Gardening, the Gospel, and God: Finding Fertile Fields for Faith

There was once a farmer who had discovered a wonderful seed. It grew

bountifully and adapted to the soil. It produced a wonderful harvest. But

the farmer knew he had a problem: his neighbours were not so lucky. For

some of them it was their own fault – they had not been as diligent as he

had. For others it was just bad luck – an illness had distracted them from

their fields, or they had fallen on hard times. But if they continued to grow

poor quality seed his own would be in jeopardy. The bees or the wind

would blow their seed into his fields and mix up with his. His only

solution was to share his seed with them: they would benefit from the

bounty and his own seed would be preserved. All the farms would flourish

because of his generosity; and someday, when he needed it, they might

also share their seed with him.

The farmer was just practicing good agricultural science: as gardeners will

know, seeds often cross, with mixed results. But of course, the story is

also a parable for neighborly behavior: when we share what we have with

others, we enjoy a fruitful bounty that often returns to us two-fold.

Our parable in the gospel this morning would have resonated with the

crowd before Jesus, who lived and ate the success of their farms. They

understood the cost of seed tossed carelessly, so it is eaten by the birds, or

falls on rocky soil, or is lost in thorny bushes. Without the time to grow

roots, without the ground that welcomes it, that seed fails. But seed grown

where the soil is good and substantial, thrives.   

Jesus uses the parable as a lesson in faith. A shallow understanding of the

gospel cannot endure; the person who hears the gospel and receives it

joyfully, but does not take on the responsibility of it, cannot sustain their

faith. The ones who find a good place to grow, and tend carefully to that

growth, that seed will bear fruit.

Yet this gospel is not only a definition of strong discipleship. We are not

only the seed, but the sowers. Indeed, if we grow our faith well, we are the

farmer with the wondrous seed, enough to share with everyone, and called

to do so. “Go out to sow,” Jesus tells us. Try to share the fruits of our faith

in word and deed – the kindness, generosity, and hope of the gospel - with

those whom God puts in our path; to share the love of God so abundantly

given to us. 

A seed doesn’t thrive on its own. Even in nature it needs bees and wind,

sun and rain. And so it is with our own sowing. We must be intentional

and deliberate with it. Some days, the sun will not shine; some days the

nourishing rain will fall too hard, or too lightly. Yet without those strong

roots, that seed will perish. To sow requires action. It involves reaching

out to people; it involves serving, and caring, and risking—all sorts of

things like that. However, if we try to do this - if we try to offer ourselves,

our time, our energy, our caring - to others, then before very long, we’re

going to wonder whether it’s worth it; we’re going to wonder whether

anything of value or meaning is going to come from all of our efforts. We

might neglect our sowing, our fields lying fallow. So sowing requires not

only faith and action, but endurance. 

The first people who heard this story knew all about a sower going out to

sow. They saw it happen, they did it, year after year. They knew that seed

was usually sown by broadcasting it. Meaning, the farmer would walk

along and toss it out in every direction. The land was plowed later, after it

had been sown. This means that when you were tossing out the seeds, it

was virtually impossible to tell what sort of soil it was landing on. It all

looked pretty much the same from the point of view of the one who was

out there planting. 

So, everything that Jesus said about problems—thin soil, rocks, fat birds,

thorns, weeds, whatever—this was old news to them. That was the way it

always worked. A lot of what they sowed was wasted. They knew that.

Now, if the important part of this parable were about the soils, and the

difficulties that come with planting anything, and the dangers involved,

and the seeds that would be wasted, then there was nothing new or

interesting in it—the people listening already knew all about that.

However, there is one thing that was really shocking to the first people

who heard this parable. That was the yield, the harvest. Seven or eight-

fold was hoped for. Ten-fold was phenomenal, and anything above that

was simply unheard of. 

The poorest yield in the parable was beyond their experience—and the

greatest almost beyond comprehension. To promise this sort of result was

more than optimistic—it was to live in a whole different order of creation,

a completely different kind of vision.

