Proper 10, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

Proper 10, Yr A (2023)                                                             The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

[Isaiah 55:10-13]                                                                St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

In the name of the one, holy, and living God:

            in whom we live, and move, and have our being.  Amen.

At the beginning of COVID,

Ray was not allowed into go to the hospital unless he was seeing patients,

      so he and I spent a great deal of time out in our yard.

He had never been much of a gardener,

but as he worked in the yard,

       he began to take great enjoyment in moving dirt,

digging trenches,

       removing weeds and invasive vines,

unearthing worms for the compost bin and… planting seeds.

Personally, I had given up on planting seeds.

They never seemed to grow.

But,

he wanted to buy seeds,

      so we did.

We carefully dug little holes in our newly de-weeded and mulched garden plot.

We carefully placed a seed in each hole,

            gently covered the seed with a smattering of dirt,

                        and covered the dirt with a light dusting of mulch.

And then we watered.

And then two days later we got a torrential downpour,

            flooding our yard with about 3 inches of standing water.

Who knows where those seeds went!

A month or two later we decided to forget the flowers and plant grass seed.

We wandered over to the nursery down the street and bought a small-ish bag of grass seed.

Now…

            my plan would have been to read the back of the bag to see how many square feet this bag of grass seed would cover if over-seeding a yard.

I then would have gotten out the tape measure to figure out how big our yard was.

Then I would have calculated how much of the bag would cover the space

and then distribute the seeds accordingly.

But not Ray.

He just cut the top off the bag and started scattering the seed.

            ALL the seed…

                        the whole bag.

That’s one thing I love about him…his generosity.

Well, “why not,” I thought.

So, I gently raked in the seeds, covering some of them with a touch of soil.

And we watered.

So…here’s the thing:

            When I plant seeds (or used to),

      I am interested in not only knowing what the yield will be

but also in controlling the yield.

And…speaking from experience,

that has not worked well.

I think that in this parable Jesus is saying the same thing:

There is no way to calculate new life!

We hear in this morning’s gospel that people are flocking to see Jesus.

So many people showed up that he had to get into a boat in order to find room.

Why are they flocking to him?

I am guessing they were looking for hope, healing, new life.

In speaking to the crowds, Jesus uses parables to illustrate in ordinary terms what the kingdom of God is like.

And his message to them is that God is a wildly, recklessly generous God.

In this parable, the sower does not calculate how much seed to sow or where to sow them.

There is no measuring,

            no stinginess,

                        no calculation of what surface best grows seed,

                                    or how many seed to scatter.

The sower just lavishly casts seeds wherever they may land.

In the second part of today’s gospel reading Jesus explains the parable and talks about the different types of soil.

But, I don’t want to focus on that portion because I think it can trip us up

such that we begin to make calculations again

    and try to figure out who is going to put forth new life and who isn’t…

or what type of soil we are. 

Here judgment enters the picture,

and right now we have enough judgment.

And despite our best judgments…

            I bet we have all seen the flower popping up through the crack in the pavement…

     or the dead bush that springs back to life.

The sower in this parable is not concerned with calculation, productivity, or scarcity

            but with possibility and abundance.

Just scatter the seed

and let it fall where it falls.

      See what it produces,

and give thanks.

I used to watch as a squirrel would carry away one of our peaches in its mouth,

            taking the treasure to the fence post and sitting there while it nibbled.

Bunnies would sit in the shade of the tree enjoying every sweet bit of pulp until the pit was clean.

I would find partially eaten peaches strewn in the creek bed,

            under the gardenia bush,

                        even tucked in the collar of the tree branch, ten feet high.

      A smashed cherry tomato sits three feet from the plant.

Blueberries disappear just as they begin to turn blue.

The birds find food in the berries of the poison ivy vine…

            something I avoid with utmost caution…

                        yet in these berries they find life.

Life can be found everywhere,

even among the thorns and invasive vines.

This year I got bold and ventured forth and bought three packs of wildflower seeds,

            but I was a little late in getting them into the ground.

I started out following the directions on the packs…

            how deep to plant each seed and how far apart to space them.

A little way into my planting,

            I decided to just open all the packs and simply scatter the seed.

I decided to just look forward to seeing what shows up.

So far we have flowers, weeds, and two tomato plants.

         Who knows where the tomato plants came from!

There is no way to calculate new life!

Just scatter the seeds,

and let God take care of the rest.

I am not one to determine the soil of another’s life…

            I cannot even do that for myself most of the time!

We are called to live faithfully…

            sowing seeds of love, generosity, forgiveness, grace, and even accountability –

in a loving way –

        in a way that restores life…

       in as lavishly a way as possible.

And the reason that we are to go about this

is because we have hope in God’s promises to us…

      God’s promises to be with us and to love us,

even to the end of the ages.

Today’s alternate reading from Isaiah offers such poetic language and imagery,

and hope and promise… that I want to read it.

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

            and do not return there until they have watered the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

            giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

            it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

            and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

“For you shall go out in joy,

            and be led back in peace;

the mountains and the hills before you

            shall burst into song,

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

“Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;

            instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;

and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial,

            for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” (Isaiah 55:10-13)

So, my friends,

let us lavishly scatter the seeds of God’s kingdom.

For God’s kingdom is a kingdom of life abundant,

far beyond our wildest imaginings.

Amen.