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8 Pentecost
July 10, 2005 Sermon
by Rev. Sue Deetz, Deacon
Readings
As a society, we seem to
have this insatiable appetite for looking at ourselves and the ordinary
in our lives. There’s reality TV, embellished versions of people doing
everyday things, making dinner, washing the car, and bickering with one
another. Then there’s camera phones, people snapping pictures of
strangers going about their business, and sending them to their friends,
or posting them on the internet. Blogs, a kind of a diary on the
internet, are endless pages of people revealing the most private details
of their lives as well as the mundane. How about that movie ‘Sideways’?
Just some dorky guys doing dorky human things, we loved it! Why are we
so interested? Is it purely for entertainment? Or are we looking for
more?
Imagine this: You walk into a large white room with a few paintings on
the walls. Not many others are walking around, but there is a security
guard in the corner. In the middle of the room is a small glass case
with a perfect bronze replica of a flashlight displayed. The flashlight
is much like one many of us took camping in the 60's. Now, imagine
another white room, smaller. The walls are bare except leaning against
the far wall is a white door. These are recent exhibits at the Walker
Art Center. We have this strong need to put a mirror up to our lives to
figure out who we are, and maybe where we fit in. ... we know there’s
more, and we are trying to figure it out...
In
today’s gospel, Jesus teaches us a
parable that appears at first to be pretty much common sense, unlike
some of his stories that seem to turn what we think we know upside down.
It makes sense that our faith needs to been rooted firmly in good soil
to be lasting and bear fruit. It’s common sense that if we plant seeds
in the sand, they will just blow away. Then he says, “let anyone with
ears listen” Isaiah says it louder, “incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.” Listen to who? And what do we do about it
anyway? And why did that farmer plant all those seeds in the rocks
anyway? But just the fact that this story was written down and
placed in the gospels, pulls it out of the book and on display in that
glass case, for a closer look.
So I started thinking about the rabbit I saw in my garden, eating the
tops off my green pepper plants that I sowed in good soil, tilled with
homegrown compost. How about the time and energy spent coaxing a
beautiful but nonnative flower to barely survive while Queen Anne’s Lace
are spreading out of control and untended across the yard? The rocks on
the shores of Lake Superior come to mind, the ones with hardy little
flowers growing in them, or the spindly trees hanging on as they reach
out into the lake from a rock. Or how about the lupine? Those beautiful
blue and purple flowers that grow so abundantly in the roadside ditches.
According to Larry Weber (a local Science teacher), in his Backyard
Almanac, their name comes from lupus, the Latin word for wolf. It seems
that long ago, shepherds noticed that the lupine grew in poor soil, and
thought that the plants robbed the soil of nutrients. “So they named
them after something that robbed them of their sheep-the wolf.” The
lupine really puts nitrogen back into the soil, improving it.
The waters are starting to get muddy, it’s not such a common sense story
anymore. Now poor soil can be improved by the very seeds that were
doomed. Seeds can really take root in rocky soil and alas, the good soil
is not a guarantee of deep growth. By illuminating those things that are
obvious, it seems that the truths in between the lines start to appear.
By pointing us to our lowest common denominator, dirt, Jesus brings us
all the way back to the beginning, reminding us of our connection to the
earth-as our Ash Wed. Prayer begins...”Almighty God, you have created us
out of the dust of the earth..” Jesus is calling us back to where we
came from, back to the fold. When we are reminded of who we are a s
children of God, joined with all of creation by our dusty beginnings, we
then can hear God in creation. And when we hear God, then we will hear
the lessons of the earth. And those lessons have no boundaries. Just
spend an afternoon in a meadow. Place yourself eye level with a patch of
Black Eyed Susans. Look around at the ants carrying loads larger than
themselves to their hills...do you hear the crickets singing? Watch the
spiders dousing their prey with paralyzing saliva, and the butterfly
with the broken wing frantically trying to get off the ground. Now,
imagine Jesus teaching from one of his favored spots, on a boat in the
nearby lake. He’s been teaching all day about the kingdom of God with
stories of dirt, seeds, birds, rocks, and sand. He keeps telling us to
listen. Just like the prophet Isaiah taught us, “Incline your ear, and
come to me; listen, so that you may live.” So who is it we are listening
to? And what do we do with it?
Now, about that farmer, I found out that it was common practice back in
those days to sow the seeds all over, in all types of soil, then go back
later and till them in, and tend them.
I’d like to end with a little of
today’s reading from Isaiah. It is one
of those most beautiful passages I can remember. I found it to be like a
love song to all of creation.
“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. For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in
peace;”
Amen