The disciples ask Jesus, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” Why indeed? Jesus answers that question in a section between the two halves of today’s Gospel. He says, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given…. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’” I wonder. To whom is Jesus referring? Jesus goes on to quote from the prophet Isaiah. So perhaps he’s referring to those “wise and intelligent” folks we heard about last week, the ones who don’t think they need any guidance from him. But I still wonder. Jesus was so inclusive and expansive in his ministry. He welcomed all kinds of people, and, of course, he was a gifted teacher. Like any good teacher, he knew that you he had to use different methods to reach different people. So why did Jesus speak in parables? Did he really want to confuse people? I think it was to get his disciples – and us – to think out of the box, to look at spiritual realities in a new way. This parable, familiar as it is, surely does that.
We are now in chapter 13, in the middle of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus has begun his third great discourse or sermon. Today we hear the first of several parables that address the growth of the Reign of God. This parable also gives us another chance to think about how people greet prophets, and how they respond when they hear the good news of God’s kingdom. For, as we already know, not everyone greets prophets with enthusiasm. In sending out his disciples, Jesus has warned them about possible rejection: “When they persecute you in one town,” he advises them, “flee to the next.” In chapter 12, he spars with the religious leadership. And, as we heard last week, many in the crowds rejected both John the Baptist and Jesus. How to explain people’s rejection of good news? The community for whom Matthew was writing may have asked the same question. They were still a small vulnerable community, rejected by the Jewish religious leadership and discriminated against by the Gentiles around them. Surely they too wondered why the good news wasn’t more attractive.
As he gazed out on the rich farmland of Galilee, perhaps Jesus found an image to begin explaining divine realities to his friends. Perhaps he saw a farmer broadcasting seed, flinging it out by handfuls onto the land. He reminded his friends that the seed goes where it will, but that the sower keeps flinging it out, left and right, left and right. Although the seed won’t produce grain in every square inch of land, the sower doesn’t take special care to see where it goes. He doesn’t care whether some of it lands in the part of the field where there is a layer of rock underneath or a part with weeds left over from last year’s harvest, or even whether some of it lands on the paths between fields. He just keeps flinging until the seed has been spread all over the available land, and his seed bag is empty. Then he trusts God to provide an abundant harvest, perhaps seven-fold, or even ten-fold, if the harvest is exceedingly abundant.
So what is Jesus telling the disciples about possible rejection? What is Matthew’s Gospel telling that early Christian community about rejection? Jesus is telling them to keep flinging the good news around, in every direction, without worrying about where it lands, or where or in whom it bears fruit. Realize that not all the good news will land in places where it will be productive. Never mind, just keep at it. Share what you have experienced with others and trust God to give the harvest. Because if God gives the harvest, it won’t just be seven-fold or ten-fold, it will be thirty, sixty, or even a hundred-fold! As we watch Jesus, it’s clear that Jesus didn’t worry about how his proclamations and teachings were being received, or even whether the people he healed were sufficiently grateful. Everywhere he went, he just kept preaching, teaching, and healing, right to the end. Both this parable and Jesus’ own example became powerful models for Matthew’s community. The message was clear: keep sharing the good news and trust God to make good on God’s promises.
And so for us. We are now Jesus’ disciples. We are now heirs of Matthew’s community and of all the communities of the early church. The bag of seeds is now around our shoulders, and we are now the sowers of the good, life-changing news. And what does God expect us to do as sowers of the word? First of all, the word has to be at work in us. Like the members of Matthew’s community, we too must study our Scriptures, must know the word. By God’s grace, the word will be at work in us, changing our lives in ways that will make others sit up and take notice. Second, we can “practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” I know that sounds trite. What I mean is, we can act in such a way that the only explanation for our behavior is that we have been captured by God, that we have put ourselves under Jesus’ yoke, and that we have become fools for Christ. With such witness, and the pull of the Holy Spirit, by God’s grace, the seed flung out by our acts of love will take root and flourish in another person.
