“It’s Out of Our Hands”

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sometimes I think that I have some sort of deep-seated inner radar that seeks out and then zooms in on the negative. If I receive an evaluation that’s 99% positive, I’ll obsess over that one itty-bitty per-cent of negativity. Even as I celebrate all the good, good things about our ministry together at Grace I have to be careful not to focus on the minor failings and frustrations that are always going to be part of any pastor/church relationship. Above all I have to be careful not to let my negativity explode into a lot of misdirected activity or even worse, not to let it lead me into some sort of “O-what’s-the-use” paralysis.

Sometimes this negative radar even carries over into my study of Scripture. Take for example today’s text. In both the parable and Jesus’ explanation of it, when Jesus gets to the final verses, he accentuates the positive. Yes, some seeds fall on hard ground, others fall on thin soil, and still others get the life choked out of them by weeds. Yet the harvest is bountiful beyond even the most optimistic expectations: thirty, sixty, even one hundred-fold.

Why, then, is it so easy to get caught up in the seeds that failed to take root or flourish? Why wasn’t the sower of the seed more careful? Why didn’t he throw it where he knew it would have a better chance of growing? Why was he so indiscriminate with it?

Come to think of it, why was Jesus so indiscriminate with the Gospel? Why didn’t he focus more on the obviously ready to be saved souls and less on those whose Gospel acceptance rate was obviously low from the get-go? Was he not guilty of disregarding his own advice about casting pearls before swine?

Not within the context of this particular parable and its explanation. Jesus was a realist. He said in other places that many would be called but few ultimately chosen. Not everybody was going to follow him. But he still gave everybody the opportunity. Some had hearts of stone. Others had no staying power. Still others were easily distracted and led away.

But some had a heart for the Gospel. It took root in them and grew. And soon after the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord - after that first Pentecost Sunday, those earliest Christians began sharing the Gospel far and wide. They didn’t always get positive responses, but over time more and more folks were brought to Jesus.

Something we must never forget is that many of the people who have said yes to Jesus over the centuries were the ones whose hearts were assumed to be the hardest. Failures and all, the seed of the Gospel has continually produced an ever expanding harvest in the name of Jesus. That is one of the important lessons we must learn from today’s text.

Another lesson to be learned from this text has to do with focusing more on the abundance that God can bring forth from the Gospel seeds we sow and less on the seeds that fail to flourish. In other words people like me need to ignore their negativity seeking radar and train ourselves to focus on the positives. And never forget that the future harvest is in the hands of God.

Clair Crissy, a Southern Baptist educator, shared these words about that in her commentary on verses 18-23: “Jesus was telling his disciples that the ‘sowing’ of the Word was their responsibility. The response would be determined by the kind of ‘soil’ on which the Word fell. It was assured, however, that an abundant harvest would result from their work.”

Another important lesson is the need for patience. This is especially true for so many 21^st Century American Christians who are used to fast food and instant messaging. The Gospel message is neither microwavable nor fuel injected. Rarely do the seeds we sow immediately grow. Wrote William Barclay, “We live in an age that looks for quick results, but in the sowing of the seed we must sow in patience and in hope, and sometimes must leave the harvest to the years.”

Patience and hope are not always my most obvious strengths. Although I am much more patient than I used to be, I still don’t like standing in lines, sitting in drive through lanes, or following coal trucks up mile after mile mountain roads. I don’t always deal well with delayed gratification. More times than I like to admit I’m like that stupid commercial voice over that goes, “I want it all. I want it all. I want all. And I want it now.”

And then there’s hope. Hope is what ends up being disregarded most when my negativity radar is turned on full force. At such times I let life’s negative accumulation of “what is” overwhelm me, forgetting that Christian hope is grounded in God’s great “what if?” Or the flip-side occurs as I allow my own anxious obsession over the uncontrollable uncertainties of life cause me to forget the certain hope that is ours in Jesus Christ, when I let short-term anxieties blind me to long-term realities.

Or to put it in terms of today’s text, the good soil of my heart becomes hardened by a sin-caused doubt that rejects the eternal truth of God’s grace, mercy, forgiveness, peace, and hope. That’s when I am most likely to succumb to my own egocentricity and start believing that the harvest is totally in my hands. Then when I see it growing I allow myself to be lifted by tides of proud elation. But then when I can’t see God’s growth at work beneath the blinding surface of my own worldliness, I am plunged into the depths of despair by that negativity seeking radar of mine that leads me to believe my work is in vain.

I truly believe that God led me to Sandy because I so very much need of her steadiness: her ability to become neither overly excited about the positives nor unrealistically despondent over the negatives. She has the most wonderfully loving ways of telling me to get over myself. And helping me to once again move the center of my being in the right direction: toward the sure and steady ground that is God’s providential will.

There is a truth that most of us don’t want hear: control is an illusion. We can and must cast the seed of the Gospel. We can’t make it take root in someone else’s life. All we can do is leave it in God’s hands. It is his Spirit and his Spirit alone that opens the hearts of people to the truth of the Gospel. As much as we don’t like to believe it, the harvest is out of our hands. It always has been. It always will be.

The only thing over which we have even the semblance of control is the state of our own spiritual soil. While we are sowers of the Gospel seed, we are also the soil upon which it is cast. Clair Crissy spoke to this in her commentary on verses 1-9: “[Jesus] was telling the crowd to be like the good soil, letting the seed of the gospel produce an abundant harvest in them. The seed of the gospel was good seed, but many people were unable to let that gospel seed take root in their lives.”

Our hearts can be hard or soft, open or closed. Our piety can be persistent as we seek to let the Gospel seeds become more deeply rooted, or we can neglect the life of the spirit and not give the seeds the time, space, and nurture they need to take root and thrive. Furthermore, we must be ready to un-clutter our hearts, souls, and minds; be ready to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind. We must be on constant watch for all those sinful and selfish little worldly weeds, that if allowed to grow, will crowd out and choke off the bountiful fruit of the Spirit: “… love, joy, peace, patience [there’s that word again], kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Of course, it is only as we allow the fruit of the Spirit to grow within us that we are enabled to be faithful sowers of the Gospel seed. The bad news is that there will always, this side of heaven, a certain amount of weeds in our spiritual gardens. The good news is that by way of individual and corporate prayer, reading, studying, and contemplating Scripture, fellowshipping with other Christians (even those with whom we deeply and often disagree), worshiping, and other spiritual disciplines, the fruit of the Spirit will grow in us, enabling the Gospel seed we cast to be more readily trusted by those who receive it because they trust those who are casting it.

The further good news is that even as we strive for a perfection we can never attain in this lifetime, God has always used imperfect sowers to cast his seed. And for those of us with a more highly developed radar for negativity, the good news is that God uses us even in our deepest moments of gloom, doom, doubt, and despair. And for those times when we are so very awkward and inept in sharing the Gospel, well, even then some of the seed we scatter takes root. The Gospel seed is so good, that through the grace and providence of God, it can overcome even our most embarrassingly bumbling, stumbling attempts to sow it. The best news of all is that ultimately the productiveness of our sowing is out of our hands. By the grace of God it lands where it lands and grows where it grows. And now let all God’s people say… (Amen).