What are You Sowing - Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

Last week I was at The Wesley Foundation in Gainesville, FL where I heard this passage preached. Prior to leaving, I adjusted my preaching schedule because I knew that I also wanted to preach on this passage, but Pastor Dave, whom I heard this past Sunday made a great point before beginning his sermon – is there really anything new to say about this passage?

This is one of the only parables where Jesus breaks it down for the disciples step by step. Usually the parables were left as mysteries, something for the disciples to uncover with their own insight and experience over time. But here Jesus tells them, and us, what the parable means. Which sort of takes all of the fun out. However, just because Jesus interprets this parable for us, it does not mean that it does not have something to share with us today. In fact, that is one of the amazing things about scripture, that perhaps makes it so controversial. God speaks through scripture to people in a variety of ways and can use the same piece over and over again to meet us at different points of our lives in the different ways. This is why the lectionary is in a three year cycle – because it is believed that the same scripture can be preached time and time again and both the pastor will have different insights from their own experiences and the congregation will be able to relate to it in a new way. Its also why, as Methodists, we believe in approaching scripture with our reason, experience, and tradition – because each of these elements vary for different people and God can use that to speak to them in new and bold ways. So I would invite you to put aside what you already know about this passage and listen to it with new years, and allow God to move in you afresh.

A woman went out to plant. While she had planted flowers in her flower bed and fruits and veggies in her garden many times before, she decided to do something new. So she went out and instead of carefully placing each seed into a particular place in the ground, she threw them into the wind. As the wind carried them, some landed on the beaten path. Because there wasn’t any covering for the seeds they were quickly snatched up by birds seeking food. Some of the seeds fell on rocky ground – shallow soil displaced by rocks. While the seeds could be covered they sprang up too quickly – because there wasn’t any place to set their roots and seek the nutrition they needed. As a result they could not pull moisture from the ground, and the sun killed them instead of helping them grow stronger. Still other seeds drifted among thorns, and because there was no way to cut the thorns away, the seeds were in constant competition for what they needed. They ultimately were choked by the thorns and did not bloom into the fullness of life. But then some seeds settled on good, furtile soil, and bloomed in an unexpected and unpredictable way. While the best crop that could be hoped for was possibly seven-times that of the seed, they grew thirty, sixty, and a hundred times more abundantly. This would feed a village for a year and let the farmer retire, respectively. They were able to feed so many and continue the cycle of life.

I am not much of a gardener. Our one attempt as a family had a pitiful yield. The carrots were no bigger then the size of my finger and many of the other crops never bloomed. But even if I can’t garden well, I do understand one of the main pieces to a good garden – rich soil. For the past few years I have been fascinated by composting. The ability to take things that we normally discard – like vegetable scraps, and mix them with wood chips or leaves to form something life giving. Or taking the manure of animals and spreading it on the ground to bring about something bountiful in yield. One of the chief things that I struck me about this passage is that in order to be sown in good soil, to hear the word of God and understand it, and to bear fruit beyond our wildest imagination, we need a little manure in our lives. That is to say sometimes life seems to pile crappy things upon us, things that we wound rather avoid. But in these things, my friends, we find the fertile ground for fruitful discipleship. How are we going to respond when we seem to be buried in things that are unpleasant and beyond our control? Are we going to give up? If this is the case, we are just like the seeds that were scattered in places that could not bring life. No. We are called to bear those things that we find ourselves in. To take the things that most people avoid or throw away and find the life giving parts of them.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not attempting to make light of our trials and suffering. However, sometimes we need the messiness of life to cover us, so we can grow in our relationship with God and bring about fruit for the Kingdom. Something that I have realized lately is that my prayer life is never better then when I am in times of trial. When life seems the most suffocating, I am at my closest to God. Perhaps this is human nature. We more readily turn to the Holy One when we are at our wits end and know that we need to relinquish all control because we cannot make it through a situation on our own. So maybe, just maybe, we need those trying times in life because they draw us closer to God. We need a reminder that we are not the center of the universe. That we need someone more powerful then us to redeem our situation and bring about something amazing. What if we began to look at trials as a source of grace? As something that could be used for something bigger then us instead of simply writing them off as unnecessary?

