For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not
return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed
to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not
return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose
and succeed
in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)
Can I just say that I’ve found lawn care to be one of the most anxiety-producing responsibilities of home ownership? I have been locked in mortal combat with spotted spurge, dandelions, mushrooms, and a plethora of diabolical vegetation answering to the description of “weeds.” I constantly face the conundrum of watering. When to water? How much to water? Is my irrigation sensor working?
Last
fall the Bride and I sowed some grass seed on our lawn. Heat or fungus or some
insidious blight or other turned the fecund green of our lawns to a sickly
brown, requiring us to shell out about nine hundred bucks to have seed
scattered and sown in hope of reviving the lawn to something approaching
health. Wouldn’t you know it? Just as the seeds were starting to sprout, the
landscaping company that services our development sent some bovine-brained
Gen-Zee on an ATV to treat all our lawns with weedkiller. This wannabe Evel
Knievel did a doughnut on our front lawn and tore up a good patch of recently
seeded grass.
Recently,
as I did my morning chore of pulling up the mushrooms which are sucking the
nutrients away from my poor lawn, I asked myself, “Why? Why don’t I run up the
white flag and surrender? Why don’t I just let this lawn go and do its own
thing? Why can’t I let what will grow grow and what will die die? Who says I
should try to control nature?”
The
answer, of course, is my HOA. They want everyone’s lawn to look like the
eighteenth green at Augusta, and they send you an intimidating letter if your
lawn doesn’t measure up. So I guess I’ll be scattering more seed this year. But
that’s okay. I’ve come to a place of peace with this. All I can do is scatter
the seed. It’s God who gives the growth.
I
love Jesus’ parable of the sower which we hear again as the Gospel lesson for
Pentecost 7, Year A (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23) because it’s really a tale of hope.
The “seed” is a metaphor for God’s word, and Jesus assumes that some of this
seed is going to take root. It’s a mistake to dwell on the seed that
doesn’t seem to be germinating when every seed has the potential for growth.
Saint
Paul taught us that faith comes from what is heard.[i] No one hears the Word
unless we proclaim it. If we’re to cast ourselves in this parable, we’re the
sower of the seed. We can scatter the seed through public proclamation, but we
also scatter it through our actions and our demeanor. When we do works of charity,
when we show patience and forbearance, when we forgive, we are sowers of the
seed. We sow when we are advocates for justice for the poor and marginalized,
when we are neighbors, and when we show welcome and inclusion. I would hazard
to guess that for everyone who is drawn on a Sunday morning to hear more of God’s
Word there was a person in the past whose kindness or empathy or sense of
internal peace was a seed of inspiration. Can you think of anyone who embodied
the Word of God in your life? I can.
The
Word of God is a word of love and forgiveness and healing. In the words and
works of Jesus we learn and are called to love, patience, acceptance,
compassion, mercy, sacrifice, and faith in eternal life. God’s Word is God’s work.
When that seed takes root in our hearts, we can’t help but spread it around.
I’ve
joked that we at Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia have been growing our Christian
Education program back from seed. After the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic
our Sunday School pretty much vanished. But then, God decided to send us some
infants and toddlers and a few primary grade kids. They’re too little to start
reading the Bible on their own, let alone tackle the theological intricacies of
the Augsburg Confession or even Luther’s Catechism. Nevertheless, our heroic
Sunday School teachers—two Gen-Zees who were baptized and brought up in our
congregation—are doing their best to plant the seeds of faith by involving
these tykes in our Sunday liturgy. Do the kids have a sense of the sacred? Not
so much yet. But they’re learning that they are welcome in church, and church
is a safe and fun place to be.
Yes,
I have also lamented that many of my former confirmands have shot out the door
of the church right after affirming their baptism like someone was giving away
Taylor Swift tickets. But some of them have stuck around. Some of them have
even returned from time to time. My job is to sow the seed. I can’t force it to
grow. When I do funerals for unchurched folks, I always try to explain a little
about our faith. I also hand out the church’s business card to the bereaved. Do
they ever come through our doors on a Sunday morning? Once in a great while
someone does. But, I think, I may have just planted a seed of faith in some of
the ones who don’t. That’s up to God. My job—our job—is to keep on
spreading the seed.
Yes,
I will probably have to reseed my lawn again this fall. My HOA will insist, so
surrender is not an option. It’s not an option for Christians, either. God
doesn’t give up. Neither should we. There may be a seed lying dormant under the
soil, waiting to sprout in God’s good time.
I
hope I’ve spread some good seed to you this week. Please come and see me again.
[i]
Romans 10:17
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