God’s Abundant Garden

Isaiah 55: 10-13 & Matthew 13: 1-9

Roger Lynn

June 30, 2019

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Isaiah speaks of God’s word (God’s active, creative presence in the world) as being effective. It will, finally, accomplish God’s purposes. “You shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle.” (Isaiah 55: 12-13) It may not happen in the ways we expect. It may not happen with the timing we would choose. There will be plenty of things about the ways in which God works in the world that we simply do not understand. And still Isaiah assures us that we can have confidence.

One of the things we know about Jesus is that he knew the Hebrew scriptures. On any number of occasions he quotes from them. So we can be reasonably certain he was familiar with this passage from Isaiah. The idea that God’s active presence in the world makes a difference is very much in keeping with the message Jesus tried to help people understand. It certainly seems to have been on his mind the day he sat down beside the water and told the gathered crowd the parable about the farmer who went out to sow seeds. 

I appreciate that Jesus’ parables aren’t neat and tidy. They’re open-ended and provocative. Rather than provide us with easy answers, they challenge us to really think about what we believe and to discover for ourselves what truth might be buried in the story. They have endured with such vitality for 2,000 years because they speak to us at multiple levels and from a variety of perspectives.

Someone sows seeds by gathering them in hand and scattering them. The seeds land everywhere. Some of them grow. Some of them don’t. The sower doesn’t seem to be bothered by that. Just get the seeds out there and something will grow.

When I read this story I find myself picturing a couple of gardens I have had the privilege to experience. One of them belongs to my partner, Susan. The other was created by my late wife, Veronica. Both of them can be described with words like colorful, varied, exuberant, and abundant – plants of every shape and size, fruit to eat, flowers to nourish the senses of sight and smell, some that can only be described as outlandish (like the lovage - imagine a 7-foot celery). Some of it carefully planned and some of it just happened. After a while such gardens begin to take on a life of their own. It happens with a combination of planning, hard work, happy accidents, and unexpected surprises. Not everything grows. Not every plan turns out the way we thought it would. And the final result is so overwhelming that the only appropriate response is to laugh. 

So, in Jesus’ story of God’s abundant garden are we the sower, charged with spreading the good news of God’s abundant presence? Or are we the soil into which such seeds are spread, faced with the challenge to keep our lives as fertile as possible so that God’s presence has a place to grow and blossom? The answer, of course, is yes! It is both, along with whatever other meanings we have yet to discover in this story of growth and abundance. The whole world is God’s garden and we find meaning and purpose for our living when we participate in helping that garden to grow. Sometimes that will mean sowing seeds, without worrying too much about where those seeds land. You never can tell which ones will make a difference, but you can be absolutely sure that eventually some of them will yield fruit. We scatter seeds of God’s loving presence whenever we work to feed the hungry and comfort the lonely. We scatter seeds of God’s loving presence whenever we offer our building as a welcoming place for groups in our community to meet. We scatter seeds of God’s loving presence whenever we share a kind word and a listening ear to someone who needs a friend. And sometimes all we can do is stay open to the presence of God in our lives and do our best to nourish it and let it grow. Maybe that will mean spending time in prayer and reflection about where God is leading you next. Maybe that will mean taking on some new ministry that stretches you in new directions. Maybe that will mean welcoming some new perspective or point of view and sitting with it for a while to see how it fits. And in either case, whether we are scattering seeds or receiving seeds, remember that not every seed will find its way to a place where it can grow. And it isn’t our job to worry about that. 

God’s presence in the world is abundant and God’s garden will blossom. And we are invited to participate in the process of helping that happen. What seeds of love and peace are waiting for you to scatter? What seeds have landed in your life and are now just waiting to grow? May God’s vibrant, abundant garden continue to blossom in our lives and in our world.