Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 Soil Samples
Sermon July 13, 2008: People's United Church of Christ, Dover, DE: The Rev. Dan Griggs
When the Vikings began their raids on the English towns in the 700's and 800's, they murdered priests and stole everything in the monasteries that wasn't nailed down; and then when the Vikings actually began taking land and settling in England, the English Christians wondered why they just couldn't "get it" about Jesus Christ—they kept their Norse gods. When the American Revolution finally ended, many Americans had already crossed the mountains into the "back country" of what would become Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee; and of these pioneers only about 20% thought of themselves as Christians. The churches sent missionaries, but only the Baptists seem to have much success; the Methodists and Presbyterians wondered why the pioneers just couldn't "get it" about Jesus Christ. When the Baby-Boom generation came along, one third of us stuck with the Christian faith, one third of us went into Eastern religions or New Age spiritualities, and one third of us just quit; and the churches have spent forty years wondering why the Baby-Boomers just can't "get it" about Jesus Christ. So are we really surprised that the very earliest Christians asked the same question? Why do so many fail to respond to the message of salvation in Jesus Christ? Most Jews rejected the gospel, even though almost the entire first generation of Christians were Jews. When missionaries went to pagan territories, only a few became Christians, and the imperial government even declared Christianity to be outside the law. Why?
Written about 85 AD, the Gospel of Matthew includes several stories that try to answer the question, Why do so many people just not "get it" about Jesus Christ? Next Sunday we'll look at the parable of the wheat and the weeds, talking about this. Today's Gospel Lesson describing the seed sown in different kinds of soils is also about this. But for our own living I see something else going on in this parable: all four soil samples apply to me, too; and I need to pay attention to how I'm balancing all those parts of my life that respond to Jesus Christ in different ways.
"A sower went out to sow, and some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up." The path is the road—compacted, hard dirt. Sometimes my heart is that hard, a "stony heart" that feels nothing and is open to nothing. Do you find your own heart turning hard sometimes? There are times when I get bombarded with just one too many things to deal with, and I stiffen up so I can get through it all—and, of course, I look like a cold-hearted robot. And robots can't love—can't give love, and can't receive love. So there are times in my life when I am unloving.
I was still in my twenties, fairly new in the ministry. A young woman came to my office and asked if I would perform her wedding. She said she didn't have a church, but she wanted to get married in a church. I asked her if she planned to join a church, and she said no. So I asked her, "If you aren't religious, why do you want to get married in a church?" And she answered, "I think it's beautiful the way the light falls through the stain-glass windows." So I told her no, and she left. Afterward I realized just how stony my rejection had been. She may not have thought through her feelings, but in some way she was reaching out to God at one of the highest moments in her life, and I had slammed the door. That's when I started developing my pre-marriage counseling session titled "Why Get Married In Church?" After all, why should I expect her to give me a mature theology of marriage? Am I not the teacher? So many dozens of couples have benefited from that young woman's request, but I've always felt bad about it.
So there is a part of me that's like the compacted path where some seed fell, and "the birds of appetite" made off with it. The hard soil of the path applies to me, and I need to be aware of it and get better at being gracious in those moments.
"Other seed fell on rocky ground." Now there's soft soil there, so the seeds can begin to grow, but they can't grow much because the rocks keep the soil shallow. July comes around, temperatures reach 95 degrees, it doesn't rain, and those plants in shallow, rocky soil just turn brown and never recover, never produce anything.
There are times when people who really do believe in Jesus Christ act like their faith is too shallow to make a difference in their lives. It takes moral depth to admit that I'm wrong and ask forgiveness. It takes depth to give up a pet prejudice, especially one that has been reinforced by my culture and my class—like segregation in the 1950's in the South. This is why politicians sometimes get caught in the trap of proclaiming their policy positions based on popularity polls: it takes moral depth to have the courage of your own convictions. There was a time when America's complete and absolute embargo on trade with Cuba had real policy conviction, and the Cuban Americans living in southern Florida loved America for it. But now we have trade agreements with Vietnam, with China, with Russia; and yet it seems just too big a political risk to end the embargo against Cuba. Shallow, rocky soil where seed produces nothing.
