Latest / Pine Street Pod / “Soil and Soul: On Earth, Food, and What We're Hungry For” Week Four - Sowing Seeds, Bearing Fruit

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“Soil and Soul: On Earth, Food, and What We're Hungry For” Week Four - Sowing Seeds, Bearing Fruit · Pine Street Pod

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Pine Street Pod, a podcast from Pine Street Church in Boulder, Colorado.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're a spiritual community reimagining church and faith for the common good.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: These messages come from our Sunday gatherings, and wherever you're listening from, we're glad you're here.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Learn more and connect with us at Pine Streetchurch.net.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to follow or subscribe for new weekly episodes.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And now, here's this week's message.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm a heretic.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: And here's the strange part.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: I believe I need to be a heretic to remain a Christian.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what I mean about being a heretic.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Frankly, I think Jesus made a mistake.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: And traditional church teaching says that Jesus doesn't make mistakes.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: But I think the explanation of this parable was a mistake.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Now, interestingly, now all three Gospels record the explanation, but interestingly, the Gospel of Thomas, which didn't make it into our Bible, does have the parable of the sower without the explanation to the disciples.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Now, why does this matter?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because parables are a marvelous way of growing in spiritual wisdom.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: But only if we wrestle with them.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: We have to chew on a parable the way a cow chews on its cut.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: That struggle engages everything we've got.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: It engages our intellect.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: It engages our heart.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Only then do we receive the full measure of what a parable has to give.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it makes me think of if a Zen master teacher invited her students in in the morning and gave them all a koan, a Zen Koan, you know, one of those word puzzles that they struggle with, grapple with, in order to carry them further along the journey of enlightenment.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: All right?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: But then imagine if later in the afternoon the teacher calls a student over and says, let me explain the koan to you.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's ridiculous.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, many scholars who spend whole careers on determining what the actual sayings of Jesus are think the explanation actually came later, as the early church tried to answer many of the parables.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Now, personally, I believe Jesus spoke in parables precisely to make us work for our wisdom.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: You see, spoon-fed truth just doesn't transform us the same way, does it?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: So this morning, I want to invite us to look at the parable from a very different perspective.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: Nearly every week of the year, immediately following the service here, a group gathers in the room over there.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's the parlor, I like to call it the salon, where we explore the wisdom of the arts, spirituality, and great ideas to find greater meaning and mission in our life.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: And several of you here today regularly attend those gatherings.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this community calls itself an art asylum.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: When you hear that word asylum, what comes to mind?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Don't be shy, you can just shout it out.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: What comes to mind when you hear the word asylum?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Crazy people, hospital.
• 4:36
  unknown: Safe place.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Safe place, okay.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's true, some of us do indeed think of an institution of people who don't quite fit into polite society.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: And in a sense, that's us here at Pine Street Church.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, spiritually speaking, we do live a bit on the fringes, don't we?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we ask the questions that most people are either too busy to bother with or too uncomfortable to ask.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the art asylum gathering features an eclectic mix.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there are traditional Christians there, but there are Buddhists and there are mystics, there are seekers of all kinds.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: There are people who love art and history and philosophy and studying the great spiritual traditions of the world.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: The pine heads here at this church are also a spiritually eclectic mix.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: So let me ask you this.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Should we rename this community the Pine Street Asylum?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: I got a thumbs up.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: How many thumbs up?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: The Pine Street Asylum.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, some heads are like, what?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't know about that.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: But remember, an asylum, if someone shouted out, is also a place of refuge.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: It is a sanctuary.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now, regardless of all of this, I do believe that many of you here share a defining trait, and it is curiosity.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm going to call you right now to rest in that trait of curiosity.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: Last week at the Art Asylum Gathering, we spent a good long while looking at this painting, reflecting on it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's by Jean-Francois Millier.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Jean-Francois Millier.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's a magical sounding name, isn't it?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: And this painting is called The Angelus.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: A peasant couple, as you can see, pauses at the end of a workday to stop and pray.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And in the distance, you can see a church steeple.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: See it?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: It is there to signal to the faithful.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's a bell ringing, calling people at the end of the day to recite the Angelus Prayer.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't know how many of you have a Catholic background.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: If you do, you're probably familiar with the Angelus Prayer.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: But just in case you don't, here it is.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Hail Mary, full of grace.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord is with thee.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Millier was an unusual artist for his time, a kind of heretic in a very refined art world.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: While respectable painters filled their canvases with saints and heroes and mythical figures, Millier painted a very unfashionable subject.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Peasants.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: And he really didn't pretty them up either.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Peasants, then as now, were seen as lower, hardworking, but perhaps a little rough around the edges.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Outsiders who didn't fit sophisticated society, so cultural heretics, you might say, as well.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Millier painted them because he felt like one of them.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: He grew up among the salt of the earth farmers in rural Normandy, and he never quite fit in with the cultured elite of Paris.