josephholubsermons
July 10, 2011 -
Pent 4
2 Corinthians 9:6-11
Matthew 13:1-9
(you can copy and paste this into a word document - remember to change the font to black)
Living With A Christ-Consciousness
“The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,
and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not
reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
” 2
Corinthians 9:6
This epistle passage for this morning has been widely used as a
classic stewardship text.
But I would suggest to you this morning this passage is about far
more than merely stewardship, at least
stewardship narrowly defined as fund raising.
This passage goes far
beyond that! It is
about the profound impact
that faith in Jesus had on those early followers and can have upon us –
an impact that can only be
described as transformative and life-altering.
In this passage for this morning Paul writes,
“The point is this…”
To what was Paul referring?
To gain a deeper understanding of the radical message that is
here, we must understand this passage in its
context; appreciate the
situation to which Paul is referring.
A close reading of Paul’s letters
reveals that the apostle Paul spent nearly ten years (from the late 40’s
to the late 50’s of the first century)
soliciting funds for what
was commonly known as the
Jerusalem Fund.
This was a collection he took up among Gentile congregations in
Macedonia and Achaia (modern day Greece) to help Jerusalem congregations
who were facing very difficult times as a result of famine, a heavy
burden of taxes and harsh economic conditions.
Chapters 8 and 9 of
2 Corinthians contain Paul’s
final appeal to the Gentile church at Corinth to help out their
brothers and sisters in Jerusalem, who were
mainly Jewish followers of Jesus.
A part of what had happened was that Paul’s initial appeal to the
Corinth congregation had met
resistance after they had promised to respond.
They had not followed
through on a previous pledge, so Paul made a
second appeal.
In 2 Corinthians 8:10
Paul wrote, “…it is appropriate
for you who began last year not only to do something but even desired to
do something—to now finish doing it.”
(an obvious reference to an pledge they had made)
Paul appealed to the churches in Macedonia and Achaia mainly because
they evidently were
in a relatively
prosperous time and were living with a little surplus.
In his first letter to the
Corinthian congregation Paul had encouraged each of them to
“set aside” and save a little
for the Jerusalem congregation on a
“weekly basis.” (1 Cor.
16:1-2) In the end Paul’s
collection effort was successfully completed in the year 57 CE.
OK - so what is so remarkable about this,
and why do I even bother to emphasize it this morning?
Considering the way the world was at this time, the
rift between Gentile and Jew
was one of the most profound human divisions of all.
Take any human division and subsequent prejudice of
our time (black-white;
citizen-alien; rich-poor; Palestinian-Jew; whatever) and the realize the
division between Jew and Gentile in the first century was just as great
- if not more. The chasm
between them was deep and profound: culturally, socially, religiously,
ethnically and in just about any and every way it could be measured.
The congregations of Greece and
Asia were predominantly Gentile and the congregation in Jerusalem was
predominantly Jewish.
Why should prosperous Gentiles in Corinth care one iota about poverty
stricken Jews living in Jerusalem over a thousand miles away – quite
literally a world away? Why?
And why would Jews ever be open to receiving help from Gentiles?
What Paul asked the Corinthian congregation to do was
profoundly counter-cultural!
It went against the
grain of common sensibilities, cultural mores and social norms.
But for Paul even in the face
of that resistance, the
Jerusalem Collection was
a tangible expression
of what he perceived to be the very
heart of the gospel that he
so eloquently expressed in one of his other letters when he wrote: In
Christ “there is no longer Jew or
Greek… slave or free… male and female… for all are one in Jesus Christ.”
(Galatians 3:28)
Jesus erased
all of those distinctions that separated people into
categories of relative worth.
He leveled the playing field and through the eyes of Jesus the
blinders of cultural, racial, social, ethnic and religious prejudice
were removed and people could begin to see and treat each other as real
and equal human beings even across rigid boundaries and age-old
divisions.
Paul also wrote
these words to the Corinthian congregation in the chapter before
our passage for today:
“I do not make this appeal
to you as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love…
for you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ that
though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty
you might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:8ff)
What Paul meant was that not only, as followers of Jesus, were
prejudicial distinctions of relative worth removed, but the lives of
those who had previously been separated and held nothing in common were
now inseparably linked together.
