Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Let’s just put it out there.  This sower is terrible at their job.  No one just throws the seed everywhere.  For farmers, it would be a costly waste of what they call “inputs.”  For the home gardeners, there’s just not enough room.  There are separate spaces for the yard, and the flower bed, and the vegetable garden.  I’ve seen it at my own home.  Not that I’ve had anything to do with it.  But planting is a careful project. The yard would be a mess if you just threw the seeds out the window..

Or you’d get a beanstalk, but that’s a whole different story.

In most of our discussions of this parable, we quickly and subtly shift the focus from the sower to the soil.  It becomes an exploration about what kind of soil we are.  Basically, what kind of dirtball are you? Am I good soil, or rocky soil, or hard beaten-down pathway soil?  Instead of a parable about the trustworthy, extravagant gospel that is for the whole world, it’s turned into a little lesson on how to be good.

We miss one, contextual point because the lectionary reading left out a a section between the parable and its interpretation.  Jesus tells the parable to the crowd.  But in the intervening section, the crowd is gone and Jesus working with the disciples.  He’s giving them some clues on how to hear the story.  Where are they in the story?  They’re not in the crowd.  They’re not the ground.  They’re the sowers.

Their worry may not have been about whether they would be good soil, but whether spreading the good news would make any difference.  Were they ready?  Did they know the right words?  Did they know how to pray out loud in front of people?  Maybe they had even given it a try, and it didn’t seem to make one bit of difference? I suspect they were very aware of the inability to do great things.  Had the church already discovered that, while Jesus could draw a crowd, they couldn’t.  By Matthew’s time, had that great swell of converts already slowed to a trickle.  Had they proclaimed peace and liberating gentleness only to have not one shred of influence over the Roman Empire?

Maybe we can relate.  Every news report about religion reports that it’s either declining or getting swept up in nationalistic movements.  The numbers of people who identify as having no faith grows, and churches all around the world close.  Our own denomination just formed a committee to draw up a new structure because over time resources have diminished, the average age has gotten older, and we top the list of least diverse Protestant denominations.  There’s a creeping sense of despair and failure that is making its way through congregations and denominations.  Some have wondered aloud, “When will that trend become real for Gloria Dei?  How long can we avoid what seems inevitable?”

And, distressingly on the other side, it seems like the ranks of Christian nationalists, who are eager to wave the Confederate flag, seem bolder and more confident than ever before. Jesus and guns, or Jesus and White Supremacy, Jesus and Book Banning have become the symbols of Christianity for so many who have never heard the words that more loving and generous forms of Christianity have been preaching in their churches.

It’s easy to fall into despair; to wonder if goodness or mercy, kindness or generosity of spirit or wealth, of welcome and justice are making any difference in the world around us.

And Jesus says, “Don’t worry about the harvest.  I’ve got that part.  I’ve got the future of the world.  I’ve got the future of the church.  I have YOU. The word will take root in God’s own mysterious way. It will bring a harvest.  It will produce, probably more than you expect.  You may see it, or you may not.  Leave that part up to God.”

Sometimes when I’m overwhelmed by all this, or I have to write a sermon, I just watch Tik Tok videos.  Very quickly it figures out who you are and what you like.  I get a lot of things-that-go-wrong-in-church-services videos.  There was one  lately from a wedding reception. The bride turned her back on all the single women and heaved her bouquet into the air.  However, no one really thought to consider the impact of the ceiling fan on the ritual.

Boom!  The bouquet took a few dramatic turns on the fan, and then perfectly broke open, flowers raining down on the whole crowd, not just the single women pushed out onto the dance floor by their grandmothers, but on men standing at the edges and old married couples sitting at a safe distance, on children way too young to participate, onto tables, into drinks. Flowers everywhere.

That’s the reign of God.  Boom!  The Word of God sown, the whole world broken open as a place where everyone gets a flower.  It doesn’t matter if you have the right vase or if you know to dry it for posterity’s sake.  It doesn’t matter if you appreciate the color or the shape, or even understand the gift that you’ve received.  Everyone gets a flower.

Everyone gets a little seed, planted right at the center of your very being, right in your outstretched hand.  When God is the farmer, everyone is a field.  We’re just pitching out the seeds, and God’s promise is that there’s going to be a harvest:  tenfold, sixtyfold, one hundredfold.

Let everyone who has ears, or who has ever been afraid of what’s coming next, hear that!