Good Soil

Late on Tuesday afternoon,  I  walked over to the large apartment complex adjacent to our church grounds, along with the other pastor, the children's ministry coordinator, a new mission developer.  It was a beautiful afternoon.  There was a pool, and some children were playing.  A few people sat at picnic tables in a grassy area.  We came bearing balloons to blow up, as well as flyers inviting people to our Wednesday program for children, new this year.

Some people expressed reservations about our plan.  This large apartment complex is known for being a volatile place sometimes.  Some people are afraid to go there.  It is also home to some of our new immigrants, from many places.

The others had all been over to the apartment complex the week before; I asked if I could go along this week.  Just going out in the neighborhood, talking to people -- it's something I believe I is important, but I'll confess, it scares an introvert like me.  I haven't done it since I headed up an inner city summer program, back in seminary.  It was time to face the fears and go out again.  After all, we had the balloons and the flyers.

There were not that many people out and about this week, the others told me.  At least, not compared to the week before.  We had a short conversation with a woman who did not speak much English.  She was just getting ready to go into the pool area, and she asked us where she could find ESL programs.    We told he we would look into it and gave her a flyer.

We had brief conversations with a couple of men sitting at picnic tables, and gave them flyers.  Then the children's ministry coordinator and I went over to a picnic table with an older woman and two young children.  We struck up a conversation with the two children, Arthur and Maria, who were about five and six years old, and were adamant that they were not related.  Just friends, they said.  We told them about our program and gave them flyers.  The children's ministry coordinator blew up a couple of balloons for them, one green and one blue.  They asked us some questions and played with the balloons.  One of them popped, and we blew up another one.

The older woman did not speak any English.  She was a grandma to one of the children.  We got her name and gave her a flyer too.

On the way back to the church, we talked to one other woman, blew up balloons for her children, and invited them to our Wednesday program.  She asked if we knew any good day care centers near us.  We said we would look into it for her.

On Wednesday morning, I studied the Sunday gospel readings with a few other pastors.  It is summer, so there were only a handful of us, not the impressive crowds that meet sometimes in the weeks before Easter.  But we got together and read Matthew 13:1-9, the parable about the sower and the seeds.  We even read the interpretation, even though the interpretation made some of us grumble.

We like the parable, most of us thought, but we don't like the interpretation.  It takes all the mystery out of it.  And it doesn't sound like Jesus.  We like the parable, with the crazy farmer, and the crazy yields.  Mostly.

But then there's all of the places the seeds fell, the rocky soil, the path, among the weeds, and the good soil.  Some of us said, "what's so bad about seeds getting eaten by birds?  Birds need to eat too?"  Others thought the rocky soil got a bad rap; there are hardy plants that grow in rocky soil, after all.  Not according to this parable, though.

Well.

So there are places that the seed, for some reason or another, does not take root and grow.  And there are descriptions about why that might be the case.  But it occurs to me that the good soil only qualifies for one reason, really:  something grows there.  We only know the soil is good because of the yield.

So.

Picnic church

On Wednesday afternoon at about 4:00 p.m., a car drove into the church parking lot.  It was Arthur and Maria, with Arthur's mom.  She had the flyer in her hand.  Arthur was concerned about possibly getting another balloon.  I had to tell her that the children were already gone.  I told them they could come back for "Picnic Church" if they wanted to eat hot dogs and hamburgers right over on the church lawn.  Arthur said he would like to see what the inside of the church looked like.

So I took them inside and showed them the entry and the sanctuary.  Arthur asked about the bell, and I let him try to ring it once.  He asked about Jesus.  "Did't he die?" he asked.  "Yes, but he rose again," I answered.

His mom said that Arthur used to go to church with a friend of his.  She usually works on weekends.  She does nails.  "Like this?"  I pointed to my pink toenails.

I invited them to come back for supper, once again, and said I hoped to see them again sometime at the apartments.

And I meant it.  I hope I see them again, when I am out with my flyers and balloons.  I hope I see them again, when I am out scattering seeds all over the place, like a crazy farmer.

It all looks like good soil to me.

"We Wish to See Jesus", part 2

"Trust me."

