Matthew 13:1-9
Call me a Jesus Seminarian (Seminar-ite? Seminar-izer?), but I’m cutting short the reading for this week. I don’t think Jesus gave the explanation that the lectionary includes, so rather than read it from the pulpit and ignore it, I’ll just leave it out.

“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.” I know some allegorizors like William Barclay want to make this about Jesus standing between the sea, representing chaos, and ordinary people, but, come on. This is just an establishing shot. He isn’t even really between the people and the sea; he’s actually on the sea. In a boat. Whose boat? Who knows! Some large cities have bicycle exchange programs, where members can just show up at some kind of bike bank and pick one up as long as they return it to another bank. Maybe ancient Palestine had something similar with boats. We know from the passion story that they had something similar with donkeys.

“And he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen!’” For the audience who should be (but isn’t) reading this blog, I probably don’t have to explain the difference between an allegory and a parable. If you don’t know, go look it up. Simply put, a parable has one specific point. Aspects of a parable don’t represent other things. The sower isn’t God. The seed isn’t the word of God or the gospel. The ground is not the listeners. Jesus clues us in on this. he tells us to listen. Nowhere in his words is any indication that he means us to interpret the parable. Instead, he tells us just to listen to it.

“‘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, and some thirty.’”

And again Jesus reminds us to listen. “‘Let anyone with ears listen!’” Listen! Don’t interpret, don’t analyze, don’t draw conclusions from Pliny about yields of agriculture in the ancient world. Listen, damn it!

What do we have to listen to? A sower goes out to sow and does a piss-poor job of it. For whatever reason he wastes a lot of seed. But some of it lands on good soil and has a miraculous yield. Anyone with two ears better listen up.

The Kingdom of God will shower the earth with its abundance. No matter how incompetently the word is shared or how closed off to grace the world is, the Kingdom will triumph. Our failures, our hatred, our arrogance and ignorance, none of these will prevent the fulfillment of God’s intentions for creation. Listen! God loves you. There’s nothing you can do about it. Listen! God loves everybody. There’s nothing you can do about that, either. So don’t interpret God’s word as if it gives you permission to hate or exclude. Just listen. Shut up and listen.