To sow with this sort of hope and vision is to have the perspective of the

Reign of God. With this vision you don’t mind the rocks or the birds or the

thin soil or whatever else may get in the way. All of that stuff just doesn’t

matter. It is swallowed up in the promise of the whole enterprise. This

perspective, the promise of a vast harvest, is the heart of this little story.

After all, we already know that much of what we do is wasted. We know

that very well. We already know what it is like to try and try and try to

care and to make a difference and not get anywhere, or not be noticed, or

not succeed, or (perhaps worst of all) not even be appreciated. We know

what it is like to reach out a hand and pull back a bloody stump. We know

all about that. If the parable is only about that, then it doesn’t have

anything new or interesting to say to us, either.

Instead, remember that the point of the parable, and the point of what we

do, is that, by the grace of God, the harvest will be great beyond measure,

great beyond belief, great beyond imagining. What God will make of our

efforts is more than we can imagine. Much will be wasted, but that’s all

right.

And the one who sows—that’s us—does not need to worry about that. The

one who sows is simply called to scatter the seed—to love and to

serve—and to trust. The rest will be taken care of. This is not because of

our abilities; it is because of the grace of God. The task that falls to us is to

plant the seed well, tend to it, and share it. To find community that has

good soil; to reinforce our faith with the diligent practice of the gospel; to

spread that among the space we inhabit in this world. 

This perspective of hope and confidence is the gift of the parable.  We are

to love and to serve in broadcast fashion—knowing full well that most of

what we do won’t amount to anything, that bad things are going to

happen—planes go down, bombs go off, children in Africa will not get

proper education, tyrants will sometimes win. A lot of what we sow is

wasted on fat birds and wicked weeds.  But that is not ours to control; it is

not ours to fix; and our parable this morning would go so far as to say it is

not even ours to worry about.

Each one of us individually, and all of us together, have at our feet fields

to walk and seed to sow. We are called to do that. This parable is a gift to

lighten our step and extend our reach in those moments in life when we

feel we cannot even move. It gives us the wonderful gift of perspective. So

we can wave at the birds and smile at the weeds—they are not our

concern.

Our task is simple: to be the farmer who, having grown her own bounty,

shares it with her neighbors. The seed of the gospel will find a way.

More Than Just Nap Time and Finger Paint: The Life-Long Lessons Learned in Kindergarten

Come to me you are who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

What comforting words those are from Jesus in this morning’s gospel –

ones that have certainly spoken to my own weary soul over the years. 

And yet how do we come to Jesus in the daily practice of our lives? How

do we find this elusive rest? 

The answer lies in the first part of our gospel this morning. Our readings

ends with a warm entreaty from Jesus, but begins with clear evidence of

his frustration. The people are not listening. What shall I say about you,

Jesus asks. It is like children, calling you by the sounds of the flute, and

yet you refuse to dance.

The reference to children is quite intentional; in the gospel children serve

as a proxy for a joyful openness to the Word of God. When we are

children, the world is a curious place full of wonder. We ask questions

only to see clear answers. We see goodness without cynicism. And yet

how often do we learn from the children in our lives? How often do we

heed the child within us?

It’s no stretch to see how Jesus himself might be feeling like the children

in his image. John the Baptist had been preaching and baptizing, but he’s

now in prison. Jesus has taken up his ministry of teaching.  Both men were

calling the people to return to a faithful life, but in very different

ways—like the children’s messages about love.  John hammered home his

message with confrontation and modeled an ascetic lifestyle. For that, he

was accused of having a demon.  Jesus took a softer approach most of

the time; his lifestyle was a more joyful announcement of the coming of

the Reign of God.  He ate and drank with all sorts of people without

reservation; he enjoyed a good party. For that, he was accused of being a

glutton and a drunkard, a friend of sinners and tax collectors.  Neither

John nor Jesus could win, evidently.