Paul affirmed that
the needs of the Jewish Jerusalem congregation and the
abundance of the
Gentile Corinth congregation fit together like heads and tails of the
same coin. For a culture
characterized by boundaries and barriers,
it was scandalous!
I call it living with a Christ-consciousness.
That’s the radical and
counter-cultural message that emerges from these chapters in
Corinthians that challenge us;
challenge us to live with a Christ consciousness that supersedes all the
divisions and distinctions that would dupe us into thinking our lives
are mutually exclusive.
Paul connected the needs of one with the abundance of another
– and in so connecting Jesus was
honored and Jesus’ life was
tangibly embodied in theirs as a witness to a blind and prejudicial world to
see.
We see a similar expression of a
“Christ-Consciousness” going on in our gospel for today.
Jesus tells a parable (a story) about a sower who was
indiscriminately sowing seed
all over the place! This
sower showed a casual disregard for the kind of soil the seed was
landing upon. It seemed to
not matter to him. Some
landed upon the hard-pan path, some on rocky ground, some among the
weeds and some on fertile soil.
The traditional interpretation (that was drilled into my head as a child) of this parable is to focus on the various soils and reflect upon which kind of soil might I be – or others might be, as the case may be. (that's a religion steeped in judgement and guilt) However, in jumping immediately to the soils we miss what, to me, is the deeper meaning of the parable – that being the lavish and reckless sower who is sowing seed all over the place with no regard whatsoever for the soils!
The sower in the parable cannot help but remind me of Jesus himself who
sowed the seeds of grace and compassion
quite recklessly and with
casual disregard as far as
some were concerned, especially the religious people of his time who
thought of themselves as the
good soil and most everybody else as rocky, weedy or hard-pan.
I think of those times Jesus lauded the faith he encountered in
those the religious folks considered other than good soil – a Canaanite
woman and a Roman soldier, for example. (Matthew 15:21-28; Matthew
8:5-13) I think of all the times
he sowed the seeds of grace upon losers, rejects, the immoral, the
ostracized and the religiously excluded. He
lavished grace upon them!
The primarily peasant agricultural audience to whom Jesus
primarily spoke and taught would say that the sower in Jesus’ parable
was not a very good sower (in fact, a terrible sower) for he
apparently cared not to discern the difference between the soils.
Jesus’ audience knew the difference between soils, and they also
knew how expensive seed was to
“waste” it in such a way.
For sure the sower of Jesus parable was a radically different kind of
sower – this sower marched to the beat of a different drummer – and
employed methods outside of culturally accepted practice – he employed
the practices of the radical kingdom of God’s grace.
This parable came alive for
me in an interesting way a few weeks ago.
Last Fall I planted some lupine seeds around our house in Buena
Vista. I cultivated a
little area, made sure the soil was good and planted the seeds.
I had a few seeds left over and for whatever reason I just threw
them down on a hard-pan path and ground them in with my foot.
This Spring I waited in anticipation for my good soil lupine seeds to
come up. In June I saw
evidence of one little plant coming up, and just as quickly it died.
I was disappointed. Just
a couple of weeks ago I was walking around the house, and I happen to
look down at that hard pan path into which I had ground in some seeds
with my foot. I had
forgotten all about it.
Guess what? Lupine
is growing right out of the hard-pan!
Jesus’ parable, at least in part, is a challenge to you and me to live
with the consciousness of the sower
which is nothing less than a
Christ-Consciousness.
As Jesus’ followers we are called to spread the seeds of the
Kingdom of God which are seeds of compassion and grace
all over the
place with disregard for the kinds of soil and potential growing
mediums. We are called to sread
the seeds of grace and compassion with reckless abandon and disregard
the soils upon which they land. For one never knows where
the Kingdom of grace and compassion will take root and yield fruit and
flower.
Today I see these passages as
profound challenges to live with a Christ-Consciousness that in many
ways is, for sure, counter-cultural and goes against the grain of what
many would say is good, moral
practice and common sense.
That didn’t stop Jesus, and I pray it won’t hinder us as we follow him
and embody his life and his consciousness.
Amen.