to face. It’s his summary of the good news he was proclaiming for the churches in the great imperial city, and so his writing is less concerned with the practical questions and conflicts of the small-church life in Thessalonica or Corinth, and more with the big and universal themes of theology.

So this isn’t a description of a personal problem that only affects Paul. It’s his great reflection on psychology, and particularly on the human will. He describes a pattern that we all know to be true: That there’s a big difference between thinking you should do something or wanting to do it, and actually doing it; that knowing something is wrong doesn’t always stop you from choosing it.

It’s what Martin Luther called “the bondage of the will.” It’s as if our willpower, our ability to actually do the things that we want, is in bonds, chained up. And this sense of unfreedom, feels like a struggle with an external foe. We tend to identify with the part of ourselves that knows what’s right and wants to do it. And this other part, this part that struggles against it, feels like a foreign object, like something else that is inside us, but is not us; Paul calls it “sin that dwells within me,” something separate from his “inmost self,” and he experiences the struggle as a kind of “war” between “the law of my mind” and “another law,” the “law of sin” to which he is captive. (Romans 7:22-23) And he faces this struggling with bafflement. I know what’s right, he says. I just can’t do it. Something comes over me, and I just can’t resist it. And so “I do not understand my own actions.” (Romans 7:15)

This is a pretty pessimistic view of human nature. But in a paradoxical way, if this is the central Christian theological claim about the power of “free will,” it’s actually good news for all of us.

Because if you find yourself thinking that this sounds an awful lot like you—if there’s some unhelpful behavior you find yourself repeating again and again and again, however much you try to snap out of it, or some words that come out of your mouth that you immediately regret—I hope you realize that it’s not just you. It’s not just you who struggle with whatever you struggle with. It’s me. It’s Paul. It’s everyone around you, and every human being who’s ever lived. We may all struggle with different things at different times, but we all struggle with this divided human will, this gap between what we know and what we want and what we do. And when you fall into that gap, it’s not your fault, per se. It’s a pre-existing condition.

This is what allows Paul to write from a position of empathy, not judgment. In fact, this colors everything else that Paul has to say about sin and righteousness, grace and forgiveness. He doesn’t write like the preacher who stands in the pulpit pointing down at the pews, “You do not do what I want.” No. He stands, facing God, and lets us in on his prayers: “I do not do what I want!”

But at the same time that Paul claims that we are imperfect, that our wills are held captive, he continues to proclaim that we are fundamentally good. I don’t love Paul’s dichotomy between “the mind” and “the flesh,” the “will and the members,” as if the body were the source of sin; this has been a sexist trope since before Christianity even began. But I respect what I think Paul is trying to express, which is the goodness of the true self, of the “inmost part” that delights in God, despite the presence of this countervailing force. He does not condemn you and you as miserable sinners because we “just couldn’t resist”; he acknowledges our collective struggle against the universal “law of sin.”

And so far, at least to me, this is good news. It’s potentially life-changing news. If you are convinced that you’re the only one who struggles with temptations or regrets, then the natural shame response is to hide things away, to pretend everything’s fine, to suffer alone. But there are few things in human life that benefit from being hidden away. And to be reminded that everyone has struggled in a similar way, from the Apostle Paul himself down to the present day, is to be invited into the kind of honesty and compassion that come from this very human solidarity.

But that’s not all. It’s wonderful to be freed from the shame of being the only imperfect person in the world. But we need more. We want more. We don’t just want empathy when we mess things up. We want to stop messing up! We want to be more free to be the people we know we can be. We’ve learned over time that we can’t do it on our own, no matter how hard we try, and so we’re left asking the question of Paul, “Who will rescue me?” We need someone to save us from this mire.

And in he comes, riding on a donkey.

Now, it’s a core conviction of the Christian faith that Jesus is, in some sense, the ultimate answer to this problem; that he will “rescue” us from the power of sin and death, (Romans 7:24) that he will “set us free from the waterless pit,” as Zechariah says (Zechariah 9:11); that one day, all that has been hidden will be revealed, and we will know God face to face, Amen.

But in the meantime, this work has already begun. Jesus has come, and taught us, leaving us with a deeper understanding of what is good and right, what it means to love. Jesus has died and risen, breaking evil’s ultimate hold over us, although that victory is not yet complete. Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit, to be our advocate and guide. And just as Paul imagines that “sin dwell within me,” so Jesus has promised that the Holy Spirit will dwell within us. We are not alone in our struggles. In fact, to the extent that we do anything right, that we even try to resist, it’s because our will is moved and strengthened and led by the very spirit of God.

And through it all, God treats us with compassion, supporting us when we need strength and forgiving us when we fail. Jesus looks at each one us, knowing us more deeply than anyone else, knowing the things about us that we’ve never told a spouse, or parent, or friend. Jesus listens to all our inner turmoil, and replies,

“Come to me, all you that are wearing and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from m; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:29-30)

Amen.

Sermon — July 2, 2023
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

I’ve just finished watching—you might say “binge-watching”—the Netflix cooking competition show The Final Table, in which twenty-four chefs from around the world faced off in a series of culinary competitions. Murray said to me last week while I was cooking and watching, “Daddy, what are you doing? Oh, just watching another show about cooking things you’ll never actually cook?” And it’s true, in the same way that the first thing I do every week when The New Yorker comes is crack open Tables for Two, and read a review of a restaurant I’ll never go to with food nobody else in my family would ever eat. I just love this stuff.

