Sermon Title: “Good Soil”
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
A sad thing happened not long ago. The more than 400-year-old White Oak, the state tree of Maryland toppled over in a storm and died. Luckily, caretakers of the tree had cloned several “daughter” trees from nodes on the original. Clone makes it sound as though this is cutting edge technology but folks have been raising new plants from cuttings for years.
Our lesson from Ezekiel reminds us that even the power to grow roots on cutting comes from God. Thus says the Lord God: “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty tree of a cedar; I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs. I will plant it, in order that it might produce boughs and bear fruit.” Our lessons remind us that it is God who gives growth. While we may manipulate what has given, even splice and dice, DNA and chromosomes, we are always workers, not creators. God alone creates from nothing! Our lesson calls on us to trust this God who controls nature, who provides for our food, who gives us every good and perfect gift.
Our gospel lesson, similarly is a parable of the Kingdom. Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God may be compared to a sower who goes out and sows, and then waits for the harvest.” The emphasis is not on the sower, his diligence, his ability to manure property or to feed with other nutrients. He is simply the one who starts the process by putting seed into soil. Much like we are to put the word of Christ into the world.
The parable then says something uncanny. The sower would sleep and rise night and day, almost as though he has no interest I his work, almost as though he ignores his own efforts. Those words, “sleep and rise, night and day”, are words which translate a Greek idiomatic expression, something like our modern day “chill out” or “hang loose”, meaning wait patiently without anxiety or worry.
God can do that; that is be patient, because God is in control. The universe operates under God’s ordering and by God’s command.
Some year ago Debbie and I discovered a wonderful recipe. It’s an Italian sauce for spaghetti called pesto. It’s made from bunches of basil leaves, parsley, walnuts and cheese. It’s delicious and we could never get enough basil. I went into Southern States and asked for a quarter pound of bail seed. The women looked at me like I was crazy. She said, ”Are you sure? That’s a lot of basil.”
I said, “I’m sure.” You see, I’m something of a lazy gardener. I hate to weed, but I’ve discovered that if you plant lots of seed in a small space, the weeds won’t grow so much. You can crowd them out with good stuff. But you have to fertilize a lot to get a good harvest.
There’s a point here.
If you don’t want weeds in your life, plant more good seeds.
We want to rush in with weed killers, and all these do is disturb nature’s balance.
I’m notorious in this regard as a parent. I want to control my children so often. I rush in with weed killer into their garden and douse this behavior or that behavior, none of which works too well, and yet there are times when God gives me grace to parent rightly, and instead of applying weed killer, I say a positive, affirming word, a word of blessing. I look for the good in my children and affirm it.
The Bible says in the Book of Proverbs, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” Fitly spoken. That refers to timing. Timing is critical. If you tell a joke and your timing is off, the joke falls flat.
When I plant eggplants, I have to watch them carefully for the first two weeks. If I don’t these tiny black bugs will eat them out of existence. But if I put on a judicious amount of black pepper, the bugs won’t eat them. After three weeks, these bugs find the eggplants too tough. Timing is everything.
Some tomatoes really respond to a dose of manure water when they are about 12 inches high. At the right time, the fertilizer’s application has maximum results. Timing is everything.
The Bible speaks of time in that way too. There is a time for everything under heaven – a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to build-up and I time to tear down. There are times in the lives of congregations too. Times of harvest. Times to build-up because opportunities for even greater growth and outreach.
When we think of harvest time, we think of the fall, but actually we harvest most of the year – asparagus and dandelion in the early spring, strawberries in June, zucchini till the cows come home, and brussel sprouts don’t really taste right till after a frost.
God wants us to be a harvesting people all the time – constantly looking for opportunities, when the time is right to speak to our neighbor about Jesus – God’s ultimate word of concern, hope, love and blessing.
We need to be sensitive to the Spirit’s moving among us, so that we can discern when an opportunity has arisen and not to let it slip away.
Today’s lesson reminds us that God makes the ground produce, the seed sprout, and the water fall from heaven. God can be trusted in and depended upon. Yet we also have to weed. We have to prepare the earth and scatter the seed. It’s a paradox in a way. Martin Luther used to explain it like this. When you set out to do a task, get down on your knees before hand and surrender yourself and the task to God. Pray hard, knowing that you can do nothing of your self. Then get up, go to work, and work as though everything depends on you. But relax, knowing full well that God is using you and that through God your life becomes a blessing to others.
The Kingdom’s coming ultimately is about Jesus Christ inhabiting our hearts, of our becoming like him who reveals the truth and reality of God. So Luther said we must always remember that “the kingdom comes of itself, but we pray that it comes also unto us.”
Come speedily Lord, Amen.
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