CALLED AND CALLING OUT
FBC, May 2, 2010
Scripture: Luke 8:4-15
“Life is a sentence, with death as its period.” With these words, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described the journey each of us makes from birth onward as a kind of statement, a very precise statement that is still being written by our choices and actions up until the moment we die. As a one-time English major, I find this image intriguing: given the many kinds of sentences that can be formed, the different meanings sentence structure itself gives to the words it orders, then what sort of sentence is my life writing? What sort of sentence is your life writing?
Perhaps your life is writing a simple declarative sentence, subject and verb, with few or no modifiers: straight to the point, nothing fancy, clear, concise. On the other hand, you may be writing quite a different sort of sentence with your life, elaborate and lengthy, full of dependent clauses, generous in adjectives and adverbs, a semicolon to keep things going: multiple directions, layers of meanings, decorative, full of flourishes.
Or yours may be a life sentence in the conditional mood, tentative, uncertain, regretful, always wondering “what if.” Those of you accustomed to being in charge will opt for the imperative mode in your life, sending every experience you have, every person you meet, into a specific place, assigned a specific use, marching along with nary a detour.
Somehow I want to guess that many of you who come here are writing lives that are questions, open-ended and exploratory, hoping for more meaning whether it is likely to come or not. And sadly, some put a period in their life sentence too soon, stop writing even though they continue to exist, marking time until time ends.
“Life is a sentence, with death as its period.” Sartre, being an existentialist, assigned each of us responsibility for writing the sentence our lives create; by contrast, Trappist monk Thomas Merton sees us as words spoken by God, with God as the author of our lives. So while any one of us may have determined our life sentence, it is not our final word, and the sentence we are, shaped every moment by our choices and actions, is also being shaped every moment by God’s desire in us, by the life God calls us to unfold in the world. As you think of the sentence you know you are writing, how do you see yourself also being written? Is the life you are presently living the same life that is seeking to be lived in you? If so, you experience a wonderful congruity; but if not, how do you manage that incongruity, the gap between longing and fulfillment, between word heard and word spoken, between the sentence you hope for and the sentence you actually have?
This morning’s scripture reading is the familiar parable of seeds and soils, in which Jesus likens the way words heard and spoken shape our lives to the way seeds sown and soils that receive the seeds shape what ultimately grows as the result of sowing. Whether you like to garden or not, Jesus selects images sufficiently vivid for any of us to understand. Seeds that end up on hard ground die because of an inability to take root or access water. Seeds that are not planted deep enough do not have time to grow before they are washed away, blown away, or carried off by birds. Seeds that struggle to grow without benefit of weeding by a responsible gardener soon get choked out, for weeds always overpower seedlings. But with the right combination of careful planting, rich soil, and thoughtful tending, a seed will grow into a healthy, mature plant, just what the gardener had hoped for all along.
Whenever this particular parable is used as the focus of worship, preachers generally interpret it as a metaphor for how we respond to the Word of God (capital letters), assuming that Jesus meant it to be a cautionary tale for those hearing his message to be sure to listen correctly. Always eager to compare ourselves favorably with Jesus, we preachers offer up this parable similarly as a cautionary tale, urging you in the congregation to be sure to listen correctly to the sermon and take it to heart. All well and good, and what preacher does not want to be heard and responded to—but Jesus was never up to the obvious with his parables, and I am not convinced this usual interpretation does his parable justice. For I believe this parable is less about listening and more about living, less about a single word and more about the whole sentence our lives write, less about grasping truth when we come upon it and more about how we care for and tend what has already been planted inside us. Growth to maturity is a complex process, not something that happens in one moment, as the result of a single choice. Seeds can be planted well and still fail to grow, and we all know those persons; seeds can be planted carelessly and somehow manage to flourish, and we all know those persons; plants can be on the verge of maturity, ready for harvesting, and be destroyed in a single hailstorm, and we all know those persons. How do we plant well, plant right, tend well, keep on growing? How much of growth is in our control and how much beyond our control?