But there’s something I’ve noticed in these cooking competition shows, as well. They’re not just a live broadcast of some chefs in a kitchen with a bit of color commentary. Like any good TV, they try to tell human stories. And so they do background interviews with each of the chefs about their childhoods, or their cooking careers, or their vision for the restaurant they’ve founded. And I’ve noticed, as I watch an episode of one of these shows every evening while I cook dinner, that nearly every chef has a mentor whose legacy they’re trying to live up to. For one, it’s the father and the grandfather who were both chefs and who founded and ran the family restaurant through good times and bad before handing it down to him. For another, it’s his single mom in a blue-collar town who transmogrified the cheapest ingredients, night after night, into a homey dish that showed her love. For another, it’s the renowned chef who took a young kid under his wing, showing her the ropes and supporting her when nobody else would.

Each one of these chefs, in other words, has been given the gift of love by someone who made them into the person they are today. And each one, at some point, no matter how many Michelin stars they have to their name, reveals that they are still trying to live up to the gift of that love.

I say all this by way of introduction to a Gospel passage that is short, sweet, and simple. If all you had were Jesus’ words to his disciples today, you might think that Christianity is the easiest religion in the world. And in a sense, you’d be right!

The early Church was full of traveling apostles, of prophets and preachers who’d travel from place to place just like Canon O’Connell visited us last week. Jesus and the early Christians taught that there were spiritual rewards for welcoming these wanderers with kindness. Welcome a prophet in the name of a prophet; receive a prophet’s reward. Welcome a righteous person in the name of a righteous person; receive a righteous person’s reward. (Matthew 10:40-41) Jesus lived in a culture in which hospitality was a household obligation, not the name of an industry. A traveling bishop or prophet would stay in your home, not a hotel. It’s expensive to feed another person, and hard work to host them; and Jesus offers a reward to those who receive and welcome his most prominent disciples as they go about their work spreading the good news.

But then Jesus goes on: “whoever gives even a cup of cold water, even to one of these little ones, in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” (Matthew 10:42) There’s some debate among Biblical scholars about what exactly “little ones” means. (There’s some debate among Biblical scholars about what nearly everything means.) Maybe it’s literally children who are “these little ones.” Maybe it’s the socially-disadvantaged, or just “ordinary folks.” But whatever the case, scholars agree that it’s a “deliberate contrast” to the “prophets” and the “righteous,” the famous, great, and good. ^[1] It’s not hosting an elaborate stay for an archbishop that matters; even welcoming the “little ones” counts. And as Saint Jerome noted, it’s not a bowl of soup or a cup of coffee here; it doesn’t cost you anything in fuel to warm it up, or ingredients to mix together. It’s just a plain old cup of water, something anyone can give.[2] And yet this simple, unpretentious act is enough. Whoever does even only this in the name of a disciple will never lose their reward.

So congratulations to all those on the St. John’s Coffee Hour rota. Even if you have no idea how to turn on that baffling coffee machine, even if you just put out the lemonade and iced tea, even if you only served a pitcher of water: you have been saved! You have offered a cup of cold water to dozens of these “little ones” in the name of the disciple Saint John, and you will not lose your reward.

If what you’re interested in is eternal salvation, Christianity is the easiest religion in the world. In today’s gospel, Jesus gives us one thing to do, and it’s such a small and concrete task—once in your life, give a cup of cold water to one of the “little ones”—and you will not lose your reward. And the tininess of this task way of expressing, in Jesus’ form of teaching, the same truth that Paul expresses in our epistle in his own way. Christianity, properly understood, is not a list of rules to follow, or difficult work to be done. It’s the story of what Paul calls “the free gift of God,” which is “eternal life.” (Romans 6:23).

God’s love is free. And it’s a gift. We do not have to do anything at all to earn it, in order to receive it.

But we are left wondering how to live up to it.

This is the tension within which Paul lives in his whole Letter to the Romans. And this is why Jesus does give so many moral teachings. “What then?” Paul asks, “Should we sin, because we are not under law but under grace?” (Romans 6:15) Should we take this incredible free gift of God, which offers us an eternal reward in exchange for a cup of cold water, and throw it in God’s face? Should we take God’s unconditional love and use it as an excuse to treat one another like garbage, because God will love us all the same? Should we take the freedom we’ve been given and freely choose to follow the way of sin, and violence, and death? “By no means!” the apostle pleads. God loves you unconditionally. That doesn’t mean you should act like a total jerk. Throughout his letters, Paul is constantly trying to juggle these two competing aims: how to convince the early churches, on the one hand, of the amazing beauty of God’s grace and mercy, God’s unconditional, self-sacrificing love; and how to stop them, on the other hand, from acting in ways that are completely off the rails. And we modern Christians find ourselves in the same situation as they were, thousands of years ago.

You have been given the gift of life, and love, and hope. You have been a given a legacy and a model for the person you could be; if not by some mentor in your own life, than by the one big Mentor in whose name we gather here. You have been given a gift, and it cannot be taken away, no matter what you do. But you’ve also been given a choice. What will you do with that gift? What will you do with that legacy? Will you, who have been trained and loved by generations of chefs, turn around and treat your sous chefs like they belong in the compost? Will you, who have been handed the love of home cooking, sell mom’s apple pie recipe to McDonald’s and cash out? Will you, who have been loved beyond measure and forgiven beyond reason by God, hold resentments and grudges and judgments against the people in your life? It’s up to you. You have the freedom. You have the choice. You have been given the gift. You will receive your reward. You do not have to do anything to earn God’s love, anything at all.

But it’s the work of a lifetime to try to live up to it.

^[1]Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20: A Commentary on Matthew 8–20, ed. Helmut Koester, trans. James E. Crouch, vol. 61B of Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 121.

[2] Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 1.10.42.