Throwing and Sowing Seeds

It is heartening to have your Eucharistic Ministers tell you in the middle of the liturgy that your sermon touched them. And it's even better when you have a special program after the service that seemingly continues your sermon theme. We had a presentation on the fentanyl crisis, and our speaker from the public health department actually talked about the need to care for the person who might have overdosed... no matter who they are or what they look like. Because we "respect the dignity of every human being." 

Text: Matt 13: 1-9, 18-23

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Welcome to the wonderful world of parables!

For the next few weeks… we’re going to be hearing stories of seeds, weeds, yeast, pearls, and fish.

The kingdom of heaven is like dot-dot-dot.

Parables play an important role in Matthew’s Gospel.

These are the stories that firmly set the beauty and the miraculous works of the Holy in the hum-drum…every day world of the lives of those living in ancient Palestine…as well us those of us still telling these stories two thousand plus years later.

And what a great parable for us to start with here in fertile lands of South Georgia!

You don’t have to be growing cotton or beans or peanuts to understand this depiction of a sower…four different types of soil… and the harvest that comes from it all.

Even those of us with our one garden bed can relate to this story, right?

Matthew conveniently gives us an interpretation of the parable. 

An interpretation…by the way… that Biblical scholars think got added into this gospel later. They maintain Jesus wouldn’t have felt the need to wrap this up so neatly as an allegory.

They believe Jesus wanted this parable to stand on its own.

Parables are meant to get us to stop and think. And this one does.

Because…really…what person going out to sow seed just throws it randomly in any old place?

Farmers in ancient Palestine…and in South Georgia… would have worked the ground of their fields.

They would plow the ground in preparation for seeding it.

Just like today… farmers in Palestine would plant at certain times of the year… with particular crops for the seasons.

In other words… farming was and still is… a carefully planned and intentional agricultural business.

So, imagine being a farmer… and hearing Jesus talk about this sower who’s throwing seed any ol’ place without doing any of that prep work.

That person sounds like a reckless, wasteful fool.

I mean, he scatters seed on a well-beaten path…so the birds come and eat it.

And then there’s that seed thrown on the rocky ground that doesn’t allow the plants to take root…so they dry up.

The seed that landed in the thorns gets choked and dies.

Thank goodness… some of it fell into that plowed and ready soil…and took root and brought forth an abundance of grain!

Not just a small amount, by the way.

Again… for those who first heard this story in Matthew’s community…a harvest of 15-fold was excellent.

To have it doubled…quadrupled or even—wow—a hundred fold?!

That’s amazing!!

So was this sower just lucky?

Or maybe in that extra explanation of this parable…there’s something we might consider.

Jesus talks about those who “understand” the word of God.

“Understanding”…in this context for Jesus… isn’t just an intellectual thing.

Jesus wants us to hear “understand” as something that challenges us.

To “understand” the word of God means to take in something that changes us.

“Understand” means getting a grasp of a matter that moves us in the direction of love.

Those who “understand” in that way…they’re the ones whose hearts are that fertile ground that will bear much fruit…or…in the words of another metaphor… be the light that shines the brightest in the darkness.

We gain that type of understanding through community.

We cultivate our understanding through worship…prayer…the breaking of bread together…as we do each Sunday when we gather at God’s table.

In community…we can encourage the growth and understanding in each other.

Jesus the sower in this parable demonstrates to us that as we tend and care to the garden of our hearts…we can join with him in confidently throwing those seeds of God’s word…God’s love…in our own communities.

We can do it without concern that it might not take root in some people.

That’s always the risk.

But Jesus says still do it anyway…because even those seeds that bounce on the rocks might one day slip through and bear fruit in the person.

And that does happen.

True story about my own journey with God: on this walk with the Holy… the ground of my heart has not always been a place of abundant life in Christ.

I could sit in church… hear all the words… sing all the songs… outwardly appear to be doing all the right things.

But the roots were not deep enough to give me that understanding that would move me or change me and my outlook on the world.

What I did in worship didn’t seem to have any connection to making a difference in the world.

What finally changed that for me was when I heard the call to “show up” on a Sunday morning.

Then the words…the hymns… the prayers… all became real.

The seeds that had been thrown on to my rocky heart… finally made their way into a place where they could grow… and grow.

It had taken about twenty years…but the growth did happen.

It came with the encouragement of a church community…and in my case…it was aided by a priest who kept plying me with books.

This is the amazing truism of this parable.

Because Jesus…that indiscriminate sower… knows that we need to keep spreading those seeds of love anywhere and everywhere…even if we think these seeds are never going to sprout into anything.

We have to trust that some of those seeds will take root.

We shouldn’t be waiting to share the love of God for some magical “right time” …finding the “right people” or even looking just for people who we want to have come to St. Barnabas.

Those seeds just need to get flung everywhere right now…and we don’t know what type of ground is in the hearts of those getting sprinkled with seeds…and that’s OK.

God will do the growing.

We need to do the seeding.

And this is one time when there’s not a person in here who doesn’t have the green thumb required to do that work.

We all have that ability…that superpower.

It came to us with our baptism.

Some of you attended the lay ministers conference the diocese organized last year and met one of my seminary professors…Dr. Lisa Kimball.

For those who don’t know Lisa…she is an enthusiastic and passionate advocate for the ministry of the laity… a ministry that has its grounding in the waters of baptism.

Waters which help to grow the seeds of loving kindness in our hearts.

I recently watched a lecture she gave where she talked about the need for baptized Christians to start living our lives as baptized Christians.

Not so much by “doing” Christianity…but by “being” Christian.

Being Christian by allowing our baptism to be the starting point of our understanding…that movement that challenges our thinking…leading us to respond…by bringing hope and encouragement to those trapped in the prisons of loneliness and despair.

Imagine what the world would be like if everyone brought into the Christian community through baptism in name of God…Father, Son and Holy Spirit… lived our lives in the confidence of that place of loving inclusion?

What a difference that would make in how we address the feelings of separation that so many people say they’ve suffered during the height of the pandemic…and that sense of listlessness that still seems to be hanging out over the heads of so many.

The poet and Christian mystic Evelyn Underhill once said, “God is the interesting thing about religion. And people are hungry for God.”

May we share the growth of our gardens with those hungry for that food.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.