BE RECEPTIVE AND BE SURPRISED!

 When I was a child, like 8 or 9 years old, I remember we had a huge cherry tree in the corner of our back yard. It produced wonderful cherries that my mother and grandmother would transform into scrumptious cherry pies made from scratch in the late summer. 

 One day, I was sitting on the back porch during a spring thunderstorm, and out of the blackness of the threatening skies came a crooked silver bolt of lightening that split the cherry tree down the middle and knocked me off my chair. 

 I remember how we grieved the loss of that special tree when it was cut up into pieces and hauled away.   Even the stump was dug up and sodden over leaving no trace of its majesty.  It was like the death of an old friend.  The back yard seemed empty and defoliated without it.  Even though I was only 8 or 9 years old, it had been there my whole life.

 Later that summer I was playing in the yard near the lilac bushes about 15 feet behind where the cherry tree had once proudly stood.  I noticed a little tree about three feet tall growing among the lilacs.  I excitedly ran inside and told my mom that the old cherry tree “had a baby,” a little sapling growing in the lilacs.  A few days later my dad dug up the sod where the old tree had been and transplanted the little sapling on the very same spot, and the next generation was established. 

 Of course, it would be several years before it would yield fruit, but it actually grew very quickly in the rich black earth of northern Illinois.  One spring some years later, it exploded in blossoms.  How excited we were even though we knew that it wouldn’t yield very much fruit that year.  We waited expectantly and it did yield some fruit.  Later that summer we got a whole pail full of juicy red Jonathan Apples! 

 Not knowing the difference, in appearance, between a cherry and apple sapling only contributed to our astonishment and surprise.  Evidently someone had thrown an apple core in the lilacs from the alley that ran behind our back yard.  It fell into the rich, receptive soil that was moist and protected by the lilacs. It rooted and grew and eventually brought something totally new and unexpected into our lives!

 Over the next 30 years the apple tree grew and it yielded its fruit, and the cherry pies were replaced by apple pies, and my parents enjoyed that tree as much as they had enjoyed the old cherry tree.  The apple tree was, in a very real way, a gift from an anonymous giver who sowed a seed in the lilac bushes, unexpected and undeserved, that resulted in a scrumptious and bountiful yield.

 Today we hear Jesus tell a story about a sower sowing seeds. The seeds landed on a diversity of soil conditions:  hardened path, rocky ground, briar patch and good soil – each soil creating specific results.  

 I noticed something very interesting in preparing for this sermon.  Before I actually write a sermon I pray, read, study and reflect.  I consult outside resources and/or sometimes read sermons to see how others handle the passage.  In virtually every sermon I read on this passage the preacher immediately jumped to the analogy of the type of soil and asked the readers/listeners to discern the type of soil that most closely represents them.  Without exception, every one of them passed right over what I see to be the first and most potent point of the story – that being the astounding generosity of the sower.

 I am amazed at the liberality of the sower. He is not being careful to plant the seeds only on soil he perceives to be good, but he’s haphazardly broadcasting seed all over the place!   We know that most seed is not cheap, and when we plant things we are careful to prepare the soil first, make it acceptable and then cautiously plant the costly seed to insure its chances of survival.  But the sower in Jesus’ story is lavish with the seed no matter what the cost.

 Jesus makes it clear, in his explanation of the parable, that the seed represents God’s Word.  The first point is that in Jesus Christ, the “word that became flesh,” as John (1:14) in his gospel declares, God is incredibly generous and indiscriminate with His Word.  In Jesus Christ, God spreads grace and forgiveness all over the place.  It is not targeted merely at those he perceives to be worthy and acceptable of grace.  God is extravagant, lavish and unrestrained with grace and forgiveness.  In Romans 5:8 Paul declares this incredible truth of God’s abundant and unrestrained love, “…while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” 

So the first point this parable, that many skip right over, is that God’s love is not conditional on how worthy or unworthy we might be, how deserving or undeserving we might be, how acceptable or unacceptable we might be, how moral or immoral we might be, how good or bad we might be.  Through the cross of Jesus Christ, the “word made flesh,” forgiveness and grace flow over you, me and everyone on this broken and sinful planet.  1 John 4:10 says, “(it is) not that we have loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

 The second thing is about the soil, but what about the soil? I believe a misplaced emphasis in interpretation is often made in regards to the analogy of the soil.  Many imply or directly state that what we are supposed to do is make ourselves good soil.  If we make ourselves good soil then all will be well, we will be saved, and we will yield good fruit and everyone else resembling the other kinds of soil stand under the judgment and condemnation of God.  But I don’t believe that’s the point. 