What was wrong with these people? Couldn’t they see that Jesus and John

were inviting them to return once again to a faithful living of their

covenant, to a more kinder and just living out of the law that says to love

as you would be loved, to behave towards others as you would want them

to behave towards you?  Your rest away, Jesus cajoles, just come alone.  If

they would take his yoke on themselves, they’d find his yoke easy and his

burden light. How very obvious. How very simple.  Or is it?

Well, of course it’s not simple, because as Paul makes clear, the best

intentions of human beings have been taking wrong turns for as long as

memory. In his letter to the Romans, Paul laments, “For I do not do the

good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”  Doesn’t that sound

familiar? We know the good we should be doing, but somehow by the

time we get to adulthood, we get more and more tangled up trying to do it.

We lose our ability to listen to people pointing out the faults of our ways,

urging us to change. We have more trouble seeing the potential of a

judgement-free world. But somewhere along the way to growing up, the

stuff of the “real” world interferes, and whatever the good of our hearts,

we give into the wrong we don’t want to do.

We might consider what it is that makes it seem easier to do wrong. 

Perhaps it seems easier to look out for ourselves, instead of putting the

effort into giving of ourselves to others.  It certainly is easier to keep

company with people who are just like us than to put effort into listening

to different ideas or rubbing elbows with people we consider different. We

have to admit that in the church we much prefer to say “we’ve always

done it that way,” instead of trying something new.  But if we can see the

answer so clearly for the people who failed to listen to Jesus two thousand

years ago, why do we still find it so hard to make the connection to our

own lives?

Of course, listening to the gospel, we think: if Jesus was hear right now,

we would listen to him. We would be better. But would we? 

A number of years ago, a book came out that became a bestseller. It was

called “Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten.” The writer,

Robert Fulgham, describes how he was “sputtering along” in his days,

trying to find meaning. “The examined life,” he notes, “is not picnic.” And

one day, he thought: I have already learned what I need for a meaningful

life – when he was 5 years old, in kindergarten. What were those life

lessons?

Share everything. Clean up your own mess. Play fair. Don’t take things

that aren’t yours. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and

draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day

some. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands,

and stick together. Say sorry. Pay attention. Wonder.

As the author noted, all those life lesson can easily apply to adult life –

and yet we have forgotten them. It is a reminder that we learned in the

lessons of the gospel over and over again, if we only listen for them. For

gospel predates kindergarten – and yet it’s tenets are all those very same

lessons. 

Jesus is offering us his yoke – the symbol of obedience to God – not a

human yoke in the “real” world, but something that will sustain us through

the troubles of this world. If we accept that offer, we make possible our

ability to speak of God to others, to play the flute so others might dance –

with words and actions that make certain simple sense, distilled of all the

useless distractions of the grown-up world. When accept that offer, we

find rest. The deep and meaningful kind of rest that comes with a

purposeful life carefully lived. It is as Jesus says, “come to me, and you

will find rest in your souls.” Amen.

Two Sinkings, One Humanity

As I wrote this sermon, the Canadian Coast Guard and a growing fleet of ships were still trying find a missing submersible on a tourist trip to the Titanic, with the air inside running out. Experts were trying to figure out if a pattern of sounds might be a message from the survivors. “We still have to have hope,” a Coast Guard spokesperson said in a press conference.

The story of billionaires lost on a $250,000 trip to the Titanic in a submersible steered by a no-name game controller and of highly questionable safety, led the news this week and brought out all the worries and pathos and grossness of social media. It showed a side of us that should make us squirm: a willingness to mock and quip jokes while human beings are dying.

And also, a willingness to ignore when human beings are dying. The submersible was not the only tragedy playing out on the sea last week – it was just more novel. What about the other one? Off the coast of Greece, another ship met catastrophic misfortune. More than 500 people, many of them children, were on an overloaded fishing trawler when it began to sink. Many of these people had also – like those unfortunate billionaires - paid an unimaginably high amount for the voyage – likely their entire life savings – to travel somewhere many would not have seen before. In this case, they were not going to the burial site of another great tragedy, but to a new home for the chance at a better life. As the ship began to sink, a rescue operation was slow to respond. As of Wednesday, 300 people were reported dead, with many others missing. While the search for the wealthy in a mini-sub continued deep underwater, on the other side of the ocean, the poor were drowning on the surface for us all to see. And yet the world looked mostly in one direction.

