Seeds
John Wilkinson Third
Presbyterian Church
July 10, 2005
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Last week we had the privilege of attending a wedding near
Ithaca. It was our first time to that lovely part of the state.
Those of you who know Ithaca will know, already, what I am talking
about, and may even think it no big deal. What struck me, amazed
and slightly amused me, were the gorges and waterfalls. They
are breathtaking, and more so, they seem to pop up just about
anywhere. We would be meandering along a city street and suddenly
the earth would open up and a little geological masterpiece
would simply appear.
It would be that way for a seed, I would submit, in a kind
of reverse process. Little and round and unremarkable. And yet
with water and nourishment and nurture the seed will open up
and a little agricultural, biological masterpiece would simply
appear.
And yet we know that none of it is simple – in the world
of nature or in our own lives – and that none of it simply
happens.
Jesus tells these stories, called parables, and they are extraordinary
examples of the power of the gospel. They were essentially simple
stories, using the means of the people around him who followed
him day by day, in increasingly large numbers, to hang onto
his words, seeking to connect their lives to his and to the
greater story of the kingdom of God he continually described.
Family relationships, work, money, all were fair game to help
to tell the story. Some would have been fishers, some manual
laborers, carpenters, masons. And some would have been farmers,
or at the very least would have been familiar with planting
and growing and harvesting, and the miracle of seasons and seeds.
So a simple story: seeds falling on thin ground for the birds
to eat; seeds falling on rocky ground, quick growth that could
not be sustained; seeds ground in thorns, which made any growth
painful; and, finally, seeds planted on good soil, which grew
and flourished and provided a plentiful and bountiful crop.
The end.
The end, except not quite. The disciples follow up after the
crowd disperses. They want to know more, first about the nature
of the parable itself and then about the nature of what they
have just heard.
I remember learning in Sunday school or someplace that a parable
is an earthly story with a heavenly message. That may be. I
appreciate the parables so much because they invite the hearer’s
imagination to take over and do its best work – the hearer
then and the hearer now. Like a short story, we enter in briefly
and live with a simple image for a brief while, a simple thought
or character or conversation, and our life is somehow transformed
in the process. So it is here.
What is this story about? The sower, the one planting the seeds?
The four types of grounds upon which the seeds were planted?
The seeds themselves? The plants that grew and the crop that
was generated? Yes to all!
This morning, though, might we focus on the seeds that fell
on the good soil? Jesus held out the possibility that our lives
could represent all of these scenarios, but he held out most
hopefully this final one. The earth is good. The seed is healthy.
The water and sun are just right. And we blossom and grow and
provide a crop that far surpasses anything we could ever imagine
or accomplish on our own.
Two dynamics seems to be at work – how the seed is nurtured
and what it produces. Other sermons from other preachers might
try to instill a sense of anxiety – are you certain about
the soil into which you have been planted??? I am not so interested
in that this morning. That may be the case, but if the image
is to hold out, we need to trust the sower to place us in the
right place. And so we do.
What about that nurture? The gifts of faith, scripture and
worship and prayer. The discipline of community, by which others
who care for you seek to reflect back to you a vision of how
things may be. An openness to the world around, to its challenges
and possibilities. A deep reliance on God’s grace, on
an acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty that allows us
to move beyond the notion of control and into the reality of
freedom. All of those things and more would serve as the ways
that the soil into which we have been planted is made rich so
that growth might happen.
We have baptized two babies this morning. In so many ways,
the promises we make to them and to their families are as the
promises nature makes to a seed, to provide all the elements
for growth and nurture. And in so many ways, whenever we celebrate
a baptism, we are reminded as well of our own baptism promises,
made many years ago or more recently, and the ways that the
community of faith is responsible for one another, accountable
to one another, so that baptism may take root and develop and
blossom.
And what of that crop? The details were unimportant, and remain
so. The crop, however, is not unimportant.
Three manifestations of it this morning.
· Trust. Trust as the invitation to believe in the promises
of God, to take the leap of faith, to rely on the good news
that nothing can separate us from God’s love and to live
in that promise each day. The trust, for example, that one who
is addicted places in the recovery process in order for true
healing to happen.
· And hope. Hope that the way things are will not always
be the way things are to be. Hope in God’s love, the power
of love to overcome every other power, and to live each day
in hope. The hope, for example, that two people express in that
moment when they exchange vows and pledge themselves to one
another, against all odds.
· And courage. Courage in the face of conflict and despair.
The need for courage at the moment is great. Courage in the
face of terrorist attacks in London and elsewhere. Courage in
the face of children dying in the streets of Rochester. Courage
in the face of the AIDS pandemic. Courage in the face of a world
at war, growing ever more cynical about the possibilities for
peace and justice. Courage in the face of oppression or exclusion
based upon every kind of barrier, including that of who you
love. Courage to act in the face of dis-couragement, courage
to live and to act and to be.
Trust and hope and courage, and there could be so many more.
And the good news of this morning is that we cannot make those
things happen, anymore than a seed can make itself grow. But
we can be open to the ways that we are nurtured, in the community
of faith, by the gifts of faith, so that when the opportunity
for growth happens, we are prepared to respond and do respond.
You who are gardeners know this as well as anyone – that
all the work, all the labor, all the preparation, guarantees
nothing. Something mysterious happens, something ultimately
beyond all human control. Jesus called it the kingdom of God,
planted deeply within us and nurtured by the spirit and in community.
It begins with baptism, as we have noted many times and demonstrated
just a few moments ago. And it ends at the table, or rather
begins again at the table. One could imagine the crop that produced
so amazingly well being harvested, and then, perhaps as happened
so frequently and abundantly in the Rochester of generations
ago, being turned to flour and baked into bread, and served
at some table, to nourish a body as well as a soul.
English poet Mary Webb wrote: “The noise of bells has
sunk to rest;/ The low grey clouds move swiftly on./ The land
is still as Avalon,/ Deep-breathing in its sleep, and blest.
For us the holy ground is spread/Across the quiet, misty dales/Towards
the hyacinth hills of Wales,/To give our souls their daily bread.
For us that starling flock too wing,/And, like a silken banner
blown,/Across the rippling corn has flown,/To teach our spirits
how to sing.”
That is the seed within us, and its growth is the spirit singing.
May it be so. Amen.
