August 29, 2004
By Jack Price

One of the features at this year’s Crossroads Church camp was a series of “Ask Jack” sessions.  People submitted questions to me in advance of the camp and I spent three sessions in Colorado responding to those questions.  It was so well received that I thought I’d use that approach occasionally for sermons.  Today is the first “Ask Jack” sermon.  The results of the congregation’s input are as follows:  three questions and the request for teaching about a parable.

The first question concerns the difference between religion and spirituality.   After reviewing dictionary definitions and my own perception, spirituality is a broad category of concern with metaphysics and mysteries beyond the physical realm while religion is a particular subset of spirituality featuring specific beliefs and practices.  For many people, spirituality is the more personal journey of faith and enlightenment while religion is more of a communal and organizational process. 

The twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich offered two understandings of religion.  In the broader sense, religion (spirituality?) is “the state of being ultimately concerned; …grasped by a concern which is not preliminary.” Ultimate concern is that element that gives meaning to the other elements. Religion as “ultimate concern” affects the meaning of cultural expressions such as organized religion or the arts.  Religion, then, is then, affected by the very cultural forms that influence the expression and character of this concern.

Religion in the narrower sense reflects the familiar understanding of that term.  It involves organized religion, such as the churches of Christianity.  Tillich also includes in this understanding that more personal religious expression of one-to-one relationship with God.

The second question concerns the biblical understanding of how God is still relevant even though modern science is revealing more and more of the unknown?  The Old Testament does not claim scientific authority.  It reflects an existing worldview and the “scientific” claims of the Bible are valid within that view.  The biblical worldview is geocentric, with a flat earth, a dome of heaven, stars in the canopy of the sky, and a sun that moves across the sky.  God is in heaven, above the canopy, and is the strongest of all the other gods.

To claim scientific authority for the Bible is to accept modern validity for the biblical worldview.  That denies the validity of our current state of knowledge because they are so different!  At the same time, we acknowledge that current scientific understanding will give way to newer theories in the future.  Faith tells us that “our knowledge” always incomplete.  Faith also tells us to trust our ability to think, to develop understanding, and to keep learning.  Our knowledge is not wrong because it’s not ultimate.

Our faith and belief in God is based on the ability to think, develop understanding, and keep learning.  There are always revolutions in knowledge based on new technology and new experiences.  How foolish it is to believe that we understand more than a fraction of the ultimate truth of life and creation!

The God who is God is perceived through a variety of world views, through the perspective of a variety of religious traditions.  As a book of faith, the Bible is asking different questions than science.  It tends to ask “Why?” and “Who?” as opposed to “How?”

The third question concerns why we do not necessarily read the Bible as literally true.  What does the Bible say about itself in this regard?  First of all, let’s clarify clarify what the Bible is and what it is not.  Biblical scholarship and archeology bring new insights to understanding the literary structure of the Bible:  its multiple sources and authorship as well as its duplicate and contradictory material (two creation stories, two flood strata, Joshua and Judges depict the same events very differently, and two Goliath incidents).

Modern scholarship has revealed a rich understanding of the literature of the Bible.  It contains poetry, parables, and drama.  It is more midrash than history.  In the  New Testament, the gospels are sermons much more than biographies.

What is literal interpretation?  Biblical literalism was not a question until the development of science in the Enlightenment.  At that time, the church felt the need for an authoritative, literal, and scientific Bible to combat the discoveries of science.  The idea of a literal Bible is often coupled with the concept of an infallible Bible.

            The passage often used to claim biblical literalism is 2 Timothy 3 16 -- “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (NRSV)  In this verse, “inspired by God” simply means God-breathed – that the Spirit is revealed in  scripture.  The author of 2 Timothy refers to what we call the Old Testament because there was no New Testament canon of scripture at that time.  The New Testament says some interesting things about the Old.  Jesus in the gospels upholds the validity of the Law (first five books of the Old Testament).  Paul had already set aside the Law as a means of salvation .  It is clear that the Old Testament does reveal God’s nature and God’s ways, but does not claim for itself infallible status.  

Humanity seems to want, even to need, a source of authority.  Sometimes it is an infallible Pope, sometimes an infallible scripture, and sometimes an infallible science.  Let us remembers that faith in anything less than the God who is God – who is beyond all descriptions of and claims for God – is ultimately misplaced.

            After the three questions, there was a request for some teaching concerning the parable of the sower and the seed from Mark 4: 3-9.  This parable arises out of the peasants’ struggle to make a living out of the dry, rocky, and often barren Palestinian soil.  In that culture, sowing usually preceded plowing and much of the seed was often lost  on footpaths, in rocky soil, and in thorns.

 “Listen!” Jesus says at beginning and end of the parable.  “Listen” refers to “Shema” (Hear, O Israel).  It also refers to the voice of God at Jesus’ Transfiguration:  “This is my Son, listen to him”!  Listen for a deeper meaning.  Jesus is not teaching about farmer nor advocating traditional farming techniques.  He is using a familiar scenario to make deeper point.

