Sowers, seed, and a Rowan Tree growing on a wall ........
Outside my house, high up on a wall, I have to use a ladder to reach it, is a Rowan Tree. It is rooted in the mortar that holds the wall together.
It is in fact so deeply rooted that in order to remove it I would have to dislodge, if not completely remove, the coping stones and top two layers of stone.
It is a remarkable, persistent tree that defies not only the normal terms of husbandry but the normal terms of logic and gravity.
So if we are to approach the Gospel for Proper 10 Trinity 5, about the parable of the sower and the seed then my tree would also would defy the normal terms of theological discussion.
I am indebted to Holly Hearon, Professor Emerita of New Testament, Christian Theological Seminary
Indianapolis, IN for her inspiring hermeneutic of this so familiar parable.
When I read the Gospel for today I thought, 'Oh Dear, what new thing could ever be said about such a familiar parable that I have read and preached on for so many years?'
The reason for that 'Oh Dear' is simply that the focus always is on the sower and the seed.
But what has been clear in 2020 is that the soil is also important.
My house is surrounded by agricultural land which in the early part of the year up until Easter was simply too wet for ploughing or for planting.
No matter how effective the sowing of the seed may have been the seed would, probably, have simply rotted in the wet ground.
There were conversations about what might happen, fallow fields are not profitable fields for the farmer.
Eventually of course matters improved and then rather later than normal the ploughing was done and the seed was sown and now we have crops beginning to grow.
Holly Hearon, in her commentary on this passage suggests that 'while the parable of the sower appears to be about the seed, I suggest (because I am a gardener) that it is really about the soil'.
So she suggests that it is about us.
The lectionary omits the disciples' question to Jesus about why he always speaks in parables and Jesus' answer where He quotes Isaiah: 'For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes have closed.'
Not much chance for the seed there. An unreceptive soil closed to the possibility of the seed enlivening the lives of people whose hearts are dull, whose ears are closed and whose eyes are blind.
Our first reading is also from Isaiah but this is an Isaiah who is reflecting on the return from exile.
We, of course are still experiencing an exile from the usual comforts of life, the Covid 19 pandemic has exiled us, our return to public worship this last week was strange, uncomfortable, unusual, but also deeply appreciated by some. We need to become used to that difference.
I am being told that, 'we will wait until things return to normal' but that normal may not come, indeed a number of books are being published to that effect as in this excerpt from a new Grove Books publication:
"Digital church is a domestic church filled with images of people’s living rooms and kitchens. It is an open church which welcomes everyone whether they are dressed in their Sunday best or their pyjamas. It is a safe church where you don’t have to pretend to be OK. It’s an interactive church where help is at hand through phone numbers, emails, helplines for you to talk to a real person to whom you may have been introduced in the Zoom prayer ministry room or on the YouTube service."
Rather suggesting that what returns may be something of a 'strange shore' where like Jonah we have been spewed from the Belly of the Covid Whale.
Again black lives matter, because the experience of BAME communities is that they live in exile because racism has been institutionalised over the 400 years since many people were transported from Africa to live as slaves in a state of permanent exile.
Or indeed those literal exiles in our midst, refugees who have fled their homelands because of violence, war, lack of opportunity or climate change and who now experience a climate of xenophobia institutionalised by the Home Office.
The second and inspirational hermeneutic for which I am grateful to Holly Hearon is her reading of the word Kingdom (verse 19) in Matthews Gospel.
The translation here is to the word kindom: that we, the soil, are joined together in kinship, as family, with Christ.
The concept of kindom, arises from feminist writing, which uses the word Kyriarchy as a counter balance to patriarchy.
In the reference to Isaiah, above, we can understand exile as life lived less fully and which has a price so in todays Gospel, as we move out of exile and into the Kindom of God we are not without hope.
We must set about cultivating good soil where seeds have a chance, we can see so much of this now that we needn't despair, the community has held together through our Whypay service, we are back in Church, our postings on social media have received many positive responses, our Sunday school thrives.
The kindom will continue to find a way to grow in our community, in our hearts, in our lives, if we feel anxious or trodden down, whether the path feels rocky or overgrown with thistles, my Rowan Tree clinging tenaciously to the wall, where it was 'planted' by a bird or a seed blown in the wind, tells us that we can and must remain hopeful.
