An Anxious Sower
I grew up in the era of the “BuzzFeed quiz.”
In High School, as we wrestled with our place in the world and the anxieties of our various social circles, amid all that uncertainty, teenage angst, and worry about whether we were becoming who we were meant to be, millennials could appeal to the Buzzfeed quiz to discover who we truly were.
And as we approached our very own Oracle of Delphi, clicking through and awaiting the result, we hoped not only to discover a new or deeper sense of who we were, but also wanted to recognize ourselves in the response. As we read the quiz, the quiz read us. We hoped it would reflect back a new way of defining ourselves and one that we found agreeable. We wanted to be seen. We all secretly hoped that the answer would give us some social capital, marking us out as somehow special and also very much part of the community, and ideally, somewhere on the cool side of things, or, at least, gave us something we could post about at least.
• "Which Friends Character Are You?"
• "Which Disney Princess Are You?"
• "What Kind of Potato Are You?"
(For those wondering, I’m Mike, Paul Rudd’s character, Aurora, and mashed potatoes.)
But, I suspect we, and maybe these disciples, who are asking what the parable means in our gospel this morning, are in search of something like a simple personality quiz. Regrettably, I couldn’t find the “Which Soil Are You?” quiz on Buzzfeed.
As ministry team four prepared this week’s services, reading this week’ portion of the Gospel of Luke, we were stuck by the numerous accounts of healing. Just yesterday, we heard the story of a woman who applied healing ointment to Jesus’ feet. Earlier in the week we heard how a woman was brought back from the brink of death, and how a widow’s only son was brought back from death itself. Even on Wednesday night, Dean Willis invited us to consider the 11th Chapter of Luke’s Gospel, and the possibility that God is still answering the prayers of those who ask, search, and knock.
But as I stand here in the Memorial Chapel of blessed St. Luke the Physician, I am left asking,
• “Does this parable about the soils have anything to do with healing?”
• And relatedly, “Even if I could discover precisely what type of soil I am, what good would it do me?”
Well, maybe no good at all, because, of course, what would I do if I discovered that I’m trampled soil and birds are likely to eat my seed, or that I’m rocky soil and have no root, or I’m among the thorns and am likely to be choked out. I mean, soil is soil, it can’t change itself.
Maybe I’d make a better start looking at from the perspective of the Sower. But, when I do, it seems they are a bit of a fool. I mean 75% of their activity seems to be entirely wasted. Rather than figuring out where the good soil is, it seems like they’re planting seed wherever they are, regardless of the potential for these seeds to grow.
• Don’t they know that a good evangelist uses resources like the Missionary Society’s Studying Your Congregation and Community?
• Couldn’t they be a bit more strategic using some demographical data?
• It seems this Sower obviously has no understanding of the type of careful planning needed to win at stewardship and strategic development.
• Why don’t they just figure out where the good soil is and plant there? I mean, if they did, it would be like, well, like shooting fish in a barrel!
But if the sheer proliferation of BuzzFeed personality tests has anything to say, it’s that we are notoriously bad at figuring out who we are. And we are even worse at figuring out who others are or what they might become. I’ve often found places that look fertile only look that way because they are desperately trying to hide an infestation of rocks, thorns, and hungry birds. And that places that, at the outset, look the rockiest, the thorniest, the most trampled on, and picked over, are often places most prepared for growth.
As far as the sower is concerned, it seems it’s almost impossible to tell where one should plant in advance. And for the anxious sower, perhaps this is good news. Maybe the success or lack isn’t so much dependent on the aim and quality of the throw but on things that are entirely outside of the Sower’s control.
From the midst of the thorny Babylonian exile, Isaiah proclaims…
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah says seeds are never cast in vain. God’s Word always accomplishes its goal.
Maybe the result of each seed planted, like a cover crop, works to improve soil health, enhance water availability, drive out pests, and eliminate thorns that could inhibit the growth of God’s Word. And in this light, the Sower’s strategy doesn’t seem so foolish. Something like, “Wherever you go there you are, and wherever you are plant some seed,” might not be such a bad plan. Maybe this foolhardy and steady way of sowing seed has, a sort of wisdom to it.
Naturally, there’s still a good chance you’ll be viewed as absurd if you declare that God’s reign is still on its way. You open yourself up to accusations of ignoring all the evidence to the contrary. But, despite it’s seeming simplicity, it doesn’t change the fact that the message of Jesus is breaking in. By God’s grace, it’s growing and stretching out, despite our efforts to slow its progress. It’s growing all by itself, and we don’t really know how, and like a vine creeping up the side of a wall, it has the strength enough to tear it down that wall and reveal what’s on the other side.
But, what does any of that have to do with healing?
In the 12th Chapter Gospel of John, we find that seeds are pretty much helpless unless they die. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” It turns out that the condition for change, transformation, healing, and growth is death–and the death of just one Seed bears much fruit.
And I suspect Dr. Meeks is right: “All of us are just looking for a bandage closet.”
Today, with healing prayer, we confess that we are needy. That we are thorny, rough, hard-hearted, eaten up, tired, and strangled on all sides. And that to arrive, body and soul, at the new life we’re all clamoring for this old life first must die to be reborn, body and soul.
But the Good News is that God is in the business of tilling–of soil enrichment. God is a planter, and for the sake of Christ, he’s very much in the healing business.