God's a lousy farmer

Proper 10 Year A

July 16, 2017

6th Sunday after Pentecost

    As most of you know, I am not much of a gardener.  I really don’t enjoy playing in the dirt, but I do admire people who do.  My dad, loved to garden.  He would spend hours outside tending to his tomato patch making sure that everything was just right.  What I did enjoy, was going with him to the garden center to get his supplies.  He always made sure that he had everything he needed to ensure a good tomato crop; and, he also was willing to share  his crop with our neighbors.

    I was in conversation this week with a friend of mine, who since his retirement has taken up cattle farming.  He lives in a farming community in New York State.  There are several small farms in the area and it sounds to me like there might be different kinds of farms, so that the community can have much of what it might need to feed local families by the cooperation of the local farmers.

    The story of the sower from today’s gospel is one we have certainly heard before, and I am certain that I have said on more than one occasion that God is a lousy farmer, at least by typical farming standards.  It seems to me that according to the story, seed is plentiful, and it is scattered rather haphazardly all over the place.  No one, who desires a decent crop would scatter seed that way; certainly when my dad was growing plants from seed, he would’ve never have just thrown the seed everywhere… plants that don’t grow and produce don’t do anyone any good, do they?  And, it just creates a huge mess, and more work…

    But here’s the thing; it seems to me, that God doesn’t much care.  As I was looking at our lesson from Isaiah, and as I was driving around town this week, I had a thought… sometimes haphazard seed scattering is really quite lovely.  I was thinking about wildflowers and even some flowering weeds…. Now, the gardeners in the group, don’t yell at me; but I can remember the absolute joy of several small children near and dear to my heart, in picking dandelion flowers, and when the cool fuzzy seed puffs sprouted, how they enjoyed blowing them away… anyone who has ever received the gift of a dandelion bouquet knows just how special they are to the child picking them; and I love wild flowers; the colors, the crazy places they grow, how pretty they can make even a junk yard look. There’s a lot to be said for seeds that just kind of land where they will, and where the wind blows them.  Maybe God has the right idea…

    If we think about the spiritual life in terms of the parable of the sower, don’t you think it feels like that sometimes?  Sometimes we hear the Word of God and it motivates us for a while, and maybe it’s only temporary, or maybe something really strikes us, and so like the somewhat more careful gardener, we try to do what we think needs to happen so that scripture might take root in us in a deeper way, in a way that leads to us being more responsive to the world around us.  Having “ears to hear” for us is not simply about hearing, but about doing… when we truly hear the Word of God, when we truly listen to the life and ministry of Jesus, we aren’t merely hearing with our ears, but we are hearing with our hearts and minds and we are doing… we cannot possibly be considered disciples of Jesus without being moved to action when our lives intersect with his; and, as disciples, we also become sowers… but maybe the way that we become sowers is a bit different; for us I think it’s often a matter of someone seeing Jesus in us that helps to sow seeds in them; at least I hope so; but I also think that maybe we need to scatter the seeds that God gives us a little more haphazardly; God provides all the necessary care… prayer, worship, relationship, sacrament… all of those things help the seeds of God’s Word to not only take root in us, but to help us tend to the spiritual gardens that God has given us to take care of… and honestly, it’s none of our business to really know what kind of seeds we are given; maybe it’s tomatoes… but maybe it’s wildflowers… whatever soil is in another’s hearts to receive the seeds, isn’t our business… and lest we think that dandelions are a disappointment, I shall remind you that guinea pigs love dandelions… and, I had neighbor who used to harvest dandelion greens from her yard and ours because she knew we didn’t use weedkiller.  Dandelion salad can be pretty tasty…

    All that to say, some days our spiritual lives produce amazing things, and sometimes it seems like it’s just weeds but I find that God can use all of it.  No one is at the top of their spiritual game all the time, and I think that even the wildflowers of our hearts are beautiful and can bring joy to us, to God and to others… and in those relationships, fed by God’s love and the prayers of the holy Spirit welling up inside us, even dandelions can be useful and grow into other and perhaps more useful things…

    I hope we will all spend some time feeding the gardens of our souls, listening with the ears of our hearts to God’s Word and to God’s voice… I pray that we will let God’s extravagant, careless even whimsical farming transform us into something that blooms and brings spiritual joy and nutrition to ourselves and to those we meet along the path.