Sermon by Bill Riggs
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
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Please pray with me the prayer that is projected on the screen. It is inspired by this morning’s Gospel reading.
Let us pray:
For all the soils of the earth and the bountiful harvest each can bring…
For packed down soil that makes travel swift and sure:
For the institutions we have made, for churches, governments, and corporations.
For thin soils over thick rock that harbor mosses, grasses and other rock-converting, soil-making vegetation:
For all who are engaged in ministries of healing, hope and restoration, and all they remember and care for, at the hardest edges of this life.
For weed-rich soils that foster biodiversity and defend themselves from erosion:
For all who seek and speak insistent truths that choke out every form of ignorance, hatred, and self-deceit.
For the richest soils that have produced harvests for your kingdom beyond imagining:
For every mustard seed of your kingdom planted in every one of your disciples.
For every soil to become rich soil by your wonders, wit and wisdom, Holy Spirit:
That we may rejoice with you in your abundant harvests everywhere on earth as in the new creation, we give you all thanks, glory, and praise, O Lord.
Amen.
Sow What? Based on Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
As always, it’s a privilege to stand here this morning to bring you this message. Thanks to MaAn for sowing the seeds and tending the growth of the Lay Speaking ministry here at Eastport.
And Yes: The pronunciation of today’s sermon title is SO, not (Mother Hog) S-OW! I have preached on pigs in the past, but not today. So far in my pulpit experience, I’ve never preached the same sermon on two different Sundays, but I might make an exception some day by bringing my Flying Pigs sermon out of the archives.
Today’s Gospel passage is familiar and seemingly self-explanatory. We all know the story about what happens to seeds when they are planted in different environments (good soil, thin soil, rocky soil, hard-packed soil, weed-rich soil). It’s one of the parables Jesus taught to a crowd on land from a boat anchored near the shore of the Lake of Galilee. Seeds provide a natural and timeless metaphor that is as easy for us to understand today as it was for the people who heard it then straight from our Savior’s mouth. What can I say that will set today’s message apart from that which we have heard so many times already?
Jill Peddicord (noted aerial photographer and agricultural botanist) took this photograph on her recent Denver trip. This picture was shot from a very high altitude. Outside the window of the plane the temperature is probably 60 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, or thereabouts. Tons of people, metal, plastics, kerosene, and peanuts are screaming across the country at almost the speed of sound inside an insulated and hermetically sealed aluminum tube. They are held aloft (against all good sense) on thin cold air in a near-vacuum by the power of what? Pratt & Whitney? General Electric? Rolls-Royce? Physics? The Mystery of Life? The Holy Spirit? –God is good. All the time.
The little circles you see are irrigated farm fields. To give you a sense of scale, each of those circles is one half-mile in diameter. Four of those circles comprise one square mile (or one mile square). Each of those irrigated fields encompasses 160 acres. One square mile (four of those fields) encompasses 640 acres. One square mile is called a ‘section’. For comparison, the area of the City of Annapolis is approximately 7.2 square miles, or 7.2 sections, or 4,608 acres.
Each circular pattern you see in Jill’s picture is lush and green (or it would be if you were closer to it). It is irrigated from a single well at the pivot point of the circle by a quarter-mile-long irrigation arm that slowly rotates around the well-point on giant wheels. You may have seen these rigs on the Eastern Shore, especially along Route 404, on the way to the Delaware beaches. The soil under those giant sprinklers is rich, and the seeds that are planted there yield abundant crops.
These half-mile diameter circles are inscribed within half-mile square fields, leaving little fillets at each corner of the square that are untouched by the irrigation water. The only watering those corner patches receive comes from naturally-occurring rainfall, which is a far lesser quantity than the irrigated crop circle receives. Hence, those corners are a different color. They live what we would call different lifestyles.
