Finding Faith ... in wildly sowing God's word everywhere

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on July 7, 2020. This was the 15th digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.

What a very descriptive parable our Gospel of Matthew provides for us tonight. As I read, and re-read this parable, this week and prepared for tonight, it struck me that it is a very appropriate parable for a church such as ours.

As I look around, and I know that even among us here in the church, that we have gardeners, a long history of gardeners in the Nelson family. I know others in this church whom I've talked to who are gardeners, and we have multitudes of those who farm in this church as well. So if there's anyone who can appreciate a parable such as this one, I think it's our church.

I have two quick stories of my own that I thought this week as this parable ran through my head. One that you've probably heard some of, but the other probably not.

The first takes place in about 2002, and in that year I was hired as a brand new editor of the International Falls Daily Journal, and we made ... the three of us in our small family at that time ... made a trip to International Falls, and I took the job. I moved up in the winter, and my family followed up that spring. That spring we bought a house, and of course, as it is well known, when you buy a house, you get busy with fixing things up. There's things that you want to remodel or change. There's cosmetic changes that you can make quickly.

And one night, I was at Kmart in International Falls buying some stuff for the house, and I got to the Garden Center's checkout point, and there on this endcap were three of the sorriest-looking rose bushes you could've ever seen. They were there because they were obviously discounted; I think they were a couple of bucks each. They had that telltale red tag on them that Kmart used to put when they just slashed the prices.

If you've ever seen "A Charlie Brown Christmas," imagine that that is what these rose bushes looked like. And for some reason ... I picked up all three of them and brought them home, at which point they became the focal point of a running joke in our house for a long time. But I did buy them.

There was a garden plot out in front of our house, and there had been some annuals there that the previous owners had pulled up for whatever reason. So there was a bare dirt spot, and I quickly planted those rose bushes. Each of them with one, solitary rose bud at the top of those bushes. ... And promptly forgot about them.

We moved on down our project list, and there were other things that needed our attention. After all, we had just moved, and I had started a new job, and we had a young son.

And those rose bushes held on for all of about 10 days, when those three rose buds dropped off to the ground. And then there were bare, thorny sticks sticking up out of our garden. Well, of course, the rest of the year got busy, and I forgot about them. And they remained there.

The next year came around, and in early in the spring, low and behold, each of those rose bushes bore one rose bud that year. Out of spite, I left them there in the ground. I was not going to give up on them, partly out of personal pride, but I had spent these $6 bucks on these rose bushes. Well, the joke grew, and it became a neighborhood joke at that point.

I left them up all summer again, and within about two weeks into summer, those rose buds dropped off. And I had three thorny rose bushes sticking up out of our garden for the rest of the summer as well.

Come that fall, I actually decided to do something about it, and I tilled up the dirt around those rose bushes, and I worked it up with one of those tools that loosens up the soil. And I put Miracle Grow in there. ... I was bound and determined to do something with those rose bushes.

Well, low and behold, the following spring, early into June, those rose bushes took off. And within about a month, all three rose bushes had bloomed multiple blooms. It almost looked like this had been a garden that had been tended to for years, lovingly attended to. And, honestly, I spent about a day's worth of work on them the year before.

But in Year Three for whatever reason, those rose bushes took off. And I will remember that scene of those three rose bushes in full bloom about the end of June, and it was magnificent.

Fast forward about 15 years, and the boys and I ended up on the doorstep of Christ the King, and I may have shared this story at one point. But we ended up at the doorstep of Christ the King, not because I deliberately was taking the boys there for church, but because the boys and I had moved to Moorhead, and we had left our social network. We didn't have friends here yet in town, and the boys and I had spent the summer here in Moorhead. But I could tell that they needed to establish some roots, and it just so happened that one day on the way home from work, I noticed out in the corner yard of Christ the King Church, a little sign that read: "Boy Scouts here Tuesday night."

So that was the very first reason, all the way back in 2007, the boys and I started walking over to Christ the King Church on Tuesday nights so that I could get our oldest son, specifically, involved in Scouts. I knew that he needed friends. I knew that he needed a social network. And that was the only way that I could think of establishing it in the few days before school started for the fall. And so, on Tuesday nights, the boys and I would trek over to the church, and they would go off to their individual Scout rooms, and I would sit in the hallways. Usually, I would bring a book.

Well, lo and behold, on those Tuesday nights, there were a couple of pastors who at the time co-pastored Christ the King. They would come down the hallways when they stayed late for meetings or had other work. They would stop and visit with me, this stranger who was sitting in their church in the hallway, maybe reading a book. They got to know me, and they got to know why I was there, the fact that the boys where there for Scouts. ... And that I was just there, waiting for the kids to get done. This happened again week after week.

Pastors Matt and Kathy Valan who at the time were at Christ the King would come. Not often both of them; it was usually one of them who would stop by to visit me there in the hallway. Now, I remind you that this was a time where I had been out of the church for about 20 years, and I hadn't come back to church as of yet. But yet, week after week, one of the two of them would stop by and visit me in that hallway. They would talk to me about where we were in our lives, and eventually I opened up to them about the divorce and moving here with the kids and raising them as a single dad and all of the peril that had followed us in those preceding years.

