Choose Love

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16 July 2017 Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost1

Emmanuel Church, Greenwood Parish (The Rev.) Christopher Garcia

Choose Love God sows love. God scatters love. God spreads, sends out love, recklessly, undeservedly, without any reservation or limit at all. It is God’s very nature to love, to send forth love, to scatter love, to spread love everywhere. Across time, down the generations, God, sows love. Throughout your life, God, sows love. Throughout the life of this church, God, sows love, always and everywhere. It is somewhat challenging as a preacher to be faced with today’s Gospel passage. Jesus, who is a much story teller than I am, tells the crowd a story, a parable. Eight verses, sower, soils, good soil, bad soil, rocky ground, shallow soil, weedy soil, good soil. We understand the metaphor, the allegory. Got it, thanks. Done. What is left to preach? Then, just in case we have any questions, the editors skip down a few verses and cuts to the scene where Jesus is with his friends, in a more intimate, private setting. Jesus himself, who is a much better teacher than I am, explains what the parable means. We learn about the evil one coming to snatch the seed away. Jesus tells us about those who hear the word with joy but have no root, about those who hear the word but are overcome by the cares of the world or the lure of wealth. Finally, Jesus explains the soothing words about the good soil, those who hear the word and bear fruit, a hundred fold, or sixty, or even thirty. So Jesus himself explains what today’s parable means. What is a preacher left to do? What are each of us left to do? Parables are powerful teaching tools, and our Lord uses them because they invite each of us into the story. Parables are powerful teaching tools, because they invite a response. Today’s parable invites a response from you, and from me. The danger, of course, is that we jump into the story too quickly. For many years when I heard this story, I thought it was the parable of the soils. The first

Proper 10A, Revised Common Lectionary (Track 2): Isaiah 55:10-13; Psalm 65; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23. “O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.” 1

2 times I preached this passage, I preached it as the parable of the soils. What is our response, where do we fit in, how do we order our lives? Jesus straightened me out. When Jesus got together with his friends, away from the crowd, how did he introduce this discussion? “Hear, then, the parable of the sower.” This is the parable of the sower, not the parable of the soils. Hear, then, the parable of the sower. Yes, we respond to God’s love, poured out on us, God’s love, poured out on everyone, but this is a story about God’s love. If you or I were to plant a garden, what would we do? First, we would carefully prepare the garden. We would pull up all the weeds, or zap them with Roundup. Then we would till the soil, probably going to Crozet Hardware or Walmart or Home Depot first to buy a cart of soil additives, or work in compost or if we have access to a farm, some well-rotted manure. And ideally, after the soil was all ready, and we had done all the prep, and the temperature was right and the moisture conditions were right, we would open our little packet of seeds, and carefully follow the packet directions. How many seeds to plant per inch, how deep, how to cover them, how much water to add, etc. We hoard our efforts and want to see predictable results, preferably right away, right? But this parable isn’t about you or me or the way we might choose to garden, thanks be to God. The parable is about a much better Gardener. Listen, a Sower went out to sow! What happened? The Sower throws seeds everywhere! God throws God’s love everywhere. The Sower is willing to scatter seeds luxuriantly, widely, even on ground that we think might never bear fruit. The Sower is willing to let his good seeds go everywhere. The Sower broadcasts the Word, God’s love, the promise of new live. It doesn’t bother the Sower that the Word might end up on the path, or rocky ground, or in a weedy, thorny patch, or in less than ideal conditions. The Sower just keeps on sowing. Here is the Word; here is the Word; here is the Word. Here is God’s love, meant for you. Here is God’s love, meant for you, too. Here is God’s love, meant for you, yes you, too. There is no deserving or not deserving; there just is God’s love. Abundant. Inexhaustible. The Sower just keeps on sowing. God’s love, God’s sovereign Grace; God’s hope for you and for me doesn’t require that we be ready for it. This parable isn’t about how God is preparing us to hear the Gospel. It’s about the miracle of God’s love, strewn out extravagantly. God isn’t afraid to love recklessly. God doesn’t care if we’re ready to receive the Word or not, the Word is coming at us regardless. God’s love just keeps on coming. The Sower just keeps on sowing.

3 And yes, this parable invites a response from you and from me, but only when we grasp this fundamental truth, that there is no limit to God’s love, that God’s love is intended for everyone, for everyone, for everyone. You are included. I am included. Your neighbor is included. Your estranged sister is included. Those who hate us are included. Those with whom we are angry, or who are angry with us, are included. God’s love just keeps on coming, intended for everyone. There is nothing we can do to limit God’s love, nothing we can do to put ourselves or anyone else outside the reach of God’s love. The Sower keeps on sowing. God keeps on loving. What we can choose, is how we respond to God’s love. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, God says to God’s people, As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace. We can choose to nurture God’s love, for us and for each other and for our neighbors and for the whole world. We can choose to work in accordance with God’s plan. We can choose to be part of the in-breaking kingdom of God, right here, right now, in this place. We can choose to be a beacon, a fertile garden, of God’s love, sinking our roots deep into God’s fertile soil, holding on deeply to God’s promise. Or we can be distracted by trouble and persecution. We can let the weeds of anger and enmity and strife and gossip and dissension take over. But these weeds are not of God. The cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and they yield nothing. As Saint Paul wrote to the Romans, “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Choose life and peace. Choose to be part of the in-breaking kingdom of God. Choose to work with the Sower. Choose to work with the Sower who knows only love, who can sow only love, whose will is only love. Choose love. Amen.