Lectionary Ramblings (Proper 10, Year A)

I know, I know, I just wrote a lectionary post yesterday, for the Feast of St. Benedict, coming up this Friday.  I have a deep love and respect for Benedict, but of course, I can’t skip Sunday, the Feast of Our Lord, can I?  🙂

This Sunday’s readings are interesting.  On the Genesis track, we have the story of the older brother trading his birthright – his inheritance as firstborn son – to his younger brother for a bowl of lentil stew.  Now one might argue that anyone who would squander his inheritance in this way doesn’t deserve to have it, and that perhaps it is better that it went to the wiser younger son than to a host of bad investments or whores or gaming houses.  One might even be right.  But it does make Jacob, whose name is later changed by God to Israel – yes, that Israel! – seem to be less than completely upstanding and honest and righteous.  After all, how despicable does one have to be to demand one’s brother’s inheritance in return for a bowl of stew?  I mean, this is family, for heaven’s sake, and we have a responsibility to care for them and be sure they are fed!  We’re going to skip over the story of how Rebekah and Jacob scheme to ensure that Jacob receives his father’s deathbed blessing rather than Esau, but Jacob remains scheming and tricky in later stories that we will hear this summer, in his dealings with the slippery Laban.  So I guess this is one more lesson in the series of “People Chosen by God to do God’s Work, Who Also Happen to be Less Than Perfect.”

On the other Old Testament path is an absolutely gorgeous piece of poetry from Isaiah.  You can hear and see and feel the joy in this passage, with the mountains and hills singing and all the trees clapping their hands.  This is a promise to us from God, that we will indeed experience this joy.  The images are delightful and playful, but also stunning and amazing.

The reading from the Letter to the Romans rather reminds me of parts of the Rule of St. Benedict, which I wrote about yesterday.  In his writings on humility, Benedict instructs us that in order to achieve true humility, we must intentionally turn away from desires of the flesh and turn instead toward God, toward desires of the Spirit.  The reading from Romans reminds us that the things of the flesh, of the physical world, are transitory, fleeting; however, the things of the Spirit are lasting, eternal, real.  Of course, this begs the question, what are the things of the Spirit? And it’s an important question.  One answer is in Sunday’s gospel reading: the word of God.  Now, by the word of the kingdom, Jesus was not intending to say the Bible.  During the time Jesus lived, there wasn’t any such thing as a codified, canonical Bible.  There were collections of histories, collections of laws, and collections of writings about the histories and the laws.  There were prophets and their prophecies.  The rabbis and priests had the awesome responsibility of learning all these things and discerning which histories and prophecies held Truth and which were false.  It is similar for us, when we try to listen and discern the word of God in our own lives.  We can find God’s word absolutely anywhere; God’s truth does not live exclusively in scripture or in biographies of the saints.  No, God’s word can be found in any place you imagine.  God’s word is present in books of all sorts – yes, even in comic books and westerns and bodice-rippers – and God’s word is present on the faces of the people around us – yes, even (or perhaps, especially) the people don’t like very much – and God’s word is present in the book of nature – yes, even in the humble earthworm or the cockroach or the mighty hurricane.  God’s word can be a whisper in your heart, a cosmic two-by-four to the back of your head, or even sometimes utter silence.

This gospel parable has many possible interpretations.  For this week, I’ll apply a Jesuit method of bible study, which has one place oneself in the story.  So, my friend, you are the ground.  There are parts of you that are rocky, parts that are sandy, parts that are rich and fertile.  There are parts of you that are clogged with weeds and brambles, parts of you that are full of thorns and poison ivy, parts of you that are laid out in neat rows like a vegetable garden, and parts of you that are like a riotously beautiful summer flower garden.  The good news in this story is that the sower of the seeds – God, scattering God’s word – is scattering those seeds with reckless abandon.  God sows those seeds over every part of you – the parts that are richly fertile as well as the parts that seem barren.  The even better news is that all of the seeds grow!  Now, in the parable, Jesus tells us that some of them end up scorched by the sun, and some end up choked out by weeds, and only a few flourish and bear fruit.  And perhaps it is easy for us to look at those poor withered plants, or the dead leaves in the midst of the brambles and thorns, to see them and to judge ourselves as lacking… even as the plants from the fertile ground have grown taller than our heads, and are weighted down with good things to nourish our spirit.  I know I’ve done this more than once.  But the lesson I am learning is this: God scatters those seeds widely, and every one of them grows.  It may take time for my rocky or sandy or thorny places to become rich and fertile, to bear fruit for my spirit.  But God has all the time that there is, and God has the patience and the love to keep scattering those seeds within me – as wasteful as that may seem! – to keep waiting and watching for them to grow.

So what are the things of the spirit?  Love.  Generosity.  Loving each other with the same kind of reckless abandon that God shows when God scatters those seeds.  Love the people who are rocky or sandy or thorny.  Love the people who are rich and fertile, even when they are having a thorny day.  Love ourselves, and take tender care of our rocky and brambly places.  Scatter the seeds of love and truth wherever we go, without paying any heed to the state of the ground.  Be scandalously wasteful with our love.  Love those who don’t seem able to love us back.  Love those who don’t seem able to love anyone, including themselves!  Tend to those rich and fertile places within ourselves, and know where the rocks and thorns are.  Perhaps, here and there, take time to cut back some of the brambles, to give God’s word more room to grow.  And then,

you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Peace be with you, my friends.  May you indeed hear the mountains burst into song, and the trees clapping their hands this week.  And may you love with reckless abandon, just as God loves you and me and all of us.