A few days ago I had the opportunity to visit Hebron Presbyterian Church, an old church here in Staunton. Some of you may be familiar with it; I had never been there before. It is a beautiful drive out there through the hills and then you arrive at this church that was founded in the same year as Trinity – in 1746 – though, like Trinity, its present building is historic but not the original church.
And the first and most beautiful thing that drew my attention was a tree, rising there above the church’s parking lot. It’s a tree that has seen some years, a tree whose branches have been pruned and shaped as they’ve gotten older with crooked arms raising up to that blue sky and sun. And it’s a tree with roots buried deep in the same soil where the saints of that church are also buried.
That tree kept coming to mind this week as I was reading the Gospel, a familiar one probably to many of us, the Parable of the Sower. Last summer, this particular parable was the focus of our diocese’s annual formation day, and our guest speaker, the priest and author Jennifer Gamber, suggested that we rename the story the Parable of the Soil, rather than the parable of the sower, because one of the focal points, and perhaps the stronger focus, of that parable is not the seeds or the person scattering them, but the soil in which the seeds fall. She pushed us to ask ourselves, what kind of soil do we find ourselves rooted in, and will it nurture the seed of Christ’s teachings? Jesus himself told the parable as a caution and as a warning to his disciples that their mission to preach and teach and share the good news would not be easy and would not always fall on open hearts or open ears.
Several things make this parable complicated for me, one being that I am not good at planting seeds or taking care of what grows out of them. I love gardens, I love fresh vegetables, and I love growing things and being out among them, but I do not have a green thumb. For example, I have killed cactus, and I have killed mint, and I’m told that both those plants are really hard to kill. My 13-year-old niece, on the other hand, does have a green thumb, and she has a room full of plants. She pots and repots and finds just the right windows for her plants, and in the last year or two I’ve started sending her my plants to foster. And I see the results – plants that might have struggled along in my office or apartment thrive in the sunlight she finds for them. She knows how much water, how much light, and what kind of soil they need.
The other thing that I wrestle with in this parable is figuring out where we are in it. Parables are built from metaphors; they are everyday stories that use everyday images, but they are also stories much deeper than their literalness. The parable of the sower, or the parable of the soil, is a story about agriculture, a familiar world and way of living, especially at the time when Jesus was telling this story.
The planting of things is an important refrain in the Bible. The Bible’s stories begin in a garden, in a place where planting and nurturing and the gathering of fruit happens. Jesus will be arrested, buried, and resurrected in gardens. Parables, so many of them, center on vineyards and fields. So while this story is about what was familiar and everyday and even mundane in the lives of Jesus’s first students, he intended it to teach deeper lessons. He shared the story as he was starting to send his own disciples out into the world (we’ve been following them these past few weeks), telling them okay, it’s your turn. You can start to try this, to preach and teach, but it’s not going to be easy and not everyone is going to receive you well. But he told it as a way to understand that at times the world might seem hopeless, but we are moving through it in hope. And as we listen to the story today, we are likely asking the same questions his disciples did: What does this mean? How does it apply to our work? Are we the sower? Are we the seeds? Or are we the soil?
I think that we might be all three, depending on when and where we are.
The Sower, for instance, is interesting; the Sower does not discriminate. The Sower scatters seeds far and wide and doesn’t seem to pay any attention to where they fall, sowing seeds on rocky ground, in thorns, along the edge of the path, and in good soil – showing no preference for the places where the seeds will be most likely to germinate, but sharing them wherever they fall, giving them every chance to take root, and also perhaps giving the soil, these patches of land, every chance to provide a place for them to grow, even if at first glance they may not seem the ideal spots.
Isn’t the good news meant to be shared everywhere? How often do we see a flower push up through cracks in a sidewalk or between rocks on a winter shoreline? The ground that is dry dust or choked with thorns is not, at first glance, the perfect place to plant the teachings of God. The seeds may not grow. But they may find a way to tenaciously hold on, to grow and bloom and inspire those who come across them despite the soil they are in. Beauty, we know, can be found in the most unlikely and marginal of places. God is always found in the most unlikely and marginal of places. How can we practice the generosity and hope of the Sower, planting the seeds of Christ’s love and teachings even in questionable soil?
And if we are sometimes the Sower, then we are also sometimes the soil, waiting to receive the good news ourselves. How do we prepare our soil for discipleship? What do we need to allow God’s peace and grace and goodness to take root in us? What thorns do we need to clear? Do we need to turn the soil or add fertilizer? Do we need to open our ears and our hearts, to take time for prayer and time for others, to re-center ourselves? Do we need to ground ourselves in the history and faith of those who have come before us, like this tree did, like we do out in our church yard? Do we need the light of day and the water of baptism to create good ground for planting?
And if the seeds to be planted are the good news of Christ, the “word of the kingdom,” then how are we also those seeds – how do we embody the good news in the world? Sometimes in preaching and or in teaching, but we also carry the good news in how we live and engage with one another. The seeds may take the shape of compassion, the shape of healing, the shape of reconciliation and of forgiveness, kindness, and providing safety and sanctuary for others. The seeds may take the shape of affirmation.
Writer Megan McKenna draws a connection between the Parable of the Sower, or Soil, and another parable familiar to many of us – the Parable of the Mustard Seed, which is also found in the gospel of Matthew: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
What grows from the scattered seeds can reach as high as a tree and be a home for the most beloved and vulnerable of God’s creatures. What grows from scattered seeds can be home, sanctuary, possibility, hope, beauty in broken places.
McKenna writes, “We are in this field together. It is a field of family, parish, religious community, national boundaries, universal church.” She says, “We have to start thinking together as the Body of Christ…becoming wheat that can be ground into flour and made into bread for the feeding of the world. Are we becoming the bread of hope,” she asks, “the bread of justice, sustaining the world and luring others into the field, the kingdom of heaven?”
McKenna says that we come back to church on Sundays for a renewal of hope, and then we carry that hope as seeds out into the world.
I encourage you to dwell with this parable in the coming week. You might use the backs of these cards for reflection. I know I’m going to be doing some thinking about where I find myself in this parable. Where do we find ourselves in it? Or where would we like to find ourselves in it? How are we, or how can we be, the Sower? How can we be the seed scattered? How can we provide good soil for seeds to germinate and roots to take hold? How are we being called to nurture? Where are our gardens?
— The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett, Curate, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
Seventh Sunday After Pentecost, July 16, 2023
Reading: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
