Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe! Praise God. His kingdom is coming, his heavenly city is knocking, the New Jerusalem is waiting for him to call us home, and woe to those who aren’t ready! I know I am. I am ready for that kingdom that Jesus tells us is like a man who goes out to scatter seed. And God brings up that seed with no help from man. God, in his grace and power is bringing up his Elect and we don’t know how, but we’re thankful for what he has done in our lives. We’re thankful that he saved us. We’re thankful that we’ll get to sing and shout the victory over those wicked nations that have gathered before us. In Mark 4:29 Jesus is quoting the prophet Joel who tells us what that great day will be like:
“Put in the Sickle, for the harvest is ripe.
Go in, tread, for the wine press is full.
The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.
Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision!
The sun and the moon are darkened…
…and the stars withdraw their shining…”
I am too comfortable with hearing this message…
We, the Church, are too comfortable with speaking this message…
But we are not alone in this. This message of judgment was a message of hope to those first century Jews who saw the nations under the banner of Rome cover Jerusalem with their pagan symbols and foreign languages. We can hear Joel’s war scroll, as this passage is often called, whispered behind the backs of passing Centurions by those righteous few who were working underground for the liberation of their homeland. To the Zealots, this is a rallying cry; to the Peasants it was a breath of hope. Hope that one day their lands would no longer be called upon to pay tribute to a King or Emperor but to the presence of the living God.
This is the conversation that we enter into when we read Mark 4:29, and even though Mark’s Greek is not as refined as the translators of the Septuagint he is quoting Joel quite directly, Mark’s just saying it with a bit of back-water twang. The ending to this parable was meant to pull up this judgment scene in its hearers with all the vividness and emotion that it arouses. We are supposed to come to this parable with preconceptions. Mark is banking on it. And though it may be a stretch to say that we have the same scriptural memory as Mark’s initial audience we don’t have to work too hard to bring about the emotional weight that the Gospel is trying to pull from us. All we have to do is add a hammer.
Doubtless there are many of us here who can remember the significance of a golden hammer and sickle in the upper left hand corner of a red flag. These two common tools of industry and agriculture came together to form a symbol that contributed to a conflict which kept our world on edge for half of a century.
I can remember taking Marx’s Das Kapital, part of my enlightened 21st century education, home with me and seeing the look of wide eyed astonishment on my grandparents faces as they contemplated the prospect that their grandson might be a communist: A thought, which only 50 years ago would have been spoken in a hushed tone in a coffee shop or shouted across the aisle in the halls of the Senate. My parents, both born during the Cuban Missile Crisis, came to adulthood never expecting to see the year 1980. They lived through high school waiting for that hammer and sickle to rush across the fields of West German barley into a new valley of decision; where fire would rain from the sky in ways that make the harshest prophecy from Revelation seem tame. Even God thought the Hydrogen bomb was a bit harsh.
But we don’t even need to look back that far. Even today we hear parts of the Church touting the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as the first fruits of God’s harvest of the wicked. We hear daily of the importance of supporting Israel in its quest to carve out a place amongst the nations. We come to this passage with a burden. We come to this parable ready for judgment, but Jesus, as he often does, comes to us with abundant grace.
A person goes out to scatter seed, and after it is in the ground they go to sleep. They don’t touch it. But it grows. And they don’t know how.
There is a great temptation here, in our scientific society, to read this as an example of the simplicity of those in first century Palestine. They didn’t know about the process of germination, about the nutrients in the soil necessary for a good crop, or about the complex process of photosynthesis that would eventually produce the grain. We can say all this with certainty, what we cannot say, however is that first century Palestinians did not know how plants grow. Though they may have been short on the why of the process, it is a great hubris to say that we are better acquainted with agriculture than the contemporaries of Mark, who lived a life so attached to the land that we can scarcely imagine the intimate relationship between the people their land, and their crops.
