Sowing Kingdom Seeds
Category: Sundays after Pentecost
Speaker: The Rev. Shearon Sykes Wiliams
The Very Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams
Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia
November 16, 2014
Matthew 25: 14-30
Sowing Kingdom Seeds
“For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”
Vincent Van Gogh was an incredible visionary. And the image that most excited his imagination and fueled his vision of the world was the wheat field. He painted wheat fields over and over again in different ways.
And if you look at the clipart on your bulletin cover, you’ll recognize one of his more famous wheat field paintings entitled “The Sower.” Even though this is in black and white, the actual painting is saturated with color- deep, rich, bold color, one of the hallmarks of Van Gogh’s later works. He used color to convey meaning. His favorite color was citron yellow, a very intense yellow that he used right out of the tube in pure form. The sun on the horizon of the Sower is citron yellow. Van Gogh used this especially vivid yellow to represent the divine. The sun burns brightly in this painting and it beckons us. It is our destination. And there is a path through the wheat field leading us to the sun, to God. And the Sower scatters seed, seeds of the kingdom, seeds that are planted over and over and over again.
Van Gogh seems to be telling us that God’s kingdom is now and it goes on all around us all the time and it will be brought to fulfillment sometime in the future. It is a profoundly hopeful image. The Parable of the Sower was his favorite of all the parables Jesus told. He had heard it many times, listening to his father preach sermons on it as he was growing up. It was for him the essence of the Gospel.
And there is a good reason for that. The parables are about the Kingdom of God and Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God more than anything else. Bringing the Kingdom of God was Jesus’ whole purpose in life. It was the reason that God sent him to us. Jesus talked about the kingdom over and over again, sowing the seeds of the kingdom repeatedly in his disciples. And in a variety of ways. The Kingdom of God is like this…. The kingdom of God is like that….. Jesus taught in parables because the Kingdom of God is so wonderful, so far beyond our human capacity for comprehension, so utterly magnificent, that we have to be helped along the path of deepening understanding. And it is so hard for us to grasp that we are invited to become a part of it! We too can become sowers of hope, justice, joy and peace.
In today’s Parable of the Talents, Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God in terms of the master of a household going on a journey and leaving his 3 slaves to take care of things while he is away. He gives each of them different amounts of money depending upon their ability. The first one gets 5 talents, which in “Gospel speak” means a whole lot of money, like a million dollars. The second one gets 2 talents; a moderate amount and the third got one, a small amount. The first two slaves get to work in the kingdom and produce more bounty, doubling the money they had been entrusted with by the master. But the third slave is afraid and buries his money so that it will be safe and secure. When the master returns and asks for an accounting, he is clearly very pleased with the first two and very displeased with the third.
Why would the first two slaves behave so differently than the third? The answer I think lies in their perception of the master. The first two seem to think that the master is like the Sower in Van Gogh’s painting- generous and generative, always sowing the seeds of the kingdom from a bag that has an endless supply. The seeds never run out. The first 2 slaves envision flourishing wheat fields, bountiful crops, and they live out of a deep joy and hopefulness. And they have a great work ethic that flows from that joy. They want to join the Sower in sowing kingdom seeds. And the one who was given 2 talents sees things just as abundantly as the one who was given 5 talents. They are both grateful for what they have been given and their gratitude produces more bounty. But the third slave looks at what he has been given with a scarcity mentality. He thinks the master is harsh and stingy. He chooses not to be part of the work of the kingdom. He closes himself off, refuses to engage, tries to hold on to what he has, and operates out of fear and foreboding. He sees the work of the Sower as extravagant, wasteful, even foolish He sees life is in black and white rather than in bold color.
The Sower in black and white on your bulletin cover this morning comes to life in your fall stewardship packet that you either picked up at church last Sunday or received in the mail yesterday. When you open it, you will be greeted by a bright yellow sun and a lush wheat field, an image of God at work in the world and inviting us to become part of it.
Next week, we are all invited to return our pledges. We will bring our offerings of time, talent and treasure and put them on the altar as a sign of hope for our journey and a sign of hope for the world around us.
