Sermon: Lessons in sowing (July 13, 2014)

Pentecost 5A/Lectionary 15

July 13, 2014

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

            Now that I am a homeowner, with a little patch of land to call my own, I really wanted a garden. Knowing next to nothing about gardening, I had a more knowledgeable friend come and help me. I was all ready to get my hands dirty and put some plants in the ground, but it turns out, this is only a small part of planting a garden. First, we had to take out the dead stuff that was no longer growing. Then, we had to prepare the soil. We raked all the leaves and debris, pulled out the weeds, cleaned up the edges. Then we put down soil, manure, and some other stuff that she said was supposed to add nutrients to the soil. We mixed it all in. Then, finally, we started digging some holes and planting stuff!

My completed garden!

Then we added fertilizer and watered it like crazy and stood back to admire our work.

            This is how planting works, apparently. First, you plow, or do whatever you need to prepare the soil so that you can be assured that the soil is good, that seeds will do well in it. Who would try to sow seeds on rock hard soil? Or among thorns? It doesn’t make a lick of sense.

            And yet, this is how the sower in today’s parable approaches the task of sowing. Totally reckless, no forethought, no preparation, just tossing seeds here, there and everywhere. And the result? Three quarters of the seeds don’t fall on fertile soil, and are scorched by the sun, or eaten by birds, or choked by thorns. Not much foresight there, Sower. Too bad he didn’t have a more knowledgeable friend helping him like I did!

            I mean we, today – we know how to prepare for things. Businesses do a demographic study of an area before they plant a store there. Church mission starts also study an area, knock on doors, explore needs, before deciding to start a church. You want to have a sense that you are filling a need, serving a purpose… not to mention be successful! This lack of preparation that the sower is guilty of… that wouldn’t fly in today’s world.

Van Gogh, Sower

            Not to mention the recklessness! Throwing seeds willy-nilly. It’s just not responsible. Since I was a kid, I have been so careful about not wasting things, and keeping things in case I might need them later. I remember for one birthday a friend gave me a package of clay with which I could make some pottery, specifically pottery based on Native American designs. It even came with some black paint so I could do designs on the side. Such a cool gift! I was delighted. But every time I looked at the package of clay in my closet, I thought, “No, not today. I might mess up, and then I will have wasted it. I should save it for a time when I am sure I will be able to make something beautiful with it. If I use it now, then I won’t have it anymore, and then I’ll be sad later that I was so reckless to use this before I was really ready to get everything out of it that I could.” See – I was careful, thoughtful, and I thought ahead. Not like this sower in the parable.

            Well, I’d love to say my thoughtfulness, care and foresight served me in the end. But guess what happened to that clay, that lovely, interesting gift from my friend? I kept it – for years, until I was too old to really enjoy it anymore, and then a little longer in case my interest might return… until the clay dried up and became worthless to me. I ended up throwing it in the garbage one day many years later. I never got to enjoy it. *

            How much of life passes us by like that? How many opportunities do we miss because we are afraid of not doing it right, because we are waiting for the perfect opportunity, and want to make sure we are absolutely prepared? How many of us need to make sure the proverbial soil is perfectly tilled before we take any risks and try to make anything grow?

There are many ways to enter this parable. We can think of ourselves as the sower, being sent

Icon, "Jesus the Sower" by
Athanasios Clark

out to spread the good news to others. We can think of ourselves as the seed, that is being spread upon the world. But my favorite way to understand this well-known parable is to think of God as the Sower, and myself as the soil. And I confess to you: I’m not always the good soil. Just as I sometimes miss opportunities to share the good news with others, I have also missed opportunities to let myself hear the good news. My guess is I’m not alone in this. Sometimes it is hard to hear and receive God’s Word, because we have been hardened and burned too many times before, and we’re not in a place to receive good news. Or sometimes we hear it, but quickly let it be choked out by other things that seem more important in the moment. Or we hear it, but ignore it and let it be destroyed by the elements.

It’s a good thing, then, that the sower so recklessly spreads seed, even on the bad, unprepared soil – so that if I miss it the first time, I will still have another chance. This parable, you see – it is a parable of abundance. It is a story about a God who throws seed out to all different kinds of soil – not because God is a bad gardener who doesn’t understand about tilling and fertilizer, but because God knows that all of that seed will do some good. The seed that gets eaten up by birds – at least it is feeding the birds! The seed that gets thrown among thorns – it is fertilizing the soil for future harvest.

And the seed that lands on good soil – that is an abundance beyond our understanding! A good harvest is one that yields between seven and ten-fold. Jesus tells his disciples that the seed that fell on good soil yielded 30 times, 60 times, even 100 times! Surely the farmers in the audience were laughing at his absurdity – it is impossible! But what is impossible with humans is possible with God. Because our God is one of abundance – who throws seeds everywhere without counting the cost, who doesn’t worry that some of those seeds won’t do a bit of good, and some will do good that we didn’t expect; a God who knows that some of those seeds will yield a crop that is lavishly beyond human comprehension. With God, there is always enough.

That story I told about my clay… I think I got that for my 7^th birthday, and it has stuck with me for 24 years since, probably because in some ways I am still that cautious little girl who wants to be sure she has what she needs when she needs it. But I wonder: what if I received God’s abundant grace the same way I received that gift of clay? Admiring God’s grace in its package – bread and wine, water in a font, a baby in a manger, a man on a cross – and understanding what a great gift it is… but never willing to actually delve into it and experience the joy it brings. Unwilling to take it and touch it and use it, lest I use it up and then not have it when I need it. Concerned that I might mess it up if I get too invested in it, and so content to simply admire it from afar. What if that was how we viewed God’s grace?

Thanks be to God, that is not how grace works. Our God, the Sower, is a reckless God of abundance, lavishly spreading grace and love upon the world. Some will receive it with joy, and yield an absurd amount more. Some will not be ready to receive it – yet. But the seed keeps coming. The grace keeps coming. It never runs out, and it is never wasted. It may not make sense to us, but that is how our abundant God does things.

Let us pray… Reckless Sower, you never run out of grace for us, and you never run out of love. Make our hearts good soil, ready to receive your Word, and to share your lavish abundance with the world. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

* Worth noting is that I refer to this story a lot, but this is the first time I have used it in a sermon… and even as I decided to use it, I worried about whether this was really the best sermon to use it for. What if it fits better in a later sermon I’ve yet to conceive? Once I use it, I won’t be able to use it again! I guess in some ways, I’m that same little girl.