Those who worked the land at that time would have known better than any of us just how to till the earth before planting. Exactly how to keep harmful weeds out of their field when the stalks came up, what insects to keep away when the grain started to show, and just how tend to the full head that would later appear on the grain. These things, which are for us today specialized knowledge would be facts of life for the masses whom Jesus was addressing. They knew how plants grow. They knew what needed to be done to ensure a fruitful harvest, which is why when the person in our parable does nothing to tend their crop we meet with that phrase of amazement. “…and he does not know how.” Against all common knowledge these plants grow when they should die. They flourish when they should fail. This is God at work, because we haven’t done a thing.
After my high school graduation my father took me on a road trip out west to see the places that became so familiar to him in his years as a long-distance trucker. We were in a Ford Econoline that we had done some work to allow us to fit a full sized bed where the rear two seats should be. We were switching between driving and sleeping in four-hour shifts and were poised to make it from Jacksonville, Florida to Los Angeles in two days.
I had been in the passenger seat since the Lake Ponchatrain bridge when we pulled in to get gas in the small town of Brehenam, Texas. I got out to stretch my legs and kick the tires when I noticed that there was a think layer of grease covering the rear passenger side wheel well that ran up the rear of the van and coated the rear windshield. We found the Ford dealership in town, put the van in the shop, and waited for the diagnostic. We had a cracked bearing seal, which was allowing the spinning tire to fling the entirety of its lubrication along the back of the van. “Yall’s bearing should have seized up about fifty miles back,” the mechanic said. He had next to no idea how we made it there.
The lack of lubrication in the bearing meant that the steel interior of the bearing was heating up to the point at which the moving parts in the wheel casing should have fused themselves together and ceased to move at all. Which, at 70 miles an hour, is not a happy prospect. Both my father and I understand the why but in that particular instance we did not know how we made it to the dealership. We didn’t do a thing, except drive to far. This was God at work.
We all have, at one time or another had those moments where we stand with the sower and scratch our heads. We all have stood in fields of grace. We have all lived in moments of wonder; we carry those moments with us, just as we carry our narratives of judgment and fear. All that we are asked by this parable is that, while we’re waiting for the harvest, while we’re waiting for the sickle, we keep that sense of amazement. That we keep our sense of God at work, beyond anything we have ever expected, beyond all our hopes, fears, and judgments.
May we all stand in fields of grace, a grace that sustains and keeps us in the presence of the living God. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.
Here's the link for the week: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=25
I'm sorry to have rambled on. None of this is a finished thought. I was just taking a stab at it. Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful...
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I’ve got St. Augustine on the brain, and you’re going to have to forgive me for that. As much as I love the Saint, and what he had to say, when it comes to his interpretation of the lectionary passages for the week he’s a hard pill to swallow. Unless you’re a Calvinist. If you’re a Calvinist than you’re in luck.
The thing that I really want to highlight in all of this is the question of agency, and who has it. I really think that that’s at the heart of the predestination question. Who is responsible for our salvation, God or Us? If it’s a blending of both than who does how much? The historical answers range all over the spectrum, and rightfully so. It’s a really big question. But let’s look at the lectionary and see how we can take it.
The narrative of the call of Abram is a great place to explore questions of Agency. We’ll let Paul throw a wrench in the works later, but for now lets keep it pretty clear. God calls Abram out of “your country, and your kindred, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” There’s and imperative at the beginning of that quote that didn’t flow with the way I wanted to phrase that sentence but it is very important to note. God told Abram to “Go.” Abram then could have said “No.” Or could he have? Did Abram make a choice to leave? Scripture doesn’t say. Linguistically we know that any call has a response, and that the imperative is a mood that is not indicative, that is to say not indicating events that have happened, are happening, or will happen, with a fair degree of certainty on the part of the speaker. The imperative is a kind of strengthened subjunctive. The action you’re ordering the object of your speech to do might not happen. You’re just saying it with a lot of gravitas and the expectation that it will get done. The linguistic structure typically acts like this.
Go! -> Object of command deliberates -> Object of command acts, becoming subject of commanded action, or subject of disobedient action.
