Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
“Growing Things”
July 16, 2023
I have no idea where the people who put together the Revised Common Lectionary – the 20 th
century resource that broke the Bible up into 3 years so that we touch on all the books – not
with much attention to some of them – but all of what they considered the high points of
scripture on a cycle so we get to experience it together with many of our Protestant and Catholic
and Orthodox brothers and sisters on the same Sunday.
It is fitting that starting today and for the next couple of Sundays, we will explore the 13 th chapter
of Matthew which holds 7 different parables within it.
And so like any good gardener – we begin at the beginning with good soil and care for where
we plant the seeds.
This week, after the devastation of the floods that washed through Vermont, I could not help but
have my heart pulled toward farmers in our state, many of whom have lost all their crops and
find themselves too late in the season to replant and so are trying to figure out how they and
their workers will survive, desperately hoping for assistance from the state or the federal
government, many in spite of their deeply ingrained pride and strong sense of independence.
This week’s storms were different – some don’t know how they will be able to return to the only
livelihood they’ve ever known – sowing seeds for growing plants and flowers for the rest of us.
This week’s parable, along with the other six are Jesus’ way of pulling his listeners into
envisioning the Kingdom of God by using imagery to which they can easily relate.
There are some scholars that also point out that by teaching in parables Jesus avoided getting
arrested and thrown in jail for heresy or treason…if he’s only talking about seeds and fertile soil,
there would be plenty of ways to interpret that, wouldn’t there?
But back to this parable of the Sower and the four different types of ground he throws the seed
on.
One way to hear this is that depending on whether its packed, rocky, thorny or healthy soil, this
will determine how what is planted – an idea, a church, a person? – will succeed or not.
When you hear this parable what comes to mind?
If we only create all the right conditions, then we will have success.
Thinking back to our fellow Vermonters who had their farms flooded this week, I’m thinking that
might not be the message.
These were professionals who had spent years and many thousands of hours not to mentions
dollars investing in all the right equipment, placing their greenhouses and massive fields in
places where the sun was just right, the soil was fertile, supplementing it with manure and
carefully timing every detail with all the best science and proper balance of water and nutrients
and pruning.
And now all of that makes absolutely no difference.
They still have lost almost everything but from the stories I’ve read and heard from them, there
is a determination not to give up.
They will plant again.
2
It could be that instead of hearing this parable and thinking “Hmmm…have I created a fertile
place, free of the thorns of my faults and cleared out the rocks of my ego and stubbornness and
done a good job of becoming blameless so that what God has planted within me will always
grow and thrive and provide lush new life?”
I might need to rethink this and remember that it has been referred to as the Parable of the
Sower not the Parable of the Soil.
If I remember that God is at the center of this parable then I am reminded that it is a story of
God’s extravagant generosity.
What we have here is not a tale about the ground the seed is thrown on but the one who does
the throwing.
God is not waiting for perfect conditions but rather keeps trying.
Maybe humility might be part of this parable.
God is not waiting for the all the right conditions before throwing out the seed.
And I say, thank God!
If each of us had to be perfectly pH balanced and with just the right amount of perfectly aged
compost in order for God to land and plant something within us, there would not be too many
believers.
This parable makes it hard to sit in a judgment seat of others when God isn’t judging.
Instead, God the Sower throws seed on those who have
lived hard lives and maybe they’ve made some bad decisions – haven’t we all?
Maybe they even have intentionally run as far away from organized religion as they could get.
Perhaps their lives have been devoted to amassing as much as they could for themselves or
numbing away the pain of a hard life with any variety of substances or purchases.
And still our loving God keeps on throwing those seeds.
And maybe rather than focusing on the soil, it could be that we – you and me – are some of the
seeds God is throwing out there for someone else.
If we embrace our Incarnate God, then the part of God that is in you and me might be just the
seed that will find a home in someone else.
God might just be throwing us out there in the hopes that something will take root.
And I don’t know about you, but rarely have I ever been convinced of the value of an idea by
someone lecturing me about it.
Instead, many of the ways I’ve ever witnessed God at work in the world have been in the way
that people around me have treated their fellow humans or animals or the earth.
I was not drawn to the UCC by reading about it or going to a meeting about it.
I was drawn to the denomination and ultimately ministry within it because I witnessed people I
cared about acting out the great commandment of loving God and loving neighbors, not judging
who deserves such love, but how best to spread it around.
3
I am no master gardener but I am looking forward to figuring out where and how growing things
might flourish around our new home in North Bennington, both inside and out.
I also, very much, want to continue to be partnered with God in planting love in this often dry
and hardened and thorny and rocky world.
God is at work in each of you – his seeds.
Let us spread God’s love with wild abandon.
We never know what will take root.
Amen.