Sermon June 29  – Sower Goes out to Sow (Matt 13:1-9)           Rev. Betsy Hogan

It’s a little weird, I think, to suddenly start randomly thinking about Christmas… at the end of June. I mean – maybe it’s not, in service of solidarity with our neighbours in the southern hemisphere, for whom all the light-returning imagery of our Christmastime Winter Solstice in fact coincides with their Summer Solstice –

But I think that’s probably a stretch. And I don’t think it really viably explains why this past week as I contemplated Matthew’s telling of the Parable of the Sower that Ken read for us just now –

I found that instead of being focused on the fact that it’s June, and everything’s at the absolute PEAK of ludicrous Nova Scotian summertime greenness, and we even had our very own version of a heat wave for good measure -- I kept randomly thinking about Christmas.

The parable is even about seeds and planting and gardening! And I kept randomly thinking about Christmas. It was perfidious! Or as we prefer to characterize such things in The United Church of Canada, it was very unhelpful. 

But it was also kind of funny and ironic. Because the biggest problem that we always have with Jesus’ Parable of the Sower – is in fact that we always wind up focused on the wrong thing. 

Every time. Whenever we hear it. What do we invariably focus on? How to be the good soil. Not the rocky soil, not the thorny soil, not the shallow soil -- the good soil. The good soil that yields the amazing harvest.

And why not? Of COURSE that’s where we’d want to focus. Because who doesn’t want to be good soil? Who doesn’t want to be receptive to God’s wisdom, wholly committed to the nourishment of God’s vision, a cradle of support for the growth and blossoming of all God gives that’s good?

Of COURSE that’s where we’d want to focus. And oh, the sermons that have been written about being that good soil – I couldn’t tell you how many I’ve thought up and read. 

Never mind the one the gospel-writer includes immediately after the parable. Because there’s practically no reason to even HAVE a sermon if we just stretch this reading out for another half-dozen verses, and in fact, some biblical scholars challenge preachers to go for it. Literally just extend the reading to include the little sermon afterward about how to be the good soil -- and then, thanks be to God, Amen.

Because Matthew’s gospel lays it all out for us. How to be that good soil. How to yield that good harvest.

Don’t be rocky – don’t put up barriers, like doubt or self-centredness, that prevent the word of God from taking root when it falls on us.

Don’t be thorny – don’t let the worries and fears and burdens of our daily lives overwhelm the goodness of God’s blessing when it tries to take root in us for our benefit.

And don’t be shallow – don’t grab hold of God’s hand with an enthusiasm that can’t be sustained in the long term, that fails to put down strong roots, that won’t outlast a buffeting wind or the next great enthusiasm that comes along.

But instead be the welcoming soil, freed from obstacles to growth, unwilling to be limited by worries or burdens, deep in commitment and rich in the nourishment of prayer – the welcoming soil, the good soil, in which the seed can take root and the harvest of blessing achieved.

And let the people say Amen. Because of COURSE that’s what we want to be. Of course that’s where we want to focus when we hear this parable – on how we can be that good soil, on how that blessing of the abundant harvest of God’s wisdom and grace can arise not only in our own lives but through us to everyone around us, to the whole world.

And it seems like that’s a good place TO focus. Because who among us hasn’t felt like rocky soil by times, barely fit to grow ANYthing, nevermind anything worthwhile? And who among us hasn’t had to struggle by times to see any signs of God’s presence around us when the weeds and thorns of worries or troubles have felt overwhelming? And who among us hasn’t been able to “keep the faith” for a time, maybe even against all odds, but felt it wavering or getting uprooted when something really bad happened?

It’s HARD to be that good soil. And we know all the reasons why. So of course that’s where we’re going to focus when we hear this parable, and the way in which it immediately gets turned into a sermon in that very same passage bears that out. 

But here’s the thing. It’s just not really the point of the parable. It does immediately become a secondary point, and one that’s clearly immensely meaningful, not only to Jesus’ first listeners but all these centuries later still to us – but it’s still not really the main point of the parable.

Because this isn’t “the allegory of the seeds and the soils”. It’s the Parable of the Sower. Our focus is meant to be on the Sower. 

“Listen,” says Jesus, “a sower went out to sow.” And then he proceeds to tell the story of that sower. Who, it transpires, might actually be the worst farmer in all the history of farming.

