A Thousand Reasons

A Thousand Reasons

Luke 8:1-8

July 7, 2019 • Mount Pleasant UMC

May 16, 1993. Twenty-six years and about a month and half ago, I preached my very first “real” sermon. It was titled “The Lone Ranger Rides Again” and was based on 1 Corinthians 12. It was our final Sunday at Harrodsburg United Methodist Church, where I had served as an unpaid, informal associate pastor, where Cathy and I had taught Senior High Sunday School and where a wonderful lady named Flossie Grigsby had continued to wonder if I was actually old enough to be a preacher. The congregation at Harrodsburg was very gracious, more than I knew then because I’ve gone back and looked at some of those early sermons and I want to go apologize to all the people who had to listen to them!. Now, you may be wondering why I’m subjecting you to this trip down memory lane, and it’s because this particular sermon is my one thousandth time to preach the good news. One thousand sermons. It makes me tired just thinking about it! After seeing “Spiderman” this afternoon, I may have to take a nap!

This thousandth sermon comes in the midst of our current series on the Gospel of Luke called “Least Last Lost.” We’re focusing on the ways in which Jesus, as Luke tells his story, had a deep concern for those on the underside of life, the neglected or abandoned, the ones others overlooked or ignored. This morning, we come to a parable Jesus told, probably more than once, as he traveled throughout the area, a parable about thorns and seeds and a farmer.

Most of us are unfamiliar with the world Jesus is describing. We live in cities and towns, and even those who farm don’t go out and just throw seed on the ground. They use GPS to achieve the maximum yield. This story is a little strange to us, but to Jesus’ original audience, this was something they saw everyday in rural Galilee. The typical rural farmer would wear a bag over his shoulder, walk through the fields and sling seed. Planting in that culture was typically done between October and December, with harvest taking place in June. Another important piece is that, in that world, plowing followed sowing. In other words, the seed was thrown out onto a wide variety of soil, and later it would be turned under. So, in essence, the type of soil didn’t matter. If someone had trampled the soil down, it didn’t matter. If thorns had grown up, it didn’t matter. After the sowing, it was all going to be turned under and every seed would have an equal chance to grow (cf. Bock, Luke [IVP], pg. 147; Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 110; Liefeld, “Luke,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 906). So this farmer casts out the seed, plows it under, and then waits for it to grow and when it does, Jesus says, the seed yields a hundred times more than was sown. For every seed throw out, the farmer got back one hundred. That's an amazing yield in a world where normal crop return was about 35%. This farmer gets almost three times that amount, three times what was expected, even though only 25% of the seed fell in what we might call “good soil” (cf. Bock 147; Card 110). This was a good year.

In some ways, this is the perfect parable for preaching. The typical sermon from this story goes like this (I’ve preached it before): you talk about the four soils—the path, the rocky ground, the thorny ground and the good soil—and then the punch line, the wrap-up, is to ask, “Which soil are you?” Then I would encourage you to be or become good soil. Of course, the easiest way for bad soil to become good soil is to have a bunch of fertilizer dumped into it, so if I were preaching that sermon this morning, I might ask you how much—fertilizer—you want dumped into your life to make you into good soil. But I’m not preaching that sermon today! Because I’m not sure that the point of the parable is the soil itself. Jesus doesn’t waste words, and he doesn’t include details accidentally. While I do think the soil is important, I think the focus of this parable is on the seed and the sower. I’m more interested in whether or not the seed is getting scattered. Because, as I understand the whole process of growing, God will take care of whether or not the seed grows. Our job, the sower’s job, is to get the seed into a position where it has the potential to grow. The farmer’s job is to faithfully sow the seed whether the ground receives it or not. And if the seed is “the word of God” (8:11) as Jesus says it is, then the question becomes whether or not we are being faithful sowers, casting the word of God out into the world. Are we faithfully sowing seed?

