Proper 10, Yr A (2026) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

Proper 10, Yr A (2026)                                                           The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

Isaiah 55:10-13                                                                 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Mt 13:1-9, 18-23

In the name of the one, holy, and loving God:

            in whom we live, and move, and have our being.  Amen.

Back in my younger years,

I used to have visions of a beautifully manicured lawn…

                        the kind I saw printed in full color in gardening magazines…

the kind that invites bare feet…

      the kind that is soft and gentle and cool on the skin with nary a prickle or biting ant!

So, every year I would go out to my half-barren yard and scatter seed.

No sooner did I toss the seed than my dog came behind me lapping them up,

            and those beautiful, lovely, twittery birds swooped down and pecked away,

     and then torrential rains created a small pond

so that when the waters receded

                  all my newly scattered seeds had pooled over in one corner.

One year I even bought a truckload of soil and meticulously spread it,

evening it out,

sloping it away from the house,

        creating the perfect home for my new seed…and luxurious lawn.

Yet despite my best efforts…

my yard always remained half-barren

        with a healthy crop of weeds.

So…

       I get today’s parable.

Or at least I thought I did.

When we hear this parable,

I think we start trying to figure out what kind of soil we are:

Do we sometimes hear the word but don’t quite understand it

so it just passes on over us?

Do we hear the word but all the worries and frustrations of our lives overwhelm us

so the Gospel loses its hold within us?

Or might we occasionally be good soil

and live out lives of fruitful compassion and justice?

But, I’m not so sure this parable is about the soil at all!

Twice we hear reference to the “sower.”

In fact, Jesus calls this “the parable of the sower.”

So, if we shift our perspective a little

and read the parable with the focus on the sower,

       then what do we see?

I am going to share with you a version of this story as told by Barbara Brown Taylor:

“Once upon a time a sower went out to sow.

“And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path,

and the birds came along and devoured them. 

“So he put his seed pouch down

and spent the next hour or so stringing aluminum foil all around his field.

“He put up a fake owl he ordered from a garden catalog and,

as an afterthought,

       he hung a couple of traps for the Japanese beetles.

“Then he returned to his sowing,

but he noticed some of the seeds were falling on rocky ground,

so he put his seed pouch down again

        and went to fetch his wheelbarrow and shovel.

“A couple of hours later he had dug up the rocks

and was trying to think of something useful he could do with them

when he remembered his sowing and got back to it,

      but as soon as he did

      he ran right into a briar patch that was sure to strangle his little seedlings.

“So he put his pouch down again and looked everywhere for the weed poison

but finally decided just to pull the thorns up by hand,

       which meant that he had to go back inside and look everywhere for his gloves.

“Now by the time he had the briars cleared it was getting dark,

so the sower picked up his pouch and his tools and decided to call it a day.

“That night he fell asleep in his chair reading a seed catalog,

and when he woke the next morning

he walked out into his field

and found a big crow sitting on his fake owl.

“He found rocks he had not found the day before,

            and he found new little leaves on the roots of the briars

        that had broken off in his hands.”

[Is this story resonating with anyone here?!]

“The sower considered all of this,

pushing his cap back on his head,

       and then he did a strange thing.

“He began to laugh,

just a chuckle at first

and then a full-fledged guffaw

       that turned into a wheeze at the end when his wind ran out.

“Still laughing and wheezing he went after his seed pouch

and began flinging seeds everywhere:

into the roots of trees,

onto the roof of his house,

across all his fences and into his neighbors’ fields.

“He shook seeds at his cows

and offered a handful to the dog;

       he even tossed a fistful into the creek,

thinking they might take root downstream somewhere.

“The more he sowed,

the more he seemed to have.

“None of it made any sense to him,

but for once that did not seem to matter,

       and he had to admit that he had never been happier in all his life.”

(Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Extravagant Sower” in The Seeds of Heaven, pp. 28-29)

The first people who heard this story were familiar with the process of sowing seed. 

If they themselves did not sow seed,

they had a family member who did,

        so they were well familiar with what Jesus was talking about. 

The sower would usually sow the seed by walking along,

taking a handful of seed

        and broadcasting the seed over the ground. 

The person sowing the seed knew that some of the seed would fall on the beaten path,

some would fall among thorns or rocks,

some would, of course, be eaten by birds,

      and then the rest would fall on good soil and produce fruit which could be harvested.

The ground was not plowed until all the seed had been broadcast,

      so the sower had no idea how much seed would actually have a chance of producing. 

He could not worry about that because the worry would take up all his time. 

He just did the best he could with what he had.

What is unique in this story –

that which catches the listeners’ attention –

       is the amount of the harvest. 

With a good crop,

a planter would expect a harvest of two- or threefold. 

With a great crop,

a planter would expect maybe five-fold.

But what Jesus offers in his parable is a yield of a hundredfold. 

The lowest yield he suggests is thirty-fold. 

If they are listening, this should really catch their attention. 

A yield of a hundredfold is simply unheard of.

This vision far exceeds every definition of optimism. 

To understand this vision means living in a whole different order of creation –

to see through God’s eyes, not human eyes -

                        to vision with God's heart, not human hearts.

Dear friends, God calls us to be Kindom planters. 

God tells us that the seeds we sow,

we sow with faith in God –

        that God can work through us infinitely more that we can ask or imagine.

God calls us to live our lives from the perspective of God’s vision,

not our own. 

We are called to speak and to act

within the radically abundant vision of God’s redeeming acts of love and grace.

If we spend all our time making meticulous plans

as to how things should unfold or how things should work out,

      we lose sight of the work and power of the Holy Spirit.

When we act in faith,

God’s harvest will be beyond our wildest imagining. 

We are called to sow the seed in broadcast fashion,

not spending our time worrying about rocks or birds or thorns. 

God will nurture what seeds we sow.

We are called to enact God’s healing grace as we walk alongside the broken,

            as we feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit the sick,

      as we offer forgiveness or hope or a healing touch to one who feels lost or alone,

            as we give voice to the voiceless in our community and in our world,

      as we welcome the stranger.

We are called to share God’s love in this world in broadcast fashion. 

Jesus commands our attention with this parable:

LISTEN! He says.

Sow my seed. 

Spread my Word.

Have faith in me.

LISTEN.

Through Isaiah, God says, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

What a gift we are offered:

to share in God’s wild and extravagant abundance.  Amen.