St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes
Proper 10/Year A ● July 16, 2023
Gospel: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
As a new church planter in 2017, I attended a conference entitled, Genesis. Of course, the room full of new church planters had heard today’s gospel as one guiding scripture for our unique ministries. When my colleague, the Rev. Mike Michie, now the rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in San Antonio, TX, spoke words of wisdom to us he said these inspiring words: “Church planting is crock-pot cooking.”
If you have ever cooked a meal using a crock pot, you know that the vessel is a slow cooker—the ingredients need to simmer for a while. There is no such thing as fast food with a crock pot. This image of the crock pot has resonated with me as I go about my work as a church planter. There are many ingredients that have come together to simmer in this vessel, which we know as St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, fueled by the fire of the Holy Spirit. And, just as there is no such thing as fast food with a crock pot, the spiritual growth brought forth through this faith community takes time and patience.
The parable of the sower, in the 13th chapter of Matthew, is an allegory about the kingdom of God, and is well-known among people of faith. As you might imagine, this scripture has been adopted as the “go to” scripture for church planters. The text features the one who extravagantly casts seeds, which have the potential for new life encased within them.
In our gospel passage today, while sitting in a boat, Jesus addressed the crowd gathered on the beach. The parable began with the imperative, “Listen!” followed by scenarios regarding the fate of seeds being scattered wildly by a sower.
Because of this wild casting of the seeds some fell on surfaces that made them vulnerable to be eaten; some fell on rocky ground lacking depth of soil, making them incapable of enduring deadly exposure to the sun; others fell among thorns that overpowered and killed them; and still others landed on good soil which brought forth an abundance of fruit.
What is not obvious is that between Jesus’ telling of the parable and his explanation of the parable, there is a chunk of verses (10-17) sandwiched in between, that are not included in our lectionary passage today. In that ommitted section, Jesus’ audience changed from a broad audience of the crowd to the exclusive audience of his chosen disciples, those to whom Jesus said the knowledge of the kingdom of heaven had been given (13:10-11). It is in that ommitted section that Jesus made it clear that the crowd listening to the parable was not given knowledge of the kingdom of heaven.
Paraphrasing the prophet Isaiah, Jesus said that the people were those who in seeing did not perceive, and in hearing, did not listen, nor did they understand” (13:13). So, when Jesus revealed the meaning of the parable, in the second section of our gospel passage, we must be clear that he revealed it only to his disciples. This change in audience and message is important because Jesus was clear that within the human heart, there exists environments inhospitable to the gospel message, as well as those environments that are nutrient rich, enabling full acceptance.
Jesus, in explaining the parable to his disciples, was managing their expectations for the life that they had chosen, fully aware that as they walked in the footsteps of Jesus proclaiming the good news, they too should expect more rejection than acceptance as evidenced by the three examples of seeds that failed to survive and yield fruit in hostile environments. Jesus said that the word of the kingdom was sown in the human heart. If we are being faithful to our call as disciples in sharing the life-giving gospel message with wild abandon, then what does happen to the various conditions of human hearts where those gospel seeds land? God only knows.
I am reminded of a time-lapsed video of the germination of a seed planted in soil,[1] which many of us have seen as school children, and which may offer us a clue. When the potential for new life within the seed begins to transform from possibility to reality, the seed necessarily moves, and so does the soil. The movement of the expanding seed pushes the soil in unrestricted ways in order to make room for the new life. And, as the gospel takes root it will also demand room to grow within the human heart. Throughout our lifelong journeys of faith with Christ, none of our hearts are immune to conditions of the human heart that may jeopardize our own ability to hear the gospel and understand it, even as it is rooted in our being.
As the now-sown seed of the gospel, St. Paul’s is at once, the product of wild, gospel seed sowing, and is the sower whose sole purpose is to sow and produce abundant crops. As people are drawn to the divine fruit of good works, we as a church must always be mindful that people will come and people will go; as they do, we must sow the seeds of the gospel. People will come periodically and support from afar; as they do, we must sow the seeds of the gospel and throw them farther out. And, people will come and stay; as they do, we must sow the seeds of the gospel and nurture the “soil” of their human hearts so that in hearing and understanding, their lives in Christ will also bear divine fruit.
Sisters and brothers we don’t plant new churches for the sake of having new places to worship. We plant so that invisible hope, encased in possibility, might become visible and permeate this world of hopelessness. We plant because this community might just be the place where an individual may live toward a new version of themselves that they cannot imagine. We plant because, like Jesus’ disciples, we have been given the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven and are responsible for sharing that precious gospel message without restriction. We plant because serving God’s people demands that we be an intentional environment of nutrient-rich soil for nurturing gospel seeds that are sown in the human heart.
These major ingredients require the slow and consistent fire of the Holy Spirit, simmering holy flavors to bring about an expression of St. Paul’s that does not yet fully exist, but we can smell the sweet aroma of Christ ,as those flavors simmer, wafting through this faith community. Those who hear the word and understand it, will bear the fruit of good works, which will reverberate like an echo to reach into the hearts of many. Let us invite all to explore this holy crock pot simmering with the Gospel message, to taste and see that the Lord is good. And, may God grant us grace, patience and the power to sow His life-giving word and the humility to faithfully manifest it in the world. Let anyone with ears listen. Amen.
[1] “Bean Time-Lapse – 25 days | Soil cross section.” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w77zPAtVTuI, accessed July 14, 2023.