Let’s all be honest: which story did you read the most about, talk to your friends about, scroll on the internet for updates? Let’s not be too hard on ourselves: one story was bizarre and unprecedented; the tragic fate of desperate migrants seeking a better life is so commonplace now its happening is less overwhelming; we are developing a tolerance for it.

Let’s not forget that the destination of that unfortunate submersible has its own class story. The Titanic struck the iceberg – another accident of willful negligence – the wealthy in first class made it to the lifeboats in far greater numbers than the passengers trapped in third class. Inequity of fortune – and of the world’s sympathy and attention – has a long history.

Our gospel this morning tries to reframe the either/or approach. Our responsibility is to everyone in need – the old news and the new news, the wealthy and the poor, the foolish and the wise. It just so happens that those in a position to give the most often need a bigger reminder of that fact.

God sets us an example for this in the first lesson. Hagar, who had born a child to Abraham when his wife could not conceive, finds herself in a tight jam. Sarah has given birth to Isaac and would rather that Hagar and Ishmael were out of the picture. Abraham, the father, is distressed by his wife’s demand. God steps in and tells Abraham to let Hagar go freely; God will take care of it, Abraham is assured. When Hagar finds herself struggling in the desert, fearing for her son’s life, God steps in a second time: Fear not, God tells Hagar just as God told Abraham, promising a better future if they will only believe in it. Both Isaac, the son of fortune, and Ishmael, the son who was cast out, will survive and thrive. It is not a choice; the world, God says, has room for both of them.

Now, we are not God. Our rescues and good works are more earth-bound; our resources have limits. To be pulled in so many directions is exhausting. Especially when the problem – like the fleeing migrants – is so complex and massive, and we feel helpless to solve it. But those fierce words from Jesus step in to set us straight: quit whining, Jesus says, and get to it. Stop worrying about who is where on what rank; you are all sparrows to be cherished by God. Go where the need exists. I have come, Jesus says, to set families apart from one another – not for nothing, or petty reasons, but because the gospel will require sacrifice; it means moving out of safe spaces and comforting embraces and into the cold to bring warmth. Jesus isn’t calling us to be estranged from our families, even when they are difficult; his own story is full of challenging friends and relatives. He is warning us not to align ourselves so closely with our family and our in-group that we fail to see the need beyond. We must look past our mother and our father and our own household, our own city, our own country, to truly serve. The gospel is hard; it is, in fact, exhausting. It is meant to be.

The fact is that on most days the needs of the world will be greatest in one direction: those who have the least, and suffer the most. The master, in the gospel, is being reminded that they are not above the slave because they often forget; the slave, in the gospel, is reminded they are not below the master, so that they know their value is equal in God’s eyes, and they should demand fair treatment in a human world.

As Jesus says, “Those who find their life will lose it; and those who lose their life for my sake, will find it.” We are meant to give up pieces of ourselves for the sake of others, rather than to spend our days in service to ourselves.

How should this inform the events of this week, where our attention was focused largely on one place, and much less so on another? We are to work hard and energetically and with intelligence to pay attention to need as widely and broadly as we are able. We have to accept that complex problems will require the endurance of marathon runners. But we must always look beyond ourselves to serve.

That fact is that there is nothing any of us could do on Wednesday with human beings dying on the ocean. But there are things we can do every day. We can challenge our own appetite for celebrity. Our Western bias for sympathy. We might challenge the toxic tone of our internet discourse, or question our own priorities in the context of our own relative wealth.

And perhaps, when the world is looking one way, we turn to see – and yell and shout - about what everyone might be missing. For that is the gospel as Jesus saw it; to stand against society’s current and reach for the person no one else is catching. Amen.