Matthew 13:1-9

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they 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. If you have ears, hear!”.

Sermon Text

I believe one of the most important things you can do with your study of scripture is to involve other people. If you are sitting in your room reading the Bible, you will learn a lot. I think that that is one of the things we most neglect in our lives, just taking up the Bible and reading what it has for us. Yet, if we read it alone we miss out on some of the deeper truths it reveals. The truths that come from us engaging with scripture and with each other. Until such a time that we are able to see the words of God, reflected in the Image of God, in the person sitting across from us, the word will not fully come alive.

In this Church, one day in Sunday School, as we were going through the parables of Jesus, one of our very own said something that stuck with me. As Jesus taught about a sower going out and throwing seeds wherever they went, they described the farmer with a single word. “Irresponsible.” I like that word to describe the work of the sower.

Having killed more plants than I care to admit, I can tell you I am no authority on farming. However, even I know that it is necessary to plant in good soil and to water and tend to the thing you have planted. In my garden right now, I have two distinct plants doing very differently in terms of their health. One, my beautiful tomato plants that are thriving despite my incompetence. Planted in buckets filled with potting soil and watered regularly, they are thriving in a way I have to assume I have very little to do with.

Across the way, however, sits a lonely amaryllis. It was planted haphazardly, because I did not think it was necessary to open a whole new bag of potting soil to plant it in the ground. After all, that’s where all the dirt is! Needless to say, that thing is withered and half dead, and I’ve all but abandoned any hope of it growing into anything. We all know, that if you want to grow something, you need to plant it in the right kind of soil.

This parable, then, becomes a therapeutic piece for Christians. When we read it, we are assured that the people who have failed to join the Church, despite our best efforts, are not our fault. No, the word of God has just found poor soil to grow in. This parable becomes a way to explain why ministry does not always succeed. It is a consolation more than it is an instruction. I do not think this is the best way to read this parable.

Jesus was not in the business of giving us a reason for failure so much as explaining what we should do. If we use the parable primarily to explain our failures, then why did Jesus bother to teach it at all? No, there is another lesson to take from this parable and that lesson is found in that word that one of our own folks used. “Irresponsible,” gardening is the most important kind when the thing you’re trying to grow are the fruits of the Spirit.

You do not have the power, now or ever, to control another person’s heart or circumstances. No matter what you do, they will be their own person and you will be your own person. Thus, as you tell about your faith or share the gospel, you can never be sure how the person you talk to will receive it. Maybe they will hear the good news and become a member of a church! Maybe they will show up to a few events and then disappear, or maybe they will spit in your face for the trouble. There is no way to know what will happen, until the leap is taken and an attempt is made.

Jesus describes the parable later in the scriptures and defines each category of soil as a different kind of person. The seed the falls on the road and is trampled are those who never accept the word, those that grow among rocks are those who accept the word and then, without a root, leave. Those that are choked by weeds are those who are taken in by the worries and pleasures of this world and fall away. While those who grow in good soil are those who hear the word, and develop roots, and become part of God’s church.

The thing about the parable is that Jesus never says to seek out good soil. Jesus says that this is the nature of proclamation, that it will not always be accepted or acted upon. The point of the parable is not to carefully wait for the perfect moment and person and place to share God’s word. It is to do it, whenever you can, however you can, and trust that sometimes the result will be someone being saved by your effort. The word of God never returns empty and even if it not taken to heart and allowed to transform a person, the exercise of sharing what God has done in your life will at least strengthen you, personally.

I want to return to my garden for a moment, because I think it provides an apt image to tie into this parable. I told you about that amaryllis I carelessly planted… Well, that darn dead plant started growing again after a few good rains. I started adding it to my rotations of plants to water, knowing that it isn’t fully dead… It is shooting up new sprouts, putting forward the start of flowers, and getting ready to become more than just a brown, dying lump in my front yard. I planted that flower recklessly, but I had no idea if it would find good soil until it started growing up.

Talk to people about your faith. You don’t have to be eloquent, you should never be forceful, and ideally you should practice often enough you aren’t terribly nervous. When you can, how it makes sense to, share what God is doing and has done for you. There is always a need to testify to God’s goodness, and there are always people who need to hear it. So, be irresponsible with God’s grace, throw it everywhere you can until you can’t anymore. If you do that, then you might just see some growth in the lives of the people around you. – Amen.

Galatians 5: 13-26

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

Sermon Text

250 years of America. That’s a prominent anniversary if ever there was one. Two and one half centuries have passed and in that time, we as a nation have seen highs and lows, ebbs and flows, in our prosperity as well as our morality. We are a nation, but more than that we are an ongoing conversation. In 1776, as the Continental Congress came together to finalize the Declaration of Independence, they enshrined a set of principles that all people would, ideally and progressively, gain access to. Of these principles, none were more clearly stated that the belief in a God given right to, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If the Law and the Prophets hang upon the love of God and neighbor, then the American experiment hangs upon the fulfillment and practice of these three ideals.

