Loading...A sower went out into a field and acted quite extravagantly profligate –
flinging expensive seed hither and yon. This is shocking and oh-so-wrong! For one thing, this is not an orderly way to plant seeds!
Seeds are everywhere, all higgledy-piggledy making the area hard to tend and to weed as the weeks go on.
For another thing, there are going to be uneven growth patterns. Indeed, whatever has been planted may begin to look like the grass in my yard – areas of lush growth and patches of brown.
And, finally, sowing seed in this way is incredibly wasteful!
While the neat freaks amongst us might cringe at the first two problems with the sower’s sowing patterns,
most of us – 99% of us? – really struggle with the abundance of seeds – so. many. seeds. – scattered everywhere!
You might even be uncomfortable because it seems so wasteful.
We live in a time when it seems as though there is just not enough.
Interestingly enough, at our time in history at least in this country, there is as much, if not more available to people than almost anywhere or any time else. The distribution of that abundance is quite uneven and growing more uneven.
But, there is powerful advertising, peer pressure, and political rhetoric that makes us think that there is a scarcity of resource, that you have to grab now to get yours, and that you might even have to turn on one another to keep what is “yours”.
Once we start to believe that there isn’t enough—
enough money, clean water, fresh air, happiness, security, employment, health, prestige, etc.,
we might even start to think and believe that we are not enough.
Not good enough, not worthy enough, or not loveable enough.
And then, we have this story from Jesus (and others like it),
a story of extravagant abundance!
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In the first part of this parable, the story that Jesus tells the crowds of people, the sower scatters seeds everywhere. Lots and lots of seeds.
Now, of course with parables, we have to be careful that we don’t make them into an allegory. In other words, we cannot say definitively that this character represents us, that character represents God, and this element over here represents something else.
Yet, one of the ways to hear this story about the vision and dream of God (what the gospel writer Matthew calls “the Kingdom of heaven”) is that God is the farmer scattering seeds all over the place, profligately and even, some might say, wastefully.
But, I don’t think God-as-the-sower thinks that it is wasteful.
God has abundance to spread.
Many years before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah, speaking for God, said,
My word shall go out from my mouth and not return empty, but shall accomplish what I sent it to do. You shall go out with joy and be led back in peace and everything shall rejoice!
God does not hold back.
God doesn’t worry if the seed, or love, or grace is scattered all over the place.
God isn’t hung up on whether our hearts and lives are “good soil” or thorny or stony or rock hard.
God has more than enough mercy, hope, and love –
even if you believe that you are not enough.
~~~~~~~~~~
And yet....
And yet....
we might have niggling doubts.
“OK,” you may think. “God may be extravagant, but the rockiness, the thorniness, and the hard-heartedness! They are still a problem!”
In the second half of our Gospel text, Matthew has Jesus talking to just the disciples. The verses that we skip include details such as the disciples asking questions (like, “hunh?”) and then Jesus and his disciples going inside a house to have a private “intensive study” type conversation.
Like us, the disciples wondered:
what happens if we doubt?
or, ask too many questions?
or, lose our faith and struggle to believe when life, loss, and pain get the better of us?
Jesus digs a little deeper (or, at least, a teacher and leader of the faith community of the early church digs a little deeper) and says something along the lines of this:
yes, there is thorniness that chokes out faith,
and rockiness that gets too hot and difficult for faith,
and hard heartedness that won’t let God’s love in to begin with,
and good soil that allows the extravagant seeds of God’s life to take root and change you in dramatic and subtle ways so that you’re transformed 100 fold, 60 fold, or 30 fold.
But, no matter which soil you are today, God is still scattering seed.
No matter what doubts, questions, struggles, or anxieties you may have,
God keeps loving you
God keeps claiming you
God keeps on filling you with hope and possibility
God keeps changing and transforming you.
As brilliant pastor and teacher Rev. Dr. David Lose puts it
(from ...In the Meantime for Lectionary 15, Year A):
“Precisely because God loves us, God wants us to discover the abundant life of trust in God and love of and service to our neighbor.
Precisely because God loves us, God wants us to stand against the fear and scarcity that drive prejudice, racism, greed, and violence.
Precisely because God loves us, God wants us to strive for the e quality and dignity of all people.
Precisely because God loves us, God wants us to share what we have generously so all will have enough food and shelter [and we can overcome the distribution problem].
Precisely because God loves us, God wants us to grow into the people God knows we can be [and the people God created us to be].”
All of this starts with God and God’s extravagant, profligate flinging of love for you; and God’s reckless love for and acceptance of you right here, right now.
The abundance of God is for you
because you are enough and
because God’s love is unending, making you into the good soil of life abundant.
Amen
