Let us pray…
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
I recently heard a farmer talking about the drought.
Did you know that full-grown dairy cow can drink 50 gallons of water every day? Imagine it – a bathtub worth of water, every day!
Fresh, clean water is essential to having healthy crops, healthy cows and healthy milk. So, it’s not surprising that the current drought has affected them since the winter. Their pastures never got what they needed to get off to a good start and while they’ve sold some of their cows, and adapted as best as they can, they need to get second cuttings of hay and a good silage crop to get them through the year.
When Jesus tells the parable of the sower that we hear in today’s gospel, he talks about the person who sows the seed,
and he talks about the types of ground, soil or dirt where the seeds land,
and he even talks about what happens to the seeds and what the harvest looks like.
There are a couple of popular interpretations of the parable. One would ask the church to be more like God, sowing seeds recklessly or with wild abandon and trusting God is at work in the mess we create. Another tasks us with making amends, correcting the ways we have not let faith take root in us and urging us to become “good” soil.
But do you know what Jesus doesn’t talk about?
The rain. Or the snow.
The precipitation that waters the ground,
that prepares the living earth to grow and bloom.
And yet, that is exactly where God’s attention is both in the words of the prophet Isaiah and the psalmist.
Martin Luther recognized that the texts don’t tell us to be more diligent or fastidious planters or to strive to be good soil.
We aren’t the ones doing this work. God is.
God’s Word nourishes faith.
We must remember that God gets all the verbs. I know you’ve heard me say that before. It’s an important refrain because it helps me remember that Scripture is always pointing to what God is doing,
telling us what God promises,
and showing us God’s love for all of God’s world.
God sows faith in us through God’s Word,
and God wants us to respond,
but God’s Word offers invitation, not condemnation.
As I was thinking about this week’s texts, I read a children’s story by Kate Messner called Up in the Garden, Down in the Dirt. As she describes the ways a little girl and her grandmother work together to plant a garden, the granddaughter pays attention to all that is happening. Sure, up in the garden, she and her nana dig, plant and pick tomatoes and cucumbers. But she also names the ways helpers – like spiders, skunks and snakes - participate in this growing world, eating pests while the humans sleep, and joining in the harvest. And then she describes how the earth itself prepares for winter and a whole new garden.
I think the kingdom of God is like that.
God sows a living Word. In the prologue to his gospel, John tells us,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. (John 1:1-2)
And that living Word -embodied in Jesus Christ - invites us to participate, side-by-side, in God’s creation and to witness God’s own imagination at work.
The psalmist invites us to praise God because
God makes the earth alive,
full of abundant life,
overflowing with plenty,
cloaked with grain
and clothed with joy.
We believe in this beautiful and holy creation because God says it is so. And we marvel at all God has given us, even as we realize that there is so much of God’s world that we never see first-hand. Not only in a plot of dirt where our garden grows, but across the whole earth.
I think today’s texts invite us into wonder and imagination. It’s a conversation I want us to have at Grace. If we believe – or rather, because we believe we are God’s people,
and this is a place where God is at work, in us and through us,
then what is happening down in the dirt?
God has sown the seed and watered the earth so that God’s kingdom will grow.
So, what is being nourished and nurtured to grow and bloom?
And what else might God be sowing right now?
How are we being called to work together and with partners to bear witness to what God is doing?
Those are my questions as I listen to this story of God’s abundance and generosity, God’s unfailing action for us, and I wonder what it all means for us.
Let us pray…
God of heavens and earth,
Thank you for your love for all your creation
And especially for our congregation.
Help us drink in your Word and be strengthened in faith.
Show us how to live in your kingdom so that all will flourish.
We pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
