Oh good, I
get to talk about gardens!!!
This was my first response on seeing
that this week’s gospel parable is about God as the Sower of seeds. My second response was that I hope I don’t
bore you all because I just get so excited about gardening. Jesus, here, is once again using an
agricultural setting that people then would be familiar with - Jesus is good at
using familiar settings - and tells a story to make people pause and
ponder. And once again, Jesus says that
this is what the kindom of God is like.
Most of Jesus’ parables are like this - Jesus knows the context of the
listeners, Jesus starts with things they understand, common things, part of
their culture. And yet Jesus also makes
the story so different, when it starts out to be so similar….he challenges
their assumptions - and ours.
Folks who
study the 1st century culture tell us that sowers of seeds used more of a
broadcast method spread by hand, not the straight rows of the farms we see as
we drive through the country nowadays.
Carrying a bag of seed slung over their shoulder, the sower takes a
handful and spreads it around as he or she walks. Compare that to my grandfather, who had
boards notched at 2” spaces, 3” spaces and so on, so he spaced his precious
seeds appropriately in his garden - he wasn’t farming large fields, obviously,
although he had a large garden. He
measured the distance between the rows, too, so the plants had the correct
distance to grow well.
I have a plot at a community garden
over in DeWitt, started by the Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church. (I’ve gardened in community gardens for a
long time, even starting one back in my Norfolk community.) Most of the folks there have had their plots
a long time, and over the years have added lots of soil amendments - compost,
manure and such - so that the clay soil bears better. My plot hadn't been worked for a while, so I
turned it all over and added lots of leaf mulch and fertilizer. My crops have been okay, but not lush. The soil needs more work, like adding some
OCRRA compost. I don’t do rows, but I
don’t just scatter, either - I was influenced by the Square Foot guy, and
garden in clumps - but getting good spacing is important. I don’t like thinning
things, it hurts me to pull the little sprouts…..although I do eat them if I
have to thin… microgreens - that’s the new name. I set paths between the areas of the garden,
so I don’t walk on the actual gardening soil and pack it down hard. I would never put seeds on the paths. And I pull weeds - I don’t want them to take
over.
I suppose that 1st century farmers -
and all farmers of all time - know about soil amendments, spacing, paths and
weeds. They didn’t have Wegmans or Tops or Price Chopper to get foods from -
their existence depended on their successful farming. They obviously had knowledge of getting a good
crop. Our Native Americans here were
also successful farmers - usually the women, and had tools for breaking up the
soil, deer antlers for the eastern tribes;
and knew about the good fertilizer of fish. They knew that beans helped
the soil (fixing nitrogen we know nowadays). One of the wise tips from our
Natived ancestors is called the Three Sisters - planting corn, beans and squash
together - and putting a fish in the ground at the base.
So the sower in the parable is a
strange, profligate, and careless farmer.
I’m sure all farmers worked their soil and prepared their fields, then
as now, getting out rocks, digging out wild weeds and so on. What sower, who
had to keep back seeds from being eaten this year for seeding next year’s crop,
would waste those precious seeds on rocky patches, hard patches and
weed-infested patches? The sower in the
story offers seed anywhere and everywhere. Some of it gets no results, some of
it gets puny results that dies, some of it gets choked off - fortunately some
of it takes off and grows like crazy.
The writer of this book has Jesus
giving an allegorical interpretation of the parable which is interesting, and
has been preached on many, many times. We know the view of the parable that was
in today’s reading. Since it’s a parable, though, we don’t have to be limited
to that take on the story - parables work on us in deep ways, and speak to us
at different times in different voices.
There are always lots of levels and many ways to go with parables. I know scholars of a certain period taught
that a parable has one real meaning and we have to learn it and teach it that
way forever. Preachers a bit older than
me were taught that as a rule. Thinking
has changed, like it always does, among scholars. Now the view is that parables are more
open-ended and layered, and new ways of looking at them are being
proposed.
I hope you all had an opportunity to
read the passage earlier and ponder the questions I put in the resource
pages. We have an opportunity here to
imagine and listen to the Spirit talking to us about what the kindom of God is
like, with this crazy and careless sower.
