Rocky

The religious allusions in this film were anything but subtle.

Lections: The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost (Lectionary 15), AD 2026 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the life of faith is persistence in doing the right thing, the good thing, the true thing, even when it doesn’t appear to produce the intended effect.

We have this tendency, especially in our own culture, to judge a person based on their success or lack thereof. Wealth, power, fame, we assume to be the result of virtue; whereas poverty, homelessness, unemployment, lead us to blame the victim. But it isn’t only money, and it isn’t only other people. We judge ourselves by our accomplishments: by our degrees or our salaries or our vacations or other milestones.

Youth provides a litany of successes. We grow, we change, we strengthen, we learn; we begin to discover who and what we want to be. The future lies open before us, flush with myriad possibilities. And when we do well, we like to think it’s because we’re good at it. Middle-age starts to change that, methinks. Here we first encounter real limits. Here we are weighted down with responsibilities, obligations, people who rely on us. Here we now must come to terms with our future being finite.

When I was young, I took successes—in my employment, in my relationships—very personally. If I ever wondered about my worth, I could simply point to what I’d done, what I’d accomplished. Surely these achievements spoke for themselves. But sooner or later all of us have to come to terms with failure. I took those very personally as well; for if things had gone well because I’d done a good job, what then did it mean when things turned out poorly? Whose fault was that? Surely mine as well.

And so I would try to do better, to learn from my mistakes. Sometimes that worked. There were aspects of my life that I could improve, both for myself and for others. We should always be learning, right? Always be growing. But sometimes things go south no matter how we try to fix them. And some of that might be our fault, but a lot of it seems like it’s not. It is possible to make no mistakes and still fail. That is not weakness; that’s life.

Jesus’ Parable of the Sower could be read in many ways; that’s part of what makes it a parable. But what strikes me most is how utterly unconcerned Jesus appears to be about results. You know how the story goes: a sower goes out to sow.

He starts flinging seed around willy-nilly, profligately, seemingly without a care in the world. Some he sows on a beaten path, and birds come along to gobble it down. Some he drops on rocky soil, which manage to sprout, but lack much root, and so quickly burn up in the sun. Some he scatters amongst thorns, which savagely strangle his seedlings. Yet some seeds fall on good soil, and these few bear good fruit—30, 60, 100-fold, such that the harvest comes in full.

Keep in mind that Jesus addresses this story to an agricultural society. They have to be laughing, shaking their heads; for what sort of fool would sow seed on rocks, on roads, or deep in weeds? Farmers can’t afford such waste. Yet in the narrative, the result remains assured. The sower goes out to sow, and he achieves his goal. The end was never in doubt. That’s the punchline, you see, what Tolkien would’ve called a eucatastrophe, a sudden unexpected joyous turn. That’s why people remembered the tale, and why we still tell it today.

Matthew then provides us with an interpretation. Jesus explains to His disciples that the seed in the parable is the Word, the Gospel, the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Sometimes the Word falls upon someone who cannot comprehend it, and the devil snatches the Good News from out of their hearts; in the way that those birds ate the seed on the path. Sometimes the Word is heard by those beset by the cares of this world and by the lure of wealth, such that the Word can bear no fruit; like those seeds choked off in the thorns.

Sometimes the Word is welcomed willfully, joyfully, enthusiastically, yet, as soon as trouble arises, that person falls away. They cannot endure the hardship demanded of a disciple. Such a one is like the rocky soil, where the seed can find no depth. But some seed falls on good soil—on those who hear and understand the Word—and that remaining fourth makes up for what three-quarters lacked. Here a single seed bears orders of magnitude more grain, propagating the Kingdom far and wide.

Now, the way we often teach this parable—or at least the way that I took it as a kid—is that you don’t want to be the rocky soil. You don’t want to be a barren path, or a thorny thicket. You want to be fertile soil, fruitful soil. You want to produce results. Otherwise you’re a failure. Otherwise Jesus won’t want you, right? So get out there and be good soil!

But here’s the thing. There’s a pun in the parable, or at least a lesson that we often overlook. And it’s in the rocky soil. Because there is a person in the Gospels, an Apostle, in fact, who perfectly matches the description that Jesus gives to us here. This character is impulsive, enthusiastic; he leaps before he looks. He loves Jesus so much that he tries to walk on water in a storm, and fails. He insists that he will never deny Jesus, that he would rather die than deny Jesus, and fails.

He is first among equals, the Prince of the Apostles, and as soon as trouble comes, he swings his sword once and runs away. He curses the Christ, and weeps when the cock crows. His father named him Simon bar Jonah, but Jesus gives to him a much more famous name: Peter, from the Latin petrus, from the Aramaic כֵּיפָא, both of which mean Rock. Jesus says that some are rocky soil, “just like this guy over here. In fact, I’m going to call you Rocky, just in case you didn’t get the reference.”

And that changes everything for me. That transforms the meaning of the parable. Because it isn’t about results. The end is never in doubt. The devil may snatch the Word away from some; it doesn’t matter. The cares of this world may prevent certain so-called Christians from living out their faith in any meaningful way; it doesn’t matter. And some poor schmuck like my buddy Peter might talk a big game, only to betray Jesus publicly when a young girl asks whether Peter even knows Him; it doesn’t matter. The Sower went out to sow, and by God, He reaped His harvest.

It’s the unholy trinity, the devil, the world, and the flesh, all vainly attempting to keep us from the love of God, and none of it will work. Nothing will avail them. The Kingdom will come, in spite of them. The Word works, no matter what it may encounter. Christ wins, because that is who He is: Shepherd of the lost sheep, the Passover Lamb of God. Look at what all He worked through St Peter, and just imagine what He can accomplish through you. Or in spite of you. Either way.

Our marching orders are not to be wealthy or famous or successful in the eyes of the world, but to love God with all we’ve got and love our neighbors as ourselves. That alone will suffice to lead us to the Cross. But thanks be to God, the Cross was never the end of the story.

I stand up here, week after week, year after year, preaching, writing, streaming, praying, wondering if anything I’ve ever done has done a lick of good, or whether I’m simply casting seed into the void. But it’s not about me; it never has been. Jesus saves, period: lives, souls, worlds; the past, the present, the future; all of it! Our faith, our trust, we place in Him. And when we have not faith ourselves, His Spirit puts it in us.

Faith is trust. That’s all it is. Faith in the faithfulness of Christ. We are called to persist in doing what is right, what is just, what is merciful, what is true. We are called to fling the Word like seed, profligately, foolishly, upon every sort of soil, every surface in our world. And the birds will come, and the thorns will grow, and the rocks will block the roots, and none of it will make even one damn bit of difference in the end. The seed shall grow, the harvest shall come, and the Sower shall reap His reward—for He will bring us home.

To hell with results. Leave them to Christ. And live your life in faith with joy.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

Blog: https://rdgstout.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RDGStout/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsqiJiPAwfNS-nVhYeXkfOA

X: https://twitter.com/RDGStout

St Peter’s Lutheran

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064841583987

Website: https://www.stpetersnymills.org/

Donation: https://secure.myvanco.com/L-Z9EG/home

Nidaros Lutheran

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100074108479275

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nidaroschurch6026