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Rev. Dr. Sandra Stevens Poirel - "Flinging Seeds Everywhere" · Belin Memorial UMC

• Belin Memorial UMC: The gospel lesson comes to us this morning from Matthew chapter 13. The first part is the parable of the sower. That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great cap crowds gathered around him that he got up and got into a boat, sat there while the whole crowd stood on the beach, and he told them many things in parables, saying, Listen, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, Some seeds fell on a path and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil and they sprang up quickly since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them, and other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. If you have ears, hear. And then we move to the second part of the parable where Jesus explains the parable. Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart. This is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on the account of the word, that person immediately falls away. And As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word. But the cares of this age and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, This is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty. This is the word of God for the people of God. You may be seated. My grandfather was a professional farmer. Now my mother loves to garden. I have a grandson who is developing an interest in gardening. I love to garden. Well, she lets me occasionally touch it and things seem to go well. But my grandfather was a professional farmer. He was not someone who just had a garden, but gardens are important. So I grew up hearing the stories about planting and harvesting, rain and drought, rotating crops, and long before the planting season ever arrived, he would go out and he would carefully survey the land, he would service the equipment so that everything would be as he said ready to go. Well the tractor he used Was not the massive computerized autonomous mechanical giant with the climate controlled cab of today. He had something similar to this. It was a very simple manual drive open-air tractor, which translates to when you drove this tractor, you were exposed to all of the elements. all of the elements and one of the things he said was now when you get out on the farm and you're working especially on the tractor you have to wear a straw hat everybody had to have a straw hat and he had a particular straw hat that he wore because he understood that when you were on that tractor not only were you exposed to the elements you were going to be exposed to the noise yes tractors then especially made a lot of noise and the shaking vibrations of the tractor. He serviced it frequently and he used not a complicated tool set with one of those diagnosing tools. He had a screwdriver, a hammer, and then sometimes he'd have to do a little talking to it. And we'll just leave that right there. So at age 85, he no longer had that vast acreage that he had farmed for so many years. But farming was always a part of who he was. It was connected to and was a very important part of his identity. So he found a plot of land that housed a cell phone tower way at the end of it, leaving this vast expanse on the other end available. Well, when he saw that and he described it, he said it's a big plot of poor dirt. Poor dirt. Okay. But he saw value in that plot of land. So with permission, he tilled it, he cultivated it, and he prepared it for planting seed. Now the other part of this was he actually took me to see this, so I asked, so where is the sprinkler system? This was the look. There was no irrigation system. There was no running water anywhere near this plot of land. Yet again, with permission granted, he set out to make this plot a place of harvest. So he worked the soil, he cultivated the soil. When planting season finally arrived and he had it planted, he irrigated it by hauling water in what he called gallon milk jugs in the back of a nineteen seventy-ish Ford blue pento. That was the irrigation system and he carried jugs of water and made several trips back and forth so he could irrigate the property. Now while he was no longer farming as a profession, He would always be a professional farmer and would absolutely be shocked if he found out he, that orange tractor, and that blue pintoe made it into a sermon illustration. But what I learned from him, I didn't realize I was learning these lessons as we went along, but looking back. There were good life lessons in farming and in gardening. Farming requires patience. Farming requires long hours with hard work and a lot of early mornings and even late nights. Even when the weather is brutal, it's about faithful. invisible work that happens in between the planting and the harvesting. And during that time there was a lot of waiting and there are a lot of prayers. So just in case you're wondering, so what happened to that little clod of dirt? It became a place of plenty. When he first stepped onto it it looked like nothing. It became a place of plenty, producing enough to feed households including mine, many people he knew, but many people he never met. It was a source of fresh vegetables for those who would not have any access to any such luxuries. He just freely gave it all away. It was hard work and And it made him the happiest he could be. The more it produced and the more he could give away, the happier he was. Well, the parable of the soil, which has also been called the parable of the sower, is the one we read today. It's one of seven parables in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. It begins with Jesus coming out of the house, but it then s tells us that he moved to a boat. So he is speaking from a boat because the crowds became so large there really was no room left for him to be a Them. So he goes out on a boat and he's speaking to them across the water, which might have even acoustically enhanced things because water will carry sound. Look at the choir dotting, see, they know. So in these parables that Jesus tells, Jesus uses everyday items and experiences to share the good news of the gospel. God's kingdom is like. Like a mustard seed, like a treasure buried in a field, yeast, a pearl, a net dropped into the sea. God's kingdom is like crops in the fields, like Like many of them in the crowd would have had, except