Sunday: 9th Sunday after Pentecost 10A
Reading: Matthew 13:1-9,18-23
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

Do you all know the fable about the Ant and the Grasshopper? It is one of Aesop's fables. I'll tell it. Let's see how quickly you can figure out the moral of the story. "In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest. "Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?" "I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same." "Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer." [1] How did you do? I assume you all figured out that the Grasshopper realized too late that it is best to prepare early for the days of necessity. That is a fable.

Do you all know the parable about the sower? It's one of Jesus' parables. Again, I'll tell it. Let's see how quickly you can figure out the moral of this story. Jesus left his house to go sit by the sea. So many people thronged around him that he got into a boat to speak to them perched on the shore. Jesus said, "Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!" How did you do? Who figured out the moral? If there had been a grasshopper in the story, would it have been easier?

A parable is not a fable. Jesus did not go around telling cute animal stories that contained useful truths. A parable, according to the 20th century commentator C.H. Dodd, is "a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought." [2] Like a fable, the subject matter of a parable comes from common life. Like a fable, a parable should grab the hearers' attention by its vividness. But unlike a fable, there should be enough doubt about the meaning of a parable to tease the hearer into active thought. At the end of fable, the hearer can say, "That's a good idea. Prepare in the good times for the bad times. Solid advice." At the end of a parable, the hearer must say, "What does that mean? I've got to struggle with that."

The lectionary gives us seed parables for three straight weeks, so let's begin the struggle. We have a crazy sower and some self-perfecting soil. Are we supposed to be good soil? Does it even make sense to talk about soil making itself better? The confusion helps lead us to the point of the parables. We could either discount the parable as being cooky or we could wonder if there isn't something about ourselves that could be changed by the parable. Jesus doesn't use the parable to transmit knowledge, but rather to force life commitment, to ask how prepared we are to receive the kingdom. I, for one, am provoked into active thought. And so, I stop worrying about any one-to-one correspondence between the seed and God's word or the soil and myself. Rather I start tossing things around my mind, not worrying about their intellectual precision, but rather about their impact on changing me. This parable can be thought of in at least three ways: as being about us, as being about the world, and as being about God.

The parable of the sower is about us. What kind of soil am I? Am I the path? Does the grace of God fall on me only to be eaten up by the birds? Am I rocky ground, not having the depth to sustain life? Is my soil chock full of thorns that will choke out the life of God in me before it can flourish? Or maybe I'm the soil that produced a hundredfold harvest. Hundredfold, that is good yield. "Let anyone with ears listen?" Or maybe I have parts of all the soil and although there are parts of me that aren't pretty, there are parts that will have a rich harvest?

Or, the parable of the sower is about the world. It describes iniquities perfectly. $30 grand a year will pay for a year of your kid at Harvard or for a year in prison: same seed, different result. That scorching sun that nullifies so many impressive starts, that's crystal meth or a military coup. The birds are the stray bullets that snatch away young lives. The thorns that choke out even the hearty plants are the systemic problems, the American farm subsidies that squeeze developing farmers. Reading it that way, the parable becomes descriptive rather than prescriptive. It's about the world.

Or, the parable of the sower is about God. Who is this crazy, reckless, generous sower, slinging seed here and there? A good consultant could have helped him with his efficiency. A little less on the path and a little more in the field gets a higher yield. Or maybe the sower is God who doesn't care about waste but showers seed every which way, again and again blanketing the fields with love. The sower might just be God, a reckless, generous, abundant God. And you know, this sower does do really well. This God ends up with an impressive bounty. God is successful, 30, 60, 100-fold. With that kind of yield, no one could possibly see the patches that are still struggling to take hold. Maybe the parable is about a generous God.

We don't know that the parable of the sower is about any of the three: us, the world, God. No matter. Jesus' story of the crazy sower arrested me by its vividness and left my mind in sufficient doubt to tease it into active thought. I think Jesus used parables because that is the life of faith. Allowing the word of God to be a conversation partner, provoking us to live holy lives-not proscribed lives of moral perfection and appropriate forethought. But real, dirty, rock and thorn infested lives of active struggling with God. We are that huge crowd that had gathered on the beach, now walking home after hearing the story. Do we ignore it as merely out-of-touch or do we throw ourselves into the life of faith?

You know, I didn't even talk about the explanation of the parable that makes up the second half of our reading. You'll have to struggle with that on your own. Tell me how it goes.

[1] As related on: http://aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheAntandtheGrasshopper&&antgrass.ram.
[2] As quoted in the 13 July 2008 edition of "Advanceword" weekly lectionary notes. See www.faithfutures.org.