Planting In the Right Place

Rev. Dr. Michael Stotts

Mt. 13:1-9,18-23

                            "Location, location, location!"  Any business person will tell you that's an important mantra for anyone planning to start a new business.  Location is everything.  That is, even if you have a great product,  if you're not located in a place where people can find you--will see you and notice you-- selling your product, and therefore getting your business, to grow--beyond just the initial seed planting-- will be very difficult.

              Well it was no different for the sower of seeds in this parable of  Jesus.   It was only the seeds that were planted in the right place--in the good soil, that were able to take root, to grow and bear fruit--in abundance.

              Jesus then tells us that in his parable, the seeds represent the word of the realm of God--God's rule on this earth and in our lives. His parable then is about  whether that  word is not only heard but takes root and grows.  The end result Christ is looking for is whether the word God,  as Christ has lived and taught it, also  manifests itself in the way we live our lives.   But again those seeds--that word of God-- has to be planted in the right place, if they are to take root and grow, and bear fruit--if they are to be heard and then grow into a faith-filled life.

              In my doctoral  studies of communication one of the things I learned that is crucial for the church and our faith, is that location is very important for the word of our faith to be heard, and for our churches as they live out the faith.   If a person with hearing difficulties doesn't sit where they can hear during worship, then the word doesn't get heard.   If a church is located in a remote location, and doesn't make efforts to get the word of it's existence out there where the people are, then who will come and hear the message that the church has to  offer for Christ and our loving God.   If we hear the word of God, but only locate ourselves with the same people all the time, how can we spread the faith, let alone the love which our faith teaches us to share with the world.

               Even sitting in the same place here every Sunday morning, can for some of us, thwart the growth of our faith.   Some of you may remember the very first Sunday I came here to be your pastor.  Since so many of us are creatures of habit and often sit in the same pew every Sunday morning, I asked everyone to change your seat--so you would know what it was like for a new person, who didn't know the people around them.  Well,  you know  I was tempted to do that again this Sunday--but I had you moving around enough last week to last for awhile.  But think about it--how many of you do usually sit in the same place.   Then  I would ask you to do something for me if you would.  Next week, try sitting in a new place, with a different group of people around you.   You just may get to know a little better one or two  people in our church family, you hadn't really gotten to know before.   Or maybe you'll reintroduce yourself to someone, and perhaps find out something new about the faith from them.

                 In that, and a lot of little ways, you see--if we don't stay stuck in the same place, then we can grow.   And that's so important for  our faith. You see?  Location is everything.   Being in a new place from time to time, you grow--and our faith needs to as well, if it isn't to die prematurely.

              Location is everything.  So let's think for a few more minutes this morning about how our location can help us to make the seeds of our faith grow far more, perhaps, than they do now.

              First of all in the parable there were the seeds that fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up.  Here Jesus says, this represents those who hear the word of the realm of God, but do not understand the word, and the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart.

              Once in awhile, throughout my ministry, I've seen someone come to church, and hear about Christ and his message of how much God loves us, and they get excited about the faith--perhaps even have an experience of being led by the presence of the Spirit in their lives.   But then, if they don't take the time to understand what has happened to them, and to learn more about the faith by regularly being a part of the faith community, studying the Bible and so forth--then  soon the cares of the world, even the evil, or selfish  lures of the world, entice them away from the faith, and they're lost to us.

              Taking the time to let the faith sink in, and to study God's word--locating ourselves--immersing ourselves in the faith--to explore it and live with it, is crucial.  Here we can learn from our Latin American brothers and sisters.   In what came to be called Liberation theology, many Christians from Latin America came to understand that for the faith to grow in their lives, they needed something called a praxis of faith - p-r-a-x-i -s.   Praxis is a process of action, reflection, and action.   Their understanding then is that as we hear the word of our faith, we're called to re-locate it--carry it into the world and practice it--take action-- love our neighbor, feed the hungry, be there on the side of oppressed people of the world.  Then, as Jesus often did, we're called to re-locate again-- take some time, away from the world,  and with  God or in our Christian community, to reflect on our faith and the experiences we had in trying to live that faith in the world.  And through our reflections, we learn then and know how to live the faith even better--so we then go out into the world to act on that faith.  Action - Reflection-action.    How crucial it is, you see,  to the take time to study the faith and understand it--in personal study and  reflection  and prayer, and in group interaction and worship with other Christians-- so it takes  root in who we are and can't so easily be snatched away by the evils of our world.

              And then there was a  second group of seeds in Jesus parable. These are the ones that fell on rocky ground.  They sprang up quickly but because there wasn't any depth of soil, when the sun rose, and scorched the plant,  because there was no root to take in moisture from the earth, the seedlings withered away.   Yes, rocky soil --talk about a bad location.

              And here Jesus said in interpreting this seedling in his parable,  this is one who immediately hears the word and receives it with joy, yet such a person, who has no root endures only for awhile, and " when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word," says Jesus, " that person immediately falls away."

              You see how important it is for us to not only to study and learn the faith, but then also to practice it.  When we practice the faith, often,  being regularly in touch  with God, and living God's faith,  then we become  strong enough--from that faith practice--to endure what life throws at us.  

