The Old South Church in Boston

The Old South Church in Boston

Does Goodness Have a Chance?

Sermon by James W. Crawford

First Sunday in Lent, March 4, 2001

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Do you ever wonder about the fate of goodness in our world? So much seems to run against it. Sadness, trouble, tragedy often, apparently, speak the last word. Are we committed to families? So many seem increasingly precarious these days. Do we yearn for a peaceful world? The old antagonists in the Middle East—with a terrible bomb explosion just this morning—and in Northern Ireland and lately Indonesia, with a raid on Iraq for good measure, leave us unsettled. Not to mention the violent aftermath of high school basketball and hockey games right here in Massachusetts. And for ourselves? In pursuit of some inner equilibrium we find ourselves, or someone close to us, stricken with catastrophic illness, blind-sided by family crisis, a job collapse. In face of all threatening to subvert our lives and our world, does goodness, finally, have a chance?

Our question troubles others, as well. Matthew’s church asks it too. Some fifty years after Jesus’ death they gather in Antioch, praying, singing, working, serving, hoping the world of grace and peace promised by Jesus, whom they call Christ, will blossom and flourish. But nothing happens. “What’s going on?” they wonder. Here we anticipate the Divine realm breaking in among us, but it is the same old same old. The new world Christ promises: where is it? Leper colonies flourish; the gap between rich and poor widens; might still makes right. And the good news borne by Jesus, a word we seek to spread and serve, seems to fall on deaf ears; it receives a mixed, if not bleak, reception. Our church scrapes along. We try to make the Gospel in this troubled and threatening world a radiant and releasing reality, but new members are hard to come by, and it seems the seed of what we do, what we hope for, and what we promise spills onto soil harsh, or sparse, dense with weeds. “What’s going on?” Matthew’s church asks? In this world of ours does the Gospel, does goodness really have a chance?

Well, does it? Does goodness have a chance? In the splendid parable we read this morning, we can find some clues. You will note the parable includes references to the sower, the seed, and the receptivity of the soils. There is no doubt the sower can be a serious obstacle to the success of goodness promised in the Gospel. Heaven knows those of us mounting the pulpits of the world Sunday after Sunday, especially the one huffing and puffing at the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth Streets in Boston, Massachusetts, garble the message, get it upside down and backwards, finally glaze the eyes and numb the minds of our tolerant yet expectant, our disappointed yet forgiving congregations.

Leo Tolstoy, in his little masterpiece. “The Kingdom of God is Within You” puts this matter of the Sower—us clergy types—in a perspective, I suspect, most of the world tends to agree with. Tolstoy writes, “The religious superstition is encouraged by the means of the institutions of Churches, processions, monuments, festivities, from the money collected from the masses, and these with the aid of painting, architecture, music, incense, but chiefly by the maintenance of the so-called clergy to stupefy the masses; their duty consists in this, that with their representations, the pathos of the services, their sermons, their interference in the private lives of people—at births, marriages, deaths—they befog the people and keep them in an eternal condition of stupification.”

Nice! This clergy staff of yours, sowers of stupification. In another vein, illustrating Tolstoy’s observation, I know of a so-called upscale Manhattan church where the pastor saw a woman, indeed, one of his most dignified, and aristocratic parishioners, with some difficulty trying to climb the steps so she might attend services. He hurried down the steps to take her arm, intending to help her up the steps. Reaching the top, she asked, curiously, “And who is preaching this morning?” The pastor answered, “The last minister you had here is back for the day and he will be the preacher this morning.” “Oh,” replied our grande dame. “And Sir, could you do me one more favor?” “Of course” he replied. “Will you help me down the stairs again?” she begged. The sower can fail the seed.

And of course, the soils can offer their resistance. Indeed, what we frequently call the Parable of the Sower we might easily call the “Parable of the Soils.” As the Parable says, A farmer sowed his seed; some of it fell on hard ground, some on thin ground, some on weedy ground, and yes, some on good earth yielding finally, a generous harvest. In this parable, remembering the words of Jesus, Matthew comes to terms with his church’s overriding pessimism and offers, finally, a tremendous hope. He admits the obstacles to goodness. He sees the kind of life Jesus represents meets resistance. He understands good seed falls on hard, thin, weedy ground. Whoever said God’s dominion would come easily? Whoever proclaimed a cheap victory for the Gospel? Whoever claimed kindness would not get laughed at, love scorned, justice subverted, innocence convicted? The ground is hard, rocky, weedy. Good seed is starved, choked, aborted. Goodness is vulnerable.

