Good Soil by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Patti Lusher)

You know the conversation, if you have ever been a parent, a teacher, or a supervisor at work, working with a younger, less experienced employee. It goes something like this.

Parent: Did you do your homework?

Child: Hmm?

Parent: Did you do your homework?

Child: I’m playing a game mom.

Parent: That big project for social studies, is it done?

Child: What project?

Parent: The one you told me about last night, the one that is due tomorrow?

Child: Oh, the teacher gave us an extension. It’s not due until Monday. I have all weekend.

Now, being responsible adults, we would think the child would get started anyway, right? Maybe the teacher gave an extension because it is such a big project and the teacher wants the students to take extra time with the project, perhaps have time to work in groups and learn together, actually think through the project and not just throw it together at the last minute, do some planning. We want the child to actually LEARN something from the project. But the concept is not getting through to the child.

Jesus went through this sort of conversation with his disciples all the time. They were not much more receptive than the child in my story. Jesus used parables, to get his message across to them.

Today’s parable is called the Parable of the Seeds, the Parable of the Farmer, or the Parable of the Good Soil, depending on which way you approach the story.

When this story was written, people were living under persecution. They were vulnerable. They needed encouragement to live out their faith. We know what it feels like to need encouragement. So Jesus told this story to them, and to us, about a Farmer, God, who planted seeds. The seeds could represent God’s words of grace, God’s words of instruction to them about how to live. Now the story is a bit odd here because the farmer is a bit haphazard about how he spreads these wonderful seeds of grace and instruction. 

He just kinds of throws them around on the ground willy nilly. I am not a farmer, but I thought if you were going to plant you were supposed to prepare the ground and create some rows where you take a hoe and make a line where you are going to bury the seeds.

I guess this Farmer, just has to work with the ground he has, which is the people. And some of the ground is more ready that other ground. Some of the seeds fell on the road and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled among the weeds and nothing came of it. Some fell on good earth and came up with a flourish, producing a harvest exceeding his wildest dreams.

Now the point of the story is this: we want to be good soil. We want to be receptive to God’s instructions and to God’s words of grace for us. We want to hear better than the child at the beginning of my sermon, the one who had a chance to get ahead on their homework but instead kept playing video games. That child was like the one who got some seed but allowed the birds to eat it up. The child was not thinking ahead and not paying attention to the value of the extra time she was being given.

Sometimes we get the message of God, but we don’t let it take root. We come to worship and we hear the messages, the ones about acceptance and forgiveness. We hear about how God loves us no matter what and God wants us to love ourselves. But we leave this place and we forget that message just as fast as we heard it. We get out into the world and we start believing the messages of the world:  look out for number one, the one with the most toys wins; no one loves you because you are not loveable. When we fall into these traps we are allowing God’s seeds to sprout quickly but not take root, so our plant withers and dies.

Then there are the times that our plants get taken over by the weeds. We allow ourselves to be influenced by people who are not following the ways of Jesus. You know who those people are. There are people who try to pull us away from God and God’s desire for our lives. Those people are like weeds who strangle us and keep us from being who God put us on this earth to be.

But sometimes, we receive God’s seeds, we receive those words of grace, and they fall into the rich soil of our lives. This is what we want. When we are living our lives open to God, then we receive the seeds and they blossom. We hear the messages of grace. We pay attention when people offer us kindness. We pay attention when someone forgives us. We pay attention when we experience love and compassion in the world and we know that these things come from God. This is when we grow. This is when we dig our roots deep into the soil and we are healthy. This is when we have a good harvest, when there are fruits as a result of our lives.

Jesus wants us to be people who hear him, who accept his message of grace, who bear fruit and when we do there will be a bountiful harvest in our lives. That is why Jesus came into the world. But if we do not hear him, we will be like the child I mentioned at the beginning of my sermon, the one who has homework, but is not paying attention to the assignment. We have an assignment: to listen to Jesus. Are you listening? Do you find time to pray every day, and to sit in the quiet and listen to the message Jesus has for you?

Jesus wants to plant seeds in us like the farmer planted seeds in the soil. These are the seeds. You are beautiful. You are forgiven. You are a blessing. You have gifts to share with the world. But we have to take time every day, to stop and listen to Jesus.

I take time every morning in prayer to listen to what message God has for me. Sometimes the message is really simple. Sometimes it’s a particular, relevant message for a worry I have in my life.  And I hope you do the same. When we do, God will give us the messages that we need in order to have deep roots in rich soil. We don’t want our seeds to be plucked away by birds flying by. We don’t want our plants to be strangled by weeds, we want to live as strong followers of Jesus, who know we are beloved by God.

So let your life be lived in Good Soil. Listen to Jesus. You are beloved.