Sermon for
July 10, 2005
8th Sunday after Pentecost
“Disciples Understand”
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Jesus says,
Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain,
some a
hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let
anyone with ears listen!
Matthew 13:8-9
Do you understand? When all is said and
done, when the seed takes root, God is going to bring in a fantastically
surprising, unbelievable harvest. God expects a huge
yield. Do you understand?
Disciples, Jesus says, understand.
Now back then you did not have to be a
disciple of Jesus Christ to understand the magnitude of the yield from
this seed that fell on good soil. Any Palestinian of
the time would recognize a yield of maybe 4- to 10-fold to be normal.
A 15-fold yield would be exceptionally good.
But Jesus says God expects a yield of 30-, or 60-, or 100-fold—a harvest
beyond wildest expectations. They just couldn’t miss
the message of hope expressed in this parable in terms of its biblical
proportion.
God expects a huge yield.
Do you understand? Disciples, Jesus says,
understand.
This is such an important text for
South
Roanoke
Church
with our particular understanding of our
mission just now. Growing out of our mission statement
boldly declaring that “As Christ Cares, We Care,” we have set a number of
priorities for our mission together. These mission
priorities are intended to encourage increased membership involvement as
well as spiritual formation and growth. It is the
intention of our leaders and this church to provide every opportunity for
you to become a better disciple of Jesus Christ. It is
the unique purpose of our congregation at this time in its life to help
you grow in discipleship. Jesus says something very
important about disciples this morning. Jesus says
disciples understand.
What is it that disciples understand?
What is it that makes perfect sense to disciples that may make no
sense at all to the world, can even be considered nonsense by the culture
in which we live? Disciples understand that God
expects a huge harvest. That’s what Jesus says.
Now this message of hope meant a great
deal to the community of the Gospel of Matthew as they heard and recorded
this parable of Jesus in the late first century.
These are people, you remember, of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus
tries to make them understand that the way God made the world turns life
today upside down. The world today rewards the
wealthy, the healthy, the powerful. But Jesus tried to
help them understand that in life as God created it it is the poor, the
meek, and those who mourn who are blessed. At that
time it was abundantly clear to them that the Messiah and his radical
teaching had been rejected by his own people and his followers found
themselves an excluded and persecuted minority. They
stood for peace in a world of war. They held to values
of freedom and justice while in the grips of empire.
They built inclusive community in a culture organized by exclusion.
They believed in equality and equanimity in a civilization
established by rank, position, and privilege.
Everywhere they turned, it seemed, every value, every belief, every
principle they knew to be the very foundation of life as God created it
was under assault by the prevailing authority of the culture.
That early Christian community found itself to be a minority
revolutionary movement living out the transforming power of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ in order to restore the world as God had originally made it.
These disciples of Jesus Christ, they
needed to understand. They longed for the confidence
instilled by the hope of God’s fantastically surprising harvest.
In the midst of their own difficult struggle and seemingly meager
results they needed to hear again and again: God
expects a huge yield.
Do you understand? When all is said and
done, when the seed takes root, God is going to bring in a fantastically
surprising, unbelievable harvest. Do you understand?
Disciples, Jesus says, understand.
With understanding comes patient
vigilance.
They call it “Methusaleh,” named after
Noah’s grandfather who died at 969 years old and, therefore, is known as
the world’s longest living man. Methusaleh is a seed—a
date seed. How does it get its name?
Well, this date seed, along with others, was found in 1973 at level
34 of the archeological dig at Massada, the cliff fortress where, in A.D.
73, 960 Jewish zealots died by their own hand, rather than surrender to a
Roman assault. It laid in a drawer until this past
January until Dr. Sarah Sallon, director of the
Natural
Medicine
Research
Center
at the
Hadassah Medical Organization asked for some. The
Natural
Medicine
Research
Center
studies natural products and therapies of
indigenous medicinal plants of the
Middle East
. She had always been
fascinated by the date palm, the honey of “the land flowing with milk and
honey.” The date is much praised in the Bible and the
Koran for its shade, food, beauty, and medicinal qualities, such as
increasing longevity and curing infection. The problem
is all indigenous dates were destroyed in the Middle Ages during the
Crusades. The dates grown in
Israel
today were all imported in the 1950’s and
1960’s from
California
and originated elsewhere in the
Middle East
.