These are words we hear on this 5th Sunday in Lent, as Holy Week approaches, as the shadow of the cross falls nearer.  "Trust me."  These are words we hear as well in the early spring, as we're looking for signs of life.  We're looking for signs of life, and I don't mean just spring, or even primarily spring, since in most places other than my yard there are plenty of signs of spring.  There are lots of ways that we might be looking for signs of life:  maybe in our own families, maybe in our communities, maybe in the world.  Like the Greeks, "We wish to see Jesus.  We heard a story about him raising the dead."  We want to see life.

I need to tell you, that the verses we just heard, the verses about the seed falling into the earth and dying -- the verses about bearing fruit -- these verses I associate with cemeteries, because that's where I often hear them, and that's where I often say them.  I say them while I am standing at a graveside with a family, saying goodbye to someone they love.  I say them while I am standing in front of a casket, or an urn.  And I love to hear the words about the seeds, because they do remind me of unseen new life.  I remember hearing more than once a story about a little boy, who was driving by a cemetery with his parents.  "Oh!"  he cried out.  "That's where we planted grandpa!"

It's the words that come after that bother me -- words about how the ones who love their lives inn this world will lose them, and those who hate their lives will gain them for eternal life.  When I read these words at cemeteries, I think about how the person who died loved hte life they had been given, loved the families and friends they had been given, loved the work God had given them to do.  And I think:  I don't believe Jesus means that we are to hate this life, the beauty around us, the work God has given us to do, the abundance of friends and family.  I don't think Jesus means we are to hate that life; I think he means us to glory in it, embrace it, love it, live it.  To "hateo ur lives in this world" doesn't mean to hate our created lives, it means something different, I think.  It means to hate the world that has turned its back on God; it means to hate the world that judges people by their success, or their power, or their money, or their beauty.  that tells us that some people are more valuable than other.  It means to hate the world that teaches us to fear people that look different than we do, or who come from a different place than we do.  To "hateo ur lives in this world" means to hate the forces that tempt us to harden our hearts, to despise the weak, to live only for ourselves.

There's a popular book out called "The Hunger Games."  In fact, it just became a movie; I know some young people stood in line at midnight on Thursday night in order to see it.  The Hunger Games is a dark story about a future world where resources are scarce, and where many people had turned against one another to survive.  The games themselves are cruel tournaments where young people are forced to fight one another to the death, for the entertainment of others.  But in the midst of the story, one of the young people, a boy named Peeta, says that there is something he fears more than death.

What he fears most is being turned into someone else by the games, turned into someone cruel, and hard.  He tells one of the other players, "I want to die as myself....I don't want them to change me in there.  Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not." 

To me, this is what Jesus means by "hating your life in this world."  Peeta knows that there is some thing worse than death, and that is becoming a part of the cruelty, a part of the "game."  Jesus tells us as well, that there is something worse than death, and that is turning our backs on God, turning our backs on love, turning our backs on compassion, honor, grace.

I read the passage of scripture from John most often at a cemetery, and I think of the life that is seen, and the life that is buried.  "Trust me," Jesus says to me there.  "Trust me that the seed will come up.  Trust me that goodness and beauty will win.  Trust me that you will see one another -- and me -- again."

But it's not just at the cemetery that I need to hear it-- that we need to hear it.  In fact, if we only hear there words of Jesus at a cemetery, I think we hear them wrong.  They aren't just for the promise that we will live after we die.  They are for us here each day, whenever we are looking for signs of life.

"We wish to see Jesus," the Greeks said to Philip and Andrew.  We do too.

We wish to see signs of life where there is death.  We wish to see signs of compassion where there is cruelty.  We wish to see signs that God is working inthe world, evven in us, that God can transform our own hard hearts. 

Jesus points to the seed buried in the ground, he points to a cross, and he says, "Trust me..... and follow me."  AMEN

"We Wish to See Jesus"

It wouldn't be a problem, if it weren't for the early spring around here.  I mean, I know that spring has, literally, sprung.  Spring was March 20.  But here in Minnesota, March 20 is usually just a day, a day when we are often still covered with snow, and expecting more.  But most of last week, the week before spring, the weather around here was up in the 70s.  And I've been noticing that, much earlier than usual, there have been buds on even leaves on some of the bushes and trees.  There is a magnolia outside our church that is blooming, at least a month early.

