| Sermon for Sunday, June 26, 2005 Where Are You In The Garden?ByRev. Cindy Bates |
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Scripture: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 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. 6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 Let anyone with ears listen!" 18 "Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 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. 20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 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. 22 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. 23 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." I picked this summer’s first zucchini on Tuesday. Like the other kinds of squash in my garden, it looks like there will be plenty to share. But my peas, that’s a different story. Something decided to eat those tender little shoots before they had a chance. Maybe next year for the peas. The beans look really good! They are climbing up the trellis with much gusto. But my tomatoes are pretty unremarkable so far. Now, my blackberry bush is loaded, bending the branches practically to the ground. So, I guess that overall, my plot looks pretty good…but then, there is the bindweed! If I didn’t weed almost everyday, everything would be taken over by that nasty little predator! It is so tenacious! I don’t profess to having a green thumb, but I do love to garden. Maybe it is because I have such good memories of being in the garden with my mom and dad and brothers growing up in Michigan. Maybe it is because the whole growing thing seems so miraculous to me. Maybe it is because my garden teaches me things. Maybe it is because gardening is so much like life. I probably have realized that even more this year because my garden is part of a much larger community garden and it is teeming with life and not just plant life! There is the matriarch of the garden. She has been there overseeing this little agricultural oasis in Denver for almost 30 years and she does not take kindly to those persons who do not tend to their garden. She is a hearty, good soul, but this summer the cancer in her lungs has slowed her pace and lengthened the intervals “in between time” when she can take hand to hoe. There is the young chef and his wife and toddler who come to the garden not only to grow those fresh vegetables and herbs for his culinary delights, but they also come to their little plot to play and share their gardening enthusiasm with their two great oversized dogs. Gardening helps relieve some of the stress of recently losing a job and a large part of the family income. Laughter signals that this family is in the garden. There is the woman who comes to the garden very early in the morning. The disabilities caused by a stroke means she no longer goes to work everyday even though she is still young. Gardening seems to give her purpose and perhaps a stability, a sense of balance and “rightness” even when her gait is uneven and her smile a little crooked. There is the well-read, expert gardener who shares his expertise with his gardening neighbors. And even though his tomato plants tower over our puny vines, he laughs and tells everyone how well they are doing. He is the cheerleader for everyone else and even manages a smile at the weed patch next door to him. It was a failed attempt at a garden by two very young city slickers. There are so many stories…the woman who comes, not to garden, but to have community because she lives alone and seems to have few friends…the man who comes to the garden to only observe and take pictures…the neighbor who lives in the house alongside the garden who stops in to give her opinion, which is another way of saying she is not always happy with her gardening neighbors….Well, you get the idea. We gardeners are a motley crew…a gathering of spirits, working alongside one another…sometimes producing something green and good…sometimes letting the weeds take over…sometimes delighting in what we can produce and share with others…sometimes becoming obsessive with what belongs to us…sometimes rejoicing in what someone has accomplished…sometimes being critical because “that’s not the way to do it”…. Maybe I love the garden so much because it reminds me of another gathering of spirits with similar characteristics and life experiences and it’s called the Church. When reading today’s scripture I was reminded once again about how Jesus seemed to think that agriculture and growing things could produce some pretty good images for understanding life…like the parable of the sower and the seed. He knew, that in the Galilean countryside where he grew up, people understood about such things as rocky soil and thorns and weeds and seed eating birds. And he knew about how things should be planted, cultivated and nurtured into growth. You might say Jesus was a “master gardener.” And he uses this particular parable about the sower and the seeds to teach something about life to those who will listen. We know from studying parables that they were not used by Jesus to give “pat” answers or explicit rules. Jesus knew that to really understand a parable you had to pay attention. He even begins the parable by saying, “Listen.” Biblical scholar, C. H. Dodd, gives us his classic definition of a parable by saying, “At its simplest, the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” Jesus was very good at making people think. The other day I was reading a new book by Peter Senge and his associates called, Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future, and