So, Y'wanna see what got sowed?

Here is my sermon for the Preaching & Technology class. For the setting of this sermon, I placed myself in Nebraska by this July.

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus talks about sowing seeds, and reaping bountiful yields from some places and absolutely nothing from other places. This gives me a perfect opportunity to show off my lack of knowledge of agribusiness and farming. That’s what you get when you call a city boy from Michigan out to the farmlands of Nebraska.

Jesus talks about the bounty of crops planted in good soil, with yields of thirty, sixty, even one hundred times the yield of what was planted. Having done some research into crop yields, these are not the types of yields that would allow farmers of today to stay in business. From what I have been able to figure out, it is the sower, the subject of this parable, who did not do such a good job.

For example, the sower sows seeds on four types of ground. Some of the seeds he sowed and scattered wound up on the path, where birds came to eat the seeds. Now, even a city boy knows that planting seeds in the road is a bad idea. I can’t imagine you will get much of a yield from scattering seeds across I-80.

Some of the seeds were sowed and scattered on rocky ground. The roots were not able to take hold, and the plants died in the hot summer sun due to a lack of water. Now, even a city boy has learned that you must prepare the soil, getting rid of rocks and other impediments.

Some of the seeds were sowed and scattered among thorns. The thorns choked the life out of the plants, and the plants died. Now, even a city boy has learned that you must prepare the soil, getting rids of thorns and weeds and other plants that will diminish your yield.

But some of the seeds were sowed and scattered among good soil. Those seeds grew and flourished and brought forth grain. Some of them yielded over a hundredfold of what was planted, while other results may vary, with some having yields of sixty or thirty times what was sown.

From my vast knowledge and experience with farming and agribusiness, it seems to me the sower is at fault here. The sower has been wasteful in his resources, scattering seeds in places where the seeds, the poor seeds never had a chance. Every seed is a vital precious resource, and cannot be wasted. The sower should be brought in, reprimanded and relieved of his duties; either reassigned or possibly his vocation lies along another career path.

But that’s the problem with parables. They never mean quite what they seem to mean, including in one like this where Jesus explains the parable. The types of soil are those who have heard the word of the kingdom of God, but in whom it has not taken hold. There is a way to look at parables that I find helpful. In every parable Jesus tells, there will be someone or something representing Jesus, and there will be someone or something representing us. We already know that we are the various types of soil, because Jesus gives the disciples the answer beginning in verse 19. Jesus also says that the seeds are the “word of the kingdom of God.” Jesus and his Gospel message are the seeds.

There are four types of soil,  hard pathways, rocky ground, ground surrounded by thorns and good soil which produce bountiful yields. But what type of soil are we?

Are we the hard path? Have we “hear(d) the word of the kingdom and (did) not understand it,” [Matt 13.19] then had it snatched away? This is someone who has been exposed to the Gospel, but did not understand how it applied to her or him, or did not think it applied to them. Those people had the Gospel plucked from their hands, no from their hearts, because they did not take it in. I think we all have had a time when we did not understand or appreciate the love of God, or a time when we did not think it could apply to us, because we are sinners, and we do things we should not, or say things we should not. Our sin has hardened us to the seed of the reign of God, and before its roots can break through that hardening, the evil one, Satan, grabs the seed and took it and flew away, leaving us on the path alone.

Maybe we are the rocky ground. <Slide 7 We have “hear(d) the word and immediately receive(d) it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away.” This person has heard the Gospel, has felt the Gospel, the love of Christ in their lives. But it did not take root. Something happened and it endured only for a while. When their faith in God ran into difficulty, someone doubted them, questioned them, made fun of them, or didn’t accept them, their fresh faith failed them. It had not grown roots, it did not have a firm foundation, and it fell under the heat of being exposed to the light. I think we all know of a time like that in our lives. We were full of the love of Christ; we had that mountain top experience. Maybe we worked on a service project. Maybe we were at a retreat or a Bible study. We were full of the Holy Spirit and we did something foolish; we told somebody else. We might have even done something crazy like inviting someone to church. And they looked at us – didn’t have to say a word, but they just looked at us. “Oh, you’re one of those Christians,” and under the white-hot gaze of judgment, we denied our faith and vowed never to do something that foolish again.

