Sunday, July 12, 2020 ~ Pentecost 6

Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

© 2020, Dr. Tamilio

Prof. Ellis Fowler.  He is one of my favorite people.  He is not a former professor of mine.  He is a fictitious character.  He appears in the original Twilight Zone: season 3, episode 37 to be exact.  Played by the late Donald Pleasence, Fowler teaches literature at the preparatory Rock Spring School for Boys.  It is the end of the fall term (just before Christmas), and “Old Weird Beard” (that is the nickname students have given their aged teacher) “Old Weird Beard” has been called to the headmaster’s office.  He hasn’t read the recent letter from the trustees informing him that he is being forced to retire after 51 years of service.

Prof. Fowler returns to his home on campus and, reflecting on his career, believes that he did not have a shred of influence on any of the boys he taught for the past half century.  He sinks into despair and contemplates suicide.  With the snow falling around him outside the front of the school, he reads the inscription beneath a statue of the legendary educator Horace Mann.  The words are Mann’s and read, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”  Prof. Fowler pulls a revolver from his jacket pocket and points the gun to his head.  Just then, the sound of unscheduled school bells grabs his attention.  He goes to his classroom and finds the ghosts of former pupils seated there.  They have gathered from the dead to thank Old Weird Beard.  Some of them died performing heroic acts in World War II.  One student died from radiation exposure in his quest, as a researcher, to find a cure for Leukemia.  All of them quoted bits of poetry that Fowler taught them — words that gave them the strength, courage, and fortitude they needed in their respective moments of crisis.

The episode, entitled “The Changing of the Guard,” ends with Prof. Fowler accepting his retirement, knowing that he touched the lives of others even though he did not see the fruits of his labor.  He cites that quote from Horace Mann again, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”  Then, he says to his housekeeper, “Well, I didn’t win the victories, Mrs. Landers, but I helped others to win them.  So, perhaps, in some small measure, they are victories that I can share.”

We never really know how we will influence others, do we?  Even the smallest action on our part — or at least what we think is the smallest action — may have a profound influence on someone else.  To some extent, that is what today’s Gospel Lesson (“The Parable of the Sower”) is all about.

As disciples of Christ, we are sowers of the Word.  Granted, the passage is really about us being hearers of the Word, and how it is only the ones who truly hear it — meaning those who take its lessons to heart — it is only those who produce a bumper crop.  We need to be deep soil people who nurture the Word and live by it, taking its lessons seriously and living by them.

But there is another lesson here.  Even though Jesus is the one who plants the Word in this parable, we are planters of the Word as well.  We, too, are called to proclaim the truth that is the Gospel.  Like Prof. Fowler, we do not always see the fruit of our planting.  Or maybe we are like a different old man: Old Man Thomas.  Have you ever heard his story?[1]

The twentieth century British author H. L. Gee tells the following story.  In the church where he worshipped there was a lonely old man: Old Man Thomas.  He had outlived all his friends and hardly anyone knew him.  When Thomas died, Gee had the feeling that there would be no one at his funeral so he decided to go, so that there might be someone to follow the old man to his last resting-place.

There was no one else and it was a wild, wet day.  The funeral reached the cemetery; and at the gate there was a soldier waiting.  He was an officer, but on his raincoat there were no rank badges.  The soldier came to the graveside for the ceremony; when it was over, he stepped forward and before the open grave swept his hand to a salute that might have been given to a king.  H. L. Gee walked away with this soldier and, as they walked, the wind blew the soldier’s raincoat open to reveal the shoulder badges of a brigadier.

The brigadier said to Gee: “You will perhaps be wondering what I am doing here.  Years ago, Thomas was my Sunday school teacher.  I was a wild lad and a sore trial to him.  He never knew what he did for me, but I owe everything I am or will be to old Thomas, and today I had to come to salute him at the end.”

I’m sure that Old Thomas didn’t know the long-lasting effects his guidance gave the lad who became such a high-ranking British officer.  Many who sew the Word of God do not see the results of their labors either.

Again, although today’s parable depicts Jesus as the sower, we are sowers of the Word as well.  How do you plant the Word?  How does the Gospel manifest itself in what you do and say?

Dr. Earl Thompson was a professor of mine in seminary.  He taught pastoral care and counseling.  He always used to say, “There are no time-outs.”  He meant that every conversation that we have with others — every interaction — is an opportunity for ministry.  Pastors do not punch clocks.  They are always on duty.  I would stretch what Prof. Thompson said and argue that all Christians are always on duty.  If you are a Christian, then you are never not a Christian.  The most mundane conversation, even talking about the weather with a stranger, is an opportunity to sew the Word.

You know, maybe we keep ourselves so busy and absorb ourselves with social media and our iPhones, because we are terrified of facing the brokenness that we all carry around.  We are culture that thirsts for real, genuine relationships — for someone with a listening ear who will simply hear our story and hold us in our most trying times.  That is becoming more and more of a rarity.  Maybe that is what Prof. Thompson also meant by saying that there are no timeouts.  The world is filled with people who just want to be heard, and to hear a world of hope to dissipate the bad news that surrounds us.  Maybe you are that person who can sew Christ’s Word of hope in their hearts.

Worship is the time when we gather together to gather seeds.  We put them in the satchel that is our hearts.  We go into the world flinging those seeds far and wide.  We may never know the fruit of our labor, but like the small ripples of waves caused by a small stone thrown into still water, they move, ever so slowly, to shores we will never see.  They are felt by the recipient — and they may make all the difference in the world.  Amen.

[1] The following is adapted from William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), 62-63.