When I was in high school I had a neighbor named Bill Womac. He was a year older than me and a grade ahead of me in school; but he was nice enough most of the time. But Bill had a mean streak in him. We were playing one-on-one basketball one day on a small court in a neighbor's back yard, and I sort of expected some equality of opportunity with the ball since we weren't even keeping score; but Bill kept taking the ball away from me—I wasn't a real good player. Well, I wasn't going to let Bill Womac run over me: I confronted him about it and showed him that I was ready to fight. We squared off right there in our neighbor's back yard. I threw a few punches, and Bill threw a few punches; but neither one of us really wanted to fight, so it came to nothing. But Bill got the message. That was hard for me to do—to face a larger boy down. It was the first time I had ever really been in a fight, and I had to reach down deep for the stuff to do it. For other people who are more aggressive than me, depth might be different: it might mean finding the courage to walk away.
You need some depth to laugh at yourself. It takes moral depth to try something and lose, and start all over without self-pity. It takes depth to work at something for ten years, like buying a home, and have it come undone because of the economic recession or a tornado or a flood, and still not lose your balance in life. Can I let God delve deep into my life and grow there what God wills, and wait and live in hope? Or is my heart rocky soil where the sower's seed just withers? The rocky soil in the parable is about me.
The third soil sample is about weeds. Jesus applies the weeds to life's "pleasures and cares." What holds your attention? There's a classic scientific experiment on the pleasure center of the brain of a rat. They install a wire into that pleasure center, and set up a bar in the cage. When the rat presses the bar, an tiny electrical current runs through the wire and stimulates pleasure in the rat's brain. It doesn't take long at all for the rat to figure it out: if she presses the bar, she feels great. She forsakes the company of her fellow rats, stops sleeping, won't eat, ignores water: all she wants to do is press that bar and feel great. So she dies. What's your press-bar? Of course my press-bar will be more sophisticated than a rat's: the Bible pays special attention to three categories—money, sex and power. Weeds.
Or, sometimes we're motivated by worry. Mercedes-Benz bought out Chrysler Corporation several years ago, and what a clatter that started. Every Chrysler employee was scrambling to keep the same job they had been complaining about for twenty years. Weeds.
When a person's life gets to be dominated by worries or by pleasures, it chokes out the human spirit's capacity to be truly human: to love and receive love, to accept yourself and your life as it is given to you by a gracious God, to believe in somebody, to wake up in the morning with a sense of hope because you know God will be there no matter what, to allow yourself to be guided by the Spirit of Jesus toward greater life. That's the human life God intends for us; but when we fixate on pleasures or worries, those weeds choke our humanity out. The soil full of weeds in the parable applies to me.
And the "good soil"? That's the prepared life. But it's not prepared by us! This is the great surprise of the gospel: grace—GOD prepares the soil to receive the divine blessing. I open my eyes and see Jesus Christ dying on the cross for me, and I know that this is how much God values me: this is grace.
Our job, then, is to receive the good news, and with it to live LIFE: simply, freely, joyfully. Our job is to respond graciously to others with a patient, radical welcome. Our job is to engage our faith as we make decisions—like how to use our time and money, how to treat the earth and its resources like water and oil, how to deal with the majority of people on our planet who live in poverty. How to care for the people whom we love the most in this world. Doing our job in the world, our moral job, flows from the grace by which God has already prepared the soil of our hearts and wills for redeemed living. So the good soil in this parable also applies to me.
I'm sure you've heard many sermons on the Parable of the Sower in your life. I've preached several myself. We usually think about this parable as talking about "us" and "them"—why don't they "get it" about Jesus Christ. If the parable answers that question, then the answers are clear enough: the gospel doesn't take root, or if it does it's shallow and life's heat kills it; or the weeds of pleasure and worry choke it. But I don't want to talk about "them" and "us": all these motives and temptations are alive right in my own soul—and in your soul. Socrates wrote on the wall of the temple in Delphi the words of wisdom: "Know yourself." This parable can help us comes to terms with ourselves as we really are, and that in itself is a great gift.
The grace of God is already out there ahead of you, ready for you to grow your life in true humanhood and blessing. What a generous God we have!
AMEN
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