 When I read this parable I don’t get the feeling that the spirit and point of the parable is that those who represent the hardened path, the rocky ground or the briar patch are going to burn in hell.  Christians have a way of arrogantly reading the Bible in an elitist manner that always puts them on the inside-looking-out and everybody else on the outside-looking-in.  

 The point of the parable is that God lavishly, indiscriminately, and undeservedly lavishes His grace and love all over the place.  And when it lands upon us often there are many forces and powers that act upon us that prevent us from being receptive.  Listen to what he says:  “¹⁹When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. ²⁰As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. ²²As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing.”

 I don’t get the feeling of judgment or condemnation, but a poignant description of the way things are much of the time for you and for me and the kind of world we live in.

 The second point of this parable is not that we can make ourselves into good soil by doing something to make us worthy and deserving of God’s love.  The second point of the parable is that the best we can “do” is merely be receptive to God’s Word, and the power of God’s Word growing in us will begin a miraculous process. Receptivity is more an attitude of “being” than “doing.”  If someone loves me there is nothing for me to do except be receptive and receive it.  When the love of the other gets inside me, it begins a miraculous often transforming process.   Being receptive is an open-ness and humility in the presence of God’s awesome Word that arrives by grace in Jesus Christ. 

 If I’m honest, when I look at my life and try to discern what kind of soil I resemble, I must admit that I recognize all four kinds of soil in my life at any given moment in time.

             I sometimes see hardened paths of indifference, arrogance, apathy or stubborn self-reliance which serve to establish formidable barriers to God’s Word.

             I sometimes experience rocky ground of disappointment, grief, pain, disillusionment and discouragement that can burn away and scorch any new tender shoots of God’s Word that might be taking root in my life.

             I sometimes see briar patches of busy-ness, selfishness, and self-indulgence when my passions take over and strangle God’s word to the point its growth is at best stunted and underdeveloped.

             But, I also see the receptive soil of loneliness, longing and a sense of emptiness deep in my soul that recognizes I need more than what I can provide for myself, or what the world can provide for me, to have authentic purpose, joy, fulfillment, love and peace in my life. 

             Diogenes Allen, said, “There is an emptiness at our core that is like a Black Hole… that sucks down all matter, and there an emptiness in us which threatens to suck us down as well, although what it is actually doing is dispelling an illusion.  It is not destroying us but revealing to us that we are already a dead thing trying to give ourselves life by our own futile efforts.  To be a person, a soul, is to need something beyond oneself to be alive, for whatever we can grasp cannot give us life.  No matter what efforts we make to fill ourselves, we always find ourselves once again empty.”

             This is the fertile soil that allows us to be receptive to the one thing that can truly fill us, God’s incarnate Word in Jesus Christ.  The fertile soil is the empty void we bring to God's fullness; the black hole we bring to God's light; the deadness we bring to the risen incarnate word.

             The parable ends on what would have been a total surprise to Jesus’ listeners.  In those days a crop of five-fold would have been remarkable and ten-fold would have been a miracle.   But in God’s Word, he says, is the power to bring harvests beyond our wildest expectations and run-a-way imaginations: thirty-fold; sixty-fold, a hundred-fold!

             We were surprised beyond our imaginations by a little “cherry” sapling that grew to be mighty apple tree, and the fruit it yielded enriched our lives – all a gift of an anonymous giver who sowed a seed in the lilac bushes.  

             Our giver is not anonymous, but God is deliberate and indiscriminate in spreading the seed of His incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.  He’s still at it this morning as the incarnate Word comes to us in the expressions of spoken word and holy sacrament.  Will you be receptive?  In Christ is the power to recreate and transform your life beyond your wildest imagination; to fill and motivate you in ways you and the world never can; to bring you a purpose and a peace that will not only enrich your own life, but the lives of those around you, near and far.  In the fruit God’s Word bears through you, others will see and know God’s kingdom too. Amen.