Convention 2025 Sermon

Texts:
Isaiah 55:10-11
Matthew 13:1-9

“Let’s take a moment. Close your eyes and picture a bright spring morning. The sky is blue, the air is crisp and imagine you are standing in a newly plowed field—a New England sort of field—with wet mud surrounding big granite rocks, all lit by a warm spring sun. You have a heavy cloth bag slung over your neck, filled with all sorts of seeds: little ones, big ones, some smooth and some pointy, jabby even. You dig your hand into the bag, grabbing as many seeds as you can, and then, without looking, you fling them out across the damp, muddy field.

Some of the seeds you’re scattering are falling on the rich, damp soil. Some are scattering off the rocks. Some are falling in the long grass that borders the field on every side. Some are being snatched up by birds or mice, eaten in the blink of an eye. And you don’t care. You have a big bag of all sorts of seeds, and you mean to empty that bag a quick as you can.

It’s a lovely image that Jesus is painting in the parable. But it’s not a very efficient way to go about farming… Too many seeds are being wasted when you sow that extravagantly, that thoughtlessly, that generously. It would make so much more sense to carefully prepare the ground, dig straight furrows, place each seed among its own sort with regular spacing, and then carefully and quickly cover them with dark earth and water. But that’s not what’s happening. Seeds are being strewn, hurled in all directions without apparent thought or planning.

We gather this morning to take council as a diocese, to think about how best to do ministry across the State of Rhode Island, at a time that is filled with anxiety, noise, and increasing polarization. As I thought about what to say to you all, I kept coming back to this image that Jesus uses in the parable of the Sower, where the “Evangelist” is seen just walking across the landscape, sowing and trusting that God will prosper what God intends to prosper.

This image, in our context, only makes sense if we believe that God’s Word is living and active. It only makes sense if we believe that God is not distant from us but present in our midst, in our worry and in our confusion.

In the first reading this morning, you hear how the Prophet Isaiah describes God’s action in a moment like this: “God’s Word is like rain; it falls where it falls and it does the work that God intends it to do.” In my experience, and I believe in the life of the Church, our work of evangelism—of proclaiming the coming reign of God, of refocusing people’s attention to a deeper reality that surrounds them—is not about arguing people into something, but trusting that God will use the seed we sow to accomplish what God intends for them… and for us.

The task of God’s Church is to be faithful, trusting that when we sow, something comes of it. Even when we don’t see any evidence of that. Especially when we don’t see any evidence of that.

Look, this Gospel parable reminds us that the results of our faithful actions are not under our control.
We are called to sow widely and in places where there’s not much hope that the soil upon which we scatter our seeds has any realistic hope of bringing forth growth, much less a harvest.

We are not called to be efficient; we are not called to demonstrate success; we are called to be faithful. Faithful especially when it all just seems hopeless.

We are asked to trust that God is in this moment, and that God will bring about the outcome that God desires. We are called to believe that if we are faithful, God will give the harvest. Which is a terrible business strategy. (I can hear my CFOs all telling me that “hope” is not a strategy for success. And they’re right. But…)

Faithful actions are their own authentic witness to those who have eyes to see and understand them.

We live in a polarized political moment. We live, truthfully, in a polarized state. There is polarization between the congregations and in the congregations and between members of this diocese and with their neighbors. And in the face of that, in the context of the daily news cycle, in the unending stream of social media vignettes of outrage, it seems futile to think that sharing the news that God has acted decisively to destroy evil and death in Jesus is worthwhile or an effective remedy. And yet… that is the tonic to the despair. And we collectively claim that.

We plant that message. And sometimes it brings forth an astonishing abundance. Not always, maybe not regularly, but sometimes it just does… thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.

So, for us? What do we do in a moment such as this? Well, what did we do before? What did our forebears do here in their congregations, in this diocese, in this state in their day?

Truthfully, whether they knew they were doing it intentionally or not, they were scattering the seeds of the Gospel, and those seeds brought forth fruit. And you and I are some of that harvest. And today, still, our congregations are seed-scattering communities. And this morning, as you imagine that bright spring day in this harvest season, I want you to think of the ways that you and your churches are following in the path of those who sowed before us.

And even more importantly, I want you to be praying for the Holy Spirit to stir up enough faith in you and among all of us, that we can believe that sowing the Good News in a moment like this isn’t escapism, or avoidance, or giving up, or nonsense, but what will actually make a difference—a lasting difference.

Like the rain from God that will bring forth the Reign of God, the word we sow and the deeds we do that point to God’s ongoing action around us bring forward a sort of hope that will astound those who see it for what it is, and confound those whose eyes are darkened and whose hearts are hardened.

Have faith, 401—God is present in our midst and at work in ways we can see and in so many ways that we cannot yet see.

It’s in the fracturing moments that the rocks are split and soil is prepared to receive the seed that will be the extravagant harvest.

Amen.