Sermon: Plant, Grow, Produce

Matthew 13

“Plant, Grow, Produce”

            Today’s parable is all about the good soil.  In order for the seed to grow and produce it needs to fall into the right the environment.  It makes me think of the commercial that is run every spring by miraclegro – they show you a plant grown in ordinary soil and the same plant grown in miraclegro soil.  The miraclegro soil plant is twice as large and produces twice the flowers or tomatoes then the other plant.  Makes me want to buy miraclegro since of course I want the biggest, healthiest plants and flowers possible. 

            But, I have also learned, it takes more than miraclegro to really make the plants grow.  They need to be watered, they need the right amount of sun, they need additional nurture.  Just putting them in the best possible soil is not enough. 

            I have also been amazed, in and around my yard, at what grows and what does not grow.  Seeds from last year’s petunias must have fallen down into the cracks of our driveway around the big flower planters.  Those same flowers that I had such a time with last year, making sure I watered them to keep them alive, without any care at all, grew up out of the driveway pavers and bloomed beautiful purple flowers through the summer.  Go figure. 

            So, as I think about the literal translation of this parable and the spiritual meaning behind it, I wonder why the sower is so careless with the seed.  It seems as if the seed is falling everywhere, including places that it will not grow.  But then, when I think about my own experience to where I have witnessed seed growing despite the best odds, it makes me see this parable in a new light.  The sower is not careless, the sower is willing for seed to fall in non-fertile environments because there is always the possibility.  There is always the possibility that in what appears to be rocky soil, or the beaten path, the opportunity for growth. 

            Our God, is a God of possibilities, a God of risk taking, a God of what might even appear to be careless generosity.  But since our God is also a God of hope, God provides seed in every environment of our lives. 

            So, what is this seed?  Jesus uses everyday objects to help people learn more about God.  So, as he explains this parable, he shares that the seed is the Word of God.  So, then we may need to ask: what is the Word of God?  Is it scripture?  Is it the commandments?  Jesus, himself, reaches back into the scriptures of his people and quotes from Isaiah – about the blind shall see and the deaf shall hear.  The word of God may come to each of us in a different way.  For some, the Word of God is the message of eternal salvation.  For others it is the call for justice and peace and this world.  For others it is to be the light of God’s love.  For others, it is a moral teaching to be a good person.  For others it is the gift of forgiveness.  And with forgiveness, some feel that the Word of God is the call for reconciliation. 

            What is the seed?  What is God sowing so generously upon this world?  What is God expecting to grow and bear fruit?  Can the answer be as simple as love?  We say that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.  We have the Golden Rule – to love our neighbor as ourselves.  And if the seed is love, if the Word of God is to love others, how do we till the soil so that the environment is fertile?  Do we, as a congregation, see ourselves as the good soil, open and receptive to God’s word?  And if not, what are we willing to do within ourselves, within our congregation, to move towards healing and wholeness and love? 

            And do we believe, that when the soil is prepared, God will continue to throw seed upon us and life will grow?  God never gives up on God’s people.  We are faced with a lot of stress.  Over and over again, when I push certain conversations, there is such concern about our finances and keeping our building open.  We need to name this stress and ask ourselves, in this stress, is the seed of God’s Word for us able to grow?  Bearing fruit for God is not keeping our building open, as hard as that is to hear.  Bearing fruit for God is taking the Word of God and multiplying it:  Multiplying justice, multiplying peace, multiplying love, multiplying forgiveness and reconciliation. 

            Each and every day, God is sowing seed.  The Word of God is constantly falling into our lives.  Jesus is a realist.  He names it as it is.  Some days, the seed falls onto the hardness of our hearts, of our lives and just bounces off.  Other days it takes root but the stress of the world around us just chokes it dry.  And then, then there are days where we have what some call a God moment, and we really feel the joy, the peace, the love of God in our lives and we are renewed and energized and given hope .

God is continually planting, the seeds are continually growing, the soil needs consistent attention, and from there, God desires results.  God desires the seeds to bear fruit.  Your session has  a letter to go home with you all today, a letter that asks for your patience as we journey through this rocky time together, and let us work towards a path of forgiveness, so that together, we truly can bear the fruit God calls us to bear.  Amen.