The Rev. Jimmy Abbott
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
July 16, 2023
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

The audio version of this sermon can be found here and the video can be found here.

“Listen! A sower went out to sow.” Now, I’m no farmer. But this sower seems really bad at his job. He’s throwing seed all over the place. In the bushes. On that path. He doesn’t even try to scare the birds off. Only some of the seed falls on the good ground to produce a crop. And then the way the parable is explained, well, it doesn’t make things much better. Like, I better just cross my fingers and hope that I’m the good soil. And, it’s a weird way to think about God. If God is this terrible farmer, why doesn’t God care that some seed doesn’t produce? Shouldn’t God care that there are birds, and thorns, and that the field has paths running through it? Shouldn’t God care that only some of the seed is bearing fruit? Shouldn’t God, the sower, care that some people are getting choked out and eaten up and withering away? Shouldn’t God at least try to be a better farmer?

Well, this week I did a little reading on first century farming practices in Palestine. No, seriously. Next time someone asks me, “what does a priest do during the week?” I’m going to say, “we read about first century farming practices in Palestine.” Now, I’m no farmer, but I’m going to do my best here. In first century Palestine, a sower would go out into a field before it was plowed. I know we’re island people, but think about this. The field would not have any crops, it would not have been plowed, it just be, well a field. People would have been walking through the field, there would be paths, probably some rocks. There would be weeds and thorns. The sower would start scattering the seed, and of course some of the seed will fall onto the path, the rocky ground, into the thorns, you have to imagine that birds would have been circling. Then, after the seed was on the ground, the farmer would come back with the plow. By plowing, the soil would be turned up and the seeds would be put in the ground. The plow would also run right over the weeds. Genius, right? Instead of picking the weeds, then plowing, then sowing; the farmer would kill two birds with one stone. Speaking of birds, this would also take care of the bird issue, because all of the seed would go directly into the soil. The path? Well, it wasn’t a road or anything. It was just the dirt path that people had been using. And it too could grow crops. In other words, this farmer is not bad at his job. The farmer knows that the crops can grow anywhere he scatters the seed.

I know, I’m getting all excited about first century farming practices in Palestine. But it makes a big difference. Even the places that don’t seem like they could grow crops can, and in fact, will bear fruit. Maybe you can see where I’m going with this. Instead of crossing my fingers that I’m lucky enough to be the good soil that bears fruit, the lesson is that all of the soil can bear fruit for the Kingdom of God. The seed has been sown. Instead of hoping that God loves me enough to be the good soil, all the soil is good soil. Every single one of us. 

This is the good news of Jesus. So often we hear, we’re told, that we must be the “right kind” of person to be a Christian. It’s just not true. The good news of Jesus is that everybody, everybody receives the Holy Spirit. The field is the whole world. And everybody, anybody can bear fruit for the Kingdom of God. It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you come from, or how much you have or don’t have, it doesn’t matter what kind of soil you are – what matters is that you are a person and you are good enough to grow some crops. No one, no one is outside the love of God. Every single person has the potential to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God. What a beautiful image for baptism. Today, we witness the Holy Spirit descending upon Griffin, who will be baptized. Instead of theologically crossing our fingers that Griffin is the right kind of soil for God, we thank God that every person is the right kind of soil. 

It just takes a bit of plowing.

Those seeds that are snatched away, and choked by wealth, or wither away when things get tough. It’s not that the soil was bad, it’s not that the people who receive it are bad, it was just that no bothered to plow. Just because the seed is sown, doesn’t mean it will magically grow. Plowing is hard work. That is the warning in this parable. It’s not that Jesus thinks some people are outside of God’s love. No, it’s a warning about laziness and complacency. We in the Church, we who’ve been baptized, cannot just sit back and assume that we are righteous, producing fruit, just on account of who we are. Farming doesn’t work that way. It takes plowing, it takes prayer, and worship, and service to get that seed growing. The lure of wealth is there. You’ve got to plow it over by practicing how to give instead of how to get. You could spring up quickly and then wither away because things get tough in your spiritual life; you’ve got to plow through with patience and prayer. You’ve got to plow the seed in so that you’re not snatched away by temptation to evil. 

Every baptism is a reminder of this. Yes, little Griffin will be receiving the Holy Spirit. But it will take his parents, godparents, this whole church family to do a little bit of plowing. Griffin will not leave this church today as a fully formed Christian. None of us will. For we all still have some work hard to do. But the seed is already there, inside of you, it just takes some hard work and diligence to bear fruit.

This is a warning, hard news I think. It’s become all too apparent that our love of power, our worship of authority, our devotion to money, is choking out our potential to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God. I’m not speaking of Trinity in particular, but Christianity as a whole in the West. If all we do is sit here, without the hard work of plowing, of loving God and our neighbor, then the forces of evil will snatch us away and will have us worship other gods and other powers; to pledge ourselves to ideology or party. We would bear fruit for the world that is nasty, brutish, and rotten. 

And that’s the question that lingers. What what kind of fruit do we bear? Well, back to first century farming practices in Palestine. They were growing millet. Whatever that is. My research ended there. But it’s not so much what the crop is, but simply how much is produced. Thirty, sixty, one hundredfold – more than any single farmer could eat. That’s the idea. The bumper crop that we produce for the Kingdom of God is not just for ourselves. It’s about producing so much kindness, and compassion, and generosity that it overflows from the silo of these four walls and spills out into streets of Galveston, so that our whole world would feast on the love of God. See, it’s not that our world is starving right now. Oh no, it’s been feasting all right, it’s been gorging on anger, bitterness, and division. The fruit that we bear, the fruit that we pray Griffin will bear, is the good, solid food of righteousness and grace.

I’ll end today with a story, with something I saw this week. This week, Trinity hosted sixty-five teenagers from across the Episcopal Church in Texas for a mission trip. They slept here in our gym and then went around town doing various service projects. It was great. And on Thursday evening, we gathered on the beach and had communion together. Towards the end of the service we were gathering in a big circle and holding hands to say our final prayer, and this family that just happened to be on the beach came up and asked, “what are y’all doing?” And those teenagers, they knew exactly what to do and what to say. They made our circle a little big bigger, they welcomed in this family, and there on the beach I saw the Lord God produce thirty, sixty, one hundred fold of love. Those teenagers did not ask the family if they were Christians, they didn’t ask about their ideology or affiliation. They just made the circle wider. Who knows what that family thought of us, singing songs and holding hands and sharing bread. But the seed of love that Jesus had sown in the hearts of those teenagers had been plowed in, and it produced love and grace right there under on the beach in the setting sun. And in turn, a new seed of love was planted.

This, this is what we are doing today. Griffin, today we are making the circle a little bit wider for you. And, in time, with a little bit of plowing, you will bear fruit for the Kingdom of God. We gather here week by week, we pray, we give, we serve because this is the food that this world needs. The world is hungry, Griffin – hungry for love, hungry for compassion, hungry for people like all of us to be voices of reason in an unreasonable time. In other words, we have got some plowing to do.