It is in fact so deeply rooted that in order to remove it I would have to dislodge, if not completely remove, the coping stones and top two layers of stone.
It is a remarkable, persistent tree that defies not only the normal terms of husbandry but the normal terms of logic and gravity.
So if we are to approach the Gospel for Proper 10 Trinity 5, about the parable of the sower and the seed then my tree would also would defy the normal terms of theological discussion.
I am indebted to Holly Hearon, Professor Emerita of New Testament, Christian Theological Seminary
Indianapolis, IN for her inspiring hermeneutic of this so familiar parable.
When I read the Gospel for today I thought, 'Oh Dear, what new thing could ever be said about such a familiar parable that I have read and preached on for so many years?'
The reason for that 'Oh Dear' is simply that the focus always is on the sower and the seed.
But what has been clear in 2020 is that the soil is also important.
My house is surrounded by agricultural land which in the early part of the year up until Easter was simply too wet for ploughing or for planting.
No matter how effective the sowing of the seed may have been the seed would, probably, have simply rotted in the wet ground.
There were conversations about what might happen, fallow fields are not profitable fields for the farmer.
Eventually of course matters improved and then rather later than normal the ploughing was done and the seed was sown and now we have crops beginning to grow.
Holly Hearon, in her commentary on this passage suggests that 'while the parable of the sower appears to be about the seed, I suggest (because I am a gardener) that it is really about the soil'.
So she suggests that it is about us.
The lectionary omits the disciples' question to Jesus about why he always speaks in parables and Jesus' answer where He quotes Isaiah: 'For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes have closed.'
Not much chance for the seed there. An unreceptive soil closed to the possibility of the seed enlivening the lives of people whose hearts are dull, whose ears are closed and whose eyes are blind.
Our first reading is also from Isaiah but this is an Isaiah who is reflecting on the return from exile.
We, of course are still experiencing an exile from the usual comforts of life, the Covid 19 pandemic has exiled us, our return to public worship this last week was strange, uncomfortable, unusual, but also deeply appreciated by some. We need to become used to that difference.
I am being told that, 'we will wait until things return to normal' but that normal may not come, indeed a number of books are being published to that effect as in this excerpt from a new Grove Books publication:
"Digital church is a domestic church filled with images of people’s living rooms and kitchens. It is an open church which welcomes everyone whether they are dressed in their Sunday best or their pyjamas. It is a safe church where you don’t have to pretend to be OK. It’s an interactive church where help is at hand through phone numbers, emails, helplines for you to talk to a real person to whom you may have been introduced in the Zoom prayer ministry room or on the YouTube service."
Rather suggesting that what returns may be something of a 'strange shore' where like Jonah we have been spewed from the Belly of the Covid Whale.
Again black lives matter, because the experience of BAME communities is that they live in exile because racism has been institutionalised over the 400 years since many people were transported from Africa to live as slaves in a state of permanent exile.
Or indeed those literal exiles in our midst, refugees who have fled their homelands because of violence, war, lack of opportunity or climate change and who now experience a climate of xenophobia institutionalised by the Home Office.
The second and inspirational hermeneutic for which I am grateful to Holly Hearon is her reading of the word Kingdom (verse 19) in Matthews Gospel.
The translation here is to the word kindom: that we, the soil, are joined together in kinship, as family, with Christ.
The concept of kindom, arises from feminist writing, which uses the word Kyriarchy as a counter balance to patriarchy.
In the reference to Isaiah, above, we can understand exile as life lived less fully and which has a price so in todays Gospel, as we move out of exile and into the Kindom of God we are not without hope.
We must set about cultivating good soil where seeds have a chance, we can see so much of this now that we needn't despair, the community has held together through our Whypay service, we are back in Church, our postings on social media have received many positive responses, our Sunday school thrives.
The kindom will continue to find a way to grow in our community, in our hearts, in our lives, if we feel anxious or trodden down, whether the path feels rocky or overgrown with thistles, my Rowan Tree clinging tenaciously to the wall, where it was 'planted' by a bird or a seed blown in the wind, tells us that we can and must remain hopeful.
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