Over the past few weeks, we have
been touching on various stewardship topics.
Last week, for All Saints Day, I mentioned those that came before us,
giving to this church, creating the place where we are able to gather and
worship today. Prior to that, we had the
story of the Ten Lepers, where only one leper came back to give thanks to
Jesus. This is a story of gratitude and
thanksgiving, of returning to God our thanksgiving for all that God has done
for us, it is also a story of tithing, that one in ten is returned to God.
Today’s
parable is one of abundance that, perhaps can also be seen as
carelessness. What farmer, what
gardener, what sower will just throw seed everywhere? Before the seed is thrown, the ground is
carefully prepared, but not in this story.
In this story, seed is thrown everywhere, reminds me of dandelions,
where the seeds float through the air until they come to a resting place,
somewhere, everyone, and indeed, those seeds often take root even in the most
unlikely of places.
Jesus
teaches that the seed is actually the word of God. Is it possible that the word of God is
blowing in the wind all around us, floating in the breeze like a dandelion
seed, ready to find a resting place? The
word of God is all around us, it is available for all to hear, for all to
receive, but does not always find a fertile place to rest.
Today’s
stewardship theme is discipleship, it is about cultivating our inner being, our
spirit, our soul, so that when we hear the word of God in the world around us,
it falls upon our hearts and grows. And
not only does it grow, it bears fruit.
Our
Thursday morning Bible Study group is doing a video series on faith. According to Rick Warren, there are six
stages of faith: dream, decision, delay,
difficulty, dead ends, and deliverance.
In each of these stages, the seed of God’s word is seeking to be heard,
seeking to land upon us, seeking to grow within us. And in each of these stages, if we do not
keep our trust in God, stay firm in our faith, seek support from our greater
community of faith, these seeds can wither and die.
How
often do we have a dream, a dream for the church, a hope, a feeling that this
might be a ministry to try, and it only stays a dream? We heard the word of God, we got excited
about it, but it landed on the path or in the rocks and couldn’t take root and
fully develop.
In
order to get from dream to decision, requires discipleship. It requires prayer, and courage, and the
willingness to invest resources into the dream.
Disciples listen to the word of God, and seek to live it out in their
daily lives. Turning a dream into
reality involves studying the scriptures, listening to how God is guiding us,
calling us, speaking to us, and having the faith and courage to put that dream
into action. I can use the birth of
Faith Kitchen as an example.
Pastor
Cheri did not have a dream of a soup kitchen in her church until, until one day
a person came to the church hungry and asked for some food. He was given a can of beans and sat outside
the church and ate the beans right out of the can. Pastor Cheri heard the word of God that her
congregation could do better than this in providing food for the hungry right
outside their door. And the dream turned
into a decision, and Faith Kitchen was born.
And for over 25 years it has been bearing fruit for God in the Dover
community.
But this
dream came at a great cost, and risks, and conflict, and the list goes on. The church gave up their fellowship space Mon
– Saturday, they turned their kitchen over to the heavy use of daily cooking,
they allowed people into their building that sometimes start fights or are
struggling with some pretty severe mental illnesses. But they heard the call to discipleship, to
living out God’s word of feeding the hungry, to care for God’s sheep, to be a
light that shines in the darkness.
The seeds
of God’s word comes in all different shapes and sizes. But for it to land in fertile soil, ready to
bear fruit for God, requires discipleship.
And discipleship comes in all different shapes and sizes. Starting a soup kitchen is completely
different than collecting food for a Thanksgiving food drive, but they both
bear fruit for God. Discipleship and
Stewardship go hand in hand. In order to
be a disciple, you understand what it means to use your time, talent, and
treasure in serving God, in making our hearts a welcoming place for God’s word,
for preparing ourselves to bear fruit for God.
I chose
today’s passage partly because of the baptism we celebrated this morning. As people of faith, as disciples, we bring
our children before the church, dedicating them to God. Baptism marks a child as part of God’s
family, a child of the covenant, and we take vows to raise the child, nurture
the child in the faith. These are all
marks of discipleship. The church is
called to surround this child, and every child that comes before us
unconditional love and to provide a place of nurture where the child can grow
into a compassionate adult. Hearing the
word of God can happen any time in a person’s life, young children have heard
the word of God, have had a seed of God’s word fall upon their heart, and
dreams have been born, and decisions made, and fruit has been born. Discipleship does not have an age
restriction.
Friends,
the word of God are all around us, something is speaking to your heart, there
is a topic or issue that is dear to you.
Hear that dream, pray about it, and seek ways within your own life to
cultivate fertile soil within our own inner being to nurture that seed into the
fruit of God’s love that is desiring to be born. Live into your discipleship, live into your
baptism, live into being God’s presence of love in this world. Amen.
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