Parable of the Sower on Rocky Ground, Stained Glass 13th century, Canterbury Cathedral
Luck of the Draw?
Proper
10 Year A
13
July 2014 8 a.m. Said and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Parish
Church of Trinity Ashland (Oregon)
Cultures are odd. Though individual people remain individuals,
and everyone has their own way of doing and seeing things, in larger groups, we
tend to fall into patterns of values, habits, and norms. We call this culture, a word that simply means what you are planted and grow up
with. We think sometimes that culture is
something firm and written in stone, though in fact it is an amorphous group of
generalizations that often apply but often do not.
I lived and worked in China for a long
time, and gradually absorbed several views and habits of people there. China’s population
density means you become accustomed to crowds.
To this day, I feel unease when I’m in a restaurant that is too quiet, with too few customers: what is
wrong with the food here? Chinese people in general have a narrower sense of personal
space than Americans: less than a foot, where Americans like usually more than
two feet. So I tend to crowd in on
people sometimes. If you get into an
elevator in China already with one passenger, you tend to sidle up right
alongside them. Otherwise, the empty space
might get both of you. Do that in
America, and people will think you’re threatening. Americans like a wide berth, but direct eye
contact. Chinese prefer closer physical
presence and averted eyes. But no
touching. For them, staring at someone
in the eyes is the ultimate creepy act. But here, if you avert your eyes too much,
people wonder what mischief or plots you’re up to, or why you think you’re so
special. I am gradually learning to
recalibrate on these things. I have to laugh at the incongruity of a fair-skinned,
blue-eyed North American like me having to relearn the ways home and eschew Sinified
manners.
In one respect, I have always remained
very, very un-Chinese: I do not believe
in such a thing as luck. There it
is. I know that random things happen,
and that statistical probabilities are such that sometimes patterns seem to appear. But when
we say “Good luck!” to someone, I believe we are just wishing them success or
safety from accident, without any real appeal to some kind of will or magic
that could actually make success happen, or accidents retreat. I have always believed that feeling “lucky” was
merely a state of the mind imputing order and direction to dumb, random
occurrence.
In China, I was always embarrassed to say
I didn’t believe in luck. Most Chinese react
to such an admission with horror, almost like Americans reacting to a friend who
confesses to being an atheist. Believing
in luck for most Chinese is akin to an American’s belief in a God or Providence:
a sign that the despite appearances, the universe is ordered and makes sense.
Once again, population density and
scarcity may have a role here. Despite the
Chinese people’s long history of trying to control things and manage outcomes, they
have had an inordinate number of disasters: famines, floods, wars, or
plagues. When all is said and done, much
of their life appears somewhat random.
An example is traditional Chinese agriculture: due to the overabundance of workers and
relative scarcity of good soils, farming is very labor intensive and involves a
high degree of soil amendment, irrigation, and manual weeding and training of
plants. But if the rains don’t fall, or
if the rivers flood, all that hard work and control is lost. So it helps if you consult the geomancer to
find the most auspicious, the luckiest, day for planting and for harvesting.
Van Gogh, The Sower
Today’s Gospel reading is Jesus’
Parable of the Sower. It is about
agricultural outcomes, and pictures a very different kind of agriculture, and takes
a very different view of luck or even providence.
Matthew and Luke both follow Mark’s
version of the parable, together with its basic interpretation, where the seed
is seen as the word of God, the sower a preacher of sorts, and the various
soils the different people to whom the word is addressed. This interpretation is about personal
salvation, and the importance of how we react to the Word. It is almost certainly the product of an
early Christian pastor, concerned about how his
preaching might be received.
But this is not the meaning the historical
Jesus had in mind for the parable. The
seed more likely is about the Kingship or the Reign of God whose arrival Jesus
announced, God being in charge of things here and now. Jesus gave
many other parables comparing God’s Reign to some kind of seed: a seed sprouts
and grows all on its own regardless of whether the person who planted it knows
or understands why it grows (Mark 4:26-34).
Jesus thus says that God’s kingdom comes primarily through God’s acts,
not ours, and arrives despite our unawareness.
Elsewhere, a tiny mustard seed sprouts
and grows into a huge tree-like shrub (Mark 4:31; Matt 13:31; Luke 13:19): tiny, almost imperceptible in its beginnings,
huge, overwhelming, and sheltering in its full growth. That’s God’s Reign.
