Sermon - July 16, 2023 - The Rev. Emily Collette

I speak in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

So this week I encountered some unexpected wisdom while I was scrolling through Instagram.

This is not an entirely unheard of experience for me, being both a good millennial and a

self-professed church nerd.

My social media is rarely free of people posting about their theology or sharing scripture,

quotes, or photos of things that brought them closer to God.

But this week, one of the things that I saw really stuck with me, something shared by

our Diocesan Youth Department page.

This month, several of our youth from the Diocese of Alabama have joined hundreds of

other youth from around the Episcopal Church at EYE, or the Episcopal Youth Event.

It happens every three years, and it largely mirrors the general convention of the Episcopal

Church.

Youth are invited to make decisions that will affect their generation and the church, and

they get a chance to worship together, to learn from each other, and to see what God

is up to in the various corners of this church.

Our Diocesan Youth page has been sharing some of the highlights of their experience in Baltimore,

including some pieces of wisdom that they received from various preachers and speakers.

One that they shared was a short but profound quote from the right Reverend Dion Johnson,

the 11th Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri.

And it read,

The only gospel that some people will read in this world is you.

The only good news that some people will hear is you.

And I'll say that again.

The only gospel that some people will read in this world is you.

The only good news that some people will hear is you.

What a gift I think it is for our young people to hear that they, too, are part of nothing

short than the ongoing mission and ministry of God.

A phrase I so often hear is that our youth and children are the future of the church,

and while that is true, it misses the greater point that they, like we, are now part of the church,

that they are now part of the ongoing work of God,

that they, too, have the ability now to share the good news of God's love with the world.

But I don't think it's just the youth that need to be reminded that each and every day of our lives

is full of the possibility to keep turning ourselves towards God

and then in turn to share the good news that we hear and receive with the world.

As church participation and membership around the country continues to decline,

the reminder that we may be the only gospel, the only good news of Christ that others receive

reminds us how urgent and imperative it is that we take seriously

what it means to be part of sharing God's love with the world.

In today's gospel reading, we hear the first of a string of parables

about the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew's gospel.

In fact, this is the first time that Jesus uses the word parable in Matthew.

The parables are profound and prolific in Jesus' teaching ministry.

If we ask any random sampling of Christians what their favorite Bible stories are,

I am certain that more than a few parables will show up.

Through the parables, Jesus reveals the nature of God, the nature of God's Kingdom,

and the nature of our place within that Kingdom.

The parables are not allegories. They are not one-for-one retellings of a story.

They don't have a simple moral or a teaching easily grasped.

Parables are not tall tales. They are not morality stories.

But rather the parables of Jesus are designed and expertly told

to help us more fully begin to understand God, who God is and what God is up to.

In this parable, like all parables, Jesus will use everyday items

in order to make heady concepts more real and more relatable.

In this parable, we have things like a sower. We have seeds, soil, a harvest.

Everyday items so ubiquitous to the human story that even we now,

some 2,000 years in the future, have no problem understanding their importance,

how they relate to each other, and the place that they hold in society.

In this chapter of Matthew alone, over the course of the next several parables in this chapter,

Jesus will use things like weeds, crops, mustard seeds, yeast, buried treasure,

pearls, and fishing nets to help his listeners both now and then

to begin to more fully grapple with the nature of God.

Unlike most parables though, our parable in today's Gospel, the parable of the sower,

includes a handy interpretation guide.

In fact, potentially most biblical scholars think that this might have been added on later by the early church,

but regardless, more often than not, we do not get a parable explained to us.

Jesus usually leaves them unexplained.

And thereby, Jesus gives it greater power and greater ability to speak more fully

into the many different situations and times in which it will be told.

The parables invite us to question. They invite us to wonder and to ponder and to parse.

What does this parable mean for followers of Christ around the world?

What does this parable mean for the church as a whole as we seek to more closely follow Christ?

What does this parable mean in my own life, in my own ever-changing context?

In the case of the parables, the cliché does hold true.

The point is truly the journey, not simply the destination.

Grappling with the meaning of the parable reveals more to us than simply digesting a moral at face value.

In this parable, Jesus tells of a sower scattering seeds liberally and abundantly,

letting them fall on all sorts of soil, some good and conducive to growth and others not so much.

Broadly, this parable is about the hearing of God's word.

Some will hear and it will change their lives and it will change the world because of it. Others not so much.

From that view, this parable becomes a conversation on the kind of people that we are.

This conversation might invite questions like, what's the soil of my heart like?

How can I make my heart more conducive for the growth of God's love?

How can I help those around me cultivate their own soil?

What are the things that I need to add and what are the things that I need to take away?

Of course, on top of these great questions, our own context and our own lenses can be overlaid.

In the light of my stumbling upon my unexpected Instagram wisdom,

I read this parable with a lens of how we sow God's word in the world around us.

If Jesus can be understood to be the sower scattering seeds of the knowledge of God's all-encompassing love,

and if we in our own time are invited to take up the work of Jesus,

then we too are called to spread God's love liberally and abundantly in our own lives.

The sower is not concerned about where the seeds land.

The sower is not concerned about the condition of the soil.

The sower is not worried about the growth. The sower knows that God will give that.

The sower is not worried about deciding who is worth it and who is not.

The sower is not concerned with judgment or with prudence or with distinguishing what is what.

The sower is simply sharing the word of God with the world.

And that sharing is extravagant. That sharing is almost wasteful, wonderfully so.

And that sowing is secure in the knowledge that there is always more of God's saving word,

that it will never run out, that that sharing can and will and should continue

until every last one of God's lost and beloved sheep hears their own name and finally returns home.

Like the right Reverend Dionne Johnson reminded our youth,

there is a world full of people who need to hear the gospel,

a world full of people who need to know that they are also called beloved and cherished.

And perhaps you are the one being called to tell them that.

That's what this parable said to me this week and I sincerely wonder what the parable is saying to you.

What are you hearing in the parable as you grapple with it, as you let the lens of your own life

help you interpret where God is calling you?

The nature of God and God's kingdom is vast and it is wonderful and it is impossible to grasp on this side of heaven.

But God invites us to try anyway, to keep seeking and to keep searching.

We've got several more weeks of parables in our lectionary

and I cannot wait to hear how God is speaking to each of us through them.

Amen.