What I've got as of 9:30pm. We'll see what actually gets preached tomorrow. :)
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
A sower went out to sow. Perhaps it is no conscience that this text always comes around in the lectionary cycle mid-summer. When the corn is knee high, and the tomatoes are ripening on the vine.
This summer, I’ve been vicariously growing a garden by keeping up with my friend’s garden via a web page online and through emails. Her excitement is palpable—from her preparations of the soil—mixing the beautiful rich soil from the ND Red River Valley with the sandy mixture that makes up her new yard in Chicago, to the seed planting party, to photos of the seeds growth and the nights she spends sitting out among the plants anticipating their development and the harvest. It is a joy to experience...from a far.
It has been many years since I attempted a garden. When we first moved into our parsonage in Fargo, I wanted to give it a try. I could have consulted books and made a plan…instead I called my grandparents who lived an hour away. I enlisted a parishioner to till up the soil and picked out some seeds I thought would be fun to grow. When my grandparents arrived to help, what was to be a little garden, became a whole big event…and a memory I will cherish. At the time, I just stood back and watched them work. My grandpa has a certain way he likes to plant a garden. (EXPAND ON) “Precision” doesn’t quite fully explain it. We measured and planned. We stopped short of getting out the level to see if the rows were straight. We made perfect circles for the cucumbers. The tomatoes and peppers are evenly spaced. We didn’t waste or lose one seed. The garden produced a bounty and it was beautiful...but between the weed and the harvesting, I haven't attempted much beyond a flower bed since. (But, that is for another sermon.)
A sower went out to sow.
In Matthew’s Parable of the Sower, it isn’t any old farmer that goes out to sow. This is, of course, the Sower of the Universe….the one who created light and oxygen and soil and seeds. This sower not only plants cucumber and watermelon seeds…but also plants seeds of grace and forgiveness, justice and mercy, deep within creation…waiting patiently for the good growth to sprout.
While my friend may reflect some of God’s joy at watching these seeds grow….God the sower does not plant seed quite the same way as any farmer or gardener I know of, especially not my grandparents. From this parable, it seems God throws out the seed willy-nilly all over the soil. And in turn, some of the seed falls on rocky soil and some falls on good soil. Birds eat some of it; the hot sun consumes other seeds. There is apparently no care for the seeds placement or consideration of cost benefit analysis. Frankly, it seems a little wasteful.
I have this image of God standing in the fields of our life with a huge, bottomless bag of seed—seed that is God’s Word—and with an overflowing handful God begins to spin. As God spins the Word is sent out all over our lives—love, mercy, forgiveness, patience scatters down over us. It falls in every nook and cranny—every corner.
This is, of course, not how we plant a garden…nor it seems, how we spread the Gospel. But perhaps it is how we are meant to.
In today’s parable Jesus is teaching his disciples about spreading the Word. It is meant to encourage them—because if they thought proclaiming the gospel was like any other profession, they were going to get discouraged pretty quickly. We’ve all known the feeling of being passionate about something; sure that everyone else will catch your zeal…only to be crushed by another’s indifference. I imagine Jesus preparing the disciples for lives spend sowing seeds that they may never see the fruits of. The Word they spread was going to fall in every type of life. Some will be “good soil” hearing the word, as Jesus says, “who indeed bear fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”
But none of us is completely made up of one type of soil…we aren’t just hard defensive rocks, most us aren’t all easy going, weak sand, we can’t just be brittle clay…no one is pure rich soil. One day the Word may catch us and another fall on a hard place. As we disciples scatter the Gospel, it is nearly impossible to fully know another person’s soil content—perhaps we best leave that to God.
But every congregation I’ve ever been a part of has, at one point or another, measured their ministry by the world’s standards verses God’s. “We have this precious seed”, we think…”Where can we plant it to get the most growth?” “Who will it benefit the most?” Ministry programs are carefully analyzed. Budgets are considered. Space, time, volunteer numbers…all of it weighted and factored in. Events and worship services are kept based on how many people attended. Success is often measured by human standards--human standards and the mind set of scarcity. Very seldom do we grab a handful of the Gospel and just start spinning…
Often our relationships are treated the same way. A tough heart. A cross word. A bad decision. And our reaction is to withdraw, to stop sowing. We give up on some people, feeling as if we are wasting our time trying to talk with them, or love them, or forgive them, or reach them. When days, weeks, months, YEARS go by and we see minimal progress or growth in our friends or family or our kids. We wonder, “What has it all been for?” “How long can we pray?” “How long does hope hold out?” Very seldom do we grab a handful of the Gospel and start spinning…
Unfortunately, we treat ourselves the same way. We try and we try and we try…we feel growth…the seeds of patience and maturity taking root, love seems to be blooming…only to get caught up in hate or gossip or envy or ill will, and feel the old self return. It is painful to realize we aren’t as mature as we thought. When that happens it is hard to offer ourselves grace. Hard to be human—easy to turn on ourselves. We wonder what all the work was for and why even try again…it is hard to grab a handful of the Gospel and spin….
A sower went out to sow.
The seeds of love and forgiveness that our lives plant on this earth won’t always bear fruit. Some of the seeds will blow far, far away. Some will fall and be burnt up, some of it will drown. Some of it just won’t take. Some of it destroyed by hate and violence. Some by fear. Not all of it will take root just now.
This is a grace-filled message for those of charged with proclaiming the gospel…Our task is not to measure and arrange a neat garden, our task is to keep on planting. God will provide the nutrients necessary…there will be growth. That is God’s promise to creation. Perhaps not everywhere, perhaps not every time, perhaps not the amount we hoped for…but growth, when we keep planting.
Archbishop Oscar Romero’s prayer came to mind…
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.
This world is made up all sorts of soil—some ready for planting, some too rough and hard to take seed yet. Many a person might wonder why God would continue to waste good seed on us. After all we’ve made quite a mess of creation…only making it worse from what I can gather. Self preservation is often our first goal. We aren’t the most lovable some days. We’ve got hard shells and worn out spirits. We doubt and worry. We fear and fret. So often we want the planting to go our way and growth to happen on our calendar.
God seems to know this and in spite of it, maybe because of our weakness, God doesn’t seem to think it is wasteful at all to keep heaping on the love and scattering hope. Over and over again God keeps replanting our lives with his gracious love.
I don’t know for sure what seeds God has planted in your lives, I’m not completely sure what seeds you are sending out in to the world…but know that there has been promised growth. Hold on to the image of God, standing in a field of your life, spinning and spinning--sending out love and forgiveness with each turn--around and around. There is good soil to be found. God has made sure of that. Good soil in creation, good soil in those around us, good soil in us…there is always the possibility for growth.
A sower has gone out to sow. Thanks be to God. Amen.
