How Does Our Garden
Grow?
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 7/13/2011
Based on Matthew
13:1-9, 18-23
There
is an old nursery rhythm that as children on the playground we would recite
often, it goes like this: Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your
garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, And pretty
maids all in a row. Who can tell me what that means? People who study these things say One
explanation is that it had religious connotations to it. That it is a religious allegory of
Catholicism, with bells representing the sanctus bells, the cockleshells
the badges of the pilgrims to the shrine of Saint James in Spain (Santiago de Compostela) and pretty maids
are nuns, but even within this strand of thought there are differences of
opinion as to whether it is lament for the reinstatement of Catholicism in
England or for its persecution. So
many of our childhood nursery rhythms have multiple means just as do the
parables of Jesus.
Jesus was using a parable in this morning’s
reading about the sower planting his/her seed and what happens with that seed
depending on the type of soil the seed falls upon. I can even see a resemblance between this
morning’s parable and our vacant lot east of the church.
We have two
sections in that east lot, one is considered vacant and the other we call a
“community garden.” The community
garden is planted with tomatoes, lettuce, corn, bok chow, and many other
varieties of vegetables and the vacant lot is planted with multiple types of
weeds. The vegetable garden received
much care and water, while the weeds do not; yet both seem to thrive. I wonder why that is?
When I look at that
east lot, it brings back memories about how my dad attempted to garden on our
40 acre farm back in Kansas. After moving
out to this farm, dad decided that with forty acres and the free slave labor of
three children, he would utilize as much of the land as possible and become a
truck farmer. A good share of this land
was very sandy and of low quality, but there patches of very good soil as well. We had no real equipment for this type of
undertaking, so most all the working of the soil was done with hand tools. The property had only one water well for the whole
40 acres, which was near the house with only one water spicate in which to
water the plants that we were cultivating.
It’s a marvelous
thing to watch everything that you have planted grow. But do you know what is equally interesting;
watching everything that you didn’t plant grow as well. The technical term for these plants are
“weeds”. I remember long days of
handling a hoe, chopping at the weeds, which seemed to thrive better than the
plants that I was supposed to be tending.
Most
often when reading what we now call “The Parable of the Sower”, we too often fuse
over the types of soil that the seed is planted in. This is
part of what the story is asking us to look at, but it is equally a commentary
about the sower. In this particular
setting, it is easy to image that the sower is Jesus, or God, or possibly the
Disciples, since they were the ones that Jesus was really speaking to.
As a church, we also
are the sower. In the “Take 5” program,
the taking of 5 church brochures and placing them at a variety of places that
we find ourselves: the grocery store, the Dr’s office, a restaurant, when we
leave these brochures we are in fact, scattering our seed onto soil that we do
not know whether it will produce or not.
I
often speak about trusting in God’s “abundance” instead of thinking in the
world’s view of “scarcity”; yet in practice we act in scarcity instead of
abundance; and I don’t mean on a personal level. As a nation with excessive abundance, we
chose to limit how many people are allowed into our country, we have issues
with the concept of National Health Care, we would rather allow homeliness
instead of providing affordable housing, and we want to restrict who can marry,
to name just a few. Why? Why do
we do we think this way?
Today’s scripture
talks about how God “the sower” isn’t concerned about where the seed is throw –
that is true extravagance, in fact it can be seen as downright
wastefulness. Throwing seed on ground
that isn’t prepared, you know that seed is doomed for failure. The scripture says that the birds ate the
seed that fell on the road; the seed in the shallow soil withered under the
heat of the day; the seed in the weeds is choked out. It is only in the good soil that the seed
produced. But here is the kicker: we
don’t know what will prove to be the good soil!
When
we see a person with the illness of drug or alcohol addiction, we do not know if
going into treatment will help this person beat their addiction, but the odds
are pretty good that if they continue to work their program, one day they will move
from rocky soil to fertile soil. When we
help our children learn right from wrong, we do not know if as adults they will
become upstanding citizens or become a criminal, but we give them our love and
instruction hoping they grow up to be a good person. As a church, we don’t know if having a
workshop on sexual identity will result in a phone call inquiring about whether
or not as a congregation, we would really welcome a transgendered person, but
we hold the workshops anyway. When I
stand up here each week and share my understanding about any given scripture, I
don’t know which hearts will be fertile that day and which ones will be hard as
stone, but my job is to share and let God do the work.
Yesterday,
as we were passing out burritos to day labors over on 19th and
Federal, a guy in a black pick-up pulls up wanting to know if we were selling burritos
and if he could purchase one. My first
thought as I saw Judy Rowe speaking with him was, “This guy is with the city
checking to see if we had a business license to sell burritos.” As it turns out, he saw us and just wanted a
burrito. He wanted to know if he could
pay for one understanding that what we were doing was a charitable work, but
Judy insisted that he just take one. He
did and drove off, then minutes later, he came back to us and gave us $20 to help
in our mission. This is an example of
how the seed fell onto fertile soil.
As
a community of faith, we have received the word of God, the seed planted. The question that needs to be asked is, “What
type of soil is this congregation made up of?” Are we hard and rocky, who gives only the
birds nourishment, as they eat the seed that doesn’t take root? Are we soil that is full of rocks, there by not
allowing the work of the Holy Spirit to take hold? Are we soil where the distractions of the
world take away focus from the needs of being nourished? Are we the soil that receives God’s word and
allow it to be nurtured within our hearts, to grow and be able to feed the
needs of those we come in contact with?
The focus is on the
sower. The story is asking what type of
soil is in the sower’s heart. It is God
who originally planted his word within us?
How have we received it? God did
not give his love for just some, but for all.
God loves extravagantly, giving the gift of reconciliation and
healing to every broken heart.
The question is this: How have you received this seed from God? Is your spirit one of hard packed soil? Is it
one who received the love of God but because of life’s circumstances has found
this love withering? Or is your heart
the type of soil that has received the love of God and has allowed it to
flourish, thereby giving it freely to all that you met?
As long as we, as a congregation,
have open hearts to receive the extravagant love of God, we will continue to do
the work that God has asked us to do, and we will reap abundance through Gods
promise to us! Amen
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