St.
Paul’s United Church Sunday, June 30, 2005
The
Growing Season – Rev. David Mundy
Isaiah
55:10-13 Matthew 13:1-9
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This is the growing season. By
now just about everyone who planted seeds in the garden this year will have a
fairly good idea of what germinated and what didn’t. There is that wonderful
period of anticipation after planting, whether it is starting seeds indoors
when the weather outside is still frightful, or pushing them down into the
earth on a late Spring day. Did we get the timing right? Will they emerge from
the ground and take the shape we hope they will? When they do eventually push
up out of the soil, we celebrate the little miracle of growth.
A few weeks ago there was an
article in the New York Times newspaper which described a most impressive
experiment in germination. Scientists in Israel have managed to bring to life a
seed from a date palm which is two thousand years old. This seed was found at Masada, a desert
fortress in the wilderness of Judea. Carbon dating (no pun intended) narrows
the origin of this seed to the time of Jesus, plus or minus a few years. I have been to Masada several times and it is
always hot and dry because it is well below sea level. On one occasion the
temperature was edging up to forty-five degrees Celsius, in the nonexistent
shade. That arid setting preserved the ancient seed and a highly sophisticated
modern chemical process has allowed it to come to life after two millennia. The
palm tree is a foot tall and has seven leaves, so it is now officially the oldest
seed to be germinated. It’s appropriate that one of the psalms says
The righteous
flourish like the palm tree . . .
In old age
they still produce fruit;
they
are always green and full of sap,
showing
that the Lord is upright . . .
Whether it is the seeds we
planted a month ago or a seed that is two thousand years old growth is a
remarkable thing. There are many passages in scripture, both in what we call
the Old Testament and the New Testament which use the imagery of growing seeds.
We heard one from the book of Isaiah which speaks of sprouting seeds and the sower.
Jesus appreciated this
metaphor as well. He liked to tell stories which connected the listener with
the day-to-day experience of his listeners and one of his best-known parables
was about a man who went out to sow some seed, although it seems that the sower wasn’t very good at it.
It was fairly common in Jesus’
time to use what is called the broadcast method of planting. Seeds were spread
by hand and an adept farmer made sure that most of them landed on the ground
that had been prepared for planting. The farmer of Jesus’ parable is all over
the place! He managed
to fling seeds onto a heavily travelled path and into the rocks surrounding the
field and amidst the weeds which choked the young plants. The birds came as
well, and gobbled up some of the seed. The way he planted appeared to be a
waste and Jesus’ listeners would have known it. But many of the seeds grew just
the same and they produce in abundance.
Does a
two thousand-year-old story and a two- thousand- year old faith still have the
potential for take root in our lives? The parable has certainly captured the
imagination of preachers and artists. The painter Vincent Van Gogh did a number
of paintings based on this biblical story because he felt that it represented
our human longing for the infinite.
Even though this is a quieter
time in the church year, a fallow time we might say,
it is still the growing season for God’s people. It makes sense to speak about
growth when we see it all around us.
I have seen the seeds of faith
planted in many lives through the years in people of all ages who have sought
me out to discuss their spiritual life. It might be a young adult who stopped
going to church when they were in their teens but comes to the place where he
or she wants to chat with someone about God. Just as often it is a person in
mid life who may not be in crisis, but is searching
for a deeper sense of Christian meaning or purpose. There have been a fair
number of seniors as well, who may have had a fairly orderly understanding of
church life but are working through what their faith means to them as they get
older.
What I have humbly come to realize over time
is that I am not much good at predicting what the outcome of these
conversations will be. Sometimes I sit with those who are filled with curiosity
and enthusiasm and sincerity about the life of faith and I am convinced that
the individuals are on the road to an exciting new phase of growth in Christ. But life is busy and demanding and it doesn’t
always turn out that way.
