Becoming Good Soil

The gospel for Sunday was Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, the parable of the sower.  My first thoughts when I read the parable was actually about a class that I took in seminary on parables.  Two of the books that we read were entitled "Many Things in Parables" and "Hear Then the Parables" both of which take their titles from lines in this passage.  But when I was actually thinking about the text I was thinking about my garden.  


Last year Bob and I made a raised bed garden and filled it with soil bought at our local home improvement store. And last year with fresh good soil, we barely had to weed, there were no rocks and it was not compact.  This year we tilled the soil at the beginning of the season, picked out a few rocks and have weeded much more this year.  We also added fertilizer and compost to help add nutrients.  By putting work into, we continued to keep the soil good, which is what farmers do every year with their soil.  So then why do we assume that if you aren't good soil in the parable that you can never be good soil?  Hence the background for my sermon.  


Enjoy!


Are you good soil? Earlier we sang “Lord, let my heart be good soil,” so are you good soil? Or are you the hard path? Or the rocky ground? Or are you choked with weeds? Are you something else and hoping to be good soil?

Jesus says that people who are good soil are the ones who hear the word of God and understand it and then bears fruit that yields 30, 60 or a 100 times what was sown. Well can any of us be then good soil? Does anyone hear God’s word and always understand it? The disciples sure didn’t understand Jesus’ parable which is why Jesus had to explain it. Each week I struggle with the text, not just how to present it but how to understand it, what is Jesus saying in these words, what is the point for our lives today. And then we have to tell others about Jesus to be considered good soil and not just one person but 30, 60 or a 100 people. That is difficult to do, so can any of us be good soil? And what can we do to become good soil?

Well soil does not change itself, however the farmer, or gardener or sower can change the soil to make it good. The farmer can till the path so make that hard soil more open and receptive to receiving seed. The farmer can remove the rocks so that roots can grow deeper so the plant can get better nutrients and be more drought resistant. The farmer can weed the ground so that the plants that are wanted can thrive instead of the plants that are unwanted.

And even with good soil the farmer needs to continue to take care of it to make sure that it remains good soil. Rocks, which have been pushed up from deeper underground, need to be removed on a regular basis. Compost or manure needs to be added regularly to the soil to help increase the nutrients in the soil and therefore the yields of the plants. Mulch added to the top can help keep the soil moist and therefore keep the plants well watered. And the soil also needs to be kept fallow on occasion to help with growth in future seasons.

And just like a farmer who takes care of his soil, so too is God taking care of us, the soil, the dirt that we are. God is constantly stir up our lives, adding new things, some of which seems like they are just a bunch of poop or rotten food which is essentially what manure and compost is. The manure or compost of our lives are adversities and hardships: illness, deaths, financial struggles, relationship issues. And even though hardships are stuff that we do not want when we are experiencing them, often after they have passed, we realize that without them we would not be the person we have become and they have made us a better person. In these hardships in our lives, God is adding diversity to our experiences. In each new bit of poop or rotten food, God is allowing us to be able to relate to many more people who also have been affected by such things. And just to be clear God is not the one who causes these hardships, instead God is the one who allows us to realize that what was once rotten food or poop is actually things that have added to the bounty of our lives.

God too is removing the rocks from our soil, from ourselves. God is helping our roots grow deeper, helping us learn more about the Word. God is there giving us new ways to learn more about God so that our faith can be stronger. This fall, our congregation will have a new way of digging deeper into our faith as we begin Grow 2 Gather, a new intergenerational learning experience where children, teens and adults will hear together the stories of our faith and interact in ways that help us deepen our understanding of those stories. Because when we deepen the knowledge of our faith, our faith has a better chance of producing fruit as we tell others about why our faith is important to us.

God is also aerating the soil that is our lives. Just when we think we have the path for our lives figured out God jumps in and tumbles us around. And yet in doing so great things happen. When I had graduated seminary, I thought I had my life figured out as to where I was going. I never thought I would be called to a small congregation in Connecticut, and yet here I am and now I can’t imagine being anywhere else because I know this is where God wants me to be.

God is also weeding our lives. The weeds are a very typical problem for people in America, the cares of this world the lure of wealth chokes our faith. How often have we push our faith down on the list of our priorities as school activities, or community events or a day at the beach have seemed more and more important?

God is constantly changing us, making us into good soil. Helping us to better understand the word, helping us to dig deeper in our faith, and our faith lives to be stronger so that we are not consumed by the cares of this world.

And God occasionally allows us to lie fallow. We are allowed to take a break a times, giving over leadership positions on council, or as worship leaders and instead sit back and be fed spiritually so that we can later produce more fruit. We can’t constantly be going, always caring for other people’s needs, both physical and spiritual, and expect to still be strong ourselves spiritually.

So we are all good soil, or at least on our way to being good soil. And we constantly need nurturing, through worship, prayer, service, and even respite in order to be God’s people in this world, in order to allow others to see God through us. And regardless of where we are, or what we are right now, good soil, the path, rocky ground or the thornes, God is still abundantly showering love, the seeds of faith, upon us.  God is spreading that love to all people, good soil and not-so-good soil, in the hopes that the seeds will take root and we will produce good fruit.  And even if we don't, well we still showered in God's love.