Maybe we are among thorns. <Slide 8> We have “hear(d) the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke(d) the word.”[Matt 13.22] This person has heard and felt God’s love, and it has grown within them, but they got too busy. The cares of the world and the lure of wealth came calling, and the word fell by the wayside. I think we all know of a time like that in our lives. You have to work extra hours at your job or more things are going on at home. You are being pulled in ten directions all at once; the kids have this event to go to, work has been a mess this week, you and your spouse can’t seem to agree on anything except that the other one is wrong, and Sunday’s really the only day you have off. Or you used to take time every evening to have family prayer time, to sit and talk to one another, but now dinner consists of people microwaving something when the walk in the door, and family time is spent checking each other’s Facebook messages and texting to get a ride somewhere. Or maybe it has been a long time since you just stopped and took a deep breath and had a conversation with the Lord our God.

But maybe, we are good soil. That is a label I think many of us hope we can accept. “This is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields.” [Matt 13.23] We have heard the Word of God; we understand it (as best as we can) and we have born fruit, or whatever crop we are.  I think we have had times when we have felt God’s love. We have realized that the word of the reign of God is for us, sinners that we are, and we have unhardened our hearts. We have withstood the blistering heat of judgment by others and have grown deep roots. We have faced the pressures and demands of the world and remembered the command to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and mind and soul. We have born fruit, some of us a hundred fold, some sixty fold and some thirty fold.

Anyone else feeling a little uneasy at claiming to be good soil? Because as much as we want to grab that label, I don’t know if we pass that inspection. There are times I feel like the hard path, the rocky ground and surrounded by thorns. But sometimes, I think that I am the good soil, and I can bear good fruit, fruit that in its thirty, sixty or hundred times bounty may create seeds of their own. When we realize that we can be good soil, when we share the love and grace given to us by Jesus Christ, we can share that good news by what we do, what we say, how we live and who we are. We can be a living, walking, talking proclamation that the seed that was sown, that seed that was trampled on, tortured, and killed for our transgressions did not die a death that was final. Rather, that seed rose from the ground, ascended into heaven and has borne the best fruit, the fruit of eternal life for all who believe in him.

So how do we stay good soil, and how do we help others turn from being paths, rocks or surrounded by thorns and become good soil. Fortunately, we can play more than one role in a parable. While we are the soil, we are also the ones who can prepare the soil. Good soil rarely happens on it’s own. The good soil of the farms in this area did not get that way on their own. They took a lot of work to get to be good soil. They take a lot of work to stay as good soil. It is the same with our faith.

We can help one another, and our neighbors, turn from the path to being good soil. We can pull the weeds that choke the faith from them and ourselves. We can remove and break up the rocks and prepare the soil, supporting those whose faith does not yet have deep roots. We can all probably look at someone who pulled weeds, or broke up the rocks, got us off of the path we were on, watered, fed and nourished us. We can do that for others and for ourselves. We can nurture and feed our faith and the faith of our family, friends and neighbors by sustaining it, by watering it, tending to it and fertilizing it. But most importantly, we can value our faith and our relationship to the Lord our God, our Savior and Redeemer, simply paying attention to our faith.

Before I close, there is one more person in the parable, the one for whom the parable is named. Who is the sower?  Who is the one who haphazardly scattered “the word of the kingdom of God?” Who is it who sent Jesus into the world? It is God, the Creator, who is the sower. God is not the reckless, bound for unemployment, sower I may have claimed earlier, but actually is much wiser than we can realize. God sowed the seeds of the word of the reign of God in all kinds of soils. But as verse 19 reveals what kind of soil the word has been sewn into; the word of the reign of God is sown into our hearts. It is our hearts that become hard, or rocky or surrounded by thorns. But it is also our hearts that can become good soil from which the Gospel can grow and flourish.

Like the statue of “The Sower” on top of the Nebraska State Capital, God stands on high sowing and scattering the seeds of the Gospel into the hearts of everyone in the world. We can help to make our hearts, and the hearts of those we encounter, into good soil. So, go & sow & tend to the fields.