Cost, risk, and harvest

Artist: Matthias Stom

Image from Wikimedia Commons

First of all, dear people, I want to give you a link:

July 10, 2011 Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A (Fourth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 10)

It is rich with material for reflecting on today's scripture readings (which you can read right there by scrolling down).

First we have a sermon by Karen Georgia Thompson on the very troublesome first reading. That's the one about Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for "a mess of pottage" (as the older translations put it).

And, on that subject, I just have to share this little quip by Lord Byron:

Thou sold'st thy birthright, Esau! for a mess
Thou shouldst have gotten more, or eaten less.

Then my favorite preacher these days, Kathryn Matthews Huey, offers some reflections on the gospel reading: the parable of the sower. Here's something I particularly like:

The sower is remarkably free in throwing the seed on all sorts of potential "growth areas." There's no calculation or careful husbandry of the seeds in his pocket. In the face of all sorts of obstacles and dangers, the sower counts on the bountiful return of a few seeds; he imagines the plentiful harvest reaped when even a few of the seeds find fertile soil.

And this:

Thomas Long writes: "Therefore, the church is called to 'waste itself,' to throw grace around like there is no tomorrow, precisely because there is a tomorrow, and it belongs to God" (Matthew, The Westminster Bible Companion). To whom does your "tomorrow" belong?

I think I like those two brief passages because I see the Church so compulsively caught up in self-protection of late. And I refer specifically to protection of the institution. What would happen if we let God take care of the increase instead of engaging in the kind of calculation that often goes on today in the name of "church growth"? Now, I'm not saying at all that we don't need to exercise appropriate stewardship of the institution. I'm just saying that there's a vast difference between a commitment to all due responsibility and a fearful refusal to take the risks clearly demanded of us by the gospel.

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