Sermon : Parables Of The Kingdom

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 with passing reference to Romans 8:26-39

I love the parables of the kingdom.  They are like the iTunes icon on an iPad.  If you click on the Music icon, you open up an existing library of music; and if you click on the iTunes icon, you open up a store from which you can download more: treasures old; and treasures new.  If you click on iTunes, you won’t get sat nav, or the weather forecast, or your photos, or text-based documents, or Angry Birds.  Parables can’t mean whatever we like; but if we think we know the meaning of a parable, it is like saying of iTunes, “Yeah, I’ve heard that album.”  Every time we try to pin a parable down, God in his wisdom won’t allow it: because the scope of the kingdom is too high and wide and deep to be grasped in that way.  Parables reveal to us treasures new.

The kingdom was one of Jesus’ favourite themes.  Mark summarises Jesus’ entire ministry with the opening declaration: “The time has come...The kingdom of God has come near.  Repent and believe the good news!”  (Mark 1:15).  According to Jesus, the kingdom is both now, and not yet; has drawn close enough to enter, and is delayed.  It is the reign of God, breaking-in to our world, driving back the reign of injustice and oppression.  Way back at the beginning of our story, God had created men and women to know him and to represent him, exercising his rule on his behalf on this earth.  We had abdicated our position; but Jesus came, as one of us, to win it back.  And when he did, God didn’t say, “I won’t make the same mistake again; from now on, I’m keeping this responsibility myself.”  Incredibly, God has restored us to our position as his ambassadors: because God never had, and never will have, a Plan B.

And so as we listen to these parables of the kingdom of heaven, we ought to ask, “What are we supposed to be like?  How are we supposed to exercise God’s life-releasing rule?”

The way God’s rule is exercised is like a seed, which must surrender its existence in order that a shrub might grow.

The way God’s rule is exercised is like yeast, which must surrender its existence in order that the dough might rise.

The way God’s rule is exercised is like treasure, which is buried, abandoned, forgotten, not displayed in a place of honour – its existence surrendered, awaiting such time as someone might happen upon it.

The way God’s rule is exercised is like a merchant, who is willing to surrender his existence – for what is a merchant with nothing left that they are willing or able to trade? – in order to buy fine pearls.

And in each case, the focus is not the agent of the kingdom – the seed, the yeast, the buried treasure, the merchant – but others, described variously as birds, the hungry, a completely undeserving inheritor, and fine pearls.

What are we supposed to be like?  How are we supposed to exercise God’s rule?  After the pattern of Jesus, who calls us to die to self in order to live the life God has for us, and in order that others – whom the world sees as a nuisance, and leaves hungry, all the while resenting any good fortune that might come their way, and never ever seeing them as a thing of exquisite beauty - might experience the generosity of God.

It is crucial that we should understand this, because it is not inconceivable that we live in a world where individuals, and communities, who call themselves Christian and believe themselves to be acting in a way that exercises God’s rule and brings him glory, advocate and even bring death to others.  There is no evil in God, and evil does not come from his hand, as a part of his plan we are simply not wise enough to grasp.  Evil is the resistance against God’s life-affirming rule; and we are caught-up in a clash between two kingdoms, in the fierce fighting between the decisive breakthrough, the sacrificial beach-head of Calvary, and the end of hostilities.

And it is also crucial that we, who might never do such things, should understand this, because we are daily pressed to conform to the pattern of the world, which says you must achieve status, you must amass wealth, you must secure your future...Resistance against God’s rule finds expression in more subtle ways than a gun.  God has made us co-heirs with his Son, and is at loving work to conform us to his sent and broken and glorified likeness as we live-out our fully-resourced calling to embrace death to self in order to bring life to others.

Another parable: the kingdom of heaven is like a net let down into the lake.  That is, people are supposed to be caught up in the experience of the kingdom, are supposed to experience what God’s reign is like.  How they respond is not for us to judge, but for the angels.  We, who are invited to know God and challenged to represent him, are the net which describes the area within which people experience the kingdom.