In another, God’s Reign is like a field
sown with wheat in which is mixed noxious weeds whose young plants are
indistinguishable from the good wheat plants (Matt 13:25-40): we mustn’t try to rip out the bad ones lest
we destroy the good ones as well in the process, but rather let God and the
angels do the sorting once the plants are fully grown. Again, God is in charge of the Reign of God,
not us.
In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus pictures
a farmer or gardener at work. But his
farmer is not like a Chinese or modern American gardener. We tend to look at the soil and say: does it need amendments? Should we truck in topsoil, and add manure,
fertilizer, or compost? Should we put in
raised beds and double dig the soil to get the ideal growing conditions for the
various crops? Where should we plant
what to get the right combination of sun and plant complementarity to
discourage pests? How can we manipulate
the flow of water to make up for unsteady rain:
irrigation water, sprinklers, or drip systems?
Ancient Galilean agriculture was less
labor and capital intensive, and crop yields were correspondingly more variable
in their results. “A sower goes out to
sow seed and casts it all over the place.
Some falls on hard, thin ground with hardly any soil. It doesn’t sprout. Some falls on ground with soil, but little
water. It sprouts but quickly dies. Some falls on rich soil infested with weeds,
and it is crowded out by them. Only some
falls into good soil with adequate water and sun and not too many weeds. And even there, the crop yields, though good,
vary greatly. In some areas, it is very, very good.”
We would say that this farmer is
foolish: he wastes his seed stock by
profligately casting it about without paying attention of making sure the ground
is ready. But Jesus, along with his
ancient compatriots, would say that the farmer is merely doing the best he can
with the limited resources given him. The
bumper crop that results in that last good, well-watered soil, vindicates his
practice.
We might be tempted to think that Jesus
is saying somehow that the random way the seed falls and produces results from
luck. Bad soil, too hot a sun, too many
weeds—all these are like a bad hand drawn unluckily from a deck. Good crop yields are “luck of the draw,” poor
ones, from bad luck.
But the controlling image in Jesus’
society was not luck, but a God in control of everything. Jesus raises the example of random
differences in crop yields to talk about providence. His point is that when we’re talking about
the Reign of God, we’re talking about God. And God is good. God is compassionate. God is loving. God is fruitful. God is reliable. God is provident. And so the arrival of the reign of God, of
God being in charge, is the opposite of random. It is the opposite of being lucky. It is the opposite of being chosen. It is a sure thing.
We might be able to explain a little why
things grow here and not there, but ultimately, what we are dealing is a
mystery. God does what God does, in
God’s own good time.
It has to do with God’s basic
nature. “God gives the blessing of rain
and sun on the wicked and righteous alike” says Jesus. Like that crazy loving father with the two
wayward sons, a prodigal and a priss, the sower may seem foolish, especially to
bean counters who worry about wasted seed stock.
God is like that sower. We cannot judge
God and say that God’s reign is hopelessly delayed, that good is losing and bad
is winning. We can’t say it is just
meaningless randomness. We also can’t
say somehow God is picking and choosing, blessing here and punishing
there. The sower cannot be judged by the
wasted seed. The garden’s success is not judged by the bad bits.
Jesus is saying that faith in God’s
providence depends on faith in God. That faith must have patience and be able to
see through the dry times, the sparse soils.
It must have a heart full of assurance that in the end, love wins. God’s reign has come among us, and will only
become more and more evident with time.
Our hearts must be faithful because God
is faithful. God’s ultimate
intention is to love, to heal and to save.
Simply because it is not yet does not mean it’s not going to happen, or
that somehow God is stingy, picky, capricious. Much of what prevents God’s reign are those
pesky weeds we ourselves cultivate. “Rejoice for God’s Reign has come” says Jesus,
“change your ways and get out of its way!”
I invite us all this week to look at
our hopes and desires. What makes us
think that things are never going to get better? Is it the sluggish economy and the various
things that are slowing it? Is it those
poor children coming across our borders and our reaction we must figure out a
way to stop them rather than welcome them? Is it gun violence? Is it oppression or privilege? What about our own failings? What about the sufferings of illness and age
that we and our loved ones have to endure day to day?
Again, I invite us to reflect on our unfulfilled
hopes and desires. Let’s look at those
rocky, thin-soiled, weed-infested places in our lives and society to try to get
a handle of what God’s Reign might be.
Let’s not leave it there, with a list
of our unsatisfied hopes and desires.
Let’s then look at ways we can get out God’s way, individually and as a
society, and seek ways we can actually help God’s seeds, growing secretly, to
flourish openly.
In
the name of God, Amen.
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