“Reckless”
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator, from our Risen Lord and Savior, and from our Sustainer, the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Let anyone with ears listen!” About a year and a half ago, I experienced the great joy and honor of baptizing my precious granddaughter, Edith when she was just a couple of months old. We were in a beautiful little chapel called Pilgrim Chapel in Kansas City, Missouri a few blocks from where my young son, James, Edie’s father, and his family life.
At the moment of baptism, I dipped a shell into the bowl of water filling the shell completely. I intended to drop a little bit of water from that shell three different times as I said the words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father (one splash of water) and of the Son (second splash of water) and of the Holy Spirit (third splash of water.) Instead of doing just that, I misjudged the weight of the shell filled with water and dumped all of the water onto Edie’s face all at once leaving her gurgling and gasping for air. It’s as if grandpa threw Edie into the deep end of the pool to fend for herself. I, of course, was mortified. But miracle of miracles –as baptism is – she didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She simply caught her breath and the ceremony went on. Overflowing baptismal water. Overflowing abundance of God’s love.
“Let anyone with ears listen!” One Ash Wednesday evening years ago at another church I had just finished making the sign of the cross with ashes on everyone’s forehead with the sign of the cross. It was my turn and without any advanced notice I asked one of the people there to mark my forehead with ashes. I gave her the bowl of ashes. I knelt down at the railing. And with no prior experiencing she stuck her thumb in the ashes, brought her thumb to my forehead when a shower of ashes fell on my face, covering my eyes and nose and mouth. A shower of ashes. An overwhelming shower of God’s love.
“Let anyone with ears listen!” Just last week, I was in the home of one of our members visiting her and bringing her Holy Communion. It came time to pour wine from its container into a little glass. I didn’t realize how full the container was so I tipped the bottle too quickly overflowing the cup and causing wine to spill all over her table. Spilled sacramental wine all over the table. Spilled love of God all over you and me.
“Let anyone with ears listen!” I’ve been to Father Bill’s/Mainspring in Brockton a couple of times to serve food for their clients. Father Bill’s mission is to prevent and end homelessness while providing safe space, meals and other services for those experiencing life without homes. Wayne is one of their clients. He is or was homeless. You see he is one of the few who came off of the streets to live in a room at Father Bill’s and work there for that room. I know very little about Wayne except that he experienced some sort of trauma that led him to lose his home. He works in the kitchen doing much of the cooking for all the people they serve, and without knowing much about him I mention Wayne for one simple reason. He is wonderfully kind – kind to us, kind to those he serves, and even though he’s surrounded by lots of people all day long, you can sense a deep loneliness and sadness yet despite that he chooses to be incredibly kind. A sacrificial kind of love – which is the love of Christ.
“Let anyone with ears listen!” A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil. They sprung up quickly, but when the sun rose, they scorched and withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
This parable – a parable being an earthly story – or an earthy story – you know seeds, rocks, birds, path, sun, thorns, soil, grain – an earthy story with a heavenly meaning – one of Jesus’ favorite ways to teach – this parable invites us to ask some obvious questions – like when it comes to receiving the Word of God what are you most like? Are you like the well-trodden path – too distracted and weigh-downed to hear the Word of God? Are you like the rocky ground – too set in your ways to be open to the Word of God? Are you like the thorns – too damaged to receive the gift of grace? Or are you like the good soil – the so-called good Christian who almost always has the faithful response?
What are you most like? It sounds like we are supposed to be the good soil – of course but the truth is that we are not going to answer that question because we are asking the wrong questions. The truth is that we are all of the above all at the same time. We are the well-trodden path – too distracted and weigh-downed. We are the rocky ground – too unstable to be open. We are the thorns – too damaged to receive the gift of grace. We are the good soil. We are the Wayne’s of the world – full and capable of so much kindness, full and capable of working hard for justice, full and capable of being all that God intends us to be – just as we are. “Let everyone with ears listen!” Do you hear this description of yourself? Do you hear this description of us as the living, breathing body of Christ – full of grace and thorns at the same time, full of certainty and unbelief at the same time.
But lest I go any further, I risk falling into the trap of this parable – which is the trap of believing that his parable is about us – that this parable is a quest to find out what we are really made of – when, in fact, this parable is not about us. It’s about God. It’s about God’s absolutely reckless, extravagant, abundance, wasteful sowing of the seeds of unconditional love. Otherwise why would be hearing about a sower trying to plant seeds on rocks, in thorns, on paths? This is about a God who doesn’t make any sense. In fact, this parable is about a God who might as well be spreading God’s seeds of love and justice and peace on a parking lot – a parking lot of black top or concrete where there is little to no chance of those seeds surviving let alone taking root, growing and thriving.
Today’s parable is an unsettling reminder that Jesus is often involved in what seems like reckless and wasteful extravagance on us. The kingdom of God or better yet the beloved community of which Holy Trinity is a part is like a wayward child who returns home after wasting half his father’s fortune—and in response his father throws him a lavish party. (The parable of the prodigal son.) Or the beloved community, the kingdom of God is like a shepherd, dismissing all sound financial advice and logic, leaves 99 sheep vulnerable while he goes off to search for the one. The kingdom of heaven, the beloved community, Holy Trinity is like a banquet for the poor – no – more accurately – it is a banquet for the poor – for those with little food, no home, no job – and those who are poor in spirit.
And there is much more extravagance and abundance and waste because God believes we are worth it! Jesus produces more wine at the first public miracle in Cana than could be drunk at a hundred weddings—and this after the guests are already intoxicated. The miracle of the feeding of the 5000 in the wilderness produces 12 baskets of leftovers.
Jesus’ financial advice is equally baffling for the fiscally responsible Christian. We are warned not to store our goods away not to save and invest and accumulate. Jesus encourages us to give loans without hope of repayment. We learn from Jesus not to plan for the future, for each day has enough trouble of its own. On more than one occasion Jesus mentions wealth in the same breath as damnation.
Whatever it is – whether it is the water of Holy Baptism, the ashes of Ash Wednesday, the wine of Holy Communion, the kindness of Wayne at Father Bill’s, the cross of Jesus Christ, the story we come to hear, the story we’re called to live is all about God’s extravagant, abundant, often reckless, and sometimes wasteful love for each of us. Reckless and wasteful? Yes! Because God as sower never stops. God as sower never ceases to believe in you and me in whether we are at one moment like the good soil and another moment we are as hopeless as planting seed on a parking lot.
That sower, relentless in his love for you, ended up on the cross so that you and I will sprout from the dirt of our lives to grow and blossom as beautiful mirror images of the divine. Amen.