Most important, we must give no thought to the outcome of our flinging out of the seed. Yes, I know we’re supposed to be planful, survey the needs of our community, monitor our results, and pay attention to what works and what doesn’t. Our participation in the Common Ministry program will surely help us do all that. We will try to do everything with courage and conscientiousness that the Holy Spirit prompts us to do through the program. But sometimes we have to do what this parable suggests: fling seed everywhere and not worry about where it’s going. Sure, some kinds of soil are more productive than others. But it’s not given to us to know what kinds of soil individual people are. Only God knows that, and ultimately, as the psalmist and Jesus himself remind us, it is God who gives the harvest, not us.
Scottish writer Tom Gordon tells the story of Jill, a pupil in Miss Caruthers’s seventh-grade class.1 Every Monday morning Miss Caruthers would fling out the “word of the week.” In some ways Jill didn’t care much for Miss Caruthers. She was matronly, she slammed down a desk lid to get the children’s attention, and every Friday she gave tests that determined where the children would sit the following week. But Jill loved the words. All those wonderful words, a new one each week: “automaton,” “braggart,” “misanthrope,” “hovercraft,” “Wurlitizer,” Jill found a treasure trove in each one. Jill also liked how Miss Caruthers explained the Greek or Latin derivation of the words and compared them with their synonyms, antonyms, or homonyms. She liked the crosswords and games that the children were allowed to make up using the words. Most of all, she loved it when Miss Caruthers would make the children sit down around her, and she would read a story or passage containing the word of the week. When the word of the week was “slough,” Jill discovered Pilgrim’s Progress through the Slough of Despond. Hearing the word “tottering” on the first page of Treasure Island made her want immediately to read the whole book. Every week Miss Carothers flung out her words, and unbeknownst to her, Jill took them all in. From all those words a great love of literature was born in Jill that year. Years later, when Jill interviewed for a new job, she mentioned the effect that Miss Caruthers and her words had had on her. Jill got the job – as a faculty member in English literature at an Oxford college. She wondered what Miss Caruthers would think if she knew that now one of her students had a new word of the week: “professor.”
Miss Caruthers probably never did know where the seeds of her words of the week would sprout, grow, and produce abundantly. She just kept flinging them out, left and right, week after week, trusting in the Spirit to do its work. We’re all like Miss Caruthers. Neither do we know where the seeds that we fling out will sprout, grow, and produce abundantly. Only God knows that. But as God’s sowers, we too must continue to keep flinging the seed, left and right, here and there, day in and day out, not worrying about the outcome, but continuing to trust in God’s abundance.
So as God’s faithful sowers, we must surely pray,
Almighty God, we thank you for planting in us the seed of your word. By your Holy Spirit help us to receive it with joy, grow in love, and share it with others, through Jesus Christ our Savior, who flung out your word to whomever would hear it. Amen.
1. Tom Gordon, “The Word of the Week,” in Welcoming Each Wonder, (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2010), 203-206.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
My Yoke is Easy
Is O.K. for a Christian to practice yoga? A recent article in the Christian Century posed this very question.1 A statement by the Hindu American Foundation had suggested that Americans focus too heavily on the physical exercise aspect of yoga and ignore its deep roots in the Hindu tradition. In response, some commentators flatly denied the connection between yogic practice and today’s Hinduism. However, Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological seminary, roundly condemned yoga and other forms of “Eastern meditation.” Mohler also suggested that indeed Hindu beliefs underlie yoga practice, and that Christians compromise their relationship with Jesus by engaging in them. The author of the Christian Century article, John Sheveland, claims that what Mohler and others who agree with him miss is that yoga is a holistic system of control of the body, spirituality, and ethics. In its classical form, articulated perhaps as early as the second century, yoga consists of an eight-limbed path that integrates moral restraint towards the environment, individual practices, physical postures (the “asanas” with which many are familiar), breathing techniques, control of the senses, focus of the mind, meditation, and absorption into a transcendent consciousness. From such a system, Sheveland suggests, we Christians might have something to learn: how to be more mindful and focused in worship, for example, or how to translate spiritual insight into behavior in the world. In the end, as we ponder the riches of our own spiritual tradition, especially our own tradition of contemplative prayer, we might find that we have much in common with serious Hindu practitioners of yoga.