I am struck by the accounts of Jesus calling his first disciples.  Mark records that Simon Peter and Andrew were casting their net into the lake, because they were fishermen; while James and John were preparing their net.  Matthew says the same.  Luke’s version has them washing their nets, having returned from fishing.  Now, I think it is fair to say that we tend to read this as background detail.  But if it is true that the Spirit of God breathes life into all scripture, so that it becomes useful to us for our instruction, and where necessary, rebuke, then such background detail is not merely background detail.  If disciples are to fish for people, then we need to understand something about how to fish.

We tend to fish the English way: as a solitary pursuit, with a rod and line, stalking one good fish at a time; meeting up at the clubhouse to tell tall tales of fish we have caught in days gone by, and the elusive Ones That Got Away...

That isn’t what Jesus would recognise as how to fish.  We need a net: a net in which each one of us that has entered the kingdom is a knot; a net that can scoop up a great many fish – of all kinds, some good and some bad – at once.  If we are to be sewn-together into a net, we must discover one another’s gifts, and how they work together.  If we are to be sewn-together into a net, we must connect together, so that the net does not come under too great a strain at certain knots.  If we are to be sewn-together into a net, we must regularly attend to those things that, left unattended, tear a net to shreds: disagreement, and disappointment, and competition.  You see, the lake has always been full of fish...and disciples have always been confronted with having fished all night and caught nothing; are always invited to submit their experience to Jesus’ authority and challenged to throw out their net and draw in more fish than they can imagine.

These are the ways in which we prepare our net for fishing; in which we fish with our net; in which we clean our net having gone fishing.

Jesus ends these parables of the kingdom by asking, “Have you understood?”  Have you heard the Spirit of God speak a word to you which enables you to respond with faith?  That word might be the invitation to die to self, enabled by just a glimpse of the life beyond.  That word might be the challenge to see others from a heavenly perspective, as birds God cares for, or fine pearls he values beyond price.  That word might be go and find a partner who can work with you to prepare your net.  We are entrusted with a treasure-store.  Will you bring out what you have heard God speak to you today, so that the kingdom is extended, bringing life to those around you?

All In The Name

My favourite woman of all (Jo Dowsett), reading the latest book by one of my favourite women (Jo Saxton).

Being Disciples : Making Disciples : Part 3

Today is the feast day of Mary Magdalene, the first apostle sent as a witness to the resurrection (John 20:11-18).  Mary was one of Jesus’ disciples (she calls him her Rabbi: Jesus didn’t have 12 disciples – that was a symbolic number within a larger group, of perhaps closer to 20 men and women), and, as all disciples are, was sent out.

This morning as I stood waiting for my youngest son to be led into school, I watched a group of four-year-old girls perfecting their disdainful I-am-better-than-you faces at one another.  Boys have issues of their own, but sassy disdain, which flowers into full-blown contempt for other people, is a major issue facing our girls today.  Lord, have mercy.

Today my prayer is that our girls and our women would know the redeeming and releasing that Mary Magdalene experienced as a disciple, in order that they might become disciple-makers who will, in turn, help others to learn how to live the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Being Disciples : Making Disciples : Part 2

Further thoughts on discipleship:

You might feel uncomfortable with the suggestion that we make disciples of us, because we are conditioned to believe that Jesus is the person we should follow. But that is to misunderstand the discipler-disciple relationship. Rabbis do not ask their disciples to worship them; neither do we ask our disciples to worship us: rather, the purpose of the rabbi is to point his or her disciples to God.

You can influence an almost unlimited number of people, given the right media; but you can only disciple a few people at any one time, because it requires that you are sharing your life with them.

Never set out to follow someone who doesn’t know where they are going.  They will probably dress it up as being like Abram, setting out for the Promised Land (Genesis 12); but Abram was following God, who knew the way; and to set out not knowing where you are going is to follow in the footsteps of Abram’s father, Terah, who died in Harran (Genesis 11), or Abram’s cousin, Lot, who chose Sodom and ran into difficulties there (Genesis 13, 14).  And never set out to lead others in a direction you have never gone ahead in before.  Instead, be like Joshua and Caleb, who scouted-out the land extensively (Numbers 13; Joshua 2) before leading the people across the Jordan to take possession of it (Joshua).