Because this sower, this farmer seems to have not the first clue what seeds need in order to grow, or where they should be planted. Instead, he goes out with his bag of seeds – with this precious cargo of the promise of harvest and food and survival – and basically? He just chucks those seeds around without the slightest concern for where they’re landing. It is ridiculous how this sower sows these seeds. He literally flings them willy nilly in every direction. 

It’s ridiculous how this sower sows these seeds. Jesus’ listeners at that time would have recognized that immediately. In a desert climate? You don’t just fling seeds around willy nilly. You make sure they’re going to land where they’ve a decent chance of growing, or next year’s going to be a pretty lean year.

But this sower, this farmer, doesn’t. He just chucks those seeds everywhere – rocky paths, thorny patches, areas where the soil’s too shallow, and yes also onto some good soil – and then he waits for his harvest. Apparently with not a care in the world for how much seed he seems to have wasted.

And what’s the result? A breath-takingly enormous harvest. Oh yeah, a bunch of the seeds never amounted to anything. But the ones that did? Yielded thirty-fold, sixty-fold, even a hundred-fold. That farmer made out like a bandit. That wasteful wasteful farmer wound up with a harvest the most careful farmer could only have dreamed of. Thirty-fold, sixty-fold, a hundred-fold. And all by scattering those seeds willy nilly. 

All by scattering those seeds everywhere as though everywhere could possibly be the kind of soil where they might grow. Naïve? Maybe. Not really paying attention, just getting the work over with? Possibly. But I don’t think so. 

Instead, what about radically, stunningly hopeful? Even ridiculously stunningly hopeful. Doesn’t that seem like a nicer way to put it? So astonishingly radically hopeful that he does scatter those seeds everywhere – even does it on purpose, with glorious abandon – because who knows? Anywhere – everywhere! -- could possibly be where they’ll grow. 

We make judgments all the time, I think, maybe without even realizing it – too rocky, too thorny, too shallow, not right, not ready, not good, not good enough --

But God? Not so much. “Listen,” says Jesus, “This sower went out to sow. And he was the worst farmer ever. He was so absurdly ridiculously radically hopeful that he just scattered those seeds everywhere. Flung them all over the place." 

Because everywhere could be a place where they’ll grow. Even against all the odds, busting through the rocks or creeping around the thorns or taking root in the thinnest layer of soil – everywhere, in everything, God’s sown so much beauty and so many crystal-perfect moments of joy and so much shining breath-taking goodness. 

That’s how bad and wonderful a farmer God is. Thirty, sixty, a hundredfold. And that, as it turns out, is why I kept on randomly thinking about Christmas. In June. At the summer solstice. When things couldn’t be more lush and blooming and green. When I was supposed to be thinking about the Parable of the Sower.

It was because of this poem. Called Christmas Eve, by Ethel Pochocki. It was because when it comes to God’s terrible farming, just scattering moments of perfect and glorious beauty into everywhere, anywhere, I can’t say it better than it ever got said at any Choral Christmas service we ever had. So here it is. 

 
…it would be nice,
   she thinks, to see
   a flock of angels,
   singing or not,
   or one sitting in a tree
   or on the curb,
   eating an orange,
   something, 
some little gift,
   to tell her she
   mattered

   she rounds the corner
   into a burst of light
   illuminating the lawn
   of the First Bible Church,
   where floodlights beam
   upon a plywood creche
   wherein a Holy Family
   of human children
   grows bored with

   sanctity
   Mary and Joseph
   appear to be wrestling
   while Baby Jesus,
   sausage-stuffed into the manger,
   flails his limbs
   like an overturned beetle,
   shrieking demand
   for release

a protecting angel,
   its wings outlined
   in blinking lights,
   pivots unsteadily
   on the shaking roof,
   lists finally
   to the right

   in the instant
   of converging eyes,
   actors and audience
   assume their roles --
   Mary stuffs a lollipop
   into the Child's mouth,
   
motions Joseph to her side,
   folds her mittened hands
   as they serenade
   the blessedly silent Jesus
   with a jubilant
   "Jingle Bells"

   the woman's hands,
   spread like a fan
   across her mouth
   to contain delight,
   move now to applause,
   the children wave, bow,
   laugh, throw kisses,
   before the church door opens
   and all disappear into lives
   somewhere else,
   rejoicing that
   in this moment,
   on this night,
   they have
   mattered 

Thanks be to God for every little gift that tells us we matter. May we never stop looking for them and expecting them, come rocks or thorns or whatever. Amen.