something jumped out at me that made me reflect on how Jesus taught persons to really think about what they were doing with their life. Senge says: “I am more concerned about unquestioned answers than I am about unanswered questions.” Jesus gives us lots to ponder in this parable. Where is God in this story? Where are we? Who is the sower? Is this story about bad dirt or a plentiful harvest? One pastor said he remembered preaching on this parable several years ago to a small congregation in a farming community in the Midwest. At the end of the sermon one of the ‘salt of the earth’ farmers came up to him and said, “Preacher, I learned something from your sermon today.” The preacher, pulled himself up proud and said, “Really, Jim, what was that?” I learned that Jesus was a lousy farmer!” (You know, you never know what will be received when you throw a few thoughts out there in the form of a sermon. Something very different often comes back!) The truth is they did farm very differently in biblical times. Seeds were broadcast or scattered as the sower walked along. They plowed the seeds into the ground after they were scattered. On breezy days the seeds could go in all directions. They had to throw a lot of seeds out, knowing there would be a lot of waste and not a great return or yield. Because of the conditions, a lot of the seeds would never take root. (Some of you former Nebraskans can get a visual image of what this process was like. Just think of the statue that stands atop of the capitol building in Lincoln. It’s called “The Sower”.) Jim Fleming, one of our foremost biblical archaeologists and last month’s Disciple graduation speaker, says the richest metaphorical parable is that of the sower. It provides many different ways at looking at something. Perhaps, sometime within the next week, you can take time to ponder this parable and decide for yourself what Jesus might be saying. Today we are using Matthew’s version of this story but you can also find the sower in Mark 4 and Luke 8. (Actually, I would suggest Mark to start with. After all, that’s the version Matthew started with and at the same time you can get a head start on Harvey’s sermon series that begins next week on the Gospel of Mark.) We could spend lots of time talking about the different soils and who are the thorns and the weeds…but that can get us to a place of making judgments about seeing those thorns and weeds in the lives of others…who is “producing” and who is not! But I think Jesus was talking more about the hopefulness of what the sower was doing. Again, Jim Fleming gives us an important insight here: “Jesus told the parable where everybody knew what good soil was. For every sack of wheat sown, it is hoped to have several fold of sacks of wheat to reap. You would say two fold if you ended up with two sacks of wheat in your harvest. Forty fold is the highest you can get in the best soil in Israel. In Jesus’ parable, it is one hundred fold; two and one half times what you have heard of reaping. This is the attention getter. With God’s word expect more than you can imagine in the human realm.” Jesus was trying to encourage his followers by saying this life is a cooperative adventure. There are a lot of weeds and thorns and rocks and seed eating birds that you will encounter but we need to keep throwing those seeds out there because it is God who takes our efforts and multiplies them into harvests that we cannot begin to imagine. Think about those times when you have given your best and you feel like it was for naught. Think about the times you have gotten discouraged and said that was a wasted effort…the times you have put your hand out and it hasn’t been grasped. Just this last week I experienced something that left me feeling discouraged and questioning, “What difference could this possibly make?” And, then I remembered the sower whose hand kept reaching out throwing those seeds everywhere, even though some would fall on barren soil. Remember the words of Jesus. “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.” That seems to be the message of this gardening parable. Rev. James Liggett in today’s words for meditation says it far more eloquently than I. “This perspective of hope and confidence is the gift of the parable. There is a carefree abandon to this image. We are to love and serve in a broadcast fashion—knowing full well that most of what we do won’t amount to anything, that bad things are going to happen—but trusting none the less, in the incomprehensible abundance of the harvest. Certainly, much will be wasted, as we see it. Maybe even our favorite seed, our best, most sacrificing good deed, our smartest remark, our greatest insight, will end up on a rocky path, or inside some fat bird. But that is not ours to control; it is not ours to fix; it is not even ours to worry about.” When I am in the garden and I dig up a little dirt and I put into that dirt a dried up tiny little seed I know that if it is going to grow it will be helpful if I put a little effort into watering it and doing what I can to keep the bindweeds from choking it. But, in time, when that shriveled up little seed comes through the dirt and springs forth with an incredible transformation of new life, I know there is something happening that is much bigger and much more miraculous than I can begin to understand. What God can do, coupled with a little effort from you and me, is a thing of “holy hope.” Wherever you are in this wonderful garden of life…remember the sower, and keep planting those seeds. |
