Even In the Broken Places – Sermon for Proper 10, Year A.

By Rian Adams

Have you ever noticed that this farmer doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing? Jesus says he went out to plant a field, but he missed the mark 75% of the time. If you only succeed at your job 25% of the time, my guess is that you’re preaching sermons or a politician.

Now, I’m not a farmer, but I am well educated in the agricultural sciences. I was the top graduate in my 9^th grade Agriculture class at Blountstown High School. 

Among the lessons I learned that year—including the fact that Amber could drive on the Massie Ferguson tractor—was that you must purposefully plant your crops where there is an adequate root zone. 

This “sower” would fail Mr. Pitt’s agriculture class. He doesn’t realize the most important part of sowing seeds; roots need space! He flings seeds in hard places, and he throws seeds onto the rocks. He doesn’t even care if the wheat lives or dies; the man slings it among thorns, knowing if it comes up, it will starve. 

Now, let me say I’ve never heard a sermon about this guy.

We have always heard that this is the parable of the four types of soil. You know the sermon faaaaaaar too well. It goes something like this: “There are four types of souls that represent four types of people in the world. There’s the hard-hearted, the shallow, the one distracted by cares of the world, then the last person hears God’s word and allows it to take root.”

But my sermon differs from what most pastors are preaching today. I’ll focus on the sower, and not the soil. 

We need to ask questions. 

My first question is: Does Jesus really pigeonhole people into four simple categories? Is he really confining the complexity of a human being into one of four boxes? 

I don’t think Jesus saw humans as that categorical. I think we hear it that way because we think of the soil as a fixed location in a field with definitive boundaries. 

What if the field is more extensive than defined plots? What if there are rocks are in every field? What if there is shallow soil in every field? What if the wind carries a few seeds into briars? 

Let’s tell the truth about ourselves… we all have four soil types inside of ourselves.

Here’s an important point… hold on to this one in your mind… we always put ourselves in the place of the soil. What if we put ourselves in the place of the sower?

Let me be radical… maybe even controversial about this for a moment… Could it be that the parable teaches us that nowhere is beyond God’s reach? 

What do you think? Can God reach the hard places? What about the broken places, the places where life trampled us, the places where C-19 stole the light from us? 

God can reach the hardened corners of our souls! Our call is to do the same for others! 

Look at the parable again; the sower is more concerned with spreading seed than he is about using his magnifying glass and inspect every inch or the field. He does not judge the worthiness of the entire field based on small portions of the ground. No, he sows seed!

What does it look like to sow seeds of love in the broken places? It means we treat people with dignity, love, and compassion, in the name of Jesus. Trust me, people will notice! When we are generous, especially to the suffering, they feel differently!

The sower doesn’t ration the seeds; he sends it into the world in abundance. He’s not a prudent farmer as much as he is an evangelist of possibility. 

Be brave, and sow seeds in the broken places.

I’m at Ft. Hood at the height of “the surge.” A young Sgt that I know well comes to my office, sits down, and with a straight face asks me for last rites. 

“Last rites?” 

“Yes, Sir, this war in my head is too much. I’m going to kill myself. I’ve already decided when, where, and how, so don’t try to talk me out of it.” 

Five days later, I walked through the doors of the largest mental health hospital in the south. It was Sunday after a chapel service, so I was in clericals. I rode the elevator up a few floors, stepped out, and knocked on the door. 

The door buzzed and opened. I greeted the guard, then asked a nurse at the nurse’s station where to find Sgt. V. I walked into a large open space with patient rooms lining the wall. 

As I walked through the common area, one of the patients rushed me.

She was yelling, “Father! I knew it! I know you’d come, I never doubted.” I waved off the concerned guard. The young woman threw her arms around my neck and started sobbing. 

I disobeyed all the church warnings… and I wrapped my arms around her while she cried. Her tears soaked my the whole shoulder of my shirt. 

When she stopped, she looked me directly in my eyes and asked me, “Father, will God forgive me?” 

“Forgive you for what?”

“For taking a life in Iraq.” 

My heart broke… and I said what I believe are some of the holiest and intimate—and tragically underused—words in our prayer book:

We said Amen together. Then her eyes glossed over, and she turned around and skipped away as if the whole thing never happened. 

I visited Sgt. V, and on the way out, I wondered if that young woman even remembered our conversation. 

On the way out, the guard stopped me. He looked me square in the eye and said, “Father, what you did for that young lady over there got me. I’m here every day, and no one cares about these people. It moved me to see someone who finally did. Will you bless me?”

Looking back on that event in light of this parable, I wonder if God wants us to trust the ministry field he has given us enough to sow seeds even in the broken places, even on the rocks, even into the wind, and even on the hard places where people have felt crushed under the weight of C-19,….

Sow God’s seeds of love and hope with reckless abandon! 

Amen!