Being Disciples : Making Disciples

Jesus called disciples, to follow him and so to learn to share in his (covenant) identity and in his (kingdom) mission, and then to go and make disciples, and teach them in turn to make disciples.  There is a dynamic of following – of being a disciple – and of being sent out – as apostles, or sent ones - to make disciples.

Let’s get one thing straight: we are not Jesus’ disciples.  A disciple follows someone in order to learn from them, and Jesus makes it clear to Simon Peter (John 13:36) that he was about to go somewhere where we cannot follow him yet: to the right-hand side of our Father in heaven, where he intercedes on our behalf.

To claim to follow Jesus is to concern oneself with adhering to his ethical teaching.  But that is an inadequate response.  To follow after Jesus requires us to be disciples – and that requires us to literally follow someone whom we have physically encountered, from whom we can learn something of how to live this life according to the pattern Jesus inaugurated.

Thus making disciples is an apostolic task, in that – regardless of whether our own function within the Body of Christ is primarily as an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor or a teacher – making disciples happens as we are sent out by whoever we have gathered to in order to be ourselves discipled.  Making disciples is not a pastoral task – or a prophetic or even an evangelistic or a teaching task; although apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers will go about making disciples in different ways, because they have different personalities and priorities, carry different facets of Jesus.  We must rediscover this; must recognise that we are all sent, and not just a few.

There was a kid named Andrew (by the way, his name means ‘man’).  His father was a fisherman, and so he and his brother were learning to be fishermen – and if the stories are anything to go by, they had a lot to learn.  But whenever he could get away, he went to learn from a crazy wild-man by the name of John.  Until one day, both John and Andrew realised that The Day had come: Andrew had learnt what John had to teach him (about how to be a man devoted to God), and now he needed to go and learn from John’s cousin.  And in time, John’s cousin sent Andrew out to call others to learn from him all that he had learnt from Jesus...

Discipleship is embodied.  You can’t be discipled effectively by several people at once, though you will probably need to be discipled in different areas or different seasons by several people.  And you can’t be genuinely discipled at a distance – through podcasts, or books, or blogs – unless these things are building on an already-established relationship (it is worth noting how many people who read my blog either already know me personally or look for the opportunity to meet me; and the same is generally true of those blogs I keep an eye on or books I read).

The gracious challenge my church tradition finds herself confronted with is our need to recognise that we have focused on the disembodied – and therefore highly individualistic, private, and intellectual – matter of following Jesus, instead of on the embodied matter of following after him, as those who are sent into the world in the authority of the Son, empowered by the Holy Spirit, bringing glory to our Father...and to repent and believe, to accept the gracious invitation to take up our calling to be and make disciples.

Who have you followed (been discipled by) at various stages in your life?  Who are you following now?  Who has been sent to you, for you to follow?

Who has followed (been discipled by) you, at various stages in your life?  Who is following you now?  To whom have you been sent, to call them to follow you?

If Church Were A Business : Part 2

If we are to re-imagine church as a business, in the biblical sense of the ‘oikos,’ then we need to ask questions of the nature of the business itself, the role of the head of the family, and the roles of the rest of the family.  Here are a few thoughts.

The nature of our business:

Providing a context for worship is not the family business.  Worship is one aspect of what the family does together.  In the Greco-Roman home, the family lived around the courtyard behind the shop-front; and in the Greco-Roman Christian home, worship took place in the dining-room, around the context of the shared meal.  Corporate worship is not our ‘shop-front’ we draw people into.  The shop-front is something else, and in the context of going about our business we build relationships, and having established a relationship with someone we might invite them to experience our family-life.  But the family business is something that enables us to participate in and contribute to the wider economy in which we are set.  And ideally that business, whatever it is, ought to generate income.

