How many of you have ever gardened? Grown flowers or vegetables? If you’ve worked with growing things at all, it’s easy to tell that Jesus is a lousy farmer. Any good farmer will tell you that you only put seeds directly in the soil. And you put them only into the very best soil and you place them neatly in pre-dug rows. Then you carefully water and fertilize them, and carefully weed around the edges. You don’t go scattering them every which way across the countryside. But Jesus does. Jesus scatters the seeds on the good soil and the bad soil and the rocky soil and the places where there is no soil at all.

In this parable it does not tell us that he went out and plowed the field, made nice neat and fertile furrows, and then painstakingly planted the individual seeds in order to produce the most plants. Nope, this guy is simply slinging seeds anywhere and everywhere and hoping that some of them grow into something.

Why does Jesus tell this parable when he knows all the stories of his people’s struggle during famine and exile? Why tell a story of such wasteful methods of planting? Jesus knew the story of his people living the desert and living off of the manna from heaven. They weren’t taught to waste but take only what they need. What does this obviously wasteful story tell us about God and God’s personality?

Well, it tells us that Jesus is not a farmer. But he wasn’t trying to be. Jesus was a teacher. He was trying to sow the Word of God on the unpredictable soil of the human heart. Not only is it unpredictable, it is invisible, which means that you can't tell, just by looking, what kind of heart someone has. Jesus didn’t censor who he preached to. He didn’t make sure to only teach to those who were the most likely to receive the word. No, Jesus preached the prostitutes and the priests alike. Tax collectors, sinners and good honest Jews. Even the Samaritans heard his teaching. He scattered the Word of God far and wide. Never knowing what kind of soil it might find.

In following Christ, we are called to do that same scattering of the Word. Giving the grace of God a chance to grow. Because we never know what kind of soil it might land in. So you begin to sow seed everywhere and in every way imaginable. Some people talk to their friends and neighbors quite openly about their faith in God. Others try to show their Christian faith by example. Some leave flyers in public phone booths, and others perform random acts of kindness. All of these can be ways of sowing seeds. A lot of it will fall in places where it never takes root. Some of it will fall in places where it gets a good start but doesn't last. Some of it will fall in places where it gets choked out by competing interests.

That's just how it is with ministry. Jesus himself could have told you that. But he could have also told you this: that sometimes the scattered seed of the Word finds good soil and grows and produces a bumper crop. And since you can't predict just how or where the seed is going to fall, or when or if it is going to produce, you just scatter it wherever you can and hope for the best.

You see, that’s the other part of the story that proves how much of a farmer Jesus is not. He talks about his crops yielding a hundred fold. That’s like saying, well, I planted 4 tomato seeds. Three of them never fruited because they were planted in bad soil. The fourth gave me 100 tomatoes that year! Or 60! or 30! It isn’t until Jesus gets to the last number that is analogy becomes at all realistic. And that’s kind of what Jesus is getting at. When the Word grows it isn’t a small amount. It isn’t a realistic reaction. It’s an over the top, beyond anyone’s expectations reaction!

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. She who has ears to hear, let her hear. The coming of the seed and its success—when that happens—is all grace. Maybe that’s why the farmer keeps lobbing seeds at even the unlikeliest of targets. It’s not that the farmer doesn’t understand the long odds. It’s just that when you’re talking about salvation by grace, it’s not finally about the odds but about the persistence of the Holy One who won’t stop. Ever.

Which brings me to the other thing I want to look at in this passage. We tend to listen to it and try to figure out what kind of soil we are, don’t we? Whether we are rocky or thorny or, hopefully, that good fruit producing soil. Sometimes we listen to it and try to think about what kinds of soil other people are. Is he rocky? Will the birds eat her seed?

That becomes dangerous because we only want to share with those we think are “good soil.” We only want to talk about God with those we think will listen and respond favorably to us. I mean, everyone wants to be able to say “I brought her to God,” but no one wants to be laughed at, right?

But that's not what Jesus calls us to do, is it? Scatter the seeds about. Grace for all, whether the seed takes root or not.

I think the trouble we have here is that we see ourselves and others as just soil, when really, we are gardens. I know I embody the four types of planting myself. We all do. Our lives are rock-strewed and "flinty" pathed, choked with thorns, and wide open for winged robber birds. There are days when all we are is hard. And no matter what someone tells us, we won’t accept it. And there are days when so many other things are crowding in around us that we couldn’t possibly hear one little Word amidst the roar. And there are days that are so awful, so horrible, that our roots feel non existent and we rail against the injustice of it all.

But we all have patches of good soil here and there accept the seed the Sower scatters. There are days when we listen and hear. There are days when our heart warms to the sun and we reach out. And maybe that's enough.

In Thomas Merton’s book New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton writes: “Every moment and every event of every person’s life on earth plants something in her or his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men and women. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love.”

Merton is inviting us to see that Jesus’ Parable of the Sower is not about the occasional moment when God or a human evangelist sows a seed about God. Rather, everything at every moment of every part of our lives is a seed suffused with life-giving spiritual import. This claim is not to say that everything that happens is good or controlled by God; instead it is to say that the sort of soil that we are — good or bad, rock-filled or thorn-infested — in each arising present moment effects how we receive the seeds of experience that are always being sown around us and within us.

We are always receiving seeds. The Word is always present and active in our lives. We just need to be aware of the sort of soil it is falling on. We have to tend our gardens. By breaking up the hard places in ourselves, we give the seeds a chance to find the soil before the birds take it away. By clearing away some of the weeds in our lives, by finding moments of stillness, we give the seeds room to grow. And by deepening our faith, we give room for those seeds to put down deep roots. Deep enough to handle even the worst days.

And that’s why we are called to scatter the seeds to the wind. We never know when it might fall in good soil, even when it all seems like rocky ground. Have you ever seen a plant growing in the most improbable place? Like a crack in the pavement or on the side of a cliff? I once saw a seed growing in the crook of a tree where a bird must have dropped it. Living our lives as an example of Christ, sends seeds far and wide.

What soil—what earth—is the Word finding in our own lives these days? Where are we scattering the Word in the world? How do we seek out the Word—in the scriptures and in the person of Christ—in the rhythm of our days? How willing are we to go deep into the layers and complexities it offers to us? How do we take the Word into ourselves and let it take root across the span of seasons and years? What fruit are we called to let the Word bear in and through us?

As Christians, we are called to be both the sower and the soil. The teacher and the listener. No matter who you are, there is always room to grow in your faith, always soil to tend. And no matter who you are, you have a seed to share with others.

Go forth today to scatter your seeds and tend your soil. And may your efforts reap a hundredfold. Amen.

Rev. Cara Gee

July 10, 2011