Year A Proper 10

Today’s Gospel reading is often called the Parable of the Sower. Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal Priest who Baylor University called one of the twelve most effective preachers in the English language tells it like this:
Once upon a time a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came along and devoured them. So he put his seed pouch down and spent the next hour or so stringing aluminum foil all around his field. He put up a fake owl he ordered from a garden catalog and, as an afterthought, he hung up a couple of traps for the Japanese beetles.
Then he returned to his sowing, but he noticed some of the seeds were falling on rocky ground, so he put his seed pouch down again and went to fetch his wheelbarrow and shovel. A couple of hours later he had dug up the rocks and was trying to think of something useful he could do with them when he remembered his sowing and got back to it, but as soon as he did he ran right into a briar patch that was sure to strangle his little seedlings. So he put his pouch down again and looked everywhere for the weed poison but finally decided just to pull the thorns up by hand, which meant that he had to go back inside and look everywhere for his gloves.
Now by the time he had the briars cleared it was getting dark, so the sower picked up his pouch and his tools and decided to call it a day. That night he fell asleep in his chair reading a seed catalog, and when he woke the next morning he walked out into his field and found a big crow sitting on his fake owl. He found rocks he had not found the day before and he found new little leaves on the roots of the briars that he had broken of in his hands. The sower considered all of this, pushing his cap back on his head, and then he did a strange thing: he began to laugh, just a chuckle at first and then a full-fledged guffaw that turned into a wheeze at the end then his wind ran out.
Still laughing and wheezing he went after his seed pouch and began flinging seeds everywhere: into the roots of trees, onto the roof of his house, across all his fences and into his neighbor’s fields. He shook seeds at his cows and offered a handful to the dog; he even tossed a fistful into the creek, thinking hey might take root downstream somewhere. The more he sowed, the more he seemed to have. None of it made any sense to him, but for once that did not seem to matter, and he had to admit that he had never been happier in all his life.
Let those who have ears to hear, hear.[1]

The parable of the outrageously generous, magnanimous sower. A super-abundantly generous God is also portrayed in our other lessons. In Isaiah: Everyone who thirst, come to the waters, and you that have no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Eat what is good, delight yourselves in rich food. I will make with you and everlasting covenant. Come, eat, drink. A table is prepared for you, everything has been done, all is ready for you. Come and eat, that your soul may live! “God’s invitation is not merely to find a supply of bodily needs but to satisfy a person’s whole being . . . with true life.”[2] God’s covenant will enable his followers to be servants, to fulfill the promises, but they also must accept what God has done, accept his invitation. “A banquet table is worse than useless to the person who is either too proud or too ashamed to come and eat from it.”[3]
In our Isaiah lesson for this week a few verses are left out, and I’ll read them now. “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will richly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
God challenges his people to respond, to step out in faith, to trust in his word. “God promises that what he says . . . is indeed reliable and that forgiveness and abundance are theirs now and in the future if they will only seek him. . . . [and then] all nature will rejoice in the redemption of humanity, and in place of sorrow and sighing there will be ‘joy’ and ‘peace.’[4] Amazing and abundant.
The theme of God’s abundant generosity continues in our Psalm: You visit the earth and water it abundantly, you make it very plenteous. . . you bless the grain, and bless the earth with rain. God’s hills are rich, his hills are clothed with joy. The meadows and valleys sing for joy. God abundantly pours out his blessings throughout the earth.
Even in out Epistle: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. . . . All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God . . . adopted as sons.” The abundant generosity of God who enables us to be his children, causes us to cry out with joy! Abba, Father!
Yes, each of our lessons point to God’s abundant generosity. But there is also a sub-theme regarding our responsibility. In the Isaiah passage, we need to respond, to come to the banquet, to seek God. We need to repent, to turn to the Lord. Often this is an act of faith, of trust. It’s about letting go, even though we don’t know God’s ways and plans. It’s about surrendering our life to Him, and allowing God to determine our paths. God invites us to his banquet, but “we are to leave our comfortable worldly ways and launch out in paths of service and living that do not depend on our strength but on his.”[5]
Last week, in the Epistle reading we heard that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1). But today we heard “if you live according to the flesh, you will did, but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” (v.13) Can both of these be true? There is a tension there, a tension that we are exploring today between God’s generosity and his Sovereignty, and man’s responsibility. A mystery. “What is important is a careful balance between what God gives us in Christ and what we must do in response to that gift.” [6] God is abundantly generous and grace-fully loving towards us, but we must respond to that gift in a manner pleasing to him. Living with the Spirit’s presence, the Spirit works in us, but in cooperation with us. Through the Spirit, we are able to put sin to death in our lives. We do it, but we can only do it through the Spirit. This is bearing good fruit, the fruit of the Spirit.
Which brings us full circle to the Parable of the Sower. It is also a parable of the soil. It’s not about worrying abut which kind of soil you are, but about being receptive to the seed, to God’s abundance spread out in our lives. We are called to be good soil, good dirt. Hearing and understanding, with obedience, results in fruit. The responsibility for producing fruit is the responsibility of the sower, of the Gospel message itself, but “we must be careful to supply proper nutrients and care for our well-being by continually being watered with the Word of God and enfolded in a . . . community of other believers. We likewise must be careful not to allow the weeds of this world to choke us.”[7] Good soil produces good fruit. Good soil is seeking God and allowing Him to work in us and through us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Good soil is a product of the Master Gardener. Lord, we pray that you will abundantly and generously sow your seeds in us and though us. Amen.

[1] Taylor, Barabara B. The Seeds of heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew. Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p. 28-9.
[2] Oswalt, John N. The NIV Application Commentary: Isaiah. Zondervan, 2003, p. 601.
[3] Ibid, 602.
[4] Ibid, 602.
[5] Ibid, 604.
[6] Moo, Douglas. The NIV Application Commentary: Romans. Zondervan, 2000, p. 258.
[7] Wilkins, Michael J. The NIV Application Commentary: Matthew, Zondervan 2004, p. 503.