The ‘talk’ that I gave at the Lynnville UMC (Outside of Jacksonville, IL…) on July 14, 2002, and with a minor rewrite’, on November 29, 2009 at the Hartford East Maple Street Chapel…

The Scripture is from the Gospel of Matthew 13: 1-23…

The house that we lived in in Hartford was an average ‘starter house’ of the late fifties era. Dad had bought it brand new and my brother and I did a lot of growing up there. Grandpa, Dad, and both of my uncles on that side all worked regular jobs but also worked together to farm a number of acres scattered all around Hartford. In addition to that, each had a garden to take care of. I guess, then, that you could say I grew up pretty close to the land! Due to the size of our yard, the garden that we had at our place in Hartford was limited to the basics, such as sweet corn, onions, radishes, and tomatoes. But dad always wanted more. So, when we finally bought our own little farm outside of Edwardsville, he could hardly wait to lay out a huge spread!

 

We started with a space behind the chicken house that was at least twice the size of what we had in Hartford. And right off, Dad planted a row of grapes. We had to put up a fence to support them, and he learned about how to prune them back each year until you started to get a good, steady crop from them. I’m sure that the people who bought the place after us finally got to enjoy some of them!

 

There were two barns on the place. Both of them were whittled peg and tendon construction, and both still had the original wood shingles underneath the asphalt. However, the one had been built as a dairy barn and had very small aisles in the lower section, which were totally unsuitable for storing equipment, so about the third year we were there, we tore it down. This opened up a huge area close to the house, and dad couldn’t wait for spring! Potatoes had always been a part of every garden we had, but now we were planting enough to feed two or three families for the entire year! Sweet corn was planted with a corn planter. And the tomatoes and green beans would have kept an entire city block red and green if we could have stayed on top of picking them everyday!

 

And then, there were the experiments. Edwardsville is the horseradish capital of the country, so we had to plant a row of that to see how it worked. Horseradish is a very labor-intensive crop. After the shoots are up about 10 inches or so, you have to carefully dig up and break off all but the main taproot. This is what grows and is harvested later in the year. After we did harvest it, we took it all into the kitchen to run through the meat grinder, but it wasn’t long before we moved everything out onto the porch. The hardest part was putting it into all of the little baby food jars that mom had gotten to keep it in. You had to use a spoon to pack it in, and even at arms length it was almost unbearable! But we did have some delicious horseradish for a number of years.

 

Then there was the time that we planted a row of watermelon seeds and a row of pumpkin seeds along the outside edge, next to the field. We had vines everywhere! In the tomatoes, up the sweet corn…everywhere. Not only that, but you couldn’t be sure which vine it was, and if you wanted it to produce anything, you weren’t supposed to even touch it! Well, needless to say, not all of the vines survived. But the ones that grew out into the hay field were mowed around all summer. Some were twenty and even thirty feet into the field, but that summer we had a few volleyball sized watermelons, and by October there were some smallish pumpkins drying on the vine, so I would say that our soil was good for growing. We just needed to learn how to plant and take care of them!

 

Since so much of my growing up was ‘in the dirt’, as it were, I never had any problem understanding the parable that I read today. The broadcast seeder that we would mount on the back of our little Farmall ‘B’ and used to sow alfalfa and grass was totally indiscriminate about where the seed landed. If it was turned on, it cast out a 15 or 20-foot swath of seed…period! You had to regulate the ground speed of the tractor to control how dense you wanted it, and if you turned around too close to the trees it would just keep throwing seed into the woods. If you crossed the field road or drove along too close to the creek, your seed would just end up sitting on top of the road or washing away downstream. All the seeder knew to do was throw out the seed! So, yes, not all of the seed that was cast germinated and produced. Just like Jesus said, that which landed on the road was probably eaten by mice and birds…the seed that landed in the trees might germinate but would be swallowed up by the other plants…and any seed that fell close to the road might get started to grow, but would never be able to get a root system down that would support it and would either wither and die or, at best, live a very stunted, unproductive life.

 

Most people, it seems, read this passage and come away from it trying to determine which of the seeds are most like them! Are they sincere enough in their listening…in their faith…to produce the fruit that Jesus expects? Or will they shrivel up at the first sign of heat…the kind of heat caused by all of the dilemmas in living day to day!

 

But there is an entirely different point that I would like to make today! And I can make it best by telling another story!

