10 July 2011

"Parable of the Sower"
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time series A
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
10 July 2011


Listen! A sower went out to sow.

There are many stories about seed, planting and growing grain in the Gospels. That's because Jesus, and the people who originally heard him speak, were so closely tied to the earth. Jesus used images of sprouting and failing seed because the difference between sprouting and failing meant life or starving to death for the farmers of first century Palestine.

But, as in other parables, Jesus had another message in mind for his hearers...a message which was true for them in the first century, and is just as true for us today. Perhaps we work with seed on a daily basis, in the yard or garden. Or maybe we don't bother with seeds at all. No matter.

All of us have seeds we sow...seeds of a future we plan or plant for ourselves or others. When they grow and bear fruit, we rejoice. But what about the unsprouted, withered, scorched seeds in our lives?

Maybe, for some of us, that could be someone very close to us, maybe in our own family, maybe someone we’ve decided to share our life with ... someone with whom we've spent lots of time, trying to show them in love an example of living that is inspired by what we have heard, and sung, and learned in this place.

But, despite all that ... the loving teaching ... or maybe ... the preaching, and the scolding and the yelling, perhaps they still don't turn out the way we hoped ... or change like they promised they would. And that question burns within us...where did we go wrong? What happened to the seed we sowed?

Maybe for some of us, that's the question we ask of ourselves. We come here and get filled from hearing the word and singing hymns and songs and sharing in Jesus’ supper of Communion … and leave feeling that seed of faith sprouting in us and beginning to bear fruit. But then ... not out of church more than ten minutes and we may feel that sprout withering in the heat of an unkind word we say, plucked away by an unwholesome thought, or choked out by a reckless act that hurts someone else. And that question comes back to haunt us ... where did we go wrong? What happened to the seed that was sown within us?

But then ... even in the midst of our confusion, our hurt and suffering, our sin, hear the word of Jesus, as he comes to us ... and asks us to listen!

Listen! A sower went out to sow.
Listen to the good news first of the seed that the sower plants. The seed is very persistent. It always wants to come up, to become a plant that has the potential for bearing fruit. No matter if it falls on the rocky ground, or in thorns, or on good soil...it does sprout.

This year we planted a small garden … it’s nice, but a shadow of the monster vegetable garden I had once upon a time, in South Dakota on internship. That one gave us an excellent return … everything we planted did well. But so did those seeds we didn’t plant. I can remember, in May and June, when all the silver maple trees started to lose those little spinners, how many more of the little maple trees there were in the garden than plants we wanted to come up. But it wasn't just in our garden where those crazy maple trees came up -- they were in the lawn, in the flower beds, even in our gravel driveway! I even saw them growing out of gutters and downspouts! And just when you thought you had them all pulled up, then they started showing up again! The seeds are very persistent.

And what about the good seeds -- the ones we wanted? Despite the heavy rains, hail and tornadoes of that flooded summer of 1993, that garden did great. Despite the heavy rains, hail and “Ukrainian spring” of 2011, our garden this year is doing great, too. The seed's whole purpose is to sprout.

Some of you may have read the book "Giants in the Earth" by Ole Rolvaag. It's set during the pioneer days of the 1870's in Minnesota and South Dakota. One of the parts of the book I remember well comes when Per Hansa, the hero of the story, plants his first crop on the freshly-plowed virgin prairie. He spends all the money he has...money he saved from trading in animal skins with the Sioux Indians in the winter...he buys bags of wheat seed and plants his land.

And what happens? The weather turns bad. The warm early spring suddenly turns into a late winter snowstorm, and all of Per Hansa's fields are covered with snow. Fearing the worst, he goes to a corner of the field and turns over the snow and earth...only to see his precious wheat seed, appearing to rot in the cold, wet ground.

Well, Per Hansa is frantic. What will he do now? For days he tries to figure out a way he can earn some more money so his family won't starve. But it's getting too late in the winter for good animal skins. Perhaps they'll have to pack up and move back to Minnesota, feeling like failures.

But then one day, after the snow has melted, one of the boys rushes in, asking his father to go out and look at the fields. And Per Hansa can't believe his eyes. The dead brown earth has suddenly come to life with thin, green shoots of wheat! The seed he thought was rotting was actually germinating...and preparing itself for another warm spring day when it would sprout and begin to bear fruit. The seed is persistent...its whole purpose is to sprout.

And the same is true with the seed of God's word of love for us, in our lives, in the lives of our loved ones, in the lives of all who hear it. We like Per Hansa may look at the snow covered ground of our lives, or that of our friends or families, even turning over a spade full of ground and thinking all that's there is rotting seed...but God's word, like Per Hansa's wheat seed, will sprout. It may sprout at the most unexpected time. We may never even live to see it sprout. But the promise of this parable is that the seed...God's word...is persistent.

What about when the seed gets snatched away? The seed is still persistent. Our landlord recently cleaned the moss off the roof of our yard shed. I looked up after he finished and noticed a kernel of corn, defying gravity, seeming to hang onto the roof by nothing. So I pulled on it. What I didn’t see … the roots … snapped off. Some crows must have dug it out of someone else’s garden, and dropped it on the roof of the shed … and that corn kernel was sprouting on the shed roof. And so it is with God's word. The seed is persistent ... its whole purpose is to sprout.

Listen! A sower went out to sow.

Listen to the good news that the sower is persistent too. The sower does not care where the seed falls...it is thrown on the path and in the rocks, in the weeds and on the good ground. The sower's whole purpose is to sow the seed.

In the same way God wants all of us to hear the good news that Jesus came so that life might be different for us. God is persistent, and will stop at nothing ... NOTHING ... not our shortcomings, not our failures, not even death, to let us know how much we are loved. God wants us to hear the good news that Jesus came to forgive our sins. And God wants us to hear the good news that in Jesus there is always new life.
And just as the sower waters and fertilizes, mulches and tills, so God cares for us. When we are baptized we are given all the water we need for new life...and when we remember the promises made by our parents and by God, we are watered again. As we gather here to hear the story of Jesus told to us every week, and when we join Jesus at the table of communion to taste his love for us, we are fed and tilled and given encouragement to grow.

And someday we may even grow so that the seed God has planted in us bears fruit. We might not even realize it, and the seeds from that fruit may not even fall close by, but far away.
Sometimes we'll see the seed fall and start to sprout. Sometimes we won't. But wherever they fall, the sower will tend them too, just as the sower has cared for us.

Wherever the Word of Jesus' love for us may fall, God will tend it too, just as God has cared for us.

Listen! A sower goes out to sow...and sow...and sow.

The seed is persistent. The sower is persistent.
We are persistently loved.

Thanks be to God! Amen.