So we ought to ask, what business opportunity is there in the place God has set us?  In a small village, it might be running the shop and Post Office; in a market-town square, a cafe; in a major city context, it might be producing courses that can be franchised (family businesses can grow to be very large: there is nothing inherently wrong with being a large church, though I would suggest that a large church built on the worship experience is unhealthy, and probably draws Christians from other churches rather than grows as a result of mission).  It might be after-school homework clubs, or debt counselling, or any of a hundred and one other things (though no one church can attend to a hundred and one things well).

The role of the head of the family:

If church is a family business, then there needs to be a head of the family: family businesses do not thrive where there is a free-for-all approach.

The main roles of the head of the family are to carry the vision;

to help every member of the family to identify how they can best contribute to the family business, according to the gifts they have, and to ensure that they get the necessary training and tools to do fulfil their role;

to host the family meal (in my tradition, we call that meal Holy Communion or the Eucharist);

and to represent the family before the heads of other family businesses.

It is not the role of the head of the family to work on behalf of everyone else; and it is not the role of the head of the family to micro-manage them, either.

The roles of the rest of the family:

In a family business, everyone has a vested-interest, and everyone must pull their weight.  I was struck by a passage in a novel I read a while back, in which a man recalled growing up on a farm: he had not been a physical boy, but was a gifted mathematician; and for a while his unwillingness to help caused a rift between the family, until his father confronted him: he need not work the land – other than those times, such as harvest, when everyone must pitch in – but he must contribute, nonetheless; and so he trained in order to help keep the farm accounts in order.  Everyone has a role to play, appropriate to the gifts they have been given – and everyone needs to understand where they ‘fit in’ in relation to everyone else.  Competition within the family will result in division and loss, and so we must attend to our relationships as well as our tasks: we must share life together.

Of course, our context has become different from that of the ‘oikos’: we don’t live and work as family units, and members of a local congregation live in several family units and work in a diversity of employment (including retirement, and volunteering).  This means that our church commitment is ‘time poor’ in comparison.  Nonetheless, I believe we need to re-imagine church as a family business – as opposed to a place of sustenance for individuals – and that we can do this to a considerable extent...

If Church Were A Business

If churches were businesses, a lot of churches would be going into administration.

Of course, one of the most contentious issues when I was at theological college, and for many clergy, was the extent to which business models have been applied to church leadership.  The church, some argue, is not a business, and should be run on biblical principles rather than worldly ones.

What is ironic about this view is that those who hold most dearly to it tend to see the church as a service provider – in (at least) two senses – and one which, like the NHS, provides its service to the community ‘free at the point of use.’  Of course, ‘free at the point of use’ does not mean there are not significant costs which have to be met in some other way.

More importantly, the problem with such a view is that the primary biblical model of the church – the ‘oikos’ – is precisely an economic unit, or, family business.  Consider Philippi.  Lydia’s household – composed of family members and slaves (90% of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves, making them much more akin to employees in our society than to abject slaves, such as today’s sex trade or child labour market) – were in the high-end fashion business...and that was not only their livelihood but their communal mission context.  The goaler’s household were in the law-and-order business.  Or consider Prisc(ill)a and Aquila, planting churches out of the business context of tent making (a literal trade which has lent its name to self-supporting ministry).

I share the discomfort of others where senior church leadership looks like being the CEO of a large corporation.  But...the senior leader of a church should look like the head of a family business.

In a family business, everyone is a stakeholder.  In a family business, you don’t get to see the accounts once a year.  You know when things are going well, and when you are facing hard times.  And everyone has a vested interest to contribute more time, more money or more effort in order to grow.  But where church is a club, where members pay a nominal fee and hold fund-raisers to meet the real costs, that is neither viable nor biblical.

We need to re-visit church as family business.  How would you define the particular business of your particular local church?

Preparing Your Net : Part 4

Here are some helpful observations on preparing our net, by my friend Paul Maconochie, as shared at The Order of Mission (TOM) gathering in Coventry this past weekend.

Relationships exist on a continuum, from more informal to more formal.  So, for example, someone who we initially meet for the first time who is open to us – a Person of Peace – may become a friend, which is an informal relationship but slightly more formal than first acquaintance.  You might become for them their church connection – that is, they know you to be a Christian, they might ask you to pray for a situation they or a member of their family find themselves in.  At this stage, the relationship is slightly more formal again: in effect, you are their priest.  This person might move from here to a point where they join a cell group – again, the relationship is becoming more formal – and in time might join a more explicitly discipling group.

