This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:
UK arrests its own soldiers for murder
Royal Marine in Afghanistan
Acts: 24:24-25:12
Paul Held in Custody
24 Some days later when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, he sent for Paul and heard him speak concerning faith in Christ Jesus.25And as he discussed justice, self-control, and the coming judgement, Felix became frightened and said, ‘Go away for the present; when I have an opportunity, I will send for you.’26At the same time he hoped that money would be given to him by Paul, and for that reason he used to send for him very often and converse with him.
27 After two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus; and since he wanted to grant the Jews a favour, Felix left Paul in prison.
Paul Appeals to the Emperor
25Three days after Festus had arrived in the province, he went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem2where the chief priests and the leaders of the Jews gave him a report against Paul. They appealed to him3and requested, as a favour to them against Paul,* to have him transferred to Jerusalem. They were, in fact, planning an ambush to kill him along the way.4Festus replied that Paul was being kept at Caesarea, and that he himself intended to go there shortly.5‘So’, he said, ‘let those of you who have the authority come down with me, and if there is anything wrong about the man, let them accuse him.’
6 After he had stayed among them for not more than eight or ten days, he went down to Caesarea; the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought.7When he arrived, the Jews who had gone down from Jerusalem surrounded him, bringing many serious charges against him, which they could not prove.8Paul said in his defence, ‘I have in no way committed an offence against the law of the Jews, or against the temple, or against the emperor.’9But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favour, asked Paul, ‘Do you wish to go up to Jerusalem and be tried there before me on these charges?’10Paul said, ‘I am appealing to the emperor’s tribunal; this is where I should be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you very well know.11Now if I am in the wrong and have committed something for which I deserve to die, I am not trying to escape death; but if there is nothing to their charges against me, no one can turn me over to them. I appeal to the emperor.’12Then Festus, after he had conferred with his council, replied, ‘You have appealed to the emperor; to the emperor you will go.’
Pilate washes his hands: Duccio
Luke trusts the reader to recognise that Jesus’ great disciple is here placed in a similar peril to that of his Master and at the hands of the same people, his own, for the sake of the gospel. In the case of Jesus, the Roman authority gave the Jewish leaders their wish, that he should be crucified. Festus is minded to get rid of Paul in a similar way, but is prevented by the boldness of Paul’s appeal to the Emperor. Luke means the reader to undertsand, that just as Jesus obeyed the will of God in going to his death on the cross, so Paul obeys God’s will by refusing death at the hands of the Jewish leaders and insisting on going to Rome.
It’s a good example of how the “imitation of Christ” demanded of disciples is not a mere repetition of his life, deeds and suffering, but rather a cretaive obedience to God, in the spirit of Jesus.
Luke 8:1-15
Some Women Accompany Jesus
8Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him,2as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,3and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them* out of their resources.
The Parable of the Sower
4 When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable:5‘A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up.6Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture.7Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it.8Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.’ As he said this, he called out, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’
The Purpose of the Parables
9 Then his disciples asked him what this parable meant.10He said, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets* of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak* in parables, so that
“looking they may not perceive, and listening they may not understand.”
The Parable of the Sower Explained
11 ‘Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.12The ones on the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.13The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away.14As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.15But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.
Sower: Van Gogh
Luke is following his source the Gospel of Mark in the account of the famous parable. Like Mark he thinks that Jesus’ stories were testing: you could only grasp their meaning by entering the kingdom of God, that is, by becoming a disciple. Jesus is depicted as interpreting the parable for the disciples. My own guess is that this reflects the experience of Luke’s generation of believers, that the stories were opaque and needed the grace of the risen Lord to make them clear; rather than the practice of the earthly Jesus. After all, why bother telling a story if you’re going to have to explain it? It would be like explaining a joke. Luke thinks that sometimes God’s word is only truly intended for those who want it; for others it will seem meaningless.
The parable of the sower becomes a model of this process; the various poor soils are images of people who will not genuinely accept God’s word, while the good soil is an image of the true disciple. The group of disciples mentioned at the start of this section, including the women, who (scandalously) have given up their home lives to serve the gospel, are those who “hold the word fast in a good and honest heart and bear fruit with patient endurance”. For Luke the existence of the group who listen to Jesus and understand him is vital: they will become the community of the Risen Lord.
Many scholars have noted how a story which purports to be about a sower becomes in its official interpreation a story about different kinds of soil. My guess is that lurking behind this interpretation is a story in which Jesus gives a picture of the freshness of the gospel springtime in the which the Sower scatters the seeds of the kingdom, confident that there will be a harvest. If, noting the evils of the contemporary world and the weakness of those who stand for goodness, we ask Jesus what’s going on, he’ll tell us, “Listen! A sower went forth to sow seed….”
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