Except in our yard, it's not happening.  We had some new work in our yard last fall, which was really exciting.  We got some new, beautiful bushes, which we watered carefully every day for what seemed like a long time until we were given permission to stop.  They're all dead now.  At least they look dead.  I've been watching them, over the last week or so, worried about whether or not they were going to come back. As I said, I don't think it would be a problem, if it were not for the early spring around here.  I wouldn't be watching already.  But now I'm worried, so I sent an email to our landscaper asking him about our new plants.  Of course, he told me not to worry.  He said that everything would be all right.  Everything comes up at its own rate.  I emailed him back.  Are you sure? I asked.  They look dead to me.  He emailed me back again.  They only look dead.  I felt like he was saying, "trust me."  But I want to see those new buds, however tiny.  I want to see that new growth appear. 

"Sir, we wish to see Jesus."  It was nearing the Passover, and some Greeks came up to Philip and said these words.  I don't know who these Greeks were.  They may have been Jewish people who lived in the Greek-speaking world; they may have been Greek converts to Judaism.  But whoever they were, they were curious.  They wanted to meet Jesus.  I can only imagine that they had heard stories about him -- stories perhaps about how he fed thousands, or healed a blind man or, most recently, raised a man named Lazarus from the dead.  They had heard the buzz, and they wanted to see for themselves.  And I can't say that I blame them.  Staring every day at the dead branches in the bushes of my house, I want to see life. 

So what does Jesus say?  He tells them, "Unless a seeds falls to earth and dies, it remains alone.  But if it dies, it bears much fruit."  He points to the earth where the seed has disappeared, and says, "trust me."

To be continued....

Sunday Sermon

9 Pentecost Year A
Matthew 13:1-9; (18-23)
"That crazy gardener"

I have a confession to make. I am not much of a gardener. If you were to drive by our house, you would notice this immediately, because you would not see – -as some houses have – lots of varieties and colors of flowers all around in our front yard. I love to admire other people’s gardens, and in theory I would love to have a more beautiful garden of my own, but in practice I seem to find it hard to make the time for all of the different kinds of work that a garden entails:planting and fertilizing and pulling weeds and watering the young plants. One summer I did try to plant a few flowers on the south side of the house, but I didn’t keep an eye on them as I should have, and it got hot and well: they didn’t do very well. Probably I also didn’t choose the right plant for that particular place in the yard. However, while those flowers did not survive, there are other plants in our yard that are doing quite well – and no, I’m not talking about weeds. I’m talking about saplings, young trees. Early in the spring, we see the helicopter seeds, and it seemed this year even more of them than usual – and all of a sudden, there are saplings all over our yard, saplings on the side of the house where the flowers didn’t grow, and saplings in the midst of our peony bushes. In fact, the saplings kind of snuck up on us there, and got pretty big before I saw them. So I have been spending some hard labor this summer digging out pretty hefty saplings from among our peonies, as well as other places in the yard. It’s made me consider the whole issue of roots, among other things, because these saplings have strong and deep roots – they want to stay – as much as I don’t want them to.


However, our gospel reading today, appropriate enough for the middle of summer, is not about roots, is it? It’s about seeds, really. It’s about seeds and it’s about soil, different kinds of soil. The image in the gospel is the image of a sower sowing seeds in all kinds of soil – but sowing might be a kind word to use, really, for the sower really throws the seed around in a manner unlike any gardener, or any farmer that I have ever known. When I was more of a gardener, back in the days of my rural ministry, I sowed my carrots and my peas and my beans in neat rows, or at least as neat a row as I could possibly muster. And I sowed my cucumbers in hills, just like the directions on the package. And then I carefully marked the spots where they were planted with little sticks so that I could remember to water and to check for growth and to do all the sorts of things careful gardeners do. So when I hear the gospel story and see the image of the gardener in my mind, the first thing that comes to my mind are those saplings, planted in Good Soil, all right, but right where I don’t want them, right in the middle of my peonies, right in the middle of the lawn. That crazy gardener tosses the seeds around and doesn’t seem to care where they fall down, and that’s crazy in more ways than one.


It’s crazy, first of all, because the sower does not only sow in the"right" places. There are many types of soil, and the wise among us, might designate a specific place for our gardens. But the sower throws the seed everywhere, not just in the garden. The sower throws the seed – on the path, on the rocky ground, and among thorns, as well as in good soil. This attention to the types of soil might lead us to suspect that the point of the parable is the type of soil – and of course the interpretation of the parable also might lead us in this direction as well. But I think that the main point is to notice all of the places where the sower throws the seeds, not just in the "right" places, and not just in the "official garden" with the fence around it, but all along the countryside.