remember who's telling the story. This is Jesus telling the story, so you know already there's a twist. This very ordinary thing that everybody was familiar with becomes this extraordinary thing that reveals something about God's purpose for them and now for us. This ordinary experience of sowing seeds held extraordinary meaning. It has been speculated that teaching through stories and parables and Jesus was a masterful storyteller had Teaching through parables may have prolonged Jesus' ministry and may have even delayed his arrest and ultimate crucifixion. After all, he's a storyteller. He was just talking about seeds and soil and thorns and harvest. And some just didn't notice. He was just talking about everyday things, but all the while. He was actually getting the message of the gospel across then and now. So the parable has four types of soil that Jesus speaks of. There's the footpath that is packed hard, it's well traveled. Then there's the one filled with rocks. Then there's one that's full of thorns and chokes out everything. And then there is good fertile soil. So granted, in Jesus' telling of this parable, the types of soil get a lot of airtime. But today, instead of approaching the parable as being a descriptor about us and which kind of soil we might be, and I can see it on your faces, you're looking at those soils, trying to figure out, well, where am I? Where might I be? Well, instead of looking at it from that direction, let's think about it from the standpoint of the extravagant sower being the main character. Not us, not the soil, not a prerequisite, but actually as the sower being the main character. And the sower goes about planting, sowing, in a manner that no gardener or farmer would. My grandfather would have scratched his head. He would have made sure the ground was prepared and the rocks removed. And I know that because I can remember being a little teeny girl carrying around a bag or a little wheelbarrow. Guess who was digging rocks out of the soil where he was going to plant? So he would have made sure all of that was taken care of, and thorns would have been pulled and cleared out. Farmers count the cost. Seeds are expensive. So today I learned that there are sophisticated tractors that are calibrated with seed flingers that even plant the seed at the proper depth in the property. proper spacing apart, but this sower did none of that. He doesn't sort the soils. He does not save this expensive seed for the best soil. He has a lot of ground to cover and he is just lavishly flinging seed everywhere, on all ground, even the ground we would consider wasteful or not worth the effort. He is not phased one bit by the quality or kind of soil. He just keeps flinging seed everywhere with holy abandon. Some of the seed will fall on ground that actually just becomes feed for the birds. Some on rocks it sprouts for a short time and then it withers and it dies off. Some lands among the thorns and gets choked out, and then hallelujah some fell on fertile soil and sprouts and grows and becomes a great harvest. But you see, this is Jesus. This is Jesus painting an illustration for us of God. And this is a hallelujah moment for us. We have all been those four soils at different times in our lives. We have been on packed hard ground way down, way down with disappointment or grief. We've been on some rocky paths. We're moving along, we're doing great. Things seem to be going along really, really well, and then it happens. Something comes along and derailed. Us. And we travel paths with thorns. They spring up faster than we can pluck them out. The thorns just appear, their everyday life, bills, caregiving. jobs, laundry, dishes, meals, grocery shopping, the car needs repair, something needs maintenance in the house, and the list goes on and on and on. But folks, here's the good news about all those kinds of soil, even though we have to travel them and they're gonna show up again at some point. These are not our identities. Those are conditions of life. They are not who and whose you are. They are conditions of life in which God never exits. God is still present. Just hold on, conditions change, and God will still be there, even when we get to this beautiful harvest. And here is the twist from Jesus. The sower just keeps sowing lavishly, extravagantly, flinging seed everywhere. The focus is on the extravagant sower, not on our mistakes, not on our deficiencies, not on our performance, but on the generosity of the one who sows, who casts the seed on the bad, the questionable, and the very good fertile soil. Hallelujah. Y'all can say that. I hear you wanting to, so say hallelujah. Thank you. God loves to hear from us, you know. The sower has this big, endless bag full of seed and just keeps flinging it everywhere, making sure all ground gets seed. All ground. And then the parable closes with this curious statement: Jesus says that the hearers. in the first century might or might not really understand this, but the statement by Jesus falls on ears of those who probably would have gasped if we were there, we would have heard some gasps. Some would have dismissed it altogether a as not even being possible. And some probably even outright laughed at him for even saying it. But here's how he closes the parable. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty. So you ask, I'm glad you did. Why in the world would they laugh at that? Well, because in the first century, in ancient agriculture, a really good yield of harvest, a really good yield, would have been tenfold. Jesus is talking about a hundredfold, sixty, and thirtyfold. You see, Jesus is talking in God's eyes numbers. Jesus is talking about what happens when seed flung by the sower lands in fertile soil. And it doesn't stop there. Then that seed becomes a great harvest. And then we are a part of the harvest. As called, equipped, and sent disciples of Jesus Christ, we then do likewise as He has taught us. Don't get discouraged. All seed does not always fall on fertile ground. As farmers and gardeners and disciples know, patience and time are a very important part of the hard work of farming between the planting and between the harvest. You see, God's kingdom, God's kingdom will spread regardless of the obstacles. So if you have your little seed packets. Just let that be a reminder. Just keep flinging seeds of the gospel everywhere. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.