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: He once declared, a peasant I was born, and a peasant I will die.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: Take a very good look at this fellow.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Would any of us invite him out for coffee and a long chat?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Be honest.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: When I look at him, my conscience is pricked.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Looking at him reminds me of the words of Jesus, when you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Our Buddhist friends might hear an echo of something similar, that every being, however humble, is worthy of our full attention and compassion.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like you to spend a quiet moment with this community that you see here.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And imagine what kind of people they are.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Are you drawn to them in any way?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Is this a community that you would like to be a part of?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: This is going to be the first of three moments of reflection and contemplation.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think of this community?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: If you need to close your eyes after you have that picture in your mind, go ahead and do that.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Moment of reflection now.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Some of you are familiar with that scriptural story.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Now, in the art gallery behind you, there are some images of sewers.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: We can think of them too as misfits, living at the edges of society.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Heretics, even.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Do you ever feel like one of them?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: A social misfit?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: A spiritual misfit?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps like me, a heretic.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like to try a little exercise that I know all of you are going to love.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Pair up.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Find somebody close to you and just pair up.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: Go ahead and do that now.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Move if you have to.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: All right, I want you to each take turns repeating after me.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: Select one person to start.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Alright, you have your person?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you've got the person to start.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that person repeat after me.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I feel like a misfit.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Is that alright with you?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: And now I want the other person to repeat the same thing after me.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I feel like a misfit.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Is that alright with you?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And now I want all of us together to repeat after me.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's alright by me.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't want you to be any other way.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for humoring me.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: What a wonderful group, community we have.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, to me, this community right here might be this Pine Head community right here at this church.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: You see, we are spiritual outsiders, not quite fit for polite traditional religion.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: We are a bit rebellious, are we not?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: A bit free-thinking, asking too many questions.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Some of us are too outspoken, too welcoming of the stranger, way too inclusive.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I think most of us just think we're simply loving our neighbor as ourselves.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: All right, I haven't forgotten about the sewer.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: I just wanted you to know a little bit about the artist Millier, because it helps us see what he's doing here.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: In this painting, Millier was a heretic twice over.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Artistically, for painting such a crude subject, but biblically as well.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: The gospel explanation puts the spotlight on the soil.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Remember his explanation, Jesus' explanation?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Which makes me wonder why we always call it the parable of the sower.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't we call it the parable of the various types of soil?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Does that not have a ring to it?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Millier puts the focus squarely on the sower.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: He takes the seed of Jesus' parable and asks us to look at it from an entirely new perspective.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look at this man for a moment.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: His skin is browned and leathery from long days in the sun.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: But notice his vigor, his energy.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost as if he's listening to dance tunes on earbuds that we quite can't see.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: And look, he's also strong and he's purposeful.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: His stride and the swing of his arm have a rhythm to them.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: And notice how he seems to connect earth and sky.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: In this painting, scattering seed becomes something larger than a simple farm chore.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: It becomes the labor through which human beings take part in the renewal of life.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, he fills up the whole frame.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: We barely notice the field.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: And off in the distance, there is a man with two oxen plowing, and we barely notice them, too.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: Millier has shifted our attention entirely from the soil to the sower.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: Friends, this is what I think is the great gift of those people who are misfits and heretics that we call artists.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: They shift our perspective so it never can harden in one place.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: And every time we adjust our view, we grow.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: We grow in wisdom, we grow in our ability to see through another person's eyes, so we grow in empathy, and we grow in grace.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd like you to imagine yourself as a sower.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: This will be the second of our reflections.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of sower are you?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: For example, the Pine Street band here are a kind of sower spreading the seeds of wondrous music.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the video we saw earlier about the San Lorenzo community trying to save the place that they call home, that's a seed spread by another type of sower.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: So in this moment of reflection, ask yourself the question: what kind of sower are you?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Take a deep breath.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: Close your eyes if you have to.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: And contemplate that question.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: A teacher sows them in a young person's mind.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's the gardener, there's a nurse, a neighbor who shows up with a casserole, all sowers, a person with a smile of grace, or a message of love.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: All sewers.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now I know some of us may not be comfortable being sewers of a message.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: We don't want to push our ideas, our values, our beliefs on anyone.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I understand that.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I'll be honest with you.