This reminds me of an image from a children’s book I read some time ago, Miss Rumphius. Miss Rumphius was told by her uncle, when she was a little girl, that she should "do something to make the world more beautiful." For a long time, she wasn’t sure what that might be. But as an older lady, when she spent one winter sick in bed, she got an idea: that she would buy seeds of lupine flowers, and walk around the countryside near her home throwing them wherever she happened to walk. The people would see her walking around and they started to call her "that crazy old lady." That is what the sower in this parable is like: like the crazy old lady, throwing seeds around all over creation.


Another reason the gardener seems crazy: what he is doing seems to be a waste of good seeds. Sure, there seem to be an abundance of helicopter seeds, more than we actually want or need, but one thing I learned from farmers is that good seed is expensive – you don’t just throw it away. Not only that: The crazy gardener doesn’t plant neatly in rows, and doesn’t mark the spots with little sticks, and even plants in the hard places and in the dangerous places and where there is no chance that the seeds will sprout and grow. That’s another reason that the gardener is crazy. Because that’s not the way we’d do it, isn’t it? We’d pick the best spot to have a garden, and only plant our seeds there. And we know the best spots, don’t we? Last summer, for the first time in a long time, I decided to plant a little garden, just a few herbs, really, in one corner of my back yard. And since I am not such a good gardener, I asked a friend, someone who IS good, who ISN’T crazy, to come and help me. She helped me to plot out the spot, and to by the right fertilizer, and then she got me going with a good shovel to turn the earth. And all of a sudden she got excited and said, "You have good dirt!" The point is, a good gardener KNOWS where the good dirt is, and where it isn’t, where you should plant, and where you should just forget it. But this crazy gardener plants in spots where seeds are not likely to take root. For some odd reason....


I remember a few years ago I went to the state legislature with a number of other pastors. One of the reasons we were there was because we were concerned about education. We talked to and visited with legislators from all over the state. And I remember in particular talking to one man from rural Minnesota somewhere. When we talked about education cuts in the inner city, he said to me, "Well, these are difficult choices, and maybe some of those kids aren’t worth it." Maybe some of those kids aren’t worth it. That's what he thought. That’s the problem, isn’t it?When we look around, we see scarce resources and we see different types of soil, and we want to be careful, and to put our resources in just the right places, and give them to just the right people. But God has a different idea of where to plant – and – most important of all, only God knows where the good soil really is. Only God knows which seeds are going to take root and sprout and grow strong and bear good fruit.


A colleague of mine was talking to one of her parish members one day, someone who rarely got a chance to come to church any more, because her husband was ill and she had to take care of him around the clock. The woman had called upon a neighbor to help her one Sunday morning so that she could go to worship. In the course of the conversation, she asked her neighbor whether he attended their community church much any more. The neighbor looked at her with disdain, and said, "They’ll let anyone in that church." To which she replied, "Yes, even you are welcome!"


"Even you are welcome," God says to us this day, as God calls to us to hear God’s words of love and forgiveness, as God calls to us to open our hands and come and eat. "Even you are welcome," God says to us whose hearts are hard, whose lives are full of temptations and distractions, who hear and sometimes turn away. "Even you are welcome," God says to us – pouring out the seeds of his love on us and on – not just us – but the whole world. It’s crazy, isn’t it? Because this crazy gardener, this crazy God, loves the world, the whole world, and not just the good places, but also the hard places: maybe even especially the hard places. This crazy gardener, this crazy God, loves the world, the whole world, and for some strange reason, wants the seeds of his love to sprout in the whole world, and not just in some special garden with a wall built around it. God wants the seeds of his love to sprout and grow – even among the peonies.


"Even you are welcome," God says to us this day and then sends us out to spread this crazy love in the good places and in the hard places, even in the places we think it will never grow. Because we don’t know. Only God knows – and shares with us – the breadth and the length and the height and the depth – of the love of God in Christ Jesus, poured out on us, poured out on the world. AMEN

In the interests of full disclosure, the story which ends "even you are welcome" is from here. I was directed to this post by a blog friend.

So I didn't preach without a manuscript today, as I had planned. I did do one section of the sermon away from the pulpit, but I'm still working on a method to get me away from my paper more. Next time...

After church we had some lively discussions about saplings, gardening (one person suggested I plant prairie flowers), farming methods in different eras, and at least one person talked to me about at-risk children.

I think they are appreciative of my small efforts to get away from the pulpit, if only for a little while -- so far.