Many of you probably know by now that one of the things getting me through this time of COVID-19 is my garden. It’s not a big garden, but it’s certainly a joyful one. Cherry and San Marzano tomatoes, Kentucky wonder pole beans, marigolds, a wee cucumber and, of course, strawberries. One of my very favorite things in all the world, I knew I had to have strawberries in my little garden. 

Fast forward to June, when the beginnings of a red tint shown onto the ripening berries. I checked them morning and night, waiting for just the right moment before I could pick a ripe berry grown by my own hands. 

But I wasn’t prepared for the squirrels. Now, I thought the birds might also be interested in the strawberries, so I acquired some bird netting and fashioned a barrier that little birdies couldn’t get through. But the clever gray squirrels in my neighborhood made quick work of these edible rubies. I raged for a few days, staring out the window obsessively and rushing outside every time I saw a squirrel. But at some point, I have to make my peace with this outcome. At some point, I have to smile ruefully, remembering Wendell Berry’s words “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”

At some point, I have to accept that I planted something that serves a different purpose than I anticipated. 

There are some things that we just can’t control in life. We all know this, whether we’ve come by this knowledge by way of gardening or job searches or raising children or facing medical diagnoses. And in some way, the subject of this parable, the sower, knows this, too. 

Farming in first century Palestine was different than in the USA today. There were no irrigation systems, no mechanized equipment, and no pH testing of soils. Some of you may be chuckling to yourselves that this last farming advancement might have been welcome to this sower who was scattering seeds all over whatever soil was available. How could they not know that the soil was rocky? How could they not see the birds nesting in the trees and waiting for some easy snacks? How could the sower not understand that the thorns would choke whatever attempted to grow? Maybe this sower was not terribly preoccupied with efficiency and gross yield. The information that we see, the questions that occur to us in our privileged positions in the 21st century, exist in a whole different universe from the original telling of this parable. Theodore J. Wardlaw in the Feasting on the Word commentary says we are dealing with a “High-risk sower, relentless in indiscriminately throwing seed on all soil—as if it were all potentially good soil, which leaves us to wonder if there is any place or circumstance in which God’s seed cannot sprout and take root."

So the farmer isn’t the foil in this story. The farmer is taking the extravagant risk to spread the seed everywhere, hoping something will grow. Maybe the result won’t be what she was expecting, but planting seeds is an act of faith. It is an act of trust. At some point, humans can’t do anything more to make plants grow. At some point, the seeds are in the ground and it depends on the health of the soil to be ready to nurture them. At some point, the generosity of God becomes clear as growth occurs. 

This parable has been used to describe the task of discipleship. The word of God falls on many more people than who internalize it and understand it and commit to it. It takes work to follow the Way of Jesus, and not everyone accepts the call. It takes work to follow the words of Micah 6:8, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God...and not everyone says yes. 

So how do we say yes and accept the call to discipleship? Will we be like the sower, moving forward in faith and sharing the good news indiscriminately? How can we prepare ourselves and our congregation and our community to nurture the sprouts of justice that are sowed? 

My friend Jimmy is a gardener in many senses of the word. Sometimes he can be heard talking about holy compost, the stuff that must be laid into the soil to encourage growth. Holy compost can be icky, stinky, decaying, just like its organic counterparts. For something new and healthy to grow, often it takes other material to be let die, to be grieved and allowed to decompose. 

In the past four months, our world, our lives, our communities and our church have changed immensely. We have had to let some of our comfort go, allowed “the way things are always done” to be let go, set aside ideas of what we expect life together to look like...this is a time of holy composting. This is a time when we are reimagining what church is and preparing for something new to take place. In this time we are also going through a long-range planning process, in which more than 120 people participated. We are also attempting to confront white supremacy in our world, in Seattle, even in our own congregation and especially in our own selves. For so many of us, any one of these things at any time would feel overwhelming, would cause us to reevaluate our lives, would encourage us to think deeply about what the Holy Spirit is doing in and among the members of this congregation. Let alone confronting these and more world-shaking issues in the midst of a global pandemic when so many are facing uncertainty with their jobs, schools, healthcare and more! So for some, this time of composting might feel like decaying, and there might be feelings of loss, betrayal, heartbreak, guilt and shame. We can grieve that together, all the while knowing that this holy compost is fertilizing the soil so that something fruitful will occur.

