Snow on Snow...

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

16 July 2017

Texts: Isaiah 55:10-13 and Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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I’m going to begin this morning by asking you to stretch your imaginations. The current heat index is ___ and so this is really going to tax your brain – but I’d like you to imagine that you’re standing somewhere, looking over an expanse of snow.

Everywhere you look, you see the white snow. It covers tree branches and roadways, it sits on top of mailboxes and cars, the snow makes flower beds and grass turn into one, big, white expanse.

You take a step out into the snow, and realize it’s deeper than you thought. A crust of ice has formed on the top, so your steps are marked with a loud CRUNCH sound as your foot makes its way through that crust of ice and onto the snow beneath. CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH, you walk.

It’s hard to imagine this scene now, but it happens, every year, if not here, than in other places I have lived and visited – Colorado, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine. The cool rains of Fall turn into the cold snows of winter – snow on snow, snow on snow, as one Christmas hymn puts it.

The prophet Isaiah writes about snow in today’s first reading, reminding us that it is not only rain that waters the earth, but also the snow, coming down from heaven. This part of the book of Isaiah was written to a people who were living in exile from their homeland – people who were forced to leave behind everything familiar, everything precious, and then live in a far away land.

And so Isaiah offers them the image of rain and snow watering the earth to remind them that even rain and snow offer us hope. They offer us hope because they water the earth, the same earth that nourishes the seed, the same seed that grows into wheat, to be turned into bread, the same bread which feeds us daily. The rain and snow may not look like much – they cause our shoes to get muddy and our feet to get wet – but they have a job to do, helping things to grow.

Right before today’s passage, Isaiah reminds us that God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, so we can’t just look at the surface. Our hope comes in what God is growing underneath the surface – beneath the surface of what we can see with our own vision.

And Isaiah’s word of hope for God’s people doesn’t end there, for we also hear that God’s word doesn’t return to God empty. So if we return to the first image I shared at the beginning – think again about that crusty snow, but this time, think of what’s underneath that snow. Think about the branches and roads and mailboxes and cars, but then think even lower than that – think about the hard earth underneath the snow. And think about the seeds that have been cast onto the paths, into the rocks, among the thorns, and onto the good soil. The rain and snow nourish them all – and growth can happen anywhere, even in places we don’t see it.

Now, in Jesus’ parable of the sower that I just read – admittedly, Jesus says that some seeds do better under certain circumstances than other seeds in other circumstances. But the miracle of this story is not found in the fact that a seed can sprout among the rocks or among the thorns, or feed a bird that is eating on a pathway.

The miracle of this story is that the sower casts the seed into these places to begin with.

In Jesus’ day, seed was expensive. A true sower wouldn’t have wasted seed on paths or rocky soil or thorny places. That would make about as much sense as us casting those wildflower seeds in the middle of our parking lot, instead of out in the field, like we did a couple of years ago.

But the sower in Jesus’ parable has a different vision for the world. The sower wants the seed to go everywhere, realizing that sometimes, growth happens anywhere, even in the places we don’t see it. The sower isn’t concerned with efficient farming; the sower is more concerned with returning the seed to the earth, where it belongs. There is an abundance in his method – an abundance in the way he casts the seeds, not too worried about exactly where they land.

If we look around at the people assembled in any Christian gathering, there will be those who seem to be living the “good Christian life,” and those who are struggling. There will be people we like, people we dislike, people who make us feel comfortable, and people who we just don’t understand, no matter how hard we try.

To use an example from our own context: it’s Day Camp week, and there might be kids here that week who we may look at and think, “What work is God possibly doing in them?” There might be a family who seems – on the surface – to be completely unmoved by the love of God.

Even in our daily lives, we may look at someone, and wonder - what is God doing beneath the surface of that relative for whom I’ve been praying, or in the life of that noisy kid in the grocery store, or in the heart of the person who seems so unfriendly? We may think: there’s nothing that God could be doing in them.

Or inside our own hearts, we may feel that we’re beyond God’s reach. That seed of God’s love couldn’t possibly be thrown far enough to reach into the rockiest place of my own heart, could it?

But the parable of the sower reminds us what Isaiah also reminds us: that God’s ways are not our ways. God is the sower who casts love out there with abandon. God’s love falls into the hearts of the people in whom we would least suspect it, and growth can happen anywhere, even in places we don’t see it. The rain and the snow come down from heaven and water even the tiniest of seeds - seeds that sprout and grow.

