Matt 13:1-9, 18-23
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the lake. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!
"Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."
Pray
We don’t have to look very far to be reminded of the uncertainty of life
This past Tuesday a family in Smithfield thought it was just another storm and a tornado hit their house killing 4 including a 4 month old baby girl.
Last Sunday while we worshipped together, my friend Shirl died in Maryland after suffering the past year from colon cancer- she and her husband Sean were regular attendees of the Craigville Colloquy on Cape Cod- that I leave for today after church… none of us knew when we gathered last July that that would be the last time we were all together- Shirl was 54.
We can turn on the news and witness death and destruction far and wide
At the movies …
The fault in our stars appears to be the movie about young death- that people are raving about.
And even in church…
Last week you shared names of long time members who had recently died
We can look at this tale of the sower/Gardener and seeds and realize that 3 out of 4 seeds are a failure
they fall on soil that does not, cannot allow the seed to take root and grow
the seeds are lost.. gobbled, trampled, wasted- gone
or we could focus on the positive
life goes on after tornados, after we bury the dead
… wounds can heal
and in our parable there is one seed that takes root and brings forth an amazing harvest
let me back up
I said parable
A kind of puzzling tale
In fact they say when you are sure you understand exactly what a parable of Jesus is saying … you could not be farther from understanding..
And this speech of Jesus begins and ends with Listen…Listen
usually a preacher could focus on how we are soil…the seed is the word
how we need to be the right kind of soil or face birds or the scorching sun… the devil, the cares of the world…. It is all spelled out there
that could be easy, just shaking my finger at all of us… what we need to do to prepare our soil…lalalalala!
But this week I want us to dig deeper…
*I believe that Imagination, an open mind and an open heart, are all needed for parable hearing (perhaps that's why those "little ones" were able to grasp who Jesus was and what he was about).
So what if we tried a slightly different line of thought:
Barbara B Taylor suggests
what if the story is not about the seeds or soil at all, not about us… but about the sower? The gardener?
What if it is not about our own successes and failures and birds and rocks and thorns but about the extravagance of a gardener or farmer who flings seed everywhere, wastes it with holy abandon…
confident that there is enough seed to go around, that there is plenty, and that when the harvest comes in at last it will fill every barn in the neighborhood to the rafters?"
For Taylor, "The focus is not on us and our shortfalls but on the generosity of our maker" ("The Extravagant Sower" in The Seeds of Heaven).
This farmer is extravagant, just as God throws grace and mercy around, extravagantly, showering them on a world hungry for both, whether it realizes it or not.
So we can focus on the seeds that are lost, the soil that is not ready, the greedy birds… doing what birds do,
the sun that can burn and gives life, the things wrong with the building, the high cost of … everything, the fact that folks just aren’t coming to church, that we toil away and in an instant we can be dead- due to disease or an accident or the wind
And yet
God works great wonders in all situations, and is astonishingly extravagant in offering grace and new life in the harshest of situations.
The farmer is remarkably free in throwing the seed on all sorts of potential "growth areas."
There's no calculation or careful husbandry of the seeds in the farmer’s pocket.
In the face of all sorts of obstacles and dangers, the farmer counts on the bountiful return of a few seeds; she imagines the plentiful harvest reaped when even a few of the seeds find fertile soil.
Or perhaps we could see ourselves as farmers scattering seed
The story is told:
In the church where a man worshiped there was a lonely old man, old Thomas. He had outlived all his friends and hardly anyone knew him. When Thomas died, this friend had the feeling that there would be no one to go to the 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 miserable wet day.
The funeral reached the cemetery, and at the gate there was a soldier waiting. An officer, but on his raincoat there were no rank badges.
He came to the grave side for the ceremony, then 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.
The friend walked away with this soldier, and as they walked, the wind blew the soldier’s raincoat open to reveal the shoulder rank was that of a brigadier general.
The general said, “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.”
Thomas did not know what he was doing.
In many ways none of us ever does.
Keep sowing the seed.
We can leave the rest to God
God is good, all the time. All the time
Even in the face of uncertainty… of mortality
it is truly the generosity of God that gives abundantly, the generosity of God that magnifies our best efforts into a "fruitful, extravagant, and altogether gracious yield.
What will be our response… to hoard what we have, try to play it safe?
We are the church, the church is called to 'waste itself,' to throw grace around like there is no tomorrow, precisely because there is a tomorrow, and it belongs to God. Amen
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