First Baptist Church on Littleton Common    

Our Extravagant God

Matthew 13:1-23

There is a story about a high-powered business consultant who bought a fancy new home and he decided he wanted nothing but the best for his house and the grounds – so he decided to hire a friend to landscape the grounds. This friend had a doctorate in horticulture and she was extremely bright and knowledgeable.

The business man had a great vision in his head for the grounds, but because he was such a busy executive and traveled so much of his time – he kept emphasizing to her that the garden should be designed and created in a way that would require little or no maintenance on his part. He said automatic sprinklers were an absolute necessity and he was always on the lookout for labor-saving devices and any other ways of cutting time – which he never hesitated to discuss with his landscaper friend.  

Finally, his friend said to him, “I can see what you're saying.  But there's one thing you need to deal with before we go any further.

If there's no gardener, there's no garden!” [1]

This is true – a good garden is usually in the hands of a gardener who loves to get his or her hands dirty and finds great joy in planting, tending to and cultivating that garden.  Their purpose is to make the garden beautiful.   When you see a beautiful garden it often just invites you into it and as you stroll through it you can soak in its natural luxury, its colors and its fragrances.  And if you are able to take time to check out the gardener you’ll find a person with a tender and creative heart as well.

Our story today from Matthew 13 – is also about a pretty incredible and extravagant gardener.   We are going to take a closer look at this gardener – this sower who scatters seeds in the most unusual places.  And in this parable - the Sower is God, and it also reflects the generosity of Jesus who tells the story.  God is always making sure that seeds of love and hope and grace are scattered in an extravagant manner. 

Jesus tells this story –after having had quite a day.  Jesus had another series of teaching moments and encounters with the Pharisees about Sabbath propriety and activities and then he healed a man with a shriveled hand.  The crowds kept following him wherever he went - and he just kept on healing the many who were sick.  The people then brought him a demon possessed man who was blind and mute - Jesus immediately healed him so that he could see and talk.  Another big discussion occurred with the Pharisees, and then Jesus’ mother and brothers stop by prompting him to expand his definition of family.   Jesus had a lot going on that day.  But his day wasn’t over.   

It is then on the same day, that he goes out onto a boat, not too far from shore and we hear this parable – which is told in Matthew, Mark and Luke.  It begins this way:

“That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake.  Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it while all the people stood on the shore.  Then he told them many things in parables… “A farmer went out to sow his seeds…..

We have heard it read to us and we have seen the children act it out – and I imagine we are probably familiar with the four places that this extravagant and generous farmer scattered those  seeds. 

            On top of a well worn path,  

            On rocky places without much soil,  

            In with the thorns,

            And on the good and rich soil.

What kind of farmer or gardener would scatter seeds on a packed down and well-traveled path – or amongst rocks or thorns?    What was this farmer thinking?   Imagine the farmers that would have been in that crowd listening to Jesus tell this story.  I can imagine them exchanging glances with each other – when Jesus talked about a farmer throwing seeds down on a hard path.  “What is this guy thinking?”  “What kind of farmer would waste his time and his money by throwing seeds in those types of places?”

Well fortunately – this is one of only two parables in the scriptures where Jesus explains the meaning.   In verse 18 Jesus says; “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means” and he goes onto explain that the seed is the word of God, and the different types of soil are the different stages of the receivers heart.   Jesus calls it the parable of the sower. That means that the sower is God   God is a generous, extravagant, bountiful sower who sends the Word and the message to all the ends of the earth.  God’s graciousness, God’s arms of reconciliation, God’s message of hope is extended to the hard places, the perplexing places, the thorny and prickly places, that no one else will venture into – which is exactly what Jesus did when he healed the man with the withered hand and the one who was blind and mute. 

Through the explanation of Jesus, we learn that God’s Word will be proclaimed and shared, but that it will be received differently, depending on the condition of the hearts of the folks who hear.   The first soil, the hard soil, represents people who have a hard heart.  They may hear the message, but it doesn’t sink in.  The Word is nothing personal and they let it go easily.   The second soil, the rocky path, represents one who first receives the Word of God with joy, but doesn’t do anything about it.  No education, no community, no serving, no commitment, no transformation - therefore no roots.  It is a shallow faith and is easily abandoned to the next new thing.  The third soil, loaded with prickly thorns, represents one who receives the word but allows the negative influences that surround them to remain in their life and in their heart.    The good news is choked by the strangle hold of negative, judgmental and careless attitudes.  The fourth soil represents a heart that is open, ready and ripe to hear the Word of God.    When that seed makes it way inside and finds a home, it produces a harvest with a horn of plenty.

