Our collect appointed for this Sunday—that’s the prayer at the beginning of the service—asks for God to give us knowledge and understanding about what things we ought to do. That’s a very good prayer for what we Christians sometimes call discernment. That is, our spiritual practices for choosing the right course of action, as followers of Jesus. Last week in church, our Vital + Thriving team introduced us method of studying scripture together. We test our discernment out in prayer, in conversation with our community, and in the light of the Christian tradition and the Holy Scriptures.
Today’s Gospel, ironically, doesn’t seem to help clarify anyone’s calling. At least on first read. We all want to be good soil for the seed of God’s word, I imagine. But how exactly do we become that? Admittedly, parables rarely serve to tell us specifically what to do. Except, perhaps, to wake up! And in this case, to smell the garden. So today Jesus, according to Matthew, introduced us to someone who seems to be a terribly wasteful gardener. The sower scatters seeds with equal abandon on the path, on the rocky ground, among the thorns and in good soil. What’s the deal? Did he not know what kind of ground he was throwing seeds onto? Did he not care? And what does his evident wastefulness have to teach us about knowledge and understanding about what things we ought to do?
Our summertime gardens teach us a lot about the character of the Creator. My husband John is a dedicated gardener, but he’s humble enough to know that everything that grows in our yard—this year among all years—is blessed by abundant rains and the California climate and sun. God’s work, not his. I’ll give God rightful credit for the fruit trees that flourish in our backyard. Our granddaughter, who loves fruit, screams with delight every time she spots one growing. Good luck, girl. You have no idea of what a costly blessing all that fruit can be! And we could say the same about the tomatoes or squash or figs or any of the other lovely produce that thrives in our Mediterranean climate.
And may I say… thanks be to God! Summer is a time to notice all the good that’s growing in our communities, which is no doubt why Jesus used horticultural metaphors. Don’t miss the opportunity to give thanks. And then do what all gardeners do with their fruits and vegetables. Eat them, can them, freeze them and then leave bags full on our neighbors’ doorsteps. All the while frantically googling new recipes for spaghetti sauce and zucchini bread and things we can make with plums.
Needless to say, all this horticultural profligacy is not really good business practice. But we should not expect otherwise. God created the world and placed humanity in a garden, not into an Amazon distribution center. If the Parable of the Sower is any indication, God is really not concerned about efficiency or just-in-time inventory management. God seems to enjoy going big with blessings, and I like to imagine God laughing at our bewilderment. So you like blackberries, huh? Well here’s 50,000 of them…
That assumes, of course, that God is the sower, throwing around seeds with gleeful abandon. But parables invite our playful and prayerful imagination. Try this out with me. Maybe God is the seeds or even the soil. Maybe we are the sower, or even the seed. The thing about parables is that they don’t—and really shouldn’t—have static interpretations. In Matthew’s version, Jesus is portrayed as interpreting this parable in such a way that disciples are soil, but that was almost certainly a later addition to the text. More typically, Jesus offered his metaphorical teaching in the spirit of a Buddhist koan. A tree falls in a forest, a seed falls on the path. You can’t figure out the meaning? Welcome to the club. You’ll just have to sit with the parable while it germinates in your imagination. See what I did there?
Spending time with parables is a pretty countercultural practice in the culture of Amazon fulfillment centers. And it’s not just parables that require our patient attentiveness. The same could be said for the whole of Holy Scripture, for our prayer and our learning, and for our worship. They all need time in order to effect the kind of transformation they are intended for. There’s no shortcutting the process.
But isn’t that the point of the parable we just heard? We worship and pray and learn and serve because we trust God to sow the kingdom among us, no matter how long it takes, whether we think we are good soil or not. God loves us, unconditionally and without limit. Even if we have a few, or many, rocks and thorns in our spiritual backyard. And if I dig a little deeper into the parable I’m reminded that even the worst soil can be amended. Paths can accumulate biomass. Thorns decompose. Rocks wear away. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away, saith the Lord.
So what then can we learn about discernment—we who pray for God to give us knowledge and understanding about what things we ought to do—from this parable of profligacy? Sometimes I get caught up in the idea that making faithful choices means choosing between one thing or another, as if it were a zero sum game. Like I have to make the best choice right now, or I lose. But the sower seems to have a different vision: he scatters seeds indiscriminately. And he just keeps at it. Kind of like the way Roger repairs our building or Shane Patrick organizes our administration or our ushers practice welcome. We show up and give it our best, without necessarily knowing what will grow as a result of our labors.
Much of the time, things don’t work out exactly as planned. You could say that seeds we planted with hope in our partnership with the Canterbury student residence got tangled up in the thorns of city permitting and fundraising obstacles, but that’s hardly the end of the story. We’ll take the next steps down the path towards God’s kingdom of justice, because we now that this generous sower keeps right on sowing, and so do we. As Albert Einstein famously said, failure is just success in progress.
And I’d venture to add that—in our Biblical tradition—failure may be the only basis for success on God’s terms. Martin Buber, the great Austrian Jewish philosopher of the 20th century, has written that “the Bible knows nothing of the intrinsic value of success.” Buber was Jewish, and—studying scripture from a rabbinic perspective— he points to Moses and David’s multiple failures as chosen leaders. As Christians, we might also look to Peter and Jesus himself. They risked themselves in ways that were almost certain to lead to disaster—and frankly did—unless we take the long view of God, who is sovereign over soil, sower and seeds. And even death itself.
But actually, we don’t need to look only to exalted European philosophers for Biblical wisdom. We can look to and listen to each other. I remember, as a young Christian, listening to Miss Marva Lee. She was a householder in the south Georgia Habitat for Humanity building project I worked for when I was just out of college. She had a new house, which she was very proud of, but it always seemed bit chaotic because she ran what seemed to be the unofficial youth drop in center for the neighborhood. This in addition to the night shift she worked as a janitor.
Some of the youth flourished under her motherly care. But many more appeared to simply take advantage of her kindness, sometimes leaving turmoil in their wake. I worried about her. One day I chanced to ask Miss Marva Lee why she continued to offer love and hospitality to young people, many of whom didn’t return her kindness. She gave me sympathetic smile—evidently pitying my cluelessness—and said only this. “I’m here to love them into the kingdom.”
Let anyone with ears, listen.