Amen.

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Hooey Happens

Smells like hooey to me!

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

Lent 3, Year C – 28 February 2016

Text: Luke 13:1-9

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – final stanza

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all,

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

“Into each life some rain must fall…” writes Longfellow, realizing that everyone faces difficult times, sad times, slow times, times when the light is barely making it through the clouds.

Today’s gospel lesson starts off with some people asking Jesus why bad things have happened to good people. We don’t know the details, and the actual history of these events has been lost to us. But what we can gather from what Luke tells us is that first, some Galileans have been killed brutally by Pilate, and second, some other people have died after a tower fell on them. These incidents apparently are the current events of the day, and the people talking to Jesus want to know from him if these horrible things have happened because of the sins of those who died.

These are ancient questions: Who can we blame for these horrible events? Whose sin is to blame? And yet, Jesus seems offended at the very idea of casting blame, and he reminds his listeners that they are all sinners, and they are all in need of repentance.

And then he tells a story with some hooey in it:

There’s a fig tree in a vineyard that’s been there for three years, but for three straight years, it’s borne no fruit. Not one blessed fig has grown on this thing. The landowner tells the gardener to cut it down so that something fruitful can be put in its place. 

And right when you think the fig tree is about to meet its end, the gardener speaks up, asking for one more year. The gardener knows that he can take even better care of the fig tree, adding some hooey to the soil around its base, so that the tree will grow better and become fruitful.

This parable is, on one hand, a basic gardening lesson: make the soil as good as possible, and the plant will grow the best it possibly can.

On the other hand, this parable also reminds us of a universal life truth: that sometimes, hooey happens. Or, to go back to Longfellow, “into each life some rain must fall.” Now, sometimes, things do happen as a result of someone else’s sinfulness, or someone’s intention to cause harm. That’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m talking about here are difficult situations that arise as a part of a course of events.

I’m reminded of a question my Mom used to ask herself whenever she was facing a difficult situation: “What might God be trying to teach me in this?” The beauty of this question is that it helps us see that even when we are in the thick of things, we can still be open to God and what God is teaching us. This question also takes the focus off of blaming others for the challenges we face, and it helps us rightfully focus upon the greater lessons to be learned.

When I was on internship, a retired pastor and his wife in the congregation invited Steve and me over for lunch after church one Sunday. He had goats, and the goats had baby goats, and he wanted to take a picture of me holding a baby goat in my clerics, just for fun. So, over we went to their home – and we went outside to meet the goats and get our picture taken. And then the retired pastor asked me to walk over to another part of the yard, so I followed him over to the feed trough for the goats.

“Walk around it,” the pastor said, “In a circle.” So, I walked in a circle around the trough.

When I finished, I looked expectantly at the pastor, as if to ask him what had been the purpose of that little exercise.

“Sometimes, in ministry, you’re gonna have to walk through hooey,” he said, “And I wanted you to have some experience literally walking through hooey. Now, whenever you face a time when you have to walk through some hooey, you can do it, knowing you’ve done it before.”

Of course he was right – there is hooey to walk through in ministry, just as there is hooey to walk through in every line of work or every grade of school. In our everyday lives, in our relationships, and even in our walks with God, we face challenges that sometimes seem beyond us. In every difficulty, in every situation, that question lies before us: “What might God be trying to teach me in this?”

Sometimes, God might be trying to teach us humility. St. Augustine believed that the manure in the parable is a symbol of humility. In this view, it’s the manure that keeps us humble and the manure that keeps us from thinking too highly of ourselves, so that we can see our own need for repentance.

It is through repentance that – instead of casting blame on others - we see the sin in our own hearts and in our own lives. It is through repentance that we then find grace and strength from God to turn away from sin and receive forgiveness.

As I’ve thought about this parable more and more this week, I’ve decided that the manure around the base of the fig tree can certainly represent the challenges that arise in our lives, or it can represent humility, as Augustine said. But more than that, I think the manure can represent anything in our lives that causes our faith to grow, whether those are difficulties, or changes, or risks we take, or even positive outcomes. What might God be trying to teach me in this difficulty, or this risk, or in this great new thing that is opening up in my life?

Once we start to ask this question of ourselves, again and again we see the hand of God at work in our lives. Again and again, we see that even though hooey happens, Jesus is the patient gardener, working the soil around our roots with great care and in great love. Thanks be to God for that – and for the manure, for the strength to repent and the grace to be forgiven.

Amen.