What we are likely to find is that few of us operate with ease along the full continuum.  To function as a net, we must pass people on.  Evangelists are likely to be most comfortable at the most informal end of the continuum: they don’t need any kind of ‘permission’ to talk to people.  Pastors tend to be at home at the more informal end, though one step towards formality on from evangelists.  Teachers and prophets tend to operate more towards the formal end, once a person has given permission to speak into their lives; and apostles often operate at the most formal end, leading teams of committed disciples.

So here are some questions regarding preparing our net:

Where do I sit on the continuum?  How do people relate to me?  (For myself, as someone who is more prophet and teacher than pastor or evangelist, my relationships tend to be more formal.)  And who am I connected with, that I can pass people on to, or who can pass people on to me?

What is true of relationships is also true of resources: resources exist on a continuum from more informal to more formal.  The most informal resource you have for mission is yourself, your own life.  Slightly more formal is your testimony, or story.  More formal again are books, talks or videos you might pass on to someone – and with books, biographies are more informal, teaching books more formal.  More formal again would be nurture groups, such as Alpha.  And at the most formal end would be inviting someone to join a discipleship group.

As a person moves along this continuum, you move from being a person they know, to being their priest – the one who intercedes to God on their behalf – to being their guide or mentor, in a more or less formal way, to being someone they see as discipling them.

So here are some further questions regarding preparing our net:

What resources do this person need right now?  What resources do I have access to?  What resources do I need to invest in?  (For myself, as someone who operates most comfortably at the more formal end of the relationship continuum, I need to develop story as an informal resource.)

And then, because Jesus’ mission strategy is, find the Person of Peace who welcomes you into their home and serves you, because this person is the key to gaining access to a community, we also need to ask, what relationships and resources do they have access to?

Preparing Your Net : Part 3

This is a post on church discipline, on recognising that the glorious liberty of the children of God is not a licence to throw off restraint, but a free choice to submit to a higher law.

1 Timothy 2:11ff are some of the most poorly translated verses in Scripture.  But they contain life-giving principles, that are lost in translation.  On this, Ian Paul’s Grove booklet ‘Women and Authority: The Key Biblical Texts’ is extremely helpful, and to be highly recommended.  Here I will draw out some principles for church discipline, which I believe to apply equally to men and women.

Firstly, the text addresses attitude: we should quieten our spirits, or seek to live quiet lives, at peace with one another (‘silence’ is not an acceptable translation) and we should submit ourselves to teaching (not one gender to another; though elsewhere we are clearly instructed to submit to one another, regardless of gender).

Secondly, the text addresses permission: Paul does not write ‘I do not permit...’ but ‘I am not permitting...’  Consider the difference between these two statements: ‘I do not permit anyone to say anything in my pulpit’ and ‘I am not permitting anyone to say anything in my pulpit.’  The first says, only I am allowed to preach; the second says, my decision to allow other people to preach is not a blank cheque and I will not allow it to result in a free-for-all.  Paul does write ‘I do not permit...’ elsewhere, but not here.

Thirdly, the text addresses abuse: it speaks of usurping authority, and the word in question (not the usual word for authority) carries the meaning of murder.  We murder one another when we crush one another’s spirit by shouting another down, or when we character-assassinate them by spreading dissent.  It would appear that in the church Paul was writing to there was a particular issue of women creating ‘noise’ and ‘murdering’ men...but in my experience of local churches this is not a form of ungodly behaviour that is restricted to women.  Because fourthly, the text addresses equality: women are not more sinful than men; but neither are they less sinful.

