Seventh Sunday after Pentecost July 12, 2026 with The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista

https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp10_RCL.html

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Little things. We get the word parable from the Greek parabole, which literally means to throw alongside, to compare. Parables sketch out a picture of the fleeting moment, touching upon only the most relevant details to elucidate a moral lesson or highlight a religious principle. The Talmud, the collection of rabbinic teachings on Jewish scripture, provides some insight into the purpose of a parable. Do not let the parable appear of little worth to you, it says. Through a parable, a person can fathom the words of Torah. Consider the king who has lost a gold coin or a precious pearl in his house, may he not find it by the light of a wick worth no more than a penny. The parable is the wick, a tiny sliver of light through which we can understand foundational principles of the faith. In comparison to the declarations and manifestos of our time, parables might strike you as insignificant, but they are powerful precisely because of their simplicity. They invite us to wander alongside the disciples throughout history. What does this story mean for me right here, right now? Hear then the parable of the sower. You have heard this story before. You may think you already know the point. Jesus, however, begins both this parable and its explanation with a simple command. Hear, listen. I have something to tell you about the kingdom of God. I have something to tell you about what it means to receive the good news. A few months ago, I was catching up with a dear friend, a therapist by training. We were discussing the lessons we were learning in our work, how we were growing in our capacity to care for others. As he was talking, he compared his inner world to a garden. There were areas in his life that were finally, after much painstaking effort, bearing fruit. He talked about how exercising silence had made him a better listener, how confronting his insecurities had helped him identify how to trust his gut better. Fields that had once been rocky now had a healthy layer of fertile soil. Patches of land full of weeds and thorns had been pruned so that seeds could finally grow. I love the way that he took this parable, unintentionally, mind you, because we weren't talking about the Bible at all, and he turned it into a metaphor about his inner life. In our passage today, Jesus himself explains that some people are the rocky soil, how they lack the moral commitment to sustain the work for the long haul once persecution and struggle come knocking. But it is also true that all of us are this person sometimes, persevering in one moment and flailing in the next, bearing fruit in abundance in one season, struggling through a parched desert in another. The cares of the world and the lure of wealth are ever present. If we are to receive the word of God, we must be constantly receptive to it. If we are to bear fruit in God's kingdom, we must put in the work in season and out of season, ever ready to tell the truth about ourselves and be God's light in a broken and weary world. The call of the disciple is to tend to their very own patch of land. And this is not a one-time decision, but a lifetime commitment. Let anyone with ears to hear listen. Growing in faith requires constant attention. It demands curiosity, not judgment. It requires a willingness to change our mind, learn new things, and keep growing. Alison Gopnick, a psychologist and faculty member at UC Berkeley, spends a lot of time thinking about how humans learn new things. In her research around children's cognition, she draws a distinction between spotlight and lantern consciousness. Spotlight consciousness refers to the way many of us learn as adults. We can shut out the trivial things in order to focus on a task or topic for extended periods of time. We know how to select the relevant information our senses give us and how to ignore the rest. The way our clothes feel, for instance, or that ache in your shoulder, the background noise in a coffee shop. Young children, in contrast, struggle with this kind of focus. Their consciousness often works more like a lantern, shining a light on all the sensory data available, whether it's relevant or not. You might be tempted to think that this is a major downside of lantern consciousness. But the truth is that it is the very nature of its superpower. Lantern consciousness is a state of cognitive plasticity. It is what makes children so darn good at learning new things. When we enter a state of lantern consciousness, we can make connections between pieces of information that we might otherwise ignore. Synapses fire all over the place rather than through the well-honed, focused pathways of the average adult. This is what Jesus' parables do for us that a simple statement of fact cannot. They jolt us out of our usual neural pathways. They invite us to see the world with new eyes. Most of us would like Jesus to just tell it like it is, to make it plain. We want a well-documented, footnoted explanation of why we are here and what we must do. But that is not what Jesus does. Instead, he tells stories. The parables do not spotlight a particular doctrine or teaching, rather, they are a lantern, a tiny wick of fire and light. They jolt us out of cruise control so that we may admire the lay of the land. But today I would simply like to leave you with this. What does this parable mean to you? What new word of hope is Jesus planting within you? Where is God calling you to grow? May we remain open to our rabbis' teaching, and may we continue to plant seeds in fertile soil, trusting the God in whom we live and breathe and find our being to take care of the rest. Amen.