Sow What?
4th Sunday after Pentecost, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (with bg Romans 8:1), July 10, 2011
I learned a ditty when I was a child. I can't remember where or when I learned it. Perhaps you may also know it? (Cue music) Love is something if you give it away, give it away, give it away, love is something if you give it away, you always (or only) end up having more!
Did you hear it? Is it true? If you give love – I mean this unconditional care for someone or something else away – and I mean give, not lend – will you end up having more?
In Matthew's Gospel Jesus has been doing some amazing things. After his baptism he had been sorely tempted. Then he moved on to help and heal many people, to teach them in essence what it is to be of God, to seek to do God's will. His healing, his touch, his compassion could not be limited nor contained by the laws of the land, nor the status quo of society, politics, the military or religious establishments.
But (and this is an important but)there is resistance to Jesus' love, the truth that he shares with people about themselves and himself. Some even want to kill him. Many declare that he is crazy, or a glutton and drunkard. The truth is that very few, even after the amazing things they had witnessed him do, actually trust in or even believe Jesus.
It is in this context that Jesus tells today's parable of the sower. Have you ever thought about it? The sower goes out to sow. He or she sows indiscriminately. The seed is broadcast, thrown everywhere. It is like a loving mother or father with their children – they keep loving them no matter what. They care about them, enough to give direction. They care about that child enough to worry. They carry about that child enough to sometimes give them money or trust even beyond their better judgment. Sometimes they even care enough to say no, not to spite them, nor to show them who is in control but to actually care about and for them.
There aren't guarantees in such loving. The child may often or even eventually respond with love – to others, even to the parent. Or they may not. The child may go on and do amazing things with and for others, with and for the world. Or the child may end up being a very largely destructive force in the world. Still, the loving parent, keeps on loving unconditionally.
Does this make sense? Is such loving, prudent or even effective? Often, no! So, why do it? Why love and give generously of one's self?
Although I don't much like this response since it is too often only partial and manipulated to be an escape clause from being reasonable with each other, but in this case I am convinced this response is the right one – BECAUSE.
Because that child, those children are the child/children of that mother or father. At our best we work to love our children, in thought, word and deed. At our best...
As one who by God's grace attempts to follow Jesus, I need to think about Jesus' parable in my life, in our lives together. Is it not true that God richly blesses us: with life, physical, emotional and spiritual? Is it not true that God loves we human beings and this world so much that when God sees us time and again destroying and damaging each other – God intervenes, giving us law and direction through the prophets? And yet when that doesn't seem to really be working, is it not true that God Himself/ Herself dares to take on human flesh?
God becomes human in a backwards place, in a seemingly insignificant country. Through that person, this Jesus of Nazareth is it not true that God reaches out to love the world, one person at a time, by showering God's very love and concern, God's hopes and dreams on everyone Jesus meets, regardless of whether or not they get it at first or even eventually, including those very people who seek to wrongly kill him and even those who do execute him "under orders"?
Jesus is killed. He does die – a horrible death. But he does not seek or tell his followers to exact their revenge or to obliterate those who have killed him. Instead Jesus calls his followers to love those other people, to pray for them, to help them.
What about us? Do we see the blessings God bestows in the middle of our lives? Do we experience the forgiveness of Jesus, time and again – when we don't even make an instant to thank God for all that God gives us, when we don't take an instant to attempt to understand God's Word, when we cling to things as if they were what mattered most? What of our attitudes when we are filled with anger, hatred or apathy?
My goodness – what kind of soil are we, in the light of this parable. ....? I have to confess. Sometimes even in one day I am the first kinds of soil, over and over again.
And yet that sower continues to sow. God continues to set the stars in space. The universe continues to expand. The sun continually shines. The Word and Sacraments continue to be proclaimed and shared. I mean have you ever prayed the Lord's Prayer without thinking or meaning every word? Or have you ever come to receive that precious bread and wine through which, in, with and under Jesus is present – as if those elements were ONLY BREAD AND WINE?
Father forgive us!
But Father please keep on sowing. Help us to be people who much sooner rather than later bear the fruit Jesus' kindness, gentleness, patience, humility and unconditional love. For it is in these experiences that we begin to know, not just in our heads, but throughout our being, that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus! It is in these experiences, the very grace of God, that we begin to realize that such love and forgiveness are truly gifts emanating from God, intended to be given away by us to and through others, again and again and again. In such giving and receiving is much love and new life.
ay it be so with us and through us – with and through the world, for Christ's sake, Amen.