Sowing the Seeds of Love

Proper 6, June 13, 2021

I spent the last week in Mississippi with my boys at my parents. My dad planted some 200 blueberry seedlings about 15 years ago and now there are so many blueberries there’s no way to pick them all. Their friends frequently come over to help glean the harvest. I even texted my high school friends and a former student in the area to come over and clean ’em out. We picked gallons and there will still so many blueberries left to be picked,.

It’s amazing how much fruit a little sapling can eventually produce. There’s even enough for the birds, the deer and the racoons without affecting the harvest.

If I’ve learned anything from gardening and planting vegetables with my own children it’s that anyone can sow seeds. It does not take an experienced gardener. I’ve found plants where I didn’t realize I planted them; like the tomato plants growing up out of the compost pile.

Sometimes, like the birds that come and feast on blueberries then excrete the seed elsewhere, we spread seeds unknowingly. I guess it would help it we were aware of what we were ingesting so we would know what we’re spreading when it comes out of us. Even those little seeds can grow into fruition. What kind of fruit do we want to produce? That depends on the seeds we sow and how we tend to the business of cultivating what we plant.

Here’s the thing about planting seeds. Once they’re planted, we can go away, live our lives, check out, go to sleep, rise the next day… but the seed is still busy doing its thing even if we’ve put it out of mind. It’s still germinating, sprouting, growing. I was shocked to come home after a week away to see our container garden. It was most certainly not in the same state as it was when we left! It was fecund! And we had some fruit! Almost enough green beans for a full individual serving. Some little green tomatoes! That stuff wasn’t there when we left!

It’s the same thing that happens with our spiritual lives. When we plant little seeds of divinity and love those seeds can grow into much fruit. This is the fruit of God’s kingdom, a reign a love, justice and dignity for all of God’s children. Precisely what Jesus was getting at in Mark’s Gospel passage today with his many sowing parables.

How do we sow these seeds of love?

When you ask a homeless person their name you plant a seed for the kingdom.

When you use a preferred pronoun you plant a seed for the kingdom.

When you are present for another in a time of need you plant a seed for the kingdom.

When we push back against racism and toxic culture we plant a seed for the kingdom.

Of course, depending on the seeds we ingest we can also poop them out like the birds and end up planting weeds that can choke out the good fruit. That doesn’t plant seeds for the kingdom. That’s just a big field of…. well, I believe the Greek word for it is skubala[1].

So, yeah, if we’re ingesting a diet of spiritual junk food we’re going to have problems. But if we’re ingesting a diet of contemplation, love, and consideration then even when we’re unaware that we’re sowing seeds, it’s more likely that we’ll be unconsciously planting good seeds instead of weeds. (Just pooping out goodness!)

The thing here is that we’re all cultivators of the kingdom. We don’t have to be professional farmers or agronomists. We need only to leave our hearts open to divine transformation.

Sure, there are times when we plant and we hit a drought or some other condition of which we have no control over. But what does a famer do? As Howard Thurman said, “The farmer plants. The farmer always plants. Again and again he works at it, the ultimate confidence and assurance that even though his seed does not grow to fruition, seeds do grow and they do come to fruition.”

For almost three years, Epiphany has been planting seeds in this community. At a time when national church attendance is below 50% for the first time in US History, I know with confidence that you are part of Epiphany because you want to be here and not out of some sense of social obligation to being in a church.

We are a transparent parish. We are affirming. We are loving. We lean on each other. We accept one another as we are and we meet one another where we are. If we are to maintain this community we need to plant more seeds. We need to grow. But not just for the sake of growing, but for a genuine need to cultivate and maintain Epiphany as a sustainable community.

I want to ask you to help scatter some seeds. We can do this in how we share the story of our community with others, in how we engage with one another in genuine affection and presence.

I’m not asking you to proselytize, that’s just gross.

Don’t just invite people to Church. Invite them to coffee or lunch. Invite them into your heart. Listen to them. Tell them you care and show it. The church isn’t a building (we sure know this at Epiphany). You are the church. And we all know that there’s always room at the table.

So go connect. And do so without worrying about the results.

As Thurman also said, “To keep one’s eye on results is to detract markedly from the business at hand. This is to be diverted from the task itself.”

And our task, our business at hand, is sowing the seeds of love.

Last week I had a meeting with the national committee on New Episcopal Communities and I was asked how I would describe the success of Epiphany. I responded by saying that while we’re not big in terms of people we are huge in terms of love. And that’s some good fruit, indeed. Amen.

[1] σκυβαλώδης: waste, dung-like