July 10, 2011, "The Seeds that Change the Soil"

Genesis 25:19-34
Matthew 13: 1-9 & 18-23
The Parable of the Sower has been told and retold, to where even Matthew has made the telling an allegory, with a static meaning. The Trodden Path is this, the Birds refers to that, the Good Soil is what we all desire to be. But what Jesus taught was not an allegory with one singular static meaning, he shared a parable. The beauty of a parable is that it can be examined for ever fresh understandings, which because of our vantage point, our blinders, our historic perspective may have previously been limited to only particular understandings.

The Parable of the Sower is: A Sower went out to sow. At which point, the parable could be about understanding the Sower whom we are to emulate, or the seed, or the differing kinds of soil, or...
What has always been surprising, has been Jesus immediate description about the Sower. The Sower does not discriminate between good soil and hard or broken soil. The Sower does not treat the seed as a limited expensive commodity, but rather lavishes all the earth with a blanket of seed. How often, we treat acts of God, acts of Grace, Blessings, Good things as a rare occasion!

The Parable of the Sower is: A Sower went out to sow. At which point the parable could be about the miraculous abundance of the seed. Ordinarily a seed of wheat is planted, and every stalk has the potential of growing 30, 60, even 80 kernels. Some of the seed does not germinate, some does not grow, some is carried off and consumed, some choked out by weeds. So the yield of the wheat is decreased as well. A Sower who was able to sow, having every seed produce 30 would have enough to feed their family for a year. A Sower who was able to sow, having every seed produce 60 would be able to feed and care for their entire Village. But this seed the Sower sows yields 100 fold, without waste or loss.

The Parable of the Sower is: A Sower went out to sow. At which point, the parable could be about the power of the seed sown by the sower to change the world even hard rock. The Sower does not carefully cultivate and furrow the soil for every seed to have the optimum opportunity to yield. The Sower does not get down on their hands and knees planting individual seeds of grace. The Sower lavishes the seed upon the ground like water, as if the seed were to change the earth, rather than the earth providing nutrients to the seed. But what if that is the way of the world? A tiny seed, when planted, has the force and power to break open, sending forth microscopic hairlike tendrils, which enter the crevices and cracks between particles. The tiny tendrils then grow and swell becoming larger, and in this way break open rock.

Years ago, in another community, a child murdered both of his parents. He was sent to a Federal prison for children. I had never before known such a hard steel place of brokenness and despair. I recall driving through gates high electric fences the tops and gates with razor wire. Coming inside, you needed to empty everything from the outside into a locker, taking off belts and shoes as well. When your number was called upon, standing before a guard who opened your mouth and physically searched you. Then a door slid open in a steel wall as the guard said “Step inside.” The door slid shut and loudly clanked locked, five seconds went by before the door on the other side slid open and after you stepped through, slid shut with a metallic locking sound. At which point you were guided through a series of corridors and cell blocks. The children were each in a locked cell, with a small opening like a mail-slot about three feet from the ground. Hands reached out, eyes peered through. What I recall was the deafening silence of being surrounded by so many children not talking. At one point I remember saying to one pair of eyes “God loves you.” The words were like seed of God falling on hard steel and rock.

Last evening, a child in our community drowned and I went to Children's Hospital with the family. It was surreal, to be surrounded by room after room of children, children who I thought should be playing, reading, singing, laughing and instead were dying, suffering. It was broken hard soil where it would be easy to lose faith.

Sometimes, the hard soil, the impermeable rock is not places like prisons or hospitals, but our family systems. Each of our families behave in the ways they do because these are the only ways their parents and ancestors knew. We repeat the family systems, making the same mistakes over and over, becoming more and more intractable, harder and harder. What would it be to have a Seed of God planted?

That is the story of Jacob and Esau. Though twins, Esau was the first born and should have inherited everything. But favoritism took place, election occurred. While Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, himself the heir and fulfillment of the Promise of God, loved Esau, Rebekah loved Jacob. And God entered in giving the Promise to jacob instead of the first born. That election, that claiming by God, disrupted everything; the conflict disrupted the family. Everything about Genesis changes because Jacob receives the seed, the blessing of promise.

My own children contacted me recently to say, Dad we have watched and observed you, and in many ways we behave exactly like you. We no longer want to be treated as just your children, we want to be your confidants, your trusted colleagues, your adult children and friends. How hard it is for us to change behavior, to change our systems, to change what we have always known, and witness that the seeds of change change us as well!

This has become a Church guided by Mission. While we have a strong music program and a strong educational program, we live as a missional church. The wonderful nature of this, is that while in mission we have tried to care for others, to give to others, we have been changed by mission. This morning the Chancel of the Church is knee deep in a wall of 3500 pair of shoes, our giving of our excess to those who have none. In the process we develop different relationships with one another, we soften and yield and come to know and trust each other in ways we never would have before. Mission is not simply about writing a check, or volunteering, not only about work overseas and around the corner in our neighborhood, but the “soil of our being” being changed.