A Sermon by Dr. H. Alden Welch      Text:  Matthew 13:1-9

Leonia United Methodist Church, NJ

October 12, 2002

I like order.

I am an organized person.

I have been this way since childhood.

If my mother were still alive, she would tell you about the hours I spent organizing my toys and cataloguing my comic books.

I am still this way, maybe even worst.

It is scary how ingrained some personality traits become.

Dody will tell you that I am this way around the house.

I am constantly straightening things up and putting things away.

I'll go through the house, room by room, making everything neat and tidy.

I am sure one of the frustrating things about being married to me is that nothing she sets down is likely to remain where she has left it for long.

But when she cannot find it and thinks she is having a senior moment, kind and caring husband that I am, I always offer to help her locate it.

To my way of thinking, I am bringing order where there otherwise would be chaos.

And I am sure I can hear God saying,

"Well done, good and faithful servant!"

There are those who will tell you that such a rational ordering of the world is the secret of America's prosperity and success. Henry Ford transformed manufacturing by organizing the assembly line in a logical and efficient way. Production was divided into units, then each unit given a part of the process, and each worker trained to do a specific task. Cars were assembled at maximum speed with minimal cost.

This application of reason and efficiency to production may

have reached its zenith with the McDonald hamburger. The process of preparation was analyzed in great detail. A few seconds were saved here and a fraction of a cent there. The result was fast food of consistent quality and low cost. McDonald's is an amazing story of American ingenuity and efficiency.

These success stories have convinced people that anything can be organized and run in this way. If we just put our minds to it, we believe we can come up with a reasonable and effective solution to just about any problem.

But this is not so; our ability to control things has limits. As H. L. Mencken once said, "There is an easy solution to every human problem---neat, plausible …….and probably wrong!" What taught me this was parenthood. Robert Capon says that children are the gifts God gives us to remind us that beneath the rational order we impose on the world, there lies primordial chaos.

The father of six lively young children, he writes that he discovered this truth at mealtime. When the grace ended, the table would become bedlam. From time to time, he would shout, "Quiet!" and a measure of order would return. 

In his family memoir, Bed and Board, he writes:

"I remind them that they are civilized. They are not a mob, and therefore, manners are expected. The older ones agree. I am encouraged. Then the youngest knocks over a glass of milk.   Down toward me it races, like a flood across the land.  I jump up and back, but over the edge it pours. And I am hit, right trouser leg below the knee. It's the third time this meal!   [In three short years] she has spilled it back-hand, forehand, sidearm, elbow first. She has upset glasses

Order is something we impose on the surface of existence. In some areas and circumstances, it works quite well, such as assembling cars or cooking hamburgers. But other areas of life defy rational analysis and organization. And the more human beings are involved, the less successful you are likely to be.

Sometimes in marriage counseling a husband will say, "She isn't being reasonable." Or the wife will say, "If he is so rational, why does he do such dumb things?" My colleague, Mark Trotter, says to such couples, "The first thing you have to realize is that you are not married to a rational being. You are married to a human being, who has rational capacities to a lesser or greater degree, but who, beneath the surface, is emotional, irrational, sometimes crazy, and always a mystery."

Reason doesn't work in many things that really matter. It does not work in most human relationships. Love works there better than reason. It does not work in overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles.  A hope--futile to reasonable people--often holds the key. Reason cannot unravel the deepest mysteries of life. It is faith that makes living without answers possible. Try to impose a rational explanation or solution in these areas, you will end up frustrated and angry.

Though we wish we could, we cannot order all of life rationally, the way we can push back the sea with a dike, or the stop the flow of a river with a dam. Beyond what barriers we can build, there is mystery, even chaos. And sometimes it seeps in under the dike, or, during one of life’s storms, spills over the dam and floods our personal world with absurdity. When that happens there is often nothing we can do but wait for it to recede. Reason cannot make sense of it. We are helpless to control it.

The Parable of the Sower speaks to our dilemma. It invites us to see ourselves as a sowers. The sown seed represents our effortsto live a good life, raise our family, accomplish something worthwhile, to serve God and improve our world. All the good things you do are seeds you sow. Some fall on good soil, take root, and bear fruit. Others land on poor soil or among thorns. Nothing much comes from them.

The parable reminds us that in life we do not succeed 100% of the time--you win some, you lose some. You have good days and bad days. It says, you can control what you do but you cannot control the results. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, no matter how smart or sincere you are, no matter how well thought out your plan, you are not going to be successful. This parable encourages in us a healthy realism.

We wonder why all our efforts to do not meet with success, if we have sown good seed, if we have worked hard and lived right. It seems a waste, it seems all wrong, almost immoral, that some seeds, good deeds, are not blessed with success. We like to think that we have a deal with God guaranteeing that, if we sow the right seeds, God will see to it that all of them grow. But that’s not the deal; God doesn’t make deals. As one of the characters in a Pogo comic strip, says after listening to complaint after complaint about how things are in the world, "Shut up. You are lucky just to be here in the first place."

The Parable of the Sower does not explain why things go wrong or why there are infertile, unproductive soils. In the Bible, the bad things that happen are rarely explained. The parable assumes that some things will always go wrong. That some seeds will not take root, germinate and grow. That's just the way life is.

The question Scripture asks and we need to ponder is:

Why do ANY seeds take root, germinate and grow? 

Not: Why is there evil in the world?

Not: Why is life so often so unfair?

Not: Why do accidents happen?

Not: Why is there cancer?

But: Why does anything go right?

Why do so many heal and get better?

Why do our efforts succeed as often as they do?

Why is there as much goodness in the world as there is?

Our efforts are haphazard, like the broadcasting of seed.

There is so much we do not know or understand and so little that we actually can or do control. But sometimes, beyond our wildest imagining, and always beyond our full deserving, some seeds DO take root and grow.

The Parable of the Sower reminds us that there is a power beyond our own at work in our world and that it is life-giving. To be a Christian is to believe in and trust that power. On our own, we can never completely bring order out of chaos. We are merely the sowers of seed, doing our thing, trying our best.  

Like Paul, we should be quick to say,

        "What then is Apollos? What then is Paul?

     ...I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." (I Cor. 3:5-6)

When anything goes well, takes root and grows, when a goal is reached or a dream comes true, when anyone recovers from a serious illness, when a marriage is saved or a family reunited, whenever we experience love or see goodness, we need to pause, give thanks, and celebrate.

            God of Grace and God of Glory,

            we thank you for your life-giving presence

            and praise you for your goodness and your grace.

Amen.