Sermon preached at St. Alban's, Spirit Lake, on July 13, 2008
(Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, BCP Lectionary)
by the Rev. Carl D. Mann

Texts:   Isaiah 55:1-5,10-13
Psalm 65:9-14
Romans 8:9-17
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

For the past couple of weeks we have been hearing stories from the Gospel, which use imagery with which we are not entirely comfortable. A couple of weeks ago it was the imagery of a sword, which is an instrument of war and violence. Now isn’t that lovely way to describe the love of God.

Last week it was a yoke which is less violent but still bears the image of bound service and perhaps a little drudgery, and certainly has no appearance of freedom and respite.

Perhaps another reason we are uncomfortable with these images is because they appear to us as irrelevant. We don’t use swords in our military any more other than to enhance a dress uniform. A sword is obsolete because it requires a person to get close to the person they are fighting and look them in the eye thus increasing the chance of both parties being injured or killed. It’s a very personal weapon and a far cry from a laser guided missile.

But the imagery Jesus uses is what was readily available to the hearts and minds of the people of that time. They knew what a sword was because every Roman soldier who was occupying their homeland had one at his side. And yokes of oxen were seen in the daily life of a rural agricultural society. If Jesus were to have arrived on the scene in the late 20th Century he would undoubtedly use whatever was readily available to our hearts and minds to express his teachings; cell phones, iPods, eBay, Wal-Mart; whatever is familiar to us. At some point in time it would be a fun exercise to rewrite the parables using technological metaphors. That might be a great way to reach the people of this fast paced, short attention spanned world in which we live. But in the meantime, we have the Bible as it is written, and whether we understand it or not, it is the word of God which is as constant and consistent as the water cycle is to the earth just as we read in today’s Old Testament lesson and Psalm.

Today’s Gospel employs the imagery of a sower casting seed over the ground. Now this appears to be most inefficient compared to a John Deere 1770NT 24 row planter with fertilizer and insecticide tanks but that’s not the point of the parable. It’s where the seed landed that’s important, and in this particular parable Jesus gives us a well defined meaning of what the parable meant in terms of the different types of soil in which the seed in planted.

As I’ve grown up, every time I have heard this parable, it has made me wonder what type of soil I am. Am I the hard, dusty path, the rocky ground, the patch of thorns or the good soil? And the answer is of course, I am the good soil! I believe in God, I go to Church, I tithe, and every now and again I do something nice for someone. That makes me good soil, right? Perhaps.

However, one of the things that I have discovered since I have begun preaching is the number of times Jesus takes the everyday stuff of life and turns it upside down giving it a new purpose. Two weeks ago he took a sword; an instrument of death and transformed it into a finely engineered scalpel that with one sweeping motion was capable of removing anything in one’s life that separated them from God. Last week he took a yoke; an instrument of bondage and burden and with a simple invitation transformed it into a means of compassion, unity, and total freedom.

With Jesus, we have to look at everything from a different perspective to see and hear what he is truly saying; we have to discover how he transforms something obvious into something new that will reveal a deeper insight of who God is, and who we are, and how we are to relate to Him and others.

So with that in mind, I reread this parable and instead of asking the obvious question, “What kind of soil am I?” I asked myself, “When in my life have I been these different kinds of soil and how has that affected my relationship with God and my neighbors?”

When I was a child, I think that for the most part I was good soil. I was receptive to the Word and accepted it without much challenge, and I displayed appropriate behavior. But as I grew in age becoming more susceptible to the ways of the world, I have alternated a great deal between the hard path, the rocky ground and the patch of thorns. These are the times in my life of which I am not so proud and the fruits that I produced ranged anywhere from rotten to nonexistent which were reflected in my relationship with God and many others. Maybe a better question would be, “What kind of soil am I now?”

There are people right now in this state who have lost their homes to tornadoes and floods and are facing an unforeseeable future. And if you listen closely to the news you can hear a field of attitudes ranging from total despair due to losing everything to praise and thanksgiving for being alive and having the opportunity to start over. These are living examples of the different types of soil.

Those of us who have not been directly affected by these calamities also display the different types of soil; do I pray? Do I send money or supplies? Do I go and physically help those in need? Or do I do nothing?

What kind of soil are we? Are we ready to hear the word of God? Have our hearts been tilled and ready to take root? Are we ready to produce good fruit? Are we willing to be transformed into that which God has intended for us to be even if it is completely opposite of what we dreamed or imagined; maybe even more than we have dreamed or imagined?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then interestingly, verses 6-9 of Isaiah that were cut out of today’s Old Testament lesson is what we need to hear: “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah tells us that God has invited us to partake in the heavenly banquet, and His word is like the rain which cause things to grow and will ultimately sustain us and deliver into an Eden-like paradise. But what was cut out is in my opinion the most important part of the equation; the need for each of us to repent and allow God to transform us in ways that are inconceivable to us. This is what God’s word does to us and the Word of God is Jesus Christ.

With that understanding, allow me to close by paraphrasing today’s collect. Let us pray: Lord, even though we don’t deserve it, we ask that you receive our prayers, and grant that through you we may become transformed from hard baked earth, or rocky soil with a thin layer of dirt, or a patch of choking weeds into rich porous soil capable of producing divine fruit. We know that on our own we are not able to know or even understand those things that we ought to do but by faith in your unchanging Word and steadfast Love, only then are we able to accomplish them according to your will. All this we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen