Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | July 16, 2023

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

When I was introduced to the Presbyterian Church, there were a number of things that made me think, “This is where I belong.” That’s how I felt when I read, “The Book of Order,” the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

There were three ideas described in the “Book of Order” that resonated in me –

God alone is Lord of the conscience;

Truth is in order to goodness;

That we conduct our church life decently and in order.

I appreciated the sense of order that the Presbyterians brought to their understanding of church and the way it should work. The notion of “Decent and In Order” was sometimes more theory than practice, but the foundation was there.

I like an orderly life and I live with someone who has an even great appreciation for order than I do, so it works out well for both of us. An orderly existence makes life easier, at least for the ones who appreciate an orderly existence. There are certain benefits to order –

It means we live in a clean house.

We don’t waste food.

We don’t generate a lot of garbage.

We re-use and recycle.

We manage our finances.

We make time to do the things we need to do, want to do and enjoy doing.

If I can’t find something all I need to do is, ask her where it is and she can tell me.

We treat each other with kindness and respect.

Projects get started and finished.

It’s a human tendency to want to impose order. We build walls, we draw borders, we pave streets; we even try to impose our need for order on the universe – when we look at the stars, we form them into patterns and pictures. We seek a sense of control in our lives; control which is ultimately a mirage.

There’s a difference between order and control. I once lived next door to a woman who was controlling. She was obsessive about trying to control her environment and she was compulsive in the ways that she tried to impose control. When I first met her in a next-door neighbor trying to be friendly sort of way, she pointed to a spot in her yard and she said, “I believe that’s where my property line is.”

She spent much of her time cleaning. When she was finished with the inside of the house, she moved to the outside. Her husband had the task of wiping down the gutters. She would sweep the driveway and then she would vacuum it. I cannot imagine that hers was a happy existence.

We even impose our need for order upon God. It’s only natural that we want the things of the spirit to be ordered. The invention of religion is a way of defining and confining the mystery of God. It’s also our attempt to reduce God to something we can contain and control. Why are there only ten commandments? Maybe because that’s how many fingers we have. If there were eleven commandments, we would be constantly losing track of one.

One of the reasons why Jesus was such a problem to the politics and religion of his time is that he was messy. He messed things up. He did not color between the lines. He might have walked on water, but he tracked mud onto the carpet.

I try to tell the difference between religion as a means to an end, and religion as the end. As a means to an end, our practice of religion can provide the structure to help us relate to the things of God and Spirit. When religion becomes the end rather than the means, then we get consumed by maintaining the institution. I operate as one who appreciates order, who lives and works within an orderly religious system, yet who in my heart and soul follows One who calls me to grasp the mystery and embrace the chaos.

In his life and work Jesus was in constant conflict with people who wanted to maintain control, both political and religious control. When he was pressed to give an answer about the rules, as in what the most important ones were, he spoke of love. He never set up a system of religious rules; rather he told stories that revealed the truth of God.

The stories he told were tales that turned conventional wisdom on its head. He spoke in parables – not in an Aesop’s Fables kind of way, but in a way that required people to reach for their conclusions beyond their comfortable grasp.

It has been said that if you want to know the mind of Jesus, then read the parables. The parables come closest to what the actual words of Jesus might have been. He talked about the “kingdom of heaven.” Life as God intends, as God makes possible. The realm where human life and God’s Spirit meet.

He lived in a society governed by the rule of law. He spoke of a society governed by the rule of grace. He lived in a religion governed by a code of purity. He spoke of a religion governed by a code of love.

The way to get to where God wanted people to be was not through a belief system or a religious practice. He offered people a new way of seeing; of seeing themselves as God sees them and seeing their world in terms of what God makes possible.

The parables by which he taught people about the kingdom of heaven, offered a glimpse at God’s intended society. He never said, “And the moral of the story is …” He left it to his listeners to make the connections. As if to say that a connection between a believer’s soul and the Spirit of God is a journey of discovery.

When Jesus told a story, he suspended the rules of conventional wisdom. In describing what the life God makes possible is like and what it can be compared to, he said God is not like a heavenly joiner, measuring out straight lines and demanding perfection. We are not like planks of wood be cut, planed, sanded, finished and nailed into place. God is more like a gardener; an unconventional gardener. The realm of God is more about possibility than precision.

“A sower went out to sow some seeds,” said Jesus. A story about a sower of seeds would bring to mind a certain image in the minds of his listeners. They would see a man or woman walking through a plot of land where the soil had been prepared for planting. The sower would have a planting pole by which to make holes in the ground. Into each hole a seed would be planted and then covered over.

In our time the technology has advanced, and we can farm on a greater scale and with more scientific precision, but the method is essentially the same. Prepare the soil, plant the seed, cover it up.

But Jesus challenged conventional wisdom by telling a story about a strange way of farming. The sower went out one day with a bag of seeds, grabbing big handfuls and throwing it around willy-nilly. The result of his effort was plain to see. The crop was a disaster. Some of it was choked off by weeds, some was in shallow soil, and some landed on hard ground, some was eaten by the birds. What grew well was just growing here and there in clumps, as if by chance.

What does it mean? Perhaps Jesus is saying that God’s intentions don’t always meet our ordered expectations. Sometimes we depend on God for responsibilities God had not taken on. That leads to disappointment. Sometimes we give up on God altogether as a way of saying, “I can’t believe in a God who allows such an imperfect world.”

When we are disappointed in God for not enforcing perfection, we might impose our disappointment on other people; the people in our immediate family, co-workers, neighbours and church. Maybe we think if only we were more perfect, because that’s what God really wants, then life would be better. Maybe you know someone like that.

It’s not that God lets us down; rather, our image of God can let us down. In order to see things God’s way, we have to adjust our expectations. What might seem haphazard to us is actually generous and abundant. Rather than measuring out grace, mercy and love in precise doses, as if seed by seed, God pours it out in abundance.

In telling the story Jesus didn’t say, “There was once different kinds of soil,” and end it with, “Which kind are you?”

The story was about the sower, the giving and generous God. The sower did in the story did not look at the ground and say, “That soil is rocky, I should not plant there,” or “The birds might come along and eat the seeds if I plant here,” or “this soil looks likely to produce weeds.”

Our task as followers of Jesus is not to impose order upon the chaos; the real challenge is to discover God’s presence in the midst of disorder. When things don’t go our way, it doesn’t mean God is not there. It just means we have to see differently.

The Word of God goes out in abundance and generosity. God doesn’t judge the soil of our lives; God simply sows the word in every circumstance. Everything we need from God to live the life God makes possible is already in our lives.

And everything the world needs in order to be a world of peace, love and justice, has been abundantly provided by God. Amen.