Genesis 25.19-34; Psalm 119.105-112; Romans 8.1-11; Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23
Things don’t always work out for us, do they!
The best laid plans of mice and men …
In the shower at the end of the day, our head against the wall, water streaming down the back of our head …
I didn’t plan on this … how could this happen? … why did he do it? … why did she say it?
Shattered dreams … broken plans … the unexpected …
Hard for us … and might it be hard for God, too?
Seems to me the toughest job in the universe is being God … whatever we might think about God, it’s helpful to think how hard it must be for God.
God fashions a beautiful creation … brought nearly to ruin by the creature “endowed” with God’s own breath … Eve plucks the forbidden fruit and she and Adam have a picnic.
Cain kills Able … and it only gets worse
There was a time when God said, Enough! I’ve had it with you.
God was heartsick, sad, angry, over what had become of God’s best laid plans.
So the flood … to rinse the earth clean … metaphorically speaking … as the story goes … all gone, save Noah, his family and some animals.
A fresh start for everyone and everything … but it didn’t take long for the Apple of God’s eye to get right back at it - Noah gets drunk, Ham laughs and there’s hell to pay … humans gang up together and build a tower to heaven, to make a name for themselves … pride, power and pomp …
So God creates a new plan … smaller and less ambitious at first … Abraham and Sarah - two old people without children, without a future … could God have done any better? I think God loves a challenge, no matter what.
God begins anew - Come with me Abraham and Sarah, and I’ll take you places you never dreamed possible … a long journey it is … and what a struggle for God … in the Book of Hosea, God says:
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early.
Some of the saddest words in the Bible, My people have forgotten me.
God defeated time and again … Abraham and Sarah laugh at God and take things into their own hands … their children are less than stellar … they get tangled up in Egypt for 400 years and things are a mess … plagues break the spirit of a proud Pharaoh, and Pharaoh let’s the people go … they dash out into freedom … only to complain.
The Sea is parted, they escape from Pharaoh’s wrath … only to find themselves in a wilderness … and they complain.
They wanna go back to Egypt … at least in Egypt they knew where their next meal was coming from, and they had water.
But God provides …
Water from a rock …
Manna in the morning …
Quail in the evening.
A pillar of cloud for the day …
A pillar of fire for the night …
And the people complain …
Commandments given on a Mountain Top … and .. oops, a Golden Calf in the valley … at which point God is ready to give up on all of it … but Moses, in one of the great moments of the Bible, reminds God to be God and get on with it.
The Promised Land is gained …
The Walls of Jericho tumble on down …
But the story ends badly: the people did what was right in their own eyes.
A mess all over again, even in the Promised Land.
Then came the kings - Saul, never much of one … David, clever and god-loving and cruel and greedy, too … and poor old Solomon - no better beginning could be had for a king, built a glorious temple, noted for his wisdom, but it all ends badly … and only gets worse from that point on … the kingdom splits, constant warfare, treaties made and treaties broken, idolatry takes root, the Northern Kingdom destroyed in 721 BC by Assyria … the Southern Kingdom destroyed in 586 BC by the Babylonians and folks carted off to Exile.
70 years later, survivors straggle back home, rebuild the temple, but it ain’t much … several centuries later, after Alexander the Great and the emergence of the Mighty Roman Empire, King Herod the Great undertakes the rebuilding of the rebuilding to create one of the most stunning masterpieces of the world - the Temple in Jerusalem.
But Rome is in charge … some love it, what with Rome’s power and wealth … some hate it, and rebel … some can’t stand it, and retreat into the Wilderness by the Dead Sea … God’s people are lost and uncertain … Empires rule the world … slavery abounds … the rich are superrich … the poor are desperately poor …
What’s a good and loving God to do?
Another flood? But the rainbow promise stays the hand of God …
So along comes Jesus … Emmanuel, God with us … the Lamb of God, the Bright Morning Star, the Bread of Life … and what does Jesus do?
