Proper 10, Year A 2023: Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

  If you drive east on Interstate 80, you will eventually pass my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska. Whether you go through or around the town, day or night you will see the state capitol building. There’s a city ordinance keeping the heights of surrounding buildings from blocking the view of the 400 foot tall building, and at night you can see the blinking red light on top of the dome to make sure aircraft don’t hit it. Above the light is the 19 ½ foot tall, 9 ½ ton bronze sower. He is sowing grain in the traditional method of hand sowing. Standing on a 12 ½ foot tall pedestal of shocks of wheat and corn, the sower is meant as a symbol of the importance of agriculture to the development of civilization and its importance in Nebraska. From the ground, the sower doesn’t seem quite so massive. Every so often there’s a story in local news about the person who has to climb up the dome to change out the red light bulb, but most of the time the sower is just up there, looking down over the town.

I lived in that town for 25 years. Every time I wanted to go to the university campus or downtown I had to drive by the capitol building - a building I would eventually work in. I eventually stopped really seeing the building. Because when you see something over and over again, you may eventually develop “familiarity blindness” to it. It’s the reason why political campaigns tell their supporters to take down their yard signs for a while between the primary and general election: so people will notice the signs again because it’s something different; something new all over again.

In the same way as we can become “familiarity blind” to buildings or yard signs, we can go “familiarity blind” to our faith. This is a particular danger in a liturgical church like ours, where a written liturgy can become rote if we let it. It’s one of the reasons why, at Grace and St. Stephen’s, we change Eucharistic prayers and service music so often - at least seasonally - and why the prayers of the people aren’t from one of the forms on page 383. I love the Book of Common Prayer. I love how it binds us together as Episcopalians - how I could go to any Episcopal Church and find a service using the same recognizable liturgies, just with a local flavor added to it. I love how much scripture is embedded in it. And I love how there are so many prayers in it for so many of life’s situations - beginning on page 814 there are 70 different prayers for everything from For Sound Government to For Social Justice to For the Victims of Addiction. And there’s something to be said for knowing something so well that it becomes a part of you. When I was in labor with my oldest, it went much longer than anticipated and I found myself praying the Magnificat - “my soul doth magnify the Lord” - over and over again. If I hadn’t prayed that canticle so often at evening prayer, it wouldn’t have been there to give me comfort when I needed words I didn’t have myself. This is what a lifetime in a faith tradition can do at its best, and approaches what Jesus is talking about in today’s parable of the sower: when we let our faith take root and feed it, it forms us from the inside out.

At the same time, when we know something too well, when we rely too much on things we already know, it can become stale and repetitive, much like a pianist who plays from muscle memory and then freezes when the mind reengages. We can run the danger of saying prayers without thinking; not praying them. When I was a hospital chaplain, a colleague told a story of an on-call night where a patient in the emergency department asked to pray the Lord’s Prayer together. My colleague made it about halfway through the prayer…and then he drew a blank. He couldn’t remember what came next. He’d said that prayer so many times that he relied on his memory too much and his rote saying of the prayer betrayed him.

This is why it’s so important to constantly be doing new things in all aspects of our lives. It keeps us sharp and enthused. It makes us think about why we’re doing things and if they’re in line with who we are, or who we think we are. This was one thing we focused on when planning our outdoor worship during Covid - is this way of worship true to who we are? New ways of doing things and new people to keep us fresh. New blood, in any organization, is good for a couple of reasons. One, the people already in the organization have to be able to articulate who they are and why they do what they do. Second, the energy that new members can bring - the “zeal of the convert.” - can infuse new life to the body.

In today’s parable of the sower, Jesus is primarily addressing new converts: Jews who have recently heard “the word of the kingdom”. The gospel of Matthew was written around the year 80-90, give or take a decade. So while there were some Christians who were born into the faith, unlike many modern Christians who can trace their heritage back many generations, this audience would have traced back to, at most, their great grandparents. At this time in history, there were still far more converts than those born into the faith. And even for those who were born into the faith, what it was to be a Christian was still developing. The Nicene Creed wouldn’t be authorized for another 300 years.

The zeal of the convert is a studied phenomenon. This is the idea that a convert to new beliefs is likely to show more devotion to those new beliefs than someone who has inherited their beliefs. In 2009 Pew Research Center conducted a study where they asked members of various Christian denominations the same questions, and then broke down the responses based on whether the respondents were converts or lifelong members of the denomination. Among the Episcopal respondents, there were several statistically significant differences among the agree-disagree statements. When given the statement “religion is very important”, 61% of converts agreed, with 43% of lifelong Episcopalians agreeing. 43% of converts said they attend religious services weekly compared to 33% of lifelong Episcopalians. And when asked if they pray daily, the difference was 54-45%, again in favor of converts. And in a less scientifically sound Twitter poll that’s been going around this week, 81% of Episcopalians (who found this guy on Twitter and chose to click on the poll, so take with a grain of salt) self-identified as “convert”, leaving 19% as “cradle”. This is good, if our mission truly is to spread the Gospel! And there’s an energy behind new ideas. A passion for learning as much as you can. We who are already part of the community have a responsibility to bring as much water, as much good soil, as we have in order to keep the energy from burning out or falling away.

In the Episcopal Church today, we have a beautiful combination of lifelong Episcopalians and those who came into the denomination later in life. When we look towards each other with new life, we can find much to talk about and many people to serve and love. Not only did Jesus feel compelled to explain this in the parable, something that he does not often do, but it is our insurance policy against familiarity blindness. So much to see and do that our risk plunges. At our best, our combination of being both Catholic and reformed results in a tent big enough for everyone to learn, grow, and pray together. We can help each other over the rocky ground, through the thorns, and into the fertile soil together. Amen.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/10/28/the-zeal-of-the-convert-is-it-the-real-deal/