Good Enough

(Mark 4.1-9. 13-20)
A sermon preached by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ, Sammamish, Washington
The Seventh Sunday of Easter: May 24, 2009


Last Sunday afternoon, I sat in the gymnasium of the Washington Community High School in Washington, Illinois. My nephew, Warren, was graduating. Near the start of the ceremony, the superintendent of schools introduced the ten graduates with the highest grade point averages. And everybody clapped for them.

This week Kris Allen became the new "American Idol". The first paragraph of the Associated Press story said his victory had "turn[ed] theatrical powerhouse Adam Lambert into the most unlikely of also-rans" ("Boy next door Allen is the new 'Idol'", The Seattle Times, Thursday, May 21, 2009, A2).

Winners get our attention. The people who excel are the people we notice. The biggest, richest, strongest, fastest, loudest, and funniest; the most attractive, outrageous, offensive, intelligent, and tragic: these are who make the headlines. These are who we talk about.

Which means we keep score and keep track. We compare ourselves to others to see how we measure up. Grades, clothes, house, car, looks, kids, talents, boyfriend, girlfriend, popularity, success, the number of Facebook friends I have . . . how am I doing compared to you? And I don't know about you. But most of the time when I compare myself to others, I don't come out on top. I usually see all the ways others are better than I am.

My combined scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test were good enough to get into the college I wanted to go to. And I was quite aware that more than 50% of the first-year students had higher scores than I did. My dad offered to have a T-shirt made for me that said, "I make the upper-half possible". I didn't take him up on it.

What about the person in my nephew's graduating class who had the eleventh highest grade point average . . . or the person with the 50th or 100th or 200th highest? What about the other "American Idol" also-rans? What about the African-American middle school and high school boys I worked with on the South Side of Chicago whose only dream was to play professional basketball? What about the kids and adults who struggle to get by in this world because their brains and bodies will never win them any awards, or earn them a spot on anybody's top ten list?

Christians are people who have heard the story of Jesus. And something about his story grabs and moves us. Something about him challenges and inspires us. Something about his presence changes and calls us. Christians believe many different things about Jesus. What we have in common is that there is something about him and his story we say "yes" to. So what does Jesus say about being the best? What does Jesus say about excelling and winning and being the one everybody's talking about?

Listen for the Word of God.

Jesus began to teach by the lakeside, but such a huge crowd gathered round him that he got into a boat on the water and sat there. The whole crowd were at the lakeside on land. He taught them many things in parables, and in the course of his teaching he said to them, "Listen! Imagine a sower going out to sow. Now it happened that, as he sowed, some of the seed fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and at once sprang up, because there was no depth of earth; and when the sun came up it was scorched and, not having any roots, it withered away. Some seed fell into thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it produced no crop. And some seeds fell into rich soil, grew tall and strong, and produced a good crop: the yield was thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.
"Are you listening to this? Really listening? What the sower is sowing is the word. Those on the edge of the path where the word is sown are people who have no sooner heard it than Satan at once comes and carries away the word that was sown in them. Similarly, those who are sown on patches of rock are people who, when first they hear the word, welcome it at once with joy. But they have no root deep down and do not last; should some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word, at once they fall away. Then there are others who are sown in thorns. These have heard the word, but the worries of the world, the lure of riches and all the other passions come in to choke the word, and so it produces nothing. And there are those who have been sown in rich soil; they hear the word and accept it and yield a harvest, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold." (adapted from The New Jerusalem Bible)

I've heard lots of sermons about this story. And they've said pretty much the same thing: "The seed planted in rich soil produced an unbelievably huge harvest. And that what Jesus wants from all of us in the church. If we who are seeds don't produce a superabundant yield, then we're not being faithful." And even if the preacher said we're supposed to be the best seed we can, I'd always hear that I'm supposed to be the best seed. Period. After the sermon, I felt inspired for a little while. Then I started to feel kind of tired. And kind of discouraged. Because I didn't know how to produce that kind of harvest.

Achieving stardom as a disciple is what most Bible scholars say Jesus is calling us to do in this story. A Bible scholar who often inspires me is a good example. He writes, "This [seed planted in] 'good soil' yields a phenomenal return" (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, Orbis Press, 1988, p. 175).

