Sermon - 2020 - 07 - 19

 

Today within our Gospel, Jesus delivers to us another parable.  In this parable, Jesus talks about the seeds that sown by God and the seeds that are sown by the evil one.  Many of us know that there are good things and there are bad things in the world.  In this parable, Jesus is highlighting though just how intertwined things are within the world.  It is hard to make clear distinctions between what is evil and what is good.  Many of us have seen a field of corn, soybeans, sunflowers, cotton, or another crop.  Or for many of us even at our homes, we have a flower bed where we have flowers to make things look beautiful but in the midst of those flowers, we have unintended plants or weeds that grow there too.  Yet in the midst of that field or flowerbed, we will see the one weed that is growing in the acres.  We take note of what is different and are able to clearly identify but when the weeds and the crops are harder to distinguish, then we must go back to the sower, the planter of the seeds to know what it is they intended the field to be.  

Once again, I am grateful that Jesus explains this parable to the disciples that we are not left wondering who we are in the midst of the parable.  For we could easily be led astray by the hopes that we are who we are not.  Jesus clearly states that God is the sower.  God is the one who decides what seeds are planted.  However, that means that we are the seeds, we are what grows.  We are the ones who are good or evil.  We are the ones who bear fruit in the world.  However, even in this parable, we encounter where the parable does not speak clearly to us.  

For in the parable, if we are the seeds, then it is already determined before we are planted what it is that we are, we are the good or the evil.  A seed that is planted can not change.  Yet we are not seeds, for we can grow and change.  We can have our hearts, minds, and the fruit that we bear in this world change.  Is this a choice that we make?  Well, it can feel like it sometimes.  But, it can also be from the outside of our self that we can experience change.  That we can be made aware of the ways that we are hurting ourselves or others and be able to change our habits.  

Now each of the parables that Jesus shares helps us reflect upon our own lives and yet it is the goal of the parables to also help you, the hearer, to realize that it not entirely about you but that you are part of the community, the Kingdom of God, and in God’s Presence to share with others.  

Right now, I realize that it is hard to comprehend or realize that we are in a community together.  Yet this is preciously the time that we have our faith, realize that God is part of our daily life in helping us see the good, calling us to strive against evil, and to find ways that we can still connect and be the people of God in this field that we are planted.  Yes, over and over again we come back because we need to return to the sower and know that we matter, we are His, and that no matter what in the end God is there for us.  So I encourage each and every one of you to please use this time to grow, read scripture, reflect upon your own life and find ways to be in community so that we can remind one another of the love, grace and mercy that Jesus Christ is giving to us even in the midst of the darkness.  Amen.