Farmer God

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 10, Year A
July 12, 2020
 
Now is the time I started thinking about in the early spring.  It is the time when what has been planted comes to fruition. It is the time when tomato plants are heavy with fruit.  It is the time when sweet corn is available and abundant.  It is the time when peaches and blueberries and strawberries are plump and ripe.  Our farmer’s market has just about everything that is fresh and just about everything else that can be made with what is fresh.  I could go broke there each week.
 
On my day off last week, I journeyed over to the farm where my grandparents once lived.  My grandfather was a part-time farmer and, in his retirement, a massive vegetable gardener.  There are still vestiges grape vines, fruit trees, and a big open space where row after row was tilled and planted.  The old house there has a basement kitchen that was set up just for canning and freezing.  These were people of the land and children of the depression.
 
I guess I come by my obsession with all things grown naturally.  I have started off with a modest container garden, but it will not be enough.  There is nothing like picking a ripe cherry tomato off the vine and popping it in my mouth for an instant snack.  And yes, I am that guy who asks farmers for dented and overripe tomatoes so I can make and jar sauce with my specially designed tomato squeezer machine.
 
As a person of faith, the matters and mechanics of growing things is a lively part of my consciousness.  Paying attention to the rhythms of the natural world helps make sense of life and its vicissitudes.  Seasons and soil, seeds and sowers fuel my understanding of how God works even in high minded ideals of mission and ministry.
 
Even today’s mid-summer gospel arrives in a moment where it is likely to capture this seasonal moment.  Jesus uses gardening parables over and over to speak to his mostly agrarian followers.  The parable of the sower is an old chestnut as it tells of a sower that spreads seeds liberally.  Some fall on a path, some on rocky ground, some among thorns, and finally, some on good soil.  The common interpretation might be for us to shape up, and get right, so that the Word of God, which is the seed, will bear fruit in us.  And we must root out being shallow, or rocky, or thorny.  But that takes us only so far, and to my agricultural sensibilities, misses the point.  The parable is not about us, it is about God.  Sometimes, we get so focused on us that we get lost in process.
 
What Jesus tells us, and what we need to hear, is that God is lavish, abundant, creative, and prodigious.  The Word of God is flung all over, not just where it will bear fruit.  The Way of God, the nature of God, and the promise of God is that God’s can always use our participation, but God does not depend on our goodness or perfection. 
 
Consider where this story begins.  Jesus is surrounded by a crowd, so much so, that he has to get into a boat and speak to them as they stand on the beach.  This is in Galilee.  It is a minor little place where people make their way fishing, foraging, and farming.  These are not the educated elites.  They are mostly illiterate.  They are under the thumb of Roman occupation. They are unarmed, heavily taxed, and being kept in their place.  If the spread of the Gospel depended on them, their abilities, and their resources, we would have much of a story to tell.  But as we know, the Word spread, from person to person and community to community. That is the sign of God’s provision, not humanity’s innate cleverness.
 
And that is the point.  With wild generosity, God will take whatever there is and grow it.  As the twentieth century preacher, Vance Havner reminds us: “God uses broken things.  It takes broken soil to produce a crop. Broken clouds to give rain, broken grains to give bread, and broken bread to give strength.”
 
There is a lot broken in our world, now as ever.  With so much cancelled, on hold, or uncertain we are having a hard time gauging and marking time.  Now is the time I usually get excited for college football to start.  Now is the time when I am used to seeing extended family and going on a vacation or adventure.  Now is the time when kids are supposed to be at camp, schools are beginning to prepare for the upcoming year, and our parish should be preparing for our annual Shrine Mont retreat.  There is grief in not being able to look forward with any expectation or certainty.  It is good to claim that, even if it is hard.
 
But, and this is a substantial but, God’s abundance is not on hold.  God’s love is still as prodigal and prolific as ever.  We may have to focus on the simpler and smaller things.  We may have to shorten our horizon of looking forward and anticipating new life.  We may have to pray with more silence, we may have to seek a little deeper, and we may have to listen a little longer for the voice of creation moving in us.
 
If all else fails, eat a ripe peach, slice a bright red water melon, smell the freshly mown grass, and listen for the birds coming alive each morning.  This is not whistling in the dark, it is choosing to find the light even it has to shine through the cracks of our own brokenness.
 
I found great solace this week in reading Mary Oliver’s poetry.  Her way with words is yet another sign of creative power.  In particular, I was drawn to her poem, I Worried, and I close this with her holy words.
 
I Worried
 
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
 
Amen.