What has this to do with the preparing of nets?  Often, the net created by a local congregation is torn, by the stirring-up of dissent, by the marginalisation of certain knots, or the insistence of certain knots that they are more important than others (women considering themselves to be more important than men, or men considering themselves to be more important than women; apostles thinking they are more important than pastors, or pastors thinking they are more important than prophets).  Without church discipline, without a willingness to submit to one another, without a willingness to submit to decisions that are made (which may turn out to be wrong – that is for time to tell – but which can be changed healthily where mutual submission is the culture), the net can be torn to shreds.  The lake is teeming with fish.  A shredded net is neither use nor ornament.  We must regularly attend to washing and repairing our net.

Preparing Your Net : Part 2

The church is called to be sent out into the world, and to that end Jesus has made some of us to be apostles in order to help the church as a whole fulfil that calling.  The church is called to speak prophetically to society, confronting injustice and painting an alternatively-imagined future, and to that end Jesus has made some of us to be prophets in order to help the church as a whole fulfil that calling.  The church is called to proclaim good news, and to that end Jesus has made some of us to be evangelists in order to help the church as a whole fulfil that calling.  The church is called to nurture the young in faith and bind up the broken-hearted, and to that end Jesus has made some of us to be pastors in order to help the church as a whole fulfil that calling.  The church is called to search out and pass on wisdom that leads to life, and to that end Jesus has made some of us to be teachers in order to help the church as a whole fulfil that calling.

Jesus is the Apostle sent from heaven, the Prophet greater than Moses, the Good News of great joy, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, and the Teacher who teaches with unprecedented and unrivalled authority.  Together, we share in the nature of Christ, as different parts of his body.  What Jesus did as a person, we are called to do as a community.  Where the Body of Christ presents Jesus to the world as shepherd and teacher, it presents a sub-biblical Jesus.

Preparing our net includes attending to the connectedness of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers in our context.  Where do you fit in?  In your church community, which knots in the net are missing, or have worked loose and need to be sewn back into the mesh?

Preparing Your Net

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew.  They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”  At once they left their nets and followed him.  Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John.  They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets.  Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

Matthew 4:18-22, TNIV

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”  At once they left their nets and followed him.  When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets.  Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

Mark 1:16-20, TNIV

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God.  He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets.  He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.  When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”  Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”  When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.  So they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.  When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”  For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.  Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”  So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

Luke 5:1-11, TNIV

“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish.  When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away...”

Matthew 13:47, 48, TNIV

Here are the Synoptic accounts of the calling of Jesus’ first disciples, along with a parable Jesus tells to describe the experience of the kingdom of heaven.  I guess that we tend to read these descriptions as merely providing background – that these men were fishermen.  But God breathes life into all Scripture, transforming it into something useful for our instruction and, where necessary, rebuke, in order to train us.  If we are to be fishers of people, we need to understand how to fish.  At the moment, God is speaking to me about the importance of preparing our nets.

We tend to fish for people like this: individual Christians fishing for one good fish at a time.  We look for conversion.  But conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit, not the Church.  The satan – the accuser – is more than happy for us to strive to see conversions, because it gives him a stick with which to beat us: how are you doing with that?  The call of the Church is to make disciples.  Paul describes this process in this way: imitate me, as I imitate Christ.  Not, persuade you that the resurrection is the most logical explanation for the birth of the church (it isn’t logical, it defies logic, and it is gloriously true), and tell you to worship Jesus in church on a Sunday morning; but, invite you to experience how life within the kingdom of heaven differs from the ways of the world, and challenge you to respond.  In other words, discipleship is embodied, holistic, communal.  And that requires not a line but a net.

Each one of us who have entered into the kingdom is, in effect, a knot in the net by which we scoop up all kinds of fish/people, good and bad.

And so we must pay attention to preparing our net – which includes mending tears between knots, and washing out debris entangled between knots.  That is, we need to know the particular gifts and calling of those alongside us, say in our local congregation, so that we work as a net; and we need to attend to those things that tear us apart, such as disagreement or disappointment or competition.  Fish will quickly identify a tear in the net and escape: those who are scooped-up into the kingdom by us will quickly identify tears between us, and be lost.