The sower is an image for Jesus’ own ministry.  He spreads seed far and wide on all surfaces, but the harvest depends a lot on the condition of the hearers.  The focus of this parable in Mark’s gospel is not on a harvest of saved souls at the end of time, but the harvest of changed lives and a transformed society in the present world.  Such a harvest is not a matter of increased numbers joining a movement, but of believers’ lives being changed by the indwelling power of the creative energy of God.

There are four types of soil.  In the first two, the seed never penetrates.  Hearers never really get the message.  Theirs is temporary discipleship that falls away almost immediately because they are unable to develop or sustain a true discipleship practice.

The seed that falls on the footpath does not sink into at all.  Satan or evil or distractions cause people not to hear.  They become immune to the power of the gospel.  Maybe they are satisfied with life as it is.  At any rate, they are not open to something new.

Some seed fell on rocky soil.  There is little depth in these people’s lives.  Perhaps they fear to go deeper and hesitate to get really committed.  For Jesus’ would-be followers, the reality of persecution, tribulation, and suffering was a real stumbling block to committed discipleship.

The last two types of soil are people who genuinely hear the word.  They actually get it and participate as disciples, but only one type bears fruit.  The seed that grows among the thorns gets choked and throttled by “worries of this age,” “lures of wealth all other passions,” and comforts in life.  For these also, there is a fear of committing.  What stands in your way?  Ironically, it is usually not hardships that throttle us.  It is not in the loss of persons, relationships, or other huge life challenges that we get sidetracked.  We tend to rise to these challenges.

What chokes the life out of us is laziness, familiar and self-destructive attitudes, the fear of taking a chance, the presence of too many other things, not enough time, not enough energy, a fear of commitment to an ideal, or the doubt that we can really make profound choices.

The good soil welcomes the word.  Through a deep journey inward, it yields a  phenomenal return.  Talk about growth! 

The emphasis of this parable is on barriers to discipleship.  It is a familiar story about lost and unfruitful seed.  “Tell us what we already know, Jesus,” you can hear the people say.  In Jesus’ day, the cycle of farming poverty kept the farmer tied to the land and the landowner in a “serf-like” relationship.  It certainly suggests a perversion of Israel’s Mosaic system in which the purpose of Jubilee was to prevent such an over-under exploitation/oppression.  Moses taught that the land is God’s gift to enable the people to stay free.  Israel was to be a place where people own their own God-given land forever.

The result of the good soil harvest is a crop of incredible proportions, far beyond even a bumper crop.  This abundance reflects the idea of “heaven.”   It also breaks the cycle of landowner exploitation and farmer dependence.  With such a crop, the farmer would be able not only to pay off all debts, but to purchase the land and end servitude forever.  Freedom!

Jesus is saying, the kingdom of God is like this!  Listen, if you have ears to hear!  This is new and this is big!

            What is the meaning for us?  Where are you in parable?  What kind of soil are you?  How does gospel live in your life and what barriers to fruitful discipleship do you face?   Is there something in the gospel you’ve never really heard?  Have you been unable or unwilling to go deep enough.  Are you afraid of what you’ll find?  Are your good intentions being choked out or do conflicting obligations deflate your energy?

Good soil yields incredibly abundant living.  Its result is freedom, absolute freedom in your life choices.  In a recent movie preview, there was a commercial about a product to set you free.  Use this product and you would have freedom to act any way you want.  You could do cartwheels and handstands in your corporate office space, if you like. 

Such is not Jesus’ definition of freedom.  For Jesus, inner freedom is the freedom to choose your direction, freedom to know yourself, and freedom to live without the shackles of fear.  You are free to choose the paths you want to take, free to follow the  dream within you, and free to discover that dream within you.

Gordon Cosby, pastor of the Washington, DC based Church of the Savior writes that

being like Jesus is not being a perfect copy of him.  It is far more difficult and far more exciting to let Jesus Christ actually be within us, to resuscitate within us all those wild hopes the world has taught us to distrust.  It is to revive those great expectations that quietly disappeared when I learned to be realistic about my limitations.  It is to let the (living) Word of God call to life the dead within me.

Death is a real part of life.  Many people within our congregation know this from experience.  Times of serious illnesses, life-threatening situations, and grief from loss -- how do you face these and not give up?  Ironically, in times of greatest stress and challenge, the faith we need is available.  So often, such challenges make us stronger, send us deeper, and enable us to be more honest.  They hold the keys to richer living.  Even though they are not in themselves good or easy, they seem to be the pathway to abundant life.

What will abundant life be like for you?  That’s for you and God to discover together.  For this congregation, slowly discovering its identity and direction, that pathway leads through valleys of darkness.  Our challenges make us stronger.  There are signs of a truly abundant harvest clearly evident in this body.  Abundant living is fruitful living.  It comes from receiving the Word of God and embracing the path of discipleship and growth.

What stands in our way?  What stands in your way and mine?  There is entrenched, systemic evil present in the world.  Such evil is always at work to undermine abundant living.  It comes through societal messages urging us to trust in lesser gods.   These messages encourage us to doubt our ability to choose what is truly life giving.

In large measure, it is we ourselves who stand in our own way.   We become the soil we choose.  Freedom is God’s gift sown in our lives.  The Spirit is God’s gift in each of us.  The question remains:  “What will you do with your freedom?