Between this Sunday and next, we all have kingdom work to do. And the way we approach that work makes all the difference in the world. When we are considering our pledges for 2015, we all need to think of ourselves as the person in today’s parable that was given 5 talents. The millionaire. We’re all millionaires, however much we have. We are blessed, extravagantly, richly blessed. And our pledges of time, talent and treasure should reflect that.
We might think we don’t have time. We do have time, lots of time. The question is “How does God want us to use the time we have been given to bring in the kingdom”? We have talents, lots of talents. How does God want us to use our talents to bring in the kingdom? We have treasure, lots of treasure. How does God want us to use the money we have been entrusted with to bring in the kingdom? Abundance, abundance, abundance.
It’s good for our souls to look at life that way. And it’s essential, absolutely essential, for the continuing life and vitality of Saint George’s Episcopal Church for each one of us to look at our pledges that way. Our future depends on it. The kingdom of God depends on each one of us thinking of ourselves as millionaires.
When you look at your pledge packet, think abundance. Your monetary pledge supports the operating budget. That is what keeps the doors open, the lights on, ministries funded and staff salaries paid. And the reason we need the doors to stay open, the lights burning bright, ministries funded and the staff paid is because all of those things provide the infrastructure for all of us to sow kingdom seeds, fulfilling God’s vision for us, the vision that Van Gogh painted so magnificently.
This year’s stewardship campaign challenges us to think and act out of a deeper sense of abundance and to work toward a tithe, giving 10% of our income. The tithe has along and rich history in our Judeo Christian heritage.
In Old Testament times, tithing was a requirement for all faithful Jews to give a tenth of the yields of their crops, livestock and income. And not what was left over, but the “first fruits” of their harvest. This served two purposes; it was a spiritual practice that helped them to remember God was the source of their bounty. And the second purpose was to fund the work of the worshipping community. The individual spiritual practice and the communal needs went hand-in-hand. It was all about doing God’s work in the world, individual kingdom work and communal kingdom work.
And in New Testament times, it moved to a voluntary practice rather than a legal requirement, giving back to God out of our gratitude rather than obligation. And the Christian value and practice of tithing has continued throughout our history. And in our day and time, we have to willingly commit to making that tradition our own, knowing that we do it as a means of greater freedom, not allowing our anxiety about money and security hold us hostage.
And not just thinking of tithing as a worthy idea, but deciding to set a concrete goal, making a plan to reach that goal and then acting on the plan in a very intentional way. This is an example of a concrete goal. “I” or “my partner and I” or “my family and I” are committing to give a tenth of our income to God’s work at Saint George’s by the year 2020. We are going to increase our pledge 2 % each year between 2015 and 2020 until we are giving 10% of our income. It’s only going to happen when our idea of tithing moves to the action of tithing. Knowing the good and then doing the good, as Saint Augustine said.
Saint George’s currently has a budget that has a shortfall. And the reason for that is an exceedingly joyful one! Two years ago, the goal of the fall stewardship season was to reestablish the Associate Rector position and all of you responded bountifully! And even though the pledge increases didn’t fully support the position, the vestry took a very considered leap of faith to go forward with it. And many wonderful kingdom seeds have been planted as a result. We now have greater support and leadership for our ministries, especially Children and Youth, 20s 30s, and pastoral care. So much is happening now that would not be happening otherwise.
And every year our many lay ministry leaders need increases in their budget allocations to take their kingdom work to the next level. The budget is never “same as last year” because the kingdom is always growing.
*****If we were all to respond to this year’s challenge to commit to tithing by the year 2020, (if we are not already) and took the first concrete step by increasing our 2015 pledges by 2% of our income, we would no longer have a deficit. It would be wiped out, poof, gone. And it could totally happen next Sunday.******
So our pledges are not just pledges. They are powerful kingdom seeds that reap bountiful fruits. They represent our priorities and our willingness to be sowers in the wheat field. They allow us to be Gospel visionaries in action. “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance…”
Sources:
Sacra Pagina, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1, Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., Editor pp. 351-355, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1991
Eerdmans Dictionary of Bible, David Noel Freedman, Editor, “tithe,” p. 1315, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_Fields_%28Van_Gogh_series%2 9