On the other side, there have
been times when I was embarrassingly wrong about those I have judged as
unlikely ground for the seeds of renewal and grace to take root and flourish. Last weekend when so
much media emphasis was placed on the global Live Eight concerts
you may have missed the news about a significant gathering in Toronto. Tens of thousands of members
of Alcoholics Anonymous came to the city for a conference in which they
reaffirmed the importance of accepting that there is a higher power and taking
one day at a time on the road to recovery.
The conference helped me
recall my work in a maximum security penitentiary while I was training for the
ministry. I was young and naive and scared in what was a dark and depressing
culture. Yet hopeful things happened there. Part of my work was with
Twelve-Step groups and I saw, first-hand, how lives were changed, in no
small part because the participants encountered God in a way that both helped them
to see that they were loved when they were previously convinced of their “unloveliness” and as a call to a different way of
life. Even though it appeared that
these seeds were planted in rocky ground, they were bearing fruit. I have said
many times that those few months in Kingston Penitentiary were life-changing
for me because I experienced what God is able to do in our lives.
You see, we could easily place
the emphasis on the obstacles mentioned in Jesus’ parable, but if we do we are
probably missing the point. This isn’t primarily about the ominous possibility
that our seeds of faith will whither and die, although when we read on there is
also a warning.
It is about God’s choice to
plant grace in our lives through Jesus Christ our friend and Saviour. While we
can’t predict the outcome we can be open to the surprises God has in store for
us, just as we don’t always know how the things we plant in our gardens will
grow or what will spring up out of the earth. This year we planted a dozen or
so tomato plants in our garden which flourished in the heat of June. We carefully placed them in rows and
supported them with wire cages and watered them in the dry spells. We were a little surprised when other tomato
plants began growing up between them and everywhere else in the garden, the
legacy of the fallen tomatoes from last year’s plants. We continue to pull
these upstarts as “weeds, ” although we left a couple
of them, just to see the outcome, and they appear to be doing very well. In her
book called Song of the Seed Sister Macrina Wiederkehr
The
seeds sown in our lives are, in reality, seeds of our potential. They are
sparks of the divine. They must take root in the earthiness of our lives and
grow. It is essential for us to remember that the sower
in our parable did not experience only obstacles. Some of the seed fell into
good soil and yielded fruit a hundredfold.
This Benedictine nun goes on
offer her mantra, her repeated prayer:
I am the land
of God.
I am hallowed
ground, sacred soil.
I am home for
a treasure that will not rust or fade.
I am the land
of God.
It doesn’t really matter
whether we are seven months old, or seventeen, or seventy-seven, we are all
participants in spiritual growth if we have chosen Christ. And of course Christ
chooses us.
This morning in baptism Christ
planted the two thousand-year-old seeds of grace and discipleship in the lives
of young children who had no idea of what was happening to them. We may think
that we planted those seeds but really we agreed to be ready with the watering
can! With the waters of baptism we showered them and it is up to all of us as
the parents and the extended family which is the church to nurture them as best
we can. And eventually these lovely
children will make their own choices of faith, which we can only hope and pray
will lead them into the fullness of life.
As much as baptism is for
them, it is also the opportunity for renewal in our inner being as we consider
the fresh possibilities of faith and discipleship. If every one of us is “the
land of God” the good soil where new possibilities can take root, we can do the
soul-searching about how we can allow that to happen.
Are we making time in each day
for conversation with God in prayer? Is the bible an open book which guides our
way? Are we coming together with others for worship and discussion so that our
faith will flourish? Is our compassion for others deepening because we hear the
call for justice? All the aspects of faith which we desire for these children
can be at the centre of our Christian experience today.
Earlier I mentioned that there
are many passages of scripture use the growth of trees and plants as a metaphor
for the life of faith. I will close with this verse from another book of the
New Testament. In the letter called James we find
The farmer
waits for the precious crop from the earth
being
patient with it
until
it receives the early and the late rains.
You also must
be patient.
Strengthen
your hearts
for
the coming of the Lord is near.
We can all have ears to hear
that this is the growing season.