The deliberation is crucial here. Whether or not it actually happens, whether God has done all the deliberating for you or not doesn’t really matter. It’s not grammatically significant, and therefore I’m going to say that it isn’t experientially significant.
“Abram went as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him.” If we are interpreting this as an act in history, then we can assume that Abram decided to go. Abram had agency. I would like for the discussion to end here. Abram has agency, ergo we do too. Happy day.
But the call, there is still the issue of the call. Abram only has Agency in the story insomuch as he is responding to the call. God says, “Go.” Without that we just have a man in Sumeria living out his life in his Father’s household. Thanks be to God, there was a call, and the story goes on.
Before we get to the Gospel I want to take a quick look at St. Augustine’s treatment of John 3:5 and see what it brings to the table.
Oh Lord. Here comes the born-againner talk. Nope. Not going to do it. Not only was Jesus talking to Nicodemus in the singular here, but the rhetoric of “being born again” has been so co-opted that I’m not even going to try to touch it on those terms. Not going to do it. All of you who were worried can breathe a sigh of relief.
I still don’t know what to think of the entire scope of the Gospel reading for the week. I know that I stand squarely on the side of our place in reaction to the call. Therefore I don’t buy predestination. We have agency. If its an illusion, its immaterial. Everything about our experience would say that we have a will to respond to the various calls around us.
I would like to close with a brief thought. I know I’ve rambled, and I apologize for that. I’m trying to work all this out just as I’m typing it. Its been a busy week. Forgive me.
There’s a simile that Jesus uses in talking to Nicodemus who, as a Pharisee, I’m certain would be familiar with it. In John 3:14 the Gospel writer refers to Numbers 21:9, or the story of the poisonous snakes in the wilderness. The Israelites were having a problem with snakes in the desert, so God told Moses to place a serpent made of bronze on a tall pole in the center of the camp, and all who looked at it were healed from the snake venom. The healing was broadcast. Open to all in the camp.
So was the Son of Man lifted up, as a broadcast, as a beacon for the whole world. I think its safe to say that the call is there, and that we can respond to it.
TL;DR. We have agency. God makes the call.
One of the problems with being in School for so long is that I can no longer bring myself to write without a prompt, so as a practice of getting myself back in the habit of writing regularly (we can call it a lenten practice) I'm going to be offering reflections on the weekly lectionary. I'll post either on Saturday or Sunday if you care to follow along. I'll include links to the week's lectionary so you're not lost.
This is the RCL selection for the first week of Lent:
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=24
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Lent 1.
I was driving home one night listening to “Story Corps” on NPR and there was a man telling a story about his relationship with his therapist. He was a writer by trade and spoke eloquently enough to make me keep listening until I heard him say “I tend to think about the people closest to me dying a lot. I think that’s how I know I care about them. I think about them dying, and how sad that would make me.” It was an A-Ha moment for me. I do the exact same thing, and it’s pretty morbid. The story culminated in the death of his Therapist, and how meaningful that relationship had been. How they had moved together through the human condition, through the highs and lows of emotional exploration to what could be considered a deep caring, and finally a friendship cut short by death. It was one of the more moving stories that I’ve heard in quite some time, and it greatly resonated with me.
That is most likely because I’m a pretty morbid person. I remember sitting in Humanities class learning about the genre of the Memento Mori, the reminder of death, and being absolutely fascinated. Chapels everywhere in our history greeted you with a reminder of death. It absolutely permeates the imagery of the Western Church. Maybe that’s why I like the Church so much. It could be the whole Jesus thing. I’m not sure.
I am, however, certain that this is why Lent is one of my favorite seasons of the Church year. I should phrase that better… The whole progression of Lent into Easter capped off at Pentecost is my favorite time of the Church calendar. We start Lent off with a reminder that we are dust, and we’re going to be dust again. It’s morbid. It clicks with me. I think it clicks with most of us, even if we don’t want it to. It’s unsettling because it is an indictment of our humanity. Lent is the Church’s way of striking at the heart of the human condition, and this is why I find the lectionary choices for this week to be outstandingly appropriate.
