“Seeds of Faith”

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

June 16, 2024

Ezekiel 17:22-24

Mark 4:26-34

Children’s Message:

Who likes bubbles? Me, too! I love watching them float and even wander around a space. Let me see if I can get the bubbles to go to you. Step away and try to control the bubbles.

I can’t control them! They just keep going where they want. Do you know how to make these do what you want? Maybe we don’t really understand bubbles. It’s kind of like the parable Jesus tells about a farmer who tosses seed on the ground and goes to bed. The next morning, the seeds have begun to germinate and grow. He doesn’t understand how or why they grow, but when they’re ready, he harvests the fruit.

Jesus said that’s how God’s love works. We plant seeds by what we say and what we do, showing people how God loves. And even though we don’t understand it, those seeds grow and help people learn to love God back.

Let’s pray. Dear God, help us plant your good seeds within ourselves and each other. Let your seeds grow and spread so that everyone knows about your love. Amen.

Message:

I appreciate Jesus’ parable because that’s how I garden. I plant and hope. I try to keep things watered—usually. Over the course of the last fifteen years, I’ve planted, replanted, moved, pruned, and removed plants. Some of you saw my facebook post this past week. My Mother’s Day tree that I planted on my first Mother’s Day died, and I had to cut it down. I have a Japanese Maple that’s been moved at least 5 times, one time over-wintering in my garage. It’s thriving.

I planted a pollinator garden last year. I have a map of everything I planted, but when I go out to the garden, I’m still not sure what’s intended and what’s not. So, I plant. And I hope. And I have very few expectations.

It’s honestly not unlike ministry. We have 56 kids signed up for VBS; 23 of them through OSLC; and probably half of those we don’t even know. But we’ll teach. When we started the Reconciling in Christ process, we really didn’t know what to expect. Had we started any earlier, I imagine it would not have succeeded. But we planted the seeds. And we taught. And I preached. And we hoped. And here we are.

As parents, we do our best to plant seeds of respect, hard work, wisdom, and healthy habits. And then we hope that something takes. We hope that something germinates and grows roots. We hope. And we pray. And we worry. And we discipline. But so much of what actually works is out of our hands in many ways.

But today’s parable can be heard a little differently, as well. It almost seems like the sower isn’t really sowing the seed. He tosses it on the ground. Did he just discard it? Did he realize what he had in his hands? Did he even know what he was doing?

He tosses it on the ground and leaves. But in a few days’ time, without knowing what has happened, the seeds have taken root, and shoots are breaking the surface of the dirt. He doesn’t seem to water or weed the area. But once the fruit is ripe, he benefits. He has had almost nothing to do with the process, yet he benefits. The reign of God is like that. We may have so little to do with the seeds of faith, and still God grows them within us.

I wonder, though. As the sower may not have even known he had seeds in his hands, let alone what kind of seeds there were, are there seeds that we toss to the ground that are not seeds of love? Either intentionally or unintentionally, what does it look like when we plant seeds of hate, seeds of distrust, seeds of hurt?

When I was growing up, I never heard about Juneteenth. In fact, as a young adult, I thought it was a recent made-up holiday. I was naïve to its history and its importance. On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation, demanding that all slaves in Confederate states be freed. It was an important turn, but his words did not effect any changes. Yet.

Texas, in particular, seemed to be a safe place for slave-holders to land because it was largely outside of the Civil War battles and influence. In June of 1865, as the Union army overtook Texas, the proclamation became a reality. In December of that year, the 13th Amendment was adopted. The following June, black people celebrated their freedom, and Juneteenth was born.

In 1979, Texas was the first state to make it a state holiday. It took until 2021 for the United States to make it a national holiday. But that doesn’t mean that slavery is gone. It doesn’t mean that racism is gone.

As an aside, I was going to talk a bit about James Cone’s book, “The Cross and the Lynching Tree.” I was going to get into the poem by Russian Jewish immigrant Abel Meerebol called “Strange Fruit.” I encourage you to read the book. To look up the poem. To ponder how it is that people who worshiped the God of the cross could turn around and murder people just because the color of their skin. I encourage you to consider, in that context, how important it is to be aware of the kind of seeds that we sow. Because racism simply doesn’t not belong in a field of faith and love. It is a noxious weed.

Many will respond to this by saying that they are not racist. Ibram Kendi suggests that that’s not enough. To ‘not be a racist’ simply means not actively harvesting the fruit of the seeds of racism. Instead, it is long past time to pull those weeds up by the root. It is long past time to plant new seeds—seeds of God’s reign; seeds of God’s love; seeds of God’s compassion; seeds of God’s justice. To be intentional about what we plant.

The early church once said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” That isn’t to say that one seeks martyrdom. But it happens. It happens far too often. But what happens next is all God’s doing. Because what happens next is a redemption of suffering. What happens next is a harvest of hope. What happens next is discovering that even when seeds of hate are planted, God will still raise up voices of faith. We don’t always know how, but we know it’s true. We know it because that is what happened at the death of Christ.

Christ—who died at the hands of hate and fear—was raised by the voice of faith and love. He paves the way and shows the world that our worst is still no match for God.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE