KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
May 25, 2008
Planting Stories
Matthew 13:1-23
I love stories
- I am basically a story teller.
- The fundamental job of leaders is to hear, to tell, and to reshape the story of the people. (Alban – Narrative Leadership)
- The narrative character of the Bible (The Story of God – Lodahl ; The Story We Find Ourselves In – McClaren)
- The essential narrative character of all of life
We go back again and again to good stories.
- traditional folk stories (sleeping beauty; little red hen; princess in distress)
- good movies (While You Were Sleeping; Braveheart; Monty Python; Princess Bride; Star Wars; Gone with the Wind; Casa Blanca)
- like pausing to look at one of those great works of art; there is something in the art that shapes us; beyond logic, beyond reason; it is intangible – impossible to measure
Jesus was possibly the best story teller who ever lived.
For the next 3 weeks, we will be preaching on Jesus’ stories (parables) from Matthew 13.
Today we will discuss the first parable in Matthew 13.
Read Matthew 13:1-23.
Why parables?
Disciples: “Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?” (13:10).
- Why not just tell them what you want to tell them? Why not just state the facts or make your point? Why all the stories?
Jesus: We are working with a mystery here. (“secrets” = mysteries)
Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God:
- “The Word of God has mystery built into its very heart” (xiii).
- God’s revelation both reveals and conceals (16)
- “Revelation should not be thought of either as that which makes God known nor that which leaves God unknown, but rather as the overpowering light that renders God known as unknown” (17).
- “Revelation … is the site where the impenetrable secret of God transforms us” (17).
Brian McClaren Secret Message of Jesus:
- Jesus: “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand” (13:9). “Don’t just listen with your ears, listen with your heart. Don’t just hear my words, hear my deeper meaning. Don’t listen for the literal meaning accessible to your rational mind; seek deeper for a meaning that requires you to make a personal investment of your sincere effort and your imagination” (44).
- Parables “hide the truth so that we need to do more than simple ‘hear with our ears’ or ‘read with our eyes’ on a literal level; we have to invest ourselves in an imaginative search for meaning – a meaning that will surprise us when we discover (dis-cover or unhide) it for ourselves” (45).
- “Parables entice their hearers into new territory. … When a parable confounds them, it invites them to ask questions” (45).
- Parables transform us from experts, know-it-alls, closed-minded adults who have life and God all figured out … into little children. The parable makes us teachable again.
- Why is this important?
- When Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God, he wants the transformation of hearts and minds. He does not want to pass on information. He wants to cause transformation. (46).
Summary so far: Why parables?
- Facts and statements are outside us.
- Parables transform us into not-knowers, people who need to learn.
- If we accept that position of a humble child, the parable works in us and grows in us and transforms us from the inside out.
What’s up with this parable?
N.T. Wright: This is “a parable about parables.”
- Jesus is the Farmer scattering seed.
- What is the seed?
- The parables – the story or the stories of the Kingdom of God
Stages of growth.
- Planting
- Hard ground = hard hearts. All of these stories just stay on the surface.
- First step – let the story of God’s Kingdom in. Admit that you have something to learn from Jesus.
- Taking Root
- Quick response, no follow through
- Like the Palm Sunday worshipers who shouted “Crucify” on Good Friday
- Scandalized or squeezed out
- Growing and developing
- Needs space
- Can easily get crowded out
- Our weeds:
- Cares of life
- Lure of wealth (fishing lure)
- Barclay: “Second best is always the worst enemy of the best.”
The story of God is ever-expansive, ever-growing, ever-demanding yet always able to be snuffed out.
- Peter Rollins: “Christianity involves a process of journeying and becoming…. Being a Christian always involves becoming a Christian.” Conversion never stops. (5-6)
- Let the story
- Take shape in our lives
- Expand more and more
- Take over our garden
- Lead us (and our garden) in unexpected ways
What is the result of this story growing in us?
- beautifully productive 30, 60, 100 x
- What does it produce?
- Grain produces more grain.
- The stories of the Kingdom produce more stories of the Kingdom.
How do we live this?
We become the story – a living drama of the story of God.
- Peter Rollins: We become living “icons.”
- “Make me like Charlie.” – story
- Paul: We become “the aroma of Christ.”
- Rollins: “Instead of religious discourse being a type of drink designed to satisfy our search for answers, Jesus made his teaching salty, evoking thirst. … In a world where people believe they are not hungry, we must not offer them food but rather an aroma that helps them desire the food that we cannot provide. … we must embrace the idea that we are also called to be hints of the divine” (37).
Example of a church that let the story of God grow in them:
Burke Presbyterian Church (http://www.burkepreschurch.org/)
- Virginia, USA
- 20 year partnership with sister church in Kibwezi, Kenya (school, library, meal centers, supplies for the church, letters and emails, mission trips)
- One of the pastors tells a beautiful story about how the story of God merged with the stories around her and became something beautiful:
- Pastor read this story in New York Times:
- One family.
- Father died of AIDS.
- Older son sent off to work with a relative to get food for the family.
- Mother also had AIDS.
- She taught her 9 year old son life lessons before she died.
- How to care for the baby in the family
- How to get food
- Last thing she taught: how to bury her when she died
- Pastor: “It was as if God was speaking out of those pages to me: you need to start an orphanage in Kibwezi.”
- Other stories started merging:
- Email from a church member: 40 million AIDS orphans in Africa. What can we do?
- American student returned from Kibwezi with a story: Director of school has 2 orphans already living in his house.
- Woman from Kibwezi church: “What are we going to do with the children coming to the church?” – AIDS orphans who were just showing up.
Now, 4 years later, 25 orphans are being cared for because of this partnership.
This church let the story of God into their hearts.
They let the story take root in them.
They gave space for the story of God to grow and grow and grow – sometimes in unexpected ways.
Now they are experiencing abundant fruit.
What will happen if you let the story of God grow in you?
What will happen if we let the story of God grow in our church?