So we can compost. But we also have to put in our own work. We have to dig and hoe and till. We have to organize and strategize. We have to give our time, sweat, labor. We have to relinquish land, money, privilege, social status. The questions ahead of us are these: What will we be willing to put in to prepare our community to nurture seeds of justice? Are we willing to listen to those inside and outside our community who have been living with their backs up against the wall? As we contemplate a long-range plan, will we put aside our pride? As we delve into confronting the white supremacy in our own church systems, will we admit we don’t know everything? In this time of composting, will we let others lead? Will we risk angering people we love as we show up for just causes, as we say “things don’t have to be like they have always been”? Will we accept that the things we plant might have a different purpose than what we anticipated? 

I hope that many of you have read Parable of the Sower by Afro-futurist sci-fi author Octavia Butler. For those of you who haven’t, here is a brief description of the book. Out of the literal ashes, the main character, Lauren, a young Black woman, makes her way towards a new life, leading others who are inspired and empowered by her revolutionary conception of faith. This new order of spirituality is called Earthseed, and contains verses like this: “Create no images of God. Accept the images that God has provided. They are everywhere, in everything. God is Change— Seed to tree, tree to forest; Rain to river, river to sea; Grubs to bees, bees to swarm. From one, many; from many, one; Forever uniting, growing, dissolving— forever Changing. The universe is God’s self-portrait.”

There is holy compost at work in Parable of the Sower. The way of living that privileged profit over people, that was entrenched in white supremacy, that bore little patience for the gift of empathy that made Lauren who she needed to be to find a way to go on...that way of living had to pass away. “God is change,” Lauren says, and to truly embrace this understanding of God is to embrace the fact that another world is possible. That something new can arise out of the ashes of the old. That there are things we can’t, and shouldn’t control, like the yield of a balcony garden that feeds local squirrels. 

I’d like to share an excerpt of an essay by Octavia Butler pertinent to this conversation about sowers and seed and soil:

Beloved church, you are the sowers. 

You are one of the thousands of answers, if you choose to be. You may be spread in rocky, thorn-laden soil or exposed to birds of prey. But in this time of holy composting, as the world as it was is slipping away, you can choose not to scrabble at the past in attempts to control the future. You can become part of the compost, part of the nutrients that feed the soil and help new things grow. You can grow, despite the situations of your life that have taught you you can’t change. 

In a recent Sojourners article entitled “What the Church can Learn from Octavia Butler,” my friend and pastor of Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Boston, Cody Sanders, wrote, “In order to be faithful in this hour, we can’t lie to ourselves believing that things are so bad that they can’t be changed. Nor can we believe that things will inevitably be better sooner or later. Either is tempting to believe. Neither is true.” 

Friends, embarking on the journey, asking the questions, listening intently, wondering at the future...these are Lauren Olumina’s gifts that make it possible to emerge from the ashes, these are the high-risk sower’s gifts that encourage faith in the midst of change. So what are we willing to do to be soil that yields growth? Are we willing to change as God, through Jesus, invites us to so that we are conspirators building the Beloved Kin-dom?

Like the sower, we can’t predict or control the outcome of our acts of faith. But we can accept that God is in the changes, perhaps that God is change itself. 

Like the sower, we can express radical hope by spreading the gospel of inclusive love on all whom we meet, through our words and our actions, our presence and our protest. 

In the words of Octavia Butler, in Parable of the Sower: 

“There is no end 

To what a living world 

Will demand of you.” 

May you ever listen to that voice that calls you to help build a living world. 

Amen. 

This sermon originally preached for Seattle First Baptist Church on July 12, 2020.