SJLC Sermon – Pentecost 5 A

Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

Sermon

This Gospel reading has some important points that this community should consider. For example, most of the fields out there have been planted in nice orderly rows, maybe just scattering seeds at random could be more productive? And what about the ditches and slews? Even the gravel roads could be seeded! There is a lot of missed opportunity that we haven’t been taking advantage of. And if there is some advice to be taken away from this parable today, it is that any ground, no matter how inhospitable has the potential to grow fruit. And not just a little fruit, but a 30, or 60 or 100 fold return.

Perhaps, with a little ingenuity and elbow grease, we could modify a few seeders to just scatter seeds at random and see how it works! Who knows what we could plant? Any volunteers?

In all seriousness, this year we have seen first hand the importance of finding the right soil to seed. We have all seen tractors carefully making their ways around the pools of standing water in so many fields. And any good farmer knows that carefully planted rows are important. They help to distinguish weeds from desired plants, they help with harvest and they maximize efficiency.

So the parable that Jesus uses, describes how God is in the world with his seeds and soil and planting techniques. Yet, this farming style seems just as crazy to us as it would  have to the crowds listening in Jesus time. This haphazard sower who scatters seed anywhere, draws our attention to the different kinds of soil. To the hard packed soil of the paths, not unlike our gravel roads. We hear about rocky soil with no depth to it. Soil that is in amongst the thorns and thistles. But perhaps the most interesting soil of them all is the soil that gives 30 or 60 or 100 fold return. These kind of returns from good soil are almost unimaginable. In fact anything that gives even a 30% return is almost unheard of in life. Anyone with a savings account knows that a 30% interest rate is crazy.

And so as soon as we hear Jesus talking about these incredible returns, we want to jump right to part where we figure out how to be good soil. We want to separate those who are bad, hard, inhospitable soils from those who are good soil. We want to see ourselves as the good soil, we like the ability to categorize and label, to judge and condemn. And if we are the good soil, the soil that gives returns of 30, 60 and 100 fold, then those people we don’t like, the people we don’t agree with are the bad, hard, thorny, rocky, shallow soil.

Yes, this is what we would like the world to work like, but we know that this really isn’t the way the world is. And if we are honest with ourselves, we know that life is full of unpredictable, unexplainable, and unknowable experiences. We know that sometimes the people with strongest faith, those who gentle and kind, those who are most vulnerable sometimes receive the hardest lot in life. We know that suffering and sin doesn’t really seem to follow a pattern but rather happens to us at random. We know that there are those out there who seem to have an easy and blessed time with life, who get all the legs up without really trying or even when they don’t seem to deserve it.

And when it comes to hearing the word as Jesus says, we know that  most of the time we are much more like the hard, or rocky or thorny soil than the good soil. We we all wish we could pray more and pray better. We all wish that we gave more to the church, more time and money. We all wish we could share our faith more easily, that we could tell our friends and neighbours just why this place means so much to us, that is when we ourselves find the time to come.

But we don’t feel like good soil… we can see and feel in ourselves, what we know to be failure. We can see and feel the rocks, the thorns and the hardness within us.

Now, remember the sower and his poor planting skills? What if he really was in charge of it all? What if that crazy and all over the place style of planting was how this world worked? What if the ditches and slews, the gravel roads, and even the pavement had seed scattered on them?

In the parable, we seem to get caught up in the business of the seeds and the soil. We like to imagine the details of where we fit. But the parable isn’t about seeds or soil. Jesus says, “Hear then the parable of the sower”. This parable is not about us, it is about God.

About God who is that radical, haphazard, all over the place sower, whose seeds end up everywhere. It is about God who plants any seed, anywhere. This is not the kind of farming we are used to, and this parable isn’t really about farming at all. In fact, this parable is about the radicalness of God’s love.

When Jesus explains this parable, he never encourages or exhorts anyone to be good soil or good seed. He says that the parable is about the sower. It is about the one who owns and works the fields, the one who owns and plants the seeds. This parable is about a God who is willing to see that there is possibility even in the rocky, hard, shallow and thorny soil. Even knowing that the seeds may not grow in poor conditions, God scatters and plants anyways.

An old sufi proverb tells the story of a mystic who is often portrayed as the wise fool. One day the mystic is sitting next to the ocean. In one hand is a spoon and in the other a bowl of yogurt. Making yogurt begins with yogurt, and one simply adds milk to make more. And so the mystic is throwing spoonfuls of yogurt into the ocean when two of his friends walk by. They watch what he is doing and then say, “Mystic, why are you throwing yogurt into the ocean, it will never turn the water into more yogurt?”.

The mystic looks up from his bowl and says, “I know it probably won’t work, but what if it does?”

Like the Sufi Mystic, the sower seems to be scattering seed, knowing that it probably will not grow, but seeing the possibility that it might. So are we the soil or the seeds in this parable? That part isn’t clear. And maybe it doesn’t matter if we know where we fit exactly. What this parable does show is a God who is willing to scatter his grace, mercy and love in all directions. This parable shows a God who is willing to try the hard, rocky, shallow and thorny soil. It is a God who is wants the Word of the Kingdom to be heard everywhere and anywhere. It shows a God who is willing to try anything to let this creation, these seeds and this soil, to let us know, that we are cherished and loved, imperfections and all.

This is God is willing to be born in stable, to wander the country side of 1st century Israel teaching and preaching, to be put on trial for blasphemy, to die a criminal’s death. And what about the seeds that land on the hard ground, that are scorched by the sun and that are choked by the thorns? What about us who know that we are not always good soil? Well, God is exactly the right sower for those kinds of seeds and the right kind of God for us. Because in perhaps the craziest part of the story, God came back from the dead, back from the hardest, rockiest, thorniest part of life. And God in Christ rose from dead, so that we will rise too. So that we who are the bad soil and the dead seeds might know that the sower still has plans and room for us. That the sower has a place for us in his harvest. Christ was raised from the dead, so that we sinners and failures might know that God’s promise for us is love, mercy, grace and New life.Amen. 

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