God obviously thinks its worthwhile to scatter the seeds of the
gospel anywhere and everywhere. Back
in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the prophecies of Isaiah, God says, “ My ways are
not your ways and my thoughts are not like your thoughts,”….and, “my words will
not come back to me empty,” or void, or
empty-handed as some translations say; but will accomplish what I want. Just like rain falls on the just people and
the unjust people, another place says - God’s word goes out to all. How the gospel is accepted by those who hear
may vary - that’s what the interpretation in our text says. Others have pointed out that even within
ourselves, the words of the gospel may fall on different levels of our own
receptivity - some things we may hear and accept and follow, and other words
may bounce off a place of unconsciousness in us, or a place that is not ready,
not prepared, not amenable to it. And as we go through life, we may hear things
in the gospel after difficult personal times that we couldn’t hear before. And I think that the wisdom from the prophet
Isaiah tells us that even seeds that don’t seem to take are doing something in
the preparation of those that hear it.
God doesn’t have to farm like we
do! And I believe God is always working
on improving our soil. Faith isn’t
static - it isn’t a list of beliefs that we memorize at confirmation, and are
then set in our outlook forever. People
experience things as we live - good, bad and indifferent. They often deepen us, and open our
understanding. Walking with God through
all these things over the years gives the Spirit time to add compost and
fertilizer to our souls.
American culture emphasizes the
energies of youth more than age, sociologists tell us. Other societies value and honor age - and by
contrast, we see that ours doesn’t. We value striving, accumulating, gaining
power, making things happen, getting our viewpoint heard, and DOING. Our culture doesn’t have a lot of value on
reflection, accepting, letting things be, and just BEING, which are more the
values of ageing. It seems to me that,
with all ages being here at the same time, that both these energies are
supposed to work together - doing and being are important in various
times. Reflection and action are the
mark of the wise. Ways that the older
folks have learned are seasonings to the energy of the youn ger folks. Parts of the gospel that bounced off me as a
younger person have grown clearer as I’ve aged, as my soil has been improved
and amended by God the gardener.
There’s certainly been a theme in my
preaching these last years, about the development of our spirituality and faith
being a call to each of us - that God desires us to come closer, wrestle with
difficulties, and understand more deeply.
We are called to be transformed into the image of Christ, reborn,
enlightened, made new, living into the new life of the resurrection - whatever
the words, faith is a process, a journey; faith evolves. Those forst seeds that fall on hard or rocky
or thorny ground - they do something, they pique our interest; they tell us of
the possibilities of this new life; when we’re ready to hear it, the words of
the gospel are still here.
So - if God is like this, sowing the
seeds on all kinds of soil, generously spreading the precious seeds of the
gospel - not really careless after all - what does that say to how we join this
work of spreading the gospel ? I think
it means that we, too, are to be generous with the gospel, spreading the
goodness of this message wherever we are and to whomever we’re around - do good
to those who despitefully use you, Jesus says.
If an enemy makes you give the them your coat, give them your shirt,
too. The gospel isn’t just for us to
share with those we approve of; in God there are no distinctions. So we provide a ministry to the community
through our preschool and none of the parents joins our church - so what? We are sowing seeds. So the kids that throng to our VBS attend
other churches, so what? We are sowing
the gospel seed. So we attend a march
for people’s rights and nothing immediately changes...so what? We are sowing seeds of the gospel. God spreads the good news for God’s purposes,
and it won’t come back empty-handed, even if we’re not the ones to see it.
I think we do have to be ready to
talk about the hope that God has given us; to tell why we are so generous, why
we are reaching out,why we care. At some
point I hope to have us practicing with each other is a safe way, to tell about
what is most important to us in faith.
And I think we have to each bring our gifts and insights to the mission
Jesus left us with - no handing it off to the pastor - the pastor’s job is to
build folks’ faith and strengthen THEIR
ministries, not be the lone ranger of the gospel. Christ’s call is for each of us to learn
God’s farming methods, and pitch in.
AMEN.
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