One of the things we church-going Christians need to be careful with in working with this passage  - is not to use it to be judgmental about the state of someone else’s spiritual journey. 

We are not supposed to be in the business of judging – and when we hear this parable we often mentally place ourselves in with the good soil….but we also need to look at the times that we – not others – we are amongst the prickly places and the hard places of our lives.   There is a lot to learn from this wonderful rich little parable. 

Jesus wanted the listeners to notice something about the sower.  The sower was doing something very unusual – he had an endless supply of seeds. God is an extravagant and generous sower – sowing seeds of love and possibility.

God is always broadcasting seeds of grace in the most unusual places. 

It came to my attention in all my readings this week – that the original meaning of the word broadcasting – means the process of scattering seeds far and wide across a field which was usually done by hand.    It is a word that was then chosen to identify the transmitting of radio or television signals out through the airwaves….but its original meaning had to do with the scattering of seeds.

Jesus was broadcasting seeds of hope and love and grace far and wide in his every day ministry.

Jesus broadcast them on the well worn path – and how often have we been right there on that worn down and trodden upon path - when a seed of hope landed right next to us? 

He broadcast them on rocky places – and how often have we felt that our life or a situation in our life was pretty rocky - when a seed of friendship appeared – that got us through that stage of unrest?

Jesus broadcast them amongst the weeds – and how often have we felt as if we were surrounded or confronted with something that was choking and strangling us - such as the false promises coming from the riches of this world?  Maybe a seed of clarity landed in the middle of those weeds - shed light on what we were doing and gave us a new direction?

Jesus also broadcast them on the rich and good soil.   Those seeds will eventually take root – and all of sudden – a blossom will appear –maybe when we least expect it – but it will take root and produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.   

We should never be discouraged – because the Sower is not going to give up on us.  When we are discouraged – because we all do that – we need to remember that there is no end to the supply of seeds from the Sower.   His pouch is always full.  And because we are called to be disciples and do God’s work in this world - we are also called to go and broadcast those seeds of God’s love in the most unusual places.   We do that when we bring a thought, a prayer or a helping hand to someone else.  We can present for one another sharing seeds of faith, seeds of compassion, love and mercy, or seeds of forgiveness and friendship as well as seeds of kindness and of justice.  But even as we do this scattering of seeds – we need to remember that we are not God.   We can’t make those seeds take hold for someone else – we can only do the broadcasting.   The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3, using the seed metaphor: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.”

We need to cultivate patience in our lives and a good gardener knows a great deal about patience   Gardening, dirt, seeds, rain, birds, thorns, weeds, blossoms, sunshine – they can all teach us  something about our own lives and something about God.  

One of my favorite authors  - also a gardener of children  – Caroline Poser describes her own garden in a column she wrote called HAPPINESS MUST BE GROWN IN ONE’S OWN GARDEN.    In her story she purchases an “eclectic” mix of seeds that the boys help plant, nurture, and water even as they also watered each other as well as the swing set in the back yard.   Caroline comments that within her garden are a “random mix of flowers, ivy and other ground cover, some sort of bush with prickly tentacles, something else that looks like it’s part of the onion family, as well as some bare spots, where the seeds we planted were likely washed away by overzealous watering.”  But she concludes her story when she surveys her work and says: “my garden is a visual representation of my life: it is lush and colorful and welcoming to friends and family; at the same time, there are thorny parts, non-conforming parts, and empty parts, as well as some bugs. It’s not perfect by any means, but there’s a tremendous amount of beauty and joy, even in unlikely places. It’s a work in progress and I’m responsible for it.[2]

Our God is an extravagant sower – broadcasting seeds of hope and possibility for people in the most unexpected places.  May God grow within us seeds of wisdom, understanding and patience in all the seasons of our life.

Listen and may all who have ears, hear.

Amen.