Sunday Sermon - The Rev Joshua Daniel, PH D (July 12, 2026)

[00:00:01] Speaker A: The Holy Gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ according to Matthew. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Glory to you, Lord [00:00:11] Speaker A: Jesus went out 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 depths of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. Let anyone with ears listen. Hear then the parable of the sower. 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, 60, and in another 30, the gospel of the Lord. [00:02:27] Speaker B: Praise to you, Lord Christ. May the words of my mouth, the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and redeemer. Amen. And if you're like a kid and you want to get out, now's your chance. Following Katie, they do an awesome story time together. They sing and they pray together. It's really wonderful. We'll miss them and welcome them back in a minute. Just the way we planned it in rehearsal. Many years ago, I used to teach philosophy at the University of Arkansas and at the community college nearby. Philosophy is often not taught in high schools, and thus a new experience for most students. But even for learned philosophers, philosophy itself is a curious subject. Any number of books about philosophy don't get much further than answering the question, what is it? And so that's where we start most class. At the beginning of Most of my classes, what is philosophy? And as any good teacher will sometimes do, I let them squirm just a little bit. I ask. No, really, I'm asking you. Does anyone know what philosophy is? Sometimes I'd get great answers right off the bat. But often we'd struggle together for a number of minutes, considering and then usually dismissing suggestion after suggestion. One time, after five or so minutes of this exercise, a student, quite exasperated by the exercise, raised her hand and offered not an answer, but a question. What is philosophy? She asked. Uh, have you ever considered looking it up in the dictionary? This morning, we get one of those great parables of Jesus, the parable of the sower, the disciples, and by extension, the church that followed them, all of us, they're confronted by a difficult set of facts, a set of facts that are hard to square. The message of Jesus is from God. This message, the good news, is about the greatest truth in the universe. It's about our elemental, most true self, the thing we're ultimately created for, the greatest gift. And if all that's right, then how could that message not be absolutely compelling to everyone who hears it? If Jesus directly tells us the truth about the cosmos, if we get the message directly from the source, then how could anyone deny it? But many people did deny it. Many people heard the message directly from Jesus and were not convinced, were not turned, did not follow. And this parable, the parable of the sower, is Jesus response to such a paradoxical outcome. He paints this picture for the disciples. Imagine a farmer who goes out, sows the crops. The sower seems absolutely reckless with her seeds. Yes, she does sow, some intentionally, but as the text indicates, most of those seeds simply fall from her purse. Imagine it this way. The farmer goes out to sow. She's carrying this great satchel overflowing with seeds, and the seeds are just falling out everywhere. Like on her way to the field. She loses lots of those seeds on the path she's walking on. When she gets to that mountainous region of Palestine where she's hoofing it up the rocks, where there's just barely any topsoil, lots of seeds fall out there, too. The image we get is that these seeds, they're not carefully protected, they're not individually manicured, each one named, they're just spilling all over the place to the apparent delight of the sower. This is what it's like to hear the message of the gospel. We often do not hear it when we expect to. It often falls on us in places where it should not be [00:08:10] Speaker A: Let me [00:08:10] Speaker B: just be very direct here. The Gospel mostly does not happen in church. It mostly occurs where you mostly are out in the world in weird and strange places, sometimes in troubling forms. And so Jesus directs his disciples to one of the most important spiritual gifts, Listening. He begins the parable with just this invitation. Listen. Because even if you have the greatest message of all time, if you do not have ears to hear, then you will not be able to offer it or receive it. That's the paradox of the human condition. Merely having the right answer isn't enough. Perhaps it's not even half of it. It's being able to hear, to recognize it, to bring it in and make it a part of our life. This is why romance movies stop right after the two lost souls find each other. Let's just grant to them that the person they find is the answer to their life, that these two people are absolutely the right fit. The hard work of deep relationships, as you all know, is not just finding the person. It's being able to listen and hear them over a great expanse of time. This is why so much of marriage counseling focuses merely on communication. It's difficult unless anybody has figured it out. Could we just maybe. I don't know, maybe I'd throw this whole sermon out. Does anybody got the answer? Okay. Perfect. [00:10:22] Speaker A: Good. [00:10:22] Speaker B: It's hard. It's hard. Just having the truth is empty if you can't hear it. So Jesus calls his disciples to listen again and again. He directs them to this fundamental spiritual exercise. Think about that for a moment. One of the most important spiritual exercise in our faith is merely the ability to listen deeply to ourselves, to one another. For Jesus, provocatively, also to creation. This is what it looks like when the seed falls into the good soil. The good soil is the soul with open ears. The good soil is the soul with open ears. I recently had to apologize to two family members that I love very much for my own soul being the soil of thorns. Jesus explains the soil of thorns as the person who hears the truth, but then cares more for the world, the world in the lure of wealth. Thus, even though they actually hear the truth, it yields nothing. Here's how I understand that you are the soil of thorns. When you know the truth. But you care more about being right. You care more about winning the argument than in hearing and seeing the person you are arguing with. For Jesus, that posture is a posture of dominating power, the power of the world. Jesus is a great teacher, and what he teaches is that even if you win the argument, even if you shame your competitor into silent acceptance. You win nothing if their heart turns to stone. If your heart turns to stone, just the truth isn't enough. You must bring and hold the truth with love, with not just apparent caring, but actual caring. The message of the gospel must also be transmitted with the form of the gospel. Communication that is not wrapped in mercy and forgiveness of love does not work. The two can't be separated. The message is the method. The method is the message. So when those two family members came to visit us a few days this summer, for a few days this summer, I had to apologize to them for speaking so coarsely to them 10 years earlier. Ten years ago, if you can believe it, we were arguing about politics. I can't remember exactly how I put it, but I remember the force of the argument. If you believe that, you've missed the gospel the way I said it. It's just the way I felt about them at that moment. They were stupid and ignorant that my way was superior and unblemished, that I cared more about letting them know that they were wrong than I did understanding why they believed what they did, or even whether I was speaking in a way they could hear it. My heart was hardened towards them and my heart was also hardened to the truth and to that thorn filled soil. Jesus asks me, how can you share the gospel of mercy so full of scorn and abuse? This summer, when we spoke and I asked for their forgiveness, we were still able to have our deep disagreement. I asked some really tough questions. And here I think the tone of voice is most important. You believe this and you believe this. How do they fit together? I want to see it how you see it. I'm not trying to get you to see it differently. I genuinely want to know, how do you see this? Want to know you better. How is God moving in you? There was no heat this time, no sense of desperation, no threat of being cast out from either of us. This isn't always the outcome of encounters like this, but in this particular moment we found so much that we held in common, you know? And all three of us ended the conversation feeling actually seen by the other. Believe it or not, we didn't solve all the problems of the world, but we did walk away, closer to the gospel. They graciously forgave me. My soul of thorny soil was broken up just a bit, broken into something closer and nearer to the soil that might receive and offer the heart of Jesus. Amen.