It’s hard not to let Paul do all the heavy lifting in interpreting Genesis, and I think Paul’s right. Adam and Christ are the bookends of our humanity. (I’m not implying a literal reading of Genesis here. Just a healthy theology of original sin.) We have death in Adam and life in Christ. An entrance and end to the reign of sin and death, and in Paul’s reading of Genesis I believe we can find a good analogy for the flow of the life of the Church from Ash Wednesday to Pentecost. Church life reflects the life of faith. Its almost like they did that on purpose…
The way Christ lives out the human condition in Matthew gives us further insight into another theme running through the Lectionary for the week, and that is that of temptation and struggle. The life between the bookends. I would hope, that at least in a small degree we are dealing with temptation in our own Lenten walks, and can then, in some way, be spoken to in the story of Christ’s temptation.
Jesus was led into the desert by the spirit, and it’s interesting to look at the following purpose clause. “to be tempted by the devil.” That passive infinitive is telling us a lot. Matthew is presenting this as the spirit leading Jesus into the desert for the purpose of being tempted.
Speaking of temptation there is a great one present here that many interpreters succumb to. That is the temptation of believing that Jesus walked out into that desert with the inability to give into temptation, and therefore, quite often in my experience, the claim is made that this passage is proof that God never gives us more than we can handle. While that may, and I heavily emphasize may be true, it is not helpful to us in the moment. God may not give us more than we can handle, but it is certainly hard to know that at the time. Anyone in crisis can attest to this. Anyone facing extreme circumstances knows that there are times where you’re fairly certain you can’t handle it. Sometime’s you’re Job.
We need to read this severity into Jesus’ time in the desert. Matthew is explicit in telling us that this was not a leisurely walk into the wilderness. Jesus was famished. Not just hungry. Famished. In physical pain. Suffering from Dehydration. This was dire, and Jesus could feel it.
Enter the tempter.
Everything that was offered to Jesus in the desert was something that he would eventually come to possess. Food, Angelic intervention, Rule of the World. I would go so far as to say that he knew this too. I believe that Christ knew the end of his life and his ministry. (It’s part of that Fully Human/Fully Divine thing that our Catholic friends would rightly call “a mystery.”) So what the tempter was offering him was nothing he would never obtain. All these and more would be his, eventually. After a lot of struggle, and a lot of hurt Christ would be seated at the right hand of the Father again, and his Kingdom will have no end. The temptation lies in the fact that he could get that now, and more importantly he could get all of those things without the Cross. “If you are the son of God…” I’m quite certain that Jesus knew who he was, and therefore what he could do.
Too often we frame temptation as the choice between the right thing and the wrong thing. The wrong thing is usually remarkably attractive, but still remarkably wrong. Temptation like that happens. There are wrong things. I don’t have a list of them on hand, but there are wrong choices. Though this frame is valid, I don’t think it’s what Jesus was experiencing here, nor do I think that this frame is the most troublesome type of temptation. In searching the scripture there’s not a lot I can find that is marked as out and out wrong. There’s a lot of fluidity. You can call it Christian liberty, if you want to be sufficiently Lutheran about it. Jesus’ temptation was to avoid the struggle, and the pain, and the cross, and get to the good stuff the wrong way. As Christians this idea of the “way” should be a huge buzzword for us. Jesus said some things about that.
The cliché “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions” may not be too off the mark here. We’re trying to get to the good stuff. Things that are honestly and undeniably good, things like Peace, Justice, Love, and Reconciliation; Things that we know to be the things of the Kingdom. The temptation here is to go about this in the way that Jesus chose not to go. Christ could have flexed his authority as the Messiah and brought the Kingdom down there in that desert, right atop the Devil’s head. But he didn’t. He became a servant, and our Passover. This is the chief temptation, to seek the Kingdom in a way that isn’t Christlike, that is to say, sacrificial and servant-minded. But the Gospel gives us the assurance that if we stay faithful to God’s vision, If we model our story on Christ’s, Angels will wait on us.
