Isaiah 55:10-13, Matthew 13:1-9,18-23
This past week at our Summer Celebration Vacation Bible School kids and adults alike had an amazing time celebrating how stellar and out of this world Jesus’ light is in our lives. But today’s gospel reading brings us back down to earth as Jesus tells us a story about a sower who went out to sow and ended up throwing seeds rather recklessly on all types of ground. Some seeds fell on hard-trodden pathways, others ended up on rocky terrain, still others amongst the thorns, while some actually landed on fertile soil. The story is popularly known as The Parable of the Sower even though I think we naturally tend to hear it not as the parable of the sower at all, but as the parable of the judgment of the soil - because that’s where our focus usually goes. We slide into judgment mode oh so easily as we determine what soil is good and what soil is bad. And of course, we don’t just judge when it comes to this story but in ways too numerous to count. In fact, my guess is that since the time you awoke this morning you’ve made countless judgements. Maybe you judged that the milk in the refrigerator had gone bad so you threw it out instead of pouring it on your cereal. Or maybe you judged that a driver on the way to church today made a bad move. Or perhaps you judged that it would be a good idea to bring a wrap with you this morning because the a/c in the church can be rather cold. We are predisposed to judge which is not necessarily a bad thing. In so many ways it helps us survive and thrive. However, sometimes our judging tendencies don’t serve us so well.
Take Jesus’ story, for example. Maybe it’s not about judgment but about joy. Since again and again in the midst of this thorny and rocky and good world of ours the sower is still sowing seeds. Every day God scatters the word of the kingdom, as Jesus calls it, recklessly, indiscriminately out into all the nooks and crannies of our lives. No one, no place, no situation goes lacking. God’s Word goes everywhere - because the Word is not something just found in church. It’s not something that is locked up in a spiritual ivory tower. I believe the Word of the Lord is anything that brings good news to the poor and comfort to those who mourn. The Word of the Lord is whatever heals the brokenhearted. Whatever opens prison doors. Whatever proclaims the pure goodness and radical love of God.
Surely God’s Word is scattered all around us, joyfully scrawled throughout the world. That good Word was certainly revealed in the faces of the kids who were here at Summer Celebration as well as in the lives that were served by our food pantry. But way beyond that, the life-giving Word of the Lord can equally be experienced in the kindness of strangers, the generosity of others, in the sacrifices people make to work for justice and peace. The Word of the Lord is written on the broken tablets of our hearts. It is falling like rain in the tears of the forgiven. It is harnessed in the laughter of children. God’s Word is everything and anything that brings hope, healing, life.
And as Isaiah, in our first reading, tells us God’s Word does what it intends to do without even the slightest bit of soil management on our part. Amazing, isn’t it? Because, again, Jesus’ story is a parable not about the judgment of the soil but rather The Parable of the Sower. So perhaps to focus on the rich and rather silly image of how God extravagantly sows the Word of the kingdom is to experience this parable with joy instead of judgment.
Because isn’t life too short, too sacred, and too important to skimp on joy? Isn’t the world just too precarious to turn our backs on joy? I think so. And Isaiah backs me up on this because the Hebrew word that is commonly interpreted as “purpose” in his prophecy can also be translated as “delight.” So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth, says Isaish speaking for God, it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I DELIGHT.
It seems to me that the word “delight" might be more accurate given the playful imagery that follows. For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. What a fantastical, joy-filled, playful image that is. It’s like a biblical Cirque du Soleil. Imagine the delight of God seen in the singing hills and the clapping trees.
Yet we live in such serious times. Some would even say fearful times - times of political unrest, of rising violence, of climate disasters and the like. With all that going on in our world we might wonder what place is there for joy? And I imagine that there were some in the time of Isaiah who felt the same way, who judged this singing-hills-and-clapping-trees business as lacking in decorum. Especially since this prophecy was originally directed toward a people who were eking out an existence as exiles in Babylon - a displaced people who had lost everything they had ever known. I wonder if these whimsical verses seemed like sending a circus clown into a refugee camp?
But it’s not like Isaiah didn’t get the gravity of the situation. It’s not that Isaiah couldn’t judge right from wrong - he was a prophet, after all. But sometimes the job of a prophet is not to judge but to point God’s people to joy. To remind us that our God delights in us.
Which makes me wonder…what would it be like rather than judging the supposed imperfections of our lives to instead experience the joy of being blessed with life itself and made in the image of God? What would it be like rather than judging the person standing at the side of the road with a cardboard sign to instead experience the joy of seeing Christ’s own face in theirs? What would it be like rather than judging the political leanings of every person and organization to instead experience the joy of God’s kingdom imperfectly and unevenly breaking in on us all? Honestly, I don’t know for sure but I’m willing to give it a try. Because, I don’t know about you, but I want to choose joy - and leave the business of judgment, in whatever form that may take, up to God and God alone. For today is the day that the sower is scattering the healing, hopeful, life-giving Word onto every terrain this world has to offer. And that Word will surely accomplish all in which God delights and not return empty.
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