Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (proper 10): July 10, 2005.

Isaiah 55:10-13

Psalm 65:[1-8] 9-13

Romans 8:1-11

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

You visit the earth and water it,
you greatly enrich it;
... and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty....
--Ps 65:9a, 10b, 11a

First Reading

More than half of our first readings from Hebrew Scripture these weeks of midsummer are taken from Isaiah, all but one falling in that section of this composite book that scholars attribute to the anonymous prophet variously called Second Isaiah, the Prophet of the Exile, or the Prophet of Consolation. For an historical overview as well as insightful exegesis see Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995) in the Interpretation Bible commentary series. Isaiah 55 (we will read an earlier section in three weeks) brings the message of Second Isaiah to what Hanson calls "a fitting conclusion" (p. 177).

It's a text I find sufficiently compelling that I chose to have it read at my ordination/installation, sensible that in the small, struggling inner-city church to which I had been called I would need more assurance than what my schooling, my good intentions, and my best efforts could hope to accomplish. Together as a community, we all needed God's promise that God's Word would not return empty but would accomplish God's purpose and succeed in whatever God intended for it. Our task was to trust in the Word, celebrate, proclaim, and enact it as a community for the sake of the world around and within us. I'm delighted to report that this "mission strategy" works--not because of us but through us and sometimes despite us! God's Word sprouts and bears fruit, providing both "seed to the sower and bread to the eater," both the promise of future growth and vitality and also strength and nourishment to those needing it right here and now. The promise of Isaiah 55 empowered our little congregation gathered in the midst of the City of St. Francis to live out its God-given destiny to become truly "a house of prayer for all peoples" (Isa 56:7b).

No wonder that the strong natural imagery of rain and snow coming "down from heaven," which funds the agricultural metaphors of sowing and sprouting, should eventuate in a vividly Isaian eschatological hymn of the new creation. We might call it an "ecological doxology," as "the mountains and hills ... burst into song," "the trees ... clap their hands," and beautiful myrtle and cypress spring up where prickly thorns and briars formerly intruded. (See #R250, "Light Dawns On a Weary World," in Renewing Worship Songbook [Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003] for a contemporary setting of this text to music.) This is the natural world's symphony of shalom, the restored creation's ode to joy (v. 12), in which we human earthlings are invited to join our voices.

Pastoral Reflection

Our reading from the prophet may well have been in Jesus' mind as he, the very One whom the church confesses as the preexistent Word of God, tells his story of the sower. "Such great crowds" had gathered, Matthew tells us, "that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach," a peculiar setting in which "he told them many things in parables." Among these "many things" was a memorable story about a farmer sowing seed. This story is allegorical in form, uncharacteristic of Jesus, which invites Matthew to provide his readers with a detailed exegesis. The parable is found in varying forms in all three synoptic Gospels as well as in an abbreviated form in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (see Arland Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000], 181ff.).

Here in Matthew's Gospel the seed is not itself the Word of God, as Luke's Gospel interprets it (8:11). Admitting that in the original parable "the imagery of casting the seed had to do with proclamation, and the seeds corresponded to the word," Hultgren asserts that in Matthew's interpretation of the story the imagery has been transformed, so the focus has now become different sorts of "people and their reaction to the preaching and teaching of the word" (p. 196). This is a subtle distinction, to be sure, but should be kept in mind by the careful exegete.

Hymns illustrate well this distinction. For example, while With One Voice (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995) #716, "Word of God, Come Down on Earth" nicely underlines God's initiative and purposefulness in showering the Word, the "living rain from heav'n descending," the original point of the parable, Matthew's interpretation is better served by the plea in WOV #713, "Lord, let my heart be good soil, open to the seed of your Word.... When my heart is hard, break the stone away. When my heart is cold, warm it with the day. When my heart is lost, lead me on your way." Or, again, #714 sings "The thirsty fields drink in the rain, the earth receives the sower's seed and covers it. So, Lord, we receive your Holy Word." A sermon seeking to be faithful to both Isaiah's and Matthew's proclamation of the gospel, like these contemporary hymns, will boldly proclaim the unfailing graciousness of God's initiative while recognizing the reality and amazing obdurateness of our human resistance, which only God can overcome--and has!

Since late May and continuing on through mid-September our second readings are drawn from that most mature (and difficult) of Paul's surviving writings, the Letter to the Romans. While these semicontinuous readings will only occasionally prove helpful in casting light upon the first reading and Gospel, which are supposed to help illumine one another, this presents a valuable opportunity to craft a continuing sermon series on Romans, which in some congregational settings could be both challenging and rewarding to preacher and hearers alike. Because the readings extend over the summer, they might serve as the occasion of designing a special liturgy and preaching style to provide a fresh alternative to the rest of the church year. (Truth in advertising leads me to admit I've never dared to try such a series myself.) Less radical but just as appropriate is to hold a continuing Bible study on Romans, focusing on the weekly lections, which I have done with some success. Companion resources are numerous and various, from the once popular but now ancient Fritz Ridenour, How to Be a Christian without Being Religious (Glendale, CA: GL Publications, 1967), to David L. Bartlett's pastorally sensitive and accessible Romans volume in the Westminster Bible Companions series (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995) to Peter Stuhlmacher's scholarly Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994).

Paul's stark contrast in today's reading between "those who live according to" and "set their minds on" the "flesh" as opposed to the "Spirit" provides an interesting diagnosis of both our resistance and our receptivity to God's Word. Here too WOV helps us to sing our way to the truth of the matter as in #712, the Tanzanian hymn "Listen, God is Calling," and #715, set to a Hasidic tune, "Open Your Ears, O Faithful People." With Isaiah's mountains and hills and trees, we too can clap our hands and join all of nature in singing "Hallelujah!" to God using a Jewish tune. JR