I am here to tell you, as both a student of history and of religion, that we have never succeeded as a nation in living up to either set of ideals. At the outset we established a democracy that evaluated a person’s access to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” as being dependent upon other features of their life. Voting rights are the easiest to track, as only white men with property were free to vote for a majority of our history, with people of color and women only having the right for less than half of our existence. Yet, beyond these rights, many other have been taken, or hidden, or denied. The “Indian Savage,” that was denied their homeland, systematically eliminated, and cast aside suffered too. Each generation bore a new opportunity to do what was right, and in denial of the goodness they could have done, took up a sin to bear at the same time.

The seeming contradiction of our quest for liberty was not lost on the people who walked the streets of Boston and Philadelphia long ago. Methodist ministers were some of the most vocal in bringing our great contradiction to mind. “How can you fight for liberty?” They asked, “While keeping the poor in poverty and slaves in chains?” Even Thomas Jefferson, writer of the Declaration and lifelong slave holder, knew in his heart that the sins of his age would not be forgotten, “Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?.. Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever… The almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest…”[1]

We are not in the era of slavery, and so we can do little to change what marks it has made upon our nation. We are not in the era of Indian removal, though we are obligated to tell the story of the Trail of Tears. We are born into the era we now live, with all the opportunity and pitfalls it affords. Will we see the ways that God calls us to liberty? Will we reject the sins of convenience that we are prone to enjoy at the expense of others? This is the choice we have to make today.

Scripture only speaks of liberty a scant few times. In a world where you had an emperor who controlled everything, our world of democracy and essential rights would seem completely alien. Yet, when we are told about liberty in scripture, it is always given a major caveat. “You are free,” the scripture says, “so that you may do good.” We are freed from the expectations of the law, from the burden of working out our own salvation, from the weight of our sins… Yet, none of this freedom is a warrant to do whatever we want.

How different would the history, not only of this nation, but of the world be if people did not take their liberty and use it to the detriment of their neighbor? How many atrocities could be prevented? I know that when I think of the things that make me proud of my country, it is not the excesses of any person I commend, but the willingness to serve and sacrifice for the good of our neighbors and even of strangers.

Think of those stories out of history that you most value. In my own life, I find the most patriotic I feel is when I remember the way people in my own life have lived out the ideals of our nation. My great grandfather worked hard as an engineer in the Army, protecting infrastructure at the risk of his own life and limb. When he returned home, he continued his work on the railroad, raising a family and learning to sew to help keep them clothed. He was always living for his neighbors and serving the people around him. My grandfather, similarly served in Viet Nam, a tenure that eventually cost him his life many years later due to his exposure to Agent Orange. He suffered, he died, and he did it for the good of the people he loved.

Domestically, I think of those I know who work in advocacy. Who spend their time and money to make sure that the people in the state legislature and in Congress vote for the good of their constituents. A fellow minister friend of mine, Rev. Dr. Starlette Thomas, who is working without ceasing to promote a future without racial separations. All those people I know who serve food in soup kitchens, box up food at food pantries, and do what they can to meet the needs of the people around them. These are the principles that America thrives off of, and that secure “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” as a real and present possibility in their life.

If we want to be a nation that lasts another 250 years, we need to prioritize this kind of good work and communal attitude. We also, it must be said, need to do something to fix our politicking. We cannot develop as a country if every four years the new administration undoes everything the last one did. We cannot see our nation thrive if every administration works to put more and more money and power into the hands of the rich. We cannot support our current form of government where our politicians are looking to produce sound bites to get reelected, and win symbolic cultural battles, rather than working for the good of their people.

In his encyclical Magnifica Humanitis, first American Pope, Leo XIV, asks us to see the danger that comes from our current political landscape. “When politics abandon a long-term perspective,” he says, “and reduces itself to short-term calculations or sterile polarizations, then the language of the common good loses credibility… social inequalities and divisions grow.”[2] It is not a popular or common thing to care for your neighbor, to love the stranger, to be American in practice and not just in a vague cultural aesthetic. The America I believe in, that I endorse, that I strive to be part of, is one that welcomes strangers, cares for its neighbors, and actively works to ensure all the good things of life for every person that walks on its storied streets.

Our generation will hold a good deal of evil within it that historians will be shocked by. Some of it is obvious, some of it only history will be able to speak to. Yet, if we have any hope of history remembering us well, telling our stories with the bittersweet smile that only history affords, then we must commit to service and love and denial of self. You have been given liberty, by God as an innate right, and by the government through acknowledgement of the same. Do not let anyone take that from you or from anyone else. The second liberty is denied to one person, it is in peril for all others.

250 years, what an achievement. What wonders we have achieved, and what horrors we have tolerated… We cannot change the past, for good or for ill, but we have a hand in establishing the next chapter of our history together. Love, live, serve, give. This alone will make us into the nation we all wish to be part of. – Amen.

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[1] Thomas Jefferson. Notes on the State of Virginia. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: H.C. Carey and Lilea. 1825) 221-223

[2] Pope Leo XIV. Magnifica Humanitis 2.63 2026