The word “yoga” comes from an ancient root meaning “to join or unite.” One of its very few cognates in English is the word “yoke.” Have you ever seen yoked animals? Typically oxen or water buffalo, occasionally horses, are yoked in pairs, mostly for plowing. For pulling heavily-laden carts, pairs of yoked animals are often joined together in a team. There are actually at least three common kinds of yokes, depending on the kind of animal. Whichever one is used, it must be fitted to the individual animal to avoid bruising or disabling the animal. What associations do we moderns bring to the word “yoke?” Does it connote a kind of submission? Indeed, the word “subjugate” is also cognate with the same root as that of “yoga” and “yoke.” Perhaps too, when we think of yokes, we think of onerous burdens, since yoked animals are so often found pulling heavy loads.
So what kind of invitation is Jesus offering us in this Gospel when he suggests that we take on his “yoke?” Is he offering us an onerous burden which we must submissively accept? Just before the beginning of today’s passage, Jesus has entertained a query from the disciples of John the Baptist: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” He responds by reminding them that people have been healed, and that “the poor have good news brought to them.” He then vents his own irritation to the crowd – yes, Jesus had negative emotions too – by complaining that neither John, who practiced an ascetic lifestyle, nor he Jesus, whose ministry was more expansive and inclusive, received the welcome that they deserved as prophets. The “wise and intelligent,” those who were sure they understood the demands of the Law and followed the sacrificial system to the letter, seemed especially sure that they had no need of either John’s baptism or the new way offered by Jesus, and they therefore welcomed neither.
In this narrative interlude between Jesus’ second and third great sermons in Matthew, Jesus does indeed suggest that he has something new and different to offer, especially to those who are able to admit that they might need guidance, those who are willing to submit themselves to his leading. Jesus offers them a new “yoke,” one that “fits well,” which is a better translation of the Greek than “easy.” This is not a one-size-fits-all yoke. It is one that is tailored to individual disciples and their particular circumstances. It is different from the yokes borne by oxen and buffaloes, or imposed on people by the keepers of sacrificial ritual. The yoke offered by Jesus is not burdensome but is easy to bear. However, like the yokes of oxen and buffaloes, Jesus’ yokes join us together in pairs and teams to bear each others’ burdens and to help each other grow spiritually. Most important, if we are willing to submit ourselves to Jesus’ guidance, rather than feeling constrained or imprisoned, we will truly be free to grow spiritually.
So what keeps us from joining with others and becoming part of Jesus’ teams? What keeps us from accepting his guidance? Is it that we think we can pull ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps, that we can go it alone spiritually? Do we resist incorporation into a community? Perhaps we wonder how a mature person can take guidance from others. “I don’t need a spiritual director,” you might say, “I’m a mature adult, able to figure things out for myself.” Or perhaps we fear that Jesus will guide us into being as inclusive as he was, that we too will have to eat with the tax collectors and prostitutes of our day, with the poor and homeless, with the alkies and ex-felons.
Or perhaps we’re bound by other kinds of yokes. Perhaps our yokes are the expectations of others. Do you find it hard to say “no,” when someone asks you to volunteer for something you don’t want to do? Do family or friends pull you in directions that hinder your spiritual life? Do others expect your house to look like a picture out of Better Homes and Gardens, your son to be an Eagle Scout, or your daughter to be first in her class academically? Or perhaps your yokes are your own expectations of yourself. How many times have you said, “I have to…. Fill in the blank: lose ten pounds, eat more healthfully, exercise more, drink less, quit smoking. Do you think you should have a cleaner house? Do you wish you could go back to school? Do you think you must work a sixty-hour week, in order to make ends meet? Do you have to have the latest gadgets, go on the best vacations, regardless of how far into debt you go? Do you have to hold on to the social and political convictions you had as a teenager? To what are you yoked?