Among many things, he tells stories … like the Sower, the Seed and the Soil.
The Sower reaches into a bag of seed slung round his shoulder, grabs a handful, and flings the seed far and wide … lots of seed … plenty of seed … good seed … every seed capable of a great harvest … by the handful, far and wide … into every corner of the field.
We know the story … a lot of seed never makes it …
Stones and rocks and weeds and birds (well they gotta eat, too) and hot sun … all that good seed, wasted? … shouldn’t God be a bit more judicious? … a little more careful about wasting all that good seed?
Now is NOT the time to be careful … now is the time to be generous, prodigal, divinely wasteful … don’t worry about the losses … don’t waste time counting the seed … grab it, fling it, throw it, with a mighty arm … cast the seed far and wide.
No time for restraint:
A child stomping in a mud puddle? … a young lover looking into the eyes of the beloved? … the hundred yard dash and a runner? …
Restraint, caution, deliberation? … good words, but often the enemies of faith, hope and love.
Those who catch a lot of fish fish a lot …
280 average bowlers bowl a lot …
Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly … and has to be done poorly, more often than not, in order to be done well.
It’s as simple as that …
Fling the seed far and wide …
Call it … kindness … justice … truth … honesty … patience … mercy … forgiveness … trust … faith, hope and love, grace, mercy and peace … today, tomorrow and forever.
Don’t focus on the negative: the seed that fails, the soil that doesn’t produce, the fish we didn’t catch, the games we didn’t win, the people who failed us, those who broke trust with us … investments gone south … relationships gone awry … … don’t fret, don’t fuss, don’t blame, don’t get angry, don’t judge, don’t turn your back… it’s the way of life … not everything works; people disappoint us and things go wrong … so what?
There are three kinds of matter in this world: anti-matter, dark matter and “doesn’t matter” which has no effect on the universe whatsoever … and it doesn’t matter that some seed doesn’t make it.
Call it grace.
If we can understand grace toward others … we might be a wee bit more honest about our own stuff, too …
What’s our soil condition like?
All kinds of soil in each of us … sometimes my heart is stone cold and rock hard … sometimes worries and fears gobble up my faith and run away with it … sometimes the seed of God’s love falls on the good soil of my life, and it grows like mad, with a giant harvest.
What’s the point?
Keep on sowing … just like God … just like the Sower.
The Sower knows it’s going to work …
The Sower has confidence.
Faith works, so does love, and hope doesn’t disappoint us.
President Obama said a few weeks back at UC Irvine’s Commencement: “Cynicism is a choice. Hope is a better choice.”
Lots of seed won’t make it … but there’s always the harvest … and great is the harvest … a hundred to one, sixty to one, thirty to one …
Those listening to Jesus would have smiled … the dream of every farmer … the impossible dream … no seed gives this kind of harvest in real life … but real life is not where we learn our best lessons …
We learn our best lessons in the kingdom of God - transcendent ideas, images as wide as the universe … the kingdom of God, like a pearl merchant selling everything to gain the priceless pearl … like a poor widow sweeping her floor looking for a lost coin … like a shepherd going after one lost sheep … only imagination can take us there … where dreams are big, faith is bigger, and hope bigger still …
Tomorrow morning - we’ll have opportunities to sow the seed of God’s love …
Don’t worry about waste … don’t worry about the seed that never makes it … don’t fret about stony soil and weeds and hungry birds …
Throw the seed far and wide … patient faith, faithful patience … the harvest will come … people will surprise us with their goodness … impossible problems will be solved … glimmers of peace will appear unexpectedly … hope arises … courage abounds … faith endures …
Tomorrow morning, dear friends,
Unto God Almighty, our gratitude.
And to the world around us, the Seed of Love.
Abundant and free.
Because good soil is everywhere.
Good soil all around us.
And great is the harvest of hope! Amen and Amen!