Of course. Some of us can be like hard soil, like soil receiving the seed of the Gospel. The seed fails to penetrate. It lies on the surface scorched by the sun, ending up as bird feed. What do we see here? Could it be that hope and goodness fare badly in the face of cynicism? Perhaps. Life: a beaten and barren path. Everything rolls over us now: weddings, funerals, births, the innocence of little children. You know the attitude. “When you’ve seen one sunset; you’ve seen ‘em all.” Or “Dad! Dad: look at that bird!” Silence. “Dad; look at the bird, in the top of the pine tree, it’s head is white, its beak yellow, could it be an eagle?” So what else is new? Whether it be Handel’s Messiah at Christmas: “O Lord, that again?” Or a tour of Florence, with its sublime paintings, its ineffable architecture, but remembering only that nifty little souvenir shop or ostentatious gambling casino, the cynic represents hardened and scorched ground. He sees in every politician, a hack; in every actor, a ham; in every Christian, a hypocrite. Set before the cynic a noble goal and he sees a hidden agenda; offer a complement and she suspects manipulation; cast a new idea and you’ll get an analysis of why it just won’t work. Ideals represent illusion; hope an opiate; love a combination of chemistry and necessity. Does goodness have a chance? Can the Gospel make it on hardened and impenetrable ground? We find the chances severely narrowed.

Or the rocky soil? We see here thin soil—a crust, really—settled on a limestone ledge, two or three inches thick. Seed falling here takes root, then sprouts, but because of shallow soil the grain suddenly wilts, and the sun, rather than warming and nurturing it, burns it to a crisp.

Sound familiar? The quick starter, fading fast. The enthusiast, all of a sudden discovering the cost of follow-through. I have always appreciated the observation that the world is run by those who stay until the end of meetings. Dropouts cripple goodness. The gospel suffers from those who grasp the thrill, then retreat from the pain; who want the joy, but abhor the risk; who seek Christ’s gifts but recoil from the cost.

What a difference, the tenacious, the reliable, the steadfast. I read this week of a woman whose name is Frances Crowe. Some of you may be acquainted with her; I’m not, and I’m sorry. She is amazing. No thin soil here. Frances Crowe lives in Northampton. She is 82 years old, a Quaker, who since Hiroshima has been an anti-war activist. A year or two ago, detained in a holding cell following an anti-nuclear protest at the US Naval Base in Groton, Connecticut, a police officer poked his head in the door and asked for a woman named Frances Crowe. She appeared at the cell door and the officer pulled out her arrest record which, as one report has it, unfolded and unfolded again until it hit the floor. “I have to tell you,” said the officer, “I’ve been a police lieutenant for 24 years, and this is the most impressive rap sheet I’ve ever seen. Is there anywhere you haven’t protested?” Over these nearly 60 years the efforts of Frances Crowe ranged from raising awareness about biological weapon development at the University of Massachusetts—an effort since halted—draft counseling during the Vietnam war, efforts to alleviate United Nations sanctions battering the Iraqi people, and just this last fall, writing a resolution for the Northampton City Council, petitioning it to join with other cities across the country, urging nations to take nuclear weapons off alert, to resist deployment of a ballistic missile defense system, reminding the City Council that “the $3,595,000 paid by Northhampton taxpayers during the last fiscal year for the cost, development and maintenance of nuclear weapons could have instead provided Head Start and child care services for 600 children, or built fifty-one affordable housing units, or provided health insurance for 2,229 children who lack adequate coverage . . .” She insisted the work must go on in what, she called, a “peoples’ rebellion against militarism,” an effort to make connections between tax cuts in domestic health and welfare programs and increases for military hardware. She served as a leader of the American Friends Service Committee, and yes, received a Doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Massachusetts. A reporter asked Frances Crowe, what she would entitle her autobiography. “Oh my,” she replied, “Keeping Your Head Above Water.” And “How many times have you been arrested?” “Not enough.”

Eighty-two years old. Keeping her head above water. Arrested for the sake of peace? Not enough! No shallow ground there. No flash in the pan. No quick sprouts, then wilted stalk. Goodness, enthusiastically embraced, ready to pay the price.