So Dr. Sallon asked for some of the
seeds from
Masada
.
She was given three. She gave them to Dr.
Elaine Solowey, an expert on arid agriculture and dates.
Dr. Solowey planted them last January after first soaking them in
hot water, then in an acid rich in hormones, then in a fertilizer.
Then she forgot about them. About six weeks
later she saw the earth cracked in a pot and one of the seeds sprouted.
A radiocarbon dating made of a snip of
the seed showed it to be 1,990 years old, plus or minus 50 years, dating
it to the period just before the Roman siege of Massada, sometime between
35 B.C. and A.D. 65. The plant is
now about 12 inches tall and has produced seven leaves.
That’s why they call it “Methusaleh”!
Now this is not the only ancient seed
that has sprouted after hundreds of years of dormancy.
1,200 year old lotus seeds have been sprouted in
China
, and
after the Nazis bombed
London
’s
Natural
History
Museum
, 500 year old seeds germinated due to the
amount of water used to put out the fires. But 2,000
years is the record. (from The New York
Times,
June 12, 2005 )
The seed of the date palm is
resilient, wouldn’t you say? The seed called
“Methusaleh” is particularly resilient. Once you put
it in good soil with the right nutrients in the proper conditions, it can
lay dormant for 2000 years and still sprout. There is
something about that seed—it always has the stuff of life in it just
waiting to come out. Do you understand?
Jesus said disciples understand.
The seed planted 2000 years ago by the life, suffering, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ has been planted in you.
You are disciples of Jesus Christ. You are called and empowered to carry
on the ministry of God’s own Son. You are entrusted
with the good news of the Gospel that transforms the world.
You are sent into a world desperate for the life the Gospel
promises. The seed is there in you planted there by
Jesus himself. That seed is in you, in this church,
this community of faith, in every Sunday School class, every choir, every
youth gathering, whenever the children sing, the seed is in you, Body of
Christ. The seed is in the every community of faith
called to be disciples of Jesus Christ. The seed is
there. That seed is so resilient.
It always has the stuff of life in it just waiting to come out.
When the seed takes root, God is going to bring in a fantastically
surprising, unbelievable harvest. God expects a huge
yield.
All of creation restored to the
freedom, justice, equality, inclusion, and peace as it was originally
made. Jesus says God will do it—you can count on it.
The community of the Gospel of Matthew
that heard and recorded this parable of Jesus wondered when and how that
surprising, impossible harvest of God will happen. We
disciples of Jesus Christ at
South
Roanoke
Church
who hear
and receive this parable of Jesus today also wonder.
We believe in the promise of the bountiful harvest of God and the
restoration of creation but find ourselves so painfully far away from its
fulfillment.
So what is the problem here? What does
this parable of Jesus have to teach us about this?
According to the parable, is the problem with the seed or is the problem
with the soil? Is the problem with the resilience of
the seed or the condition of the soil? Jesus says
disciples understand.
The message of the parable of the
sower is both a promise and a challenge. The challenge
for disciples of Jesus Christ is to cultivate the soil of our sols and our
community, taking advantage of every opportunity of spiritual growth,
extending our hand in every outreach of love, including others we so often
automatically exclude, stepping forward ever more boldly in our
stewardship. In other words, if we disciples of Jesus
Christ ever did fully follow the ways of discipleship in terms of our
love, our patience, our time, our finances, our passion for justice the
mission and outreach of the church in this community and in the world is
limitless. The problem is the seed planted deep down
in our hearts just lay there, dormant.
Now the Gospel is clear this morning.
If the seed is that resilient then the harvest is sure.
God is going to bring in a fantastically surprising, unbelievable
harvest. God expects a huge yield.
God doesn’t really need us to make this harvest; it will happen
whether we participate or not. But disciples of Jesus
Christ want to be a part of the solution, not the problem, don’t we?
Jesus says disciples understand.