Jesus assures us that, whether our own yokes are externally or internally imposed, we don’t have to submit to them. We can let go of all that binds us and let Jesus be our guide. One way to do that is to team up with others in the spiritual quest. We can enter into a traditional relationship of spiritual direction. Or perhaps we can let Jesus guide us through shared Christian formation. Or we may find Jesus’ guidance through different forms of prayer. Christians have long known that prayer and meditation enable us to get free of the burdensome yokes that bind us. Prayer and meditation help us to hear Jesus’ guidance and follow his lead. Ironically contemplative prayer has many elements in common with classical yoga. As we relax our bodies, focus on our breath, and let go of our preoccupations as we enter the silence, we open ourselves to God’s indwelling. By God’s grace, we are then able to sense Jesus’ deeper presence in our live. There are many different paths to experiencing God in this way. In the quiet day I plan to offer later this summer, I’d like to help us experience one or two of them. For now, though, listen to what one writer experienced in a form of prayer called “walking meditation.” Poet Tess Gallagher walked with Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen monk. In her poem about the experience, she describes slowly following the monk up a mountain with about fifty other people. She says,
Our meditations
waver and recover us, waver
and reel us in to our bodies
like fish willing at last to take on the joy
of being fish, in or out of the water.
When we gather at last at the summit
and sit with him
we know we have moved the mountain
to its top as much as it carried us
deeply into each step.
Going down is the same.
We breathe and step. Breathe,
and step. A many-appendaged being
in and out of this world. No use
telling you about peace attained.
Get out of your feet.
Your breath. Enter
the mountain.2
Walking meditation, such as Gallagher experienced, centering prayer, lectio divina, Ignatian meditations, body prayer, saying the daily offices, and many other ways of praying all have the same goal: to free us from the yokes that bind us. All prayer ultimately enables us to open ourselves to Jesus’ presence in our lives and to follow his leading instead. And as we follow his guidance more closely, our lives change, for as so many of the saints remind us, as we pray, so also do we live. God willing, our lives are led by Jesus and none other.
1. John N. Sheveland, ”Is yoga religious?”, Christian Century, June 14, 2011, 22-25.
2. Accessed at http://being.publicradio.org/programs/thichnhathanh/poems-walkingmeditation/ .
The word “yoga” comes from an ancient root meaning “to join or unite.” One of its very few cognates in English is the word “yoke.” Have you ever seen yoked animals? Typically oxen or water buffalo, occasionally horses, are yoked in pairs, mostly for plowing. For pulling heavily-laden carts, pairs of yoked animals are often joined together in a team. There are actually at least three common kinds of yokes, depending on the kind of animal. Whichever one is used, it must be fitted to the individual animal to avoid bruising or disabling the animal. What associations do we moderns bring to the word “yoke?” Does it connote a kind of submission? Indeed, the word “subjugate” is also cognate with the same root as that of “yoga” and “yoke.” Perhaps too, when we think of yokes, we think of onerous burdens, since yoked animals are so often found pulling heavy loads.
So what kind of invitation is Jesus offering us in this Gospel when he suggests that we take on his “yoke?” Is he offering us an onerous burden which we must submissively accept? Just before the beginning of today’s passage, Jesus has entertained a query from the disciples of John the Baptist: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” He responds by reminding them that people have been healed, and that “the poor have good news brought to them.” He then vents his own irritation to the crowd – yes, Jesus had negative emotions too – by complaining that neither John, who practiced an ascetic lifestyle, nor he Jesus, whose ministry was more expansive and inclusive, received the welcome that they deserved as prophets. The “wise and intelligent,” those who were sure they understood the demands of the Law and followed the sacrificial system to the letter, seemed especially sure that they had no need of either John’s baptism or the new way offered by Jesus, and they therefore welcomed neither.
In this narrative interlude between Jesus’ second and third great sermons in Matthew, Jesus does indeed suggest that he has something new and different to offer, especially to those who are able to admit that they might need guidance, those who are willing to submit themselves to his leading. Jesus offers them a new “yoke,” one that “fits well,” which is a better translation of the Greek than “easy.” This is not a one-size-fits-all yoke. It is one that is tailored to individual disciples and their particular circumstances. It is different from the yokes borne by oxen and buffaloes, or imposed on people by the keepers of sacrificial ritual. The yoke offered by Jesus is not burdensome but is easy to bear. However, like the yokes of oxen and buffaloes, Jesus’ yokes join us together in pairs and teams to bear each others’ burdens and to help each other grow spiritually. Most important, if we are willing to submit ourselves to Jesus’ guidance, rather than feeling constrained or imprisoned, we will truly be free to grow spiritually.