While the original title of this sermon was “What are you Sowing?” these thoughts about soil lead us to ask a different question – how are you responding to the circumstances in which you find yourself? How are you responding to being sown? For surly the good news of God’s grace is taking root in you if you are growing in discipleship. In order to take root and blossom we need to work towards understanding, taking care of our spiritual journey, and preserve through the painful times. Growing, beloved, is hard work no matter what soil you find yourself in.

The truth is that we are not seeds scattered into the wind, because we have agency. We may have found ourselves on any of these soils at some point in our lives. Know this, the soil in and of itself is not bad, for we cannot always be in rich yielding soil. When we came to know Christ, perhaps we were amongst the thorns or on the rocky path. We have the ability to move from one soil to another – we can move from the rocky soil or from amongst the thorns into the good soil with intentionality. Far too often I think Christians have used this passage to condemn those who are not in the good soil, but to do so is not being honest. For we have all had times in our lives when we have not yielded for God as much times as we could have. Times when we have just attended Sunday services and not sought to grow deeper in our relationship with Christ outside of the sanctuary. Times when didn’t want to do the hard work of telling others about God’s grace and mercy. Times when we thought of ourselves instead of the body of Christ. These are the times when we may have found ourselves choosing not to be in the good soil, because it was too risky.

But there have been other times when we have chosen to move from our present circumstances into the rich soil. Times when we hungrily dug into the Bible beyond one hour a week on Sunday and practiced spiritual disciplines to grow in our faith. Times when we trusted God enough to tithe. Times when our prayer life was bigger then ourselves and when we invited others to come and know the grace that we have experienced. It’s times like this that we understood that anything worth having is worth taking a risk for and the bigger the risk, the bigger the yield.

As seeds, or those being sown, we need to consider what soil we will risk ourselves to be in. But there is another way to think about this parable today and that is from the vantage point of the sower. In this parable, the person sowing the seeds throws them into the wind trusting a force beyond their control to plant them. What a beautiful picture of the reckless abandon of the love of God and the trust that we put into God as the person sowing the seeds of the gospel.

For a while I attended a church that was amazingly methodical about the way they went about evangelism. The researched the area they lived in, pulling up demographics. And they told people to pick one or two people whom they would invest in for the kingdom of God. There efforts paid off for a while, as the church began to grow. However, I think today’s passage of scripture asks us to do something so much more. It seems to call us to love all, spreading the word of God wherever we can, and not be worried about where the seed may land or what it may yield, for that is in the hands of God. The parable challenges us to change our thinking – from being overly methodical in how we share the love of God and whom we offer it to (because we don’t want our efforts to be wasted on the three-fourths of soil that don’t yield fruit) to sharing the love of God everywhere, knowing that the yield and the timing are beyond our control. This, brothers and sisters, is faith. For really there is no way of predicting what will come of our desire to share God’s grace with others – its all about trusting God. And that is a huge risk.

At the end of the day, as the sower, we cannot prepare the soil of other people’s hearts and lives for the love of God. Some people are simply going to reject the message of Christ, and we cannot control that nor does it mean that we did anything wrong or that those whom we are witnessing to are bad people. We are simply called to love as broadly and boldly as possible., which is never a waste of our time or resources. However, as the seed, those in whom the word of God is sown, we do have a choice – a choice of what soil we find ourselves in at any given time as dictated by how we respond to our circumstances. In this duel calling of being the sower and the seed planted in soils we find our story today. But both have the same message for our lives – to risk ourselves for God so something amazingly abundant can take root. For nothing is too difficult for God and there is no place where God’s love cannot reach and transform lives. May we be faithful disciples, in whatever our circumstances, and with whoever we meet.