In the first three verses of this morning’s passage, Luke has already told us about people in whom the seeds had taken root and grown. There’s Mary from Magdala, who had been demon possessed—and not just by one, but by seven demons—whom Jesus had healed. There’s Joanna, the wife of a prominent government official, which means the seed of the word had landed in the halls of power. She was probably the wealthiest of the group and perhaps even the most well-known. And there’s Susanna, about whom we know absolutely nothing except that the seed of the word had taken root in her so she followed Jesus (Liefeld 905; Card 108). All three of these women (and others, Luke says, 8:3) were financially supporting Jesus and the twelve because the Jesus message had made such a difference in their lives. But here's the point: the seed is no respecter of persons. As long as the sower faithfully casts it, it can take root in all sorts of people. So the question comes to us again: are we faithfully sowing seed?

We also scatter seeds into another person’s life in a lot of different ways: through the way we live, the actions we take, the words we speak. As you watch this, think about what seeds are being scattered and what sort of harvest they might produce.

SKIT: “Seeds”

Personally, I cannot remember a time when someone wasn’t sowing Gospel seeds in my life. My parents took me to the Sedalia Methodist Church from the time I was born; I have a picture of my baptism in that church. Some of my earliest memories are from worship and Sunday School and VBS at the Rossville United Methodist Church, where we landed after the Sedalia church closed. My parents, too, taught us (my brother and I) to read the Bible, to pray, and to trust in Jesus in everything. They modeled that for us. Sometimes I was listening, and other times I wanted to do my own thing. Sometimes the soil was receptive and good, other times it was rocky and resistant. But still seeds were being planted.

And not just by my parents. Sunday School teachers were so important to me; I still remember most all of the teachers I had as a child. Those of you who volunteer with Ginger in Children’s Ministry—you really have no idea how big of an impact you are making in their lives. The time you give, when you sacrifice your own wants to show up for the children, when you show them how much Jesus loves them—it all matters. The stories they taught me got deep inside of me, and even more I remember the way they loved me. And there was Pastor Amos. I was fortunate that, for most of my growing up years, I had the same pastor, and that isn’t always the case in United Methodism! But Pastor Amos was there at Rossville for a long time. He planted a lot of seeds in me and in others. Amos died last year at the age of 96, and shortly after that, I wrote these words about his ministry, words which sort of sum up the way he planted seeds in me: “He was the first one who let me try things in ministry. I don't know too many pastors who would trust a high schooler to direct the children's choir, but he let me do just that for several years. I would walk from the school over to the church (two short blocks away) with the kids from the choir and practice with them every week. (Again, no one would do that now!) Every spring, we'd put on a musical. The props were bad, the music was cheesy, but he supported us wholeheartedly. He let me sing. He let me play the organ once a month. He even asked me to organize the annual church Christmas program (though that may have been because no one else would do it...). Much of what I learned (mainly from making mistakes) I owe to him, long before I ever went to seminary.” Amos tossed out seeds, and some of them took root.

I could talk about Scott Harris, the InterVarsity staff worker who invited me to serve on the executive leadership team for the IV Chapter at Ball State at the end of my freshman year. Who does that? Who trusts a freshman to lead a student-driven ministry? Scott did. I could talk about Rita, who led the small group Bible study I became a part of in my first year at Ball State, then asked me to take it over when she left. I could talk about the people who came and participated in that first small group, who put up with me as I learned to lead, who gave as much or more to me as I gave to them. I could talk about Ken Boyd, my advisor at Asbury, who guided me through a strange new world called seminary, and I could mention Rob and Katie and David and Cindy and Francis and Nancy and Brian and Marlea, who surrounded Cathy and I with a true community of friends. Together, we all found our way through seminary and into ministry. And I could talk about the churches in Muncie and Rensselaer and Portage and now Terre Haute who have given of themselves, welcomed us as the pastoral family and loved us and our kids. All of these and so many more have scattered seeds into our lives, so many of which have taken root and grown and produced a crop in our lives. I could talk about all of those in detail, but we’d be here all afternoon. The thing that amazes me, though, as I think about all of those people who have scattered seeds in my life is how that leads me to think about how that has enabled me to scatter seeds into other people’s lives. Through preaching and teaching and blogging and sharing in conversations, I have been privileged to scatter seed into lives everywhere I have gone. My constant prayer is that some of those seeds have taken root, and that some might even produce a harvest.