So what keeps us from joining with others and becoming part of Jesus’ teams? What keeps us from accepting his guidance? Is it that we think we can pull ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps, that we can go it alone spiritually? Do we resist incorporation into a community? Perhaps we wonder how a mature person can take guidance from others. “I don’t need a spiritual director,” you might say, “I’m a mature adult, able to figure things out for myself.” Or perhaps we fear that Jesus will guide us into being as inclusive as he was, that we too will have to eat with the tax collectors and prostitutes of our day, with the poor and homeless, with the alkies and ex-felons.
Or perhaps we’re bound by other kinds of yokes. Perhaps our yokes are the expectations of others. Do you find it hard to say “no,” when someone asks you to volunteer for something you don’t want to do? Do family or friends pull you in directions that hinder your spiritual life? Do others expect your house to look like a picture out of Better Homes and Gardens, your son to be an Eagle Scout, or your daughter to be first in her class academically? Or perhaps your yokes are your own expectations of yourself. How many times have you said, “I have to…. Fill in the blank: lose ten pounds, eat more healthfully, exercise more, drink less, quit smoking. Do you think you should have a cleaner house? Do you wish you could go back to school? Do you think you must work a sixty-hour week, in order to make ends meet? Do you have to have the latest gadgets, go on the best vacations, regardless of how far into debt you go? Do you have to hold on to the social and political convictions you had as a teenager? To what are you yoked?
Jesus assures us that, whether our own yokes are externally or internally imposed, we don’t have to submit to them. We can let go of all that binds us and let Jesus be our guide. One way to do that is to team up with others in the spiritual quest. We can enter into a traditional relationship of spiritual direction. Or perhaps we can let Jesus guide us through shared Christian formation. Or we may find Jesus’ guidance through different forms of prayer. Christians have long known that prayer and meditation enable us to get free of the burdensome yokes that bind us. Prayer and meditation help us to hear Jesus’ guidance and follow his lead. Ironically contemplative prayer has many elements in common with classical yoga. As we relax our bodies, focus on our breath, and let go of our preoccupations as we enter the silence, we open ourselves to God’s indwelling. By God’s grace, we are then able to sense Jesus’ deeper presence in our live. There are many different paths to experiencing God in this way. In the quiet day I plan to offer later this summer, I’d like to help us experience one or two of them. For now, though, listen to what one writer experienced in a form of prayer called “walking meditation.” Poet Tess Gallagher walked with Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen monk. In her poem about the experience, she describes slowly following the monk up a mountain with about fifty other people. She says,
Our meditations
waver and recover us, waver
and reel us in to our bodies
like fish willing at last to take on the joy
of being fish, in or out of the water.
When we gather at last at the summit
and sit with him
we know we have moved the mountain
to its top as much as it carried us
deeply into each step.
Going down is the same.
We breathe and step. Breathe,
and step. A many-appendaged being
in and out of this world. No use
telling you about peace attained.
Get out of your feet.
Your breath. Enter
the mountain.2
Walking meditation, such as Gallagher experienced, centering prayer, lectio divina, Ignatian meditations, body prayer, saying the daily offices, and many other ways of praying all have the same goal: to free us from the yokes that bind us. All prayer ultimately enables us to open ourselves to Jesus’ presence in our lives and to follow his leading instead. And as we follow his guidance more closely, our lives change, for as so many of the saints remind us, as we pray, so also do we live. God willing, our lives are led by Jesus and none other.
1. John N. Sheveland, ”Is yoga religious?”, Christian Century, June 14, 2011, 22-25.
2. Accessed at http://being.publicradio.org/programs/thichnhathanh/poems-walkingmeditation/ .
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