And the weedy soil? The soil is good, my friends. The problem is simple: it grows weeds as well as flowers. The seed falling on the weedy soil chokes before it barely gets started. I suspect most of us from time to time register with the beaten path, others with the shallow and rocky soil, but I suspect most of us might identify with the weedy soil. We suffer from junk overload. Faced with tons of choices, we slouch often into the easy one or the one that is second rate. Our crowded lives make time for everything but the people we love most, the tasks that need us desperately, the moment replenishing our souls. Trivia often takes over. Priorities become skewed.

Just this last week Sue Shellenburger wrote an intriguing personal reflection in The Wall Street Journal. It went like this: “I was on a multitasking roll one recent day, when I got a wakeup call. I’d done my workday on flextime, starting early to finish by the time my kids got out of school. I checked backpacks, did laundry, cleared voice mail, started dinner. I was picking up the phone to call the parents of my son’s hockey teammates as part of my job as team manager, when my son, 10, yelled from the living room: ‘Mom, you’re always running around. Can’t you sit down with me for one minute?’” Shellenburger writes, “It was a moment of truth: I thought I was on top of my parenting duties, but I hadn’t even spent 10 seconds focusing on the object of it all: my kids.” The title of her article? “Children Want Parents to Stop Making Plans and Start Hanging out.”

Now clearly, we have here a devoted parent, a most capable, versatile, talented, committed woman and mother. But like her, for many of us the goodness we would love to pursue gets strangled by “the thousand and one things I’ve got to do this morning”. . . many of those things decent and important. Yet, let us not forget, weeds can be beautiful, but they grow in fierce competition with the flowers and the grain. And from time to time we surrender the field to them, or perhaps even confuse the two. The ground for the seed we find riddled with weeds.

So, then, does goodness have a chance? Will the Gospel make it in this world? asks that struggling church of Matthew’s in Antioch. The soil receiving the seed, the Word of God, the soil seems so hard, so shallow, so weed infested.

III

Well, Matthew will not be done with us. The seed, that Word of God, does fall on fallow soil. It sprouts, flourishes and produces a hundred fold. Does goodness have a chance? Can the Gospel make it in this world? Yes! says the New Testament. The way is hard, the obstacles difficult, the ground unsettled, but after all—and finally—the seed provides a bountiful harvest. The evidence in this world against the triumph of goodness looks powerfully persuasive, but ultimately God’s patient way of healing, wholeness, justice, peace makes it through the resistance.

Do you believe that? Can you believe goodness has a chance? To believe it anchors the very heart of our faith. Where, for instance, do we most poignantly ask the question about the chances of goodness in God’s world? Where is goodness most at risk? Where does it look like a loser? Snuffed out? Crushed? Do you know where? At the foot of the Cross. There, goodness takes a licking. If the likes of Jesus dies in those bloody circumstance—really, now, does goodness have a chance? Now, mark this. At the Cross, in faith, goodness not only has a chance, goodness emerges victorious. The occasion for ultimate discouragement about the chances of goodness becomes instead the occasion for ultimate hope in the triumph of goodness.

Do you see what this means? Bet your death on goodness! Risk your life in love. Kindness to others does not finally go down the drain. Compassion is no exercise in futility. The struggle for justice may encounter resistance and lose a skirmish, but it is never finally defeated. Your own life may seem like a lost cause, but ultimately— finally—it may serve as a radiant, creative source of love and light. In the majestic words of Luther, “We will not fear, for God has willed the truth to triumph through us.”

And here is the beauty part: this news is so good, this truth so transforming that so-called hard, cynical ground, may by this Gospel be softened, and furrowed and become nurturing soil; so-called stony or thin ground may by this good seed discover itself cultivated, deepened, so that roots may plunge deeply, the grain may grow to maturity, the long term served.

And yes, that weedy ground? The most challenging of all, may, with patient, diligent care and planting, receive the seed, itself clean of entangling or strangling competition, enabling the seed to sprout with grace and fullness.

There lies the good news of the Christian faith. Life is not, as the graffiti asserts, “a hereditary disease,” but rather a human family courageously, joyously, celebrating compassion and service in a tragic and risky world. Good seed falls on good ground and the harvest is abundant. Goodness ultimately triumphs. What more encouraging words from the lips of Christ, the voice of the Christian Church?

Does goodness have a chance? A sower goes out to sow. Good seed falls on this good earth, and amid strenuous resistance, in God’s good time, it flourishes. Does goodness have a chance? Bet on it! And in faith, in hope, you bet on a sure thing.

Scripture Reading

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

That same day Jesus went out of the house 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 depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 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 sixty, and in another thirty.”