“Let Us Be Seeds”
Isaiah 55:10-13
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Long before there was such a thing as social media, … long before success was measured in followers and likes and shares comments, humans had a tendency to equate success with things like growth in numbers, popularity, and how quickly something caught on.
Long before middle-aged and older folks like many of us began bemoaning the decline of such seemingly old-fashioned things like manners, face-to-face social contact, snail mail, and—oh, I don’t know—the church, people have equated the downturn in certain customs and institutions with the quality or usefulness of the traditions and institutions themselves.
If a new product or message doesn’t take off, the thinking goes, it must not be any good.
If an old message seems to have lost its punch or the number of people going to church is shrinking, this is taken to mean that the message or institution is no longer useful or relevant. Its time has passed and we’d best let it go.
But Jesus knew better. The prophets knew better. And we should, too.
The prophets had learned from God that neither hardship nor suffering nor exile meant that God wasn’t faithful. They trusted that just because all God’s promises hadn’t been fulfilled yet, this didn’t mean that God’s Spirit of Love working through people like them wouldn’t fulfill those promises in due time.
Jesus understood that new ways of thinking and being could threaten the status quo and the people who’ve devoted their lives to not rocking the boat and keeping things the way they’ve always been. Further, he understood that there were any number of reasons people might reject the gospel—everything from fear to misunderstanding, closed-mindedness to peer pressure, ambition, different values, and short-sightedness.
And so, when his disciples worried that they’d given up everything for an enterprise that was failing and his critics labeled him a heretic or worse, Jesus told them the parable of the sower.
There’s nothing wrong with the quality of the seed, the parable says. The seed—that is, the gospel—is rich and plentiful and life-giving, and under the right conditions it will create new and abundant life.
And then there’s the so-called sower: Notice how extravagantly, generously, and almost carelessly she flings the seed around. She’s not worried that she’s wasting her time and resources on bad soil or at Pride festivals or block parties or Sunday School. She trusts that the seed that lands on good soil and in open hearts will yield more than enough to keep fostering hope and justice and feeding the world.
If you were here last week, you witnessed a real-life embodiment of the truth that God’s love never returns empty, and that while we can never know what will become of our efforts to share God’s love, we are likely to be blown away by the quality of what grows when we keep planting seeds.
If you were here last week, you heard our children answer Katie’s questions about why we read the Bible and why we learn about Jesus with the wisdom and perspective of people three times their age. Ethan and Jael, Elijah and Xzavier explained that the Bible helps us remember God and Jesus, and that we can still learn a lot from the stories in that old book. They reminded us that when we’re confused or sad, our scriptures can give us guidance and hope.
And if that’s not good seed sown on good soil bearing yields of a hundredfold, I don’t know what is.
If that’s not reason enough for us to keep sharing God’s love with strangers and investing in our children and youth and neighbors who may not even know the true gospel, I don’t know what is.
The parable of the sower tells us that “the kingdom of God is like a bountiful crop [that is] produced in spite of what seem to be overwhelming setbacks” and obstacles.
And still . . . when things are not going well for us, when the number of churchgoers is shrinking and the world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket, it is only natural for us to wonder where God is. It is only natural for us to doubt the goodness and power of God and whether we can trust the claims of our faith or if our church makes any difference in people’s lives.
While Jesus’s parable focuses on the challenging conditions in which the gospel message is shared and how good seed produces amazing results regardless, the words of Isaiah emphasize the essential intention—the driving purpose—of God’s love, and say that this Love will not be denied.
Yes, there will be hard times. Yes, there will be detours and setbacks that feel like abject failure, if not downright betrayal. Yes, we will be tempted to give up and give in to discouragement and despair.
But God’s purpose for us, Isaiah says, will just not quit.
It’s like rain and snow and sunshine: These elements of nature have their own jobs to do, and they will succeed. The power of precipitation to nurture growing things cannot be denied. The power of light to promote photosynthesis and generate growth is unstoppable. And, before you know it, we have seeds and wheat and bread. Before you know it, we have bellies that are full and bodies that are growing and strong.
So it is with my promises, God says through the prophet. They’re not for nothing. They’re not about positive thinking. They’re not empty words to make you feel better for a little while. My words, my promises, have purpose, and they will succeed in fulfilling my purposes. They will accomplish the good I intended. They will change things, and they will produce results.
Unlike the seed planted in good soil, however, there is no timeline for the fulfillment of God’s purposes, no set point at which we will know if God’s promises can be trusted or not.
To the contrary, there will be at least a dozen reasons every day to wonder if God’s love is real, to doubt whether the arc of history will ever bend back toward justice, to ask if the power of love and community is any match for the forces of hatred, greed, and violence.
But if we can trust that God’s love is at work we can hang on. And if we know what God’s purposes are, we can align ourselves with them and partner with Spirit in bringing them to fulfillment.
And what are God’s purposes?
Everything in our scriptures, from the very beginning through to the very end, tells us that goodness, abundance, wholeness, and relationship are baked into everything God does. Healing, redemption, deliverance, and restoration, the flourishing of all humanity and all creation are God’s ongoing, everlasting, love-filled work. God’s purpose for all creation is produce a harvest of hope, love, justice, peace, and joy.
May we be God’s seeds, planted in wild hope and bottomless generosity, yielding a rich harvest of love that will feed the world.