When I meet someone in need of pastoral support, I need to know who I can introduce them to – and in particular if pastoral support is not my strength, or if it is and I am nearing my capacity (that is, if the net is in danger of breaking at the point where I am the knot).  When I meet someone who needs a good introduction to/grounding in the faith, I need to know who I can introduce them to...To mix biblical analogies, this is the different parts of the Body of Christ each playing their differentiated-but-connected role.

As someone who has recently come into a new context, I do not know the net I have been sewn-into.  It needs to be my priority to identify the gifts and calling of those around me, in order that the net is prepared, so that it will be fit for purpose.  The lake is teeming with fish.

Scout

Introducing the latest addition to the Vicarage family, Scout (named after the narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird).

The Ironic Parable Of The Sower

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

I have been reflecting on the parable of the sower, which I understand to be an ironic parable about living fruitful and unfruitful lives.  A farmer scatters seed – which represents the good news concerning the kingdom of heaven – on his field.  Some of the seed falls on the path, on well-worn compacted ground, and is eaten by the birds before it can have any impact.  Some of the seed falls on rocky places, where the soil is shallow, resulting in quick initial growth that does not survive to maturity.  Some of the seed falls among thorns, which choke the wheat as it grows.  And some of the seed falls on good soil, and grows to bear a harvest.  Jesus draws out a point about four different types of people; but parables work on several levels, and most of us are a mix of all four.

Here is the root of the irony: the path, the rocky soil and the thorns are all necessary.  In fact, they are essential for sustainable farming.

Fields were divided between the community into family strips with paths running between them.  No paths would mean two things: firstly, that the farmer would have no community to help him; and secondly that the ground would be compacted indiscriminately, and thus in time compacted across the whole field.  The path represents community, and community shapes what we can receive of the kingdom of heaven.  There are things that I can receive only because of the community I belong to; and yes, there are things that I will be unable to receive because of the community I belong to.  That is not in itself a problem, as fields with no paths, rocky ground or thorns are unsustainable.  The irony comes when community that is meant to help one another hear and receive God’s word works against that – perhaps by creating too many paths (as where a local congregation looks to make too many wider connections) or by refusing to use paths (as where members of a local congregation don’t submit to one another).

Land available for farming was steep, and only farmable by terracing it.  Stone walls were built to bank the earth, and those walls required slabs of rock near the surface to provide a firm foundation.  No rocky places would mean no terracing to prevent soil erosion.  The rocky places represent foundations.  We need foundations, such as bringing children to baptism, or nurture courses for new Christians.  They are essential, but on their own they are inadequate.  The irony comes when foundations are not integrated with the whole field, and encouraging early growth – initial response to good news about the kingdom of heaven – is lost before people reach maturity in their faith.

Farming was, often, a subsistence activity, and the farmer would want to ensure that his crop was not consumed by wild animals.  Thorns were planted around the edges of fields as a deterrent, to protect the harvest.  No thorns would mean that the harvest was exposed to threat.  The thorns represent protection.  Jesus points out the irony of looking to wealth to provide protection, rather than to God – that rather than providing protection, wealth proves to be a prison.  It is the misplacing of hope for protection that is ironinc, and not the presence of thorns.  Indeed, the parable highlights a further irony, that where there are no thorns surrounding the field, the seed that falls on the rocky places is exposed to fear...

The good soil represents that part of our lives that is fruitful.  But it is only fruitful long-term if community, foundations and protection are in place and doing what they are intended to do.  The irony of the parable of the sower is not that there is a path and rocky places and thorns on the farmer’s field, but that good and necessary things can themselves become obstacles.

What might we say about the good news concerning the kingdom of heaven?  We might say that in the kingdom, we find community that helps one another hear and receive God’s word.  And we might ask whether our community is truly a kingdom community or not...We might say that in the kingdom, we have firm foundations for sustainable long-term seasons of growth.  And we might ask whether our community is truly a kingdom community or not...We might say that in the kingdom, we find shelter and protection from predators.  And we might ask whether our community is a truly kingdom community or not...And we might say that in the kingdom, we experience fruitful lives – the fruit of which is further expressions of the good news concerning the kingdom of heaven to scatter in other peoples’ lives.  And we might ask whether our community is truly a kingdom community or not.