Seed Power ~ Isaiah 55:10-13 ~ Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Every year, two friends of ours host their son’s family from Texas during Labor Day weekend. 

The mother, father, and two boys stay on the second floor of their house, which has two furnished bedrooms and one bath that are used only during their yearly visit. 

Shortly before Labor Day, our friends went upstairs to prepare the upstairs for their guests—and they were stunned to find a plant growing out of the drain in the bathroom sink. 

They later learned that their grandson had spit a watermelon seed into the sink.  Over the last eleven months, it grew and flourished to the extent that it took a $200 service call from the plumber to get it working again…

It’s amazing how plant life can flourish in the places where you’d least expect it…  Seeds are so tiny—but every forest, every grassland, every food-bearing crop—begins with a single seed.  Seeds teach us the most basic truth of our Christian faith that life originates in God.  Only God can take what is essentially dead—and make it alive.

We can see the life-yielding potential in a tiny seed—but what is a tiny seed in a world that is so full of death?

This week, Elizabeth and I have watched a TV series on the National Geographic Channel called “The 90’s: the Last Great Decade?”  The title suggests that this was the last period of time when life was “good;” before the decade’s end ushered in the current era of terrorism, war, political gridlock, and recession.  I doubt any would disagree that we’re in a time of high anxiety.

This is the kind of world the prophet Isaiah lived in—except that the future looked far more bleak.  Jerusalem is destroyed.  God’s people are in exile in Babylon—an exile intended to break the Jews as a community.  The way the king saw it, crush out the Jewish faith, and the Israelites will no longer be a threat.  They would simply become like everyone else, and that’d be it.

We can identify with the Israelites (to an extent).  The world and its ways appear to be working overtime to crush the Christian  faith.  And as we see more and more people walking away from church and faith, we see a more troubling world.  The future has never looked so bleak.

But the words God spoke over 2,500 years ago God continues to speak today:

“For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return until they have watered the earth…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

God is in the world, sowing seeds of life where death and despair abound.  This morning, right here, Jesus is sowing the seeds of God’s Word in you.  Even if you’re struggling to stay awake; your head’s spinning with life’s anxieties; or nothing that I’m saying is making the slightest bit of sense; God’s Word is being planted in you.  The Holy Spirit sows the seeds of God’s Word to form you in faith, hope, and love—to make a sower out of you.  You are a living witness to the grace and love of Jesus Christ—as his love moves in you to use the gifts you’ve been given and the person God’s created you to be to sow seeds of new life.

The Parable of the Sower teaches us an important truth about God’s sowing work—sometimes it doesn’t work out.  Hearts are hard.  Hard times can overwhelm fragile faith.  Sin and Satan are always there sowing seeds of fear and doubt. 

But do you wonder why the Sower sows so many seeds, and not always in the best places?  Because God is determined to reclaim this world, so that life, live, and hope will flourish. 

The Kingdom of God is sown in seeds—tiny little seeds scattered upon the ground, most of which sink below the surface of the ground and are hidden from their sight.  But the seeds of the Kingdom are sprouting, and soon the plantings of the Kingdom will reclaim and regenerate this world and its people in fulfillment of God’s purposes.  Given enough time and tending, God’s will shall be done on earth as in heaven.  God’s will shall be done in you.

And we never know where, when, or in whom the Kingdom shall blossom and flourish!

The best way to see God’s kingdom taking root in ourselves is for each of us to come together as Christ’s Body, to plant and tend to the fruits of God’s kingdom—which happens every time a hungry person is fed; a lonely person is befriended; a hurting person is loved; and a sinful person is forgiven.  We plant and tend as our words and our lives give testimony to the love of Christ.  And though the work is hard, and we do not always get the results we want as quickly as we want; anything we do in faith and love is never done in vain. 

For the seeds of God’s Word shall never be sown in vain, but will always, always, always accomplish what God desires in sending it.