Crop circles on the ground. Almost 30 years ago I had a very close and personal contact with such irrigated fields while on a pheasant- and grouse-hunting trip to South Dakota. This is vast and open Prairie country. You don’t get the full sense of it from Jill’s 30,000 ft. perspective. On the ground, the land is devoid of road signs and woody vegetation. If you actually find someone from whom to ask directions, they are apt to tell you to, “Continue down this road about three miles until you come to a tree, then turn left for two miles.” (That actually happened to my companions and me several times on our trip.) Once, after a day of pheasant hunting, a friend and I got lost trying to find our way back to the farmhouse where we were staying. In our wandering, however, we found another farmhouse, and we interrupted a couple who were having dinner. They graciously invited us in to share their meal (we declined), and then they gave us precise directions to our intended destination, which was as far from us then as Glen Burnie is from us now! True story. We were strangers, and they took us in. God is so good. All the time.
By the way, have you ever heard the saying, “No one ever washed a rental car?” Not true. In South Dakota, when you land in Sioux Falls, first of all there are pictures of ringneck pheasants all over the airport. At the rental car counter, they ask you if you are going pheasant hunting (probably tipped off by the shotgun case and dog crate you have on your baggage cart). If you answer in the affirmative, you are required to sign a document promising to wash the car yourself and return it to them CLEAN at the end of your trip! No signature, no car. Dirty car, big fine! –But I digress.
The corners of those prairie fields are planted with drought-resistant seeds, such as milo, an ancient grain common in Earth’s dry places, including the lands described throughout the Bible. Milo (also called milo maize, or sorghum) is a kind of grass that produces a grain which is often used as forage or feed for livestock, as well as commercial birdseed. It is also milled into flour and made into flatbreads and other human foods. Some varieties are high in sugar and can be squeezed to yield a sorghum molasses (which is very tasty indeed). From what I’ve read, apparently milo was introduced to our country from its native habitat in Asia and Africa.
We learned on our hunting trip that pheasants, sharptail grouse, and jackrabbits loved to hang out in the milo-covered corners of the fields. It must have been like living in a grocery store for them.
Our parable doesn’t identify the type of seed being sown, perhaps because the parable is not about real seeds at all. But our opening prayer does try to match specific seeds to specific soils.
Packed-down soil that makes travel swift and sure (not sure what grows in packed-down soil –maybe bent grass, like on golf greens, or football field turf: Thin soil over rocks – Mosses, lichens, and plants that break down rocks over the ages and convert them to soil: weed-rich soil – full of diversity. Someone said that a weed is a flower out of place: rich soil – a perfect match between seed and soil.
Of course, as I said, this parable is not really about seeds and soil. Jesus gives his audience human examples that are analogous to the botanical ones in his story. And that’s fine, as far as they go. But I like what the author of our opening prayer did: He or she found something good to say about every kind of soil. The thin, rocky soil, for example, supports life (seeds and spores) that will thrive in that harsh environment and will eventually cause those rocks to crack apart and break down, eventually becoming rich soil that can promote the growth of bountiful crops. The prayer for the human counterpart is: For all who are engaged in ministries of healing, hope and restoration, and all they remember and care for, at the hardest edges of this life.
Likewise, the weed-rich soil supports a diverse population in harsh and competitive conditions. Human counterpart: For all who seek and speak insistent truths that choke out every form of ignorance, hatred, and self-deceit.
In other words, the soil has to match the seed, and the seed has to match the soil. In fields as varied as psychiatry, social work, teaching, sales and marketing, we hear it said that, to be successful, we have to start where our client, patient, student, or sales prospect is. In church we say: You have to grow where you are planted. In so doing, both the [Quote] “seed” and the [Quote] “soil” are nourished and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
As we prayed at the beginning:
For every soil to become rich soil by your wonders, wit and wisdom, Holy Spirit:
That we may rejoice with you in your abundant harvests everywhere on earth as in the new creation, we give you all thanks, glory, and praise, O Lord.
God is good. All the time. All the time. God is good.
Amen.
Blessing:
A Franciscan Blessing. Please say ‘Amen’ at the end of each sentence.
God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. Amen.
God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. Amen.
God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy. Amen.
God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.
And the Blessing of God, [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] be upon you and all you love and pray for this day and forever more. Amen.