 

Around twelve or fourteen years ago, when the landscaping section of my business was in full swing, a lady called me to come till up her entire yard. She had some kind of weed that had taken over most of it and just wanted to start from scratch. So I made the arrangements with her for me to work up all of the dirt and prepare it for seed. And I explained right up front that I did NOT do seeding. There was another company that I worked with that could do that, or she could do it herself if she wanted, but I did not have the equipment nor the state licenses to do seeding and chemicals. She understood that and agreed to the project. When I was done with my part, she asked me if I would go ahead and seed it. I told her again that I was not in the seeding business and couldn’t do it! But she insisted. All she wanted, she said, was for me just to throw out a little seed and fertilizer by hand…she was too old to do it herself. So to help her out, I told her to go ahead and buy what she wanted and I would come back and throw it out for her, which I did. About three weeks later she phoned again, wanting me to come back and look at the yard. When I got there, it was all that I could do to not laugh out loud. The grass seed I had spread fairly evenly, but the fertilizer had not. All across the back yard were these light and dark green stripes that started small on one side and grew towards the other!

 

The point of this story is this…this lady was very upset about where the seed (and fertilizer) landed. But Jesus is not! Jesus expects us to throw out the ‘seed’ of His word anywhere and everywhere we get a chance! We may not know, when we throw it, where it might land or how it might respond. We may not know if it lands on a hard heart and Satan, like the birds, snatches it away. We may not know if it lands and sprouts vigorously, only to dry up and wither away because the roots where too shallow to withstand the pressures of everyday life. We may not know if a seed takes root, giving hope of a harvest, only to be choked out by the distractions and conflicts of life not allowing time to grow and nurture. And we may not know if a seed that we throw may land in fertile soil and grow. But what if it does? Consider this from Adam Clarke’s Commentary …

 

The power of grain to multiply itself, even in the same year, is a subject as much of curiosity and astonishment as of importance and general utility. For the further elucidation of this text, I shall give the following example from a practice in agriculture, or rural economy, which is termed filtering.

On the 2nd of June, 1766, Mr. C. Miller, of Cambridge, sowed some grains of the common red wheat; and on the 8th of August a single plant was taken up, and separated into 18 parts, and each planted separately: about the middle of September some of them were taken up and divided; and the rest between that time and October. This second division produced 67 plants. These plants remained through the winter, and another division of them, made between the middle of March and the 12th of April, produced 500 plants. They were divided no further, but permitted to remain in the field. These plants were in general stronger than any of the wheat in the field. Some of them produced upwards of 100 heads from a single root; and many of the heads measured seven inches in length, and contained between sixty and seventy grains. The whole number of heads produced from the single plant was 21,109, which yielded three pecks and three-quarters of clear grain, weighing 47 lbs. 7 oz., and, from a calculation made by counting the grains in an ounce, the whole number of grains was about 576,840.

 

Christ expects us to be the ‘broadcast seeders’ of His word! It is not our place to worry about where the seed is landing. It is not our place to worry if any of it is being wasted. We cannot say, “I’m only going to sow my seed in fertile soil” because we do not know where that soil might be! Our job is to throw it out there onto every soil…every soul…that we can reach! When my family planted those watermelon and pumpkin seeds in our garden, back then, we really had no idea about the proper way to do it. Yet the seeds germinated, the vines grew, and fruit was produced. This had nothing to do with us…it was the handiwork of God. And when we broadcast this seed, the same holds true…all we have to do is get it out there. The Lord will see to the increase!

 

 

Let me close with this… The story is told of a small dog which had been struck by a car and was lying by the side of the road. A doctor, driving by, noticed that the dog was still alive, stopped his car, picked up the dog, and took him home with him. There he discovered that the dog had been stunned, had suffered a few minor cuts and abrasions, but was otherwise all right. He revived the dog, cleaned up the wounds and was carrying the animal from the house to the garage when suddenly it jumped from his arms and scampered off. “What an ungrateful little dog,” the doctor said to himself. He thought no more about the incident until the next evening when he heard a scratching at the door. When he opened it, there was the little dog he had treated with another hurt dog.

 

We may never know what happens to the seeds that we broadcast out in Jesus’ name. And sometimes, the feeling of pointlessness and frustration can become overwhelming! But sometimes…if you’re very lucky…the fruit of one seed makes itself known to you. And when that happens it makes everything else worthwhile! God rejoices in every soul…every life…that turns to Him. But unless we’re out there spreading seed…spreading the Word of God…everywhere we can, some lives may not have the opportunity to experience it. They won’t have the opportunity to grow and multiply. And they won’t be saved come judgment day! Where can you spread a little seed today?