David Mallett’s Garden Song, which we sang to open this service and which countless preschool and kindergarten children are learning to sing this time of year, offers several methods for our consideration in tending a garden: “mulch it deep and low,” “pulling weeds, picking stones,” and “plant your rows straight and long” are gardening techniques that are familiar to anyone who digs in the dirt. But other gardening essentials offered in the song may be less familiar: how about the suggestion to “nourish them with prayer and song” or to “tune . . . body and brain to the music of the land”? Such images point to an interactive, relational quality, the sort of interactive, relational experience Jesus was after in his parable. Growth is mutual in this song, something happening between planter and that which is planted, not something done by the planter to the planted.
In these days of widely reported decline in all varieties of churches, whenever people are asked why they seek out a church (or, conversely, why they no longer bother with church), the responses are consistent: people look for a church that can offer a sense of community and a place for spiritual growth; people leave a church when it fails to facilitate spiritual growth, when it lacks a sense of community. Growth and community are the reason for gathering to worship, to pray, to study, to care for one another, to work for justice. All the stuff we do as a church should, if we do it thoughtfully, lead to growth and relationship and belonging. Those desires that bring us to church in the first place and keep us coming back for more are inextricably intertwined: we grow in relationship, we grow when we belong; growth results in relationship results in growth, on and on, in a wonderfully unfolding spiral of spirit and love. But if growth is obstructed, or if relationships break, then people leave, much like seeds that die when the proper soil and care are lacking.
Throughout the stewardship series these past several Sundays we have been looking at our gifts, that in us which calls forth our deepest passion, our great gladness, when and how we are most alive. But it is not enough to simply recognize one’s gifts, for the gift only takes on meaning when it is given expression in some way. In a church community, where we are drawn together for growth and relationship, the gifts we bring flourish when we offer them to one another, in service of one another. I am not here simply to get something for myself, to do my own thing; I am here to give. We make our church a fertile ground as we share our gifts, recognizing one another, calling one another, challenging one another, supporting one another.
The story goes that there was once an abbot of a monastery who was very good friends with the rabbi of a local synagogue. Times were hard, and the abbot found his community dwindling, the faith life of the monks shallow and lifeless. Clearly the monastery was dying. The abbot went to his friend for advice and comfort. The rabbi told him, “There is something you need to know, my brother. We have long known in the Jewish community that the Messiah is one of you.”
“What,” exclaimed the abbot, “the Messiah is one of us? How can that be?” But the rabbi insisted that it was so, and the abbot went back to his monastery wondering and praying, comforted and excited.
Once back in the monastery, walking down the halls and in the courtyard, the abbott would pass by a monk and wonder, “Could he be the one?” Sitting in chapel, praying, the abbott would hear a voice and look intently at a face and wonder “Could he be the one?”, and he began to treat all of his brothers with respect, with kindness and awe, with reverence. Soon it became quite noticeable.
One of the other brothers came to the abbott and asked him what had happened to him, and the abbot told him what the rabbi had said. Soon the other monk was looking at his brothers differently and wondering, “Could he be the one?” The word spread through the monastery quickly: the Messiah is one of us. Before long the whole monastery was full of life, worship, kindness, and grace. Prayer was rich and passionate, services were alive and vibrant. The surrounding villagers began attending the services, listening and watching intently, and there were many who wished to join the community.
After joining, they were told the mystery, the truth that life together was based upon: the Messiah is one of us. The monastery kept growing, and all within and around it grew in wisdom and grace. And they say still, if you stumble across this place, wherever there is life and hope and kindness and graciousness, that the secret is the same: the Messiah is one of us. (Spiritual Literacy, p. 492).
The Messiah is one of us, here today. The Messiah is someone out there, outside our church, right now. May we come to know that secret here in our families, in our church, in our community, in our world. Each one of us carries a divine seed, hidden inside us but growing every moment. The Messiah is one of us, growing in our midst even now. May we tend this garden of the Messiah with all the love and care we have.
