RonBlog

Sunday 10th July, 2011 Fourth Sunday of Pentecost

Sentence
The words that You have spoken are spirit and life; You have the words of eternal life. John 6:63

Collect
Bountiful God, we thank You for planting in us the seed of Your word; by Your Holy Spirit help us to receive it with joy and live according to it, that we may grow in faith, hope and love, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever Amen

Old Testament Lesson Genesis 25: 19 – 34

These are the descendants of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived.
The children struggled together within her; and she said, "If it is to be this way, why do I live?" So she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger." When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau. Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. Esau said to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!" (Therefore he was called Edom.) Jacob said, "First sell me your birthright." Esau said, "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?" Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

Psalm 119: 105 – 112

Your word is a lantern to my feet: and a light to my path
I have vowed and sworn an oath: to keep Your righteous judgements
I have been afflicted beyond measure: Lord, give me life according to Your word
Accept, O Lord, the freewill offerings of my mouth: and teach me Your judgements
I take my life in may hands continually: yet I do not forget Your law.
The wicked have laid a snare for me: but I have not strayed from Your precepts
Your commands are my inheritance for ever: they are the joy of my heart
I have set my heart to fulfill Your statutes: always even to the end

Epistle Romans 8: 1 – 11

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law--indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.




GOSPEL Matthew 13: 1 – 9

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: "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!"

Jesus then added “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."

© New Revised Standard Version of the Bible Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission. All rights reserved

NOTES ON THE READINGS ……

Old Testament
This is a sad story, and may well have more than a ring of truth about it, as it conveys something of the genesis of the tribal tensions that still wrack the Middle East. Idumaeans were never the taste of the month for Israel, and the connection may stretch further than Edom. It may well include much of the Arabian peninsula.

Whilst this story indicates Esau’s disinterest in family and birth-right, it may also be the expression of tension from the other side of the ‘fence.’ History is always written by the victors, not the vanquished, and that needs to be remembered in any situation. There is no doubt of the dishonesty of Jacob, ‘supplanter’ as he was nicknamed, and he does not show up at all well. That applies both to this tale and to subsequent history between the two soon-to-be patriarchs. Perhaps the favouritism shown to these two young men from their parents indicated something of the source of the problem. However, it is a recurring theme in families, sadly.

Psalm
This surely should be a familiar section from the Psalms, even coming as it does from the longest psalm of all. That first verse has been really quite formative in my own life and faith pilgrimage, and whilst initially I followed because of its divine genesis, that developed into a rather more significant discipleship because that word proved its validity in life and thought and growth.

Epistle
If you found difficulty with my perception of Paul’s letter in previous weeks, I have to say that this one has been formative over my lifetime, although I have to add that my perception of what is being conveyed has moved ground considerably too.
I have great difficulty with mysticism, Christian or otherwise, considering it to lose touch with the down-to-earth Gospel of the Incarnation. Likewise I had difficulty with the sort of pious religion in which I grew up, for that part of the Church seemed to present a Gospel that was otherworldly, and out-of-touch with reality.
So when I look at this passage these days I see once again the contrast that is common to the New Testament that presents itself in different modes: the contrast between living as a follower of ‘Adam;’ and being a follower of Christ. Controller as opposed to Servant. Demander in place of Offerer. Or if you like, flesh and spirit. Falsehood and truth. ………

GOSPEL
This Parable of the Sower ought really to be renamed as Parable of the Soils. Any gardener would tell you that, surely. And one wonders why the disciples failed to get the gist of this teaching of Jesus. It rings true not only in the hearing and responding to the Gospel, but it also is true in hearing and responding to what is real and solid and necessary in life.
In other words, the seed is not responsible for the failure to germinate nor for the size of the crop. It has everything to do with the receptacle for the seed, the ground into which it was put.

NOTES FOR A SERMON

It is a strong conviction of mine that those who attempt to undermine the Christian Faith seem to have quite a hidden agenda in their pressure. Right now there seems to be a reassessment of the role of School Chaplains on the grounds of attempting to convert youngsters. On the other hand, there are those who cry ‘superstition’ at us, And all manner of other epithets are arraigned against believers.

On the other hand, one has to say that there is such an enormous range of Christian belief and practice, that no charge would surprise me these days. On top of that, there is the fairly obvious fact that many who ‘profess and call themselves Christian’ would have some difficulty in offering a coherent presentation of the Faith to those outside it.

If all this sounds a little to pessimistic, let me simply say that the above comments stem from my experience with people over more than 50 years of ministry. But none of the above means, necessarily, that people in the above categories are consigned to the outer. If there is one remarkably coherent factor that remains in all of the above, it is the powerful and persistent perception that if there is one thing that God expects from His people, it is that He expects us to be fair dinkum. Sadly, that quality seems to be reducing away from the general population of today, and that is a mark of serious decline.

In earlier notes I have commented on how Jesus’ parables tended to be rather interesting stories that grab people’s attention, but when the end of the tale arrives, or perhaps some time afterwards, the little grenade goes off in the listeners heads, as the impact of His message strikes home.

Parables are not an invention of Jesus, nor even of the Jews. Mind you, they produces some doozies though. That OT story of King David and Nathan the prophet (never, never assume that the role of the prophet was a sinecure!) Nathan’s tale of the one little ewe lamb belonging to a poor person being taken by a wealthy landowner to feed his guests was enough to produce in David one towering rage. His judgement was that such a person should be punished severely - until Nathan came out with his shattering ‘You and the man.” This was in response to David’s selfish seduction of the wife of Uriah, and even more ugly method of destroying her husband.) Anyone reading the story will see how Uriah, no Jew himself, had a far greater sense of rightness and loyalty than the King.

Parables.
And what today’s tale is calling people to is to take responsibility for themselves, and for their open, honest and transparent response to what they know to be true and important. And there lies the rub.

If I had a fiver for everyone who, over the years, has talked about returning to Church, or even re-establishing their discipleship as a Christian, I would be a rather wealthy person. In fact, I suspect the truth is that the only people I have found who have moved that way have been those who have travelled the rather far harder road from disbelief to discipleship .... and continued that path right through their lives.

Excuses, excuses, are what Jesus expected from many, and He was not far from the mark. And it is not a matter of becoming pious and religious, let me assure you. If that had been the case, I would not either be writing this or would I have spent my life as a priest. Religious I am not, for that is not to what I have been called. It is a matter of being open, transparent and fair dinkum with others (even to noting that, despite all the claims to the contrary, fair dinkum did not begin life as Aussie lingo, but English.)