Seeds

Notes from a sermon from Sunday, July 10, 2011
Jesus said, "A sower went out to sow his seed. . . . ." (Matthew 13)

I don't know about you, but most of the field of my life seems to be doing pretty well these day (even if I do say so myself).  Like the fields around where I live, which are green and growing thick with corn, I look at my field and heart and soul and think that it seems that I'm headed for that hundredfold yield that Jesus was talking about in the parable, and I'm pretty satisfied about that.

Of course, at the edge of my field is a drainage ditch to catch the runoff from the road.  The ditch is full of weeds and reeds and cattails and ditch lilies, and I try to be careful not to let any of the corn fall in among those weeds and reeds and cattails and ditch lilies when I'm planting, but some just does and it doesn't have a chance at growing.  It's outnumbered, as Jesus said, by the "cares and worries of life."  I know that elswhere God's Word says I should "cast all your anxieties on Him, for He cares for you," but I do have some anxieties that I'm just not ready to cast on Him; and some that have just come up that I still need to fuss over a bit; and some that I've cast onto Him that I still check back with Him and make sure He's handling them to my satisfaction.  But, hey, it's just a ditch and it isn't very wide compared to my big green field, so I think I'm doing pretty well, all things considered.  How about you?

There are some rocks in my field, too.  Not a lot, to be sure, but some.  And not little pea-gravel rocks, either, but pretty good fist-sized ones.  Oh, for the most part I believe and trust that God loves me, that the Father is wondrously fond of me, that Jesus delights in me, that the Holy Spirit is pleased as punch about me.  I am convinced that He is that way about all His children.  I am convinced that He is good all the time (and that all the time, He is good).  But my faith that God is good and wonderful and merciful and gracious struggles to survive when it comes up against the fist-sized rocks that say "but what about the child that just died because he was locked in the hot car?" and "what about the child that was repeatedly abused by her grandfather?" and "what about the family that all died in that car accident?" and the "what abouts?" just keep on coming.  Those rocks can be mighty big and they can pile up pretty fast, and if I'm not careful they can do some serious damage to the crop.  But, hey, maybe I don't have to worry because, you know what, as long as I keep them in one part of the field I'm OK, right?  How about you?

And then there's the path.  Paths happen in fields because they're convenient ways of getting from one place to another.  They happen because the grass or weeds or crops are beaten down from repeated travel by foot or wagon wheel or tractor tire, beating again and again in the same place until the plants just give up in frustration.  They're the places in the field of my life that I just go back to again and again and again, without fruit, without resolution, the places that are barren and downtrodden and fruitless but that are easy to get to, easy to see, easy to stand on.  I go back to them time after time after time for no apparent reason, and even I wonder why (and so does everyone else around me) - nothing is accomplished when I go there.  I "comfort myself" thinking that it's just a small part of the otherwise fruitful field - and then I wonder if I'm really comforting myself - or am I fooling myself?

If I were a true farmer, would I be satisfied with having "most" of my land in productive field, with having "some" path, "some" stones, "some" weeds?  Or would I not rest until I had as much land as possible in productive field, and as little path as possible, as few stones and weeds as possible?  I think the latter.  And I also believe that the Holy Spirit is a wondrous, loving, eager, excited, energetic Gardener, who loves me (and you) enough and loves His work enough to jump at our smallest prayer, to come into the fields of our hearts to work with all His tenderness and grace and mercy to pull weeds and clear out rocks and break up paths and increase the crops so that the fruit of His love can overflow in our lives wherever we turn, wherever we look, wherever we move.

That's why He plants the seed in us in the first place.