7th Sunday after Pentecost

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“A sower went out to sow.” Thus begins Jesus’ parable. This sentence brings bucolic images to mind. We have seen paintings of centuries past, paintings of strong, determined farmers walking across their freshly plowed fields, a bag of seeds slung over one shoulder. One hand is holding the bag open, the other is reaching in and grabbing a handful of seed and casting it across the soil. A somewhat idyllic and rugged image. Makes us long for plain rural living close to the soil.

If, however, we had been there that day, had been part of the crowd when Jesus told the parable, the people around us would not have been transported to such a serene place. They would have either laughed out loud or yelled in shock at such a stupid, wasteful farmer.

Seed back then was valuable. At the end of each harvest, the farmer would go through the grain harvested and hand-pick the best kernels to become next year’s seed. Then he would store that seed carefully and protect it from insects, rodents, and rot. Even if the family ran low on food, that seed would not be touched. Next year’s harvest and the survival of the family depended on it.

But now, here is this farmer, throwing this valuable seed all over the place: on the path, under thorns, among weeds, and onto shallow, unpromising soil. How wasteful. How stupid.

Or might we say: How generous. How hopeful. How playful. How exuberant.

JBS Haldane was an evolutionary geneticist. One day, he was asked what aspect of the Creator might be learned from the study of nature. Supposedly he replied, “An inordinate fondness for beetles. If God intended humanity to stand at the pinnacle of creation, then he wasted an awful lot of time on insects.”

Scientists guess that there are between 6 and 10 million insect species. They guess because there are so many of them, they have not all been discovered and classified yet. God created to many varieties. How wasteful? Or how exuberant?

I think this points to a God of abundance who rejoices in creating and in blessing his creation.

This points to a loving God who generously spreads around joy and life. This points to a hopeful God who casts seeds with abandon, all over the place, even into unpromising places like paths, weeds, and shallow soil.

God the sower knows that not all seed will sprout and grow and produce a harvest. Only one of the four soil types in the parable will return a yield.

This ratio of one to four caught my attention twice this week.

The first was through a little rhyme a colleague shared with us. When she was small and planted seeds for the very first time, her mother taught her an old proverb:

One for the mouse,

One for the crow,

One to rot,

And one to grow.

This old rhyme teaches that maybe one in four seeds will actually grow.

The second time I came across this ratio was in a totally different context: Poker. I was listening to a story on the radio about the highest-ranking female poker champion in the US. When the interviewer asked her about her ability to read the tells of other people, she stated that she doesn’t even try. She doesn’t go by how the people around the table act. She goes by math.

Now, I am not a poker player, and I might not get this part completely right, but she said something like this: If you play Texas Holdem and you know that your chance of receiving an additional card that would make you win is 30%, then you would in all likelihood fold and bow out.

But, she said, if look at it over a series of plays, you get a different impression. If you don’t get a good card, you loose $100. If you do get a good card, you win $300. Therefore, if you play four games and loose three and win one, you break even. But if the probability of getting a good card is 30%, then chances are you will win one in three games. By staying in and betting on a 30% chance, in the long run, you will win more.

With winnings in the millions of Dollars, she has proven this theory to be working.

Both the old rhyme and the champion poker player have learned the same truth: You will loose, maybe even a lot. You might loose three quarters of what you put in, be it seeds or money. But in the long run, you will win. In the long run, enough will come to fruition to make the whole exercise worthwhile.

That’s how it works out for the sower in the parable: A lot of the seeds he casts will be lost. Those seeds, however, that do fall on good soil and grow, bring forth so much harvest that the season as a whole can be called a success. Casting the seed was worth it. There will be bread to eat and seed for next year. Life is sustained. Life will continue. Thanks be to God.

That’s really the point of the parable: The abundant grace of the sower who casts the seed everywhere, even into unpromising terrain, and knows that a sufficient number of seeds will flourish to produce a good harvest.

Unfortunately, too often this parable is understood not to be about the sower, but about the soil. “What kind of soil are you?” is the question put before the believer. Is your soul hard and impenetrable like the path? Is your commitment lacking depth like the shallow soil? Are you overwhelmed by the distractions of this world as if choked by weeds?

Well, then you better do something to improve your soil quality, because if you don’t produce fruit, you fail God and are not worthy of God. And you know where those end up who are not worthy.

Too often has this shame-and-blame message been preached to God’s people. It is tempting because it mirrors the culture we live in. Our culture defines the worth of a person by his or her status and earning power and wealth; in other words, by the fruit produced. And if you can’t produce enough fruit, then you are cast aside as a failure.

If you are not able to bring forth the fruits of faith, then you are bad soil and something is wrong with you. Too often the parable has been preached in this way, as if it is about the soil.

More and more theologians, myself included, have come to realize that this parable is not about the soil, but about the sower. It tells us about a farmer who scatters his valuable seed everywhere. No matter what the soil looks like, it gets seeds. Every soil gets a chance.

When you focus on the sower, then this is not a parable meant to blame and shame, but a parable celebrating God’s grace. We are called to imagine God walking around casting the seed of love and hope everywhere, on all people, into all situations.

This is such good news! Receiving the seed of God’s grace does not depend on us. What a relief!

Because, to be honest, I am not always as receptive and fruitful as the good soil in the parable. In these months of trying to rebuild after COVID, there have been dry spells. We are struggling to get people back to worship, we are in need of additional volunteers, we have to raise $94,000 for a new HVAC system – all this has made me anxious, and anxious people are tense people, not very open to new seeds.

Today we are assured that God the sower will still cast his grace on us, even when our soil is cracked and dried from too much stress. God will never judge us for our anxiety and doubts. God will never call us unworthy and withhold his love from us.

Through God’s word, through God’s people, through music, through the beauty of creation, through birdsong, through amazing sunsets, through the love and support of faithful people, through opportunities opening up after setbacks, through recovery from illness, through technology that enables us to be in touch, through the message of life and hope even in the midst of disaster – in countless ways God keeps casting the seeds of grace.

In the beginning of this sermon, I spoke about the value of seed; of how precious it was. God’s seed of grace is just as valuable and precious; God’s grace comes to us as a result of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God’s own Son died and rose again so that we can receive God’s grace no matter what the status of our soil. We are baptized into this grace, and it will accompany us forever, throughout the ups and downs of this life and into eternal life.

This grace also calls us to model our own sowing after that of God. We are called to share Jesus’ presence through what we say, what we proclaim, what we give, what service we offer, what love we share. We who have been blessed by the exuberant abandon of the sower are now expected to become sowers like that: generous, joyful, maybe even wasteful, all in the hope and trust that the overall harvest will be amazing.

One way we just did that is our Vacation Bible School program. Over 30 volunteers gave generously of their time and energy, their faith and love. In how many of the kids who came will the seed of faith take hold and grow? We have no idea.

Another way we are casting God’s seed with abandond is through our online worship services. It is interesting that the proper English verb for scattering seed is “broadcasting”. We are broadcasting our worship services every week. We have no idea who all listens to them. We have no idea if it falls on ears the world would call ‘worthy’ and ‘promising’ or not. We have no way of knowing what harvest might result from what we are doing.

But that is okay. Because that is the ministry model of our God: Cast the seed, expect a lot of them to be lost, trust that enough of them will grow, and rejoice in the harvest.

According to the parable, God is more gracious than business savvy, a better lover than farmer. We are blessed that this is so. Let us be likewise. Amen.