Sowers and seeds

Let me just say there are days when I feel like perhaps I may qualify for “mother of the year” and days when I absolutely do not… today was one of those do not days…

In fact, if I were to be completely honest, I’d say the whole day was a bust. I find that, for the most part, I get along with most people. I don’t have a whole lot of expectations and rather pride myself on being open to differences and so forth. But. Oh My God. Not today.

I’ve spent the last few day prepping for my message tomorrow during our noon mid-week communion service. We are focusing on the parables in Matthew during this Lenten season and my turn comes up tomorrow….the parable of the sower.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read this parable and tried to convince myself what good soil I am. And, yet, as I did my study and spent time wondering about this parable, I finally saw something new. The sower was something else.

I want you to notice that the sower spread seed everywhere. Good soil, thorny soil, bad soil – it didn’t matter. The sower was extravagant in spreading the seed in all places.

What, then, does that mean for us? Well, we can take a lot of time wondering on the different types of soil. I get that most of us assume the unasked question, what soil are you? But, let’s be serious for a minute. Jesus never once asks that question.

Again, I focus on the sower. Here is God or Jesus or whoever you assign the role of the sower…and the seed gets cast all over the place, over and over again. No one is stopping to evaluate the efficiency of the method. No one is pausing to ponder the futility of such extravagance. It just is.

Isn’t that true for us? Don’t we receive grace we absolutely do not deserve? And, if we receive such grace, doesn’t it make sense that the sower is calling us to spread whatever seed, whatever witness we are prepared to offer, indiscriminately?

And yet…we don’t. We calculate the odds. We wait until we feel confident enough that the hearers are well prepared for our words of wisdom.

The sower didn’t make such calculations. The sower simply went out, casting what he knew without much concern about where it landed.

I look at my church and I see such amazing calculation. We are so afraid that we will make a mistake, that we will fail, that we hold tightly to what we might offer until we are absolutely convinced it is right. That’s not what Jesus did. Or lived. Or taught.

What will it take for us to assume the posture of the sower? What will it look like for us to let go of our stuff and acquiesce to what God is calling us to?  I think it’s pretty radical. And not easy. But, oh my Lord, I pray that we can find a way to stop being so caught up in ourselves.

Maybe I won’t be so feisty tomorrow….maybe. But, at least my son and I are on much better terms.