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: I too have been a sewer of messages, but a careless one.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: I've reached actually into the wrong bag, a bag of rocks.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Pulled out rocks and flung them around, hitting people, sometimes in the face, sometimes in the eyes.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, it pays to be a conscientious sower, especially when our message is one of love and acceptance.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm asking you, please don't let the fear of giving offense keep your bag closed.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because even if we stumble now and then with our words, we'll be spreading a lot of good seeds along the way.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: A year ago, many of you know I was in the hospital, and many of you showed up and you shared your love and support.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you prayed for me.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: And when I got home, you brought me meals until I was strong enough to look after myself.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: There are so many people in Boulder County who need a community of love like ours.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I hope at least some of us are willing to take the risk of telling others about our loving community.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm fairly certain many will receive it as the golden seed that they've been looking for.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: And please hear this.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: If we don't sow, the field is not going to just simply lie there empty.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Other sowers will always come along, scattering, some of them, what might be seeds of weeds and thorns.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Some will even scatter rocks on purpose.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: If we seed the field to them, we risk a harvest of little to nothing for ourselves and for our children and for our grandchildren.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: That brings me finally to an artist that you all know, I think.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: This sketch is by Vincent van Gogh.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: Vincent saw Millier as his great artistic and spiritual mentor.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: He called him Father Millier, a kind of secular saint, a counselor, the ultimate guide.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: To Vincent Millier's peasants weren't just good paintings, they to him were revelation.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: That says something important about Van Gogh's religious imagination.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: More and more he looked for the sacred, not in church imagery, but in the ordinary world itself.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: He loved Millier because Millier could take everyday rural labor and fill it with spiritual meaning.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Vincent wrote that Millier had painted Christ's teaching, even when he wasn't painting anything explicitly religious.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: All right, for this next painting, you might need to shield your eyes a bit.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: It is quite a blast considering the previous one.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: Just take a moment now with this work.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: This is my favorite painting of the sewer.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Vincent has taken Millier's figure and zoomed way out.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: And he's flooded it with color.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: A great violet and green field, a golden sky, a magnificent sun.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's a warm painting, soothing to the soul.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, can you feel some of that warmth?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Look at it.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: There's a message in that sensation of warmth.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: And this painting isn't Vincent answering only his hero Millier.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Vincent, you see, grew up in the church.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: His father was a Dutch Reformed pastor.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Vincent himself studied theology.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: He even preached several times on Sunday mornings.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: And he planned to become a missionary.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: So in this painting, he is also answering Jesus' parable from the gospel, answering it directly.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: He just has a curious take on it.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Now, in this work, the sower is doing something utterly ordinary.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: He's walking through a field, scattering seed, and yet Van Gogh makes it almost cosmic.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: That enormous sun.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: The sun is huge.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost like an icon.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: The human, the field, the golden light saturating all of it.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Van Gogh here has done something unconventional.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: He hasn't painted God.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: He has painted God's energy and light.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: Do you see that?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: He takes a farmer doing one of the plainest jobs imaginable and makes him almost a priest.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: The sower scatters seeds out of love.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: So the field becomes a sanctuary.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And planting becomes a ritual.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: And the sun, the sun becomes an icon of divine love.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: So isn't this the image of the spiritual life?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: We teach hoping wisdom will take root, and we love without controlling how our love is received.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: And we create, not knowing whether our work will outlive us.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: We plant ideas whose fruit may not appear until long after we're gone.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: A meaningful life asks for both effort and trust.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: We have responsibilities, but we don't control the outcome.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: So here's the progression.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: The gospel parable asks us to look at the soil.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Millier asks us to look at the sower.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Vincent pans way out and shows us everything.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Soil, sower, the whole living world that they share.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: And in doing so, he moves the parable from just simple moral psychology into cosmology.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: The question is no longer just what kind of soil am I?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: It becomes what does it mean to take part in the mysterious processes of life?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: That brings me to our third and final reflection exercise.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to imagine yourself, your heart and mind more specifically, as the soil.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: Just as the gospel passage explained.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And feel, literally, feel that blue and green field within you.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: So go ahead, take a deep breath.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: Close your eyes if it helps.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: Feel your heart softening.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Softening so that it becomes more receptive.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: Offering your talents, your knowledge, your experience, your passions.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: What type of seeds are you scattering?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: What type of sower are you being called to be?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: And feel the warmth as a sacred presence.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Giving it whatever name you are comfortable with.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Knowing that warmth and the radiant light of it shines over this world and over everything we do in it.