Being faithful means being a champion disciple and a champion church. That's what Bible scholars and preachers tell us Jesus is saying in this parable.

There's only one problem. It's quite possible that this isn't what the parable is about. It's quite possible these well-intentioned Bible scholars and preachers are interpreting this story on the basis of what they expect it to say instead of what it's actually saying (Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then the Parable, Fortress Press, 1989, p. 355). The way the story builds up, with three groups of seeds that fail to produce, we expect a big finish, right. The dramatic effect of failure, failure, failure . . . then a phenomenal, stupendous, colossal, only-God-could-produce-a-yield-like-this kind of harvest. That's what the readers expects. And probably that's what the people listening to Jesus tell this story would have expected. But that's not what happens. Instead, Jesus talks about the seeds producing a harvest of 30-, 60-, and 100-fold. That might sound pretty impressive to Bible scholars and preachers who've never operated a tractor or combine. But most of the people hearing Jesus tell this story were poor peasants. Most of them had some experience farming. So they knew what the people writing and preaching about this story don't: There's nothing spectacular about the yield. One scholar who actually did some research on crop yields in first-century Palestine discovered that one seed producing 30, 60, or 100 plants is not a superabundant harvest (Scott, p. 358). A 30-, 60-, or 100-fold harvest was nothing to sneeze at. They were good enough harvests. A 100-fold harvest would be in the top 50% . . . unlike my SAT scores . . . but they wouldn't have made it into anybody's list of top ten harvests in Galilee.

In this parable of a not great but a good enough harvest, Jesus offers a word of profound hope. He says following me means your life will be a mixture of failure, miracle, and good enough (Scott, p. 361). We try something. We fail. God helps us stand back up. And the miracle is that we try again. The miracle is that maybe the tenth or twentieth time we try, something new happens. Something changes. Something works. It might not make us famous. It might not win us any prizes. It's not beyond-the-normal. But it is something. It is good. It is good enough. It brings more love, justice, and home to the world. Which means it's always good enough.

Failure. Miracle. Good enough. That's what being a Christian is about. That's what being the church is about. Not about being the biggest, richest, strongest, fastest, loudest, or funniest, or being the most attractive, outrageous, offensive, intelligent, and tragic. Jesus hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. He never got invited to the parties where anybody who was anybody was going to be. He didn't even live to see his 34th birthday. Lots of failure here. And, amidst the failure, there were miracles happening for anyone with eyes to see. The sick were healed. The lonely were loved. The people religion and government had no use for were welcomed into the new kingdom Jesus was building and he treated them like royalty. Healing, love, hospitality: it sounds pretty normal. Just like collecting socks and making sandwiches and donating peanut butter to a food bank sounds pretty normal. Just like being captured by a vision for a focused mission project everyone in the church can participate in sounds pretty normal. And what this parable tells us is that Jesus says these normal ways of following him are good enough. That's what he asks of us who want to follow him. Failure, miracle, and producing a harvest that is good enough: this is being Christian, this is being church. As one Bible scholar says, "The parable's structure leads to the expectation of abundant growth as a metaphor of God's mighty activity. But in the end the harvest is ordinary and everyday. In failure and everydayness lies the miracle of God's activity" (Scott, 362).

It's not about being the best anything. Or the biggest anything. Being a Christian is about knowing we'll fail and not giving up when we do. It's about noticing how God's miracles are all around us if we only pay attention. Being Christian is about producing a good enough harvest. Where there's more love and justice and home because the Jesus and his story have grabbed us. And we've said Yes to him.

Let us pray.

May [our] mind[s] come alive today
to the invisible geography
that invites [us] to new frontiers,
to break the dead shell of yesterdays,
to risk being disturbed and changed.

May [we] have the courage today
to live the li[ves] that [we] would love,
to postpone [our] dream[s] no longer
but do at last what [we] came here for
and waste [our] heart[s] on fear no more. --John O'Donohue, "A Morning Offering," To Bless the Space Between Us, Doubleday, 2008, p. 9
Amen.