So, then, here’s the question for you: who has planted seeds in you? Who has faithfully “scattered” the message of the Gospel into your life? Take a moment, just now, and turn to one or two people near you and share (very briefly) about someone who planted seeds in you. You’re going to only have a short time, so make sure everyone gets to share briefly.

SHARING TIME (2 minutes)

You could do that all day, couldn’t you? It’s great to reflect on the people who have scattered seeds into your life, but there are a thousand reasons (and more) outside these walls for you to plant seeds, a thousand people (and more) who need you to scatter seeds, a thousand places (and more) where seeds could take root. The church today seems to prefer to keep the seed on the barn, but Jesus calls us to spread it far and wide so that those who are lost might be found and those who are seeking might be sought. If the seed isn’t sown, it can’t take root. Is it right to keep it for ourselves? Shouldn’t we be busy scattering seed?

Jesus tells this story about a farmer sowing seed because it was something his listeners saw every year. And it was and is still an important act, every year. Farmers today may use machinery and GPS to guide their sowing, but still the seed has to be sown. It has to be put in the ground. If it isn’t, it won’t grow and more than that, the farmer will not be able to survive, to support his family or to feed the people and animals that are depending on him. The seed has to be sown; it’s literally a matter of life and death, certainly in the subsistence culture in which Jesus lived, but no less so today. That’s also true of the seed we are called to sow. We have to sow it into the next generation or the church will not survive. Oh, it’s true that Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against the church (cf. Matthew 16:18). Nothing can stop the global church, but he didn’t say that about an individual, local church. He didn’t say that about Mount Pleasant. We have to keep sowing the seed—in “big” ways with programs like VBS and youth group and Grace Unlimited and so on, by coming alongside missionaries locally and internationally, by reaching out to the neighbors and people God puts in our lives. Sowing seed is a daily activity. Can you imagine if the farmer in Jesus’ parable had just sat back and watched his neighbors sow seed while he did nothing? “Oh, sowing seed isn’t my thing. I’ll just let the guy over there do it for me.” His field would wither, and his family would not survive. We’re all called and expected to sow seeds of hope, of grace, of mercy and of salvation into the world around us. So what seed are you sowing? And are you sowing it regularly?

A good farmer is also not content to just let the soil “be whatever it is.” Remember that in this first-century culture, plowing followed sowing. Once the seed was cast, then the farmer would do what was necessary to get the seed deep down in the soil. A good farmer would make good soil out of difficult soil. A good farmer will be busy treating the soil, getting rid of rocks and other impediments to good growth, weeding out the thorns and breaking up the hard ground. A good farmer does whatever is in his power to make sure that the seed has a good chance to grow. The way we live out the word, the way we represent Jesus, has a lot to do with whether or not those who haven’t yet followed him become good soil. How do we do with this? We argue with each other over things that aren’t of ultimate importance, we are unkind to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, we live in such a way that is less than loving and the world says, “Why do I need Jesus? I can act like that on my own!” We cast the seed toward the soil and then we trample all over it rather than helping it become good soil (cf. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 95). Before you make that stinging remark, before you post that link or that comment, before you speak ill of another believer, take a moment and consider how someone who doesn’t yet follow Jesus would understand it. What does our life say in the presence of an unbelieving world? Are we representing Jesus well? Are we casting good seed? We can do better. We can do much better. Jesus is worth better.

“A farmer went out to sow his seed” (8:5). We are the farmers. You are the farmer. I am the farmer. We are the planters in Jesus’ field. So let’s be people who sow good seed everywhere so that all can hear the good news. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear” (8:8). Amen.

On the last night Jesus spent with his disciples, just before he sent them out to scatter seed for the rest of their lives, he gathered them together and gave them a practice that would both remind them of the message and give them strength to do the work of scattering the message. We call it communion, but for Jesus and the disciples, it was a passover feast, a last supper, a reminder of God’s goodness and love for them. Today, we gather at the table in gratitude and with a renewed commitment to be farmers who scatter the seed of the word. Let’s come to the table with that heart and that determination. Will you pray with me as we prepare our hearts for holy communion?