And whether by design on their part, or design on the Holy Spirit's part, months into this relationship, Kathy, one night, convinced the boys and I to come on a Wednesday night for a church service, in addition to Tuesday night Scouts. And we did. ... And therein started a relationship with the boys going to Sunday school and confirmation on Wednesday nights, and me there going to church on Wednesday nights.

And that grew into a role there as I started volunteering with the youth and going on mission trips. And that grew into a role of being on the church council at Christ the King. And eventually that opened the door in 2016 to me going to seminary.

I tell you these two stories because as I was working through tonight's parable, they both blossomed in my mind. Obviously, in one case, I was the sower, the gardener, the planter. Whether wittingly, or unwittingly, I had worked with these rose bushes and gave them the soil, the "good soil" if you go back to our parable tonight, that they needed to bloom.

Of course, in the other story, I was very much the soil at the hands of two very skilled gardeners. Looking back at where I was in my life at that time you might even call me the rocky ground. Because I was a rocky ground, jaded by so many hurts and disappointments in life. I was the ground full of thorns before the co-pastors Kathy and Matt Valan got a hold of me.

I wonder at times as I look back all those years ago what exactly it was that they saw in this man who was sitting as a stranger in their hallways, just waiting for his sons to get done with Scouting at night. I have suspected that in the eyes of a gardener, I looked very much like those forlorn roses that I picked up as a discount buy at Kmart all those years beforehand. But regardless of what they saw in me as soil, they tried. And I like to believe that the seeds those two gardeners sowed all those years ago are blooming into something beautiful.

Isn't that a beautiful image of our Christ?

As I read through, again and again, tonight's parable, the idea of this sower of God, this God who throughs seed wildly everywhere. If you read back through the parable, there is no discerning about planting these seeds very precisely in rows, these seeds very precisely in planters with colors matching that are going to beautify the fronts of our homes. No, this is the gardener who willingly buys wildflower seeds and throws it everywhere in the hopes of sowing wildflower prairies.

Jesus paints this picture of a sower of God's word who is throwing it everywhere! ... On the paths, and in the thorny grounds where the thorns may very well come up first and choke it, and also in the good soil. But that is the image of a God who makes me smile!

I think we could each probably find a story in our lives of someone who maybe gave up on someone else. Maybe thought that the person was too far gone. Or that their time might be wasted proselytizing to them or sharing the gospel with them. As I look back on my own story, I could have seen that very easily ... that there were two pastors that could have passed me by very easily, being gracious and amicable, and still went onto their normal work. But they didn't.

It's this image of a God who sows on whatever soil available, just wildly throwing the seeds that gives me heart this week.

Interestingly, in my personal life, not only as I helped my family preside over my brother's service, our family prayer service, but his public service as well, I got to know more about his personal life and his professional life than I had ever been exposed to over the years. And there were people who throughout Dan's entire life of 30 years in education who walked up to tell me stories about how he had saved them. How he had invested time in their teaching career and put them on a better path. Or how he has saw something in them and put them on a path to administration. There were other people who came up to tell me stories about how Dan had intervened in their personal lives. And put them on better soil.

So as I worked through this parable this week, I thought to myself, "Where are we sowing our seeds?" Because in this parable, Christ is not only leaving this job to himself, Christ is using this parable to remind us that we are each sowing our own seeds. Are those the seeds of the gospel? Or are they seeds of other worldly interests?

I ask you this week, and I lift it up, as I have been discerning it for myself. Where are you sowing your seeds? Not only in your social lives, among your families, and those who you recreate with, but in your personal lives and your professional lives and even at home. Are you sowing those seeds of the gospel wildly, as the sower in our parable is? Or are you reserving those seeds for more specifically you see as good soil? For times when you see them as the opportunities that they will bear fruit so therefore they are worthy of your time.

I wondered this week, and it's come to mind several times: Do we even know the wake that we leave behind ourselves? Are we aware of the seeds that we are sowing in our social lives?And at work? And at school? And among our friends? ... And even among in our own family?

You see, that's the action we are being called into in tonight's parable. We are being called to take God's word and spread it wildly among those on the path, and the soil that has thorns in it or in soil that is good soil, of course. But we have to remember that as we so those seeds wildly, we don't know exactly what is going to take root and what isn't. And maybe if we knew that in advance, it might discourage us.

But I would like to leave you with a thought tonight that because of the very dedicated efforts of two pastors who refused to give up on a patch of rocky ground that I'm standing here before you tonight. And so, as we all leave service tonight, or even if you are watching this on Sunday, I would encourage you to think about how it is in your daily life that you are sowing those seeds. Because the fact is that it's not necessarily about where we are aiming those seeds, or about being precise in our gardens rows, the idea is that we are to proclaim God's word widely and wildly on whatever soil we are presented.

It's far more the efforts of the Holy Spirit who will take that seed and help it grow and help it bloom and help it bear fruit. But it's our job, first of all, to send that seed wide and far. And then we leave it up to God to do his magic in whatever soil that it lands in. And that is the Good News for Tuesday evening, or this Sunday morning. ... Amen.