Sower, Seed, Soil

Scriptures: Genesis 25:19-34,
Romans 8:1-11 Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

(Note: This sermon includes a brief tribute to Emanuel UCC's former pastor, the Rev. Dr. Eugene Grau, who went home to be with the Lord on July 8.)

Today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel gives us one of the more familiar of Jesus’ parables. The parable and its interpretation seem fairly straightforward – a sower tosses seed onto varying kinds of soil, some favorable to the growth of the seed and some unfavorable. The seed falling on the varying kinds of bad soil – stony, shallow, weedy – either doesn’t sprout at all, dies early, or is choked and fails to produce fruit. The seed falling on the good soil, by contrast, produces a bumper crop. In Matthew’s interpretation, the seed is the gospel, and the varying kinds of soil parallel varying responses to the Gospel. The parable is so straightforward that it seems difficult to say anything new about it – it says what it says, and that’s that. But it sometimes happens that when we are confident we know what a Scripture says, we may later find that what appeared to be a straightforward Scripture has layers of meaning we’d never considered. If we are too quick to turn off our hearing aids in response to familiar Scriptures, we may miss a message God has waiting in the text for us.

For example, the sower’s methods may seem, to us, a bit odd. If we’re planting tomatoes in our garden or rows of corn on some patch of land we own, we would likely first take time to prepare the soil by plowing it to break up the hard surface and by pulling weeds. And we might be careful in spacing out the seeds, roughly estimating some number of inches between each seed, lest we plant them too close together and in competing for nutrients, they crowd each other out. That’s what we would do, but the sower in our story behaves very differently. The sower tosses handfuls of seed here, and there, and everywhere, so that some seeds land on the hard path, others amid the rocks, others under a thorn bush – and yes, the sower does manage to get some of them inside the garden, onto the soil that’s known to be good. If you’re trying to conserve a limited number of seeds and wants the greatest return on that limited investment, you won’t do what the sower in Jesus’ parable did. But in the framework of the parable, the seed is the Gospel – God’s good news – which is unlimited, boundless. There’s no threat of running short or running out of Gospel – with God, there’s always good news in abundance. So, if the sower has an unlimited, self-replenishing supply of seed – well, then the sower can afford to take a more expansive view of sowing, tossing seed onto the soil that’s known to be prepared and fertile, as well as giving the less desirable ground a chance to nourish the seed. And that’s what God does with us, offering the Gospel to those prepared for it, but also to those whose hearts truly aren’t prepared to act on it – or at least not prepared to act on it at that moment. God gives everyone a chance to respond.

Why did the early church record this parable of Jesus? Perhaps they were perplexed that despite their best efforts, so many seemed unresponsive to the Gospel. Various teams of disciples would enter a town, find their way to the town square, and proclaim the message of Jesus. While some would respond, often with extravagant joy, others would be indifferent and some would be openly hostile. How could so many turn away from Good News? For those early disciples, hostile reactions to the gospel must have seemed as baffling as hostile reactions to ice cream would seem to us. And then the early church remembered this parable and reflected that Jesus never expected everyone to respond – or at least not to respond immediately.

Which brings me to another point about this parable that caught my interest. In the framework of the parable, the sowing of the seed, or the sowing of the Gospel, is something that happens once. Either the seed sprouts, or it doesn’t. You snooze, you lose. But one parable can’t say everything there is to say about God’s saving acts in the world, and in our experience, the seed is sown not once, but many times, over and over. The seed is sown every Sunday here at Emanuel and other churches, is sown in words of hope and deeds of kindness throughout the week. And our lives may contain all sorts of soil, some areas receptive to the Gospel and other parts, not so much. As Alexander Solzhynistan wrote, the line between good and evil runs, not between countries or between political parties, but through every human heart, through each of our lives. I can think of any number of times when I heard some word of godly exhortation, that at the time I heard it, either didn’t make sense or seemed downright offensive. But while nothing much may have happened at the time, that seed, that word, exactly because it annoyed or bothered me, got tucked away in the back of my mind until some later point in my life when, with more life experience – that is to say, more experience of God’s grace - under my belt, I was ready to respond. In this way, I’ve changed my mind on lots of topics over the course of my life. I suspect each of you have too. I believe God is constantly tilling the soil, constantly preparing our hearts for the gospel. Those parts of our lives that are hard like trampled-over ground or crowded with the weeds of conflicting priorities - God will eventually get around to plowing and weeding even this unpromising soil. Those parts of our lives that in the past may have seemed untouched by Good News – jobs that drain us, difficult relations with family members, our use of our time and money – will finally be prepared to respond to God’s word of grace.

And what a response! Jesus said that when the seed of the word falls into fertile ground, it will bring forth fruit in abundance, 30 times as much, or 60 times, or 100 times as much. No matter how beaten-down we may feel, we may find ourselves amazed by the fruit of God’s work in our lives. In this connection, I think of my predecessor, Emanuel's former pastor, the Rev. Dr. Eugene Grau, who went to be with his Lord late last week. His was an amazing life, including missionary service in Ghana, leadership positions in the Philadelphia Association and the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference, and faithful pastoral service for more than six decades, including more than a decade here at Emanuel. We at Emanuel knew Rev. Grau when he was in his 80’s and 90’s – but I’d ask us to remember that once upon a time, long years ago, Rev. Grau had been a baby, had been a young child, had been a little boy named Eugene Grau. I would love to know – who planted the seed of the Gospel in Eugene Grau’s life? His parents? His home church? Whoever planted that seed, there’s no way they could have known how fruitful for the Lord Gene’s life would become. Truly in Rev. Grau’s life, the seed of the Gospel brought forth fruit a hundred fold, a thousand fold even. Who can know how many lives were touched by the seeds of the Gospel planted by Rev. Grau over the course of more than nine decades on this earth.

Rev. Grau was an outstanding example of a life well lived for the Lord, and not all of us can point to accomplishments like his. But all of us can respond to the Gospel in our own way, with words of kindness and deeds of love, taking the fruit of the Gospel in our lives and planting them as seeds in the life of others. Those who respond to the Gospel can affirm, with Paul, “There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus our Lord.” With Paul, we can cry to God, “Abba! Father!” even calling God “Daddy” – that’s what “Abba” means in this context, knowing that it is the Spirit of God bearing witness with our Spirit that we are children of God. With Paul, we can affirm that in Christ, God is able to do in our lives what we are unable to do for ourselves. May this good news of the Gospel bear abundant fruit in our lives, and may that fruit of the Gospel be life-giving to all with whom we come in contact. Amen.