Roads, Rocks and Thorns

“Roads, Rock and Thorns” The Dover Church
July 10, 2011 –4th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture: Psalm 65, Matthew 13: 1-17

1. Jesus came preaching the Kingdom of God. In fact, he went around saying "it's right here, right now, within you and all around you...for those with eyes to see and ears to hear."
2. With his parable of the sower and the seeds, he explains how it is that our eyes can see, yet not perceive; how it is that our ears can hear, yet not understand.
3. Jesus explains by means of metaphor: roads, rocks and thorn dull our sight and block our ears.
4. Let’s start with roads – hard packed, dusty things in Jesus’ day
a. Solids, like seeds for instance, which fall on them either bounce off or just lie there for the birds to eat and or dry up
b. Liquids too, like streams of living water to use another Biblical metaphor, also bounce off and run off
i. These metaphorical roads are the first obstacle all of us face in hearing the Word of God. They are the hard places separating us from the Word as God sows it and the interpretation we want to give it
c. All of us are hard packed with all the unquestioned values and assumptions of our parents, peer groups, and teachers we absorbed in early childhood and everything we picked up in our socialization – these powerful influences have programmed our understanding of reality, so powerfully that the Word of God just bounces off of us when it doesn't confirm our reality
d. We all have had this experience at one time or another, when something the prophets or Jesus say in the Bible or something some preacher preaches about that Word is upsetting and we instantly reject it because it stands in complete odds with everything we already know, believe and live for, with our reality
i. I have seen it any number of times in churches, whenever I have waded into what I know is going to be an unwelcome teaching of Jesus – people in the congregation just close up, a wall comes down, eyes get veiled, a look of displeasure crosses the faces of those in the room, and I know we are on the road. I have never had anyone stand up, shaking their fist and yelling at me during a sermon, but I have had plenty of people come to me afterwards and tell me that my sermon was upsetting or disturbing and I should never do that again. While I feel uncomfortable, I know I was probably close to capturing what Jesus or the prophets were getting at.
ii. Jesus’ teaching is an earthquake shaking our unquestioned values and view of reality.
iii. as one of my teachers put it “the Good News of Jesus Christ is a hand grenade which most of us professional preachers who really want people in our congregations to like us spend a lot of our time and energy trying to fall on so it doesn’t go off in the faces of our unsuspecting congregations.
iv. think of all in our town, only a small number of whom ever go to a church, synagogue, or mosque. Think of all the people who have been in our church but aren't anymore, or are, but with only one foot.
v. In some cases it is because of the unpleasant past experiences. In some cases it is because of the incompetence of the present religious leader. But mostly it’s because the Good News is not Good News for most of these people. It is upsetting, disturbing news. It’s much more pleasant to do other things which either just question our values or confirm our reality.
e. Therapeutic technique #1 – instead of rejecting the Word of God outright because it is too upsetting, examine ourselves, our beliefs, our lives to discover which truth, which reality, this particular Word is threatening – if you can do this, you will find yourself on pathway #1 to the good soil
5. Then there are the rocks. In this soil the seeds quickly sprout up and then are just as quickly withered because their roots are shallow.
a. We have all had this experience before in church too, when we hear something which touches our hearts and sets our minds to imagining being a kingdom person living kingdom life. And then, sometimes within the blink of an eye, that desire for the kingdom is squelched by competing and more attractive alternatives which we already now.
vi. Service to others – time I don’t have for myself to either have fun, relax or make money for myself and my family
vii. Observing the Sabbath – kids activities, sleeping in, work, gardening, you name it
viii. Forgiveness – painful encounter, present splendid and comfortable isolation
ix. Inclusive community – personal autonomy
x. Prayer and reading the Bible – the million other things which we could do and which will bring us immediate benefits
xi. And the list goes on
b. Therapeutic technique #2 – pay attention to those wistful desires for being a kingdom person living a kingdom life which may flit through our minds in church when we pray, listen to sermon, sing a hymn, or when we read a spiritual book, and then pay attention to the competing desires which drive them from our hearts and minds – these are the rocks we are going to have to identify, dig out, hoist up into our backpacks and carry until they become so light or our spiritual backs become so strong that they just slip through our fingers like dust - pathway #2 to the good soil
6. And then the thorns – my friends, life is full of thorns, thistles, prickers, weeds and brambles. Of course, we don’t call them thorns, thistles, prickers, weeds and brambles. We call them:
a. The annoying person or people at home
b. The annoying person or people in my neighborhood
c. The annoying person or people at work
d. The annoying person or people at church
e. All the things that have gotten and are getting in my way, keeping me from doing what I want do, being what I want to be, living the way I want to live
f. All the things that get me angry, anxious, afraid
g. All the things I wish I have but don’t or can’t
h. All the things I wish I was but aren’t or can’t be
i. All the shouldas, wouldas, couldas, oughtas, and haftas which nag at us, steal our peace, keep a non-stop monologue going in with us in our minds and turn us into thorn bushes ourselves
j. Therpeutic Technique #3 – pay attention to those thorns, thistles, prickers, weeds and brambles. These are the things you are going to have go through to the Good Soil. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt - We can’t go around them. We can’t go under them. We can’t go over them. We have to go through them, which we can only do once we touch them, find the points of access, and ease our way. This prickly path is pathway #3 to the Good Soil – thorns alert us to the way we have to go if we really want to get there.
7. Here's the big lesson about the road, the rocks and the soil: They are always going to be there. We are always going to be partly on the road, partly in the rocks, and partly in the thorns.
a. It’s how we look at them that matters. It how we engage them that matters. It’s our openness to the possibility of the divine that matters. If we see our lives as having, then we will have more. If we see our lives as lacking, then we will feel constantly as if what little we have is being taken from us.
b. If we see the road, the rocks and the thorns as pathways to blessing, as, in fact, blessings in and of themselves which alert us to the pathway to the Good Soil, then we are, believe it or not, also, already, in the Good Soil.
c. If, however, we see the road as something to try to jump over, the rocks as something go around with a quick kick or poke as we pass, and the thorns as something to exterminate with righteous Round Up, well we are going to be left with very little room to move, and even what little we have will always feel as if it’s being taken from us. We can pull those bamboo shoots up, hit them with round up, build a wall and hope they’ll stay put, but they will pop up in no time at all in the middle of our prized roses, which, I might point out, also tend to have their fair share of thorns.
8. The Good News of the Kingdom of God is an invitation to go exactly where most of us are culturally conditioned to not want to go, to avoid at all costs, to ignore if possible. Yet these are the very places which are thresholds to the Good Soil.
a. As I said, an openness to engage, trusting in God’s grace to see you through, is already a first step that will bear abundant fruit in your life
b. And you will not be alone. God in Jesus Christ will be with you, sowing more kingdom seeds than you'll know what to with
xii. Even then, a mortal guide is indispensable. I myself, someone who is still languishing on the road, stubbing my toes on the rocks, and deeply in the weeds, have had a spiritual director to help me see these places for what they are.
xiii. I can be that spiritual director for you if you want to set out.
9. It all comes down to this: there is a distinct difference between getting your way and finding your way. When you're getting your way, you're on your own. When you're finding your way, you are walking in the kingdom.