              It's a bit like when I was on the crew team in college.   We had to practice rowing every weekday of the year  we were at school, not just during the two or so months of the rowing season.  In those practice sessions, there was time spent  out in the boats rowing away, a couple of hours a day, or on the rowing machines inside, in bad weather, not mention calisthenics before the rowing, and running 2 miles everyday after practice, whatever the weather.

              It was all that work, then,  that enabled us to last through the extremely hard work of  rowing a race  when the racing season finally came.  Because of all the practice, we could then row in a way that was well synchronized with all the other rowers in our boat--because to do  so otherwise would automatically slow the boat down.  If you  hadn't practiced and built up your strength and gotten your timing dow, so you weren't as strong and sharp as the other rowers, then once the boat got really moving, the water rushing by would grab your oar out of your hands,  hit the other oars, and maybe even hit you and knock you into the seat of the person behind you in the boat--or worse, into the water.

              Practice is everything.  And it is no less so  with our faith.  Discipline--the repetitive living out of the faith.   If we don't practice a life of regular prayer, how will we get to know God, and hear God's guidance, and feel the strength of the Spirit,  in the rougher waters of our life.   If we don't practice loving others, how will the faith grow and be spread--for even if they hear the word of God's love from us, and don't see it, there will be no attraction to the faith for them.   Practice is everything, besides learning the faith.

              Then talk about bad locations, Jesus next told of the seeds of faith that landed in the midst of thorns, and were choked off.  These he said were those who heard the word, but the cares of the world and lure of wealth choked the word of God out of their life, and so those seeds of faith yielded nothing. 

              Once we have  practiced the faith, and studied, I hope that a part of our learning is the importance of resisting those things  that would tempt us from living the faith--namely as Jesus put it, the cares of the world, and lures of wealth.     We live in a time where the world and its scary threats come at us over the TV all the time--even those of us in our more comfortable, pampered suburbs.    The same TV entices us over and over to buy more and more things--many of which we could certainly do without, and might instead share more of what we have then, with those in great need, as our faith calls us to do.  But with all those temptations-- and not just those the TV aims our way--but many others out there in the world, too, we again have to discipline our faith to resist them, or else soon our real religion becomes  a  life of working for more and more wealth, or our religion becomes a  bowing to the god of power and military might, or worshipping the basically selfish religion of patriotism--look at us how great we are. . . you see, how easy it is to let the lures of the world, draw us in--but Jesus says, that kills the faith He says it plainly: those cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word of God.   Instead of cultivating those thorns, we are to plant and cultivate instead 's the seeds of God's realm on earth,  not the thorn seedlings--the seeds of those other realms.  For they blind us, even put us to sleep, to the presence of God and  needs of the world that God is calling us to care about.   They keep us from knowing the joy of God's presence and sharing God's love with others, as we seek to fill our lives with more and more selfish pleasures.    Yes, like the thorns, they choke off the faith.

              F. Thomas Trotter--a former general secretary of our denomination's Board of Higher Education and Ministry,  in  our denomination's Circuit Rider magazine-- quoted this recent anecdote from the NY Times.

              The article talked about "a mummified man [who] was found in South-ampton,   [Southampton, N.Y., that is.]  He had been dead for a year!  He lived alone in a remote area and had apparently died of natural causes as he sat in front of his TV.  When the police found him," said the article, " his TV was still on." 

              Trotter then went on to warn those of us in the church that "maybe this is a metaphor for our institution.  Life is flashing by--great and small events that have profound and accumulating moral consequences--while we are [too often] uncomprehending and mute.

              "It is time, he said, "for a resurrection.  As a denomination we need risk-taking leaders.  We need inspirational transparency. [that is, so the world can see God through the church and its people].  We will then become an attractive church to thousands who long for moral imagination in these terrible times."   [Trotter, Thomas. "We Have So Organized Ourselves . . . "; Circuit Rider. The United Methodist Publishing House: Nashville, TN, September/October 2007, p. 23.]

              Yes, what have the cares of the world, and the lures of wealth done to us, as a people of faith.  Have they put us to sleep or kept us from seeing the real needs of people in our communities.   Have they so scared or lured us  that we turn to TV and many other means of anesthetizing ourselves, so  we no longer take the time to be in touch with God, or see a different path--the path of Christ's active love and peace that we might follow instead.

              Fortunately, in Jesus parable, there was one more seed--that bore fruit--that gives us hope.  Here the location where the seed landed was great-- it was good soil.  About this location for planting,  Jesus said it represented one who hears the word and understands it, and who indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.

              Jesus is calling us to bear fruit, don't you see--to yield a harvest--to be good soil for the seeds of our faith.   To live out the life of faith and hope and love: with lives that save others, rather than keeping for ourselves.  Lives that risk loving others, rather than seeking only to love ourselves.  Lives that know God and practice God's presence and thus have faith, rather than lives lived out of fear, protectiveness, and building up of more an more defenses to keep the world out.  Lives that very simply then seek to love the world--to  join God in changing the world into that realm of God, for which we pray so  often.

              The world is waiting for the seeds of  God's Kingdom--the seeds of faith, disciplined and strong, learned, and resistant to the evils that are too often out there in our world, and taking over.  Yes the world is waiting.  Don't you think that's a good location,  for us to plant . .the realm of God?

Amen.